Author: Raymond

 
From Mock Paper Scissors:

The 5-4 ruling by the court’s conservative justices said only one state House district was designed by using race impermissibly. It upheld the state legislature’s maps, based largely on a federal court’s 2013 requirement, for all others.

This is really bad news, not just for Texas but for all of us. It justifies gerrymandering as long as it looks like racism isn’t the motive behind it. And if there’s one thing old-school Republicans know how to do is be racist without leaving fingerprints. The GOP freshman class, however, are proud of their white supremacy bonafides.

This decision might be of shorter duration than we dread, just because The New Confederacy loves to let the blah’s know that they are comin’ fer ’em.

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From Tommy Christopher:

In a series of tweets Sunday, Trump also demanded the elimination of due process, and referred to immigrants like the children he has imprisoned as “invaders.”

“Democrats, fix the laws. Don’t RESIST,” Trump wrote. “We are doing a far better job than Bush and Obama, but we need strength and security at the Border! Cannot accept all of the people trying to break into our Country. Strong Borders, No Crime!”

“We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country,” Trump continued. “When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came.”

Trump’s comments Sunday are echoes of things he has said in the past. He has previously referred to immigrants like the children he’s locked up as an “infestation,” and just a few weeks ago, mocked the very idea of due process for immigrants in an interview with “Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade.

“Who ever heard of a system where you put people through trials?” Trump asked, and promised to “change the system.”

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From North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz:

I lost hundreds, perhaps thousands of former church friends and co-ministers who disconnected, went silent, or actively ridiculed me for “falling away from the faith.”

A former pastor publicly disparaged me for losing my way. Longtime Christian friends ghosted me, avoiding eye contact at stores and at funerals for mutual friends. I now get the cold shoulder on social media from people I used to live and work alongside, trying to teach me a lesson about my heresy by their silence.

Since then I’ve watched many of these same people move lock-step with this completely immoral President, and betray nearly everything about the life and ministry of Jesus—like Peter repeatedly denying Jesus in the garden.

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Not into country? Consider getting into it for four minutes.

Country music artist Toby Keith wrote this in the 1990s about achieving success after predictions of failure by naysayers.

 

One touch of irony, the song became a major hit after it was rejected by Mercury Records.

 
From Jonathan Bernstein:

If both the farm bill and an immigration measure actually reach the floor on Thursday, the House is going to look like a real legislative body, at least on the surface. Don’t be fooled. The Republican majority is just passing the buck as usual. Or, I should say: Speaker Paul Ryan is passing the buck, as he usually does. Which is why he’s been such a disappointment.

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From Robert A. Levine at The Moderate Voice:

Maine took a different path to changing its voting process. Collecting enough signatures, they had a referendum and passed a ranked choice voting system (RCV). In this method, when a person fills out a ballot for a party primary, the voter marks his or her first choice, second choice, third choice, and so on, depending on the number of candidates. If there is no one on a majority of ballots in the first round, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and his or her second choices are distributed to the remaining candidates. If there is still no majority, another candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and his or her votes distributed to the remaining candidates. This continues until someone has a majority. This method is the fairest because a candidate must be on a majority of the ballots. Also, it helps independents who are running without party backing and party money. It seemed to work well in the recent primaries.

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From The Onion:

“Just yesterday, he was explaining that his hands were tied and there was nothing he could do to stop children and infants from being forcibly torn away from their parents and put into cages—but then today, out of nowhere, he suddenly issued an executive order doing just that!” said Bruce Ackerman, a constitutional law professor at Yale University, remarking that this inexplicable development will fundamentally upend how the presidency is understood, because there is no theory in the entire field of political science that explains how it could be possible.

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From Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit:

First off, as I mentioned there, One Day in the Life of Ivan Desniovich was not meant to be an instruction manual. (I mention that one in particular for it is among the thinnest of Solzhenitsyn’s works. You can read it in a few hours and if you haven’t, then get thee to a bookshop for elsewhere.)

Second. Almost every one of those kids will grow up. They will know that it was the United States government which tore them from their parents. Wherever they end up being deported to, and regardless of whether they are eventually reunited with family or not (I’m betting “not”), they will know that it was our government with separated them from their parents.

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From Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger:

Donald Trump’s new policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the border, and confining those children indefinitely in detention facilities, is not going over well with the American public. This is clearly shown in three new polls.

In the Quinnipiac poll, the public opposed the policy by 39 points. In the CNN poll, the opposition was by 39 points. And in the CBS News poll, the opposition was by 50 points. Those are some pretty overwhelming numbers.

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From Green Eagle:

…not a single comment I have heard is willing to get to the real point of Trump’s inhumanity toward immigrant children.

Yes, of course, this is part of a systematic stirring up of race hatred and a lust for violence in his base, to hopefully get them out on election day and keep the Republican party in charge. That in itself is one of the most miserable things that has ever happened in the history of our country, at least since the days of slavery and beating down the Indians. But as malignant as it is, I believe it is only secondary to another purpose of this behavior, which up to this point, no one, from whatever end of the political spectrum, has been able to face.

For, I believe, the main purpose of this behavior is to make it clear that Trump has the power, and will use that power, to destroy the lives of anyone who stands up to him.

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