Disorder and the Court

Right-wing SCOTUS vs. Voting Rights, our usual cartoons, new Banksy statue, live music from Isbell & Tedeschi, and Gillian & David.

Yes, it’s still somehow free to subscribe to this nearly daily newsletter! Greg Mitchell is the author of fourteen books and director of four films for PBS since 2022. In a previous life, he was a longtime editor at the legendary Crawdaddy. You can also show appreciation by pledging a small sum if we go partly “paid” one day.

Progress?

California Police Can Start Ticketing Driverless Cars

However,

Jeffrey Epstein’s Possible Suicide Note Hidden From Public View

Hoorey, for one of my heroes:

The artist Banksy appears to be taking credit for a large statue that was erected in London under the cover of darkness. It displays a man in a suit marching with a flag that billows onto his face, covering it entirely.

The statue, interpreted by many observers as a comment on blind nationalism, depicts the man striding off the edge of the plinth on which he stands. It appeared in Waterloo Place, a street in the St. James’s section of London, where there are many statues of 19th-century British military and colonial figures.

Meanwhile, Maine’s governor has dropped out of the race for a Senate seat that Democrats think they can flip in November. That paves the way for Graham Platner, a progressive if controversial newcomer, to challenge Susan Collins.

Millions of Americans appear to be dropping Obamacare coverage in the months since Congress let subsidies expire.

Heather Cox Richardson on the Supreme Court’s horrid gerrymandering decision:

The decision means that states are now free to redraw district lines to undercut the power of minority voters, a demographic that tends to vote for Democrats.

Louisiana’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, immediately declared a state of emergency, suspending the primary elections in the state in order to gerrymander the state to grab one or two more Republican seats. More than 100,000 absentee ballots had already been sent out—some have already been returned—and voting was due to start within days.

Democrats have already filed a lawsuit against the governor’s attempt to stop an election that’s already underway and to let the election proceed. The lawsuit notes, among other things, that the Constitution gives to state legislatures, not the governor, the responsibility for deciding “[t]he Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives.”

Lawmakers in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama are also considering redistricting in the wake of the Callais decision.

See our cartoonists’ response down below.

One of the earliest country music “outlaws,” David Allan Coe, who wrote “Take This Job and Shove It” and other hits, was real thing, with prison time and obscenity-laden performances. He died at 86.

Great live version of McCartney’s “Let Me Roll It,” this week from two of our faves, Jason Isbell and Susan Tedeschi:

Joyful and fitting “This Land Is Your Land” two days ago from two more of our faves, Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings—and it was on the Guthrie Green in Tulsa. Heading there myself for June 25 premiere of my new Woody film.

From Tunes to Toons

Luckovich:

de Adder:

Goris:

Bramhall:

de Adder again:

Photo Finish

From somewhere in Italy….oh wait, actually at the Getty Museum overlooking Los Angeles….