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    Republicans Will Regret a Second Trump Term

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    Now is the summer of Republican content.The G.O.P. is confident and unified. Donald Trump has held a consistent and widening lead over President Biden in all the battleground states. Never Trumpers have been exiled, purged or converted. The Supreme Court has eased many of Trump’s legal travails while his felony convictions in New York seem to have inflicted only minimal political damage — if they didn’t actually help him.Best of all for Republicans, a diminished Joe Biden seems determined to stay in the race, leading a dispirited and divided party that thinks of its presumptive nominee as one might think of a colonoscopy: an unpleasant reminder of age. Even if Biden can be cajoled into quitting, his likeliest replacement is Vice President Kamala Harris, whose 37 percent approval rating is just around that of her boss. Do Democrats really think they can run on her non-handling of the border crisis, her reputation for managerial incompetence or her verbal gaffes?In short, Republicans have good reason to think they’ll be back in the White House next January. Only then will the regrets set in.Three in particular: First, Trump won’t slay the left; instead, he will re-energize and radicalize it. Second, Trump will be a down-ballot loser, leading to divided and paralyzed government. Third, Trump’s second-term personnel won’t be like the ones in his first. Instead, he will appoint his Trumpiest people and pursue his Trumpiest instincts. The results won’t be ones old-school Republicans want or expect.Begin with the left.Talk to most conservatives and even a few liberals, and they’ll tell you that Peak Woke — that is, the worst excesses of far-left activism and cancel culture — happened around 2020. In fact, Peak Woke, from the campus witch hunts to “abolish the police” and the “mostly peaceful” protests in cities like Portland, Ore., and Minneapolis that followed George Floyd’s murder, really coincided with the entirety of Trump’s presidency, then abated after Biden’s election.That’s no accident. What used to be called political correctness has been with us for a long time. But it grew to a fever pitch under Trump, most of all because he was precisely the kind of bigoted vulgarian and aspiring strongman that liberals always feared might come to power, and which they felt duty bound to “resist.” With his every tweet, Trump’s presidency felt like a diesel engine blowing black soot in the face of the country. That’s also surely how Trump wanted it, since it delighted his base, goaded his critics and left everyone else in a kind of blind stupor.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Oklahoma Law Criminalizing Immigrants Without Legal Status Is Blocked

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      The ruling by a federal judge is the latest setback for G.O.P.-controlled states that have passed their own laws on immigration. A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked Oklahoma from enforcing its new immigration law that would make it a crime to enter the state without legal authorization to be in the United States.The ruling, issued just days before the law was set to go into effect on Monday, is the latest legal setback for Republican-controlled states that have tested the limits of their role in immigration by passing their own legislation meant to crack down on people who crossed the border illegally. The Justice Department maintains that only the federal government can regulate and enforce immigration. A Texas law that would have given state and local police officers the authority to arrest undocumented migrants was put on hold by a federal appeals court in March. The Supreme Court had briefly let the law stand but returned the case to the appeals court, which decided to pause enforcement of it. Then, in May, a federal judge temporarily blocked part of a Florida law that made it a crime to transport unauthorized immigrants into the state. And in mid-June, an Iowa law that would have made it a crime for an immigrant to enter the state after being deported or denied entry into the country was put on pause by a district court. In the Oklahoma case, U.S. District Judge Bernard M. Jones wrote in his ruling that the state “may have understandable frustrations with the problems caused by illegal immigration,” but the state “may not pursue policies that undermine federal law.” He issued a preliminary injunction, pausing enforcement of the law while a case over the law’s constitutionality continues. Under the new law, willfully entering and remaining in Oklahoma without legal immigration status would be a state crime called an “impermissible occupation.” A first offense would be a misdemeanor, with penalties of up to one year in jail and a $500 fine; a subsequent offense would be a felony, punishable by up to two years in jail and a $1,000 fine.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Supreme Court Allows, for Now, Emergency Abortions in Idaho

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      A majority of the justices dismissed the case, reinstating a lower-court ruling that paused the state’s near-total abortion ban.The Supreme Court said on Thursday that it would dismiss a case about emergency abortions in Idaho, temporarily clearing the way for women in the state to receive an abortion when their health is at risk.The brief, unsigned opinion declared that the case had been “improvidently granted.” The decision reinstates a lower-court ruling that had halted Idaho’s near-total ban on abortion and permitted emergency abortions at hospitals if needed to protect the health of the mother while the case makes its way through the courts.The decision, which did not rule on the substance of the case, appeared to closely mirror a version that appeared briefly on the court’s website a day earlier and was reported by Bloomberg. A court spokeswoman acknowledged on Wednesday that the publications unit had “inadvertently and briefly uploaded a document” and said a ruling in the case would appear in due time.The joined cases, Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States, focus on whether a federal law aimed at ensuring emergency care for any patient supersedes Idaho’s abortion ban, one of the nation’s strictest. The state outlaws the procedure, with few exceptions unless a woman’s life is in danger.The decision was essentially 6 to 3, with three conservative justices siding with the liberal wing in saying they would drop the case.It was the first time that the court was confronted with the question of statewide restrictions on abortion, many of which swiftly took effect after the court eliminated a constitutional right to the procedure two years ago.Tracking Abortion Bans Across the CountryThe New York Times is tracking the status of abortion laws in each state following the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Martha’s Vineyard Will Have Enough Pot This Summer

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      For the island’s cannabis dispensaries, a sudden change in regulations came just in time.Until recently, Geoff Rose, the proprietor of a cannabis business on Martha’s Vineyard, believed he was in for a bleak summer.That was because his marijuana dispensary, Island Time, had run out of product — and it seemed as if he would be unable to replace it during the busy tourist season on the 96-square-mile Massachusetts island that has long been a haven for vacationers.But on Thursday, state regulators issued an order that would allow cannabis products to be transported across the ocean to licensed businesses.Mr. Rose closed his shop — temporarily, as it turns out — on May 14. At the time, the display cases were empty. No gummies. No tinctures. No pre-rolls. The only item of interest to some of his customers was the chocolate.“I believe there were 14 chocolate bars left,” Mr. Rose said in a phone interview. “They were the last to be sold. More than 14 people came in. Some were disappointed: ‘I don’t want chocolates.’ But some said, ‘OK, I’ll take it.’”The shortage, first reported by The Associated Press, had to do with conflicting laws surrounding the sale and transport of marijuana.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Candidates for Federal Office Can Raise Unlimited Funds for Ballot Measures

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      The Federal Election Commission quietly issued an advisory opinion last week allowing candidates to raise unlimited money for issue-advocacy groups working on ballot measures in elections in which those candidates are on the ballot.The opinion, issued in response to a request from a Nevada-based abortion rights group, could significantly alter the landscape in the fall in terms of the capacity that candidates aligned with these groups have to help them raise money.The decision applies to all federal candidates, but with a presidential election taking place in six months, the biggest attention will fall to that race. If Mr. Biden can solicit money for abortion-rights ballot measures, he can add to an already-existing fund-raising advantage that his team currently has over Mr. Trump.The decision, released publicly last week but little noticed, could affect turnout in battleground states like Nevada where razor-thin margins will determine the election. In Arizona, an abortion rights group said it had the number of signatures required to put a referendum on the ballot. Florida — a state that has voted reliably for Republicans in recent presidential races — has a similar measure on the ballot.The advisory opinion means that both Mr. Biden and former President Donald J. Trump can raise money for outside groups pushing ballot measures. In the wake of the repeal of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision, abortion ballot measures are expected to be a key focus for Democrats this fall.“I think it’s quite significant,” said Adav Noti, of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, calling it an enormous change from prohibitions put in place by the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill in 2002.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Transportation Dept. and State Attorneys General Will Look Into Airline Complaints

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      Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced a new partnership with more than a dozen state attorneys general that aims to improve protections for air travelers.Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Tuesday announced a new partnership with more than a dozen state attorneys general to investigate consumer complaints against airlines.The partnership sets up a process for state attorney general’s offices to review complaints from travelers and then pass the baton to the federal Transportation Department, which could take enforcement action against airlines.“The support that’s being offered by state attorney general’s offices means that our capacity to protect airline passengers is expanding,” Mr. Buttigieg said at Denver International Airport, where he appeared with Colorado’s attorney general, Phil Weiser, a Democrat who is among those joining the partnership.The federal-state initiative is Mr. Buttigieg’s latest step aimed at improving protections for air travelers and ensuring that airlines are held accountable when they err. The Transportation Department has issued more than $164 million in penalties against airlines during his tenure, according to the agency. Mr. Buttigieg has also pressed airlines to seat children with their parents for free and to improve the services they offer to travelers who experience lengthy delays or cancellations.The Transportation Department said attorneys general from 15 states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Wisconsin — had signed agreements to be part of the partnership.The attorneys general from the District of Columbia, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands also have joined, the department said, bringing the total number involved to 18. Of those, 16 are Democrats and two are Republicans.Under federal law, states are generally barred from enforcing their own consumer protection laws against airlines. State attorneys general have pushed for federal legislation that would empower them to take action against airlines, just as they can against companies in other industries.The new partnership does not grant them that power. Instead, their offices would investigate complaints from travelers, and if they determine that federal consumer protection rules may have been violated, they could refer the matter to the Transportation Department under a fast-track process. The federal agency would then review the complaint and could take enforcement action.“The ideal world would be one where states are given formal authority to enforce consumer protection law alongside the Department of Transportation,” Mr. Weiser said. “Congress has failed to act on that thus far, but we are not waiting for action.”In a statement, Airlines for America, a trade group representing the country’s largest air carriers, said it regularly worked with the Transportation Department and state attorneys general to improve the flying experience for travelers.“We appreciate the role of state attorneys general and their work on behalf of consumers,” the group said, adding that it looked forward to continuing to work with them. More

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      Another Red-Blue Divide: Money to Feed Kids in the Summer

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      The governor was firm: Nebraska would reject the new federal money for summer meals. The state already fed a small number of children when schools closed. He would not sign on to a program to provide all families that received free or cut-rate school meals with cards to buy groceries during the summer.“I don’t believe in welfare,” the governor, Jim Pillen, a Republican, said in December.A group of low-income youths, in a face-to-face meeting, urged him to reconsider. One told him she had eaten less when schools were out. Another criticized the meals at the existing feeding sites and held a crustless prepackaged sandwich to argue that electronic benefit cards from the new federal program would offer better food and more choice.“Sometimes money isn’t the solution,” the governor replied.A week later, Mr. Pillen made a U-turn the size of a Nebraska cornfield, approving the cards and praising the young people for speaking out.“This isn’t about me winning,” he said. “This is about coming to the conclusion of what is best for our kids.”After meeting with young people, Gov. Jim Pillen of Nebraska reversed himself and accepted federal money for summer meals.Kenneth Ferriera/Lincoln Journal Star, via Associated PressMr. Pillen’s extraordinary reversal shows the conflicts shaping red-state views of federal aid: needs beckon, but suspicions run high of the Biden administration and programs that critics call handouts.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Says Abortion Will Be Left to the States. Don’t Believe Him.

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      When Donald Trump was asked about the recent Florida Supreme Court decision upholding his adopted state’s abortion ban, he promised that he would announce where he stands this week, a sign of how tricky the politics of reproductive rights have become for the man who did more than any other to roll them back. Sure enough, on Monday, he unveiled his latest position in a video statement that attempted to thread the needle between his anti-abortion base and the majority of Americans who want abortion to be legal.Trump’s address was, naturally, full of lies, including the absurd claim that “all legal scholars, both sides,” wanted Roe v. Wade overturned, and the obscene calumny that Democrats support “execution after birth.” But the most misleading part of his spiel was the way he implied that in a second Trump administration, abortion law will be left entirely up to the states. “The states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land, in this case the law of the state,” said Trump.Trump probably won’t be able to dodge the substance of abortion policy for the entirety of a presidential campaign; eventually, he’s going to have to say whether he’d sign a federal abortion ban if it crossed his desk and what he thinks of the sweeping abortion prohibitions in many Republican states. But let’s leave that aside for the moment, because when it comes to a second Trump administration, the most salient questions are about personnel, not legislation.Before Monday, Trump had reportedly considered endorsing a 16-week national abortion ban, but the fact that he didn’t should be of little comfort to voters who want to protect what’s left of abortion rights in America. Should Trump return to power, he plans to surround himself with die-hard MAGA activists, not the establishment types he blames for undermining him during his first term. And many of these activists have plans to restrict abortion nationally without passing any new laws at all.Key to these plans is the Comstock Act, the 19th-century anti-vice law named for the crusading bluenose Anthony Comstock, who persecuted Margaret Sanger, arrested thousands, and boasted of driving 15 of his targets to suicide. Passed in 1873, the Comstock Act banned the mailing of every “obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile article,” including “every article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine or thing” intended for “producing abortion.” Until quite recently, the Comstock Act was thought to be moot, made irrelevant by a series of Supreme Court decisions on the First Amendment, contraception and abortion. But it was never actually repealed, and now that Trump’s justices have scrapped Roe, his allies believe they can use Comstock to go after abortion nationwide.“We don’t need a federal ban when we have Comstock on the books,” Jonathan F. Mitchell, Texas’ former solicitor general and the legal mind behind the state’s abortion bounty law, told The New York Times in February. Mitchell is very much a MAGA insider; he represented Trump in the Supreme Court case arising from Colorado’s attempt to boot the ex-president off the ballot as an insurrectionist. As The Times has reported, Mitchell is on a list of lawyers vetted by America First Legal, a nonprofit led by the Trump consigliere Stephen Miller, as having the “spine” to serve in a second Trump administration.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sixteen States Sue Biden Administration Over Gas Permit Pause

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      President Biden halted approvals for new exports of liquefied natural gas to study its effect on the climate, national security and the economy. Major oil- and gas-producing states are angry.Louisiana and 15 other Republican-led states sued the Biden administration on Thursday over its decision to temporarily stop approving new permits for facilities that export liquefied natural gas.The lawsuit contends that the Biden administration acted illegally when it decided in January to pause the approvals so it could study how gas exports affect climate change, the economy and national security.Filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, the lawsuit asks a judge to end the pause, arguing that the White House had flouted the regulatory process and instead taken action “by fiat.”“There is no legal basis for the pause,” Elizabeth B. Murrill, the attorney general of Louisiana, which led the legal challenge, said in an interview.Ms. Murrill, who referred to the pause as a ban, said halting permits for any amount of time would hurt states’ economies and would have significant long-term consequences abroad by restricting supplies of gas from the United States to Europe.The United States is the world’s top exporter of natural gas. Liquefied natural gas is a gas that has been cooled to a liquid state to allow for shipping and storage. Even with the pause, the country is still on track to nearly double its export capacity by 2027 because of projects already permitted and under construction. But any expansions beyond that are now in doubt.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More