Reading Time: 11 minutes Oral arguments in Trump v. Anderson offered slender options for a super-majority right-wing SCOTUS wrestling with the 14th Amendment, in a critical case for this year’s US presidential election.
Law
Posted inCrime and Punishment
Breaking bread: Houston tries to punish feeding the homeless—and fails
Reading Time: 5 minutes In a story that recalls the ancient custom of sacred hospitality, the city of Houston is trying to punish a charity for feeding the homeless—but they can’t find a jury willing to go along with it.
Posted inPolitics
Can we ban Trump from the ballot? Should we?
Reading Time: 4 minutes The Fourteenth Amendment bans insurrectionists from elected office in America. Should we use this constitutional weapon against Donald Trump, or can threats to democracy only be defeated through democracy?
Posted inCrime and Punishment
Despite ‘last stand’ bluster, Ammon Bundy turns tail and flees
Reading Time: 6 minutes Ammon Bundy escaped justice for the occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge. Now consequences have found him in a different case, and when his bluster failed him, he lacked the courage to stand and fight.
Posted inHistory
No monsters, no monarchs, only humans
Reading Time: 12 minutes For most of Western history, we’ve been stumbling toward some semblance of international standards for individual human rights. Will we ever get there?
Posted inPhilosophy
Trump and ‘our religion’ demonstrate evangelicals’ ongoing endgame crisis
Reading Time: 7 minutes In recent months, Donald Trump has been talking about bringing back the anti-Muslim immigration ban from his single term in office.
His white evangelical fanbase loves it. Almost ten years into their decline, they are more touchy than ever about losing credibility and cultural power.
Posted inHistory
Two democracies in time of war
Reading Time: 13 minutes Right after September 11, US citizens rallied around President Bush, who had only been in office for a few months. The same was not true for Netanyahu.
On October 8, for the Jerusalem-based Times of Israel, Tal Schneider wrote a sharp rebuke of Israeli government for her readership of fellow citizens: “For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces.”
Posted inPolitics
Ammon Bundy knows why Republican politicians lie: It works like a charm
Reading Time: 11 minutes Scholars have long known that conservative politics and media distort and mischaracterize reality. This distorted reality insulates right-wing media consumers from contradictions and challenges to their beliefs. As a means to power, conservative politicians see this as a feature, not a bug.
Posted inLaw
Along party lines: SCOTUS decisions and US schisms
Reading Time: 10 minutes Another term for the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has closed after a week of controversial rulings, and with the promise of a contentious Second-Amendment issue on the next session’s docket. In a bit of grim humor earlier this week, a social media meme proclaimed that, having mastered submarine engineering, keyboard warriors were currently getting their […]
Posted inFilm/TV
‘Ad Astra per Aspera’: How we escape from hardship into wonder
Reading Time: 11 minutes Last week, I gave the opening episode of Strange New Worlds (SNW) Season Two a bit of a pass: I called it a “mission statement” more than a typical outing from this version of the Enterprise. The plot and script seemed intent on solidifying character gains from the first season, and there were whole sections […]