Supreme Court Changes, An AI Video, & Presidential Crypto

July 30, 2024

Hello, readers – happy Tuesday! Today, we’ll be talking about Supreme Court reforms, Kamala’s track record, Ukraine aid, Venezuela’s elections, an AI video, the national debt, and presidential cryptocurrency.

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Not Too Little But Probably Too Late

(President Biden by Michael M. Santiago via Getty Images)

After a tumultuous past few weeks on the campaign trail, U.S. President Joe Biden is taking some big swings. On Monday, Biden proposed a wide-ranging set of reforms for the Supreme Court, including 18-year term limits for justices, a binding code of conduct for the whole court, and a constitutional amendment that would remove immunity for crimes committed by the president while in office.

Despite record levels of unpopularity for America’s highest court, the reforms are unlikely to pass a divided Congress, especially ahead of the upcoming presidential election. They could, however, serve as an important policy platform for Vice President and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who has already voiced her support for Biden’s initiative.

“It is telling that Democrats want to change the system that has guided our nation since its founding simply because they disagree with some of the court’s recent decisions,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson. “This dangerous gambit of the Biden-Harris administration is dead on arrival in the House.” Six of the court’s nine justices are conservatives and have handed the Republican party multiple wins over the last couple of years.

A History Of Harris

Kamala Harris is one of the two people left in the race to become the leader of the free world. We know plenty (maybe too much) about her rival, former President Trump, but those who aren’t as familiar with her political career might appreciate a little rundown. Harris spent six years as California’s attorney general, where she sued big banks, took on for-profit college chains, and targeted multiple international criminal organizations.

Despite being an active AG, she also chose to avoid giving her political opinions where possible. When Californians voted on various reforms that would soften the state’s tough-on-crime policies in 2014, she refused to take a stance on the ballot initiative, citing her position as attorney general as the reason for her neutrality.

“She took her time, and I think that could occasionally frustrate people, but it’s a very pragmatic approach,” said a source who’d worked on one of Harris’ past campaigns. A Republican consultant put it a bit more harshly, saying, “She was so cautious about everything, trying to perfectly curate kind of an ambivalent record that couldn’t be used against her, that she wasn’t relevant to the discussion.” As the presidential election nears and Californians are set to vote on a set of reforms that would make the state tougher on crime, we might see what Kamala really stands for.

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DoD Makes A Deposit

(Zelenskyy & Biden by Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images)

What’s better than sending billions of dollars of lethal aid to one of your allies (who happens to be fighting one of your biggest rivals)? Doing it all knowing you won’t have to make budgeting decisions next year. Yesterday, the Biden administration announced a $1.7 billion aid package for Ukraine that mainly consists of the missiles and ammunition needed to operate the artillery and air defense systems that the U.S. has already sent to Kyiv.
Accompanying the ammo refill is a $200 million package of equipment taken directly from the Defense Department’s own stockpiles. Those weapons include “air defense interceptors; munitions for rocket systems and artillery; and anti-tank weapons,” according to a Defense Department news release. The aid drop marks America’s 20th Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative package and the 62nd tranche of weapons taken from the DoD’s own stockpiles for use in Ukraine.

A Controversy In Caracas

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was reelected in national elections held on Monday, much to the chagrin of the White House. U.S. media coverage of the election described the process as “disputed” (AP) and “flawed” (NYT), echoing similar claims levied against Venezuela’s election authority by the U.S. government.
Washington, in the words of the New York Times, “has spent years trying to push Mr. Maduro from office, levying brutal sanctions in 2019 that have strangled the country’s already crippled economy.” Why? The South American country sits atop the largest reserve of crude oil in the world, and Maduro has maintained friendly relations with Russia, Iran, and China.
Venezuela’s opposition claimed victory early on voting day, but official voting numbers show Maduro winning 51.2% of the vote compared to his opponent Edmundo González’ 44.2%. The Times claims that “some polling places refused to release printouts verifying the electronic vote count,” and also cited “reports of voter intimidation and other irregularities.” The U.S. and its Western allies have not yet certified the election results.

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Musk Gets Manipulative

For months now, there have been warnings about artificial intelligence’s ability to spread misinformation, especially when it comes to elections. It’s a tough battle to fight – especially when the richest man in the world is in on it. Vice President Kamala Harris’s election campaign has accused Elon Musk of spreading “manipulated lies” after he shared a doctored video of her on his X (Twitter) account.
In the video, a fake version of Harris says, “I was selected because I am the ultimate diversity hire,” calling anyone who criticizes her “both sexist and racist.” It’s garnered 128 million views. A spokesperson for the Harris campaign said, “The American people want the real freedom, opportunity and security Vice-President Harris is offering; not the fake, manipulated lies of Elon Musk and Donald Trump.”

Yeah, We Owe A Little Money, So What?

How much debt is too much debt? $35 trillion? Yesterday, in its daily report on the balance sheet, the U.S. Treasury Department noted that the national debt has, for the first time ever, topped that massive figure. The Congressional Budget Office said last month that the U.S. national debt is poised to top $56 trillion by 2034.
There are a few things to blame for the ballooning issue. For one thing, many pandemic-era federal programs and the Inflation Reduction Act have ended up costing more than expected. Also, lawmakers aren’t interested in cutting Medicare or Social Security spending, which are two of the biggest drivers of the national debt.

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Election Coins To The Moon

You might think that cryptocurrencies are dead, but the wackiness of a presidential election year appears to have resurrected internet coins from the smoking rubble of the FTX fiasco. Meme coins like “TRUMP,” “BODEN” (misspelled on purpose), and “KAMA” (for Kamala Harris) are being traded online as a way to essentially bet on the results of the U.S. presidential election, with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of political meme coins being traded every day.
After Biden’s extremely rough CNN debate performance, “BODEN” dropped by over 50%. Within an hour of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, the “TRUMP” coin saw its value jump by over a third, from $6.34 to $8.69. When Biden dropped out of the race, “KAMA” saw its value triple.
Of course, the coins don’t have any real-world value beyond what people on the internet are willing to pay for them (like stocks) which will likely plummet after the end of the election (unlike stocks). Until then, though, terminally online people will use the currencies to attempt to bet on the elections. Good for them, but we don’t need any money on the line to keep us interested in the news cycle.

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