Amusing While it Lasted

Assoc. Justice Goodwin Liu wrote the 7-0 ruling.

As expected, the Governor, the Legislature, the labor unions, and all the powers that run our one-party State were successful in having the California Supreme Court disqualify the tax initiative from the November ballot. If passed, it would have required higher taxes to be approved by two-thirds of the voters in addition to the two-thirds majority already required of the Legislature.The measure

must be removed from the November ballot because it is so far-reaching that it would be a “revision” of the state Constitution, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday.

Initiatives can amend but not "revise" the Constitution, went the Court's reasoning.

Well, it was amusing while it lasted. As I posted last month

To be frank (and a little childish), I like seeing the single-party State squirm a little and, after denouncing Republicans as a threat to democracy, argue that the people should not have the ability to decide.

Threat to Democracy in California

California Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero

One never knows until the ruling is issued, but so far the California Supreme Court appears reluctant to pull the tax initiative (discussed yesterday) from the November ballot: [bold added]

The state Supreme Court seemed reluctant Wednesday to grant Democrats’ request to remove from the November ballot a business-supported initiative that would require voter approval for any increase in state and local taxes or fees. But the justices appeared willing to put the tax-cut provisions on hold if the measure passes and then decide their legality.

As the hearing began, Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero asked a lawyer for Gov. Gavin Newsom and Legislative Democrats why the court should take the rare step of blocking the ballot measure “instead of allowing the voters to consider it.”

Justice Joshua Groban asked a similar question, and Justice Martin Jenkins said less-drastic actions were available, like a freeze on provisions that would slash government revenue. Justice Leondra Kruger noted that the court usually considers a ballot measure’s challenged sections individually rather than taking up the entire measure, and asked, “Why shouldn’t we do so here?”

Governor Newsom and the Democrats argued that the legislature's power to control taxation is in the California Constitution, and the people's ability to supersede the legislature through an initiative is therefore un-Constitutional.

Your humble blogger is not a lawyer or historian, but because California initiatives have been around since 1911, the constitutional arguments would seem to have been settled.

To be frank (and a little childish), I like seeing the single-party State squirm a little and, after denouncing Republicans as a threat to democracy, argue that the people should not have the ability to decide.

Presidential Material

He does look presidential

I'm entranced by the idea of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) becoming President just for the confusion that it would engender.

There may be no practical difference between "Whitehouse says" and "the White House says," but copy writers would have to guard against using phrases like "Speaking from the White House, Whitehouse..." or "Invited to the White House by Whitehouse..."

If he's going to get to the presidential mansion, Senator Whitehouse should avoid sillinesses like accusing a Supreme Court justice of "improper opining":

Mr. Whitehouse is famous for publicly examining Brett Kavanaugh’s high-school yearbook for subtle messages of, well, we never could figure it out. And now he says Justice Alito committed “improper opining on a legal issue that may come before the court” in his recent interview with this newspaper [the WSJ]...

Our favorite line in Mr. Whitehouse’s letter says that “at the end, Justice Alito is the beneficiary of his own improper opining.” In other words, how dare Justice Alito defend himself from unfair attacks by Mr. Whitehouse, whose real goal is to coerce the Justices into doing his political bidding.

Senator Whitehouse didn't just say it but wrote a letter to Chief Justice Roberts complaining about Justice Alito's "improper opining." The Chief Justice is now obliged to compose a letter in return, and I'd give a penny, or even two, for his thoughts.

What's in a Phrase: "Undue Hardship"

Gerald Groff (WSJ photo)

Given the controversies surrounding recent Supreme Court decisions on free speech, affirmative action, and student-loan forgiveness, it's easy to overlook their unanimous statement on a religious accommodations case.

The 9-0 decision in Groff v. DeJoy is likely to affect thousands of workers and their employers. The facts:

[Gerald] Groff began working at the U.S. Postal Service in 2012, delivering mail in rural parts of Lancaster County, Pa. In 2013, the Postal Service contracted with Amazon.com to deliver Amazon packages, including on Sundays.

Groff eventually transferred to a small Postal Service facility in Holtwood, Pa., to avoid Sunday work. But in March 2017, the Holtwood facility also began Amazon Sunday delivery service.

His supervisor attempted to find other carriers to cover his Sunday shifts, saying that such shift swaps were the only accommodations that wouldn’t affect operations.

Groff never agreed to work on a Sunday. He received warnings, suspensions and other sorts of discipline short of termination for declining Sunday shifts assigned to him. The Postal Service said that these disciplinary actions were corrective rather than punitive, and that his pay was never docked.

In 2019, Groff resigned, saying he had no choice but to quit, and sued the Postal Service for failing to reasonably accommodate his religious practice.

The lower courts referred to the statute and a 1977 case, Trans World Airlines v. Hardison, to reject the lawsuit. They said that his employer, the USPS, didn't have to reschedule Mr. Groff because it would incur more than a de minimis cost.

The Supreme Court said that interpretation of Hardison was wrong, that "undue hardship" for the employer means that the USPS had "substantial increased costs", not just something above the minimum. To be clear, the Court did not say Mr. Groff was correct but told the lower courts to apply the substantial-burden criterion to his case.

While applauding Gerald Groff for standing up for his beliefs, I also sympathize with the employer, who in the end may well end up proving that it experienced substantial increased costs ("Groff was hired as a part-time, flexible carrier at a four-person post office, and he refused to show up for 24 Sundays of work.”)

I can also see many employers being bombarded with claims that employees can't work Sundays or other Holy Days because of their religion. Not all of these claims will be from true believers, and companies may well conclude that it is better to give in than risk a bigger loss in court.

Aloha to Affirmative Action

Pre-1995 California's explicit consideration of race would
have admitted a non-white, poor applicant but rejected a
white non-poor applicant of similar achievements. (WSJ video)

Gallons of ink have been spilled (sorry, dear reader, I can't come up with a post-newspaper-age metaphor) over the Supreme Court's decision on affirmative action earlier today.

In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard Ccllege

The Supreme Court found it unconstitutional to consider race in university admissions, eliminating the principal tool the nation’s most selective schools have used to diversify their campuses.

Thursday’s 6-3 decision will force a reworking of admissions criteria throughout American higher education, where for decades the pursuit of diversity has been an article of faith.

A few personal comments:

1) Growing up in melting-pot Hawaii, I hadn't heard the term "affirmative action" until I came to the Mainland.

2) I'm so old that Asian-Americans were viewed as an "underprivileged minority" when I went to college in the 1970's. I could be the beneficiary of affirmative-action policies that began in the late 1960's. (In my defense both my grades and board scores were at least as high as my white roommates'.)

3) I always wondered whether the existence of affirmative action tainted the credibility of Asians' or any other minority individuals' accomplishments. I was happy that Asian-Americans stopped being the beneficiaries of affirmative action, if they ever were, and were evaluated on their own merits by the late 1980's in the Bay Area.

4) I am all in favor of giving special consideration to students who grew up in difficult economic, family, and social environments. And one would have to be blind not to see that black and Hispanic students fall disproportionately into that category. Helping everyone in those circumstances regardless of race, IMHO, is the right policy.

They All Got Together

It's nice to know that the Justices of the Supreme Court still have enough principles in common to agree unanimously on a case, the most recent one having to do with restraining the bureaucracy.

The Supreme Court on Friday dealt the administrative state another blow with a 9-0 decision holding that individuals and businesses harpooned by an independent agency don’t have to suffer a torturous government adjudication to challenge its constitutionality in federal court (Axon Enterprise v. FTC and SEC v. Cochran).

Certain agency rules--in this case the FTC and the SEC--may be unconstitutional, but according to the agencies the plaintiffs must first ask administrative judges to rule on constitutionality before the plaintiffs can appeal to the judicial branch.

In these situations and others the additional delay can be fatal to what the plaintiffs are trying to accomplish. The agencies do not say that they're running out the clock to get their way, of course, and Justice Kagan called them out in her controlling opinion:

“This Court has made clear that it is ‘a here-and-now injury,’” she writes, citing its Seila Law (2020) precedent. “And—here is the rub—it is impossible to remedy once the proceeding is over, which is when appellate review kicks in.”

Let's see if the agencies abide by the rule of law when the decisions go against them. They should, if they expect an increasingly testy population to comply with the volumes of rules and regulations they produce.

Fishy Emanations

Over 100 years ahead of its time

Lawyers sometimes use logic that's so convoluted that the results seem absurd to us common folk.

Headline: Yes, bumblebees may be fish, California Supreme Court agrees

a state appeals court ruled in May that [the California endangered species act] was flexible enough to allow the state Fish and Game Commission to consider protecting four imperiled species of bees under the category of “fish.”

Sure, it seems crazy, dear reader, but what you're missing is an intermediate species, the Trinity bristle snail: [bold added]

In the 3-0 ruling, Justice Ronald Robie acknowledged that a fish, “as the term is commonly understood ... lives in aquatic environments.” But he said state lawmakers, when they approved the current law in 1984, knew that the Department of Fish and Wildlife, which enforced the law, had found that it protected invertebrates living on land.

The Legislature “could have expressed disagreement” with the department, but instead expressly extended protection to all creatures covered by the law before 1985, including the Trinity bristle snail, Robie said. By the same logic, he said, the law must now be interpreted to allow protection of bumblebees.

Because of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, California has claimed that its jurisprudence is superior.

Well, that didn't last long. Ruminations over a simple mollusc have made the California judiciary a laughing stock.

Another Reason to be Unsettled

Attendance was higher than normal during the long weekend.

On Friday, June 24th, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The following Monday the Episcopal Church issued a warning to its congregations throughout the United States.

Excerpt:

federal officials noted an emergence of “credible security threats” prior to the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade and have reached out to faith communities, including The Episcopal Church, to urge increased vigilance.

Canon [C.K.] Robertson says:

“They did not share specific intelligence, but rather asked all of us both to be cautious and to use our platforms to encourage peaceful responses to the decision.

The goal in all this is certainly not to incite panic in any way. But in light of the violence and tragic shootings we have continued to witness throughout the United States—including in one of our own churches—it is appropriate for all of us to be more intentionally alert in the days and weeks to come. This can mean churches connecting with local law enforcement about increased patrols, noting any unusual activity around them, and perhaps creating an emergency preparedness plan, if one does not already exist.

Again, the goal is not panic, but awareness and preparedness. For this reason, we have shared with you information that we received directly from federal authorities, with their request to pass it on to you and your congregations.”

There have been isolated reports about damage done to Catholic churches in other states but none recently concerning the Episcopal Church. Nevertheless, this unsettling news just gives us another reason to disregard the instruction to welcome strangers.

Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.----Hebrews 13:2

The Shoe Drops

Early detection of pregnancy will be more important (WSJ)

In 1973 nine men on the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that there was a constitutional right to abortion in Roe v. Wade.

On June 24, 2022, six men and three women justices in a 6-3 decision overturned Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which challenged a 2018 Mississippi law:

Although the case before the court involved a 15-week ban, the overruling of Roe gives states broad latitude to regulate or prohibit abortion as they see fit. Many conservative-leaning states are poised to tighten access further, while some liberal ones have established permissive abortion regimes under state law. The decision could become a major issue in this year’s elections, as state and federal lawmakers look to position themselves in a post-Roe world.

Almost half the states have laws in place or at the ready to curtail or outlaw abortion, while others have laws that would preserve its legality. Questions on whether and how to limit abortions are expected to continue roiling state legislative debates.

The ruling, one of the most consequential in modern memory, marked a rare instance in which the court reversed itself to eliminate a constitutional right that it had previously created.

The decision also is a defining moment for a Supreme Court that is more conservative than it has been in many decades, a shift in legal thinking made possible after President Donald Trump placed three justices on the court. Two of them succeeded justices who voted to affirm abortion rights.

In anticipation of the ruling, several states have passed laws limiting or banning the procedure, and 13 states have so-called trigger laws on their books that called for prohibiting abortion if Roe were overruled. Clinics in conservative states have been preparing for possible closure, while facilities in more liberal areas have been getting ready for a potentially heavy influx of patients from other states.

The political battle now shifts to the States, which have a patchwork of laws ranging from a a near-total ban on abortion to allowing it up to childbirth. We discussed the map on May 3rd.

Just a few comments on this decision, which will undoubtedly cause millions of words to be generated in the months to come:

The leak of the draft opinion on May 2nd, whatever the leaker's motive, has had the benefit of removing the shock of surprise. Organizations, governments, and interest groups have had time to prepare for the after-effects of Dobbs.

The majority of Americans, IMHO, remain somewhere between the extreme positions and do not relish the prospect of abortion once again elevating itself to the top of national discussions.

The counter-argument is that, unlike other subjects, abortion never really went away after Roe; we won't like the heat for the next 3-5 years, but maybe things will cool off after legislators pass or reaffirm laws post-Dobbs, the people react, and the laws are adjusted again.

My very long view is that technology will defuse the downsides of pregnancy, childbirth, and child care that are the principal reasons for having an abortion. Eventually there will be a societal consensus that there should be more help given to mothers, and advances in medical science up to and including growing fetuses in the lab will eliminate the physical burden of pregnancy. In a hundred years people will wonder what the fuss was about.

More Heat Coming

Barricades erected around the Supreme Court
building on Monday night (Daily Beast)

Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, which means that abortion has been a constitutional right for nearly a half-century.

Your humble blogger has strongly resisted being drawn into the argument: each side has bedrock principles, stating an opinion would cause me to be hated by someone, and it's not a subject--to be callous about it--that affects me or anyone I know personally.

Within hours of the leaking of the draft opinion that would overturn Roe I've been forwarded angry texts, tweets, and emails by the pro-choice side. All this merely confirms my decision to stay out of the discussion.

By the way, what does it mean for Californians if Roe is overturned?

Yet even if the Supreme Court outlaws Roe, abortion would remain legal in California, where lawmakers have written its protections into state law.

Even in 1981, after the Legislature virtually eliminated Medi-Cal funding of abortions for poor women, the state Supreme Court ruled that California’s constitutional right to privacy required Medi-Cal to cover abortions just as it covered childbirth.

The state’s high court relied on the same privacy right in 1997 when it struck down a law requiring parental consent for minors’ abortions, similar to laws in other states that the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld under federal standards. Roe vs. Wade also relies on a constitutional right to privacy, which the Supreme Court declared in 1965.

So California will become a refuge for women seeking abortions if the Supreme Court overrules Roe.

The state began preparing last year for the likelihood of losing Roe vs. Wade and establishing California as a national leader in maintaining the right to terminate a pregnancy.

The anger of pro-choice Californians is not over their own rights being taken away. Like the transgender-bathroom and "don't say gay" children's education bills, we can't resist telling other states what to do.

Against the Stereotype

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson flanked by
husband Patrick and daughter Leila (Chron)

Do Supreme Court justices mostly make decisions that favor their own personal politics?

Partisans seem to think so (Catholic justices are anti-abortion, Democratic justices-of-color are in favor of quotas, etc.)

Indiana professor Leslie Lenkowski cites one prominent example of when justice-in-waiting Ketanji Brown Jackson went against the stereotype by ruling against the Obama Administration's targeting of a non-profit linked with Israel: [bold added]

The case involved Z Street, which provides information to the public on issues related to Zionism, Israel and the Middle East. At the end of 2009, it applied for tax exemption as a public charity under Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code. Six months later, an IRS representative allegedly told Z Street a decision would be delayed because the agency had a special unit to examine requests from groups dealing with Israel to determine whether their views contradicted the Obama administration’s policies.

Z Street sued, and the case was assigned to Judge Jackson. In a 2014 ruling, Judge Jackson dismissed the IRS’s argument that its judgments about tax exemptions had immunity from judicial review. She accused the IRS of using procedural claims to block litigation of a constitutional issue.

After Z Street finally received its tax exemption, Judge Jackson approved a 2018 agreement in which the IRS expressed its “sincere apology” for the delay and acknowledged that its criteria for approving requests for tax-exemption shouldn’t include political beliefs—though the agency still denied it had applied a political test to Z Street’s application. In her conclusion of the case, Judge Jackson declared it was “wrong” to use the tax laws against any group “based solely on any lawful positions it espouses on any issue” or its “association with a particular political movement, position, or viewpoint.”

President Obama weaponizing the IRS against his opposition was not a fevered dream of Republicans but was confirmed by government audit:

the retrospective audit turned up almost 150 organizations that had been subjected to unusually intense IRS scrutiny, generally during the early years of the Obama administration. These organizations faced what the inspector general called “unnecessary questions” and longer-than-normal delays in processing their applications. This was on top of the nearly 300 groups that a separate 2013 audit found had received special IRS attention because of their association with the tea party.

Justices appointed by a Republican President, e.g., David Souter and Anthony Kennedy, regularly disappointed Republicans. Although few expect them, don't be surprised if Justice Jackson will have a few surprises during her term.

Justice Breyer to Retire

(WSJ photo)

Justice Stephen Breyer will retire, according to NBC News:

Justice Stephen Breyer will step down from the Supreme Court at the end of the current term, according to people familiar with his thinking...

Biden promised on the campaign trail to nominate a Black woman to the court. In the wake of Breyer’s announcement, there was an outpouring of statements calling for him to follow through.

The progressive group Demand Justice hired a truck last year to drive around Washington with the sign: "Breyer Retire. It’s time for a Black woman Supreme Court justice."

Justice Breyer, 83, has yet to make an official announcement.

The current SC term ends in late June or early July.

Although only a simple majority in the Senate is necessary to confirm a future nominee, the Democrats won't have any room for error. Digging through a nominee's personal life back to her high school days is now an acceptable practice, and any behavioral or verbal misstep will be grist for the hearings. Depending on what turns up, Senators may have difficulty justifying their vote to their constituents, especially if they're up for re-election in 2022.

In any case, replacing a Supreme Court nominee increases the likelihood of nothing important getting through Congress in 2022.

Seemed Like a Reasonable Request

A bleak place to die (WSJ photo)

The Supreme Court, in a relatively unpublicized action (e.g., there was no mention in the SF Chronicle) on February 12th, stayed an execution because the State of Alabama would not allow condemned prisoners to have their ministers present.

Alabama said Mr. Smith was being treated fairly because prison policy currently allows no inmate to have a minister alongside as they are put to death. Mr. Smith argued that a 2000 federal law, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, required the state to accommodate his request.

Writing for the plurality, Justice Elena Kagan said federal law had guaranteed Mr. Smith “his last wish.” Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, along with Justice Barrett, joined her opinion.

Willie B. Smith III

was convicted of the 1991 murder of Sharma Ruth Johnson, 22 years old, whom he and a teenage accomplice first kidnapped and robbed when she stopped at an ATM in Birmingham, Ala. The jury voted 10-2 for a death sentence instead of life imprisonment.

While a complete count was not forthcoming, it has been disclosed that the three "liberal" Justices (Breyer, Kagan, and Sotamayor) were joined by Amy Coney Barrett and either or both Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito to comprise the majority that rejected Alabama's position. Three "conservative" Justices (Kavanaugh, Roberts, and Thomas) would have allowed the execution to proceed.

The outcome is an illustration of how Justices' viewpoints are so easily and mistakenly caricatured during their Senate confirmation hearings. Justice Kavanaugh, for example, was not an automatic pro-Christian vote, while the liberal Justices said that religious expression trumped the State's position.

Acknowledging that non-believers may be using religious rights as a tool to forestall the death penalty, your humble blogger is nevertheless glad that a blow has been struck in favor of religious expression.

Proof That 2020 is Far from Done with Us

Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2020

The above announcement--via Twitter!--is all anyone is talking about this morning. There are innumerable ways this can play out, and it's a waste of brain cells to ponder all the scenarios.

Four comments:

1) Thank goodness the Vice President has tested negative;

2) Speaking of which, given the age and health of Messrs. Biden and Trump, the Vice Presidential debates are H-U-G-E.

3) We can blame the President, Governors, public health officials, medical supply chains, etc. for all the mistakes made, but let us not forget the prime mover: the virus came from China, who did not alert the world for months while allowing its citizens to travel everywhere in the world. The deaths, the economic pain, even much of today's political rancor can be laid at the feet of China. Whatever a Democratic or Republican President wants to do to get back at China is fine with me; we'll deal with any racism fallout later.

4) Add another reason to seat a ninth Supreme Court justice before the election, whether it's Amy Coney Barrett or not. The Court may be called upon to rule on the constitutionality of the Presidential Succession Act.

He's Past Dissembling

86-year-old party elder Willie Brown wants the Democrats to win, but that doesn't stop him from giving them advice they might not want to hear.

WB: our next Justice (WSJ)

Forget about the Court and Concentrate on November

Forget about it, it’s over. Democrats need to put the Supreme Court appointment fight behind them as quickly as possible and move on to the real battle in November.

They have no power in the Senate, and they cannot afford to spin their wheels over an appointment whose conclusion is already foretold by the Republican majority.

And there is no avenue of attack open to them. The fear of a rollback of Roe vs. Wade or a shutdown of Obamacare plays well in blue states, but it also carries the potential for blowback in the battleground states.

Admit D.C. and Puerto Rico as States (after winning the Presidency and Congress)

Flag of Puerto Rico

Democrats’ best revenge for the Republican court packing is to win the White House and Congress in November — then immediately admit the heavily Democratic District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as the 51st and 52nd states.

It would forever shift control of the Senate to Democrats and go a long way toward fixing the red-state bias of the electoral college.

Because their economies are dependent on Federal spending, Puerto Rico and D.C. will add four reliably Democratic Senate votes for the foreseeable future. Your humble blogger would cheer this development if the people of Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico vote for Statehood. (I would also cheer California splitting into at least three States, but that's for another time.)

"Idiot" Trump has a Point on Mail-In Ballots

it’s very hard to strike someone from the voter rolls. The rule is, if someone misses two consecutive federal general elections — a presidential election and a midterm — and then misses two more after failing to respond to a mailed query from county registrars, they’re supposed to be tossed off the rolls.

So, you can be gone from your registered address — or dead — for a long time before the state gets around to erasing you. Some estimates say that up to 10% of California’s 20 million registered voters aren’t where the state thinks they are.

Nonetheless, ballots will be going to their listed addresses. So some people who have moved won’t get ballots. Residents at the old addresses will get ballots for people who are no longer living there or are no longer living, period.

For the sake of the Republic and the Constitution I hope a clear result obtains in November. That's more important than my choices winning.

Not the Win, But the Game Itself

Why are moderate Senators like Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) reversing their position on voting for a Supreme Court nominee before the election?

I suspect that they feel compelled to fill the seat because of the high likelihood the Supreme Court will be called upon to rule on some aspect of the election. With the possibility of a 4-4 SC deadlock, a Court of Appeals or a State Supreme Court (e.g., Florida, 2000) somewhere could determine the next President.

It's more important that the mechanism be in place to decide the election, not whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump is President, or whether the Senate majority is Democrat or Republican.

I do fantasize that the President and the entire Senate can set aside their differences and agree on a jurist who is not "perfect" to either the left or the right. Wouldn't that be great if he or she gets at least 60 votes? Our constitutional democracy is at stake; like the Christmas truce of World War I, suspend hostilities for a week for the common good, then go back to killing each other.

Note: my ADD-brain flitted to the Play from the Cal-Stanford game in 1982. With 5 laterals, the Stanford Band, cheerleaders, and bench players on the field, the outcome was and is highly controversial. Now just imagine if there were no referees to make the call--it could be a foreshadowing of Washington, D.C. in December, 2020.

It Made Sense at the End

Naomi and her daughters-in-law (Chagall, 1960)

On this Sunday morning the passing of Justice Ginsburg prompts this reflection about her first name, Ruth. (I'm old enough to remember when the first name was called the Christian name, but that term has fallen out of favor.)

In the Book of Ruth Naomi and her husband and two sons left Judah for Moab to escape famine. The sons married two Moabite women, Ruth and Orpah (fun fact--Oprah Winfrey was named after the Biblical character Orpah, but Oprah changed her name due to constant mispronunciation). All three men died, and the three widows faced a bleak future.

Naomi decided to seek refuge with her relations in Judah and encouraged Orpah and Ruth to return to their families in Moab; both were young enough to find husbands and bear children. Orpah did go back to Moab after some protest, but Ruth stayed with Naomi:

But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”--Ruth 1:16-17

Ruth's willingness to sacrifice her own future to accompany Naomi has served as a model to generations of Jews and Christians who have been confronted with a similar decision. (Spoiler alert: it works out for Ruth in the end, but it was far from certain that it would.) Ruth is a name with a virtuous antecedent, and being called "ruthless" is not a compliment.

Inspired by the birth of "Baby Ruth" to President and Mrs. Grover Cleveland in 1891, Ruth ("compassionate friend") was a popular girls' name in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In my own family my maternal grandmother and her sisters--Ruth, Esther, Sarah, Eunice, and Bertha--were all named after women in the Bible. My grand-aunt Ruth was the eldest and thus received the first choice of girls' names.

Branches of modern philosophy say that meaning does not exist but is an artifact of the human mind. That may be true, but for your humble blogger people and their names grow old together until the name becomes inextricably linked with the individual. They have meaning together.

It's difficult to imagine Ruth Bader Ginsburg--or for that matter my grand-aunt Ruth--being known by a different name. Somehow it made sense at the end.

Justice Ginsburg (1933-2020)

We take a break from the partisan wars to honor the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Chief Justice John Roberts: “Our Nation has lost a jurist of historic stature. We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn, but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her—a tireless and resolute champion of justice.”

Former President Barack Obama: "Over a long career on both sides of the bench — as a relentless litigator and an incisive jurist — Justice Ginsburg helped us see that discrimination on the basis of sex isn’t about an abstract ideal of equality; that it doesn’t only harm women; that it has real consequences for all of us. It’s about who we are — and who we can be."

Time:

1958: Martin, Ruth, and 3-y.o. Jane (Time photo)

The longer she lived, the wider her reach and the deeper the appreciation for her years on the bench. At the opening concert of the National Symphony Orchestra in Sept. 2019, Kennedy Center chair David Rubinstein introduced the dignitaries in the audience. When he got to the justice, women rose to applaud her. Then, the men quickly joined in until everyone in the hall was standing...

This wasn’t an audience of liberals, but a cross-section of the capital touched by a once-young lawyer who saw unfairness and quietly tried to end it during her 60 years of public service.

Proclamation by President Donald Trump:

In India with the late Justice Scalia (Instgm)

Today, our Nation mourns the loss of a trailblazer, not only in the field of law, but in the history of our country. Ruth Bader Ginsburg served more than 27 years as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was a loving wife to her late husband Martin, and a caring mother to her two children Jane and James.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an inspiration to all Americans. Having lost her older sister and mother before graduating high school, she entered law school as both a wife and a mother, and one of the few women in her class. After graduating from law school in 1959, she worked tirelessly for more than 34 years as a litigator and jurist and, in 1993, she became just the second woman to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States. Renowned for her powerful dissents at the Supreme Court, Justice Ginsburg epitomized powerful yet respectful argument; that you can disagree with someone without being disagreeable to them. Justice Ginsburg’s work helped bring about greater equality for women, secure rights for the disabled, and will continue to influence our Nation for generations to come. In addition to her quick mind, she brought flair to the bench with her stylish jabots and her warm friendships among colleagues, even those with whom she often disagreed, most notably with the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

A fighter to the end, Justice Ginsburg defeated cancer and the odds numerous times — all while continuing to serve on the Court. Her commitment to the law and her fearlessness in the face of death inspired countless “RBG” fans, and she continues to serve as a role model to countless women lawyers. Her legacy and contribution to American history will never be forgotten.

As a mark of respect for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the United States, I hereby order, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, including section 7 of title 4, United States Code, that the flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff at the White House and on all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset, on the day of interment. I also direct that the flag shall be flown at half-staff for the same period at all United States embassies, legations, consular offices, and other facilities abroad, including all military facilities and naval vessels and stations.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this eighteenth day of September, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fifth.

Thank you, Justice Ginsburg. R.I.P.

Lavatories of Democracy

It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.--- Louis Brandeis (1856-1941)

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis' dissent in New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U.S. 262 (1932) gave rise to the popular description of States as "laboratories of democracy" in the American system of governance.

Politicians of all stripes generally view Federalism favorably, at least in the abstract, because of its potential for innovation through experimentation at the State level, just as free-market economies are structurally more prone to improvement than ones that are centrally planned. However, let us also reflect on the other benefit cited by Justice Brandeis, that bad ideas have a greater chance of being stopped before they spread to the rest of the country.

It's become clear that two States, California and New York, that are world-class leaders in technology and finance, respectively, are jeopardizing the sources of their wealth by being a "laboratory" for utopian visions . [bold added]

PG&E: blackouts could occur for 10 more years (WSJ)

Millions of California residents were left in the dark last week, and it wasn’t because of an earthquake or storm or terrorist attack. It was the result of government mismanagement of a state utility, which intentionally cut off power to avoid wildfires caused by outdated electric lines. Instead of upgrading its equipment, Pacific Gas & Electric has been spending billions to fight global warming at the behest of state lawmakers. Californians already pay electricity bills well above the national average and nearly double what customers pay in neighboring Oregon. In return they get rolling blackouts reminiscent of the Third World.

Los Angeles made news earlier this year because of a typhus outbreak. Rat infestations, linked to homeless camps, were discovered at City Hall. In June the city reported that its homeless population had grown by 16% over the past year. Since 2017 it has risen 17% in San Francisco and 43% in Alameda County, which includes Oakland.

California’s homelessness rate is the nation’s highest, and its growth in recent years has coincided with a conscious decision by the state to go easier on criminals—a disproportionate number of whom are homeless. Thanks to a ballot initiative that passed in 2014, the theft of goods valued at less than $950 is considered a misdemeanor rather that a felony and usually results in no punishment....

NYC homeless shelter in 2014 (Gotham Gazette)

New York is another state where progressives call the shots and where progressivism has been disastrous. Earlier this month, a homeless man in New York City was charged with beating four sleeping men to death with a metal rod. Less than a week later, another vagrant was arrested for body-slamming a 6-year-old boy who was waiting in front of his grandparents’ home for a pizza delivery. Both suspects have histories of crime and mental illness, but progressive policy makers are loath to institutionalize such people. The rights of the homeless and mentally unstable trump the rights of others to walk the streets safely.

Or consider upstate New York, an economic dead zone for decades. The region had much to gain from the fracking boom because it happens to sit on the Marcellus Shale formation, one of the largest sources of natural gas in the country. But Gov. Andrew Cuomo takes his orders from antifracking environmentalists, not upstate voters, so the region continues to suffer.

Experiments that turn out disastrously teach valuable lessons, and there's no reason to repeat them elsewhere.

Was She Lying?

In the birthplace of free speech and the land of no-question-is-too-dumb, it's the one question that will get you fired, kicked out of school, and ostracized from social groups: Was She Lying?

Someone here is lying.

In Washington, to the contrary, senators managed to spend three weeks on Ford’s and Kavanaugh’s diametrically opposed, impossible-to-reconcile versions of events without confronting this critical, seemingly unavoidable fact. Instead, after watching, first, Ford’s trembling rendition of an atrocious attack and, then, Kavanaugh’s forceful denial, the Senate decided not to decide who was telling the truth.

It is a psychobabble default: We are to believe that Professor Ford is completely earnest, that she was undeniably subjected to a harrowing sexual assault, but that she has somehow misidentified her assailant — notwithstanding that she says she knew who Kavanaugh was before the attack and is “100 percent” certain he is the culprit.

Cowed by the “survivors must be believed” hooey — as if there were a link between X chromosomes and truth-telling — Republicans blithely went along, as if this preposterous mistaken-identity scenario were incontestable. Loud, aggressive hard-left activists had them afraid to confront Ford’s story … so they didn’t — and now they wonder why the media and Kavanaugh’s other critics keep pronouncing that the unconvincing, uncorroborated allegations against him are “credible.”

On the other hand, Kavanaugh is very persuasive in his indignant denials, and there is — if we may again mention this inconvenient fact — no support for Ford’s account, just her say-so. Just as no one in the Senate dared suggest that Ford might be lying, no one wanted to call Kavanaugh a liar to his face, either. As a result, we got more psychobabble: Kavanaugh occasionally drank beer to excess as a teenager, so maybe he tried to rape Ford in a drunken stupor (in front of a close friend of his) and, since no one mentioned it to him for 36 years, he can’t remember doing it.

Right.

It’s absurd. What happened here is simple. Either Ford is lying about being assaulted by Kavanaugh, or Kavanaugh is lying in denying it.

Asking the question is like questioning the existence of God a hundred years ago. Kids, stay away from this person.