Various pundits, by now, have weighed in on today’s Supreme Court decision striking down Massachusetts’ buffer zone law for abortion clinics. To be sure, I don’t disagree that this decision will make it much harder for already vulnerable women to get the care they seek. To be sure, this is a blow to women. There is no doubt, were we talking about a buffer zone at clinics where men receive erectile dysfunction treatment, not only would buffer zones be just dandy, but walls would be mandated, for extra protection and privacy.
This unanimous decision implies that when there is a choice between women’s right to privacy or the right of a stranger to tell you about their beliefs, whether you are interested in hearing them or not, you have no right to choose to avoid it. Continue reading My Takeaway from SCOTUS’ Buffer Zones Decision→
Have you been following the news about Obamacare? The Affordable Care Act has receded from the front page, but information about how it’s going keeps coming in — and almost all the news is good. Indeed, health reform has been on a roll ever since March, when it became clear that enrollment would surpass expectations despite the teething problems of the federal website.
What’s interesting about this success story is that it has been accompanied at every step by cries of impending disaster. At this point, by my reckoning, the enemies of health reform are 0 for 6. That is, they made at least six distinct predictions about how Obamacare would fail — every one of which turned out to be wrong. Continue reading So Much for Obamacare Not Working – NYTimes→
There are Epilepsy patients for whom medications are not an option. For those patients, alternatives to pharmaceuticals include the Ketogenic Diet. A subset of those for whom the Ketogenic diet offers at least some measurable relief, the addition of a VNS implant can mean effective control of epileptic seizures.
How Did Brett Favre Help Thad Cochran in His Senate Race?
Mississippi has sent us a message. I believe it boils down to: We Want Our Stuff.
Big election night! As you no doubt have heard, Senator Thad Cochran, a Republican who specializes in sending billions of dollars in federal pork back into his state, defeated a Tea Party challenger who ran against government spending. Continue reading Gail Collins: Mississippi Goes for the Money | NYTimes→
Fifty years after Freedom Summer, Mississippi education remains separate and unequal
Myrtle School, Union County, 1956 (courtesy of Bill and Rita Bender)
Fifty years ago this month, Congress passed the landmark Civil Rights Act outlawing segregation in all public facilities. The Brown v. Board of Education decision desegregating public schools was already a decade old. Nevertheless, nearly all of Mississippi’s schools still operated under the pretense of “separate but equal.”
It was obvious to anyone who cared to look that Mississippi was more interested in separation than equality. White schools had the appearance of modernity, even if they often lacked the quality of more affluent states. Black schools, meanwhile, were often rustic and ramshackle. One-room schoolhouses had not yet gone extinct in some areas. The state spent 50 percent more on white education than black education, while districts supplemented white school funding with an average of four dollars for every dollar spent on black schools. Disparities in some districts reached 80 to one. Continue reading Fifty years after Freedom Summer, Mississippi education remains separate and unequal | Rethink Mississippi→
Fourteen years ago, the Rehnquist court interrupted a string of law enforcement victories to rule that when looking for illegal drugs, the police couldn’t simply walk down the aisle of an intercity bus and squeeze the bags and soft-sided luggage on the overhead rack.
The common tactic amounted to an unconstitutional search, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for the 7-to-2 majority in Bond v. United States. While passengers certainly expect that their luggage “may be handled,” the chief justice said, that expectation didn’t extend to supposing that anyone “will, as a matter of course, feel the bag in an exploratory manner.” Continue reading Linda Greenhouse: The Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Cellphone Privacy | NYTimes→
The prospect of electing an intemperate Tea Party candidate who was openly nostalgic for Confederate days was so repellent to many black voters in Mississippi that they did a remarkable thing on Tuesday, crossing party lines to help give the Republican Senate nomination to Thad Cochran, in office for 36 years. Now it’s time for Mr. Cochran to return the favor by supporting a stronger Voting Rights Act and actively working to reduce his party’s extreme antigovernment policies.
In Mississippi, as in many Southern states, politics has become so racially polarized that blacks generally vote for Democrats and whites for Republicans. But after Mr. Cochran came in second during the first round of primary voting earlier this month, he made an unusual appeal for help from black voters in the runoff. Many responded, the precinct results showed, and the reason was clear: Chris McDaniel, who was challenging Mr. Cochran, threatened to return the state to an era they loathed. Continue reading Editorial: Thad Cochran’s Debt to Mississippi | NYTimes→
Yes, you read those headlines right: real GDP contracted at a 2.9% rate according to revised data released this AM. That’s contracted, as in went down.
Nope. That was a truly lousy quarter but it’s highly unlikely to be repeated any time soon. The particularly bad winter weather played a role; both residential and commercial building were negative. Heavy inventory buildups in earlier quarters were reversed, which usually implies a positive bounce-back in coming quarters. Exports were revised down and imports up, so the trade deficit subtracted a large 1.5 points from the bottom line; that drag will likely diminish in coming quarters. Continue reading Jared Bernstein: Whoa! Whassup With That Big Negative Q1 GDP Revision?→
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