hello, i'm richard ginsberg and you're at the listening post where we don't cover the news . we cover the way the news is covered. here are the media stories we're examining this week. user warning for activist dissidence and journalists, the world over your mobile phones may have been compromised by spyware. that one company is selling. and authoritarian governments are buying a match, made in face rockets there, billionaire payload, you said in the jeff bay. those are the news outlet for cannot get enough of the story. there is a crucial election coming up in germany, and the most widely read newspaper is building up its coverage, trying to maintain its influence and pranking anti lockdown protesters in the u. k . can you feel the hand of the new builder upon us with a fake news reporter and trolling the tabloids driving the store? it has been a week now since a global consortium of media outlets blew the lid off a huge surveillance scandal revealing how the hacking to pegasus has been used by governments around the world to spy on dissidence and journalists via their mobil

richard nixon, of course, but do they know of bebe rebozo. these unsung characters were the closest confidants of the man in the oval office. i'll talk to author gary ginsberg about his terrific new book, "first friends." >>> but first, here's my take. we're now a year and a half into the pandemic, which is enough time to start looking back and drawing real lessons, especially when comparing it to the last great jolt to the international system, the global financial crisis. did we learn any lessons from 2008? have we handled this one any better? at first glance, the comparison would seem to favor the present. about 18 months into the 2008 crisis, say by the middle of 2009, u.s. unemployment was still climbing to its highest numbers in decades. the stock market was struggling out of one of the worst collapses in history. housing foreclosures were spiraling to their worst levels ever. by contrast, today with half the population vaccinated, the american economy is roaring. growth rates rival the reagan boom. the stock market is at new highs. even wages show signs of rising. while the u.s. is doing better than most, other major industrial countries are also on

ginsberg on the supreme court. professor, welcome. you may proceed with your opening comment. >> chairman peters, ranking member portman, members of the committee, my name is richard primus. i am the collegiate professor at the university of michigan law school. i'm honored by your request that i participate in today's proceedings. i want to recognize chairman peters as my own senator and ranking member portman as a graduate of the law school which i teach. savannah greiss, rob luthman and tyler washington. the constitutionality of s-51 is straightforward. this empowers congress to admit new states subject only to the limitation that congress cannot unilaterally reconfigure existing states. s-51 would not reconfigure any existing state. it would take american territory that is not a state and make it one. that's exactly what the admission clause empowers congress to do. some say that this admission would require a constitutional amendment but the constitution doesn't say that. the constitution gives the power to admit new states to congress, not jointly to congress in the state legislatures by way of constitutional amendment. still, some americans have the intuiti