July 26, 2021

The Supreme Court Needs to Be Cut Down to Size

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/23/opinion/supreme-court-commission-court-packing.html

On Tuesday, the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States sat for its third public meeting. Formed in April by executive order, the 36-member commission exists to hear arguments for and against Supreme Court reform and to analyze and appraise the merits of specific proposals.

President Biden did not run on court reform and rejected “court packing” during the 2020 campaign. But after Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell pushed Amy Coney Barrett through the Senate in a hurried bid to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the presidential election, he could not resist calls from within the Democratic Party to do something.

The commission is Biden’s something, and it isn’t much to look at. Not only is it not meant to make recommendations or suggest a course of action, but its members come from the upper echelon of the legal elite — exactly the people most comfortable with the institutional status quo on the Supreme Court.

But this doesn’t mean the commission is worthless. It may not offer needed reforms, but in its three meetings so far it has already served as a valuable platform for scholars with a cleareyed view of the court and a powerful critique of its current role within the nation’s constitutional order. If nothing else, the commission has helped elevate important ideas and perspectives the broader public needs to hear. It is interesting, illuminating and worthy of your attention.

Really interesting column about how historically, SCOTUS is really anti-democratic and racist. He proposes a solution I hadn't heard before, which is that rather than altering the number of justices, Congress can pass laws circumscribing the power of SCOTUS.

July 26, 2021

Biden said something odd and RW twitter is going nuts saying he said

"my butts been wiped".

I'm sure he didn't say that but I can't figure out what he was saying. He was asked about immigration. Anyone have any idea? I'm just curious. Sounds like he was joking with the reporter but I can't make it out.

https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1419437818636550145

July 21, 2021

Texas Senate Bill Drops Teaching Requirement That Ku Klux Klan Is 'Morally Wrong'

Source: Huffington Post

In a new political low in Texas, the Republican-dominated state Senate has passed a bill to eliminate a requirement that public schools teach that the Ku Klux Klan and its white supremacist campaign of terror are “morally wrong.”

The cut is among some two dozen curriculum requirements dropped from the new measure, along with studying Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, the works of United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez, Susan B. Anthony’s writings about the women’s suffragist movement, and Native American history.

Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-senate-education-bill-white-supremacy_n_60f50cf6e4b01f11895b2dc3

---

Blatant racism from these Republicans

July 18, 2021

The looming era of endemic COVID

I think the logic here is reasonable

Thread starts here
https://twitter.com/WilliamBHoenig/status/1416430672948903937

Read the rest here

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1416430672948903937.html