June 15, 2021: McConnell Promises to Keep Being Awful; Biden Wants to Kill 2002 AUMF; Texas Braces for Second Power Crisis

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TODAY'S HEADLINES:


Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Monday that he
wouldn’t even consider letting Biden seat a new Supreme Court
Justice if the GOP takes back the Senate in 2022.


Meanwhile, the Biden Administration said that it supports a new
resolution to end the 2002 Authorization of Use of Military
force.


And lastly, Texas may be headed for another major power crisis as
the state’s fragile power grid expects record use in June.


THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:


Mitch McConnell has thrown down the gauntlet, and the Democrats
are, well, sort of just standing there looking at it.


In an interview on conservative talk radio, McConnell said that
if Republicans take back the Senate, he would block any
prospective Supreme Court nominee that Biden sent him.


This is not exactly a surprise. McConnell pretended that his
resistance to a new nominee would be from his typical election
year nonsense, saying that he’d block a nominee in 2024 just like
he did in 2016 at the end of the Obama years. But we all know
what the score is.


McConnell’s life’s work is the judiciary and he’s done a very
good job of securing it for the business-friendly, person-hostile
policies of conservatives for generations to come.


But what it does indicate is just how futile any Democratic
expectations of bipartisanship have become. It also means that
the party has to be looking for 82-year-old Stephen Breyer to
retire while there’s still a chance of getting a liberal
replacement confirmed.


There’s a permanent solution to all this, of course: packing the
court. But McConnell knows that Democrats and liberal justices on
the bench already don’t really have the guts. He said this about
Justice Breyer, quote:


“I do want to give him a shout-out, though, because he joined
what Justice Ginsburg said in 2019 that nine is the right number
for the Supreme Court. And I admire him for that. I think even
the liberal justices on the Supreme Court have made it clear that
court packing is a terrible idea.”


Glad everyone’s on the same page!


Biden Wants to Kill 2002 AUMF


The Biden Administration made a huge announcement on Monday: it
formally supports a push by Rep. Barbara Lee to end the 2002
Authorization for Use of Military Force.


The 2002 AUMF, as it’s called, is the legal document we used to
justify invading Iraq. In the years since, it’s been trotted out
as evidence that the U.S. can legally engage in all kinds of
military activities in the country. It’s a disgrace that it was
ever passed, of course, but it’s an even bigger disgrace that it
hasn’t been repealed yet, so the fact that it may finally get
tossed is a good thing.


However, it doesn’t mean a whole lot as far as U.S. wars overseas
go. The Biden Administration’s statement itself notes that quote:


“the United States has no ongoing military activities that rely
solely on the 2002 AUMF as a domestic legal basis, and repeal of
the 2002 AUMF would likely have minimal impact on current
military operations.”


In other words, all of our bombing and killing overseas is going
to be just fine.


That’s because the 2002 order isn’t the only AUMF -- there was
another one in 2001 after 9/11 that’s even more broad. And in
recent years, presidents haven’t even needed the AUMF’s to do
what they want -- they’ve been able to pursue narrower military
actions at their own discretion thanks to the steady increase in
executive power since Bush was elected.


Biden’s statement notes that the administration wants to work
with Congress to replace these so-called outdated orders, but
it’s pretty clear that its ability to wage war isn’t going to be
affected all that much.


Texas Braces for Second Power Crisis


Another power crisis is shaping up in Texas, this time due to the
massive summer heatwave rolling through the state.


ERCOT, the state’s energy grid operator, asked customers on
Monday to conserve as much energy as possible through, as many of
its generators were down for repairs. On top of that, ERCOT
estimated that June could see record-breaking demand for power.


This is a very similar situation to the disastrous, deadly
outages in Texas this winter, when millions went without power
during a brutal cold snap. Now, ERCOT’s customers are once again
facing the prospect of blackouts, this time as temperatures spike
to over 90 degrees in much of the state. ERCOT is asking Texans
to Set thermostats to 78 degrees or higher, turn off lights, and
avoid using large appliances until the end of the week.


Those steps might help, but it’s not really the everyday
consumer’s job to fix Texas’s hugely unstable energy grid.
Austin’s local NPR affiliate reports that experts have warned
power problems like this will keep happening unless the state
moves away from coal and gas generators and overhauls its wildly
deregulated system. Until then, the government is basically
forcing regular Texans to bear the heat.


AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:


Meanwhile, a driver plowed into protesters in Minneapolis late on
Sunday night, killing one and injuring several others, in a
similar attack to the ones that menaced protests last summer. The
crowd was protesting the death of Winston Boogie Smith Jr., a
33-year-old Black man, who was killed by U.S. Marshalls on June
3.


President Biden gave his first speech to NATO on Monday. The key
issues looming over the Cold War era alliance are Ukraine’s
possible entry into the group, especially ahead of Biden’s
upcoming summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. In his speech,
Biden stressed that he wasn’t looking for a confrontation with
Putin. We’ll see how that goes!


Reality Winner is out of prison! The former intelligence
contractor who was prosecuted for leaking state secrets to the
Intercept was released to a halfway house on Monday, her lawyer
announced.


A Washington Post analysis found that coronavirus infections are
dropping where most people have been vaccinated, and rising where
they are not. That may seem obvious, but it underscores just how
far some states and communities have to go to keep their
constituents safe.


AM QUICKIE - JUNE 15, 2021


HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner


WRITER - Jack Crosbie


PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw


EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn