I forgot: Hello everyone! Welcome to Wednesday. Wednesday comes from "Wotan's Day," Wotan being the German name for the Norse god Odin. He had a lot of similar names: Odin, Wotan, Woden, Othin.
The Romans called the day Wodansday because they considered Odin, for some reason, to be the Germanic analogue of Mercury.
Via Google:
Old English Wōdnesdæg 'day of Odin', named after the Germanic god Odin or Woden, the supreme god; translation of late Latin Mercurii dies, Odin being equated with the Roman god Mercury. Compare with Dutch woensdag .
How does that work? I dunno, they seem completely different to me. Mercury was the messenger god, and Odin was the god of... hmm, apparently he's the god of wisdom, poetry, magic, and death. A Reddit guy explains they have some similarities in the lesser-known parts of their portfolios:
That being said, Odin and Mercury do have a few things in common. They are both associated with magic, words and language, knowledge, trickery and disguise, and traveling between different realms.
It's strange to have the father-god not be a god of war or the sky.
But that was Thor. Tyr/Tiw was the god of war, from where we get "Tuesday."
So Odin would have to have a different portfolio.
This guy, a sort of comparative mythology researcher, thinks the strangeness of Odin is due to him not being originally part of the Norse pantheon. He's an import, this guy says, a late addition, a god picked up from some shamanistic Scandanavian tribe and combined into the Norse pantheon, and given the backstory that he's the father of Thor.
On to the "very disappointing" news from the Supreme Court, as Matt Gaetz called it.
Amy Coney Barrett is a problem. She will haunt us for 50 years, like Sandra Day O'Connor.
She and her fellow liberals ruled that those bringing the lawsuit against the government for violating the First Amendment's prohibition against censorship lacked, get this, standing to bring the suit.
Kavanaugh, of course, is also a weak sister.
We fought for this guy?
Why are we nominating liberals to serve for life on the Supreme Court?!?!
In Murthy v. Missouri, the Court's decision underscores the stringent requirements for establishing standing in federal court regarding social media censorship claims. Justice Barrett's opinion highlights that neither the individual plaintiffs nor the state plaintiffs demonstrated a sufficiently concrete injury directly traceable to the actions of federal officials. "The need for a concrete and particularized injury cannot be overstated," wrote Barrett. "Speculative or generalized grievances do not meet the threshold for judicial intervention."
Justice Alito, in dissent, painted a stark picture of government overreach, describing the alleged coercion as a "far-reaching and widespread censorship campaign" against Americans expressing certain views on social media. This division within the Court reflects the ongoing debate over the role of government in regulating speech on digital platforms and the extent to which private companies' actions can be attributed to state influence.
Sean Davis, founder of The Federalist, reacted strongly to the ruling, tweeting, "The Supreme Court's ruling and opinion on the widespread federal government campaign to censor and banish accounts that shared factual information about ongoing government operations is an abomination that ignores both the facts and the law. I never thought I would see the Supreme Court rubber stamp the most egregious and illegal censorship campaign in American history, but here we are. What a joke."
They have not released the ruling on presidential immunity yet and, based on this ruling, I'm not at all hopeful.
But liberals are worried, for the moment, so maybe I'll take some solace in that.
Speculation is building about the possibility of the Supreme Court delivering a favorable ruling to former President Trump as he claims immunity from prosecution.
Even the current conservative-majority court would balk at finding that all presidents have unconstrained immunity, most experts believe.
But some kind of caveat-laden ruling that tosses the arguments about Trump's legal exposure back to lower courts remains a strong possibility.
That scenario is enough to alarm many liberals.
Eric Holder, who served as attorney general in the Obama administration, sounded a warning during a recent interview with Nicolle Wallace of MSNBC.
Holder alluded to the prospect of the justices ruling that a president can be prosecuted for private acts but not for "official" acts undertaken in the course of his duties.
In Trump's case, this pertains to alleged offenses in his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. A mixed ruling would mean lower courts would be asked to adjudicate which of Trump's actions fit into either official or nonofficial category.
In practical terms, such a process would almost surely extend the case beyond November's election. If Trump wins the election, he could simply instruct the Justice Department to abandon its prosecution of him -- a move that would elicit howls of protest.