April 12, 2023: NASA, Trump Indictment, Abortion, Unequal Justice in the United States

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1. NASA announced the crew that would be flying the Artemis II mission and landing on the moon. It’s kind of exciting to have ambitious space goals again, but at the same time, this stuff is expensive. Each Artemis launch costs around $4 billion. The Artemis program at NASA will cost $93 billion over the next four years. With all of the private companies developing better technologies to send payloads to outer space, shouldn’t we spend this money elsewhere? For the cost of this program, the US government could give 9,300 people $10 million each, isn’t that a far better way to spend the money?
2. I want to spend some time explaining how grand juries work, and how DAs make decisions about who and what to prosecute. There is actually some variation in this state by state. But, after I explain this, I want to discuss the Trump indictment. Is this case an example of prosecutorial overreach?
3. The State of Idaho just made it a felony for someone to transport a minor across state lines to access an abortion without parental consent. Again, we probably all agree that abortion is wrong, but how do you feel about this particular law? It seems like Republicans are not being intellectually consistent. When it comes to transgender issues, they do not want to allow parents to make the choice for their children; but when it comes to abortion, they want parents to have some say in what their children do. My biggest problem with this law is that it carries with it a mandatory minimum sentence of two years. If Republicans are really worried about prosecutors overreaching, why give them a tool like this? Someone who goes on a roadtrip with a minor who ends up having an abortion along the way could easily find themselves on the wrong side of the law facing a mandatory minimum sentence. Is Idaho going too far? 

Big Question: 

Let’s talk about the justice system in the United States of America. For a long time, racial minorities have argued that they get the short end of the stick when it comes to equal justice in the United States because when there is some kind of a question about whether or not to charge them, they often get treated more harshly than an otherwise similar white defendant. Yet right now people seem to be upset that former President Trump was charged with a crime because they feel like political motivations are the wrong reason to indict somebody. If we think about the summer of 2020 and all of the protests relating to African Americans who were unfairly treated by law enforcement. And also think about the way that Trump supporters are talking about the indictment in New York State. Doesn't it lead to the natural conclusion that the justice system in the United States does not treat people equally? When prosecutorial decisions and decisions about who to arrest and where to arrest and who to charge and when to charge are left up to individuals, doesn't that inevitably lead to an unequal system of justice? Do we have a moral obligation to find means to make sure that everyone is treated the same under the law? Does equal justice mean that everybody must be treated the same?