Shootings, Orphans, Roe Rampage, Alleys, Sex, Sin, Jan 6, Boris

  • Hackwhackers reports via tweets on a tragedy within a tragedy as Highland Park produces a two-year-old orphan. A Republican provides a stunning party reaction.
     
  • In two sentences, M. Bouffant at Web of Evil manages to explain how a trip to the library has changed.
     
  • CalicoJack in The Psy of Life looks at the research. Experts go back more than a quarter century, to every mass shooting on record, and interview everyone who can be interviewed. They come up with a four ingredient recipe for making mass shooters.
     
  • At The Moderate Voice traces the abortion ruling to a deeply ingrained religious tradition that regards sex other than for procreation to be sinful.
     
  • North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz says America is about to find out what happens when a small minority weaponizes the very systems designed to protect its citizenry, and that people of faith need to take stock and respond.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged suggests the self-righteousness of the self-described pro-life movement turns out to be all about self and not much about life.
     
  • SilverAppleQueen rages at Republicans over the end of Roe, but suggests we not be too eager to praise Democrats.
     
  • A protest outside a restaurant is aimed at Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The right of a SCOTUS member to eat peacefully is defended by the restaurant, indignant supporters, and a mainstream online news publication.
     
    Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez has an opinion:

  • Tommy Christopher does have to search hard to find reactions as Justice Kavanaugh is denied a peaceful restaurant dinner. Reports are he exits through the back into an alley.
     
    I agree that it is wrong to deny him, or anyone, a right to privacy. Forcing people to exercise their basic rights in back alleys is simply wrong.
     
    Infidel753 provokes an additional observation. We have seen a similar ethic during Vietnam war protests during my younger years, and examples of greater violence in more recent anti-abortion activism.

    The idea is that wrongful actions are justified because they are in opposition to a much greater evil. This is a moral self contradiction. A more minor wrong is still wrong.

    It is a tactic that lacks even the virtue of effectiveness. It alienates potential allies, and damages the cause it is intended to support. That makes it both wrong and self-indulgent.
     

  • Nojo goes to a founding document to suggest that our government has lost its legitimacy.
     
  • In the face of serious rollbacks of American rights, with more likely to come, Infidel753 urges a sense of perspective. Past problems, those we experience in history books, were more serious at the time than any we face now. Current loss, serious as it is, does not obviate the progress that remains, or the work which is still to be done.

Continue reading “Shootings, Orphans, Roe Rampage, Alleys, Sex, Sin, Jan 6, Boris”

Women’s Rights, Cassidy Sings & Stings, Tamper, Tantrum, Lynch Lunge

  • For a while, we have been told by prominent Republicans that the American public is simply not interested in anything the Jan 6 panel has to present. News Corpse has the numbers, and it turns out the latest ratings are shattering records.
     
  • In Letters from an American, noted historian Heather Cox Richardson examines the explosive, what-in-hell, earthshaking testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson the young intern that Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows included in pretty much every meeting everywhere he went in the White House.
     
    And Boy Howdy! He went a lot of places!
     
  • driftglass gets down to the one singularly critical fact in Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony.
     
  • The Propaganda Professor listens to testimony about the Jan 6 lynch mob insurrection and sees a vast coverup unravel on our screens.
     
  • Heroic young intern Cassidy Hutchinson testifies under oath that someone told her about Donald Trump throwing a tantrum when denied the chance to personally lead the lynch mob storming the Capitol. The story includes him lunging toward the steering wheel. Others confirm that was the gossip floating through and around the White House at the time. So she pretty much had to be telling the truth.
     
    It is a side detail to the critical point that the then-President of the United States was hell bent on committing treason.
     
    Tommy Christopher picks it up from there, as a couple of Secret Service agents are said to be ready to eventually testify that Trump never actually grabbed the wheel.
     
    Which means the intern was lying.
    Okay, it doesn’t mean that at all, but why let the truth interfere with a good story?
     
    And now: Oh Lordy there’s video!
    Of the Presidential vehicle with some commotion going on inside.
     
    Well-l-l…
    It’s blurry and seems ambiguous to me. At least at first glance.
     
    Is it authentic? Was it taken during the right time frame? Is it even Trump inside?
     
    For all I know it could be a Stormy Daniels fill-in performing all the frantic motion.
     
    Technology and sharper eyes might resolve things. Or some clumsy Trump denial might inadvertently confirm the gossip that Cassidy Hutchinson heard.
     
    Meanwhile, there is always the old story Bill Buckley used to tell. When accused of killing three men and a dog, the accused triumphantly produce the dog alive.
     
  • Frances Langum reacts to the newest defense of Mr. Trump. Ms. Hutchinson must be lying about what was told to her by others. The then President could not have tried to grab the steering wheel of the Presidential limo. Couldn’t have happened.
     
    Why? Because he’s too damn fat!
     
    THAT is their story and they’re sticking to it.
     
  • Andy Borowitz reports as former President Trump denies ever knowing ketchup.
     
    I especially like this fictitious quote:
    “Using ketchup is a disgrace, and it should never be allowed to happen in our country,” the former President said.
     
  • Dave Columbo channels the Secret Service denying whatever today’s revelation is about Mr. Trump:
    @davecolumbo About time we got some clarification! #democrat #politicaltiktok #democratsoftiktok #political #january6 #politicalhumor #foryou #fy #fyp ♬ original sound – Dave Columbo


     

  • Now that the dust is settling, and the important points of Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony are confirmed, the Palmer Report comes across additional reports on the Secret Service. Far from contradicting her, agents are confirming what she was told: that Mr. Trump, during a raging temper tantrum, really did lunge at the steering wheel of the limousine in which he was being driven. He was screaming orders to allow him to lead the lynch mob to hang Mike Pence.

Continue reading “Women’s Rights, Cassidy Sings & Stings, Tamper, Tantrum, Lynch Lunge”

My Apology and the 9th Amendment

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Apologies on the weekly list I enjoy compiling. There is extraordinary talent to be found on the internet.

I’m worn down.
Too many medical tests this week, with prospective surgery a month or two or a few down the path of life.

Age imposes limits that never seemed to apply in my distant youth.

But a lot is happening in our universe that cannot be ignored, even in favor of health issues.

The logic applied half a century ago in Roe v Wade is not hard to understand.

The 9th Amendment says that, just because some rights are not listed in the Constitution, it does not mean those rights are not to be protected.

Those freedoms are secured, enshrined as unenumerated rights.

The 14th Amendment says those protections apply not only to federal law, but to state and local laws as well.

This principle, that unenumerated rights must be protected, was applied in many cases.

In 1967, Loving vs Virginia became one of those cases. It involved marriage between couples of different races.

My wife and I have been married for 22 years. Had we met and gotten married as teenagers here in Missouri, our marriage would have been dissolved. She and I would have been imprisoned, presumably in separate cells, for 2 years. Interracial marriage was a felony under Section 563.240 of the Missouri Criminal Code.

The plain language of the 9th Amendment means our unenumerated right to interracial marriage has been constitutionally protected even before we found ourselves in love.

Other cases decided on the unenumerated rights covered by the 9th Amendment have included:

  • The right to birth control.
    Laws making contraception illegal were overturned.
     
  • The right of gay people to gay relationships.
    The practice of imprisoning gay people for having gay relationships was ended.
     
  • The right of gay people in love to marry each other.
    Prohibitions against gay marriage were overturned.
     
  • The right to privacy.
    Up to then, even adult heterosexual couples could be prosecuted for the wrong kind of sex. The 9th Amendment said the right to privacy would take government bureaucrats out of the bedrooms of ordinary citizens.

The logic applied this week to overturn Roe v Wade is not hard to understand.

The 9th Amendment no longer means what it says.

Those unenumerated freedoms, the ones that exist even though they are not mentioned in the Constitution, are protected, but only if they were deeply rooted in the nation’s history and traditions when the first ten Amendments were adopted in 1791.

Justice Clarence Thomas, in his concurrent opinion overturning Roe, made an obvious point. In a sense, it was a wonderfully unselfish point. He and his wife are an interracial couple whose marriage, like ours, is lawful everywhere in the US because of the 9th and 14th Amendments.

Lawful.
In every state.
In every locality.

At least for now.

Justice Thomas says the court has not gone far enough. Not yet.

Other cases decided back when the 9th Amendment meant what it says, should be reconsidered now that it means something different. The Supreme Court should consider overturning other rights.

  • The right to Birth Control
     
  • The right of gay people to gay relationships
     
  • The right of gay people in love to marry each other
     
  • The right to privacy

Justice Thomas did not mention a potential review of the rights of interracial couples.

You can’t think of everything.

Violence as a Political Way of Life

A threatening letter, one of many received by Representative Adam Kinzinger and his family, was shown on-line by the Congressman to illustrate what he and others experience every day.

Rep. Kinzinger has been the target of conservative ire ever since he voted to impeach Donald Trump for inciting an attempted coup. He is now derided as a RINO, a Republican In Name Only.

In addition to the Kinzingers, the anonymous letter specifically threatens, by name, the Kinzingers’ 5-month old baby.


One day later, here in Missouri, Senate candidate Eric Greitens released a campaign video of himself leading a crew of armed men breaking down a door and entering a home.

In the video, he urges viewers to join him in hunting down RINOs.
Presumably, RINOs like Representative Adam Kinzinger.

Such is the dark path publicly followed by some of our fellow citizens.

Juneteenth, Slavery, Const Poison, March, Gun Play, Jan 6, Equal Time

  • Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara has occasionally seemed reticent about slavery and the birth of our country. I thought his latest, a celebration of Monday’s celebration of Juneteenth was more of the same. You may be familiar with the routine:
     
    Slavery was an evil institution that we inherited, but abolished because it violated our deeply held national principles that we held dear from the very beginning.
     
    And this piece does begin just that way.
     
    He regrets, as all humanity should, that it took so long for freedom to become universal and our ideals to be firmly established.
     
    Then he ends with this pure revealed truth:
     
    But it did, finally erasing America’s most glaring birth defect.
     
    erasing? Really?
     
    Well… Perhaps close enough to provide some hope for those of us who pray for redemption for us all.
     

  • Dave Dubya documents 5 poison pills, all hidden in the US Constitution, that together threaten the better angels of our national character.
     
  • Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger has a very brief, very sad summary of human history from Victor Hugo.
     
  • North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz explains the significance of marches, their limits, and what will most probably be the most important march of our lives.
     
  • At The Moderate Voice Robert Levine covers the ongoing gun safety debate between politics and common sense.
     
  • At times, we are all astonishingly inept, some of us more than others, when confronted by tragedy. Sometimes it is because of an agenda that excuses or minimizes horror. Sometimes it is because we caught emotionally flatfooted.


    The Propaganda Professor compiles some of the worst responses to mass killings.

Continue reading “Juneteenth, Slavery, Const Poison, March, Gun Play, Jan 6, Equal Time”

Insurrection, Fox, Pardons, Arrests, Next Election, Uvalde Police, 2nd A

Best play in baseball – Best. Play. Ever:

  • Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice explains why the Fox Network did not carry the first evening of testimony live on the January 6 insurrection and will offer no live coverage next week.
     
  • I do like a good burn, even when it’s unintentional. An especially sweet neighbor complimented me on my health.
    I just hope I’m that healthy when I get to your age..
    I managed to suppress a chuckle until I was out of earshot.
     
    Tommy Christopher has a more deliberate example. Former Obama official Dan Pfeiffer explains that the Fox Network decision not to carry live coverage of the Jan 6 hearings is an example of journalistic ethics because – aw hell – click to see it.
     
  • Andy Borowitz reports that the real reason the Fox Network can’t, just can’t, cover the Jan 6 hearings is their commitment to reruns of Benghazi.
     
  • News Corpse reports that the Fox Network took unusual steps to counter the Jan 6 hearings. But the number of viewers of the initial opening Thursday night turned out to be much greater than anyone anticipated. Much, much greater.
     
  • Frances Langum examines the logic of a Fox episode that discovers an unusual reason Joe Biden must be impeached.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged considers the final day before President Trump became Citizen Trump: Why did so many Republican office holders feel they needed pardons? And why did they do whatever required pardons?
     
  • PZ Myers catches glimpses of the initial Jan 6 hearing, finds hope but, as an American, knows that when it comes to political spine any hope is false hope.
     
  • It’s speculative, but reasonably so. The Palmer Report points to the strange reaction of Mr. Trump to the testimony of daughter Ivanka and concludes the one-time most powerful individual in the world is having a complete meltdown.
     
  • In Hackwhackers Michigan Republican politics was already a mess after a host of primary candidates got disqualified because of signature fraud. Now, after someone happened to see one of the gazillion videos, one of surviving candidates just got himself arrested for his part in the Jan 6 insurrection.
     
  • Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson has little patience with anyone who participated in the that attempt to overthrow the US government:


    And I feel compelled to add to the conflagration:

  • In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson reviews the audience size, the reactions to the insurrection hearing, and the heartburn bubbling through the Republican party.
     
  • CalicoJack in The Psy of Life offers the sort of civics lesson we never considered when I was a lad: how the GOP will steal the 2022 election.
     
  • Nojo expresses a non-high opinion of the Uvalde police.
    Reminds me of Everett Dirksen, who once said he held another US Senator in minimal high esteem.

Continue reading “Insurrection, Fox, Pardons, Arrests, Next Election, Uvalde Police, 2nd A”

Celebrity Speaks of Murdered Kids: How Do GOP Politicians React?

Shootings, Thoughts & Prayers, Jan 6, 2nd Amendment, Durham Dropped

3 Powerful Minutes Worth Watching:

Continue reading “Shootings, Thoughts & Prayers, Jan 6, 2nd Amendment, Durham Dropped”

Uvalde, Police Hesitate, Both Sides, Gun Groom, Beto Terror, Miami Heat

  • For several days, news reports have had Uvalde police cowering outside the school in fear while the shooter was inside shooting little kids and their teachers. Scotties Playtime finds a new report with a new detail. It seems Uvalde police delayed federal law enforcement from going in to kill the gunman for 30 minutes. Only then did the feds decide to ignore local advice and go on in.
     
    How should this affect our perception of those local police officers?
     
    This would seem to count against police reacting in simple fear. What fear would cause them to pull federal agents back from entering?
     
    This was a peaceful community in which crime waves were on a jaywalking level. Most likely, I think, is that those in command made snap decisions based on a wrong idea of the degree of danger to those kids. Should police charge in and further endanger what they may have thought were child hostages?
     
    I confess to being a support-your-local-police kind of guy, as well as a BLM person. My opinion may change as evidence comes forth. I still see this as a reasonable reaction:


    On the other hand:

  • Legal expert Imani Gandy is unimpressed with the latest story about police hesitation:

  • Dave Dubya discovers one important commonality a whole lot of shootings share.
     
  • Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger has certainly done the historical research, coming up with a pretty long list of deadly shootings going all the way back to …well… all the way back to January.
     
    That’s a hell of a lot of violent history for not quite 5 full months.
     
  • PZ Myers runs the death-by-gun data state by state. Missouri, where I live, is not the worst, but’s it’s bad. And Professor Myers runs a timeline, finding the single event that happens to coincide with a national explosion of death. A casual reader might detect a cause-effect relationship.
     
  • tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors walks us past the gun-grooming of kids, dozens of Fox network non-safety solutions to gun violence, Ted Cruz fleeing questions, to a kid hired to drive around with his mom doing a little shopping to prove a horrific point.
     
  • Max’s Dad is the master of funny, entertaining rants. This time, he’s bitter, angry, and eloquent about the killing of infants.
     
  • North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz wishes that those who love their firearms would grow tired of people dying.
     
  • It seems Beto O’Rourke caused a bit of discomfort:

  • Dave Columbo has a funny, bitter, valid take on post-shooting press conferences
    @davecolumbo Oh the humanity #democrats #democratsoftiktok #political #politicaltiktok #politics ♬ original sound – Dave Columbo

  • Andy Borowitz reports as a shaken Greg Abbott describes the moment of terror when Beto O’Rourke talked to him.

Continue reading “Uvalde, Police Hesitate, Both Sides, Gun Groom, Beto Terror, Miami Heat”