Here Is a Good Book to Get the Kids In Your Life After a Garbage Week Like This
The Suitcase is good for ages 3 and up, an age range that includes every Republican politician in America, too.
Here is my confession to you: This week’s newsletter was supposed to be about reports that Senate Democrats, now that Republicans will control the White House for four years and the Senate for two (at least), are panic-considering the merits of nudging 70-year-old Justice Sonia Sotomayor to retire, which would allow President Joe Biden and Senate Democrats to speed-run the confirmation of a successor between now and December 20.
These reports annoyed me for several reasons: the near-impossibly narrow window of time in which they would need to pull this off; the multitudinous ways in which such a gambit, at this late stage, could go catastrophically wrong; the yawning gap between the ambitiousness of the plan and Senate Democrats’ track record of playing political hardball when the stakes are highest; and, more generally, the liberal establishment’s reluctance to think strategically about the Supreme Court until it is too late, forcing everyone else to pay in civil rights for their elected officials’ reluctance to speak and act. As a result, before I knew it, I had blown way past the usual length of a newsletter. The result is up on Balls & Strikes now, but I have nothing Court-related to offer your email inbox in its place, other than whatever doofy picture of some long-dead justice I find on Getty Images after 90 seconds of searching.
Thus, I am leaving you with something different: a children’s book recommendation that feels particularly apt this week. In the long tradition of haphazardly assembling kids’ libraries with birthday gifts, random hand-me-downs, and late-night “I need to order some new books right fucking now so I never have to think about that fucking blue truck ever again” orders, I am still not sure where our copy of Chris Naylor-Ballesteros’s The Suitcase came from. I do know that when I grabbed it off the shelf about a year ago to read to the 3-year-old before bed, I found myself choking up a little once I understood what it was: a sweet, simple fable that helps children understand why welcoming immigrants and refugees with love and kindness is always both (1) the right thing to do and (2) good for everyone.
Regrettably, I did not realize any of this until I was in the middle of reading The Suitcase aloud, which prompted the 3-year-old to look up at me, baffled, and ask me why I “had tears.” The bad news is that in a political climate awash in xenophobia and fear and hate, she will understand the answer to that question soon enough. The good news, I hope, is that she will have learned this book’s lessons well by then—and that unlike so many people who occupy positions of power in this country, she will live those values when it’s finally her turn instead.
As always, you can find everything we publish at ballsandstrikes.org, or follow us on Bluesky at @ballsandstrikes.org, or on Twitter at @ballsstrikes. You can get in touch by emailing contact@ballsandstrikes.org. Thanks for reading.
This Week In Balls & Strikes
It Is Too Late For a “Should Sotomayor Retire?” Discourse, Jay Willis
The time for Senate Democrats to worry about the future of the Supreme Court was well before a devastating election loss that will lock them out of power for the next four years.
Here Is the Judicial Nominations Landscape That Donald Trump Will Inherit, Madiba Dennie & Jay Willis
A look at what Democrats can do in the remaining weeks before Inauguration Day—and what Republicans will be able to do in the years that follow it.
The Roberts Court Gets to Take Another Crack at Fair Labor Laws, Molly Coleman
If the corporate voices at the Supreme Court get their way, EMD v. Carrera will make it easier for employers to deny employees the overtime pay they’re owed.
This Week In Other Stuff We Appreciated
Donald Trump’s Supreme Court Majority Could Easily Rule Through 2045, Jane Mayer, The New Yorker
Even in Ed Whelan quote-adjusted terms, the Ed Whelan quote in here is pretty grim stuff.
Meet the Extremist Trump Judges Likely to Shift the Supreme Court Even Further Right, Mark Joseph Stern, Slate
“These justices will make Trump’s first three appointees look moderate by comparison. And their elevation will thwart Democrats’ hope of recapturing or rebalancing the court for the foreseeable future.”
Liberals Just Lost the Supreme Court For Decades to Come, Matt Ford, The New Republic
“By reelecting Trump and a Republican Senate majority, voters guaranteed that all but the youngest of them will live under a deeply conservative high court for the rest of their lives.”
This Week In Obscure Photos of Supreme Court Justices On Getty Images
Haven’t read it, but LOVE this idea!