 |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| Welcome back from the long holiday, OnPolitics readers! |
| Today marks six months since the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot attack. The United States Capitol Police announced it will open regional field offices in California and Florida to better protect members of Congress. |
| ICYMI: Over the weekend Donald Trump spent a Saturday night rally in Florida denouncing indictments of his company on tax fraud charges. |
| It's Mabinty, with your post-Independence Day guide to Washington. |
The Supreme Court is out-of-the-office |
| For months, the Supreme Court appeared to rise above partisan strife – becoming a place where rancor could be quieted by compromise. But as is often the case at the nation's highest court, the justices saved their fireworks for the end. |
| With a string of unanimous or near-unanimous decisions, often decided on narrow grounds, the court's nine-month term that wrapped up last week initially upended expectations about how its new 6-3 conservative majority would handle pressing disputes about religious freedom, the Fourth Amendment and the Affordable Care Act. |
| Then, in its final two opinions, the court's six conservatives held together against its three liberals to impose curbs on the 1965 Voting Rights Act when voting access has become a political flashpoint and opened a debate about whether campaign disclosure requirements could be subjected to legal challenges. |
| "This term was remarkably devoid of the sort of liberal activism that has characterized many recent terms," said Carrie Severino, president of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network. The court's rulings in the voting rights and disclosure cases, she said, "were capstones to a term that was characterized by adherence to the law and Constitution, thanks in part to the addition of Justice Barrett." |
| What happens next? When the court reconvenes in October, its docket has some potential blockbuster cases. |
Real quick: Stories you should read |
| |
An awkward meeting ... |
| President Joe Biden's national security advisers are holding high-level diplomatic talks this week with Saudi Arabia's top defense official – who is also the brother of the kingdom's crown prince Mohammed bin Salman – months after the White House publicly released a U.S. intelligence assessment concluding the crown prince approved the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. |
| During the presidential campaign, Biden vowed to make Saudi Arabia pay for its human rights abuses and "make them in fact the pariah that they are." |
| But in office, the president and his advisers have taken a more measured tone. The White House declined to impose penalties directly on the crown prince after U.S. intelligence officials released findings that Mohammed bin Salman approved the operation "to capture or kill" Khashoggi in 2018, when he was a Washington Post columnist and U.S. resident. |
| Read more on the meeting from USA TODAY's Deirdre Shesgreen. |
| Hope you got to watch fireworks over the weekend 🎆! —Mabinty |
| |
| |
| |
| |
