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  • Key US inflation gauge cooled last month to the lowest level in nearly three years | CNN Business

    Key US inflation gauge cooled last month to the lowest level in nearly three years | CNN Business

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    Minneapolis
    CNN
     — 

    Wholesale inflation continued its yearlong slowdown last month, rising by just 0.1% for the 12 months ended in June, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Producer Price Index released Thursday.

    The PPI index, a key inflation gauge that tracks the average change in prices that businesses pay to suppliers, has cooled significantly since peaking at 11.2% in June 2022 and has now declined for 12 consecutive months. Annual producer price inflation is at its lowest level since August 2020, BLS data shows.

    Economists were expecting an annual increase of 0.4%, according to Refinitiv.

    On a monthly basis, prices increased by 0.1%.

    Goods prices held steady for the month, after tumbling 1.6% in May, according to the BLS report. As such, prices for services — which increased 0.2% from May — were the primary driver behind June’s slight increase.

    PPI is a closely watched inflation gauge since it captures average price shifts before they reach consumers and is a proxy for potential price changes in stores.

    While the PPI doesn’t directly correlate into exactly what will come from the following month’s Consumer Price Index — a major inflation gauge that tracks price shifts for a basket of goods and services — it provides a look at whole economy inflation, minus rents, said Alex Pelle, Mizuho Securities US economist.

    And that picture right now is looking pretty sharp.

    “It’s definitely a good month for inflation,” Pelle told CNN. “You saw that in CPI, and now you’re seeing it in PPI.”

    In June, inflation as measured by the CPI cooled to 3% annually, its lowest rate since March 2021, the BLS reported Wednesday.

    Both the CPI and PPI have declined monthly since their peaks in June 2022, when record-high energy and gas prices fueled the spikes to 9.1% and 11.2%, respectively.

    As such, the base effects of year-over-year comparisons are playing a part in the indexes’ sharp retreats.

    Still, underlying inflation is showing a cooling trend as well — albeit more muted.

    In the case of PPI, when stripping out the more volatile categories of food and energy, this “core” index rose 2.4% for the 12 months ended in June. That’s a step back from the 2.6% increase seen in May and economists’ expectations of 2.6%.

    Core PPI, which ticked up 0.1% on a monthly basis, is at its lowest annual level since February 2021.

    Inflation is looking a heck of a lot better than last year, when the Federal Reserve embarked on a campaign to combat price hikes with rate hikes, but economists don’t expect the latest CPI and PPI prints will dissuade central bankers from giving another crank to tighten monetary policy.

    Starting in March 2022, the central bank rolled out 10 consecutive interest rate hikes to tame inflation, finally hitting pause last month. The Fed is widely expected to raise rates by another quarter point when it meets later this month.

    “[The June data] means that the doves are going to have a little bit better of an argument to hold sooner rather than later, so that does reduce the probability of a second hike this year,” Pelle said, noting the commonly used terms to describe Fed members’ differing monetary policy approaches.

    Doves tend to favor looser monetary policy and issues like low unemployment over low inflation, while hawks favor robust rate hikes and keeping inflation low above all else.

    But just how long a hold could last is another matter, said Pelle.

    The job market is cooling from a scorching state, but it remains historically hot and tight. Considering ongoing demographic shifts (including the massive Baby Boomer generation aging out of the workforce), that tightness could continue, Pelle said.

    “Do we really need to be cutting rates if you have GDP running around trend and the labor market still very tight,” he said. “Inflation is coming down, but the economy is maybe growing a little bit into these higher rate levels. So the hold could be longer than people expect. But we might have some of the sting out on getting even higher.”

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  • Youngkin launches efforts to get Republicans to vote early or by mail | CNN Politics

    Youngkin launches efforts to get Republicans to vote early or by mail | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Virginia’s Gov. Glenn Youngkin is encouraging Republicans to vote absentee by mail or early in-person ahead of his state’s pivotal legislative elections this year.

    Youngkin on Tuesday launched a new program, “Secure Your Vote Virginia,” aimed at cutting into Democrats’ mail-in voting advantage as Republican voters’ confidence in the voting method are low in part from former President Donald Trump’s claims that it’s rife with fraud.

    “Republicans got to stop sitting on the sidelines and allowing the Democrats to do a better job of voting early. I’m tired of us going into elections down thousands of votes,” Youngkin said on Fox News Tuesday morning.

    “And so, secureyourvotevirginia.com provides an easy way to make a plan, to make a plan to vote early, to get on the permanent absentee ballot, to vote early by mail or just make a plan to vote early. We got to get out the vote. These elections are critical.”

    The program is a partnership with Virginia’s state party, the Republican State Leadership Committee, the Virginia Senate Republican Caucus and the House Republican Campaign Committee.

    In a press release, Rich Anderson, the chair of the Republican Party of Virginia, said that “this data-driven effort to get Republicans to vote early is how we win in November.”

    “We have a clear mission: get in front of as many voters as we can to assure them voting absentee by mail or early in person is easy, secure, and necessary,” Anderson said in a statement.

    Virginia holds off-cycle elections that are sometimes viewed as a bellwether for the following year’s contests. All of Virginia’s House of Delegates and Senate seats are up for grabs this November and Republicans hope to hold the House and flip the Senate, which has stalled parts of Youngkin’s legislative agenda.

    The governor has repeatedly said in interviews that he’s focused on Virginia when asked if he’s considering a 2024 presidential bid.

    Asked at an event back in May if he’d be “getting out on the presidential campaign trail later this year,” Youngkin had said, “No. I’m going to be working in Virginia this year.”

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  • Republican block leaves major branch of US military without a confirmed leader for first time in over a century | CNN Politics

    Republican block leaves major branch of US military without a confirmed leader for first time in over a century | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A major branch of the US military does not have a Senate confirmed leader for the first time in more than a century, as a result of a Republican senator refusing to lift his block on military nominations.

    Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. David Berger relinquished command on Monday after holding a private retirement ceremony, after more than 40 years of service. His successor, Gen. Eric Smith, has not yet been confirmed to take over due to the hold on senior military nominations by Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville.

    Speaking at Berger’s relinquishment of command ceremony on Monday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made a point to mention the hold and its impact on “stable and orderly leadership transitions,” and military families.

    “We have a sacred duty to do right by those who volunteer to wear the cloth of our nation,” Austin said. “And I remain confident that all Americans can come together to agree on that basic obligation to those who keep us safe. I am also confident that the United States Senate will meet its responsibilities. And I look forward to welcoming an outstanding new commandant for our Marine Corps, and to adding many other distinguished senior leaders across the joint force.”

    Berger agreed just moments later, saying, “We need the Senate to do their job so we can have a sitting Commandant that’s appointed and confirmed.”

    “We need that house to be occupied,” Berger said in reference to the Commandant’s house. “We ask the Senate to do that.”

    In his last interview as commandant, Berger argued military officers should be left out of the hold, which is being maintained as a protest of Pentagon reproductive health policies announced earlier this year that provide additional support to service members and dependents who must travel out of state to receive an abortion.

    “This needs to get resolved,” Berger told CNN. “We need to leave the military out of the politics of it. The whole department – the military people wearing a uniform, should not be drug into an issue that’s a policy issue, for which we don’t deal with. … The military uniform people that we want left out [of] politics are being dragged into it, and that’s not healthy at all.”

    Tuberville told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source” Monday night that when lawmakers are in the minority party in the Senate, “the only power we have is to put a hold on something.”

    Asked by Collins whether he knows better than seven former defense secretaries who penned a letter in May arguing the hold was “harming military readiness and risks damaging US national security,” Tuberville said: “They were nominated, they weren’t elected. I was elected to represent the people of Alabama in this country.”

    “I’m a senator,” Tuberville added, “I can hold any confirmation I want until we get some kind of confirmation of why you’re doing this” from the White House and Pentagon.

    The Alabama Republican had told CNN’s Manu Raju earlier Monday that he would not back off of his hold, saying he doesn’t buy concerns about the impact on military readiness “whatsoever” and arguing “this is not a risk.”

    While Tuberville’s hold continues, Smith has the authority to act as the commandant in his current role as the assistant commandant. Maj. Jim Stenger, a spokesman for the Marine Corps, said Smith will remain the assistant until he is confirmed by the Senate.

    Smith will have the authorities he needs to do the job, Berger said, but he’ll be left without a second-in-command to assist him because of the hold.

    “He can’t do both jobs at the same time, nor can anyone else because they don’t have the authorities because all the promotions are held up,” Berger said. “So he’s going to have to do his job in a very different way than I was able to, because I could travel, he was here, he could travel, I was here. Now only one of him, so it affects the way he does his job.”

    Democratic Sen. Jack Reed, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told CNN that denying Smith’s promotion “in this partisan manner is an insult to the Marine Corps and every service member.”

    “Gen. Smith has faithfully served the country for 36 years,” Reed said. “He has fought and bled in our nation’s wars and led fellow marines with courage, honor, and distinction. He earned this promotion. He deserves Senate action without political obstruction that has nothing to do with his command.”

    Smith is one of more than 200 general and flag officers whose nominations are currently stalled in the Senate due to a hold led by Tuberville over his protest of the new Pentagon reproductive health policies.

    Defense officials expect more than 600 senior officers to be up for nomination by the end of the year.

    Typically, those nominations are approved in a routine process known as unanimous consent, which approves hundreds of nominations at once. Tuberville’s hold prevents that, meaning the Senate would need to take a vote on each nomination individually – a process one Democratic Senate aide previously told CNN would take months to complete.

    Tuberville told CNN earlier Monday that he didn’t know why the Senate hadn’t yet taken up the votes individually on the floor.

    “Why don’t we vote on these people one at a time? We could do that, but they don’t want to do that for some reason,” he said, adding later that it’s “very easy to do.”

    Tuberville doubled down Monday night, telling Collins that he’s “not stopping anybody from being confirmed.”

    “I’m just stopping them from confirming hundreds at a time,” he said. “They can confirm as many as they want during the day, we’re just sitting around twiddling our thumbs most of the time during the week and should be confirming people.”

    Berger said that in the last few months, he’s had to do something he “never thought I would have to do as a service chief: tell people who had already served 30 years, and their family has served 30 years … I’d like you to think about not retiring.”

    “These are families who have already done this for 30 years,” he said. “They’ve given up a lot in those 30 years, and I’m asking them would they be willing to stay longer, indefinitely.”

    And Smith is far from the only senior Marine Corps officer to be impacted by the holds. Among the other positions are the commanders of the I and III Marine Expeditionary Forces. Both are positions held by three-star generals, but could be temporarily filled by a one-star if their successors aren’t confirmed by the Senate.

    Smith raised concerns about I Marine Expeditionary Force commander slot being filled by a one-star in his Senate confirmation hearing in June. In response to a question from independent Maine Sen. Angus King, Smith said that if the current commander did not have a confirmed replacement by the time he retires in August, a “fairly new” one-star general would be “in charge of that 48,000-person Marine Expeditionary Force.”

    “And that compromises readiness and decision making and the effectiveness of that division?” King asked.

    “Sir, it does,” Smith responded.

    Outside of questions about how a lasting hold would impact internal military processes, officials have also raised concerns about the message the hold projects to allies and adversaries alike.

    Berger told CNN it would be “naïve to think that the US military isn’t considered a world leader, and when the world leader can’t promote its officers on a regular basis – kind of like when [you] can’t pass a budget – confidence goes down.”

    “I won’t be surprised if confidence [is] affected by that,” he said.

    A Marine official who spoke on condition of anonymity pointed to the III Marine Expeditionary Force commander slot, saying that the general officer in that position regularly meets with important allies and partners in the Pacific. The official said it would be “embarrassing” for the US to send a one-star, acting commander to meet with more senior ranking foreign allies in a region that is so critical for the Pentagon.

    “It wouldn’t be a good look for a key ally to be meeting with a one-star,” the official said.

    Democratic Rep. Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts, a member of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the US and China, told CNN that Tuberville’s hold is playing into China’s hands.

    Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “core message is the United States, specifically and the West broadly, are in decline and dysfunction,” Auchincloss said.

    “It’s one guy who is single handedly handing a public relations gift to Xi Jinping,” he added. “It’s especially unfortunate, because we’ve actually had a lot of success recently on our military posture in the Indo-Pacific … And as we’re doing this pivot to Asia, pivot to the Indo-Pacific maybe more precisely, we’re stubbing our toe because of Tommy Tuberville.”

    Though the policies included things like extending the timeline for service members to have to notify commanders of a pregnancy, and travel allowances for troops seeking in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intrauterine insemination (IUI), they also included a travel allowance for service members seeking an abortion.

    “Our service members and their families do not control where they are stationed, and due to the nature of military service, are frequently required to travel or move to meet operational requirements,” a February news release announcing the new policies said. “The efforts taken by the Department today will … ensure service members are able to access non-covered reproductive health care regardless of where they are stationed.”

    Tuberville “believes the Pentagon is circumventing the role of Congress and flouting existing federal law, which narrowly restricts the use of taxpayers funds” for abortions, a news release from his office said. Under current law, the Defense Department cannot pay for abortions unless the health of the mother is at risk, or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.

    Those three cases remain the only instances in which Pentagon facilities can provide an abortion.

    Ultimately, Berger echoed concerns from other DOD officials about the impact an ongoing hold would have on the military’s readiness and warfighting capabilities.

    He said the holds put the Marine Corps in “a risky place, because from a warfighting perspective, you want the most experienced, most proficient leader commanding that organization,” and in some cases a less experienced leader will be in charge.

    “You want the very best leaders day-to-day leading those organizations, training those Marine units, getting them ready for whenever a conflict comes. So day-to-day, increase risk, because we don’t have the right person in the right job because I can’t promote them,” Berger said. “The second part is in a conflict or in a crisis or a war, same thing — people’s lives are at stake. You want the very best person in position. I can’t do that right now.”

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Marine taken into custody after missing 14-year-old girl found at Camp Pendleton, authorities say | CNN

    Marine taken into custody after missing 14-year-old girl found at Camp Pendleton, authorities say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A United States Marine has been taken into custody for questioning after a 14-year-old girl who was reported missing was found at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, California, last month, authorities said.

    The girl was reported missing by her grandmother on June 13, according to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.

    On June 28, she was discovered in the barracks at Camp Pendleton. A Marine with Combat Logistics Battalion 5, 1st Marine Logistics Group has since been taken into custody for questioning by Naval Criminal Investigative Services, according to Capt. Charles Palmer, spokesperson for 1st Marine Logistics Group.

    “This command takes this matter and all allegations very seriously. The incident is under investigation, and we will continue to cooperate with NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Services) and appropriate authorities,” Palmer said in a statement Sunday to CNN.

    NCIS declined CNN’s request for comment “out of respect for the investigative process.”

    Detectives interviewed the teen, the family was offered services and she has been returned to her grandmother, according to the sheriff’s department.

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  • Could the June CPI report change the Fed’s rate trajectory? | CNN Business

    Could the June CPI report change the Fed’s rate trajectory? | CNN Business

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    A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.



    CNN
     — 

    After the June jobs report showed a cooling but still-hot picture of the labor market, investors are looking to a key inflation report due Wednesday for more clues on the economy’s health. But some investors say the results will likely do little to sway the Federal Reserve’s interest rate trajectory.

    What happened: The labor market added just 209,000 jobs in June, below economists’ expectations for a net gain of 225,000 jobs. That’s the smallest monthly gain since a decline in December 2020.

    But beneath the surface, the jobs market remains hot. Average hourly earnings growth remained steady at 0.4% from May and also unchanged at 4.4% year-over-year, suggesting that wage inflation remains sticky. The unemployment rate also fell to 3.6% from 3.7%, though jobless rates for Black and Hispanic workers rose sharply.

    There is “nothing in the release that would change our expectation that the Fed has more work to do,” said Joseph Davis, global chief economist at Vanguard.

    Accordingly, traders continued to overwhelmingly expect a quarter-point rate hike at the Fed’s July meeting. Traders saw a roughly 92% chance of such a decision as of the market close on Friday, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

    What’s next: The June Consumer Price Index report, a key inflation reading, is due on Wednesday.

    Economists expect a 3.1% increase in consumer prices for the year ended in June, which would be a cooldown from a 4% annual increase in May, according to Refinitiv.

    Recent data has suggested that inflation is coming down, though it remains above the Fed’s 2% target. The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, the Fed’s favorite inflation gauge, rose 3.8% for the 12 months ended in May. That’s down from the revised 4.3% annual rise seen in April.

    But it’s unlikely that the June CPI report will change the Fed’s interest rate trajectory, barring a huge upside or downside surprise, especially considering that Fed officials in recent weeks have been vocal that more rate hikes are likely coming, said James Ragan, director of wealth management research at DA Davidson.

    Still, that doesn’t mean investors should expect infinite rate hikes from the Fed.

    “We continue to expect that [the] Fed will soon reach its terminal rate, bringing it closer toward the end of its most aggressive tightening campaign in generations,” said Candice Tse, global head of strategic advisory solutions at Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

    The Producer Price Index report for June is due on Thursday.

    UPS and the Teamsters union are in contract negotiations. Without a deal, 340,000 Teamsters could go on strike on August 1.

    Such an event could be damaging to the US economy, reports my colleague Chris Isidore.

    UPS carries 6% of the country’s gross domestic product in its trucks. The company carried an average of 20.8 million US packages a day through last year, and that number is down only slightly this year.

    In other words, the company’s services are critical to keeping the gears moving seamlessly in supply chains that saw massive snarls during the height of the Covid pandemic. A strike could potentially bring back the problems that were so prominent just a couple years ago, including shipping delays and higher prices.

    The Biden administration is keeping an eye on negotiations between both parties in “recognition of the role UPS plays in our economy and of the important work that UPS workers did through the pandemic and continue to do today,” acting labor secretary Julie Su told CNN on Friday.

    But the company and union broke off last week, with both sides claiming the other walked away from the bargaining table.

    Read more here.

    Monday: Consumer credit for May and NY Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Expectations for June.

    Tuesday: NFIB small business optimism survey for June.

    Wednesday: Consumer Price Index report and housing starts for June.

    Thursday: Producer Price Index report for June.

    Friday: University of Michigan consumer sentiment and inflation expectations for July.

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  • Expect more rate hikes from the Fed after the latest jobs report | CNN Business

    Expect more rate hikes from the Fed after the latest jobs report | CNN Business

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    Washington, DC
    CNN
     — 

    An interest rate hike later this month was already in the cards for the Federal Reserve. But after the June jobs report, the timing of a second hike remains unclear.

    Job gains remain robust, wage growth is still going strong, and unemployment continues to hover near historic lows. That means the job market is still fueling demand in the economy, which the Fed has been trying to slow through rate hikes. And Fed officials have made it clear they think the central bank still has more work to do to bring down inflation, which is still running well above the 2% goal.

    Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee, a voting member of the Fed committee that decides interest rates, said in an interview Friday that he sees “a decent chance of further tightening down the pipeline” and that inflation “needs to come down more.”

    Other Fed officials have struck a similarly hawkish tone on inflation, hinting strongly at a hike in July.

    “I remain very concerned about whether inflation will return to target in a sustainable and timely way,” said Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Lorie Logan on Thursday during a meeting hosted by the Central Bank Research Association. “I think more restrictive monetary policy will be needed to achieve the Federal Open Market Committee’s goals of stable prices and maximum employment.”

    Fed officials voted last month to hold the key federal funds rate steady at a range of 5-5.25% to reassess the economy after a string of 10 consecutive rate hikes and to monitor the effects of bank stresses in the spring, according to minutes from that meeting released Wednesday.

    “We can take some time and assess and collect more information and then be able to act, knowing that we also communicated through our projections that we don’t think we’re done, based on what we know,” said New York Fed President John Williams Wednesday during a moderated discussion in New York. “And obviously we’re absolutely committed to achieving our 2% inflation goal.”

    And Fed Chair Jerome Powell himself has doubled down on the need for more rate increases in recent speeches, not ruling out back-to-back hikes, despite economic indicators showing slight progress on inflation.

    Financial markets are pricing in a more than a 90% chance of a rate hike later this month, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

    The Fed wants to see the labor market slow down broadly, bringing it into “better balance,” as Powell has frequently described it. That means wage growth would need to cool consistently, monthly payroll growth would need to be close to a range of 70,000 and 100,000 — the smallest job gain needed to keep up with population growth — and unemployment would need to rise, according to economists. Job market conditions don’t resemble that just yet.

    “This is clearly a very tight labor market, so I expect the Fed to look at this data and say there is justification here for continued small rate increases because the labor market is not cooling enough,” Dave Gilbertson, labor economist at payroll software company UKG, told CNN.

    Labor costs are higher because of a persistent difficulty in hiring, weighing on labor-intensive service providers such as hospitals and restaurants, which has put upward pressure on consumer prices since businesses typically raise wages to address hiring challenges.

    Powell homed in on that dynamic in recent remarks, and research from top economists argues the Fed will have to slow the economy further to fully address the labor market’s stubborn impact on inflation. Whether that means a full-blown recession or a so-called soft landing remains to be seen, but some Fed officials are optimistic.

    “I feel like we are on a golden path of avoiding recession,” Goolsbee told CNBC Friday.

    And there has been some progress on bringing the job market back into better balance while inflation has come down. Job openings fell to 9.82 million in May, down from a peak of 12 million in March 2022, though they still greatly exceed the number of unemployed people seeking work. And June’s jobs total of 209,000 is still robust by historical standards.

    But Gilbertson said labor shortages have been largely driven by demographic shifts, which might keep the job market tight for the foreseeable future.

    Beyond the expected hike in July, the Fed is going to remain laser-focused on wage growth to inform its decision-making later in the year. Central bank officials will pay particular attention to the Employment Cost Index, which recently showed that pay gains picked up in the first three months of the year. The index for the second quarter will be released in late July — after the Fed meets.

    “The focus is on the path of wage inflation because of its pass-through to services inflation,” said Sonia Meskin, head of US Macro at BNY Mellon IM.

    The June jobs report showed that average hourly earnings growth was unchanged at 0.4% from the month before and also unchanged at 4.4% year-over-year — not a welcome development.

    Core inflation hasn’t decelerated as fast as the headline measure because of the tightness in the labor market. The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, rose 3.8% in May from a year earlier, down from April’s 4.3% rise; while the core measure edged lower to 4.6% from 4.7% during the same period.

    Within the core measure, services inflation also remains sticky and Powell said in last month’s post-meeting news conference that “we see only the earliest signs of disinflation there” and that the services sector’s “largest cost would be wage cost.”

    The Fed’s strategy to address services inflation is simply by curbing demand through more rate hikes. So, in addition to the labor market, the Fed is highly attentive to consumer spending, which has cooled in the past several months, according to figures from the Commerce Department.

    Other headwinds are expected to weigh on consumers in the months ahead, such as the resumption of student loan payments and the Supreme Court blocking President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program. Americans are also running down their savings accounts while racking up debt, so US consumers may need to start cutting back soon.

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  • Pence tries wooing Iowans, one Pizza Ranch slice at a time | CNN Politics

    Pence tries wooing Iowans, one Pizza Ranch slice at a time | CNN Politics

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    Sioux City, Iowa
    CNN
     — 

    In a crowded Pizza Ranch on Wednesday night, former Vice President Mike Pence found himself confronted about his role on January 6, 2021, by an Iowan who blamed him for President Joe Biden being elected president.

    “If it wasn’t for your vote, we would not have Joe Biden in the White House. … Do you ever second guess yourself?” Luann Bertrand asked.

    Pence, who was on the last stop of his day on a nearly weeklong Iowa swing, listened patiently to Bertrand’s question. “Let me be very respectful of the question,” the former vice president began, as he turned to explaining his role under the Constitution in certifying the 2020 US election results.

    The episode encapsulated Pence’s challenge as he runs for the 2024 GOP nomination against former President Donald Trump, who’d wanted him to overturn Biden’s victory and has convinced many of his followers, falsely, that Pence had the power to do so. But the exchange at this intimate campaign stop also revealed what the former vice president hopes will be his winning strategy in the first-in-the-nation caucus state – namely allowing Iowans to question him and see him up close and personal.

    For nearly five minutes, he directly answered Bertrand’s question, using the word “respect” and “deep affection” as he weaved in constitutional law and an admonishment of Trump, who’s the front-runner for the nomination.

    “I’m sorry, ma’am. But that’s actually what the Constitution says. No vice president in American history ever asserted the authority that you have been convinced that I had. But I want to tell you, with all due respect, I said before, I said when I announced, President Trump was wrong about my authority that day and he’s still wrong,” he said.

    When Pence finished his answer, the room of several dozen broke into applause.

    For the Pence campaign, visiting all of Iowa’s 99 counties isn’t just a campaign promise – it is central to carving a path for taking on the historic challenge of running against a president he once served.

    It may also be the best, and only, chance for a Pence campaign to take off.

    “If you want to win the Iowa caucus, it’s a 50-person Pizza Ranch meeting,” Chip Saltsman, national campaign chairman for the Pence campaign and veteran Republican consultant, told CNN.

    “Everybody that came here tonight, I guarantee the one thing they have in common – they’re all going to caucus. You’re looking for people that are willing to come out on a cold night, spend an hour and a half listening to everybody else talk, and then vote for your person.”

    “The way you build those relationships are in meetings of 50, not rallies of 5,000,” he said, referring to Trump, who has drawn large crowds in his 2024 bid for the White House.

    In the 2008 presidential campaign, Saltsman was the campaign manager for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, when he concocted what he calls the “Pizza Ranch strategy” – hitting the chain’s 71 locations throughout Iowa, which have private rooms and dining areas conducive to a small town’s biggest events.

    “We were at 1% [in the polls] when we announced,” said Saltsman, reflecting on the Huckabee campaign. “We worked really hard for about three months and then we went from 1% to asterisk. So we had to start back over. That’s when the Pizza Ranch strategy started.”

    With the Huckabee campaign lacking money and name recognition, Saltsman realized that “for the price of a pizza, you got the meeting room” of the town’s Pizza Ranch – and that Huckabee had an automatic crowd if he showed up around lunch or dinner. “It was more out of necessity than some deep strategy,” he said.

    The Huckabee team upscaled this plan to all 99 counties, focusing on finding the Iowa Republicans they needed to convince to caucus for their candidate. Huckabee came from behind to win the 2008 Iowa caucuses, although he ultimately fell well short of the nomination.

    Pence is deploying a similar strategy, focusing on intimate settings where he will spend two hours face-to-face with Iowans, even if the crowd is fewer than 100 people. The Pence team is betting on the multiplying effect of these one-on-one encounters – that the voter will feel a kinship with Pence and bring others to caucus for him.

    At an ice cream shop in Le Mars, Mavis Luther had just listened to Pence speak and answer questions for 90 minutes. The event was small enough that Luther could take a picture with Pence and chat with him. “It’s wonderful!” she exclaimed after she met him. “It’s the only way to have a chance to really know how they feel and answer questions at your level – of the community, country and our state.”

    Pence, a former Indiana governor and congressman, shares the Midwest sensibilities of Iowa, as well as the campaigning style the caucus state is accustomed to. At the July Fourth parade in Urbandale, Pence often broke into a run to greet people along the parade route.

    “I came to the conclusion over the last few years that I’m well known, but we’re not known well,” said Pence. “We’re going to be able to take our story, take our case, and take our whole record, and the story of our family, to the people of Iowa to great success.”

    Matt Thacker, who was watching the parade in his lawn chair, had this to say about Pence’s handshake-to-handshake campaigning – “it matters.”

    “The personal touch is very important,” Thacker said. “I think it makes a lot of difference. And recognizing the country isn’t the coasts. It’s the heartland.”

    Bertrand, the woman in the Sioux City Pizza Ranch, walked away from the event open to Pence, but unconvinced by the facts he laid out about January 6.

    “I believe he’s a good man,” Bertrand told CNN. “I love the fact that he is strengthened by his faith. But I really do feel like he altered history.”

    Bertrand said she would consider supporting Pence in the caucuses. “But,” she said, “he has that one hiccup.”

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  • Russian fighter jets harass American drone over Syria for second time in two days, US Air Force says | CNN Politics

    Russian fighter jets harass American drone over Syria for second time in two days, US Air Force says | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Russian fighter jets harassed an American drone operating over Syria for the second time in two days, according to the US Air Force, a sign of increasing friction between the two countries in Middle East airspace.

    On Thursday, a US MQ-9 Reaper drone was conducting a mission against ISIS targets in northwest Syria when Russian fighter jets approached, Air Force Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich said in a statement about the incident. One of the Russian jets then began dropping flares in front of the US drone in an apparent attempt to hit the drone, forcing it to take evasive maneuvers.

    Col. Michael Andrews, a spokesman for Air Force Central Command, said the two Russian fighters – an SU-45 and SU-35 – engaged for almost an hour in a “sustained” and “unprofessional” interaction.

    Video of the encounter released by Air Force Central Command shows two Russian fighters flying near the US drone. One of the fighters then releases a series of flares as it passes over the drone.

    “These events represent another example of unprofessional and unsafe actions by Russian air forces operating in Syria, which threaten the safety of both Coalition and Russian forces,” Grynkewich said in a statement. “We urge Russian forces in Syria to cease this reckless behavior and adhere to the standards of behavior expected of a professional air force so we can resume our focus on the enduring defeat of ISIS.”

    The incident comes one day after three Russian fighter jets harassed three US drones over Syria. In the Wednesday encounter, the Russian jets dropped parachute flares in front of the US drones, forcing the drones to take evasive maneuvers. One Russian jet also lit its afterburner in front of a US drone, limiting the drone operator’s ability to safely operate the aircraft.

    But the US wasn’t the only target of harassment from the Russian military. A Russian SU-35 fighter jet conducted a “non-professional interaction” with two French Rafale fighter jets that were flying a mission near the Iraq-Syria border on Thursday, according to the official Twitter account of the French Armed Forces. The French fighters maneuvered in order to avoid the risk of accident, the French military said.

    Both the US and Russia are operating in Syria; the US as part of the anti-ISIS coalition, and Russia in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

    Over the last several years, the US and Russia have used a deconfliction line between the two militaries in Syria to avoid unintentional mistakes or encounters that can inadvertently lead to escalation. But Russian military actions in Syria have increasingly violated the deconfliction protocols, including flying too close to US military bases in Syria and failing to reach out on the deconfliction line.

    “We have been in Syria for many years now fighting ISIS as part of an international coalition,” said Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder at a briefing Thursday. “That is no surprise to anyone.”

    In April, a US official said the more aggressive actions from Russian pilots appear to be part of a “new way of operating,” including one incident in which a Russian fighter jet attempted to dogfight a US fighter jet.

    The aggressive behavior has happened outside of Syria as well. In March, a Russian SU-27 fighter jet collided with a US MQ-9 Reaper drone in international airspace over the Black Sea. The collision damaged the drone’s propellor, forcing it to crash in the water.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Democratic lawmakers demand Pentagon disclose findings of investigation into drone strike that may have killed civilian | CNN Politics

    Democratic lawmakers demand Pentagon disclose findings of investigation into drone strike that may have killed civilian | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Democratic lawmakers are demanding that the Pentagon disclose the findings of its ongoing investigation into a US airstrike in Syria in May that may have killed a civilian, according to a letter Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Chris van Hollen and Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs sent to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Thursday.

    US Central Command launched an official investigation into the May 3 drone strike late last month after a preliminary civilian casualty credibility assessment determined that there were sufficient grounds to more thoroughly probe whether a civilian had been killed, rather than a senior al Qaeda leader as Central Command initially claimed.

    “While we recognize that this specific incident is part of an ongoing investigation, this does not negate the need for you to provide answers to Congress on the processes to implement the CHMR-AP,” the lawmakers wrote, referring to the Pentagon’s Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan.

    That policy was developed in 2022 after a botched US drone strike in Kabul killed 10 civilians in August 2021.

    “Given the significant public interest in this strike, we urge you to publicly release as much of the investigation as possible,” the lawmakers wrote, providing a deadline of July 19.

    In their letter, the lawmakers ask why it took two weeks for CENTCOM to begin assessing whether a civilian was killed in the airstrike. As CNN has reported, a civilian casualty assessment was only launched after The Washington Post presented information to CENTCOM about the strike potentially killing a civilian instead of the intended target.

    “[I]t is unclear why CENTCOM waited for weeks to fully investigate this matter, and why the tweet announcing that CENTCOM had targeted a senior AQ leader remains online without recognition that this incident is now under investigation,” the lawmakers wrote.

    As CNN first reported, the senior general in charge of US forces in the Middle East, General Erik Kurilla, ordered that Central Command announce on Twitter that a senior al Qaeda leader had been targeted by the drone strike – despite not yet having confirmation of who was actually killed.

    “We are particularly troubled by reports that CENTCOM Commander General Erik Kurilla was personally involved in the decision to tweet that CENTCOM had targeted a Senior AQ leader, without confirming the victim’s identity,” the lawmakers wrote, citing CNN’s reporting.

    “By announcing the strike before confirming who DoD actually killed and delaying the process of opening an investigation into reports of civilian deaths, CENTCOM undermined DoD’s and its own credibility and commitment to civilian harm prevention and response,” they added.

    As CNN reported in May, the episode raised questions about how thoroughly CENTCOM has implemented the military’s civilian harm mitigation policy – a process for preventing, mitigating and responding to civilian casualties caused by US military operations – since the botched Kabul strike in 2021.

    CNN previously reported that there is growing belief inside the Pentagon that the individual killed in the May 3 strike – identified by his family as Loutfi Hassan Mesto, a 56-year-old father of ten – was a farmer with no ties to terrorism.

    Mesto’s family told CNN that he had been out grazing his sheep when he was killed. Loutfi never left his village during the Syrian uprisings and did not support any political faction, his brother said.

    The lawmakers requested that the Pentagon make the civilian casualty credibility report about the May 3 strike public, and to explain why Kurilla ordered the announcement before knowing who was actually killed.

    They also requested more information about the department’s “process for verifying the status and identity of an individual targeted for or killed in a strike,” and asked whether it will commit to providing condolence payments to the family of any civilian killed in the strike.

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  • Authorities are on the hunt for a Humvee stolen from a National Guard armory in Northern California | CNN

    Authorities are on the hunt for a Humvee stolen from a National Guard armory in Northern California | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    California Highway Patrol officers are on the hunt for a green military vehicle stolen from a National Guard armory north of San Francisco on Monday.

    Santa Rosa Police initially responded to a call about debris and discovered a trail leading back to the armory where they discovered damaged gates.

    “There is an indication that someone scaled the fence to get inside,” California Highway Patrol Officer Marcus Hawkins told CNN.

    The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle – known as a Humvee – was “used as a battering ram to break through the gates” when it was driven out of the Santa Rosa armory late Monday, leaving behind a trail of debris in the roadway, Hawkins said. Another military vehicle was vandalized as well, he said.

    The highway patrol then took over the investigation into the stolen vehicle, described as having canvas doors and a roof and lacking license plates. The vehicle was not armed and there were no weapons on board, according to Hawkins.

    CNN has reached out to the Army National Guard for more information.

    Shortly after midnight on Tuesday, law enforcement received three separate reports about a Humvee being driven recklessly and without its lights on.

    “I’m not sure why he was driving with no lights on,” said Hawkins. “Perhaps he was trying to evade police, or perhaps didn’t know where the light switch was.”

    Officers were unable to find the Humvee and continue their search. “Sonoma County is filled with vast rural areas with forests, pastures and wineries,” said Hawkins. “It could be anywhere out there.”

    Humvees are diesel-powered and have four-wheel drive, according to the Army, with a maximum speed of 70 mph.

    Santa Rosa is about 55 miles north of San Francisco.

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  • ‘Race neutral’ replaces affirmative action. What’s next? | CNN Politics

    ‘Race neutral’ replaces affirmative action. What’s next? | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appears in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    When the Supreme Court cut affirmative action out of college admissions programs Thursday, it did not outlaw the goal of achieving diversity, but it set a new “race-neutral” standard for considering applicants.

    That term – “race neutral” – does not appear in the opinion of the court, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, which states that colleges and universities have “concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin.”

    But when Roberts clarifies that students can still refer to their race in admissions essays, explaining challenges they’ve overcome, he and the majority are buying into the idea of race neutrality.

    Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote his own concurring opinion, uses the term “race neutral” repeatedly, offering it as an antidote to affirmative action.

    Pointing to efforts in California and Michigan to enroll diverse classes at top universities even after voters in those states ended affirmative action, Thomas says race-neutral policies can “achieve the same benefits of racial harmony and equality without any of the burdens and strife generated by affirmative action policies.”

    Justice Sonia Sotomayor shot back at Thomas and the majority, rejecting the term.

    “The majority’s vision of race neutrality will entrench racial segregation in higher education because racial inequality will persist so long as it is ignored,” she wrote.

    For more on this view, read this piece in The Atlantic by scholars Uma Jayakumar and Ibram Kendi: “‘Race Neutral’ Is the New ‘Separate but Equal.’”

    If the experience of California and Michigan – where voters ended affirmative action programs years ago – is any indication, we can expect that the representation of Black and Latino students at top-level universities will fall.

    Those states argued in briefings to the court that their race-neutral efforts have not been completely successful, particularly at top-tier, flagship public schools, in creating environments that are inclusive for all.

    California has, according to its brief, tried race-neutral measures that “run the gamut from outreach programs directed at low-income students and students from families with little college experience, to programs designed to increase UC’s geographic reach, to holistic admissions policies.”

    While it has made strides, it says, there is a shortfall “especially apparent at UC’s most selective campuses, where African American, Native American, and Latinx students are underrepresented and widely report struggling with feelings of racial isolation.”

    In California, half of the college-age population – 18-24 – is Latino, according to data from the Public Policy Institute of California. Compare that with just 27% of enrollees for 2022 at the University of California’s nine undergraduate campuses who the UC system categorizes as Hispanic/Latinx.

    On the other hand, less than 13% of the college-age population is Asian, compared with 38% of UC enrollees.

    A little more than quarter of college-age Californians are White, compared with 18% of UC enrollees.

    Five percent of UC enrollees are African American, which is about on par with the 5.6% of college-age Californians who are Black.

    The figures change in comparison with the system overall at UC Berkeley, the system’s flagship undergraduate campus, where a smaller portion of entrants in 2022 were categorized as African American / Black (3.6%) and Chicanx / Latinx (21.1%), and more were White (30.7%) and Asian (52.1%).

    It’s also interesting to note that the Supreme Court exempted military academies from the decision. They can, presumably, still utilize affirmative action even though they are the higher learning institutions over which the federal government has the most control. The court, according to the majority opinion, feels the academies have “potentially distinct interests.”

    Those interests were perhaps outlined by former military leaders who wrote a brief last year arguing affirmative action aided national security.

    Meanwhile, even though race is off the table as a determinative factor, schools like Harvard University can and still will very much take into account whether an applicant’s parents went there, how much their parents might be able to donate and whether an applicant can help their sports teams.

    “While the actual language of the Supreme Court will come across as very intellectualized and esoteric, as if in a classroom, in reality, how will this work?” wondered Laura Coates, CNN’s chief legal analyst, appearing on the network Thursday.

    “How will you be able to have certain color blindedness but then at the same time allowed to take into account one’s experiences when race has been a part of that? That’s the devil in the details of every affirmative action case.”

    CNN’s Nicquel Terry Ellis wrote about what the data suggests will happen:

    A study by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce found that colleges and universities are less likely to meet or exceed their current levels of racial diversity in the absence of race-conscious admissions. They are also less likely to reflect the racial makeup of the population graduating from the nation’s high schools.

    Zack Mabel, a researcher for Georgetown’s Center for Education and the Workforce, told her race-neutral practices have not driven the diversity many colleges hoped for, and some students are simply not applying. Read more from Terry Ellis.

    Creating a more equitable and representative workforce has been a public aim in corporate America, where companies have created diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, departments. Multiple corporations – from Apple to IKEA – asked the Supreme Court to allow affirmative action to continue so that their potential workforce is more diverse.

    But efforts to recruit students of color in the race-neutral, post-affirmative-action world will be complicated in states where there is a growing backlash to diversity efforts.

    CNN’s Leah Asmelash recently wrote:

    More than a dozen state legislatures have introduced or passed bills reining in DEI programs in colleges and universities, claiming the offices eat up valuable financial resources with little impact.

    “The ruling by the Court’s six Republican-appointed justices prevents higher-education institutions from considering race in admissions precisely as kids of color, for the first time, comprise a majority of the nation’s high-school graduates,” writes Ronald Brownstein, a senior editor at The Atlantic and a senior political analyst for CNN.

    He suggests the decision will “widen the mismatch between a youth population that is rapidly diversifying and a student body that is likely to remain preponderantly white in the elite colleges and universities that serve as the pipeline for leadership in the public and private sectors.”

    Rather than ease social tension, he argues, the new race-neutral requirement could actually propel it.

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  • Migrant who died in ICE custody was held for months, despite recommendation for release, SPLC says | CNN

    Migrant who died in ICE custody was held for months, despite recommendation for release, SPLC says | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A Nicaraguan national who died last week in federal immigration custody had spent more than one year in detention. Despite having been recommended for release more than seven months ago, he continued to be held in immigration custody, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

    Ernesto Rocha-Cuadra, 42, died last Friday. His preliminary cause of death was cardiac arrest, according to statement from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    In November 2022, an ICE panel recommended Rocha-Cuadra be released from custody, but officials at the facility declined to release him, a statement from the SPLC said.

    “The details leading up to this tragic death are still unclear, and his attorneys say Ernesto never mentioned having, nor did his medical records reflect, any heart-related medical issues,” a statement from the SPLC said.

    The SPLC said Rocha-Cuadra’s death was the fifth since 2016 at ICE’s facility in Jena, Louisiana.

    “For years, the New Orleans ICE Field Office (“NOLA ICE”) and private prison officials have demonstrated a disturbing pattern of deadly medical neglect against the immigrants detained under their authority, disregarding their constitutional rights and engaging in other human rights abuses and violations,” the SPLC said.

    Rocha-Cuadra had been scheduled for an immigration hearing on July 9, according to a statement his family.

    In a written statement to the press, Rocha-Cuadra’s brother joined a chorus of immigration rights advocates calling for the ICE facility to be investigated.

    “He was guaranteed he was coming home. Our message is, we want to know what happened to our Ernesto and we will not stop until we find out,” his brother, Frank Rocha-Cuadra, said.

    Rocha-Cuadra had been in immigration custody after crossing the border illegally near Andrade, California, on April 17, 2022, according to a statement from ICE earlier this week.

    “ICE remains committed to ensuring that all those in its custody reside in safe, secure, and humane environments,” it said in the statement. “Comprehensive medical care is provided from the moment individuals arrive and throughout the entirety of their stay.”

    “All people in ICE custody receive medical, dental, and mental health intake screening within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility, a full health assessment within 14 days of entering ICE custody or arrival at a facility, and access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care. At no time during detention is a detained noncitizen denied emergent care,” the statement said.

    CNN has reached out to ICE for further comment about Rocha-Cuadra’s death.

    ICE’s Central Louisiana processing center in Jena, Louisiana, is privately owned by the GEO Group Inc.

    In a statement to CNN, a spokesperson for the GEO Group said, “We are unable to provide comment regarding specific cases related to individuals in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Healthcare services at the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center are provided directly by the federal government through the ICE Health Services Corps.”

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  • Facebook urged to suspend strongman leader over video threatening violence | CNN Business

    Facebook urged to suspend strongman leader over video threatening violence | CNN Business

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    The oversight board for Facebook’s parent company Meta Platforms on Thursday said Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen should be suspended from the social media site for six months for posting a video violating rules against violent threats.

    The board, which is funded by Meta but operates independently, said the company had been wrong not to remove the video after it was published in January.

    Meta, in a written statement, agreed to take down the video but said it would respond to the board’s recommendation to suspend Hun Sen after a review.

    Any suspension would silence the prime minister’s Facebook page less than a month before an election in Cambodia. Opposition and rights groups have said the poll will be a sham – accusations dismissed by the government.

    Hun Sen’s Facebook account appeared to go offline late on Thursday. The prime minister – one of the world’s longest-serving leaders after nearly four decades in power – had said on Wednesday that he was switching from Facebook to the messaging app Telegram to reach more people, without mentioning the video.

    A Meta spokesperson said the company had not suspended or removed his account.

    There was no immediate government comment on the case on Thursday.

    The decision is the latest in a series of rebukes by the oversight board over how the world’s biggest social media company handles contentious statements by political leaders and posts calling for violence around elections.

    The company’s election integrity efforts are in focus as the United States prepares for presidential elections next year.

    The board endorsed Meta’s 2021 banishment of former US President Donald Trump – the current frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination – after the deadly January 6 Capitol Hill riot, but criticized the indefinite nature of his suspension and urged more careful preparation for volatile political situations overall.

    Meta reinstated the former US president’s account earlier this year.

    The Cambodia case came after several users reported a January video where Hun Sen said those who accused his Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) of buying votes in a 2022 local election should file a legal case, or face a beating from CPP’s supporters.

    Meta determined at the time that the video fell afoul of its rules, but opted to leave it up under a “newsworthiness” exemption, reasoning that the public had an interest in hearing warnings of violence by their government, the ruling said.

    The board held that the video’s harms outweighed its news value.

    Cambodia’s government has denied targeting the opposition and says those subject to legal action are law breakers.

    Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said Hun Sen had finally been called out for inciting violence.

    “This kind of face-off between Big Tech and a dictator over human rights issues is long overdue,” he said in a statement.

    Last week, the board said Meta’s handling of calls for violence after the 2022 Brazilian election continued to raise concerns about the effectiveness of its election efforts.

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  • Chinese surveillance balloon did not collect information over US, Pentagon says | CNN Politics

    Chinese surveillance balloon did not collect information over US, Pentagon says | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Chinese surveillance balloon that traversed the United States earlier this year before it was shot down did not collect intelligence while flying over the country, the Pentagon said Thursday.

    Steps taken by Washington to stop the high altitude device from potential information gathering as it crossed the US in early February played a role in that outcome, according to Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder.

    “We believe that (the balloon) did not collect while it was transiting the United States or flying over the United States, and certainly the efforts that we made contributed,” Ryder told reporters at a briefing.

    The balloon was downed by an American fighter jet off the coast of South Carolina on February 4, after it was tracked crossing the continental US on a course that took it over sensitive military sites.

    The incident inflamed already tense relations between Washington and Beijing, significantly setting back American efforts at that time to restore hampered communications with China.

    The US ultimately linked the balloon to an extensive surveillance program run by the Chinese military, and US President Joe Biden has since alleged the device was carrying “two boxcars full of spy equipment.”

    China claimed the device was a civilian research airship that was blown off course by accident and quickly issued a rare statement of “regret” over the incident, which resulted in the postponement of a planned trip from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Beijing. That trip took place last week, more than four months later.

    At the time, Washington had signaled that the balloon did not present a significant intelligence gathering risk.

    A senior defense official in early February said the device was assessed to have “limited additive value” from an intelligence collection perspective, but that steps were being taken to protect against such collection.

    Parts recovered from the downed balloon have since been the subject of extensive investigation into their capabilities, including whether they were able to transit any information gathered back to China in real time.

    Ryder on Thursday did not get into specifics regarding recent reports that the Chinese high-altitude balloon was using US surveillance technology, but said such a situation would not be surprising.

    “We are aware in previous cases, for example, things like drones and other capabilities … where off the shelf, commercial US components have been used,” Ryder said.

    The balloon continues to stoke tension between Washington and Beijing, even as the US last month said that “both sides” were seeking to move past the pause in communication that followed the “unfortunate incident.”

    Biden sparked Beijing’s ire last week when he told guests at a political fundraiser that Chinese leader Xi Jinping “got very upset” after the US shot down the balloon because “he didn’t know it was there” and then compared Xi to “dictators” who become embarrassed when they don’t know what’s going on.

    China slammed the remarks, which came on the heels of Blinken’s visit, as an “open political provocation” and repeated their denial that the balloon was meant to spy over the United States.

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  • Federal judge slams Supreme Court in gun case while reluctantly ruling in favor of convicted felon | CNN Politics

    Federal judge slams Supreme Court in gun case while reluctantly ruling in favor of convicted felon | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A federal judge in Mississippi ruled in favor of a convicted felon in a gun case on Wednesday while simultaneously slamming a recent landmark Second Amendment decision that expanded gun rights and changed the framework lower courts must use as they analyze firearm restrictions.

    In his ruling, Judge Carlton Reeves, an Obama appointee who has previously been critical of the Supreme Court decision, dismissed a federal criminal case against a man prosecuted for possessing a firearm despite a past felony conviction prohibiting further gun ownership. The apparent reluctant decision announced by Reeves in his 77-page opinion included a blistering assessment of recent Supreme Court precedent pertaining to guns and public safety.

    At issue was a case involving Jessie Bullock, a Mississippi man who was previously imprisoned for approximately 15 years after being convicted for aggravated assault and manslaughter following a bar fight in 1992.

    Bullock was indicted 26 years later after being found to be a past felon in possession of a firearm, according to the ruling, but petitioned for his case to be dismissed following a landmark Supreme Court ruling last summer.

    That decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, changed the framework judges must use to review gun regulations and determined that modern-day laws restricting gun ownership are only constitutional if similar regulations were in place when the Constitution was drafted.

    Going forward, Justice Clarence Thomas said that a gun law could only be justified if it is “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

    Last November, Reeves released a scorching order expressing frustration with the high court’s new historical legal standard, insisting it had inflicted confusion upon lower courts, and ordered the Justice Department to brief him on whether he needs to appoint an historian to help him decipher the landmark opinion.

    “This court is not a trained historian,” Reeves wrote last year.

    “The justices of the Supreme Court, as distinguished as they may be, are not trained historians,” he continued.

    “And we are not experts in what white, wealthy and male property owners thought about firearms regulation in 1791,” he said.

    In response to Reeves’ request to the Justice Department for clarity, the Biden administration last year defended a federal statute barring felons from possessing firearms and urged the court not to hire an historian, arguing that the government should win the case without such an intervention.

    In his decision Wednesday dismissing the case against Bullock, Reeves acknowledged the government was in the “unenviable position” of pointing to certain past laws barring felons from possessing firearms, but nevertheless ruled that the Justice Department had not met the burden required to show laws barring felons from possessing firearms met the Bruen decision’s historical test.

    But Reeves repeated his past complaints blasting the entire process courts must now use to determine whether a present-day law had a historical analogue at the time of the founding of the nation.

    “Judges are not historians,” he once again wrote. “We were not trained as historians. We practiced law, not history. And we do not have historians on staff.”

    Reeves also appeared to criticize the very notion of deciding modern laws through the lens of colonial times.

    “Bruen shows us that originalism is now the Supreme Court’s dominant mode of constitutional interpretation,” he wrote. “This Court is not so sure it should be.”

    Reeves added, “This Court is also not sure that ceding this much power to the dead hand of the past is so wise.”

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  • Justices Clarence Thomas and Ketanji Brown Jackson criticize each other in unusually sharp language in affirmative action case | CNN Politics

    Justices Clarence Thomas and Ketanji Brown Jackson criticize each other in unusually sharp language in affirmative action case | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling Thursday on affirmative action pitted its two Black justices against each other, with the ideologically opposed jurists employing unusually sharp language attacking each other by name.

    The majority opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts said colleges and universities can no longer take race into consideration as a specific basis for granting admission, saying programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina violated the Equal Protection Clause because they failed to offer “measurable” objectives to justify the use of race.

    Justice Clarence Thomas and the court’s other four conservatives joined Roberts’ opinion. But Thomas, who in 1991 became the second Black person to ascend to the nation’s highest court, issued a lengthy concurrence that attacked such admissions programs and tore into arguments posited by liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to join the court, who penned her own fiery dissent in the case.

    Thomas has previously acknowledged that he made it to Yale Law School because of affirmative action, but he has long criticized such policies. He spoke in personal terms in his concurrence as he put forth his argument against the use of the policies, which he described as “rudderless, race-based preferences designed to ensure a particular racial mix in their entering classes.”

    “Even in the segregated South where I grew up, individuals were not the sum of their skin color,” Thomas wrote.

    “While I am painfully aware of the social and economic ravages which have befallen my race and all who suffer discrimination,” he added, “I hold out enduring hope that this country will live up to its principles so clearly enunciated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States: that all men are created equal, are equal citizens, and must be treated equally before the law.”

    As he read his concurrence from the bench on Thursday, Jackson, who joined the court last year, stared blankly ahead. Though Justice Sonia Sotomayor read her dissent from the bench, Jackson did not read her own dissent, in which she went after Thomas’ concurrence and accused the majority of having a “let-them-eat-cake obliviousness” in how the ruling announced “‘colorblindness for all’ by legal fiat.”

    A footnote near the end of Jackson’s dissent went after the concurrence by Thomas, with the liberal justice accusing her colleague of demonstrating “an obsession with race consciousness that far outstrips my or UNC’s holistic understanding that race can be a factor that affects applicants’ unique life experiences.”

    “Justice Thomas ignites too many more straw men to list, or fully extinguish, here,” Jackson wrote. “The takeaway is that those who demand that no one think about race (a classic pink-elephant paradox) refuse to see, much less solve for, the elephant in the room – the race-linked disparities that continue to impede achievement of our great Nation’s full potential.”

    In her broader dissent, Jackson said that the argument made by the challengers that affirmative action programs are unfair “blinks both history and reality in ways too numerous to count.”

    “But the response is simple: Our country has never been colorblind,” Jackson said.

    (While Jackson recused herself from the Harvard case, she did hear the UNC case, and her dissent was focused on the latter.)

    Thomas then explicitly attacks Jackson’s opinion.

    “As she sees things, we are all inexorably trapped in a fundamentally racist society, with the original sin of slavery and the historical subjugation of black Americans still determining our lives today,” Thomas wrote.

    “Worse still, Justice Jackson uses her broad observations about statistical relationships between race and select measures of health, wealth, and well-being to label all blacks as victims,” Thomas wrote at another point in his concurrence. “Her desire to do so is unfathomable to me.”

    ‘You don’t have to be perfect’: Watch Judge Jackson’s emotional message to her girls

    Thomas, one of the court’s most conservative members, has long been known for his distaste for affirmative action policies. He has been open about the fact that he made it to Yale because of affirmative action, but says the stigma of preferential treatment made it difficult for him to find a job after college.

    In his memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son,” Thomas says he felt “tricked” by paternalistic Whites at Yale who recruited Black students.

    “After graduating from Yale, I met a black alumnus of the University of Michigan Law School who told me that he’d made a point of not mentioning his race on his application. I wished with all my heart that I’d done the same,” he wrote.

    “I learned the hard way that a law degree from Yale meant one thing for White graduates and another for blacks, no matter how much anyone denied it,” Thomas wrote. “As a symbol of my disillusionment, I peeled a fifteen-cent price sticker off a package of cigars and stuck it one the frame of my law degree to remind myself of the mistake I’d made by going to Yale.”

    He dissented in the 2003 case Grutter v. Bollinger, which allowed for the limited use of race in college admissions.

    “I believe blacks can achieve in every avenue of American life without the meddling of university administrators,” he wrote in his dissent.

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  • Biden administration announces more than $3 billion in funding to tackle homelessness with veterans focus | CNN Politics

    Biden administration announces more than $3 billion in funding to tackle homelessness with veterans focus | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Biden administration announced new actions Thursday to help prevent and reduce veteran homelessness across the country, including $3.1 billion in funding to support efforts to quickly rehouse homeless Americans.

    “These funds can be used for a wide range of critical interventions from rental assistance to supportive services to technology and data sharing,” said White House domestic policy adviser Neera Tanden, referring to the funding that will be made available through the Department of Housing and Urban Development under the Continuum of Care program.

    Additional actions being announced Thursday, according to a White House fact sheet, include: $11.5 million in funding for legal services for veterans experiencing homelessness; $58 million worth of funding to help homeless veterans find jobs; and a new series of “boot camps” by HUD and Veterans Affairs to help VA medical centers and public housing agencies more quickly rehouse veterans. The more than $3 billion in funding being announced by HUD is not specifically earmarked for veterans, although it will also go toward helping veterans struggling with homelessness, according to senior administration officials.

    “We like to say here that the phrase, homeless veteran, should not exist in the English language. Ending veteran homelessness has been and continues to be a top priority of the president and his relentless advocacy for that goal has led to very important investments and advancements, including robust funding,” said Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough, who added that the VA is currently on track to meet its goal of rehousing 38,000 veterans in 2023.

    The VA put 40,401 homeless veterans into permanent housing last year with 2,443 of them returning to homelessness at some point that same year, according to the VA.

    While Thursday’s actions focus on the issue of homelessness for veterans, administration officials hope that progress made in rehousing former service members will help improve efforts to tackle the issue for all Americans experiencing homelessness.

    “Homelessness is a challenge we face as a nation. But most importantly, it is a solvable one,” Tanden told reporters, adding: “There are so many lessons there, that can help us tackle this problem for all Americans.”

    The $58 million in grant funding comes from the Department of Labor Veterans’ Employment and Training Service and will help veterans learn occupational skills, participate in on-the-job training or apprenticeships and provide other support services to reintegrate into the workforce.

    The $11.5 million in legal services grants is a “first-of-its-kind,” according to the White House, and will help veterans obtain representation in landlord-tenant disputes, as well as assist with other court proceedings like child support, custody or estate planning.

    “Legal support can be the difference between becoming homeless in the first instance, or having a safe stable house and a roof over their heads,” McDonough said.

    President Joe Biden has made it a goal of his administration to reduce homelessness by 25% for all Americans by 2025, calling on the country in his State of the Union address this year to do more, including “helping veterans afford their rent because no one should be homeless in this country, especially not those who served it.”

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  • Victims’ families, united in grief, face 2 paths to justice as Pittsburgh synagogue shooting death penalty trial moves to next phase | CNN

    Victims’ families, united in grief, face 2 paths to justice as Pittsburgh synagogue shooting death penalty trial moves to next phase | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Federal jurors in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial will soon decide whether to sentence the convicted gunman to death or life in prison – two potential avenues for justice that in the years since the deadliest antisemitic attack in US history have found varying levels of support in an otherwise unified community.

    As expected, shooter Robert Bowers was found guilty this month of all 63 counts he faced stemming from the Sabbath morning massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue that left 11 worshipers dead as three congregations gathered to pray. Eleven counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death and 11 counts of use and discharge of a firearm to commit murder during a crime of violence were capital counts, making Bowers eligible for the death penalty.

    The 50-year-old shooter’s attorneys never contested he committed the 2018 attack, and the case’s main focus is the issue now at hand: whether he is sentenced to death – still an option amid a federal moratorium on carrying out executions – or life in prison without the possibility of parole. For a death sentence to be handed down, the jury must be unanimous.

    But even in a community united – not only its grief but in its hope justice will be done – unanimity around the death penalty is elusive: In the years since the massacre, the victims’ families and congregations have expressed differing views about whether the shooter should be put to death. Some are convinced so egregious an attack warrants capital punishment, while others fear a death sentence could retraumatize their community or a life sentence would better honor the victims, they’ve said.

    The divergence reflects a broader national split on capital punishment. Recent high-profile cases, too, have shown juries don’t always send mass killers to death row, with the gunman who killed 17 people at a Parkland, Florida, high school and the terrorist who killed eight on a New York City bike path sentenced to life in prison after their juries declined to unanimously opt for death.

    Most of the families of those killed at the Pittsburgh synagogue want the shooter sentenced to die, according to a letter to the editor of the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle published in November and signed by seven of the nine families whose relatives were murdered.

    “We are not a ruthless, uncompassionate people; we, as a persecuted people, understand when there is a time for compassion and when there is a time to stand up and say enough is enough – such violent hatred will not be tolerated on this earth,” reads the letter written to counter unspecified opinion pieces opposing the US Justice Department’s decision to seek a death sentence.

    “Please don’t tell us how we should feel, what is best for us, what will comfort us and what will bring closure for the victims’ families. You can not and will not speak for us,” it reads. “The massacre of our loved ones was a clear violation of American law – mass murder of Jews for simply being Jewish and practicing Judaism, driven by sheer antisemitism – which the law rightfully deems is a capital offense.”

    Others have offered a different view. The targeted Dor Hadash Congregation previously voiced its opposition to the death penalty in this case, as did the rabbi of New Light Congregation, who narrowly escaped the shooting in which his faith community lost three worshipers. CNN reached out to Rabbi Jonathan Perlman for comment on his prior position.

    “I would like the Pittsburgh killer to be incarcerated for the rest of his life without parole,” Perlman wrote in an August 2019 letter to then-Attorney General William Barr before the decision to seek a death sentence was made. “He should meditate on whether taking action on some white separatist fantasy against the Jewish people was really worth it. Let him live with it forever.”

    Perlman’s focus, he wrote, was “not letting this thug cause my community any further pain.”

    “We are still attending to our wounds, both physical and emotional, and I don’t want to see them reopened any more. Many of us are healing but many of us (have) been re-traumatized multiple times,” Perlman said. “A drawn out and difficult death penalty trial would be a disaster with witnesses and attorneys dredging up horrifying drama and giving this killer the media attention he does not deserve.”

    While the Torah “unambiguously” allows for capital punishment, rabbis in the first and second centuries were hesitant to support its implementation, said David Kraemer, professor of Talmud and rabbinics at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

    They feared the flaws of a human court system out of concern innocents could be inadvertently punished, he told CNN. Those rabbis believed it best to err on the side of letting a guilty person go free in part because they believed the guilty would receive an appropriate punishment after death.

    “I think the reason they were comfortable with that is because they believed that there was a divine court,” Kraemer said, “that would correct the error that the human court may have made.”

    The Justice Department under Barr, an appointee of Republican President Donald Trump, initially chose to try the Pittsburgh shooting as a capital case, even as the US government at that time had not executed a federal death row inmate in almost 20 years. That changed in the Trump administration’s waning days, when 13 federal inmates were put to death over six months ending in January 2021.

    The Dor Hadash Congregation lamented the Barr-era decision, writing afterward in late August 2019 it was “saddened and disappointed” the agency chose to push forward with a capital case, despite a letter the congregation said it had sent that same month asking both sides to agree to a plea deal giving the gunman life in prison without parole.

    “A deal would have honored the memory of Dor Hadash congregant Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, who was firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty,” its statement read. “It would have prevented the attacker from getting the attention and publicity that will inevitably come with a trial, and eliminated any possibility of further trauma that could result from a trial and protracted appeals.”

    The congregation did not feel commenting on the death penalty was appropriate now that the trial has moved on from the guilt phase, its spokesperson told CNN. “We remain very grateful to the Department of Justice and the US Attorney’s office for their work in this matter over the course of the past 4 1/2 years,” Pamina Ewing of Dor Hadash said.

    Then in July 2021 – a day after he issued a moratorium on federal executions – Democratic President Joe Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland was sent a letter from seven of the nine families of those slain in the Pittsburgh synagogue attack, urging him to continue to pursue a death sentence in the case, according to Diane and Michele Rosenthal, the sisters of victims David and Cecil Rosenthal.

    The letter said the “vast majority of the immediate victim-family members” had not wavered in their desire for the death penalty. “As such, we respectfully beseech you to uphold the prior DOJ decision on the death-penalty qualification of this Capital Murder case and permit it to proceed as originally decided.”

    The letter aimed to “reflect … our support in seeking the death penalty in this particular tragedy,” the sisters told reporters in April, weeks before the trial began. They spoke only for their own family, they said, adding the other signatories had agreed to let them share the letter.

    Ellen Surloff, left, vice president of Congregation Dor Hadash, and Jo Recht, president of the congregation, speak on June 16 after the gunman was found guilty.

    The Justice Department under Garland is prosecuting the case, making it the second federal death penalty trial in the era of Biden, who’d campaigned on a promise to abolish the punishment at the federal level but has taken few substantive steps toward doing so.

    Since his appointment two years ago, Garland has not authorized the department to seek the death penalty in any new cases, a Justice Department spokesman said, and he continues to assess new requests for authorization to seek or withdraw the death penalty on a case-by-case basis, consistent with federal law and the Justice Manual.

    Americans overall remain divided nearly down the middle on the death penalty, as they have been for years following precipitous drops in support for it over recent decades. About 55% of Americans say they are in favor of the death penalty for convicted murderers, a split that’s been relatively unchanged for at least six consecutive years, polling from Gallup shows.

    And like in Pittsburgh – where community members have supported each other before the trial and during it – victims of violent crime and their families are no monolith. While some express opposition to capital punishment, others look to it for some semblance of closure or justice.

    The Pittsburgh synagogue “massacre was not just a mass murder of innocent citizens during the service in a house of worship. It was an antisemitic hate crime,” Diane Rosenthal said in April. “The death penalty must apply to vindicate justice and to offer some measure of deterrence from horrific hate crimes happening again and again.”

    “We don’t want to be here,” she said, “and we know the emotional toll this trial potentially brings. But we owe it to our brothers, Cecil and David.”

    Added Michele Rosenthal: “The suggestions published or reported that family members be relieved of the stress of a trial or that a cost-benefit analysis dictates a plea are offensive to our family,” she said. “Our family has suffered long and hard over the last four and a half years. … We don’t want to have to continue to defend ourselves and our position.

    “We want justice.”

    Beyond the families, many simply are bracing for the Pittsburgh synagogue trial’s penalty phase and how it may impact those touched by the wider ripples of the attack. After the gunman’s conviction, the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh opted to “take no position on what justice is,” its president and CEO told reporters.

    “We trust the justice process,” Brian Schreiber said.

    Whatever comes of the penalty phase, it will be “gut wrenching,” and “reopen wounds,” said Jeff Finkelstein, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.

    “They keep getting reopened for us here in our Pittsburgh community,” he said, “not just the Jewish community but this greater Pittsburgh region.”

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  • Federal judge defends Clarence Thomas in new book, rejects ‘pot shots’ at Supreme Court | CNN Politics

    Federal judge defends Clarence Thomas in new book, rejects ‘pot shots’ at Supreme Court | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A federal appeals court judge previously on short lists for the Supreme Court is taking the rare step to broadly and publicly reject allegations that Justice Clarence Thomas has been improperly influenced by lavish gifts provided by a conservative billionaire, dismissing “pot shots” at the Supreme Court in general.

    “Judges are just like every other human being. We have a diverse group of friends, and those friends don’t influence the way we do our job,” Judge Amul Thapar, who sits on a Cincinnati-based appeals court, told CNN in an interview.

    Thapar this past week released a new book about Thomas entitled “The People’s Justice,” in which he explores the justice’s favored judicial philosophy of originalism. Thapar posits that the theory is wrongly described as always favoring the “rich over the poor, the strong over the weak, the corporation over the consumer.”

    He walks through Thomas’ reasoning in a handful of cases dealing with affirmative action, the Second Amendment, school vouchers, a cross burning law and public takings of private property, among others, and contends that Thomas’ originalism “more often favors the ordinary people who come before the court – because the core idea behind originalism is honoring the will of the people.”

    RELATED: Supreme Court limits federal prisoners’ ability to bring some post-conviction challenges

    President Donald Trump nominated Thapar in to serve on the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017, and he was also on Trump’s short list for Supreme Court vacancies. Thapar, 54, is a favorite of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who handpicked him to serve as the US attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky in 2006.

    Thapar declined to talk about specifics regarding real estate magnate Harlan Crow’s hospitality to Thomas that included rides on private jets and luxury yachts. But he said that any determination about whether judges or justices have been improperly influenced must begin with a look at the body of their work.

    “You can judge their works, and what they do, against what they’ve done in the past,” Thapar told CNN. “And if it’s consistent, then it’s hard to say anything influenced them.”

    Thapar added that he finds it “disheartening that people who know better are taking pot shots at the court.”

    And while Thomas speaks often about his cross-country travels with his wife, Ginni, in their RV every summer, he never publicly detailed the extent of luxury travel associated with Crow until the news was fleshed out by ProPublica in April.

    Thapar, however, said the media has ignored Thomas’ other friends.

    “What they don’t tell you,” Thapar said, “is that he also has friends who are homeless, friends he meets in RV parks across the nation.”

    In his book, the judge wrote: “It makes sense that a justice who would rather spend his time in Walmart parking lots than at cocktail parties is an originalist.”

    Virginia Canter, chief ethics counsel at the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said the title of Thapar’s book is “completely disingenuous.”

    “Given the hundreds of thousands of dollars in private jet travel, luxurious vacations and other extravagant gifts he has accepted from his wealthy benefactor, Thomas represents anything but a justice for the people,” Canter said.

    Thapar rejects suggestions that Thomas should have disclosed the hospitality provided by Crow on annual financial disclosure forms.

    In April, Thomas released a statement saying he hadn’t disclosed the hospitality because the ethics rules – that have since changed – didn’t require disclosure at the time. The Crow dispute has been referred to the Administrative Office of the US Courts, the policy arm of the federal judiciary.

    “As judges, we try not to disclose more than is required under the rules because otherwise it becomes a game of ‘gotcha’ – you disclosed ‘x,’ why didn’t you disclose ‘y’?” Thapar said.

    “So, what the Administrative Office has recommended is we disclose what is required by the rules, and I think it’s important we do that,” Thapar said. “I wish the rules were crystal clear, and when they are, we disclose whatever is required, or we should, and if we make a mistake ,we should own up to it.”

    But when it comes to recusing themselves from cases when there’s a possible conflict of interest with a party to the case, Thapar said it’s easier for a lower court judge – who often sits on multimember panels – to make that choice.

    “I’m one of 16,” Thapar said. “Another judge can step in my shoes.”

    But the Supreme Court, on the other hand, only has nine members, Thapar pointed out, “and they have no provision – if they recuse – for someone to take their spot, so it’s a lot harder for them.”

    Thapar’s book is a ringing endorsement of originalism, a judicial theory that requires the Constitution to be interpreted based on its original public meaning.

    “Originalists believe that the American people, not nine unelected judges, are the source of the law that governs us – through the Constitution and statutes enacted by our elected representatives,” the judge writes.

    He says Thomas has been misunderstood over his career.

    “By cherry-picking his opinions or misrepresenting them, Justice Thomas’s critics claim that his originalism favors the rich over the poor, the strong over the weak, and corporations over consumers. They have called Justice Thomas ‘the cruelest justice,’ ‘stupid,’ and even an ‘Uncle Tom’ a traitor to his race,” Thapar writes.

    Elizabeth Wydra, president of the liberal Constitutional Accountability Center, which supports what it calls a progressive view of originalism, believes the text and history of the entire Constitution, as amended, is “remarkably progressive.”

    She rejects the views taken by Thapar and Thomas.

    “While it is true that originalism can lead to wins for the ‘little guy,’ it only works that way if you give sufficient weight to the amendments that have, over time, pushed our Constitution along an arc of progress and made it a more inclusive and equality-focused document,” Wydra said.

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  • Supreme Court rejects Texas and Louisiana challenge to Biden deportation priorities | CNN Politics

    Supreme Court rejects Texas and Louisiana challenge to Biden deportation priorities | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Supreme Court, in an 8-1 ruling on Friday, revived the Biden administration’s immigration guidelines that prioritize which noncitizens to deport, dismissing a challenge from two Republican state attorneys general who argued the policies conflicted with immigration law.

    The court said the states, Texas and Louisiana, did not have the “standing,” or the legal right, to sue in the first place in a decision that will further clarify when a state can challenge a federal policy in court going forward.

    The ruling is a major victory for President Joe Biden and the White House, who have consistently argued the need to prioritize who they detain and deport given limited resources. By ruling against the states, the court tightened the rules concerning when states may challenge federal policies with which they disagree. The Biden administration policy was put on pause by a federal judge nearly two years ago and the Supreme Court declined to lift that hold last year.

    Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote Friday’s majority opinion in the case.

    “In sum, the states have brought an extraordinarily unusual lawsuit,” Kavanaugh wrote, in an opinion joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “They want a federal court to order the Executive Branch to alter its arrest policies so as to make more arrests. Federal courts have not traditionally entertained that kind of lawsuit; indeed, the States cite no precedent for a lawsuit like this.”

    Kavanaugh said that the executive branch has traditional discretion over whether to take enforcement actions under federal law. He said that if the court were to allow the states to bring the lawsuit at hand, it would “entail expansive judicial direction” of the executive’s arrest policy and would open the door to more lawsuits from states that think the executive is not doing enough to enforce the law in other areas such as drug and gun regulation and obstruction of justice laws.

    “We decline to start the Federal Judiciary down that uncharted path,” Kavanaugh said.

    Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the administration welcomes the court’s ruling and that his department looks forward to using the immigration guidelines.

    The guidelines “enable DHS to most effectively accomplish its law enforcement mission with the authorities and resources provided by Congress,” Mayorkas said.

    Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett, wrote a concurring an opinion that concluded that the states also lacked standing, but for different reasons than the majority opinion. Justice Samuel Alito dissented.

    At the heart of the dispute was a September 2021 memo from Mayorkas that laid out priorities for the apprehension and removal of certain non-citizens, reversing efforts by former President Donald Trump to increase deportations.

    In his memo, Mayorkas stated that there are approximately 11 million undocumented or otherwise removable non-citizens in the country and that the United States does not have the ability to apprehend and seek to remove all of them. As such, the Department of Homeland Security sought to prioritize those who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security.  

    Kavanaugh’s opinion stressed that the standing doctrine “helps safeguard the Judiciary’s proper – and properly limited – role in our constitutional system.” He said that by ensuring a party has standing to sue, “federal courts prevent the judicial process from being used to usurp the powers of the political branches.”

    The majority did not address the underlying question of whether the administration had the authority to implement the policy.

    “We take no position on whether the executive branch here is complying with its legal obligations under §1226(c) and §1231(a)(2),” Kavanaugh wrote, referring to the relevant immigration statutes. “We hold only that the federal courts are not the proper forum to resolve this dispute.”

    Kavanaugh pointed out that five presidential administrations have determined that resource constraints necessitated prioritization in making immigration arrests.

    In his sole dissent, Alito wrote that this “sweeping executive power endorsed by today’s decision may at first be warmly received by champions of a strong Presidential power, but if presidents can expand their powers as far as they can manage in a test of strength with Congress, presumably Congress can cut executive power as much as it can manage by wielding the formidable weapons at its disposal.”

    “That is not what the Constitution envisions,” he wrote.

    Steve Vladeck, a CNN Supreme Court analyst who filed an amicus brief in the immigration case, noted that Friday’s ruling was the second decision within the last week in which the court “held that red states lacked standing to challenge a federal policy – perhaps a signal of dissatisfaction with how liberally lower courts, especially the Fifth Circuit, have permitted these challenges to go forward.”

    “And it’s the second in the last two years in which it has reversed a nationwide injunction against a Biden immigration policy in a suit brought by Texas,” Vladeck said. “When states are the right plaintiffs to challenge federal policies is also one of the central issues before the court in the challenges to Biden’s student loan program – in which the court is expected to rule next week.”

    Kavanaugh’s opinion emphasized that, in “holding that Texas and Louisiana lack standing, we do not suggest that federal courts may never entertain cases involving the executive branch’s alleged failure to make more arrests or bring more prosecutions.”

    In court, US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar stressed that Congress has never provided the funds to detain everyone, prompting different administrations to consider how to prioritize limited funds. She noted that the executive branch retains the authority to focus its “limited resources” on non-citizens who are higher priorities for removal and warned that if the states were to prevail, it would “scramble” immigration enforcement on the ground, leading to a totally unmanageable landscape. She said the states’ view in the case was a “senseless” way to run an immigration system.

    “I think that that is bad for the executive branch. I think it’s bad for the American public and I think it’s bad for Article Three courts,” she said.  

    The guidelines call for an assessment of the “totality of the facts and circumstances” instead of the development of a bright-line rule. The government lists aggravating factors weighing in favor of an enforcement action, including the gravity of the offense and the use of a firearm, but it also lists mitigating factors that include the age of the immigrant. 

    Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone, representing Texas and Louisiana, argued that the administration lacked the authority to issue the memo because it conflicts with existing federal law. He accused the government of treating immigration law in the area as “discretionary” and not “mandatory” and argued that the executive branch lacks the authority to “disregard” Congress’ instruction.

    “The states prove their standing at trial based on harms well recognized,” Stone said, emphasizing the costs incurred when the government “violates federal law.”

    A district court judge blocked the guidelines nationwide. “Using the words ‘discretion’ and ‘prioritization’ the executive branch claims the authority to suspend statutory mandates,” ruled Judge Drew Tipton, a Trump appointee on the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas. “The law does not sanction this approach.” 

    A federal appeals court declined to issue a stay of the decision, prompting the Biden administration to ask the Supreme Court for emergency relief last July. A 5-4 court ruled against the administration, allowing the lower court’s decision to remain in effect while the legal challenge played out.

    Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined her three liberal colleagues in dissent without providing any explanation for her vote.  

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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