Middle East and Other Musings: Intimidated and Lied To. Rational SCOTUS Decisions.Pendulum Swings. More.

We have been intimidated and lied to and it is time to return to common sense.

What allows rational people to be duped into believing what they should, intuitively know, is B.S?

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SCOTUS has been deciding some thorny issues in a very rational manner, in my opinion. Alito and Roberts seem comfortable linking with Trump appointments and adhering to the Constitution while moving the ball forward.

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THE WSJ EDITORIAL BOARD

The Mess Democrats Have Made, Kamala Harris Edition

Imagine if Biden had chosen a Vice President for competence rather than identity politics.

By The Editorial Board

When the Democratic media complex decides on a political question, the unified choreography is something to behold. So it is with the new establishment chorus after Thursday’s debate that President Biden should withdraw his candidacy for a second term. Suddenly, the columnists and editorial pages that denied the truth are sounding like these columns.

The problem is that Democrats are now left with a likely nominee who is in obvious mental decline, and a Vice President in Kamala Harris who is even less popular than Mr. Biden. Finding a better nominee will be messy, no matter how desirable, but keep in mind how Democrats and their media allies got themselves and the country into this mess.

One reason is that they happily covered for White House deceptions. The Democratic press barely questioned Mr. Biden’s limited workday, his reliance on a teleprompter, and his rare unscripted media interviews. “Eighty is the new 40,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said last year. “Didn’t you hear?” Ms. Jean-Pierre said in 2022 that Mr. Biden displays such stamina that she, not yet age 50, “can’t even keep up with him.” Conservatives mocked this but the press laughed it off.

When reporters noticed Mr. Biden had started pairing his business suits with dark tennis shoes rather than traditional dress shoes, the speculation was that the footwear was meant to keep him from falling. Deputy press secretary Andrew Bates spun it as a fitness thing. “I know y’all aren’t partial to presidents who exercise,” he told the New York Post, “but don’t worry—you’ll get used to it.”

The Journal’s news pages received similar treatment in June when they carried a story, based on 45 interviews, about Mr. Biden slipping. Gene Sperling, an economic adviser, told reporters it was standard practice for presidents to read from note cards in meetings. Mr. Bates said the story was a “smear” full of politically motivated “false claims,” and that Mr. Biden is a “savvy and effective leader.”

The press rallied around the White House and called the story irresponsible, saying the Journal had fallen for a right-wing, Fox News trope. The folks at Morning Joe on MSNBC were outraged, calling the news article a “false, biased story,” and a “Trump hit piece.”

The New York Times published a long story blaming concerns about Mr. Biden’s frailties on a “distorted, online version of himself, a product of often misleading videos that play into and reinforce voters’ longstanding concerns about his age and abilities.”

Elected Democrats at least have the excuse that they risk their careers if they tell the truth about Mr. Biden. Exhibit A: Dean Phillips. But there’s no excuse for a press corps to deny what two-thirds of the public said they saw with their own eyes. Now, with the looming prospect of defeat to Donald Trump, the liberal media establishment has turned to admit what it can no longer deny.

The path out of this nightmare might be easier if not for another problem the press refused to recognize—that Kamala Harris wasn’t remotely qualified to be Vice President when Mr. Biden chose her. He had promised to pick a woman as his Vice President, and Mr. Biden selected Ms. Harris because she was a woman of color, not because of her qualifications.

Ms. Harris had bombed as a presidential candidate, washing out after she couldn’t defend her own Medicare plan at a primary debate. She had risen to the Senate based on patronage. Yet she was hailed by Democrats and the press as the first woman of color on a national ticket, as if this were more important than someone who could do the job. Criticism of her failures on immigration, or of her frequent word salads, was said to be racist or sexist.

Imagine if the Vice President now were someone like Gerald Ford, a pair of safe hands as President after Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974. The press is now reporting that one reason Mr. Biden chose to run for re-election was fear that Ms. Harris couldn’t defeat Mr. Trump.

It’s an apt worry. But if Mr. Biden had bowed out last year, Democrats could have had a normal primary fight for the nomination. Ms. Harris would have had to show she deserved it in her own right by defeating competitors. Now Democrats run the risk of appearing to bypass the first minority woman Vice President in a backroom coup. This is what happens when a party puts identity politics above governing experience and political skill.

A Biden withdrawal and an open August convention are still desirable—in the best interests of the country as much as those of the Democratic Party. Mr. Biden’s frailties are an invitation to adversaries to exploit in a second term, and Ms. Harris doesn’t appear up to the job. An open convention carries risks, but it’s the best way Democrats and their media allies can clean up the mess they’ve made.

Appeared in the July 1, 2024, print edition as 'The Mess Democrats Have Made'.

And:

A House Lawsuit for the Biden-Hur Tapes

Speaker Mike Johnson says Republicans will go to court for vindication.

By The Editorial Board

Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday that House Republicans will file a lawsuit this week asking the courts to force Attorney General Merrick Garland to hand over the audio of President Biden’s five-hour interview with special counsel Robert Hur. After Mr. Biden’s debate performance last week, who isn’t curious about these tapes?

“Merrick Garland has refused to turn over something that we are entitled to receive,” Mr. Johnson said, and he’s correct. Mr. Garland released a transcript of the interview, but Mr. Biden claims executive privilege over the audio. “After last night’s debate, I think we all understand very clearly why that is,” Mr. Johnson said. “He will very likely sound exactly on that tape as he did on the stage last night, and that’s embarrassing to the President.”

Mr. Johnson continued: “We’re sorry about that. We’re not trying to embarrass the President. We’re trying to get down to the facts.” He said the House’s oversight function includes ensuring that the official transcription is a close match to the underlying audio.

In a late May court filing, Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer said the transcript is accurate “except for minor instances such as the use of filler words (such as ‘um’ or ‘uh’)” or “when words may have been repeated when spoken (such as ‘I, I’ or ‘and, and.’)” In more than 40 places, the transcript says the audio is “indiscernible,” and Mr. Weinsheimer agreed that was true.

But the House doesn’t have to take his word for it. And given Mr. Hur’s assessment that Mr. Biden presented himself in the interview as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man,” his demeanor on the tape is also a public concern.

Finally:

The Supreme Court Says Safe Streets Are Constitutional

Six Justices reject the progressive idea that laws against homeless encampments are cruel and unusual punishment.

By The Editorial Board

The conservatives on the Supreme Court rescued progressive cities on the West Coast from themselves on Friday by overruling lower courts that had created a constitutional right to camp on the streets (City of Grants Pass v. Johnson). You’re welcome, San Francisco.

Homeless advocates challenged a ban on camping on public property by the city of Grants Pass, Ore. Offenses are punishable by a $295 fine and short stints in jail for repeat violations. Such laws are common across the U.S. But the ever-creative Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2018 that such laws violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Six Justices on Friday repudiated this dubious constitutional interpretation. Quoting San Francisco Mayor London Breed, Justice Neil Gorsuch writes that the Ninth Circuit’s “misapplication of this Court’s Eighth Amendment precedents” has undermined public safety and made it harder for cities to encourage the homeless to accept shelter.

Since the 2018 decision, progressives have filed lawsuits across western states covered by the Ninth Circuit to block anti-camping laws. Encampments have proliferated. Vagrants have rejected more than half of San Francisco’s offers of shelter, many citing the Ninth Circuit ruling. A Grants Pass shelter says utilization has fallen by roughly 40%.

The Ninth Circuit’s ruling also said that cities can’t clear encampments unless they have more available homeless beds than people on the streets. Judges have added other stipulations. A federal court in Los Angeles ruled that cities must first provide “adequate” shelter, including nursing staff and security.

However, as Justice Gorsuch explains, “the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause focuses on the question what ‘method or kind of punishment’ a government may impose after a criminal conviction, not on the question whether a government may criminalize particular behavior in the first place or how it may go about securing a conviction for that offense.”

The three liberal Justices pointed in dissent to the Court’s anomalous Robinson (1962) decision, which blocked a state law that criminalized drug addiction. The Court in that case held that states can’t criminalize the “status” of being an addict, but said that they could punish drug use by those suffering from addiction.

Anti-camping laws don’t criminalize status. They prohibit certain actions. The plaintiffs in Grants Pass sought to extend the Robinson “rule beyond laws addressing ‘mere status’ to laws addressing actions that, even if undertaken with the requisite mens rea, might ‘in some sense’ qualify as ‘involuntary,’ ” Justice Gorsuch writes.

Addressing homelessness is complex, and if people don’t like their leaders’ policies, they can vote them out. Not so federal judges, who Justice Gorsuch writes cannot “begin to ‘match’ the collective wisdom the American people possess in deciding ‘how best to handle’ a pressing social question like homelessness.”

The Court’s ruling is a boon for constitutional federalism, especially for cities in California struggling to contain the crime, drug use and disorder that come with homelessness. Gov. Gavin Newsom supported the Grants Pass appeal, and he should be grateful.

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Dear Dick,

Hezbollah continues to attack Israel daily with rockets, drones, and missiles, causing widespread damage across northern Israel.

Israel is making preparations across the country for an all-out war against Iran's terror army, which could see as many as 4,000 rockets and missiles launched into Israel each day.

Israeli hospitals are readying for a scenario in which patients will need to be forced underground for treatment, while thousands of other injured victims are rushed in for urgent care and Hezbollah strikes the hospitals above ground.

The IDF has informed the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa that the hospital must be prepared to treat the wounded during 50 days of continuous missile attacks without outside assistance, running operating rooms 24/7.

Today, journalist Trey Yingst visited the center's underground hospital, where preparations are being made to treat more than 2,000 patients during a war with Hezbollah. I encourage you to watch and share the clip below.