The Man Who Would be King  ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️

Look At It This Way:  Things could be worse, you could be Steve Bannon, on your way to prison for four months. On Friday, the Supreme Court rejected Bannon’s request for a stay out of jail card.  Assuming he didn’t flee the country over the weekend, Bannon is expected to turn himself in this morning.  Since he’s also been indicted in New York for a few fraud felonies for his “Build the Wall” charity scheme, Bannon won’t be going to one of the Fed’s cushiest prisons.  Hopefully, the image of Bannon in an orange jumpsuit helps with the extreme anxiety you are likely feeling about the presidential race.  At least so far, despite a lot of intense handwringing and calls from several pundits, donors, and papers for him to step aside, President Biden remains the presumptive Democratic nominee.  There’s no question that his performance in last week’s debate was problematic but let’s hear it for the Philadelphia Inquirer which, focusing on Trump’s utter disdain for Democracy and his stream of lies (tenth month abortions are not a thing), called for him to withdraw from the race. Certainly, Trump won’t, and since my crystal ball is foggy and cracked, I have no idea what will happen with Biden so, assuming you are as concerned about the Supreme Court as I am, instead of vomiting your kishkes out, be productive, focus on the vulnerable mostly swing state Senate races where your contributions can make a difference.  Specifically, Montana’s Jon Tester, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey, and Nevada’s Jackie Rosen are all facing tough challenges and could use a lift.  Also, though Maryland is generally reliably blue given that the Republican candidate is the relatively popular former Governor Larry Hogan, hardly a friend of reproductive choice, Democratic candidate Angela Alsobrooks could also use a hand.  Worth noting that a number of the Republican candidates including Pennsylvania’s David McCormick and Montana’s Tim Sheehy, neither of whom actually reside in the state where they’re running, are very rich guys who were chosen because they can self-fund their races.  Also, don’t forget Arizona where Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego is facing off against Republican nutjob Kari Lake.  Even though Gallego appears to be running ahead of Lake, a particularly poor performance at the top of the ticket could drag him, as well as other vulnerable or swingy state Democrats down, like Wisconsin incumbent Democrat Tammy Baldwin and Michigan Representative Elissa Slotkin who is seeking the seat being vacated by the retiring Debbie Stabenow.  And then there’s Texas and Florida, the two states that everyone hopes to turn blue someday but probably won’t now, don’t hesitate to do something for Debbie Mucarsel-Powell who is challenging the very rich Rick Scott or Colin Allred who is up against Ted Cruz.

The Supremes:  On Friday, the Supreme Court issued some disturbing opinions, but following their stall to the last-minute strategy,  left the big kahuna presidential immunity one for today.  Tune in at 10 AM EDT this morning to find out if presidents, mostly those named Trump, have the power of kings. As to Friday’s opinions, as they did with the Roe overturning Dobbs opinion, the Court’s conservative majority decided that stare decisis, the principle of adhering to previous judgements, is only a thing when they want it to be.  By a vote of 6 to 3 with all the conservative Justices in the majority, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court dismissed the 40- year-old Chevron preference, sharply cutting back the power of federal agencies to interpret laws they administer, instead handing more decision- making power to the courts.  That means that interpreting ambiguous sections of laws won’t fall to agency experts but to federal judges who for the most part don’t have the expertise but unlike elected officials and politically appointed staff do have life tenures.  Killing off the Chevron preference has been a long-term goal of major conservative donors particularly those who made their billions in fossil fuels and other related industries.  Don’t get me wrong, a lot of them are thrilled that reproductive rights have been trashed by SCOTUS but their bread-and-butter issue has been eliminating the regulations that keep our air clean, our rivers free of pollutants and our drugs safe and effective and they have finally won bigly. As liberal Justice Elena Kagan put it in her scathing dissent, her conservative colleagues have overturned years of precedent to appoint themselves the “country’s administrative czar.”  In Fischer v US in another notable opinion, the Court struck down a key charge used to prosecute hundreds of defendants involved in the January 6 attacks on the US Capitol, ruling by a vote of 6 to 3 with Ketanji Brown Jackson joining the majority and Amy Coney Barrett joining the dissenters. In the opinion written by Justice Roberts, the Court decided that the law barring the obstruction of an official proceeding applies only to evidence tampering such as the destruction of records or documents.  Though the ruling is a setback for the Department of Justice, it doesn’t mean that all the affected defendants will get off scot-free because quite a few of them were also found guilty of other charges and some of them did tamper and/or destroy records so according to Just Security probably only 26 or so will get off as a result of the decision.  Also, though two of the charges against Trump involve the same law, since he’s also accused of involvement in the elector tampering scheme, those charges should remain applicable assuming his case ever makes it to trial.  The Court also ruled that cities can ban homeless encampment meaning it’s not okay for homeless people to sleep outside when the local law says they shouldn’t.  To be fair no one wants an encampment or a homeless person sleeping nearby, but how terribly sad that we can’t come up with adequate housing for our homeless.     

#BringThemAllHomeNow