In this edition: Biden the successful oil trader, the Supreme Court doesn’t deserve credit for its abortion medication decision, post-Constitutional is the new MAGA phrase for dictatorship, Missouri sets execution date for an innocent man, discussing Trump’s gibberish, Idaho GOP calls IVF murder, Sam Bankman-Fried’s proposition still on California’s ballot, the threat from fentanyl-laced mail-in ballots, thank you William Anders for Earthrise, and a graduation celebration.
#1
How Joe Biden ‘broke OPEC’ and rewrote the rules for oil trading (Chris Hayes, All in With Chris Hayes)
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, has had massive influence over American politics for six decades. President Biden’s “incredible” oil market trading has broken this influence. Dan Dicker joins Chris Hayes to discuss how Biden got ahead in oil production and what that means for the transition to clean energy.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
My initial reaction to seeing the preview of this story was, “Wait, what?” My frustration that more people did not understand what happened grew with each answer energy analyst Dan Dicker gave to each question Chris Hayes asked. I think this segment is a must-watch (which is why I’ve embedded it above). But, if you prefer, Dicker explained how Biden pulled off this success in his newsletter a few days after the interview. Oil traders saw that the United States was determined to lower the oil price by selling from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and wisely decided they could not win that battle. Prices came back down. After the oil price fell, Biden refilled the reserve at a significant profit. Government intervention worked. So, yeah, this story should be a bigger deal.
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#2
The Supreme Court’s Abortion Pill Ruling Should Satisfy Nobody (Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern, Slate)
If you blink, you might just miss the fact that today’s decision is not a win for reproductive freedom, not an end to attacks on abortion, and not even the end of the road for this particular litigation. It is a status quo decision that allows the FDA to continue to regulate safe drugs and that precludes objectors from running into courts with nothing more than feelings. But a good thing to bear in mind is that although SCOTUS dodged a bullet, the threat to abortion care looms larger than ever. Whether it’s new systemic attacks on in vitro fertilization, overt plans to use Comstock to end abortion rights by way of executive action, state court attacks on reproductive freedom, or a second, less publicized abortion case still pending at the Supreme Court, Thursday wasn’t a triumph for abortion rights; it was a push.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
I was frustrated with much of the coverage of the Supreme Court’s decision to throw out an absurd attempt to ban abortion medication. I saw too much punditry about the Supreme Court taking a moderate stance—or even protecting access. As Lithwick and Stern explain, the Supreme Court did not go that far. It rejected a case that never should have seen a courtroom—while also dropping strong hints about how a successful case might work. We should not allow these Justices to claim unfounded legitimacy because of this rare moment of judicial sanity.
#3
The new word for dictatorship just dropped: ‘post-Constitutional.’ You should be alarmed (Will Bunch, The Philadelphia Inquirer)
The vast majority of people who found reporter Beth Reinhard’s eye-opening article on the internet also got a headline that was a lot less wishy-washy: “Trump loyalist pushes ‘post-Constitutional’ vision for second term.” It swaps out the weasel word “muscular” for a term that neither I nor you probably had heard before: “post-Constitutional.” It is the scariest word in America right now.
Simply put, Vought — who’s crafting the details for a wannabe president who is definitely not a detail guy — thinks that a “woke” liberal order has already shattered the 1789 U.S. Constitution written here in Philadelphia, which would liberate Trump to essentially make his own rules if he returns in January. Here’s how Vought himself describes it: “We are living in a post-Constitutional time” — a claim he repeated on X/Twitter just last month. Insiders say the 48-year-old who believes he is on a mission from God could end up chief of staff in a second Trump administration.
“Post-Constitutional” is, of course, just a euphemism for dictatorship.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Donald Trump’s supporters do not plan to repeat the mistakes of his first presidential transition. They have plans this time. We should not let Trump and his MAGA fans get away with obscuring what they hope to do. Bunch correctly notes what “post-Constitutional” actually means. The Washington Post’s Beth Reinhard does a great job laying out what Russ Vought plans to do in the profile to which Bunch is reacting. They are not hiding the ball from us. We should not minimize the danger to our democracy. We must not normalize how extreme these ideas are. A presidential election is not how we amend or replace the Constitution. We need to make sure voters understand the clear choice they have this November.
#4
“That is not justice”: Missouri sets execution date for a man who even prosecutors say is innocent (Nandika Chatterjee, Salon)
The Missouri Supreme Court has set an execution date — September 24th at 6 p.m. — for defendant Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams, despite prosecutors insisting that he is completely innocent.
It is not the first time the 55-year-old has faced execution. On two separate occasions, Williams’ execution was halted to conduct further investigation and DNA testing. The results, including DNA on the murder weapon, show no connection between him and the crime.
And now it seems the state’s Republican governor is refusing to free a man who prosecutors say is innocent, setting the stage for him to be put to death for a crime he does not appear to have committed.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Yeah, you read that correctly. It’s an outrage. As the Innocence Project explains, a 2016 DNA test (which was not available when he was convicted) proved that Williams was innocent of this crime. We are now potentially just a few months away from the state of Missouri executing an innocent person because our justice system prioritizes finality over the truth. No court has reviewed this exculpatory DNA evidence—and so Williams continues to face execution. Our justice system should prioritize the truth. People who have been convicted should be able to access improved technology and scientific techniques. It is terrible enough that Williams has remained in jail after the DNA evidence cleared him. Now he once again faces the uncertainty and stress created by having the courts schedule an execution date. What justice is served by executing an innocent person?
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#5
Let’s Talk About Trump’s Gibberish (Tom Nichols, The Atlantic)
Sure, it seems funny—Haha! Uncle Don is telling that crazy shark story again!—until we remember that this man wants to return to a position where he would hold America’s secrets, be responsible for the execution of our laws, and preside as the commander in chief of the most powerful military in the world. A moment that seems like oddball humor should, in fact, terrify any American voter, because this behavior in anyone else would be an instant disqualification for any political office, let alone the presidency. (Actually, a delusional, rambling felon known to have owned weapons would likely fail a security check for even a visit to the Oval Office.)
Nor was the Vegas monologue the first time: Trump for years has fallen off one verbal cliff after another, with barely a ripple in the national consciousness. I am not a psychiatrist, and I am not diagnosing Trump with anything. I am, however, a man who has lived on this Earth for more than 60 years, and I know someone who has serious emotional problems when I see them played out in front of me, over and over. The 45th president is a disturbed person. He cannot be trusted with any position of responsibility—and especially not with a nuclear arsenal of more than 1,500 weapons. One wrong move could lead to global incineration.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
If historians exist in the future, there will be animated conversations trying to figure out how someone who rants about the relative benefits of dying by electrocution rather than from a shark bite ended up being one of two people who could be elected president. These weird asides aren’t just Trump being Trump. It’s a serious situation. The job of political candidates is to tell us what they intend to do if elected. The job of reporters and voters is to take those words seriously. What Trump says is not a gaffe. Elected Republicans have made clear they will do whatever Trump demands of them. There are no formal checks and balances on a president’s ability to launch nuclear weapons. Trump should not get a pass because he’s an entertainer. The words he says mean what they mean. We should take those words literally and seriously.
#6
Idaho GOP Platform Calls IVF ‘Murder’ (Jessica Valenti, Abortion, Every Day)
It was just a few weeks ago that I broke the news that the Texas’ GOP platform calls for abortion patients to be punished as murderers, including with the death penalty. Now another state Republican party is going all in on anti-abortion extremism—this time in Idaho.
Idaho Reports reveals that Republicans have expanded anti-abortion language in the party platform to oppose “the destruction of human embryos.” That’s right, the Idaho GOP is coming out against IVF. But it goes even further than that. The platform actually defines the destruction of embryos—a common part of the IVF process—as murder:
“We oppose all actions which intentionally end an innocent human life, including abortion, the destruction of human embryos, euthanasia, and assisted suicide.”
This section comes after language defining abortion as murder, and calling for “the criminalization of all murders by abortion within the state’s jurisdiction.” Now, that language has been part of the party’s anti-abortion plank for some years, but given that increasing calls for abortion patients to be punished under homicide laws, it’s worth revisiting.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it a thousand times again: Republicans are being very explicit about the future they want, the question is whether we’re going to listen to them.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
The forced birth advocates are not resting. They are pushing forward toward their goal of ensuring government-mandated pregnancies are the norm. A narrow conservative religious sect is demanding obedience from all of us. They are coming for IVF. They are coming for contraception. They are coming after the blue states that are doing what they can to be safe havens for reproductive health care. The two parties are not the same on this issue. The two presidential candidates are not the same on this issue. Voters face a clear choice this November. I hope we listen to what Republicans are telling us.
#7
The Last Trace of Sam Bankman-Fried’s Political Ambitions (Jeremy B. White, Politico Magazine)
Only one vestige of Bankman-Fried’s once grandiose plans to reshape American politics endures. This November, voters in his native California are on track to see a proposal on the ballot to fund a major new pandemic prevention program by taxing the rich, which Bankman-Fried helped to launch and bankroll.
At this point, however, it is a zombie ballot initiative. The campaign to sell it to voters has seen its cash on hand dwindle from more than $15 million at its peak to a reported $78 on hand at the end of last year. A fleet of political consultants once on retainer have signed up to work on other campaigns instead. Politicians who lined up to throw their support behind the proposal stopped talking about it after the main benefactor was disgraced.
The rise and fall of the Pandemic Early Detection and Prevention Institute Initiative is a distinctly Californian story — featuring faddish philanthropy, the Silicon Valley boom-and-bust cycle, policy dilletantes, money and a byzantine ballot measure process that can give political issues a life of their own.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Oh yeah, this is a real thing. I hope this part of the story makes it into the inevitable docu-dramas to come about the collapse of FTX. It is the latest example demonstrating how someone can get almost anything they want on the California ballot as long as they have enough cash. That wasn’t what the creators of the initiative system intended. Yes, we should do more to prepare for future pandemics. But was Sam Bankman-Fried’s idea the best one—even before his convictions? How will California voters react when they see this on their ballots this October and November? I imagine this proposition will fail—but that won’t make our pandemic problems disappear. I suspect any political will to deal with the issue before the next crisis is already gone.
#8
Add Fentanyl-Laced Mail-In Ballots To The List Of Threats Election Officials Must Guard Against In The Fall (Khaya Himmelman, Talking Points Memo)
Election officials across the country are learning how to use Narcan, implementing new rules about glove-wearing while opening mail, and figuring out how drug-sniffing dogs will fit into their ballot processing systems ahead of the 2024 election. These new processes are a response to 2020 election threats and yet another stark reminder of the dangerous world election workers now find themselves in.
“In the past, although people have been aware that there is a possibility of things being mailed to an office it didn’t rise to the level of priority that I think that it has in this moment since it has actually happened,” Tammy Patrick, Chief Executive Officer for Programs of The Election Center told TPM.
In Lane County, as Dawson described, staff now opens mail in a separate room that can be closed off in the event that it contains a dangerous substance. The county has also developed best practices for how to respond if a dangerous substance is found in a mail-in ballot or another form of mail, which involves covering the mail with plastic and identifying where the mail was received from in order to quickly notify the secretary of state’s office and the FBI.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
I fear election staff and volunteers will face many dangerous moments as the November election nears. I fear the situation will continue to deteriorate because of a dynamic Aaron Rupar explained on X (the website that used to be known as Twitter). Rupar wrote: “If you don’t watch a lot of right-wing TV, you might not realize that Trump is so popular he can’t possibly lose a fair election and Biden is cowering in despair, constantly on the verge of dropping out. So if/when Trump loses, it’s very easy for these viewers to be convinced that they had it stolen from him. They’re easy marks.” Yep. A bunch of people who watch only right-wing media think Trump is way ahead. How are they going to react if that isn’t the outcome? They aren’t going to blame Trump. They are going to attack officials and volunteers. It seems more likely each day that we are going to witness a tragedy about an election worker because of all the lies and disinformation being shamelessly shared by the Republican Party and conservative media.
#9
William Anders Obituary (Michael Carlson, The Guardian)
It may be that the most famous picture from the US space programme is not the shot of Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, but the image of Earth, seen rising above the moon’s horizon, an image relayed from space on 24 December 1968 by the crew of Apollo 8 – Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders.
It was Anders, who has died aged 90, who snapped the “Earthrise” photograph, which was not part of the mission’s scheduled protocol. And it was he who read first from the Book of Genesis during their live transmission from lunar orbit that Christmas Eve.
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth,” he read. “And the Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”
Anders spoke later of the ecological impact of the image, contributing as it did to a shift in perspective articulated by the poet Archibald MacLeish in the New York Times the following day, Christmas Day. The photograph enabled us, MacLeish wrote, “to see the Earth as it truly is, small blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats”.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
It is one of the most important photographs in history. I am glad William Anders was inspired to take it. It was visual evidence of how fragile our place in the universe is. The cosmic jury is still deliberating whether our species learned the lessons it should have learned from it.
Quick Pitches
- Donald Trump had lots of negative opinions about felons. Now he is one (Lois Beckett, The Guardian)
The problem, though, is not that Donald Trump is getting treated better than others accused or convicted of crimes. The goal should be to treat the accused and convicted more like Trump has been. - If You’re Attacking Dolly Parton, You’ve Lost The Whole Entire War (Evan Hurst, The Moral High Ground)
The Federalist doesn’t just provide extreme religious conservative judges. - It’s Time to Switch to a Privacy Browser (David Nield, Wired)
Some tips if you’d like to protect more of your data while surfing the web. - 10 Inventors Who Came to Regret Their Creations (Kenny Hemphill, Mental Floss)
The list includes the atomic bomb, the AK-47, and Comic Sans. - The Eras Tour Stage: See the Intricate World-Building of Every Set in Taylor Swift’s Most Ambitious Shows Ever (Katherine McLaughlin, Architectural Digest)
I enjoyed learning more about how the sets work as one of the people who watches these concerts many weekends via live streams.
The Closer
From the Proud Dad Department: my eldest son, Arik, graduated over the weekend from the University of California, Santa Barbara with High Honors in Computer Science. He also earned the right to be one of the Standard Bearers for the ceremony as one of the five members of his class to finish with a 4.0 GPA. He came into view for me right as he handed the banner to one of his fellow standard bearers after leading the procession.
Post-Game Comments
Today’s Thought from my Readwise collection:
“Personally, I vote as if my vote is the deciding ballot. I know it isn’t, of course, but it focuses my mind and makes me take the civic duty of voting seriously. People have given their lives for my right to stand in that booth, and when American democracy is facing a clear and existential threat, their sacrifice deserves something more than the selfish calculations of the Jimmy Clean Hands caucus.”—Tom Nichols (“The Jimmy Clean Hands Election,” The Atlantic)
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