This one

Or this one

Linda Greenhouse, NYT Supreme Court reporter from 1978-2008, opines about the hopes of the Clown Caristas to continue the fear-mongering of Nixon via the Supreme Court's King v Burwell and Obergefell v Hodges rulings.

In these cases, Ms. Greenhouse sees the dissenting Justices determined to fan the flames of resentment--be afraid, be very afraid.  Those who cling to old beliefs, according to Alito, will be left to "whisper their thoughts from the recesses of their homes,"  Roberts' dissent exudes a sense of anticipatory victimization. "Ominous" says Roberts.

Well, it worked for Nixon and the GOP for a long time--Southern strategy, dog whistles.  Fear can be electorally good.  But, fertile ground is needed for that strategy to carry the day-, soaring crime rates, commies in every nook and cranny, under the bed.  

Ms. Greenhouse notes that for the "Nixonian fertile ground" of Obergefell and King to be successfully tilled,  for other than that portion of the electorate who are oddly and curiously obsessed, the Clown caristas will have to capitalize on the "fear" that may be generated by happy couples with health insurance.

"[T]the campaign of bullying -- the attempt to terrify Greeks by cutting off bank financing and threatening general chaos, all with the almost open goal of pushing the current leftist government out of office -- was a shameful moment in a Europe that claims to believe in democratic principles. It would have set a terrible precedent if that campaign had succeeded, even if the creditors were making sense.

"What's more, they weren't. The truth is that Europe's self-styled technocrats are like medieval doctors who insisted on bleeding their patients -- and when their treatment made the patients sicker, demanded even more bleeding. A 'yes' vote in Greece would have condemned the country to years more of suffering under policies that haven't worked and in fact, given the arithmetic, can't work: austerity probably shrinks the economy faster than it reduces debt, so that all the suffering serves no purpose. The landslide victory of the 'no' side offers at least a chance for an escape from this trap."

I agree with Krugman on this one. The tough austerity measures adopted thus far at the EU's behest, which were supposedly intended to spur economic reforms and recovery, have instead mired Greece in its eighth consecutive year of economic contraction, one which is fast approaching free fall. The Greek economy shrank by 23% between 2008 and 2014, and anemic or no economic growth has been projected for 2015. And the country's public workforce has shrunk correspondingly by 30% during that same period.

Unemployment in Greece more than tripled in the subsequent five-year period following the first implementation of austerity measures in 2007-08, rising from 7.7% in 2008 to 24.3% in 2012, and the nation's long-term unemployment reached 14.4%. And in a country where access to medical care is linked directly to one's employment, the austerity regime imposed upon the Greek people by their creditors has left nearly one million of the country's 11.2 million citizens with no access to healthcare whatsoever.

Indeed, the startling collapse of the once-admired Greek public health system, which is entirely due to a lack of requisite funding, has created a devastating domestic health care crisis of rather tragic proportions. Rates for infant mortality, HIV infection and suicide have soared. Even malaria, once all but eradicated in Greece thanks to the public health sector, has since made a startling rebound.

Clearly, there is little if any likelihood that a small nation like Greece will ever be able to repay its enormous $313 billion debt to its foreign creditors. And to a great extent, those creditors themselves are responsible for having encouraged the very spending policies which created that massive indebtedness in the first place. Debt relief has to be a real and substantive part of any economic aid package to that stricken country.

To insist that the Greeks instead implement even more draconian austerity measures, as Chancellor Merkel and her allies are doing here, is at once morally reprehensible, fiscally irresponsible and politically reckless. Is she soon going to demand the same medicine for the much larger countries of Spain and Italy, whose own economic recoveries have been hampered -- if not hamstrung -- by the fiscal austerity that's still all the rage in conservative circles?

Because despite what austerity advocates are saying, there is very strong evidence that these sorts of fiscal policies have been entirely counterproductive to conservatives' own publicly stated goals of restoring economic vitality in the wake of the 2008-09 economic recession. While financial institutions which precipitated that severe economic downturn with their own reckless and misleading banking practices were bailed out, it's been citizens themselves who've had to absorb the resultant cost.  

More importantly, we need to remember that it really wasn't all that long ago when Europe was a seething caldron of conflicting nationalist ambitions, which produced the sort of destructive rivalries that twice plunged the world into catastrophic world wars during the three decades between 1914 and 1945, and which resulted in nearly 80 million people losing their lives.

And in that regard, we should further realize that it was the insanely punitive fiscal policies imposed upon the German Weimar Republic by the Allies in the wake of the First World War, which eventually prompted the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Politics and economics are not mutually exclusive, because working class resentments and nationalist fervor have shown a remarkable tendency throughout history to become intertwined and take firm root during times of economic distress, dislocation and hardship.

NATO and the European Union, borne from the ash heaps of that 30-year disaster, offered Europeans of all nationalities a real opportunity to move beyond the often petty but entirely deadly squabbles that have plagued their history, and into a more enlightened era. It would be a shame to see that this pan-European alliance collapse, due primarily to the willingness of Germany largest and most prosperous member, to once again throw its weight around the continent, much as it has in times past.

All that does is reaffirm for many skeptics the very real fears which were first expressed 25 years ago, when they publicly doubted the wisdom of allowing East Germany and West Germany reunite in the wake of the Warsaw Pact's collapse.

A joint state and federal investigation into the activities of accused Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof has widened to include other persons of interest, according to multiple sources familiar with the ongoing investigation.

A tidy sum, in my opinion.

Then, the next day, I read that some guy in Saudi Arabia is giving 32 billion of his money to some charity.

An interesting argument by Jonathan Turley.

...Kennedy's moving language was more than just aspirational thoughts on dignity. He found a right to marriage based not on the status of the couples as homosexuals but rather on the right of everyone to the "dignity" of marriage. The uncertain implications of that right should be a concern not just for conservatives but also for civil libertarians. While Obergefell clearly increases the liberty of a historically oppressed people, the reasoning behind it, if not carefully defined, could prove parasitic or invasive to other rights. Beware the law of unintended constitutional consequences.

For the record, I have long advocated the recognition of same-sex marriage. But the most direct way the justices could have arrived at their conclusion would have been to rely on the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause. It, along with the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, holds that all citizens are entitled to the same treatment under the law, no matter their race, sex, religion or other attributes known as "protected classes." Kennedy and his allies could have added "sexual orientation" to the list of protected classes, making the denial of marriage licenses an act of illegal discrimination. This approach would also have clarified the standard in a host of other areas, such as employment discrimination and refusal of public accommodations.

Instead, Kennedy fashioned the opinion around another part of the 14th Amendment, holding that denial of marriage licenses infringed on the liberty of gay men and women by restricting their right to due process. As Justice Clarence Thomas correctly pointed out, liberty under the Constitution has largely been defined as protection against physical restraints or broader government interference -- "not as a right to a particular governmental entitlement." While Kennedy makes a powerful case for an expansive new view of due process, he extends the concept of liberty far beyond prior decisions.

SNIP

Dignity is a rather elusive and malleable concept compared with more concrete qualities such as race and sex. Which relationships are sufficiently dignified to warrant protection? What about couples who do not wish to marry but cohabitate? What about polyamorous families, who are less accepted by public opinion but are perhaps no less exemplary when it comes to, in Kennedy's words on marriage, "the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family"? The justice does not specify. It certainly appears as if Obergefell extends this protection because same-sex unions are now deemed acceptable by the majority. The courts may not be so readily inclined to find that other loving relationships are, to quote the opinion, a "keystone of the Nation's social order" when they take less-orthodox forms. But popularity hardly seems like a proper legal guide to whether a relationship is dignified.

With the emergence of this new right, we must now determine how it is balanced against other rights and how far it extends. For example, it is clearly undignified for a gay couple to be denied a wedding cake with a homosexual theme. Yet for a Christian or Muslim baker, it might also feel undignified to be forced to prepare an image celebrating same-sex marriage. Should the right to dignity trump free speech or free exercise.

Bush charged $100,000 for his 2012 speech at a charity fundraiser for veterans who lost limbs in the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. The former president was also given use of a private jet at a cost of $20,000 and former First Lady Laura Bush was paid $50,000 to speak to the group last year.