The Sorensen Monologues

North Carolina’s anti-trans bathroom law stinks

Seems like the GOP wastes an awful lot of time and money creating solutions to problems that don’t exist. Voter ID laws are one example. North Carolina’s recent anti-LGBT law concerning public restrooms is another. Now, stop me if I’m going out on a limb here, folks, but it’s almost as if Republicans have some sort of agenda against certain groups of people.

The billboard slogan in the last panel is inspired by North Carolina’s “First in Flight” motto. I’ll bet even Orville and Wilbur would be ashamed.

Obama Nominates Fern to Supreme Court

Apologies to the Honorable Merrick Garland for the comparison to a moisture-loving houseplant. I’m sure he has more going on upstairs than your average Nephrolepis exaltata. It’s just that he was not the most inspiring pick in a year when the Democrats really need to inspire the base.  The choice of Garland was likely intended to highlight the GOP’s absurd obstructionism. Perhaps he’s the only pick Dems think can make it through the blockade, somehow. While he would almost certainly be much better than any Republican nominee, it’s not clear to me that the “reasonable bipartisan” approach Obama often favors actually gets results at the polls, or in the court of public opinion.

For more on fern sex, please consult The American Fern Society.

The 2016 elections and the Elvis Factor

In a 2003 column (“Who Can Beat President Doofus?”), Molly Ivins wrote about John Kerry’s lack of Elvis:

My early take on Kerry was that he has gravitas–sumbitch about bent over double with gravitas–but that he has no Elvis. Minus-zero on the Elvis Scale was my first read. No point in nominating some good and worthy candidate, like Fritz Mondale or Michael Dukakis, if they got no Elvis. The object is to get these people elected. Can’t get elected without a soupçon of Elvis.

Ivins noted that Kerry seemed to be working on his Elvis, which gave her some hope, though as we now know, her initial judgment was unfortunately correct.

I imagine some will dismiss this as a silly way of evaluating candidates, but I think the Elvis Factor is to be taken seriously. We can parse the candidates’ utterances until the cows come home, but the fact remains that elections are largely irrational. I’m assuming a certain level of wonkery among readers of this cartoon. (You’re welcome!) Imagine for a moment that everything you know about politics vanishes except for what you’ve heard on cable news. All the book learnin’ and well-reported articles, gone in a puff. This is the starting point for many voters. And they value certain personality traits, for better or worse. Mostly worse.

Honestly, I’m a little worried that both Hillary and Bernie are low on Elvis. Those who feel Sanders is a Hunka Hunka Bernin’ Love are free to disagree.

Proof of density: The Supreme Court weighs Texas abortion laws

As if Texas’s over-the-top regulation of abortion clinics in the name of “protecting women’s health” wasn’t ridiculous enough, enter the spectacularly misplaced skepticism of Justice Alito during oral arguments at the Supreme Court last week. While questioning the clinics’ counsel Stephanie Toti, Alito asserted, “There is very little specific evidence in the record in this case with respect to why any particular clinic closed.” This prompted an awesome rebuttal from Justice Kagan. From the great Dahlia Lithwick:

So frustrated is Justice Elena Kagan by the conservatives’ repeated insistence that perhaps the clinics just coincidentally all closed within days of HB 2’s passage that she finally has to intervene. “Is it right,” she asks Toti, “that in the two­-week period that the ASC requirement was in effect, that over a dozen facilities shut their doors, and then when that was stayed, when that was lifted, they reopened again immediately?” Toti agrees. “It’s almost like the perfect controlled experiment,” continues Kagan, “as to the effect of the law, isn’t it? It’s like you put the law into effect, 12 clinics closed. You take the law out of effect, they reopen?”

Here’s an argument I haven’t heard yet: given that the state’s requirements are medically unnecessary — there was no problem in the first place — it seems to me that women will face statistically greater risk of death or injury driving on Texas highways to get to a clinic 200 miles away than if their local clinic remained open. If Texas Republicans are so incredibly serious about protecting the safety of ladies, should that not factor into the equation? Not to mention the botched back-alley abortions, of course. Those never factor into the equation.

That tweet from former Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is here.