I have never, ever, ever had a single impulse to go shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, which probably makes me one of those elitist coastal snobs out of touch with the Real America that Victor Davis Hanson is always railing about.
But it’s also a Black Friday for political bloggers–one of the slowest news days of the year, unlike, say, the day after Christmas when you can do year-end ruminations, or the day after Thanksgiving in a major election year, when you can extend post-election analysis.
The New York Times‘ top story today was on a subject (blue slips) I wrote about yesterday. There are other stories on the contraception coverage mandate cases before the Supreme Court, which we’ve covered more than adequately here (I spent 45 minutes this morning trying to decide if there was anything new to say on the contraception/abortifacient distinction Hobby Lobby’s lawyers are promoting, before concluding in the negative). And I have absolutely nothing to say about Kanye West’s views on the relative opportunities of African-American and Jewish politicians.
My wife did mercifully direct me to a “Black Monday” story: protests that were directed at newly appointed U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic, James “Wally” Brewster, whose same-sex marriage is roiling conservative Catholic and evangelical circles in his new posting. This is the sort of story that will almost certainly become less frequent in the years just ahead. And then there’s the story of the northern Nigerian “shariah police” destroying 240,000 bottles of beer in a prohibition enforcement measure in the city of Kano, which I believe made U.S. news because many conservatives think sharia law is being stealthily introduced in the U.S. by the Obama administration.
I’m sure several items worth writing about will pop up in the course of the day, but I apologize for having spotted so few of them so far. Feel free to offer suggestions in the comment thread.
