Will it be counted?

I’ve voted in the 2024 US federal elections, as I always do, but I don’t know for sure that my ballot will be counted. There are several different reasons for that, but all of them have the same cause: Republicans. The party that once liked to call itself “The Party of Lincoln” has now positioned itself as an enemy of democracy, and voters like me are in the party’s crosshairs.

US citizens living overseas indefinitely are entitled to vote in federal elections, just like US military personnel stationed overseas can. US citizens living overseas temporarily, like workers on a short-term assignment from their US employer, or those attending school overseas, would most likely apply for a standard absentee ballot. However, US citizens who are living overseas indefinitely (like me), register through a state-administered federal system, using the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) to register and get a ballot. The FPCA forms require a Social Security number, the number of one’s state Driver license or state ID. Many US citizens living overseas indefinitely won’t have a state driver license or ID card, so providing them isn’t mandatory (it’s probably there to establish ongoing state residency for folks that applies to). All applicants also provide the address where they were last registered to vote. The organisation “Vote from Abroad” has a good explanation of what a “US voting address” is on their website:

As a US citizen living abroad, your “voting address” is the street address of the last place you lived in the US. This general rule applies even if your family no longer owns the property, or you no longer have ties to the state, or you don't intend to return to that address or that state, or if it no longer exists as a residence. It also doesn't matter if you were ever registered to vote at that address.

If you are a US citizen who has never lived in the US, your “voting address” is the street address of the last place your US citizen parent (or spouse) lived in the US. If both of your parents are US citizens, you may use the last US address of either one.

The Republican presidential candidate has been whining constantly about mail-in voting of all kinds, and has repeatedly demanded it be ended (which won’t happen because it would harm Republicans, too), and lately his target has been to demand that no mail-in votes be counted after Election Day. He recently talked yet again (again) about suing to end mail-in voting [this was discussed by Democracy Docket’s Marc Elias and Brian Tyler Cohen on a recent episode of their “Democracy Watch” YouTube series].

This gets at MAGA Republicans’ first attempt to destroy voting by mail: Their hand-picked Postmaster General, who has done everything in his power to destroy postal delivery efficiency and timeliness, something Republicans want because it would mean that completed postal ballots may take too long to be delivered to the various states’ election authorities, just as MAGAts want.

Right now, many US states, including my native Illinois (which is, of course, the place of my own FPCA registration and voting) accept and count all postal ballots postmarked on or before Election Day that are received with a certain number of days after Election day. This long-standing programme has become a particular target of Republicans.

In Illinois, ballots—again, postmarked on or before Election Day—will be counted if they’re received within 14 days after Election Day. On May 25, 2022, a lawsuit, Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections was filed on behalf of three Republicans, including US Representative Mike Bost (R-IL12), who was one of 126 Republican US Representatives to sign an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, the infamous and idiotic MAGA lawsuit filed with the US Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election in another state—one they don’t even fucking live in. It was surely one of the most utterly bizarre and offensive legal stunts MAGA Republican politicians pulled, apart from every other suit filed by the Republican loser’s team of misfits and ne’er do wells. Then, January 6, when so many of them tried to stop the certification of the election and install the Republican candidate as president, even though he lost the election, was lightyears worse—as was the violent insurrection the Republican candidate incited.

The Republicans’ Illinois lawsuit argued that federal law requires all US states to hold Election Day on the first Tuesday in November, but Illinois allowing mail-in ballots to be received and counted for up to two weeks after Election Day effectively extended Election Day and, because of that, they bizarrely claimed that votes on Election Day are “diluted by illegal ballots received in violation of the federal Election Day statutes.” Ballots from US Citizens exercising their Constitutional right to vote, Republicans claimed, somehow magically “diluted” other citizens’ votes, because—who know why?! It’s always best to not explore Republicans’ very weird fantasies. The case was dismissed by the District Court, not on merit, but because of a lack of jurisdiction. The Republicans appealed to the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals, but they upheld the District Court dismissal on August 21, 2024. This means the 14-days after Election Day deadline remains—for now.

Meanwhile, Republicans also targeted Mississippi’s law, which has a deadline of 5 business days after Election day for mail-in ballots to be received. On January 26, 2024, the Republican National Committee (RNC), along with local Republicans, filed a suit, Republican National Committee v. Wetzel, making the same arguments they made in the Illinois case, but they also claimed that the extended deadline for mail-in ballots to be received somehow magically violated their right to vote under the 14th Amendment, because, Republicans, or something. A summary judgement on July 28, 2024 reaffirmed the exisiting Mississippi deadline.

The Republicans then announced their intention to appeal to the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, the most conservative—and arguably the most MAGA—in the entire country. We know the RNC did this precisely so that whichever way the court ruled, the loser—either the RNC or the Republican officials in Mississippi if they lost—could ultimately appeal the case to the Republican US Supreme Court, with the (probably) justified hope that the far-right Republican Majority will rule to help their shared party by outlawing the long-established precedent of counting mail-in ballots received before the state’s legislated deadline. In fact, the Republican-controlled Mississippi state legislature offered to repeal the law, but the RNC ordered them not to do that so they could get their Supreme Court to help them.

If the Republican Supreme Court does outlaw the counting of mail-in ballots received after Election Day, it, together with Republicans’ attempts to destroy the US Postal Service, will directly affect overseas voters like me. That’s because the attacks on the postal service mean it’s questionable whether a mail-in ballot sent from overseas has any chance of arriving by, let alone before, Election Day (no matter when it’s posted), so taking away the extra days many states permit may make it even more likely that the votes of overseas citizens won’t be counted—which is exactly what the Republican Party and its Dear Leader want.

There are a handful of other options for US citizens overseas long-term. Some states allow other means of submitting ballots, including sending them by fax or other electronic means (Republicans will definitely challenge those methods, too). Overseas citizens can drop off their ballots to a US diplomatic post, providing the envelope has the correct postage on it, and the staff will put the ballots in a “diplomatic pouch” to send to the USA, where they’ll be sent to the postal service. This method may cut a few days off the mailing time, however, it could mean a special trip. For example, NZ has two US diplomatic posts, the Embassy in Wellington, and the Consulate in Auckland, so I, too, might have to make a special trip (I’ve heard, though, that ballots can be couriered to a diplomatic post, though I haven’t personally verified that).

Another possible option might be to use a courier service to deliver the ballot, which Illinois law allows. However, it has special requirements, apparently around federal licensing, which usually means major companies. Of the ones I know are acceptable, the only one I know for sure is still operating in New Zealand is FedEx, but as far as I know their only facility in New Zealand is at Auckland International Airport, and there’s no option for collection from individuals. In the past, NZ Post had an arrangement with DHL, who were their US partner for document deliveries in the USA. I didn’t know that was no longer the case until 2020 when I went to send my ballot by courier, and the carrier was a company I’d never heard of. I know the ballot was delivered to Chicago, but I never got a confirmation email that it was counted, so I don’t know whether or not it was. On the other hand, maybe they stopped sending the emails after 2016.

So, regardless of what happens with the RNC’s court stunts, I have no idea whether my ballot will arrive in Chicago in time to be counted, or whether or not it will be counted if it does. This doesn’t matter in that Illinois is a solidly Democratic state, and Harris-Walz will carry Illinois—everyone knows that. There’s no US Senate election this year, so the only other federal office I got to vote for was US Representative, and the incumbent Democrat will win that race. My vote, then, technically isn’t needed—but it was never about that: It’s my duty to vote. It’s my values in action, and my commitment to democracy, neither of which would ever permit me to sit out this election—or to vote for anyone other than Harris-Walz. I hope most Americans are the same.

I also hope this isn’t the last election Americans will ever have, because if the Republicans win, it’s game over. Sorry I have no hopeful words, other than just one: Vote.

Today was a very good day

Today was a very good day, and for a lot of reasons. There were things I influenced, and things I didn’t, but in the end, it was all good. Except the very start, maybe.

Around 5am this morning, someone in my house, we’ll call him “Leo”, decided he needed to go outside. Fortunately for him, I needed go inside, as it were, so this time he didn’t hear my customary low grumbling as I got out of bed to let him out.

I planned to go get Leo a new bag of food today, and since Animates, where I get his food, is near New World, I decided to pop in there first to pick up the stuff I forgot when I went to Woolies on Monday (even though I always have a list, I also always forget to put some stuff on it). I thought the traffic might be bad, and the shops busy, because it’s the Friday before a three-day holiday weekend, but they were all fine.

I knew Animates would have specials for the holiday weekend, and I got some tinned food as a treat for Leo as well as his flea and tick treatment, all on special. I always get a discount on his dry food due to the chain’s loyalty discounts. All up, I saved around $25, which ain’t nothing.

When I left Animates, the traffic was starting to build, and that was shortly after 2pm. I was extremely glad that I didn’t wait any longer to head out.

In the end, I had a great day today. I got a lot of chores done around the house today, as well as my successful outing, and then there was another thing that happened overseas that made me happy, too. It was a very good day.

Voters deliver more good news

Voters in Ohio have just handed Republicans yet another huge defeat and stood up for the right of the people to decide for themselves what they want, and not be dictated to by overreaching authoritarians. One would think Republican politicans would learn from their ongoing string of defeats, but apparently not. Fortunately for them, voters are willing to school them again and again.

The Associated Press correctly headlined their story, “Voters in Ohio reject GOP-backed proposal that would have made it tougher to protect abortion rights”, because even though the vote wasn’t about abortions rights (technically), what it was REALLY about was abortion rights, and absolutely everyone knew it. The referendum was the Republicans’ plan to make it nearly impossible to amend the Ohio state constitution to protect abortion rights by raising the number of votes to approves such measures to 60% from the simple majority it’s been for more than a century.

Republicans claimed the measure was to prevent “outside groups” from meddling with Ohio’s constitution, which was the only partially honest thing they said about it—but they were still being completely dishonest: They really meant they wanted to prevent a measure to protect abortion rights from passing by referendum, something that would’ve drawn support from outside the state. They knew that such measures can struggle to get to 60% approval, especially in a mostly Republican state like Ohio, so they moved with their idiotic power play.

The Republicans also decided to put their thumb on the scales by holding the referendum in the middle of summer because, they were cocksure, only the most rightwing Republicans would vote at that time of year. The Republicans vastly underestimated the determination of pissed-off voters.

For decades, and even as recently as only a few years ago, Republicans kept claiming that they wanted Roe v. Wade overturned not to ban all abortions, silly voter, but merely so it could be returned to the states to decide. They threw in, “let the people decide” for extra emphasis.

Of course we now know that Republican politicians have been lying for decades, because as soon as the Supreme Court’s far-right Republican majority overturned Roe, Republican-controlled states went at breakneck speed to ban all abortions in their states, and finally started speaking honestly and admitting that their goal was a nationwide ban on all abortions, with no exceptions. Voters responded with, “Oh yeah? WATCH THIS!!! and have handed Republicans loss after loss whenever they get the chance to vote—which is precisely what Ohio Republicans were trying to make impossible for the people of Ohio.

Here’s the obvious lesson in this and similar results in Republican-controlled places like Kansas and Kentucky: Trying to ban all abortions without exception is a losing idea. Republicans’ insistence on going ahead with their radical agenda on abortion—in defiance of the will of the people—along with their ongoing wars against books, education, women, people who aren’t white, and LGBT+ people (among many, many, many other idiotic crusades) are costing them elections. The Republican “Party” is now a far-right cult with absolutely nothing to attract the majority of voters.

This is why Democrats did so well in the elections of 2018, 2020, and 2024—and the latter was supposed to be a “Red Wave” year in which the Republicans would take full control of Congress. Instead, Democrats held the Senate, barely lost the House to a caucus under the total control of its most lunatic and irrational members, folks who care only about waging unhinged Republican Party ideological wars, folks couldn’t possibly care less about delivering for the people who elected them. But hey, at least they managed to elect a lickspittle coward to become the weakest Speaker ever.

Because of Republican extremism, in 2022 Democrats took power in states, such as, gaining full control of Michigan’s state government for the first time in decades. In 2022, they also defeated every single one of the party’s candidates who set out to be just like the party’s Dear Leader, the unemployed orange Florida man who’s currently facing multiple criminal indictments with more to come.

The fact is, everyone who believes in democracy, the rule of law, and the right of voters to decide issues for themselves, should be glad that Republican politicians seem to be so universally myopic—or even outright stupid. Every time they move to advance their christofascist agenda, they piss-off more voters and end up being humiliated by them. That’s why we know for certain that between now and the 2024 US elections, Republicans will do everything they can think of to prevent people from voting, because, as a party that wants to do the exact opposite of what the people actually want, all they have left is trying to stop democracy itself. The voters of Ohio have shown that when voters have the opportunity, they’ll show the Republicans the door. Long may it continue nationwide.

The unsupremes ruin everything

Friday evening is normally a relaxing time for me. Sometimes I get together with family for dinner, which is always nice, and then I settle in to watch some TV for the rest of the evening. But this past Friday, as I was beginning to wind down for bed, I got an alert on my iPad that the US “Supreme” Court had struck yet again dismantled more of the human rights of LGBT+ Americans. The ruling—yet another far-right ideologically-driven decision—is part of the Republican far-right majority’s agenda: Make America 1883 Again.

Like most people on the centre and left of US politics, I have zero respect for the far-right Republican majority of the court, precisely because they’ve worked so very hard to destroy the court’s reputation: Instead of standing up for justice and fairness and for ordinary people, and instead of ruling in accordance with the law and the US Constitution, the far-right Republicans are instead engaged in “comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted,” as journalist Ian Millhiser put in the subtitle of his 2015 book Injustices

The Court’s latest ideologically-driven decision, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis (21-476) [PDF of the decision], involved a fundamentalist “christian” web designer who thought one day she might like to create wedding websites, but her religious views compelled her to refuse to create a website for a same-gender couple, in the event she ever started providing such services, of course, and if a theoretical same-gender couple ever tried to hire her services. While the supposed “injury” to her was entirely hypothetical, she sued the State of Colorado, anyway—well, the ultra-far-right “Alliance Defending [sic] Freedom [lol]" sued on her behalf.

The extremist group has long shopped around for “victims” they can represent in their constant efforts to overturn all legal protections for LGBT+ people—and everyone else they don’t like. They have several suits at various stages of litigation at any given time, and it’s entirely likely that when the Court’s the far-right Republican majority inevitably strikes down Obgergefell v. Hodges, Lawrence v. Texas, Griswold v. Connecticut—and possibly even Loving v. Virginia—the A”D”F will be behind it one way or another.

What’s extraordinary about this decision, and two others just released, is that there was no one who had suffered actual legal “injury” that needed to be remedied. Instead, the Court decided to “afflict the afflicted” in order to “comfort the comfortable” by imposing their own ideological agenda onto everyone else. That could not possibly be more obvious than in this particular case.

When the plaintiff’s firm filed the lawsuit against Colorado, there was no possibility of harm because she wasn’t doing the sort of work she didn’t want to have to do for people she objected to. It’s clear that Colorado didn’t think she had legal standing to sue the state, and part way through the process it emerged that, allegedly, someone named “Stewart” had contacted her through her website’s contact form to try to hire her web services for his marriage to his “husband”. The problem was, the whole thing was faked by someone: He had been married to a woman for 15 years, and even if he was gay, he was actually a designer himself, so he wouldn’t need her services. He also had no idea his name and details had been used in a Supreme Court case.

The plaintiff's legal team claimed, “it’s undisputed that the request was received,” however, it appears that no proof of that has been made public. Still, assuming it really did happen—and, to be clear, it may have happened—it proves nothing whatsoever. The lawyer suggested it could have been a troll, which is possible, but that raises questions, like, who did it and what was their motivation? Mischief or malice? Was it done to strengthen the web designer’s case? We’ll never know because at no point did anyone ever check to see if it was a legitimate request, which is… odd. A legitimate request may have actually bolstered her case if she refused, but not even checking to find out if the request was legitimate just sounds… odd.

The lawyers claimed it wasn’t actually part of the case, anyway, which is technically true (at least, from their perspective), but the fact remains that the one thing that could have suggested real potential “injury” to the plaintiff was never vetted. Even so, the lawyers were happy to continue using the apparently faked contact, arguing after the ruling that “any claim that [the web designer] will never receive a request to create a custom website celebrating a same-sex ceremony is no longer legitimate because [the designer] has received such a request.” Did she, though? And if so, how do we know it wasn’t from a supporter trying to shore up her legally non-existent argument? This just sounds like spin. Obviously, either side in a political dispute like this may try to spin the results to their benefit, but that doesn’t make claims of relevancy valid. [See also: "Legitimacy of ‘customer’ in Supreme Court gay rights case raises ethical and legal flags" by Alanna Durkin Richer and Colleen Slevin, Associated Press]

This same thing—litigants who haven’t experienced any actual legal “injury” runs through two other recent decisions. In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (20-1199) [PDF of the decision], which overturned affirmative action in university admissions, the driver was a long-time agitator against affirmative action, not a student. Similarly, in Biden v. Nebraska et al (22-506) [PDF of the decision], the decision that stopped President Biden from forgiving some student loan debt, the supposedly injured parties—six Republican-controlled states—were not actually injured (except for their feelings, perhaps). One state agency that handles student loans didn’t want to be part of the lawsuit (not the least because they stood to make more money if the debt relief plan had been permitted), but was forced into it, anyway, by Republican state officials who used their power to act on behalf of the plaintiff because it was a state agency. In all three of these cases, dubious—at best—speculative claims were accepted by the Court’s Republican far-right majority as legitimate and as good reasons to further erode the rights and freedom of ordinary people in order to, yet again, comfort the comfortable—and to advance a far-right Republican agenda.

For the web designer’s case, the whole rightwing argument was, as it has been in similar cases, about supposed “speech”: They argue that forcing a fundamentalist “christian” to “participate” in a same-gender wedding requires the creative professional to make “symbolic speech” in support of something they oppose on religious grounds. As someone who has worked in creative industries for decades, I think this argument is profoundly stupid: They’re hired to do a job, end of story.

The real issue here is that the rightwing wants their particular religious beliefs to always cancel out the human and civil rights of people they don’t “agree with”, which, of course, is code for, shall we say, “people they dislike very much”. I think that’s stupid, too, because it only ever works in one direction: If a graphic designer, photographer, cake baker, florist, or other creative professional refused to provide services to an opposite-gender fundamentalist “christian” couple because it would mean providing “symbolic speech” endorsing the couple’s religious views that ran counter to the creative professional’s, I feel certain that the current Supreme Court would never permit that objection. Turnabout is not fair play—it’d be prohibited.

The court’s far-right Republican majority is doing the one thing that Republicans have long pretended was an unpardonable sin: They’re legislating from the bench [See: “The Supreme Court’s conservatives are doing exactly what they claim to detest” by MSNBC Columnist Michael A. Cohen]. They’re doing this legislating from the bench in order to force a hard-core ideologically-driven agenda onto everyone. In so doing, the court’s far-right Republican majority is reversing decades of slow, often tortured and halting, progress toward more fairness, equity, and safety for ordinary people, and are instead working hard to raise elites above ordinary Americans—and ordinary people are very ones who  need the protection of the Constitution.

So, yet again, the Supreme Court’s Republican far-right majority has dismantled a bit more of the civil and human rights of LGBTQ+ people. This is far from the last time they’ll do that, and each attack will be just as ideologically driven. This is why defeating all Republicans everywhere is, for now, the only hope for saving democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law. The Supreme Court’s Republican far-right majority has yet again reminded us: Elections have consequences.

A jury strikes the right chord

Last week, a US jury found ruled in favour of singer songwriter Ed Sheeran, agreeing that he did not unlawfully copy an earlier hit (Sheeran’s response is above). This was the right verdict for the right reasons, and hopefully it will finally bring some common sense to this.

The lawsuit was brought by the estate of Ed Townsend, who was co-writer with Marvin Gaye of Gaye’s 1973 US Number One song, “Let’s Get It On”. Townsend’s heirs alleged that Sheeran’s 2014 Global hit, “Thinking Out Loud”, had copied the “heart” of “Let’s Get It On”—its melody, harmony, and rhythm. Sheeran’s lawyers argued that any similarities in the songs was because they were both built on the same non-copyrightable building blocks used in pop music.

The actual heart of the issue is that nearly all of the best-known pop songs, regardless of genre, have relied on the same four chords. This fact has long been a staple of Australian musical comedy act Axis Of Awesome, who were the subject of a “Weekend Diversion” post I published in 2012. That post included their song “4 Chords”, which demonstrated the fact (a live performance of their song is below).

After the verdict, Sheeran read a statement in which he said, "I'm just a guy with a guitar who loves writing music for people to enjoy. I am not and will never allow myself to be a piggy bank for anyone to shake." Money is often the motivation for frivolous lawsuits filed by the writers of often extremely obscure songs, and it’s surely a factor for other suits when the writers being sued have a major hit. We don’t know if money played a role in this case—it may have been an honest lack of understanding of how similarities between pop songs is inevitable when they’re all built on the same four chords. As Sheeran put it, "These chords are common building blocks which were used to create music long before 'Let’s Get It On' was written, and will be used to create music long after we are all gone."

The saga for this song isn’t over. The investment banker who owns the copyright to Marvin Gaye’s songs has TWO lawsuits against Sheeran over the same song, one of which is about the recording, which seems like an especially odd tack to take. However, it was similarities in recordings that in 2015 gave the copyright holders to Gaye’s "Got to Give It Up" a legal victory over Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams’ song "Blurred Lines", with the jury agreeing that it copied Gaye's song. [Full dislosure: I felt the jury got it wrong].

I believe that copyright is important for artists to protect what they create during their own lifetime. But copyright was never intended to be an endless revenue stream for the corporations who control the copyrights of much of what is published in print, on film, or in recordings. The USA has been particularly terrible about enshrining corporate control over copyright, and has often bullied other countries—including New Zealand—to change their laws to suit US corporations’ interests. Massive reform of copyright law, especially in the USA, is important and desperately needed, but it’s also an entirely separate issue.

The main issue in this and many similar cases is that pop music is based on the same four chords, and the same chord progressions, all of which are re-used again and again and again. Chances are good that any two pop songs will sound similar, at least in part, because they’re all made out of the same building blocks. If more silly lawsuits fail, the cost of trying it on will become too high to bother, and then songwriters won’t have to keep second-guessing themselves, leaving them free to create. And the world desperately needs more people creating, not more lawyers in courtrooms fighting over four music chords.

Lock ‘em up – without votes?

There are a great many issues on which Americans are deeply divided, but one that isn’t talked about enough is punishment for crimes. This has roared into the news lately with proposals to allow convicted felons to vote, and the resulting discussion, such as it’s been, has been a lot of noise without much careful thought or reasoned argument. Pretty much like all political issues in the USA, in other words.

Sen. Bernie Sanders kicked off the talk saying that convicted felons, even terrorists, should be able to vote. This was a logical position for him to take, given that Vermont is one of the two states in which they can vote: “Once you start chipping away and you say, 'Well, that guy committed a terrible crime, not going to let him vote. Well, that person did that. Not going to let that person vote,' you're running down a slippery slope."

Mayor Pete Buttigieg took a different position, consistent with existing law in many states, namely, that felons don’t get a vote when in prison, but their right to vote is restored once they’re released: “As you know, some states and communities do it, some don't. I think we'd be a better country if everybody did it.” He also pointed out why Republicans fight against allowing felons who have completed their sentences to vote: “Frankly, I think the motivations for preventing that kind of reenfranchisement, in some cases, have to do with one side of the aisle noticing that they politically benefit from that. And that's got some racial layers too.”

Among other Democrats, Sen. Kamala Harris also supported the status quo as Mayor Pete does, but dodged the question of whether prisoners serving time should be able to vote: “I think we should have that conversation.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren also supports voting rights for former convicts, and sees guaranteeing their rights as part of a larger effort to protect voting rights. She also said, much like Sen. Harris: “While they’re incarcerated, I think that’s something we can have more conversation about.”

Former US Rep Beto O’Rourke said that he supports in-prison voting rights for “non-violent” prisoners: “When you look at the population in prisons today, it is disproportionately comprised of people of color,” he said. “Far too many are there for nonviolent drug crimes. I want to make sure that time spent behind bars does not entail a stripping of your civic and constitutional rights.” He added, “For violent criminals, it’s much harder for me to reach that conclusion. I feel that, at that point, you have broken a bond and a compact with your fellow Americans, and there has to be a consequence in civil life to that as well.”

There’s been a concurrent push from some on the Left to restore voting rights to people serving time in prison, and the Tweet above (part of a longer thread on Twitter), which was turned into a meme, is an example of that. When I saw it, I didn’t find the argument persuasive.

The first problem with the Tweet is that it could be overstating the case, though I haven't checked the locations of ALL prisons, obviously. In the Twitter thread, he cited the case of Angola prison in Louisiana, which at 6,300 prisoners is the biggest maximum-security prison in the country. He acknowledges that’s too small to influence a Congressional election, however, the area where it’s located, West Feliciana Parish, had a population of a mere 15,625 in the 2010 census. That means that FORTY PERCENT of the population is prisoners, yet they can’t vote (the census counts prisoners in the place where a prison is located, just as it counts everyone where they’re located when the census is taken). That’s appalling and disgusting—but is it a case of special pleading?

The underlying issue here is that the US prison population is disproportionate: Black people make up only 13% of the population, but 40% of the prison population. White people, on the other hand, make up 64% of the US population but only 39% of the prison population. We know that black prisoners are far more likely to get a custodial sentence than a white person who has committed the same crime, and that their sentence is likely to be longer and/or harsher than a white person sentenced to prison. It’s impossible to conclude anything other than the fact that the US criminal justice system, from police through to prosecutors, has, shall we say, a racial bias, which results in a disproportionate number of black people being incarcerated.

All of which is an argument for reform of the criminal justice system, which Democrats at all levels of government have argued for. But, is it an argument to let prisoners vote while in prison?

Rational people (which leaves out many, or most, Republican politicians, apparently…) believe that prisoners ought to be able to vote once their prison sentence is completed. Believing that a person should lose nearly all their rights when serving their prison sentence isn’t unique, nor is it inherently racist—though it can be, of course. More often than not, it’s about people wanting to punish crimes, and the issue of how the person came to become a prisoner ought to be a separate matter.

So it’s fair, as Harris and Warren have said, that we should have a discussion about the subject. Mayor Pete is right to point out the racial factor involved here. Sanders says all prisoners should vote, and maybe they should, but maybe we ought to reach consensus on that first.

O’Rourke’s position looks, at face value, like an odd distinction. If someone loses their vote because they're imprisoned for a crime, what difference does it make if the crime was violent or not? Certainly, that was my own first reaction. However, just as black people are far more likely to be imprisoned than white people, so, too, are they far more likely to be imprisoned for non-violent offences, like possession of small amounts of drugs, for example, or even driving offences. If there are any prisoners who could be thought to deserve to vote while in prison, it would be non-violent prisoners. Perhaps we should have a discussion about that, too, even as we talk about whether any prisoners should be able to vote.

This is an issue here in New Zealand, too. In 2010, the previous National Party-led government enacted the Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Act, which took away the right to vote for all serving prisoners. Before then, only some prisoners were denied the right to vote: Those serving life sentences, preventive detention (which is, as the Department of Corrections puts it, is “An indeterminate prison sentence; prisoners may be released on parole but remain managed by Corrections for the rest of their life and can be recalled to prison at any time), or other jail terms of three years or more. In December of last year, the New Zealand Supreme Court ruled that the ban was lawful. [See also "Prisoner voting" from the NZ Department of Corrections.]

My own feeling about this is evolving. Right now, I think that all prisoners should lose the right to vote while in prison, and it should be automatically restored upon their release. However, in many countries, including both the USA and New Zealand, among others, incarceration is disproportionately directed at people who aren’t white. But that’s an issue on its own, and not, by itself, a reason to let all prisoners vote. Or, maybe it should be? Maybe it could help restore justice to the criminal justice system by letting the victims of that system have a say. I don’t yet know what I think, but I’m listening. That’s the first thing needed to have a discussion, after all. If only we could do that on all political issues.

Rich white guy gets away with crimes

It’s difficult, nearly impossible, actually, to look at the 47-month prison sentence given to convicted felon Paul Manafort as anything other than yet another example of a rich, white man in the USA’s elites getting a virtual free pass while people who are poor or not white get harsh treatment. That’s the way criminal justice system works—or, rather, doesn’t—in the USA: Rich white men almost never pay for their crimes. But, would rational people still feel his sentence was unjust if poor people and people of colour were treated fairly?

The headline story is that Manafort was sentenced to a mere 47 months for his serious crimes, despite the sentencing guidelines calling for 20 years. Why so lenient? Well, for one thing, the judge, a Reagan appointee, seemed to resent Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s bringing charges against Manafort when Mueller is charged specifically with investigating crimes related to the Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election. The judge seemed unaware that Mueller was also charged with investigating other crimes uncovered in the course of his investigation, and, of course, it would be highly unusual as well as improper for a prosecutor to ignore crimes he discovered.

The judge also seemed to identify with Manafort, who is a white man of a similar age and class. The judge declared that even though Manafort had hidden $55 million in secret offshore accounts to avoid paying $6 million in taxes, despite the fact he’d defrauded three banks out of $25 million, that he lied constantly, that while awaiting sentence for his crimes he committed more felonies, that even though he showed absolutely no remorse for his crimes, all of that didn’t matter because, the judge declared, Manafort “has lived an otherwise blameless life,” an absurd, bizarre, and offensive nonsense that the Associated Press’ Jacquelyn Martin pointed out was absolutely not true.

But the judge wasn’t the only one looking at the case through delusions. The Unindicted Co-Conspirator in the White House Tweeted (of course!) about it claiming the judge had “stated loudly and for the world to hear that there was NO COLLUSION with Russia.” That is bullshit. What the judge ACTUALLY said was that Manafort was “…not before the court for anything having to do with colluding with the Russian government to influence the election,” because he wasn’t—everyone knew that, apart from the current occupant of the White House, apparently. That, or he’s lying—he lies most of the time, so it’s impossible to know when he’s lying or just stupid.

Part of what made the 47-month sentence so outrageous, apart from the judge’s bizarre remarks, was how pathetically lenient it was compared to crimes committed by people of colour and poor people. There's an ever-increasing list of comparisons between the rich white dude’s slap on the wrist and the unfair and unequal “justice” faced by poor people and people of colour.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is now running for president, compared Manafort’s slap on the wrist with the case of Fate Winslow, who helped to sell $20 worth of marijuana and got LIFE in prison. Many others, including Judd Legum, compared it to the case of Crystal Mason, who didn’t know she wasn’t eligible to vote in her state because she’d had a conviction, so she voted, was caught, showed extreme remorse for her action, but was sentenced to five years in prison, anyway.

On the other hand, the white elites thought the sentence was too harsh. It wasn’t only the con-man and crook in the White House who, thought so. His “lawyer”, Rudy Giuliani, declared of Manafort, "He’s not a terrorist. He’s not an organized criminal. He’s a white collar criminal.” Emphasis on white, obviously. Maybe he and is boss both have dementia?

The question then becomes, if poor people and people of colour we treated less harshly by the USA’s criminal “justice” system, would people feel as outraged by Manafort’s extremely light sentence? Would it still seem like a slap on the wrist? I don’t think it would. It’s impossible to know for sure, of course, because the system is so utterly unfair and unjust, however, it’s clear that the reaction is mainly because it’s so light compared to the extremely harsh sentences handed down to poor people and people of colour who committed far less serious crimes. It is about the unjust disproportionality more than anything.

To be sure, the USA’s Right thinks that the only reason people are outraged at the obscenely lenient sentence handed down is because Manafort is connected to the current occupant of the White House, despite the fact that these particular charges had nothing to do with that. It is, however, typical of Rightwing thinking, that everyone else operates from the same base emotions that they do, rather than the reality, which is that mainstream Americans can see how utterly unjust the light treatment of “white collar” crime is.

The way this story ends is obvious. Manafort will get a presidential pardon, and the only question is, how soon? Had Manafort been given a 20-year sentence, a pardon would have been fast because the Conman in Chief would have called that sentence “very, very unfair”. 47-months may seem harder to excuse, but if his sentencing next week adds the maximum 10 years (which is possible but possibly unlikely), the Conman in Chief will call that “very, very unfair”. A real president would have Manfort serve at least part of his sentence, since he did, indeed, commit crimes, but this guy is illegitimate and not sensible in any way. He may very well pardon Manafort at any moment, even before sentencing, just as he did with that racist convicted ex-sheriff.

The pardon is inevitable because Manafort refused to cooperate with the Mueller investigation. The current occupant of the White House has made it abundantly clear that he’ll pardon those who don’t “squeal” on him. Of course, dangling the prospect of a pardon is prosecutable as witness tampering and obstruction of justice, and it’s definitely grounds for impeachment.

But none of that will matter to the man who has spent his life lying, cheating, and conning people with impunity. He believes that as a rich white man who is part of powerful elites, he’s untouchable. Based on the evidence, and the joke sentence given Manafort, it’s hard to argue with his assessment. And, odds are that he’ll get away with his crimes of witness tampering and obstruction of justice, too.

Maybe some day the USA really will have “equal justice under law”. Maybe. But even with massive election defeats for the current regime, their enablers, and all the powerful elites, it would take decades to fix this mess. This particular case really did little more than show us all how profoundly unjust the USA’s “justice” system really is.

‘No religious Test shall ever be required’

Times have changed at the Capitol: Some of the holy books for new member’s swearing ins, including a Quran, Buddhist Sutra and Hindu Vera (and two Constitutions for the atheists) pic.twitter.com/KES1JKnqP9

— Matt Laslo (@MattLaslo) January 3, 2019

The US Constitution is very clear and unambiguous: “No religious Test shall ever be required,” it says, “as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” That’s Article VI, Clause 3 of the US Constitution. Despite all that, some Christians want there to be a very specific qualification for office: Adherence to their religion alone. The Tweet above shows how things are nevertheless starting to change, despite the anti-American attitudes of a few who don’t understand how America's democracy or Constitution works.

The Tweet above is from Matt Laslo, a journalist with VICE, The Daily Beast, NPR, and Rolling Stone, among others, and the photo shows the diversity of religious (or not) texts chosen by US Representatives for their ceremonial re-enactments of their swearing-in yesterday. It’s a small sign that the USA is slowly moving forward, despite those who would stop or reverse that progress.

Naturally, no good deed goes unpunished, and certain Christians went apoplectic. As they always do when their worldview is challenged.

In January 2007, former US Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN, now the state’s Attorney General-elect) was sworn in as the US House’s first Muslim Member of Congress, and he chose Thomas Jefferson’s 1734 copy of the Koran. Some Christians and conservatives criticised him for that. One crackpot Republican issued a breathless fundraising letter declaring that Ellison’s use of the Koran threatened "the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America”. Whatever.

12 years later, US Representative Rashida Tlaib, a newly-elected Democratic Congresswoman from Detroit, announced that she, too, would use Jefferson’s copy of the Koran. The headline for a piece on Patheos accurately said “Christian Heads Explode” when they heard the news. Many of the responses were flat out unhinged, which is absolutely no surprise, but some responses overall have indicated an extreme ignorance of how US democracy, and its Constitution, works.

It’s important to note that the ceremonial swearing-in is merely that: Ceremonial, a photo op, and nothing more. The actual and official swearing in of House Members is done en masse—swearing in 435 Members individually would take forever. Absolutely NO religious text of any kind is used for the official swearing in. None. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Afterward, Representatives pose for a photo with their partner or other chosen person holding the book of their choice.

It is unconstitutional, and therefore illegal, to compel ANYONE holding office in the United States to profess a belief in or opposition to any religion, or to compel them to use ANY religious text when taking that oath. Similarly, no one can be compelled to say “so help me god” at the end of their oath—and that includes the US president, of course.

The main reason for all this is that Article VI of the Constitution prohibits ANY religious test for any public office. It, combined with the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment, means that no person can be compelled to adhere to or oppose any religious belief system or symbols, including religious texts.

Initially, the prohibition applied only to federal offices, but two Supreme Court decisions changed all that. The first was Everson v. Board of Education (1947), in which the Court ruled 5-4 that the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause applied to the states, not just the Federal government.

The second case was a unanimous 1961 decision, Torcaso v. Watkins, which built on the Everson decision, making clear that the First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment banned ALL religious tests for all public offices, whether federal or state.

Taken together, Article VI, Clause 3 of the Constitution, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, along with the Everson and Torcaso decisions make the prohibition of all religious tests for public office absolute and unambiguous. This is not up for debate.

Instead, the “debate”, so-called, can only be on whether this ought to be the fact for the USA. Here, too, the answer is clear and unambiguous: Yes, this ought to be the case, and no religious test can ever be allowed.

Certain Christians live with the myth that the USA was founded as a “Christian nation”, which is utter nonsense, of course, as history clearly documents. But the myth nevertheless makes some Christians feel they’re losing “their” country when their religion isn’t, and never was, mandatory. They can’t seem to grasp that nothing has changed except that people being elected to various offices in the USA are becoming more diverse in their beliefs, which everyone ought to be able to agree is an undeniably good thing.

Naturally, some people cannot or simply will not agree that it’s a good thing. There’s a lot of “whataboutism” that follows whenever anyone asserts the fundamental Constitutional principle of freedom of religious belief—which also includes non-belief, obviously. Certain Christians, so-called, like to say that such-and-such religion is automatically “anti-American” and, therefore, all of its adherents are, too. Using that same logic, however, all Christians would have to be seen as “anti-American” because some of them wish to oppress and exclude people they see as in conflict with Christianity (this isn’t even getting into the extremist minority of Christians who want to imprison or even execute those they see as apostates). From a purely rational perspective, there is no difference if their logic is to be used, well, logically.

That’s precisely why the Founders of the USA put religious freedom into the First Amendment and prohibited religious tests within the Constitution itself. They knew about all the centuries of bloodshed that had happened because of religious conflict, and that even the USA’s parent, England, had experienced it because it had an established religion that at various points oppressed—sometimes violently—those who believed differently. They wanted the new United States to be able to avoid those centuries-old religious hatreds.

So, when certain Christians melt down because a duly and democratically elected official chooses to be sworn in on anything other than a copy of the Christian Bible, including copies of the US Constitution (which, full disclosure, would be my personal choice) or even law books, they’re the ones being un-American and even anti-American. It doesn’t matter in the least what they think of the fact that the USA has enshrined religious freedom (the real and genuine kind, not the fake kind extremist Christians promote as a way to allow them to discriminate against those they hate). It doesn’t matter what their feelings are, nor whether they’re personally offended or upset that someone doesn’t use their Bible in a ceremonial photo op. The law and the Constitution are very clear that their feelings are irrelevant.

There is an extreme irony here. Obviously those who really do believe that the USA ought to become a “Christian nation”, or that only Christians should be allowed to hold elected office, etc., are absolutely free to express those beliefs. They’re also free to vote for candidates who believe the same thing, or to run for office themselves. And, if elected, such a person is free to try to advance that belief into law. But the reason all those freedoms exist in the USA is because of the same parts of the US Constitution, and the very same Supreme Court decisions, that established that people have both freedom of belief and freedom from religious tests.

Freedom means freedom for all, or it’s not freedom at all. Freedom to choose what text one uses when sworn into elected office is no different.

Related: "Faith on the Hill – The religious composition of the 116th Congress" from Pew Research

Nothing has changed – YET

To hear those on the Right and Left talk, one would think yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling had changed everything. Often this misinformation happened because of propaganda needs, but most of it can be chalked up to the usual, namely, people not having any idea what they’re talking about. The reality is that, legally, nothing has changed—YET.

In the case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission [PDF available from the Court], the Court ruled that the baker was treated unfairly because a couple of Colorado’s commissioners had, in the majority's opinion, said unkind things about religion, meaning the baker didn’t get a “fair” hearing. This is utter nonsense.

The opinion, written by swing vote Anthony Kennedy, was based partly on one Commissioner's observation that throughout history religion has been used as “an excuse to hurt others.” This is factual, not a new idea, and not controversial except to those who are offended by the very idea that others don’t like religion being forced onto them. In fact, this argument was a direct sop to the radical right’s nonsense claim that government is “hostile” to religion and religious views. Kennedy drew FAR too long a bow to try to find something—anything—to back that silly idea.

Silliness of the majority opinion notwithstanding, the fact remains that nothing has actually changed: It was illegal for a business serving the public to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, and it remains illegal. That simple reality will lead to further litigation.

The far-right anti-LGBT hate group that represented the baker has been doing victory laps in the media, which will no doubt lead to some “Christian” bakers thinking it’s okay to discriminate against gay people in the 21 states that forbid it. Worse, it will probably embolden bigots in the 29 states that don’t protect their LGBT+ people.

So, while the ruling changes nothing, it will lead to more discrimination against LGBT+ people, and, in some states, more legal action. This is all according to the radical right’s plan.

For years, the radical right professional anti-gay industry has been trying to portray their particular version of “Christians” as being some sort of “victims” who, they constantly claim, are somehow “oppressed” because other people have equal rights. The hate group that represented the baker has been soliciting far-right “Christian” business owners willing to discriminate against LGBT+ people so that the hate group can represent them.

What the radical right is up to is nothing less than taking away the human rights of LGBT people. The hate group in question, and, indeed, the entire radical right professional anti-gay industry, wants to reverse all the progress LGBT+ people have made in the past few decades—the past ten years in particular—and they want homosexuality itself re-criminalised. They can’t do that when LGBT+ people are considered legally equal.

The radical right also can’t successfully repeal civil rights protections for LGBT+ people in the 21 states that have them, not the least because the general public favours them. While they can, and have, repealed civil rights protections that cities have enacted, it’s an expensive effort with no guarantee of success. These efforts are also not nationwide.

So, the radical right is trying to chip away at the human rights of LGBT+ people by gutting their legal protections where they exist. By carving out a “religious exemption” to discriminate against LGBT+ people, they will make it legal to deny gay people housing, jobs, and public accommodation of any kind in all 50 states. Which is why this is not, and never has been, about some damn cakes.

The Supreme Court’s decision is really a punt: They’ve ruled on a VERY narrow—and HIGHLY debatable—point and avoided ruling on the anti-discrimination laws themselves. Sooner or later, a cleaner case will come before the Court, and if the make-up of the Court remains the same, the radicals may lose. But if the Court veers to the hard right, LGBT people will lose what little civil rights protections they have—and so much more. As I said on Monday:

All [the radical right needs] for that to happen is for Supreme Court Associate Justice Kennedy to die or retire, or, obviously, any one of the four more liberal justices. Kennedy voted with the majority to enact marriage equality and to overturn state anti-sodomy laws, so replacing him would give the radical rightwing religionists the crucial fifth vote they need to overturn the rulings that they hate the most. If they hold the US Senate after the elections in November, that becomes a very real possibility.

So, while this ruling changed absolutely nothing legally, and even though this particular Court seems unlikely to take away the civil rights protections for LGBT+ people where they exist, in the long run everything could be taken away. We must not allow that to happen.

The only way to safeguard the Court and the human tights of LGBT+ people is to vote Democratic in all elections. Right now, the only way to be sure that the current occupant of the White House will never get to appoint an extremist radical to the Supreme Court, and to protect the human rights of LGBT+ people, is to have the US Senate controlled by Democrats. This isn’t a partisan issue—it’s solely a human rights issue.

I’ll keep warning about this danger until it passes, because that danger remains very real. This particular ruling didn’t change things legally, but that may not last: Nothing has changed YET!

Related:
"The ‘Masterpiece Cakeshop’ Decision Is Not As Harmless as You Think" by Sarah Posner, The Nation – 5 June 2018
"Sorry, Jack Phillips, but it’s still illegal for you to refuse same-sex couples wedding cakes" by Zack Ford, ThinkProgress – 5 June 2018

Free speech, outrage, and facts

The thing about politics that most ideologues ignore is that very few people are consistent all the time or about similar issues. That’s not about party, or ideology, or issue—it’s about being human. One of the best places to see that in action is when it comes to free speech. But on that issue one side is conspicuously less concerned with facts than it is with outrage.

Recently, a judge dismissed a man’s lawsuit claiming that he was unfairly evicted from a New York City bar for wearing a “Make America Great [sic] Again” hat. Predictably, fans of the current occupant of the White House were apoplectic, and took to social media to condemn “the Left” for “hypocrisy”, and the newsmeda for a “liberal bias” for not reporting the story and for not standing up for the guy who wore the hat. Naturally, it’s not exactly as they claim, and their outrage, real or not, is misplaced.

The gist of the story is that the man claims he was told to leave the bar when he refused to remove his hat, and he further claimed, "I spoke directly to the owner and the owner told me that anyone who supports [the current occupant of the White House] or believes what you believe is not welcome here! And you need to leave right now because we won't serve you!"

The Right was outraged by the alleged treatment, of course, but their attack on Liberals was that, they said, we wouldn’t permit a baker to refuse to make a cake for a gay couple, but had no problem with someone being refused service for wearing a political hat we disagreed with. One would think they’d have been absolutely fine with the guy being thrown out, if the story was true as claimed, because they demand the right to refuse service to LGBT+ people, so obviously liberals should have that same choice, right? Well, no, of course not.

The Right’s outrage machine got the details wrong. The guy claimed he was thrown out for his political beliefs, however, political or supposed patriotic views aren’t protected under New York’s state anti-discrimination laws. So, the legal claim the guy actually made was that he was wearing the hat as a symbolic expression of some sort of “sincerely held beliefs”, and the hat was “an essential component of [his] overall personal and spiritual expression." The problem was that he couldn’t articulate what, precisely, those beliefs were, and he acknowledged that he never told the bar staff of his “beliefs”, so they’d have no way of knowing about the alleged beliefs. What THAT means is that the staff did not illegally discriminate against the man because of his religious beliefs, because to do so they’d have to have known about or suspected the man held those beliefs, and neither was true.

So, as a matter of law, there was no legal reason reason why the staff could not evict the guy.

Second, the guy was NOT refused service. Receipts filed with the Court [the PDF is available online] show that the guy paid $182.91, plus a $36.00 tip, for a grand total of $218.91. Those same documents show the guy spent hours in the bar.

Beyond all that, this story, like all stories, also has two sides.

In a statement to CNN, the bar’s owner said they “firmly support women's rights, marriage equality, gun control, the environment, and regard for the truth—we don't discriminate." The statement went on:

"What's gotten lost in this story is that the guest wasn't kicked out because he was wearing [that] hat—he was asked to leave after being verbally abusive to our staff, which is something we don't tolerate regardless of who you are."

That’s an entirely different version of events. If the owner’s version is correct, then the guy wasn’t kicked out because of his hat, or because of his choice of political candidate or because of his “beliefs”, but because he was abusive, and kicking someone out for that is completely legal everywhere. Considering that this came after several hours in the bar, it seems pretty clear to a fair minded person that the hat was irrelevant, there was no restriction on the guy’s free speech, and the Right’s outrage is grossly misplaced.

Having said all that, if the guy really had been kicked out because of the hat and nothing else, that would be wrong, regardless of what the law says specifically, just as it’s wrong to discriminate against LGBT+ customers. But the evidence is clear that he was not refused service (he was there for several hours and spent $218.91, including tip). Beyond that, it’s impossible to know for sure what actually happened, but the facts as presented in Court don’t support the narrative being sold by the Right on social media.

Freedom of speech is a precious thing, and so is the right to be free from discrimination. But the fight for both is cheapened, and real victims trashed, whenever false claims are made and then used to score political points. The judge dismissed the complaint because the evidence presented in Court showed that no discrimination had occurred. It’s hard to see, based on the evidence supplied, how any other result would have been just.

Facts and evidence always matter. Partisans of all stripes would do well to remember that before stirring up the social media outrage machine. Recent history suggests that won’t happen. That’s not about party, or ideology, or issue—it’s about being human these days, it seems, and that's what's truly sad about such cases.

Documents for the case, Index No. 152578/2017, are all availble online.

Don’t tell me not to be glad

Society tells us it’s impolite to celebrate someone’s death. No matter how bitter the enmity, and no matter how strong the adversarial relationship, we are to say only nice things, or, if we can’t manage that, remain completely silent. Screw that!

US Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia died, and I won’t pretend to be the least bit sorry he’s gone from the court he polluted for three long decades. I would have been perfectly happy for him to simply retire, but he was never going to do that, so this was the only possible way to see him leave the court.

So—to be abundantly clear about this—I’m not actually celebrating his death, because that's something about which I couldn’t possibly care less. Instead, I’m celebrating the fact that he’s gone from the Supreme Court, because that I care very much about.

Scalia was the scourge of all fair-minded Americans. He was focused on imposing his personal views of what the eighteenth century authors of the US Constitution meant when they wrote it—even though he was often demonstrably wrong (like about the Second Amendment, for example, about which he flip-flopped). But that wasn’t all he cared about: He sought to impose his extremist rightwing religious views onto everyone, too.

As a rightwing Roman Catholic, Scalia was fervently anti-abortion. He believed that not only did women not have the constitutional right to abortion as affirmed in Roe v. Wade, he thought no government could grant that right.

Scalia was also rabidly anti-gay. He wrote angry, bitter, and even vicious dissents attacking the human and civil rights of gay Americans, and he often used deeply bigoted language to mount such attacks. He also compared being gay to murder because he believed both are “immoral”. What his votes on the Supreme Court mean is that he believed gay people should be put in prison for having sex, and same-gender couples should not have the exact same legal rights and protections that their married heterosexual friends and family members take for granted as a birthright.

So, I completely disagreed with Scalia’s politics: He was wrong on abortion, he was wrong on the Second Amendment (after he flip-flopped), he was wrong on gay people’s right to privacy, and he was wrong about marriage equality.

I also utterly reject the nonsense that he was a “brilliant”: The man promoted a weird view of the Constitution, one that was forever entombed in a time when black people were mere property, women had no rights whatsoever, and gay people belonged in prison or being executed. That bizarre way of thinking can be called many things, but “brilliant” is absolutely not one of them.

Practically before Scalia’s body was even cold, Republicans announced that they plan to play their typical partisan games, blocking any nominee put forward by President Obama. That would be an utter abdication of their duty under the Constitution, and incredibly stupid politics: It would ensure Democrats re-take the US Senate.

What annoys me most about the Republicans’ partisan political games is this: Do Republicans seriously expect us to believe that blocking any nominee, no matter how qualified or good, thereby refusing to do their duty, would be about ANYTHING other than purely partisan politics?! Do they seriously expect us to think their partisan political games are reasonable? REALLY?!

So, if this had happened in George W. Bush’s last year, Republicans would have been completely okay if Democrats had done what Republicans now plan to do? Because we all know damn well that if the roles were reversed, Republicans would NEVER agree to wait for the next president. Mitch McConnell and his cabal clearly think we’re all far too stupid to see what they’re up to: The same old stupid partisan political games they always play.

If Republicans’ games succeed, there could be a 4-4 split in Supreme Court decisions, which would mean that the lower court decision would stand, but no precedent would be set. It would be as if the Court had never even considered the cases [for more about cases this could affect, both Think Progress and also Vox have listed cases and what could happen].

So, I’m not the least bit sorry that Scalia is gone from the Supreme Court, even though it took his death to happen. After all, he could have chosen to leave by retiring, but he didn’t. The fact that he’s gone from the court is the only thing that matters.

There’s been some moralising on the centre and left, tut-tutting those of us who are glad Scalia’s gone. They scold us for an imagined lack of grace, and for being inhuman. Putting aside that Scalia himself was inhuman toward LGBT people like me, I think this sort of self-righteous preaching is naïve.

The very moment that news of Scalia’s death was announced, the rightwing went into overdrive promoting the virtual sainthood of Scalia, as if everything he did and said was nearly divine, beyond reproach or dissent. Put another way, the rightwing immediately set about the task of shaping and forming public discourse about Scalia, and what his image and legacy would be. By remaining silent, those of us who were adversaries and critics during his lifetime would be contributing to the political canonisation of a man who was, to us, the very opposite of a saint.

Scalia’s family knows all this, and they’re well used to it: As a public figure, Scalia constantly faced criticism, so it’s absurd to suggest that critics should now suddenly remain silent—at the very moment the rightwing is asserting theirs as the only correct opinion and view of the man and is career. It is our duty to proclaim our dissent and repeat out criticism.

So, don’t anyone dare to tell me not to be glad Scalia’s gone from the Court, because I am glad. It’s his death itself that I couldn’t possibly care less about.

Update: Writing on The Advocate, Neal Broverman says "Dear Straight People: We're Entitled to Our Feelings on Scalia". I concur.

2Political Podcast 108 is available

Episode 108 of the 2Political Podcast, recorded a few weeks ago, right after the US Supreme Court marriage equality ruling (among others), is now available from the podcast website. There, you can listen, download or subscribe to the podcast, or leave comments on the episode. The five most recent episodes are also listed with links in the right sidebar of this blog.

And now a book

A week ago today, I posted the last Marriage News Watch video by Matt Baume. Now, he’s back with his book based on his experiences in the fight for marriage equality in the USA (promotional video above).

The book, Defining Marriage: Voices from a Forty-Year Labor of Love, is available for free on Amazon for this week only, before it goes on sale.

I’ve only just started reading the book, but I can say already that it’s quite compelling. Matt has an easy-to-read, breezy style, as we saw in his videos, that almost reminds me of a friend sitting around telling you stories of what he’s seen—which is basically what the book is. I hope to post a bigger discussion of the book once I finish reading it.

According to the video, and the table of contents, I know that Matt tells the story of how we got to 50-state marriage equality, focusing on the stories some of the notable people who made it possible (some of whom we probably haven’t heard of), and also some of the lesser known stories of people who contributed, each in their own way, to the movement toward equality. He also shares his own story, which I think is an interesting dimension for a lot of reasons.

I know that e-books aren’t for everyone, but while it’s free, it’s the perfect e-book book to try. A reader does need an Amazon account, which is free, but the book itself can be read on a Kindle, of course, or by using the free Kindle App for smart phones, tablets, and desktop computers. I started reading the book on my iPad, but I’ll probably carry on using my Kindle, especially at night because it doesn’t have the light issues of electronic devices (my Kindle has no backlight and needs to be read with lamplight, just like a regular book).

I like what I’ve read so far, and I’m looking forward to learning about things I didn’t know about. While it’s free, it’s clearly a no-risk thing to do, too—unlike the tale it tells.

Another big court ruling

Today the US Supreme Court issued another ruling, one that will turn out to be huge. The ruling in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission may help finally end gerrymandering.

The graphic above was shared on Facebook by AlterNet and sums up Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s opinion for the majority, and at the end is the gist of the matter: “Voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around.”

Gerrymandering is the process of drawing the lines of legislative districts in such a way that they benefit one party over another. This is one of those very rare times when, historically, both parties were as bad as each other, but a few years ago the Republican Party spent enormous sums of money (often through their “independent” PACs) to elect Republicans to state legislatures specifically so they could gain control and redraw district lines to ensure they maintained and increased political power, despite fewer and fewer people identifying as Republican.

This is why Republicans control the US House and US Senate: Their gerrymandered Congressional Districts allowed them to seize control of the US House in 2010, and to hold it since. Having lost the presidency twice in a row, their control of the US House gave them the national platform they needed to help them seize control of the US Senate, too, in the 2014 elections.

Republicans also used their gerrymander-created majorities in state legislatures to try and severely restrict voting rights for poor people, minorities, and young people in particular, most of whom traditionally vote Democratic (which is precisely why Republicans wanted to keep them from voting). That’s without even getting into all their anti-worker, anti-middle class, and social issue warring that they did, too.

In Arizona, voters were so frustrated with the gerrymandering that they used the initiative process to transfer the drawing up of district boundaries to an independent commission. Republicans were NOT happy, and fought it every step of the way. Their most immediate concern was that they wanted to draw a map to guarantee one more Republican US Representative with the new Congressional District the state was getting.

All that ended today when the US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to uphold the independent commission, with Justice Ginsburg writing the majority opinion [PDF available online].

The non-partisan issue here was, can an independent commission be used to draw district boundaries? The Republicans in control of the Arizona legislature, with no small amount of self-interest, contended that it was their job alone, since they’re elected representatives of the people. Problem is, gerrymandering means they’re not really servants of the people, but of themselves. This same question applied to other states, too.

This ruling affects about one-third of US States that use some form of commission to at least help draw their districts. But it also means that this method can be expanded to other states to help end gerrymandering.

Independent commissions are by no means perfect: Usually, they’re bipartisan, which means that members still potentially serve their parties rather than the people, but often such commissions are balanced between the two parties (as Arizona’s was), which helps a bit. However, imperfect as they are, it is a much better solution than allowing politicians to draw boundaries in order to benefit their self-interest, and that of their parties.

So, today’s ruling is an important step in the electoral reform the USA so desperately needs. It will also help end gerrymandering eventually, but in the short term it will at least help make it easier for advocates to win commissions in other states, and that’s very good news for democracy.

See also: “Supreme Court Rejects Attempt To Make Voter Registration Harder” from ThinkProgess, which also talks about the Court’s voting rights ruling.

Aftermath

A very busy weekend left me with little time to comment on the US Supreme Court ruling establishing 50-state marriage equality. But, then, I’ve largely said what I wanted to in the years leading up to the ruling. Then today I found videos that kind of close things off for me.

The first video, up top, is latest in AFER’s Marriage News Watch series of videos with Matt Baume: “Defending our Marriage Victory Won't Be Easy”. In this video, Matt sums up what the ruling did, and what our adversaries are most likely to do next. Although he talks about some of the difficulties ahead, I nevertheless thought the video was quite positive.

The second video, also from Matt Baume on his own YouTube Channel, offers what we “need to know” about the ruling. Part of it was recorded before the ruling, and that part lays out why the ruling was inevitable, and how the Court has a long history of expanding marriage rights.

In the parts recorded later, Matt expands on some of the things he said in the AFER video above. Taken together, the two videos said much of what I would have said, if I’d had the time.



Finally, a celebratory video: In the video below, YouTuber Raymond Braun goes with fellow YouTubers The Rhodes Bros to the US Supreme Court to experience the moment the decision was announced. There, they also ran into other YouTubers (Links to the various YouTubers are in the video description on YouTube).

Braun also went to Ireland and to video their referendum, and in another video, he talked with Jim Obergefell, whose name will now for remembered, and probably misspelled, alongside that of the Lovings for helping expand marriage rights. Obergefell is in this video, too, and is part of the reason I chose it. Braun is another of the “young dudes” on YouTube that I was talking about last month).



So, there you have it: Most of what I’d probably have said all done for me. Right now, that’s a good thing, because it was a very busy weekend with my husband and his family. See? Marriage equality really is pretty ordinary.

Love Wins!

There is only one way to look at the US Supreme Court ruling establishing 50-state marriage equality: Love Wins. Love has trumped all the negativity of our adversaries, and proven that love always triumphs over hate. Always.

I well aware that there are plenty of far right folks who are apoplectic, sometimes hilariously so, like declaring they’ll move to Canada, which has had marriage equality for a decade and national healthcare for even longer. And I also know full well that many of those on the far right will remain dangerous adversaries for years to come, and some will be actual enemies. Racism still exists in the USA, and anti-gay bigotry won’t suddenly go away, either.

This is why it’s so important to note that, in fact, everyone won today, including our adversaries. The Supreme Court has be strengthening and expanding marriage for over a century now, and this ruling is just another in a long list. The Court didn’t change the definition of marriage, it affirmed that marriage must be available to all citizens. When the Constitution and fundamental liberty are upheld, ALL Americans win. Eventually most of today’s opponents of marriage equality will come to realise that, even if a few hard core opponents continue to rage from the forgotten backwaters of history as everyone else moves on.

There was a lot of celebration of the ruling today, including from many big companies, and many notable landmarks, most notably, the White House.

The graphic at the top of this post is the White House’s official Facebook profile photo. The White House YouTube Channel includes both President Obama’s remarks and a video with some of the plaintiffs and excerpts of the president’s remarks (both videos are below).

This has been a great day.

Worth quoting: Justice Kennedy

“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”

US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, in the final paragraph of his majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges.

Exactly.

Attorney General Eric Holder

The US Department of Justice posted the video above Friday (US time), and described it as “Attorney General Eric Holder Legacy Video”. It’s a nine-minute look at the first African American to serve as US Attorney General, and his career highlights.

Chad Griffin, the head of the Human Rights Campaign, is shown saying that Holder was “the LGBT rights movement’s Robert Kennedy”, chiefly because as Attorney General, Holder refused to defend the unconstitutional Defense [sic] of Marriage Act.

In his farewell remarks at the Justice Department (excerpts in the AP video below), Holder said:

“Civil rights: The LGBT community is something that I have tried to focus on. I think that is the civil rights issue of our time. This whole question of same-sex marriage, which will be resolved by the [Supreme] Court over the next couple months or so, hopefully that decision will go in a way that I think is consistent with who we say we are as a people.”

Holder also fought strongly for voting rights and to reform the criminal justice system. He also successfully prosecuted terrorists in civilian courts, something his Republican opponents, arguing for prosecution in military courts, said was impossible to do.

Holder ended up with an intensely confrontational relationship with Republicans in Congress. Many of them hated him as much as they hated President Obama, and also for similar reasons (racism chief among them). However, in an era in which Republicans used parliamentary procedures to persecute the Obama Administration, they use the controversy over “the fast and the furious” for partisan political gain. In the end, no evidence was ever found to implicate Holder himself. Indeed, nothing that the Republicans trotted out on any issue ever amounted to anything more that purely partisan grandstanding to benefit themselves and their party, all while wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on their partisan crusades.

None of which is to suggest that Holder was perfect, because he absolutely wasn’t. His department’s aggressive investigation of leaks of national security information to journalists was nothing less than a fundamental threat to freedom of the press, something one would have expected during the Bush/Cheney regime. To this day, it’s unclear how much of that was under his direction, but what clearly was, was troubling on its own.

Still, when the history of Holder’s tenure is written, I’m certain that it won’t be focusing on “the fast and the furious”, and it won’t be about investigating leaks to journalists. Instead, in terms of legacy alone, it really will be LGBT rights and the fight for marriage equality. Holder’s actions—or, in the case of DOMA, inaction—helped create the monumental shift that makes 50-state marriage equality an eventual certainty, hopefully as soon as the middle of this year.

For an oppressed minority that's had so few champions, especially in the Justice Department, that's an admirable legacy.