Roberts swings his vote, again

Supreme Court again rejects church challenge to virus restriction

The Supreme Court in a split decision Friday rejected a Nevada church’s request that it block the state government from enforcing a cap on attendance at religious services. 

The decision was a 5-4 ruling, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the liberal wing.

The court’s order was unsigned and did not provide any reasoning, common practice when the high court acts on emergency applications. 

The court’s conservative justices filed three dissents.

So Roberts isn't a "conservative justice", Tal Axelrod?

The decision comes in response to a suit from Calvary chapel Dayton Valley arguing that it was being treated unfairly compared to casinos, restaurants and amusement parks. 

Churches in the state have a firm 50-person limit, while other businesses have been told to cut their availability to half of their fire-code capacities.

Alito:

“The Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in dissent. 

“It says nothing about the freedom to play craps or blackjack, to feed tokens into a slot machine, or to engage in any other game of chance. But the Governor of Nevada apparently has different priorities."

Phooey.

Only Thomas even pretends to take the actual, absolutist and ludicrous language of the First Amendment seriously.

Everybody drills holes in it, allowing regulation and weighing of competing considerations and exceptions.

And Roberts merely insisted that the facts just didn't bear out the claims of discrimination against religion, refusing Alito's invitation to compare apples and oranges (churches and casinos), instead comparing apples and apples (churches and theaters).

Roberts:

The Friday ruling marks the second time the high court has blocked an effort from a church to invalidate state restrictions on attendance. 

The court ruled 5-4 in a similar case in May to reject a challenge from a California church.

“Although California’s guidelines place restrictions on places of worship, those restrictions appear consistent with the free exercise clause of the First Amendment,” Roberts wrote in May. 

“Similar or more severe restrictions apply to comparable secular gatherings, including lectures, concerns, movie showings, spectator sports and theatrical performances, where large groups of people gather in close proximity for extended periods of time.”

Conservatives blast Supreme Court ruling: Roberts has 'abandoned his oath'

Conservative lawmakers blasted Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts after he sided with the court's liberal justices in a 5-4 decision Friday that rejected a Nevada church’s request to block the state government from enforcing a cap on attendance at religious services.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tweeted early Saturday morning that Roberts had "abandoned his oath."

"What happened to that judge?" tweeted Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).

"Freedom of religion is our first freedom. Yet SCOTUS has ruled that casinos can host hundreds of gamblers, while churches cannot welcome their full congregations. Justice Roberts once again got it wrong, shamefully closing church doors to their flocks," Cotton added in a statement.

Defending its imposed restrictions, Nevada stated that its regulations didn't target places of worship unfairly, saying that other large gatherings — like concerts and movie theaters — were treated “the same as or worse than houses of worship.” 

The complaint made its way to the highest court in the land after being rejected by a district court and a circuit court.

Three of the conservative justices wrote dissenting opinions on the emergency order.

The opposite of cancel culture

Apparently, broadly speaking, authorities can refuse to allow messages on public property, but if they do they can't discriminate on the basis of viewpoint.

California city washes away BLM mural after Trump supporter requests ‘MAGA 2020’ display

Anybody suing de Blasio, I wonder?

Good answer, but what was the question?

Supreme Court: Montana Can't Exclude Religious Schools From Scholarship Program

A First Amendment free exercise issue, a Fourteenth Amendment equal protection (anti-discrimination) issue, or both?

Roberts went with the conservatives on this one.

Protected activities can be regulated for the public safety, nonetheless

GOP congressman says virus safety rules violate 'religious liberty'

People, especially Republicans, are so deferential to this craziness.

A warning from AG Barr of an impending constitutional clash?

If Bozo tells the states to knock off the lockdowns in, say, mid-May and they refuse, what happens?

Maybe this is a hint.

Laura Ingraham Very Concerned Americans Can’t ‘Freely’ Catch And Spread Coronavirus

She interviewed AG Barr.

INGRAHAM: 

Right now, we have no freedom of worship, public worship to go, to gather.  

We have no real freedom of assembly, not even freedom of movement, given what some of the states are doing.  

What can you tell our viewers tonight about what the Justice Department will do after this limited period to ensure that our civil liberties are balanced properly against the need to protect the public?

BARR: 

Well, you know, generally speaking there are occasions where liberties have to be restricted during certain emergencies such as war or, in this case, a potentially devastating pandemic but they have to be balanced.  

Whatever steps you take have to be balanced against the civil liberties of the American people and it cannot be used as an excuse for broad deprivations of liberty.  

So as things proceed, you know we're going to be interested in both what the federal government is imposing and also making sure that that's justified but also what the states do.  

The states have very broad well as you know what we call police powers they have very broad powers that the federal government doesn't have to regulate the lives of their citizens as long as they don't violate the Constitution. 

So we'll be keeping a careful, a careful eye on that.

But she wanted a more explicit commitment, so she continued with specific reference to events in New York.

INGRAHAM: 

Governor Cuomo spoke out this week very forcefully this holy week for Christians, obviously Passover as well for Jewish Americans, about the importance of not gathering together to celebrate and I want you to listen.

VIDEO CLIP OF ANDREW CUOMO: 

Now is not the time for large religious gatherings.  

I mean, we've paid this price already. 

We've learned this lesson. 

You do no one a service by making this worse and infecting more people.

INGRAHAM: 

At what point in time do Americans feel like they're going to be able to have that right back and that the federal government will stand up if local officials continue this all-out prohibition going forward?

Barr assured her that he is “very, very concerned” about such restrictions but he also acknowledged that government has the power to impose them during a time of public emergency, such as this one.

She went on.

INGRAHAM: 

I tweeted out something earlier today, just how, you know, these are inalienable rights. 

It means - and there's a lot of Americans today who are mourning those who've lost their lives in this horrible virus who also say the government doesn't have this right, to take this right, to take our rights away. even when the experts are saying this is a horrible time for us health wise.

Salus publica suprema lex est?

Barr explicitly agrees but she is flatly denying government - the state governments, in this instance - has the authority to limit these First Amendment rights in the interests of public health.

She evidently agrees with the claim of those who insist the lockdown is right now unconstitutional and has been from the start because the individual rights in question cannot be limited for the sake of public health.

[Aside: Napolitano, in quoting the Supremes, ignores that the public health emergency posed by the Coronavirus is not a war, despite propaganda and hyperbole to the contrary, nor is the public effort to deal with the danger. That means the quoted passages are simply not relevant to the problem at hand. And see this.]

Barr is not agreeing to that, at all.

And it seems noteworthy that the Duce himself, who has repeatedly, impatiently, and angrily denounced the lockdown as "worse than the disease", does not seem to share that view, either.

But the AG does seem to be signalling readiness to argue the need has passed and so continuing the lockdown is unconstitutional in court when Trump wants him to.

Interesting how far the parties have switched sides on the need for government imposed social discipline for the sake of public health since the time when Obama had to cope with Ebola and the Republicans were demanding more intrusive methods in the face of O's delicacy.

The Duce clearly wants his Coronavirus economics committee to run the rollback of the lockdown on a timetable of his choice - a choice incorporating their views as well as those of the public health gurus under Fauci and Birx.

Suppose his Coronavirus economics committee starts issuing rollback instructions to commence May 1 and the states tell them and Bozo to pound sand.

Will Barr go to the courts to attack the continuation of the lockdown as unnecessary and so a violation of the Bill of Rights, relying on the incorporation doctrine so often denounced by right wingers eager for a return of the "constitution in exile"?

Will Democratic state governments defend the need for a slower rollback as a legitimate limit to the individual rights in question, all which have always been understood to allow exceptions?

Will Barr insist that the duty of the president to enforce the constitution against the states both means his judgement must prevail over theirs as regards the timing of the rollback and legitimates the authority of his economic committee to control it in as much detail as they say they need?

Cuomo said today New York is developing it's own rollback plan.

Will the governors of surrounding states who followed New York's lead on the lockdown opt again to follow Cuomo's lead on the rollback?

Bozo refused responsibility (blame) for controlling or coordination the public health response to the virus, forcing the states to impose, define, and control the lockdowns.

Now he's getting ready to demand the authority (credit) for removing the lockdowns.

Behavior completely true to his opportunist and narcissist and even crooked presidency.

Cuomo on Pathways Nursing and Rehab lending the state 35 ventilators that have now been returned: "Thank you for your incredible generosity" and "Love conquers all".

Liberal intolerance

O'Rourke says churches against gay marriage should lose tax benefits, draws backlash

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke said Thursday that churches and other religious institutions that oppose same-sex marriage should lose their tax-exempt status, taking the Democratic presidential debate into uncharted — and controversial — territory.

A little too aggressive a blow in the culture war, I think.

And as for the tax break, it's unconstitutional and should be ended.

Efforts to deny churches or churchmen the freedom to declaim upon political issues at will are also unconstitutional.

"Congress shall make no law"?

It has made and will make laws restricting the freedom of speech and of the press, and that's a good thing.

Is this a good thing?

Sure.

So it's a bad thing that Bozo and his White House, knowing quite well this is mostly directed against his loony allies and supporters as well as his Russian sponsors, won't play ball.

And their publicly signalling they won't is, of course, a gesture toward those allies, those supporters, and the Russians.

White House Says It Won’t Sign Global Pact for Tougher Measures on Online Violence

The White House said on Wednesday that it would not sign an international accord intended to pressure the largest internet platforms to eradicate violent and extremist content, highlighting a broader divide between the United States and other countries about the role of government in determining what content is acceptable on the internet.

Citing free speech protections, the Trump administration said in a statement that “the United States is not currently in a position to join the endorsement.” 

It added that “the best tool to defeat terrorist speech is productive speech.”

The White House’s statement came on a day when President Emmanuel Macron of France and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand were gathered in Paris to sign what they call the “Christchurch Call.” 

The agreement was crafted in the wake of a terrorist attack that left 51 Muslim worshipers dead. 

The attack on multiple mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand was live streamed on Facebook and spread virally across the internet.

The Christchurch Call is not binding and does not include any punishments for platforms that don’t comply. 

But as governments around the world consider new laws and regulations, the companies are under pressure to demonstrate they can police their platforms. 

On Tuesday night, ahead of the gathering in Paris, Facebook announced that it would place more restrictions on the use of its live video service.

Last week, France proposed new laws that would require companies to abolish harmful content. Britain last month put forward a similar proposal. 

And following the Christchurch massacre, Australia passed a law that makes company executives personally liable for the spread of violent material.

The pastor is right

Both that America is a (mostly) Christian nation and that politicians forcing billboards saying so to be taken down is a serious violation of the First Amendment.

As for the rest, both he and his critics are disgusting.

Too hot an issue for the news

This is the closest I have come to finding a straight news account of the impending Irish referendum on repeal of a feature of the Irish constitution that insists the unborn child has a right to life equal to that of the mother, the 8th Amendment.

Everyone in Ireland, including courts and lawyers and politicians, agrees it effectively prohibits any and all abortions, except in some cases where the life of the mother is at stake.

Most of the big media coverage is highly editorial, highly partisan, and mostly fiercely supportive of repeal.

Even CNN has a hard time sticking to neutral coverage.

The young Americans trying to stop Ireland from voting Yes to abortion

And we get the usual mendacious behavior from the usual suspects.

Facebook Tips the Scales in Ireland’s Abortion Referendum

Says Father Marcel de la Cruz in WSJ,

[T]he Irish government and many in the traditional media have grown concerned that voters will reject their push for legalized abortion. 

Social media is one of the few avenues of public outreach left to those who oppose repeal of the Irish Constitution’s pro-life Eighth Amendment, which voters overwhelmingly approved in 1983. 

An independent member of the Dáil Éireann, Ireland’s lower house of Parliament, accused Prime Minister Leo Varadkar last week of lobbying Facebook to ban advertising related to the referendum on abortion. 

Legislator Mattie McGrath said the ban was “preventing campaigns that have done nothing illegal from campaigning in a perfectly legal matter.”

. . . .

As a co-founder of FrontPage.org, a website that has published articles in support of the Eighth Amendment, I have seen firsthand how Facebook puts its thumb on the scale. 

Earlier this month Facebook’s ad service denied our attempts to promote two op-eds by journalist Bruce Arnold of the Irish Independent, Ireland’s most popular daily newspaper. 

It also blocked our attempts to promote a letter signed by more than 100 Irish lawyers defending the Eighth Amendment.


Last week Facebook’s Dublin lawyers rejected our request to restore FrontPage.org’s ability to inform the Irish public on issues regarding the referendum. 

It isn’t too late for the company to admit its mistake and reverse its decision. 

That would truly serve the interest of freedom, fairness and transparency.

Full disclosure: I do not accept that Russian propaganda activity in support of Trump ought per se to be regarded as scandalous, and neither do I regard criminalization of it as a good thing.

In any case it is certainly a marvel of hypocrisy, considering our own government's long tradition of extensive "interference" in other people's elections using just such, and other less savory, means.

And I am no more supportive of facebook trying to censor its users in a government-coerced effort to suppress fake news than I am of the government doing it directly.

First Amendment, free expression, don't you know.

And that is not an amendment we should repeal.

A lot of this is pure anti-Trump excess doing damage that will outlast him.

Update. Repeal of the 8th passed.

A dangerous development in the war on fake news

Democrat media are increasingly demanding that the government push social media into self-censorship and censorship of posts and comments, or legally mandate it.

Add that to the push for hate-speech legislation and PC speech controls and the continuing readiness of Democrats to punish speech they regard as likely to provoke Muslim terrorism and the perilous situation of First Amendment rights in America is made worse.

Hmm. An actual equivalence.

They are both right.

Planners of Deadly Charlottesville Rally Are Tested in Court

In the hours after last summer’s white power rally in Charlottesville, Va., erupted into violence, the planners of the protest mounted a defense: 

While much of the country may have found their racist chants and Nazi iconography deplorable, they claimed that they had a First Amendment right to self-expression, and that none of the bloodshed was actually their fault.

Six months later, that narrative of blamelessness, which started on the airwaves and the internet, is now being tested in the courthouse. 

In a direct assault on the so-called alt-right movement, a sprawling lawsuit contends that the leaders of the Charlottesville gathering engaged in a conspiracy to foster racial hatred, and are legally responsible for the 30 injuries and the death of a woman, Heather Heyer, that occurred.

. . . .

The nine named plaintiffs — students, clergy members and local residents who say they were hurt in Charlottesville — have accused the event’s leaders of plotting to deprive them of their civil rights by encouraging their followers to arm themselves and partake in violence. 

(Heather Heyer’s family is not among the plaintiffs.)

The defendants — an array of neo-Nazis, white identitarians and old-line pro-Confederates — have ridiculed the charges as an act of “lawfare” maliciously intended to silence them and destroy them financially.

“The goal here is to break us and keep us from taking to the streets,” said Jeff Schoep, the leader of the National Socialist Movement. 

“That should concern all Americans, no matter where you stand on the political spectrum.”

As the case moves forward, it is likely to explore the limits of the First Amendment’s broad free-speech provisions and the principle that incitements to violence are not protected.

The plaintiffs are on safe legal ground claiming that incitement to violence is not protected.

What is new is the threat of an effort to have speech and expression that do no more than retail the central doctrines of the various tribes of the white racist right legally condemned as per se incitements to violence.

That would, far more openly and extensively than the vagaries of hate speech legislation, effectively ban the entire white racist right, while setting up legal assaults on such purveyors of black racial hatred of whites as The Nation of Islam, as well as others.

It would represent a stark abandonment and reversal of the extensive protection of speech and expression, not only of outright Nazis and various kinds of white racists but also of black racist organizations as well as other hate groups, afforded by a long line of Supreme Court rulings.

Just one of many points at which the new racial leftist PC and actual liberalism are diametrically opposed.

Of course, the court could find for the plaintiffs without going so far, if the plaintiffs can show defendants did not merely prepare for self defense in case of attacks by violent counter-demonstrators but both prepared and planned to start violence, to provoke and engage in violence against the counter-demonstrators, no matter how harmless the conduct of the latter may have been.

Strange times, when the right is the defender of free speech

Republicans Tack a Conservative Campus Wish List to a Major Education Bill

The Times, bastion of the post-liberal left, is shocked.

Just as our so-called "conservatives" are not conservatives but radicals out to undo over a century of progressive accomplishments, our so-called "liberals" are increasingly a post-liberal left prioritizing an anti-liberal agenda of social change that erodes popular support for our republican institutions and prominently features attacks of the First Amendment freedoms of expression and association.

Religious colleges would be able to bar openly same-sex relationships without fear of repercussions.

Religious student groups could block people who do not share their faith from becoming members.

Controversial speakers would have more leverage when they want to appear at colleges.

A 590-page higher-education bill working its way through Congress is a wish list for a wide range of people, groups and colleges saying that their First Amendment rights — freedom of speech, religion or assembly — are being trampled. 

Many of them are religious, right-leaning or both, and the Republicans behind the bill have eagerly taken up the cause, correcting what they see as antipathy toward conservative beliefs on American campuses.

Quick. Check the Constitution.

By what authority do they do this, this party of soi-disant strict constructionists and limited government fans?

Talk about fake news.

Where in section 8 of Article I do they find the power to do this?

If they claim the commerce clause their readings are as broad and implausible as any liberal's.

And you know they aren't claiming either the general welfare clause or the necessary and proper clause.

They are allowing gun toters from Vermont where no actual permit is required, as concealed carry is lawful for everyone, to carry a little bubble of Vermont law with them, as regards this one particular matter, wherever they go in the US, in blithest ignorance of and unconcern for the laws of every state through which they may serenely pass, as regards gun rights.

Guns are just so special, you see.

If this is passed and is taken by state attorneys general to the Supremes and the conservatives among them defend it their hypocrisy will be evident and beyond laughable.

The Second Amendment does not have a finishing sentence, "Congress shall have power to enforce this amendment by appropriate legislation," even if we accept a version of incorporation that makes it binding on the states.

Update 08142020. How does this proposal comport with the requirement of full faith and credit?

House Votes to Sharply Expand Concealed-Carry Gun Rights

The House on Wednesday easily passed a sweeping expansion of the right to carry concealed firearms virtually anywhere in the country, putting the fate of the National Rifle Association’s top legislative priority in the hands of a divided Senate.

To win over Democrats, House Republicans paired the measure, which would require all states to recognize any other state’s concealed-carry permit, with a more modest bipartisan fix meant to incentivize better reporting of legal and mental health records to the national background check system.

Together, the measures were the first gun-related bill to pass through the chamber since two of the deadliest mass shootings in the United States, in Las Vegas and Sutherland Springs, Tex., in the fall.

But the background check measure was not enough to win over most Democrats, nor did it persuade law enforcement officials in some of the largest cities, including New York, who say the legislation would force locales with strict gun laws to bow to places with few or no gun restrictions.

The final House vote was 231 to 198, with six Democrats in favor of and 14 Republicans against the bill.

A coerced expression argument for religious refusal

A Baker’s First Amendment Rights

If good at all, surely it's good for any refusal, and not just religion-based refusal?

You need the First Amendment precisely when your ideas offend others or flout the majority’s orthodoxies. 

And then it protects more than your freedom to speak your mind; it guards your freedom not to speak the mind of another.

Thus, in classic “compelled speech” rulings, the Supreme Court has protected the right not to be forced to say, do or create anything expressing a message one rejects. 

Most famously, in West Virginia v. Barnette (1943), it barred a state from denying Jehovah’s Witnesses the right to attend public schools if they refused to salute the flag. 

In Wooley v. Maynard (1977), the court prevented New Hampshire from denying people the right to drive if they refused to display on license plates the state’s libertarian-flavored motto “live free or die.”

On Tuesday, the court will consider whether Colorado may deny Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, the right to sell custom wedding cakes because he cannot in conscience create them for same-sex weddings. 

Mr. Phillips, who has run his bakery since 1993, sells off-the-shelf items to anyone, no questions asked. 

But he cannot deploy his artistic skills to create cakes celebrating themes that violate his religious and moral convictions. 

Thus he does not design cakes for divorce parties, lewd bachelor parties, Halloween parties or same-sex weddings.

Colorado’s order that he create same-sex wedding cakes (or quit making any cakes at all) would force him to create expressive products carrying a message he rejects. That’s unconstitutional.

The disaster for republicanism and human rights in Burma

Purge of Rohingya Lifts Popular Support for Myanmar’s Top General

This is one of those long and information rich stories the Times is famous for.

It's some three or four times longer than this quoted piece, and all of it worth reading.

The most powerful person in Myanmar now, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, was little known outside the country’s military circles until the villages started burning.

Within just a few weeks in 2009, his forces drove tens of thousands of people out of two ethnic enclaves in eastern Myanmar — first the Shan, near the Thai border, then the Kokang, closer to China. Locals accused his soldiers of murder, rape and systematic arson.

Two years later, the general, who is scheduled to meet with Pope Francis this week, was promoted to commander-in-chief of the armed forces, in a country where the Constitution keeps the military in power despite the veneer of democratic elections.

The techniques that his forces used in 2009 have all been on display this year as the military has driven more than 620,000 Rohingya Muslims out of Myanmar in a campaign the United States has declared to be ethnic cleansing.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate who is the country’s de facto leader, has been harshly criticized for allowing the Rohingya’s expulsion. 

But under the Constitution, which was written by the military, she has no authority over the armed forces.

That is solely the province of General Min Aung Hlaing, 61.

His campaign against the Rohingya has further cemented his status, creating an air of crisis that has galvanized support both within the ranks and the country’s Buddhist majority.

“They are pinching themselves,” David Scott Mathieson, an analyst in Yangon, said about the military leadership. 

“They hit the jackpot. They are six years into the democracy era, and they are more popular than in decades.”

General Min Aung Hlaing has effectively sidelined Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, whose electoral landslide in 2015 blocked a potential path for him to become president of Myanmar, also known as Burma. 

She is barred in the Constitution from becoming president and heads the government under the title she created, “state counselor.”

She and the general rarely meet or speak to each other. 

And as his military offensive continues, it is deeply undermining Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s international standing.

“Aung San Suu Kyi and her government are a human shield for the military against international and domestic criticism,” said Mark Farmaner, director of the London-based Burma Campaign U.K.

General Min Aung Hlaing’s power includes appointing three key cabinet members, overseeing the police and border guards, and presiding over two large business conglomerates. 

He fills a quarter of Parliament’s seats, enough to block any constitutional amendment that would limit his authority.

And in local news, good news, maybe.

PA election results: Democrats make gains, but lose Pa. high court seat to Mundy

The property tax referendum passed, allowing local authorities to waive taxes on up to 100% of the value on people's homes under the Homestead provision.

Pennsylvania took a first step toward a potential property tax overhaul Tuesday, as voters approved a constitutional amendment that could lead to change.

The ballot question, which asked whether taxing authorities should be able to exempt residents from paying property taxes on their primary residences, was poised to pass with preliminary results showing the amendment passing by a nearly 140,000-vote margin, with 93 percent of districts reporting results.

"I’m excited that the people of Pennsylvania got to speak, and I think they made it pretty clear," said Rep. David Maloney, R-Berks, who sponsored the bill that created the ballot question. 

"I think it’s a significant step forward and I think, in some respects, the legislature probably needed to see this."

The vote marked a concrete move toward changing or eliminating a levy that has been a long-standing source of complaint. 

Lawmakers and advocates say that the current reliance on property taxes — which account for about 30 percent of local and state revenue in Pennsylvania and are a primary source of school funding — is especially harmful to homeowners who live on fixed incomes. 

The issue has gained greater traction in recent years; Gov. Tom Wolf has said he supports the elimination of property taxes.

A tightening alliance between the GOP and the religious right

GOP tax bill would allow churches to endorse political candidates

Secularists generally say churches should have no tax exemption.

They have had one for decades, on condition they stay out of politics.

The GOP view has been in recent decades that they should keep the exemption and freely get into politics with both feet.

The House Republican tax bill released Thursday would allow churches to endorse political candidates, rolling back a 1950s-era law that bars such activities. 

The proposed change is listed at the end of the 429-page legislation.

It states that churches should not lose their tax-exempt status based on statements about political candidates made during the course of religious services.

The change to what is known as the Johnson Amendment has long been a priority of leaders on the religious right. They say the policy violates the First Amendment.

The Johnson Amendment prohibits 501(c)(3) nonprofits from engaging in certain political activities.

President Trump vowed to repeal the amendment during the campaign, saying it would "give our churches their voice back." 

Shortly after taking office, Trump said he would “totally destroy” the amendment, which allows the IRS to revoke a church’s tax exempt status if it’s deemed to be participating in a political campaign.

This will enable churches supportive of the left the same freedom, as well as Catholic churches that support a sociocon agenda on sex and abortion and a left liberal agenda on most other things, including an economic hostility to capitalism as marked, at least, as Bernie's own.

Crappy and vacuous support for a good idea

Repeal the Second Amendment in the NYT.

There is no there there.

And is this true or just another liberal fantasy of persecution, Islamophobia, and racism?

I’m not the first pundit to point out that if a “Mohammad Paddock” had purchased dozens of firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition and then checked himself into a suite at the Mandalay Bay with direct views to a nearby music festival, somebody at the local F.B.I. field office would have noticed.

On the other hand, given LV is a really big gun-show and gun-rights city just chock full of white people who love their guns, then, even if it is true, so what?

Is the idea supposed to be that this guy was some sort of right wing terrorist who got a free pass?

Or maybe that white people in general who want to slaughter large numbers of people get a free pass?

Really?

Where does the authority to review congressional districts come from?

Good question.

She didn't answer, but asked another question whose relevance was neither immediately obvious nor explained by Jeffrey Toobin in his piece.

Ginsburg Slaps Gorsuch in Gerrymandering Case

For many, it seems, recourse to what the constitution says is not the issue, or not the only issue, anyway.

And that seems to include some of the Supremes, on both sides of the question, talking airily about what democracy does or does not require of them, and how a decision either way might affect the public's opinion of the court, of the constitution, or of our democracy.

The Supreme Court looks poised to strike down gerrymandering. Here's why.

But not everything being considered is so detached from the actual document.

Scott Lemieux writes,

That there might be more difficult cases in the future does not justify the Court abdicating its responsibility to enforce the Constitution. 

And the mass disenfranchisement of voters violates the 1st Amendment's right to association and the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

Sure, the reference to mass disenfranchisement is mere hyperbole, but still.

Though he does not explain, it is apparent from the piece that at least some of the Supremes think, and have thought before, that both the First and Fourteenth involve rights of collections of voters such as Democrats and Republicans, and so both might be bases, alone or together, for condemning some schemes of districting.

That is probably not an argument to move the hearts of originalists or strict constructionists, and certainly not to move unscrupulous partisans of the party whose ox is not getting gored in any particular case, but not everybody on the court right now, considering this case, is any of those things.

I wonder if anyone has considered the idea that the constitution doesn't require that house members be elected by one-on-one competition in geographically defined districts, at all.

They could be elected in statewide one-on-one competition, like senators.

(What would that look like in California with its 55 house members, or Texas with 38?)

Or perhaps they could run on party lists in a scheme of statewide proportional representation.

Either way would solve the problem of gerrymandering.

Update.

If they're going to rule on gerrymandering of federal congressional districts, will they (can they) rule as well on districts for the state legislatures?

Those are rigged, too.

How do you think we end up with a red legislature in a state with mostly blue voters?

A red legislature that then gerrymanders both federal and state districts.

They behaved just like the Democrats, in other words

The Russians, that is.

And the Republicans, in playing on race.

Though the posited goal is different, it fits their pro-Trump activities during the election.

Annoying, of course.

But consider how far the reaction to the Russian meddling has itself been, as Trump defenders and allies have sometimes said, mere and perhaps even hypocritical political propaganda.

And whether and how far tu quoque may be in this matter a valid defense.

(Of course, much the same was said of Watergate, the scandal and its uses.)

Reputedly, the US has meddled in similar clandestine fashion in European politics - the politics of allies, adversaries, and others - for many decades, and did not even slow down with the end of the Cold War.

Our interference in the politics of states born of the breakup of the Soviet Union like Ukraine, aimed against Russia, has been considerable.

Major participants on both sides did the same sort of thing in the USA to affect our politics before and after our entry into both world wars.

Come to that, the US government used such methods alongside much more open ones before and during both world wars and during the Cold War, domestically, to affect Americans and American politics, with directly pro-war and pro-Cold War, pro-ally and anti-enemy propaganda only the tip of the iceberg.

Fake black activist accounts linked to Russian government

A social media campaign calling itself "Blacktivist" and linked to the Russian government used both Facebook and Twitter in an apparent attempt to amplify racial tensions during the U.S. presidential election, two sources with knowledge of the matter told CNN.

.  .  .  . 

Both Blacktivist accounts, each of which used the handle Blacktivists, regularly shared content intended to stoke outrage.

"Black people should wake up as soon as possible," one post on the Twitter account read.

"Black families are divided and destroyed by mass incarceration and death of black men," another read.

The accounts also posted videos of police violence against African Americans.

.  .  .  .

The Blacktivist accounts provide further evidence that Russian-linked social media accounts saw racial tensions as something to be exploited in order to achieve the broader Russian goal of dividing Americans and creating chaos in U.S. politics during a campaign in which race repeatedly became an issue.

Russia warns U.S. over treatment of its media outlets

The Russian allusion to free expression and the First Amendment and the apparent normalcy of such international media propaganda are interesting.

Are there relevant international or even global treaties or norms?

And how far do, and how far should, freedom of expression and First Amendment protections extend to foreigners, including foreign governments?

Is not mine a "fake user" account? 

Who says I only have, or have had, only one, using only one pseudonymous identity for blogging and commenting?

And though admittedly my pseudonyms have always been within conventions making them recognizable as such, to those aware of the conventions, the practise is widespread on the web of blogging with pseudonyms intentionally not recognizable as such.