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Month: June 2022

Published on 36 Comments on Prayer in public school is making a comeback

Supreme Court precedent has been clear for many years about prayer in public schools: You can't do it in any way that effectively coerces students into participating. Coaches who lead team prayers on the field are very much included in this.

Until now. So pray away, coaches. It's a new day in Supreme Court land.

Published on 137 Comments on Liberals really suck at defending abortion

Just to add to my previous notes, I've read a whole lot of pieces this weekend about how terrible Sam Alito's opinion in Dobbs is; about the misogyny of conservatives; about their ignorance of history; about the Court's lack of democratic legitimacy; about all the other rights that are certain to fall now that Roe is toast; and about bodily autonomy and how it is so in the Constitution.

I'll have more to say about this tomorrow, but what's striking to me is how bad all these columns and essays and think pieces have been. I'm not sure I've read a single one that I'd call lucid or persuasive—and that's despite the fact that my personal view of abortion is about as extreme as it's possible to have.¹

We liberals really need to get our act together. How is it that after 50 years we're apparently still not able to defend abortion in any kind of simple, convincing way that appeals to anyone who's not already on our side?

¹I'm not in favor of any limits on abortion aside from the ordinary regulation applied to any outpatient surgical procedure. In the non-surgical arena, if I had my way abortion pills would be sold over the counter. Nor do I think abortion should be a "difficult" or "agonizing" choice. A fetus isn't a human life and deserves no more legal consideration than your tonsils.² I recognize, of course, that many people disagree with me.

²This is key, and it's a demonstration of the immense polarity in our political life. Conservatives talk endlessly about how abortion snuffs out a human life. That's the whole magilla. But if you read only among liberals, you might not even know this is an issue. We simply don't talk about it.

Why? I don't know how it polls or what effect it has on most people, but it has to be addressed if we want to win the war for public opinion. There are just too many people who care about this and need to hear simple, convincing arguments that a fetus isn't a human life in any reasonable sense of the term. We're cowards if we aren't willing to take that on.

Published on 47 Comments on For moderates, the end of abortion rights should be a wake-up call

I've long had the notion that center-right voters mostly give Republicans a pass for their rhetoric. Sure, Rs say they want to abolish Social Security, ban abortion, overturn the 2020 election, deport every immigrant, and so forth, but they're just pandering to their lunatic wing. It's the price of entry to the GOP tent, but none of those things ever happen. It's nothing more than idle talk.

Well, one of these things has now happened. Republicans finally got the power to stack the Supreme Court and they did just what their lunatic wing always said they'd do: overturn Roe v. Wade and let states ban abortion. It wasn't just talk after all.

So I wonder what effect Dobbs will have on the kind of voter who checks the box for Republicans because they've always figured their bark was worse than their bite. For moderate types, it should be a wake-up call: If they get the power, Republicans will do exactly what their most extreme members have always said they'd do.

Of course, somebody might have to point this out loudly and persistently. It's too bad we don't have an opposition party ready to step up.

Published on 16 Comments on If you wear a mask, wear it above your nose

Here in my little patch of Southern California there's been a noticeable recent uptick in mask wearing. But most of that uptick consists of people wearing their masks below their noses, which makes the mask entirely useless.

I wonder what's going on. Have people forgotten that masks have to be pulled up above their noses? Or do they know, but they just aren't doing it?

Has anyone else noticed this?

Published on 109 Comments on Conservatives can’t pass a national ban on abortion

In the aftermath of the Dobbs decision, some conservatives are talking about passing a national ban on abortion. But I don't think they can do that.

The Constitution gives Congress the power to enact laws concerning certain enumerated topics: bankruptcy, immigration, terrorism, espionage, taxes, counterfeiting, and so on. Generally speaking, however, criminal law is reserved to the states. The exception is for criminal acts that specifically implicate federal interests: murdering a federal officer, for example, or robbing someone on federal property.

So could Congress enact a national ban on abortion? If they can't even pass broad laws against murder or assault, it seems unlikely. This is one reason that current federal abortion law is extremely constrained: The Hyde Amendment prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for abortions and the 2004 Unborn Victims of Violence Act applies to a subset of cases where the underlying crime is a federal offense. Broader applications might be possible using Congress's interstate commerce power—mailing pills across state lines, for example—but that's a long shot.

It's especially a long shot since Sam Alito spent about 20,000 words in Dobbs (a) talking nonstop about state law and its history, (b) giving no indication that the Constitution provides Congress any power over abortion, and (c) specifically denying that the 14th Amendment federalizes either the right or crime of abortion. As for interstate commerce, the current Court has been at pains to rein in the interstate commerce power, not expand it.

This is mere logic, of course, and conservatives on the Supreme Court can just ignore it if they want. Still, there are limits, even for these folks. They just signed onto a huge decision that, in every possible way, supports the idea that abortion is strictly a state issue, not a federal one. They'd have a hard time changing that any time soon.

POSTSCRIPT: Unfortunately, this same reasoning applies to any attempt to "codify Roe." Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think Congress can do this either. And if they did, the Supreme Court would obviously have no problem striking it down since that would be consistent with the text of Dobbs.

Published on 32 Comments on Here’s a list of corporations who have promised abortion assistance

Gathered from a variety of sources, here's a list of corporations that have promised to assist employees who live in states affected by the Supreme Court's eradication of abortion rights. The type of assistance varies, but generally includes travel costs and sometimes additional help.

If you're wondering what you can do right now to fight for abortion rights in the wake of the Dobbs decision, this is one of those things: If you have a sizeable company headquartered nearby that isn't on this list, start up a lobbying and protest movement to get them on our side. You can be sure the anti-abortion folks are already doing it.

Published on 242 Comments on Some thoughts on the judiciary

Here's a quick look at the federal judiciary as of today:

Aside from the Supreme Court, it's pretty close to 50-50 even after Mitch McConnell's four-year demolition derby. By the time Joe Biden's first term comes to an end Democrats will probably control a majority of the seats at all levels of the judiciary except the Supreme Court.

But that's the rub, isn't it? The Supreme Court. Still, I'm not sure the story of the highest court in the land is quite what most progressives think it is. Here's what's been filling up my Twitter feed today:

  • Democrats don't care as much about the judiciary. This is true, and yet judgeships are split pretty evenly despite Democrats holding the presidency for only nine of the past 21 years. Caring more doesn't really seem to matter that much.
  • Democrats aren't ruthless enough. Mitch McConnell's refusal to hold hearings for Merrick Garland was surely a new level of ruthlessness. But when Republicans continually blocked Democratic nominees in 2013, Harry Reid nuked the filibuster. I'm not so sure Democrats lack ruthlessness.
  • We have to expand the Court. Sure, except we don't have 50 votes to do it. This is just pointless jibber jabber at the moment.

Here's what I'm not hearing:

  • We need to do whatever it takes to keep control of the Senate. Like it or not, this means moderating some progressive views in order to win seats in purplish states. We don't seem willing to do that.
  • More of us should have voted for Hillary. I don't care if she doesn't quite tick all your boxes. If there had been less Hillary loathing among liberals she would have won the presidency and the Supreme Court would currently be majority Democratic.
  • We are now paying the price of not doing these things. You can carry your AR-15 openly anywhere you want. The government can't mandate COVID vaccinations in the workplace. Women in red states have lost control over their own bodies. And God only knows what's next.

So that's that. You may now all proceed to get pissed off at me.

Published on 21 Comments on Friday Cat Blogging – 24 June 2022

This is Charlie posing next to our new drapes. They are still tied up at the bottom because, apparently, we need to "set the pleats." This sounds ridiculous to me, but Marian knew all about this concept and accepted it without question. So set them we will.

Published on 18 Comments on What’s going on at the Energy Information Administration?

On Monday I wanted to find out if the price of gasoline had gone up or down, so I headed over to the EIA site. But there were problems:

Hmmm. Here is Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Also this:

Note that this is a pinned tweet, as if EIA expects it to stick around for a long time. And it will! Until Monday at least.

So what's going on? And why won't EIA tell us—aside from explaining that it's not a hack, so it must be some kind of internal fuckup? I mean, what kind of "systems" issue can bring their IT infrastructure to its knees so fully that they can't even manage to post new gasoline prices for a full week?

Published on 24 Comments on Our little gun bill is set to become law

A couple of weeks ago I said that gun regulation would never pass, but here we are: a bipartisan gun bill has passed the Senate and will pass the House today. It will then become law whenever President Biden decides to schedule a bill signing ceremony.

So Sen. Chris Murphy proved me wrong after all. Good for him! At this point, then, I guess I wonder what happened. Why did a bunch of Republicans suddenly decide to support a gun bill? It's not much of a gun bill, but that's never made a difference before. Why give Democrats a win of any size?

One possibility is that after Uvalde Republicans genuinely thought they needed something to keep middle-class suburban women in the fold, and this would do it. Or maybe they were attracted by the fact that the bill deals mostly with juveniles, who aren't exactly a big GOP constituency. Or maybe they felt like they needed a pre-election deal that proved they weren't just a bunch of obstructionists.

I don't know. Everything is a mystery these days. I feel like I don't know anything anymore.