Replacing soft-MAGA Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House with hard-MAGA Mike Johnson is somehow Bad News for Progressives among those who see everything as bad news for progressives, but I don’t think it’s that cut and dried. This guy is a true Christofascist freak – Amanda Marcotte writes about his Satanic panic over a Danny DeVito/Aubrey Plaza cartoon – and I think the more non-evangelicals are exposed to these people, the greater the reaction against them will be. About 30% of Americans are now “nones” – that’s what they answer on forms that ask for religious affiliation. It’s a much larger group than those who claim atheism, and I don’t think they’ll be amused.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday in a case about civil forfeiture of property to the police. This, you might recall, is the set of laws (they differ slightly from state to state) that allows police to seize anything suspected of being used in commission of a crime. Even a person who’s never charged has to sue to get their property back. The law was passed back in the day when “Miami Vice” led the gullible to believe that everyone involved in the drug trade drove a Lamborghini and a cigarette boat and used that money to hire lawyers so good no prosecutor could convict. In practice, of course, the police don’t seize Lambos and racing boats – they seize whatever beater some luckless motorist was driving when he was pulled over and searched over the “smell of marijuana.” Will SCOTUS put a stop to this? Please. It’s more likely they find a way to divert some of the property to Clarence Thomas.
The government of Israel continues to kill innocent people in Gaza to make up for the catastrophic intelligence failures that led to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. That massacre seems to be having roughly the same effect on Israel that 9/11 had on the U.S., with the added complication of hostages. Will Netanyahu try the same trick W and Cheney used, claiming to be your protectors when they’re the ones who fumbled the ball in the first place?
After all that bad stuff, here’s something to put you in a trick-or-treat mood: A New York Times features on a professional pumpkin-carver.
The floor’s yours.