Thomas Would Re-examine Rights

Mandatory Carry: The Supreme Court last Friday made it easier to carry a gun and mandatory to carry a baby.

  Having been leaked well in advance, the Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the historic decision that made abortion legal, came as no surprise. What was shocking was the concurring opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, who said that the reasoning for overturning Roe warrants an examination of other decisions that guarantee the right to contraception, same-sex consensual sexual relations, same-sex marriage, and more.

  All those cases were decided citing the right to substantive due process found in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution, which prohibit the government from depriving “any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” 

  Thomas is dismissive of the due process clause because it “does not secure any substantive rights.” In other words, it doesn’t specifically list the right to abortion, contraception, same sex relations, and more. It is a literalist interpretation that gives no leeway for what the founders could not have imagined 250 years ago.

  Thomas says in his opinion, “For that reason, in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents” and “we should eliminate it from our jurisprudence at the earliest opportunity.” 

  The majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal. In his new book, Thomas says Americans have “lost interest” in Constitutional matters and “They’re interested in what they want rather than what is right as a country.”

Illegal Procedure: With the Supreme Court ruling, abortion became immediately illegal in 10 states and five more will ban it within a month. Another five states are likely to ban it.

  Thirteen states have “trigger” laws that would make abortion illegal within 30 days of the Supreme Court decision.

  Twenty states and the District of Columbia are likely to keep abortion legal and protected.

  By the way, appearing Saturday night at a rally with former president Donald Trump, Republican Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois said, “President Trump, on behalf of all the MAGA patriots in America, I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court yesterday,” and the crowd applauded.

  Miller claims she mis-spoke. 

 The War Zone: As leaders of the G-7 countries gathered in Austria, Russian missiles hit an apartment building and a kindergarten yesterday in Ukraine’s capital city, Kyiv. One person was killed and six wounded.

  It was an attack with no evident strategic value other than to terrorize civilians.

  The Russians claimed that they were carrying out strikes against military locations around the country. 

  President Biden and the other leaders announced a plan to stop buying Russian gold, and to buy Russian oil only at a discount, further cutting off Vladimir Putin from the world economy.

  Despite continuing to make advances in the East, Russian forces are close to exhausting their fighting capabilities and be forced to halt its offensive in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, The Washington Post reports, citing “Western intelligence predictions and military experts.”

  “There will come a time when the tiny advances Russia is making become unsustainable in light of the costs and they will need a significant pause to regenerate capability,” The Post quotes an anonymous “senior Western official.” This assessment comes despite the Russian capture on Friday of the city of Sievierodonetsk, one of the biggest cities they’ve taken.

  But the slow advance comes at an enormous expenditure of men, machines, and particularly, artillery shells. That Western official told The Post that the Russians are firing artillery shells far beyond the capacity of almost any modern military to replenish their supplies.

Sporting News: The Colorado Avalanche beat Tampa Bay 2-1 last night to win professional hockey’s Stanley Cup Championship four games to two. It’s Colorado’s third Stanley Cup win.

  Tampa bay ran out of gas in the third period and played the last two minutes without a goalie to put an extra skater on the ice. They just couldn’t put the puck in the net.  

  And in a game that looked more like hockey, the Seattle Mariners and Los Angeles Angels got into a bench-emptying brawl after pitcher Andrew Watnz drilled the Mariners’ Jesse Winker in the hip with a pitch. Eight players were ejected from the game.

  And finally, in a break from the tradition of political neutrality, Russian and Belarusians are banned this year from the annual tennis tournament at Wimbledon.

The Spin Rack: President Biden on Saturday signed a modest gun safety law intended to stop dangerous people from getting firearms. It’s taken 30 years to do that. —  Twenty-one teenagers were found dead early Sunday morning in a tavern in the coastal city of East London, South Africa. The initial theory is that the teens age 13 to 17 died in a stampede. — An investigative report by The Washington Post found that in 178 cases around the country from 2019 to 2021,  law enforcement officers ended up shooting and killing the people they were called to assist. Many of the victims were people in a mental health crisis. 

Trademarked: Ohio State University — excuse us — The  … Ohio State University has trademarked the word “the,” one of the most commonly used words in the English language. We just used it five times in that first sentence.

  Ohio State and its alumni are picky about using “The” in reference to their school. It’s not just Ohio State to them but “The … Ohio State University,” often delivered with a dramatic pause.

  This doesn’t mean the rest of the world can’t use “the.” What it mostly does is protect the university from sale of unauthorized goods in the school’s name. Just don’t put “The” and “Ohio State” on the same t-shirt without their permission.

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Saturday, May 11, 2024

Page Two

The Most Corrupt Justice

Monday, October 2, 2023

Democracy and Video in the Dark

Sunday, February 26, 2023

Page Two: Do the Right Thing

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Page Two: Sound Recall

Monday, September 13, 2021

Page Two: Cuomo Must Go

Friday, August 13, 2021

Trump and the Truth

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

The “Great” President

Monday, March 30, 2020

The Wright Stuff

Saturday, February 29, 2020

It's Been Said

"In my mind, I’ve never crossed the line with anyone, but I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn. There are generational and cultural shifts that I just didn’t fully appreciate, and I should have, no excuses."

-Andrew Cuomo, resigning as governor of New York after accusations of sexual harassment

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