Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg defended abortion rights protesters who gathered outside of a restaurant where Justice Brett Kavanaugh was dining, saying they were exercising their right to free speech.
Bill Barr Subpoenaed in Election Lawsuit
“Former Attorney General William Barr has been subpoenaed as part of an ongoing 2020 election defamation lawsuit against Fox News brought by voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems,” ABC News reports.
Some Perspective on Biden’s Age
Jonathan Bernstein: “There’s a lot of babble out there about this — a lot of false claims that he’s sharply declined cognitively — but putting that aside, there are two ways to look at the fact that he will turn 80 in November. One is that as long as Biden is unpopular, everything about him is going to be interpreted as a negative, including his age. If he was at 60% approval instead of falling a bit below 40%, the age story would be that he is defying it and thriving.”
“But yes, Biden is very old for the presidency, and even if it’s not affecting him in any serious way right now, there’s no guarantee that it won’t next month or next year. Let alone the four years that a second term would give him. And the truth is that not only was nominating Biden in 2020 a risk for Democrats, so was nominating Hillary Clinton in 2016 — she’ll turn 75 this fall, in what would have been the second year of her second term — just as it was a bad risk for Republicans to nominate Donald Trump, who just turned 76, in 2016 and 2020. Once those candidates are nominated, party voters have little choice but to vote for them, but the parties shouldn’t do it.”
Now Gas Prices Are Falling Too Quickly
The latest talking point from Fox News is that gas prices are coming down so quickly that it might hurt the independent “Mom and Pop” gas stations.
Biden’s Abortion Response Curbed by Fears of Court
“Last month, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Now, that same body is scaring the Biden administration from responding with bolder steps,” Politico reports.
“As President Joe Biden faces calls for more drastic action on abortion, the legal team vetting his options has found itself preoccupied by a single pressing concern: That any action they could take would simply be struck down by the very court that put them in this place.”
First Images Coming from James Webb Space Telescope
“NASA is set to release its first full-color scientific images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope Monday and Tuesday,” Axios reports.
“This long-awaited milestone will set the stage for the rest of the $10 billion telescope’s mission to rework our understanding of how the universe evolved from the earliest galaxies to today.”
Russian Lawmakers Called Back for Emergency Meeting
“Russia’s State Duma Chairman, Vyacheslav Volodin, announced an emergency session Monday, calling back Russian lawmakers for an ‘extraordinary’ meeting just as representatives went out for summer vacation, raising alarm that Russia’s parliament might be preparing to take escalatory steps in the war in Ukraine,” the Daily Beast reports.
Debates Do Not Make a President
Jonathan Bernstein: “Please, please, please do not base your choice of presidential candidate on who you think would do well in campaign debates. Campaigns are less important than people think, and debate performances are only minor portions of campaigns.”
“Base your support on who you think is most electable, or as an effort to push the party in your direction on policy, or on which candidate you think has the skills to be effective in office. Not on who might get better press coverage for 24 hours during the campaign before everyone’s attention moves on to whatever is next.”
Never-Heard Speeches That Would Have Rewritten History
Just published: Undelivered: The Never-Heard Speeches that Would Have Rewritten History by Jeff Nussbaum.
“From Richard Nixon’s refusal to resign the presidency to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 acceptance of it; from Dwight Eisenhower’s apology for the failure of the D-Day invasion, to Emperor Hirohito’s apology for his role in World War II.”
But They Didn’t Quit
Amanda Carpenter: “Herschel Walker is, by any measure, a flawed candidate. It’s a fact readily observable to anyone with a basic familiarity with his confessed history of self-harm, acts of violence against others, whack-a-doodle beliefs, and steady stream of lies about his supposed academic and business achievements.”
“Walker was audacious enough to lie to his aides about the secret children he fathered, even when they confronted him with irrefutable evidence of paternity.”
“But what those aides did in response is telling: They didn’t quit. Instead, they vented to the Daily Beast about what a ‘pathological liar’ Walker is and how the campaign is ‘like a shitshow on a train in the middle of a wreck.’ Anonymously, of course.”
The Right to Travel in a Post-Roe World
New York Times: “In a concurring opinion last month, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the Constitution did not allow states to stop women from traveling to get abortions. But the issue is more complicated than that.”
Oath Keepers Founder Wanted Trump Contacts
“In the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes tried to get the organization’s general counsel, Kellye SoRelle, to put him in touch with the White House,” NBC News reports.
“In addition to her work with the Oath Keepers, SoRelle was a volunteer for Lawyers for Trump during the 2020 election and was in contact with many of the individuals fighting a doomed legal battle to attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election and keep former President Donald Trump in office.”
Abortion Bans Force Students to Rethink College Plans
“The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion nationwide has some students rethinking their higher education plans as states rush to ban or curtail abortion,” Reuters reports.
“While it has long been the case that some students hesitated to attend schools in places with different political leanings than their own, recent moves by conservative states on issues such as abortion and LGBTQ+ rights have deepened the country’s polarization.”
Glenn Youngkin Downplays 2024 Talk
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) tried to downplay rumors he was considering a 2024 presidential run, saying he was “hugely humbled” but “not a decision that we have even begun to undertake,” CBS News reports.
Quote of the Day
“We have bigger problems than that. We’ll have a little more beachfront property. That’s not the worst thing in the world.”
— Donald Trump, at a campaign rally in Alaska, dismissing climate change and rising sea levels.
The RNC Is Promoting Trump and His Businesses
“The day former President Donald Trump announces a 2024 bid for president, the Republican National Committee will be in a bind. It may already be there,” Politico reports.
“Trump is the party’s biggest money maker and as an ex-president, his name and record are natural components for the committee to tout in emails and fundraising pleas.”
“But that’s come at a cost. The party and its leaders have committed to staying neutral in the upcoming presidential election. And as the RNC continues to tout Trump and even push his private business ventures through its official channels, the fear grows that it is dispensing with even the veneer of neutrality.”
Putin Extends Russian Citizenship to All Ukrainians
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday extending a simplified process for obtaining Russian citizenship to all Ukrainians, Axios reports.
Trump’s ‘Hub and Spoke’ Conspiracy
Andrew Weissmann: “The hearings should inspire the Justice Department to rethink its approach: A myopic focus on the Jan. 6 riot is not the way to proceed if you are trying to follow the facts where they lead and to hold people ‘at any level’ criminally accountable, as Attorney General Merrick Garland promised.”
“The evidence gathered in the hearings describes a multiprong conspiracy — what prosecutors term a ‘hub and spoke’ conspiracy — in which the Ellipse speech by President Trump and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol were just one spoke of a grander scheme.”
“This broader approach would avoid the thorny debate that has emerged as to whether Mr. Trump could be criminally culpable for inciting the riot during his Ellipse speech, or if, on the contrary, his speech is protected under the First Amendment and the evidence too ambiguous to justify the extraordinary step of indicting a former president. Building a criminal case that looks solely at the riot itself is far more complex legally and factually for those who weren’t at or in the Capitol. These challenges of the current bottom-up approach have led to criticism of the slow pace of the narrow Justice Department approach.”
“Instead, what the hearings have revealed is evidence of a plot orchestrated by Mr. Trump and his allies in the White House and elsewhere — including players from the Mueller investigation like Roger Stone, Michael Flynn and Rudy Giuliani as well as new players like Jeffrey Clark and John Eastman.”
