Justice Sonia Sotomayor Tag

A few weeks ago on this blog I hazarded the bizarre notion that soon, right wingers would be patting themselves on the back for making abortion illegal for an additional reason than those they usually give, the new one being that it would please other right wingers terrified of “replacement theory.”

Afghanistan is a country about the size of Texas. Within one 24-hour period, between August 31 and September 1, the Taliban rose to power in both. Sima Samar, Afghan former Deputy President and Minister of Affairs, and the 17-year Chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, warned that “Sustainable peace will not be possible without full and meaningful participation of women as half of the population. Without peace in Afghanistan, the problem will reach other countries as well, as history has shown.” History isn’t waiting, it’s already on display. I’m not going to descend into wrangling over President Biden’s decision to end America’s longest, 20-year war. I understand, so far as my knowledge of the facts extends, the terrible ironies inherent in his decision, and the rage and grief of some American veterans who are being reassured that their sacrifice was for something other than corporate and political power. It was. Though...

“The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.” You might recognize that line, from Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2, as famous, but its meaning has been roundly debated. Some scholars insist that the speaker, a ne’er-do-well character aptly named Dick the Butcher, is serious because he detests lawyers, since they are virtuous defenders of justice. Other scholars insist just as loudly that because the scene is one of Shakespeare's comic-relief guttersnipe-street-people scenes, the remark is spat out as a laugh line aimed at corrupt lawyers and their high fees. Me, I think Will was, as usual, slaying two meanings with a single line. That would work today, too. On the one hand, more than 700 and still counting former Federal prosecutors have signed an open letter stating that had the acts committed by Donald J. Trump as outlined in the Mueller Report been committed by any other American citizen, that...