Oy Vey to the Nth Degree ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️

Panic Time:   Last night one of the two presidential candidates was unhinged.  He spewed lies, promised retribution for his enemies, bragged about overturning Roe, dissed NATO and Ukraine, blamed his opponent for Hamas’ October 7 attack of Israel, despicably dangled the freedom of journalist Evan Gershkovich, blamed migrants for everything, and called the USA a world embarrassment and a hellscape. He also promised more tax cuts for the very rich, high tariffs that are really regressive taxes, took responsibility for cutting the price of insulin for seniors, and slammed the other guy’s son.  Nevertheless, that candidate won the debate, increasing the odds that he’ll be the next president because the other guy, who only had to appear alert and rational, instead seemed to have one foot in the grave.  I have said repeatedly that I’d vote for a rock before I’d vote for Trump and now it looks like I’ll actually be voting for that rock.  Generally, before I write these morning missives, I scan the news for relevant articles and commentaries to share but this morning I haven’t because, frankly, I can’t bear to.  Where do we go from here?  Who knows but it’s as good a time as any to focus on the down ballot races because with Trump rising, winning the House back and holding the Senate where Supreme Court Justice appointments are confirmed is now more important than ever.   

The Supremes: SCOTUS still hasn’t weighed in on presidential immunity, the Chevron deference, or another much awaited case related to January 6^th and obstruction charges, but they did address emergency room abortions.  In an unsigned 6 to 3 decision, with Justices Alito, Gorsuch and Thomas in the minority, they punted, temporarily reinstating a lower court ruling that had allowed hospitals to perform emergency abortions without being subject to prosecution under Idaho’s onerous and punitive abortion ban. Like their mifepristone ruling, which was based on standing rather than substance, this ruling leaves wide open the possibility that the Court will rule for Idaho or another state allowing them to ban lifesaving emergency room abortions in the future, as in after the 2024 election. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Samuel Alito both recognized that possibility, Jackson with a partial dissent that slammed the Court for failing to rule now that EMTALA, the law that requires hospitals to provide life-saving care to all including abortions, trumped Idaho’s restrictive abortion law and Alito by saying that he just wanted to kill all abortions, and likely some women too, by immediately granting Idaho the right to ban abortions even in emergency rooms. Punting this decision to a future date is particularly problematic in light of last night’s debate because no one expects that a Trump Department of Justice will defend EMTALA the next time the issue is raised and without the DOJ stepping up laws like the one in Idaho will prevail. In another decision earlier in the week, the Court ruled 6 to 3, with Justice Jackson, Kagan, and Sotomayor in the minority, that a public anti-corruption law shouldn’t apply to officials receiving bigly “tips” after contracts are awarded because if a payoff happens after the awarding of a contract than it’s just a gratuity, not a bribe? Somehow, it’s not surprising that the majority which included gift recipients Alito and Thomas and three Trump appointees reached that conclusion.  SCOTUS is expected to drop a few more opinions this morning and since Chief Justice Roberts did not indicate that today would be the last day for opinions, we may have to wait until next week for a few of the much-anticipated ones to drop.

Fog:  In other legal news, Justice Aileen loose Cannon will be holding a hearing on whether or not it was okay for Special Counsel Jack Smith to breach Trump’s attorney client privilege with his former lawyer Evan Corcoran.  Washington DC Judge Beryl Howell already ruled that it was okay for Corcoran to share tapes of conversations where Trump told Corcoran that he wanted him to lie about the boxes of super-secret documents that he didn’t want to turn over to the government, but Cannon is all in on relitigating previously decided rulings because she’s either ignorant, devious, stalling, or all of the above. Not much good to report from the Middle East, where hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel may be about to descend into all-out war.

#BringThemAllHomeNow