The Last 4th

 Happy Birthday America. Happy Birthday to your rolling hills, vast plains, mountain peaks, deep valleys, rushing rivers, green forests, blue lakes, big sky, mighty oceans, and the most hopeful experiment in self-rule in human history.

I’m spending this holiday with the San Jose branch of my family. It got up to 103 degrees yesterday, but the temperature fell by 35 degrees over night.

As long as I can remember, July 4th has been our ultimate summer holiday, with family get-togethers, watermelons, barbecued meals and camping trips.

In the background of all of that celebratory behavior is, of course, the formal honoring of our nation as a democracy, a land where no one is above the law.

But this week, in a perversion of the Constitution, a highly corrupt Supreme Court has granted almost complete immunity to the President, making that person the equivalent of a king with almost unchecked power.

The last time I checked, this nation was founded by people determined to escape the power of a king.

But this court acted in defense of a man who has strained our entire political and legal system to its breaking point. A man who would be king.

He seeks absolute power and this court to its eternal shame is willing to give it to him.

Accordingly, this may well be our last Fourth of July. By next year at this time, the Constitution may be in tatters, a free people under the thumb of an authoritarian, and the sweet joys of mid-summer merely a memory amidst the destruction of all we once held dear.

So with that caveat, Happy Birthday America. I hope a free people vote to stay free. 

HEADLINES:

• Hurricane Beryl Hammering Jamaica With Potentially Devastating Impacts, Cayman Islands Next (Weather.com)

• Unprecedented Category 5 Hurricane Beryl Stuns Scientists (Forbes)

• Hurricane Beryl Is a Terrifying Omen (Atlantic)

• Biden ‘absolutely not’ dropping out, White House says (WP)

• Biden Told Ally That He Is Weighing Whether to Continue in the Race (NYT)

• A shift in how Democrats talk about Biden’s dropping out (WP)

• Joe Biden pulls even with his Republican challenger Donald Trump in polls (Reuters)

• Biden’s post-debate crisis is now evolving into a genuine threat to his reelection bid (CNN)

• Biden’s Lapses Are Said to Be Increasingly Common and Worrisome (NYT)

• Bribes, assassination and pardons: Immunity ruling leaves questions on unchecked presidential power (The Hill)

• The US supreme court just completed Trump’s January 6 coup attempt (Guardian)

• Supreme Court ruling could jeopardize California’s environmental rules (LAT)

• 51,000-year-old cave painting may be earliest scene depicted through art (WP)

• Prepare yourself for the AI smartphone wars (Yahoo)

• A.I. Begins Ushering In an Age of Killer Robots (NYT)

• Supreme Court Rules Trump Has Immunity For Any Crime Committed Between 9 And 5 (The Onion)