Kyle

☮️❤️🍺

[Ilya Somin @IlyaSomin]

Frederick Douglass' "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July" is the greatest-ever July 4 speech. Contrary to mythology it is NOT a condemnation of the Declaration and Revolution, but rather of Americans' failure to live up to their principles: https://t.co/qpwkVgQcyH

[Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias]

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

[Paul Tenorio @PaulTenorio]

I was most struck by what Balogun said about his reaction to the red card.

“There are lots of people we’re inspiring, boys and girls watching, you have to show them the right way to handle things,” Balogun said. “Even when you think it’s unjust.”

https://t.co/zQYzqQdWaO

[Matt Royer @royermattw]

DHS cut this quote off one sentence early. Here’s how Roosevelt actually finished the thought, same speech, 1915:

“But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else.”

He also said he wasn’t talking about naturalized citizens (“some of the very best Americans I have ever known”) and that “any discrimination against aliens is a wrong.”

Teddy Roosevelt’s descendants asked Congress to protect his legacy. Trump’s admin answered by perverting TR’s words to push their anti-immigrant agenda.

[Luke Epplin @LukeEpplin]

The birthright citizenship ruling underscores why I find originalism to be a purely conservative undertaking. We've been told a billion times to read the text of the 2nd amendment as written, but the 14th amendment? Well, that's complicated. Let's look at words that aren't there.

[Isaac Saul @Ike_Saul]

Justice Alito's obscene inconsistencies as a justice are so frustrating.

In the asylum case, Alito used much of his opinion to describe the “plain English” meaning of “arrives in,” arguing that when someone “arrives in” the United States, it means they are in the United States, not at a port of entry standing in Mexico. Therefore, the Trump administration did not have to grant asylum to migrants until they arrived in the United States, because that’s what the language said, and thus they could block them from entering to prevent asylum claims. I said I agreed with this rationale, because it makes sense on the plain text.

In the late-arriving mail-in ballot case, Alito made his plain English argument again, that the meaning of Election Day was just that: Election Day. Therefore, Alito concluded, elections should not go on for weeks or months. This felt like a stretch to me, but it was consistent with the asylum ruling.

So... what does Justice Alito think it means when the 14th Amendment says anyone “born or naturalized in” the United States is a citizen?

What is the “plain English meaning” of that phrase?

One might consider this answer to be a lay-up for such a staunch textualist. Yet, instead, Alito focuses on “careful analysis of the text of the Fourteenth Amendment and the process that led to its adoption,” and argues that the “Fourteenth Amendment confers citizenship on only those children who, at birth, owe allegiance solely to this country," words that appear exactly nowhere in the 14th Amendment.

I mean, I don't know. I give these brilliant justices a lot of deference and rarely accuse them of motivated reasoning. But this is a bit much, no?

[Damin Toell @damintoell]

Matt Walsh, and many like him, have the sole occupation of spreading rage. It’s how he feeds his family. He wants you locked in a rage spiral so that he can make money. He is occupationally incapable of not melting down. Once you realize it, it explains everything that he does.

[Nicholas Kristof @NickKristof]

.@elonmusk says that no one can name a person who died from his aid cuts. In fact, I've met the kids who are dying, and I've talked to the families who lost children. In my columns, I've cited many, many names of people who have died because of Musk's aid cuts. A few examples:
*Yamah Freeman was a 23-year-old woman who died in childbirth because Musk cut funding for the diesel for ambulances in her part of Liberia. She couldn't get to a hospital and died as people were carrying her there. I talked to her parents and sister in their village.
*Gbessey Kiadu, age 1, died of malaria because of his cuts to malaria medication in Liberia. I talked to his mom in her village.
*Ibrahim Koroma, an infant, died of AIDS in Sierra Leone after he interrupted HIV supplies. I talked to health workers who cared for him.
*Achol Deng was an 8-year-old girl with HIV in South Sudan who died when Musk cut funding for the health care worker who provided her medicines. I talked to the healthcare workers.
I could go on and on. In almost every village you go to in South Sudan, Uganda, Liberia, Sierra Leone or other countries I reported in, you find people dying because of aid cuts. I challenge Musk: Come with me on a reporting trip, and we'll talk to these moms and dads, and you'll see the dying children themselves. I think if you see the kids whose lives are at stake, maybe you'll change your mind.

[Pete Buttigieg @PeteButtigieg]

This week someone targeted my family for harm with a false report. We’re physically OK, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t harmed. I am beyond furious.

Whatever your politics, this is awful, wrong, and can never become normal. https://t.co/72wxaVLzVT

[Jane Coaston 🏔️ @janecoaston]

there is a funny thing in politics in which both sides demand the other side maintain a level of sobriety that they 1.) think is fake and 2.) will not themselves maintain.

[Kareem Rifai 🌐 @KareemRifai]

This is an utterly insane story: 25,000 documents reviewed by WaPo indicate that throughout Tulsi's career, her political moves were controlled by her guru, cult leader Chris Butler.

This woman was leading the world's largest intelligence apparatus.
https://t.co/6Enu7JgMgR

[Sir Humphrey 🇺🇦 @bdquinn]

"Elections kill leftist movements"

That's kind of giving the game away here as to what they're really about.

[ettingermentum @ettingermentum]

Nuke

[Ben Rhodes @brhodes]

Um: preamble to 2015 JCPOA that Trump tore up: "Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop, or acquire any nuclear weapons." Literally the same.

[Dean W. Ball @deanwball]

Marc Andreesen said that Biden’s requirement that frontier AI developers tell the government about their safety practices was an existential threat to US AI, but he thinks global export controls on US AI models is “based” if they’re against people he hates/missed the series A of

[Joe Scarborough @ScarboroughNow]

When Democrats tried in 2020 to get Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin to count early votes early—like Florida—Republicans killed the bills so Trump could win day-of-voting tallies and try to throw out mail in ballots. It’s a scam for people Trump thinks are stupid.

[The Washington Post @washingtonpost]

More than half of the publicly identified donors to President Trump’s White House ballroom project have won new or expanded federal contracts worth more than $50 billion, according to a report from a government watchdog group. https://t.co/wEAqxMA7AG

[Nomadic Warriors for Pritzker⚔️ @Nomads4Pritzker]

So, I've worked in the beef industry. I have a fairly detailed knowledge of beef markets, the supply chain, parasites and parasiticides, etc. Suffice it to say, this is a nightmare scenario, but one we've known was coming since at least 2022.

New World Screwworm was eradicated from North and Central America in the mid-90's. The US gov't (APHIS) funded a program of screwworm drops, where they bred sterile males so that extant populations couldn't reproduce and move northwards. But in 2022 NWS jumped the Darien gap and started moving northwards once again. It's most likely that they came undetected on livestock brought alongside migrants fleeing political instability in South and Central America. Elon Musk/DOGE, of course, cut several monitoring programs that would have detected this exact scenario. The screwworm drops are still funded, but the monitoring programs are what have been cut - a stupid move if there ever was one.

A serious Central/South America policy would have worked hand-in-hand with CA/SA governments to help contain this, but we've never had a serious policy towards South America, not during the Biden years, and especially not under Trump. The USDA broke ground on a sterile screwworm facility in Texas... last month. I worry it's too little, too late.

Screwworm is so dangerous because, unlike other fly larvae, they lay eggs and feed on living flesh. So something like a small scratch (or even bug bite) can quickly becomes infested, and the larvae will burrow into the flesh, growing the wound and attracting more screwworm. They don't only parasitize cattle, but will also feed on wildlife, domestic pets, even humans. Since they have detected screwworms in domesticated cattle right now, it's likely that there is a wild reservoir as well. We can quarantine herds and pets, but we can't quarantine deer and armadillos. They will move, and so will the NWS.

Under normal circumstances, cattle are moved around - a lot. Calves will be sent to stockers through their adolescence, then shipped to feedlots for finishing. A lot of calving operations (like 70%) are small, and small-time producers don't always catch parasite infestations. Cattle moved in-state don't require a certificate of veterinary inspection, so it's easy for an infested animal to be moved without being noticed. Animals crossing state lines do need a CVI, but Texas has such an enormous cattle population (something like 13 million head) that as goes Texas, so goes the nation.

Fortunately, we have a lot of drugs that treat NWS. The FDA has issued several emergency use authorizations in the last year or so. But every input raises the price of beef, and treatment only makes a difference if producers catch an infestation early. If an infestation spreads unnoticed on a large feedlot, it can hit hard, both in terms of cattle that have to be killed, and treatments that then have to be deployed. Producers will spend days at a time running cattle through the chute, inspecting them and applying parasiticides. It costs a lot of money, which is then passed on to the consumer.

What does that mean for you? Beef is a commodity, and just because there's no NWS up here in Illinois doesn't mean that prices won't skyrocket - and they will skyrocket. US herd size is already at record lows, and this will result in culls. Consumer prices also run 18-24 months behind, which means that shocks to the supply chain now are still going to be felt by consumers in 2028.

It's hard to say if our government will be able to muster an effective response - though I don't trust our current administration, which can't even throw a 250th anniversary party, to be able to deal with an ecological issue of this magnitude. It doesn't help that our current USDA secretary is a lawyer and think-tank creature. I don't much trust the state government of Texas either. The industry has also taken the workforce of large animal veterinarians for granted - a monopoly/market power issue that I just can't get in to here.

For me, it comes back to our federal government having an incoherent policy on Central and South America. We knew what was coming, we know what's going to happen, but we cut the program meant to prevent this scenario. Instead of taking those countries seriously as partners, the government has been stupid and domineering.

Here's the kicker: this is what the industry voted for. They might scream, they might get bailed out, but all that means is that you, the consumer, are going to be paying more for beef, plus whatever bailout gets shoveled their way. Until the industry accepts that they are part of a larger system; that they cannot eternally privatize the gains and publicize the losses of beef production; that they need to consider sustainability and stewardship in the management of their operations, this is only going to keep happening. Eventually, they may find that there is very little goodwill for them among the public, and people will decide that a Brazilian ribeye tastes just as good as one from Texas.

[Senator John Cornyn @JohnCornyn]

The way to ensure the Trump retribution fund is more than mostly dead would be for Congress to put a stake through it. https://t.co/tOAAZPF9TF via @WSJopinion