The situation has changed with astonishing speed. Biden has salvaged his domestic-policy agenda, his party’s base has snapped out of its torpor, and the economy is showing signs it just might pull through. And while not all these developments are his own doing, nor do they completely extinguish the political danger he faces, they all redound to his benefit. In the span of a few weeks, Biden’s presidency is back from the dead and looking something close to triumphant.
The event that triggered the turnaround was the decision by five Republican Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v. Wade. In so doing, the Court’s right wing disregarded the advice of its more cautious chief justice, John Roberts, who reportedly tried in vain to steer his colleagues toward an incrementalist strategy that would avoid a backlash. [snip]
The altered political landscape has been reflected in polls showing the public moving back toward a preference for Democratic control of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections. It was reflected even more strongly in a series of surprising votes. A special election in a Nebraska House district in June that had voted for Donald Trump by 15 points went to a Republican by less than half that margin. In August, a special election in Minnesota, in a district that Trump won by ten points, went Republican by just four. Usually, special elections, held outside the normal November election time, give exaggerated strength to the out-party, whose partisans have more motivation to turn out. Instead, it was Democrats who overperformed.
An even more surprising event occurred between those two elections. In early August, Kansas held a statewide referendum to repeal the personal-autonomy clause in its Constitution and thus enable strict limits on abortion, if not its outright abolition. Republicans favored a midsummer vote on the assumption it would be dominated by anti-abortion activists, and polls projected a close race. Instead, the pro-choice side prevailed by nearly 20 points.
A mention of California might usually conjure images of wildfires and droughts, but scientists say that the Golden State is also the site of extreme, once-a-century “megafloods” — and that climate change could amplify just how bad one gets.
The idea seems inconceivable — a month-long storm that dumps 30 inches of rain in San Francisco and up to 100 inches of rain and/or melted snow in the mountains. But it has happened before — most recently in 1862 — and if history is any indicator, we’re overdue for another, according to research published Friday in Science Advances that seeks to shed light on the lurking hazard.
“This risk is increasing and was already underappreciated,” said Daniel Swain, one of the study’s two authors and a climate scientist at the University of California at Los Angeles. “We want to get ahead of it.”
In such an event, some in the Sierra Nevada could end up with 25 to 34 feet of snow, and most of California’s major highways would be washed out or become inaccessible.
Swain is working with emergency management officials and the National Weather Service, explaining that it’s not a question of whether a megaflood will happen but when.
“It already has happened in 1862, and it probably has happened about five times per millennium before that,” he said. “On human time scales, 100 or 200 years sounds like a long time. But these are fairly regular occurrences.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speculated that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) might have a penis during a screed against transgender people.
The Texas senator made the remarks at a rally in Nevada on Saturday. [snip]"We need courage responding to crazy town," Cruz told supporters. "Elizabeth Warren told reporters that a guy came up to her and said, 'I would have voted for you if only you had a penis.'"
Cruz argued that Warren's "story is a lie."
"In today's Democrat [sic] Party, how do we know she doesn't?" Cruz said to laughter. "How could you possibly know? 'My name is Elizabeth. Call me Bob.'"
We know what we call you Rafael: a slimy, misogynistic bigot.
