Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a long-running series published every morning that collects essential political discussion and analysis around the internet.
EJ Dionne, Jr/Washington Post
The Supreme Court’s bump stock ruling values dictionaries over human livesThe court’s majority seems to have no shame for our country’s mass shootings.
Conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court have decided that more Americans must die in mass shootings because they have a quibble over the word “function.”
In striking down the 2018 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) regulation banning bump stocks, which effectively turn semiautomatic rifles into machine guns, the court’s six conservative justices not only put their ideological preconceptions ahead of rational policymaking. They also privileged an arrogant, misplaced confidence in their own technical expertise over a federal agency’s thoughtful effort to prevent the grotesque slaughter of innocents.
David Firestone/New York Times:
The Supreme Court’s Bump Stock Decision Will Prove Fatal
But Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a dissent laced with astonishment at what her colleagues had done, didn’t hesitate to explain what was really happening. “When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck,” she wrote, and in this case, the duck is an illegal machine gun. (Which, by the way, is not typically used for killing ducks.) Skilled shooters using an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle can fire 180 rounds per minute, she wrote, but a bump stock allows them to fire 400 to 800 rounds per minute, which is the ordinary understanding of a fully automatic machine gun.
“Today’s decision to reject that ordinary understanding will have deadly consequences,” Sotomayor wrote. “The majority’s artificially narrow definition hamstrings the government’s efforts to keep machine guns from gunmen like the Las Vegas shooter.” And when the next Las Vegas happens, it will not be enough to blame it on the madness of a single deranged individual. There are so many others.
Hafiz Rashid/The New Republic:
Republicans Have No Idea What Happened in That Trump Meeting Either
“Like talking to your drunk uncle at the family reunion,” one Republican representative said of the closed-door meeting.
Donald Trump’s trip to Capitol Hill on Tuesday was supposed to be about his agenda if he wins the election in November. Instead, his meeting with House Republicans was about as coherent as one of his rally speeches.
“Like talking to your drunk uncle at the family reunion,” one source at the meeting said, while another said that the convicted felon and presumptive Republican presidential nominee was “rambling.”
Axios:
Record share of U.S. voters back abortion rights and will vote on it: Gallup
A record 32% of voters say they would only vote for candidates for major offices if they share their views on abortion, according to a new Gallup poll out Thursday.
Why it matters: The surge in single-issue voters who are “pro-choice” could spell trouble for vulnerable Republicans. Some have already distanced themselves from hardline views on abortion over fears of an Election Day rout in November.
More “pro-choice” voters now say they will prioritize the issue when voting for candidates. That finding reinforces previous polling showing that abortion rights voters remain galvanized by the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Catherine Rampell/Washington Post:
Republicans would really prefer to run against 2022 Biden
If only the past two years didn’t matter!
A lot has changed these past two years! Most of Biden’s main political vulnerabilities — with the exception of his age, of course — have improved. But seemingly no one has updated their talking points. Not GOP politicians, not voters and often not the media, either.
Greg Sargent/The New Republic:
Top GOPer Accidentally Wrecks Trump’s Biggest Lie About Jack Smith
As Trump presses Mike Johnson to defund the special counsel, a leading House Republican dissents. Is Trump’s criminality becoming a wedge issue against the GOP?
Politico’s Playbook reported Thursday that Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson privately discussed ways the House can sabotage special counsel Jack Smith’s ongoing prosecutions of Trump, including attempting to defund his office. That grabbed all the attention, but let’s not overlook another key factoid buried in the report: A senior Republican offered a striking dissent from the idea of defunding Smith—in a way that will leave a mark.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea unless you can show that [the prosecutors] acted in bad faith or fraud or something like that,” Representative Mike Simpson, a senior appropriator, told Playbook, speaking about the defund-Smith push. He denounced the idea as “stupid,” adding of prosecutors: “They’re just doing their job—even though I disagree with what they did.”
Wait, what? Trump’s prosecutorial tormentors are not acting in bad faith or being fraudulent? Do tell!
Cliff Schecter dissects Trump’s obsession with sharks:
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via The Novum Times
The Novum Times 