Biden to visit Surfside

The White House reported today that President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will travel to Surfside, Fla., on Thursday to view firsthand the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium. The official death toll in the collapse now stands at 11, with some 150 residents still unaccounted for. Rescue workers have been working around the clock to recover victims of the disaster, which occurred early in the morning last Thursday.

• — FEMA steps in. The Federal Emergency Management Agency dispatched an administrator to the site earlier this week, as well as an Incident Management Assistance Team, building science experts, structural engineers, and geotechnical experts to support search-and-rescue efforts.
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• — More help on the way. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also will provide technical assistance for debris removal. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has praised FEMA and the Biden Administration for "stepping up to the plate."
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• — An "incredibly devastating time." Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Biden's upcoming trip would be "an important reminder that our county, our state, and our nation are giving everything we have to search for the victims of this tragedy and support the families." —NPR

Swann: Segregation could worsen gerrymandering

"As American politics has become more divisive over the past few decades, the country has also become more racially segregated. More than 80% of the large metropolitan areas in the U.S. were more segregated in 2019 than they were in 1990, according to a new study by the University of California at Berkeley's Othering & Belonging Institute. ... Areas with more racial segregation had higher levels of political polarization, the study found. These divisions could play a huge role in how severe this round of gerrymandering is, as states will soon redraw election maps for the new decade." —Sara Swann in The Fulcrum

Sara Swann is a staff writer at The Fulcrum, covering campaign finance and other reform issues.

MORE: David Daley: Republicans can win the next elections through gerrymandering alone —The Guardian

Thomas torches federal pot laws

Justice Clarence Thomas, often viewed as the most conservative member of the U.S. Supreme Court, issued a statement on cannabis yesterday, highlighting irregularities in the federal government's approach to marijuana policy. According to Thomas, the government's mixed signals regarding cannabis prohibition have created "a half-in, half-out regime that simultaneously tolerates and forbids local use of marijuana." Federal law formally forbids the intrastate possession, cultivation, and distribution of marijuana, while many state and local governments have legalized these acts. The disparity, Thomas concludes, suggests that the federal government "might no longer have authority to intrude on the states' core police powers" or "to define criminal law and to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens." —Yahoo! News

MORE: Justices object as Supreme Court turns back police abuse case —Politico

Applebaum: Democracy requires an open mind

"The huge advantage of liberal democracy over other political systems is that its leadership constantly adjusts and changes, shifting to absorb new people and ideas. Liberal democracies don't try, as Soviet Marxism once did, to make everybody agree about everything, all the time. But to maintain that flexibility, a liberal-democratic society absolutely requires that its citizens experience a liberal education, one that teaches students, scholars, readers, and voters to keep looking at books, history, society, and politics from different points of view. If one of our two great political parties no longer believes in this principle—and if some of our scholars don't either—then how much longer can we expect our democracy to last?" —Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic

Anne Applebaum is a senior fellow of the Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and the author of "Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism."

MORE: Max Boot: Imagine if a Squad member called a general a stupid pig. Tucker Carlson just did —The Washington Post

Russia and China = BFFs

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed their increasingly close ties yesterday and announced a five-year extension of a 20-year-old friendship treaty between the two countries. It marks a notable a show of unity amid the two autocratic nations' tensions with the U.S. and the Western alliance. Putin said the partnership between Moscow and Beijing has played a "stabilizing role in global affairs." Xi said their "strategic cooperation" has not only served to defend their common interests on the global stage, but also upheld "true multilateralism and global justice." Delusional. NATO was prudent in broadening its mission recently to include increased focus on China. —Associated Press

MORE: Behind China's takeover of Hong Kong —The New York Times

Focus on war powers

President Biden's weekend airstrikes against Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria are rankling Democrats frustrated by his decision to sidestep Congress. The party has long sought to rein in presidential war powers, and some lawmakers criticized Biden for a similar retaliatory airstrike earlier this year. In both cases, the president cited his authority under Article II of the Constitution, which allows him to take steps to protect U.S. service members in self-defense.

• — Democrats are sounding the alarm about potential abuses of that power, which presidents of both parties have employed to circumvent Congress and legally justify various military operations. The airstrikes come as Congress is working to repeal the two-decade-old authorization for the use of military force in Iraq.
   
• — "The danger here is that you fall into a pattern of military escalation that becomes war without voters ever having a say," Sen. Chris Murphy, a top member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said. Complicating matters further, the Iraqi government has condemned the strikes on its soil, calling them a "blatant" violation of its sovereignty.
   
• — "Congress has the power to authorize the use of military force and declarations of war, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is planning to hear from the administration more on these strikes," said Committee Chair Bob Menendez. He suggested he wants a broader examination of Biden's legal rationale for the strikes. —Politico

Talisse: The dangers of partisan conformity

"The current state of the GOP offers a broad lesson for democratic politics. In a democracy, anyone who wants an effective political voice needs to join a choir of similar voices. Political coalitions are thus an indispensable feature of a democratic society. However, such alliances expose people to forces that push them to more extreme beliefs and drive them to insist upon conformity among allies. Both pressures are debilitating for political objectives. In a democracy, movements seek to expand coalitions and broaden alliances. Belief polarization presses in the opposite direction, leading toward greater intensity of conviction, but ultimately toward the dissolution of coalitions." —Robert Talisse in The Conversation

Robert Talisse is the W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University and the author of the forthcoming book "Sustaining Democracy."

MORE: 'Trump isn't the dictator': Wisconsin GOP inches away from Trump —Politico

The only, only time Blue Lives Matter is when they are using their authority to deal with Black Lives Matter protesters or any of the "other groups" that don't think, feel, and believe the way they do. As a former Republican, I can say that my former party is, was, and will continue to be full of it. They have no problem saying and doing whatever needed to pacify their view of themselves.

Remember, vote them out in 2022 and 2024. Be the change the country needs to preserve the democracy. Our hope lies with the young people coming up. I'm 74, and it appears that those in my age group have done our best to screw up the country. Take the country back from that SOB sitting on his Florida throne. —Jim M., North Carolina

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