The number one single today in 1964 was performed by the oldest number one artist to date:
The number one single today in 1970, sides A …
… and B:
The number one British single today in 1981:
No comments on Presty the DJ for May 9
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Today in 1954, the BBC banned Johnny Ray’s “Such a Night” after complaints about its “suggestiveness.”
The Brits had yet to see Elvis Presley or Jerry Lee Lewis.
The number one British single today in 1955:
Today in 1965, what would now be called a “video” was shot in London:
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The number one single today in 1966 was presumably played on the radio on days other than Mondays:
Today is the anniversary of the last Beatles U.S. single release, “Long and Winding Road” (the theme music of the Schenk Middle School eighth-grade Dessert Dance about this time in 1979):
The number one album today in 1977 was the Eagles’ “Hotel California”:
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Last year, based on a scenario in which 22 states banned abortion, Middlebury College economist Caitlin Knowles Myers projected that the annual number of abortions in the U.S. would fall by about 14 percent. In Texas, which banned the vast majority of abortions last September and avoided early judicial intervention by restricting enforcement to private civil actions, the net impact seems to have been a drop of about 10 percent.
Americans should keep those surprisingly modest estimates in mind as they try to predict what will happen after the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, as a leaked draft of the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization suggests it will soon do. While many states are expected to respond by imposing severe restrictions on abortion, most probably will not. And even in states that ban elective abortions, workarounds will mitigate the impact of those laws.
Those options, which include traveling to clinics in other states and obtaining pills for self-induced abortions, will entail additional time, effort, cost, and in some cases legal risk. The new burdens will be prohibitive for many women, especially those with low incomes, inflexible work schedules, or pressing family responsibilities. But the net effect will not be nearly as dramatic as pro-life activists might hope or pro-choice activists might fear. “A post-Roe United States isn’t one in which abortion isn’t legal at all,” Myers observed in an interview with The New York Times. “It’s one in which there’s tremendous inequality in abortion access.”
According to a tally by the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), “abortion will remain legal” without Roe in 21 states where abortion rights are protected by statute or by judicial interpretations of state constitutions. Bans seem unlikely in another seven states. While the CRR classifies 25 states as “hostile” to abortion rights, that list includes Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, all of which have pro-choice governors.
CRR says “Michigan lawmakers will likely try to prohibit abortion” and “Wisconsin lawmakers may try to prohibit abortion.” But in both cases, they would need a two-thirds majority to overcome a veto. The same is true in Pennsylvania, where the CRR concedes “abortion will likely remain accessible.”
Myers’ projection was based on the assumption that 22 states will quickly move to ban elective abortions. (Her list includes Michigan but omits Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, another state that the CRR classifies as “hostile.”) That would make abortion illegal in large swaths of the South and Midwest, plus several states in the West. Myers calculated that the average distance to an abortion clinic for women of childbearing age affected by the bans would rise from 35 to 279 miles. The upshot, according to her model, would be a nationwide reduction in legal abortions of “at least 14 percent.”
One reason that number is lower than you might expect: The states that are likely to ban abortion already have relatively low abortion rates. But it is also true that increasing the distance to the nearest clinic, even as dramatically as Myers expects, will deter some but not all of the abortions that women would otherwise obtain. As Myers emphasizes, the burden will fall heaviest on women of modest means with the farthest distances to travel.
When Texas banned abortion after fetal cardiac activity can be detected (which typically happens about six weeks into a pregnancy), the number of abortions performed by clinics in that state fell by half. But many women traveled to clinics in other states or used pills to perform self-induced abortions. The upshot, judging from studies of both workarounds, was that the net reduction in abortions obtained by Texas women was roughly one-fifth the apparent decrease.
That experience may be misleading as an indicator of what will happen even in Texas after the Supreme Court overturns Roe. Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma—all of which saw influxes of Texas women seeking abortions—are likely to ban the procedure once they are free to do so. But abortion is expected to remain legal in three other nearby states: Colorado, Kansas, and New Mexico. Women who live far away from such options—in southeast Texas and Louisiana, for example—will face the biggest obstacles.
The other major workaround is abortion pills. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of mifepristone and misoprostol up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy. The method has potentially broad appeal in the United States, where four-fifths of abortions are performed at nine weeks or earlier.
Last December, the FDA permanently lifted a longstanding requirement that abortion pills be dispensed in person, opening the door to prescriptions via telemedicine and home delivery. That decision is apt to accelerate a preexisting trend: Based on preliminary data, the Guttmacher Institute (which supports abortion rights) reports that “medication abortions” accounted for 54 percent of the U.S. total in 2020, up from 39 percent in 2017.
Texas and 18 other states already have restricted the use of abortion pills, requiring clinic visits and banning mail delivery. Texas recently went further, making it a felony to supply the drugs for unsupervised use. But enforcement of such bans will face obstacles even more daunting than the difficulties encountered by the war on drugs, since abortion pills will remain legal in most states.
Aid Access, which enables women to obtain abortion pills from abroad based on prescriptions written by a doctor in Austria, saw a huge increase in requests from Texas after that state’s ban took effect. And Aid Access is by no means the only source of abortion pills, which can be obtained through various websites, purchased over the counter in Mexico, or received in states that allow delivery by mail after an online or phone consultation. Organizations such as Hey Jane and Abortion on Demand facilitate that last option.
There is no question that overturning Roe will reduce access to abortion. The obstacles created by state bans will impose real, sometimes prohibitive hardships on many women. But given the inevitability of those bans, abortion rights supporters who are venting their rage at the Supreme Court’s expected decision would have a bigger impact by focusing their energy and resources on alleviating those hardships.
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The number one British album today in 1972 was a Tyrannosaurus Rex double album, the complete title of which is “My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair … But Now They’re Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows”/”Prophets, Seers & Sages: The Angels of the Ages.” Really.
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For those who think Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey must not be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court because they’re settled law, the National Constitution Center presents a list of Supreme Court decisions that were overturned by the Supreme Court:
In 1992, an opinion from three justices in the Casey decision reinforced the role of stare decisis, or precedent, in the court’s proceedings. “After considering the fundamental constitutional questions resolved by Roe, principles of institutional integrity, and the rule of stare decisis, we are led to conclude this: the essential holding of Roe v. Wade should be retained and once again reaffirmed,” wrote Sandra Day O’Conner, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter.
However, the court doesn’t always follow its precedents. In 1932, Justice Louis Brandeis explained stare decisis in his dissent in Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co. “Stare decisis is usually the wise policy, because in most matters it is more important that the applicable rule of law be settled than that it be settled right,” Brandeis wrote. “But in cases involving the Federal Constitution, where correction through legislative action is practically impossible, this Court has often overruled its earlier decisions.”
The Library of Congress tracks the historic list of overruled Supreme Court cases in its report, The Constitution Annotated. As of 2020, the court had overruled its own precedents in an estimated 232 cases since 1810, says the library. To be sure, that list could be subject to interpretation, since it includes the Korematsu case from 1943, which justices have repudiated but never formally overturned. But among scholars, there are a handful of cases seen as true landmark decisions that overturned other precedents.
Here is a short list of those landmark cases, as reported by the Congressional Research Service and Library of Congress:
West Coast Hotel Company v. Parrish(1937). In a 5-4 decision, the Hughes court overturned a decision from the previous year, now stating that the establishment of minimum wages for women was constitutional. The decision was seen as ending the court’s Lochner era.
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943). In a 6-to-3 decision, the Court overruled Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940). Justice Robert Jackson’s majority opinion affirmed that forcing public school students to salute the American flag was unconstitutional. “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein,” Jackson famously wrote.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954). A unanimous Warren Court (pictured above) decided that a separate but equal policy of educational facilities for racial minorities, consistent with Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
Mapp v. Ohio(1961). Overruling Wolf v. Colorado (1949), the court said in a 6-3 decision that evidence gathered by authorities through searches and seizures that violated the Fourth Amendment could not be presented in a state court—otherwise known as the “exclusionary rule.”
Gideon v. Wainwright(1963). Justice Hugo Black’s unanimous opinion invalidated Betts v. Brady (1942) and required state courts to appoint attorneys for defendants who cannot afford to retain lawyers on their own.
Miranda v. Arizona (1966). In a 5-4 opinion, Chief Justice Earl Warren concluded that police violated Ernesto Miranda’s rights by not informing Miranda that he could remain silent and also ask for an attorney during interrogations. The ruling invalidates two court rulings from 1958: Crooker v. California(1958) and Cicenia v. Lagay(1958).
Katz v. United States (1967). In a 7-1 decision (Justice Thurgood Marshall did not take part in the case), the court determined that a man in a phone booth could not be wiretapped by authorities without a warrant from a judge. The decision overturned two prior Supreme Court decisions: Olmstead v. United States (1928) and Goldman v. United States (1942.)
Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969). The court decided that Ohio’s criminal syndicalism law, barring public speech calling for illegal activities, was unconstitutional on First and 14th Amendment grounds unless the speech incited “imminent lawless action.” The decision overruled Whitney v. California (1927).
Gregg v. Georgia(1976). In a 7-2 decision from Potter Stewart, the court ruled that Georgia’s capital punishment laws didn’t violate the Eighth and 14th Amendment’s prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment. The court invalidated McGautha v. California(1971), a prior death-penalty case.
Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992). A divided court invalidated parts of two prior decisions, Thornburghand Akron I, as inconsistent with Roe v. Wade.
Atkins v. Virginia (2002). The Supreme Court held that executions of intellectually challenged criminals were “cruel and unusual punishments” barred by the Eighth Amendment. The decision overturned Penry v. Lynaugh (1989).
Lawrence v. Texas (2003). Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, in a 6-3 ruling, cited the Due Process Clause and invalidated a Texas law making it a crime for two persons of the same sex to engage in sexual conduct. The decision overturns Bowers v. Hardwick (1986).
Citizens United v. FEC (2010). By a 5-to-4 decision, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy writes for the majority and says the First Amendment did not permit the government to ban corporate funding of independent political broadcasts during election cycles. The decision overturned Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce(1990) and parts of McConnell v. FEC(2003).
Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). In a 5-4 opinion, Justice Kennedy said the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause guaranteed the right to marry as a fundamental liberty that applied to couples regardless of their sex. The decision overruled a one-sentence ruling in Baker v. Nelson (1972).
South Dakota v. Wayfair (2018). In another 5-4 decision from Justice Kennedy, the court said sellers who engage in significant business within a state may be required to pay taxes, even if the business does not have a physical presence in the taxing state. The ruling overturned Quill Corp. v. North Dakota (1992).
Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (2018). In a 5-4 opinion from Justice Samuel Alito, the court said the state of Illinois violated the First Amendment by extracting agency fees from nonconsenting public-sector employees. The decision overturned Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Education(1977).
Anyone think “separate but equal” is acceptable?
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Last week in our Geek in Pictures, I included a stylized chart that Colin Wright, an evolutionary biologist of liberal inclination, created (though I wasn’t sure at the time that he was the creator):
Naturally the left, deeply insecure about their positions (which helps explain their censorious and authoritarian disposition), reacted badly to this chart, as Wright explained in a terrific article in the Wall Street Journal today after the cartoon went massively viral following Elon Musk’s embrace of it:
The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent called it a “silly chart” that has been “brutally debunked.” His colleague Philip Bump described it as “simply wrong” and an “obvious exaggeration.” Mr. Bump even provided a series of actual silly charts showing “the average ideological score (using a metric called DW-NOMINATE)” and “evaluations of ideology as measured in the biennial General Social Survey (GSS).”
Debunking a cartoon with a chart is like answering a love poem with a syllogism.
I should add that at some point in the last year or so, Wright tweeted that despite being a life-long Democratic voter “who has never voted for a Republican,” he was likely to vote Republican in 2024 for any nominee other than Trump. We’ll see if that extends to DeSantis if it comes to be.
Anyway, to continue with Wright today:
People on the left once viewed free speech as sacrosanct and championed speaking truth to power. Now they disparage open expression as a danger to democracy and minorities. The aspiration of judging individuals by the content of their character rather than by the color of their skin has given way to identity politics and “equity” initiatives that prioritize group interests over individual rights. Women’s rights, previously understood as relating to their oppression on the basis of sex, is now viewed by the left through the lens of gender identity, which gives priority to men who declare themselves to be women. Today’s progressive can’t even tell you what a woman is. The right may be inconsistent in its support of free speech, individual rights and women’s rights, but the left is consistent in its opposition to all three.
Boom.
One last excerpt:
[W]hile working as a postdoctoral fellow at Penn State in 2018, I found myself ostracized by scientific colleagues and people I thought were my close friends because I was unwilling to promote scientifically inaccurate claims about biology to avoid offending those who identify as transgender.
Suddenly, simple truths, supported by both science and common sense—such as “male and female are real biological categories defined by reproductive anatomy”—became taboo. For my great sin of stating plain biological facts and advocating for civil discourse, I endured relentless smears as “transphobic,” “far right,” even a “white supremacist.” Similar experiences have played out for millions across the U.S. and abroad.
I hope many on the left will resist the urge to debunk or dismiss my cartoon and instead use it as an opportunity to understand why so many people feel it describes their experience. Something has happened over the past decade to make many liberals feel politically homeless, and a lack of curiosity about why is a recipe for not only political failure but social strife. It contributes to our increasing inability to have reasonable, compassionate discussions on issues of great importance.
The experience of “neoconservatives” in the 1960s and 1970s—liberals “mugged by reality”—is happening again right now, and I think a new generation of thoughtful defectors from leftist dogma is rapidly reaching critical mass.
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Today is Cinco de Mayo, so some Mexican rock would be appropriate:
The number one single today in 1962:
I’m unaware of whether the soundtrack of “West Side Story” got any radio airplay, but since I played it in both the La Follette and UW marching bands, I note that today in 1962 the soundtrack hit number one and stayed there for 54 weeks:
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Facebook Friend Michael Smith:
I tend to think in corny analogies, so be forewarned. Here comes another one.
Those of us of a certain age have a mental image of the Ford Mustang.Indeed. Here was mine, and it went as fast as my legs could drive it.
What began as a fun little car, a sporty little coupe and convertible, launched an entire landscape of American muscle cars that included the Camaro and Firebird from General Motors, the Challenger from Dodge, and the Javelin from American Motors.
We had a Javelin, though it never looked this nice.
The original Mustang was co-designed by John Najjar, who was a huge fan of the P-51 Mustang fighter plane. Najjar and Robert J. Eggert, Ford Division market research manager (who also bred quarterhorses) suggested the name. Ford management decided the combination of these images, the power, muscle and lethality of the P-51 combined with image of a wild mustang running wild and free across the plains, was the very essence of America.
When I think about the Mustang, I see two cars in my mind — a 1965 maroon convertible that is, to this day, in just about every parade held in my hometown and the ’69 GT 390 Fastback from the Steve McQueen movie “Bullitt”.
What I don’t see is a 4-door, all-electric sedan with child safety seats in the rear.
When you change what makes a Mustang a Mustang, it isn’t a Mustang, I don’t care what the badge and the marketing materials call it.
Ford tried that once already with the Mustang II (second generation) and to some extent, the third and fourth generations. The Mustang didn’t begin to look and drive like a Mustang until the fifth generation was introduced in 2005.
It’s not that there weren’t some iterations that were decent cars, it was just that none of them were real Mustangs.
Ford went back to what worked, what made a Mustang a Mustang.
It is the same with America.
Over the past 60 years, America has had its guts slowly ripped out over and replaced with parts called “not America”. Hopefully, we will follow the Mustang evolution and get back to what makes America America.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am.
I believe there are far more Democrats than Republicans who hate America for what it is, not what it has been. They have such a jaundiced view of how America has dealt with significant and difficult moral and civilizational issues, that nothing they see satisfies them.
These folks tend to compare America to some theoretical standard of perfection that has never existed outside the Kingdom of Heaven, believing that it is appropriate for their enemies to bear the sins of their ancestors while denying the sins of their own.
There are Republicans who are just like these Democrats, they are just too cowardly to admit it.
The libertarians can’t decide if they are John Birch or Karl Marx, authoritarians or anarchists. There is a lot to like about their ideas of freedom and liberty until you get to the schizophrenic parts.
Look, there is a lot that Tulsi Gabbard, Joe Rogan, Peter Theil, Elon Musk and I will disagree upon. To a lesser extent, I have disagreements with many of our “conservative thought leaders” — Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck — each for different reasons — but where I disagree with Democrats 80% of the time, I agree with the latter folks 80% of the time.
If you love America and believe in Justice Scalia’s perspective of our Constitution — that it says what it says and it doesn’t say what it doesn’t say — we can be members of the same tribe.
If you are ready to get back to basics, to MABA – Make America Bullitt Again — I’m ready to work with you, regardless of your party affiliation.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 