Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Philadelphia Inquirer: No, Mr. Trump, you first

We begin today with the editorial board of The Philadelphia Inquirer getting it right.by asking for the shoe salesman to step down,

Trump, 78, has been on the political stage for eight years marked by chaos, corruption, and incivility. Why go back to that?

To build himself up, Trump constantly tears the country down. There is no shining city on the hill. It’s just mourning in America. [...]

Trump told more than 30 lies during the debate to go with the more than 30,000 mistruths told during his four years as president. He dodged the CNN moderators’ questions, took no responsibility for his actions, and blamed others, mainly Biden, for everything that is wrong in the world.

The debate served as a reminder of what another four years of Trump would look like. More lies, grievance, narcissism, and hate. Supporters say they like Trump because he says whatever he thinks. But he mainly spews raw sewage.

Trump attacks the military. He denigrates the Justice Department and judges. He belittles the FBI and the CIA. He picks fights with allies and cozies up to dictators.

It’s about time. I do wonder how many times major media organizations published editorial demanding that Trump step down in the past eight years.

Jon Allsop of Columbia Journalism Review says that live fact-checking to Trump during last Thursday’s debate may have helped but not much.

If much of the pre-debate chatter focused on CNN’s changes to the format, the lack of live fact-checking that earned the network the most scrutiny on the night was in no way a new invention; CPD-era debate hosts also explicitly steered clear of it. In fairness to them and CNN, live fact-checking is hard, especially where Trump is involved, and the question of where to draw the line is inevitably contentious. But it’s hard to conclude that the alternative—a debate in which Trump can, for example, state without pushback that Biden is weaponizing the legal system against him—was satisfying either. Some observers have suggested that it’s the job of candidates to fact-check each other. But this risks politicizing the notion of truth. In the end, an addled-sounding Biden fact-checking Trump was unlikely to carry due weight—even when he was factually right. And the less said about Trump fact-checking Biden, the better. [...]

Live fact-checking might have helped expose Trump’s incoherent answers, but journalists across the media landscape are also responsible for how they frame the debate after the fact. Again, Biden’s shakiness is a big story. But it is, in no small part, one of optics (at least in the continued absence of much evidence that his decision-making is impaired)—and coverage of those all too often drowns out substance, particularly in the wake of debates. In some respects, this debate has crystallized in miniature what is emerging as an oversimplified broader picture of this presidential race in the media: in one corner, Biden, old; in the other, Trump… well, what’s left to say about him? Do you want to do a puzzle? Having brought the picture into greater focus, the debate will only now reinforce it. There is some truth in the picture, for sure. But we need a much wider lens.

Chris Geidner of LawDork thinks that the latest decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court have made the federal government much more difficult to operate.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch made it more difficult for the federal government to operate on Thursday.

In one case, the conservatives — against Sotomayor’s strident dissent for the liberal justices — blocked administrative agencies in many instances from acting administratively to enforce the law. How many instances? Roberts demurs on that point.

In another case, the conservatives — against Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s strong dissent for herself and the liberal justices — made it easier for opponents of new regulations to block them from going into effect while litigation is ongoing. How much easier? Since Gorsuch doesn’t even acknowledge that’s what he’s doing, we don’t know.

The 6-3 decision in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy could upend the ability of executive agencies to enforce decades of law, forcing them to bring virtually any enforcement actions that seek fines in court. The opinion by Roberts holds that such a decision is required under the Seventh Amendment’s right to a jury trial.

Katherine Fung of Newsweek notes that it’s not simply the people that have stepped up and denounced the actions of the U.S. Supreme Court; Portions of  judiciary itself has done the same.

There is a growing chorus of Supreme Court critics coming from within the judiciary. Judges on both sides of the ideological spectrum and across various levels have become increasingly willing to speak out, warning America about the future of democracy.

Among those critics are retired Judge David S. Tatel. A Clinton appointee who served for nearly 30 years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Tatel recently revealed in a new memoir, Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice, that part of the reason he stepped down from the court in January was because he grew tired of the Supreme Court's "low regard" for judicial principles. [...]

Judicial criticisms of the Supreme Court have come not only from the left. Retired Judge J. Michael Luttig, a conservative who himself was a Supreme Court contender under President George W. Bush, has become one of the most outspoken critics of the court...

U.S. Circuit Judge Kevin Newsom, a Trump appointee, also knocked the Supreme Court in a February speech at a symposium hosted by the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Newsom took issue with how the current bench has relied on historical "tradition" to justify its landmark rulings, an approach that the federal appeals judge said risks leaving "too much to individual judges' discretion."

María Moníca Monsalve S. of El Pais in English looks at the increased possibilities of heat waves hitting the United States and Latin America.

Over the past two months, Mexico has experienced one of the most extreme heat waves ever recorded. At the end of May, in the municipality of Cunduacán — in the north of the state of Tabasco — more than 150 howler monkeys died, apparently because they couldn’t adapt to the high temperatures. At the national level, since March 2024, at least 125 deaths due to heat and 2,308 cases of heat stroke have been reported. In the Yucatán Peninsula, in southern Mexico, a record maximum temperature of 125°F was reached on June 13.

The situation wasn’t very different in neighboring countries. There were monthly records set for high temperatures in Guatemala and annual temperatures in Honduras. On the other hand, in the southwest of the United States, “more than 34 million people live in areas where authorities have issued heat alerts and dozens have suffered heat exhaustion at political rallies,” explains a recent analysis carried out by the World Weather Attribution (WWA). This academic project also warns that, due to climate change caused by human activities, these deadly heat waves are 35 times more likely to occur in North and Central America.

Finally today, Paul Kirby of BBC News reports on the far-right’s hopes for legislative victory in France as France holds the first round of two snap elections today.

The National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella is well ahead in the polls - three weeks to the day since they won European elections. President Emmanuel Macron reacted immediately by calling a national vote and stunning his country.

A high turnout is expected among 49 million voters for such a pivotal election and polls close in the big cities at 20:00 (18:00GMT), when the first exit polls come out.

This is a two-round election, and most of the National Assembly’s 577 seats will not be decided until the second-round run-off vote next Sunday.

The campaign only lasted 20 days, and that also benefited RN, which quickly refined its existing promises on immigration, crime and insecurity as well as tax cuts to tackle the cost-of-living crisis.

Jordan Bardella wants to be RN’s first prime minister, and his party is confident of winning dozens of constituencies outright in the first round.

Everyone have the best possible day!