US Politics

[deanb]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/30/oklahoma-execution-botched-clayton-lockett

 

So this has been doing the rounds a fair bit today. It's the second case I'm aware of where after European nations have refused to ship lethal drugs to USA anymore that states have taken it into their own hands, mixed a bunch of shit together and found you can't just mix random shit together and expect someone to die when you inject it in them. Took nearly 45 minutes for the guy to die and the blinds were put down mid way though.

Guardian, and others, speculate it might spark some more discussion on role of Death penalty in modern america. Though given some of comments I've seen it almost seems like folks would prefer if death row inmates were killed in this fashion.

[TheMightyEthan]

I'm sure there's some small fraction of people who would prefer it this way, but I'm equally sure it's not a significant percentage.

[Mr. GOH!]

Americans are generally a bloodthirsty bunch. Sadly, their thirst is aimed at poor criminals rather than the rich ones.

[deanb]

Oh yeah forgot ot add, one thing that got me was that the state supreme court had issued a stay of execution until the source of the drugs could be ascertained. Until the governor forced through the execution. Now that it fucked up who has issued a stay of execution on the second execution and started and investigation into the fuck up? The governor.

[TheRevanchist]

Americans are generally a bloodthirsty bunch. Sadly, their thirst is aimed at poor criminals rather than the rich ones.

 

If you really want to read up on some rich fucked up assholes, check out the DuPont family.  Even if there is one person in that family who is not an asshole, you know that person is going to screwed over enough by his/her family to which, in turn, that person becomes an asshole.

[Mister Jack]

Don't do it.  It'll just make you angry, depressed, and disillusioned.

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, I generally don't like to get my news about stuff like this anywhere other than comedy news sources.  I know it's bad, but I just find it too frustrating/stressful otherwise, because I'm very upset by it but feel like there's nothing I can do about it.

[Mal]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/05/upshot/how-the-recession-reshaped-the-economy-in-255-charts.html?hp&_r=0

 

So number wise we have regained all job lost during the recession; however, recovery was not for all sectors and at times is uneven. This breaks it all down. It's pretty neat.

[deanb]

https://twitter.com/TheDemocrats/status/476110018820202498

 

Burn

[TheFlyingGerbil]

That's pretty rich when I remember Romney's wife's tale of struggle was how they only had the $$$ from his massive investment portfolio to live off in their mortgage free home while he was looking for a job.

[Mal]

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/house-majority-leader-cantor-defeated-primary

 

I wasn't aware of this until now but I think this is the first time a sitting House Majority Leader got defeated. Problem though... tea party. Still though, Brat beat Cantor's $5,000,000 with $200,000. Regardless my distaste for the tea party, I got to admire their conviction. Impressive yet scary.

[TheMightyEthan]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/30/us-usa-court-contraceptives-idUSKBN0F51IZ20140630

 

Today, in a 5-4 decision, the US Supreme Court ruled that closely held corporations can opt-out of Obamacare's contraceptive coverage requirements if it violates their owners' religious views.  The lawsuit was a challenge by Hobby Lobby, which is a craft store, and some other company I've never heard of against the requirement that companies with more than a certain number of employees have to provide health insurance that covers contraception.  The ruling applies only to "closely held" corporations, which essentially means corporations that are entirely owned by only a few people, and have restrictions on outside parties buying in.  It does not apply to publicly traded corporations.

 

The ruling is stupid and wrong.  Essentially the court said that in a closely held corporation there's no real distinction between the acts of the owners and the acts of the corporation, so requiring the corporation to provide this coverage is the same as requiring the owners to, and that requiring the owners to would violate their right to religious freedom.  The reason this is stupid and wrong is that the whole point of forming a corporation, even a closely held one, is that the corporation is a legally distinct entity from its owners, so its owners are not liable for its debts or wrongful acts (unless the owners themselves actually committed the wrongful acts).  This is beneficial because it allows people to form a company to do something without having to worry about the company's creditors taking the owner's individual possessions/money if the company goes under, as well as providing the owners with legal insulation against wrongful acts that may be committed by employees or other agents of the company that they may not be aware of.  So essentially Hobby Lobby now gets to have their cake and eat it too: they get all the legal protections of being a corporation, and the insulation from responsibility for the acts of the corporation, because the corporation is a separate legal entity, but as soon as the government wants to require that corporation to do something that they say conflicts with their religion that distinction evaporates and they get to impose their religious views on their employees.

 

*Edit* - Also, in a pole yesterday, 53% of Americans said employers should not be able to refuse health coverage based on the employer's religious views, only 35% said they should be able to.

Edited June 30, 2014 by TheMightyEthan

[Mister Jack]

The argument against birth control is completely senseless.  You don't want abortions, you don't want birth control, AND you think people, especially young people, are just going to stop fucking when those two things aren't available?  How naive and childish do you have to be to actually believe that's how the world works?

[TheMightyEthan]

They actually only objected to two kinds of contraceptives they believe cause abortions: the morning after pill (which doesn't, but thinking it does at least makes sense if you don't fully understand the specifics of the biology), and IUDs (which don't, and there's no basis at all for thinking they do).  They're fine with covering the pill and whatnot.  The problem is now some other company can come along and say "well I object to all forms of birth control on religious grounds" and under this case they're perfectly able to exempt from the law altogether.  That, and it's not your employer's business what kind of birth control you use.

 

*Edit* - Not to mention even more insane things, like "I object to vaccines on religious grounds" or "I object to all formal medical treatment on religious grounds, prayer is the only true medicine!"

Edited June 30, 2014 by TheMightyEthan

[TheRevanchist]

Actually, the supreme court has been on a roll this week. 

 

First, the ruling that searching a cell phone is not able to be done without a warrant.  This is brilliant!  A nice victory for freedom in America when it comes to illegal search and seizure.

 

Then, reinforcing the rights of people on what Ethan appears to attack.  You do have to remember that employment is voluntary.  Slavery ended a long time ago, and workers still have the right to strike if they so please.  I would hope that employers continue to pay for whatever a person's needs may be when it comes to medical, but, obviously, I won't be supporting/shopping Hobby Lobby anytime soon, despite my wife's love for their crappy crap.

 

The Supreme Court also ruled that Obama had violated laws when he made appointments without Congressional consent.  The intentions of the founding fathers was that no one person had absolute power, like a king does, in this country.  There would be a system of checks and balances.  Good for the Supreme Court.

 

Finally, the ruling on unions, which doesn't seem like much, but very much provides a voice to the little people within the unions, ensuring that the individual is heard.

 

This has probably the most interesting week in Supreme Court history that we have had in a few years.

[TheMightyEthan]

Corporations aren't people.  Corporations don't have religious beliefs.  Corporations are legal entities entirely distinct from their owners.  That is literally the entire point of corporations, that they are not the same as the people who make them up.  I'm fine with not forcing a sole proprietor/simple partnership to do things that interfere with their religious beliefs.  However, in the same way no one's putting a gun to your head and forcing you to work at Hobby Lobby, nobody's putting a gun to their head and forcing them to incorporate.  They incorporated so they could have legal distance from the actions and liabilities of the company, and that should go both ways.  The fact that it doesn't is a fucking farce.

 

What if the owners of a closely held corporation believe that the mixing of the races is an affront to God, so they don't allow anyone who isn't of European descent to utilize their services?

 

I agree with you on the searches and recess appointments.  My understanding on the union thing is just that they said home healthcare workers aren't state employees just because they're paid for by state programs, any more than a doctor who accepts Medicare is a state employee, which seems like a trivially obvious ruling to me which I also don't have a problem with.

[TheRevanchist]

As a side note:  It would have been in everyone's best interest if they stated "S Corps" instead of "closely held".  That would have cleared up SOME of the ambiguity and more clearly defined what they meant by "closely held".

 

I see your point, TME.  This ruling wasn't unanimous by any means, but was split 5-4.  So, this wasn't an easy one to settle between the two POVs.  I'm not sure what corporations will react to this, or how this will affect charities, but I would like your opinion on the charities aspect of this, as a lot of charities are religion based.

[Mister Jack]

Which presidential appointments were they specifically referring to?

[Mr. GOH!]

Recess appointments made during de facto but not de jure recesses. It's the right ruling on the law, but it allows the GOP to further obstruct the functioning of the executive branch.

 

The union ruling is interesting and somewhat dangerous to unions; it essentially says that the beneficiaries of public union negotiations can free ride on the resulting contracts. That is, the plaintiff in that case was forced to pay union fees ($40-$50 a months) because she benefited from public sector unions bargaining for a higher wage and certain labor conditions for all home healthcare workers under a specific program. The problem with this sort of thing is that it allows the direct beneficiaries of union negotiations to not support the union that got the the benefit in the first place. So the problem is that fewer and fewer people will trade the modest fee for union representation, unions will lose efficacy and bargaining power, and eventually fade away. Some folks like this. But those folks have never been laborers in an economy devoid of union representation, as was the case in the 1800's. But, if they succeed in dismantling unions, they certainly will have the chance to work in such an economic paradise in the coming years.

 

Hobby Lobby is a disgrace. It will be overruled by the Court within a couple decades. 

 

Edit: religious institutions and charities are already afforded a lot of options for not paying for birth control under the ACA. Justice Kennedy discusses how such a system could work with closely-held corporations, I believe.

 

S-corps are not the only closely-held corporations; it's an elective IRS status for which some (most?) closely held corporations qualify, but not all. LLCs are not S-corps but are closely held, for example.

Edited June 30, 2014 by Mr. GOH!

[TheMightyEthan]

@Revan: I'm fine with religious non-profits getting the exception, just like with taxes, but I don't think that for-profit companies should be able to use those kinds of benefits.

[FredEffinChopin]

I could be mistaken, but I understood this decision to apply only to very small businesses. It's a terribly slippery slope though, and Justice Ginsberg pointed out that there is nothing about the logic being employed in this decision that applies exclusively to small businesses, despite the deliberate wording of it. So while Hobby Lobby might ironically not qualify for an exemption at the moment, the precedent set gives them a platform from which to bitch more in the future. So yeah, I know the distinction isn't especially significant in the scheme of things, but I felt I should mention it. Again, unless I'm mistaken (and someone please correct me if I am), it's not quite as horrible as it seems... yet. 

 

Not that it makes the decision any less asinine, or the arguments any less dishonest. I will say that I'm a bit more receptive to weird exemptions from certain things when it comes to mom & pops with literally a few employees. Only slightly though, and I'm not sure this is one of those cases... I'm not especially surprised though, not by this court. I'm honestly more surprised that they were split that closely. I'd not have batted an eyelash had I heard that they unanimously ruled that contraception be a voluntary provision for every corporation, and that the FDA, doctors, pharmacists, and everyone who wears a white coat to work must write an apologetic letter to Hobby Lobby. Here's a nice little bit of intellectual gymnastics from Justice Alito:

 

"In this case, the companies’ owners say that four of the 20 contraceptives approved by the FDA work after an egg has been fertilized and thus are abortifacients. While many, if not most, doctors and scientists disagree, Alito said the point is that the owners believe offering such services — such as the morning-after pill and IUDs — violates their religious faiths."

 

I guess that's how we make our decisions now. Don't worry about science and the observable universe, it' what you arbitrarily believe that is important now, as long as you can tie it even tangentially to religion, and as long as that religion is some brand of Christianity. Tangentially is a generous word to use for this silliness, really. The Bible(s) don't say anything explicit about contraception, it's mostly just a false conflation of "religious" people and the values system that has prevailed in those religious communities. Just to make sure that I was correct about that (spoiler alert: I am), I checked a few sites out, and all I found was a bunch of very selectively interpreted and extrapolated nonsense, most of which only actually references a single verse that sounds like it applies to the act of male masturbation as much as it does to contraception. That shit isn't convenient though, so we'll just leave that there and keep what we like. 

 

How common is that theme, after all? I know a lot of religious people, and I see a lot of them on TV and read a lot of their words on the internet. They're usually not especially virtuous, and often far from it. By their own standards they're largely sinners, yet they don't let that stop them from chasing everyone around with a bag of stones when it suits them. Many of them are casually religious, and that's when you really get to see the convenient adoption of beliefs and practices at work. Watch these people fuck their way through partners until they get married, and even through marriage, then watch these same people talk about how ungodly homosexuals are for existing. They can turn their heads when it comes to divorce (in that sacred institution that they swear is constantly under threat by same-sex couples), but try to challenge them on a wedge issue that some shithead overemphasized for political capitol, and watch their religious beliefs suddenly become "deeply held". Kiss my ass with that bullshit already.

[TheMightyEthan]

It refers to "close corporations", not small businesses.  Close corporations are essentially corporations owned by a small number of people, and with restrictions on how other people can buy into them (i.e. they're not publicly tradeable).  Hobby Lobby does qualify for an exemption under the ruling because, even though they have 572 stores 21,000 employees, they're a close corporation owned all by one family.

 

As far as the thing about their beliefs being wrong, that's just how religious freedom works.  It's extremely well established in first amendment cases that you can't look into whether a person's religious belief is correct, or even if it's reasonable.  As long as they sincerely believe it you have to accept that that is their belief, and then decide whether the law is permissible or not given that they believe that.

 

The stupid part of this ruling isn't that the court said they had to take their religious belief as they found it, the stupid part is that they said a corporation can have religious beliefs at all.

[TheMightyEthan]

Aha, Ruth Bader Ginsburg articulated better than I could (shocking how that works...) why religious nonprofits are okay while for-profits aren't:

 

Religious organizations exist to foster the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of for-profit corporations. Workers who sustain the operations of those corporations commonly are not drawn from one religious community.

 

It's just one part of what I think the justification is, but it's an important part.  The other thing I would add is that religious non-profits exist primarily to perform some good or function for others that they believe their religion encourages, whereas for-profits exist primarily to make money for their owners.

 

*Edit* - Source:  http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/best-lines-hobby-lobby-decision

[FredEffinChopin]

Thanks for that. I should have just investigated the term more closely, as I wasted as much time as it would have taken if not more writing that first paragraph.

 

As far as the thing about their beliefs being wrong, that's just how religious freedom works.  It's extremely well established in first amendment cases that you can't look into whether a person's religious belief is correct, or even if it's reasonable.  As long as they sincerely believe it you have to accept that that is their belief, and then decide whether the law is permissible or not given that they believe that.

 

I'm not saying their religious beliefs are wrong. There is simply no such thing as a religious belief about IUDs or the morning after pill. Not even a false one being presented. The argument  seems to go:

 

 

HL: "Our religion dictates that abortion is wrong, and so the morning after pill is wrong. As such, we won't be touching those."

 

Doctor: "Actually, these things aren't abortive in nature, they preventative. They don't qualify."

 

HL: "I don't care, I'm telling you that I think  that it is an abortive process, and so I'll be expecting protection against it anyway since it's my religious belief."

 

 

That is not a religious belief about those IUDs, it's a misunderstanding of the science behind a medical procedure. HL had said themselves that they aren't against contraceptives, they just don't believe that 4 of the 20 items being offered fall under that category. The parameters that they used to define that categorization were roughly "Life begins at conception", and the philosophy goes back to a Bible verse in which someone ejaculated on the floor. Not that that's relevant other than to point out that they should probably be against all contraception. The relevant part though, as that they don't have an earnest religious reason for their "deeply held" beliefs in regards to these 4 methods. It's a challenge of a process that has been thoroughly sussed out, so that it would be redefined so it too can be ignored on religious grounds. Honestly, I think they would have a better argument if they would rather forego all contraception, as at least there would be consistency. They are just deciding that they get to define when a pregnancy begins, rather than the people who have observed and taught us how and when it begins. The hormonal procedures and birth control pills that they are ok with aren't any less physiologically disruptive than Ella or or Plan B. Certainly the vasectomies they support are more so... Nothing on that list though ,aborts a pregnancy. The problem here is the idea: "Yeah, but the sperm already went into the body with this one." 

 

The part about corporations having religious beliefs is of course monumentally stupid (or dishonest, if we're being cynical/real about it), but the Supreme Court decided that a while back that they are people, and that money = speech to boot. I'm not surprised by it in the least. 

[TheMightyEthan]

What matters is that they say "our religious beliefs prevent us from paying for these 4 methods", not whether their reasoning to arrive at that conclusion is correct.  The court cannot consider whether their reasoning is scientifically, philosophically, or theologically flawed, they have to take the belief as the believer presents it.  Even religious beliefs that are stupid, arbitrary, and inconsistent are still religious beliefs, and the first amendment protects the right to free exercise of your religion.

 

Some people hold a religious belief that the Sun goes around the Earth, based on certain Bible passages.  This belief is demonstrably wrong, but it's still their religious belief.