Judicial Benchmarks

• SCOTUS overturns Chevron: It’s a great day in DC today — unless you’re a Big Government Democrat. Late this morning, in a much-anticipated case about the power of federal agencies and unelected bureaucrats, the Supreme Court ruled 6-2 (with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson not participating) against the Chevron precedent, “a decades-old legal doctrine that they say gave the administrative state too much power” over American businesses. As Fox News notes: “The Court’s decision reels in … a legal theory established in the 1980s that says if a federal regulation is challenged, the courts should defer to the agency’s interpretation of whether Congress granted them authority to issue the rule.” This decision was thus a clawing back of the administrative state and a colossal win for limited government. As constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley noted, “This is a momentous decision. … Chief Justice Roberts delivered the coup de grace into Chevron. It is now gone.” As for local reaction, Turley noted that Chevron “is a virtual religious item in the Beltway” and that a lot of folks would have to be treated for “the vapors.”

• J6 defendant wins at SCOTUS: “These people should be in jail,” Joe Biden mumbled last night about the January 6 defendants. “And they should be the ones who are being held accountable.” The ones who tangled with police should be in jail, but not the ones who were let in as tourists by the police. The Supreme Court may have made that outcome possible with a key ruling issued this morning. “The justices on a 6-3 vote handed a win to defendant Joseph Fischer, who is among hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants — including Trump — who have been charged with obstructing an official proceeding,” reports NBC News, probably after a shot of bourbon. “The court concluded that the law, enacted in 2002 as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act after the Enron accounting scandal, was only intended to apply in limited circumstances involving tampering with physical evidence.” It now goes back to a lower court for reconsideration. The Biden DOJ threw everything and the kitchen sink at J6 defendants in hopes of inflating the number of those jailed and, thus, the seriousness of the “insurrection.” At least for now, using an obscure and unrelated statute to do so isn’t going to cut it.

• SCOTUS says there is no right to homelessness: In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an Oregon city’s law banning people without a permanent residence from sleeping outside in public places does not violate the Eighth Amendment, which forbids “cruel and unusual” punishments. Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch noted, “Homelessness is complex. Its causes are many. So may be the public policy responses required to address it.” He added, “At bottom, the question this case presents is whether the Eighth Amendment grants federal judges primary responsibility for assessing those causes and devising those responses. It does not.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued in her dissent that the city’s rule punished homeless people for being homeless and, in so doing, claimed that it was an affront to “the humanity and dignity of homeless people and our constitutional principles.” Regarding the minority opinion, Mark Hemingway rightly observed, “To be clear, all three liberal justices want your city or town to be filled with homeless encampments and strip the local government of the ability to do something about it. That’s insane, and this should be hung around the necks of Dems running for office.”

• Seven in 10 Americans think Supreme Court justices put ideology over impartiality (AP)

Politics

• This just in: Biden’s not dropping out: We don’t yet know how many people tuned in to last night’s debate, but those who did are likely wondering: Will Joe Biden, after his disastrous performance, now drop out of the race? Answer: No. “Of course he’s not dropping out,” said Biden campaign spokesperson Seth Schuster. And not only that. Team Biden also says he’s committed to a second debate in September. As for Biden himself, he was every bit as deluded defiant: “It’s hard to debate a liar,” he said during a post-debate stop at a Waffle House. “The New York Times pointed out he lied 26 times.” Biden, of course, never lies. Except when his lips move. Scranton Joe looked physically frail last night, and his voice was raspy — which his handlers later attributed to a cold. As for next steps, former Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki said, “The chatter is very distracting, and it’s going to be very consuming for the campaign. Should he be replaced? They’re going to be answering that question instead of breaking through on attacking Trump.” CNN’s post-debate flash poll of debate watchers painted a grim picture. When asked who won, 67% said Trump, while just 33% said Biden. But one wonders: What debate were those 33% watching?

• Here are the 20 biggest whoppers Biden told during his debate with Trump (The Federalist)

• Media declares Biden campaign dead after debate (Daily Wire)

• How Biden could be replaced as the Democrat nominee (Washington Examiner)

• Humor: Trump indicted for murdering elderly man on CNN (Babylon Bee)

• Michelle Obama won’t support Biden: When you’ve lost Michelle Obama, you’ve lost, well, you’ve lost Michelle Obama. Such is the case for Joe Biden, who’s had a pretty rough go of it lately as he continues to bleed support. As The Daily Fetched reports: “Former First Lady Michelle Obama has refused to campaign for President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign after insiders revealed she is unhappy that the First Family shunned a close friend after her divorce from Hunter Biden.” This seems awfully contrived to us, awfully convenient. The Obamas know a loser when they see one, but Barack is at least obliged to publicly support his former veep. Michelle, though, is no doubt trying to keep from thoroughly trashing the family brand by distancing herself from the Bad Ship Biden. The younger Biden “was previously married to Michelle Obama’s close friend Kathleen Buhle before separating after 24 years in 2017,” The Daily Fetched explains. “The Biden camp then abandoned the former daughter-in-law, which enraged Michelle Obama.” So misogynistic rap stars and vile Jew-haters like Louis Farrakhan are okay, but don’t mess with Michelle’s “friends.”

• Another lefty can’t define what a woman is: During a House hearing on “Protecting Men and Women in U.S. Employment Practices,” former MSNBC legal analyst, leftist civil rights leader, and failed New York mayoral candidate Maya Wiley was asked the question that has become the litmus test for exposing radical leftism. “Can you define what a woman is?” Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) asked. Wiley answered, “A woman is a person who says she is, and let me tell you one story about this…” Mace quickly cut her off, stating, “No… it’s not story time.” Mace then laid into Wiley, pointing out the fact that “biological women are real women.” She relayed a recent clothes shopping experience involving a biological man in a miniskirt having directed her 14-year-old daughter to a dressing room, observing, “It is absolutely disgusting that we’re redefining what women are and allowing men into women’s private spaces.” The fact of the matter is that radical leftists like Wiley are seeking mainstream acceptance of the blatant lie that biological reality does not define gender. They aim to erode society’s most basic foundational structure, the nuclear family, to weaken resistance to the dismantling of Western values.

National Security

• About all those “white supremacists” in the military: During last night’s debate, Donald Trump made it a point to let viewers know just how deeply deplored Joe Biden is among America’s warrior class, and a new report from Arizona State University’s Center for American Institutions isn’t going to do anything toward repairing that breach. As The Federalist reports: “A new report said Pentagon programs to sniff out ‘white supremacists’ in the U.S. military came up empty-handed and were even counterproductive to military readiness and morale,” as a “zealous diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) bureaucracy” dominates both our service branches and our service academies. The report added that the Biden DOD’s “search for white supremacists — seemingly the only extremists that interest the military — has come up short: only 100 members of the military were deemed to be extremists out of a force of 2.1 million.” Even that is surely inflated. Your tax dollars at work, folks.

Law Enforcement

• Uvalde LEOs indicted: Former Uvalde, Texas, Police Chief Pete Arredondo and former Police Officer Adrian Gonzales were indicted by a grand jury on Thursday on multiple felony charges of child endangerment. Gonzales was the first officer to enter Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022, after an 18-year-old began his shooting attack. Gonzales, along with several other responding officers, waited for over an hour before engaging the attacker, even as shots were heard inside a classroom. A report ordered by Texas lawmakers concluded that the police botched their response, and a 600-page DOJ report pointed to “cascading failures” related to training, communication, technology, and leadership. These two former officers are the first of what is expected to be several more officers indicted for effectively failing to do their jobs.

Culture

• Young lefty women most mentally ill, old dudes not so much: Back in 2005, conservative talk-show radio host Michael Savage published a book with the provocative title, Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder. Among the issues Savage pointed to in making his case were liberals’ embrace of illegal immigration and the defense of the expansion of Islam into the West. Nearly two decades later, it turns out that those who identify with the most liberal or leftist views also self-identify as having the most mental health issues. A recent poll found that 56% of young liberal women (ages 18-29) had the highest mental health diagnoses. On the other end of the spectrum, conservative men aged 65 and up had the lowest mental health diagnoses at just 4.5%. Why such a drastic difference? Well, one answer lies in the fact that mental health diagnoses have changed in recent years, which has resulted in more young people being diagnosed. Also, embracing bad ideas will produce poor choices, inevitably resulting in negative consequences.

• Miss Maryland contestants push back after male winner steals their crown (Daily Signal)

Good News

• Tractor Supply dumps DEI. It turns out that the popular adage “get woke, go broke” is not merely a conservative sentiment. The execs at one of America’s leading rural companies, Tractor Supply Co., went woke, embracing a litany of DEI issues, including “having Pride month decorations in their offices” and donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to leftist causes. When that became public, the customer backlash was swift, with calls for an immediate Bud Light-type boycott. Thankfully, it worked. On Thursday, Tractor Supply released a public statement saying, “We have heard from customers that we have disappointed them. We have taken this feedback to heart. Going forward, we will ensure our activities and giving tie directly to our business.” The company will “eliminate DEI roles and retire our current DEI goals while still ensuring a respectful environment.” Furthermore, Tractor Supply promised to “withdraw our carbon emission goals, and focus on our land and water conservation efforts.” It’s nice to see a company willing to listen to its customers, admit its mistake, and correct course.

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