PARTY OF YOUTH UPDATE: Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Unexpected Legacy.

Back in 2013, President Barack Obama met with Ginsburg, with hopes that the then-80-year-old, two-time cancer patient could be persuaded to retire:

Mr. Obama had asked his White House counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, to set up the lunch so he could build a closer rapport with the justice, according to two people briefed on the conversation. Treading cautiously, he did not directly bring up the subject of retirement to Justice Ginsburg, at 80 the Supreme Court’s oldest member and a two-time cancer patient.

He did, however, raise the looming 2014 midterm elections and how Democrats might lose control of the Senate. Implicit in that conversation was the concern motivating his lunch invitation — the possibility that if the Senate flipped, he would lose a chance to appoint a younger, liberal judge who could hold on to the seat for decades.

* * * * * * * *

But Ginsburg just wasn’t interested in retiring. After Ginsburg died in 2020, and President Trump and the GOP-controlled Senate replaced her with Amy Coney Barrett, many liberals realized Ginsburg had made a catastrophic mistake. By remaining on the court for another six or seven years, Ginsburg had denied Democrats their last, best chance to keep a majority on the Court that viewed the law the way she did.

As Christine Rosen wrote last year in her article headlined, “The Democratic Party’s Ice Floe Politics:” “The next time a Democratic politician makes an anonymous observation about the age or vigor of a colleague with whom they disagree, be skeptical. The remarks are made to reporters as if in sorrow, but the message is about as subtle as a shiv in the prison yard.”

KYLE SMITH: Lightyear flop is a sign audiences are weary of Hollywood wokeness. “It’s amusing that members of the entertainment industry often refer to it as ‘the industry,’ as though they have forgotten the most important word. With the collapse in Netflix’s stock price, Disney’s box-office headache and the revival of ‘Top Gun,’ Hollywood execs must be wondering whether their progressive politics have amounted to a kind of self-imposed woke tax.”

QUESTIONS ASKED:

Does Biden remember saying in 2006, “I do not view abortion as a, um, as choice and a right. I think it’s always a tragedy. And I think that it should be rare and safe, and I think we should be focusing on how to limit the number of abortions. And there ought to be able to have a common ground and consensus as to do that.”

Or does Biden remember this moment in 1982? Biden voted to overturn Roe v Wade in 1982 saying women don’t have ‘sole right’ to say what happens to bodies. President had said in 1974 that he thought the Roe v Wade ruling ‘went too far.’

ANA NAVARRO CITES HER DISABLED RELATIVES TO DEFEND ABORTION AND PEOPLE ARE HORRIFIED:

“And I am not anybody to tell you what you need to do with your life or your uterus!” Navarro snapped.

“And because I have a family with a lot of special needs kids. I have a brother who’s 57, and has the mental and the motor skills of a one-year-old. And I know what that means financially, emotionally, physically, for a family, and I know not all families can do it,” she added.

“And I have a step-granddaughter who was born with Downs syndrome, and you know what? It is very difficult in Florida to get services. It is not as easy as it sounds on paper and I’ve got another, another step-grandson who is very autistic, who has autism,” she continued.

“Mothers, and people in that society in that community will tell you that they’ve considered suicide because that’s how difficult it is to get help. Because that’s how lonely they feel. Because they can’t get other jobs, because they have financial issues, because of the care that they are unable to give their other children,” Navarro said.

Navarro went on to claim that she could compartmentalize her Catholic beliefs away from her political support for abortion.

“And so why can I be Catholic and still think it is a wrong decision? Because I’m American. I’m Catholic inside the church, I’m Catholic when it comes to me. But there’s a lot of Americans who are not Catholic and they’re not Christian, and they’re not Baptist,” she said.

“And you have no damn right to tell them what they should do with their bodies!” she concluded. “Nobody does!”

Many people online were horrified to infer that Navarro was implying disabled people were better off dead than to be born into families that might struggle caring for them.

In Germany, this was dubbed “Lebensunwertes Leben.”

DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR AMERICA: Roe-pocalypse Now: “Not only does the Walt Disney Company — formerly the gold standard of American family-friendly wholesomeness — fully favor grooming children into genderqueerness, but now it will pay its female employees to go to pro-abortion states and terminate the lives of their unborn children. If you had predicted this fifty years ago, people would have thought you insane. As Kangmin Lee said, abortion was widely seen as a necessary evil. Now it is considered by the class of people who run most of America as a sacred rite…It is really something to think about how the Left today, post-Dobbs, is left to feel the same things that many of us on the Right have felt over and over again: defeat on an issue that is dear to us. They are not used to losing — not our ruling class. They are used to getting their way, and expecting the rest of us to fall in line and know our places.”

SOCIALIST “IT GIRL” CONTINUES TO PAY DIVIDENDS: Could AOC Be Getting a Little ‘Insurrectiony’ With Her New Revolutionary Friend?

Meanwhile, at America’s Newspaper of Record: Dems Pause January 6 Hearings To Call For Insurrection.

THE POWER LINE WEEK IN PICTURES: Liberal Hubris Edition.

OUT ON A LIMB: No, Gay Marriage Isn’t Going to Be Overturned After Roe v Wade.

BLOOMBERG POLITICS DEEP THOUGHT: I thought SCOTUS was The People’s Court!

MEDIA MELTDOWN COMPILATION: ROE OVERTURNED, JOURNALISTS HARDEST HIT.

FEDERAL COURT BLOCKS FDA’S BAN ON JUUL E-CIGARETTES AFTER FIRM WAS ORDERED TO STOP SELLING THEM ON HEALTH GROUNDS.

BIDEN URGES CONGRESS TO CODIFY ROE: WOMEN’S* LIVES ‘NOW AT RISK.’

President Biden called on Congress to codify a right to abortion in federal law on Friday, saying the “health and life of women” are “at risk” hours after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

“Now with Roe gone, let’s be very clear: the health and life of women in this nation are now at risk,” Biden said in a speech at the White House.

Biden also criticized state laws restricting abortion, which were triggered by the the Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Clinic, and urged pro-choice voters to elect likeminded politicians in the coming midterm elections, saying “this fall, Roe is on the ballot.”

“Let me very clear and unambiguous: the only way we can secure a woman’s right to choose, the balance that existed, is for Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade as federal law. No executive action from the president can do that,” Biden said. “And if Congress, as it appears, lacks the votes to do that now, voters need to make their voices heard.”

Flashback: Biden voted to overturn Roe v Wade in 1982 saying women don’t have ‘sole right’ to say what happens to bodies. President had said in 1974 that he thought the Roe v Wade ruling ‘went too far.’

* When did Joe become a biologist?

GREAT MOMENTS IN SCIENCE FICTION: This Golden Age of Journalism.

DAVID MASTIO: USA Today demoted me for a tweet — because its woke newsrooms are out of touch with readers. “I know something about Gannett’s evolution since I was USA Today’s deputy editorial page editor until August, when I was demoted after I tweeted, ‘People who are pregnant are also women.’ That idea was forbidden because a ‘news reporter’ covering diversity, equity and inclusion wrote a story detailing how transgender men can get pregnant. I compounded my sin against this new orthodoxy by calling the idea that men can get pregnant an ‘opinion.’ If I wanted to keep any job at USA Today, my bosses informed me, I needed to delete these offensive tweets because they were causing pain to the LGBTQ activists and journalists on our staff.”

SOUNDS RATHER INSURRECTION-Y: Parkland shooting survivor Cameron Kasky urges followers to ‘go to the home of every Supreme Court Justice who just voted to kill women.’

HEH: Arizona Gubernatorial Candidate Kari Lake Leaves CNN Reporter Speechless. “I’ll do an interview with you… as long as it airs on CNN+, does that still exist?”

CANCELLED: Lawyers Who Won Major Gun Rights Case Forced Out of Firm.

THIS IS CNN: CNN Hosts Almost Cry Live on Air After Learning Roe v Wade Was Overturned.

ED MORRISSEY: Breaking: SCOTUS overturns Roe in Dobbs — on Alito opinion, 6-3.

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION STUDYING THIS AS A HOW-TO GUIDE: Sri Lankan Prime Minister Says That the Nation’s Economy Has Collapsed.

The Sri Lankan economy is foundering under the weight of heavy debts, lost tourism revenue and other effects of the pandemic, as well as surging costs for commodities. The result is a country hurtling towards bankruptcy, with hardly any money to import gasoline, milk, cooking gas and toilet paper.

Lawmakers from the two main opposition parties are boycotting Parliament this week to protest Wickremesinghe, who became prime minister just over a month ago and is also finance minister, for failing to deliver on his pledges to turn the economy around.

Wickremesinghe said Sri Lanka is unable to purchase imported fuel due to heavy debt owed by its petroleum corporation.

The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation is $700 million in debt, he told lawmakers. “As a result, no country or organization in the world is willing to provide fuel to us. They are even reluctant to provide fuel for cash.”

The crisis has started to hurt Sri Lanka’s middle class, which is estimated to be 15% to 20% of the country’s urban population. The middle class began to swell in the 1970s after the economy opened up to more trade and investment. It has grown steadily since.

Until recently, middle-class families generally enjoyed economic security. Now those that never had to think twice about fuel or food are struggling to manage three meals a day.

“They have really been jolted like no other time in the last three decades,” said Bhavani Fonseka, a senior researcher at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital.

“If the middle class is struggling like this, imagine how hard hit the more vulnerable are,” Fonseka added.

The situation has derailed years of progress toward relatively comfortable lifestyles aspired to across South Asia.

Flashbacks:

● Could It Happen Here? 200 Dead, as Sri Lanka Literally Runs Out of Gas.

● In Sri Lanka, Organic Farming Went Catastrophically Wrong.

● Sri Lanka facing imminent threat of starvation, senior politician warns.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Looming food shortages is the next ‘slow-moving disaster’ to hit world.

OBESITY IS A PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS: Bizarre news story of the day: Jupiter apparently ‘eats’ other planets.

THE KEY WAYS JUSTICE THOMAS VANQUISHED GUN GRABBERS IN HIS BRUEN DECISION.

Related: Alito Takes a Blow Torch to Liberal Justices’ Dissent.

ROGER SIMON: No More ‘Reportorial Bias’—The Epoch Times to Host New Kind of Political Debate.

We are hosting a Republican primary debate in the Tennessee 5th Congressional  District without reporters.

Replacing the reporters will be domain (subject matter) experts in key areas of interest to voters—health, immigration, the economy, and so forth. These experts—not journalists— will ask the questions of the candidates.

For example, as of now, Gordon Chang will ask questions regarding foreign policy and China and Hans van Spakovsky will ask questions regarding election integrity. (More of these expert questioners will be announced shortly.)

The experts will be encouraged to ask probing follow-up questions to the candidates’ responses in a way that reporters, without serious domain knowledge, could not.

We realize, of course, that experts are human and will have prejudices of their own, but we are hoping their allegiance to the truth of their subjects will prevail over bias.

Further, we aren’t encouraging “gotcha” questions. The object here is not to embarrass the candidates or catch them in a gaffe, but actually to clarify where they stand on the important issues of our time, to give a better idea of what they might do if they were to win the office.

This doesn’t mean they can’t disagree with each other. They can and should. But their disagreements should be based on the specific issue at hand and be substantive, not personal.

Participating in the event will be four or five of the leading candidates (to be announced) who are on the Republican primary ballot in the Tennessee 5th District race. That’s the southern portion of Davidson County (contiguous with Nashville), portions of Wilson and Williamson counties, and the entirety of Maury, Lewis, and Marshall counties.

Regrettably, we can’t accommodate a greater number of candidates and still hope to achieve the kind of event we are attempting.

The debate will be held on July 12 at the magnificent Grand Lodge of Tennessee in downtown Nashville, with plenty of room for those who would like to attend in person. This is three days in advance of the beginning of early voting, with the primary itself on Aug. 4.

Tickets to the debate are now available at Eventbrite, ranging from free for general admission to $100 for VIP seats that include a post-debate reception, where you can meet the expert questioners and the candidates.

The event also will be streamed live by Epoch TV, starting at 6 p.m. local time. We encourage all to watch—even those far from Tennessee—because this is intended to be the first pass at an early form of “pilot” for possible debates to come across the nation. The format and style —indeed, everything about it—are open for discussion and suggestions, which are encouraged. We will be making plenty of mistakes. This is only the beginning, a first attempt, at a new approach.

But please, no adverse comments about the moderator. He will be yours truly and he promises to be the very soul of impartiality.

Good luck!

HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI’S HUSBAND PAUL CHARGED WITH DUI AFTER MAY CRASH IN CALIFORNIA: “A press release from the district attorney’s office states that Paul Pelosi had a blood alcohol content level of .082% after the crash, and said the blood sample was taken at 12:32 a.m., which was two hours after the collision occurred at 10:17 p.m.”

TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! Biden’s cue cards are…awfully specific:

The card title is “sequence of events”, and the word “YOU” appears in caps throughout the list. The list even reminds the president to say “hello”.

The list of instructions includes:

-YOU enter the Roosevelt Room and say hello to participants

-YOU take YOUR seat

-YOU give brief comments

Click  here for a shot of the cards, and here for a closeup with a better look at the text.

Biden was caught using cue cards earlier this year, including one labeled “Tough Putin Q&A Talking Points,” but I don’t recall seeing a photograph with instructions for Joe to enter the room and then “take YOUR seat” before now.

UPDATE: “To be fair, we don’t know if previous presidents have received similar sets of instructions, but we’ve also never before wondered if the president needed this level of detail.”