alanschu

This was an entertaining breakdown of all the events that needed to happen to ensure that no one was in the stands when a plane crashed after buzzing the field at a Colts-Steelers playoff game.

Classic.

Coach Kennedy originally agreed to the restriction on not praying, and considered it a post game team meeting that, for a brief moment, was secular in nature by his own acceptance of the initial ruling to not include any prayers - this meeting was happening even when prayers were not. https://usatodayhss.com/2015/bremerton-football-coach-says-he-plans-to-pray-at-game. A parent of one of the players actually assumed that they were typical post game pep talks with the team https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/coach-kennedy-wins-supreme-court-case-praying-football-games-students-rcna35478 only to later realize that he was leading the team in a prayer as well. I definitely would not say that "certainly they could not have felt coerced" to attend a post game team meeting with the coach. I'm not privy to the situation, but if this is a situation where the team goes with the coach to center of the field post game and includes a prayer in that meeting, then yeah I'd suggest it's very likely a captive audience as well. Unless you think teenage players are just going to go "oh wait, there's a prayer, sorry coach I'm out" to the person responsible for their high school football careers. This isn't him going out to the 50 yard line and an entire team of kids all going "oh yeah, I want to join the coach for the prayer entirely of my own volition completely absent of any pressure from him as an authority figure and my peers that are also in attendance." Imagine if he had also discussed that he's grateful that gay marriage was legal at that gathering! EDIT: His plan is to use this ruling to get his old job back. https://www.fox6now.com/news/praying-coach-who-won-supreme-court-case-says-all-he-wants-is-his-job-back In the words of his attorney: "In the fall, he'll be back on the field, and he'll be saying a prayer after the game."

I mean, I understand your reservations

I don't have any strong feelings for this one way or the other tbh so sure count me in

I know I'm hugely cynical about a lot of the SCOTUS stuff, but is my initial alarmist read of SCOTUS going to be addressing the responsibility of managing elections to states here overblown or a bit justified? Just that it could lead to some of the actions that some were calling for in 2020's election in terms of asking Legislatures to submit their votes in different ways. It's tied to North Carolina's state supreme court rejecting a Gerrymandered map and a trial court rejecting another submissions and replacing it with a less gerrymandered one. This led to state Republicans claiming this violates the Elections Clause. The linked article in the second post goes into detail, and makes it sound like if successful the appeal would give state legislatures increased powers over elections and prevent state courts from getting involved in election disputes. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/03/supreme-court-democracy-independent-state-legislature.html

Huh I didn't realize that Gorsuch's mom was the EPA administrator during Reagan's days (and was asked to resign). Just an interesting connection since West Virginia v EPA is coming up soon and people are curious what impacts that'll have on the administrative state.

Plus I mean, when the average (with a lower bound of 0, meaning that the average is mostly above the the median) pay is 67 cents/hour which I suppose is technically getting paid... Plus they can have those wages garnished to... pay for room and board??? https://onlinedegrees.kent.edu/sociology/criminal-justice/community/how-much-do-prisoners-make-in-each-state (Nice making women pay for their own tampons to boot lmaooooo, jfc) And yes, strikes have happened in protest of "working" for free such as Free Alabama Movement.

Huh that IS pretty interesting...

The 13th Amendment explicitly states it as an exception (EDIT: As @ShadySandsalso quotes) "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction" IMO it's one thing to consider it acceptable (to be clear, I don't. They should be opt in and they should be paid if you wish to use prison labour), but I feel it should definitely be considered slavery.

Oh yes. You saw it with people like Caster Semenya. It's supremely messed up that one state passed a law that girls are to be "internally examined" and 100% it's going to happen in the case of women that don't conform to certain aesthetics (which is ironic given a lot of gender critical types ostensibly claim to support gender non-conforming women). Also just saw this. I imagine that part of this (I also saw stuff like "I don't care if they have weapons. They aren't a threat to me" (paraphrased) comments as well IIRC. Suspect this was part of the motivation for short notice hearing.

Yup. It was because I thought it was funny. And then I learned more information and posted a correction about it while sharing that I learned that the process is likely more manual, and prone to the mistakes associated with that, than I realized. A sort of "ah, okay I see how that happened" sort of thing. The second post was literally an elaboration on the first post to help provide correct context to the original mistake and that maybe I was being too harsh on The Times in this particular circumstance. (I also feel I shouldn't need to clarify that it's entirely possible to use a swear without shouting, but here we are) EDIT: And in some news that absolutely does not surprise me, people that are very sure they can tell when people are trans are doing a wonderful job of assuming that the best women's swimmer in the world, Katie Ledecky, is also a trans woman

I honestly do not give a ****. It seems entirely reasonable that the level of support he has is closely mirrored by the fellow MPs of his own party.

Seems like The Times bar chart shenanigans is because the data on the iPad app showed a different question for the same chart the print version had which looks a bit more normal. I guess the 25% is for ALL voters, not just for Tory voters. Not sure how this happens, but figure that the process of putting numbers/charts is probably more manual (and prone to a mistake happening) than I originally thought haha.

This was from The Times in the UK lol. Some interesting bar chart usage here.

I do understand that the Court has in the past has been very open and supportive towards any religion receiving protections, but my general feeling is definitely a "with the recent court" and I lean more towards the "that said" component with your second point. A big part of my skepticism is a curiousness as to what the SCOTUS will do in response to some Jewish groups preparing to go after assorted anti-abortion bills, as I feel that the court would likely end up voting in support of upholding any laws against abortion. I suppose we shall see... just not confident about it. TBH I doubt it'd actually get to the supreme court, and would start to fall apart at "coach invites members of the press to come and witness the event" kind of stage.

I mean I 100% am skeptical that the ruling (and all the events leading up to it) would have been the same if he was doing anything religious but not Christian!

I thought the issue was that he was pulling the rest of the kids in to take part of that which is something that would have definitely annoyed Militant Atheist Allan from my late teens.

Looking forward to seeing what SCOTUS does with West Virginia v EPA soon. I think that's tomorrow even.

I've heard that as a (fair, IMO) critique towards Democrats whom, IIRC, with Obama's campaign promised "Day One" to do so and even with a small slice of a filibuster proof Senate still opted not to. While I agree that a lot of Republicans enjoyed Roe v Wade not being overturned as a way to galvanize votes, I suspect there was also non-zero amount of Democratic Party that preferred the status quo as a way to fundraise and campaign with votes as well. It's interesting seeing the reaction to some of the fundraising emails that immediately went out shortly after the news which has left some of my (definitely Dem Critical) social circles feeling it comes across as tone deaf.

I definitely couched my words with this in mind ("If I read this correctly") and was hoping you'd chime in. Thanks for the detailed post.

I used to be fine with some level of restriction but shifted to unrestricted largely based on understanding that as it stands in the US 93% of abortions are done in the first trimester and that given the relative rarity of later term abortions, defer to trusting the mother making the decision whether it be health related to even the unfortunate reality that for some obtaining access to an abortion provider was difficult and/or life circumstances have changed (unemployment, lack of supports, etc). The death of Savita Halappanavar in Ireland was a tipping point for me, where I realized that if you are trying to have any moral restrictions on abortion, it will inevitably result in people having "more morally valid" justifications also suffering the consequences of those restrictions and IMO that isn't worth occasionally criminalizing someone for it. Inevitably trying to codify the exceptions will almost indelibly impact more people than it would intend.

Oh yes I quoted but it was definitely more in agreement rather than pushing back or anything. I think I'm in a "typing out my thoughts" frame of mind with the news.

I think one thing that gets a bit overlooked is voter apathy, and how Republicans delivering wins to some part of their electorate helps combat that. Even in the case of Republican supporters that ostensibly are against the reactionary social agenda, if they are in some way still getting their wins with whatever fiscal policies or whatever else and are unaffected by the social agenda then they'll continue voting.

If I understand this correctly, Thomas is suggesting the Court should reconsider some other cases as well. Griswold was about contraception, Lawrence about overturning anti-sodomy laws, and Obergefell about same sex marriage.