Two Justices Clash on Congress’ Power Over Supreme Court Ethics
Adam Liptak – August 27, 2023
The Supreme Court justices gather in Washington for a formal group portrait session on Friday, Oct. 7, 2022. (Erin Schaff/The New York Times)
WASHINGTON — As a young lawyer in the Reagan White House, John Roberts was tartly dismissive of the Supreme Court’s long summer break, which stretches from the end of June to the first Monday in October.
“Only Supreme Court justices and schoolchildren,” he wrote in 1983, “are expected to and do take the entire summer off.”
On the other hand, the young lawyer wrote, there is an upside to the break: “We know that the Constitution is safe for the summer.”
These days, members of the court find time to quarrel about the Constitution even in the warm months. The primary antagonists lately have been Justices Samuel Alito Jr. and Elena Kagan.
Last summer, they clashed over whether decisions like the one eliminating the constitutional right to abortion threatened the court’s legitimacy.
In recent months, the two justices have continued to spar, though on a different subject: whether Congress has the constitutional authority to regulate aspects of the court’s work.
The question is timely, of course, as news reports have raised ethical questions about, among other things, luxury travel provided to Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas. Those reports have led to proposed legislation to impose new ethics rules on the court.
Alito, in an interview published in The Wall Street Journal last month, appeared to object, saying that “Congress did not create the Supreme Court.”
He added, “I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it. No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.”
A few days later, at a judicial conference in Portland, Oregon, Kagan took the opposite view, though she cautioned that the Journal had not reproduced the question that had prompted Alito’s answer. She indicated, graciously, that he could not have meant what he seemed to say.
“Of course Congress can regulate various aspects of what the Supreme Court does,” she said, ticking off a list of ways in which lawmakers can act. Congress sets the court’s budget. It can increase or shrink the size of the court, and it has over the years done both. It can make changes to the court’s jurisdiction.
Indeed, the Constitution provides that the court has appellate jurisdiction “with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.”
All of this is unsurprising, Kagan said.
“It just can’t be that the court is the only institution that somehow is not subject to any checks and balances from anybody else,” she said, adding, “I mean, we are not imperial.”
On the broader question of whether Congress may regulate some aspects of the court’s activities, Kagan seemed to have the better of the argument. She did not offer an opinion on the narrower question of whether Congress may impose a code of ethics on the justices, but she said the court remained free to act.
“Regardless of what Congress does, the court can do stuff,” Kagan said, adding, “We could decide to adopt a code of conduct of our own that either follows or decides in certain instances not to follow the standard codes of conduct.”
In remarks at an awards ceremony in May, Roberts said that work remained underway. But he added it was a job for the court, not Congress.
“I want to assure people that I am committed to making certain that we as a court adhere to the highest standards of conduct,” he said. “We are continuing to look at things we can do to give practical effect to that commitment, and I am confident that there are ways to do that consistent with our status as an independent branch of government and the Constitution’s separation of powers.”
It was not clear, though, that consensus among the justices was on the horizon, Kagan said.
“It’s not a secret for me to say that we have been discussing this issue,” she said. “And it won’t be a surprise to know that the nine of us have a variety of views about this, as about most things. We’re nine freethinking individuals.”
Congress has enacted laws that apply to the justices, including ones on financial disclosures and recusal. In a way, the most telling ethics legislation came from the first Congress, in 1789, requiring all federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, to take an oath promising “that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent on me.”
If Congress can take all of those actions, it would seem to be free to enact a code of ethical standards, Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia, wrote in a 2013 law review article.
“The Supreme Court is not an isolated institution intended to operate entirely free from the political branches — to the contrary, it has always depended on the political branches to lay out the parameters governing its exercise of judicial power,” Frost wrote, adding, “Congress’s authority over judicial ethics is less surprising once one realizes that Congress has long assumed the power to regulate many important aspects of the court’s daily activities.”
China’s $10 trillion hidden debt mountain could be the ‘ticking time bomb’ that Joe Biden warned of
Joseph Wilkins – August 27, 2023
The Chinese national flag flies behind security cameras on Tiananmen Square on June 4, 2012 on the 23rd anniversary of China’s crackdown of democracy protests in Beijing.ED JONES/AFP via Getty Images
China has faced many economic problems this year, from deflation and record youth unemployment to a property crisis.
But now, an even more worrisome threat is emerging: the colossal hidden debt of China’s local governments.
Some estimates put the liabilities of China’s local financing vehicles close to $10 trillion.
For some time now, markets have been buffeted almost on a daily basis by gloomy economic news filtering out of China.
The world’s second-largest economy is grappling with a raft of economic troubles — ranging from deflation to record youth unemployment, and a deepening property crisis — and its much-anticipated post-pandemic rebound has failed to materialize.
China’s mounting economic woes prompted US President Joe Biden to call the Asian economy a “ticking time bomb”.
And now, a lesser-known, but no less ominous, economic threat is rearing its head: China’s colossal hidden-debt problem.
This mainly refers to a mountain of liabilities accumulated by the country’s local governments, mostly to fund regional infrastructure projects such as building roads and bridges. An analysis by the Chinese media outlet Caixin Global estimated the outstanding obligations of the so-called local government financing vehicles, or LGFVs, at close to a staggering $10 trillion.
The Chinese government deems such debt a form of off-the-books lending and as such, the market is opaque. Here, Insider demystifies the shadow sector and explains the significance of LGFVs to the wider Chinese economy.
What are China’s LGFVs?
These funding bodies were set up by China to facilitate financing for regional infrastructure projects. Originally established to support infrastructure projects such as highways, airports, and energy installations, the LGFVs were designed to provide funding outside of the official government constraints.
The notion of “hidden debt” was defined by China’s State Council in 2018 as any borrowing that does not form a part of on-budget government spending – in essence, off-the-books financing.
The LGFV sector has grown exponentially since the 2008 global financial crisis, when the Chinese government made efforts to ensure that the nation’s infrastructure and public services segments expand fast enough to sustain its remarkable economic growth, according to Bloomberg.
Figures from Bloomberg and the International Monetary Fund estimate the total value of LGFV debt as more than $9 trillion – not far from the Caixin assessment. The local governments’ bonds alone total at about $2 trillion, and any defaults would rock the Asian nation’s $60 trillion financial system, according to Bloomberg.
In 2023, the LGFVs’ hidden debt climbed above 50% of China’s GDP for the first time, IMF data show.
Why does this matter?
For months, China’s local administrations have struggled to turn their financing vehicles profitable – increasing pressure on the national government to prop up the ailing sector via costly interventions.
As risks tied to the sector mount, banks are unwilling to lend more, investors are turning their backs on bonds, and viable projects are harder to come by, according to several anonymous employees interviewed by Bloomberg.
As a result, the local governments have been struggling to generate enough income or raise funding to meet the costs of servicing their debt.
“The most important variable impacting China’s economic growth over the next two years will be the success or failure of local government debt restructuring,” Logan Wright, head of China markets research at Rhodium Group, told Bloomberg.
But Beijing has so far refrained from intervening in the sector, in a bid to encourage self-sufficiency.
Echoes of the property crisis
Although none of the LGFVs have actually defaulted on their debt yet, the mounting stress in the sector echoes the crisis in China’s real-estate industry, which began in 2021 and has reverberated around global markets ever since.
“A collapse in local government investment would be comparable to the economic impact of the crisis in the property market,” Wright told Bloomberg.
China’s enormous property sector accounts for about 30% of the country’s overall output. Headwinds faced by the sector include heavy debt burdens and sluggish demand for new properties. This was a contributing factor in stunting the nation’s second-quarter GDP growth, which came in at 6.3%, below forecasts of up to 7.1%.
Indeed, any turmoil originating from China’s mountainous hidden debt would send shockwaves across the global economy.
Experts are witnessing a strange new phenomenon in the demand for electric cars: ‘We call it the ‘Field of Dreams’ moment’
Leo Collis – August 27, 2023
Huge price reductions and copious availability could provide a boost to the electric vehicle market, which has already seen record sales in 2023.
Cox Automotive reported Kelley Blue Book’s findings that June’s average transaction price for a new electric vehicle ($53,438) is down 20% from a peak of $66,390 in June 2022.
Kelley Blue Book tweeted about Tesla discounts as examples of falling EV prices in June.
As noted by the Financial Times, many of the price changes trace back to Tesla’s decision to slash its prices by up to $13,000 in January. This sparked a price war among manufacturers.
With Ford making the next big move by cutting the purchase price of its Mustang Mach-E, Tesla responded by making its Model S and Model X models cheaper in March.
Ford has made further price reductions, offering savings of between $6,079 and $9,979 on seven of its F-150 Lightning models, The New York Times reported in July. NYT Business
General Motors is also among the electric vehicle manufacturers making models more affordable, with price cuts to the Bolt model announced in June.
According to Cox Automotive, nearly 300,000 new electric vehicles were sold in the United States during the second quarter of 2023. That marked a record for any quarter and a nearly 50% boost from the same time last year.
Cost reductions for the raw materials needed to make batteries for electric cars, such as lithium, nickel, and cobalt, have also allowed savings to be passed on to consumers. Tesla CEO Elon Musk was among those to welcome the news, noting in a company earnings call that the lithium market had gone “absolutely insane there for a while.”
While there are positive signs in the electric vehicle market, supply is still far outstripping demand.
“The demand is not keeping up with production, which is the opposite story of a year ago,” Cox Automotive executive analyst Michelle Krebs told Grist. “We call it the ‘Field of Dreams’ moment. Automakers are building more, but not enough consumers have come to the field.”
But Krebs also observed that availability isn’t such a bad thing when compared to the wider market.
“A year ago, the average EV price was above the average luxury vehicle price. Today, as inventory and availability build, EV prices are moving closer to the industry average,” Krebs added.
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Viral video shows the shocking technique used to clear poison ivy from hiking trails: ‘[This is] really innovative’
Roberto Guerra – August 27, 2023
An Instagram Reel shows how goats are helping get rid of poison ivy along a popular forested trail.
The video was posted on the page Kut Austin (@kut_austin), which is “a community-supported public media newsroom sharing news and information on-air at 90.5 FM and online at KUT.org.”
“An army of goats is clearing poison ivy from the trails around Austin’s Lady Bird Lake,” the caption on the opening scene reads.https://www.instagram.com/p/CuupPjvpo95/embed/captioned?cr=1&v=12
The video shows an array of goats inside a forest, eating away at bushes and plants which are described in the captions as poison ivy and invasive plants.
This can apparently be an effective way of getting rid of poisonous and invasive plants, which can have adverse effects on ecosystems, like reducing biodiversity.
Herbicides are commonly used to deal with invasive and poisonous plant species, but these bring about their own problems and can be even worse for the environment than the invasive species.
There are also other natural, non-toxic ways to get rid of unwanted plants, either for your garden or for an entire forest. Among these methods are bringing in other plant species to combat the unwanted ones or simply pulling them out manually by the roots.
Bringing in animals to eat them is among the most efficient ways of taking care of the problem since they end up doing most of the work and benefit from it as well, resulting in a mutually beneficial relationship.
The Trail Conservancy, the nonprofit organization that maintains the forested trail, came up with the idea of bringing in animals to take care of the problem.
“It’s a really innovative and creative alternative to some of the other tactics we could use to eradicate poison ivy, like controlled burns, which affect air quality, or chemicals, which affect water quality in the lake,” The Trail Conservancy’s CEO Heidi Anderson said.
Viewers of the Reel also had plenty to say.
“Through careful rotational grazing with multiple animals, it’s amazing how well an area can be maintained,” one person wrote in the comments.
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An ‘obscene’ number of kids are losing Medicaid coverage
Tami Luhby – August 26, 2023
For months, Evangelina Hernandez watched helplessly as her autistic twin sons regressed – their screaming, biting and scratching worsening. The Wichita, Kansas, resident couldn’t afford the $3,000 monthly tab for their 10 prescriptions or their doctor visits without Medicaid.
The toddlers, along with three of their sisters, lost their health insurance in May, swept up in the state’s eligibility review of all its Medicaid enrollees. Hernandez said she only received the renewal packet a day before it was due and mailed it back right away. She also called KanCare, the state’s Medicaid program, and filled out another application over the phone, certain that the kids remained eligible.
Yet, every time she inquired about the children’s coverage, she was told the renewal was still being processed. And though her partner works for an airplane manufacturer, the family can’t afford the health insurance plan offered by his employer.
“My kids are suffering. You can see it,” said Hernandez, who along with her infant daughter, remained on Medicaid thanks to coverage provisions for low-income, postpartum mothers and babies. “The medication they’re on, I can’t afford it.”
Just over a week ago, Hernandez got the call she had been waiting for: The kids’ coverage was reinstated. However, the pharmacy told her it could not immediately fill her sons’ prescriptions because it had to get their new enrollee information – and even then, she could only pick up the medication for one son because there were errors in her other son’s file.
The delays have consequences. Once they start taking the medications again, it will take about a month before their behavior starts to improve, she said.
All across the US, hundreds of thousands of children are being kicked off of Medicaid, even though experts say the vast majority continue to qualify. They are among the more than 87 million people in Medicaid and several million more in the Children’s Health Insurance Program who are having their eligibility checked and are facing possible termination of coverage for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic began.
States regained the ability to start winnowing their Medicaid rolls of residents whom they deem no longer qualify on April 1, when a pandemic relief program expired. Since then, at least 5.4 million people have lost their benefits, according to KFF, formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Not every state breaks down their terminations by age. But in the 15 states that do, at least 1.1 million youngsters have been dropped, according to KFF. That includes Texas, where nearly half a million non-disabled children lost coverage between April and the end of July, accounting for 81% of the total disenrolled. In Kansas, Idaho and Missouri, kids make up at least half of those losing benefits.
As many as 6.7 million children are at risk of having their benefits terminated during the so-called unwinding process, according to Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. Roughly three-quarters of them are expected to remain eligible for Medicaid but will likely lose coverage because of administrative issues, such as their parents not submitting the necessary paperwork or errors made by state Medicaid agencies.
This could lead to a doubling of the uninsured rate among children, said Joan Alker, the center’s executive director, noting that Medicaid covers about half of kids in the US.
“Children have an incredible amount at stake here,” she said. “We continue to be extremely worried as we see what’s happening around the country.”
Overall, nearly three-quarters of adults and children who have lost coverage were dropped for so-called procedural reasons, according to KFF. This typically happens when enrollees do not complete the renewal form, often because it may have been sent to an old address, it was difficult to understand or it wasn’t returned by the deadline.
Some people, however, may not return their forms because they know they earn too much to qualify or they obtained coverage elsewhere, such as from an employer.
In Idaho, there were 211,000 youngsters in the state’s Medicaid and CHIP programs in February – accounting for about half of the state’s total enrollees.
But more than 55,000 children had their insurance terminated in the first four months of the unwinding.
“An obscene number of kids are losing their Medicaid,” said Hillarie Hagen, a health policy associate at Idaho Voices for Children.
Among those processed were 33,000 children in families whom the state believes are no longer eligible. Nearly 23,000 of them were dropped for procedural reasons, Hagen said.
Also of great concern is that enrollment in Idaho’s CHIP program has fallen by 16,000 kids during the same period. Hagen expected the number to rise since CHIP has a higher income threshold than Medicaid so some children should have shifted over automatically.
One main reason why so many children – and adults – are losing coverage is because Idaho is focusing initially on households that it knows earn too much or who haven’t responded to the state in the last few years, said Shane Leach, welfare administrator for the state’s Department of Health and Welfare. Idaho continued to check enrollees’ eligibility during the pandemic, though it did not drop those who no longer qualified until now.
The department issues two rounds of notices, sends text messages and posts information in an online portal to let families know they need to return their renewal forms. Even if they miss the deadline, they can regain their coverage, he said.
“If anybody feels that they’re eligible, then reach out and reapply,” Leach said.
Children have higher income limits
Many parents may not realize that even though they don’t qualify for Medicaid anymore, their children may still be eligible because the household income limit for kids to remain covered is higher, said Jennifer Tolbert, an associate director of KFF’s Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured. This is especially true in the 10 states – including Kansas, Florida and Texas – that have not approved the expansion of Medicaid benefits to low-income adults.
Advocates are urging parents to complete and submit the renewal documents even if they think they earn too much to qualify themselves.
In some other cases, children are possibly being dropped because their state is applying the wrong income threshold to them.
In Florida, for instance, parents in a family of four must earn less than $8,520 annually to qualify, but children ages 1 to 5 are eligible if their household income is no more than $43,500, and those ages 6 to 18 can keep their coverage if their family earns less than $41,400, said Lynn Hearn, a staff attorney with the Florida Health Justice Project, an advocacy group.
Children’s enrollment in Medicaid dropped by roughly 154,000 kids, or 5.7%, between May and July, according to a Georgetown analysis of state data. The state does not break down terminations by age.
Hearn and her colleagues have had success in restoring some children’s coverage by appealing to the state and pointing out that the family’s income is less than the eligibility threshold for kids.
Another concern is that youngsters are not being automatically referred to the state’s CHIP program, Florida KidCare, Hearn said.
“I have yet to see a case where the referral happened timely and accurately,” she said.
When asked about the advocates’ concerns, Florida’s Department of Children and Families referred CNN to a fact sheet listing the state’s outreach efforts and enrollee support, including that it has more than 2,700 employees processing cases and assisting participants.
Restoring benefits can be complicated
Once a family loses coverage, regaining it can be frustrating and time-consuming. Tanya Harris spent weeks calling Florida’s Department of Children and Families, waiting on hold for hours at a time, to restore her kids’ insurance.
The Jacksonville resident only learned in late June that they would be cut off after she called the insurer that contracts with Florida to provide her family’s Medicaid benefits. She needed to discuss her 17-year-old daughter’s upcoming spinal surgery. Harris quickly filled out the renewal paperwork on the state’s online portal but was stuck in processing limbo for well over a month.
Tanya Harris, left, spent hours on hold with Florida’s Medicaid agency to restore her children’s coverage. – Courtesy Tanya Harris
Harris, who is on long-term disability from her employer as she battles several health conditions, spoke to multiple supervisors and uploaded verifications of her and her husband’s income and address over and over again.
Though the family regained Medicaid coverage in early August, their headaches aren’t over. Some doctors won’t see the kids until they receive their new insurance information, which Harris hopes will be settled next week. And she’s still not able to get some of their medications.
Meanwhile, her 6-year-old son, who has a severe peanut allergy, cannot sit with his classmates at lunch at his new school until his doctor sends in a medicine authorization form for his EpiPen.
“It was just devastating,” Harris said of the coverage loss. “The kids didn’t get the care that they need.”
Engaging parents
Some advocates are trying to take advantage of the start of the school year to alert parents to the importance of submitting their renewal documents.
In Kansas, where nearly 46,000 youngsters have been disenrolled so far, multiple groups are setting up tables at back-to-school events, working with school nurses and doing outreach through early childhood organizations, said Heather Braum, a health policy adviser at Kansas Action for Children.
KanCare reaches out to enrollees at least four times before their renewal is due to encourage them to return the needed paperwork, said Matt Lara, communications director for the state’s Department of Health and Environment. The agency also paused procedural terminations in May and June to give folks more time to send in their packets, as well as hired extra staff to work in the call center and help process renewals.
However, more should be done to improve the system and make sure eligible children maintain their coverage, Braum said.
“Kids’ medical care in so many situations can be very time sensitive – where they’re getting therapies and treatments and prescriptions,” she said. “If it gets delayed, it can have a permanent impact on their lives. Outcomes can be very different. And that’s inexcusable to me.”
A New Hampshire local has a reputation for asking politicians tough questions. He’s also 15.
Ken Tran, USA TODAY – August 26, 2023
WALPOLE, N.H. — Quinn Mitchell held his phone in his hand as he looked up at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
It was his turn to ask a question at Desantis’ first town hall event in New Hampshire. The Granite State is known for its first-in-the-nation primary, and its voters cherish the state’s strong influence in deciding presidential nominees. Those voters have built a centrist reputation, posing tough questions to candidates no matter their party affiliation.
Mitchell is no different from those Granite Staters. At DeSantis’ town hall in Hollis, he stood up to ask him a question about DeSantis’ now-rival in the 2024 Republican primary, former President Donald Trump.
“Do you believe that Trump violated the peaceful transfer of power, a key principle of American democracy that we must uphold?” Mitchell asked.
There is one thing that separates Mitchell from New Hampshire’s voters: he can’t vote.
“Are you in high school?” DeSantis asked, seemingly taken aback.
Quinn Mitchell listens to Ron DeSantis at DeSantis Town Hall campaign event in Newport NH on Aug. 19, 2023 Mitchell has met a handful of politicians since he started attending campaign events in 2020 including Amy Klobuchar, Chris Christie and President Joe Biden.
Mitchell is indeed in high school. More specifically, he’s 15 years old and is going into his sophomore year. He’s too young to vote, but he’s been to dozens of candidate events in New Hampshire since the 2024 Republican presidential primary kicked off.
Over lunch in his hometown of Walpole, a small town near the border separating New Hampshire and Vermont, Mitchell told USA TODAY he felt it was his civic duty – especially when he can’t vote yet – to be involved in the Granite State’s unique democratic process.
“I feel like it’s in a way my civic responsibility to ask these questions that need to be asked. I’m here. I have the opportunity, and it’s happening in my backyard,” Mitchell said. “A lot of people are unfortunate to not have the platform to ask those questions.”
A product of New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary
Mitchell describes himself as a history buff, reading books about presidential politics since he was just 8 years old. He also maintains a diverse news diet, listening to radio news regularly in his bedroom and reading newspapers across the political spectrum.
When he learned in 2019 that several candidates were gunning for the Democratic nomination he knew he “wanted to be a part of it.”
She “was a candidate I haven’t met, and I was so excited. It’s very weird because I was 11. My friends think it was the weirdest thing ever,” Mitchell said.
That moment was when he started to really involve himself in the state’s presidential primary. After he met Klobuchar, Mitchell attended one of her town halls where she encouraged him to ask a question, unbeknownst to his hobbies. The 11-year-old preteen asked her what she made of special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony to the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, which he remembered “shocked her.”
That moment was so memorable for Klobuchar, he became part of her stump speech on the campaign trail.
But perhaps his fondest memory of the 2020 Democratic primary was when he met President Joe Biden when he was still campaigning for the nomination. After a town hall, Biden motioned for Mitchell to come over and handed him a challenge coin bearing the seal of the vice president.
“He gave me a five minute lecture about what it was, what it’s supposed to mean and the importance of keeping promises,” Mitchell said. They agreed on a promise between just the two of them: the next time Mitchell sees Biden, if he brings the challenge coin, the former vice president owed him a drink.
Over the course of the next few months until the New Hampshire primary, Biden actually owed him multiple drinks. For an 11-year-old, the drink of choice was Coca-Cola.
Mitchell remembers one moment when Biden came prepared for the deal.
“He just pulled this Coca-Cola out of his pocket,” Mitchell said, laughing.
Quinn Mitchell listens to Ron DeSantis at DeSantis Town Hall campaign event in Newport NH on August 19, 2023
Before every town hall, Mitchell said he “has to study a lot” to think about a question a candidate has not talked about yet, but is also relevant to current events.
“I usually have to watch long interviews and press conferences,” he said. For some candidates, he said he spends hours going through their public statements.
“I heard you say that one of the reasons you endorsed Trump is that you really did not want (Hillary) Clinton to be president in 2016. And now based on recent knowledge that Trump was arrested, Trump was prosecuted on criminal charges, do you think that Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton would have been the better bet in 2016?” Mitchell asked.
Despite Christie’s identity in the 2024 GOP race as Trump’s chief antagonist, Mitchell’s question made him go on the record. The former New Jersey governor said he would have supported Trump, regardless of his criticism.
When he asks those tough questions, Mitchell said he tries to avoid coming off as “attacking” or politically biased, explaining that he has been to so many town halls out of a pure passion for politics.
“I’ve never been about attacking somebody. I’m just gonna ask the question,” Mitchell said.
Student Quinn Mitchell, of Walpole, N.H. asks a question to Republican presidential candidate former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie during a campaign event at V.F.W. Post 1631, Monday, July 24, 2023, in Concord, N.H.
‘Quinn, remember me when you are president’
Mitchell said he wishes more people his age were at least somewhat as invested in politics as he is. He’s tried to get his friends to come along in the past, but they demurred.
“A lot of the people I know, they are really disinterested in politics,” Mitchell said. “I wish there was more youth engagement. I’ve tried to bring some friends but again they tell me ‘No I’m not interested. I’m just gonna play Minecraft.’”
To be fair, Mitchell said he also plays a lot of Minecraft − a popular video game – a reminder to the people around him that he is still 15 years old.
When he’s not traveling to see a candidate or attending a political event, he helps his parents with farmwork. But his other hobbies are still close to his passion for politics. In his spare time, he reads books on history and watches documentaries and older presidential debates.
“I’ll just watch hours of debates. I rewatched the 2016 debate recently,” Mitchell said. It was not a form of studying for the 2024 race, but just out of fun.
“I love watching them,” he said. He’s also tried to get his friends to watch them with him, but unsurprisingly, they’ve turned down his gracious offers.
It’s easy to think Mitchell, with his love for politics and his dedication to meeting every candidate on the campaign trail, is looking to be a politician himself.
Quinn Mitchell listens to Ron DeSantis at DeSantis Town Hall campaign event in Newport NH on Aug. 19, 2023. Mitchell takes great time and dedication preparing for campaign events, sometimes watching hours worth of interviews from politicians.
Biden, along with the challenge coin, signed a copy of his memoir for Mitchell in 2019, writing “Quinn, remember me when you are president.”
And when Christie saw Mitchell at one of his town halls in August, the former New Jersey governor introduced him to the crowd before taking his question.
Someday, Christie said, Mitchell’s political passion will put him in elected office.
“I can’t wait until I’m old enough that he does that, and I’m sitting somewhere in New Jersey watching TV and seeing Governor or Senator Quinn, and I will be completely unsurprised,” Christie said.
But if there’s anything the first-in-the-nation primary has taught Mitchell, he said, it’s that he wants nothing to do with running for office.
“It’s definitely a really good hobby. It’s not video games,” Mitchell joked. But from what he’s seen on the campaign trail, he has no interest in being a politician, saying “you can never make a mistake. It’s extremely stressful.”
Instead, Mitchell said he could see himself going into journalism, considering he has started to build a reputation as an unassuming high school student with a knack for putting prospective presidents on the spot.
He’s recently started a podcast, called “Into the Tussle” where he plans to provide his own unbiased perspective on the presidential nominating process and hopefully talk to people who can actually vote in his home state.
“You have to start somewhere,” Mitchell said. “And I just want to talk about politics.”
Quinn Mitchell listens to Ron DeSantis at the DeSantis Town Hall campaign event in Newport, NH on Aug. 19, 2023. At 15 years old, Quinn Mitchell feels it is his civic duty to show up and ask the tough questions.
Mystery land buyers around California Air Force base revealed
Tom Palmer – August 26, 2023
(NewsNation) – New reports shed light on nearly $1 billion in land purchases by a mysterious company near a California Air Force base that raised national security concerns.
Since 2018, a group called “Flannery Associates” invested more than $800 million on almost 54,000 acres of agriculture-zoned land surrounding the Travis Air Force base in Solano County, California, public records show.
Despite early speculation China was behind the purchases — amid concerns that companies with ties to China have been ramping up efforts to buy American farmland — legal representation for Flannery has maintained the group is controlled by U.S. citizens, with 97% of its capital coming from U.S.-based investors.
However, after eight months of investigation, federal officials were not able to confirm or deny this to be true, and were not able to determine exactly who was backing the company.
Now, reports from The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle reveal Flannery is comprised of a group of ultra-wealthy Silicon Valley investors acquiring vast parcels of land northeast of San Francisco with the mission to build a new California city “from scratch.”
According to the reports, the investors’ plan for the land involves creating a new urban center that could accommodate the growing demands of the tech industry and provide a fresh environment for innovation and economic growth.
The goal, according to the reports, is to establish a new city that caters to the needs of Silicon Valley tech companies and professionals, potentially alleviating some of the challenges posed by congestion, housing shortages and high costs of living in the Bay Area.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that these land acquisitions have been met with a mix of excitement and concern from local communities and government officials.
Democratic California Rep. John Garamendi called developments around Travis Air Force Base a critical national security issue.
“The fact they chose to buy all three sides of the Travis Air Force Base even raises immediate questions about national security,” Garamendi said.
To pull off the project, according to the Times, the company will have to use the state’s initiative system to get Solano County residents to vote on it.
Garamendi said utilizing an initiative means they’re going to override the local protections that are in place for Travis Air Force Base.
According to Garamendi, the area is “heavily impacted by some very severe restrictions that prevent development and other kinds of activities that would somehow degrade or harm Travis Air Force Base.”
The Air Force’s Foreign Investment Risk Review office is currently investigating Flannery Associates. Garamendi says there are valid concerns that Flannery’s land acquisitions could be tied to foreign enemies.
“Wherever the money is coming from,” he said, “the underlying problem of securing Travis Air Force Base remains.”
Garamendi also said the “organization has been just playing nasty,” referring to farmers in the area being targeted in a lawsuit from the group.
“Please understand that this group spent five years secretly and in my estimation, using strong-arm techniques that would best be associated with monsters to acquire the land,” he said.
Garamendi said he’s been in contact with the families of farmers who handed over their land to Flannery, saying they didn’t want to sell in the first place.
Since no California laws require them to sell, the land was bargained for by both parties at a much higher price. But now, Flannery is suing those families for $510 million, accusing them of conspiring together to inflate the value of the land.
“It’s a suit designed to force the farmers to lawyer up, spend tens of thousands of dollars on lawyering and maybe at the end of the day, bankrupt themselves,” Garamendi said. “In fact, that has happened to at least one family that I know of and I’ve heard rumors that another family simply said, ‘We can’t afford the lawyers.’”
NewsNation correspondent Emily Finn contributed to this article.
California high-speed rail project looks to build Central Valley train fleet
Vanessa Arredondo – August 26, 2023
The Road 27 grade separation in Madera County was built to take traffic over the existing BNSF rail and future high-speed rail lines. (California High-Speed Rail Authority)
California’s high-speed rail project is working to secure its fleet of trains as it looks to stay on track to open an initial segment in the Central Valley.
The High-Speed Rail Authority’s board of directors on Thursday approved a plan to screen prospective vendors to manufacture and maintain the electrified high-speed trains, which are planned to operate at speeds of about 220 mph.
“The project is continuing to make progress with our commitment unwavering as we remain active and aggressive in moving the project forward while actively pursuing federal funding,” authority spokesperson Micah Flores wrote in an email.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has adopted a scaled-down blueprint for the bullet train that proposes building a 171-mile starter segment in the Central Valley — connecting Bakersfield to Merced. Officials are looking to begin operating in 2030, but that timeline could stretch out to 2033, according to an agency progress report from earlier this year.
“This is an aggressive schedule, as we still have much to do including the extensions north and south to Merced and Bakersfield, track, systems and trainset procurement,” Flores said.
A 700 foot bullet train bridge across Road 27, between Road 27 and Club Drive, and the BNSF main line in Madera County. (Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times)
Newsom adopted the plan for a starter system in the Central Valley in a bid to garner public support for construction of the more expensive passages in the Bay Area and Southern California.
Officials expect to receive bids from potential manufacturers in November and will review applications by the first quarter of 2024.
The High-Speed Rail Authority aims to obtain at least 10 trainsets that can operate at 220 mph and reach speeds up to 242 mph. The goal would be to produce two prototypes by 2028 for testing and trial runs.
“These trainsets ensure that we are procuring the latest generation of high-speed trains for this first-in-the-nation project,” agency Chief Executive Brian Kelly said in a release. “We look forward to working with members of the industry as we strive to develop a market for high-speed trains in the United States.”
There are 30 active high-speed rail construction sites in the Central Valley, according to the agency. Nearly 422 miles, from the Los Angeles Basin to the Bay Area, have been environmentally cleared for the project.
Construction began in 2015, about seven years after voters approved initial funding. The project has long been troubled, however, and it faces significant funding gaps. Earlier this year, an official estimate showed projected ridership has dropped by 25%.
The authority estimates that trains between Los Angeles and San Francisco would shuttle 31 million riders per year.
With coronavirus on the upswing in California, new vaccine coming sooner than expected
Rong-Gong Lin II – August 26, 2023
With an uptick of coronavirus cases in the Southland, a member of the medical staff at MLK Community Hospital wears a mask while being framed by a sculpture titled “Pieces Together” by Lawrence Argent in Watts on Aug. 17. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
With coronavirus cases increasingly on the upswing across California and the nation, an updated COVID-19 vaccine is expected to come out even earlier than expected.
Coronavirus transmission has been rising this summer and hospitalizations, while still low, have recently started to tick up as well.
In Los Angeles County, COVID-19 levels have risen for the fifth consecutive week, with the number of newly reported infections likely growing because of travel, the back-to-school season and new Omicron subvariants, health officials said.
New outbreaks are up at L.A. County’s nursing homes, and one Hollywood studio temporarily imposed a mask mandate after several employees were infected. Nationally, there were 12,613 weekly COVID-19 hospitalizations for the week that ended Aug. 12 — double the number from the start of this summer, but just one-third of the level seen at this time last year.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said this year’s updated version of the COVID-19 vaccine is likely to come out by the middle of next month, a bit earlier than the late September timeline previously announced by the Department of Health and Human Services.
The earlier-than-expected arrival became apparent after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scheduled a Sept. 12 meeting of its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a likely indication that the vaccine would become available shortly afterward.
The latest version of the vaccine is designed against the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5, unofficially known as Kraken. Unlike last year’s formulation, a bivalent vaccine that was designed against both the ancestral coronavirus strain and the BA.5/BA.4 Omicron subvariants that were circulating at the time, the upcoming vaccine will be monovalent, specifically designed against XBB.1.5.
Kraken, dominant as of this spring, has seen other upstart subvariants rise to compete against it, such as XBB.1.16 (unofficially refered to as Arcturus) and EG.5 (also known as Eris). The differences between these subvariants are relatively minor, and it’s expected the new vaccine will be effective against all three.
But officials are closely watching another subvariant that has raised more questions: BA.2.86, nicknamed Pirola, after an asteroid.
In a CDC risk assessment, the agency said that Pirola “may be more capable of causing infection in people who have previously had COVID-19 or who have received COVID-19 vaccines.”
The effectiveness of the upcoming vaccine against Pirola is still being evaluated, the CDC said Wednesday, but the agency still expects the new version will be effective at reducing severe disease and hospitalization.
“At this point, there is no evidence that this variant is causing more severe illness. That assessment may change as additional scientific data are developed,” the agency added.
Unlike more recently identified subvariants, which might have one or two mutations that distinguish them from earlier versions, Pirola has 36 distinct mutations from XBB.1.5, “which is making people raise their eyebrows,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a UC San Francisco infectious-disease expert.
“BA.2.86,” he said, “is so different that people worry that the vaccine in the fall won’t be a perfect match — but nevertheless, it will still protect people against serious disease.”
“And who knows if it’s even going to become ruler of the roost? It really hasn’t taken off so far that we know,” Chin-Hong added. “But again, sequencing always lags and not a ton of people are doing sequencing anymore around the world.”
Very few cases of Pirola have been identified in the U.S. thus far, and the subvariant has yet to be detected in Los Angeles County. But in some parts of Europe, Pirola now makes up perhaps 1% to 2% of cases, and the fact that it’s on more than one continent suggests it is spreading, Chin-Hong said.
Still, those infected with the Pirola subvariant have so far experienced generally mild symptoms, Chin-Hong said. Based on what’s currently known, if Pirola does become dominant, “at some point, it may fuel another round of transmission, and may find people who are ‘no-vids”’ — people who have never been infected — “or people who are more vulnerable to getting ill,” Chin-Hong said.
Regardless of the new mutations in Pirola, Chin-Hong said, the anti-COVID therapeutic drugs Paxlovid and remdesivir should remain effective.
Generally speaking, Chin-Hong said many people who have been infected with the coronavirus this summer did not require hospitalization, likely because they were vaccinated, had been previously infected, or both. Even those COVID-19 patients who have been hospitalized, Chin-Hong said, are generally requiring shorter stays than earlier in the pandemic.
Still, those who are being hospitalized tend to be older and those who haven’t received a COVID-19 booster shot in the past year — meaning they are not considered “up to date.”
Areas of the country that are seeing particularly notable increases in new weekly COVID-19 hospitalizations are in the South, CDC data show. In California, there were 1,930 new weekly COVID-19 hospitalizations for the week that ended Aug. 12. That’s more than a 60% increase from the start of the summer, but still relatively low historically.
Coronavirus-positive hospitalizations are also increasing in L.A. County. For the week that ended Aug. 19, there were an average of 422 such patients in hospitals per day, a nearly 30% increase from the prior week.
Coronavirus levels in L.A. County wastewater are at about 28% of the peak seen last winter, during the region’s last significant spike. That concentration has been increasing since early July, when coronavirus levels were at about 8% of this past winter’s peak.
“While hospitalizations are increasing, the current levels are still far lower than what was seen in 2022 during the summer peak, when there was an average of 1,287 COVID patients hospitalized each day,” the L.A. County Department of Public Health said.
There were 39 new coronavirus outbreaks in skilled nursing facilities in L.A. County for the most recent week of data available, up from 20 the prior week. “While resulting hospitalizations and deaths among skilled nursing facility residents are lower than at other points during the pandemic, nonetheless, increased transmission of COVID-19 at nursing homes carries heightened risk for frail elderly,” officials said.
In a blog post, Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in San Diego, said that recent trends underscore how “the pandemic isn’t over.”
Topol described the recent increase in transmission as a “wavelet” that could pick up steam but is more likely related to waning immunity and behavior than the latest subvariants.
“The fact that the inexorable evolution of the virus continues — to find new hosts and repeat hosts —cannot be ignored,” he wrote.
“At the moment there’s no reason for alarm. … What we’ll see in the weeks ahead is whether BA.2.86 takes hold or not. If it does, that will pose a new challenge, and make the ‘updated’ booster shots considerably less helpful than what was conceived when XBB.1.5 was selected as the target,” Topol wrote.
People who are infected with COVID-19 should stay home for at least five days following their first onset of symptoms or first positive test, whichever comes first, L.A. County health officials said.
County health officials urged people at high risk, and those who spend time with them, to consider precautions against infection, such as wearing a mask in crowded indoor settings, especially those with poor ventilation, and on public transit.
It’s also important to test for an infection when symptomatic or after an exposure to someone with COVID-19, staying home when sick, and seeking anti-COVID drugs if infected.
Californians who don’t have insurance or are having a hard time getting a prescription for anti-COVID medication can make a free phone or video appointment through the state’s COVID-19 telehealth service, reachable through sesamecare.com/covidcaor by calling (833) 686-5051.
L.A. County has similar free telehealth services, which are accessible at (833) 540-0473. Free at-home COVID tests also can still be picked up at county libraries and vaccination sites operated by the county Department of Public Health, as well as at many food banks and senior centers.
Biden administration expected to unveil Tuesday first drugs subject to Medicare negotiations
Tami Luhby and Kayla Tausche – August 25, 2023
Kurt Wittman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
The Biden administration is preparing to reveal Tuesday the first 10 drugs that will be subject to negotiation in Medicare, according to two sources briefed on the matter.
The controversial program was authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act that Democrats pushed through Congress last year. The drug industry and their supporters, however, are determined to quash the effort, filing at least eight lawsuits in recent weeks declaring it unconstitutional.
Undaunted, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has pushed ahead with its historic new power, which Democrats have long argued is a way to lower drug prices. The White House is planning public events to coincide with the announcement, which comes a few days ahead of the agency’s September 1 deadline to make the list public.
Multiple industry experts and the drugmakers themselves have predicted which medications are likely to be in the first round of negotiations. They include Eliquis, manufactured by Bristol Myers Squibb, which said in a lawsuit filed in June that it expects its blood thinner to be on the initial list, and Januvia, a diabetes drug made by Merck, which was the first to take legal action in early June. Other names floated include the blood thinner Xarelto, the cancer treatment Imbruvica and Ozempic, a blockbuster medication used for diabetes and weight loss.
The initial set of drugs will be chosen from the top 50 Part D drugs that are eligible for negotiation that have the highest total expenditures in Medicare. CMS will consider multiple factors when developing its initial offer, including the drugs’ clinical benefits, the price of alternatives, research and development costs and patent protection, among others.
What happens next
Drugmakers have a month to decide whether to participate. CMS and the manufacturers will then negotiate, and the agency will publish the agreed-upon maximum fair prices by September 1, 2024. The prices won’t take effect until 2026.
If drugmakers don’t comply with the process, they will have to pay an excise tax of up to 95% of the medications’ US sales or pull all their products from the Medicare and Medicaid markets. The pharmaceutical industry contends that the true penalty can be as high as 1,900% of sales.
After the initial round, the Health and Human Services secretary can negotiate another 15 drugs for 2027 and again for 2028. The number rises to 20 drugs a year for 2029 and beyond. Only medications that have been on the market for several years without competition are eligible.
In the first two years of negotiations, CMS will select only Part D drugs that are purchased at pharmacies. It will add Part B drugs, which are administered by doctors, to the mix for 2028.
The program is expected to save Medicare $98.5 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Drugmakers’ court challenges
Manufacturers hope to halt the negotiation process, filing multiple lawsuits in federal courts across the US. They each argue the program is unconstitutional in various ways and also say that the negotiation provision will harm innovation and patients’ access to new drugs.
Among the arguments are that the program violates the Fifth Amendment’s “takings” clause because it allows Medicare to obtain manufacturers’ patented drugs, which are private property, without paying fair market value under the threat of serious penalties.
Plus, the negotiations process violates the First Amendment, the challengers say, because it coerces manufacturers into saying that they agree to the price that the government has dictated and that it’s fair.
Another argument is that the process violates the Eighth Amendment by levying an excessive fine if drugmakers refuse to negotiate and continue selling their products to the Medicare market.
The Biden administration, however, has said that nothing in the Constitution bars it from negotiating drug prices. Legal experts have generally agreed.
“The Biden-Harris Administration isn’t letting anything get in our way of delivering lower drug costs for Americans,” Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra said in a statement in June. “Pharmaceutical companies have made record profits for decades. Now they’re lining up to block this Administration’s work to negotiate for better drug prices for our families. We won’t be deterred.”
