<State courts in Utah and Kansas are set to hear arguments Tuesday in legal challenges to new laws on abortion as judges tussle with legislatures over how to regulate the medical procedure and its providers after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Those and other state courts have become key venues in the fight over abortion since last year, when the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the constitutional right to abortion and made the rules governing it a matter of state laws.

In Utah, the state Supreme Court is expected to weigh a lower court's decision to put a law banning most abortions on hold more than a year ago.

In Kansas, providers are asking a district court judge to block a new restriction on how they dispense abortion medications as well as older rules governing what doctors must tell patients and a required 24-hour wait between the first in-person consultation and the procedure.

In both states, the impact of the overturning of Roe remains unsettled as GOP-controlled legislatures push to tighten laws surrounding abortion and the doctors and clinics who provide them wage fierce court battles.

Utah is one of at least five states in which laws restricting abortion have been put on hold amid litigation. The state's Planned Parenthood affiliate sued last year over a 2020 “trigger law" — passed by state lawmakers — that banned abortion with exceptions for maternal health threats or rape and incest reported to the police.

Since a judge put that law on hold last summer, another law — a 2019 ban on abortion after 18 weeks of pregnancy — took effect in Utah. Lawmakers subsequently passed additional legislation striking licensing provisions for abortion clinics from state code in an effort to phase them out and make it more difficult for courts to put laws on hold that sponsors described as a response to the trigger law.

While Judge Andrew Stone takes more time to weigh the merits of last year's lawsuit from the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, the state Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments about the extent of his court's power to keep it on hold. If the law is allowed to take effect, Utah could join 15 states enforcing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy.

Judges have struck down only a few such bans in the year since Roe's overturning, including in permanently blocking a ban in South Carolina on abortions after cardiac activity can be detected and, in Arizona, preventing the enforcement of a ban against doctors that pre-dated Roe v. Wade.

Like in Arizona, the June 2022 Supreme Court decision has put longstanding laws under new scrutiny. The waiting period and other requirements that Judge K. Christopher Jayaram will consider Tuesday in his courtroom in the Kansas City area have been in place for more than a quarter century.

But Kansas has become an outlier on abortion among states with Republican-controlled Legislatures because of a 2019 decision by the state Supreme Court declaring access a matter of bodily autonomy and a “fundamental” right under the state constitution. Voters in 2022 decisively affirmed that abortion rights would remain protected — after anti-abortion groups warned that many of the state’s existing restrictions could fall.

The new law, which took effect July 1, requires providers to tell patients that a medication abortion can be stopped once it is started with a regimen that major medical groups call unproven and potentially dangerous. The state and the providers mutually agreed that the new law wouldn’t be enforced at least until the state court could decide the matter.>

<Former President Donald Trump on Monday again took aim at special counsel Jack Smith, accusing him of attempting to “take away” his First Amendment rights in a post on Truth Social.

“Deranged Jack Smith is going before his number one draft pick, the Judge of his “dreams” (WHO MUST BE RECUSED!), in an attempt to take away my FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS,” Trump wrote. “This, despite the fact that he, the DOJ, and his many Thug prosecutors, are illegally leaking, everything and anything, to the Fake News Media!!!”

The former president was indicted last week on charges related to his attempts to remain in power following the 2020 election.

He pleaded not guilty to all four counts in the case and a pre-trial hearing has been scheduled for Aug. 28. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, will preside over the case.

The former president and his attorney John Lauro have insisted that the president’s false claims that he was the true winner of the 2020 election are protected as political speech. The pair has also claimed that the president’s third indictment represents a weaponization of the Justice Department by the Biden administration.

Trump is also facing cases in New York and Florida, with additional charges looming in Georgia.>

<I’m a second-generation Dunkin’ Donuts franchisee with more than four decades of experience with the brand. My family immigrated from Portugal to Boston in the 1970s and my father juggled several jobs to make ends meet, including one as a baker for Dunkin’ Donuts. My family invested in their first store in Derry, New Hampshire, in 1980. Since then, we have gone on to invest in 245 locations, employing roughly 5,000 team members.

Over the years, we have supported more than 100,000 team members, many of whom have grown into leadership roles in our business, including team members who have become franchisees themselves. We pride ourselves on being a family company with a “people first” culture.

The last year was difficult for us, as it was for all consumers and businesses, as inflation across the economy reached historic levels. The Federal Reserve’s efforts to combat inflation’s devastating impact by raising interest rates seven times in the last year alone created further devastation and drove up the cost of borrowing for businesses like mine.

As a result, businesses across the country are not positioned for success, and it is clear that adjustments must be made to give owners the tools they need to thrive. The key to creating lasting change and keeping the economy humming through periods of dramatic monetary policy adjustment, such as the one we are in now, is to avoid other, unrelated hardships from falling on our job creators and employees. Arguably now more than ever, businesses across the country need Congress to remedy how business debt is handled.

A recent survey conducted by the National Restaurant Association found fewer than one in four restaurant operators with an Economic Injury Disaster Loan are able to pay scheduled principal and interest payments. Inflation is turning the very loan that was intended to be a lifeline into a burden. You would assume that our elected leaders would support business owners in other forms of financial relief, but, as is often the case in politics, the opposite is happening.

Prior to 2022, a business could deduct interest paid on loans and other debt, up to a total of 30% of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. This is known as EBITDA. Through these savings, small and midsized companies were able to make crucial investments in technology, equipment, and other necessary projects without crippling their budgets.

Unfortunately, that ability has been stripped. With little warning, the tax rules were changed, and businesses are now only allowed to deduct that crucial 30% from earnings before interest and taxes. Removing depreciation and amortization from the table has left businesses in a state of struggle, to say the least.

This rule change might seem niche, but its impact will be substantial. A report by America’s Interest indicates that changing EBITDA to EBIT will, on average, result in a nearly three-fold increase in business owners’ incremental taxes. Equipment-intensive industries will be hit especially hard; the average food services company, for example, will see a 35x increase.

The timing of the change adds fuel to the fire, too. Hospitality sector businesses hemorrhaged cash during the COVID-19 pandemic as government restrictions constrained operations and reduced customer demand and visits. Maintaining an EBIT-based interest deduction rule will only exacerbate their struggles.

I fear that this “under-the-radar” tax hike will catch many restaurateurs and other small business owners unprepared. Entrepreneurs who continue to work hard to serve their local communities and keep our economy from falling into recession will be hit with unexpected and significantly higher tax bills at the end of the year. As a result, businesses will slash future-focused investments, which will harm economic growth, labor productivity, and likely wages.

Business owners need change — fast.

Congress has solutions that can help businesses manage rising interest rates and debt and still make the investments they need to survive the ever-changing economy. The first step is to restore depreciation and amortization into the deduction equation. EBIT must become EBITDA again.

Simply stated, these two letters affect every American. Policymakers must act now to help American businesses grow in the short- and long-term and remain competitive in the global marketplace.>

<The Supreme Court on Tuesday temporarily revived the Biden administration’s regulation of “ghost guns” — kits that can be bought online and assembled into untraceable homemade firearms.

In defending the rule, a key part of President Biden’s broader effort to address gun violence, administration officials said such weapons had soared in popularity in recent years, particularly among criminals barred from buying ordinary guns.

The court’s brief order gave no reasons, which is typical when the justices act on emergency applications. The order was provisional, leaving the regulation in place while a challenge moves forward in the courts.

The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the court’s three liberal members — Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — to form a majority.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh noted dissents. Like the justices in the majority, they did not explain their reasoning.

The regulation, issued in 2022 by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, broadened the bureau’s interpretation of the definition of “firearm” in the Gun Control Act of 1968.

The change, Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar wrote in the Biden administration’s emergency application, was needed to respond to “the urgent public safety and law enforcement crisis posed by the exponential rise of untraceable firearms.”

The new regulation did not ban the sale or possession of kits and components that can be assembled to make guns, she wrote, but it did require manufacturers and sellers to obtain licenses, mark their products with serial numbers and conduct background checks.

Gun owners, advocacy groups and companies that make or distribute the kits and components sued to challenge the regulations, saying that they were not authorized by the 1968 law.

That law defined firearms to include weapons that “may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive” and “the frame or receiver of any such weapon.”

Judge Reed O’Connor, of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Texas, sided with the challengers and struck down the regulation in July, saying that “a weapon parts kit is not a firearm” and “that which may become or may be converted to a functional receiver is not itself a receiver.”

He added: “Even if it is true that such an interpretation creates loopholes that as a policy matter should be avoided, it is not the role of the judiciary to correct them. That is up to Congress.”

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, refused to stay key aspects of Judge O’Connor’s ruling.

When the Supreme Court struck down a New York gun control law last year on Second Amendment grounds, it split along familiar lines, with the six Republican appointees in the majority and the three Democratic ones in dissent. The vote in the new case revealed a different fault line, with Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Barrett taking a more cautious approach than the other four conservatives.

In the government’s emergency application, Ms. Prelogar asked the justices to consider an analogy.

“Every speaker of English would recognize that a tax on sales of ‘bookshelves’ applies to Ikea when it sells boxes of parts and the tools and instructions for assembling them into bookshelves,” she wrote.....>

<....A Supreme Court brief from one set of challengers said the comparison was flawed.

“A better analogy would be to a ‘taco kit’ sold as a bundle by a grocery store that includes taco shells, seasoning packets, salsa and other toppings, along with a slab of raw beef,” the brief said. “No one would call the taco kit a taco. In addition to ‘assembly,’ turning it into one would require cutting or grinding and cooking the meat — and until that was done, it would be nonsensical to treat it as food and the equivalent of a taco.”

The two sides also differed on whether there has been a spike in homemade firearms.

Ms. Prelogar wrote that there had been “an explosion of crimes involving ghost guns,” pointing to a sworn statement from an A.T.F. official. More than 19,000 firearms without serial numbers were recovered by the authorities in 2021, the official said, compared with about 1,600 in 2017. He added that in the 11 months ending in July, “a total of approximately 23,452 suspected privately made firearms were recovered at crime scenes and submitted for tracing.”

Such weapons are particularly attractive to criminals and minors, Ms. Prelogar wrote, adding that they “can be made from kits and parts that are available online to anyone with a credit card and that allow anyone with basic tools and rudimentary skills (or access to internet video tutorials) to assemble a fully functional firearm in as little as 20 minutes.”

The challengers’ brief questioned the Biden administration’s data.

“The government’s alleged ‘epidemic’ of privately made firearms traced by the police appears to be largely an artifact of police departments changing their tracing practices in response to A.T.F. pressure,” the brief said, adding that “nothing in the government’s submission demonstrates that firearms made by individuals for their own personal use are fueling an increase in crime.”

The brief also objected to the phrase “ghost guns,” calling it “a propaganda term that appears nowhere in federal law” and one that includes both firearms “that are manufactured lawfully by individuals and those that have their serial numbers illegally obliterated.”>

<he Supreme Court handed down a brief order on Tuesday that will prevent violent criminals and other individuals who are not allowed to have guns from evading a federal law requiring background checks for gun buyers. The vote was 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the Court’s three Democratic appointees.

The case, known as Garland v. VanDerStok, concerns so-called “ghost guns,” dismantled firearms that are sold in ready-to-assemble kits.

Federal law typically requires anyone purchasing a gun to submit to a background check. It also requires guns to be marked with a serial number that can be used to track the weapon if it is used in a crime. These laws apply to “any weapon ... which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive.” It also applies to “the frame or receiver of any such weapon,” the skeletal part of a firearm that houses other components, such as the barrel or trigger mechanism.

Thus, if someone purchases a series of firearm parts to assemble a gun at home, they are still supposed to face a background check when they purchase the gun’s frame or receiver.

Ghost guns are often sold as kits, a collection of gun parts that can be assembled into a functional gun. Often, the frame or receiver in this kit is sold in an unfinished state — though, according to the Justice Department, these incomplete frames and receivers are often very easy to finish. In some cases, a ghost gun buyer can build a working gun after drilling a single additional hole in the kit’s frame. In other cases, they merely need to sand off a small plastic rail.

Judge Reed O’Connor, who is known for handing down dubiously reasoned opinions that implement Republican Party policies, ruled that these ghost gun kits are immune from the laws requiring serial numbers and background checks. Recall that these laws apply to “any weapon” that can be “readily converted to expel a projectile.” O’Connor reasoned that “weapon parts ... are not ‘weapons,’” only a fully complete firearm is. And thus the kit as a whole does not count as a “weapon.”

Similarly, O’Connor claimed that the almost entirely complete receivers sold with ghost gun kits do not count as “receivers” under federal law because “that which may become or may be converted to a functional receiver is not itself a receiver.” Under O’Connor’s reasoning, it does not matter if a gun buyer would only need to make the most minimal effort to finish the receiver contained in the ghost gun kit.

Although the Supreme Court did not explain its decision temporarily putting O’Connor’s decision on hold, it appears that a bare majority of the Court either disagreed with O’Connor’s attempt to open up a loophole that would allow violent criminals to obtain guns, or believe that he exceeded his authority when he applied this decision on a nationwide basis — unilaterally determining that ghost guns may be sold without background checks in all 50 states.

Three takeaways from the Court’s decision in VanDerStok

The Court’s decision in VanDerStok is temporary. It effectively puts O’Connor’s attempt to set gun policy for the entire nation on hold while this case makes its way through appellate courts. The order is also only a single paragraph long, so it provides little insight into why the five justices in the majority reached this conclusion.

That said, three aspects of this decision are worth noting.

The first is that the fifth vote was provided by Barrett, a conservative Trump appointee, while Barrett’s fellow Trump judge, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, dissented. This vote lineup is somewhat surprising because Kavanaugh has previously indicated that he is more moderate on gun issues (though still extremely conservative) than Barrett....>

<....In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), both Kavanaugh and Barrett joined a majority opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, which massively expanded the scope of the Second Amendment. Kavanaugh, however, wrote a concurring opinion that emphasized that the Constitution still permits many forms of gun regulation, including “prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill,” which are often implemented through the mandatory background checks that O’Connor tried to sabotage.

Kavanaugh’s opinion in Bruen was joined by Roberts, but not by Barrett. Nevertheless, it was Barrett, and not Kavanaugh, who voted to suspend O’Connor’s decision.

A second noteworthy aspect of the VanDerStok decision is that Justice Neil Gorsuch dissented. Gorsuch has repeatedly complained about lower court judges who make sweeping policy decisions that apply on a nationwide basis. As Gorsuch wrote in a recent concurring opinion, “a district court should ‘think twice—and perhaps twice again—before granting’ such sweeping relief.”

But Gorsuch still votes fairly consistently to uphold such nationwide injunctions when they are handed down by a Republican-appointed judge seeking to block a policy supported by Democrats. His vote in VanDerStok fits that pattern. Gorsuch’s concern about lower court judges setting policy for the whole nation does not appear to be strong enough to overcome partisan politics.

The final thing worth noting about the VanDerStok decision is that it suspends O’Connor’s order until the case is heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and then reviewed one more time by the justices themselves. This will prevent the far-right Fifth Circuit, which has its own history of handing down dubiously reasoned decisions that benefit Republicans, from reinstating O’Connor’s order until the justices decide if they want to give this case another hearing.

Nevertheless, it is likely that the Fifth Circuit, which is dominated by Trump appointees and other MAGA-aligned judges, will agree with O’Connor. That means the Supreme Court will likely need to hear VanDerStok again if it intends to prevent O’Connor’s ghost gun loophole from swallowing up mandatory background checks and serial number requirements.>

<It was inevitable that Donald Trump would complain vociferously in the wake of his latest criminal indictment, and the former president has done exactly what was expected of him. In recent days, we’ve seen the Republican lash out wildly at prosecutors, potential witnesses, the judge overseeing the case, and even the city where the trial is scheduled to be held.

But Trump’s overarching complaint is that the case exists at all. Yesterday afternoon, for example, he published a rather long tirade to his social media platform, and while it originally appeared in all capital letters, I’m quoting it in its entirety in standard capitalization to make it easier to read:

It’s unrealistic to try to highlight every error of fact and judgment in the former president’s rant, though to quickly review some of the basics, there’s literally no evidence of President Joe Biden being corrupt; Biden isn’t responsible for Trump’s prosecution; the charges weren’t filed earlier because they weren’t ready until now; the “election interference” claims don’t make any sense at all; and the charges are unprecedented because the United States has never before had an unpardoned former president credibly accused of multiple felonies.

But that’s not the interesting part.

Rather, what stood out for me was his apparent concerns about the implications of his indictments. “Is this going to be the future of elections in America?” the former president asked. “Can a president order his Department of Justice to indict an opponent just prior to an election?”

Taken at face value, it’s difficult not to wonder how traumatized Trump would be if he familiarized himself with his own record.

Obviously, it’s of utmost importance for the public to understand that there’s literally zero evidence to suggest Biden ordered federal prosecutors to indict one of his GOP rivals 15 months before Election Day 2024. That said, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest Trump, while in office, did exactly what he’s so concerned about.

As we discussed a couple of months ago, the former Republican president, while in office, spent much of his White House tenure trying to turn Justice Department prosecutors into his own personal attack dogs. The New York Times reported last year that Trump and his team “tried to turn the nation’s law enforcement apparatus into an instrument of political power” to carry out the Republican’s wishes. A Washington Post analysis published soon after highlighted the many instances in which Trump not only leaned on the Justice Department to follow his whims, but also Trump’s efforts to push federal law enforcement to validate the Big Lie in the wake of his election defeat.

The Republican’s weaponization efforts reached a truly amazing pinnacle less than a month before Election Day 2020, when Trump publicly called on federal prosecutors to go after Biden — at the time, the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee who was leading the Republican incumbent in the polls — accusing him of undefined crimes. The then-president added that his future successor shouldn’t be “allowed” to run against him.

On Oct. 7, 2020, with early voting underway across much of the country, Politico published an especially memorable headline: “‘Where are all of the arrests?’: Trump demands Barr lock up his foes.”

The next day, the Republican incumbent spoke to Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo and called on the Justice Department to "indict" his perceived Democratic foes — including Biden.

In other words, we’re left with a head-spinning dynamic: The politician who’s now asking, “Can a president order his Department of Justice to indict an opponent just prior to an election?” is the same politician who, as president, pressured his Justice Department to indict his opponent just prior to an election.

Does Trump not remember doing the exact thing he’s now accusing Biden of doing? Or is he simply counting on the public to have forgotten his own brazen efforts to weaponize federal law enforcement?

“Is this going to be the future of elections in America?” If Trump has his way, yes, it is.>

<Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) detailed a scheme he said would "immunize" Donald Trump ahead of his prosecution for allegedly conspiring to impede the 2020 presidential election.

On Tuesday, Gaetz told right-wing host Charlie Kirk that Congress could give Trump a form of whistleblower protection, purportedly neutering special counsel Jack Smith's prosecution. But Gaetz admitted that his plan was not conventional.

"Simultaneous to that, you can actually bring President Trump in to give testimony to the Congress and, in doing so, immunize him," Gaetz explained. "Now, there's different forms of immunity that take place at the committee level, subcommittee level. In some instances, for full immunity, you have to have more of a supermajority vote."

Gaetz said Speaker Kevin McCarthy could create a new select committee with a supermajority of Republicans.

The lawmaker admitted that there were reasons not to go through with the scheme.

"The downside of bringing anyone before Congress to give testimony is that if you say something that is material and that is not accurate, that can create a cascade of follow-on charges," Gaetz said. "So it's never something that you typically think of as a first step.">

The nearer the time comes for their Fuehrer to face the music, the wilder the schemes become.

<Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade has determined that Republicans who have repeatedly boycotted legislative sessions will not be allowed to run for re-election, reported The Oregonian on Tuesday.

"Griffin-Valade wrote that she views voter-approved Measure 113 as disqualifying Oregon lawmakers who received 10 or more unexcused absences during the 2023 legislative session from running for reelection in 2024," reported Jamie Goldberg. "That was clearly what voters intended ... Ballot language and media coverage all communicated to voters that the punishment for absences would impact lawmakers in their next term, not a later one."

Although Democrats control majorities in the state legislature, Oregon has special rules that require a supermajority of lawmakers be present for a quorum to conduct business. As a consequence, the Republican minority has power to block consideration of bills on everything from abortion to climate action by simply walking out of the Capitol and not attending the voting sessions, and they have done so repeatedly.

Tensions have flared up over this practice; in 2019, then-Gov. Kate Brown threatened to have state police round up and retrieve absent Republican lawmakers, prompting state Sen. Brian Boquist to threaten to shoot troopers who tried to do so.

After years of these stalemates, voters approved Measure 113 in 2022, which states that any lawmaker who has 10 or more unexcused absences will be prohibited from running for re-election. Even after the law was approved, Republicans continued to boycott meetings.

The absent lawmakers have threatened to sue over Measure 113 if it is enforced, and recruited an attorney who has argued that the exact wording of the measure, saying it bars a re-election campaign "following the election after the member’s current term is completed," technically means they can still run, because re-election takes place during a member's "current" term, not after. Griffin-Valade, however, rejected this argument, saying that it runs contrary to the clear intent of the law.

According to the report, nine total Republican lawmakers would be barred from running under Measure 113, including state Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp, as well as Boquist, who changed his party affiliation to independent in 2021. Six of those lawmakers, including Knopp and Boquist, have only one year left in their term.>

<Ohio voters on Tuesday rejected a proposal that would have made it more difficult for voters to amend the state constitution, including one measure set for the November ballot that would guarantee abortion rights in the state.

The Associated Press has called the race, determining that supporters of the proposal known as Issue 1 fell short in their effort to require future changes to the state constitution to win the support of 60% of voters instead of a straight majority.

Votes cast against the measure, or No votes, lead Yes votes by more than 350,000, with nearly 90% of the expected vote tallied and some of the state’s largest and most Democratic-friendly regions, including Cuyahoga County, yet to report complete results.

Advance votes, which are cast by mail or in-person before Election Day, broke heavily for No, about 70% to 30%. More than 700,000 votes were cast before Election Day.

The No side also appeared to narrowly lead among voters who cast their ballots on Election Day. That, in addition to the lopsided result in the advance vote, created a lead that the Yes side could not overcome.

The size of the vote lead for the No side indicates that a sizable number of Republicans voted against the measure. The No side was comfortably ahead in areas that Donald Trump carried narrowly in the 2020 presidential election. Although Yes led in areas Trump won by greater margins in 2020, it fell far short of Trump's performance in nearly every county in the state. No votes had an overwhelming lead in areas President Joe Biden won in 2020, as expected.

Data from political firm L2 provided further evidence of Republican crossover voters. While voters do not register by political party in Ohio, the firm's data on early in-person and mail voting indicates that Democrats cast about 50% of ballots before Election Day, compared with 40% by those identified as Republicans. Independents cast the remaining ballots, according to the firm, which models party affiliation using the partisan primary a voter most recently participated in.

Women turned out in higher numbers among those who voted before Election Day, according to L2. In particular, Democratic women comprised the largest share of votes cast in advance, more than Democratic men and Republican men and women.

The text of Issue 1 does not specifically mention abortion or reproductive rights, but the outcome of Tuesday’s special election would directly affect the percentage of votes needed to pass a separate ballot measure that would establish “a fundamental right to reproductive freedom” in the state constitution. That measure qualified for the November ballot last month, making Issue 1 a central battleground in the national debate over abortion.

Since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortion, ballot measures in other states, such as Kansas, Kentucky and Michigan, have shown that a 50% to 60% majority of voters in those states support legalized access to abortion.

In Ohio, support for abortion being legal in most or all cases was at 59% among midterm voters last year, according to AP VoteCast. That suggests that, had Issue 1 passed, abortion rights advocates would have faced an uphill battle in codifying abortion rights in the state constitution this November.>

<Former federal judge Michael Luttig doubled down Wednesday on previous comments about former President Trump, who he says now poses an even greater danger to the U.S. than when Luttig testified to the House Jan. 6 committee last year.

“More so today than he was last summer when I testified before the Congress,” Luttig said in a CNN interview.

He said Trump’s ongoing false claims about winning the 2020 election and being persecuted by the Justice Department have hurt the country, and that the Republicans who have backed the former president are also responsible.

“For the two-and-a-half years since Jan. 6, these false claims have corrupted American democracy. They’ve corrupted American elections and they’ve corrupted the perception of the American people in America herself,” he said.

Luttig, a conservative, was a federal appeals court judge until 2006 and has repeatedly criticized Trump’s election fraud claims. Trump attorney John Eastman, one of the unindicted co-conspirators mentioned in the former president’s 2020 election fraud criminal case, was one of his clerks. He also served as an informal adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence.

His testimony to the Jan. 6 committee included claiming that Trump “instigated” a “war over our democracy” so he could cling to power.

“This must come to a conclusion and the trials of the former president now will become, together with the events of January 6, the singular infamous events in American history,” Luttig said Wednesday.

Trump’s legal team has attempted to brush off the election fraud charges as politically motivated and an attack on Trump’s right to free speech.

Luttig denounced that defense, saying federal prosecutors chose charges in which a free speech defense would not work.

“The indictment makes crystal clear that the former president is not being charged for his speech,” he said. “The evidence is overwhelming that the former president knew full well that he had lost the election.”

The former president faces two other criminal cases, one over alleged mishandling of classified documents, and a New York state case over hush money payments.>

<The last time House Speaker Kevin McCarthy sat down with Fox News’ Sean Hannity was two weeks ago, and at the time, the California Republican made some news. It was in this interview when the GOP leader suggested the House would be justified initiating an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, despite the inconvenient fact the party hasn’t uncovered any evidence of wrongdoing against the Democratic incumbent.

With this in mind, McCarthy returned to Hannity’s program this week, and as The Hill reported, his remarks led the White House to accuse the speaker of “lying.”

Team Biden’s concerns were hardly unreasonable. McCarthy told viewers, for example, that a “Russian oligarch” gave the Biden family $3.5 million, which is a stale claim that was discredited years ago. In the same interview, the House speaker insisted the FBI “didn’t act” on highly dubious anti-Biden bribery claims, which was equally wrong given the extensive information we’ve already seen pointing in the opposite direction.

After the show, McCarthy turned to social media to add that the Democratic president “lied about his own involvement in a pay-to-play scheme,” which might be interesting if Republicans had any evidence to substantiate such a claim. But since they don’t, the House speaker probably ought to try to be a little more responsible.

Stepping back, the larger question isn’t whether McCarthy is making false claims, it’s why he’s making false claims.

Chances are, we’ll probably never know the Republican’s genuine motivations. Perhaps the House speaker has been told by assorted voices in his party what to say, and he’s in too weak of a position to refuse. Maybe McCarthy has convinced himself that some of his strange talking points actually have merit.

Either way, the GOP congressman appears to be laying the groundwork for a misguided partisan goal. As HuffPost explained:

Indeed, during his latest chat with Hannity, McCarthy again talked up the merits of “an impeachment inquiry,” which he said would give lawmakers the ability “to get the answers they need.”

Of course, given that they already have the answers they need, and many Republicans will never be satisfied, no matter how many facts they receive, McCarthy’s line still needs some work.

Nevertheless, GOP lawmakers continue to barrel down a ridiculous path. In fact, CNN reported this week House Republicans have privately said that “if they don’t move forward with an impeachment inquiry now, it will create the impression that House Republicans have essentially cleared Biden of any wrongdoing.”

The logic behind this approach is truly incredible. Republicans want to advance an impeachment inquiry against Biden, but they don’t have any evidence. So they’re prepared to launch an impeachment inquiry anyway, in the hopes that it will prevent people from noticing that they don’t have the evidence needed to justify an impeachment inquiry.

All of this is slated to unfold in the coming months. Watch this space.>

<Ohio voters on Tuesday rejected a proposal known as Issue 1 which sought to make it more difficult to amend the state constitution, handing a victory to pro-choice advocates before a vote in November that aims to enshrine abortion right in the Ohio Constitution, according to reports.

The bill sought to raise the threshold for approving amendments to the state constitution from 50 percent plus one vote to 60 percent – which would have made November's change more difficult to achieve

Speaking to The New York Times, a registered Republican who voted against Issue 1 called the bill a "little bit of a magical trick."

“The people who engineered it have covered it so that you don’t really see the cards that are there," said 74-year-old Rebecca Ferris.

“I’m 89 years old, and I’m fed up with old men telling women how to take care of their reproduction and their sex lives,” said voter Thomas McAninch. “If men was [sic] having babies, there wouldn’t be none of this nonsense."

The Times interviewed a bipartisan group of voters who felt the campaign for Issue 1 was “disingenuous,” a “game,” or a “sneaky tactic,” and that those who sponsored the bill were trying to “pull a fast one.”

Focus groups in solidly Republican regions conducted by Thomas Sutton, the director of Baldwin Wallace University’s Community Research Institute, found that party loyalty didn't do much to affect the distaste for Issue 1.

“People were concerned on a couple of different levels,” he said. “No. 1 was: You are diminishing my ability to vote on these constitutional issues. No. 2 was the way in which this was all done.”

As The Times' report points out, many voters were far more concerned about the measure's goal of making it harder to change the Constitution than the subject of abortion.

<U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing former President Donald Trump's election conspiracy case in D.C., scheduled a Friday hearing to consider prosecutors' request for a protective order blocking him from publicizing evidence in the case.

Prosecutors asked Chutkan, an Obama appointee who has issued the harshest Jan. 6 sentences, to issue a protective order to block Trump and his team from disclosing the government's evidence turned over in discovery. Chutkan on Monday ordered both sides to set a date for a hearing to discuss the matter.

Special counsel Jack Smith's team said in a filing on Tuesday that it was ready to attend a hearing Wednesday, Thursday or Friday but Trump's team responded by seeking to delay the hearing until next week.

Smith's filing said that Trump's team told prosecutors that Trump would not appear at the hearing, after his appearance was waived by the judge, "however, he would like to have both his counsel John Lauro and Todd Blanche at the hearing."

"Blanche is not available on Thursday, since he must appear for a court proceeding in the prosecution against the same defendant, President Trump, by the Special Counsel in [the Southern District of Florida]," the filing said. "Mr. Lauro is available on Thursday, with a preference for an afternoon setting. However, since we lost Friday as an option, we would respectfully request a setting on Monday (after 12:00 pm) or Tuesday (all day) to allow for both Mr. Blanche and Mr. Lauro to be present."

Legal experts scratched their heads at the claim that Friday was "lost" and why Trump needed both lawyers to attend.

"Both of Trump's counsel do not need to appear for this hearing. It's yet another delay tactic," tweeted MSNBC legal analyst Katie Phang, joking that "Trump's lawyers apparently have implemented the 'buddy system' for court appearances in his case."

Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who served on special counsel Bob Mueller's team, called the Trump's team claim "so disrespectful."

"A criminal case of the utmost seriousness and counsel has time for myriad television interviews. Now cannot find time before Friday for court?" Weissmann tweeted. "And why can't Blanche appear by phone/Zoom on Thursday from FLA; and why do they say they 'lost' Friday?

This is simply goading the court to commit reversible error, fodder for recusal motion, and testing her backbone."

Chutkan on Tuesday ignored the Trump team's complaints and scheduled the hearing for 10 am on Friday.

"Notably, Judge Chutkan's order doesn't even mention Trump's lawyers' bid to delay the hearing. She just casually — and tacitly — rejects by setting the proceedings before the end of the week, as planned," tweeted Adam Klasfield, a legal reporter at The Messenger.

"Trump counsel simply said Friday is 'lost' but did not say they were unavailable. Good for her; having none of their guff," Weissmann wrote.

"Judge Chutkan is in charge, and she is making sure everyone knows it. No one cited a Friday conflict, so Friday at 10 it is," wrote MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin.

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance said she could not believe that "this much time is being spent on an order that's used routinely."

"I'm sure you get the point-Trump's whole strategy is delay & distract," she wrote. "The judge has done a masterful job of creating a record to establish this.">

<The Supreme Court has agreed to hear one of the most important tax cases in history, which could either greenlight the constitutionality of an economically disastrous wealth tax, or destroy critical parts of the U.S. tax system.

Unless the justices take a middle road and define the 16th Amendment according to the history and traditions of the U.S. tax system, the case will result in bad law and worse outcomes.

The case (Moore v. United States) concerns the constitutionality of the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA). The act imposed a mandatory repatriation tax on pre-2018 profits that companies and some U.S. shareholders stored abroad. Previously, foreign business profits went untaxed until they returned to U.S. shareholders. But under mandatory repatriation tax, passed as part of Republicans’ comprehensive international tax reform, profits were taxed even if shareholders never received the income.

The revenue from the mandatory tax helped raise an estimated $339 billion that contributed to offsetting other individual and corporate tax cuts, as well as broader international tax reform in the 2017 tax cuts.

The court faces a difficult question: Is this mandatory tax on foreign profits that shareholders never actually received constitutional under the 16th Amendment? The Supreme Court has maintained since 1920 that income must be “clearly realized” for it to be taxable. Yet the U.S. tax code is riddled with taxes on unrealized income.

For example, the main tenet of partnership tax law is that partners are taxed on income allocated to them for tax purposes, whether or not they actually receive the income. The Supreme Court upheld this principle in 1938, less than three decades after the 16th Amendment was ratified. Since 1962, the United States has also taxed the passive and highly mobile income of overseas corporations controlled by U.S. shareholders, whether or not the income is distributed to them, to prevent aggressive tax avoidance strategies. The TCJA’s mandatory repatriation tax fits within this existing international tax regime.

As any attorney will tell you, bad facts and consequences create bad laws. Even if you have the law or the Constitution on your side, you will lose if your case leads to unacceptable outcomes. This is how unconstitutional laws are declared constitutional.

In Moore, the government is likely to win due to the irrevocable consequences of upending the current tax system. In briefing, the Justice Department focused heavily on the established constitutionality of these existing tax regimes. At oral argument, I expect the solicitor general to highlight how a ruling that this tax is unconstitutional could destroy the partnership and international tax systems, which routinely taxes unrealized income. Justices will no doubt have these consequences in mind when they make their decisions.

Justices are going to want to uphold tax law to avoid the disastrous consequences they’ve already been briefed on, but originalism and wealth tax will bar their way. The original meaning in Black Law’s dictionary from 1910 claims that income must be “received” to be defined as such, and that any income that has not been received cannot be taxed. As much as the justices want to preserve longstanding principles of the U.S. tax system, they cannot do it without setting precedent against the original meaning of “income” and authorizing a wealth tax.

The Supreme Court’s best option to resolve this case fairly and with minimal destruction is to invoke its history and tradition tests that it is now using in its First and Second Amendment jurisprudence. Under this framework, a tax on unrealized income will be constitutional if it comports with the history and tradition of the income tax code.

The mandatory repatriation tax should be constitutional under this test, because the U.S. has a long history of taxing unrealized gains in its international tax code, having done so since 1962.

A history and tradition test would allow the Supreme Court to strike down a future wealth tax that has never been law before, and preserve the longstanding constitutional requirement that income be “clearly realized” for taxes on it to be constitutional.

A narrow decision that invokes a history and tradition test would be the best method for the Supreme Court to preserve the current U.S. tax system and constrain lawmakers from passing new unconstitutional taxes on wealth.>

<One of former President Donald Trump's campaign lawyers, in a previously secret memo, suggested telling people who were skeptical of a plan to overturn the 2020 election using fake electors that it was normal to have Trump's electors vote in losing states.

The New York Times first obtained and reported on the memo Tuesday.

The previously unknown campaign memo from December 2020 — penned by then-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro — outlined a plan to overturn the 2020 election results.

Neither Chesebro nor representatives for Trump immediately responded to Insider's requests for comment on the memo.

According to the memo, the plan included having Trump-Pence electors in all six contested states send in certificates with their votes if one of the pending lawsuits looking into possible election interference was decided in the Trump campaign's favor.

Chesebro wrote in the memo that their electors' votes, which would be cast in December, as well as news of the plan, would leak before the presidential certification on January 6.

"If the Trump campaign ends up deciding to have all of its electors vote on December 14, even in States in which Trump has not been declared the winner, presumably word of this will leak out prior to December 14," Chesebro wrote, adding that "there should be messaging that presents this as a routine measure that is necessary."

He said that the Trump-Pence team should tell skeptics that they had their electors cast official votes in favor of Trump "to ensure that in the event the courts (or state legislatures) were to later conclude that Trump actually won the state, the correct electoral slate can be counted in Congress in January just as the Democrats did in Hawaii 1960, which ended up with Hawaii's electoral votes being awarded to Kennedy, even though the litigation was not resolved until after the electors voted."

In 1960, Nixon won Hawaii by just 140 votes, Politico reported in 2022. A recount of the votes were [sic] underway when presidential electors met to cast their ballots. At the time, Politico reported, Kennedy's elector nominees from the state signed certificates at the same time Nixon's electors did, even though Hawaii's governor had certified Nixon's win.

The existence of this campaign memo was revealed in Trump's indictment in connection to the January 6 riot last week, but details of it were not known until the New York Times reported on it Tuesday.

The Times reported that prosecutors in the January 6 case against Trump are now using the memo as a link to underline their allegations that the Trump campaign committed a criminal conspiracy in an effort to overturn the election results.>

<Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America said Tuesday was a “sad day for Ohio” and a warning for other states after Ohio voters rejected a measure that would have increased the threshold required to pass a constitutional amendment.

Ohio has used a simple-majority requirement since 1912, but the measure, Issue 1, would have bumped the threshold up to 60 percent.

“It is a sad day for Ohio and a warning for pro-life states across the nation,” the group said in a statement on Tuesday night. “Millions of dollars and liberal dark money flooded Ohio to ensure they have a path to buy their extreme policies in a pro-life state. Tragically, some sat on the sideline while outsider liberal groups poured millions into Ohio.”

The group said progressives used that money to “mislead the people of Ohio.”

A campaign committee opposing Issue 1, called “One Person, One Vote,” raised $14.8 million and spent $10.4 million on its efforts, according to campaign-finance reports. Around $13 million of the money raised came from groups rather than individuals. Donors included the progressive dark-money group Sixteen Thirty Fund, which contributed $2.5 million, and the Ohio Education Association and its national affiliate, which donated $2 million. More than $1.8 million came from the Tides Foundation, and the UCLA donated $1 million.

Of the $14.8 million raised, more donations came from Washington, D.C., or California-based donors than from Ohio-based donors.

Meanwhile, Protect Our Constitution, the campaign committee in support of Issue 1, raised $4.9 million — 82.5 percent of which came from Illinois conservative billionaire Richard Uihlein. The group had spent $1.6 million as of last week.

The “no” choice to keep the simple-majority threshold under current law was winning with 57 percent with an estimated 97.9 percent of the vote counted, according to the Washington Post.

Ahead of the special election, supporters and opponents of the measure agreed that the vote could have far-reaching implications. Special-interest groups committed millions of dollars to the race to ensure that it would remain easier to push their legislative agenda via ballot amendment.

Conservatives warned that leaving the threshold at 50 percent plus one vote could cause Ohio to become a blueprint for progressive groups to circumvent the normal legislative process in states across the country.

Issue 1 would have had the most immediate impact on an ACLU-backed ballot proposal that will come up for a vote in November. That constitutional amendment would effectively outlaw any restrictions on abortion and other procedures that involve reproduction, including gender-transition surgeries. It would also remove parental-consent and notification requirements for minors who undergo the procedures.

“We know that Ohio is really their battleground,” Mehek Cooke, a Republican attorney who has previously served as legal counsel for the Ohio governor’s office, previously told National Review. “They’re hoping that they can virtually create unlimited rights for reproductive decisions” using ballot measures. Efforts to introduce extreme ballot measures also are being undertaken across the country, from New York to Florida, South Dakota to Missouri.>

<This summer, some new numbers highlight how much revenue California has lost due to outward migration in the past three to four years.

According to a report in the national real estate website, MyeListing.com, California ranks number one in states with the largest net negative tax income migration, losing $343.2 million in state revenue in 2021.

New York came in second, reporting a $299.6 million loss, and Illinois third with a $141.7 million exodus.

A handful of blue-run states in the Northeast and Midwest rounded out the top ten, including New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Michigan.

All that money is going somewhere, and the trends are toward more red-led states across the South and Southeast. Florida, Texas, and Arizona were the top three net earners in the country, followed by Colorado, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Utah, and Georgia.

Florida had the largest net positive tax income migration scoring $12.4 billion, followed by Texas at $10.7 billion and Arizona, which brings in $9.4 billion in extra tax revenue.

This reflects the trend of high wealth earners leaving the states with high taxation rates for more tax-friendly environments.

“Despite its numerous attractions, from the booming tech industry and world-class universities to beautiful landscapes and cultural richness, California’s high personal income tax rates seem discouraging for many high-wealth individuals,” the MyEListing study found, warning that if this trend continues, it could fuel a “wealth migration” out of California.

Florida, as the study noted, has become a hotspot for “individuals and families with substantial income and assets.”

“High-income earners are increasingly choosing the Sunshine State, reflecting an age-old economic axiom: Money goes where it is treated best.”

California Tax Structure

California has a progressive income tax system with nine tax rates ranging from 1% to 12.3%.

The top marginal rate in California is 13.3%, which is the highest rate in the U.S., but only applies to income earners with over $1 million in taxable income. These, however, are the people that are leaving the state and taking their wealth with them.

According to Statista, in 2020, California had the highest number of millionaire households in the U.S., with 1.14 million households having one million or more in investible assets.

This means California is losing a lot of its potential to collect revenue when these top earners begin leaving the state.

Where Do the Dollars Go?

It might be safe to assume that top earners would not mind expending a little more cash to ensure their streets were safe, their children could go to public schools that produced competitive graduates that could easily matriculate to higher education if they chose to, and those who were down and out on their luck would receive the help they needed.

However, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Despite its once large tax base, the Golden State under Governor Gavin Newsom can’t seem to get homelessness, crime, and drug use under control, it consistently ranks below average in reading and math in the Nation’s Report Card assessments, and is wasting billions of dollars on a high-speed rail that takes people from where they don’t want to be to where they don’t want to go.

To alleviate some of its toughest challenges, California has drained its almost $100 billion surplus in 2022 to result in an over $30 billion deficit in 2023. Not even a Real Housewife can spend that much money in a year.

Accounting for this loss and the ills that continue to plague California will be a problem for Governor Gavin Newsom as he ramps up his efforts in his shadow campaign for president. Despite the political song and dance shows that continue to distract the public, the real concern for most Americans right now is the economy and inflation, followed closely by crime.

These are not exactly Newsom’s strong points and it will be interesting to see if and how he defends California’s policies against his number one competitor, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the newly scheduled debate.>

<What is it with bureaucrats and their five-year plans? The Soviets went through 12 of them, devised by Moscow’s infamous Gosplan; the Chinese are currently on their fourteenth, firmly focused on achieving geopolitical supremacy. Unbeknown to most voters, the central planners have also been unleashed on Britain – not to maximise the production of widgets, but to make sure we reach net zero.

A green nomenklatura now yields immense power. Tories, Labour, Lib Dems: all have signed up to legally binding five-year plans, known as “carbon budgets”, which stipulate a detailed programme to re-engineer society to cut emissions by a specific amount. Scandalously, what the electorate thinks of these grossly under-scrutinised plans matters little.

Did you know, dear reader, that we are now on our fourth such carbon budget, valid from 2023 to 2027? Did you realise that the next two – up until 2037 – have already been enshrined in law, making a mockery of the next two or even three general elections? Were you aware that all of the consumer-facing changes – in 18 months, no newly built home will be fitted with a gas boiler, in seven years’ time, it will be illegal to buy new petrol cars, in 12 years, you will no longer be allowed to replace your existing boiler like-for-like – have been accounted for in the plans, gravely limiting room for political manoeuvre? Did you realise that any significant deviation from these carbon budgets could trigger legal action from pressure groups?

As energy secretary, Ed Miliband pushed through the Climate Change Act in 2008, committing to cut emissions by 80 per cent on 1990 levels by 2050, with the support of all but five MPs. It was the equivalent of another Maastricht Treaty, a huge shift that will, in time, trigger a furious reaction from the electorate when it realises that it is no longer in control. It was apposite that, in 2019, Theresa May, fresh from sabotaging Brexit, amended the Climate Change Act by statutory instrument, increasing the target to a 100 per cent cut in emissions by 2050.

That distant date has lulled many into a false sense of flexibility. Why can’t we delay the ban on combustion engines to 2035 or even later, naive souls ask, and still meet net zero on time? The reality is that it could well be unlawful because cuts to emissions must be phased in according to a strict timetable.

The Government is obliged to set binding, five-year carbon budgets that cap the maximum amount of emissions allowed during each period; each budget is much tougher than the previous one. Meeting them is no joke: they need to be legislated 12 years in advance and be accompanied by credible policies to deliver them in full. Miliband’s Act created the Climate Change Committee (CCC), a ridiculously influential quango which advises the Government on the level of each budget and how much of a contribution each sector should make.

Innovating for the Net-Zero Future

Through a combination of a recession, continued deindustrialisation, insufficient house and infrastructure building and the shift towards renewable energy, the UK met its first (2008- 2012), second (2013-2017) and third (2018-2022) carbon budgets without needing to try too hard. We are now into our fourth budget, requiring a 52 per cent fall in emissions compared with 1990; this, too, could be manageable, partly because of stronger than expected sales of electric cars. But the pain is starting, and the backlash – from landlords, from motorists – is beginning....>

<....Real, Brexit-intensity political warfare will undoubtedly break out ahead of the fifth budget (2028-2032) and especially sixth (2033-37), which will include aviation and shipping, coincide with the ban on new petrol cars and all new gas boilers, a massive, hugely costly insulation drive and require a cumulative 77 per cent cut in emissions.

The Government has very little leeway if it wishes to continue to accept the strictures of the Climate Change Act. This is like membership of the EU, albeit entirely self-imposed. As we saw with Ulez, the public is greatly supportive of decarbonisation, but only if their pocket isn’t visibly picked and only if their quality of life doesn’t decline. Voters will furiously oppose many of the looming changes, and will demand to take back control when they are told that MPs are powerless to do anything about them.

For all of Rishi Sunak’s recent messaging, anti-car policies that go beyond the ban on the combustion engine are already baked into the carbon budgets. One policy requires “increasing average road vehicle occupancy” (even with electric cars) and another “high annual investment in cycling and walking infrastructure” (Low-Traffic Neighbourhoods are one way of doing this).

So much for democracy: it may be possible to delay the ban on petrol cars to 2032, the last year of the fifth budget, a proposal which the head of the CCC has already approved, but it is hard to see how the deadline could slip further. Any extra emissions in one area must be met by an equivalent reduction in another. It’s a zero sum game.

Crucially, the CCC doesn’t believe that technology alone will get us to net zero. Electric cars aren’t enough; we will still have to drive less. We will need to fly less, even with sustainable fuels. We will need to eat 20-35 per cent less dairy and meat.

The CCC remains little-known, but it is an extremely powerful agency, probably second only to the Bank of England, hence why at least 60 candidates have applied to be its next chairman. Mr Sunak is set to announce his pick in November. It will be a key moment: will the PM appoint an evangelist for tech solutions who supports the consumer society and freedom, or will he plump for another identikit member of the Blobocracy keen to stick to command and control?

Yet hiring a sensible chairman isn’t enough. Net zero is on autopilot, and the deadline too tight to avoid crippling restrictions, a huge increase in the national debt and rolling blackouts. We need a shadow CCC with alternative models. Ultimately, however, given that Britain accounts for only 1 per cent of global emissions, the only real solution is to amend or scrap the Climate Change Act, and inject more flexibility into the decarbonisation timetable. It may be that we cannot ever reach net zero, or that it will take longer; what is clear is that the current course is dangerously lacking in democratic legitimacy.>

<While many on the left are unified and jubilant over the latest indictment of Donald Trump, critics of Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s action against the former president are quite diverse in their reasoning.

House Republicans have falsely accused the special counsel of having a career focused solely on prosecuting Republicans, and of acting as an agent of President Biden’s to weaponize the Justice Department for the sake of destroying political opposition.

Others claim that, whatever the motivation, the new indictment is simply weak. In this view, there is little or no evidence that Trump actually did anything illegal, and the charges against him — obstruction and “conspiracy to defraud the United States” — are bogus.

Still others argue that criminal action against a former president for crimes that took place while he was in office establishes a dangerous precedent that will damage the American presidency.

Of course, all three critiques could be correct. Each class of critic, however, finds itself in the awkward position of appearing to overlook or even to defend what many serious people judge to be malignant conduct in the nation’s highest office.

Aside from this, the substance of each of these criticisms has what we might call a “problematic feel.” It seems at least surprising, and maybe even unlikely, that "Sleepy Joe" is really a banana-republic despot, laying waste to political opposition through capricious, self-serving use of the legal system. If this is true, perhaps we should expect to see House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) or Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) behind bars soon.

If the indictment was designed to damage Trump politically, it was a gross miscalculation. Although possible, it seems unlikely that members of the Biden administration don’t understand how these indictments help Trump with the Republican base.

It also seems unlikely that experienced federal prosecutors would bring charges that have no chance of passing legal muster. In addition to being a bad career move for special counsel Smith, it undoubtedly would strengthen Trump’s political standing considerably when the charges were smacked down in federal court. Smith is a canny and experienced prosecutor, and it seems doubtful he would bring a case without sturdy evidence or basis in law.

As for whether the prosecution of a president or former president damages the presidency, this is a more serious concern and has tragic implications. The claim, finally, must be that no matter what a president does in office, he should never face legal consequences; otherwise, no president could ever fulfill the duties of office vigorously and fearlessly. This, essentially, seems to be the argument made by David Rivkin and Lee Casey in their Aug. 3 Wall Street Journal op-ed column. Rivkin and Casey acknowledge that Trump’s actual conduct is “hard to defend,” but the only thing that matters in Smith’s indictment is whether or not Trump’s actions fell outside the perimeter of his official responsibility.

“Former presidents can be held liable for personal actions while in office, but only those that fall beyond ‘the outer perimeter of his official responsibility,’” they write....>

<....It turns out, however, that establishing the location of that outer perimeter is extremely difficult, if not impossible, under the reasoning Rivkin and Casey employ — namely, that the president’s authority extends to actions he plausibly believes to be in the national interest.

They write that “the power conveyed to the president by the Vesting Clause … provides that the ‘executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States.’ Pursuant to that broad authority, a president may communicate with, cajole and even browbeat officials over whom he has no supervisory authority, urging them to pursue policies that he believes are in the national interest.”

While I am not in a position to argue that this interpretation of the Vesting Clause is incorrect, I can say that it seems to be the same sort of reasoning which attorney Alan Dershowitz used in his defense of Trump during his second impeachment trial. In this view, if the president believes his reelection is in the public interest, then his efforts to achieve this goal are not impeachable, and for Rivkin and Casey they cannot be illegal.

I call this argument “tragic” because insofar as it is persuasive, it suggests the country will always be vulnerable to the worst sorts of people holding the greatest amount of power, and that this state of affairs is safeguarded by our highest principles. If true, the only protection from the worst version of this predicament are norms.

Manifestly self-serving, disgraceful behavior which violates constitutional norms, federal law, and common decency were, in former times, politically hazardous. Such behavior invited electoral defeat or even removal from office. Constitutional, political and ethical norms formerly protected us from the type of conduct the new Trump indictment alleges. The legal theory advanced by Smith’s critics affirms that law can never be a barrier to such conduct.

Critics of the special counsel’s action may finally be correct. A sitting president’s attempt to usurp the will of the people and to use the powers of the presidency to cling to power in defiance of the people may not be prosecutable by law. Perhaps it is true that only decency and norms stand in the way of such a project. If the political reality of the day is such that norm-defying conduct is, moreover, immune from electoral consequences, and if otherwise decent, normal members of the president’s party feel they have no choice but to defend him, then even political instruments like impeachment are no longer adequate to dissuade presidents from committing acts that are “hard to defend.”

Rather than cheer for figures like special counsel Jack Smith, Trump’s critics may need to accept that just because something is awful doesn’t mean it’s not true.>

<The House on Friday approved the annual defense policy bill in an unusually partisan vote after it was loaded up with conservative amendments, marking a big win for Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) but raising new questions about how the package — which is dead on arrival in the Senate — will eventually become law.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed in a largely party-line 219-210 vote, with four Republicans opposing the measure and four Democrats supporting it — an atypical outcome for the annual legislation, which routinely enjoys broad bipartisan support.

The legislation came under fire from Democrats after a number of GOP-sponsored amendments regarding abortion, transgender rights, diversity and inclusion initiatives and other hot-button issues were attached. In a sign of the widespread Democratic opposition, the top three leaders in the caucus came out against the legislation late Thursday night.

But the widespread Democratic opposition — and conservative detractors — was not enough to tank the package, despite questions looming all week about whether the culture war amendments would doom the must-pass bill. The package got a crucial boost Friday from conservatives in the Freedom Caucus, who came around to supporting the measure after its sharp rightward shift.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you that Republicans continue to keep our promises,” McCarthy said facetiously at a press conference following the vote.

“It’s a good thing the Republicans are in the majority, but it’s more important that we keep our promises to America and to our men and women who serve to defend us. And today is exactly what we did,” he later added.

Republican Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Ken Buck (Colo.), Eli Crane (Ariz.) and Thomas Massie (Ky.) bucked GOP leadership and voted against the bill, while Democratic Reps. Don Davis (N.C.), Jared Golden (Maine), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.) and Gabe Vasquez (N.M.) crossed the aisle and backed it.

The bill now moves to the Democratic-led Senate, where Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is sure to reject the controversial amendments — a dynamic House Republicans readily acknowledge.

“I think it’ll probably be a totally different bill when we get it back later this year,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said. “I don’t know what Schumer will do, but I can’t imagine that he’ll go along with all of the amendments that were attached to the NDAA this week.”

The certain changes in the Senate set up yet another fight with House Republicans over how to get the bill to President Biden’s desk before the Sept. 30 deadline. McCarthy has suggested the two chambers will conference the two bills to iron out the differences, but with time running short, he may be forced to bring the Senate’s version — which will necessarily be bipartisan — to the floor.

The House-passed bill sets an $886 billion budget for the nation’s armed forces in fiscal 2024, an amount on par with President Biden’s defense spending request, as well as the spending cap set by the debt limit deal.

Included in that amount is $842 billion for the Defense Department and $32 billion for nuclear weapons programs that fall under the purview of the Energy Department.

The House Armed Services Committee passed the measure in an overwhelming 58-1 vote in June, but Democratic support dropped Thursday, after GOP-sponsored amendments were added to the bill....>

<....Chief among those was a measure that would reverse the Pentagon’s policy to reimburse travel expenses for service members who get abortions across state lines — the same program that has sparked Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-Ala.) protest in the upper chamber, where he has blocked hundreds of military promotions. Heading into the vote, Freedom Caucus conservatives had hailed Tuberville as a driving force behind their successful effort to alter the initial bill.

Amendments targeting transgender care and diversity and inclusion initiatives also battered away at Democratic support.

One measure would prohibit the health care program for active-duty service members from covering “sex reassignment surgeries and gender hormone treatments for transgender individuals,” and the other calls for prohibiting gender transition procedures through the Exceptional Family Member Program.

Other provisions eliminate diversity equity and inclusion offices and personnel in the armed forces and curtail federal funding for such efforts.

House Armed Services Committee ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.), who had previously supported the NDAA, bashed the final House bill as one that pushes “an agenda rooted in racism, misogyny, bigotry, ignorance, and hatred.”

“What we’ve seen is this bill has been transformed into an extremist manifesto,” House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) said Friday morning on CNN.

“We know that this bill is going nowhere in the Senate, because it is disgusting and outrageous,” she later added.

A wild card heading into the vote surrounded Ukraine funding, after several amendments to curtail U.S. aid to Kyiv were shot down on the House floor Thursday. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) had sponsored three of those failed Ukraine proposals, including one to strike $300 million in direct assistance, and had vowed to oppose the underlying NDAA package as a result.

In a sign of her shifting allegiances toward McCarthy, however, Greene reversed course Friday and supported the final bill. She later explained the reason: McCarthy had offered her a seat on the conference committee that will be charged with cutting a deal with Senate negotiators over a final compromise package — if such a conference comes to pass.

“The Speaker asked me to represent him and our conference in the conference to go forward in the Senate in the NDAA, and so I’m proud to do that,” Greene told reporters following the vote. “And that’s where I’ll fight on the issue that I think is extremely important: to remove the funding for Ukraine in the NDAA.”>