Recent Comments

1. 41 minutes ago on Mike Luckovich

   — “I’m ‘pro-choice,’ but I don’t think the Constitution addresses the question. I agree with the Court that that the matter should be decided by the States.”

   Again, the explanation in Roe v Wade is clear, unambiguous and explicit and they do explain that, contrary to the use of the word “penumbra” in the earlier Griswold v Connecticut contraception decision, they were taking it out of the shadows and into the clear sunlight of direct Constitutional protection.

   And Constitutional rights are fundamental rights; they are not state-by-state matters any more than the right to vote could be denied based on race if a state wanted to do that.

   If you believe that a right depends on where you live, then you are not pro-choice.

   The outline the history of abortion rights in the original thirteen colonies and states to show that privacy is inherent in the meaning of being “secure in one’s person” would be understood by the Founders to include abortion (which was legal in all states until Connecticut became the first to outlaw it in 1822, 46 years after independence but prior to the Fourteenth Amendment incorporating the Bill of Rights to the states).

   Further, while it was not included in Roe, Ruth Bader Ginsburg would repeatedly also add the reasoning from the Fourteenth Amendment, since it restricts women only in a way that has never been applied to men and therefore women are denied equal protection of the law if they can be forced to use their bodies to keep pre-sentient cell tissue alive, but a man could not be forced to donate cell tissue to save the life of a fully adult, fully-sentient human who needs, say, a bone marrow transplant.

2. about 1 hour ago on Mike Luckovich

   — You misstate what I said. I did not at all concede that “the principle of ‘separate but equal’ remained a principle after Brown was handed down…”

   I said the opposite. Brown v Board of Education of Topeka is very EXPLICIT in stating that, while the specific case before them is about education and Plessy v Ferguson was about transportation, the PRINCIPLE of “separate but equal” in Plessy is EXPLICITLY overruled. And it says so by specific reference a total of TWELVE times in the decision. Yes, the application to the specific case before them is about education and not transportation, but they were very explicit in making it clear that the PRINCIPLE was clear and the “separate but equal” was inherently not possible.

   Again, the reference is explicit, specific, unambiguous and repeated numerous times in the decision.

3. about 3 hours ago on Mike Luckovich

   — Yes, you are correct. Far too many Biden accomplishments to list in a single post. Here is my selection of a few top favorites:

   BIDEN — promises made, expectations exceeded

   A few of the Biden achievements:

   • More jobs created than any other president in just his first term

   • Lower drug prices

   • Wage growth exceeds inflation

   • Capping credit card late fees and other junk fees

   • Student loan forgiveness

   • Reduced annual budget deficit every year

   • Passed first bi-partisan gun legislation in thirty years

   • Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill

   • First African American woman on Supreme Court

   • Strengthened relations with NATO and other allies

   • Lowest prolonged unemployment below 4% in more than 50 years

   • Bringing inflation down from 9% caused by Trump’s supply chain interruptions, to 3% today, and always lower than other industrialized nations.

   • Record stock market highs (currently trading at more than double what it was on the last day Trump was in office)

   • Delivered BIPARTISAN BORDER BILL before Trump ordered it blocked and obstructed so he could keep his top wedge issue unsolved and run on a problem that exists solely because of Trump.

   And Biden achieved all of this despite unprecedented Republican obstruction and despite having literally the narrowest possible Senate majority (50-50 in his first two years) and a vice president who set the all-time record for most tie-breaking votes in all of U.S. history.

   In contrast, Trump only achieved death, destruction and devastation. Build a wall? Zippo. Infrastructure week — promised every week but nothing happened until Biden got it done. Bigger, better healthcare? Nuthin until Biden added more safeguards to Obamacare and lowered drug prices. Inflation? Fallout from Trump’s economic collapse; Biden brought it down to 3% but the base Trump prices still cause financial hardship.

4. about 3 hours ago on Mike Luckovich

   — You are demonstrating that you either did not read or did not understand what I actually said, or what is in the decision of Roe v Wade.

   I specifically noted that the concept of a “penumbra” of privacy was what was decided in the earlier contraception case , not Roe.

   In Roe the justices stated in a 7-2 split that, no, it was not a “penumbra,” but that the Fourth, Fifth and Tenth Amendments taken together create an explicit right of privacy, even if it does not specifically use that exact word, which is applied to the states through the Incorporation Doctrine of the Fourteenth Amendment.

   How can a woman be “secure in her person” (as protected by the Fourth Amendment) if the state assumes the power to make medical decisions for her, but not for men?

5. about 3 hours ago on Mike Luckovich

   — No, it is EXPLICIT. It specifically states on the very first page of the decision in Brown v Board of Education of Topeka that “The ‘separate but equal’ doctrine adopted in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, has no place in the field of public education.” P. 495.

   The decision EXPLICITLY refers to voiding the principle of “separate but equal” in Plessy TWELVE TIMES. The Court does note that Plessy is about transportation while Brown is about education, and notes that the decision specifically applies to education because that is the specific issue before the Court, but EXPLICITLY makes very clear that the principle of “separate but equal” is, itself, anathema to the Fourteenth Amendment. Additional cases regarding other subjects have, indeed, been brought and the Court has repeatedly reinforced the EXPLICIT point that the PRINCIPLE applies to any attempt at “separate but equal.”

   The constitution gives the Court the power to only to decide cases in controversy before it. The Court is supposed to only decide the specific question before it, even though (as Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse repeatedly points out) the current rogue court does make rulings far broader than what is necessary to decide the current case (for example, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, it was not necessary to overrule Roe as Chief Justice Roberts noted in his separate concurrence in the decision but not the logic; the Mississippi law only set the standard of 15 weeks, it did not outlaw abortion altogether, so that was all they had to decide).

6. about 5 hours ago on Mike Luckovich

   — Roe v Wade cites the Fourth, Fifth and Tenth Amendment to assert an implicit right of privacy, expanding on the earlier ruling in Griswold v Connecticut that cited a “penumbra” of privacy in voiding laws against contraception. The first Ten Amendments, the Bill of Rights, were limitations on the federal government only, but the first paragraph of the Fourteenth Amendment applied them to the states via what is known as the “Incorporation Doctrine.”

   Most states had outlawed abortion prior to passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, so a right of privacy was not in force at the state level at the time those laws were enacted and no one had subsequently brought a challenge to the Supreme Court until Gloria Allred (attorney) took the case to the Supreme Court for Norma McCorvey (alias “Roe”).

   The seven justice voting for the right of privacy (7-2, not even close) included all Republicans, including three appointed by Nixon, one of whom wrote the decision, cited personal freedom and liberty rights, and noted that abortion had been legal up to 20 weeks in all thirteen colonies and all original states under British Common Law until 1822, when Connecticut became the first to outlaw it. At the time of the Founders, THAT was that privacy standard that was known and should be applied.

   Further, as Ruth Bader Ginsburg (who was not yet on the Court when Roe was decided) frequently noted, the Fourteenth Amendment requirement of “equal protection” should laws against abortion require only women to use their physical bodies to keep another organism alive and there is no analogous requirement for men; you can’t even require a man who is a perfect genetic match (say, an identical twin) to be a live tissue donor if he doesn’t agree. You can’t even remove organs for transplant from a person who has died without written consent. Equal protection? Women have fewer rights than corpses if abortion is outlawed.

7. about 5 hours ago on Mike Luckovich

   — Thurgood Marshall (head of the NAACP legal fund at that time) had a careful strategy of a series of lawsuits NOT challenging Plessy v Ferguson directly but, as you noted, documenting that in each case there was separation but not equality. He was laying a careful pattern, and by the time he got to 1954 and Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, he was ready to present his argument that Plessy was wrongly decided and that separate was inherently and always unequal and therefore in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Brown DID explicitly overturn Plessy.

8. about 16 hours ago on Mike Luckovich

   — Yes, when Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic collapsed the equities markets (stocks and bonds) and exploded unemployment, many economists noted that it was the worst unemployment since 1982, when Reagan was president.

   Policies of Carter-appointee Paul Volcker’s Federal Reserve drove down interest and inflation, which is what the Fed handles, and which Reagan took credit for, though policies of a president have virtually nothing to do with those factors.

   Factors that affect unemployment and market stability are fully under the president’s authority, and those are the ones that collapsed under Reagan.

   And just a few months after Reagan replaced Carter’s Volcker with top Ayn Rand advisor Alan Greenspan (trivia note: husband of NBC’s Andrea Mitchell), the stock market collapsed in the largest crash since the Great Depression.

   The smiles and sunshine of Uncle Ronnie were an illusion.

   The doom and gloom and apocalyptic threats of Dirty Don the Drowsy Dozing Con are real.

9. about 17 hours ago on Mike Luckovich

   Jimmy Carter’s Fed Chair appointee Paul Volcker, arguably the greatest Fed Chair in history, who died in 2019 at the age of 92, was also a senior financial advisor (emeritus) to President Obama, under whom we also saw the reversal from failed Bush 2008 economic collapse to a successful economic recovery and rebound, despite unprecedented obstruction.

   Another often overlooked success of Jimmy Carter was his recognition of the glaring lack of gender balance in the federal judiciary. He made a conscious effort to appoint talented, qualified women to federal judgeships, and appointed hundreds of women to be federal judges. While Carter never had the chance to fill a Supreme Court vacancy, one of the women he appointed to the federal bench did go onto a later appointment to the high court by Bill Clinton — the “Notorious RBG” — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, appointed as a federal judge by Jimmy Carter.

10. about 17 hours ago on Mike Luckovich

    Compare and contrast:

    Jimmy Carter — one of the most (if not THE most) honorable and decent human beings to ever serve in the presidency, and a great president, one of the mot (if not THE most) underrated, as well. A life well lived; a presidency underrated and unappreciated, a love story unrivaled, a post-presidency unparalleled.

    Donald Trump — the absolute worst human being and worst president in U.S. history by any objective measure.

    Beyond his Nobel Peace Prize-winning foreign policy in brokering peace between Israel and Egypt (which has remained solid since 1978), his domestic policy successes are greatly underestimated.

    The insidious Reagan campaign of 1980 and his famous “misery index” was extremely dishonest and disingenuous. Reagan’s “misery index,” which he pinned on Carter, combined the interest rate indexes and inflation rate indexes. Both of those elements are controlled more directly by the Federal Reserve, not the presidency.

    What too many forget is that Jimmy Carter inherited rapidly increasing interest and inflation rates from Nixon and Ford (remember Nixon’s wage and price controls? Ford’s pathetic “Whip Inflation Now — WIN” buttons?), under the Fed Chair Arthur Burns who had been APPOINTED BY NIXON.

    Jimmy Carter, IN HIS LAST YEAR AS PRESIDENT, appointed Paul Volcker as Fed Chair, who served until 1987, when he was replaced by self-described Ayn Rand disciple Alan Greenspan (trivia note: also husband of NBC foreign correspondent Andrea Mitchell) and just a few months later we had the stock market crash of October 1987.

    It was the Fed policies of Paul Volcker, APPOINTED BY JIMMY CARTER, just before he left office, and who served through much of Reagan’s presidency, that took effect through most of the Reagan years and brought down interest and inflation rates that Reagan shamefully took credit for.