President Trump is considering an executive order to try to move forward with a citizenship question on the 2020 census, Axios reports. But there is considerable skepticism within the administration that an executive order would succeed. Indeed, it would be blatantly unconstitutional and would instantly be struck down by the Roberts Court. Chief Justice Roberts offered Trump a path to get the question on the census by offering a new reason for it that did not involve racist redistricting.
But then Trump undercut his own case by talking. “President Trump just explained why he thinks we need a citizenship question on the census. But in doing so, he seems to have said the quiet part out loud — and conceivably could have undercut the Justice Department’s legal case,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Trump: “No. 1, you need it for Congress — you need it for Congress for districting. You need it for appropriations — where are the funds going? How many people are there? Are they citizens? Are they not citizens? You need it for many reasons.”
“Take note of that first one. Not only was a redistricting rationale not mentioned by the administration in its failed legal defense of the question; it was actually something that the other side argued was the administration’s true motivation. The plaintiffs in the case — and many who oppose the citizenship question — have argued that this is a thinly veiled attempt by Republicans to gain a potential game-changing tool in redistricting.”
“President Trump read most of his Independence Day speech from a prepared text, but stumbled on his history at one point,” USA Today reports. Here is the passage:
“In June of 1775, the Continental Congress created a uniform army out of the revolutionary forces encamped around Boston and New York and named after the great George Washington, commander in chief. The Continental Army suffered a bitter winter of Valley Forge, found glory across the waters of the Delaware, and seized victory from Cornwallis of Yorktown. Our army manned the air, it ran the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do, and at Fort McHenry, under the rockets’ red glare, it had nothing but victory. And when dawn came, their star-spangled banner waved defiant.”
Um…
The Continental Army was NOT named after George Washington
No military man could “man the air” until the 20th century
There were no airports until the 20th century
Fort McHenry and the Star-Spangled Banner are from the War of 1812, not the Revolutionary War
This is beyond embarrassing.
President Trump — who used to mock predecessor Barack Obama for using the devices during speeches — said on Friday that technical problems with the teleprompter during his “Salute to America” led to his head-scratching remarks about the Continental Army securing not-yet existent “airports” during the Revolutionary War, NBC News reports.
McSweeney’s: The battle for John F. Kennedy International Airport, 1776.
“The Supreme Court is already poised to drop some big political bombshells right into the heat of the 2020 campaign. And there are even more waiting in the wings,” Axios reports.
- The justices have taken their first big Second Amendment case in over a decade — a challenge to New York City’s restrictions on transporting guns.
- They’ll also decide whether Trump has the power to end the Obama-era immigration program known as DACA, which shields about 700,000 young adults and children from deportation.
- And they’ll decide whether federal civil-rights law prohibits employers from firing workers because they’re gay or transgender.
The justices are likely to take up an abortion case out of Louisiana. And yet another challenge to the Affordable Care Act is also working its way through the system.
Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs on Thursday described the U.S. generals who did not support President Trump’s “Salute to America” Fourth of July celebrations as “snowflakes,” and criticized them for not winning any recent wars, The Hill reports.
A Los Angeles Times editorial calls for Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) to resign from Congress “so he can spend more time with his lawyers. He’s really going to need it.”
“If it seems disloyal to snitch on your spouse in court, consider how she might feel about the allegations that Hunter tapped his campaign funds to help finance a string of extramarital affairs involving five women — two congressional staffers and three lobbyists.”
New York Times: “While much of the country’s attention is focused on presidential politics, the gerrymandering ruling last week instantly raised the stakes for the nation’s state legislative races, which are often overlooked by voters, but can shape the course of policy from abortion rights to education.”
“Yet this cycle of legislative elections carries added significance: In most states, the political party that wins control of the legislature gains the power to draw once-a-decade maps setting district boundaries for state and congressional elections after a new census count. Acutely aware of that prize, which offers a chance to tilt political power further in one party’s favor, Republicans and Democrats are starting campaigns early, knocking on doors and rallying donors with the pitch that a tiny statehouse election in suburban Dallas or coastal Virginia could have national reverberations.”
Vox: Inside the battle to flip America’s state legislatures blue in 2020.
The U.S. added 224,000 jobs last month, topping expectations of 165,000 and rebounding sharply after a May slowdown, the Wall Street Journalreports.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate inched up to 3.7% in June, climbing slightly from its lowest level in five decades and coming in slightly higher than the 3.6% projection.
Washington Post: “The RFP is used to solicit bids for the print job itself and includes the actual numbers of documents that will need to be prepared for distribution.”
“In total, it’s 1.53 billion distinct pieces of material. And that’s the finished product. Including the various pages of the questionnaires that need to be produced, we’re talking about more than 2 billion sheets of paper which need to be printed between now and the start of the Census.”
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