Supreme Court stubs out abortion ban via regulation

When you can't get what you want by fair play, we can always resort to other methods. So it was with the State of Texas. The majority of legislators want to ban abortion, but certain Supreme Court decisions stand in their way.

Enter a different idea: cloak your ban in the guise of health-based regulations. Since we're already drowning in regulations, it's a common method of changing practice, so why not? It's not that hard to lie about the real reasons for the regulation, like pretending that abortion is more dangerous than childbirth and causes more death than the low death toll from colonoscopies.

So Texas passed its regulations (after an unsuccessful filibuster by Wendy Davis). Lots of abortion clinics closed down, but at least one sued. The case went up to the Supreme Court, where Anthony Kennedy, typically conservative justice, called bullshit on the regulations. Well, they were bullshit, so I'm glad that he didn't play along. Kennedy has called bullshit on other issues too, including the idea that same sex marriage is dangerous to the institution of marriage and family.

Three cheers for Justice Kennedy!

How far you have to travel in Texas

Image: vocativ.com

Short: 'Fix the Debt' is fixed

A great article from Jonathan Chait about a pro-deficit reduction group that is strangely biased towards whatever the GOP offers. Chait takes apart the GOP proposal and Fix-the-Debt's incongruous support of it.

The GOP gets credit for being deficit hawks, but it doesn't deserve 95% of this credit. Sure, they propose cuts here and there, but their major actions have been 1) to stymie systemic reform of the budget and 2) enact deficit-growing tax cuts.

The article has some pointed recent history. It's a good reminder, as history usually is.

New slogan, same old.

Image: yourhoustonnews.com

Trump finally starts running against Hillary--SPLAT!

Donald, with his usual grandiose bragging and blather,' implied that he was beating Hillary, and that he hadn't "even started yet."

As of June 22, he has now started. He gave a speech about Hillary and "the stakes in this election." It was the usual bragging from Donald. The country's a mess, but it can be fixed, but "only by [him]." Yes, he actually claimed that, but it's so typical that he thinks he is the savior. (Look here at the transcript.) Too bad he's so unclear how he'll do this without causing trade wars-- possibly even global instability on the order of our last massive recession.

What's funny about his speech is how many of his complaints about Hillary also apply to him:

• "Hillary Clinton who, as most people know, is a world class liar..." (Trump thinks he's world class in everything, so just add 'liar' to the list, since he's deserving.)
• "Hillary Clinton has perfected the politics of personal profit and theft." (Trump has done with with his various businesses, including casinos, real estate developments where he cashed in and others lost their investments, and, of course, Trump U.)
• "She made $21.6 million giving speeches to Wall Street banks and other special interests – in less than 2 years – secret speeches that she does not want to reveal to the public. (How about Trump and his secret tax returns?)
• "But she doesn't have the temperament or ... the judgement, to be president." (Trump talking about temperament and judgment? Hahahaha.)
• "Hillary Clinton gave China millions of our best jobs, and effectively let China completely rebuild itself." (Oh my God! It wasn't the corporations who shipped jobs overseas, it was Hillary!)
• "But Hillary Clinton learned nothing from Iraq, because when she got into power,she couldn’t wait to rush us off to war in Libya." (First, the war in Libya started as a revolt by Libyans, Second, Trump claims to have a different way to fight wars, and win oil, that's so much better--if you believe in him and fairy dust.)

I can't wait for the commercials blasting Trump. He provides so much ammunition. We'll probably get a dozen reasons not to support him each week, and still not run out of fodder.

Image: slate.com

Extra. Another author's take on the same speech. Very readable and worthwhile.

IF--the unlikely upside if Hillary loses

Is it already too late to write about the possibility of Donald Trump winning the presidency? Trump has had some miserable weeks where he's said stupid shit for the whole country to hear and process. But before that happened, he and Hillary were nearly tied in the conglomerate poll average. At that time I started thinking about the benefits of a Trump presidency.

OK, I came up with one advantage. It would signal the end of the Clinton era. We wouldn't have to worry about Hillary running for another office, or listening to the infuriating reports of all the sleazy things she and Bill have done over the years. There has been a fair amount of sleaze. Off the top of my head, I can recall: cattle futures trading, travel office firings, Bill's sexual escapades, Bill lying about his sexual escapades, questionable pardons, private email server for personal secrecy reasons, and Clinton foundation payola.

Not too many other Democrats have a list that long. I started wondering whether I would have preferred Hillary to sit out this presidency race and instead go into a quiet retirement. Unfortunately, I still think she might have been the best candidate available this time. The likely alternative, if Hillary hadn't run, would have been Elizabeth Warren, who isn't exactly my favorite.

I'm still hoping that there are centrists in the Democratic Party and one of them will run for president at the next opportunity. But it isn't very likely. The centrists like Ron Wyden have been sidelined for so many years that few know about them. If anything, the party is split between progressives like Nancy Pelosi and even-further-left progressives like Bernie Sanders. Ugh. In a situation like this, Hillary is better, which a very sad commentary indeed.

Image: realclearpolitics.com

50 Shades of Trump

All orange!!!!

OK, that cliche is taken care of. On to the real topic.

Everyone is trying to sort out who Trump really is and what to do about him. I've read scads of interesting thoughts, and my browser tabs overfloweth. I must cram them all into one post, so here goes.

Theory 1. From Reason, a libertarian site, comes a rant about Trump being a demogogue and racist. Lots of good, pithy phrases here, such as "politics built on entirely on grievance," with no plan for governance.

Theory 2. From a left-leaning heavyweight thinker, a clear assessment of the biggest danger than Trump--his vindictiveness when he has the US Department of Justice under his control. Can Trump do this in the US of A where we have due process? Yes. He can make life miserable for the honest federal prosecutors, they quit, and he replaces them with his flunkies, who then sue or prosecute Trump's targets du jour. It's a nightmare. (If you're in a hurry when you read it, skip down to where he starts talking about the Department of Justice.)

Theory 3. Trump must lose and Trumpism must be defeated. This is from RedState. According to this author, Trump is a thoroughly awful person who lies, has no core principles, and is "capricious and dangerous." It's imperative to defeat him, but it has be done by someone who deserves the presidency and can lead the mistaken followers of Trump to a better path and a worthy path. Who can do that? Hahahaha, that's where the surprise is.

Theory 4. Also from RedState. The Supreme Court isn't enough of a reason to vote for Trump. Don't do it!!!!! Trump will cut deals with the Dems and true conservatism will be defeated again. No, conservatives must prevent Trump's nomination.

Theory 5. From Jonathan Chait, a riveting excoriation of Trump's lies and turn-abouts. Trump is so scary because he exempts himself from the norms of society when it comes to truth, his own past statements, and his vendettas against others.

Theory 6. This is not so much a theory as an interesting piece from HotAir. I visited the site to get their take on Trump. It wasn't particularly friendly. In this post, they fault Trump for his ego and compare it to Obama's ego.

Theory 7. Trump is a long-shot, but with this handy checklist, you can tell in advance if Trump will win. Written with a funny edge.

Theory 8. From the Daily Caller, Trump is "the cleansing forest fire... the great calamity we need" to clean the charlatans out of the conservative movement, including Trump himself. Still, the big question is; "Conservatives can decry the 'fascism' and 'demagoguery' of Trump all they want, but they need to understand why someone like that can run off with their party." Too bad the article doesn't even begin to answer that question.

Theory 9. I couldn't find much support for Trump in the mainstream conservative sites, so I ended up at this no-name site. Here, the theory is that Trump pushes back in just the way that the silent majority has prayed for. He's blunt, he tells it like it is, there are no boring policy papers that never pan out anyway, and he's a winner.

Theory 10. This one is very different. It looks at the polls of Trump versus Sanders, and notes that a poorly-known Democrat does pretty well against Trump. That doesn't bode well for Trump if he hopes to get Dems to cross over and vote for him. They don't seem overly disposed to do that.

Theory 11: Trump is less scary than another four years of Dems and their PC, agenda-controlling, intolerant white-male bashing.

Image: ratemyjob.com

Extras. I need a place to store this link. So here is Theory X: Trump is a conman and Trump University was one of his biggest cons. Still being litigated. Trump (as always) says the judge is unfair and also Mexican. The Trump "University" hard-sell playbook here.

Round-up on US healthcare costs

Today I was contemplating the ever-present problem of healthcare costs in the US. Why does it cost so much here? This article answered that question pretty well. However, it did sugarcoat a big problem:

"... the rest of the system consists, in essence, of a vast number of independent, entrepreneurial providers of health care services and marketers of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies who are free to set their fees and prices as they see fit."

What wasn't said here is that those 'entrepreneurial providers' have a big incentive to gouge as much as they can get away with. That would have been a clearer way to say it.

The next article is much plainer in its explanation, which is great. The comments are also helpful. The highlight here is on how the "I want it now" mentality escalates costs. This is also true.

Neither article dealt much with alternatives, or what a different but still workable system would look like. I would really like a national conference on this. We should look at all the systems in other countries, and pick one out and adopt it. That would mean junking our current system, and I guess I'm ready to do that.

The last article suggests that we adopt the system from Singapore. After reading about it, I have strong doubts that it would work here. Let me know if you share my doubts and why.

Image: 123rf.com

Devastating: Victim statement in the Stanford rape

A fair amount has been written about the convicted rapist in this case, and how his sentence was too short. Not enough has been written about the very powerful victim's statement. Yes, this is only from one side, but she is extremely detailed, compelling, and extremely logical.

The statement starts here after five paragraphs. Here's a powerful excerpt:

"The night after it happened he said he never planned to take me back to his dorm. He said he didn’t know why we were behind a dumpster. He got up to leave because he wasn’t feeling well when he was suddenly chased and attacked...

So one year later, as predicted, a new dialogue emerged. Brock had a strange new story, ... with kissing and dancing and hand holding and lovingly tumbling onto the ground, and most importantly in this new story, there was suddenly consent. One year after the incident, he remembered, oh yeah, by the way she actually said yes, to everything, so.

He said he had asked if I wanted to dance. Apparently I said yes. He’d asked if I wanted to go to his dorm, I said yes. Then he asked if he could finger me and I said yes. Most guys don’t ask, Can I finger you?..."

The statement is long, but worth reading to the end. As I said, devastating. 

Image: news2.onlinenigeria.com

Extra. More details on sentencing and the perpetrator's withdrawal from Stanford.