The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday struck down one of the nation's toughest restrictions on abortion, a Texas law that women's groups said would have forced more than three-quarters of the state's clinics to shut down.
The decision was 5-3.
Passed in 2013, the law said clinics providing abortion services must meet the same building standards as ambulatory surgical centers. And it required doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.
Since the law was passed, the number of clinics providing abortion services in Texas dropped to 19 from 42. Opponents said that number would fall to ten if the Supreme Court upheld the law.
There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. The regulatory state should tremble in fear. There is now “no reason to believe” that additional regulations would affect wrongdoers. That means that regulations may not even be able to escape the lowest level of judicial scrutiny — rational-basis review.
Environmentalists are quaking in their boots. Gun controllers are throwing their hands up in despair. Financial and business regulators may as well close up shop.
Wait. What’s that you say? This is an abortion decision? The regulations in questions were deemed responsible for closing substandard abortion clinics?
Never mind. The regulatory state is safe. Everyone knows that the Supreme Court privileges the killing of children above all else. After all, as Justice Ginsburg has said, Roe v. Wade was motivated by “concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.” The undesired have to die — the reasoning matters not.
(O)ne wonders whether the five justices that signed onto this sorry decision will be as anxious to protect an explicit constitutional right — the Second Amendment, as well as the Fourth and Fifth — when it comes time to rule on an attempt to use “watch lists” to deny Americans the right to keep and bear arms. Don’t hold your breath waiting for consistency when that time comes
I mean, if the U.K can do it.... pic.twitter.com/Z9K6yiUgZE— Brittany Chapa (@BrittanyJChapa) June 24, 2016
Everything he touches... pic.twitter.com/H9SNcbf22n— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) June 24, 2016
House Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday night dismissed the Democratic takeover of the House floor as a "publicity stunt," and said Republicans wouldn't be goaded into allowing a vote on bills that violate the Constitution.
"We're not going to take away a citizen's constitutional rights without due process," he said on CNN.
Democrats want the GOP to allow a vote on bills to expand background checks, and to prevent people from buying a gun if they are on an federal terrorism watch list. But Republicans say those lists are created without giving the people on those lists any chance to defend themselves.
“The ACLU strongly urges you to vote against the Collins Amendment because it uses the error-prone and unfair watchlist system, along with vague and overbroad terms, as a predicate for a proceeding to deny a firearms permit,” the ACLU officials wrote in the letter. “The Collins Amendment relies on both the No Fly List, by codifying its criteria, and the Selectee List, by direct reference.”
.@ChrisMurphyCT said it right: The @SenateGOP have decided to sell weapons to ISIS.— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) June 20, 2016
Rep. John Lewis and a group of his fellow Democrats took to the House floor late Wednesday morning to stage a sit-in and are vowing to stay for the foreseeable future. Their goal? Pressure Republican leadership to hold votes on gun control legislation, something they have not done in the wake of this month’s mass shooting in Orlando, Florida.
Democrats are staging a sit-in on the House floor. They refuse to leave until our Constitution replaces due process with secret lists.— Justin Amash (@justinamash) June 22, 2016
It happened on the road at Oracle Arena. It's not a dream. Most considered it an impossible feat. No team in 32 tries had ever come all the way back from being down 3-1 to win the NBA Finals.
Now, it's 1-32.
The Cleveland Cavaliers completed the unimaginable on Sunday night, a 93-89 Game 7 victory over the Golden State Warriors to win the franchise's first NBA championship.
Celebrate, Cleveland. Celebrate.
LeBron James has delivered Cleveland's first professional championship in 52 years. He led all players in this series in points, assists, steals and blocks. He registered 27 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists Sunday to earn the Finals MVP award.
Arnold Palmer playing his final round at the U.S. Open.
The commencement of the FIFA World Cup.
The New York Rangers celebrating their win at the Stanley Cup Finals with a ticker-tape parade on Broadway.
Game 5 of the NBA Finals between the Houston Rockets and the New York Knicks.
Ken Griffey, Jr. tying Babe Ruth's record of the most home runs (30) before June 30th.
Many Lefties and press types are giddy over Cooper's performance, for which he should actually be embarrassed. There is precisely zero hypocrisy -- none -- in an elected official both (a) opposing same-sex marriage as a public policy matter, and (b) unequivocally blasting the mass murder of gay people, and vowing to do everything in her power to prevent or severely punish similar outrages in the future. This should be patently obvious to anyone who doesn't reflexively assume that all opposition to gay rights legislative efforts are rooted in "hate." I'm by no means blind to the fact that genuine homophobia exists, and that some anti-LGBT sentiment is pure bigotry. I also disagree with Bondi's legal position (effectively endorsed by a lopsided majority of Florida voters in 2008) that the implementation of legalized gay marriage would inflict "harm" on the state. Bondi, who didn't acquit herself especially well in this exchange in my view, at least makes clear that she doesn't believe gay people are harmful, which is how Cooper unfairly framed the question.
Think about it: Here we have the state's top law enforcement officer being raked over the coals for her act of standing in solidarity with a community that had just found itself in the crosshairs of lethal terrorism. Her public stance on any number of policy disputes pertaining gay rights issues is irrelevant here -- unless she'd previously advocated in favor of anti-gay violence, which of course she had not. Times like these require ardent gay rights supporters and entrenched gay rights opponents alike to stand tall, shoulder to shoulder, against a surpassing evil that threatens our shared values. Cooper chose to use his formidable platform and gravitas to blur important distinctions and imply equivalencies that do not exist. In doing so, he actively participated in the division of America. He made it harder for his fellow countrymen to coalesce in needed unity, shared anger and joint resolve. He debased himself with his morally-bereft premise.
Omar Mateen called the cops to pledge his fealty to ISIS as he was carrying out his mass murderer in Orlando early Sunday morning. Twelve hours later, the president of the United States declared that “we have no definitive assessment on the motivation” of Omar Mateen but that “we know he was a person filled with hate.”
So I guess the president thinks Mateen didn’t mean it?
Here again, and horribly, we have an unmistakable indication that Obama finds it astonishingly easy to divorce himself from a reality he doesn’t like — the reality of the Islamist terror war against the United States and how it is moving to our shores in the form of lone-wolf attacks.
He called it “terror,” which it is. But using the word “terror” without a limiting and defining adjective is like a doctor calling a disease “cancer” without making note of the affected area of the body — because if he doesn’t know where the cancer is and what form it takes, he cannot attack it effectively and seek to extirpate it.
So determined is the president to avoid the subject of Islamist, ISIS-inspired or ISIS-directed terrorism that he concluded his remarks with an astonishing insistence that “we need the strength and courage to change” our attitudes toward the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.
That’s just disgusting. There’s no other word for it.
Gov. Mark Dayton followed through on his pledge to veto a $260 million package of tax cuts at midnight Monday.
The veto came after Republican legislators again urged the governor to sign the bill, which would cut rates for a variety of taxpayers, including farmers, working families, veterans and student-loan debtors.
While Dayton said he supported many of the bill’s provisions, his administration caught an error that officials said would have cost the state treasury $101 million over the next three years. He also insisted that legislators renew a sales tax exemption for the Minnesota State High School League that funded scholarships for low-income athletes, a change accidentally left out.
The so-called pocket veto, in which the governor takes no action and lets the measure expire, abruptly reset negotiations between Dayton and legislative leaders for a special session. In order to call a legislative session, Dayton wants to fix the tax measure, but also is seeking millions of dollars in new spending for the University of Minnesota, clean-water projects and a new light-rail line from downtown Minneapolis to Eden Prairie.
Ryan wrote in (an) opinion piece that he and Trump have talked at length.
Ryan's column also touts the “confident America” policy agenda he has been developing since becoming speaker of the House last fall.
“Through these conversations, I feel confident he (Trump) would help us turn the ideas in this agenda into laws to help improve people's lives. That's why I'll be voting for him this fall,” Ryan wrote.
Ryan goes on to say that he and Trump do not agree on everything and that when he sees the need, Ryan will continue to speak his mind.
“But the reality is, on the issues that make up our agenda, we have more common ground than disagreement,” Ryan wrote.
My rapist wears orange today. I legally wear my .380. Both are great ways to prevent violence. #WearOrange #2A #NRA @townhallcom @CR— Kimberly Corban (@Kimberly_Corban) June 2, 2016
The Dalai Lama thinks Europe has let in "too many" refugees.
The Tibetan spiritual leader said that "we feel the misery" of each individual refugee and that humans have a "responsibility to help" — but that there are "too many" who have been accepted in Europe.
"Europe, for example Germany, cannot become an Arab country. Germany is Germany," he laughed in an interview published Tuesday with Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper. "There are so many."
The Dalai Lama said that "from a moral standpoint" he thinks refugees should "only be accommodated temporarily" — with the goal of them returning home to rebuild their countries.
The challenger to speaker @kdaudt is being backed by the MN Tea Party Alliance aka Action4Liberty #mnleg pic.twitter.com/6PAwzv6fl7— Bryan Strawser (@bryanstrawser) May 31, 2016
Donald Trump's Minnesota volunteer coordinator tonight: "I don't really identify as a republican anymore" pic.twitter.com/qGJY9U9MtV— John Rouleau (@John_Rouleau) February 27, 2016
