John Adams had considered entering the ministry before opting to study law. Educated at Harvard, he served in the Continental Congress, as ambassador to Britain, and as Washington’s vice president before his election as president in 1796. He served a single term, losing the 1800 election to Thomas Jefferson.
Though reared a Congregationalist, Adams became a Unitarian. He did not believe in the Trinity – the Christian doctrine, defined in the Nicene Creed, that God exists in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
“My religion you know is not exactly conformable to that of the greatest part of the Christian World,” Adams acknowledged in a letter to his wife, Abigail, in 1799. “It excludes superstition. But with all the superstition that attends it, I think the Christian the best that is or has been.”
Adams understood the value of religion. “I have attended public worship in all countries and with all sects and believe them all much better than no religion,” he wrote to Benjamin Rush, “though I have not thought myself obliged to believe all I heard.” The second president’s most candid remarks about faith appeared in a letter to his son, John Quincy Adams, in 1816, long after the elder Adams had left office. “An incarnate God ! ! ! An eternal, self-existent, omnipresent omniscient Author of this stupendous Universe, suffering on a Cross! ! ! My Soul starts with horror, at the Idea, and it has stupified [sic] the Christian World. It has been the Source of almost all the Corruptions of Christianity.”
Perhaps Adams’s most enduring contribution to the conversation about church and state in the United States is the Treaty of Tripoli, negotiated during the Washington administration but ratified during Adams’s presidency.
That treaty negotiation contains the most significant indicator of what the founding fathers intended, which eventually became embedded in the U.S. Constitution: the separation of church and state. Its first was written in that Treaty.
The Senate ratified the Treaty of Tripoli unanimously, without debate, on June 7, 1797.
The language of Article 11 is pretty clear – “the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion” – so anyone arguing that the United States is a Christian nation would need to explain away both Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli as well as the Senate’s unanimous ratification of the treaty. Clearly, those who constituted the government in the early years of the new nation – the executive and legislative branches – had no quarrel with the statement that the United States was not founded on Christianity.
The rebuttals of the Christian nation crowd are tortured, but they seem to rely on quoting the entirety of Article 11 (reproduced above in its entirety), not merely the opening phrase: “As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion . . .” Fair enough. Context is always important. It’s not clear to me, however, how the full article in any way changes the plain meaning of the phrase. The treaty makes the case that the United States has no “enmity” against Islam or Muslims. The treaty does not assert that the United States is a Christian nation; it states the opposite: “the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.”
You may continue to read the excerpt of that book at the link. The book is still in print. You know me and my rabbit holes. You also know six of my direct ancestors ratified that Treaty. I feel like I have a lot of skin in this game. We all should have a lot of skin in this game. David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo has just published this. “The Easter Madness Of Donald J. Trump. INSIDE: Alvin Bragg … Wes Moore … Ammon Bundy.”
Trump’s Messianic Complex
I trust that most of you were offline celebrating the holiday, warming to the Spring, welcoming baseball back, or watching college basketball. Congrats on missing another unhinged online weekend for Donald Trump.
Over the course of 70+ posts Easter morning, Trump vilified and attacked a wide range of his antagonists in ALL CAPS zeal. At the same time, he reposted articles declaring himself to be “The Chosen One.”
The contrast between the irreligious candidate embracing Christian nationalism and the lifelong Irish Catholic was, shall we say, striking:
It’s all so infantile and incredibly ridiculous that you can hardly be blamed for not wanting to be bothered about it over the weekend.
The New York Times’s Michael Bender wrote this today. “The Church of Trump: How He’s Infusing Christianity Into His Movement Ending many of his rallies with a churchlike ritual and casting his prosecutions as persecution, the former president is demanding — and receiving — new levels of devotion from Republicans.” I’m sorry, but watching all of this just makes me ill.
Mr. Trump has long defied conventional wisdom as an unlikely but irrefutable evangelical hero.
He has been married three times, has been repeatedly accused of sexual assault, has been convicted of business fraud and has never showed much interest in church services. Last week, days before Easter, he posted on his social media platform an infomercial-style video hawking a $60 Bible that comes with copies of some of the nation’s founding documents and the lyrics to Lee Greenwood’s song “God Bless the U.S.A.”
…
Mr. Trump’s braiding of politics and religion is hardly a new phenomenon. Christianity has long exerted a strong influence on American government, with most voters identifying as Christians even as the country grows more secular. According to Gallup, 68 percent of adults said they were Christian in 2022, down from 91 percent in 1948.
But as the former president tries to establish himself as the one, true Republican leader, religious overtones have pervaded his third presidential campaign.
Benevolently phrased fund-raising emails in his name promise unconditional love amid solicitations for contributions of as little as $5.
Even more than in his past campaigns, he is framing his 2024 bid as a fight for Christianity, telling a convention of Christian broadcasters that “just like in the battles of the past, we still need the hand of our Lord.”
On his social media platform in recent months, Mr. Trump has shared a courtroom-style sketch of himself sitting next to Jesus and a video that repeatedly proclaims, “God gave us Trump” to lead the country.
The apparent effectiveness of such tactics has made Mr. Trump the nation’s first major politician to successfully separate character from policy for religious voters, said John Fea, a history professor at Messiah University, an evangelical school in Pennsylvania.
“Trump has split the atom between character and policy,” Mr. Fea said. “He did it because he’s really the first one to listen to their grievances and take them seriously. Does he really care about evangelicals? I don’t know. But he’s built a message to appeal directly to them.”
I’m going to share Jennifer Ruben’s response to this with you.
The bigger problem is the Trump Snake Oil show has emboldened local theocratic fascists at all levels. Again, I dealt with them back in 1992 when the cry against anyone who wasn’t white and their brand of Christian was considered to be a multiculturist. They were as rabid back then as now against women’s Reproductive Rights and the GLBT community. I fled Nebraska for the safety of the French Quarter because of them. They’re insane. This is insane. This is from Piper Hutchinson, who is writing for the Louisiana Illuminator. “Ultra-conservative lawmakers target Louisiana libraries as culture war rages on.” This is radicalism. It’s theocratic fascism! The men who voted for that Treaty would be appalled; many were clergy.
With veto-proof majorities in both legislative chambers and the backing of a new governor, some Louisiana Republicans are taking aim at public libraries with legislation that could criminalize librarians.
Four conservative lawmakers have filed five bills that play off the library culture war currently raging across the nation, including in Louisiana.
Upset with what they view as sexually explicit materials in libraries and the “Marxist” American Library Association, far-right activists have filed thousands of book challenges in the past few years and pushed libraries to disaffiliate with the ALA. In Louisiana, public library oversight boards have mostly resisted calls to restrict book content, but some, including the State Library, have ended their ALA memberships.
The issue has captured the interest of Republicans in Louisiana, including Gov. Jeff Landry.
As attorney general, Landry set up a tip line to field complaints against libraries that he said failed to protect children from “early sexualization, as well as grooming, sex trafficking, and abuse.” Landry later drafted a “Protecting Innocence” report on libraries and supported legislation to restrict minors’ access to certain library materials.
Three bills filed could lead to criminal punishment for librarians.
House Bill 777 by Rep. Kellee Dickerson, R-Denham Springs, would prohibit any public employee from spending public funds with the American Library Association. Anyone who does would be subject to up to two years in prison or a fine of up to $1,000.
The bill would force public libraries, including parish and university libraries, to sever their memberships with the association and would prohibit libraries from sending their librarians to ALA conferences and other continuing education events.
Dickerson said in an interview she filed the bill because she wants money to be spent locally, rather than with a national organization.
The villainization of the American Library Association is something that perplexes most librarians.
“I’m not sure exactly what these people think go on at ALA conferences,” Suzanne Stauffer, an LSU library and information science professor said in an interview. “It’s workshops about how to better meet the needs of their community.”
“Frankly, the conferences are dull,” Stauffer added, laughing.
Michael Lunsford, a conservative activist who frequently targets the ALA, thinks otherwise. Lunsford, executive director of Citizens for a New Louisiana, a Lafayette-based advocacy group, has been on the frontlines of the library battle in Louisiana. He and his organization have been involved with attempts to restrict books before multiple parish library boards of control. The appointed volunteer boards oversee libraries and have the final say over what books are removed from the shelves
Lunsford described the American Library Association as a “Marxist” organization out to fundamentally change U.S. society.
“We’ve had an organization that comes out and says, ‘You have to have these erotic books in your children’s section or you’re a Nazi,’” Lunsford said.
Lunsford claimed he found a copy of “Let’s Talk About it” in the children’s section of the Lafayette Public Library. The graphic novel is a nonfiction young adult book that contains depictions of genitalia and descriptions of sex acts. The book is billed as a guide to coming of age, puberty, consent and sexuality and is targeted at readers 14 and older.
The books Lunsford and other ultra-conservative activists have targeted are primarily those with LGBTQ+ themes and those with sexual content are classified as young adult or adult books. Louisiana also recently adopted an extensive tiered card system that gives parents control over what types of books their children can check out.
Attendees at a Livingston Parish Library Board of Control meeting on July 19, 2022, show their opposition to a member who had submitted a list of books that she deemed inappropriate for children and young adult readers. Five of the books contained LGBTQ themes. (Piper Hutchinson/Louisiana Illuminator)
The weirdest temper tantrum this weekend is the conspiracy around the lunar calendar’s choice of Easter this year and the coincidence that it happened on Trans Day of Visibility. “Trending: Easter Controversy,” or: How little lies pave the way for the next big lie. No-News Weekend Internet is stupid-dangerous in the Trump era — as this weekend’s attack on the Transgender Day of Visibility shows.” This is from the Law Dork’s Chris Geidner.
This weekend’s gaslighting from the right around Easter falling on the same day as Transgender Day of Visibility is a stark sign of how empty the Republican Party has gotten — and how dangerous Donald Trump is, not only to transgender people, but to America.
If you, blessedly, have no idea what I am talking about, congratulations, you live a life free from what I think is best thought of as “No-News Weekend Internet.” In short, when nothing is happening, something must happen. It will always be stupid, but, in the past, sometimes that meant stupid-fun. Now, it means stupid-dangerous.
This time, it was two things. Easter moves around because it falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21. Transgender Day of Visibility, which was founded in 2009, takes place on March 31.
This year, again, BECAUSE OF THE MOON, Easter is on March 31.
For a group of Republicans looking to demonize Joe Biden and transgender people, this was all that they needed to start a weekend of hate. Then, for kicks I guess, they added in an attack on the “new rules” for the White House children’s egg decorating contest — specifically, that submissions can’t be overtly religious — as a second anti-Christian thing that Biden has done despite the fact that the Biden administration didn’t change the rules.
It’s disgusting and done in extremely bad faith — but also dangerous.
Because of that danger, I’m going to go through what happened in detail and discuss why it’s so disturbing.
And, of course, the deplorable Caitlyn Jenner had to come join the gaslighting. This is from HuffPo. I really feel like I should drag out all the dumb jock jokes we used to tell in junior high school. It’s on that level.
Caitlyn Jenner, a trans woman, wrote on social media Saturday that she is “disgusted” Transgender Day of Visibility is on Easter this year. The annual event has been held on March 31 since its inception in 2009. Easter is a different date each year, however.
“I am absolutely disgusted that Joe Biden has declared the most Holy of Holy days – a self proclaimed devout Catholic – as Transgender Day of Visibility,” Jenner wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “The only thing you should be declaring on this day is ‘HE is Risen.’”
The share price of Trump Media fell sharply Monday morning after the social media app company closely tied to former president Donald Trump reported a net loss of $58.2 million on revenue of just $4.1 million in 2023.
Despite that plunge, the company’s market capitalization was still more than $6.8 billion after its 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed the loss for last year.
Much of the net loss appears to come from $39.4 million in interest expense, according to the filing.
A spokesperson for the company did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the new filing.
The filing shows that in 2022, Trump Media had a net profit of $50.5 million and total revenue of only $1.47 million.
The company ended 2023 with just $2.7 million in cash on hand, the filing said.
The losses last year by Trump Media — the owner of the Truth Social app routinely used by the former president — could continue for some time, according to the company.
“TMTG expects to incur operating losses for the foreseeable future,” says the filing, which came a week after the company began trading under the ticker DJT on the Nasdaq.
The filing also warns shareholders that Trump’s involvement in the company could put it at greater risk than other social media companies.
TMTG also disclosed to regulators that the company had identified “material weaknesses in its internal control over financial reporting” when it prepared a previous financial statement for the first three quarters of 2023.
As of Monday, Trump Media said these “identified material weaknesses continue to exist.”
That’s what we in the business like to call the discipline of the market. You may follow those links if you want to get into the weeds.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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I’m going to get this out of the way before I get to the real news. Last night President Biden won 81.1 percent of the votes in the Michigan Democratic primary, but it isn’t easy to find that out from the press reports. All of the focus is on the uncommitted votes, which got 13.3 percent. Here is one representative sample:
Democratic leaders in the state were bracing for tens of thousands of “uncommitted” votes, as Biden aides and allies sought to tamp down concerns about the strong showing by those aiming to warn the president he could lose the pivotal state in November if he does not change course and push for a cease-fire in Gaza.
With nearly 99 percent of the ballots counted, there were more than 100,000 “uncommitted” votes….
In the weeks leading up to the Democratic primary, Arab American and liberal activists launched a concerted push to get Democrats to vote “uncommitted” as a way to protest Biden’s handling of the Israel-Gaza war, especially his decision not to call for a cease-fire. The group Listen to Michigan declared victory soon after polls closed, noting that it had surpassed its stated goal of 10,000 uncommitted votes.
manager and sister of Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), said in a statement Tuesday. “Tens of thousands of Michigan Democrats, many of whom who voted for Biden in 2020, are uncommitted to his re-election due to the war in Gaza.”
She added: “We don’t want a Trump presidency, but Biden has put [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu ahead of American democracy. We cannot afford to pay the bill for disregarding Palestinian lives should it come due in November.”
They don’t want a Trump presidency, but they plan to try to enable one anyway, in the process ending American democracy. But here’s some history on uncommitted votes in Michigan:
Biden campaign officials, however, said the group’s goal of 10,000 votes was artificially low, as 20,000 people have voted uncommitted in each of Michigan’s past three Democratic presidential primaries, even without any organized effort urging them to do so. The president’s allies also cited comments by some of those who threw their support behind the campaign that despite their anger at Biden’s policies, they plan to vote for him in November. A campaign official also noted that there were several “uncommitted” delegates for Barack Obama in 2012, coming from North Carolina, Maryland, Alabama and Kentucky.
Family group reading, by Mary Cassatt
I don’t know any Democrat who doesn’t want a cease fire in the brutal Israel-Hamas war, including President Biden. But Biden can’t magically force either Netanyahu or Hamas to agree to one. Negotiations take place behind closed doors; making them public would defeat their purpose.
Other mainstream news sources also emphasize the uncommitted vote against Biden, but there is little attention to the fact that Trump underperformed the polls, just as he did in New Hampshire and North Carolina. He got only 68 percent of the vote in Michigan, while Niki Haley won nearly 27 percent, once again demonstrating that close to 30 percent of Republicans don’t want Trump as their nominee.
It Is Wrong To Say Trump Is Winning The Election, Or Is Somehow Favored. He Is Weak, Not Strong – In 2022 a narrative developed about the election – that a red wave was coming – that commentators just couldn’t shake even though there was plenty of data suggesting the election could end up being a close competitive one. I feel like that we are beginning to enter a similar moment in 2024 with the various assertions of Trump’s strengths. The “red wave” over estimated Republican strength and intensity, discounted clear signs of Democratic strength and intensity and was it would be ridiculous, given what happened in 2022, for us to do this all over again this year.
Let me say it plainly – Donald Trump is not ahead in the 2024 election. He is not beating Joe Biden. He is not in a strong position. Signs of Trumpian and broader GOP weakness is all out there for folks to see – if they want to see it. Let’s dive in a bit:
Trump is not leading in current polling – For Trump to be “ahead” all polls would have be showing that. They aren’t. The last NYT poll had Biden up 2, the new Quinnipiac poll has Biden up 4.
Given the spike in both junky, low quality polls and GOP-aligned polls the averages can no longer be relied on – this was a major lesson of 2022. Remember using the averages Real Clear Politics predicted that Republicans would end up with 54 seats. They have 49.
Stripping out GOP aligned polls, and less reliable polling, we find the race clearly within margin of error, which means the election is close and competitive. In a recent analysis, “Trump’s lead over Biden may be smaller than it looks,” The Economist broke down recent polling by pollster quality and found the race dead even among the highest quality pollsters [click the link to see the chart]….
Asserting that somehow Trump leads is pushing data beyond what it can tell you. With margin of error a 1-2 point lead is not an actual lead – it signifies a close, competitive election.
It is also early, and Democrats have not had a competitive primary. Lots of folks are not engaged. Look at this chart from Morning Consult. If the Democratic coalition starts coming home as Biden ramps up and Trump becomes the R nominee he will jump ahead by a few points….
We learned in 2022 that centering our understanding of American politics around wobbly polling and polling averages was risky. No reason we should be doing it again this cycle. Lots of other things we can throw into the strategic blender to understand where we are.
Read the rest at Hopium Chronicles. It’s quite interesting.
The mainstream press seems to want another Trump presidency, because that will make them more money. Biden is competent and doing a good job, but that’s so boring. They want the chaos back again–never mind that Trump would likely prosecute journalists in a second term.
Rene Magritte, The Subjugated reader
Apparently, Trump is a bit nervous about how many votes Niki Haley is getting in the Republican primaries.
For a full 24 hours on Saturday, Donald Trump did not mention Nikki Haley by name, ignoring her both in a freewheeling address to the Conservative Political Action Conference and after he won the primary in South Carolina.
His campaign said they were turning the page, focusing squarely on the general election. One aide, when asked about the absence of Haley, quipped: “Who?”
By Sunday, that strategic restraint was gone.
In a torrent of posts on Truth Social, just weeks before he is expected to clinch the nomination, Trump had no appetite for comity, blasting Haley as “BRAINDEAD” and “BIRDBRAIN.” He relished the news that Americans for Prosperity would stop spending on Haley’s presidential campaign. He touted a polling lead in Michigan’s primary. “When will Nikki realize,” he posted, “that she is just a bad candidate?”
Maybe when she stops getting 30 percent of the Republican primary votes?
This was not a magnanimous candidate looking to mend the intraparty fracture on full display in exit polls from each of the early electoral contests. This was not a competitor looking to pivot to going after President Joe Biden.
This was a former president entering the general election actively exacerbating divisions within the GOP — at a time when some Republicans are openly warning about the risk of alienating even a small segment of the Republican electorate. Trump has every rational incentive to make overtures to Haley and her supporters, who delivered her roughly 40 percent of the vote in New Hampshire and South Carolina and who are the kind of voters Trump will need to turn out in Michigan and Pennsylvania in November. But he refused to do so — or, perhaps, was incapable of it — despite making head feints in that direction.
“In the exit polls in the three early states, roughly 20 percent are saying they’re not going to vote for Trump,” said Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster and president of Bellwether Research and Consulting. “If that’s true, you need to have like 85 to 90 percent of your base. I do think that he’ll have some problems consolidating, particularly your well-educated, suburban Republicans.”
Worries about political extremism or threats to democracy have emerged as a top concern for U.S. voters and an issue where President Joe Biden has a slight advantage over Donald Trump ahead of the November election, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.
Some 21% of respondents in the three-day poll, which closed on Sunday, said “political extremism or threats to democracy” was the biggest problem facing the U.S., a share that was marginally higher than those who picked the economy – 19% – and immigration – 18%.
Biden’s Democrats considered extremism by far the No. 1 issue while Trump’s Republicans overwhelmingly chose immigration.
Extremism was independents’ top concern, cited by almost a third of independent respondents, followed by immigration, cited by about one in five. The economy ranked third.
During and since his presidency, Trump has kept up a steady drumbeat of criticism of U.S. institutions, claiming the four criminal prosecutions he faces are politically motivated and holding to his false claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread fraud.
That rhetoric was central to his message to supporters ahead of their Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
Overall, 34% of respondents said Biden had a better approach for handling extremism, compared to 31% who said Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.
The poll helps show the extent to which Biden’s re-election bid could rely on voters being motivated by their opposition to Trump rather than enthusiasm over Biden’s candidacy.
The fallout from the Alabama IVF ruling is still in the news.
In brief, the reason the Alabama Supreme Court’s opinion implicates and outlaws IVF is that the state has a Wrongful Death of a Minor statute, and the court decided this applies to “all unborn children, without limitation.” But there’s no language in the statute that says this. Rather, it’s just that over the last 15 years, the Alabama Supreme Court has issued a series of rulings saying that the undefined term “minor child” in the statute can be stretched to “unborn children” regardless of what state of development the embryo is at. Once the court created such an expansive definition, the decision that frozen embryos are people was inescapable.
By Utagawa Kuniyoshi
To be fair, though, the Alabama Supreme Court is entirely made up of conservative Republicans, they were a bit hamstrung in their decision. Alabama’s state constitution states that “it is the public policy of this state to ensure the protection of the rights of the unborn child in all manners and measures lawful and appropriate.” But that doesn’t necessarily mean the court was required to, as it did here, extend that “unborn child” definition to what it calls “extrauterine children” — embryos frozen by people pursuing IVF….
For people not saddled with the misguided anti-choice belief that a tiny clump of cells is the same as a person, this is a non-controversial process. It enhances the chance of pregnancy and allows people to plan for future children without undergoing multiple invasive egg retrieval cycles. But if one subscribes to the notion of fetal personhood — that a fetus is quite literally a person, with all the attendant privileges that confers — then those frozen embryos are the same as babies.
This is, of course, a religious, not scientific belief. Chief Justice Parker, in his concurring opinion, made clear that his vote, at least, stems directly from his religious beliefs rather than being grounded in the law. Citing Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, the Ten Commandments, and the King James Bible, Parker concludes that “even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.”
Notably, none of those things are legal precedent. Indeed, in a country founded on the separation of church and state, they shouldn’t inform a court holding. However, since religious conservatives dominate the US Supreme Court, that separation has largely collapsed. This has emboldened conservative litigants and conservative state and federal judges to take ever more anti-choice stances.
A bit more:
Reproductive health activists have been sounding the alarm about the anti-choice attacks on IVF for years, particularly in the wake of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. At least two prominent anti-choice groups, Americans United for Life and Students for Life, have railed against IVF. The chief legal officer for Americans United for Life, Steve Aden, called IVF “eugenics” and said that IVF created “embryonic human beings” that were destroyed in the process. Students for Life called IVF “damaging and destructive.”
These same anti-choice groups also hate birth control, and the Dobbs decision paved the way for them to mount a theocratic attack on it too. Christopher Rufo, who ginned up a panic over benign diversity initiatives and helped force out the first Black president of Harvard, Claudine Gay, has already telegraphed that this is his next attack.
Over on Elon Musk’s increasingly Nazi-fied social media site, X, Rufo is spewing rhetoric about how “the family structure disintegrated precisely as access to birth control proliferated” and that recreational sex is bad and leads to single-mother households.
Rufo isn’t alone. The Heritage Foundation, which is also busy with a blueprint for a second Trump presidency that would destroy the administrative state and whose leader is still pushing the big lie that Trump won the 2020 election, has also called for the end of birth control. Also over on X, Heritage’s official account posted last year that “a good place to start would be a feminist movement against the pill and … returning the consequentiality to sex” [….]
And there you have it. Religious conservatives are calling for a return to a world where sex isn’t recreational or for pleasure but is instead fraught with consequences — namely, pregnancies that can’t be terminated even when the pregnant person’s life is in danger. To do this, however, they would need to succeed in getting the Supreme Court to overturn Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 case that invalidated restrictions on birth control.
Nearly two years ago, late into the night on a Monday, I had the terrifying realization that I needed to move my embryos. Immediately.
A few hours earlier—just as I was starting to wrap up work for the day—my phone had lit up in what felt like one long, continuous stream of alerts. Politico had just obtained a leaked copy of the Supreme Court’s draft Dobbs opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. As a reproductive rights attorney leading a Supreme Court reform organization, I knew my immediate next steps. Conference call. Media statement. Email to our supporters. I’d been preparing for this moment since Donald Trump was elected.
I am a child, by Gustav Adolph Hennig
But what I had spent less time thinking about was how this would affect me personally. I wasn’t at all prepared for what to do about my embryos. After years of miscarriages and egg retrievals, I did not have a baby. But I had my embryos. Sitting in nitrogen tanks. In a red state—a red state that had recently passed a draconian anti-abortion bill that, among other things, granted “an unborn child at every stage of development, all rights, privileges and immunities available to other persons.”
That legislation was being challenged in federal court, but now Roe would be gone by the end of June. Amid a swirl of unknowns (What would happen with the litigation? How would that law impact IVF? Would I somehow be prohibited from moving my embryos in the future?) I knew one thing with absolute certainty: If I wanted to control what happened to my embryos, I had to get them the heck out of Arizona, and fast.
Unfortunately, the clinics I called in my attempt to find a new home for the embryos didn’t seem to match my urgency. They couldn’t understand why we would move the embryos at all. Their pace and paperwork was business as usual. Even some of my like-minded friends understood my concern, but not my level of panic, and action. I’ll admit, I had momentary doubts about whether my alarm was misplaced.
Needless to say, the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision—effectively outlawing IVF by declaring that embryos are, legally speaking, children—put to rest any lingering questions about whether I was right to be concerned. As Mark Joseph Stern reported, embryo shipping services have already said they will no longer ship to or from Alabama.
And isn’t that the story of reproductive freedom in America in a nutshell? Time and again, advocates sound the alarm only to be told that we are being hysterical. Then we watch in horror as our worst fears materialize.
Senate conservatives are signaling they’ll block Wednesday’s planned Democratic bid to enshrine protections for in-vitro fertilization into federal law – and they’re calling IVF a states-rights issue.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) is planning to seek unanimous consent to pass her proposal to federally protect IVF, which means any one senator can easily block its passage. This isn’t the first time she’s brought up her bill — Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) objected when Duckworth tried to pass it unanimously in 2022.
But Duckworth’s bill is surging back to the forefront as Republicans face uncomfortable questions about an Alabama Supreme Court ruling restricting IVF.
Hyde-Smith’s office did not respond when asked if she would object again to Duckworth’s bill, and the GOP senator ignored Capitol hallway questions from reporters, as is her usual practice. Other Republicans are already expressing reservations about the bill, though – meaning its chances at slipping through the chamber are slim, at best.
“I don’t see any need to regulate it at the federal level,” said Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), an OB-GYN by trade, who would not say whether he’d block the bill. “I think the Dobbs decision puts this issue back at the state level, and I would encourage your state legislations to protect in-vitro fertilization.”
“It’s idiotic for us to take the bait,” said Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), who clarified he was referring not to Duckworth’s bill on its face but to Democrats’ attempts to use the proposal as an IVF messaging tool. Vance said he’s not yet reviewed the actual bill.
Regardless, Republicans’ hesitation over the IVF protection bill highlights their election-year jam: Democrats will continue trying to tie them to the Alabama ruling, which has shut down IVF facilities in the state.
And GOP statements supporting IVF — as the Senate Republican campaign arm and several candidates put out last week — might fall flat with voters if Democrats can point to specific instances when their opponents failed to protect the procedure. Exhibit A: Speaker Mike Johnson, who recently issued a statement supporting IVF but has previously supported legislation that could restrict access to the fertility tech.
That’s all I have for you today. What do you think? What other stories have captured your interest?
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Today’s cartoons come from The.Daily.Don! Artist Jesse Duquette is the Daily Don: “Documenting this administration each day from the Inauguration to the Election.” They’re wonderful! Go look at his Instagram page! There’s one for every day we’ve been held hostage by Kremlin Caligula.
Like Mark Green — President Trump’s nominee for secretary of the Army — I served my country in uniform. I was proud to be an infantry officer and retired honorably after 34 years. But as a transgender member of the military, I hid my authentic self for decades to continue serving the country I love. Unlike Green, I was forced to serve in silence the entire time, but I won’t be silent now.
I respect his Iraq War service as an Army flight surgeon, but the disrespect — the bigotry — he’s shown over and over toward the LGBT community, including LGBT service members, doesn’t reflect the spirit or direction of the military I know. Rather, his selection reflects poorly on the president and our armed forces. He’s the wrong choice to be Army secretary.
As a Tennessee state senator, Green has targeted the LGBT community. He introduced legislation that would enable businesses to discriminate against LGBT individuals. At a town hall meeting with his constituents, he expressed support for the idea of his state’s government defying the Supreme Court’s decision upholding marriage equality in all 50 states. He argued being transgender “is a disease.”
Now that he’s been nominated, Green says “politics will have nothing to do” with how he would do the job of Army secretary. Wrong. Leading the Army requires an appreciation for every individual, without exception, and Green wouldn’t have the confidence of the thousands of LGBT soldiers proudly and openly serving today. Every soldier needs to know that those at the top, uniformed and civilian, have their back. But based on the way he has used anti-LGBT politics to advance his career, that’s not him.
The You Tubes I put here will just give you a moment of zen and peace via Scotland. I’ve been listening to the haunting bagpipe music of my Gaelic ancestors for the last few days and finding some peace. I thought I’d share.
We’ve always known that Fox News was a basically a nuclear reactor of hate generation. Read this on Marie Claire.
After 15 years of providing legal protection and millions of dollars to his accusers, Fox News finally fired their marquis star, Bill O’Reilly, on Wednesday. In an age when a self-proclaimed “pussy-grabber” occupies the Oval Office, any public consequences for harassing women feel particularly significant. And this move was particularly satisfying for me—just a few years ago, O’Reilly sent a tidal wave of harassment my way.
On May 31, 2009, an anti-abortion zealot murdered abortion provider George Tiller. At the time, I was 21 years old and working as a counselor at an abortion clinic in Philadelphia. Dr. Tiller’s murder drove a hot spike of fear and anxiety through my entire body. I walked through anti-abortion protestors a few times a week to get to work; I found their gruesome signs annoying, but not threatening. But Dr. Tiller’s assassination forced me to confront the terrifying reality that my co-workers and I faced more than just screams. We could actually get killed for providing people with legal, safe, and compassionate medical care.
My boyfriend walked me to work the next day, a sweet but feeble attempt to shield me from the protestors. What could he actually do if one of them had a gun? Inside, my coworkers and I gathered to talk about how we felt. As I listened to each person share why they were still so committed to this work despite the danger, I wondered what it would be like for our stories and motivations to be shared in a bigger way. One colleague made a comment about all of us being Dr. Tiller now, and I texted my boyfriend—did he know how to make a website? And how much work would it take?
We stayed up all night with him writing code and me writing content for IAmDrTiller.com. The next day, I told my coworkers to take photos with a sign that said “I Am Dr. Tiller,” and asked them to email me their own explanation of why they provide abortion care. My boss sent the website around to other abortion providers, and overnight I received dozens of submissions from abortion-clinic staff all over the country. Somehow, conservative media got wind of the website, and on June 10, Bill O’Reilly discussed the project on his show.
Read the story of how O’Reilly basically ginned up a group of crazy domestic terrorists to stalk, harass and haunt here. I’ve been at the receiving end of attacks from those freaks. They’re an ugly, mean, nasty, and hateful lot.
President Obama will be giving a speech in Chicago after spending a lot of time resting in the tropics. I’d personally like to hear why we didn’t get all this T-Russia information back last summer from him. I believe we’re owed an explanation but I will take a little bit of hope and a lot of change talk. I could use it.
Former President Barack Obama will return to Chicago on Monday to speak to young people at the University of Chicago, in what will be his first public event since leaving the White House.
Obama and young leaders will hold a conversation on civic engagement and discuss community organizing at the university’s Logan Center for the Arts, his office announced Friday.
Hundreds of people are expected to attend, chosen from area universities that were given tickets for distribution, said Kevin Lewis, a spokesman for the former president. About six young people will appear on stage with him for the 11 a.m. discussion, Lewis said.
The event will be a homecoming for Obama on multiple levels. He formerly taught constitutional law at the U. of C. and his family has a home nearby in the Kenwood neighborhood. It also lets the former president, who came to Chicago to work as a young community organizer, fulfill one of the commitments he set out for his post-presidential years: to engage and work with the country’s next generation of leaders, Lewis said.
One SCOTUS decision could do serious damage to the First Amendment. Will this SCOTUS destroy Church/State Seperation?
Opinion: SCOTUS Hears Arguments To Tear Down Church and State Barrier https://t.co/6kKWgcWBGD
One of the many travesties endemic in a government controlled by Republicans is that the evangelical right now has the full weight and force of the federal government to institute a theocracy. Now that religious conservatives control the Supreme Court with Neil Gorsuch’s appointment to the bench, they have an instant ally to achieve the Dominionist movement’s highest priorities: tearing down any and all constitutional barriers between church and state.
Yesterday, in a case the High Court’s conservatives postponed for 15 months wishing and hoping for an evangelical majority, they heard oral arguments in a case very few Americans are aware of. The people should be terrified because a ruling for theocracy will effectively demolish church-state separation and completely neuter the First Amendment’s religious clauses. And it will force every taxpayer to fund religious organizations; like it or not.
This one case will have far reaching effects on every American, and every facet of government, that will make the Hobby Lobby, Voting Rights, and Citizens United rulings seem petty and insignificant in comparison. Sadly, due to the media, including the cowards in the liberal media, and their resistance to reporting the rash of evangelical legislation they claim are simply born of “conservative ideology,” most Americans are clueless as to what is awaiting them; a High Court ruling establishing a veritable evangelical theocracy.
The case, “Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer,” is about forcing Missouri taxpayers to fund upgrading a church school’s playground despite a state and federal prohibition against it. Even though there is a long-standing Constitutional statute against using taxpayer money to fund religious organizations, Missouri is one several states that enshrined the same prohibition in its state Constitution. Still, the “churches” cried foul and claimed that if taxpayers fund public schools, then they damn sure better start funding religious schools and organizations.
One might think that churches earning well-over $82.5 billion annually (in 2013) from taxpayers subsidizing religious non-profits (churches) was enough welfare for the “charitable Christians.” Add to that staggering annual figure the $41.7 billion in annual payments (in 2004) in welfare from Bush’s “faith-based initiative” programs. Money well spent according to W. Bush who wanted the taxpayer’s money to “save one soul at a time.” Still, even that unconstitutional abomination didn’t satisfy their greed for more taxpayer money and more control over government. And, the sad truth is that tearing down the barrier between church and state will set a Constitutional precedent allowing evangelicals to do so much more than just force taxpayers to support their “ministries.”
Since before America was a nation, the Founding Fathers were preparing, and went to great lengths, to keep religion out of government. The concept of not funding, or legislating according to evangelicalism, is not a new idea.
I hold this near and dear as the descendant of Hugenot French who fled the Alsace Lorraine/Rhinelands area as Jews and Protestants being forcefully removed and slaughtered at the behest of the Roman Catholic Church. The parts of my family who signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution made a refuge for folks suffering from state-sanctioned religious persecution. I’d hate to see us dump on this most important right.
The ability of federal judges to strike down actions taken by Congress or the executive branch if they’re deemed unconstitutional is a hallmark of the American system of government. It’s an important part of the system of checks and balances, ensuring that the president and legislators don’t acquire too much power.
But to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the nation’s top law enforcement officer, it’s “amazing” — and he means that in a bad way.
“I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the president of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and constitutional power,” Sessions told conservative radio host Mark Levin during an interview Tuesday (as reported by CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski on Thursday). “The judges don’t get to psychoanalyze the president to see if the order he issues is lawful. It’s either lawful or it’s not.”
The “judge sitting on an island in the Pacific” in question is District of Hawaii judge Derrick Watson, who ruled in March against the Trump administration’s attempt to temporarily ban residents of six majority-Muslim countries and nearly all refugees from entering the US. (Watson’s ruling is just a temporary injunction while the lawsuit against the ban, brought by states including Hawaii, gets a full hearing in court; the Trump administration is appealing Watson’s ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and appealing a separate ruling against the ban, issued in Maryland, to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.)
Sessions’s remark has gotten a lot of attention as an attack on the state of Hawaii (not least because it fits a little too easily in a long tradition of racist dog-whistling about the “foreignness” of nonwhite and specifically Pacific Islander Americans), but it’s part of a broader attack from Republicans on the “liberal Ninth Circuit” as a whole — and the first indication that not only President Trump, but his chief law enforcement officer, is uneasy with the idea of judicial review itself.
The arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is now a “priority” for the US, the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has said.
Hours later it was reported by CNN that authorities have prepared charges against Assange, who is currently holed up at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
Donald Trump lavished praise on the anti-secrecy website during the presidential election campaign – “I love WikiLeaks,” he once told a rally – but his administration has struck a different tone.
Asked whether it was a priority for the justice department to arrest Assange “once and for all”, Sessions told a press conference in El Paso, Texas, on Thursday: “We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks. This is a matter that’s gone beyond anything I’m aware of. We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious.”
He added: “So yes, it is a priority. We’ve already begun to step up our efforts and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail.”
Citing unnamed officials, CNN reported that prosecutors have struggled with whether the Australian is protected from prosecution by the first amendment, but now believe they have found a path forward. A spokesman for the justice department declined to comment.
Barry Pollack, Assange’s lawyer, denied any knowledge of imminent prosecution. “We’ve had no communication with the Department of Justice and they have not indicated to me that they have brought any charges against Mr Assange,” he told CNN. “They’ve been unwilling to have any discussion at all, despite our repeated requests, that they let us know what Mr Assange’s status is in any pending investigations. There’s no reason why WikiLeaks should be treated differently from any other publisher.”
A 2nd source is claiming that the Russians knew about Chaffetz's affair and were blackmailing him. https://t.co/Dg4hKCzRNp
Jason Chaffetz is so ambitious that his last name is a verb.
In the political world, to Chaffetz means to throw a former mentor under the bus in order to get ahead, and various prominent Republicans, from former Utah governor and presidential candidate Jon Huntsman Jr. to House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, have experienced what it’s like to get Chaffetzed. But the five-term Utah Republican and powerful chairman of the House oversight committee shocked Washington on Wednesday when he announced he would not seek reelection in 2018 or run for any other political office that year in order to spend more time with his family.
“I am healthy. I am confident I would continue to be re-elected by large margins,” he said in a statement. “I have the full support of Speaker [Paul] Ryan to continue as Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. That said, I have made a personal decision to return to the private sector.”
His surprise announcement has fueled speculation of a possible scandal, though Chaffetz told Politico there’s nothing to the rumors about a skeleton in his closet: “I’ve been given more enemas by more people over the last eight years than you can possibly imagine… If they had something really scandalous, it would’ve come out a long, long time ago.”
Louise Mensch thinks the Russians have Kompromat. Twitter rumors say that he’s been having multiple affairs. (Who would fuck a man with a face like that?)
Okay, so I’m still thinking of planning an escape somewhere but meanwhile I’m here in the swamp with the Bagpipes wailing. I’m thinking I should get a set and practice at odd hours of the morning in front of the Air BnBs and the owners of my local nuisance bar. I’d be as unskilled as any of the musicians they hire for pennies there and at least as bad. One thing is certain that Scotland may look better than France if Marie LePen wins.
Have a great weekend! What’s on your reading and blogging list today? The music above is beautiful. Give it an ear or two.
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Klansmen file into an Atlanta church in 1949 to attend Sunday evening services
Good Thursday Afternoon!!
Christmas is just a week away; and, I’ll be honest, I’ll be glad when it’s all over. Of course there’s still New Year’s to deal with, but then we can get back to “normal,” such as it is. But will life ever feel truly normal to me again?
This morning I was thinking back over the devolution of the Republican Party during my lifetime. The first president I remember was Dwight Eisenhower. He was boring and he led the way for future GOP leaders in bringing religion into the public sphere; he initiated the “national prayer breakfast,” added “under God” to the pledge of allegiance, and “In God We Trust” to our currency. He formed a close relationship with the Rev. Billy Graham, who served as an adviser to Eisenhower’s campaign and his administration. However, he did preside over a healthy economy and improvements in America’s infrastructure.
The next Republican president was Richard Nixon. Nixon was also close to Billy Graham and Graham was a regular in Nixon’s White House. He continued Eisenhower’s prayer breakfast “tradition.” He began the overtly racist “Southern strategy” in order to attract Dixiecrats to switch parties; and thus Nixon began the politics of resentment and hatred of “the other” that dominate the GOP today.
Gerald Ford was religious, but didn’t try to impose his beliefs on the rest of us, but his Democratic successor Jimmy Carter was a “born again Christian” whose public religiosity may have encouraged Republicans to continue linking politics and religion.
Ronald Reagan was apparently not deeply religious, but he attracted support from the growing religious right groups and often talked publicly about God and Christianity, especially after he was shot in 1981. Once again Billy Graham was a fixture in the White House and Reagan used religion as a political tool.
In 1982, Reagan supported a constitutional amendment to allow voluntary school prayer. A year later he awarded theRev. Billy Grahamthe Presidential Medal of Freedom and proclaimed 1983 the “Year of the Bible.” He called on Americans to join him: “Let us take up the challenge to reawaken America’s religious and moral heart, recognizing that a deep and abiding faith in God is the rock upon which this great nation was founded.”
Reagan also used racism, of course. He even announced his run for the presidency with a speech supporting “states rights” in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman were murdered because they were trying to register African American voters in 1964. William Raspberry in the Washington Post in 2004:
It was bitter symbolism for black Americans (though surely not just for black Americans). Countless observers have noted that Reagan took the Republican Party from virtual irrelevance to the ascendancy it now enjoys. The essence of that transformation, we shouldn’t forget, is the party’s successful wooing of the race-exploiting Southern Democrats formerly known as Dixiecrats. And Reagan’s Philadelphia appearance was an important bouquet in that courtship.
I don’t accuse Reagan of racism, though while he served, I did note what seemed to be his indifference to the concerns of black Americans — issues ranging from civil rights enforcement and attacks on “welfare queens” to his refusal to act seriously against the apartheid regime in South Africa. He gets full credit from me for the good things he did — including presiding over the end of international communism. But he also legitimized, by his broad wink at it, racial indifference — and worse.
His political progeny include Trent Lott, who got caught a while back praising the overtly segregationist 1948 presidential candidacy of Strom Thurmond, and, I suspect, many Lott soul mates in the current Republican congressional majority.
Today’s Republican majority in the House and Senate is probably far more racist (as well as right wing “Christian”) than the one Raspberry referred to in 2004.
George H.W. Bush and his son George W. Bush continued the Republican tradition of race baiting and using right wing fundamentalists–who had by then grown very influential in politics–to get votes.
When George W. Bush was in the White House, I couldn’t imagine this trend could actually get worse. But here we are today in a presidential race in which all of the GOP candidates are campaigning on hate and fear of “the other” and using fundamentalist religious beliefs to fan the flames.
The leading Republican candidate for president Donald Trump has actually said in a primary debate on national TV that as president he would kill the families of suspected terrorists in order to prevent attacks, and not many media talking heads have expressed shock about it.
Trump wants to round up 12 million undocumented immigrants, put them on buses and drop them off at the Mexican border. He wants to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S. and he thinks he can shut down “parts of the internet” to keep potential terrorists from using it.
Another leading candidate, Ted Cruz, said on Tuesday night that as president he would “carpet bomb” any place where ISIS holds territory. Cruz is the favored candidate of fundamentalist “Christians.”
The other candidates are horrible too. For example, Chris Christie has now said twice on national TV that he would shoot down a Russian plane that entered a no-fly zone.
How have we come to this? I can see the progression in my lifetime. What can we do to break the stranglehold of right wing religious extremism and intolerance on the Republican Party? The only thing I can think of is to elect Democrats to the White House, Congress, and State Houses. If we don’t, we’re on the road to fascism.
“I’m confused. I thought July 4 was the day our country declared independence from King George III of Great Britain.”
“Actually, according to ConstitutionFacts.com, that’s not so. The Continental Congress declared independence from Great Britain on July 2, 1776.”
“Then why do we celebrate our independence on the Fourth every year? Is that when we started the American Revolution?”
“That is a common misunderstanding, as well. The American Revolution began in April 1775, more than a year earlier.”
“I’m stumped. Was the Fourth the day Thomas Jefferson wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence?”
“Nope. Thomas Jefferson wrote the first draft in June 1776. Also, Jefferson didn’t write the Declaration alone.”
“He didn’t? I always thought he was the sole author.”
“A common misconception. In fact, the Continental Congress appointed a five-person to write the Declaration. It included Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert Livingston and Roger Sherman.” ….
“Though Jefferson wrote the first draft, it was changed 86 times by other members of the committee and other members of the Continental Congress.”
The Declaration of Independence is the birth certificate of the American nation—the first public document ever to use the name “the United States of America”—and has been fundamental to American history longer than any other text. It enshrined what came to be seen as the most succinct and memorable statement of the ideals on which the U.S. was founded: the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; the consent of the governed; and resistance to tyranny.
But the Declaration’s influence wasn’t limited to the American colonies of the late 18th century. No American document has had a greater impact on the wider world. As the first successful declaration of independence in history, it helped to inspire countless movements for independence, self-determination and revolution after 1776 and to this very day. As the 19th-century Hungarian nationalist, Lajos Kossuth, put it, the U.S. Declaration of Independence was nothing less than “the noblest, happiest page in mankind’s history.”
In telling this story of global influence, however, it is important to separate two distinct elements of the Declaration—elements that sometimes get conflated. The first of these is the assertion of popular sovereignty to create a new state: in the Declaration’s words, the right of “one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them.” The second and more famous element of the Declaration is its ringing endorsement of the sanctity of the individual: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”
In this era of instant communication, it’s interesting to note the slow distribution of the Declaration, and the spreading of the word to those on whose behalf independence had been declared. (Imagine the Twitter version: Dudes, we’re on our own. #independence #totallyrad #stickitkinggeorge).
The text was set in type by Philadelphia printer John Dunlap just hours after the Continental Congress approved the manifesto on July 4. He ran off about 200 copies, most of which were then distributed via horse and boat around the Colonies. He reprinted it in his own newspaper, Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet, or The General Advertiser (great newspaper names back then). Over the next few weeks, Jefferson’s stirring words were reprinted inlocal newspapers and pamphlets around the Colonies.
And, naturally, in Britain. It took more than a month for the first reports of the Declaration to reach Britain in letters ferried by the Mercury packet ship. Gen. William Howe, who was leading the crown’s forces in the Colonies, included a brief mention in his report to his overseers. So the first public airing of the news came in the London Gazette, the crown’s official paper. If you weren’t a close reader, you could have easily missed it.
In the four-page issue dated Aug. 6-Aug. 10, 1776, the Gazette’s lead story was Howe’s update of the war, reporting that “the Rebels, who are numerous, and are very advantageously posted with strong Entrenchments both upon Long Island and that of New York, with more than One Hundred pieces of Cannon for the Defence of the Town towards the Sea, and to obstruct the passage of the [British] Fleet up the North [Hudson] River, besides a considerable Field Train of artillery.”
The 4th of July might commemorate the independence of our country — but it also serves as a bitter reminder that in 1776, the country that I love had no place for me in it.
When our founding fathers penned, “All men are created equal,” they meant it. Not all people. Not all humans. Just all men — the only reason they didn’t feel obliged to specify “white” men is because, at the time, men of color were considered less than men, less than human.
The 4th is not my Independence Day — and if you’re a Caucasian woman, it isn’t yours either. Our “independence” didn’t come for another 143 years, with the passage of The Woman’s Suffrage Amendment in 1919. The 4th of July is also not Independence Day for people of color. It wasn’t until the 15th Amendment was ratified in 1870 that all men had the right to vote regardless of race — on paper, that is, not in practice. People of color were systematically, and all too successfully, disenfranchised for another century. July 4th of 1776 was certainly not a day of Independence or reverence for Native Americans. It wasn’t until 1924 that Native Americans could unilaterally become citizens of the United States and have the voting rights to go with it.
Now, before anyone argues that Independence is about more than voting rights, I’d like to point out that our Founding Fathers would fundamentally disagree with you. The Revolutionary War was fought, in large part, because of “taxation without representation” — the then English colonists believed they were not free because their voices were not represented. The right to vote, the right to have your say is the delineating characteristic of a democracy.
The Aftermath of the Hobby Lobby Decision
On that note, today many concerned citizens are looking back at the latest Supreme Court decisions that take women backwards in their pursuit of freedom and autonomy. The court-approved limits on access to birth control go beyond the Hobby Lobby decision. Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog: Broader right to object to birth control.
Expanding the rights of religious opponents of birth control, a divided Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon spared an Illinois college — and maybe hundreds of other non-profit institutions — from obeying government regulations that seek to assure access to pregnancy prevention services for female workers and students. In the same order, the majority essentially told the government to modify its own rules if it wants to keep those services available.
Three Justices wrote a sharply worded dissent, accusing the majority of creating on its own a “new administrative regime” that will seriously complicate the operation of the birth control mandate under the new federal health care law. The majority, the dissenters said, “has no reason to think that the administrative scheme it foists on the government today is workable or effective on a national scale.”
The ruling, which the majority insisted was temporary and had settled nothing finally about the legal issues at stake, came three days after the Court in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby had given for-profit businesses whose owners have religious objections to birth control a right to refuse to provide those services in their employee health plans.
The plea by Wheaton College, a religious institution in Illinois with about 3,000 students, moved the Court beyond for-profit firms to the world of non-profit religious colleges, hospitals, and other charities. The government had already moved to accommodate their beliefs, but that had not gone far enough for the college and for scores of other non-profits. With the Court’s new order, they gained additional separation from the birth-control mandate.
For the last few days, there’s been a broad argument about whether the Hobby Lobby ruling was a narrow one—as Alito himself insisted it was—or was merely an opening volley that opened the door to much broader rulings in the future. After Tuesday’s follow-up order—which expanded the original ruling to cover all contraceptives, not just those that the plaintiffs considered abortifacients—and today’s order—which rejected a compromise that the original ruling praised—it sure seems like this argument has been settled. This is just the opening volley. We can expect much more aggressive follow-ups from this court in the future.
POSTSCRIPT: It’s worth noting that quite aside from whether you agree with the Hobby Lobby decision, this is shameful behavior from the conservatives on the court. As near as I can tell, they’re now playing PR games worthy of a seasoned politico, deliberately releasing a seemingly narrow opinion in order to generate a certain kind of coverage, and then following it up later in the sure knowledge that its “revisions” won’t get nearly as much attention.
Monday’s decision in Hobby Lobby was unprecedented. Much of the commentary has focused on the Supreme Court’s decision to extend rights of religious free exercise to for-profit corporations. Hobby Lobby is for religion what Citizens United was for free speech—the corporatization of our basic liberties. But Hobby Lobby is also unprecedented in another, equally important way. For the first time, the court has interpreted a federal statute, theReligious Freedom Restoration Act (or RFRA), as affording more protection for religion than has ever been provided under the First Amendment. While some have read Hobby Lobby as a narrow statutory ruling, it is much more than that. The court has eviscerated decades of case law and, having done that, invites a new generation of challenges to federal laws, including those designed to protect civil rights.
The authors explain how the right wing Roberts Court has moved beyond any concern for legal precedent in making its decisions.
Hobby Lobby is unprecedented because it corporatizes religious liberty. It extends to for-profit businesses the rights and privileges that have long been associated only with churches and religious nonprofits. But that change is the result of a more pervasive and deeper upending of the law of religious liberty in America. Ignoring congressional intent, the court reads RFRA as having shed its First Amendment skin. It is not entirely clear what American law will look like after that change. But if anything is clear, it is that the Roberts Court is now unconstrained by precedent. It has loosened itself from decades of First Amendment doctrine and has begun remaking the law of free exercise.
Please read the whole thing.
Ironically, the Hobby Lobby decision may have also created some serious problems for the human beings who own corporations (h/t Dakinikat). From Mother Jones: How Hobby Lobby Undermined The Very Idea of a Corporation. Basically, now that SCOTUS has said that some corporations are inseparable from the people who own them, those owners could lose their legal protection from debts and lawsuits that result from corporate actions. There’s some instant Karma for you!
A few more links for your holiday reading pleasure:
The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
That treaty negotiation contains the most significant indicator of what the founding fathers intended, which eventually became embedded in the U.S. Constitution: the separation of church and state. Its first was written in that Treaty.
You may continue to read the excerpt of that book at the link. The book is still in print. You know me and my rabbit holes. You also know six of my direct ancestors ratified that Treaty. I feel like I have a lot of skin in this game. We all should have a lot of skin in this game. David Kurtz at
The 
The bigger problem is the Trump Snake Oil show has emboldened local theocratic fascists at all levels. Again, I dealt with them back in 1992 when the cry against anyone who wasn’t white and their brand of Christian was considered to be a multiculturist. They were as rabid back then as now against women’s Reproductive Rights and the GLBT community. I fled Nebraska for the safety of the French Quarter because of them. They’re insane. This is insane. This is from Piper Hutchinson, who is writing for the 
And, of course, the deplorable Caitlyn Jenner had to come join the gaslighting. 
Good Morning Sky Dancers!
Read the story of how O’Reilly basically ginned up a group of crazy domestic terrorists to stalk, harass and haunt here. I’ve been at the receiving end of attacks from those freaks. They’re an ugly, mean, nasty, and hateful lot.
I hold this near and dear as the descendant of Hugenot French who fled the Alsace Lorraine/Rhinelands area as Jews and Protestants being forcefully removed and slaughtered at the behest of the Roman Catholic Church. The parts of my family who signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution made a refuge for folks suffering from state-sanctioned religious persecution. I’d hate to see us dump on this most important right.
But Sessions has decided to place the spying blame Julian Assange and flutter his little hands and air his 
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