The Ledes

Monday, September 30, 2024

New York Times: “Kris Kristofferson, the singer and songwriter whose literary yet plain-spoken compositions infused country music with rarely heard candor and depth, and who later had a successful second career in movies, died at his home on Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday. He was 88.”

~~~ The New York Times highlights “twelve essential Kristofferson songs.”

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Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

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Monday
May052014

The Commentariat -- May 6, 2014

Internal links, graphic removed.

Suzanne Goldenberg of the Guardian: "Barack Obama has signed up for eight interviews with TV meteorologists on Tuesday to defend a landmark report against those who deny climate change. The interviews were scheduled as part of a carefully co-ordinated rollout of the National Climate Assessment. The exhaustively detailed account of the impact of climate change on America will be formally launched at the White House on Tuesday."

Conservative Justices: Free Speech for Me but Not for Thee. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "In cases raising First Amendment claims, a new study found, Justice Scalia voted to uphold the free speech rights of conservative speakers at more than triple the rate of liberal ones.... Social science calls this kind of thing 'in-group bias.' ... Lee Epstein, a political scientist and law professor who conducted the new study with two colleagues, said it showed the justices to be 'opportunistic free speech advocates.' ... The Roberts court's more liberal members 'present a more complex story,' the study found. All supported free expression more often when the speaker was liberal, but the results were statistically significant only for Justice John Paul Stevens, who retired in 2010. In the case of Justice Stephen G. Breyer, the difference was negligible." ...

... Conservative Justices: Freedom of Religion for Me but Not for Thee. Lyle Denniston of ScotusBlog: "Stopping just short of abandoning a historic barrier to religion in government activity, a deeply divided Supreme Court ruled on Monday that local governments may open their meetings with prayers that are explicitly religious and may turn out to be largely confined to expressing the beliefs of one faith." (Emphasis added.)

... what we find here is that the principal dissent's objection, in the end, is really quite niggling. -- Justice Samuel Alito, on Justice Elena Kagan's dissent, in an opinion concurring with Justice Kennedy's majority opinion in Greece v. Galloway

An accurate translation is too offensive to write. -- Constant Weader

Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "... not only did the court move the goal posts — from now on sectarian prayer will be permissible until it isn't -- but it also threw out the rule book and benched all the refs.... From now on we just do as the religious majorities say, so long as nobody is being damned or converted.... Alito and Kennedy ... [ha]ve reimagined the refusal of dissenters to either pray along or remove themselves from the room -- but in any event to stop kvetching -- as civic rudeness." ...

... Andy Borowitz: "In what legal experts are calling a landmark decision, on Monday the United States Supreme Court struck down what many believe to be the main reason the country was started. By a five-to-four vote, the Court eliminated what grade-school children have traditionally been taught was one of the key rationales for founding the United States in the first place. 'The separation of church and state has been a cornerstone of American democracy for over two hundred years,' said Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority. 'Getting rid of it was long overdue.'"

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court Monday decided once again to stay out of the legal battle over whether some states are too restrictive in issuing permits to carry a handgun outside the home. The justices without comment turned down a request to review whether New Jersey's law requiring 'justifiable need' to get a handgun permit infringes on Second Amendment rights."

Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: "The death rate in Massachusetts dropped significantly after it adopted mandatory health care coverage in 2006, a study released Monday found, offering evidence that the country's first experiment with universal coverage -- and the model for crucial parts of President Obama's health care law...." ...

... Nick Budnick of the Oregonian (Friday): "The Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened at least a preliminary inquiry into Cover Oregon.... The law enforcement arm of the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has also launched at least a preliminary inquiry into potential spillover from Cover Oregon into the state's Medicaid-funded Oregon Health Plan, The Oregonian has learned. Meanwhile, both the Government Accountability Office and the U.S. House oversight committee [that would be Darrell Issa] have announced their own investigations." ...

... Liz Kowalczyk of the Boston Globe: "Massachusetts plans to completely scrap the state's dysfunctional online health insurance website, deciding that it would be too expensive and time-consuming to fix the overwhelming number of flaws. Instead, officials will buy an off-the-shelf product used by several other states to enroll residents in health plans, while simultaneously preparing to join the federal HealthCare.gov insurance marketplace if that product fails." ...

... CW: It's hard to remain as baffled by the Healthcare.gov meltdown when you learn that state exchanges, which should be relatively easier to design, had such major fails, too. (Maryland is giving up on their system, too.) ...

... Jenna Levy of Gallup: "The uninsured rate for U.S. adults in April was 13.4%, down from 15.0% in March. This is the lowest monthly uninsured rate recorded since Gallup and Healthways began tracking it in January 2008.... This downward trend in the uninsured rate coincided with the health insurance marketplace exchanges opening in October 2013, and accelerated as the March 31 deadline to purchase health insurance coverage approached...." ...

... Reducing the number of uninsured Americans is not a goal in itself. The point of helping people get health insurance is to protect them from crippling medical bills, stabilize their finances, and give them access to health care when they need it. Raw numbers on coverage are just one indicator of progress towards that goal. But they're a pretty important one. -- Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic

Democrats bragging about the number of mandatory sign ups for Obamacare is like Germans bragging about the number of manditory [sic] sign ups for 'train rides' for Jews in the 40s. -- Tennessee State Sen. Stacey Campfield (R) ...

... Apparently this sick fuck elected official has not apologized. -- Constant Weader ...

... And he won't. Steve M. has some background on this sick fuck "obsessive-compulsive troll" elected official.

... Mark Trumbull of the Christian Science Monitor: "The American public is now evenly split in its opinion of the Affordable Care Act, an improvement in the law's standing, according to a new Christian Science Monitor/TIPP poll. Some 47 percent of American adults support the law known as Obamacare, and 47 percent are opposed, finds the poll, conducted between April 26 and May 1."

Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post: Michele Leonhart, "the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, is refusing to support a bill backed by the Obama administration that would lower the length of mandatory minimum sentences for federal drug crimes, putting her at odds with her boss Attorney General Eric Holder on one of the criminal justice reform initiatives he hopes to make a centerpiece of his legacy.... Leonhart was originally confirmed as deputy administrator of the DEA during the Bush administration in 2004, but was nominated to take over the agency by President Barack Obama over the objections of many drug policy reformers."

... The president chose his economic team, and when there was only so much time and so much money to go around, his economic team chose Wall Street instead of American families who were in trouble. -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in a HuffPost interview

... Greg Gordon of McClatchy News: "Declaring that 'there is no such thing as "too big to jail,'" Attorney General Eric Holder hinted on May 5th that the Justice Department is ready and willing to impose criminal sanctions on major banks or other financial institutions":

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "The White House has pressured the chief executives of some of America's largest energy, financial and industrial corporations into canceling plans to attend an international economic forum in Russia to be hosted by President Vladimir V. Putin this month, the latest effort to isolate Moscow in retaliation for its intervention in Ukraine."

Alex Rogers of Time: "Congressional Democrats launched a unified attack on Monday against the newly announced special House committee to investigate the Benghazi attacks as a political ploy that will waste taxpayer money, while Republicans defended the committee as a necessary next step in the investigation of a terrorist attack that killed a U.S. ambassador." ...

... ** Jane Mayer of the New Yorker: "If you compare the costs of the Reagan Administration's serial security lapses in Beirut to the costs of Benghazi, it's clear what has really deteriorated in the intervening three decades. It's not the security of American government personnel working abroad. It's the behavior of American congressmen at home." CW: A must-read.

Dean Obeidallah of the Daily Beast: "... when I first heard the outrage from some on the right to comedian Joel McHale and President Obama's jokes at the WHCD, I could only assume they were joking.... I might have more sympathy for the conservatives upset by Obama and McHale’s 'mean' jokes if I heard them denounce the truly hateful crap spewed in the past by people in their camp. Instead, we heard Rush Limbaugh's despicable comments calling Sandra Fluke a 'slut' and a 'prostitute' defended by Rick Santorum because he views Limbaugh as an 'entertainer.'" ...

... Speaking of Santorum: Let's not make this argument that we're for the blue-collar guy but we're against any minimum wage increase ever. It just makes no sense.... If the Republicans want to go out and say, 'we're against the minimum wage,' then go out and make the argument to the American public and the 80-some percent of the American public who believes we should have a minimum wage. -- Rick Santorum, in a "Morning Joe" appearance

Rick Santorum is more liberal than the vast majority of current U.S. Senators. That's heartening. -- Constant Weader ...

... AND Here's a Movie Santorum Should Watch. Tara Culp-Ressler of Think Progress: "Emily Letts, a 25-year-old abortion counselor at a clinic in New Jersey, knew that she wanted to use her own abortion story to help other woman making their own decisions about whether to end a pregnancy.... In an essay published on Cosmopolitan.com, Letts explains that she decided to film her procedure after trying and failing to find a video of a surgical abortion online.... Her video ... shows her doing some deep breathing and humming during the short procedure, as well as talking things over with the staff in the room." ...

... In her Cosmopolitian essay, Letts writes, "I had never been political about abortion rights before, but the idea of helping women through an abortion and supporting them and reassuring them that they are still wonderful and beautiful resoated deeply with me." ...

... Letts says in the video, "I just want to share my story." So we're sharing:

Annals of American "Journalism," Ctd.

To Fox "News," "Those People" All Look Alike. Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: In a story about the Korean ferry's sinking, Fox "News" aired footage of Nepalese mourning the loss of Sherpa guides in a Mount Everest avalanche.

To the New York Times, Conservatives & Liberals All Look Alike. CW: After you read Adam Liptak's story on the justices' biases, linked above, read what Steve M. has to say about the way Liptak frames the results for conservative & liberal justices. Steve is absolutely right. I had to cherrypick Liptak's story to present an accurate picture of the findings of the study he's reporting.

Jed Lewison of Daily Kos: "... numbers, pulled from every Fox transcript on Nexis for the dates in question, tells the story of what happens when it becomes clear that Obamacare is succeeding." Thanks to James S. for the link/

 

Beyond the Beltway

John Clarke of Reuters: "Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley on Monday approved a gradual hike in the state's minimum wage to $10.10 an hour as fellow Democrats seek to make raising the wage an issue ahead of this year's midterm congressional elections.... Maryland joins California, Hawaii, Connecticut and the District of Columbia in passing legislation or signing into law increases in the minimum wage."

CW: Aw, I just cain't keep up with the Bundys. Joe Schoenmann of the Las Vegas Sun: "Surrounded by reporters and supporters, Cliven Bundy's family protested peacefully in front of the Metro Police department this morning and filed criminal complaints against the federal Bureau of Land Management for assault and other alleged offenses." ...

     ... Among their complaints: BLM officers were impersonating police officers. The story by Henry Brean of the Las Vegas Review-Journal is more detailed, but I'm not citing it because the company that owns the paper is a well-known "copyright troll," "named after its practice of scouring the internet for 'violations' in order to make a profit." The Review-Journal owner loses in court, but I can't afford the nuisance suit.

It is not our practice to take crime reports on law enforcement agencies conducting a law enforcement function. In this case, the Bureau of Land Management is a recognized federal law enforcement agency. -- Las Vegas Metro police, in a statement

Mireya Navarro & Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "New York City will commit $8.2 billion in public funds to a 10-year housing plan that could transform the cityscape from Cypress Hills in Brooklyn to the shores of the Harlem River, while providing affordable homes to thousands of low- to middle-income residents, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Monday. In embracing a vision for a denser New York, the mayor intends to require, not simply encourage, developers to include affordable units in residential projects in newly rezoned areas around the city."

William Rashbaum & Susanne Craig of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have issued a grand jury subpoena seeking emails, text messages and other records from all the members of the anticorruption commission that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo abruptly shut down in March, three people briefed on the matter said on Monday. The action by prosecutors from the office of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, comes just weeks after he took the unusual step of publicly criticizing the governor's shutdown of the panel and took possession of its investigative files."

Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "An Occupy Wall Street activist is facing up to seven years in prison after being convicted by a jury in Manhattan of assaulting a New York police officer as he led her out of a protest. Cecily McMillan was on Monday afternoon found guilty of deliberately elbowing Officer Grantley Bovell in the face in March 2012. After a trial lasting more than four weeks, the jury of eight women and four men reached their verdict in about three hours." ...

... ** Molly Knefel of the Guardian: "While this is nothing new for the over-policed communities of New York City, what happened to McMillan reveals just how powerful and unrestrained a massive police force can be...."

Congressional Races

Shushannah Walshe of ABC News: "The primary season is truly upon us as North Carolina, Ohio, and Indiana host primaries today. Twenty-five states will hold primaries in the next six weeks and today's key one to watch will take us into a fight that will play out all over this country in the coming weeks: the establishment GOP vs. the Tea Party and whether the establishment can finally put down the Tea Party rebellion and re-take the Senate. We'll also watch as a possible 2016 proxy fight between Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, and even Mike Huckabee erupts in North Carolina."

Cameron Joseph of the Hill: "A slew of May primary battles begins Tuesday as the Republican establishment looks to reassert its control over a divided GOP in a number of states. Its first big test comes in North Carolina, where business-friendly GOP groups have gone all-in for House Speaker Thom Tillis as he seeks to avoid a primary election runoff and turn his focus to Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.). The race is a top priority for the GOP as it seeks to win back the Senate."

Presidential Race

Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Fearful of a third successive Democratic triumph, concerned Senate Republicans are turning against 2016 presidential bids by upstart hopefuls within their own ranks. In forceful comments to The Hill, GOP senators made it plain that they would much prefer their party nominate a current or former governor over Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Marco Rubio (Fla.) or Rand Paul (Ky.). CW: Bolton gets senators on the record arguing that senators don't make good candidates."

News Ledes

Washington Post: "An international uproar mounted Tuesday over the fate of hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by Islamist militants in mid-April, with the Obama administration preparing to send a team of specialists to Nigeria to help recover the missing girls and U.N. officials warning that the kidnappers could face arrest, prosecution and prison under international law."

Guardian: "Ukraine is close to war, the German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has warned in interviews published in four European newspapers on Tuesday. Dozens are feared to have died in clashes outside Slavyansk on Monday as Ukrainian troops clashed with pro-Russia separatists."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (11)

@P.D. Pepe: I share your disgust at the S.Ct. ruling which you expressed in yesterday's comments. The majority opinion seems to be a combination of faulty premises, wishful thinking and a willful disregard of precedent. Elena Kagan's dissent is masterful, and beautifully written. Imagine: the vote of just one justice meant that hers was the minority opinion. Elections matter.

May 5, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterVictoria D.

Attention All:

Many of us are not crazy about Hillary; however, following up on Victoria D's comment: "Elections matter!" As it was in 2008, 2012 and will be again in 2016, my mantra is just two words:
SUPREME COURT!

These fuckhead conservative Supremes are an embarrassment to our country and our history! Enough! In the 8 years beyond 2016, Hillary should have at least one, perhaps two appointments, and we can hope they will be to replace Scalia and Clarence-baby--though probably one (unfortunately) will be Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

May 6, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterKate Madison

@PD, Victoria, Kate: I share your outrage at the Taliban Five on SCOTUS. I'm afraid we're turning into a theocracy.

CW is absolutely spot on Alito's defining Kagan's dissent as "niggling." Alito's arrogance is something to behold. I wouldn't describe the dissent as "petty" or "trivial." But then I don't have a sinecure for life where I can hand my opinions from on high.

May 6, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterBarbarossa

Amy Howe of Scotusblog has an excellent "plain English" explication of the Greece decision here:
http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/05/tradition-todays-legislative-prayer-decision-in-plain-english/
And links to many other pertinent articles and commentaries here:
http://www.scotusblog.com/

May 6, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterVictoria D.

Marie,

Thanks for including the link to the No More Mister Nice Blog deconstruction of the Times piece on ideological biases of the Supremes. It saved me from a steam-coming-out-the-ears rant. As I read through the Liptak piece, it was becoming more and more obvious that he had contracted a fatal case of the "both sides bullshit" virus.

I started doing the numbers in preparation for putting Liptak on my table (fans of "Dexter" know what that means) but first scanned the rest of the day's links and happened upon Steve M's timely and necessary correction.

He's right. It's one thing to say that both sides exhibit ideological bias but another thing entirely to try to moderate the enormous gulf between them. It's like comparing states with capital punishment but toning down the differences by saying that both Texas and Virginia execute people. Except that Texas has executed over 500 prisoners since 1976, Virginia, 110. Prisoners on death row? Texas 287. Virginia 9.

But this is how so many people in this country are unable to see much light between the parties. "They both do it" also contributes mightily to voter malaise and the not so vague ennui that keeps many from the polls altogether.

It's also why most people think Republicans are much better than they really are and Democrats much worse. This is not just lazy reporting, it's intellectual cowardice.

May 6, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Victoria,

Thanks for that link.

Several things come to mind.

It's interesting how real world considerations add to the judicial calculus in Supreme Court decisions when, and only when, it suits the conservative majority. In the Greece, NY, Christian Prayer is Fine with Us decision, Justice Alito tried to puncture Justice Kagan's dissenting argument, a really quite reasonable one that would make it incumbent on town leaders to try to round up prayer commencing types from other religions, now and then, by whining that small town councils are "imprecise" and, apparently, cavalier operations that couldn't possibly be counted on for that kind of "niggling" adjustment.

Well, you know what? He's right, to an extent. Small town governments where a lot of people work part time and are short staffed can be a bit "imprecise". Funny how such real world problems didn't bother the wingnuts on the court when they gutted the Voting Rights Act, when they equated money with speech, and when they decided that Affirmative Action was a blight on the landscape. They were all about the ivory tower in those decisions.

And a word about tradition. Tradition has become an optional consideration of its own for the conservatives on the court, especially those who consider themselves to be something it's not really possible to be: originalists. (More on that later.)

Tradition is thrown overboard whenever right-wing ideology looks ready to take a body blow but called haughtily into service when it seems necessary to save the day. Generations of tradition have been ignored by this court when it suits their cause.

But when needed, they use it like a baseball bat, decrying anyone who would challenge age old traditions (like racism, maybe?) as "activists". The dirty not very secret thing about this court is that these conservatives are the most activist bunch in court history, ready to overturn or ignore decades, centuries of precedence in order to get their way.

Activists and hypocrites.

So what's next, now that, bit by bit, the wingers are carving up the body politic to resemble their vision of what America should be (white, privileged, conservative, Christian)?

The Greece decision will embolden the religious fanatics to bring case after case to the court to ensure that prayer is returned to the classroom and that Christian rules are substituted for legal statutes.

The court has blown the religious dog whistle with this decision. All bets are off. The fundies must be salivating at the idea of being able to beat people over the head with their Bibles and having the Supreme Court back them up.

Because they will.

May 6, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Don't miss the Jane Mayer New Yorker piece on the differences between Benghazi and the criminal neglect of Ronald Reagan in Beirut back in the 80's. Marie's right. It is must-read. Short and to the point.

The list of atrocities connected to Reagan is astounding in both length and breadth. No president in history, I believe, bequeathed such a legacy of malice and perfidy. His deplorable inaction in the face of imminent attacks in Beirut are similar to those a generation later by another incurious Republican vegetable, decomposing in the White House.

But no one then called for impeachment, even after the most irresponsible, criminal behavior of the Reagan administration generally, and the Gipper personally, certainly not the way wingnuts today demand impeachment hearings every time President Obama tells a joke they don't like. It's like living on a different planet.

May 6, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

@Akhilleus: What really got me about the Liptak report is that you had to read 2/3rds of the way down the "both sides do it" report to find out that the "bias" on the part of so-called liberal judges was not even statistically significant, with the exception of Justice Stevens -- a Republican appointee. Justice Souter, who figures into the study, was also a Republican appointee. Justices Kagan & Sotomayor are not even considered because they haven't ruled on enough cases yet. Justice Breyer's "bias" was "negligible," you find out way down the page. So of the sitting justices, only one Democratic appointee -- Justice Ginsburg -- showed any liberal bias at all, & that was not statistically significant.

Plus what Steve M. wrote.

But, hey, both sides do it.

Marie

May 6, 2014 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Good news for prudes!

Vlad (Breaker of Ukrainian Wimps) Putin, right-wing darling and not at all a namby-pamby from Kenya who won't drop bombs when Fox orders him to because, you know, manliness, and freedom, is making it terribly difficult to keep the likes of David Brooks from emigrating to Russia, just as fast as you can say "Dirty hippies".

It seems Daddy Vladdy has outlawed cursing, swearing, and unauthorized references to naughty bits of any kind in all Russian films and theater productions. Shades of Uncle Joe! Having spent a little time there, I can tell you that swearing in Russia is an artform that makes its use by English speakers seem abcedarian by comparison.

The banning of dirty words should make the inner Victorian prig all twitchy in the likes of Brooks and other conservatives who attribute the downfall of western civilization to premarital sex and bluish speech patterns, (and those awful gays, of course).

But if such a decree is successful in encouraging puritanical wingers to set sail for Mother Russia, all I can say is "Fuck me, why didn't we think of this a long time ago?"

No more saying khuy, pizda, ebat’, or blyad. Bad, bad, bad, says Vlad, Vlad, Vlad.

May 6, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Elizabeth Warren gave a dynamic interview on the Al Sharpton show today. I found this interchange most fascinating:
Rev Al: "Are there ANY circumstances under which you would consider running for President?"
EW: "That's not what I'm focused on now."
I would personally love to think the door is open a crack.
A Clinton/Warren ticket would be the next best thing (or perhaps, given the realities, the first best thing).

May 6, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterVictoria D.

Something to keep in mind re the Greece v Galloway decision:
The DOJ sided with Greece.
http://www.oyez.org/town-of-greece/documents/Amicus%2520United%2520States.pdf

May 6, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterVictoria D.
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