Fuck the Fucking Supreme Court

Seriously, let’s get this floated up to the Supreme Court. If a corporation is a person, then can I marry it, wait until it dies and then inherit at least half its legal property as a result of the marriage? Cause, this bullshit circus of convenience and legal abstraction needs to be put to the test in the worst possible way. Someone marry Hobby Lobby and then take Hobby Lobby to criminal court for intimate partner abuse because of its controlling nature. Or gay marry it and then open it up to poly. Whatever it takes to put Scalia’s fear of everything not white male Catholic against this obscenity that is corporate personhood.

Well, no avoiding it, let’s dive right into the atrocity that everyone is talking about.

Ann Coulter, Sad Little Internet Corner of Obscurity.com:
America’s Favorite National Pastime: Hating Soccer
*

The US was so fucking close. I mean, where was Cameron in helping out against Lukaku in extra time? And oh man, that Julian Green strike? Or that sitter that Wondo missed? He’s going to be feeling that for awhile.

Oh well, it’s not the end of the world like so many seem to think it is. We had a great fucking campaign, survived the less deathy of the two Group of Death groups, and nearly put it away against a team that ate our fucking lunch less than a year ago. and hey, Costa Rica is still in it like the ultimate underdog they’ve been this tournament and-

Confusingly Not Bruce (aka V the K), Self Hating Homo Weekly:
SCOTUS rules for Hobby Lobby; Lefties Go Nanners

Right… The Fucking Fuck Court and their Hobby Lobby fuck you decision…

I’m almost impressed by the whole affair. I mean, the Gang of 5 have somehow managed to top themselves in just how openly they do not give a fuck about precedence, reality, or the rule of law. A narrow decision that makes sure their giant fuck you can only apply to contraception used by women and that the religious feelings of Fundigelicals and The most child molestery wing of the Fucking Catholic Church are the only ones that count enough to overwrite someone’s economic and human rights. That nonetheless manages to broadly create a precedent for combining the notion of a Conscience Clause and Corporate Personhood to argue that a CEO can basically use their corporation as a massive club to run roughshod over their worker’s religious freedoms and demand compulsory participation in their hypocritical** “beliefs”. It’s the sort of thing that historic scholars will look back on like Plessy v Ferguson or the original anti-civil-rights fuck you which first invented the abomination that has been corporate personhood in the first place.

And there’s so many ways this will cascade into horrible effects for so many of those who were assigned as female at birth. The way this increases the difficulty in accessing any form of contraception that an ovary-bearing person can adequately control for their physical health and to avoid that supposedly terrible super common surgery that is abortion***. The way it dramatically expands corporate personhood and reinforces the segregation-style bullshit that is the Conscience Clause in a way that will allow new and inventive ways that a corporate head can fuck over their employee’s basic human rights while having full deniability and a ready made immortal fall guy. And yeah, the way that will eventually burn the same fucks cheering this decision in ways they will surely blame liberals. There’s no aspect of this that won’t be long term terrible from a legal and employee’s rights perspective.

But despite the ecstatic hyena-like jeering of those sad right-wing fucks who apparently have no other source of joy beyond the perceived suffering of any group not cis white male and Dominionist Christian, I don’t think this decision will do any favors for the professional women-hating movement that sheparded this in.

I mean, it’s worth noting the simple fact that the War on Women hasn’t exactly gone unnoticed or unresponded to and has already sped up the way that modern conservatism has been directed back behind the wood shed followed shortly by a small boy with a rifle. And the way that the rabid anti-feminists have transparently linked their previously successful abortion rhetoric with the massively unpopular attacks on all sex education, contraception access, and women’s health in general has completely destroyed the power of that anti-choice rhetoric.

After all, it’s worth noting that nearly every single person in the US uses at least one form of contraception and very few people outside of repressed child molester money laundering operations really want contraception to go away or be rendered as difficult to access as abortion services. 99% of women use some form of contraception and birth control has become one of those stables of American Life at this point. After scares like the AIDS crisis and various tales of pregnancy scares by friends, few people are really all that eager to throw in their two cents with the out-of-touch theocrats who own our highest (in the most pharmaceutical of senses) judicial body. I mean, for fuck’s sake, not even the dedicated professional women-haters that make up the MRAs want to ban contraceptives**** and they think that rape is both hilarious and should be legal.

And a decision like this is galvanizing ever-stronger defections among women tired of being fucked around in obvious discriminatory bullshit like this while their health and their reproductive freedoms are being more and more encroached upon and that is going to be translated into even more women drifting farther and farther away from conservatism and thus fewer and fewer districts were Republicans have a fucking chance anymore.

Not that that reality or how unpopular their cheers will be will ever dissuade a conservative from doing a victory dance whenever life gets shittier for people they have deemed as liberal.

Shorter (or the last port before Jungle):

  • In yo face, liberals! You were all like “aww, I think I’m going to have religious freedom and a right to fair compensation and non-discriminatory enforcement of the law” and they were all like “syke, you ain’t people” and then you were all “waah, I iz sad” and despite apparently being gay, that gave me the biggest chubby I’ll ever have in my life.

So while this decision is terrible in so many ways, it’s not at all surprising. I mean, yes, this Supreme Court is a particularly vile manifestation of this, but the Supreme Court has almost always been god awful.

We’ve just forgotten because of the narrow slip of history in which the Supreme Court actually supported minority rights and the protection of those most at risk like it’s supposed to, but for most of the span of American history, the Supreme Court has mostly served to make things worse and entrench inequality. Whether it be Plessy v Ferguson or Dred Scott or the various other decisions that entrenched legal racism into the framework of law for centuries on end or it be the attempts to stymie any attempts to address the Great Depression in any meaningful way, the Supreme Court has often been on the wrong side of history and become an obstacle to overcome with Amendments or Executive Threats.

Heck, even its famous victories were often cases of overruling previous terrible decisions, undoing the damage of the past to make right what was painfully delayed. It has also has always followed society, rather than lead it, though that has sometimes beaten the equally slow political path or enforcement path to freedoms. And it’s honestly what one would expect when you grab a bunch of the oldest fucks you can find and give them lifetime appointments with minimal oversight until they go senile and ever-more-out-of-touch with the rest of the world.

So a Supreme Court and especially this Supreme Court (just imagine the sound of an angry cat hissing whenever I note this Supreme Court) handing down a decision this out-of-touch, dangerous, and detrimental to America is not really that much of a shock. Though that doesn’t exactly decrease the anger at seeing such a blatant deliberately punitive fuck you directed to all those with uteruses.

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that some companies cannot be forced to provide birth control and abortifacients to their employees on First Amendment grounds.

It is conveniently left out of every single right-wing victory lap I’ve read on this subject (and I’ve read enough to fulfill my stomach’s bile surplus for the year) the inconvenient fact that dictating how one’s employees can use their earned health care as part of their compensation package for work provided for the company is a gross theft from one’s employees, a smack to the notion of economic rights, and an inherent violation of each employee’s religious freedoms and right to spend their earned money how they want.

And that’s probably because even those who cheer the destruction of cities to global warming realize that it might just look bad cheering on the current 1% future close-range guillotine inspectors who want to migrate salaries into a charitable donation one’s company bequeaths out of the goodness of their heart and thus can dictate how each dollar is spent.

And this isn’t just seen in this Hobby Lobby push, but also in the way right-wingers have tried to argue that the only people who should have a say with regards to taxes or public services are the ultra-wealthy, not to mention the way we’re supposed to treat “job creators” as some magical untoward thing crafting something from the nothing instead of a bunch of greedy bastards paying as little as possible so other people can create the actual value that they siphon wealth off of like the limpets they are.

And it’s the aggressiveness of this that I think is starting to become impossible to ignore. The 1% will not rest until serfdom is the rightful law of the land and each CEO can rule over his (and in their ideal world, it is always a his) subjects with absolute abandon. Which when combined with the way that they are still holding this economy under the waves until it stops kicking and the careless way they are preventing any attempt to adapt before climate change brings home its hefty bill even more than it already has in the costly devastation of major American cities, major droughts, and unseasonable storms really rather makes the eventual guillotines kinda inevitable. Because the fuckers are really not leaving us many choices for peaceful resolution of these issues crucial to our survival.

The left claims that by not forcing third parties to provide contraceptives and abortifacients to women, these companies are “denying women access to health care.”

Yes. If you target forms of healthcare that predominantly affect women and argue that it shouldn’t be covered or paid for like with this bullshit about contraceptives or the earlier attempts by right-wingers to get prenatal care, gynecological services, and mammograms taken out of Obamacare (or rather hoping to use hatred against all things woman to get away with gutting the ACA), then yes, I think it’s pretty reasonable to assume you are seeking to “deny women access to health care”.

Because you are.

And it gets remarkably more transparent when you do it in such a way to ensure that denying women and others access to a health service that 99% of women use cannot be also used to somehow stop supporting the ample insurance coverage for boner pills or let those creepy Christian Scientists block any “real health care”.

The left apparently believes that 1.) women are just life-support systems for uteri, and the only health care needs they have are for contraceptives, so that they may provide sexual gratification to men without risk of creating children

This may very well be the saddest attempt at an “but you see, it is actually the minority group who are the real fascists” that I’ve ever encountered. And that’s saying something considering the amount of time I have been writing for this blog.

I mean, one could counter the obvious, but why bother because it pretty much destroys itself? I mean, there’s the whole fact that the writer is supposedly a gay man who eventually hopes to find someone self-hating enough to let him provide sexual gratification without the risk of creating children. The slipping on his own failed Cruyff turn with trying to argue that actually caring about women instead of some bizarre fetishization of an amorphous body part is the real amorphous body part fetishization. Or the sad wet Santorum covered fart at the end when he has to add “without risk of creating children” and undermines the whole scare tactic he was trying to sell. Oh does, dastardly liberals and their vile woman-hatred, sex-obssessed, objectifying ways… not wanting a woman to have an unwanted pregnancy… they’re the worst.

Also, just a note to all theocratic fascists out there. Giving women no options to prevent pregnancy is not actually going to get women to politely refuse to have sex (but not in a way that prevents any man who wants it from receiving it from any woman he chooses to receive it from) ever again or kindly give up on this whole “career fad” and start cosplaying 1960s television characters who never existed. It’s going to get a whole bunch of women turning out in masse to the remaining abortion clinics out there or otherwise following some ill-advised internet remedy for “solving the problem”.

There really is no going back. And it’s fucking time you accepted it already.

and 2.) women are stupid, helpless creatures, who must have their contraception provided to them because they are incapable of getting it on their own.

Durr, stupid wimmin not understand that contraception fairy visit their house every night and leave IUDs under pillow. What dumb sluts!

I bet they don’t even understand that the only reason that penis-bearer-controlled birth control options are so readily common and handed out for free is because of feminist and queer activism in the shadow of the AIDS crisis or that uterus-bearing-controlled birth control options are not used once per sexual encounter, but rather the same amount every month whether one is the village bicycle or a celibate nun…

Um… liberals iz the sexist ones?

Birth control, by the way, runs about $9 a month for most women.

I have been seeing this priceless bit of bullshit everywhere as it seems to be the talking point from on high so I decided to go on a fun little mango detour to the site that was linked, which seemed to be fresh from the Survivalist nutjob side of the force. There was a listing of supposed $9 costs for a particular brand of oral contraceptive at various common retail stores such as Target and Walmart…

And every single one of their links to this supposed proof were 100% dead, non-functional links and there is absolutely no sign that there would be anything to find as general searches for the oral contraception turn up nothing on the sites of these companies.

Which makes a queer bit of sense when you realize that oral contraceptives are not over-the-counter medicine.

I.e. oral contraceptives and other long-lasting and highly effective contraceptive methods like IUDs need a prescription. I.e. they need a doctor’s visit that is prohibitively expensive out of pocket and receive a script for something that is cheap with copay but fuckme in cost on its own. I.e. oh hey, what does insurance mean?

No, seriously, what does insurance mean? Because apparently the right-wing fucks really don’t have a clue and so have been trumpeting the fact that oral contraceptives are rather reasonable when you pay a monthly copay with good insurance as proof that nobody needs insurance that covers contraceptives.

This is their go-to argument…

How the hell are these people holding major positions of power in our American government?

The left was really, really hoping that Church would once again be forced to bow at the feet of State, but it didn’t happen.

Freedom of religion, much like freedom of speech only applies to our glorious corporate masters sitting upon their plantation drinking fresh squeezed lemonade. Because reminding women and racial minorities that they are literally less than scraps of paper and building edifices is more important than whether or not your religious beliefs can be run roughshod by the fucks stealing your labor to enrich themselves and pretending its all the fault of some guy named Coca Cola LLC.

So, they responded in the usual manner and spewed the f-word like a sailor with Tourrette’s

Fuck the fucking fuckers with their fuckfaced decision of fuckwittery befitting a fuckhole. Fuck their fucking Vatican sponsored fucking lack of fucking morals. And their fucking fuckity fuck fuck disregard for the fucking rule of fucking law.

Hey, can’t say he’s wrong.

But that’s just because liberals, oddly enough, seem to give a fucking fuck about injustice and do not believe that one’s dehumanizing and deliberately cruel theft of rights is somehow more “civil” for lacking the language of the uncouth lower classes.

Some things deserve a good string of fucks. This is one of them.

And frankly, it is over 50 years past the rise of Carlin. Curse words just don’t have the same taboo they used to. And pretending that they do or that they invalidate a person’s argument or emotional reality by inclusion just makes you look like that 90 year old beanie baby collector who is still shocked that they can fit a computer inside of a house these days.

while threatening Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court, churches, and America generally with vandalism, arson, and murder.

Proof of this? Some cherry-picked people on Twitter being angry about the decision and wishing clearly hyperbolic and extremely generalized harm to the company (often in a way that deliberately distanced itself from any direct harm from people).

But you know, the incredibly frequent number of people who take potshots at doctors and plant bombs in clinics isn’t enough to warrant justifying a circle of protection from protestors for clinics (which will in no way eliminate the bullshit free speech zones or the way that cops circled quickly to ensure no Pride event stayed overlong in a non-designated area (though luckily without the near reenactment of Stonewall that characterized the end of Trans March last year)). Oh, on that note, fuck you very much Supreme Court for that little piece of bullshit you just had to throw in there. Really makes it look like you “peace-loving baby lovers” aren’t the terrorist supporting scum you are.

And then, of course, some of us question why, in a free society, the Government has any business whatsoever dictating to private companies what benefits they must provide to their employees.

Slavery was legal from before the founding of America until 1865. Before and after that, corporate towns that made it impossible for employees to actually earn any money to live were extremely common. Additionally corporations could dictate who their employees could vote for with the threat of termination or simply not letting their employees go to the polls unless they voted in their owner’s interest. Conditions in the late 19th century for employees was often fatal with safety precautions ignored in favor of what was cheapest and could generate the most profit for the owners. Many children, women, and racial minorities died. In the South and in large areas of the North and West, segregation was the law of the land until the 1960s, banning many blacks (as well as asians and latin@s) from equal access to schools, public transportation, food, accommodations, and so on. Ever since, all manner of sneaky bullshit has been enacted to ensure an unequal division of resources for majority minority communities as compared to majority white communities. Add into that the way that discrimination and glass ceilings have been normalized and are commonly used against all manner of marginalized groups with enforcement being unable to adequately address the issue or even care about it. Also, there has been no end of corporations knowingly poisoning communities or lying about health risks or fatal flaws they were aware of if it would earn them a temporarily higher profit. Such large-scale disasters as the BP oil spills or the towns rendered completely toxic by fracking or the high death tolls in West Virginia mines run rampant and have only increased with decreased regulation. Recalls are higher than ever for food and products and even the wingnuts have noticed and rallied when their disingenuous me-tooism could be piled on General Motors for their reckless endangerment of the public.

In short, why the fuck would someone NOT believe that the government has a vested interest in checking up on and checking against corporate America’s long proven track record of putting lives at risk and violating human rights in support of a little profit or a nasty attempt at creating one’s own private law?

Oh right, because these people are fucking morons who think that sucking the 1% wrinkled VD covered dick will somehow spare them the pain that is caused whenever these fuckers pay off another victory. Or rather because their paycheck depends on them choking that chubby inch down and they don’t have the qualifications to make a living in any other field in this broken and bloody economy.

Fuck, if corporations are people, let them take their place in line for the guillotines. We’ll even tell the CEOs behind them that the speed of their progress through the line depends directly on how easy it proves to cut the necks of those amorphous extensions of their selves that was so racistly sold as a real fucking being with more rights than will ever be given to an actual living breathing, uterus-bearing human.

And it really can’t come soon enough.


‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. Every single smug dude penning a “hurr hurr women, we showed you” article in the wake of this farce deserves to wake up tomorrow morning with a functional uterine system and a broken condom in the wastebasket. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™


* For those wanting my real take on Ann Coulter’s sad little swipe at the World Cup as it was smashing through all the Nielsen Ratings, I’d honestly be hard pressed to top this mango-puree by Amanda Marcotte. I mean, it hits all the points one could hit with a piece like that. The bizarre fixation on the idea that soccer is somehow only played by children when the World Cup is on every pub television in the states and the only reason she is whining about it is that it is proving deeply popular with adults. The weird assertions that there are no injuries in soccer when Clint Dempsey played an entire game with a broken nose. And of course the race-baiting foghorn as dogwhistle at the end undermining itself by having to go back 4 generations to claim “Real Americaness”. So, yeah, I got beat like a yellow-card receiving player going in for an ill-advised late sliding tackle.

** Others have already noted the ironic fact that the Hobby Lobby’s portfolio of investments include the same birth control pills that its lawyers were trying to argue were a giant huge horrible betrayal of its deeply rooted stone beliefs nestled physically in the bowels of its iron rebar and concrete foundations to *coughcough* actually provide their employee’s their promised payment *coughcough* I mean provide out of its generous fiber optically connected heart because apparently corporations should be viewed like charities donating largesse when they try and weasel out of paying their employees what they owe.

*** Oh hey, can we just take a few seconds to dwell on just how obscene it is that we’re supposed to pretend that the right wing gives a flying fuck about abortion beyond it being a device to dog whistle against women being full people in control of heir bodies? Because these fucks could not fucking care about ANY fucking method that would actually reduce the number of these supposedly baby-killing worse than the Holocaust (no anti-semitism there, no siree) common surgical procedures. Whether it be more honest sex education, easier access to birth control and contraceptives, or universal access to Plan B, they are always the first against it because they just cannot fucking hide that what drives them is punishing women for having sex and having options outside of being some abusive man’s sex slave and housekeeper.

**** Sure, it’s because they think that women are spermjacking their semen in order to impregnate themselves and then get on the supposedly lucrative child support bandwagon, but it’s still support, nonetheless.

 

Comments: 72

 
 
 

That nonetheless manages to broadly create a precedent for combining the notion of a Conscience Clause and Corporate Personhood to argue that a CEO can basically use their corporation as a massive club to run roughshod over their worker’s religious freedoms and demand compulsory participation in their hypocritical** “beliefs”.

This is the third blog I post this on this morning, but… the ultimate prize is dismantling the whole section of civil rights legislation that says you’re not allowed to discriminate against protected categories even if you’re running a private business (hotels, restaurants, bars, etc). That was one of the defining points of the anti-civil rights “moderate” (Nixon/Reagan as opposed to Wallace) faction fifty years ago, it’s the mainstream opinion on today’s GOP based on pretty much all those that I’ve met, and IMO that’s ultimately what they’re shooting for.

 
 

I’m almost impressed by the whole affair. I mean, the Gang of 5 have somehow managed to top themselves in just how openly they do not give a fuck about precedence, reality, or the rule of law. A narrow decision that makes sure their giant fuck you can only apply to contraception used by women and that the religious feelings of Fundigelicals and The most child molestery wing of the Fucking Catholic Church are the only ones that count enough to overwrite someone’s economic and human rights.

And I can’t even count how many times I’ve observed this in the last few days, but… this becomes a source of funny, but really really black humor when put side to side with what the Know Nothings used to say about Catholics two hundred or so years ago. That they were all agents of the Pope conspiring to destroy America and impose theocracy. You know the drill.

Now taht it’s actually happening, of course, all the nativist Prods would rather talk “Creeping Sharia.” The difference, of course, being that in the meantime Catholics (or at least the Irish, Italian, Polish et al varities) became white. So, to summarize: if you’re on the These People list, each and every last person who shares your religion will be treated as a full blown coup d’état waiting to happen, no matter how poor or powerless. If, on the other hand, you’ve been cleared for Real American status? You’re free to sit on the Supreme Court and actually do more or less all the things that you were being accused of before your clearance.

We’ve just forgotten because of the narrow slip of history in which the Supreme Court actually supported minority rights and the protection of those most at risk like it’s supposed to, but for most of the span of American history, the Supreme Court has mostly served to make things worse and entrench inequality. Whether it be Plessy v Ferguson or Dred Scott or the various other decisions that entrenched legal racism into the framework of law for centuries on end or it be the attempts to stymie any attempts to address the Great Depression in any meaningful way, the Supreme Court has often been on the wrong side of history and become an obstacle to overcome with Amendments or Executive Threats.

I’ve only flipped through Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States,” but one of the things that stood out to me about the Gilded Age was that according to him, the courts essentially redefined the three post-Civil War amendments away from protecting the rights of minorities (what they were supposed to do) and towards protecting the “rights” of the robber barons. With all kinds of arguments like, well, this one, amounting to the notion that regulating business was a violation of businessmen’s civil rights. The more things change…

Slavery was legal from before the founding of America until 1865. Before and after that, corporate towns that made it impossible for employees to actually earn any money to live were extremely common.

“Company towns,” I believe the colloquialism was. Bedford Falls from It’s A Wonderful Life, Hazzard County from Dukes of Hazzard, etc. America as a few hundred little fiefdoms each run by the local Lord of the Manor, with no overbearing federal government to interfere with their right to rule the peasants. That’s what they ultimately want back.

 
 

Sorry folks, been caught up in a bunch of shit lately, good shit though, got a couple of gigs coming up and possibly a proper reunion with an old band, which might make three bands currently rolling…Have I mentioned that learning to become a drummer is #1 on the bucket list…There is light at the end of the tunnel on that front….

That said, It took about eighty minutes into the game to figure out the cunning plan that Team USA was employing in the game: “Spend most of the time defending our goal and wear out their forwards by allowing them to shoot at Howard all of the time, then pop one in in extra time.”

I will admit that making music is a lot more enjoyable than pounding on idiots.

I’m almost impressed by the whole affair. I mean, the Gang of 5 have somehow managed to top themselves in just how openly they do not give a fuck about precedence, reality, or the rule of law.

As am I, though vacillating between golf clap and shotgun, and wondering if my mid ’80’s notebooks lost to the mists of time found their way into the wrong hands…


 
 

Yeah, anyone saying the drugs covered by the contraceptive benefit were abortaficients should be dismissed with harsh laughter and the snap of wet towels.

I don’t know who this is supposed to fool, but it is funny watching them tee hee because they think all of the women who use non-OTC contraceptive methods will be like “Oh, you just don’t want me to buy abortion in a box by accident. Duuur, Okedokey!”

I wonder how long it will be before they drop the inconvenient mention of birth control and just say the supreme court ruled your boss doesn’t have to pay for your abortion?!!?

 
 

Forgot: Anyone who thinks this ruling will only affect the slutty ladies who don’t want to get pregnant every time they have sex with a man (Like yer MOM), is of course a dumbfuck and three-quarters.

Shorter Homophobes for God, Yaweh & Allah – Accommodate our hatred of the queermonauts by continuing to hand over the cash or the poor people will get it.

 
 

Chris has it right about the bizarro world actions of the 5 of the 6 Catholics on the Supreme Court. (No prizes for guessing the gender of the dissenter there, who actually speaks for the overwhelming majority of American Catholics rather than the drag-wearing old guys with funny hats.) Al Smith, John Kennedy, and William f***ing Brennan (ask your parents kids) have to be pissed beyond all measure that they, secularists in law to core, had to put up with the whole Papist mind control bull, while the Gang of 5 are able to just toss an outdated, badly reasoned encyclical into motherf***ing U.S. law without a word of complaint from the nimrod anti-Papist Protestants who made Smith’s, Kennedy’s, and every other prominent Catholics’ before 1964 lives a living hell.

Then there was the whole weird exemption for people who hate the ladies only. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientologists, and Christian Scientists, to name three, are not allowed to impose their beliefs on their workers according to Alito because reasons, peasants. Not that I think they should be allowed to do that, but consistency would seem to demand it

Fuck the majority on the Supreme Court.

 
 

One thing about the caption though. Corporations never die, at least not so you can inherit anything. Bankruptcy and takeovers “kill” companies, but then there is nothing to inherit.

 
 

[Dennis],
Does prostitution come without consequences then?
And just to clear up something you clearly don’t understand, nor do your brainless, apparently sexually unexperienced think-alikes, married heterosexual people living in blessed matrimony (which incidentally is a sacrament conceived by God in the time of human innocence, at least that’s what I’ve heard) use birth control all the damn time.
And thirdly your disapproval of sex (free or otherwise) has pretty much nothing to do with the Hobby Lobby case. The case is about the ability of business owners, in the drag of their corporation, to impose their beliefs hypocritically and selectively on workers who have no choice but to eat this shit and call it ice cream.
It’s paternalism at its most unaccountable worst.

[edited to reflect the real commenter being responded to]

 
 

histro…that wasn’t pup. that was dennis nym-jacking again…cuz, man, that shit never gets old!

 
 

My mistake, the sentiment is the same though I directed them at the wrong person. Dennis, get laid. You might learn something.

 
 

Then there was the whole weird exemption for people who hate the ladies only. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientologists, and Christian Scientists, to name three, are not allowed to impose their beliefs on their workers according to Alito because reasons, peasants. 

IANAL, but that seems a pretty blatant violation of the Establishment clause, right there. It’s something SCOTUS should be declaring unconstitutional if they were doing their job, but they’ve obviously decided their job is to undo the Enlightenment.

I saw this

that I once read that I like is that Thomas and Scalia and conservative ideologues while Roberts and Alito are Republican ideologues.

on a LGM comment thread, which, with someone’s later addition that all you had to do was throw in some misogyny to get Kennedy, seems to sum things up nicely.

 
 

i am rogerwilcooverandout for the long weekend…with the exception of bartending tonight, i’m free! going to spend it at the bil’s up on a lake somewhere…hope y’all have similiarly lovely long weekends, and remember: ‘safety first!’ and ‘everything in moderation…’

 
 

and, this is conservative bil, so i’m fully expecting some gloating over scotusfail…

 
 

One thing about the caption though. Corporations never die, at least not so you can inherit anything

Since the obvious intent of these recent decisions is to grant full “personhood” to corporations, thereby giving the owners double the bang for their buck (their personal free speech, plus the “free $peech” SCOTUS imagines money to be that is held by their corporation), we ought to take it to its logical conclusion. The death penalty. This is the only time I would be for it. A corporation kills people, it gets the death penalty, and the C-suite is permanently barred from ever running another corporation. I realize that avoiding personal liability is what a corporation is for, but, hey, you gotta break some eggs,nright?

 
 

It’s something SCOTUS should be declaring unconstitutional if they were doing their job, but they’ve obviously decided their job is to undo the Enlightenment.

When (not) if, that case comes to court, I wonder how Alito will arglebargle his way around it. I think he would have been better off leaving out those examples rather than specifically excluding certain groups.

 
 

and, this is conservative bil, so i’m fully expecting some gloating over scotusfail…

So what are you planning to do/bring to avoid creating a family schism? Punching bag? Screaming pillow? Drugs?

 
 

 I wonder how Alito will arglebargle his way around it

Do you think he will even bother? He seems less and less concerned about even pretending to base his decisions on law, or precedent, or any of the things SCOTUS was invented to do, and more and more inclined to go with “because reasons, peasants.”

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Corporations are not only people, my friends, they are tyrannical fathers.

Seeing rank and file cons cheer this ruling on is creepy as hell. They are basically happy to be reduced to serfhood as long as they can stone witches.

 
 

Poll: Voters Support Hobby Lobby Decision by 10-Point Margin

I think voters believe in ghosts and flying saucers by about a 10 point margin too.

 
 

“A corporation is simply a form of organization used by human beings to achieve desired ends,” [Alito?] wrote. “When rights, whether constitutional or statutory, are extended to corporations, the purpose is to protect the rights of these people.”

This seems nonsensical. Prior to forming a corporation, people have rights. Do they lose these rights upon incorporation? If not, why extend rights to corporations — isn’t that a solution in search of a problem? Are individuals’ rights insufficient?

Nobody argues that people are somehow subsumed into a corporate whole that takes on the properties of its ingredient-people. Legal entities have (or should have) only such properties as we assign to them for the greater good, for the promotion of benign collective activity. Why the hell else would we (via the state) grant special privileges like limited liability or bankruptcy protection?

The Hobby Lobby decision suggests that conservatives want the government to actively promote our devolution into a patchwork of quasi-feudalistic fiefdoms of private power.

 
 

Ending the new gilded age will be tougher than ending the last one. The state and corporations have surveillance tools not envisioned in the most ambitious fever dreams of the Pinkerton detective agency. Unions are easier to bust than they have been at any time in the last century. Most of the most powerful organizational tools available to the general public are compromised by design, and even doing an internet search on more secure methods is enough to put one on an NSA watch list. Liberalism, socialism and populism are dirty words to half of the electorate. And the supreme court is eager to write exemptions to the constitution if it supports their team. The next Republican administration is going to be a real bad time

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

This seems nonsensical. Prior to forming a corporation, people have rights. Do they lose these rights upon incorporation? If not, why extend rights to corporations — isn’t that a solution in search of a problem? Are individuals’ rights insufficient?

It also runs counter to the whole “double taxation” line they trot out when capital gains taxes are discussed. Basically, it’s yet another instance of conservative Calvinball.

 
 

Ending the new gilded age will be tougher than ending the last one.

I think it’s worse than that. SCOTUS and Congress have been working like beavers to make the concentration of power into the Executive not just reasonable, but necessary. Anyone who doesn’t think future Presidents won’t run with this and work to expand power just doesn’t understand human nature. People spend enormous amounts of time and money running for POTUS because they’re attracted to the power. Yes, they may want the power to do good, or make change, but it’s still about power, and unprincipled shitheels tend to win in power plays, simply because they are unprincipled shitheels – it’s how Karl Rove got ahead, after all. He’s not that smart.

 
 

So what are you planning to do/bring to avoid creating a family schism? Punching bag? Screaming pillow? Drugs?

yes…

 
 

The “Five” portion of SCOTUS now seems to be adjudicating based on the traditional conservative “this will really piss off the liberals” metric.

 
 

Don’t bring a shovel and a few bags of quicklime to the lake in the trunk of your car. The temptation to do something rash could be irresistible if you do.

 
 

I am reminded of the B.S. surrounding tax exemptions for “social welfare organizations.” You’re either a pirate, or a privateer. The queen’s gotta have a good reason to give you a charter, or else it’s just favoritism. Hobby Lobby has a special legal status because We, the People, have an interest in promoting lawful economic activity; that’s the only reason, and it doesn’t trump other considerations. (I’d like people to be Good, not merely Lawful, but that’s alot to ask.)

Do we have an interest in promoting partisan political activity, or religious activity, whatever the platform or creed? In other words, would doing so promote the general social welfare? No. To promote the whole spectrum would be to waste resources on quite a few bad people and bad ideas, and nobody agrees about which are bad. A true “social welfare organization” would stay clear of such ambiguous territory; it would never risk a zero sum game, and it’d arguably be worthy of public support in the form of a tax exemption.

The conservative movement is too Randroid to think along these hoary lines. Selfishness is a virtue and ratfuckery takes the place of chivalry, so of course the civic-minded intent of the law is to be perverted for private gain.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

The weird assertions that there are no injuries in soccer when Clint Dempsey played an entire game with a broken nose Uruguay fields ZOMBIE strikers!

 
 

This is shaping up to be an epic thread.

Just back from the thursday night jam.

Happy fourth of Juluao freaks and freebaggers,
Also, as well, remember that peanut brother has your back.

 
 

Pup-

When there is no more room in Hell, the Suarez will walk the Earth.

 
Consumer Unit 5012
 

I mean, for fuck’s sake, even the dedicated professional women-haters that make up the MRAs want to ban contraceptives**** and they think that rape is both hilarious and should be legal.

You meant “NOT even”, it sounds like?

 
 

Fixed.

 
 

Chris has it right about the bizarro world actions of the 5 of the 6 Catholics on the Supreme Court. (No prizes for guessing the gender of the dissenter there, who actually speaks for the overwhelming majority of American Catholics rather than the drag-wearing old guys with funny hats.) Al Smith, John Kennedy, and William f***ing Brennan (ask your parents kids) have to be pissed beyond all measure that they, secularists in law to core, had to put up with the whole Papist mind control bull, while the Gang of 5 are able to just toss an outdated, badly reasoned encyclical into motherf***ing U.S. law without a word of complaint from the nimrod anti-Papist Protestants who made Smith’s, Kennedy’s, and every other prominent Catholics’ before 1964 lives a living hell.

When you work your ass off for centuries to prove that you’re respectable citizens abiding by all the laws of the land, dickwads like this are always a reason to get mad. But to watch the Respectable Society that spent so much time giving you shit for ALL being anti-Enlightenment autocrats only to turn around and then give one of those anti-Enlightenment autocrats a throne, that really is pukeworthy.

Imagine if tomorrow, the Republicans took an inner city drug dealing gang lord (actual gang, not “wearing hoodies and eating skittles while black”) and put him on their presidential ballot after spending fifty years telling us that people like him were the reason we should all be scared of blacks and Latinos. Or if they did it with a Muslim Brotherhood theocrat after telling us ever since 9/11 that we should be terrified of all hajjis.

 
 

Do we have an interest in promoting partisan political activity, or religious activity, whatever the platform or creed? In other words, would doing so promote the general social welfare? No. To promote the whole spectrum would be to waste resources on quite a few bad people and bad ideas, and nobody agrees about which are bad. A true “social welfare organization” would stay clear of such ambiguous territory; it would never risk a zero sum game, and it’d arguably be worthy of public support in the form of a tax exemption.

I’ve never understood why churches get tax exemptions, but what the hell.

And as for supposed “social welfare organizations” – the only outrageous thing I could find in the IRS targeting teabagger groups is the fact that none of these groups ended up getting their tax exempt status revoked. For fuck’s sake, the “Tea Party Movement” label is right there in the name. How the fuck are they not political?

 
 

Gang of 5 are able to just toss an outdated, badly reasoned encyclical into motherf***ing U.S. law without a word of complaint from the nimrod anti-Papist Protestants who made Smith’s, Kennedy’s, and every other prominent Catholics’ before 1964 lives a living hell.

There’s an unholy alliance between authoritarian/conservative Protestants, Catholics, and Mormons to turn back the Enlightenment. If they succeed in this aim, they’ll go back to hating each other.

It’s hard to believe it now, but there used to be a strong Catholic left in this country. Tragically, the borderline (and over-the-border) fascists are the ones who have been setting the tone in the RCC, largely in response to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

 
 

There’s an unholy alliance between authoritarian/conservative Protestants, Catholics, and Mormons to turn back the Enlightenment. If they succeed in this aim, they’ll go back to hating each other.

Back when I dabbled in college religious groups, it always struck me that the most hardcore, fundamentalist, Protestant-hating Catholics and the most hardcore, fundamentalist, Catholic-hating Protestants were also consistently the most hardcore Republicans in the group.

And yes, I too miss the Catholic Left. But sadly, the history of American Catholicism includes a very heavy helping of IGMFY – at least for white Catholics, and even for some that aren’t.

 
 

got a couple of gigs coming up and possibly a proper reunion with an old band, which might make three bands currently rolling…Have I mentioned that learning to become a drummer is #1 on the bucket list…There is light at the end of the tunnel on that front….

Good news. Music makes hard times more bearable.

Um… “peanut brother cup?”
.

 
 

And I’m declaring INDEPENDENCE, biotches!
.

 
 

The next time I decide to tune up my 57 Desoto myself rather than take it to a shop, would someone please slap me until I come to my senses.

I’ve now wasted an entire day and have gone from a car than ran reasonable well to one that doesn’t run at all.

I’ll probably end up having it towed to my mechanic and begging him to fix my mess.

 
 

, would someone please slap me until I come to my senses.
much as it would pain me, i could junk punch you…so far conservative bil has only opined that so called negative environmental effects of fracking are bullshit…

 
 

opined that so called negative environmental effects of fracking are bullshit…

Wait! Wait! He thinks the moochers complaining about faucets they can set on fire should be paying extra, right?

 
 

I’ll probably end up having it towed to my mechanic and begging him to fix my mess

I’ve heard of mechanics who charge extra in such situations.

 
 

I’ve heard of mechanics who charge extra in such situations.

I would expect that. I’ll probably save that option for a last resort.

 
 

Wait! Wait! He thinks the moochers complaining about faucets they can set on fire should be paying extra, right?
have you been drinking?

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

Really? Those old beasts are EZ to tune up. You do have a timing light, yes? And a points file?

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

FYWP for you eated my tips on getting that clunker running.

Also FYFirefox – Opera and Chrome behave much more nicely in these situations.

 
 

so far conservative bil has only opined that so called negative environmental effects of fracking are bullshit…

Ask him if he’d drink fracking fluid.

 
 

Ask the BIL about the link between fracking and earthquakes recently discovered in Oklahoma.

 
 

Really? Those old beasts are EZ to tune up

Yes they are. I think part of the problem is the replacement parts aren’t as good as the originals. Everything had a cheap feel to it.

It’s possible that one of the replacement parts was defective.

 
 

Ask the BIL about the link between fracking and earthquakes recently discovered in Oklahoma.
That’s what prompted his remark…

 
 

Pouring out a 40 of Kool-Aid for my homie Richard Mellon Scaife.
He’s ratfucking with the angels now.

*sob*

 
 

Yeah I heard that today on mpr and I was like, ‘thanks for all you did, fucker!’

 
 

Happy Independence Day, USAians.
Keep your cool over the weekend, bbkf. Just remember, you are always right and always the better person – so why bother ?

 
 

suezboo, you are so wise 🙂 just watched some fireworks along lake Mille lace…pretty stunning, I must say. I haven’t watched fireworks along a lake since my mom sold the lake house…

 
 

Hooboy, bbkf, you learn some smart subject-changing segues around here, hon. They assume that, because I’m white, I share their racism. I’ve gotten pretty smoooooth at avoiding the topic.

 
 

Love good high-in-the-sky fireworks too.

 
 

Love good high-in-the-sky fireworks too.

My workplace is next to a park where there’s a nice fireworks display. I spent a good forty-five minutes at the start of my shift watching it.

 
 

My town has its own fireworks display, which, since it is a town and not a city, lasted 15 min this year. But nice ones, over the ocean, and I get a lovely view, since I’m in a highrise with an unimpeded view, about half a mile away. The cats took it all in stride. Nani’s first Fourth, when she was about 15 weeks, was a source of excitement – all those moving lights! Now, a mature 4 years, she doesn’t really care. We had a parade this morning, too, complete with local pols in borrowed convertibles, bands, clubs, and hula halau.

 
 

Hooboy, bbkf, you learn some smart subject-changing segues around here, hon. They assume that, because I’m white, I share their racism. I’ve gotten pretty smoooooth at avoiding the topic.

same here with being a xtian…and racist…and conservative…it gets tiresome, but I’m growing up and don’t take the bait like I used to…

 
 

I run into this kind of thing at work all the time.

I never bring up politics but some people just can’t let it go.

Usually they’ll make some stupid/racist/wingnutty (pick one or more) remark and I’ll come back with:

“What made you think I’d agree with you and what made you think I wanted to have this conversation in the first place?”

 
 

“What made you think I’d agree with you and what made you think I wanted to have this conversation in the first place?”

damn! i have to remember that one…

 
 

Hello everyone. I believe I’m slipping back into lurker mode. I even failed to wish USAans a happy (and safe) holiday. In addition to my writing project, I have taken on another project that requires research and precise detail. Also baseball absorbs much of my attention. (As I write this, the Baltimore Oreos are in 1st place in the AL-East. Huzzah.)

Also, it seems to me that I seldom contribute anything of value beyond encouragement and appreciation for the writing and wit of others; long-winded Fenwick Stories; and, the Battle-O-the-Bands. However, I will drop something off with this. Longtime Sadlies will immediately recognize why I’m doing so: it is a political matter that I feel strongly about. I can’t remember how to do the ‘link-becomes-words’ alchemy, so I’ll just insert the link:

http://www.alternet.org/some-point-progressives-need-break-democratic-party?paging=off&current_page=1

I’ll still be here, but mostly lurking in the shadows. I read every thread. (Well, now I’m skimming some conversations about topics I have little interest in.) After I complete my new project–or after the World Series–I will probably return to more active participation.

Until then, have fun! Your intertoobz friend,

Fenwick.

 
 

As I write this, the Baltimore Oreos are in 1st place in the AL-East. Huzzah.

Al-East? What is that? Some sort of Mooslim thing? Code for sumpin’? Lessee, Oreos get dunked, Bal-mer’s near Deecee, um …

 
 

Also, it seems to me that I seldom contribute anything of value beyond encouragement and appreciation for the writing and wit of others; long-winded Fenwick Stories; and, the Battle-O-the-Bands. However, I will drop something off with this. Longtime Sadlies will immediately recognize why I’m doing so: it is a political matter that I feel strongly about. I can’t remember how to do the ‘link-becomes-words’ alchemy, so I’ll just insert the link:

Don’t let Dennis’ assholiness stop u from contributing…

Okay…I have to go in and prepare the ribs for the grill, but when I get back, I got something…

 
 

i don’t normally give two shits what celebrities have to say, but this from shai woodley really struck me:

as much as this industry is a platform for talking about big issues, there’s also so many fuckin’ issues. you could talk about Russia, or Argentina, or fracking, or gmos. maybe the the only thing that i’m supposed to do is just show up and be me in every moment. because I do feel like one of my gifts is to be open and lovely–simple things like smiling at strangers and having kind, small interactions. I think that is what’s ultimately going to shift things.

that may sound pretentious on the face of it, but for me it’s my contribution to trying to make a better world…after all, as hS been pointed out ad nauseum, i live in in a nearly all white community, so that’s about all I can do for race relations…treat everyone with kindness and respect and call out the racists and bigots. I’m not saying we or I shouldn’t fight the big fight, but I don’t have access to the big protests or boycotts…but I can do the little things…

and thank bog for sadly and the naughts…cuz sometimes you just have to vent and be nasty sometimes…

 
 

hmmmm…tagfail…go figger…

 
 

Hearing ya, bbkf. Think global, act local.
We all do what we can, at whatever scale is available to us. And using whatever skills/talents we have. You know what you are good at and what you are good for – use it.

 
 

What gets me the most, really…

…Is that the Constitution really does say Congress or the President can suggest these guys to be fired.

But no one ever seems to take them up on it.

If there ever were a time, it was Clarence Thomas and ‘ethics rules for judges don’t apply to us’.

 
 

oh jaysus! can u imagine if bronco bama tried to fire the gang of 5? it would be kind of awesome to see peak wing nut exceed itself to mach 11!

 
 

Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn, motherfuckers.

NEW POST!

 
 

New ruling today upholding Jim Crow, er, voting restriction bill of North Carolina. I saw the headline and was sickened, depressed, furious and disgusted all at the same time. Well done, you fucking pieces of fucking shit. If I had the means I would fly out to D.C. and picket outside the Supreme Court building with a sign saying simply, FUCK YOU, Cabal of Five. I am way past any sort of reasoned critique. Jesus Christ, I have lived to see my country dismantled by whores, cretins and full-blown sociopaths.

 
 

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