The Supreme Court heard its first Second Amendment case in a decade Monday, but there were indications that the justices may no longer think they have a case to decide.The controversy involves now-rescinded restrictions unique to New York City about whether citizens who have a license to keep a gun in their homes may transport them to firing ranges outside of the city or to a second home in the state.After the Supreme Court took the case to decide whether those restrictions violated the constitutional right to keep and bear arms, the city got rid of them, and the state of New York passed a law that would keep them from being reenacted.
They may punt on this one and declare it moot, but there will be others, and there are probably five votes to say the Founding Fathers wanted to make sure your city couldn’t keep you from owning a hundred AR-15s.
* The Trump campaign has announced that it will refuse to give credentials to reporters from Bloomberg News, because they’re allegedly “biased.”
* Natasha Bertrand reports that the Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee investigated the 2016-Ukraine conspiracy theory Trump keeps pushing, and found nothing. Reminder: This theory is absolutely central to the Senate GOP defense of Trump at the coming impeachment trial.
* Elections forecaster Nathan Gonzales shifts a dozen House races towards Democrats, and explains why the prospects for Republicans to take back the House have gotten decidedly worse.
* Molly Jong-Fast talks to Lisa Page about what it’s like to have the president not only target you for attacks but do it in a way that makes clear he’s obsessed with your sex life.
* Sen. Angus King argues that the fact that figures close to the president such as Mike Pompeo, Mick Mulvaney, and Rick Perry refuse to testify tells us a lot about Trump’s guilt.
* Eric Boehlert looks at how the media is somehow managing to downplay the fact that polls show half the American people want Trump removed.
* Waitman Wade Beorn explains why, contrary to what Trump and his war criminals would have you believe, soldiers can wage war while maintaining ethical behavior.
* Philip Bump explains what goes into the ludicrous “Ukraine did it, not Russia!” theory Republicans have been trying to spread.
* At the American Prospect, I considered Pete Buttigieg’s argument that we shouldn’t try to expand our conception of the public goods government is obligated to supply to everyone.
* And Amanda Marcotte argues that it’s futile for Democrats to keep searching for the trick that will make conservatives vote for them.