At the Christmas Eve Café...

... you can talk all night.

"Biden did the right thing granting clemency to 37 federal death row inmates."

Writes Russ Feingold (at The Hill).

With this courageous action, President Biden has lived up to his promise as the first president to openly oppose capital punishment and secured his legacy as a champion of racial justice, compassion, and fairness.

If he's truly opposed to capital punishment, he should have commuted the sentences of all 40 federal death row inmates. That would have taken more courage. The 3 excluded from this show of empathy were the 3 most famous. Applying principle to them would have kicked up a much bigger political storm. So where is the principle?

President Biden has shown clear moral leadership by commuting these 37 federal death sentences. Not only does this action effectively fulfill his 2020 promise to end the death penalty at the federal level, it should also serve as a model and an incentive for state leaders to follow suit.

No. The "37" says it all. You need to save all 40 before you can claim "clear moral leadership." The real test would be sparing those last 3: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Robert Bowers, and Dylann Roof.

That would be difficult. That would take courage.

Rose and Valerie screaming from the gallery say he must go free....

I'm reading "Grinning Luigi Mangione yuks it up in court as he enters plea in execution of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson" (NY Post):

At least two dozen women packed the courtroom for the twisted heartthrob, with just six men watching on....

"The accused firebug, who has not yet been charged, first entered the US illegally at the Arizona border in 2018, but was nabbed just days later and shipped back home."

That's the New York Post, using the cutesy word "firebug," in "Fiend accused of burning woman to death on NYC subway is illegal migrant from Guatemala who sneaked into US after he was deported."

I guess that's the way the New York Post has been talking for a long time. "Fiend" is another example.

By the way, the word "firebug" was originally used to refer to a firefly — AKA lightning bug — but it became a slang word for "arsonist" in the mid-19th century. I note that it would be highly abnormal to use "arsonist" to refer to a person who murdered someone with fire — not unless a building were set on fire and the death happened as an unintended consequence.

"Firebug" connotes pyromania — a crazy fascination with fire. The New York Post unwittingly helps this accused man with his insanity defense.

Much more could be said about the practice of likening a human being to an insect — a bug — but I will stop here... out of respect for the dead.

"[W]hile naming a new ambassador to Denmark — which controls Greenland’s foreign and defense affairs — Mr. Trump made clear on Sunday that his first-term offer to buy the landmass could, in the coming term, become a deal the Danes cannot refuse."

"He appears to covet Greenland both for its strategic location at a time when the melting of Arctic ice is opening new commercial and naval competition and for its reserves of rare earth minerals needed for advanced technology. 'For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World,' Mr. Trump wrote on social media, 'the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.' On Saturday evening, he had accused Panama of price-gouging American ships traversing the canal, and suggested that unless that changed, he would abandon the Jimmy Carter-era treaty that returned all control of the canal zone to Panama. 'The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,' he wrote, just ahead of an increase in the charges scheduled for Jan. 1. 'This complete ‘rip-off’ of our country will immediately stop.' He went on to express worry that the canal could fall into the 'wrong hands,' an apparent reference to China, the second-largest user of the canal. A Hong Kong-based firm controls two ports near the canal, but China has no control over the canal itself."

From "Trump’s Wish to Control Greenland and Panama Canal: Not a Joke This Time/In recent days the president-elect has called for asserting U.S. control over the Panama Canal and Greenland, showing that his 'America First' philosophy has an expansionist dimension" (NYT).

I didn't think it was a joke the first time he talked about Greenland. I don't think it's so much that he's an "expansionist." I think he's looking for American's bad deals and intent on renegotiating them. He's continually complained that other countries are taking advantage of us. Wanting to change that dynamic is not an "expansionist" frame of mind. The United States takes responsibility for the world's security — or purports to — and that exposes us to exploitation. Trump seems to think he's the one to straighten that out. You can say that's a bad idea, but please address that and explain why.

At the Sky High Café...

... you can talk until the crack of dawn.

But these are sunset pictures today, Christmas Eve Eve. And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

"'Sexual expression and imagery were common, widespread, legal and quite explicit' in the American colonies...

"... Professor Stone wrote in a 2019 law review article.... 'In the 18th century, bookstores in the American colonies carried an extraordinary array of erotica... and there were no statutes forbidding obscenity during the entire colonial era. To the contrary, throughout this period, the distribution, exhibition and possession of pornographic material was simply not thought to be any of the state’s business.' Indeed, Professor Stone wrote... Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin collected such works...."

From "What Would the Founders Have Thought About TikTok and Online Porn?/The Supreme Court will hear arguments next month in First Amendment challenges to laws banning the app and shielding minors from sexual materials on the internet" (NYT).

How does that connect to the TikTok problem?

"Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?"

The new episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast — audio and transcript here (at Podscribe).

This was annoying to listen to for so many reasons, but I will leave it to you to discover most of them. I'll just pick out one glaring problem: The abortion right that was found in Roe and rejected in Dobbs was never based on equality. It was based on substantive due process, sometimes phrased as privacy, found in the Due Process Clause. If the ERA could be a source of a new right to abortion, the Equal Protection Clause is already there to serve the same purpose. One of the reasons the ERA failed back in the 1970s was because many people believed that all the equality rights women needed could be found in the Equal Protection Clause. What good was a new text to puzzle over? 

"President-elect Donald J. Trump delivered a sprawling address on Sunday that he called a 'small preview of the common-sense revolution' his administration will bring..."

"... pledging to slam shut the nation’s borders, end federal regulations, lower taxes, prosecute his rivals, 'stop woke' and 'end the transgender lunacy.' In a 90-minute speech at a conservative conference in Phoenix, Mr. Trump offered a triumphant view of his election victory in which he described his liberal adversaries as 'befuddled' and promised that a new 'golden age in America' had begun. 'We will end the occupation, and Jan. 20 will truly be liberation day in America, Mr. Trump told thousands of people at AmericaFest...."

The NYT reports, in "Trump Previews Second Term in Sprawling Speech to Conservative Conference/President-elect Donald J. Trump repeated false claims about immigration and the border, slammed diversity initiatives and discussed the Panama Canal in the 90-minute address."

You can watch it for yourself and form your own opinion. If you have the stamina... of this endlessly energetic 78-year-old man:

I listened to part of it. I thought it was a lot like a rally speech — but with the topic of winning the election deleted and with the mood a lot sunnier. And I'd just been thinking about the coming inaugural speech and saying — here in the Meadhouse real world — I hope it's very upbeat and optimistic, that "Morning in America" kind of thing. His antagonists will be looking for every opportunity to characterize whatever he says as "dark." He shouldn't let that brush him back too much, but I prefer happy, loving Trump. And of course, it is theater....

Moments ago, @CharlieKirk11 introduces President @realDonaldTrump @TPAction_ #AMFEST2024 in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona… pic.twitter.com/KRfGHszhoo

— Dan Scavino Jr.🇺🇸🦅 (@DanScavino) December 22, 2024

"It’s so much safer, especially for a woman. You’re not getting in the car with some strange man."

Said a San Francisco woman, quoted in "Robot taxi riders in San Francisco targeted with a new form of harassment/As Alphabet’s Waymo scales up its self-driving service, some riders recount feeling like sitting ducks when strangers interfere with their robot chauffeur" (WaPo)(free-access link).

She experienced the downside of the lack of a man — however "strange" — in the driver's seat:

Stephanie recalled riding home with her sister in one of Waymo’s driverless Jaguar SUVs around 10:30 p.m. on a Saturday night when a car holding several young men began following them. They drove close to the robotaxi honking and yelling, “Hey, ladies — you guys are hot.”

If she or another human had been driving, it would have been easy to reroute the car to avoid leading the pursuers to her home. But she was scared and didn’t know how to change the robot’s path. She called 911, but a dispatcher said they couldn’t send a police car to a moving vehicle, Stephanie recalled.

I assume, with AI, the car can be made responsive to passengers who call out for some kind of help. It should be able to communicate with the police. And the police will be sending out robotic help too (if it's needed). In the end, and it won't be long, the young men yelling "Hey, ladies" and whatnot will cease to exist. It's not that you need the "strange man" back in the taxicab. You just need to quell the strange men out there on the street. It won't be that difficult. This is just a stage, a very brief stage.

Biden just commuted "most federal death sentences" — that is, 37 of them — but in all this mercy, he left 3 men doomed.

I'm reading "Biden commutes most federal death sentences before Trump takes office/Thirty-seven inmates will serve life without parole. Three others, involved in cases of 'terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder,' still face execution" (WaPo)(free-access link).

Who were the 3? 

Those he did not spare are: Dylann Roof, the white supremacist convicted of killing nine Black parishioners at a South Carolina church in 2015; Robert Bowers, who carried out the country’s deadliest antisemitic attack when he killed 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber.

What made those 3 stand out in that collection of 40 murderers? Oddly enough, the link on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev goes to at 2020 article titled, "Death sentence overturned for Boston Marathon bomber." Bowers and Roof are alike in that their victims were chosen based on the group they belonged to and the killings took place in a house of worship. But what makes Tsarnaev like them?

What puts the 3 in one set is their fame. Anything else? Who were the 37 who received commutations? It's easier to spare nobodies.

Biden is, it seems, trying to rack up achievements. (Did you hear the one about the Equal Rights Amendment?) Should he be doing that after we've learned so much about how not there he is these days? His party has been voted out, he's already gone, and we don't know who is acting in his name. That's the real outrage here.

At the Freezing Lake Café...

...you can talk all night.

And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link

"A 'reimagining' of 'Sesame Street' was underway to overhaul the show’s format and focus on just four core characters — Bert and Ernie not among them...."

"Leaders of Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit corporation that produces the show, hope that children will develop deeper relationships with the characters — and with the show — if they see the same Muppets every episode, really get to know them. But that means downgrading beloved Muppet stars who have been there since the start to supporting roles: Bert and Ernie, Big Bird, the Count and Oscar the Grouch.... Hoping to deepen the connection children feel with the characters, [Kay Wilson Stallings, who was promoted to chief creative development and production officer in 2020] pared the core cast down to just four Muppets: Elmo, Abby Cadabby, Cookie Monster and Grover.... Competing shows featured just a handful of central characters. Too many, she reasoned, and kids would not connect with anyone.... Wilson Stallings was matter of fact about the decision, saying it was based on market research, not nostalgia. 'We’re leaning into the characters that resonate most with our audience,' she said...."

From "Inside ‘Sesame Street’ as it fights to survive/With a lucrative HBO deal ending, the show tackles emotional well-being and remakes itself to win over a new generation" (WaPo)(free-access link).

"The architect Helen Fong played a major role in designing some of the most well-known and eye-catching Googie buildings, including the first Norms, the Holiday Bowl and Pann’s Restaurant."

"Ms. Fong was known for being meticulous, and she loved a pop of red: Just as Pann’s was about to open to the public, she thought one of the walls looked too blank, so she took out her red nail polish and started painting some of the tiles, said John English, a historic preservationist and a friend of Ms. Fong...."

From "The Fight to Save Googie, the Style of Postwar Optimism/The car-centric architectural style, characterized by neon signs and dramatic rooflines, is now endangered. Its admirers mourn the loss of the ideals it represented" (NYT)(free-access link so you can revel in all the photographs).

"Christmas in a Minor Key."

Meade has found a distinctively un-annoying Christmas album:

"The Lives They Lived."

The NYT annual set of articles about those who have died in the past year is an inevitable choice for one of my 10 monthly gift links: here.