Not too "contemptuous" for the Times: John Irving's false claims about what the Catholic Church teaches. nationalreview.com/corner/john-ir…
Not too contemptuous for the Times: making a false statement about Sarah Palin, then replacing it with a misleading insinuation. nationalreview.com/corner/times-e…
My @bopinion column today argues that the end of Roe won't mean a national abortion ban or an end to Griswold/Lawrence/Obergefell. Thread: bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
First, on a national ban: In my view, there's no principled reason not to go for it. But it would require either getting 60 pro-life votes in the Senate or getting rid of the filibuster. So the real legislative battles will be in the states.
Next, on the other social-liberal precedents: The strategy that appears to have taken down Roe is not available against them.
I see that the idea that opposition to liberal abortion laws is impermissibly religious is getting an airing again (even though this view has never commanded a majority on the Supreme Court). A short thread:
Obviously it is possible to oppose abortion for non-religious reasons, and the country as a whole seems in recent decades to have become less religious while staying at least as pro-life.
It is of course also true that for the vast majority of pro-lifers, our views of public policy on abortion have a religious dimension. So what? Our opposition to homicide generally has a religious dimension.
If this draft Alito opinion holds, it is a great advance for human rights and democracy in our country. Protection of the weakest and most vulnerable human beings will no longer be pit against our fundamental law.
Alito’s opinion is right again and again: about the phoned-in quality of Roe’s logic, about its phony history, about the cobbled-together precedent doctrine of Casey.
If this leak came from an opponent of the decision, it will turn out to be yet another misjudgment on the part of Roe’s partisans. It will make it harder, not easier, to maintain months and years of outrage about the restoration of democratic authority over abortion policy.
After calling other people "uniformed," @JRubinBlogger shows herself unfamiliar with the polling, which has frequently shown a majority of African-Americans and Democrats in favor of voter id.
Also, "a growing body of evidence ... finds that strict voter ID laws do not appear to disproportionately suppress voter turnout among African Americans, Asian Americans or people of mixed races." theconversation.com/voter-id-laws-…
There is, of course, no "right" that voter i.d. requirements infringe. It's not in the Constitution and not in federal law, however much a fairly small minority of people might wish otherwise.
How could convicting Trump get 17 Republican votes in the Senate? Thread: 1/x
Easiest votes to get are Romney, Toomey, Murkowski, Sasse, Collins. I think leadership would have to supply the next tranche: McConnell, Thune, Barrosso, Blunt. Cornyn is quasi-leadership and respected by other Rs. 2/
Another possible group: 2022 retirees (not double counting Toomey), who could include Shelby, Grassley (tho I doubt he would vote to convict) 3/