A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on abortion access on Wednesday, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) grilled Dr. Yashica Robinson on just how far into a patient’s pregnancy she would go to perform an abortion.
The GOP has gotten way to high off their own supply.
Elon Musk’s Twitter dribblings are the work of a troll. Time to ignore him. Time to start ignoring everyone. Like Josh said about Trump, no help is coming. We need to save ourselves.
As a Rangers fan, I’m not entirely thrilled to be reminded of that OT goal in my AM political news feed 
. But I love TPM so I’ll let it slide. Keep up the good work 
Thank you for that particular screen grab of Dr. Robinson. I assume that is her reaction to the stupid question.
Whoops! I should have kept scrolling to the next item about baby parts.
How do these idiots get to determine health care for women? HOW?!?
As he’s blatantly trying to worm his way out of going through with his deal to buy Twitter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced on Wednesday that he would no longer be voting Democrat, but Republican instead because Democrats have “become the party of division and hate.”
I don’t think Elon Musk has anything to worry about with the SEC - this from Letter from an American this morning:
There was big news today from a quarter that made it easily overlooked. In a decision about the
power of the Securities and Exchange Commission to judge those accused of engaging in securities fraud, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that “Congress unconstitutionally delegated legislative power to the SEC by failing to provide an intelligible principle by which the SEC would exercise the delegated power, in violation of Article I’s vesting of ‘all’ legislative power in Congress…”Congress created the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1934, after the Great Crash of 1929 revealed illegal shenanigans on Wall Street. The SEC is supposed to enforce the law against manipulating financial markets. The Fifth Circuit covers Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi, and its judges lean to the right. Today’s decision suggests that the leaked draft of the decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade has empowered other judges to challenge other established precedents.
What is at stake with this decision is something called the “nondelegation doctrine,” which says that Congress, which constitutes the legislative branch of the government, cannot delegate legislative authority to the executive branch. Most of the regulatory bodies in our government since the New Deal have been housed in the executive branch. So the nondelegation doctrine would hamstring the modern regulatory state.
According to an article in the Columbia Law Review by Julian Davis Mortenson and Nicholas Bagley, the idea of nondelegation was invented in 1935 to undercut the business regulation of the New Deal. In the first 100 days of his term, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt set out to regulate the economy to combat the Great Depression. Under his leadership, Congress established a number of new agencies to regulate everything from banking to agricultural production.
While the new rules were hugely popular among ordinary Americans, they infuriated business leaders. The Supreme Court stepped in and, in two decisions, said that Congress could not delegate its authority to administrative agencies. But FDR’s threat of increasing the size of the court and the justices’ recognition that they were on the wrong side of public opinion undercut their opposition to the New Deal. The nondelegation theory was ignored until the 1980s, when conservative lawyers began to look for ways to rein in the federal government.
In 2001, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected the argument in a decision written by Justice Antonin Scalia, who said the court must trust Congress to take care of its own power. But after Justice Clarence Thomas suggested that he might be open to the argument, conservative scholars began to say that the framers of the Constitution did not want Congress to delegate authority. Mortenson and Bagley say that argument “can’t stand…. It’s just making stuff up and calling it constitutional law.” Nonetheless, Republican appointees on the court have come to embrace the doctrine.
In November 2019, Justice Brett Kavanaugh sided with Justice Neil Gorsuch-—Trump appointees both—to say the Court should reexamine whether or not Congress can delegate authority to administrative agencies. Along with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Thomas, they appear to believe that the Constitution forbids such delegation. If Justice Amy Coney Barrett sides with them, the resurrection of that doctrine will curtail the modern administrative state that since the 1930s has regulated business, provided a basic social safety net, and promoted infrastructure.
As Justice Elena Kagan pointed out, the nondelegation doctrine would mean that “most of Government is unconstitutional.”
In today’s decision, it is no accident that Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod’s majority opinion recalls what President Ronald Reagan, at a press conference in 1986, called the “nine most terrifying words in the English language”: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” Reagan began the process of dismantling the New Deal government, and its achievement seems now to be at hand.
As Elon Musk shows, perhaps even worse than the scruffy-bearded, bald-headed MAGA imbecile in the negative impact on our society is the “aggrieved billionaire.”
Note, too, that Musk, like Trump, and like most them, is not exactly inhibited by the distinction between truth and falsehood.
I was happier months ago when I barely knew who Elon Musk was.
Especially when these same idiots think that vaccines and other protections are a hands-off issue for the government. The hypocrisy is astounding.
GOP Rep Demands To Know If Babies Get Aborted In The Middle Of Being Born
I guess this proves that assholiness is like cream… it rises to the top. At least in the GOP.
Not really off topic, but I did want to share this from the WSJ today. I know we’re not fond of the source, but numbers don’t lie and we still have a huge enthusiasm gap to fill in for November:
“A second takeaway from Tuesday’s results is that Republicans have a real enthusiasm edge. In the Pennsylvania primaries, with potentially tens of thousands of ballots to be counted, at least 1.33 million Republicans voted, compared with 1.2 million Democrats. In the last midterm primaries, four years ago, at least 737,312 Republicans and 775,660 Democrats voted in the Keystone State…
“As of this writing North Carolina Republican turnout totaled 759,554 while Democratic turnout was 613,170. Four years ago, 294,295 Republicans and 431,875 Democrats turned out in the Tarheel State primaries for Congress. The GOP turnout increases of 80% in Pennsylvania and 158% in North Carolina should worry Democrats.”
Karl Rove, Wall Street Journal
A basic social safety net which is looking shaky right now.
Enthusiasm gap? People had better wake up.
Which stupid question, exactly? It’s pretty clear that every other interrogator was asking questions that were at best stupid, and things went downhill rapidly from there.
Someone needs to make that doctor a stamp that reads,
The destruction of regulations and the administrative state is why the federalist society was invented.
The Karl Rove who refused to accept Fox’s call of an election. Superficial analysis. What was going on in the Republican primaries that made then notable? I wonder. How about other states? More Kentuckians voted in the Dem primaries than in the Rep primaries. I guess Dems have an enthusiasm edge in Kentucky. Makes sense, doesn’t it.
This says it all……
The numbers don’t lie, but Karl Rove sure does.
I don’t know that I would read too much into those numbers. The PA primaries are closed, and all the Republican races were contested hotly. While the only contested race I had on my ballot was for the Senate, and that was unlikely to turn out any other way.
Speaking of closed primaries, I wonder how Republicans feel about tfg calling for their votes not to count?
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), there to ensure that the House hearing on abortion didn’t get any less stupid, gave Robinson the third degree over “baby parts” that he claimed were being stored in freezers and Pyrex dishes.
Pyrex dishes?
Bleu Cheese Baby casserole?
Without regulation the economic sector will have no choice but to engage in piracy, which is precisely what the .01% want.
Republicans don’t feel. It is all id.