As dozens of wrongful convictions have demonstrated, the American criminal justice system is flawed. That a state can approve death while refusing to consider critical evidence should give all Americans pause. Are we more willing to accept a potentially innocent man’s execution than to revisit a case?

In the coming days, Roberson should be spared from death and granted a new, fair trial.

-John Grisham in the WaPost

 

The book is careful and thorough—chock-full of historical evidence—but Gienapp’s argument is ultimately straightforward. Founding-era Americans didn’t think of the Constitution as the kind of thing that had a fixed meaning. Therefore, it wouldn’t have made sense to look for unchanging original meanings that were fixed for all time in the Constitution’s text. So if one would like to be an originalist, that original history says not to be an originalist. “When we recover Founding-era constitutionalism,” Gienapp writes, “we discover how deeply at odds originalism is with the history it claims to recover.” His book reveals “how un-originalist originalism turns out to be.”

-Andrew Lanham in The New Republic

 Some Democrats worry, for instance, that the party still isn’t doing enough to engage low-propensity Black and Latino voters, particularly young men. There is time to repair this. Democrats also wonder if they failed to define Trump early in the cycle, letting him slowly rehabilitate his favorability numbers. Still others fear they didn’t remind voters early on of the horrors of Trump’s first term, leaving them with rosy memories of his presidency—including blue-collar voters’ fond impressions of the Trump economy. Those latter two problems may not be repairable in time.

-Greg Sargent in The New Republic

 

"Fascist to the core": Former Trump official Milley warns against "dangerous" second term

Trump appointee Mark Milley called the ex-prez the "most dangerous person ever"

By GRIFFIN ECKSTEIN

News Fellow

This morning at Starbucks with my two new friends, evacuees from impending Milton landfall in Florida.

They live on an island in the Tampa area. Two bridges but only one is now open. If that one is closed it will be a while before they can get back. Milton is very real here this morning

Mary & Randy, the Florida evacuees I've met in Starbucks this week, are back for their last morning before starting to work their way back to Anna Maria Island in the Tampa area. Luckily for them, Milton came ashore 20-25 miles south of them so they think they had no storm surge. Randy explained that hurricanes wobble as head toward land and you never know until the last where the storm will find land. If Milton had come across their little island, it could have wiped out the whole island and their house and boat. Good for them. Florida will recover but it will take time and effort. Many were not so lucky.

As Randy and Mary depart Starbucks, Randy says that the roof at the Rays baseball stadium in Tampa was designed to withstand winds of 150 MPH and the highest recorded wind from Milton was 101. Add the damage inside the stadium by the wind and rain and the lawsuits will be fast furious. As I always say, technology always eventually fails usually at the worse moments.

 The MAGA Maniacs Are Going All In on Deranged Hurricane Conspiracies The MAGA Maniacs Are Going All In on Deranged Hurricane Conspiracies

It’s the Jews! It’s the deep state! It’s anything but a natural weather occurrence made much worse by climate change!

-The Nation

 It was in my college yrs being introduced to the scholarly study of history that I began to learn the critical thinking skills that have helped me make my way thru adulthood without succumbing to the follies of today. I continue to read scholarly historiography today. May I always be intellectually curious.