There used to be a frequent commenter here at LITD who, when Supreme Court rulings like Roe v. Wade and Obergefell v. Hodges would come up, would chime in with some variant on "stare decisis, baby!" to which I'd respond by bringing up Dredd Scott or Plessey v. Ferguson, and a stalemate would ensue. For anyone interested in a sound contemplation of the concept, I recommend an essay at Law & Liberty by Marc O. DiGirolami entitled "Integrating Originalism and Stare Decisis." The author says that judges should heed the guidance of a "legal thread connecting a long and lasting line of cases," but also take heed of instances when their gut tells them that evil is afoot.
Peter Heck at The Resurgent on the latest degree to which Jen Hatmaker has departed from sound Christian doctrine:
[W]hat strikes me . . . is why someone like Hatmaker, who is so infatuated with gaining earthly audiences and inviting the thunderous applause of men that she willfully invents her own religion, is so stubborn in her desire to rebrand her humanist idolatry as Christianity.
If she wasn’t, this wouldn’t be a column worth writing. If she wasn’t, her Facebook meanderings would be indistinguishable from, and no more noteworthy than, the vast majority of posts made by the world for the world. But Hatmaker is intent not only on identifying herself as a Christian, but misleading whoever will pay attention to her that her mind is a better barometer for real faith than the teachings of Christ’s church.
The post-American public's estimation of the sports world is underwater:
The sports industry now has a negative image, on balance, among Americans as a whole, with 30% viewing it positively and 40% negatively, for a -10 net-positive score. This contrasts with the +20 net positive image it enjoyed in 2019, when 45% viewed it positively and 25% negatively.
This slide in the sports industry's image comes as professional and college leagues are struggling, and not always successfully, to maintain regular schedules and playing seasons amid the pandemic. Professional football, baseball and basketball games have also become focal points for public displays of support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
While it's not clear how much the various challenges and controversies swirling around the industry are each responsible for its slide in popularity, it is notable that sports has lost more support from Republicans and independents than from Democrats. In fact, Democrats' view of the sports industry has not changed significantly in the past year, while Republicans' has slipped from a +11 net-positive score in 2019 to a net -35 today, and independents' from +26 to -10.
I know that in some quarters Ben Sasse has come in for castigation for not seeming to maintain the fierce opposition to the Very Stable Genius on display in his legendary February 2016 open letter to Trump supporters , but I've never lost faith in him. There are a great many Republican legislators, state and federal, who I have watched with dismay suffocate their principles to climb aboard the Trump train, but I'm confident Ben has never done so. More than that, he acts on his principles in concrete ways, such as with his latest proposal:
Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) called to repeal the 17th Amendment on Tuesday, which would eliminate the requirement that U.S. senators be elected by popular votes.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “Make the Senate Great Again,” Sasse called for an end to the amendment, among other changes to the Senate “aimed at promoting debate, not ending it.”
He also recommended abolishing standing committees, requiring senators to show up for debates, implementing 12-year term limits, and requiring senators to live together in dorms when in Washington.
“What would the Founding Fathers think of America if they came back to life?” Sasse wrote. “Their eyes would surely bug out first at our technology and wealth. But I suspect they’d also be stunned by the deformed structure of our government. The Congress they envisioned is all but dead. The Senate in particular is supposed to be the place where Americans hammer out our biggest challenges with debate. That hasn’t happened for decades—and the rot is bipartisan.”
Love this paragraph:
“Different states bring different solutions to the table, and that ought to be reflected in the Senate’s national debate,” he wrote. “The old saying used to be that all politics is local, but today—thanks to the internet, 24/7 cable news and a cottage industry dedicated to political addiction—politics is polarized and national. That would change if state legislatures had direct control over who serves in the Senate.”
Dave Boucher and Todd Spangler at the Detroit Free Press enumerate the wild claims the VSG made at last night's rally about the auto industry in Michigan:
President Donald Trump made wildly inaccurate claims at a rally outside Saginaw on Thursday night, suggesting he has revitalized auto manufacturing in the state when it actually lost jobs even before coronavirus hit in March.
"We brought you a lot of car plants, we brought you a lot ... and we’re going to bring you a lot more," Trump began his speech at MBS International Airport in Freeland.
But only one new major assembly facility, a Jeep plant on Detroit's east side, has been announced during Trump's term, while General Motors underwent a divisive 40-day strike last year and announced the idling of four U.S. plants, including two in Michigan. One of those, Detroit-Hamtramck, has since been revived and is being retooled to build electric cars and SUVs. Warren transmission was revived most recently to make face masks, though its future is uncertain.
Navya, a French shuttle maker, announced it could employ 50 or so people at a plant in Saline, said Kristin Dziczek, vice president of industry, labor and economics with the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor; Waymo, which makes self-driving cars, said last year it would employ 100 people at an assembly plant in Detroit and could someday expand that number to 400.
That's hardly a signal of a vast resurgence. Trump has also apparently made similar exaggerated claims in other campaign stops, with the Washington Post saying he has been "bragging about imaginary auto plants."
His signature foul mouth and his signature transactional framing of the case for his reelection were on display:
At another point in the wide-ranging speech, Trump repeated, "You better vote for me, I got you so many damn car plants."
Over 10 percent of Oregon residents have been told to flee the fires scorching their state.
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