Finally Friday Reads: Summer Solstice Edition!

“No doubt.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Here comes the summer sun! We’ve got an extreme heat warning all day. This is getting to be our normal summer these days. The most interesting thing of the day is something I have always associated with the active volcano ring of fire in the Pacific Ocean. This was a new thing for me.

This is a weather phenomenon as explained by Accuweather. “‘Ring of fire’ thunderstorms to erupt on building heat dome in central, eastern US Rounds of thunderstorms will form a “ring of fire” around a massive dome of building heat in the central and eastern United States into next week.”  Well, that sounds pretty hellish.

As a major heat wave builds and takes center stage in the weather from late this week to next week, groups of severe thunderstorms will erupt on the edge of the dome of hot air, AccuWeather meteorologists advise.

The storms will take on a “ring of fire” effect, erupting first over parts of the northern Plains and Midwest, followed by portions of the Northeast and finally the Southwest and central Plains.

The intense high pressure and sinking air within a heat dome make it difficult for thunderstorms to form in large numbers. However, thunderstorms tend to erupt on the edges of the heat dome, as the high pressure area is weakest in these areas, allowing columns of air to rise and form towering clouds and gusty downpours.

Everyone from Kansas City east to the Atlantic will be impacted.  It’s huge!  Yes, Boston is included!  It goes as far south as Asheville and will go way up into Canada.  Be prepared to stay home!  Europe is getting directly involved in pushing both Iran and Israel to the negotiation table.  This is from Reuters. “Iran says no nuclear talks under fire, UN atomic watchdog urges maximum restraint.”  It’s reported by Parisa Hafezi, Crispian Balmer, and Jana Choukeir.

Iran said on Friday it would not discuss the future of its nuclear programme while under attack by Israel, as Europe tried to coax Tehran back into negotiations and the United States considers whether to get involved in the conflict.

A week into its campaign, Israel said it had struck dozens of military targets overnight, including missile production sites, a research body it said was involved in nuclear weapons development in Tehran and military facilities in western and central Iran. The Israel Defense Forces later said they had also struck surface-to-air missile batteries in southwestern Iran as part of efforts to achieve air superiority over the country.

At least five people were injured when Israel hit a five-storey building in Tehran housing a bakery and a hairdresser’s, Fars news agency reported.

Iran fired missiles at Beersheba in southern Israel early on Friday and Israeli media said initial reports pointed to missile impacts in Tel Aviv, the Negev and Haifa after further attacks hours later.

The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog warned against attacks on nuclear facilities and called for maximum restraint.

You may ask yourself, Where is my beautiful country in these peace-seeking negotiations? Well, the answer is we’re trapped in the Trump Two Week Twist. You really have to watch this clip from Jen Psaki’s show last night. The explanation and the incredible number of times he’s used the Two Week Twist is surreal. It’s laughable even though it turns the United States of America into a feckless and shammy place run by a feckless and shammy nepobaby.  The New York Times heading is trying to make Yam Tits look thoughtful. Why do they keep carrying his water?  Or perhaps, better put, why is he carrying his colostomy bag? This is the headline.  “Trump Buys Himself Time, and Opens Up Some New Options. While President Trump appears to be offering one more off ramp to the Iranians, he also is bolstering his own military options.”  Here are the feckless reporters who executed the Trump Two-Week Twist: David E. Sanger and Tyler Pager. Sanger covers Iran’s nuclear programs. Pager is from the merry band of White House Reporters who don’t do their job. That’s a gift link if you want to read all about it.

President Trump’s sudden announcement that he could take up to two weeks to decide whether to plunge the United States into the heart of the Israel-Iran conflict is being advertised by the White House as giving diplomacy one more chance to work.

But it also opens a host of new military and covert options.

Assuming he makes full use of it, Mr. Trump will now have time to determine whether six days of relentless bombing and killing by Israeli forces — which has taken out one of Iran’s two biggest uranium enrichment centers, much of its missile fleet and its most senior officers and nuclear scientists — has changed minds in Tehran.

Look, it’s the Trump Two Week Twist!  It’s a ploy, boys! It’s his fallback version of Homer Simpson’s d’oh.

Yam Tits is also using his basic staged reality show strategic moves as he tries to drag the minds of his knuckle dragging MAGA voters off his past promises of no new endless wars.  This was likely predictable, too. ABC News reports that “Trump calls for special prosecutor for 2020 election, after again claiming fraud with no evidence.”  We don’t need no stiking evidence!  We’re the Reality Show Administration!  Bondi will likely go along with it.

President Donald Trump took to Truth Social Friday morning to again make unverified claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent. He called for a special prosecutor.

“The evidence is MASSIVE and OVERWHELMING,” Trump claimed without giving more details. “A Special Prosecutor must be appointed. This cannot be allowed to happen again in the United States of America!”

There has been no evidence that the 2020 election was filled with fraud following numerous investigations, audits and other reviews over the last four and a half years.

An Associated Press investigation found fewer than 475 cases of voter fraud in six battleground states during the 2020 presidential election — a number far too little to have make any different in the outcome of that election.

Meanwhile, we now have to report the news about ongoing attempts at political assassinations. In sad news, MSNBC reports that “Minnesota lawmaker shot 9 times at his home in ‘targeted’ attack is in a critical condition. Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were both shot multiple times and are continuing their recovery, according to a statement from the couple.”

The Minnesota lawmaker who survived an attack by a gunman on his doorstep is still in a critical condition and has revealed details of the terrifying moment he and his wife were shot multiple times.

Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, released a statement Thursday, obtained by NBC affiliate KARE of Minneapolis, outlining the events in the early hours of June 14.

The Hoffmans continue their recovery in the hospital — Sen. Hoffman is in a critical but stable condition, while his wife is in a stable condition, the statement said.

We also have a new possible attempt in Ohio as reported by CNN. “Man arrested after Ohio GOP congressman says he was run off the road and threatened.”   We’re not sure atm if this was politically motivated or what, but it’s being investigated.

A man in Ohio has been arrested and charged after allegedly threatening Rep. Max Miller during an incident in which the Republican US congressman says he was driven off the road, according to documents provided to CNN.

Feras S. Hamdan, 36, was arrested after Miller filed and signed a complaint with police for aggravated menacing, as well as requested a protective order against him, according to the Rocky River Police Department in Ohio.

Hamdan, accompanied by legal counsel, voluntarily turned himself in and is awaiting a court appearance, according to police.

CNN is attempting to reach Hamdan’s attorney.

Miller on Thursday called the Rocky River Police Department via 911 to report that an individual on the highway was threatening him and his family.

“I’m on the freeway. I have somebody who has cut me off, who is flipping me off, who is showing me a Palestinian flag and is yelling to kill me,” Miller said, according to a recording of the call obtained by CNN.

He told the 911 operator at one point: “I’m a little shaken at the moment because I got death threats.”

Miller called police on his way to work and read the license plate of the alleged perpetrator. At one point, he held out his phone for the 911 dispatcher to hear the honking and yelling, though the sounds were largely unintelligible. His call was transferred to a different police department based on the location of the incident.

Well, have to wait to learn more about this one.  Meanwhile, the big bad budget-busting bill is hung up in the Senate. This is from The Hill. “Trump’s megabill hits more trouble as Senate conservatives demand changes.”

The Senate version of legislation to enact President Trump’s agenda is hitting new turbulence as conservatives led by Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) are demanding deeper spending cuts to address the nation’s $2.2 trillion annual deficit.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has focused this week on addressing the concerns of Senate GOP colleagues such as Sens. Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), who raised alarms about cuts to federal Medicaid spending.

But Thune has to worry about his right flank as Johnson and his allies are threatening to hold up the bill unless GOP leaders agree to deeper cuts to federal Medicaid spending and a faster rollback of the renewable energy tax credits enacted under former President Biden.

Johnson, Lee and Scott are threatening to vote as a bloc against the bill next week unless it undergoes significant changes.

Thune plans to bring the bill to the floor Wednesday or Thursday next week, but he may not have enough votes to proceed on the legislation, Republican senators say.

Additionally, the Senate Parlimentarian has deleted some of the bill.  This is reported in Politico. “Parliamentarian nixes key pieces of Tim Scott’s megabill proposal. Senate Banking Republicans will be forced to go back to the drawing board on the core components of their proposal for the GOP’s “big beautiful bill.”

The Senate parliamentarian ruled Thursday that several key provisions in Banking Chair Tim Scott’s proposed contribution to the GOP’s “big beautiful bill” violate the upper chamber’s rules for the budget reconciliation process, according to Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Merkley’s office.

Scott’s proposals to zero out funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, slash some Federal Reserve employees’ pay, cut Treasury’s Office of Financial Research and dissolve the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board are all ineligible to be included in a simple-majority budget reconciliation bill.

The ruling from Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough is a major blow to Scott and Banking Committee Republicans, who will be forced to go back to the drawing board on the core pieces of their proposal for the GOP megabill. The panel is required to find $1 billion in cuts over the next 10 years under a budget resolution adopted by both chambers of Congress — a narrow fraction of the overall bill.

Scott said in a statement that he remains “committed to advancing legislation that cuts waste and duplication in our federal government and saves taxpayer dollars.”

Only measures that are aimed at changing spending or revenues are allowed under the strict rules governing the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process. MacDonough is responsible for determining which proposals comply with the body’s rules. Banking Committee staffers from both parties met with the parliamentarian’s office earlier this week to discuss Scott’s plan.

Here’s a sad headline from the New York Times. I’ve gifted this one too, so you may read the entire thing. “Appeals Court Lets Trump Keep Control of California National Guard in L.A.A panel rejected a lower court’s finding that it was likely illegal for President Trump to use state troops to protect immigration agents from protests.”

A federal appeals court on Thursday cleared the way for President Trump to keep using the National Guard to respond to immigration protests in Los Angeles, declaring that a judge in San Francisco erred last week when he ordered Mr. Trump to return control of the troops to Gov. Gavin Newsom of California.

In a unanimous, 38-page ruling, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the conditions in Los Angeles were sufficient for Mr. Trump to decide that he needed to take federal control of California’s National Guard and deploy it to ensure that federal immigration laws would be enforced.

A lower-court judge had concluded that the protests were not severe enough for Mr. Trump to use a rarely-triggered law to federalize the National Guard over Mr. Newsom’s objections. But the panel, which included two appointees of Mr. Trump and one of former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., disagreed with the lower court.

The ruling was not a surprise. During a 65-minute hearing on Tuesday, the panel’s questions and statements had telegraphed that all three judges — Mark J. Bennett, Eric D. Miller and Jennifer Sung — were inclined to let Mr. Trump keep controlling the Guard for now, while litigation continues to play out over California’s challenge to his move.

Mr. Trump praised the decision, saying in a Truth Social post late Thursday that it supported his argument for using the National Guard “all over the United States” if local law enforcement can’t “get the job done.”

Mr. Newsom, in a response on Thursday, focused on how the appeals court had rejected the Trump administration’s argument that a president’s decision to federalize the National Guard could not be reviewed by a judge.

“The president is not a king and is not above the law,” Mr. Newsom said in a statement. “We will press forward with our challenge to President Trump’s authoritarian use of U.S. military soldiers against citizens.”

This bill is on a long path. Be sure to stay on top of it. I’m pretty sure a lot of the reality show attractions are still to keep us out of the loop.  Also, do not forget the importance of this Supreme Court decision, which basically says state Religionists have more control over your children and your body than you do.  This is from Chris Geidner writing on his blog Law Dork. “Where is the outrage over Skrmetti? On the far right’s campaign to create uncertainty over gender-affirming medical care for minors — and the powerful institutions that helped along the way.”  We’re living under a situation where there are safe states under attack from the Trump administration, and states are trying to get their kids out of living under the same kinds of craziness of States’ Rights we fought a long time to get rid of.  It’s nuts!

The response to Wednesday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding Tennessee’s law barring transgender minors from obtaining gender-affirming medical care has been muted at best.

In its U.S. v. Skrmetti ruling, the Supreme Court’s Republican appointees shaved off the edges — if not more central parts — of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause in order to uphold laws that bar an exceptionally small number of teens from receiving a type of medical care that only one group of teens need.

Addressing this formal attack on transgender people by the government — de jure discrimination, one might even call it — is, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor made clear in her dissent on Wednesday, the work that the Equal Protection Clause is supposed to do.

One would expect more outrage.

But Wednesday was the result of a long-term campaign that ultimately succeeded. As same-sex couples succeeded in obtaining marriage equality in 2015, the far-right organizations who had used their opposition to those couples’ marriage rights to fund their work needed a new cause.

The far right moved on to attacking transgender people. The animosity from the right — and others — toward trans people wasn’t new, but as the marriage outcome became clear, the shift of focus began.

They went after trans people’s use of bathrooms. North Carolina’s 2016 “bathroom bill“ backfired. Gov. Pat McCrory lost re-election, and the swing state has been led by Democratic governors since. But, bathrooms have always been targets for moral panic, so the issue eventually returned.

Starting in Idaho in 2020, they went after trans people’s participation in sports. That got some traction, particularly as the campaign moved on.

Then, starting in Arkansas the next year, they went after trans kids’ medical care.

They were just going to keep going until they got something that pushed them into the spotlight.

Even when lawmakers started passing bans on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, however, judges of all stripes started blocking them as likely unconstitutional.

This was not, Trump appointees even agreed, a close question.

“At bottom, sex-based classifications are not just present in [Indiana]’s prohibitions; they’re determinative,” U.S. District Judge Patrick Hanlon, a Trump appointee, wrote in blocking Indiana’s law back in June 2023.

As another Trump appointee, U.S. District Judge Eli Richardson, wrote later that month in blocking Tennessee’s ban, “Though the Court would not hesitate to be an outlier if it found such an outcome to be required, the Court finds it noteworthy that its resolution of the present Motion brings it into the ranks of courts that have (unanimously) come to the same conclusion when considering very similar laws.“

Read more at the link.

Anyway, we’ve made it through another year, oops season, oops week with Yam Tit’s ongoing decline and falls.  I can’t imagine going through any more of this, but it will get worse here, I’m sure. The idiot who’s now our Governor has already volunteered to help federal troops and ICE.  State Law enforcement will definitely be there aiding and abetting. I’m hoping we can do better here in New Orleans, but who knows?  This is what he signed last month, as reported by the Shreveport Times.

• Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry issued an executive order, Operation GEAUX, directing state law enforcement to assist federal immigration operations.

• Landry emphasized the program’s focus on deporting individuals in the country illegally who engage in criminal activity.

• The initiative includes enhanced screening, identification, and a public awareness campaign.

The only crimes related to immigration we’ve had are business owners grabbing immigrants’ passports and papers while not giving them back, and essentially enslaving them.  I’m not sure the state would file charges even if this happened again.

Have a very restful and good weekend. Stay Cool!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?