Month: July 2014

Venturing into the minefield

by digby

I think this story in Salon about the Satanist strategy is a great way to challenge the Hobby Lobby ruling, although I have very little doubt that the most it will do is expose the utter hypocrisy of the “religious freedom” folks. But that’s not nothin’:

[S]atanists are now using the Supreme Court’s sweeping Hobby Lobby decision to challenge coercive mandatory counseling laws by requesting a religious exemption for satanists (and non-satanists).

“While we feel we have a strong case for an exemption regardless of the Hobby Lobby ruling, the Supreme Court has decided that religious beliefs are so sacrosanct that they can even trump scientific fact,” Satanic Temple spokesperson Lucian Greaves said in a Monday statement. ”This was made clear when they allowed Hobby Lobby to claim certain contraceptives were abortifacients, when in fact they are not. Because of the respect the Court has given to religious beliefs, and the fact that our our beliefs are based on best available knowledge, we expect that our belief in the illegitimacy of state­ mandated ‘informational’ material is enough to exempt us, and those who hold our beliefs, from having to receive them.”

…The Hobby Lobby decision granted 90 percent of the corporations in the United States a kind of religious personhood under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. So now the government can’t require Hobby Lobby or any corporation to include comprehensive contraceptive coverage in its employer health plan if that coverage violates the corporation’s religious beliefs.

Because medicine and scientific fact are the tenets of satanists’ faith, then medically inaccurate and coercive counseling laws present a substantial burden, according to Greaves. This is pretty much what Ruth Bader Ginsburg was talking about in her dissent when she said the justices had “ventured into a minefield.”

I’m fairly sure that one of the reasons for the establishment clause was that the founders were wise enough to know that government and religion becoming entwined was a pathway to hell. (Just look at Europe 500 years ago — or Iraq today.)

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Germany gets almost 1/3 of its energy from renewable sources. Why not us?

by David Atkins

The United States could easily be doing this. But we aren’t.

Germany is now producing 28.5 percent of its energy—nearly a third—with solar, wind, hydro, and biomass. In 2000, renewables accounted for just 6 percent of its power consumption.

This is further proof that Germany is, essentially, the world leader in renewable energy. No other country has demonstrated such a dedicated, accelerated drive toward transitioning to clean power—in Germany’s case, away from nuclear to solar and wind. It has done so by intensely incentivizing private and commercial solar, aggressively pursuing wind power contracts, and, yes, by raising, slightly, the cost of energy in the process.

A couple years ago, Germany broke a record when, for a day, its wind and solar plants generated enough clean power to meet half the country’s energy needs. This year, it broke a new one when they whipped up enough power to meet 75 percent of demand. That’s three-fourths of a nation, running on clean energy.

This despite the fact that we get far more sunshine than Germany (Fox News correspondents notwithstanding.)

On a geopolitical level, Germany is also doing its part to reduce Vladimir Putin’s power over Europe by reducing its dependency on Russian natural gas. And, of course, there are the climate change impacts.

With our enormous deserts and wind-swept coasts and plains, there is just no reason at all for America not to be getting most of its energy from renewable sources. It’s simple stubbornness and greed.

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Christian charity

by digby

When they say you’re supposed to keep your legs closed, they mean it:

In a phone interview with RH Reality Check, Allen, now 32, said she was stunned when her supervisor at the Hobby Lobby store in Flowood, Mississippi, told her she would be terminated for taking unpaid time off to have her baby.

Allen had been hired as a part-time cashier in late July 2010. Shortly after starting the job, she learned she was four months’ pregnant with her third child. Because she had not been working for very long, Allen did not qualify for leave under the federal Family Medical Leave Act, which is what she said the Oklahoma City-based chain offers for maternity leave. Nervous, Allen went to her supervisor.

“I asked her would I lose my job due to me being four months and only having five months before I have my child. She told me ‘no,’” Allen said. “I felt like everything was OK. I had talked to my boss, and she let me know that everything would be OK. I would still have my job.”

But five months later, when the time came to take her leave of absence, Allen says her supervisor told her she would be terminated but could reapply later on. She says she tried to come back to work three weeks after her child was born, to no avail.

“I was like, I can’t get fired,” Allen recalls. “She can’t terminate me because I have to go have my child. I started asking everybody on the job, ‘Can they do this?’ And even the assistant manager who had just got hired [said,] ‘No, that’s not right.’”

Hobby Lobby did not respond to multiple requests to tell its side of the story or to answer questions about its maternity leave and other company policies.

When Allen applied for unemployment benefits, she says Hobby Lobby’s corporate office gave the unemployment agency a false version of events, claiming she could have taken off personal leave but chose not to. In the end, Allen says she won her claim for unemployment benefits, but she felt she had been wrongly discriminated based on the fact that she was pregnant. In February 2012 she sued Hobby Lobby, but her lawsuit was swiftly dropped because, like most—if not all—Hobby Lobby employees, Allen had signed away her rights to sue the company.

Though the multibillion-dollar, nearly 600-store chain took its legal claim against the federal government all the way to the Supreme Court when it didn’t want to honor the health insurance requirements of the Affordable Care Act, the company forbids its employees from seeking justice in the court of law.

It’s not about the sweet little babies. It’s about controlling the woman. These hyper conservatives also care about the bottom line. That’s where the confluence of concern is among these people: money and control:

One thing that sets apart Hobby Lobby’s arbitration policy from most corporations is its allowance for Christian-influenced arbitration. The mutual arbitration agreement Allen signed gives employees the option of choosing to find an arbitrator either through the nonprofit American Arbitration Association (AAA)—the largest dispute-resolution service provider in the United States—or the Institute for Christian Conciliation (ICC).

The latter is run by a Billings, Montana-based nonprofit called Peacemaker Ministries and administers “Christian conciliation,” which is a form of religious arbitration described on its website as “a process for reconciling people and resolving disputes out of court in a biblical manner.” It’s a type of conflict resolution geared toward churches and Christian organizations. (Jewish and Muslim organizations use similar types of religious arbitration to handle disputes.)

Among the principles that drive Peacemaker Ministries is the idea that:

Generally, Christians are not free to sue other Christians, at least not until they have exhausted the process that Jesus sets forth in Matthew 18:15-20 and 1 Corinthians 6:1-8. God instructs Christians to resolve their disputes within the church itself, with the assistance of other Christians if necessary

Isn’t that convenient?

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Getting the job done for the good of Rick Perry’s costume

by digby

What a deal

“House Republicans plan to vote Thursday on a bill that would provide less than a fifth of the funding the president requested to address the ongoing border crisis. After more than 57,500 unaccompanied minors crossed the border illegally since October, President Barack Obama requested $3.7 billion to care for them, speed up deportation proceedings and attempt to deter illegal immigration. Senate Democrats proposed a $2.7 billion package. But the House GOP plan went from an expected $1.5 billion as of a week ago to less than $1 billion on Friday. On Tuesday, House Republicans announced the funding had been pared down even further to a $659 million package that was introduced on Tuesday. ‘I think we should do something before we go home, and we’re working to get there,’ House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told reporters after meeting with Republican members.

Two-thirds of the bill’s funding would go toward border security, such as dispatching National Guard troops to the border, while one-third of the money is meant to provide humanitarian assistance.

So, one fifth of the request was granted. And two thirds of that will essentially be on behalf Rick Perry’s presidential campaign. That sounds like a big win for the wingnuts to me.

They may only control one house of congress but they know how to get the job done. For themselves. In this case, they’ll spend just enough money to allow themselves the privilege of saying they did something while actually paying for some silly “enforcement” that benefits them politically and keeps the “crisis” going. All in a day’s work.

Oh, and they’re making sure those “illegals” get the tough love that’s coming to them. It’s all good.

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Isn’t this special?

by digby

The Jewish Federation of Seattle demanded a representative of the National Rifle Association step down Monday, after video claiming to show him comparing a statewide initiative increasing background checks for gun purchases to Nazi Germany surfaced online.

The video, first posted by Horsesass.com, purports to record Brian Judy, an NRA liason, speaking at an event last week in Silverdale against I-594.

The comments veer towards Seattle entrepeneur Nick Hanauer, a major supporter and financial contributor to the I-594 campaign, and his Jewish faith.

“He’s put half-a-million dollars towards this policy,” the video stated, “The same policy that led to his family getting run out of Germany by the Nazis.

“It’s like, any Jewish people I meet who are anti-gun, I think, ‘are you serious,'” the recording continued, “(Nazis) registered guns and then they took them. Why did you have to flee this country in the first place? Hello, is anybody home?”

Uhm, well, “fleeing the country” is a rather odd way of describing it don’t you think?

And this stale old trope is misleading at best, a steaming pile of excrement at worst:

So did Hitler and the Nazis really take away Germans’ guns, making the Holocaust unavoidable? This argument is superficially true at best, as University of Chicago law professor Bernard Harcourt explained in a 2004 paper (PDF) on Nazi Germany’s impact on the American culture wars. As World War I drew to a close, the new Weimar Republic government banned nearly all private gun ownership to comply with the Treaty of Versailles and mandated that all guns and ammunition “be surrendered immediately.” The law was loosened in 1928, and gun permits were granted to citizens “of undoubted reliability” (in the law’s words) but not “persons who are itinerant like Gypsies.” In 1938, under Nazi rule, gun laws became significantly more relaxed. Rifle and shotgun possession were deregulated, and gun access for hunters, Nazi Party members, and government officials was expanded. The legal age to own a gun was lowered. Jews, however, were prohibited from owning firearms and other dangerous weapons.

“But guns didn’t play a particularly important part in any event,” says Robert Spitzer, who chairs SUNY-Cortland’s political science department and has extensively researched gun control politics. Gun ownership in Germany after World War I, even among Nazi Party members, was never widespread enough for a serious civilian resistance to the Nazis to have been anything more than a Tarantino revenge fantasy. If Jews had been better armed, Spitzer says, it would only have hastened their demise. Gun policy “wasn’t the defining moment that marked the beginning of the end for Jewish people in Germany. It was because they were persecuted, were deprived of all of their rights, and they were a minority group.”

Gun enthusiasts often mention that the Soviet Union restricted access to guns in 1929 after Joseph Stalin rose to power. But to suggest that a better armed Russian populace would have overthrown the Bolsheviks is also too simplistic, says Spitzer. “To answer the question of the relationship between guns and the revolutions in those nations is to study the comparative politics and comparative history of those nations,” he explains. “It takes some analysis to break this down and explain it, and that’s often not amenable to a sound bite or a headline.”

It’s not amenable to idiots.

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“I’m not a spy, I’m a journalist”

by digby

My piece for Salon today discusses this new survey from Human Rights Watch and the ACLU about government encroachments on freedom of the press and the the lawyer-client relationship. It’s a chilling report:

Civil libertarians of all political stripes should be deeply concerned about this comprehensive new survey of national security and intelligence lawyers and journalists from Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union. Professionals in both these areas report a shocking decline in their ability to function properly in their constitutionally protected areas of concern. G. Alex Sinha, the author of the report warns that “The work of journalists and lawyers is central to our democracy. When their work suffers, so do we.”

Human Rights Watch and the ACLU interviewed more than 50 journalists from outlets throughout American media and found a high level of insecurity and anxiety among them. They report that journalists are having to adopt extreme, clandestine measures to protect sources, such as complicated encryption, burner phones and being forced to meet exclusively in person. One prominent reporter was said to be representative of the feelings of many when he explained that, “I don’t want the government to force me to act like a spy. I’m not a spy; I’m a journalist.”

Read on. This is becoming a very serious problem and one that partisan of all sides should be able to agree upon. When you have government actors who see leaking of government misconduct as the equivalent of a property crime, something has gone very, very wrong. That “property” belongs to the people. They seem to have forgotten that.

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There’s money in it

by digby

Who could have ever predicted that No Labels was just another wingnut welfare operation? Elias Isquith writes:

The No Labels dream is coming up on its fourth birthday, and in that time the group has made exactly zero progress towards its goal of untangling gridlock in D.C. It’s actually worse now than it was in 2010, in spite of No Labels’ frequent calls for bipartisan seating for legislators at the State of the Union address.

What is has succeeded in doing, however, is becoming exactly the sort of scummy, insider-D.C. institution that pretty much everyone expected it would be. Yahoo! News’ Meredith Shiner has all the ugly details on how No Labels doesn’t really do anything except raise money for No Labels:

Much of the group’s budget goes toward sustaining or promoting itself. According to No Labels’ confidential document, the group employed 22 paid staffers and eight consultants as of May. Of its projected $4.5 million budget for 2014, only 4 percent — or $180,000 — of spending was slotted for “Congressional Relations.” By contrast, administrative and operational expenses got $1.035 million over the same time period. Another 5 percent was set for travel. A further 30 percent ($1.35 million) was earmarked for digital growth and press, and 14 percent for fundraising.

What do they have to show for all this money raised and spent on themselves? “Even in its own May document, No Labels claimed only one legislative victory: a bill that passed out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee by voice vote.” The group’s list of “accomplishments” is a depressing read, consisting largely of favorable press clips, members of Congress wearing No Labels pins to various functions, and the fact that “No Labels’ hashtag #FixNotFight was a trending topic on Twitter during the 2013 State of the Union address.”

Ahhh, the ongoing dream of a “radical centrist” revolution. For some reason it always ends up doing absolutely nothing except make money for the people who sell it to the 1% as an answer to keeping the rabble in line.

I’d think the 1% was a bunch of suckers, but since they are so outrageously wealthy that the amount of money the spread around on this nonsense is nothing more than chump change to them, it’s actually a good investment. To them, anything to keep the status quo is a win.

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QOTD: “what is this civil war you speak of?”edition

by digby

“You know we have talked about this at the state legislature before, nullification. But, bottom line is, as U.S. Senator why should we be passing laws that the states are considering nullifying? Bottom line: our legislators at the federal level should not be passing those laws. We’re right…we’ve gone 200-plus years of federal legislators going against the Tenth Amendment’s states’ rights. We are way overstepping bounds as federal legislators. So, bottom line, no we should not be passing laws as federal legislators—as senators or congressman—that the states would even consider nullifying. Bottom line.”

That’s a candidate for the US Senate talking, a loon by the name of Joni Ernst from Iowa. She’ll make a nice tag team with Ted Cruz if she wins.

ICYWW:

States cannot nullify federal laws, of course.

In embracing the concept of nullification, Ernst harkens back to a discredited theory that the Constitution is a compact and states are free to void federal laws that they dislike. This view was widely promoted by John Calhoun, the great Southern advocate of slavery, prior to the Civil War and was touted by segregationists in the 1950s and 1960s. In recent years, the idea was purged of its most racist overtones and fringe elements of the right adopted it as an argument against Obamacare, gun control, and other federal regulations.

As Erwin Chemerinsky, a noted constitutional law scholar and Dean of the University of California, Irvine Law School, told The Daily Beast, nullification is expressly forbidden under Article VI of the Constitution. “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof… shall be the supreme Law of the Land.” Chemerinsky also noted that the Supreme Court had dealt with this issue as recently as 1958, when in Cooper v. Aaron, a unanimous decision signed by every justice on the court, it was made clear that states could not nullify federal laws or Supreme Court decisions.

This nonsense will never end.

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This is what happens when you elect a Republican. Don’t elect a Republican.

by David Atkins

San Diego recently had a hard-fought mayoral election after Mayor Filner resigned in disgrace. The Republican won, though the city’s demographics are slowly shifting in the other direction.

This is the result:

Mayor Kevin Faulconer says he plans to veto the City Council’s decision to incrementally increase the minimum wage in San Diego to $11.50 an hour.

The City Council voted 6-3 Monday to give final approval to the ordinance. Although Faulconer was expected to veto the idea, this is the first time he has voiced his intention.

The ordinance, which was initially approved 6-3 two weeks ago on first reading but required a follow-up vote, also mandates that employers offer five paid sick days to workers each year.

None of the council members changed their votes from before — Mark Kersey, Scott Sherman and Lorie Zapf were the dissenters.

Council President Todd Gloria said the ordinance would raise up San Diegans “in a meaningful and responsible way.” The lowest-paid workers and economy as a whole will benefit, he said.

“Through the passage of this ordinance, this council is standing up and demonstrating that we value honest work and fair pay,” Gloria said. “I urge the mayor to sign it into law and to stand with us against any effort to repeal it.”

The measure now goes to Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s desk.

Any individual Democratic politician may be a terrible person. That comes with the territory of having human beings hold elected office.

But as horrible a person as Bob Filner is, if he were still in office today San Diegans would be on their way to an $11.50/hour minimum wage.

Kevin Faulconer may or may not be a decent human being in his private life. But it hardly matters, does it? Either people’s lives are better because you’re a policy maker, or they aren’t.

When you elect a Republican, people’s lives get worse. It doesn’t matter how they treat others in their personal lives.

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A tiny bit of sense on the right is met with incredulity on Fox

by digby

You don’t even want to know what the Fox News gasbags thought of this today:

In a comments that seemed to surprise some of his fellow panelists, Fox News contributor and conservative columnist George Will said Sunday that the U.S. should welcome the unaccompanied minors surging across the southern border, fleeing violence in their home countries, reported Raw Story.

“We ought to say to these children, ‘Welcome to America, you’re going to go to school, and get a job, and become American,’” Mr. Will said on Fox News, according to Raw Story.

He added, “The idea that we can’t assimilate these 8-year-old criminals with their teddy bears is preposterous.”
Fox News host Chris Wallace challenged Mr. Will, Raw Story reported, saying, “Why should we be dealing with Central America’s problem? We can’t import the problem. They’ve got to deal with it there, and our border has to mean something.”
Mr. Will countered that the U.S. should handle the problem because it is capable of doing so.

“We’ve handled what [American poet] Emma Lazarus called the ‘wretched refuse of your teeming shore’ a long time ago, and a lot more people than this,” Mr. Will said, according to Raw Story.

Let’s just say they treated Will like a dotty old auntie who simply didn’t know what he was saying. Dana Perino said she admired him for “speaking his mind” but added that it’s easy for someone standing on the sidelines to have such opinions. It’s different when you have to be elected. (She neglected to add “by selfish assholes …”) The rest of the panel just yelled “get in line!!!” you’re “illegal” as if sending refugee kids back to their violent cities to be tortured and/or killed to “wait their turn” makes any sense.

Both Will and Brit Hume have made this argument now and the rest of the younger Fox crew looks at them like they’ve sprouted a second head. They honestly have no experience with people being decent toward anyone who isn’t part of their little club. It’s literally unimaginable to them.

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