National News Roundup

Year 7, Week 21 (June 4-10)

June 13, 2023 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

This is one of those rare weeks where virtually everyone here knows what the NNR is about to say. It’s a nice unifying moment of surreality–we might not always know what is going on, but by God, we all know that Donald Trump is now twice as indicted.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I may be well into my seventh year of journalism, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not an arraignment!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Cleanup in Aisle 45:

This was a heck of a week for original flavor Election Rejection. Here’s what has happened:

45 Reasons to Indict (cont). As one might expect when last week’s news involved a literal tape of Trump announcing that he kept classified documents, Trump was indeed federally indicted on Friday in Florida. His first court appearance is tomorrow, and the man has already wasted no time in letting everybody know he’s definitely still running for President even if he has to rule from a jail cell. Unusually, his unsealed indictment document is available online and is quite a read, if you have the time to peruse it–but if you just want the Cliffs Notes version, it’s thirty-seven counts of That Dude Sure Stole Classified Docs On Purpose. Memewhile, photos of classified documents in the chandelier-encrusted toilet at Mar-A-Lago are already everywhere.

The main news story on the Biden Rebuilding front this week is the debt ceiling dealing. Here’s what I have for you:

Debt Ceiling Dealing (cont). We’re continuing to see fallout from the debt ceiling deal, which appears to be the biggest news in the Biden administration for another week. To be fair to Biden though, the majority of news on this actually comes out of the House, where the GOP has been eating itself for the past week. More specifically, the far-right dregs of the party have been sticking it to McCarthy over anything and everything, which ultimately saw the House dismissing itself early on Wednesday evening. To be fair, this is almost certainly also exacerbated by the overstuffed clown car of 2024 GOP presidential hopefuls, which just keeps gaining occupants and increasing splintering of the party as the weeks go on.

Your New Normal:

LGBTQIA+ Roundup. With one exception we’ll discuss below, this was a bleak week for LGBTQIA+ news. In Louisiana and Missouri, new laws were passed banning access to gender-affirming care for minors. Relatedly, the Southern Poverty Law Center documented Moms for Liberty and other parental hate groups in its annual retrospective, which was released this week. Similarly, the Human Rights Campaign this week declared a national state of emergency for American LGBTQIA+ people for the first time in its 43-year history. The HRC also released a Guidebook for Action that offers information about which places are still safe to travel for LGBTQIA+ people. It also offers guidance for how to move out of dangerous places. Needless to say, though I live in a place that is considered among the safest in the country for my household, it is deeply disheartening to review these materials–and even more disheartening to know how necessary they are for millions of Americans.

The Bad:

Hard to Breathe AQI. Speaking of millions of Americans, pretty much the whole Eastern seaboard suffered low air quality this week, as Canadian wildfires spread high volumes of smoke further south. Air quality was particularly poor in places like Philadelphia and New York City, where geographic location and ambient industry combined to create extreme conditions. (Thankfully, both New York and Philly, along with the rest of the Eastern seaboard, appear to be more-or-less back to normal by the time that I type this.)

The Good:

Recent Judicial Resilience. We have some more interesting court cases this week, even beyond the indictmas discussed above. In true stopped clock fashion, SCOTUS stunned everybody this week by actually deciding Alabama discriminated against Black voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act. Less bombastically but still interestingly, at least if you’re me, they also held that people can sue nursing homes even when they’re Medicaid funded. Meanwhile, in Florida, a federal judge blocked the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors, saying that the state has no rational basis for limiting access to health care and noting that “gender identity is real” in his opinion.

So that’s what I have for you this week, and there will be more where that came from. For making it through, you deserve this master of disguise and a more functional government. I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me recipes you like on hot days!

Year 7, Week 20 (May 28–June 3)

June 6, 2023 Kara Hurvitz1 Comment

I drafted this week’s news watching Brennan Lee Mulligan rant as a fake CEO for several sad companies, which turns out to be an improbably good backdrop to this week’s news in general. (This is to say, the news this week isn’t unusually bad, but it does make you want to stare dead-eyed into the camera and yell things.)

Standard standing reminders still apply: I may be well into my seventh year of journalism, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not a student loan!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Cleanup in Aisle 45:

We’re also back to original flavor Election Rejection this week with yet more 45 train wreck. Here’s what has happened:

45 Reasons to Indict. This was quite a week for news about Trump. First, in “this is lazy even for the 45 writing room” news, we learned federal prosecutors have a tape of Trump a) talking about his b) definitely classified documents that he c) still had after he left office in 2021. Then Trump’s lawyers said they couldn’t find the document, and just today they met with the special investigator to… plead with them not to charge him, I guess? Meanwhile, the Trump probe in Georgia has been broadened to include other states. Finally, almost as an afterthought, the DOJ confirmed that they will not be charging Mike Pence over the comparatively minor classified documentation they found on him earlier this year. (I guess it’s all relative.)

The main news story on the Biden Rebuilding front this week is the debt ceiling dealing. Here’s what I have for you:

Debt Ceiling Dealing (cont). As foretold by prophecy, the debt ceiling bill did get passed by both the House and the Senate this week, and Biden signed it into law over the weekend. As one might expect, the final version was just as bad as the first version. Nonetheless, we do have a functional government again, so at least there’s that.

Your New Normal:

Repro Health Roundup. We had a weirdly positive week, on the whole, for repro health news. ABC ran a story that teenage pregnancy reached a historic low last year, although I’m honestly not sure how that happened with everything else going on. Both Oklahoma and Nevada had positive movement as well; the Oklahoma Supreme Court apparently struck down two abortion bans (though plenty of restrictions still exist in the state). Meanwhile, Nevada became the next state with a Republican governor to approve abortion shield laws.

The Bad:

Symbolic Student Loan Screw You. The Senate, in its infinite wisdom, also passed a bill from the House this week that overturns Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan by 52-46 vote. Unsurprisingly, Biden has signaled that he will veto this bill, and enough Democrats still vote like it that his veto will likely stand. Nonetheless, it’s a kick in the teeth when it happens the same week that Congress voted to turn federal loans back on. The final say on the matter will likely be the Supreme Court case that is also pending, and expected to come out in the next few weeks.

The Good:

Recent LGBT Resilience. At the top of Pride month, it feels good to share that the absurd Tennessee drag law issued a few months ago was shot down by a federal court this week as unconstitutional. (If you were wondering whether it violates freedom of speech, yes yes it does.) I’m sure this won’t be the last we hear of this, but it’s good to have the decision for now.

So that’s what I have for you this week, and I’m sorry, there are no news refunds. For making it through, you deserve this bear bed hair and a more functional government. I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me pictures of sloths because who doesn’t like those?

Year 7, Week 18-19 (May 14-27)

May 29, 2023May 30, 2023 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

I’m still running ragged trying to support folks through redeterminations, but a slower news week is allowing me to resume our regularly-scheduled NNR (at least for now). Be forewarned, however, that a slow news week doesn’t mean a good one–most of this week’s news sucks. I recommend the application of ice cream.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I may be well into my seventh year of journalism, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not a bill!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Cleanup in Aisle 45:

We’re also back to original flavor Election Rejection this week, plus one story that just involves elections and is funny. Here’s what has happened:

Election Rejection Mini-Roundup. The biggest election rejection story this week is likely that Oathkeepers who were convicted last month for their role in January 6 are starting to be sentenced, with some of the sentences as high as 18 years. That said, we also got a date for Trump’s criminal trial–it will be in March 2024–and the schadenfreude of DeSantis’s failed Twitter launch of his 2024 campaign.

The main news story on the Biden Rebuilding front this week is the debt ceiling dealing. Here’s what I have for you:

Debt Ceiling Dealing. Well, the good news on the Biden front is that he finally has a deal on raising the debt ceiling, which will prevent a default ahead of the June 5 drop-dead date if Congress passes it. The bad news is, as his colleagues feared, he struck a deal that sucks–it flattens funding for many social programs, increases work requirements for SNAP and TANIF, and expedites gas mining in West Virginia. Now Congress gets to vote on it, and it seems very possible we’ll see further tweaks on the Congressional floor. I’ll keep folks posted on the final form next week.

Your New Normal:

AG Impeachment. In this week’s “couldn’t happen to a nicer scumbag” news, the Texas House voted this week to impeach Texas AG Ken Paxton. Paxton ended up with 20 articles of impeachment, on account of his vast portfolio of sketchiness–apparently, he did everything from accepting bribes to tanking investigations to threatening the whistleblowers who wanted to disclose all the bribery and investigation tanking. He’s now suspended from his duties, and will face a Senate trial sometime in the next few months.
Recent Health Access Ruins. The last ten or so days have been abjectly awful for reproductive health and gender-affirming care. Nebraska passed a twelve-week abortion ban bill that also bans gender-affirming care for minors and survived hundreds of hours of filibuster to pass. North Carolina managed to overcome a gubernatorial veto on its own twelve-week abortion ban and finalize it as law as well. Meanwhile, South Carolina passed a six-week abortion ban, also overcoming many hours of filibuster to pass and leaving Virginia the main point of access for the whole of the South. Finally, Florida restricted access to both gender-affirming care and bathrooms. The one bit of hope at the bottom of this week’s Pandora’s Box is Maine’s gender-affirming care bill, which would grant adolescents 16 and older the ability to access HRT without parental consent.

The Bad:

Clean Water Waning. The Supreme Court meddled with the Clean Water Act this week, dramatically curtailing the reach of the law after over fifty years of enforcement. Those of you playing the home game may remember that this is an encore performance for this area of law, as they similarly limited the Clean Air Act last year. I probably speak for all of us when I say that it would be cool if the Supreme Court could stop overturning settled law that’s half a century old because the far-right is paying them to do it.

The Good:

Recent Health Resilience. In direct counterpoint to much of the health news above, Minnesota has been going on a bicameral legal protections spree this session. In addition to abortion protections, which were codified this week, the state also, among other things, 1) legalized cannabis; 2) invested in transportation; 3) created a new child tax credit; 4) passed comprehensive gun safety reform; 5) expanded the school lunch program; 6) expanded voting rights; 7) banned conversion therapy; and 8) shielded providers of gender-affirming care from out-of-state litigation. And that’s not even a comprehensive list; it has truly been an impressive amount of well-targeted reform.

So that’s what I have for you this week, and I’m sorry, there are no news refunds. For making it through, you deserve this regal matriarch and a more functional government. I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me more hours in the day!

Year 7, Week 17 (May 7-13)

May 18, 2023 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

This was a week of endings, between the official end of the COVID public health emergency and the official end of Title 42 asylum policies at the border. (The way we’re headed, I also haven’t ruled out an end to the debt ceiling.) Needless to say, the NNR remains available for your snarky coverage needs.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I may be well into my seventh year of journalism, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not an amendment!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Cleanup in Aisle 45:

I wasn’t quite sure where to stick the story below, but it does involved both Election and Rejection, so I figured this was the place for it. Here’s what has happened:

Santos Malos. On Wednesday, still-current GOP rep George Santos was taken into custody and charged with thirteen counts of fraud, presumably due to, y’know, all the fraud. Though he originally pled not guilty, he quickly confessed to crimes in Brazil in order to make those charges go away. Just today, he dodged a vote to expel him by the skin of his teeth, and the matter instead went to the House Ethics Committee. Santos has already refused to resign several times, so in a GOP-led house, it seems likely he’s not going anywhere.

The main news story on the Biden Rebuilding front this week is immigration-related. Here’s what I have for you:

The End of Title 42. With the immigration policy known as Title 42 ending last week due to the end of the public health emergency, there have been a lot of eyes on the southern border. Initial fears of a massive asylee surge appear to have been unfounded, as the Biden administration made clear they planned to deport asylum seekers en masse under Title 8. Still, it’s unclear what may come next, as Title 8 under Biden’s plan will be rough on Mexico. It’s very possible that the whole thing will prompt Congress to revamp relevant legislation.

Your New Normal:

Creeping Healthcare Concerns. As I mentioned last week, Thursday also marked the official end of the COVID public health emergency. As if to puncture the point, the CDC celebrated by finally releasing ventilation guidelines sought by health professionals for literal years–nothing says “you’re on your own” quite like “the pandemic’s over, by the way change your airflow regularly.” Meanwhile, in reproductive health news, North Carolina passed a twelve-week abortion law by overriding the governor’s veto on the matter. And in New Orleans, the Fifth Circuit appears poised to reinforce the nonsense decision issued by a federal district court judge in Texas regarding access to mifepristone.

The Bad:

Raise the Debt Roof (again).* Also as I mentioned above, we appear to be gearing up for a(nother) wild ride on the debt ceiling. Although Biden and Congress have been meeting regularly to try to strike a deal, it’s increasingly obvious that the House GOP isn’t playing ball. In response, Biden has signaled that he’s beginning to consider using the 14th Amendment as a workaround. Just today, several Senate Democrats sent him a letter officially urging him to push that button. If nothing is done, we may slam right into default as soon as June 1, so time is rather of the essence–I’ll keep folks posted on this.

The Good:

Recent Health Resilience. A small trial published this week shows potential great promise for a pancreatic cancer vaccine developed using mRNA technology. This is a really big deal, as scientists have long been trying to figure out how to use mRNA to tailor vaccines to patients’ specific tumors. We’re still early stages, but it’s a potential major milestone. Hooray progress!

So that’s what I have for you this week, and I’m sorry, there are no news refunds. For making it through, you deserve this attention-seeking lamb and a more functional government. I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me cloning technology; I’ll use it responsibly!

Year 7, Week 16 (April 30–May 6)

May 10, 2023May 10, 2023 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

This week felt slow at its start, but it started churning out stories hard and fast by the time the weekend wrapped. I’m going to cover most of this week’s stories today, but there are a couple we’ll have to punt to next week–it’s that kind of cycle, apparently.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I may be well into my seventh year of journalism, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not a strike!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Cleanup in Aisle 45:

After a blessed week off, we’re back to Election Rejection news about January 6 and Cool Ranch Mussolini crimes. Here’s what has happened:

Sedition Stories (again). By far, the biggest January 6 story is that a jury found four Proud Boys guilty of 31 counts of seditious conspiracy. This marks the second alt-right group convicted, as several Oathkeepers were convicted of similar charges in two separate proceedings in March. These four defendants are potentially facing up to twenty years in prison, though the sentencing will be handled separately later this month. Meanwhile, in Cool Ranch Mussolini news, eight Georgia Republicans have flipped on him in the election interference case against him down there. And just today, the jury on the E. Jean Carroll civil trial found him liable for $5M to her for sexual assault and defamation.

The main news stories on the Biden Rebuilding front this week are FDA and CDC updates. Here’s what I have for you:

FDA and PHE. This week marks the official end of the public health emergency, both nationally per the Biden administration and globally per the WHO. This has a number of implications, most of which involve protections, flexibilities, or coverage ending. That said, we’re getting a temporary extension for virtual prescriptions for controlled substances, because 38,000 people asked to continue it–and I’m pretty happy about this, because I was one of them. Meanwhile, the FDA is considering making hormonal medications commonly used as contraceptives over-the-counter, which will likely be a significant support for the reproductive health landscape if it happens. And in other FDA news, they approved the first vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which has been in development for decades.

Your New Normal:

Extremely Normal SCOTUS and Senate News (again again). I swear some week we’ll stop having new stories about how corrupt Clarence Thomas is, but this week is apparently not that week. The first story this time was that Mein Kampf devotee Harlan Crow is apparently paying for Thomas’s kid’s private school–which, as I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you, is not normal. Then the Washington Post broke another story which is frankly much worse, and I can’t believe we’re not talking more about it. Apparently, conservative lobbyist Leonard Leo, in 2012, laundered $25K to Ginni Thomas through a nonprofit he consults for called the Judicial Education Project. He did this by having Kellyanne Conway bill the Judicial Education Project $25K for “Supplement for Constitution Polling and Opinion Consulting,” sending the resulting $25K directly to Ginni Thomas, and instructing Kellyanne Conway to make sure the documentation had “No mention of Ginni, of course.” The Judicial Education Project then promptly appeared in front of SCOTUS for Shelby County v. Holder, an important voting rights case which appears to be the basis of the payment. Clarence Thomas voted in favor of the Judicial Education Project’s position and wrote a concurrence, resulting in the loss of voting rights for millions of people. In case you are wondering whether a nonprofit literally called the Judicial Education Project is supposed to give thousands of dollars directly to the household of a Supreme Court justice they are intending to influence on an upcoming landmark court case… uh, no, no they are not.
WGA Strike Begins. The Writers Guild of America began striking last week, concerned about increasing job cuts, consistent low pay, and encroaching AI use in writing rooms. It’s not clear how this will impact Hollywood, but the last time the WGA went on strike in 2007, it lasted 100 solid days before reaching resolution. It’s helpful to know that the WGA is not asking for a boycott of streaming services, but rather is seeking support of strike funds such as the Entertainment Community Fund.

The Bad:

This Week’s Avoidable Deaths. We lost a lot of people to preventable violence this week. In New York, a white passenger fatally choked fellow rider Jordan Neely on the subway when Neely began yelling and pacing. As I type this, no one has been charged in Neely’s death even though it has been ruled a homicide by medical examination. We also had several gun homicides in Texas. At the top of the week, the man in Cleveland Texas who fatally shot five neighbors was picked up by police along with accomplices. Meanwhile, a few days later, a white supremacist opened fire in a Dallas area mall, resulting in eight deaths and seven injuries. And in Atlanta, there was a mass shooting at Northside Medical Midtown, resulting in one death and four injuries as well as an eight-hour manhunt to find the shooter. I feel it is necessary to note that all of these stories are senseless and traumatizing tragedies that could have been prevented by more responsible gun laws and better behavioral health crisis response.

The Good:

Recent Health Resilience. In addition to the FDA news above, this week they approved the first vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). This vaccine has been in development for decades, and it’s a really big deal that it’s approved!

So that’s what I have for you this week, and I’m sorry, there are no news refunds. For making it through, you deserve this cauliflower snack time and a more functional government. I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me more hours in the day!

Year 7, Week 15 (April 23-29)

May 3, 2023 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

We had a few days in a row this week where the news was looking… pretty positive? Somehow? (I know, I’m as shocked as you are.) But by the time that I’m typing this, another big bank has failed and we’re back to our normally scheduled timeline. We had a good run, y’all.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I may be well into my seventh year of journalism, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not an injunction!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Cleanup in Aisle 45:

Strictly speaking, the Election Rejection front news this week is really more just Election News, but it’s such a repeat of 2020 that I don’t feel bad stashing it here. Here’s what has happened:

Hindsight is 2024. President Biden announced on Tuesday that he’s definitely running for President again in 2024,setting himself up to be retiring at 86 years old if he finishes a second term. He’s almost certainly going to be running against Trump, who is already the heavily favored candidate for the GOP after DeSantis was too busy fighting Disney to overtake him. Meanwhile, Mike Pence is definitely testifying against Trump federally about his role in the Jan 6 insurrection, but that will not in any way disqualify Trump from running for President in 2024. Isn’t politics fun?

The main news on the Biden Rebuilding front, in contrast, is economics-related. Here’s what I have for you:

Raising the Debt Ceiling. The House passed a bill this week by party lines that would raise the debt ceiling but undo half of Biden’s policies from the last two years. Unsurprisingly, Biden took one look at the various provisions in it and said ‘no thank you’. Now, House Democrats are trying their own thing through a procedural maneuver that would force another vote known as a discharge petition. If it’s not resolved soon, our Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warns that the U.S. could run out of money as soon as June 1. Meanwhile, as I mentioned at the top of this roundup, another bank failed and was purchased by J.P. Morgan yesterday, so our economy is looking extra exciting this week.

Your New Normal:

Extremely Normal SCOTUS and Senate News (again again). We have yet another week of bad news about SCOTUS self-interest and Chief Justice Roberts refusing to do anything. This time, we started with news about Justice Gorsuch selling property to the CEO of a firm that appears before him regularly, closing the sale after he was appointed and failing to disclose it. This was swiftly followed by news that Justice Roberts’s wife, Jane Roberts, made over $10M as a legal consultant from firms appearing before SCOTUS while her husband was on the bench from 2007 to 2014. Wouldn’t you know, Chief Justice Roberts also failed to disclose this, claiming her commissions as “salary.” Nonetheless, he is still insisting that SCOTUS doesn’t need ethics rules and refusing to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Unsurprisingly, a Senate bill was introduced this week that would force the Supreme Court to have a code of conduct. Perhaps more surprisingly, the bill wasn’t introduced by Democrats–it’s from Senator Angus King (I-Maine) Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

The Bad:

Rep Removal in Montana. Montana rep Zooey Zephyr, who you may remember as the rep who appropriately used a floor debate to rail against curtailing access to gender-affirming care, was formally barred from the Montana House floor this week. She will be permitted to vote remotely until the session ends in a few weeks, but will not be permitted to speak in any formal debates for the rest of the session. Zephyr, who is the state’s first transgender rep, was also misgendered repeatedly during the censure process, and seven people were arrested for peacefully protesting her removal. It’s the second time in a month that Republicans removed marginalized state reps from service and cited the reps’ service itself as the reason for removal. I’m sure you don’t need me to make this subtext into text, but I’m going to anyway: What we’re seeing is a deeply concerning subversion of how democracy is supposed to work.

The Good:

Recent State Resilience. As I mentioned in the opening, we had a weirdly good week in many places for reproductive rights and trans rights, mostly because the GOP had a weirdly cursed one. In South Carolina, a strict abortion ban failed after all five women in the state senate (yes, all five of them total, you read that right) participated in a multi-day bipartisan filibuster. A similar bill failed in Nebraska because one 80-year-old Republican dude who had co-sponsored the bill and voted it out of committee arbitrarily decided to abstain instead of backing it. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice is suing Tennessee over their total ban on gender-affirming care for youths, and a judge in Missouri has paused enforcement of the pseudo-ban on gender-affirming care for adolescents and adults. On the other side of the political spectrum, Washington state became the first place to explicitly protect privacy rights regarding reproductive health data. Washington and Minnesota also joined a growing number of states passing shield laws to protect people who seek or provide care within the state that is illegal in other states. And here in Massachusetts, there was a public hearing today on several bills that would expand access to gender-affirming care.

So that’s what I have for you this week, and I’m sorry for the return to our regularly-scheduled timeline. For making it through, you deserve this kitten ambush and a more functional government. I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me photos of your pets!

Year 7, Week 14 (April 16-22)

April 25, 2023 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

We’re in a second week in a row of news overdrive, and I’m still tinkering with the best way to handle it. This week, you’re getting all of the news through Sunday this evening; there is simply too much that happened today to cover Monday stories like normal. On the “plus” side, there was also too much news last week to cover everything through Wednesday, so we still have a very full docket!

Standard standing reminders still apply: I may be well into my seventh year of journalism, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not a stay of injunction!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Cleanup in Aisle 45:

We’re playing catch-up this week on the Election Rejection front, but it’s a good thing I waited on the Dominion settlement story. Here’s what has happened:

Dominion Over Carlson. I’m sure some folks reading this have been following the elaborate defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion against Fox News for $1.6 billion for some time, since the depth of misinformation coming out during pretrial was already pretty stunning. That said, the lawsuit gained a lot of attention last week, when it settled for $787.5 million just as it was about to go to trial. The lawsuit gained even more attention today, despite being over already, when Fox fired Tucker Carlson, who played something of a starring role in the Dominion discovery. Though there isn’t a lot of information regarding why Carlson was abruptly let go, and it’s likely due to a combination of factors, it seems safe to conclude that the voting machine defamation cases were likely among them.

We also have a bit of catch-up on the Biden Rebuilding front, though I’m pretty excited about this week’s news. Here’s what I have for you:

DACA Determination. The Biden administration announced recently that it plans to expand public healthcare access to include individuals participating in the Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals program. Including DACA recipients in programs like CHIP, Medicaid, and Affordable Care Act coverage would be a major change in existing policy–DACA participants have never been included in federal public healthcare since the program begin in 2012. This story is technically still a bit under-ripe as I type this, but I wanted to make sure I flagged it, as it’s a big deal in my sector of public health.

Your New Normal:

Extremely Normal SCOTUS and Senate News (again). Now that the onslaught of sketchy Justice Thomas news appears to be slowing to a crawl, we appear to be mired in an elaborate checks-and-balances fight about it. More specifically, the Senate Judiciary Committee has been fighting with itself for two weeks as the committee head tries to take action about the spate of Thomas news. However, Judiciary committee member Diane Feinstein has been out since February for medical reasons, and has resisted calls to resign based on her ailing health. Meanwhile, the Republicans on the committee won’t let him replace her even temporarily for the sole purpose of permitting the committee to function. The end result was the chair “inviting” Chief Justice Roberts to testify about ethics, and Roberts inevitably telling the Senate to go hang–because he wasn’t being subpoenaed, so the committee can’t make him. Needless to say, this is all very normal and signals a super functional democracy.
Healthcare Corner. There were some significant COVID odds and ends over the past few weeks, as another subvariant of interest called the Arcturus strain emerged and the FDA authorized another booster for people over age 65. On a related note, though the public health emergency is officially ending, the administration has signaled that it will retain some protections related to administering vaccines and boosters. Meanwhile, on the mifepristone front, the Supreme Court issued a brief decision on Friday to preserve full access as normal while the case makes its way through the lower courts.

The Bad:

Wrong Place, RIP. There were not one, not two, but four shootings in the past week and change that involved young people being shot simply for showing up somewhere. In upstate New York, a 20-year-old woman was fatally shot because her friend pulled into the wrong driveway. In Texas, two teenage girls were shot because one of them opened the wrong car door in a parking lot, thinking it was her own car. In Missouri, a 16-year-old boy was shot in the head because he rang the wrong doorbell when picking up his siblings after school. In North Carolina, a six-year-old girl was shot for trying to retrieve her basketball, which had rolled into her neighbor’s yard. Needless to say, all of these stories are deeply horrifying, and highlight growing dysfunction around gun culture in America. (Speaking of dysfunction, it is also worth noting that the defendant in the Missouri case was released mere hours after arraignment on bond despite shooting a minor in the head.)

The Good:

Recent Parrot Resilience. A recent three-month study published this week has discovered that parrots benefit from video calls to each other in much the same fashion that humans do! The birds in the study engaged in social behaviors, learned skills from each other, and even showed preferences for specific birds that they had formed particularly close bonds with through the video calls. The calls were apparently an overwhelmingly positive social experience for the fifteen parrots who participated, and I really hope we see follow-up studies on this.

So that’s the news from last week Part 2, and there’s still more where that came from. For making it through, you deserve this dog bar and a more functional government. I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me more hours in the day!

Year 7, Week 13 (April 9-15)

April 20, 2023April 20, 2023 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

The news is a bit late this week–I wanted to see what was happening with the mifepristone story, which thankfully has hit a bit of a pause point as I type this. That said, there is just so much news from the last week and change that some of Tuesday and today’s stories will be covered next time. We’re hitting news overdrive right now, y’all, but I’m trying to keep it bite-sized for you.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I may be well into my seventh year of journalism, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not an injunction!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Cleanup in Aisle 45:

We again have news about Trump’s New York cases on the Election Rejection front, though nothing as earth-shattering as last time. Here’s what has happened:

New York State of Mens Rea. In New York, Attorney General James spent a full day this week deposing Cheeto Mussolini regarding his business fraud. Meanwhile, her colleague DA Bragg brought a federal suit against Rep Jim Jordan, on account of Jordan won’t stop interfering with the criminal proceedings against Trump. Finishing out the trifecta of Trump legal news is the fact that Trump is suing his former attorney because Cohen got him indicted.

There are a few different things going on right now on the Biden Rebuilding front, but as always, we’re going with the one I think is most ripe. Here’s what I have for you:

Pentagon Leak Updates. On Friday, the FBI arrested a 21-year-old man named Jack Teixeira they suspect of leaking many highly-classified military documents from the Pentagon over several months, which have snowballed into a massive leak by the time that I type this. The documents were apparently shared on a small Discord server called Thug Shaker Central, where, in the New York Times’ words, about 20-30 people “came together over a shared love of guns [and] racist online memes.” The documents reveal U.S. positions on several different foreign matters, ranging from the war in Ukraine to weapons tests in China. Needless to say, it is… not awesome that this information has been publicly leaked, despite Biden’s attempts to downplay it, and it’s likely Teixeira will face pretty stiff penalties.

Your New Normal:

Reproductive Justice Crossroads (cont). After last week’s dueling injunctions on the subject of medication abortion and DOJ’s appeal to them on the matter, the Supreme Court handled the situation on Friday by putting the mifepristone ban on ice for now. The case hit the Supreme Court’s desk after an unfavorable 5th circuit decision on the matter also came down on Wednesday of this week. That pause was then extended again today, so that the justices could conference privately on Friday of this week. Though it’s tempting to view these pauses as a sign they may reject the ban, I think it’s important to remember that this is the same exact court that struck down Roe in the first place, and the drug’s manufacturer also brought a countersuit this week arguing that they have “a constitutional right . . . to market mifepristone.” Frankly, it’s very likely that SCOTUS just doesn’t want to deal with the legal headache of leaving all of this pending at once.

The Bad:

LGBT Losses. This was a very rough week for state LGBT legislation, and the overarching theme is expansive of scope. In Florida, the Don’t Say Gay rule was expanded by school board vote to encompass all public schools of all ages from K-12. This is, essentially, a massive expansion of an educational gag order, and it has a lot of implications for adolescents trying to grapple with their own identities. Meanwhile, in Missouri, the Attorney General unilaterally passed an emergency order, using the same public health emergency mechanisms federally used during the pandemic, to declare an “emergency rule” for gender-affirming care. The order dramatically curtails access for all denizens, of all ages, under both public and private insurance. Having forced myself to read the whole nonsensical, stomach-turning order, I agree with the 19th’s assessment that this intentionally makes gender-affirming care impossible to access for everyone in the state. I’m sure folks reading this are already aware, but that creates major health risks for the entire gender-diverse population of Missouri. Meanwhile, in Montana, Republicans are moving to censure the state’s first trans rep because she appropriately used a floor debate to rail against curtailing access to gender-affirming care.

The Good:

Recent Medical Resilience. Moderna and Merck & Co announced this week that early trials of an experimental vaccine for skin cancer have proven to help former patients stay in remission without relapse, which is a really promising sign for long-term cancer care. Amid this news, BioNTech announced that it will be starting its own trials for a similar vaccine in the fall. It’s really cool to see these further advances come using technology like that which created the COVID vaccine.

So that’s the news from this week Part 1, and don’t worry, we’ll be back with the other batch in just a few short days. For making it through, you deserve this otter hygiene routine and a more functional government. I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me fewer weeks where I’m forced to write about gender-affirming care saving lives!

Year 7, Week 12 (April 2-8)

April 11, 2023 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

The news this week is a pile of quasi-constitutional trash, and it’s bleak in a way I hoped we’d be past by now. Maybe it’s the lack of carbs talking, but this week’s stories really get under my skin. I demand a news refund.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I may be well into my seventh year of journalism, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not an injunction!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Cleanup in Aisle 45:

There are a couple of different growing Biden Rebuilding stories, but this week we’re focusing on the one I think is most ripe. Here’s what I have for you:

Biden’s Both Sides Trans Policy. The Biden administration released some proposed changes to Title IX this week, which governs (among other things) sports in education. The proposed rule would restrict categorical bans on transgender student athletes, such as the one SCOTUS just ignored from West Virginia. However, it would still permit bans, as long as those bans have pretextual underpinnings such as “promoting fairness in competition.” There will be a thirty-day comment period for people to yell about it, and I’m sure lots of people will, because both trans advocates and far-right legislators are going to hate this rule. But here we are.

Your New Normal:

Extremely Normal SCOTUS News. Speaking of SCOTUS, human waste pile and SCOTUS justice Clarence Thomas was in the news repeatedly this week for accepting twenty years of jet setting trips from Texas whack job Harlan Crow, which naturally he has not disclosed. (If the name ‘Harlan Crow’ rings a faint bell in your head, by the way, as it did mine, it’s probably because the dude is famous for his signed copy of Mein Kampf and private Nazi museum.) Needless to say, Democrats are not impressed by this, with responses ranging from a joint call for investigation to a call for impeachment to… whatever the Senate Judiciary Chair’s actual end game is. It’s worth noting, incidentally, that this news breaks as SCOTUS becomes subject to stricter disclosure rules, which is likely not a coincidence at all.
Reproductive Justice Crossroads. We currently have dueling injunctions on the subject of medication abortion, which is pretty much the legal mess you might expect. Over the past week, one federal court in Texas suspended the FDA’s approval of mifepristone while another federal court in Washington ordered the FDA to keep mifepristone on the shelves. The DOJ is appealing the Texas ruling to the Fifth Circuit. That said, given the makeup of the Fifth Circuit, this is definitely going to the Supreme Court. I really want to stress how absolutely kangaroo the Texas ruling is–it is wildly against our existing court structures to basically just say the FDA did its job wrong. This type of decision is eroding how our courts work and I don’t want that to get lost in the shuffle–it’s no surprise the Washington judge immediately responded.

The Bad:

Tennessee Horrorshow Continues. As predicted last week, a supermajority of Republicans in Tennessee did vote to expel two Black state legislators against the express will of the people who voted them in. Notably, they did not expel the white legislator who also participated in the rally to promote gun legislation. Though it’s likely that the expelled legislators will be reinstated, I really want to stress how incredibly unprecedented their removal was, especially in response to peaceful assembly right after such a serious tragedy. Expulsion of this type has only happened twice ever before this week, and both instances were for actual illegal activity in the course of representation.And while Tennessee is still resolving this mess, today saw another mass shooting with a rifle in Louisville, Kentucky.

The Good:

Recent Supreme Court Resilience. Against all the appalling legal news above, it’s nice to have a piece of promising court news for a change. In Wisconsin, constituents have newly elected liberal judge Janet Protasiewicz to the state Supreme Court. This creates the first liberal majority on the court in fifteen years. Here’s hoping that will result in more protections for folks living in the state.

So that’s all the news I have for this week, and I’m sorry, there are still no news refunds. For making it through, you deserve these unlikely buddies and a more functional government. I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me more hours in the day!

Year 7, Week 11 (March 26–April 1)

April 5, 2023April 5, 2023 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

It’s hard to get back onto an even keel here at NNR headquarters with the news running so absolutely amok. I expected Tuesday to be full of surreal and/or terrible news, and it did not disappoint in that regard. (It did, however, disappoint in several other regards.) At any rate, the NNR is here to help make sense of the mess.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I may be starting a seventh year of journalism, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not an indictment!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Cleanup in Aisle 45:

We finally have details about Trump’s indictment on the Election Rejection front, and they are indeed kind of fascinating. Here’s what has happened:

Indictment and Arraignment (For Real). After weeks of everybody waiting for it, Donald Trump was indicted on Thursday in one of the five open investigations against him–more specifically, the New York criminal case about paying off a porn star and cooking books about it. (Since I know it’s hard to keep them all straight, the other investigations are: 1) the DOJ Jan 6 investigation; 2) the Mar-a-Lago classified documents investigation; 3) the New York overvaluing assets inquiry; and 4) the Georgia election grand jury proceedings.) Interestingly, the New York indictment featured 34 charges of the same exact class E felony–more specifically, falsifying business records in the first degree. He was arraigned today in New York and pleaded not guilty, at which point the charges became public, but is already back at Mar-a-Lago and giving psycho speeches by this evening. Sadly, none of this precludes him from running for President, even though he’s now the first former President in U.S. history to be indicted in a criminal court. And given his fifty-year history of investigation, I don’t know that we can expect much from this indictment. But it’s a nice moment of schadenfreude nonetheless.

Needless to say, Biden Rebuilding stories aren’t quite as sensationalized as the above. Here’s what I have for you:

Derailment Continues. The DOJ announced this week that it is suing Norfolk Southern over its catastrophic derailment in East Palestine. The news came right on the heels of another major derailment disaster, this time in Minnesota, where 22 train cars full of ethanol derailed and then caught fire. The area was evacuated, but that order has been lifted as I type this; needless to say, I’ll keep folks posted on this.

Your New Normal:

Health News Mini-Roundup: Federal Changes. Good gravy, there are a lot of health news stories to summarize this week. As I signaled last week, Medicaid redeterminations started on Saturday as part of COVID protections ending. This will impact literally millions of people, and will likely cause a lot of those people to lose coverage. In other COVID unwinding news, changing telehealth practices may make testosterone even harder to obtain on a national level. There was also a federal report published this week about the discrimination that gender diverse people experience from their own providers, even in states where gender-affirming care is still legal (but more on that last point below). Meanwhile, remember federal judge Reed O’Connell in Texas, who has issued such great previous hits as I’ve Tossed Out the Entire ACA As Unconstitutional and No One Should Make Navy Seals Vaccinate? Yeah, he went ahead and decided this week that the ACA’s preventative care requirements for insurance companies are, you guessed it, unconstitutional, and it’s the whole nation’s problem. Needless to say, this will be appealed, though who only knows what the current Supreme Court will do with it.
Health News Mini-Roundup: State Nightmare Fuel. The testosterone news above is particularly unfortunate when there are currently 422 pending bills targeting trans people already–including, as of this week: 1) new bans on gender-affirming care for minors in GA, KY, and WV; 2) a planned expansion of Don’t Say Gay in Florida to include all grades; and 3) a new bathroom ban for trans students in Arkansas. As of this week, the Human Rights Campaign estimates that roughly one in four trans kids now lives in a state that has closed off access to gender-affirming care for them. In other horrifying news regarding minors, Idaho passed a bill this week that criminalizes letting minors leave the state to obtain abortion services, calling it “abortion trafficking” punishable by up to five years in prison.

The Bad:

Climate Change Catastrophes (Again, Still). There were several major storm events in the past week, creating tornadoes from Alabama and Mississippi all the way up to Illinois and Indiana. These events killed at least 31 people in at least eight states. Experts say that it’s likely these tornadoes were exacerbated by climate change, if not caused by it outright.
Tragedy in Tennessee. In Nashville, a former student of a private Christian elementary school, Covenant School, opened fire on the school last Monday, fatally shooting three children and three staffers. In response, a thousand students in Tennessee flooded the statehouse later that week, demanding gun law reform to prevent this from happening again. Three House Democrats coordinated with the protesters, standing on the House podium and leading protesters in the galleys of the Statehouse. Because this was a breach of TN House etiquette, Republicans are now moving to expel these three Democrats from the House entirely, a move expected to pass on Thursday due to the Republican supermajority. On the same day the resolutions were announced, one of the Democrats in question released a phone video of another Republican assaulting him and stealing his phone on the House floor. Needless to say, this is not normal for Tennessee, and there’s also no indication that the House is going to consider any gun reform.

The Good:

Recent Medical Resilience. With all of the dark news above, I’m glad to have some positive medical news to report as well. The FDA has approved the first over-the-counter version of naloxone nasal spray, commonly known as Narcan. This is a big deal, and will likely increase access to a really important tool for preventing opioid overdose. It’s likely we’ll see the over the counter version hit stores this summer, and I’m really excited about it!

So that’s all the news I have for this week, and I think we can agree it is more than enough. For making it through, you deserve this household coparenting and a more functional government. I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me luck for making it through Passover!