"This Is Not Over"

 So the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right of American women to choose an abortion — for now. 

In response to that, President Joe Biden, perhaps sensing the end of all that he has fought for his entire career, gave one of the stronger and potentially more consequential speeches of his life. More on that in a moment.

The Roe decision came days after the same court, led by three justices who were appointed by Trump, chose to expand gun rights by striking down a New York state law that sensibly restricted those rights.

Let’s just say it was not a good week for human rights or sensible thinking in our country. 

That any branch of government in 2022 is messing around with invading the privacy of half the people in this country by outlawing such a personal act as abortion is frightening enough. But it also reveals an essential weakness in our outdated form of democracy, where loud, well-financed minorities can achieve electoral victories for extreme positions over our common interests, and against all rational thinking.

The other ruling, expanding gun rights in the only nation on earth where madmen routinely slaughter innocents with military-style weapons, is further evidence that some deeply flawed individuals sit on the court. Individuals who IMHO should be impeached, like the guy who appointed them, but that’s not the point.

May I be blunt? The Supreme Court got both things completely wrong. And who is responsible for that? The people who voted for Trump. They did this to us.

These developments, as regressive and depressing as they are, would be far less dangerous if it were not for the fact that we barely survived losing our democracy last year thanks to them. 

It’s time for all of us who actually care about our children and grandchildren to confront the depth of white grievance in the red states that brought us Trump, these justices and the dilemma we all face now. So many of those voters still believe his lies. Why? I now fear when it comes to reversals of progress and equality in our society, the worst may be yet to come.

But, as Biden noted, that will not and cannot happen without a fight. If he and the Democratic leaders can mobilize enough anger to motivate a large vote turnout in November, they may be able to still turn the tide gradually back to rationality.

Let us hope so. Because the fundamental rights to contraception, same-sex marriage and consensual sex are now on the table, along with many people’s voting rights, again starting in red states, then up through the judicial system to a Supreme Court dominated by extremists.

None of those rights are mentioned in the Constitution, just as abortion is not mentioned. For God’s sake, women are not even mentioned, let alone gay people. To the dinosaurs like Clarence Thomas (please read his ridiculous opinion), if something is not in a document from 250 years ago, it is not a right at all.

Let’s get real here. It is time to fight back.

***

In much happier news, my grandson Oliver had another key hit in his all-star little league baseball team’s 7-1 win in the semi-finals Friday evening down in San Jose. I drove down there to be at his game. He belted another long double over another centerfielder’s head to drive in the second run of the game and that proved to be the winning run. His team now moves on to the championship game next Tuesday. For Ollie, that’s 11 RBIs on 7 hits in 8 official at bats, with one groundout and one hit by pitch.

I know this is just the little league but for fun, let’s look at Oliver’s stats in these playoffs so far. They are a .875 BA, a .889 OBP and a 1.250 SP. That is pretty damn good in any level of baseball.

TODAY’s NEWS LINKS: (6/25/22 — 34 stories from 17 sources)

1. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, ending 50 years of federal abortion rights (CNBC)

2. Abortion will soon be banned in 13 states. Here’s which could be next. (WP)

3. House passes gun bill, which now goes to Biden to become law. (numerous)

4. How four senators finally got a gun deal no one thought was possible (CNN)

5. In One Day, Washington Goes in Two Directions on Guns (NYT)

6. Gun rights supporters ecstatic, safety experts appalled: Supreme Court ruling reverberates across nation (USA Today)

7. States brace for fight over gun laws after high court ruling (AP)

8. The Next Fight Over Guns in America (Atlantic)

9. Matt Gaetz, Mo Brooks and Louie Gohmert among lawmakers who asked for pardons from Trump, Jan 6 hearing told (Independent)

10. New Jan. 6 witness: Trump had mystery call with Putin (Politico)

11. Echoes of Watergate: Trump’s appointees reveal his push to topple Justice Dept. (WP)

12. Amid Plummeting Humanitarian Conditions in Afghanistan, Women, Girls ‘Are Being Written Out of Society’ by De Facto Authorities (UN)

13. Aftershock in Afghanistan as quake toll rises to 1,150 dead (AP)

14. Taliban calls for aid after earthquake as overwhelmed Afghans mourn, seek shelter (WP)

15. Afghanistan earthquake: Survivors struggle for food and shelter amidst cholera fears (BBC)

16. Ukraine Is Withdrawing From Sievierodonetsk (NYT)

17. A senior official in the Russian-installed administration of Ukraine’s occupied Kherson region was killed in an apparent assassination, the deputy head of the administration said. (Reuters)

18. Putin is squeezing gas supplies. And Europe is getting seriously worried about a total shutdown (CNBC)

19. Russia Gains in the East, Threatening to Overrun Luhansk (NYT)

20. Ukraine, in a symbolic move, said it had formally filed a case against Russia at the European Court of Human Rights to end "the mass and gross human rights violations" by Moscow's forces. (Reuters)

21. European leaders gave Ukraine the status of a European Union candidate in a key sign of ongoing support for Ukrainian resistance against Russian invaders and confidence in Ukraine’s future. "It’s a unique and historical moment,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy wrote on Twitter. Moldova, which also worries about Russian ambition regarding its territory, was also given candidate status. [HuffPost]

22. UN chief warns of ‘catastrophe’ from global food shortage (AP)

23. Europe’s Workers Brace for Tough Times as Real Wages Fall (WSJ)

24. Recession in US and Europe ‘increasingly likely’, warn economists (Financial Times)

25. VIDEO: Severe Flooding in China Displaces Hundreds of Thousands of People (Storyful and Reuters)

26. Factual climate change reporting can influence Americans positively, but not for long (NPR)

27. WHO weighs declaring monkeypox a global emergency as European cases surge (WP)

28. COVID vaccines saved 20 million lives in 1st year, scientists say (AP)

29. Ecuador Roiled by Protests Set Off by Rising Fuel and Food Prices (NYT)

30. At Pride, celebrations amid a darker national environment (AP)

31. A tiny spacecraft the size of a microwave could pave the way for a station between Earth and the moon (CNN)

32. NASA Is Working With Startups to Harvest the Moon’s Resources (WSJ)

33. NASA said its moon rocket is ready to launch. The agency wants to return astronauts to the moon. Testing is complete, it said yesterday, and it’s setting up a launch of the massive rocket later this year. (WP)

34. Forward-Thinking CEO Hoping Company Can Capture New Audience By Making Product Worse In Every Conceivable Way (The Onion)

My Father and the Nomads: Afghan Conversation 35

 [NOTE:This is the latest in a series of conversations I have been having with a friend in Afghanistan about life there since the Taliban took over. I am protecting his identity for his safety.]

Dear David:

Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan last year, nomads have started to come into Hazarajat, a mountainous region in the central part of the country where the Hazara people live. This area lacks fertile soil suitable for growing crops so most villagers make their income from sheep herding, as do the nomads.

Last year, soon after the collapse of the central government, the nomads with their animals started becoming a big problem for the Hazara villagers, who were already suffering from a long drought. The nomads’ sheep ate the grasses needed by the villagers’ animals, which led to a number of angry confrontations.

The villagers tried to protect their land by throwing stones at the nomads but this had little effect. So the Hazara petitioned the Taliban government to prevent the nomads from coming into Hazarajat. The Taliban ignored their request. 

More than two thousand families live in our family’s village in Hazarajat. My father is an elder in the village so he tried to intervene with the nomads and negotiate an agreement. He did this in spite of the fact that he knew that the nomads might bring harm onto our family as a result of his confrontations with them. 

One recent night, four nomads did a very odd thing. They came into our village and asked for my father's house and found it. My father invited them into his home, and treated them as honored guests, which is customary among these villagers, even though they are very poor. The four men spent the night in our family’s  home and talked to my father for many hours about the conflict. 

My father told me afterward that their words sounded more like warnings than offers to be reasonable. They basically told him that he should give up and let their sheep graze freely in the valley. 

But my father is not the type of person to back down, regardless of the danger. He is also one of my best friends.

***

(Yesterday’s hearing of the Jan. 6th committee focused on Trump’s pressure on his justice department to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Watch on CSPAN.)

TODAY’s LINKS: (6/24/22 — 39 stories from 18 sources)

1. Senate passes most significant gun control legislation in decades (CBS)

2. Gun Bill’s Progress Reflects Political Shift, but G.O.P. Support Is Fragile (NYT)

3. Why this gun safety deal could be the last one for a generation (Politico)

4. The bipartisan gun safety bill unveiled in the Senate this week would close the notorious “boyfriend loophole” — with a catch. Dating partners convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors would lose their gun rights under the proposal, but only for five years if they avoid committing another violent offense. In the weeks since the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, a raft of states have passed, or are seriously considering, much stronger measures. [HuffPost]

5. Supreme Court Strikes Down New York Concealed-Gun Law in Sweeping Decision (WSJ)

6. The Supreme Court Just Made the NYPD’s Job Harder (Atlantic)

7. VIDEO: Powell Cautions That a Recession Is Possible Amid Rising Interest Rates (Reuters)

8. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) cautioned Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell that he should be careful not to “tip the economy into a recession” with interest rate hikes. “Inflation is like an illness, and the medicine needs to be tailored to the specific problem, otherwise you could make things a lot worse," Warren told Powell at a Senate Banking Committee hearing. [HuffPost]

9. New documentary footage reveals Pence reacting to a resolution calling for him to invoke 25th amendment to remove Trump from power (CNN)

10. Justice Dept. expands Jan. 6 probe with fresh subpoenas (WP)

11. Trump campaign official subpoenaed by FBI appears to be at meeting of fake Arizona electors (AZ Central)

12. Feds search home of Jeffrey Clark, former DOJ official who pushed Trump's false election fraud claims (CNN)

13. As Jan. 6 committee targets Trump, his consternation at McCarthy grows (WP)

14. Biden’s blues: is the US president out of political capital? (Financial Times)

15. President Joe Biden's public approval rating fell for a fourth straight week to 36% matching its lowest level last seen in late May, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll. (Reuters)

16. Gavin Newsom jumps onto the national stage and Bidenworld takes notice (Politico)

17. Biden Pushes Congress for Three-Month Gas Tax Holiday (NYT)

18. Texas shooting: America's gun control debate that never goes away (BBC)

19. LGBTQ students would get new protections under Biden plan (AP)

20. Manufacturing growth is slowing from Asia to Europe as China's COVID-19 curbs and Russia's invasion of Ukraine disrupt supply chains, while the growing risk of a recession in the United States poses a new threat to the global economy. (Reuters)

21. Netflix Lays Off About 3% of Workforce in New Round of Cuts (WSJ)

22. Sen. Ron Johnson under fire over fake-electors disclosure at hearing (WP)

23. Why Sri Lanka’s economy collapsed and what’s next (AP)

24. U.S. to send four more long-range rocket launchers to Ukraine in new aid package (Politico)

25. Watchdog: Russian troops executed Ukranian journalist (NHK)

26. Ukraine will be accepted as a candidate to join the European Union today, a move that will boost the country's morale as the battle with Russian troops for two cities in the east reached what one official called a "fierce climax".(Reuters)

27. Russia Gains in the East, Threatening to Overrun Luhansk (NYT)

28. Two “hellish battles” are happening in Ukraine’s east. In the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk people are preparing for another Russian assault this week. (WP)

29. Survivors dug by hand through villages in eastern Afghanistan reduced to rubble by a powerful earthquake that killed at least 1,000 people, as the Taliban and the international community that fled their takeover struggled to aid the disaster’s victims. How — and whether the Taliban allow — the world to offer aid remains in question. [AP]

30. The Biggest Change in Media Since Cable Is Happening Right Now (Politico)

31. The U.S. is reckoning with its troubled past of Indian boarding schools (NPR)

32. California wildfires caused by human activity spread faster, burn hotter and destroy more trees than those caused by lightning strikes. (Los Angeles Times)

33. FDA bans Juul e-cigarettes tied to teen vaping surge (AP)

34. Think all bacteria are microscopic? Tell that to these centimeter-long monsters (NPR)

35. The June election was bad news for Mayor Breed (48 Hills)

36. Title IX: NCAA report shows stark gap in funding for women (AP)

37. Florida nabs largest python ever found in state (BBC)

38. Inca-era tomb unearthed beneath home in Peru’s capital (Guardian)

39. Man Always Carries Gun In Case He Needs To Escalate Situation (The Onion)

Crime Waves

In a remarkable article called “A Guide for Reading and Writing About Crime,” my fellow Substack writer Alec Karakatsanis makes the following excellent points:

• “Property crime data reported by the police excludes most property crime, including wage theft by employers (which costs low-wage workers about $50 billion per year, more than 3 times more than all police-reported property crime that makes its way into “crime rates”), and tax evasion, which steals about $1 trillion every year (which is about 20 times more than all wage theft and about 63 times more than all police-reported property crime combined).”

• “Violent crime data reported by police excludes nearly all of the violent crimes committed by police and jail guards, which experts estimate to include several million physical and sexual assaults each year. Given their magnitude, including the crimes by government employees in crime statistics could entirely change the direction of crime trends reported by police at any given time.”

• “The vast majority of sexual assault and gender-based violence is not reported to police and never makes it into official “crime rates” reported in the media because most survivors of such violence determine that police, prosecutor, and prison bureaucracies are not a viable or effective way to address that harm.”

• “The vast majority of all other types of crime—such as air and water pollution crimes, police perjury, prosecutor obstruction of justice, government corruption, insider stock trading, foreign bribery, etc.—are never reported to police and never purused by prosecutors, and therefore they never show up in police-reported crime rates. Crime rates tend to capture a small subset of police-reported crimes committed by the poor, and to exclude crimes committed by the wealthy.”

There’s a lot more in his article, which I urge you to read. It provides some context for the political debates over crime that periodically take over our public square. 

The fear of crime has long been an effective tool for manipulating public opinion in elections. Many bad decisions result.

That, after all, is basically what got us Nixon as president. And we know how that one turned out.

TODAY’s LINKS: (6/23/22 — 32 stories from 20 sources)

1. Biden will call for 3-month suspension of gas tax, though officials acknowledge it 'alone won't fix the problem' (CNN)

2. Senate votes to advance bipartisan gun deal, breaking 30-year logjam (WP)

3. Senators hail ‘bipartisan breakthrough’ on gun safety legislation (The Hill)

4. Jan. 6 panel revises hearing schedule, citing new evidence (Politico)

5. Panel Ties Trump to Fake Elector Plan, Mapping His Attack on Democracy (NYT)

6. ‘The system held, but barely’: Jan. 6 hearings highlight a handful of close calls (Politico)

7. Frustrated with January 6 hearings, Trump turns ire toward his allies (CNN)

8. The time to put Trump on trial is drawing near (Financial Times)

9. Russian forces pounded Ukraine's second largest city Kharkiv and surrounding countryside with rockets, killing at least 15 people, in what Kyiv called a bid to force it to pull resources from the main battlefield to protect civilians from attack. (Reuters)

10. Ukrainian photojournalist ‘executed in cold blood’ by Russians, group says (WP)

11. Russian Oil Flows to Europe Have Quietly Started Creeping Up (Bloomberg)

12. Ukraine expects EU-wide support for candidacy to join bloc (AP)

13. How Russia has outflanked Ukraine in Africa (BBC)

14. Biden Bans Most Antipersonnel Land Mine Use, Reversing Trump-Era Policy (NYT)

15. Juul e-cigarettes to be ordered off U.S. shelves (WSJ)

16. More than 200 abortion clinics — just over a quarter of all abortion facilities in the country — will have to immediately close if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. Meanwhile, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a rare anti-abortion Democrat, signed two pieces of legislation, one targeting abortion-inducing pills. [HuffPost]

17. Farewell to Hong Kong and Its Big Lie (Atlantic)

18. Canada is banning single-use plastics to fight pollution and climate change. — Plastic grocery bags, cutlery and straws. It will eliminate 22,000 metric tons of pollution over 10 years, officials said. (WP)

19. Somalia: ‘The worst humanitarian crisis we’ve ever seen’ (Guardian)

20. Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Says Economy Faces ‘Complete Collapse’ (WSJ)

21. Yen sinks to new 24-year low against dollar (NHK)

22. South China floods force tens of thousands to evacuate (AP)

23. Authorities in Bangladesh intensified efforts to deliver food and drinking water to millions of people struggling after heavy rain unleashed catastrophic flooding across a quarter of the country. (Reuters)

24. Climate change a factor in ‘unprecedented’ South Asia floods (AP)

25. VIDEO: China’s Surveillance State Is Growing. These Documents Reveal How. (NYT)

26. Massive quake kills more than 1,000, injures 1,600 in Afghanistan ((WP)

27. ‘Stealth Omicron’ was just overtaken in the U.S. by a new subvariant that evades immunity (Fortune)

28. 6 things we've learned about how the pandemic disrupted learning (NPR)

29. Bizarre spiral object found swirling around Milky Way's center (LiveScience)

30. Is this the end of summer as we’ve known it? (Cal Today)

31. The human sensory experience is limited. Journey into the world that animals know (NPR)

32. Man Sleeps Through His Stop On Elevator (The Onion)

TODAY’s LYRICS:

“ Open Season”

Song by High Highs

Songwriters: Claridge-chang Oliver / Milas Jackson Mico

Get on your knees in the fire
You can leave it
All in your mind, it is
All in your mind, it is

Calling the backseat a friend
It is really
All in your mind, it is
All in your mind

You look so tired of living
Like a kite, kite, kite, kite

Look at all the trees in a line
They are growing
All in your mind, it is
All in your mind, it is

Look at all the leaves in the fire
They are burning
All in your mind, it is
All in your mind

You look so tired of living
Like a kite, kite, kite, kite

Get on your knees in the fire
You can leave it
All in your mind, it is
All in your mind, it is

Standing Up

Yesterday, on a day when the temperature was projected to reach 103, while watching the fourth hearing of the Congressional Jan. 6th probe, an incident from many years ago came into my mind. 

We had stopped during a road trip in Northern California at a place advertised as a place for kids to play. My young kids tumbled out of the car and into one of those netted bouncy things with lots of balls.

So did a few other kids. Then a large man, perhaps the father or stepfather or some mother’s boyfriend started throwing the balls at them — violently and without mercy. It was frighteningly dangerous.

My partner, a slender woman of no imposing physical strength stepped in and confronted this man. “What are you doing? You might hurt someone.”

The man retreated and backed down. Afterwards, I asked her “What were you thinking? He could have killed you.” 

“I doubt it. He’s just a bully,” she told me.

The people who resist bullies are our true heroes.

Watch the hearings yourself on CSPAN. 

TODAY’s LINKS: (6/22/22 — 36 stories from 18 sources)

1. Supreme Court says Maine cannot exclude religious schools from tuition assistance programs (CNN)

2. Unseen Trump tapes subpoenaed by House panel investigating Jan. 6 (Politico)

3. Trump continues to push for single-day, in-person voting in elections — prohibiting mail-in ballots and early voting that 69% of American voters used in 2020. “Ultimately, we want same-day voting — one day — and only paper ballots,” Trump said to cheers at a Nashville convention for “same-day voting.” [HuffPost]

4. Why parents could be the new swing voters — The state of American education is a growing concern for voting parents this year. (Politico)

5. The Texas Republican Party is getting blasted for its shocking new platform declaring that “homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice.”

   The party’s updated mission statement declares opposition to “all efforts to validate transgender identity” ― and calls for a ban on any gender-affirming medical care, including hormone therapy, for anyone under the age of 21. [HuffPost]

6. Anarchy is a likelier future for the west than tyranny — The trend of events is not towards strongmen but towards ungovernability (Financial Times)

7. The Liberals Who Won’t Acknowledge the Crime Problem (Atlantic)

8. You've likely been affected by climate change. Your long-term finances might be, too (NPR)

9. How to store more carbon in soil during climate change (Phys.org)

10. Floodwaters inundated more of Bangladesh and northeast India, as authorities struggled to reach more than 9.5 million people stranded with little food and drinking water after days of intense rain. Two provinces in southern China upgraded warnings as floods reached record levels and rivers overflowed their banks. (Reuters)

11. US pools close, go without lifeguards amid labor shortage (AP)

12. Hong Kong's Jumbo floating restaurant sinks at sea (CNN)

13. Weapons Failures Could Disarm Russian Arms Diplomacy (Bloomberg)

14. AG Merrick Garland visits Ukraine in meeting with top prosecutor leading war crimes inquiry (USA Today)

15. Turkey Grows Cautious Over Selling Weapons to Ukraine (WSJ)

16. ‘The impossible’: Ukraine’s secret, deadly rescue missions (AP)

17. Russia summoned the European Union's ambassador in Moscow, fuming over a rail blockade that has halted shipments of many basic goods to a Russian outpost on the Baltic Sea, the latest stand-off over sanctions imposed over the war in Ukraine. (Reuters)

18. How Kaliningrad, Russian territory surrounded by NATO, is tangled in Ukraine war (WP)

19. Kaliningrad: Russia warns Lithuania of consequences over rail transit blockade (BBC)

20. Russia’s military machine persevered in its ferocious effort to grind down Ukraine’s defenses as the war’s consequences for food and fuel supplies increasingly weighed on minds around the globe after warnings that the fighting could go on for years. [AP]

21. Ukrainian deputy prime minister: 1.2 million people forcibly deported to Russia (NHK)

22. Cryptocurrency tech is vulnerable to tampering, a DARPA analysis finds (NPR)

23. Airports World-Wide Battle Long Lines, Cancellations (WSJ)

24. The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh: Tracing a Bullet to an Israeli Convoy (NYT)

25. Former journalist Peter Jouvenal among five UK nationals to be released in Afghanistan (CNN)

26. Afghanistan goes from bad to worse (Washington Examiner)

27. U.S. works to scale up intelligence networks in Central Asia (WP)

28. Britain's biggest rail strike in 30 years kicked off as tens of thousands of staff walked out in a dispute over pay and jobs that could pave the way for widespread industrial action across the economy in coming months. Prime Minister Boris Johnson could this week lose two parliamentary seats that once illustrated his broad appeal, showing his declining popularity. (Reuters)

29. As Latin America swings to the left, the U.S. could take a back seat (WP)

30. Despite Another Covid Surge, Deaths Stay Near Lows (NYT)

31. Hubble Captures Incredible Snapshot of a Massive Galaxy Cluster (SciTechDaily)

32. Texas GOP's new platform says Biden didn't really win. It also calls for secession (NPR)

33. Texas Republicans want to secede? Good riddance. (WP)

34. Darius Lee, a 21-year-old college basketball player, was killed in a mass shooting in New York City early Monday. Nine people in total were shot, police said. [HuffPost]

35. Don’t swipe, write: Japanese city encourages daters to send love letters (Guardian)

36. Finance Whiz Predicts The Dow Will Open At 9:30 A.M. Tomorrow (The Onion)

 

"Abnormal" Acts

So what gives with the Republican Party? 

In Texas they’ve declared that same-sex relationships are “abnormal” and that the 2020 election of President Biden was “illegitimate.”

One Congressional Republican warns more Jan. 6th-style violence is inevitable, and a GOP candidate in Missouri launched a campaign (disabled by Facebook, thankfully) to “hunt down” and kill those he considers RINOS — Republicans In Name Only.

What is truly abnormal about all this is the Republican Party itself. By repeating the relentless lies about an election “stolen” by Democrats in 2020, Republicans have now installed election deniers in key positions in some swing states, where they presumably will try to actually steal the 2024 election after Trump failed to do so in 2020.

That is truly abnormal behavior.

Legitimate Republicans have a duty now to speak out against this onslaught of truly illegitimate acts, but virtually all of them are too scared to do that. Since fear is the tool of authoritarians, the national GOP is in danger of sinking into a far-right sinkhole.

Once down there, can it ever come back? Will it?

I’m not by nature a pessimistic person. It is notable that a bipartisan bill imposing mild new restrictions on gun ownership may succeed. And there are still some reasonably sane GOP senators like Mitt Romney and many good state and local officials. Plus, some of the more extreme candidates backed by Trump around the country have been losing primary elections.

So there still is hope.

When I was a teenager I read Sinclair Lewis’s novel “It Can’t Happen Here.” (Every teenager should.) Some critics have contended its dystopian vision of American society was an exaggeration, hyperbole — that in fact we could never see a fascist dictator like Hitler in America.

Let’s hope they are right about that.

But in that context, I wonder, what the hell is going on with the Republican Party?

***

On to some personal and decidedly more positive news. For those who enjoyed the story about my 10-year-old grandson Oliver’s Little League play, I have an update. His all-star team played again Monday evening (his coach started Ollie and moved him up in the batting order) and they won handily, 20-2. He hit four line-drive singles to left field in his four at bats and drove in six of those runs. His team next plays in a semi-final match on Friday evening.

TODAY’s LINKS: (6/21/22 — 37 stories from 18 sources)

1. Biden says he will decide on federal gas tax holiday 'by the end of the week' (USA Today)

2. Majority of US economists expecting recession (Sky)

3. A series of surprise actions by some of the world’s largest central banks fretting about runaway inflation has left bond investors battered. Now, a growing chorus of investors is calling on policymakers to move fast to end the uncertainty. (Reuters)

4. Pain at the gas pump is being felt around the world (NPR)

5. GOP member of Jan. 6 committee warns that more violence is coming (WP)

6. Republican Drive to Tilt Courts Against Climate Action Reaches a Crucial Moment (NYT)

7. US Senate candidate's rhino-hunting video pulled from Facebook (AP)

8. Texas Republican party adopts far-right position that homosexuality is ‘abnormal’ (Guardian)

9. A Japanese court ruled the country's ban on same-sex marriage was not unconstitutional, dealing a setback to LGBTQ rights activists in the only Group of Seven nation that does not allow people of the same gender to marry. (Reuters)

10. Trump campaign documents give inside look at fake-elector plan (WP)

11. The U.S. House panel investigating the January 2021 attack on the Capitol will present evidence this week that former President Donald Trump was involved in a failed bid to submit slates of fake electors to overturn the 2020 election, a key lawmaker said. (Reuters)

12. Texas Republicans Approve Far-Right Platform Declaring Biden’s Election Illegitimate (NYT)

13. Modern ‘redlining’ is pushing some Texans out of their homes (WP)

14. From fringe to mainstream: Far-right breaks through in French election shock (NBC)

15. Fix the electoral count law now, before Trump tries to exploit it again (Edit Bd/WP)

16. Russian Forces Tighten Noose Around Important Cities in Ukraine’s East (NYT)

17. Africa is a hostage of Russia's war on Ukraine, Zelensky says (BBC)

18. Ukraine expects a historic week as E.U. considers its candidacy status (WP)

19. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy predicted Russia will escalate its attacks this week as European Union leaders consider whether to back his country's bid to join the bloc and Russia presses its campaign to win control of east Ukraine. (Reuters)

20. Fighting continues in eastern Ukraine, Russian books and music to be banned (NHK)

21. Taliban Release Five Britons, Resolving Dispute With U.K. (WSJ)

22. Ethiopia violence in Oromia: 'Villages full of dead bodies' (BBC)

23. Long COVID answers are coming into focus, slowly (MLive)

24. Sweltering streets: Hundreds of homeless die in extreme heat (AP)

25. Authorities in flood-hit Bangladesh and northeastern India scrambled to provide aid to more than nine million people marooned after the heaviest rains in years killed at least 54 people across both South Asian nations. (Reuters)

26. A 3,400-year-old city in Iraq emerges from underwater after an extreme drought (CNN)

27. Israel faces fifth election in three years (Financial Times)

28. How John Roberts could channel John Marshall (Politico)

29. Peter Thiel helped build big tech. Now he wants to tear it all down. (WP)

30. International Swimming Bars Transgender Women From Competing in Women’s Events (WSJ)

31. Brazil police identify five more people linked to killings of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira (BBC)

32. Giant Sunspot Has Doubled in Size in 24 Hours and It's Pointed at Earth (Newsweek)

33. The Open Secret of Google Search — One of the most-used tools on the internet is not what it used to be. (Atlantic)

34. Cambodian catches world’s largest recorded freshwater fish (AP)

35. Artificial Consciousness Is Boring (Atlantic)

36. Watch Bob Dylan Sing “Happy Birthday” for Brian Wilson’s 80th (Pitchfork)

37. Encouraging Report Finds Most Of Planet Will Still Be Habitable In 2023 (The Onion)

God's Music

“If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” — Edward Hopper

______

On an exceptionally clear, warm Sunday morning, I drove across the bay to San Francisco, which despite what you may have heard, is not a cesspool of homelessness, open drug use and petty street crime. 

It remains what it has always been — one of the safest, cleanest big cities in the country, albeit with a certain measure of homelessness, open drug use and petty street crime. And also the place where a relative handful of us chose to raise our kids. 

San Francisco is changing, some say, but let us hope it will always remain a center for creative, random thinkers. 

Writers, artists, musicians and dreamers of all kinds have chosen to call it home forever and I hope they will continue to be able to do so. And that whatever piece of ourselves nobody else values but is the part that keeps our spirit alive knows it has a safe place to flourish there.

Kids raised in SF are pretty much like kids anywhere else, except that they don’t often vote for politicians who ban books or believe in re-programming those with alternative gender orientations. 

Like most parents, I’ve often worried about what career options my children might have, and whether those careers will prove to be realistic, let alone lucrative. I have had my ideas for each of them, but I’m not sure that my main strength as a parent is pragmatism. Then again, parenting can bring out the parts of us previously under-utilized, right?

Also, I’m not really sure what art is but I always know it when I see it.

These were the ideas flipping through my mind as I drove across the Bay Bridge into the city of 49 square miles with 49 hills and at least 49 good options of where to have brunch. My three youngest kids and I planned to hang out at one of those spots for Father’s Day. 

We had an exceptionally great brunch and talked about many things including what careers they might choose. Afterwards, the four of us went up to Holly Park, where we’d sometimes go in the past when they were walking dogs, and then we hiked back to the house to continue our conversations and be together a bit longer. 

There, my youngest gave me the piece of art she made me for Father’s Day (pictured above.) 

(NOTE to readers: I aggregate news headlines and write personal essays 365(6)days a year. Please forward this column to a friend, or better yet ten friends who might like it, because new subscriptions are pretty much like gold to me.)

TODAY’s LINKS: (6/20/22 — 30 stories from 20 sources)

1. NATO warns of long Ukraine war as battles grind on (Reuters)

2. Morale is concern as NATO chief warns war could last ‘years’ (AP)

3. Will Ukraine join the European Union? (Al Jazeera)

4. Fierce fighting continues over Severodonetsk (NHK)

5. Russia aiming to bring front-line to Kharkiv (BBC)

6. Former federal judge warns of danger to American democracy (NPR)

7. DeSantis draws huge cash haul from Trump donors (Politico)

8. Jan. 6 panel to implicate Trump in fake elector plot, Schiff says (Reuters)

9. Trump 'Handed Down Death Sentence To Mike Pence' To Stay In Power: Mary Trump (HuffPost)

10. Despite Growing Evidence, a Prosecution of Trump Would Face Challenges (NYT)

11. Monsoon floods kill 42 people, millions stranded in Bangladesh, India (Reuters)

12. Spain, Germany battle wildfires amid unusual heat wave (AP)

13. Did climate change kill 2,000 Kansas cows? Farmers can’t afford to ignore science (Kansas City Star)

14. Republican Drive to Tilt Courts Against Climate Action Reaches a Crucial Moment (NYT)

15. VIDEO: Militant Attack on Sikh Temple Leaves Several Dead in Afghanistan (Reuters)

16. China launches third aircraft carrier in military advance (Guardian)

17. Crypto billionaire says Fed is driving current downturn (NPR)

18. Bitcoin drops below $20,000 as crypto selloff quickens (AP)

19. Recession Probability Soars as Inflation Worsens (WSJ)

20. Supreme Court could soon make it easier to carry guns in six states (WP)

21. The number of firearms in the U.S. is outpacing the country’s population, as an emboldened gun industry and its allies target buyers with rhetoric of fear, machismo and defiance. (NYT)

22. Three single, gay dads reflect on fatherhood, surrogacy journeys (NPR)

23. The Recipe for Life — A father, a son, and their secret superpowers. (New Yorker)

24. Apple workers in Maryland vote to become tech giant’s first unionized store in U.S. (WP)

25. Vaccines for Young Children Are Coming, but Many Parents Have Tough Questions (NYT)

26. Belgium to return Patrice Lumumba’s gold tooth in bid to atone for colonial crimes (Guardian)

27. Why We’re Still Obsessed With Watergate (Politico)

28. SpaceX launches and lands 3rd rocket in 36 hours (Space.com)

29. Steph Curry’s Warriors Are Golden Champions Again. Look Out, NBA. (WSJ)

30. Tech Is The Future, Reports Local Dad (The Onion)

TODAY’s LYRICS:

“That’s the Way Loves Goes”

Song by Merle Haggard

Written by Lefty Frizzell and Sanger D. Shafer

I've been throwing horseshoes
Over my left shoulder
I've spent most all my life
Searching for that four-leaf clover

Yet you ran with me
Chasing my rainbows
Honey, I love you too
That's the way love goes

That's the way love goes, babe
That's the music God made
For all the world to sing
It's never old, it grows
Losing makes me sorry
You say, "Honey, now don't worry
Don't you know I love you too?"
And that's the way love goes

That's the way love goes, babe
That's the music God made
For all the world to sing
It's never old, it grows
Losing makes me sorry
And you say, "Honey, don't worry
Don't you know I love you too?"

And that's the way love goes