It is more Alito’s court than Roberts’

A couple days ago I wrote about Speaker Mike Johnson claiming to be a modern Moses ready for a Red Sea moment in which his adversaries are swallowed up by the sea – a lot of non-believers suffer before the believers get to the Promised Land. My friend and debate partner replied privately, describing what happened to Moses after the Red Sea incident. Before Moses and the Israelites reached the Promised Land Moses did something to displease God and he died before entering. Does that imply that if Johnson is claiming to be a modern Moses he won’t live to see the Republican Promised Land? Or maybe he’ll just lose the Speakership? I’ve long known that conservatives can be very selective in what parts of the Bible they read. My friend and debate partner gave me a copy of the latest Consumers Report with its latest car ratings. He said I might be interested because of the number of electric vehicles CR has declared as unreliable. Many auto companies don’t yet know how to reliably make EVs. Two days later – this morning – NPR aired a story of reporter Camila Domonoske visiting the Consumers Report garage for testing cars. Part of the report was how CR has had to change how they evaluate EVs, now different from how they evaluate gasoline cars. For example the testers test the range of an EV by driving it until it dies and needs to be towed back to the shop. The segment ends with Domonoske talking to Jake Fisher, who runs the CR auto testing program, about the reliability problems. Fisher says they’re growing pains. All the technology is new. It will get worked out. And once EVs more reliable people will love them for their speed, low effort in driving, and how quiet they are. And this evening NPR’s Scott Detrow talked to Consumers Reports autos reporter Keith Barry and to White House infrastructure advisor Mitch Landrieu. The other big concern about EVs is will the driver find a charging station in time? This is a big question now because building out charging stations is part of the infrastructure bill passed a couple years ago and only now are the first chargers being installed. Landrieu said don’t worry. Starting up takes time. The build out should progress quickly now. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos discussed a report by Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak of the New York Times on how much the overturning of abortion rights was orchestrated by Justice Samuel Alito, and by extension Leonard Leo and his dark money empire that got several conservative justices on the Supreme Court. First, Alito kept rescheduling the case, an unusual nine times, until after Ruth Bader Ginsberg died and her replacement Amy Coney Barrett was nominated, confirmed, and had time to settle into the job. When Alito wrote the decision he lifted whole passages from the amicus briefs from people in Leo’s dark money network. Then Alito (well, someone) released the draft of the ruling which froze the text. Justice Gorsuch signed on without requesting changes. Within days so had Thomas, Barrett, and Kavanaugh, again without requesting changes. That prevented Roberts from attempting a less sweeping decision. That means this is more Alito’s court than Roberts’. And the public sees it as such. Or maybe it’s Leo’s court. In a post from ten days ago Charles Jay of the Kos community reported that Sen. Angus King of Maine has changed his stance on gun control. That was prompted by the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine back on October 25. He is joined by Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico to introduce a new bill to prevent rifles from being automatically reloaded. Instead of restricting guns the new bill is about making guns less deadly. In this case it limits “large-capacity ammunition feeding devices” to ten rounds or fewer. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine has also changed his position. He no longer opposes an assault weapons ban. Alas, the King-Heinrich bill doesn’t go as far as banning assault weapons. Even so, it is a good step in that it will reduce gun violence. Any bill that does that is good. Getting it passed is doubtful. EJ Dionne of the Washington Post wrote a column about the King-Heinrich bill. It is not behind a paywall. A few things he wrote: Yes, Republicans routinely oppose gun-safety measures.

But it’s also true that a fair share of Democrats representing rural areas are reluctant to join their big-city colleagues in support of laws too often cast as expressions of disrespect for traditions of gun ownership. The price of culture war politics is steep when it comes to gun regulation.

A provision in the bill says that if an existing gun violates the new magazine limits the owner can give it to a family member or sell it to the government. They can’t sell or give it to anyone else.

King and Heinrich have yet to find Republican co-sponsors, and — no surprise — the National Rifle Association wasted no time in coming out against the proposal. But the gun lobby’s power is slipping, and pollsters have found that parents’ worries about the safety of their children in school are increasingly driving the gun debate. One sign of change was passage last year of modest reforms in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first gun-safety measure enacted in nearly 30 years. Yes, it’s astonishing that so many politicians who tout how tough they are on crime are eager to declare their loyalty to guns and those who manufacture them rather than to the people whose lives they threaten. But winning this fight requires pragmatism and persistence. Here’s hoping that some practical senators from gun-friendly states can turn the tide.

Drew Sherman tweeted a cartoon showing an elephant saying:

We don’t have a gun crisis, we have a mental health crisis! I’m not gonna do anything about either of them, I just wanted to clarify.

This is fun! The White House posted a video of members of Dorrance Dance tap dancing through various rooms of the White House to the sounds of Duke Ellington’s jazz interpretation of a movement from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. It’s quite good and enjoyable. Better yet conservatives are pissed over it, though their reasoning doesn’t make any more sense than it usually does. The dance and decorations certainly look a whole lot better and more festive than when the nasty guy’s wife was in charge. Maybe they yearn for her strange décor?