Good morning. “Hallucinate” is Dictionary.com’s 2023 Word of the Year. No, this isn’t Burning Man. “Hallucinate” here refers to the tendency of some AI chatbots to give users completely fake answers meant to look real (otherwise known as lying).

If you’re enjoying The Elective, please send it to a friend. We all know someone who could use a bit of help in the knowledge department.

We’ve got a lot in store today:

• What the heck is the NDAA?

• The Supreme Court takes the case

• England’s huge sea monster discovery

• And much more!

Here’s today’s edition of The Elective:

 CONGRESS 

Congress attempts to legislate

Congress continually funding the government with short-term budgets (followed by more short-term budgets) has become the norm. But, for 62 years straight, they’ve somehow managed to do their jobs when it comes to passing one particular type of budget: the NDAA.

If everything works out as planned, that’s what they’ll pass this week.

What’s the NDAA?

The NDAA is the National Defense Authorization Act. Technically, it’s not a budget (or appropriations) bill. It’s an authorization bill (hence the name). Authorization bills, well, authorize the government to do certain things in certain amounts.

• The only part of the government that requires an annual auth bill is defense. That’s the NDAA.

• It sets recommended (but nonbinding) funding levels for the next fiscal year for defense programs.

• When the budget (appropriations) bill is written, those amounts can be modified if needed.

What’s the controversy?

Some members in both houses of Congress (from both parties) oppose (part of) something called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. FISA is already law. But the NDAA currently being debated has a four-month extension of a controversial part of it.

• That part, Section 702, allows the government to intercept foreign communications without warrants.

• Their issue? Some domestic conversations get caught up in it.

So what’s happening?

The Senate is likely to vote on the $886 billion NDAA, with the FISA extension, today. The House is planning its vote tomorrow. Senate leaders said Tuesday that they’re unlikely to come to a deal on Ukraine funding this year. If that’s the case, the NDAA could be the last thing they work out before January.

Thankfully, this week they were able to pass the all-important Duck Stamp Modernization Act of 2023. Whew.

Looking forward: Current short-term budgets expire in Jan. and Feb., so there’s more funding fun ahead. The trio of general funding, Ukraine funding, and Israel funding is likely to be all we hear out of Congress for the next few months (along with any provisions, like immigration, they tie into the funding bills).

 NEWS 

🏛️ Trump: The Supreme Court will decide whether former President Donald Trump can be prosecuted for alleged crimes committed while he was president. Trump and his legal team believe he's immune from prosecution. They say prosecuting the president violates the separation of powers between government branches. A lower federal court ruled the case could go forward. Trump wants to appeal that to a mid-level court (the typical process). His campaign said there's "no reason to rush" the case, and, politically, they'd prefer it get pushed back as far as possible (past the election, even). But special counsel Jack Smith (the prosecutor hired by the Attorney General specifically for this case) asked the Supreme Court to quickly make the call. And the justices agreed. No word yet on when they'll decide, but they meet next on Jan. 5.

📱 Google: Epic Games, the makers of Fortnite, won its lawsuit against Google. A federal jury in California found Google holds illegal monopoly power in the Android app market. They keep 15% to 30% of all revenue earned through Android's app store. Epic Games tried to get around that by charging users directly. Google kicked them out of the Play Store in response. Hence, the lawsuit (Epic lost a similar suit against Apple earlier this year). The judge will soon decide what Google has to do in response to the loss. Epic wants Play Store rules changed to nix Google's hold on so much of that revenue. Google will appeal the verdict.

 POLITICS 

🔴 New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu endorsed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley for president. He plans to heavily campaign for her across the state that’s elected him governor four times in a row (they love voting so much that NH elects its governors to two-year terms). The Sununu name is worth a lot in New Hampshire politics — Chris is the third Sununu elected either governor or senator. Next month’s contests in Iowa and New Hampshire will test whether endorsements like this even matter. Over in Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds is supporting the bid of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But polls still show Trump dominating in both states.

🔵 Democrats might have just picked up 2-6 congressional seats in New York. The state's highest court, bolstered by a new liberal majority, ordered the Democratic-dominated legislature to redraw its congressional map. Republicans won 11 U.S. House seats in the state last year after a previous court forced the state to use a more party-neutral map. Democrats are likely to try to draw districts that more strongly favor their candidates. Republicans vow to fight any such changes. In a twist of fate, the exact same thing recently went down in North Carolina — only in the opposite direction. Republicans are likely to gain 3-4 seats there.

⚪ A new Reuters national poll shows former President Trump beating President Biden by two points next year, 38%-36%. A whopping 26% of voters want both of them to retire (good luck with that). While the poll is, at first glance, good news for Trump, the devil is in the details: it has him losing the seven closest states from 2020 to President Biden by 4%. His national lead comes from running up the margin in states that are unlikely to be close for either candidate. That's good news for Team Biden.

 TRIVIA 

 WORLD 

🇺🇦 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited D.C. yesterday. He met with President Biden, Speaker Johnson, and Senate leadership. The visit came as a last-ditch effort to support the Biden-backed Ukraine funding bill. That aid is currently stalled in Congress, caught up in an immigration debate.

🇷🇺 Russian President Vladimir Putin kicked off his "reelection" campaign this week. The election next March is, get this, not expected to be competitive. In other news, his imprisoned political rival (Alexei Navalny) disappeared. We're sure these two events are completely unrelated.

🇺🇳 The United Nations General Assembly voted 153-10 (with 23 abstentions) to demand a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza. U.N. resolutions are not legally binding. But, according to a U.N. spokesperson, are "very important." A U.S.-backed amendment condemning Hamas was voted down.

🇮🇳 India's Supreme Court backs the government's decision to revoke the special status of the Kashmir region. It's now administered as two separate federal territories. Kashmir, claimed by both India and Pakistan, is one of the world's most heavily disputed areas. And yes, their goats make the wool in your cashmere sweater.

🇭🇺 Hungary is blocking billions in European Union aid to Ukraine. They say they'll lift the veto if the EU stops blocking billions of its own aid to...Hungary. The line between "smart negotiating tactic" and "ransom payment" isn't as clear as you'd think.

 BRIEFS 

🦖 Scientists discovered the 6-foot, 5-inch long skull of a “colossal sea monster” off England’s Jurassic Coast. The fossil belongs to a pliosaur that one researcher called "sort of like an underwater T. rex."

🤖 A congressional candidate in Pennsylvania has a new campaign volunteer: an AI named Ashley. A British tech company called Civox created the box. It calls potential voters and tailors the conversation to their specific needs. Crucially, Ashley uses a robotic voice and is upfront about being AI.

🌊 Utah's Great Salt Lake is rapidly depleting — it's shrunk by over 70% since its 1980s high. So Utah's legislature last year floated an idea to refill it with a huge pipeline from the Pacific Ocean. Now scientists at Brigham Young University are throwing cold water on that idea.

🌳 Eighteen kids in California, from ages 8 to 17, are suing the Environmental Protection Agency. They say the EPA violated their rights by failing to protect them from climate change. How do kids file lawsuits? Per the filing, "by and through" their legal guardians.

 QUOTE 

 ANSWER 

New Hampshire and Vermont use two-year gubernatorial terms. They’re alone now, but that used to be normal. In 1940, about half of states used two-year terms. Wildly, in the late 18th century, most states used terms of just one year.