On May 2, Politico hit America with a bombshell scoop: A leaked Supreme Court draft opinion overturning the last 50 years of federal jurisprudence on abortion, discarding Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and returning the matter to the states.

Predictable responses ensued: Outrage from pro-choice activists who want Roe left intact, and outrage from Republican commentators that the opinion, which would likely have been released some time in the next two months, was preemptively leaked to the media.

While I naturally have my own opinions on Roe/Casey, and on the current case (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization), I’m not going to share them here.

And while I get the outrage from the right concerning the leak, it’s not the leak per se that bothers me. It’s the timing.

The leaked draft is labeled “Circulated: February 10, 2022.”

Assuming the document is real (which I have no particular reason to doubt), and that it follows rather than anticipates an actual vote of the Supreme Court’s member justices on the case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was decided three months ago — and we may have to wait up to two MORE months before the court gets around to telling us about it.

Most Americans who care about this case seem to agree that a lot turns on the Court’s decision.

Every day that passes without an officially released ruling means more abortions are performed in Mississippi. The position of the state of Mississippi — agree with it or not — is that those abortions violate the right to life of the aborted fetuses, which is why it passed the ban that led to the case.

In the meantime, Mississippi’s abortion providers (whose position — agree with it or not — is that abortion is a human right which the Mississippi ban violates) are forced to operate in an environment of continuing uncertainty.

And since it’s a Supreme Court decision, every state government and every abortion provider in America has a similar stake in the outcome.

Why are we still waiting on the Court to publicly announce a decision it made months ago?

The Constitution assigns appellate jurisdiction to the Supreme Court “under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”

Here’s a suggestion: Congress should require the Court to publicly announce its decisions within one business day of voting.

Justificatory opinions can come later, but the Court owes  litigants — and the country — promptness in resolution of disputes.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

A year ago, the Washington Post reported that the Biden administration was poised to propose a ban on menthol cigarettes.

On April 28 the US Food and Drug Administration (supposedly an independent agency, but clearly operating per Joe Biden’s “suggestions”) finally announced its plan to move forward with the ban, which also includes cigars.

Now, as then, the main justification offered for the ban is that menthol cigarettes are disproportionately used by black smokers. 85% of black, versus only 29% of white, smokers choose menthol. QED, banning menthol will save black lives.

Let’s translate that justification into English: Black people are stupid. Too stupid to make their own decisions, and definitely too stupid to get around an FDA edict intended to take those decisions away from them.

Banning the sale of menthol cigarettes and cigars won’t stop Americans of any skin hue from smoking menthol cigarettes and cigars.

As a long-time menthol smoker, I’ve been “rolling my own” for years, using loose menthol tobacco, pre-made filter tubes, and an inexpensive machine. Yes, it’s a little more trouble, but it also saves me money. In fact, a carton (ten packs) of self-rolled cigarettes costs me just a little more than I’d pay for a single  pack of generic smokes.

Anyone who finds “roll your own” too inconvenient will see new products on their local store shelves the instant the ban goes into effect: Little crushable menthol capsules to stick in cigarette filters. Little spray bottles of menthol flavoring. Various products that transform “regular” cigarettes into the minty fresh product they prefer. These products already exist. At the moment they’re more a mail-order thing. The ban will change that.

And any smoker who finds THAT too inconvenient may just switch from menthol to “regular.”

The number who quit because of the ban will be minuscule.

About 9.3 million black Americans smoke. About 8 million of them smoke menthol.

Insulting the intelligence of America’s 30 million black voters, and going especially hard on a third of those voters, doesn’t seem like the smart play in an election year when the Democratic Party — which usually enjoys high turnout and  overwhelming support from those voters — is already in trouble.

Black smokers — black VOTERS — aren’t going to stop smoking menthol cigarettes. They’re just going to get righteously pissed at the people who make it harder for them to do so. And instead of voting Democrat, they may not bother to vote at all.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Mere days after my column explaining why Elon Musk shouldn’t buy Twitter, Elon Musk bought Twitter  — sort of. His offer’s been accepted, but there’s likely a good deal of red tape to get over before he hands over the cash and the current board hands over the keys. Given his continually adversarial relationship with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, it my take a little while.

That guy, he never listens to me. But he seems to have done pretty well for himself anyway.  Not everyone can swing a $44 billion deal on a hot property. Or build an electric car that accelerates from zero to 60 miles per hour in 3.3 seconds. Or send people to space and bring them back, then re-use the rockets.

Can he save Twitter? Well, he seems like a guy who gets things done. I wouldn’t bet against him.

And, make no mistake, Twitter’s in desperate need of saving.  It’s been declining for years, shedding real users and picking up annoying spam bots under management that seems less concerned with operating a high-engagement platform for all comers than with carrying water for the American political establishment and scolding and ostracizing wrong-thinkers.

Many Twitter users disagree. They’ve become accustomed to living in a walled garden, protected from viewpoints that make them uncomfortable. And the possibility that new ownership might tell them to grow up, stop whining, and learn to use the “block” button enrages them.

Only a few months ago, those users and I were in general agreement:

It’s Twitter’s platform. Twitter gets to set the rules for using that platform. If you don’t like Twitter’s rules, find or start a platform with rules you like better. Problem solved.

Now  those rules may change,  because the platform’s ownership is changing. But my position remains the same, because that position wasn’t based on happening to like the rules. It was based on respect for the property rights of the platform’s owners.

Now that the ownership is changing, which may portend the rules changing, some who agreed with me when they liked the rules are  hanging out on  (virtual) street corners in sackcloth and ashes, waving THE END IS NEAR signs, and even urging the SEC to nix the deal so they can return to their version of Eden, undisturbed by serpents peddling heterodoxy.

Apparently “it’s a private company and can set whatever rules it wants” was a position of convenience, not principle.  Go figure.

Musk has a tough row to hoe. Changing an entrenched corporate culture and bringing an aging platform up to date to deal with its infestation of spammers and scammers won’t be easy.  I still think he’d have been smarter to start from scratch. But I wish him luck.

If he can transform Twitter back into a bona fide public square, he’ll be due the thanks of a grateful user base. And he’ll probably get some of that thanks, mixed in with complaints from those who pine for the return of their former idea-proof safe space.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION HISTORY