Colbert King wonders whether we might already be over a very scary line.
If some red states were to openly defy the authority of President Obama in the exercise of his constitutional duties, would today’s Republican Congress side with him? Or would they honor the insurrection?
I wish it could be said with confidence that the legislative branch would oppose a rebellion against the executive branch of government. But I’m not so sure.
Last month, the Republican-led Arizona House of Representatives passed, on a 36-to-24 party-line vote, a bill sponsored by tea party Rep. Bob Thorpe (R-Flagstaff) that “prohibits this state or any of its political subdivisions from using any personnel or financial resources to enforce, administer or cooperate with an executive order issued by the President of the U.S. that has not been affirmed by a vote of Congress and signed into law as prescribed by the U.S. Constitution.” ...
The word “insurrection” does come to mind. Yet the resistance out West to federal authority has been received in virtual silence on Capitol Hill. It’s almost as if the GOP Congress wanted an uprising against the president.
I think the only word of that I would question is "almost."
But hey, Kentucky lost. Might as well burn down... well, let's say a pint of something. Drop that egg dipper and come on inside for more punditry.
A couple of NYT pieces on the criminal justice system.
John Lennon on the need for education behind bars.
Ever wonder what prisoners do and talk about? Well, at the Attica Correctional Facility, we’re all tucked away in cellblocks watching TV. We watch a lot — all day, all night. Then we talk about what we’re watching. ...
We don’t have access to the Internet but prison officials are all for TVs in the cells. It’s called the “TV program.” When prisoners watch TV instead of going to the yard, there’s less violence. We’re entertained and confined and everyone’s happy. But the TVs could be put to better use.
What if, a few times a week, massive open online courses, or MOOCs, were streamed on the prison’s internal station, channel 3? Companies like Coursera already record university lectures — in subjects like psychology, sociology, existentialism, economics and political science — and stream them online for free. The MOOCs, which are free for the rest of the world, could help American prisoners become more educated and connected.
But of course, there's a prevailing feeling these days that prisoners don't just need to be punished, they need to be belittled. Giving them anything, including education that might help them stay out of prison in the future, isn't considered because benefit to society, much less benefit to the prisoner, doesn't come into the equation.
The New York Times records a pair of Supreme Court justices telling Congress that the system can't continue as it is.
Members of the Supreme Court rarely speak publicly about their views on the sorts of issues that are likely to come before them. So it was notable when Justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer sat before a House appropriations subcommittee recently and talked about the plight of the American criminal justice system. ...
“The corrections system is one of the most overlooked, misunderstood institutions we have in our entire government,” [Kennedy] said. He chastised the legal profession for being focused only on questions of guilt and innocence, and not what comes after. “We have no interest in corrections,” he said. “Nobody looks at it.” ...
Justice Kennedy was right that all too often decisions about sentencing and corrections are made without meaningful consideration of their long-term costs and benefits, or of their effect on the millions of people who spend decades behind bars.
“This idea of total incarceration just isn’t working,” he said. “And it’s not humane.”
But it's profitable, and heavily weighted against the poor. Odds that the GOP will try to fix the justice system? They have their fix in already.
Frank Bruni has his take on Indiana.
The drama in Indiana last week and the larger debate over so-called religious freedom laws in other states portray homosexuality and devout Christianity as forces in fierce collision.
They’re not — at least not in several prominent denominations, which have come to a new understanding of what the Bible does and doesn’t decree, of what people can and cannot divine in regard to God’s will. ...
In the end, the continued view of gays, lesbians and bisexuals as sinners is a decision. It’s a choice. It prioritizes scattered passages of ancient texts over all that has been learned since — as if time had stood still, as if the advances of science and knowledge meant nothing.
It ignores the extent to which interpretation is subjective, debatable.
And it elevates unthinking obeisance above intelligent observance, above the evidence in front of you, because to look honestly at gay, lesbian and bisexual people is to see that we’re the same magnificent riddles as everyone else: no more or less flawed, no more or less dignified.
When I was a kid, everyone knew that those "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" signs really meant "Blacks aren't welcome here." The same spirit, and very similar signs, are at work in Indiana (and elsewhere).
Ross Douthat has an interview with a poor, benighted Christian, though not of the Frank Bruni variety. Douthat plays the role of interviewer and interviewee, so you know this is going to be absolutely fair.
Happy Easter!
Thank you.
O.K., enough pleasantries. You’re a semi-reasonable Christian. What do you think about the terrible Indiana “religious liberty” bill?
I favored the original version. Based on past experience, laws like this protect religious minorities from real burdens. As written, the Indiana law probably wouldn’t have protected vendors from being fined for declining to work at a same-sex wedding. But I would favor that protection as well.
Seriously? Shouldn’t businesses have to serve all comers?
I think they should be able to decline service for various reasons, religious scruples included. A liberal printer shouldn’t be forced to print tracts for a right-wing cause. A Jewish deli shouldn’t be required to cater events for the Nation of Islam.
Here. Let me transcribe the rest of it for you.
Softball! Strawman.
Non sequitur. Outrageous parallel!
Pow!. Hold On a sec. Okay, that last one just might be from Batman. But trust me, the fight between the Caped Crusader and henchmen of the week is just as fair, and as intellectually challenging, as Douthat's master interbation.
Ruth Marcus has her thoughts on the law that Douthat loves (that is, if Indiana permits love between a man and a law).
The fight over Indiana’s especially odious version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act has been useful because it focused public attention on the unfinished business — and looming threats — that will remain even after the Supreme Court rules (presumably favorably) on same-sex marriage. ...
Now, the questions:
Question 1: “Do you believe it is acceptable to discriminate against individuals in employment, housing or public accommodations and services (that is, commercial enterprises) on the basis of sexual orientation?”
If the answer is yes, conversation over. But also, political career over. “Yes” is not a politically acceptable answer in 2015, when a majority of Americans support same-sex marriage.
If Marcus is right, then the GOP might as well call Two Men and a Truck to move them out of the Capitol. Or... wait a second, do we know what those Two Men are doing?
Leonard Pitts looks across a chasm that's never really healed.
On the day after the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, Abraham Lincoln appeared at a second floor window of the White House. He was acceding to the wishes of citizens who had gathered to serenade their president in this moment of victory. They called for a speech but Lincoln demurred. Instead he asked the band to play Dixie.
... It was probably his way of encouraging a nation that had ripped itself apart along sectional lines to begin knitting itself together again.
Lincoln received an answer of sorts two days later as beaten rebels surrendered their weapons to the Union Army. Union General Joshua Chamberlain remarked to Southern counterpart Henry Wise that perhaps now “brave men may become good friends.”
Wise’s reply was bitter as smoke. “You’re mistaken, sir,” he said. “You may forgive us, but we won’t be forgiven. There is a rancor in our hearts which you little dream of. We hate you, sir.”
Two days after that, April 14, Lincoln received a more direct response. John Wilkes Booth, famed actor and Southern sympathizer, shot him in the head. ...
Twice now — at gunpoint in the 1860s, by force of law a century later — the rest of the country has imposed change on the South, made it do what it did not want to do, i.e., extend basic human rights to those it had systematically brutalized and oppressed.
I'd like to quote more, but instead I'm just going to urge you to go read the whole thing.
Carl Hiaasen explains the danger of quoting a fifty-year-old song.
In theory, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is the state’s elite equivalent of the FBI. In theory, the agency saves its resources for investigating the most serious crimes.
Yet in the Bizarro World created by Gov. Rick Scott, almost nothing in government operates the way it was meant to. Recently the FDLE dispatched an agent to investigate a blogger who had used Beatles lyrics to poke fun at the governor.
The number in question was the benign and spacey Magical Mystery Tour, from the 1967 album of the same name.
If it had been
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds they would have come in with guns blazing.