Mid-Day Snapshot · June 28, 2024

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“From The Patriot Post (patriotpost.us)”.

THE FOUNDATION

“Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin (1735)

ON THIS DAY in 1914, Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, were assassinated by a Serbian nationalist, igniting World War I. On this same day in 1919, the two sides signed the Treaty of Versailles, formally ending the Great War.

IN TODAY’S DIGEST

EXECUTIVE NEWS SUMMARY

Douglas Andrews, Thomas Gallatin, & Jordan Candler

Judicial Benchmarks

  • SCOTUS overturns Chevron: It’s a great day in DC today — unless you’re a Big Government Democrat. Late this morning, in a much-anticipated case about the power of federal agencies and unelected bureaucrats, the Supreme Court ruled 6-2 (with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson not participating) against the Chevron precedent, “a decades-old legal doctrine that they say gave the administrative state too much power” over American businesses. As Fox News notes: “The Court’s decision reels in … a legal theory established in the 1980s that says if a federal regulation is challenged, the courts should defer to the agency’s interpretation of whether Congress granted them authority to issue the rule.” This decision was thus a clawing back of the administrative state and a colossal win for limited government. As constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley noted, “This is a momentous decision. … Chief Justice Roberts delivered the coup de grace into Chevron. It is now gone.” As for local reaction, Turley noted that Chevron “is a virtual religious item in the Beltway” and that a lot of folks would have to be treated for “the vapors.”
  • J6 defendant wins at SCOTUS: “These people should be in jail,” Joe Biden mumbled last night about the January 6 defendants. “And they should be the ones who are being held accountable.” The ones who tangled with police should be in jail, but not the ones who were let in as tourists by the police. The Supreme Court may have made that outcome possible with a key ruling issued this morning. “The justices on a 6-3 vote handed a win to defendant Joseph Fischer, who is among hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants — including Trump — who have been charged with obstructing an official proceeding,” reports NBC News, probably after a shot of bourbon. “The court concluded that the law, enacted in 2002 as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act after the Enron accounting scandal, was only intended to apply in limited circumstances involving tampering with physical evidence.” It now goes back to a lower court for reconsideration. The Biden DOJ threw everything and the kitchen sink at J6 defendants in hopes of inflating the number of those jailed and, thus, the seriousness of the “insurrection.” At least for now, using an obscure and unrelated statute to do so isn’t going to cut it.
  • SCOTUS says there is no right to homelessness: In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an Oregon city’s law banning people without a permanent residence from sleeping outside in public places does not violate the Eighth Amendment, which forbids “cruel and unusual” punishments. Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch noted, “Homelessness is complex. Its causes are many. So may be the public policy responses required to address it.” He added, “At bottom, the question this case presents is whether the Eighth Amendment grants federal judges primary responsibility for assessing those causes and devising those responses. It does not.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued in her dissent that the city’s rule punished homeless people for being homeless and, in so doing, claimed that it was an affront to “the humanity and dignity of homeless people and our constitutional principles.” Regarding the minority opinion, Mark Hemingway rightly observed, “To be clear, all three liberal justices want your city or town to be filled with homeless encampments and strip the local government of the ability to do something about it. That’s insane, and this should be hung around the necks of Dems running for office.”
  • Seven in 10 Americans think Supreme Court justices put ideology over impartiality (AP)

Politics

  • This just in: Biden’s not dropping out: We don’t yet know how many people tuned in to last night’s debate, but those who did are likely wondering: Will Joe Biden, after his disastrous performance, now drop out of the race? Answer: No. “Of course he’s not dropping out,” said Biden campaign spokesperson Seth Schuster. And not only that. Team Biden also says he’s committed to a second debate in September. As for Biden himself, he was every bit as deluded defiant: “It’s hard to debate a liar,” he said during a post-debate stop at a Waffle House. “The New York Times pointed out he lied 26 times.” Biden, of course, never lies. Except when his lips move. Scranton Joe looked physically frail last night, and his voice was raspy — which his handlers later attributed to a cold. As for next steps, former Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki said, “The chatter is very distracting, and it’s going to be very consuming for the campaign. Should he be replaced? They’re going to be answering that question instead of breaking through on attacking Trump.” CNN’s post-debate flash poll of debate watchers painted a grim picture. When asked who won, 67% said Trump, while just 33% said Biden. But one wonders: What debate were those 33% watching?
  • Here are the 20 biggest whoppers Biden told during his debate with Trump (The Federalist)
  • Media declares Biden campaign dead after debate (Daily Wire)
  • How Biden could be replaced as the Democrat nominee (Washington Examiner)
  • Humor: Trump indicted for murdering elderly man on CNN (Babylon Bee)
  • Michelle Obama won’t support Biden: When you’ve lost Michelle Obama, you’ve lost, well, you’ve lost Michelle Obama. Such is the case for Joe Biden, who’s had a pretty rough go of it lately as he continues to bleed support. As The Daily Fetched reports: “Former First Lady Michelle Obama has refused to campaign for President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign after insiders revealed she is unhappy that the First Family shunned a close friend after her divorce from Hunter Biden.” This seems awfully contrived to us, awfully convenient. The Obamas know a loser when they see one, but Barack is at least obliged to publicly support his former veep. Michelle, though, is no doubt trying to keep from thoroughly trashing the family brand by distancing herself from the Bad Ship Biden. The younger Biden “was previously married to Michelle Obama’s close friend Kathleen Buhle before separating after 24 years in 2017,” The Daily Fetched explains. “The Biden camp then abandoned the former daughter-in-law, which enraged Michelle Obama.” So misogynistic rap stars and vile Jew-haters like Louis Farrakhan are okay, but don’t mess with Michelle’s “friends.”
  • Another lefty can’t define what a woman is: During a House hearing on “Protecting Men and Women in U.S. Employment Practices,” former MSNBC legal analyst, leftist civil rights leader, and failed New York mayoral candidate Maya Wiley was asked the question that has become the litmus test for exposing radical leftism. “Can you define what a woman is?” Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) asked. Wiley answered, “A woman is a person who says she is, and let me tell you one story about this…” Mace quickly cut her off, stating, “No… it’s not story time.” Mace then laid into Wiley, pointing out the fact that “biological women are real women.” She relayed a recent clothes shopping experience involving a biological man in a miniskirt having directed her 14-year-old daughter to a dressing room, observing, “It is absolutely disgusting that we’re redefining what women are and allowing men into women’s private spaces.” The fact of the matter is that radical leftists like Wiley are seeking mainstream acceptance of the blatant lie that biological reality does not define gender. They aim to erode society’s most basic foundational structure, the nuclear family, to weaken resistance to the dismantling of Western values.

National Security

  • About all those “white supremacists” in the military: During last night’s debate, Donald Trump made it a point to let viewers know just how deeply deplored Joe Biden is among America’s warrior class, and a new report from Arizona State University’s Center for American Institutions isn’t going to do anything toward repairing that breach. As The Federalist reports: “A new report said Pentagon programs to sniff out ‘white supremacists’ in the U.S. military came up empty-handed and were even counterproductive to military readiness and morale,” as a “zealous diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) bureaucracy” dominates both our service branches and our service academies. The report added that the Biden DOD’s “search for white supremacists — seemingly the only extremists that interest the military — has come up short: only 100 members of the military were deemed to be extremists out of a force of 2.1 million.” Even that is surely inflated. Your tax dollars at work, folks.

Law Enforcement

  • Uvalde LEOs indicted: Former Uvalde, Texas, Police Chief Pete Arredondo and former Police Officer Adrian Gonzales were indicted by a grand jury on Thursday on multiple felony charges of child endangerment. Gonzales was the first officer to enter Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022, after an 18-year-old began his shooting attack. Gonzales, along with several other responding officers, waited for over an hour before engaging the attacker, even as shots were heard inside a classroom. A report ordered by Texas lawmakers concluded that the police botched their response, and a 600-page DOJ report pointed to “cascading failures” related to training, communication, technology, and leadership. These two former officers are the first of what is expected to be several more officers indicted for effectively failing to do their jobs.

Culture

  • Young lefty women most mentally ill, old dudes not so much: Back in 2005, conservative talk-show radio host Michael Savage published a book with the provocative title, Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder. Among the issues Savage pointed to in making his case were liberals’ embrace of illegal immigration and the defense of the expansion of Islam into the West. Nearly two decades later, it turns out that those who identify with the most liberal or leftist views also self-identify as having the most mental health issues. A recent poll found that 56% of young liberal women (ages 18-29) had the highest mental health diagnoses. On the other end of the spectrum, conservative men aged 65 and up had the lowest mental health diagnoses at just 4.5%. Why such a drastic difference? Well, one answer lies in the fact that mental health diagnoses have changed in recent years, which has resulted in more young people being diagnosed. Also, embracing bad ideas will produce poor choices, inevitably resulting in negative consequences.
  • Miss Maryland contestants push back after male winner steals their crown (Daily Signal)

Good News

  • Tractor Supply dumps DEI. It turns out that the popular adage “get woke, go broke” is not merely a conservative sentiment. The execs at one of America’s leading rural companies, Tractor Supply Co., went woke, embracing a litany of DEI issues, including “having Pride month decorations in their offices” and donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to leftist causes. When that became public, the customer backlash was swift, with calls for an immediate Bud Light-type boycott. Thankfully, it worked. On Thursday, Tractor Supply released a public statement saying, “We have heard from customers that we have disappointed them. We have taken this feedback to heart. Going forward, we will ensure our activities and giving tie directly to our business.” The company will “eliminate DEI roles and retire our current DEI goals while still ensuring a respectful environment.” Furthermore, Tractor Supply promised to “withdraw our carbon emission goals, and focus on our land and water conservation efforts.” It’s nice to see a company willing to listen to its customers, admit its mistake, and correct course.

For the Executive Summary archive, click here.

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Follow Thomas Gallatin and Jordan Candler on X/Twitter.

FEATURED ANALYSIS

An Implosion of Presidential Proportions

Douglas Andrews

It was a fascinating thing to watch, in the same way that the demolition of a high-rise is fascinating to watch. We first saw this decrepit structure on the horizon four years ago. And then, last night, right before our eyes, we saw it implode.

The first question of last night’s first (and likely only) 2024 presidential debate came from CNN’s Jake Tapper, and it went to Joe Biden: “What do you say to voters who feel they are worse off under your presidency than they were under President Trump?”

Right away, you could tell something was amiss. Biden began to answer, but it seemed like he was speaking on 78. Like someone had slipped him an extra shot of espresso. And this was after a full week of intensive debate prep. He was mumbling, and mumbling quickly: “Well ya gotta take a look at what I was left when I became president,” he blurted, “what Mr. Trump left me. We had an economy that was in free fall, pandemic was so badly handled, many people were dying, all he said was, ‘It’s not that serious, just inject a little bleach into your arm, you’ll be all right.’”

The ol’ “bleach injection” lie is as tired and phony as the “suckers and losers” lie and the “very fine people” lie, both of which Biden would bring up later in the debate. But it gave us a sense of the kind of night it was going to be. Biden was prepared to go low. Indeed, the seven-year-old Charlottesville lie had been debunked just days earlier by no less than the hard-left fact-checkers at Snopes, and yet he still trotted it out. Heck, Jake Tapper himself debunked it five years ago. How detached from reality is this man? And how stupid do his handlers think the American people are?

The worst moment of the night for Biden — indeed, it was the worst moment of his entire presidency when we consider the stakes — came when Tapper asked him to respond to a question about the national debt. Biden began shakily enough, mistaking trillions for billions and millions for billions, but the wheels came off around 45 seconds into his reply, as a series of numbers seemed to overwhelm him. Amid a rambling rant about raising taxes on billionaires, he said, “We’d be able to write, wipe out his debt … making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person, uh, eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the, uh, with, with, with the COVID, uh, ‘scuse me, with, um, dealing with, everything we had to do with, uh … look … if … we finally beat Medicare.”

It’s not a stretch to say that these were the most painful 20 seconds in presidential debate history. And it’s instructive to watch Donald Trump’s reaction. He’s looking straight ahead, calmly taking in Biden’s words, then he glances over at Biden, then back ahead for a split second, then right back to the train wreck taking place to his left.

And when Tapper redirected to Trump, the former president was quick on his feet: “Well, he’s right. He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death.”

Biden recovered, inasmuch as anyone can recover from such a jarring freeze-up, but the damage had been done. The rest of the night was mostly a series of Trumpian superlatives punctuated by Bidenesque barbs that failed to get under the former president’s skin. In the face of those personal attacks, Trump was forceful but never unhinged — not even when Biden was at his worst: “The crimes that you are still charged with,” said Biden, “think of all the civil penalties. How many billions [sic] of dollars do you owe in civil penalties, for, for, molesting a woman in public, for doing a whole range of things, of having sex with a porn star on the night, uh, while your wife was pregnant? What are you talking about? You’ve got the morals of an alley cat.”

Perhaps the most telling post-debate analysis of the night came when a shell-shocked Anderson Cooper asked CNN Senior White House Correspondent M.J. Lee, “What are they saying?”

This was Lee’s verbatim response:

Yeah, well, Anderson, uh, obviously a ton of Democrats, voters, elected officials were tuning in tonight, really nervous and really desperate for President Biden to give his “A” performance, and after his performance, uh, it has really set off panic. There was one Democratic congressman I was in touch with who was on Capitol Hill at a watch party with a number of other lawmakers. And that moment, early on in the debate, when President Biden was talking about the national debt and seemed to lose his train of thought, uh, pause for several seconds and then gave a confusing answer, he said when that happened, the entire room was just completely silent and in shock, and that this member’s own reaction was that he wanted to jump off of a bridge. And he said that throughout the 90-minute course of the debate, he and the other lawmakers in the room felt like Donald Trump looked young and Joe Biden looked, uh, old, and that Donald Trump seemed to mostly be on the offensive and that Joe Biden seemed to be mostly on the defense. Democrats, he said, are just panicked right now and don’t even know what to do.

He wanted to jump off of a bridge.

Trump’s supporters, on the other hand, saw their guy seize control of this race. Such as it is. Leading up to the debate, two new polls — one from the New York Times/Siena and another from Quinnipiac — put Trump ahead of Biden by four points. And after what happened last night, it’s likely those gaps will grow larger.

CNN’s first post-debate flash poll of debate watchers came in just after midnight, and while it wasn’t necessarily representative of the national audience, it wasn’t good news for Biden. Before the debate, respondents had been asked who they thought would win: 55% said Trump, while 45% said Biden. Then, after the debate, they were asked who won: 67% said Trump, while just 33% said Biden.

But one wonders: What debate were those 33% watching?

In addition, debate watchers were asked whether they had favorable views toward each candidate. Trump’s favorability went up from 40% to 43%, while Biden’s dropped from 37% to 31%. Ouch.

As CNN’s Trump-hating John King said, “The main organizing impetus of the Democratic Party is keeping Donald Trump out of the White House.” But if that’s the case, and if this debate is allowed to settle in as I expect it will, then the Democrats are in a helluva pickle. Because Kamala Harris is waiting in the wings, and she’s even less popular than Joe Biden.

Our Mark Alexander predicted long ago that Biden wouldn’t be the Democrats’ 2024 nominee, and I’m starting to think he might be onto something. But what to do with his veep?

Speaking of Kamala, there she was on CNN after the debate, being interviewed by Cooper. Noting the “panic setting in” among the Democrats, Cooper asked: “Some in your own party are saying that Joe Biden should step aside. What do you say to that?”

Harris replied: “Listen, first of all, what we saw tonight is the president making a very clear contrast with Donald Trump on all the issues that matter to the American people. Yes, there was a slow start, but … a strong finish. And what became very clear tonight is that Joe Biden is fighting for the American people.”

She then called Joe Biden “extraordinarily strong.”

Cooper continued to press Harris about the disastrous performance that everyone had just witnessed, about how Biden “didn’t push back on Trump’s lies.” And the vice president kept spinning. But to her credit, she handled herself pretty well given the extraordinary conditions. Think about it: Her boss just embarrassed himself on live television in front of tens of millions of Americans. And her job at that moment was to tell all those people not to believe their lyin’ eyes. Talk about a tall order.

CNN’s Lee summed it up: “I have to tell you, Anderson: So far, I haven’t heard a convincing argument or spin on the president’s overall performance, either from the White House or the campaign.”

Let the meltdown begin.

While there’s only a three-year difference in age between the two men, last night, it seemed like 30. Donald Trump is a young 78, and Joe Biden is an old 81. And that was readily apparent to everyone who watched. Just how old and enfeebled is Joe Biden? Just take a look at this cheap fake his wife leading him off stage afterward.

Adding insult to injury, CNN aired a hard-hitting Trump ad just before midnight. It focused on Biden’s moribund economy and didn’t shy away from the question that’s on everyone’s mind: “He keeps denying reality,” said the narrator. “Is it dishonesty or dementia?”

After last night’s performance, all but the most dead-end supporters of Joe Biden now have the answer: It’s the dementia, Stupid.

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MORE ANALYSIS

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

For more of today’s columns, visit Right Opinion.

BEST OF VIDEOS

SHORT CUTS

The BIG Lie

“Joe Biden … [is] leading the world in reducing inflation.” —Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

Baghdad Bobs

“Crime went up under Donald Trump’s presidency. Crime is down under Joe Biden’s presidency. Donald Trump doesn’t care about crime. He doesn’t care about border security.” —Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler

“This is a president who has gotten more done in his first term than any president in modern history.” —Biden campaign senior advisor TJ Ducklo

Shot/Chaser

“Trump is a existential, urgent threat to our democracy. He promises to rule as a dictator on day one.” —TJ Ducklo

“If I’m understanding correctly, the overarching message of the last two weeks has been that Donald Trump is set to become a dictator if he wins in November, but that, in spite of this, it’s just awful that the Supreme Court won’t let the executive branch run its own trials or impose criminal penalties without Congress, and it’s just great that the executive branch remains able to strip constitutional rights without due process and bully Facebook into moderating as it sees fit.” —Charles C.W. Cooke

Belly Laugh of the Day

“I am all in for President Biden because I think he’s done a good job and I think he has earned the right to be reelected to continue the work he’s doing to better position our country.” —Hillary Clinton

Pot Calling the Kettle Black

“For conservatives and delusional California bashers, their success depends on our failure. They want to impeach the very things that have made us successful, as a tactic to turn America toward a darker future. They do so in the name of ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom.’ They want to roll back social progress, social justice, racial justice, economic justice, clean air, clean water, and basic fundamental fairness. They would cleave America from the principles of freedom and the rule of law. And in the process, throw our economy and, in many respects, society as we’ve known it into chaos.” —California Governor Gavin Newsom

Credit Where It’s Due

“Listen, if you don’t like what’s happening in Gaza, it’s your right to protest. That’s not a problem. But you protest a policy. You don’t protest a people. … You don’t bum-rush a Jewish neighborhood and run up on a synagogue. That’s not protesting a policy. That’s protesting a people. … Politics can be complicated. Geopolitics can be really complicated. How you treat your neighbors, how you treat people in your community, is not complicated. [I] haven’t seen any Jewish people running up on mosques with Israeli flags.” —CNN’s Van Jones

Upright

“Kids would be better served to learn the ten commandments in school than about ten different genders.” —Outspoken Samantha

And Last…

“Biden’s [debate] presence confirmed that Robert Hur, the special counsel who investigated the president’s handling of classified documents, was, if anything, pulling punches when he wrote that Biden is ‘a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’” —Matthew Continetti

“It’s deeply alarming that Joe Biden needs to be secluded for seven days so he can speak coherently for 90 minutes.” —Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR)

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MEMES & CARTOONS

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For more of today’s memes, visit the Memesters Union.

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For more of today’s cartoons, visit the Cartoons archive.

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