Guns kill people. But so do judges who serve the NRA.

My Sunday viewing was the Tony Awards, honoring plays and musicals new to Broadway in the last year. I usually watch it, though this year I have more interest because I’ll be in New York next month. Alas, some of those shows have already closed. I suppose I knew the show Illinoise included a gay couple. That it does was made quite obvious when an excerpt was shown and two men danced and kissed. I had to read more about the show and, yes, this show of all dance and no dialogue does include gay characters. Alas, in my limited time I won’t be able to see it. I did know about the show Stereophonic and I am quite interested in it. The topic is a band in the studio making an album. It won best play (and not musical?). If five people in the cast are nominated for best featured performer (three men, two women, one of the men won) are there any lead performers? As I saw that win I realized I may have delayed too long in buying a ticket. And today, seat selection was slim, but successfully purchased. The other show I want to see is Hamilton. Yeah, I haven’t seen it yet. I almost bought a ticket today. Then I saw the fine print saying my ticket will be on my phone. What does the theater do about people without smart phones? In a pundit roundup for Daily Kos Chitown Kev quoted Raja Abdulrahim of the New York Times writing about Gazans speaking out against Hamas, some of whom would only speak once safely out of Gaza.

Some of the Gazans who spoke to The New York Times said that Hamas knew it would be starting a devastating war with Israel that would cause heavy civilian casualties, but that it did not provide any food, water or shelter to help people survive it. Hamas leaders have said they wanted to ignite a permanent state of war with Israel on all fronts as a way to revive the Palestinian cause and knew that the Israeli response would be big.

They knew there would be heavy casualties and destruction, yet didn’t provide food, water, or shelter. That confirms the statement I’ve heard that a big reason Hamas provoked the war was to turn world opinion against Israel. That seems to be working quite well. Hamas is interested only in power and has zero interest in its citizens. The quote matches what my friend and debate partner said a few weeks ago. My friend said that Hamas has as its primary goal to eliminate Israel. In contrast, Israel does not have a goal to eliminate Palestine. However, over the last few weeks I’ve wondered if Netanyahu or his war cabinet (I heard it was disbanded today) or his far right coalition partners have that goal of elimination. I’ve heard accusations (alas, I didn’t save links) that Netanyahu is prolonging the war to keep his far-right governing coalition together to keep him in power and through that avoiding the consequences of a corruption scandal. I’m also troubled by the desperate need by Gazans for food and shelter that is tied up at the border. Mark Sumner of Kos has been posting Ukraine updates only occasionally. The one for this past weekend has good news. Ukraine has been very good at destroying Russian assets in Crimea. The US permission to use our missiles to attack assets in Russian territory has helped that effort.

Crimea has already become too dangerous for Russian ships. Now it may also be too dangerous for Russian planes. And soon, it could be too dangerous for Russians altogether.

Remember when the dam on the Dnipro River was sabotaged, draining a big lake? That lake supplied water to Crimea. It’s looking quite dry in satellite photos. I’ve accumulated several articles on the Supreme Court, or as I’ve heard called recently, the Extreme Court. Last week Sumner reported on Lauren Windsor’s visit to the Supreme Court Historical Society where she presented herself as a conservative Catholic and secretly recorded conversations with Justice Alito, his wife Martha-Ann, and Chief Justice Roberts. Alito’s words got a lot of attention. In the recording Alito came across as a person willing and ready to impose his Christian beliefs on the rest of the country. He said that on some things compromise is not possible and he doesn’t believe the two sides can “live together peacefully.” Alito did not mention law or the Constitution. Roberts came off a bit better. He doubted we live in a Christian nation and it isn’t his (or the Court’s) job to turn the US into one. This is a much better response than Alito gave, but still isn’t a good answer. He didn’t outright declare the US isn’t Christian nation. He only expressed doubt that it is. And through previous rulings he has clearly shown he isn’t a moderate. Aldous Pennyfarthing of Kos wrote that Fox News has finally said something about Supreme Court corruption. But Clarence Thomas and Alito weren’t mentioned. Instead Fox called out Ketanji Brown Jackson. Yes, Jackson accepted four Beyoncé tickets, valued at $3,700. She also reported the gift immediately. There is also the gifts of artwork for her chambers valued at $12,500. And don’t forget the $900K advance on her book to come out in September. Previously there was $6,500 in clothes from a photo shoot and $1,200 flower display from Oprah Winfrey (also properly disclosed). Also yes, Thomas has accepted trips and gifts at least a hundred times more valuable than that and discloses those gifts only when they’re reported publicly. Beyoncé and Winfrey are not likely to have cases before the Court. Harlan Crow, the money man behind the trips Thomas took, has already had cases before the Court. Yeah, Fox News is being Fox News.

Why are Democrats forced to ace every test, lest the public think they’re civilization-destroying chaos agents, while Republicans can be literal felons—who face dozens more felony charges—and still be treated as “normal” candidates?

Also last week Joan McCarter of Kos wrote that “Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin is failing at his job of holding the Supreme Court accountable.” About all he can manage is stern letters Alito ignores. Stepping into the void is Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Reps Jamie Raskin and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They are saying a lot about how corrupt the court is and prodding Durban into accomplishing a little bit. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that the little bit is a bill to require the Court to adopt a set of ethics rules with enforcement. Republicans blocked an attempt to pass the bill through unanimous consent. Majority Leader Schumer is still considering whether to have a regular vote on the bill (but why isn’t the choice obvious?). There’s about two weeks left in the Court’s term (though sometimes they go long) and about a dozen cases still without a ruling. McCarter reported on one case that got a ruling. In a unanimous decision the Court preserved access to abortion pill mifepristone. It was unanimous not because the justices agree on whether it should be banned, but because the people who brought the suit didn’t have standing to do so – they couldn’t prove they would be harmed by the ruling. The oral arguments were a preview of this outcome. Also in the oral arguments Thomas and Alito repeatedly said which argument would be a better attack on medicated abortion that can be won. Plaintiffs could use the 1837 Comstock Act, which banned “indecent” materials, as well as abortion and contraception drugs, from being sent through the mail. So consider this reprieve to be temporary. McCarter also discussed the Court ruling from late last week in which the majority reversed a ban on bump stocks. This is a device that allows a semi-automatic gun to act like a machine gun. Bump stocks were banned after the Las Vegas shooting in 2017 that killed 58 people and injured more than 800. The ruling was written by Thomas. He essentially redefined what Congress meant when it defined machine guns. So much for the “textualist” principle justices have been using as the right way to interpret laws. Justice Sotomayor, in the dissent, called BS. She said the Court should respect the ordinary understanding of words Congress uses. She then provided quotes from all six of the conservatives on their claim of the importance of textualism. McCarter’s conclusion:

“The majority’s reading flies in the face of this Court’s standard tools of statutory interpretation,” [Sotomayor] wrote. “Today, the majority forgets that principle and substitutes its own view of what constitutes a ‘machine gun’ for Congress’.” In doing so, the court just carved out a bump stock loophole from the plain text that will worsen the next mass shootings.

In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin had a few appropriate quotes. From EJ Dionne of the Washington Post:

Conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court have decided that more Americans must die in mass shootings because they have a quibble over the word “function.” In striking down the 2018 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) regulation banning bump stocks, which effectively turn semiautomatic rifles into machine guns, the court’s six conservative justices not only put their ideological preconceptions ahead of rational policymaking. They also privileged an arrogant, misplaced confidence in their own technical expertise over a federal agency’s thoughtful effort to prevent the grotesque slaughter of innocents.

Dworkin included a tweet from David Rothkopf:

We need to be very clear, the right wing on the Supreme Court with their perverse misinterpretation of the 2d Amendment are directly responsible for many of the nearly 50,000 gun deaths that occur in the US each year. Guns kill people. But so do judges who serve the NRA.

From David Firestone of the New York Times:

Skilled shooters using an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle can fire 180 rounds per minute, she wrote, but a bump stock allows them to fire 400 to 800 rounds per minute, which is the ordinary understanding of a fully automatic machine gun. “Today’s decision to reject that ordinary understanding will have deadly consequences,” Sotomayor wrote. “The majority’s artificially narrow definition hamstrings the government’s efforts to keep machine guns from gunmen like the Las Vegas shooter.” And when the next Las Vegas happens, it will not be enough to blame it on the madness of a single deranged individual. There are so many others.

In the comments are appropriate cartoons. Thanos Kalamidas drew one that asks, “Is SCOTUS arming rednecks and MAGAs for a civil war?” There are two cartoons by Dennis Goris. In one two schoolchildren are walking and one says, “I hope when we get our school shooter, he doesn’t use a bump stock.” In the other three children are at the gate of Heaven and St. Peter says, “They just loved their bump stocks more, that’s all.”