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June 16, 2019 11:54 PM UTC

Monday Open Thread

  • 33 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“A true and worthy ideal frees and uplifts a people; a false ideal imprisons and lowers.”

–William Edward Burghardt Du Bois

Comments

33 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread

  1. Last week, I wrote a piece, on this site, from the June issue of Church & State regarding the crackdown by Catholic bishops on making reproductive services not available in Catholic hospitals. The focus was on northeast Iowa. Here is some more from that article.

    A local ob/gyn in Waterloo offered the following: "contraception is an unethical medical practice from the eyes of the Catholic Church, mainly because most of the contraceptive modalities have the capacity to be abortifacient in nature and are disrespectful to life." He is a practicing Catholic. He is a board member of the local chapter of the Guiding Star Project. The Project is committed to the belief that abortion and contraception "interrupt natural, healthy biological processes."

    A local woman, just off a difficult pregnancy, wrote this: "I'm mad that a man can make this decision for all of us, regardless of religion."

    The full article may be posted by now here:  http://www.au.org   

        1. When you say you "wrote a piece," do you mean that you authored the original article in Americans United, or do you mean that you wrote a post on this site commenting on the article?

          1. I wrote a piece on this web site. The actual author's name appears with the article, at least in the print edition.

            I have never submitted anything for Church & State. I'm a long time member of Americans United. However, the limited writing that I do is in other interest areas.

    1. Interesting to see how the justices came down on these cases. In the gerrymandering case, Ginsburg wrote it and was joined by Thomas and Gorsuch, plus Kagan and Sotomayor.

      The second one is also interesting in that it was a 7-2 decision written by Alito, joined by three liberals and three conservatives. Ginsburg and Gorsuch dissented.

    2. The double jeopardy decision, Gamble v. United States, is disappointing but not particularly unexpected. The "separate sovereigns" rule is garbage, both historically and jurisprudentially, that's survived by generating feel-good results on occasion. (For instance, the rule allowed the U.S. government to prosecute the racist scum cops who beat the shit out of Rodney King after a state court jury acquitted them.) The notion that doing away with the rule would expand Trump's prerogative to pardon cronies and/or favored wingnuts was internet crackpot click bait, but hey, internet crackpot click bait is what passes for analysis nowadays.

      Interesting to see Thomas in the majority on this one. Ol' Clarence has vigorously criticized the separate sovereigns rule in the past.

  2. I can:'t link from the fire, but SCOTUS send an Oregon case back to lower court to review in light of Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling.  Leviticus quoting bakers had been fined $135,000 for refusing to bake a wedding cake for lesbian couple.  Goggle scotus lesbian and you'll get it.

      1. Thanks, Spaceman. I was putting up the links straight from the pop-up notices. I'm on a laptop. I tend to forget how many people use tablets and how limited they are.

    1. The order in Klein v. Oregon Bureau of Labor & Indus. is available here (second one down on the list). Looks like the religious bigots are getting a second bite at the apple re: their Free Exercise Clause claim.

    1. Yay!  I was finally right about something…

      Pseudonymous says:

      October 7, 2016 at 7:20 PM MDT

      I've actually wondered about that.  I believe that "Shall Article X, Section 20 be struck from the Colorado constitution in its entirety and replaced with the phrase ‘Dougie was here!’" meets the requirement of the single subject provision in the constitution, which generally requires that the title convey everything the measure purports to accomplish.

      1. That's cool, but what would be the next step? Legislature or ballot initiative?  The Independence Institute would go all out to defend TABOR either way.

      2. If they try their to repeal TABOR, they will need the petition route. Does constitutional amendment require 2/3 vote of each house?

        Personally, this puts me on dilemma. I’ve hated TABOR since ‘92, but given some of Polis’ promises and the makeup of current legislature, I’m having second thought.

        Get rid of the ratchet effect for good but keep the requirement of voting on tax increases.

        1. The ballot measure proposed by the Colorado Fiscal Institute is pretty simple: repeal it, period.

          This could be done by a citizen-driven petition and doesn't have to go to the legislature. It's just as well. A measure like this could never get a two-thirds vote in either chamber to approve it. It would take eight Senate Republicans — half the caucus — to approve it, and three Republicans in the House would have to cross the aisle, and that won't happen in either chamber.

      1. Single-subject passed by initiative in '94 (I just looked it up) so there could never be another initiative like TABOR, that reached into so many areas of government again.

  3. Thanks, Spaceman.  I usually browse with this amazon fire.  Its primitive keyboard doesn't allow me to define and save  phrase, at least I've never found a way.

  4. Great page for us political junkies, courtesy of the New York Times (subscription may be required)

    The Times has created a new page that captures a snapshot of the 2020 Democratic primary as it currently stands, with the latest poll numbers, fund-raising stats and even rankings for who’s getting the most media coverage.

    We think politics junkies will find it really useful (we find it useful in putting together this newsletter, and we do this stuff for a living).

    The page will update every week with new numbers, plus a fresh analysis from our colleague Alex Burns, who will break down what the latest results mean for the race.

    And there’s one more feature that we find particularly cool — a tracker that tells you who was leading the primaries on this date in elections past. It never hurts to remember that on June 17, 2015, Jeb Bush seemed like a lock.

    1. That is a useful page, Davie, but I was flummoxed to see this guy right behind Biden (and ahead of Sanders) in raising money. Who here has heard of or would vote for John Delaney?

      Apparenly, he is an independently wealthy congressman from Maryland.

      1. Apparently he has an ego to match Howard Schultz, but not quite the bank account.  But he did give himself $12 million in Q1'19 to tide him over for another year (he's been running for 2 years so far) with barely making a ripple.

        Delaney is almost entirely self-funding his campaign. While he is soliciting some donations, the former business executive is turning to his personal fortune to hire staff, book TV time and rent space in towns across the country for campaign offices.

        But he qualified for the debates, so I guess he got 65,000 $1 donations as well.

  5. Not sure how this was missed: conservative activist Kanda Calef faces charges of felony menacing for brandishing a pistol at a US marshall while driving; she then proceeded to evade the responding CSP trooper, reaching 90mph through the I-25 Gap construction zone back in April. She is due in court Wednesday for a plea hearing. Conviction would bar her from owning her guns.

    https://gazette.com/news/republican-activist-and-former-colorado-candidate-accused-of-flashing-revolver/article_d48e7078-9146-11e9-a6dd-c3f4449eee0e.html

    1. What's the problem here? In drafting the Second Amendment, the Framers clearly envisioned an unqualified right to brandish firearms at fellow motorists on controlled access highways, then attempt to evade jackbooted thugs bent on meting out punishment for the exercise of said right. 

    2. Would Kanda Calef even be alive today if she had flashed her gun at a marshal, but was a racial minority?

      She had to have seen the lights and markings on the marshal’s car, and decided to provoke him.

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