Right Turn: Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote between four conservatives and four liberals, announced that he’s going to retire, potentially giving President Trump and the Republicans a replacement appointment that will shape court decisions for decades.

On CNN analyst Jeffrey Toobin said, “You are going to see 20 states banning abortion outright — just banning abortion. Because they know that there are going to be five seats on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.” Toobin added, “Roe v. Wade is doomed. It’s gone because Donald Trump won the election.”

Roe v. Wade is the case that made abortion legal.

Kennedy, 81, was the vote that made same-sex marriage legal and in 1992 affirmed the right to have an abortion. He was the deciding vote in “Citizens United,” the opinion that unleashed unlimited corporate spending to influence elections as a matter of free speech.

Kennedy said in his resignation letter to the President that he’s leaving July 31^st, setting up a big fight. Trump is expected to name a successor who would vote to reverse many of Kennedy’s votes, particularly on the legality of abortion. Trump said he would pick from a previously identified list of 25 conservative jurists.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate should wait until after the mid-term elections to choose a successor. He’s hoping to be in the majority by then. Schumer is following the example set by Republicans leaders who refused to consider a court appointment for the last year of President Obama’s presidency. The result was that Trump was able to appoint the conservative Neil Gorsuch, swaying decisions his way.

Shot Down: The House yesterday by a vote of 301-121 turned down an immigration bill that would have provided a path to citizenship for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, as well as $25 billion for border security, including the President’s wall. Republicans are still fighting each other about how to deal with immigration.

Look for the Union Label: In a defeat for labor unions, the Supreme Court Ruled that government employees who choose not to join unions don’t have to pay fees for collective bargaining. Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority that as a matter of free speech, workers should not have to pay for something they don’t want even though they benefit from the result.

For the minority, Justice Elena Kagan wrote, “The majority overthrows a decision entrenched in this Nation’s law — and in its economic life — for over 40 years. As a result, it prevents the American people, acting through their state and local officials, from making important choices about workplace governance.”

By Appointment Only: Bill Shine, a former executive of Fox News who lost his job in the sexual harassment sweep, has been hired at the White House to replace the departed Hope Hicks as director of communications. Fox is Trump’s administrative farm team.

Crime Beat: Police arrested the brother of New York Giants cornerback Janoris Jenkins in the death of a family friend found dead in Janoris’s basement. Williams Jenkins, 34, who’s already spent seven years in prison, is charged with aggravate manslaughter. So far there are no other details about what happened or why.

Deep: A US military team and British cave experts joined the effort in northern Thailand to retrieve 12 boys and their soccer coach missing for five days inside a cave being flooded by heavy rains. Thai navy SEALs, British cave divers, and a US military team have all been inside the cave.

The Obit Page: Joe Jackson, the driven and abusive father who steered his five sons from obscurity in Gary, Ind. to international musical stardom in the 1960s as The Jackson Five, has died at age 89.

He made his sons into a sensation, but also devastated them with a disciplined regime starting when the youngest, Michael, was only about seven or eight years old. Michael, who separated from the group to become one of the biggest pop stars of all time before his death of a drug overdose, said that his father’s leadership of the family and the group was done with physical and mental abuse.

Mega Mouse: The Department of Justice approved the Walt Disney Company’s $71 billion bid for the entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox, potentially thwarting Comcast’s ability to make a competing offer for Rupert Murdoch’s entertainment empire. Yeah, we know, you don’t care because it’s about money and corporate executive egos, but your entertainment bills will go up.

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