A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.

29 May 2015

Recommended reads on other blogs

Lee’s diminishing dailies. Pete Talbot, the fine writer who blogs at Intelligent Discontent, comes from a family with a fascinating history in Montana’s newspaper industry, explains in Our Dailies in Death Throes why the slow suicide of the Lee newspapers troubles him so. At Big Sky Words, Greg Strandberg reports on his interview of the Missoulian’s publisher this week. Greg’s blog also should be on your daily read list.

Is Dubya both smarter and more liberal than Jebbie? At Think Progress, attorney Ian Millhiser examines the implications of Jeb Bush’s naming Charles Murray (The Bell Curve) as his favorite author. Murray’s new book, By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission, Millhiser explains, is for reactionaries who are lawless at heart:

Murray admits that the kind of government he seeks, a libertarian fantasy where much of our nation’s regulatory and welfare state has been dismantled, is “beyond the reach of the electoral process and the legislative process.” He also thinks it beyond the branch of government that is appointed by elected officials. The Supreme Court, Murray claims, “destroyed” constitutional “limits on the federal government’s spending authority” when it upheld Social Security in 1937.

Murray is a reactionary’s reactionary who makes crackpot teabaggers look like thoughtful moderates. Jebbie’s embrace of Murray is not the act of a moderate man.

Incidentally, Millhiser’s new book on the U.S. Supreme Court, Injustices: The Supreme Court’s History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted, is both excellent and depressing.

Should legislators represent just adults, or also babies and little children? At Balkinization, Yale law professor Jack Balkin’s legal blog, Joey Fishkin’s post, Of People, Trees, Acres, Dollars, and Voters, discusses the issues in Evenwel v. Abbott, the Texas case that I noted could affect the composition of Montana’s Indian majority legislative districts. Also on Balkinization, must read posts on the same subject by David Gans and Marty Lederman.