When it comes to Rock music, some folks like it soft, mild, or hard. No matter how you rock it, ROCK & ROLL soothes the SOUL, so come Rock it out this week with 3 Chics.
Jimmy Seals and Dash Crofts are two musicians from Texas who were immensely popular in the 1970’s, and still honored today for their hits Summer Breeze, Hummingbird, Diamond Girl, We May Never Pass This Way Again and Get Closer. Their unique pop/rock sound was made famous by their incredible vocal harmony, songwriting and musicianship. Their music was also distinctive for their spiritual lyrics and themes, inspired by the teachings of the Bahá’í faith.
Seals and Crofts is a band made up of Jim Seals (born James Seals, October 17, 1941, Sidney, Texas) and Dash Crofts (born Darrell Crofts, August 14, 1940, Cisco, Texas). The soft rock duo was one of the most successful musical acts of the 1970s. They are best-known for their hits “Summer Breeze” and “Diamond Girl“. Seals’ younger brother, Dan Seals was also well known as one half of another successful soft rock band in the same time period, England Dan & John Ford Coley, as well as for his success as a country artist in the mid-1980s. The duo disbanded in 1980, and both members went on to become public advocates of the Bahá’í Faith. They reunited briefly from 1991–1992 and again in 2004, when they released their final album, Traces.
$40 million settlement between ‘Dixmoor 5’ and Illinois State Police
BY KIM JANSSEN Staff Reporter
June 25, 2014 8:12AM
Between them Robert Taylor, Jonathan Barr, James Harden, Shainne Sharp and Robert Veal served more than 70 years for a 1991 rape and murder they did not commit.
But a record $40 million the Illinois State Police this week agreed to pay them to settle their wrongful conviction lawsuit is just a “small measure of justice,” attorneys for the so-called “Dixmoor 5” say.
And at a news conference to announce the huge settlement Wednesday, they urged authorities to investigate why Cook County is suffering from what they called “an epidemic of false confessions.”
“What Cooperstown is to baseball, Chicago and Cook County has been to false confessions — it is not the ‘Hall of Fame,’ it is the ‘Hall of Shame,’” lawyer Peter Neufeld said.
“If you took all the documented false confessions in the major cities of America and combined them, the number would be lower than the number in Cook County.”
http://www.suntimes.com/news/28295068-418/40-million-settlement-between-dixmoor-5-and-illinois-state-police.html#.U7IPdLG2Ono
now, please understand that NOTHING WAS WRONG WITH THE OLD FARE PAYING SYSTEM.
NOTHING whatsoever.
Except for that someone wasn’t getting RICH off it.
…………………………………………………
Ventra deadline looms for CTA, Pace; suburban bus riders slower to switch
BY ROSALIND ROSSI
Transportation Reporter
June 29, 2014 12:02PM
Chicago Transit Authority and Pace customers will board a Ventra-only world starting Tuesday as the CTA completes its transition to a Ventra payment system that will end up costing up to $454 million.
Magnetic-stripe fare cards will no longer be accepted, though multiple mag-stripe cards with balances adding up to at least $5 can be mailed in for Ventra credit through Sept. 1.
And, until July 7, riders can still buy Ventra cards at more than 1,300 retailers and not be charged a $5 one-time new card fee.
After months of glitches, followed by months of relative peace, more than two million CTA and Pace customers have already purchased Ventra cards that allow them to merely tap a fare reader to register their fares.
“Contactless” credit and debit cards, with radio frequency identification chips, also can be used on the same readers under the next nine years of the Ventra deal.
All Ventra cards work as regular transit passes. But riders also can activate a “debit” side and use it as a typical debit card — though they will end up paying additional fees if they do.</b
http://www.suntimes.com/28347859-761/ventra-deadline-looms-for-cta-pace-suburban-bus-riders-slower-to-switch.html#.U7IOlrG2Ono
Lost Parisian Apartment Is An Unmatched Time Capsule From The 40′s
Posted on March 13, 2014 In Educational, News
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Have you ever wanted to travel back in time? Well, this apartment from the Belle Epoque era is probably as close as you’re going to get for now. (I doubt you’ll think it’s “settling” for second best – it’s an incredible look at a historical period from the perspective of a French noblewoman.)
Here’s the story:
Madame de Florian inherited a Parisian apartment from her grandmother in the city’s 9th arondissement. The apartment building is located by the famed red-light district and the Opera Garnier. When the fighting of World War II threatened to spill into Paris in 1942, de Florian left the city and her apartment at 23 years old to live in the south of France in the French Riviera.
The apartment remained completely untouched for the next 70 years and de Florian continued to pay rent on the property during the entire time it was unoccupied. In fact, the apartment was only discovered when de Florian died at 91 years old.
Auctioneer Olivier Choppin-Janvry and his team were commissioned by the family to visit the apartment in order to take stock of de Florian’s estate. Inside, there was a surprise waiting for the team: an apartment-sized time capsule of the Belle Epoque era in Paris, a period when the city enjoyed a cultural renaissance.
Some of the highlights of the decor included a taxidermy ostrich, retro stuffed animals (mickey Mouse and Porky the Pig) and other glamorous accessories befitting of an upper class French woman.
http://www.boredlion.com/lost-parisian-apartment-is-an-unmatched-time-capsule-from-the-40s/
Who Stole the Water?
By Paul Solotaroff Jul 2014
How greed, drought, and rampant overdevelopment are sucking Texas dry.
Buddy Treybig, his bull neck burned the color of crawfish, steers his boat up the Lower Colorado, looking out the cabin for signs of life. There are birds on the staves of the dockside shore – herons and plovers and death-glare hawks – but Treybig isn’t checking for them. Drum and sport fish promenade these waters, but Treybig isn’t here for them, either. He’s looking for fauna of the two-legged sort: other fishermen bound for Matagorda Bay, once the crown jewel of Texas estuaries. In the horn-of-plenty days a decade ago, so many vessels dragged its splendid reefs that fights would break out once the men got back to town – the locals trading punches with Vietnamese transplants and sometimes burning boats when things went squirrelly. Now there’s no one but him in the channel; Treybig’s rivals have either left for Louisiana or chained their fleets to the pier in Matagorda, too broke to buy the gas it takes to fish. “You’ll see when we get up in the bay,” mutters Treybig. “I’m the only one still dumb enough to do this.”
It’s been a long, dry haul in the southeast quadrant of the state. The majority of Texas has been in a record-busting drought for most of a decade, and the last three years have been especially thirsty ones for communities on the Colorado River.
……………………………..
Shortly after Rick Perry’s election in 2002 (he took over when George W. Bush was elected president), he and the wealthy men who’d financed his run declared the Longhorn State open for business. Brandishing cash from the Texas Enterprise Fund – a $300 million job-stimulus program enacted by the Texas legislature – Perry toured the country via donor-funded flights to woo companies to move their operations to his state. Untroubled by the stress of new industry on his dwindling lakes and rivers, Perry sweetened the state’s already pro-business sales pitch – lax regulations, anti-union laws, and freedom from state income taxes – by offering mammoth checks to relocating firms. In just the first couple of years, he committed $50 million to Texas Instruments, $40 million to Sematech (a semiconductor consortium), and $20 million to notorious subprime lender Countrywide Financial. Perry bragged that these grants would net huge returns in high-paying tech jobs brought to Texas.
It was cutthroat capitalism, and it cashed out in spades. Perry lured companies from other states, then the residents of those states followed them down to Texas, revving the home-building and retail sectors and growing the state economy during a world recession.
In 10 years, Texas added nearly 5 million people, or about one-fifth of its current population. Most of them settled in the middle of the state, where Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas–Fort Worth bloated like beached blue whales. Three of the fastest-growing cities in North America, they metastasized up and down I-35, disgorging tract homes, carpet lawns, and backyard pools on what had mostly been red-clay scrubland, and turned one-horse exurbs like Buda and Round Rock into booming bedroom towns. Overnight, Austin grew a big-town skyline, as condoplexes and luxe hotels thronged the downtown grid, pricing families out and bringing executives in to $400-per-square-foot apartments. “It’s a very vibrant place now for young folks with money, but they’re a tiny sliver of the population,” says Brian Rodgers, a local activist-investor who decries what has happened to his city. Citing Census Bureau charts and fiscal-impact graphs, he maps the stark shift in demographics: vast hikes in rents and property prices; a job market churning mostly service-sector jobs paying $30,000 or less a year, with more than 40 percent spending a third or more of their income on housing.
http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/print-view/who-stole-the-water-20140623
https://twitter.com/abcworldnews/status/483744810977599490
sue their racist asses
jay walking gets you slammed on paved streets these days.
TOD Mae the WaPo for sosueme Tweets!
In the Loop
Obama: #SoSueMe
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the-loop/wp/2014/06/30/obama-sosueme/
For you, Liza!
Ha ha, thanks, SG2.
https://twitter.com/BestEarthPix/status/483517550396194816/photo/1
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
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Pres. Obama to the GOP: “Pass a bill. Solve a problem. Don’t just say no on something that everybody agrees needs to be done.” #Immigration
2:19 PM – 30 Jun 2014
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
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President Obama to GOP on #ImmigrationReform: “If Congress cannot do its job, at least we can do ours.” #SoSueMe
Welcome to the 2nd term.
2:14 PM – 30 Jun 2014
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
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President Obama: “Republicans are unwilling to stand up to the Tea Party in order to pass immigration reform.”
BURN.
#ImmigrationReform
2:09 PM – 30 Jun 2014
President Obama: I’m beginning a new effort to do as much as I can to fix our immigration problem on my own. #SoSueMe #beyotches
LOL Bernie, you sure are MISSED.
Cochran already rebuffing those who rescued him
06/30/14 09:50 AM—Updated 06/30/14 01:16 PM
By Steve Benen
Last week, in a bit of a surprise, incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran survived a Republican primary runoff in Mississippi, thanks in large part to an unexpected group of supporters: African-American voters. Though many are Democrats, many in Mississippi’s black community saw Cochran’s right-wing rival as far more offensive.
Soon after the dust settled, many of those responsible for rescuing Cochran’s career, preventing him from suffering a humiliating defeat, had an idea on how the senator can return the favor: it was time for Cochran to support the Voting Rights Amendment Act, a bill to repair the civil-rights law gutted last year by conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court.
By some measures, the request seemed fairly modest. After all, Cochran had supported the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act quite recently. All his new-found African-American allies were seeking is support for a law the senator has already backed in the recent past.
It looks like Cochran’s rescuers may need to think of some other way for him to pay his debt. Greg Sargent talked on Friday with the senator’s spokesperson.
I asked Cochran spokesman Chris Gallegos for a response. He said Cochran is “listening” to the argument over the fix, but directed me back to his previous statement praising the SCOTUS decision. He emailed:
“It does appear that Tuesday’s election generally went smoothly, even as the state implemented its new voter ID law. Mississippi election officials deserve credit. The Senator would concur with Senator Rand Paul, who recently said, ‘I’m for more people voting, not less people voting.’” … For the time being, anyway, that doesn’t seem like support for the new fix.
No, it doesn’t. Rick Hasen told Greg, “This suggests that despite his apparent crucial support from African American voters in the recent primary, he doesn’t owe those voters or the people of Mississippi another look at whether Congress needs to try to fix the voting rights problems created by the SCOTUS decision.”
That’s gratitude for you.
Of course, this goes beyond Cochran.
Ari Berman noted late last week that Republican support for a revised Voting Rights Act is practically non-existent, despite the law’s bipartisan history.
The Voting Rights Act has always enjoyed strong bipartisan support. But since Barack Obama’s election, GOP-controlled states have embarked on the most significant effort to restrict access to the ballot since Reconstruction – passing new voting restrictions in twenty-two states since 2010 – and the bipartisan consensus for the VRA in Congress has collapsed.
As long as support for the VRA remains divided along partisan lines, there’s no chance that a new fix for the law will pass.
When Congress last considered the VRA, support for the law was nearly unanimous – and in the Senate, it was literally unanimous – but as of this morning, the Voting Rights Amendment Act still has zero Republican co-sponsors.
It would appear, then, that GOP lawmakers were willing to support the Voting Rights Act when killing it would have been politically risky, but now that Republican-appointed justices to the Supreme Court have done the heavy lifting, gutting the law in a controversial ruling last summer, congressional Republicans are content to let the issue whither on the vine.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/cochran-already-rebuffing-those-who-rescued-him
The GOP’s takes a risk celebrating contraception ruling
06/30/14 12:43 PM
By Steve Benen
The U.S. Supreme Court narrowly ruled this morning against the Affordable Care Act’s contraception policy, agreeing that “closely held” corporations can deny contraception coverage under the First Amendment. Republican critics of “Obamacare” are thrilled, though I’m not sure if they’ve thought this through.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), for example, couldn’t be more pleased.
“Today’s Supreme Court decision makes clear that the Obama administration cannot trample on the religious freedoms that Americans hold dear. Obamacare is the single worst piece of legislation to pass in the last 50 years….”
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is equally pleased.
“Today’s decision is a victory for religious freedom and another defeat for an administration that has repeatedly crossed constitutional lines in pursuit of its Big Government objectives.”
Keep in mind that Republicans haven’t simply sat on the sidelines of this fight, hoping the court’s Republican-appointed justices would rule in their favor. On the contrary, they’ve been active participants in the debate, filing briefs with the Supreme Court urging this outcome, proposing legislation to undo the ACA policy, and in some cases, even threatening to push a constitutional amendment if the Hobby Lobby ruling had gone the other way.
As a result, GOP lawmakers and their allies are clearly delighted today, basking in the glow of victory.
What they may not fully appreciate, at least not yet, is what happens next: the political fallout.
Republican opposition to contraception access has been largely reflexive in recent years: “Obamacare” makes birth control available to Americans without a copay; “Obamacare” is evil; ergo the right must fight against contraception access.
The trouble is, the American mainstream and GOP policymakers really aren’t on the same page. The latest national polling reinforces the fact that most of the country wanted today’s ruling to go the other way.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-gops-takes-risk-celebrating-contraception-ruling
“Today’s decision is a victory for religious freedom and another defeat for an administration that has repeatedly crossed constitutional lines in pursuit of its Big Government objectives.”
Wow. I’m still amazed by how Boehner et al can make such stupid statements. I wouldn’t even be able to think up stuff like this. Insurance coverage of contraception is a choice to use it or not, it is not a ramming down the throat. What in the blazing hell does a personal choice, like when to have a child or not, have to do with “Big Government objectives?”
Keep it up, GOP obstructionists and SCOTUS. March us straight toward universal health care which is what is needed to begin with. This is the 21st century.
Alito Says that Taking Birth Control is Immoral
by BooMan
Mon Jun 30th, 2014 at 02:38:59 PM EST
From Alito’s opinion in the Hobby Lobby case:
The Hahns and Greens believe that providing the coverage demanded by the HHS regulations is connected to the destruction of an embryo in a way that is sufficient to make it immoral for them to provide the coverage. This belief implicates a difficult and important question of religion and moral philosophy, namely, the circumstances under which it is wrong for a person to perform an act that is innocent in itself but that has the effect of enabling or facilitating the commission of an immoral act by another. Arrogating the authority to provide a binding national answer to this religious and philosophical question, HHS and the principal dissent in effect tell the plaintiffs that their beliefs are flawed. For good reason, we have repeatedly refused to take such a step. See, e.g., Smith, 494 U. S., at 887 (“Repeatedly and in many different contexts, we have warned that courts must not presume to determine . . . the plausibility of a religious claim”)
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2014/6/30/143859/713
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
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Hobby Lobby pays for its male employees vasectomies but birth control for women is anti-God. http://www.wisconsingazette.com/trending-news/supreme-court-rules-monday-on-hobby-lobby-suit-claiming-a-religious-right-to-deny-contraceptive-coverage-for-women-workers.html …
Hello, hypocrisy.
12:57 PM – 30 Jun 2014
Zandar @ZandarVTS
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“It bears note in this regard that the cost of an IUD is nearly equivalent to a month’s full-time pay for workers earning the minimum wage.”
12:44 PM – 30 Jun 2014
http://twitter.com/MotorCityLib/status/483635147880022016/photo/1
Elections have consequences.
Both Parties Are Not The Same. VOTE.
By Nerdy Wonka
http://theobamadiary.com/2014/06/30/both-parties-are-not-the-same-vote/
http://youtu.be/5a4sXrlE5_A
eta @metaquest
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RFRA is Religious Freedom Restoration Act that prevents substantial burden of person’s free exercise of religion, signed into law by Clinton
10:28 AM – 30 Jun 2014
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
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Conservative wing of #SCOTUS: Viagra? GOOOOOD.
Birth Control: Slut! Baby Killer! Moocher! Screw you women! Corporations are people!
9:52 AM – 30 Jun 2014
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
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Women are fighting for the access to birth control in 2014. BIRTH CONTROL. #SCOTUS sided with corporations.
Democrats must VOTE in 2014.
9:30 AM – 30 Jun 2014
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
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Thanks to a conservative #SCOTUS:
1. Corporations are people: Citizens United
2. Racism is dead: Shelby
3. Screw you women: Hobby Lobby
9:24 AM – 30 Jun 2014
Sahil Kapur @sahilkapur
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Harry Reid reacts: “If the Supreme Court will not protect women’s access to health care, then Democrats will.”
10:09 AM – 30 Jun 2014
NO BITCHASSNESS @TheAngryFangirl
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It speaks VOLUMES that SCOTUS went out of their way to say this ruling doesn’t cover things like blood transfusions & vaccines.
9:30 AM – 30 Jun 2014
April @ReignOfApril
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Lots of talk re: corporations using religion as an exemption but let’s be honest. We’re really only talking about Christianity. #HobbyLobby
9:31 AM – 30 Jun 2014
‘Fissured’ workplaces can affect wages, job conditions
By L.M. Sixel
June 25, 2014 | Updated: June 25, 2014 9:56pm
In the two decades I’ve been writing about the economy, I’ve seen a seismic shift in the workplace.
It’s not so much a physical change in the how or where the work is done – people are still driving delivery trucks, they’re still making mechanical repairs at refineries and they’re still sitting at desks in front of computers – but who they work for has all changed.
Today, chances are that truck driver is an independent contractor, the mechanic at the refinery is working for a third-party contracting company and the secretary works for a temporary staffing service.
They’re not employees in the traditional sense any more. As companies have cut costs and streamlined their operations, they’ve moved whole divisions and whole job categories into third-party employment arrangements that are increasingly removed from the original company benefitting from all the work.
The new administrator of the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division calls it the “fissured workplace.” Before David Weil took over as the top wage and hour regulator a few weeks ago, he was a professor of economics at Boston University and focused his research efforts on what he describes as a growing phenomenon that is pushing down wages and working conditions.
Smaller companies have sprung up to perform the functions that have been jettisoned, says Weil, who writes about this in his book, “The Fissured Workplace.” The practice may be more commonly associated with janitorial and landscaping services, but these third-party labor arrangements have grown to include the likes of maintenance, operations, oil drilling, sales, customer service, accounting, legal, human resources and secretarial services
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/columnists/sixel/article/Fissured-workplaces-can-affect-wages-working-5579358.php?cmpid=email-premium&t=6aefe9fe5218d1a0e4
Supreme Court conservatives side with Hobby Lobby on contraception
By Steve Benen
06/30/14 10:46AM
When the legal challenges against the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate were first filed, they seemed destined to fail. The law already exempts houses of worship and religious non-profits, and as the 3rd Circuit explained, courts have “long recognized the distinction between the owners of a corporation and the corporation itself.” Ruling that “a for-profit corporation can engage in religious exercise” would “eviscerate the fundamental principle that a corporation is a legally distinct entity from its owners.”
And yet, as Irin Carmon reports, conservatives on the high court found a way to side with Hobby Lobby anyway.
The Supreme Court has ruled that a closely-held company can be exempt from the contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care Act. […]
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the law at issue in the case, has never been applied to for-profit entities. The Court had to decide whether corporations even have religious exercise rights — making the beliefs of the employer synonymous with the entire company — and weigh that question against the potential harms to the employees.
It was a 5-4 decision, with the five Republican-appointed justices siding against the contraception policy and the four Democratic-appointed justices ruling in favor of it. Note, it’s not a short decision: there’s the majority ruling, a concurrence, are three separate dissents.
Of particular interest, the court seems to make a distinction between for-profit corporations and “closely held” for-profit corporations, which are businesses in which no more than five individuals own most of the corporation.
http://www.msnbc.com/maddowblog
Hobby Lobby And The True Gangsta Life Of Justice Alito
By Elie Mystal
Last year at about this time, Justice Samuel Alito authored one of the most sneaky anti-woman decisions in recent memory. In Vance v. Ball State University, Justice Alito made it much more difficult for women to sue their employers for workplace harassment. At the time, I said it’s the kind of decision Chris Brown would be proud of, but on reflection, that may have been unfair to Chris Brown.
Today, Alito once again puts in the heavy lifting to make the world worse for working women. Apparently, in Alito’s world, it’s not only okay for employers to try to have sex with their female employees, they also get to regulate what medications they take…
http://abovethelaw.com/2014/06/hobby-lobby-and-the-true-gangsta-life-of-justice-alito/
Americans need to SUE the SCOTUS, yet GOP threatening to sue POTUS.
This is some TWISTED shit right here.
AdamSerwer ✔ @AdamSerwer
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Court is careful not to say that bosses could refuse to cover something like blood transfusions. Men might need those, after all.
What about Viagra and similar drugs. Lust is one of the seven cardinal sins, is it not?
https://twitter.com/jilevin/status/350424086809292800/photo/1
The Supreme Court ruling is the continued OPPRESSION of women via The Supreme Court of the United States.
Say that again, real LOUD, while I listen!
RBG IS LIVID, as she should be.
Pay attention folks! The SCOTUS gutting of the Voting Rights Act & citing religious freedom to oppress women.Y’all see where this is headed?
This RULING is going STRAIGHT.TO.HELL. Just like the judges who ruled in favor of this fuckery.
uh huh
uh huh
what about blood transfusions, vaccinations, and other religions who claim medical procedures, drugs, etc are AGAINST THEIR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS?
What about Christians and other faiths who believe in contraception?
For example, I’m not a practicing Christian.
WHERE DOES THIS DECISION LEAVE ME & OTHER FAITHS?
This decision will not END WELL for America, simply because there are other religions besides Christianity. Nice try though, Roberts court for trying to DENY other Americans their RELIGOUS FREEDOM!
https://twitter.com/Kahsai/status/482630676953309184/photo/1
The Robert’s court kept OBAMACARE intact, only in attempts to DISMANTLE it piece-by-piece.
Indeed. They knew that GOP governed states would opt out of the medicaid expansion. Now this.
You really have to wonder what their vision is for this country. They have too much power. When the wrong people have too much power, this is the result.
anyone else find out why they fired Sherri Shepherd?
Wanna see how fast money will trump religious freedom? Dry up Hobby Lobby’s money. Money talks and bullshit walks!
SG2, my head is THROBBING from this ruling.
How much longer do we have to endure these ASSAULTS on our basic RIGHTS from the highest court in the land?
America needs to SUE the SCOTUS. Oh wait, who do you think would actually win this case?
Ginsburg: ‘Radical’ Hobby Lobby Ruling May Create ‘Havoc’
The Supreme Court Justice took on the majority opinion in a biting dissent.
June 30, 2014
The Supreme Court on Monday weakened Obamacare’s controversial contraception mandate, ruling 5-4 that some employers cannot be forced to cover birth control as part of their health-insurance plans. The majority opinion, written by conservative Justice Samuel Alito, said such a mandate infringes on religious freedom, and thereby can be waived by certain business owners.
But in a blistering dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Justice Sotomayor, lambasted the majority opinion—delivered by five male justices—as “a decision of startling breadth” that would allow corporations to “opt out of any law … they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
The majority view “demands accommodation of a for-profit corporation’s religious beliefs no matter the impact that accommodation may have on third parties who do not share the corporation owners’ religious faith—in these cases, thousands of women employed by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga or dependents of persons those corporations employ” wrote Ginsburg, a stalwart member of the Court’s liberal wing.
She continued: “Persuaded that Congress enacted the RFRA to serve a far less radical purpose, and mindful of the havoc the Court’s judgment can introduce, I dissent.”
Ginsburg’s opinion reasons that religious groups exist to serve the explicit interests of their adherents, while for-profit companies serve a fundamentally different purpose. Bucking the majority, Ginsburg sides with the Obama administration’s claim that for-profit companies do not possess religious rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Citing retired Justice John Paul Stevens’ opinion in the 2010 campaign-finance ruling Citizens United v. FEC, Ginsburg reiterates that corporations “have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires.”
“The Court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield,” Ginsburg concludes, “by its immoderate reading of RFRA.”
http://www.nationaljournal.com/health-care/ginsburg-radical-hobby-lobby-ruling-may-create-havoc-20140630
you-me- EYE-EYE
SCOTUS IS A FUCKIN SHAM
When Bush got Allito and Roberts on the SCOTUS, I had this gut feeling that neither of these were the sharpest tools in the box, and that has certainly turned out to be true. But that is exactly what the GOP elite wanted, someone to do their bidding, not brilliant constitutional lawyers.
Ginsburg: ‘Radical’ Hobby Lobby Ruling May Create ‘Havoc’
The Supreme Court on Monday weakened Obamacare’s controversial contraception mandate, ruling 5-4 that some employers cannot be forced to cover birth control as part of their health-insurance plans. The majority opinion, written by conservative Justice Samuel Alito, said such a mandate infringes on religious freedom, and thereby can be waived by certain business owners.
But in a blistering dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Justice Sotomayor, lambasted the majority opinion—delivered by five male justices—as “a decision of startling breadth” that would allow corporations to “opt out of any law … they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
The majority view “demands accommodation of a for-profit corporation’s religious beliefs no matter the impact that accommodation may have on third parties who do not share the corporation owners’ religious faith—in these cases, thousands of women employed by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga or dependents of persons those corporations employ” wrote Ginsburg, a stalwart member of the Court’s liberal wing.
She continued: “Persuaded that Congress enacted the (Religious Freedom Restoration Act) to serve a far less radical purpose, and mindful of the havoc the Court’s judgment can introduce, I dissent.”
http://www.nationaljournal.com/health-care/ginsburg-radical-hobby-lobby-ruling-may-create-havoc-20140630
RBG: Persuaded that Congress enacted the (Religious Freedom Restoration Act) to serve a far less radical purpose, and mindful of the havoc the Court’s judgment can introduce, I dissent.”
SCOUTS is giving corporations cover by HIDING behind RELIGION FREEDOM.
SCARY!
Did anyone watch the BET Awards last night? They honored Lionel Ritchie last night. John Legend did a great job. Lionel’s voice was on the edge of gone, but he made it through 2 songs.
Phylicia Rashad acknowledged Maya Angelou and Ruby Dee and Myrlie Evers-Williams acknowledged the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights.
Sorry to say for me, a majority of that show was all about booty-shaking and bleeping out expletives.
All of the booty shaking just ridamndiculous. Lil Wayne breaking the damn mic.
Just sheer PORN, to be TRUTHFUL.
I’m all for expressing our sexuality, but the displays on stage were straight up PORNOGRAPHIC.
I LOATHE BET Awards for this foolishness.
Old ass white men on the Supreme Court will not stop until women can no longer vote. Boycott Hobby Lobby until they dry UP!
I’ve been in Hobby Lobby a total of one time. Looks like the front end of a Chinese factory. Never seen so much junk in my life and I have no idea why people want this stuff. My feeling about home decorating is that less is more, and the things you display should have some significance.
yes Hobby Lobby is crap, just like that ruling by SCOUTS.
Got dammit! The Supreme Court kick women in the teeth AGAIN. I’m tired of old ass white men making decision for women. EFFF YOU!
White POWER! Those women on the court don’t stand a chance.
and Kennedy.. NO BALLS. SHRUNKEN,
GONE
McConnell eyes abortion bills in GOP-led Senate
06/30/14 09:22 AM—Updated 06/30/14 09:25 AM
By Steve Benen
With the midterm elections still 126 days away, it’s a little early to speculate about what might happen in the event of a Republican-led Senate. The GOP minority will need a net gain of six seats this fall, and we don’t yet know with confidence whether that’s going to happen.
But the Senate Republicans’ leader is already making plans.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) promised Saturday to focus more attention on limiting abortions if Republicans take control of the Senate in November.
Speaking to the National Right to Life Convention in his home state of Kentucky, the Senate’s top Republican suggested Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has blocked the upper-chamber from voting on bills that would limit women’s rights to abortion, according to conservative website Townhall.com.
McConnell intends to change all of that if/when he’s the Senate Majority Leader, vowing publicly that President Obama “will be forced to listen to the cause” of anti-abortion activists.
Referencing a Senate GOP bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, McConnell added, “If I was majority leader, we’d already have had a vote on it in the Senate.”
Earlier this year, Politico said social issues have “been largely relegated to the sidelines” in Republican politics, and the GOP’s competing wings have both “steered away from social issues they deem too divisive.”
How’s that working out?
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/mcconnell-eyes-abortion-bills-gop-led-senate
“Judge throws out George Zimmerman’s libel suit against NBC”
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/trayvon-martin/os-george-zimmerman-nbc-suit-dead-20140630,0,1401290.story
Supreme Court says employers with religious objections can refuse to pay for contraception
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that certain employers citing religious objections can opt out of covering contraception mandated by the Affordable Care Act.
Read more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/justices-cant-make-employers-cover-contraception/2014/06/30/cfc18fec-0061-11e4-b203-f4b4c664cccf_story.html
Women should opt-out of working for Hobby Lobby. Don’t work there unless your other choice is to starve. Make it the last ditch, the worst job in town. Other employers who deny women having their contraception covered should be treated the same way.
Liza, it really is that SIMPLE.
WASHINGTON (AP) —
The Supreme Court says corporations can hold religious objections that allow them to opt out of the new health law requirement that they cover contraceptives for women.
The justices’ 5-4 decision Monday is the first time that the high court has ruled that profit-seeking businesses can hold religious views under federal law.
SCOTUS is a COMPLETE SHAM
Rove reflects on ‘imperial power’
06/30/14 08:43 AM
By Steve Benen
It’s generally difficult to say with any confidence whether Karl Rove believes his own rhetoric, but let’s hope he realizes how silly this is.
Karl Rove, a former White House adviser to President George W. Bush, said Sunday that President Obama takes greater liberties with his executive power than his predecessor did.
Speaking to “Fox News Sunday,” Rove accused Obama of picking and choosing which laws he will enforce and which ones he won’t.
“This is imperial power,” Rove said. “This is George III.”
This is deeply foolish.
For much of American history, there have been institutional tug-of-war competitions between the executive and the legislative, each battling for more authority. The separation of powers, with occasional judicial intervention, has seen periods of fluidity.
But to suggest, as Rove does, that President Obama has gone much further than his former Bush/Cheney team is demonstrably ridiculous. There’s no need to see this as some kind of contest, but if we’re going to rank administrations by their willingness to push the envelope on executive power, Obama is going to have to be far more ambitious if he intends to catch up to his immediate predecessor.
If Rove genuinely doesn’t understand this, he may need a refresher on recent history.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rove-reflects-imperial-power
https://twitter.com/MomsDemand/status/483594568139829248/photo/1
Hat tip to Mindy:
Every bit of THIS
https://twitter.com/Politics_PR/status/483408333907714048/photo/1
Now, that is one good educational graph!
BUT…BUT…but…it’s the black guys fault!
/SNARK
https://twitter.com/ZaibatsuNews/status/483411430205820929/photo/1
EXHIBIT 1+++++
JOE WILSON’S SCREED
Soon Texans Will Drink Their Own Pee
by BooMan
Sun Jun 29th, 2014 at 08:40:23 PM EST
My brother Phil wrote the cover story for the March/April/May issue of the Washington Monthly: Oops: The Texas Miracle That Isn’t. Now comes another major look at the downside of Rick Perry’s Texas from Paul Solotaroff in Men’s Journal Magazine.
This one focuses primarily on the issue of water supply, particularly the increasing need to use groundwater rather than surface water because of the endless drought and higher temperatures associated with climate change. In Texas, unlike any other state, landowners have the right to extract any amount of groundwater from wells on their property. And, just as with oil wells, you can drain the water from your neighbor’s property. This concept was explained well in the Oscar-winning movie There Will Be Blood.
In that clip, Daniel Day Lewis explains how he “drank your milkshake” by using a bigger straw to drain the oil beneath his neighbor’s land. That same exact phenomenon is going on all over Texas with groundwater, as those with the money to invest are sucking the aquifers dry and selling the (expensive) water to the cities. Meanwhile, people are drinking wastewater from Austin, filled with too much estrogen from birth control pills.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2014/6/29/204023/065
SG2, what say you about this drinking pee nonsense?
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning, Everyone.
Diamond Girl, sure do shine….
Good Morning, Ametia, rikyrah and Everyone :)
You’re like a precious stone….you’re like a shining star
How could IIIIII …..shine without you ….when it’s about you that I am…. OOOOOOHHHH