(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: For your (mis)information [1] [] Date: 2024-06-25 Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a long-running series published every morning that collects essential political discussion and analysis around the internet. We begin with Heather Cox Richardson’s acknowledgement of Monday’s two-year anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision at her “Letters from an American” Substack. The three justices appointed by former president Trump joined Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Chief Justice John Roberts to strip a constitutional right from the American people, a right we had enjoyed for almost 50 years, a right that is considered a fundamental human right in most liberal democracies, and a right they had indicated they would protect because it was settled law. For the first time in our history, rather than conveying rights, the court explicitly took a constitutional right away from the American people. Andy Kroll, Andrea Bernstein, and Ilya Marritz of ProPublica reported that the night before the decision came down, 70 or so partygoers, including two dozen state and federal judges, met to drink champagne and eat fine food at the Maine home of the man who had hatched and then executed a plan to stack the courts with extremist judges: Leonard Leo. It was Leo who had helped pick or confirm all six of the justices who would, the next day, announce to the world they were overturning Roe. Andy Kroll, Andrea Bernstein, and Ilya Marritz of ProPublica reported that the night before the decision came down, 70 or so partygoers, including two dozen state and federal judges, met to drink champagne and eat fine food at the Maine home of the man who had hatched and then executed a plan to stack the courts with extremist judges: Leonard Leo. It was Leo who had helped pick or confirm all six of the justices who would, the next day, announce to the world they were overturning Roe. John Cassidy of The New Yorker says that Thursday night’s presidential debate is the time for President Joe Biden to tout his record on the economy. Practically every month of Biden’s Presidency, he has hailed the latest employment figures as evidence that the American economy has recovered more strongly from the pandemic than other major economies have. Last fall, along with Vice-President Kamala Harris and other senior Administration officials, he embarked, for a third time, on an “Investing in America Tour” to highlight new manufacturing initiatives that took advantage of financing provided in four major pieces of domestic legislation: the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the chips and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the American Rescue Plan. So far, none of these efforts has had much impact on Biden’s lowly economic-approval ratings. The dramatic rise in prices during 2021 and 2022—which has resulted in an enduring sticker shock when the public buys food and other essential items—has undermined the popularity of elected leaders across the world, regardless of party affiliation. Biden is no exception. “It’s very hard to break through,” Bharat Ramamurti, who served as deputy director of the White House National Economic Council from 2021 to 2023, told me last week. “But a Presidential debate is a moment when it is guaranteed that people will be paying attention. It is an important opportunity for the President to refocus the debate.” Susan Milligan of The New Republic says that a closer look at 2024 presidential election polling reveals that Democrats probably do not have to worry too much about the defection of minority voters to the shoe salesman. Probably. A closer examination of the polling indicates Biden is not in as much trouble with minority voters as the Trump campaign believes (or at least would have the public believe). The president indeed suffers from a dearth of enthusiasm from a cranky electorate, but that’s an across-the-board problem. It’s not particular to Black and Hispanic voters. And if historical trends hold, Biden has a solid chance of bringing those traditional Democratic voters back home come November. First, it’s fair to question whether the polling itself—while useful—is dispositive. Democrats have weathered similar scares in recent cycles. In 2022, a preelection poll by the nonpartisan National Association of Latino Elected Officials found that 57 percent of Latinos favored Democratic candidates for Congress. Exit polls determined that 64 percent voted for a Democratic House candidate. A projected drop in female Hispanic support never materialized: While 56 percent said before the electionthey’d vote for the Democrat in the midterms, 68 percent actually did so. That’s largely because the “undecideds” in that poll went for the Democrats, coming home in November as the party counted on them doing. And it’s in tune with elections from 2022 on, where Democrats have consistently overperformed in contests ranging from mayor to congressman. Surveys of Black voters too seem inconsistent with the sky-is-falling reporting from the horse-race polling data. A Pew Research poll of Black voters in May found them consistently identifying with the Democratic Party in high numbers (83 percent to 88 percent since 1994). There’s very little party crossover in presidential races, making it unlikely that Trump picks up a significant part of that vote. Daniel McGraw of The Bulwark thinks the Democrats’ “blue wall” of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania will hold up in the upcoming presidential election. I want to offer a different way of thinking about what is going on in these states. When you get on the ground and talk with real Midwestern voters, you find some common sense in their thinking. It’s not that these voters have made a big switch in one direction or another, or that they have especially strong feelings about Trump’s continuing lies about the 2020 election, or that they care about his obsession with sharks, birds and windmills, and bathroom-water issues. What Midwestern voters really care about is that Trump has nothing new to offer. Trump is not turning the page to get the undecideds—or, for that matter, to keep some of his less than enthusiastic base. Hang with the sitting-on-lawn-chairs-in-the-driveway-drinking-beer crowd and you’ll hear that message over and over. “You can’t be against everything and win again and again,” said one suburban Cleveland retail business owner in his mid-fifties who voted for Trump in 2016 but not in 2020. “He’s got to offer how things will be better if we vote for him. It’s like any product the public buys. Cars, fast food, new windows for your house. You’ll buy if you have reasons to buy in. He’s not doing that.” I have no idea why McGraw included Ohio in the set of states that define the blue wall. The shoe salesman went low in responding to Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson and, in response, Robinson went … well, I’ll let you be the judge, but Robinson ain’t wrong. Remember that bizarre story he told a couple of weeks ago about boats, sharks and electrocution? Trump obviously remembers how people made fun of it, to the point where he told the story again on Saturday, insisting it was “actually not crazy” and “sort of a smart story.” But what’s striking, and sad, is how defensive Trump is. After saying something that made no earthly sense, and getting ridiculed for it, he couldn’t just move on and hope everyone forgets. He can’t stand being laughed at. After I wrote about the shark thing two weeks ago — a column that, by the way, consisted mostly of Trump’s own words — he singled me out on Truth Social as one of the “fools and stupid people” working here at The Post. [...] We witnessed this flaw in Trump’s temperament throughout his four years as president — his inability to say “I misspoke” or “I was wrong” — but the shark story shows that his insistence on his own infallibility is getting worse. It sounds to me as though he really believes having had an uncle who taught at MIT gives him “an aptitude” to rewrite the laws of physics. The former director of the Stanford Internet Observatory Renée DiResta writes for The New York Times that efforts to combat election misinformation have eroded on multiple fronts. The 2024 rerun is already being viciously fought. Since 2020, the technological landscape has shifted. There are new social media platforms in the mix, such as Bluesky, Threads and Truth Social. Election integrity policies and enforcement priorities are in flux at some of the biggest platforms. What used to be Twitter is under new ownership and most of the team that focused on trust and safety was let go. Fake audio generated by artificial intelligence has already been deployed in a European election, and A.I.-powered chatbots are posting on social-media platforms. Overseas players continue to run influence operations to interfere in American politics; in recent weeks, OpenAI has confirmed that Russia, China and others have begun to use generative text tools to improve the quality and quantity of their efforts. Offline, trust in institutions, government, media and fellow citizens is at or near record lows and polarization continues to increase. Election officials are concerned about the safety of poll workers and election administrators — perhaps the most terrible illustration of the cost of lies on our politics. Lisa Rein of The Washington Post reports that the Social Security Administration is eliminating some unskilled jobs from an outdated database. On Monday, the agency will eliminate all but a handful of those unskilled jobs from a long-outdated database used to decide who gets benefits and who is denied, ending a practice that advocates have long decried as unfair and inaccurate. Commissioner Martin O’Malley’s decision to jettison federal labor market data, some of which was last updated 47 years ago, follows a Washington Post investigation in December 2022 that revealed how the antiquated list of jobs was blocking many claimants who could not work from receiving vital monthly disability checks. [...] With many benefits decisions hinging on whether claimants can still work, the jobs list was a crucial element for administrative law judges considering appeals. “Industrial economies change, and jobs fade away. We had not removed these,” O’Malley said. The change will be an immediate improvement to an already-difficult process, attorneys and advocates said. Matt Burgess of WIRED looks at a bureaucratic practice that slows down the response of hospitals and medical providers to ever-increasing ransomware attacks. Health care professionals, lawyers, and cybersecurity experts tell WIRED that amid the chaos caused by criminal hackers, a little-known bureaucratic process can slow down hospitals and medical providers getting their systems working again. The red tape involves organizations hit by ransomware sending detailed “assurance” or “attestation” letters to companies that they connect their systems or software with. These letters are designed to convince organizations that it is safe to reconnect after the ransomware attack, but they can add extra pressure to those already dealing with physically and mentally draining recovery operations. The letters aren’t required by any law and are not unique to medical organizations impacted by ransomware attacks, but experts say in situations where lives are at risk, more efficient processes should be considered. Assurance letters seen by WIRED contain up to 40 individual questions about cyberattacks and include detailed requests about how events unfolded, steps taken to respond, and any evidence that may have been gathered. Jerusalem Demsas of The Atlantic interviews Stanford visiting fellow Dr. Alice Evans about the increased sexism of young men worldwide. Demsas: So basically you have these three buckets here that you’re talking about. You’re saying that you see this divergence with young men, in particular, because young men, I guess, are concerned with status in a particular way, and that the economic circumstances of our moment in time here in the U.S. have made it more difficult because of home prices, because of diverging outcomes for people with a college degree versus those without. And then, finally, because of women’s increased opportunities that they’re able to actually reject men that they feel like don’t give them either economic security or the love or respect. And in previous generations, they would have had to make do because they weren’t afforded that freedom in society. Is that kind of getting at what you’re— Evans: Perfect. You’ve said it far better than me. For example, young women will say to me on dating apps, they just give up because these men are boring, right? So if a man is not charming, then what is he offering? A woman is looking for loving companionship, someone who’s fun, someone who’s nice to spend time with. But if the guy can’t offer that, then—so in turn, this is hurtful for men. Men aren’t these powerful patriarchs policing women. In fact, they’re guys with emotions—and nobody wants to be ghosted, to be rejected, to feel unwanted. So if men go on these dating apps, and they’re not getting any likes, and even if they speak to her, when she doesn’t have the time of day, it just bruises and grates at your ego, your sense of worth. And so then, men may turn to podcasts or YouTube, and if you look at that manosphere, if you look at what people are talking about, it’s often dating. And so they’re often saying, Oh, women have become so greedy. They’re so materialistic... The Guardian reporting team of Harry Davies, Manisha Ganguly, David Pegg, Hoda Osman, Yuval Abraham, and Bethan McKernan investigates the deaths of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli Defense Forces. Among those listed by the CPJ as having been killed in Gaza since 7 October, approximately 30% worked for media outlets affiliated with or closely tied to Hamas. Working with Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), a Jordan-based non-profit, the Guardian identified at least 23 individuals killed since 7 October who worked for the largest Hamas-run outlet in Gaza, al-Aqsa media network. [...] Asked about the al-Aqsa network casualties, a senior IDF spokesperson told reporters in the Gaza project consortium that there was “no difference” between working for the media outlet and belonging to Hamas’s armed wing, a sweeping statement legal experts described as alarming. “It’s a shocking statement,” Adil Haque, a law professor at Rutgers University in the US said, describing the position as showing “a complete misunderstanding or just a wilful disregard for international law”. Finally, Jean MacKenzie of BBC News looks into the inequalities experienced by LGBTQ+ Ukrainian soldiers. The deaths of LGBT soldiers in Ukraine have exposed an inequality. They do not have the same rights as heterosexual troops. Gay marriage is illegal, meaning when these soldiers are killed, their partners do not have the right to decide what happens to their bodies, nor are they entitled to state support. [...] Attitudes to LGBT rights have shifted enormously over the past decade, as Ukraine has embraced European values, though many still hold socially conservative and even homophobic views. Having openly gay people fighting and dying on the front line has further challenged people’s prejudices. But meaningful change is harder to see. Hopes were high last spring, when a bill to allow same-sex couples to have civil partnerships was introduced to parliament, but 14 months later it has stalled. Meanwhile, LGBT soldiers have reported being bullied and harassed in their units. Everyone have the best possible day! 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