Three-Point Shots, Vol. 1, No. 31: Friday, November 24, 2023

I hope your Thanksgiving was marvelous! Meanwhile, just a couple things to keep your eye on as the world goes to hell in a handbasket.

         Welcome to another edition of Three-Point Shots, a part of my Life Its Ownself Substack page. If you enjoy reading it, please 1) hit the Like button, 2) subscribe to the Life Its Ownself, and 3) share it with others in the link below. Comments are welcome and encouraged.

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Friday, November 24, 2023, 11:00 a.m.

1.    Happy Thanksgiving!

         I hope you had a marvelous Thanksgiving, and are waking up this morning from a food coma. Like so many things we do in America, Thanksgiving is meant to be enjoyed in excess – more food, more decorations, more football games.

         I celebrated Thanksgiving with some dear friends. For my part, I prepared my World Famous Guacamole™. The other, better chefs among our number concocted a fantastic cornucopia of turkey, ham, dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, green bean casseroles, and enough desserts to sink a battleship. Thank goodness for family, in whatever configuration it assembles!

         Once upon a time, Thanksgiving was the official kickoff of the Christmas shopping season. Now the store displays and online sales begin right after Halloween, if not before. For God’s sake, they had multiple airings of “A Christmas Story” (the bestest Christmas movie?) last week! But I’m old school, and I put off listening to Christmas music as long as possible. All year, actually.

         As we head into the Christmas shopping season, let’s remember the spirit of fellowship and thankfulness that supposedly kicked it off.

         My take: . By the way, if you’re looking for the perfect gift for a Smart Person™, consider gifting a subscription to Life Its Ownself. Maybe you have a friend you know is hungry for knowledge and perspective. Or maybe you have a relative you’re trying to nudge toward to a more sensible worldview. Life Its Ownself is a great resource for those who want to know more!

2.    Just because the voters have spoken doesn’t mean we can’t still ban abortions.

         Those rascally voters! In state after state where they’ve been given the opportunity, they have affirmed a woman’s right to choose, even enshrining it in the state constitution, which, as you know, is supposed to be the last word on democratic self-governance.

         Take Ohio. (Please!) Earlier this month, Ohio voters overwhelmingly (57% - 43%) approved a constitutional amendment to:

• “provide a state constitutional right to "make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to" decisions about abortion, contraception, fertility treatment, miscarriage care, and continuing pregnancy, and

• allow the state to restrict abortion after fetal viability, except when “necessary to protect the pregnant patient’s life or health.” 

         Essentially, Ohio voters reinstated Roe v. Wade as their state’s policy. The amendment was proposed by voters via a citizen initiative, prompting former Senate and washed-up prig Rick Santorum to say the quiet part out loud: “Thank goodness that most of the states in this country don’t allow you to put everything on the ballot, because pure democracies are not the way to run a country.”

         Ballotpedia lists seven statewide ballot measures since Amy Comey Barrett’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court cemented a 6-3 reactionary majority on that court. All seven were won by the pro-choice side of the proposition. Not a good track record for the anti-choice side, which claims to be speaking for the majority.

         Anyway, the anti-choice legislators in Ohio refused to concede defeat, announcing they’d seek “to strip judges of their power to interpret [the] abortion rights amendment” by “removing jurisdiction from the judiciary over this ambiguous ballot initiative.”

         My take: This will be the great issue of the next couple decades, in my opinion. The reactionary forces in American politics know they do not have a genuine mandate from the voters, at least in most states. They’ve cemented their power through aggressive gerrymandering, voter suppression and the like, but even those have not prevented the winds of change. Their tactics must therefore become more anti-democratic and authoritarian in the future. It will be our job to oppose that.  

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3.    Ken Paxton Paws the Ground for Elon Musk

         Media Matters for America is, it says, a “web-based, not-for-profit, 501 (c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.” As you can imagine, this means at least two things:

·      it produces research-based critiques of right-wing media; and

·      right-wing media hates its research-based critiques.

         Last week it produced a report on the continuing downhill slide of Twitter X, noting that major corporations are pulling their X advertising after their ads were placed in the feedstream alongside antisemitic trolls. This angered Elon Musk, and X sued Media Matters for its “intentionally deceptive report.”

         Ordinarily this battle between the (allegedly) richest man in the world and a non-profit media watchdog would be left to the principals.

         But Texas’s Twice-Indicted, Impeached and Acquitted But Still Corrupt Attorney General Ken Paxton did not become the most corrupt A.G. in Texas history by shying away from fights in which he had no business in the first place. So he announced an investigation into Media Matters, “a radical anti-free speech organization:”

“We are examining the issue closely to ensure that the public has not been deceived by the schemes of radical left-wing organizations who would like nothing more than to limit freedom by reducing participation in the public square,” said Attorney General Paxton.

         It’s probably a coincidence that Musk’s lawsuit was filed in a North Texas federal court by two lawyers who worked for Paxton through his impeachment trial and then decided to cash in. Oops, I forgot: there are no coincidences in Austin.

         My take: Somewhere in Texas, a struggling family waits for a deadbeat dad to pay years’ worth of overdue child support. Somewhere in Texas, an elderly widow tries to recover the money stolen from her by an online scam artist. Somewhere in Texas, a fly-by-night clinic is overcharging Medicaid (and Texas taxpayers).  You can be sure that Ken Paxton does not care about those situations and will do nothing about them, so long as the dreaded menace of Media Matters for America is still out there.  

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Have a great weekend!