Something to Know - 11 July

It is too darned easy and too confusing and disheartening to get into the current topics of conversation regarding the SCOTUS and what the loyal opposition needs to do to overcome.   My main effort will be to maintain a relative calm and disengagement, since I will be leaving for Europe this Saturday for a 38-day vacation, that includes a 2-week tour of Ireland, followed by a 21-day sea cruise from Amsterdam to Norway, to Iceland, to Scotland and back to Amsterdam ....then re-entry to a once-great and and respected nation.  So, I am looking at the big picture from outer-space, and this AXIOS bulletin spells it all out.  So, I would appreciate it if those of you, who have the necessary skills, would clean this all up before I get back.   It's either than or the Rule Of Law that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller is working on that will get the job done.

PRESENTED BY QUALCOMM

Axios AM

By Mike Allen ·Jul 11, 2018

Good Wednesday morning. It's 7/11. Situational awareness: To protect allergic passengers, Southwest Airlines "will stop giving away peanuts on flights next month, ending a tradition that goes back decades" ... Starbucks "will eliminate single-use plastic straws ... by making a strawless lid or alternative-material straw options available" ... "Alamo Drafthouse Leads U.S. Theater Chains in Eliminating Plastic Straws."

Trump unwinds the 20th century

Illustration: Lazaro Gamio/Axios

As President Trump meets other NATO leaders in Brussels today, the backdrop is his role in tearing at the post-World War II order. But Axios future editor Steve LeVine writes that a picture is taking shape of an American future without many of the basic institutions that many consider 20th century advances: Unions: A decimation of the 120-year-old organized labor movement, most recently with last month's Supreme Court rulingweakening the funding of public collective bargaining. International order: Trump is part of a wave of leaders challenging the post-World War II order, established to avoid another world war — NATO, our alliance with Europe, trade deals, the World Trade Organization. Black voting: In 2013, the Supreme Court invalidated a key part of the Voting Rights Act, and last month the court decided that counties can purge voter rolls of people who don't regularly vote. Women's rights ... For now, more fear than reality: A primary conservative goal is the invalidation or weakening of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion. Respect for a free press and its role as a check on power. Racial progress and harmony: The Muslim travel ban and Trump administration's border policies inflame rather than soothe tensions. The N.Y. Times' Peter Baker quotes Curt Levey, president of the conservative Committee for Justice, as saying the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh will mean "a conservative court, really [for] the first time since the 1930s." Why it matters: One of the main legacies of that court was the dismantlement of key components of the New Deal, which established Social Security and other social programs that are part of the U.S. firmament. Be smart: Karen Harris, managing director at Bain Macro Trends, tells Axios that the new order will be the U.S., Russia and China — "multiple parallel great powers pushing against each other in the two new borderlands of cyberspace and [actual] space." That, she said, "will lead to a more fragmented geopolitical order and by extension, a more fragmented international trade and finance order."

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Juan

 "A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity."

- Ralph Nader