Recommended Reading: The Era of 'Judicial Pretzeling' and Racial Discrimination is the 'American Way'

This Week's Recommended Reading on Substack: Don Moynihan, Jemar Tisby, Jared Yates Sexton, Hemant Mehta, Erin Reed, and Noah Berlatsky.

The Week's Recommended Reading on Substack:

Don Moynihan

writes that the “untethering of factual reasoning from judgments is also an area where the SCOTUS decisions mirror a haughty indifference to accountability for their private actions. Its the sort of bizarro reasoning that leads Alito’s risible claim that the value of flight on a private plane given to him by a conservative billionaire was zero because the seat would have otherwise gone unused. Seems convenient! Or that the Thomas family has no need to even report on the flow of money they receive from conservative activists because Ginni Thomas does not speak with her husband about court decisions. Sure thing!”

The era of judicial pretzeling

Jemar Tisby, PhD

writes that “the majority decision by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), imagines that this nation’s racist past is just that—past—and that history does not exert a powerful force on the present. Their decision indicates that the six justices who struck down race as a factor in higher education admissions believe the process is purely meritorious and that eliminating racial considerations will result in a fairer admissions process. This fallacious reasoning ignores the reality that a nation with white supremacy at its inception will always default to favoring white people.”

SCOTUS Decision on Affirmative Action Reminds Us Racial Discrimination is the "American Way"

Jared Yates Sexton

writes that “Supreme Court Justices are not priests… It’s pathetic. There’s no other way to put it, especially as women have been relegated to second-class citizens, people of color are losing their voting rights, institutions like higher education are being returned to their white supremacist roots, and any program that might actually help people is being declared dead upon arrival. Biden’s “hopes” simply aren’t enough.”

A MOMENT OF CLARITY: THE SUPREME COURT AND WHAT WE DO NOW

Hemant Mehta

writes that “this past year should “radicalize” anyone who’s seen Christian Nationalists dictating policies about women’s bodies, access to books, health care, etc. That includes non-religious Americans, yes, but plenty of religious people too. If this week’s SCOTUS rulings and Republican overreach in state legislatures doesn’t motivate you to vote, nothing will. And if voters in Kansas can defeat a constitutional measure to ban abortion, there’s no telling what the rest of the country can do as we witness extremism on the right.”

Protecting abortion rights is a critical issue for Secular Americans. Will Democrats care?

Erin Reed

writes that “though Florida’s bathroom ban does not apply everywhere, it casts a wide net, covering an extensive array of public restrooms including those in city parks, beaches, airports, government buildings, and educational institutions. Transgender women changing clothes before going out on the beach, for instance, will be forced to use the male bathroom to do so - regardless of any legal gender markers on their documents. Transgender men will likewise be forced to do the same. These provisions could lead to incredibly uncomfortable scenarios.”

Florida Bathroom Ban Now In Effect: Enforcement Likely To Be A Disaster

Noah Berlatsky

writes that the obsession with Hunter Biden “is a straightforward expression of core right-wing ideology. The authoritarian right believes that Democrats in power are by their nature a blot on the purity of the nation. Hunter, Joe, and other Democrats embody corruption simply by holding offices to which only the right is entitled. What Joe Biden has done is irrelevant. To them, the existence of a Democratic (and democratic) opposition is itself a stain on the righteousness of politics — a stain that Republicans are eager to wipe out.”

The right's shameless Hunter Biden obsession

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