Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: We have our jury

Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a long-running series published every morning that collects essential political discussion and analysis around the internet.

The Washington Post:

The U.S. just changed how it manages a tenth of its land

The Interior Department rule puts conservation and clean energy development on par with drilling, mining and resource extraction on federal lands for the first time

The final rule released Thursday represents a seismic shift in the management of roughly 245 million acres of public property — about one-tenth of the nation’s land mass. It is expected to draw praise from conservationists and legal challenges from fossil fuel industry groups and Republican officials, some of whom have lambasted the move as a “land grab.”

Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, known as the nation’s largest landlord, has long offered leases to oil and gas companies, mining firms and ranchers. Now, for the first time, the nearly 80-year-old agency will auction off “restoration leases” and “mitigation leases” to entities with plans to restore or conserve public lands.

The New York Times:

After Reports About Trump Jurors, Judge Demands Restraint From the Press

Some news reports have included details about jurors that had been aired in open court. One was excused after she developed concerns about being identified.

The judge in former President Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial ordered reporters to not disclose employment information about potential jurors after he excused a woman who said she was worried about her identity becoming known.

The woman, who had been seated on the jury on Tuesday, told the judge that her friends and colleagues had warned her that she had been identified as a juror in the high-profile case. Although the judge has kept prospective jurors’ names private, some have disclosed their employers and other identifying information in court.

She also said that she did not believe she could be impartial.

The judge, Juan M. Merchan, promptly dismissed her.

Moments later, Justice Merchan ordered the press to not report the answer to two queries on a lengthy questionnaire for prospective jurors: “Who is your current employer?” and “Who was your prior employer?”

They have 12 jurors as of Thursday afternoon and an alternate, and are now selecting the other five alternates.

Last night there was a limited attack on Iran. But:

Here is the full tweet above:

It appears that the attack in Iran was executed through glide bombs. That is important, because those were likely launched not from Israel but elsewhere. In addition, they can’t be traced through radar. This goes with the radio silence from Israel. Meanwhile, an IDF source told FOX News the operation was “limited.” What the attack was going for is plausible deniability. That will allow Iran to pretend this isn’t a big deal and react without major escalation. Iran seems to be playing along so far. That would also go with approval from the United States, which seems to have been obtained a day in advance.

Joe Perticone/The Bulwark:

Mike Johnson Finds a Way, Despite the Odds Plus: The shortest and silliest impeachment trial in history.

For some background on the unique process by which Johnson is going about this, see Tuesday’s edition of Press Pass. Today, I want to catch you up on the events that have unfolded since Johnson unveiled the four-bills-one-rule plan. Given the way the 118th Congress has functioned so far—it has been among the least effective Congresses in modern history—we may be on the verge of seeing a clever maneuver to circumvent the members who have been holding the chamber hostage.

Since Johnson laid his cards on the table on Monday, the individual bill texts have been released. The toplines are as follows:

• Ukraine: $60.84 billion

• Israel: $26.38 billion

• Indo-Pacific: $8.12 billion

Johnson created a plan that insulates him from potential scheming and alterations by the Senate, while structuring a package that essentially includes what has already passed the upper chamber.

POLITICO:

Party leaders try to break standoff over Johnson's foreign aid package

The Rules Committee hasn't yet returned from a break, as Democrats and Republicans negotiate how to move the four bills to the floor.

In exchange for helping circumvent the conservatives, Democrats are hoping they’ll be able to extract concessions from the other side of the aisle and are actively talking with Republicans, according to those people. But it’s not clear what, if anything, Johnson would give them for helping bring the bills to the floor. Democrats have called on him to bring Ukraine aid, in particular, to the floor for months.

“I think Democrats will act in a manner that's incredibly united once we see the rule and see what it says,” Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-N.M.), who sits on the Rules committee, told POLITICO Thursday when the meeting recessed.

She wouldn’t comment directly on whether Democrats have heard from Johnson, but added, “I hear that [Johnson] has put a lot of time and thinking into this.”

Simon Rosenberg/”The Hopium Chronicles” on Substack looks at the newest Harvard IOP Youth Poll:

Winning Arizona, Making Calls For Ukraine, A Good Youth Poll, A Bluer 2024 Election

Note that the poll breaks out “likely voters” from “registered voters,” which is important as so many young people don’t end up voting. Some initial takeaways from me:

• 18-29 year old vote intention is about the same as it was in the spring of 2020, a very high youth turnout year.

• Biden leads 56-39 (+19) among voters 18-29 year olds likely to vote. He won 18-29 year old voters by 60-36 in 2020, so off a bit but with work we can match our 2020 results. As I say here every day, some of our coalition is wandering now, and we need to go get them back. To repeat - this result is neither suprising, or worrisome.

• The data on Israel-Gaza is consistent with what I’ve been writing here - while an important issue, it is unlikely to be a voting issue for a large number of young people this fall: “When young Americans are asked whether or not they believe Israel's response so far to the October 7 attack by Hamas has been justified, a plurality indicates that they don't know (45%). About a fifth (21%) report that Israel's response was justified with 32% believing it was not justified.”

I also found this section to be particularly interesting: “Among the 1,051 "likely voters" in our sample, we found significant differences in support levels based on gender, age, race/ethnicity, and education levels, among other subgroups.

Will Bunch/The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Fear and loathing on America’s college campuses as free speech is disappearing

Student activists say fear and paranoia has descended on college campus around free speech as college administrators cave into a new brand of McCarthyism.

Student activists told me they feel constantly watched, either by university officials they think are monitoring their Wi-Fi or watching from omnipresent cameras — or by pro-Israel outside groups that have “doxxed” the personal information of pro-Palestinian protesters.

This week’s jarring news out of the University of Southern California that its Muslim valedictorian, Asna Tabassum, would not be allowed to give her upcoming commencement speech because of what the school called “safety concerns” — after some critics had singled out some of her X/Twitter posts over Palestine — gave the rest of America a window into what students and some of their professors have been saying for months: Free speech and political expression at U.S. universities is facing its greatest threat since the 1950s “Red Scare” and the heyday of McCarthyism.

Two Carleton College professors who write frequently and host a podcast around questions of academic freedom actually argue the current crisis is even worse than that dark era.

Hannah Metzger/Westword:

Abortion Ban Fails to Qualify for Ballot: "Colorado Is Not a Place Where You Can Mess With Our Reproductive Freedom"

On the same day, an abortion rights initiative submitted nearly double the signatures needed for the November election.

An initiative seeking to ban abortion will not appear on Colorado's ballot in November after the campaign failed to collect enough legitimate signatures to qualify. The campaign behind Initiative 81: Protections for a Living Child says it collected "tens of thousands of signatures" but fell short of the 124,238 it needed to turn in by April 18. If approved by voters, the ballot measure would have banned abortion at any point after conception, classifying it as homicide. "God gave us a choice between life and death for our state," Faye Barnhart, who co-led the campaign, said in a statement. "Many didn’t have the faith or vision to see this amazing window of opportunity to lead our state to choose life. We mourn the loss of these children’s lives because we didn’t do everything we could to save them." The anti-abortion measure's failure comes on the same day that a pro-abortion-rights campaign says it turned in nearly 240,000 signatures in support of another proposed ballot measure, Initiative 89: Right to Abortion. That proposal asks voters to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution, and also allow state funds — including Medicaid and state employee health insurance — to be used to pay for abortions.

It takes 55% to pass, since it’s a constitutional amendment.

The last time this happened was nearly thirty years ago.

Cliff Schecter on the media’s OJ trial coverage and its relevance today: