Seeing so many stories like this one I’ve become increasingly convinced of the existence and the importance of what I will call the Unicornstitution. Related but by no means synonymous with the US constitution, the Unicornstitution exists as a sort of ersatz Platonic ideal form of the Constitution which exists in the ether and is ready at hand to give a big thumbs up and attaboy and ‘you go girl’ to whatever crazy bullshit thing you already decided to do, especially if you’re really angry and stupid and fundamentally see life in America as as matter of other undeserving people taking away your stuff and your not being able to do anything about it.
With less than a week to go before the end of the fiscal year deadline, here’s the latest on the shutdown prospects, including this observation from budget expert Stan Collender: “Boehner may need to allow a shutdown to occur for a few days to give the Freedom Caucus a victory before he can work with Dems on a clean CR.”
Amidst all of the coverage of Pope Francis’ visit to the US this week I want to particularly call your attention to this piece by novelist and columnist James Carroll. It’s about another time a Pope, Paul VI, addressed the United Nations. That was in 1965, almost exactly fifty years ago. That moment half a century ago has deep parallels to today and it also opened a breach between Carroll and his father – one, a young man studying for the priesthood and another, a top Pentagon general, who had himself once studied for the priesthood. Definitely give this a read.
There’s a second part of publishing this piece for me personally, which is not connected to the piece itself but my own relationship to the author. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention it. Like one billiard ball hitting another at a certain angle and in so doing shifting its own trajectory, we all have certain people in our lives who we encounter and, through the encounter, the trajectory of our own lives changes. For me, Jim is one of those people.
Criminal justice reporter Eli Hager will be chatting with Prime members at 3pm in The Hive. Hager is a staff writer for the Marshall Project, a nonpartisan news site focused on criminal justice reform. Eli’s primary interests are the criminalization of poverty in the United States and the politics of criminal justice. He also focuses on the intersections between criminal justice and education.
Drop a question in now or join us at 3 PM. If you’re not a Prime member yet, you can register here!
Rep. Steve King tells CNN Pope doesn’t believe in the “nation-state”, can’t be trusted on immigration policy.
White Republican says GOP can finally beat prominent black Democrat by adding more prisoners to her district!
It’s serendipitous because our current top story about prisoner-gerrymandering to oust a black member of Congress just landed this afternoon. But today’s live chat in The Hive (sub req), with Eli Hager of the Marshall Project, delves further into the core issues here which are both mass incarceration and the perverse incentives created by the privatization of the prison system – which is inextricably tied to evolution of mass incarceration over the last 35 years. Check out the conversation. Fascinating stuff.
Reports emerging from House conference meeting this morning that Speaker John Boehner will resign from office at the end of October, giving up his seat and his speakership. Stay tuned …
Across town from the Capitol, the Values Voters Summit — aimed toward religious conservatives — is getting into full swing today in D.C., with speeches from most of the major GOP presidential candidates. Here’s how the crowd reacted when Marco Rubio announced the news of John Boehner’s resignation.
John Boehner expected to publicly announce his resignation plans at 1 p.m. ET. Watch live.