Front Page Podcast: What to expect as the Supreme Court begins its term

Guns, global warming and immigration will dominate early cases as the Supreme Court kicks off its new term.

Stephen Dinan reports the court is set to decide whether states can ban sales of AR-15s and other semiautomatic rifles, rule on the legality of the aggressive tactics the Department of Homeland Security has used in its mass deportation efforts, test states’ power to police climate change, and refine the boundary between church and state.

The court has agreed to hear arguments in 27 cases this term, leaving perhaps 30 more slots to be filled.

The Trump administration has announced an appeal of a federal judge’s ruling that Congress lacks the power to bar non-citizens from casting ballots in federal elections.

Judge David Leibowitz’s decision applies only to the single criminal case before him, but stephen dinan reprots his reasoning, if it stands, could undercut dozens of criminal cases that the Trump administration has brought against non-citizens for casting ballots.

Leibowitz, a Biden appointee to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, said the Constitution gives states the authority to determine voter qualifications, and states generally bar non-citizens from voting.

The Senate race in South Carolina is so unusual this year that Democrats think they have a shot to win the seat.

Appointed Republican incumbent Sen. Darline Graham is a publicity-shy political newbie, and her campaign is causing concerns. Graham, the sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, won the nomination in a runoff in August over Rep. Ralph Norman.

The race drew fresh attention after The Trafalgar Group released a poll Sept. 26 that put Graham just 1 percentage point ahead of Annie Andrews. Roughly 6% of likely voters said they planned to vote for someone else, and nearly 9% were undecided.

Democrats have not won a Senate race in the Palmetto State since 1998.

Harvard University is facing backlash from academics and racial equity advocates for soliciting $10 million gifts to hire conservative faculty for “viewpoint diversity.” 

University President Alan Garber and Provost John Manning announced in April they would raise several hundred million dollars to fund 20 to 30 new professorships.

Campus reports and outside analysts have widely interpreted the campaign as a response to the Trump administration, which has investigated Harvard for liberal bias and cut $2.2 billion of federal funding to the university last year.

The Harvard Crimson student newspaper reported last month that 47% of the faculty it surveyed opposed the plan and just 31% agreed with it. Roughly 69% of the same faculty self-identified as “somewhat” or “very” liberal, up from 63% of participants in the same survey last year.

And finally … Ukraine is on track to produce nearly seven million small first-person-view drones this year. Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s $1.1 billion Drone Dominance program expects to have ordered fewer than 200,000 by February.

The gap has caught the attention of U.S. military planners, but addressing the difference might require more than an increase in factory capacity. 

After more than four years of high-intensity war, Ukrainian companies now operate in an environment in which battlefield feedback can reach engineers within hours, weapons can be modified in weeks and military units often have a much greater say in what is bought.

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