Behind the scenes, though, these groups have something in common: They are part of an ambitious coalition developed in recent years by the conservative activist Leonard A. Leo, who until now has been best known for his role in pushing the appointments of conservative judges to the center of the Republican Party’s agenda.
Most of the initiatives were financially supported, or in some cases launched, by an opaque, sprawling network shaped by Mr. Leo and funded by wealthy patrons, usually through anonymous donations that critics call “dark money.”
An investigation by The New York Times of Mr. Leo’s activities reveals new details of how he has built that network, with relatively little public attention, into one of the best-funded and most sophisticated operations in American politics, giving him extraordinary influence as he pushes a broad array of hot-button conservative causes and seeks to counter what he sees as an increasing leftward tilt in society.The network represents a dramatic expansion of tactics and focus for Mr. Leo, who spent nearly three decades working mostly behind the scenes to pull the judiciary to the right as an executive at the Federalist Society. His success in that effort, and expansion into other polarizing fights, is rapidly making him a leading target of criticism from the left.
His philosophy is defined by a belief that the federal government should play a smaller role in public life and religious values a larger one, and that institutions and individuals should be challenged for embracing what he sees as subversive liberal positions.His expanded effort focuses on a variety of causes, including restricting abortion rights in the states; ending affirmative action; defending religious groups accused of discriminating against L.G.B.T.Q. people; opposing what he sees as liberal policies being espoused by corporations and schools; electing Republicans; and fighting Democratic efforts to slow climate change, increase the transparency of money in politics and expand voting access.
Researchers Report a Staggering Decline in Wildlife.Here’s How to Understand It.It’s clear that wildlife is suffering mightily on our planet, but scientists don’t know exactly how much. A comprehensive figure is exceedingly hard to determine. Counting wild animals — on land and at sea, from gnats to whales — is no small feat. Most countries lack national monitoring systems.
One of the most ambitious efforts to fill this void is published every two years. Known as the Living Planet Index, it’s a collaboration between two major conservation organizations, the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Zoological Society of London.The assessment’s latest number, issued Wednesday by 89 authors from around the world, is its most alarming yet: From 1970 to 2018, monitored populations of vertebrates declined an average of 69 percent. That’s more than two-thirds in only 48 years..... start with three populations: birds, bears and sharks. The birds decline to 5 from 25, a drop of 80 percent. The bears fall to 45 animals from 50, or 10 percent. And the sharks decrease to 8 from 20, or 60 percent.
That gives us an average decline of 50 percent. But the total number of animals fell to 92 from 150, a drop of about 39 percent.
The index is designed that way because it seeks to understand how populations are changing over time. It doesn’t measure how many individuals are present.So, is it still bad?Yes. Some scientists think the report actually underestimates the global biodiversity crisis, in part because devastating declines in amphibians may be underrepresented in the data.
And, over time, the trend is not turning around.
“Year after year we are not able to start improving the situation, despite major policies,” said Henrique M. Pereira, a professor of conservation biology at the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research who was not involved in this year’s report.
Can you cancel “cancel culture” by canceling the cancelers? Some Republican judges are answering with an emphatic “Yes!” — which shows that their commitment to free and open debate isn’t quite what they would have you believe.This very public attack on Yale Law School isn’t just about hypocrisy over free expression, or even just about the politicization of the judiciary. It also shows that in a way, this isn’t an argument the right actually wants to win. The controversy itself is the point.
The story starts a couple of weeks ago, when Judge James C. Ho of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit announced in a speech that he would no longer accept clerks from Yale Law School, which he described as a place where censorious liberals suppress conservative voices with a particular cruelty. “Yale not only tolerates the cancellation of views — it actively practices it,” he said, and Ho encouraged other judges to follow his lead.Although some conservatives objected, on the whole the right celebrated. The Federalist trumpeted Ho’s speech, calling Yale a “cancel culture cesspool.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) tweeted that “Judge Ho’s takedown of cancel culture" was “a courageous and important stand that I hope other judges will replicate!”And some have. Another appeals court judge, Elizabeth Branch of the 11th Circuit, said she too would refuse to hire clerks from Yale (like Ho, she is restricting her boycott to future students, not those currently enrolled). The conservative Washington Free Beacon reported that a dozen other judges were taking up Ho’s call, though they wanted to remain anonymous.
As a practical matter, this boycott makes almost no sense. Let’s grant for a moment that Yale has a stifling culture of silencing conservatives. That means the students Ho is shutting out of positions in his chambers would be the victims of this culture, not its perpetrators.However firm their ideological commitments, we used to expect judges to let their decisions speak for themselves, with perhaps the occasional speech or interview thrown in. Now judges perform stunts designed to attract media attention — and that’s exactly what this is. At this point it wouldn’t be surprising to see Ho or others like him interrupt oral arguments in court to say, “Hang on, I was just totally owning the libs on Truth Social. Proceed, counsel.”
And it’s clear that, like many conservatives, Ho is moved to take action against the silencing of free expression only when it’s the expression of people he agrees with that is supposedly being silenced. And that lets liberals off the hook.
The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies is an American conservative and libertarian legal organization that advocates for a textualist and originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it has chapters at more than 200 American law schools and features student, lawyer, and faculty divisions. The lawyers division comprises more than 70,000 practicing attorneys (organized as lawyers chapters and practice groups within the division) in ninety cities. Through speaking events, lectures, and other activities, it provides a forum for legal experts of opposing views to interact with members of the legal profession, the judiciary, and the legal academy. It is one of the most influential legal organizations in the United States.
THE INEVITABLE INDICTMENT OF DONALD TRUMPMerrick Garland hasn’t tipped his hand, but it's clear to me that he will bring charges against the former president.As an appellate judge, Merrick Garland was known for constructing narrow decisions that achieved consensus without creating extraneous controversy. As a government attorney, he was known for his zealous adherence to the letter of the law. As a person, he is a smaller-than-life figure, a dry conversationalist, studious listener, something close to the opposite of a raconteur.
And as the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer, he is a hyper-prudential institutionalist who would like nothing more than to restore—quietly and deliberately—the Justice Department’s reputation for probity, process, and apolitical dispassion.But this is what I believe he is preparing himself to do.
I have been observing Garland closely for months. I’ve talked with his closest friends and most loyal former clerks and deputies. I’ve carefully studied his record. I’ve interviewed Garland himself. And I’ve reached the conclusion that his devotion to procedure, his belief in the rule of law, and in particular his reverence for the duties, responsibilities, and traditions of the U.S. Department of Justice will cause him to make the most monumental decision an attorney general can make.But I believe, if the evidence of wrongdoing is as convincing as it seems, he is going to indict Trump anyway.
In the case of Donald Trump, the prosecutor is Merrick Garland and discretion would allow him to decide that an indictment is simply not worth the social cost, or that the case is strong but not strong enough. Garland’s critics fret that when confronted with this moment, his penchant for caution will take hold.
With the investigation of Trump, the legitimacy of the judicial system is at risk. Of course, the MAGA set will never regard an indictment of their leader as anything other than a sham. But the perceptions of the rest of the country matter too. .... Indicting the candidate of the opposing party, if it occurs, should feel reluctant, as if there’s no other choice.
I was surprised he would resist the term [institutionalist]. I think he wanted me to understand that he is alive to the perils facing democracy—and isn’t naïve about what it will take to defeat them. Norms alone are not enough to stop a determined authoritarian. It wasn’t quite a reversal in his thinking; radicalizing Merrick Garland would be impossible. But it was an evolution. His faith in institutions had begun to wobble.
With his optimism bruised, and his heightened sensitivity to the imminent threats to democracy, he’s shown a greater appetite for confrontation. There is no sharper example of this than his willingness to spar with Trump over the sensitive documents stashed at Mar-a-Lago.
The deadline for indicting Trump is actually much sooner than the next Inauguration Day. According to most prosecutors, a judge would give Trump nearly a year to prepare for trial, maybe a bit longer. That’s not special treatment; it’s just how courts schedule big cases.
The excruciating conundrum that Garland faces is also a liberating one. He can’t win politically. He will either antagonize the right or disappoint the left. Whatever he decides, he will become deeply unpopular. He will unavoidably damage the reputation of the institution he loves so dearly with a significant portion of the populace.
Faced with so unpalatable a choice, he doesn’t really have one. Because he can’t avoid tearing America further apart, he’ll decide based on the evidence—and on whether that evidence can persuade a jury. As someone who has an almost metaphysical belief in the rule book, he can allow himself to apply his canonical texts.
That’s what he’s tried to emphatically explain over the past months. Every time he’s asked about the former president, he responds, “No one is above the law.” He clearly gets frustrated that his answer fails to satisfy his doubters. I believe that his indictment of Trump will prove that he means it.
Foer’s reasoning makes sense, but is it right? No matter what choice Garland makes, one side will dislike or hate his decision. Foer understands the propaganda bonanza that Trump and the radical right propaganda Leviathan would create and unleash on the American people if there is an indictment. That is something Garland abhors. Foer foresees that a trial of Trump (i) would turn into a “carnival of grievance” and “a venue for broadcasting conspiracy theories about his enemies,” and (ii) be a “flash point for an era of political violence” with protesters and counter protesters outside the court, possibly leading to street violence. Social damage will be enormous. In my opinion, Foer is correct on all counts.
Newly released emails debunk Trump and allies’ attempts to blame the GSA for packing boxes that ended up in Mar-a-Lago. .... The email exchange between GSA officials and [Trump aide] Harrison is one of more than 100 pages of emails and documents newly released by the GSA that debunk claims from Trump and his allies that the government agency is to blame for packing the boxes containing classified documents that were later recovered by the FBI during the search of his Mar-a-Lago resort in August.A spokesman for Trump did not directly address how these emails dispute claims made by the former president and allies, and instead attacked the Biden administration.
“A routine and necessary process has been leveraged by power-hungry partisan bureaucrats to intimidate and silence those who have dared to support President Trump and his America First agenda,” said Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich. “Why? Because Democrats have done nothing to deliver for the American people and they are left scrambling to fabricate a new witch-hunt to distract from their abject failures.”
Political affiliation has emerged as a potential risk factor for COVID-19, amid evidence that Republican-leaning counties have had higher COVID-19 death rates than Democrat-leaning counties and evidence of a link between political party affiliation and vaccination views. .... We estimate substantially higher excess death rates for registered Republicans when compared to registered Democrats, with almost all of the difference concentrated in the period after vaccines were widely available in our study states. Overall, the excess death rate for Republicans was 5.4 percentage points (pp), or 76%, higher than the excess death rate for Democrats. Post- vaccines, the excess death rate gap between Republicans and Democrats widened from 1.6 pp (22% of the Democrat excess death rate) to 10.4 pp (153% of the Democrat excess death rate). The gap in excess death rates between Republicans and Democrats is concentrated in counties with low vaccination rates and only materializes after vaccines became widely available.
In anticipation of Midterm Election results, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio has filed for a do-over of the legislation widely expected to reduce out-of-pocket drug costs for patients and lower Medicare costs.
Rubio has joined with fellow Republican U.S. Sens. James Lankford, Mike Lee and Cynthia Lummis in introducing the Protecting Drug Innovation Act that would roll back the feds’ authority to negotiate, set and control drug prices under Medicare.
“Democrats’ price controls will hurt Floridians,” said Rubio’s statement that his office released Friday. “There will be less innovation, which means life-saving cancer drugs may not be developed. There will be less production, which means life-sustaining insulin may be harder to find.”
With Rubio’s name on new legislation that would mean taking off the cap that limited seniors’ out-of-pocket drug costs to $2,000 a year, his challenger seized on the opportunity. Democratic U.S. Rep. Val Demings, running to unseat Rubio, released a statement Friday on the bill.
When someone showed me this photo, I was asked where it was. I never would have guessed. No one then thought things would change so drastically so quickly:
Here is an image from Iran of a woman cutting her birthday cake in 1973, 5 years before the Islamic Revolution there. Just wanted to point out how things can change when the government gets religious.
