First Looks category archive

Recently, the Supreme Supremacist Court ruled that Alabama had to redraw its House districts because black persons, who make up a quarter of the state’s population, were under represented. Instead of one majority black district, said the Court, there must be at least two. Alabama has indeed redrawn its districts, once more with only one majority black district, ignoring the Court’s ruling.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Gene Collier has a theory as to why:

. . . I’ll refer you to one of the first interviews (Alabama Senator Tommy) Tuberville did after getting elected in November of 2020, in which he identified the three branches of American government as “the House, the Senate, and the executive.”

See, there is no judicial branch, and thus no Supreme Court. So if you hear from SCOTUS on something, you can comply, don’t comply, up to you.

Follow the link for the complete article.

Thom runs the numbers, then finds a straw at which to grasp.

Out-of-town visitors.

At the Kansas City Star, Jessica Piper cautions that, if you’re going to point the finger of blame, you should point it in the right direction.

At the Portland Press-Herald, James Bilancia ponders the power of imagined grievances.

The Swiss Family Robinson.

I read this book multiple times back in the olden days, when I was a young ‘un.

It’s just as good now as it was then.

Off to drink liberally.

Thom sees a pattern.

The Window at the White Cat, by Mary Roberts Rinehart.

The reader is exceptionally skilled, and Mary Roberts Rinehart should be remembered much more than she is. She was an excellent writer.

The Song of Names.

I gather that it did not do well at the box office, but we found it an excellent film. Look for it on your movie channels.

Robert Reich argues that the current Supreme Supremacist Court has gutted the legal concept of “standing,” that is, of who under the law has the capacity to bring suit in court. Here’s a bit of his article:

Bad enough that the court’s majority is now making up its own laws — disregarding the Supreme Court’s own precedents it disagrees with, deciding Congress hasn’t authorized certain actions it disagrees with, and finding certain practices it disagrees with to be unconstitutional.

Bad enough that three of the justices now in the majority were appointed by a man who lost the popular vote, who was impeached twice, and who promoted an insurrection against the United States. And two others were appointed by a man who also lost the popular vote and led the nation into war in Iraq under false pretenses.

Now that the court has obliterated the guardrail on what it can consider, there are no limits to what this least democratic branch of government — and its extremist majority — might do.

Oklahoma State Superintendent of Schools moves to whitewash (I choose that term advisedly) Oklahoma’s history.

David dissects the duplicity.

At Psychology Today Blogs, Christopher J. Ferguson makes a strong case that the recent dip in school children’s test scores on the NEAP standardized test was not nearly so severe nor so alarming as depicted by (some) press reports and politicians. He points out:

Since 2020, drops in both reading and math were noticed, likely tied to school closures during the Covid-19 epidemic. News media dutifully referred to these drops as “alarming,” an “emergency,” or “grim.” But how bad is the news, actually?

When we look at the official charts released for the NAEP, we can see a small 4-point drop in reading and a larger 9-point drop in math.

. . . even across 5 decades, scores overall didn’t change very much. For reading, scores improved slightly over time before becoming largely static since 2012, then dropping a bit during Covid. Math scores improved a bit more, then dropped a tiny bit since 2012, then more rapidly during Covid. Since scores can range 500 points, how worrisome is a drop of 4 or even 9 points?

Follow the link for his answer to his (admittedly rhetorical) question.

(Broken link fixed.)

Thom explores how the right-wing is trying to stifle fact-checkers.