The late John Paul Stevens was there when Babe Ruth did, or did not, call his shot in the 1932 World Series.

John Paul Stevens has died, and coverage of his passing is rightly focused on his Supreme Court tenure. But the drop-dead incredible thing about Stevens -- as sportswriter Dave Zirin pointed out immediately upon hearing about Stevens' death -- is that he almost certainly was the last living witness to Babe Ruth's alleged called shot in 1932.

It boggles the mind of a baseball fan.

Stevens lived long enough to witness the Cubs winning the 2016 World Series and ending a championship drought that predated him by more than a decade. He said he experienced October anguish up close as a child: in 1929, when he attended Game 1 of that Fall Classic at Wrigley Field, and in 1932, when he was on hand for Game 3, aka the day Babe Ruth called his shot. The Cubs lost both games. He recounted those visits in this Chicago Tribune article.

Speaking of which, I missed news of the death in March of Ruth's last surviving daughter. Ironically, her married name was Stevens.

Back to Justice Stevens, and Charlie Pierce calls this shot.

John Paul Stevens Saw What Was Coming, by Charles P. Pierce (Esquire)

The retired Supreme Court Justice is dead at 99 years old.

It can be argued, and convincingly, too, that things began to go sideways in this country on December 12, 2000, when the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the case of Bush v. Gore, which handed the presidency to George W. Bush. In his dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens saw it coming.

What must underlie petitioners’ entire federal assault on the Florida election procedures is an unstated lack of confidence in the impartiality and capacity of the state judges who would make the critical decisions if the vote count were to proceed. Otherwise, their position is wholly without merit. The endorsement of that position by the majority of this Court can only lend credence to the most cynical appraisal of the work of judges throughout the land. It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law. Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today’s decision. One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.

This part sounds important, too.

He was a Republican judge, appointed by an unelected Republican president, who lived long enough and served long enough to become the leader of what became the liberal wing of the Supreme Court. How much did things change over his 35 years on the Supreme Court? Appearing with Rachel Maddow on Tuesday night, longtime Supreme Court chronicler Linda Greenhouse pointed out that Stevens was the first Supreme Court justice confirmed after Roe v. Wade was decided and, not only were his confirmation hearings not televised, but Stevens was not asked a single question about abortion.

Howard Zinn: "Let us not be disconsolate over the increasing control of the court system by the right wing. The courts have never been on the side of justice."

As a prelude to the Dred Scott Decision Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation drama, our own Dan Canon took to Salon to pour acid on the situation.

I too am savagely impartial and should be a Supreme Court Justice

Brett Kavanaugh’s WSJ op-ed has made me see the light. I too can be indifferent in court!

I was moved by Judge Brett Kavanaugh's opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal last night. After all, he is a white, straight, middle-aged male lawyer, just like me. He's also a father, a son, a nephew, a cousin, probably a second cousin, perhaps even a godfather or a dutch uncle or something. And like me, he enjoys beer. Not plebeian beer, I bet; just the good stuff. We have a lot in common.

Sure, I didn't go to Yale or Harvard or Georgetown, and I barely even passed the bar, but yet I feel a close kinship to the judge for one major reason: we are both fiercely impartial. In fact, I would go so far as to say that (with all due respect) I am even more impartial than Judge Kavanaugh. And it is my commitment to extreme, nonpartisan, militant impartiality that leads me to believe that I am at least equally qualified to serve on the Supreme Court. If Kavanaugh's nomination peters out (and I do not mean that as a joke, though I concede it was an unfortunate choice of words in this context), or if, God forbid, some other deistic guardian of neutrality on the High Court should die or retire, I would accept President Trump's nomination ...

Ouch. 

As usual, Howard Zinn is on target even though he's dead. This article was published on October 21, 2005 and is reprinted here in its entirety.

Local dilettantish progressives, please read it. 

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Howard Zinn: Don’t Despair about the Supreme Court, by Howard Zinn (Progressive)

It would be naive to depend on the Supreme Court to defend the rights of poor people, women, people of color, dissenters of all kinds.

John Roberts sailed through his confirmation hearings as the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, with enthusiastic Republican support, and a few weak mutterings of opposition by the Democrats. Then, after the far right deemed Harriet Miers insufficiently doctrinaire, Bush nominated arch conservative Samuel Alito to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. This has caused a certain consternation among people we affectionately term "the left."

I can understand that sinking feeling. Even listening to pieces of Roberts's confirmation hearings was enough to induce despair: the joking with the candidate, the obvious signs that, whether Democrats or Republicans, these are all members of the same exclusive club. Roberts's proper "credentials," his "nice guy" demeanor, his insistence to the Judiciary Committee that he is not an "ideologue" (can you imagine anyone, even Robert Bork or Dick Cheney, admitting that he is an "ideologue"?) were clearly more important than his views on equality, justice, the rights of defendants, the war powers of the President.

At one point in the hearings, The New York Times reported, Roberts "summed up his philosophy." He had been asked, "Are you going to be on the side of the little guy?" (Would any candidate admit that he was on the side of "the big guy"? Presumably serious "hearings" bring out idiot questions.)

Roberts replied: "If the Constitution says that the little guy should win, the little guy's going to win in court before me. But if the Constitution says that the big guy should win, well, then the big guy's going to win, because my obligation is to the Constitution."

If the Constitution is the holy test, then a justice should abide by its provision in Article VI that not only the Constitution itself but "all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the Supreme Law of the Land." This includes the Geneva Convention of 1949, which the United States signed, and which insists that prisoners of war must be granted the rights of due process.

A district court judge in 2004 ruled that the detainees held in Guantanamo for years without trial were protected by the Geneva Convention and deserved due process. Roberts and two colleagues on the Court of Appeals overruled this.

There is enormous hypocrisy surrounding the pious veneration of the Constitution and "the rule of law." The Constitution, like the Bible, is infinitely flexible and is used to serve the political needs of the moment. When the country was in economic crisis and turmoil in the Thirties and capitalism needed to be saved from the anger of the poor and hungry and unemployed, the Supreme Court was willing to stretch to infinity the constitutional right of Congress to regulate interstate commerce. It decided that the national government, desperate to regulate farm production, could tell a family farmer what to grow on his tiny piece of land.

When the Constitution gets in the way of a war, it is ignored. When the Supreme Court was faced, during Vietnam, with a suit by soldiers refusing to go, claiming that there had been no declaration of war by Congress, as the Constitution required, the soldiers could not get four Supreme Court justices to agree to even hear the case. When, during World War I, Congress ignored the First Amendment's right to free speech by passing legislation to prohibit criticism of the war, the imprisonment of dissenters under this law was upheld unanimously by the Supreme Court, which included two presumably liberal and learned justices: Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis Brandeis.

It would be naive to depend on the Supreme Court to defend the rights of poor people, women, people of color, dissenters of all kinds. Those rights only come alive when citizens organize, protest, demonstrate, strike, boycott, rebel, and violate the law in order to uphold justice.

It would be naive to depend on the Supreme Court to defend the rights of poor people, women, people of color, dissenters of all kinds. Those rights only come alive when citizens organize, protest, demonstrate, strike, boycott, rebel, and violate the law in order to uphold justice.

The distinction between law and justice is ignored by all those Senators--Democrats and Republicans--who solemnly invoke as their highest concern "the rule of law." The law can be just; it can be unjust. It does not deserve to inherit the ultimate authority of the divine right of the king.

The Constitution gave no rights to working people: no right to work less than twelve hours a day, no right to a living wage, no right to safe working conditions. Workers had to organize, go on strike, defy the law, the courts, the police, create a great movement which won the eight-hour day, and caused such commotion that Congress was forced to pass a minimum wage law, and Social Security, and unemployment insurance.

The Brown decision on school desegregation did not come from a sudden realization of the Supreme Court that this is what the Fourteenth Amendment called for. After all, it was the same Fourteenth Amendment that had been cited in the Plessy case upholding racial segregation. It was the initiative of brave families in the South--along with the fear by the government, obsessed with the Cold War, that it was losing the hearts and minds of colored people all over the world--that brought a sudden enlightenment to the Court.

The Supreme Court in 1883 had interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment so that nongovernmental institutions hotels, restaurants, etc.-could bar black people. But after the sit-ins and arrests of thousands of black people in the South in the early Sixties, the right to public accommodations was quietly given constitutional sanction in 1964 by the Court. It now interpreted the interstate commerce clause, whose wording had not changed since 1787, to mean that places of public accommodation could be regulated by Congressional action and be prohibited from discriminating.

Soon this would include barbershops, and I suggest it takes an ingenious interpretation to include barbershops in interstate commerce.

The right of a woman to an abortion did not depend on the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. It was won before that decision, all over the country, by grassroots agitation that forced states to recognize the right. If the American people, who by a great majority favor that right, insist on it, act on it, no Supreme Court decision can take it away.

The rights of working people, of women, of black people have not depended on decisions of the courts. Like the other branches of the political system, the courts have recognized these rights only after citizens have engaged in direct action powerful enough to win these rights for themselves.

This is not to say that we should ignore the courts or the electoral campaigns. It can be useful to get one person rather than another on the Supreme Court, or in the Presidency, or in Congress. The courts, win or lose, can be used to dramatize issues.

On St. Patrick's Day, 2003, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, four anti-war activists poured their own blood around the vestibule of a military recruiting center near Ithaca, New York, and were arrested. Charged in state court with criminal mischief and trespassing (charges well suited to the American invaders of a certain Mideastern country), the St. Patrick's Four spoke their hearts to the jury. Peter DeMott, a Vietnam veteran, described the brutality of war. Danny Burns explained why invading Iraq would violate the U.N. Charter, a treaty signed by the United States. Clare Grady spoke of her moral obligations as a Christian. Teresa Grady spoke to the jury as a mother, telling them that women and children were the chief victims of war, and that she cared about the children of Iraq. Nine of the twelve jurors voted to acquit them, and the judge declared a hung jury. (When the federal government retried them on felony conspiracy charges, a jury in September acquitted them of those and convicted them on lesser charges.)

Still, knowing the nature of the political and judicial system of this country, its inherent bias against the poor, against people of color, against dissidents, we cannot become dependent on the courts, or on our political leadership. Our culture--the media, the educational system--tries to crowd out of our political consciousness everything except who will be elected President and who will be on the Supreme Court, as if these are the most important decisions we make. They are not. They deflect us from the most important job citizens have, which is to bring democracy alive by organizing, protesting, engaging in acts of civil disobedience that shake up the system. That is why Cindy Sheehan's dramatic stand in Crawford, Texas, leading to 1,600 anti-war vigils around the country, involving 100,000 people, is more crucial to the future of American democracy than the mock hearings on Justice Roberts or the ones to come on Judge Alito.

That is why the St. Patrick's Four need to be supported and emulated. That is why the GIs refusing to return to Iraq, the families of soldiers calling for withdrawal from the war, are so important.

That is why the huge peace march in Washington on September 24 bodes well.

Let us not be disconsolate over the increasing control of the court system by the right wing.

The courts have never been on the side of justice, only moving a few degrees one way or the other, unless pushed by the people. Those words engraved in the marble of the Supreme Court, "Equal Justice Before the Law," have always been a sham.

No Supreme Court, liberal or conservative, will stop the war in Iraq, or redistribute the wealth of this country, or establish free medical care for every human being. Such fundamental change will depend, the experience of the past suggests, on the actions of an aroused citizenry, demanding that the promise of the Declaration of Independence--an equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--be fulfilled.

Your smack talk about Colin Kaepernick contrasts with "perhaps the greatest defense of freedom of expression ever formulated by a Supreme Court Justice."

Time for some learnin', thanks to a recommendation by Stephen. After all, Brain Injury Ball need not be damaging to your OWN noggin.

COLIN KAEPERNICK AND A LANDMARK SUPREME COURT CASE, by Jeffrey Toobin (New Yorker)

The decision by Colin Kaepernick, a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, first to sit and then to kneel, rather than stand, during the national anthem before his team’s games has set off a national debate. The 49ers grudgingly supported his right to protest against the ritual, and other players have now joined him, while some politicians, like Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas, have denounced the defiant, if silent, gestures. The best answer to the anthem conundrum, however, can be found in the most eloquent opinion in the history of the Supreme Court.

And a concurring opinion: Kaepernick has made his fellow Americans think about what they’re standing for, and why.

"Birth control and Obamacare: A pious hijacking at the Supreme Court."

The last paragraph is the clincher, but you'll have to click through to read it because I'm no human spoiler alert.

Birth control and Obamacare: A pious hijacking at the Supreme Court (The Economist)

 ... Think for a moment about what it means to “hijack” something. The first example that comes to mind is not an insurance plan but a plane that nefarious passengers commandeer for sinister purposes. A “carjacking”, similarly, involves jumping into someone else’s vehicle and stealing it. Any form of hijacking is marked by violently wresting property from its legitimate owner. And here is where Mr Clement’s metaphor breaks down. When the government arranges for contraceptive coverage with the insurance company used by the religious charity, it is not commandeering anybody’s property. Nor is it taking metaphorical control of the group’s health insurance plan. Instead, the government is seeking to fulfil Obamacare’s near-universal guarantee to female employees by working with the same insurance company or third-party plan administrator that provides the rest of the employee’s health benefits. Neither the insurance company nor the plan is the property of the religious charity: Aetna is not a wholly owned subsidiary of Catholic Charities. The non-profit and the insurer are independent entities. When a school brings a child to a playground that his parents (for some reason) opt to avoid, the teachers are not “hijacking” the swingset. They are using a resource for the child’s benefit. The parents may be displeased about the school trip to the forbidden playground, but any complaint they raise would necessarily have a paternalistic flavour. Employers do not have such a role vis-a-vis their employees.

R.I.P. Antonin Scalia.

Whether your view of Justice Antonin Scalia is good, bad or indifferent, Justice Scalia himself likely would have paused only briefly in acknowledging his own passing, before commenting with erudition and lucidity on the dynamic of selecting his replacement.

To me, what happens next is relatively simple. It is President Obama's job to nominate a replacement, and the opposition party's prerogative to concur, block or delay the appointment. That's it, and most of what I've heard coming out of mouths seated on both sides of the aisle is forgettable, akin to trash talk on an athletic field. There is a process. It will play out. There may or may not be electoral ramifications. So it goes.

Meanwhile, a few bits of media coverage, for posterity's sake.

As usual, The Onion scores early and often.  

Obama Compiles Shortlist Of Gay, Transsexual Abortion Doctors To Replace Scalia (The Onion)

WASHINGTON—Moving quickly to begin the process of filling the unexpected vacancy on the Supreme Court bench, President Obama spent much of the weekend compiling a shortlist of gay, transsexual abortion doctors to replace the late Antonin Scalia, White House sources confirmed Monday.

Charlie Pierce has an outstanding idea.

A Solution to the Chaos Surrounding the Next Supreme Court Nominee ... Embrace the shitshow, my friends, by Charles P. Pierce (Esquire)

I am all-in for total chaos on this whole Supreme Court thing.

If the Republicans are going to invent a new constitutional tradition on the fly, I say the Republic is best served by making them choke on it. Already, Steve M. is pointing out the shitstorm that would break if the president were to nominate Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Mountaineer Mike Tomasky has an interesting suggestion regarding a brilliant young jurist who also would put the GOP deeper in the ha'penny place as regards Hispanic voters. Good. All good. But let me suggest a name as well.

Anita Hill.

In darker territory ...

About that Scalia quote on executing the innocent (A Public Defender)

He didn’t say what’s being attributed to him; he said something far worse.

Finally, what I personally believe to be true. To me, it was not a sign of strength that Republican leaders began public vows of yet another fight over someone's dead body, this time with respect to Justice Scalia's replacement.

Rather, it belies deepening weakness and the party's impending implosion. I may be the only leftist saying this, but I believe even Mitch McConnell will come to see the error of obstruction in this election year... and quickly.

If Republicans block Obama’s Supreme Court nomination, he wins anyway, by Linda Hirshman (Washington Post)

... By Saturday evening, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had already said the vacancy shouldn’t be filled until the next president is in office, 11 months from now. “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court justice,” he said. “Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”

But the GOP might soon reconsider if they see the implications of refusing to allow Obama to replace Scalia: A divided court leaves lower court rulings in place. And the lower courts are blue.

SCOTUS: "Exclusionary housing practices that result in adverse racial segregation are unconstitutional."

Those "other" Supreme Court rulings overshadowed this one.

The Supreme Court Keeps the Fair Housing Law Effective, by the Editorial Board of the New York Times

 ... Explicit, legally sanctioned racial segregation in housing may be over, Justice Kennedy wrote, but “its vestiges remain today, intertwined with the country’s economic and social life.” From discriminatory lending practices to zoning laws that favor higher-income home buyers, persistent patterns work to hurt minorities and other vulnerable groups the law was written to protect.

At City Lab, the crux of it.

The question at the heart of the Supreme Court’s decision in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project was whether Texas could concentrate low-income housing tax credits in poorer minority neighborhoods—away from wealthier white neighborhoods. The answer is no: Exclusionary housing practices that result in adverse racial segregation are unconstitutional.

In a city like New Albany where virtually every resident has an opinion about sewers, public housing or both, it's hard to see how this does not pertain to us, and yet the topic remains divorced from public discussion.

$20 million on parks.

Housing? Pins drop and crickets chirp.

Wealth Doesn't Trickle Down, But the Effects of Housing Discrimination Do, by Kriston Capps (City Lab)

From 1990 to 2010, wealth has accumulated in ever-richer neighborhoods, thanks in part to exclusionary housing practices.

The opinion with the greatest impact from the Supreme Court’s latest term may very well be the case that decided the future of fair housing. The Court’s decision last week in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project affirms that it is unconstitutional to set housing policies that discriminate implicitly against a protected minority.

This decision is as wide reaching as the court’s mandates on healthcare and marriage equality, yet its impact can be harder to understand. That’s because economic stratification and racial segregation have been built into our neighborhoods over the course of many years, even decades.

This one's worth a good joyful, soulful cry.

Now, back to work.

That other Supreme Court opinion: The Fair Housing Act of 1968.

We're all waiting for the other ruling, but this one's important.

The Supreme Court Keeps the Fair Housing Law Effective, by the editorial board of the New York Times

Housing discrimination doesn’t have to be intentional to be illegal. That is the point of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Thursday interpreting the Fair Housing Act of 1968 in accord with clear congressional intent, and preserving a well-established and critical tool in the long-running battle to ensure a more integrated society.

NAC Reader Comments 1: "The US Government has no list of 'legitimate' religions."

Referring to our post on June 2, Prayer duly restored, the Ayatollah Coffey will now decide whether your religion deserves his stamp of approval, reader W takes issue with Dan Coffey's insistence that only "legitimate" religions can offer invocations before council.

Looks like I need to bone up on my atheistic scripture ... or find a Druid.

"Coffey disagreed, as he said the U.S. Supreme Court ruling assures that a church has to be deemed as a legitimate institution before it can push for inclusion in public prayer during a meeting."

I've just read the Supreme Court ruling, including Parts II and II-B.

There is no mention in the ruling that a church must be "deemed as a legitimate institution" before it can be included in public prayer.

The US Government has no list of "legitimate religions." There's this document called the Constitution which specifically forbids a government list of "official" religions.

Councilman Coffey could be opening a huge can of worms for Council prayer if he insists on allowing only "officially recognized" religions. The only such US list that exists is the list of religious emblems of faith allowed on US Veteran headstones.

The list of religions "officially recognized" by a US government agency include Wicca, Eckanar, The Hammer of Thor, and yes, Atheist.

"The Here and Now of Same-Sex Marriage."

It was educational and entertaining to read Joe Dunman's and Dan Canon's tweets yesterday, as SCOTUS heard oral arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges.

Commentary abounds, but I think this one summarizes the situation.

The Here and Now of Same-Sex Marriage, by Amy Davidson (New Yorker)

Why now? And why are we the ones who should make the decision? Those were the questions that the four conservative Justices on the Supreme Court and, to an extent, the presumed swing voter, Anthony Kennedy, asked early on in the oral arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges, a case that has the potential to establish a constitutional right to same-sex marriage in all fifty states. Both questions, though, were overtaken by third: What about the children? And, in debating that, at the end of two and a half hours of back and forth, it sounded like marriage equality was headed for a win ...

SCOTUS Friday: "Historic day for gay rights?"

It was one of my favorite stories from last year.

Pence takes to his bunker as Indiana's gay marriage ban is ruled to be unconstitutional.

More recently, IL's Joe Dunman set the stage for SCOTUS.

Dunman: "Supreme Court should approach same-sex marriage issue from a contemporary constitutional perspective."

Now we'll see.

Conceivable outcomes causing the Pence Shirts to squirm are the best ones, aren't they?

Historic day for gay rights?, by Lyle Denniston (National Constitution Center)

Sometime Friday, probably before noon, the Supreme Court is due to have a conversation about gay rights, discussing whether to open what could be the final judicial chapter on same-sex marriage. The Justices will not be deciding that question; rather, the issue before them tomorrow is whether it is now time to decide.

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Satanic Temple, the Supreme Court and government-sanctioned religion.

Touched by His Noodly Appendage

While I wouldn't "join" the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster any more quickly than the various other religions, pastafarianism might become a key element of my plans for New Albanian religious tolerance as a key element of beer tourism.

But hold the tomatoes. I prefer white clam sauce with my pasta, please, and the real point of the essay linked here is whether the Satanic Temple counts, too.

Devil’s Advocates, by Mark Joseph Stern (Slate)

Thanks to conservative Supreme Court rulings, the government must support the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Satanic Temple.

When Rosenberger first came down, many liberals bemoaned it as a loophole through which Christians could obtain more government funding. It may well be—but it’s also the Satanic Temple’s best shot at getting its display in the Florida Capitol. State officials claim that, because they were generous enough to open up the space to religious groups in the first place, they retain the final authority over who gets to display what. Rosenberger says: absolutely not. If officials didn’t want the Satanic Temple erecting a display in the capitol rotunda, they shouldn’t have let religious groups in in the first place. Now that they’ve opened the gates, they have no right to stop the stampede.

"The lesson to learn from Hobby Lobby is that employers shouldn’t be in the business of providing health care to their employees."

Word.

Opinion: Hobby Lobby makes the case for single payer health care, by Joe Dunman (Insider Louisville)

... The U.S. government already provides health care to the elderly through Medicare. There is no legal hurdle to expanding that system to include everyone in the country. Extending it to all Americans would not violate the U.S. Constitution, since the federal government enjoys broad power to “provide for the general welfare” under the Taxing and Spending Clause. And the Hobby Lobby decision itself notes that the government can pick up the slack on contraception if corporations like Hobby Lobby refuse to do so.

The only hurdle to Medicare for All is politics. Though some form of a universal, single payer system has long been successful in every other advanced nation (such as Canada, Japan, England, Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, etc.), both major American political parties are opposed. Universal single payer enjoys widespread support among the Democratic base, but President Obama made no serious push for it and embraced instead what can only be fairly characterized as a Band-Aid on the existing private insurance system, which consistently trails our international peers.

"Raw abuse of power?" Why, that's the Republican way.

Isn't that right, Commissioners Bush and Seabrook?

I'd ask Keith Henderson what he thinks, except he's amid the cedars of Lebanon, up Boone County way, Groucho mask in hand, preparing to conduct the shadow prosecution in the Third Time Lucky case.

Not really. He's convening a grand jury in pursuit of missing information. It is unclear whether Dan Coffey will accept company in pursuit.

I'm sure powerhouse GOP chairman Dave Matthews much appreciates the Supreme Court's appeasement of Southerners perpetually re-fighting the Civil War a full 150 years after Gettysburg, with the ostensible topic this time being voting rights.

Todays SCOTUS rulings on same sex marriage cases have churchgoers nationwide biting their nails and contemplating flight to human rights sanctuaries like Belarus, where the gays aren't permitted.

Meanwhile, in Texas ...

Texas abortion bill defeated after missing deadline, by Helen Davidson (Guardian)

... Wearing pink trainers, (Senator Wendy) Davis rocked from hip to hip and slowly paced while she read testimony from doctors and women who would be affected by the bill if it were passed. "What purpose does this bill serve? And could it be, might it just be a desire to limit women's access to safe, healthy, legal, constitutionally protected abortions in the state of Texas?" she said.

Hmm, could be. What do you think, Steve? How 'bout you, Mark?

Texas Vote Passing Abortion Bill Is Rendered Moot, by Manny Fernandez and Erik Eckholm (NYT)

... The reversal served as an embarrassing episode for Mr. (David) Dewhurst and Republican senators on a divisive bill that was closely watched around the nation, both by anti-abortion activists and supporters of abortion rights.

“The G.O.P. Senate leadership comes out of this whole process looking somewhat disingenuous, deceptive and disorganized,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston.

Perhaps it isn't the appearance at all. That's the way it is here, too. It's what today's Republican reactionaries are, at root ... whether in DC, Texas, or right here at home.

The Stutzmans, Zoellers and Pences bleat and wail.

And that's good enough for me.

Indiana Planned Parenthood declares victory after Supreme Court declines to hear funding case, by Jill Disis (Indy Star)

The U.S. Supreme Court will not disturb a lower court ruling that blocks Indiana’s effort to strip Medicaid funds from Planned Parenthood because the organization performs abortions among its medical services ...

... The law would have also defunded family planning programs throughout the state.

“We are happy that the Supreme Court’s action lets stand the Appeals Court ruling that the state does not have plenary authority to exclude a class of providers for any reason,” said Jane Henegar, executive director of the ACLU of Indiana, in a statement issued Tuesday. “Federal law protects the right of Medicaid patients to choose a health care provider free of interference from the state.”

Affordable health care and the GOP's rampant moral failures, Part Three: Sandra Fluke.

It is a place to begin to join the civilized world. Right, Mittster?

Why Obamacare is worth fighting for against Mitt Romney's repeal threat; Now the supreme court has affirmed the Affordable Care Act's constitutionality, we need to show how this law will save lives, by Sandra Fluke (guardian.co.uk)

... Governor Romney's objection to this law is hypocrisy at its worst – especially since he enacted a very similar health reform measure in Massachusetts. But for Romney, that's not really the point. For him, this is about politics. And that's where he and our president couldn't be farther apart.

In addressing our country following this historic ruling, President Obama reminded us that this law and his decision to fight to enact it was never about politics. Popular or not, it was about a belief that "here in America – in the wealthiest nation on Earth – no illness or accident should lead to any family's financial ruin."

Here in America, in 2010 – the same year the law was enacted – 26,000 people between the ages of 25 and 64 died prematurely because they didn't have health insurance. That's tens of thousands of American lives that might have been saved if a law like the Affordable Care Act had been in place earlier.

As President Obama has acknowledged, this law isn't perfect and we should work to improve it where needed. But repealing it would take our country, our economy, and the financial security of millions of Americans in a dangerous direction. It would quite literally put lives on the line.

Affordable health care and the GOP's rampant moral failures, Part Two: Michael Moore.

Neither headed back to the days of Dickens characters, nor to those of Mitch McConnell.

More Than a Victory, the Decision Today Was a Mandate for Us to Act, by Michael Moore

... So, yes, the bill is highly flawed and somewhat wrong-headed – but what it IS is a huge step in the right direction. And today's court decision cements that. The right wing knows this and they are probably unraveling in some not-so-pretty ways right now. And that's why today is a great day. The Right has been smacked down by one of their own! They know what we all know — that the path of history has been, and will continue to move toward the basic human right that all people are entitled to see a doctor and NOT have to worry about losing their home because they can't afford to pay the medical bills. Those days are over, or will be soon, and that is where civilization is headed. It's not headed back to the days of Oliver Twist. Today's victory is momentum, it's forward motion, and we WILL have true universal health care in this country in the not too distant future.

So take some time tonight to celebrate; this is a victory for the people. Actually, more than a victory, it is a mandate that all of us must now make sure that a second-term Obama continues to move the ball down the field, toward a system like they have in every other First World country on the planet. He simply has to improve Medicare and then expand it to every citizen in the country. The countries that do this, their people live an average of two to four years longer than we do. Is there a reason anyone doesn't want an extra four years of their lives? Or that our babies would have a better chance of surviving their first year like they do in the 48 countries that have a better infant mortality rate than we do? Exactly who is opposed to this? You'd have to be a bit…crazy ...

Affordable health care and the GOP's rampant moral failures, Part One: Paul Krugman.

"Kinder and more decent" doesn't exactly fit with the Right's eternal goal of preserving wealth by blaming victims.

The Real Winners, by Paul Krugman (New York Times)

... In short, unless you belong to that tiny class of wealthy Americans who are insulated and isolated from the realities of most people’s lives, the winners from that Supreme Court decision are your friends, your relatives, the people you work with — and, very likely, you. For almost all of us stand to benefit from making America a kinder and more decent society.

SCOTUS and Obamacare: Erika swings and misses. Again.

Amid the usual misspellings and chronological confusion (is it today or tomorrow, Erika?), his/her/its posting this morning is a helpful reminder that apart from dullards, the term "Obamacare" never was a pejorative, anyway.

The presidential election likely will be unchanged by the Supreme Court's ruling. As before, it will be a contest between white folks like King Larry who fear their packages aren't big enough, and a demographic coalition literally interpreting "all men are created equal."

To paraphrase the Mittster, RomneyFare was vapid yesterday; it's vapid today. But it is very, very buttoned-down. Now, let's return to the latest episode of Chasing Hillary:

THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 2012

DECISION DAY FOR....

Today, at around 10:15am, the Democrat-left-media complex will launch the most aggressive and substained attack on the institution of the Supreme Court in the history of our Republic.

When the Court throws out all or at least some portion of Obamacare. Obama and his partisans on the left and in the media will declare war on the third co-equal branch of government and seek, in every possible way, to undermine the Supreme Court.

Glimpses of these attacks have been around since oral arguments back in March, but when the reality of the Courts rejections of Obama's signature "achievement" becomes clear, the ferociousness of the attacks will be like nothing we've ever seen.

If we've learned anything about Obama in the past three and half years, it's that he doesn't take defeat well!

Remember that when the left yells that tomorrow's action by the court is merely some partisan act. When they shout that the Court is acting on behalf of "corporate interests",remember the sweerheart deals the Democrats cut with the unions, AARP, the drug companys and health insurance industries to win passage of the bill. They bought off and had the support of virtually every corporation involved in healthcare.

But they couldn't buy off us the American public, and tomorrow the Supreme Court will speak for us.

We personally want to thank our fellow Tea Party Patriots (about 1.6 million of you) that help spark a nation wide grass roots movement that led to sweeping losses of Democrats in 2010 and now Obamacare!

Americans deserve better than Obamacare.

Rev. Burks may choose to declare this link pornographic.

Currently there is nothing whatever on the agenda for Thursday's city council meeting, which means onlookers can devote the entire evening to spurious arguments from advocates of the Christian theocracy, to the effect that there must be an "invocation" to open each of the body's meetings.

The friend who sent me this link observed:

Since Thursday will be frittered away on "religious liberty" folderol, it might not hurt to point out that the Supreme Court chose not to overturn the circuit court that outlawed the erection of a sectarian portal through which citizens must pass before participating in government.

Indeed. This isn't the decision of Legal Bagel, who plays Erika's legal advisor on her screech blog. It is actual law, and on Thursday, perhaps we'll see how Rev. Burks reacts to such inconveniences.

Supreme Court rejects government prayer case


WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court passed up the chance Tuesday to decide whether sectarian prayers can be used as invocations before government meetings.


The rejection of the case left in place a lower-court ruling against the invocations using Jesus' name in Forsyth County, N.C. The invocation at a county commission meeting, given by a local minister, used the language, "For we do make this prayer in Your Son Jesus' name, Amen," and made a number of references to specific tenets of Christianity, from "the Cross of Calvary" to the "Virgin Birth" to the "Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ."
Two women who attended the session filed suit, saying the invocation and the policy that allowed it were unconstitutional.


Eventually, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed in a 2-1 vote.


The majority said Supreme Court precedent, and its own circuit precedents, "establish that in order to survive constitutional scrutiny, invocations must consist of the type of non-sectarian prayers that solemnize the legislative task and seek to unite rather than divide. Sectarian prayers must not serve as the gateway to citizen participation in the affairs of local government. To have them do so runs afoul of the promise of public neutrality among faiths that resides at the heart of the First Amendment's religion clauses."