Bad. More bad.

So SCOTUS has decided:  protections accorded human beings by the Bill of Rights are extended, yet again, to Corporations.

• Since corporations are persons and speech is money, political donations are from them are unrestricted. It’s Free Speech, protected by the First Amendment.
• And now, some for-profit corporations have been granted Freedom of Religion and the attendant protections to exercised those ‘freedoms’ even when in opposition to the civil laws of the land.

Heed Thomas Jefferson:

“The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.”

Say no more.

This disgusts me

The President needs to stop this and find a way out. But he isn’t. He’s defending it. The inhumanity of force-feeding political prisoners plays out in the wider world just like Abu-Ghraib. But this time, it’s my guy doing it. Shame, shame, shame.

MIAMI, July 3 (Reuters) – The U.S. federal court has no  jurisdiction and no legal basis to intervene in the  force-feeding of prisoners at the Guantanamo naval base, the  Obama administration argued in a court document on Wednesday

Another picture I like

Although I do think Ginsberg would look better is a very soft grey. (Hat tip cousin Jeff.)

 

So, the local hair salon fires all its straight employees

WASHINGTON, DC — Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who is touted as a top GOP presidential prospect in 2016, thinks it should be legal to fire someone for their sexual orientation.

So sayeth the boy-faced pretend immigrant.

It’ll happen now

The Supreme Court has just said they’ll ‘take up’ the gay marriage case. They’re almost certain to  find DOMA and other State laws unconstitutional. The US Supreme Court is not in the business of codifying denials of human rights.

So sometime next spring, expect full rights to be established as the law in the United States.

Tony Perkins needs a drink. Hope someone offers one to the poor guy.

(and I will finally get to wear that dress to my best old buddies wedding . . . )

I didn’t know we were THIS far behind . . .

Or more accurately, I didn’t realize how much of the developed world has surpassed us in the expansion of universal human rights. To wit: dark blue indicates where same sex marriage is expressly forbidden by law. Do you see dark blue anywhere but in the US???

Just sayin’

Marriage is a legal act, not a religious one. Married is a legal status.

So all unions should be – in law – civil unions, no matter the genders.

If people want to, they can go ahead and add a religious ceremony.

 

Bill Moyers talks to smart people

M y brother was here last week. We talked a lot about many things. He’s a fine conversationalist he is. And I’m not bad, so we had a good time. But he’s got an edge on me with the depth and breadth of his knowledge. And personal experience wtih much of which he speaks.

He’s a PhD in Philosophy, a former priest who studied texts in Latin and Hebrew. He’s a father and a grandfather. He’s a sailor and a superb do-it-yourselfer (a longtime fantasy of mine is to have him prisoner for a week in my house with his tools and no books. That would be sweet.)

He’s a lecturer, a college professor, a prolific author and travels extensively to meetings and workshops here and in Europe and in Africa. I’ve no idea how he has time to do any of these things. It’s annoying.

One of the things we talked about was labor and labor unions. I said I thought that the union model, as practiced today, has failed. It was the right model for a long time but is the wrong model for these times and needs to be reinvented.

He disagreed. But here’s some evidence that, for maybe the first time ever, because some very smart people are saying the same thing, I was right and he was wrong.

The relevant discussion is the first 20 minutes or so here from yesterday’s Bill Moyers’ show. It’s fascinating.

At least they didn’t make us marry the goat

Truly barbaric

Florida just lifted a law requiring that women in prison be shackled during childbirth.

We shackled women during childbirth? Until 2012?

I weep.

Once upon a time in America

A huge wave of immigration into this country from Vietnam began in 1974. In spite of us having fought an actual declared war for ten years in which 55,000 Americans died, we welcomed the newcomers. We knew not to color all Vietnamese with the same brush. Many of those who came were probably Viet Cong because it wasn’t possible to document who was who.

We had become less xenophobic by 1974 because the glory days of the Civil Rights movement – which was in fact a human rights movement – were still with us. Our horizons were expanding, not contracting as they seem to be today.

It might have been a very different story had there been talk radio or Fox news in 1974 (hell, MLK would have been branded a Communist and civil rights wouldn’t have happend in the 60’s). Blessdely there was not, so we welcomed those Vietnamese – and today their grandchildren are in Congress. And it’s because that’s who we were.