SCOTUS today: 2 HUGE deicisions

[boutons_deux]

bullshit Corporate-Americans can also have a bullshit religion?

The VRWC/Corporate FINAL SOLUTION in their War on Employees by killing unions?

[FromWayDowntown]

Since it seems an almost certainty that Justice Alito has been assigned the majority opinion in at least one of those cases, I'd say the odds are strong that the outcome of whichever case that might be will be disappointing to the left.

For whatever it's worth, Harris (the unions case) seems almost certainly to be a case that was assigned to Justice Alito. It was heard in January and everyone else on the Court (other than Justice Alito) has written a majority opinion for a case assigned in that sitting.

I'd say the odds are pretty bad for a left win on Hobby Lobby, too. There were 6 cases heard by the Court in March. 5 of those have already been decided, leaving 4 justices without a majority opinion from March. Those 4 are Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Scalia, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Alito. Normally, my guess would be that Justice Kennedy has Hobby Lobby, since he's generally the consensus builder. But he's already authored 8 majority opinions this Term while several others, including the Chief Justice, have only authored 7 opinions. Since the distribution of majority opinions tends to be fairly even, the expectation would be that one of those who've only authored 7 opinions would have Hobby Lobby (and not, therefore, Justice Kennedy). But it wouldn't be terribly unusual for one justice to be +2 over others in a particular Term (it looks like the last time that happened was in OT 2011, when Justice Kennedy wrote 9 majority ops while most others wrote only 7).

[boutons_deux]

"disappointing to the left"

nope, disappointing to America, to women, to employees

[FromWayDowntown]

Alito actually has both opinions.

[CosmicCowboy]

From a layman's viewpoint the Hobby Lobby lawsuit seems very similar to Citizens United. If they are going to give corporations first amendment rights of freedom of speech how can they deny first amendment rights of freedom of religion?

[FromWayDowntown]

5-4 in Harris, but the commentators in the courtroom seem to think the outcome does not gut public employee unions.

[FromWayDowntown]

From a layman's viewpoint the Hobby Lobby lawsuit seems very similar to Citizens United. If they are going to give corporations first amendment rights of freedom of speech how can they deny first amendment rights of freedom of religion?

I think that's right. I'm not particularly sold on the fundamental point of Citizens United, particularly because we don't always treat corporations like people (in a number of legal contexts, the courts specifically distinguish corporations from people in terms of the legal rights of each). I'm not sure that corporations should be treated like people in some circumstances in which they want to be treated like people without being treated like people in other circumstances where they would prefer to be treated as faceless entities. But that's what the law is at the moment and it does seem likely (particularly with Alito writing Hobby Lobby) that the rubric applicable to CU will generally apply to resolving the Hobby Lobby issues.

We'll know in just a few minutes.

[boutons_deux]

Hobby Lobby Is Only The Second Most Important Decision The Supreme Court Will Hand Down On Monday (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/06/29/3453767/harris-preview/)

Hobby Lobby is a major case, with tremendous implications for whether religious conservatives must obey the same rules that apply to the rest of society (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/03/24/3416549/hobby-lobby-they-have-a-plan/), but there is another case pending before the Court that has even greater implications for what kind of nation America will become. On Monday, the Supreme Court is expected to hand down two cases, Hobby Lobby and a lesser-known case (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/01/21/3184101/supreme-court-prepares-drop-bomb-public-sector-unions-today/) called Harris v. Quinn. Of the two, more is actually at stake in Harristhan in Hobby Lobby.

Defunding Labor

Harris arises from a group of home-based aides for Medicaid patients in Illinois, a majority of whom voted to unionize. When a majority of a workforce, but not every single worker, votes to be represented by a union, the union is still required to represent the interests of the non-union workers. That means all workers must be treated equally at the bargaining table — a union cannot entice workers into joining the union by bargaining for one set of wages for union members and another, lower set of wages for non-members.

By any reasonable objective measure, the union struck a very good deal for Illinois’ home health aides (http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/supreme_court_preview/briefs-v2/11-681_resp_seiu_hcii.authcheckdam.pdf). Before the union negotiated a collective bargaining agreement, the aides’ wages were just $7.00 an hour. Now they are $11.65 an hour, and they are scheduled to increase to $13.00 per hour in December. Nevertheless, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRWLDF), an anti-union litigation shop, found a handful of home health aides who object to this arrangement. Those objectors are now the plaintiffs in Harris.

Specifically, these plaintiffs object to a provision in the collective bargaining agreement requiring non-members to pay what is known as “agency fees” or “fair-share payments” in order to reimburse the union for the costs of bargaining on their behalf. Bargaining on behalf of hundreds or thousands of workers can be an expensive task (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/01/21/3184101/supreme-court-prepares-drop-bomb-public-sector-unions-today/). It often requires bargaining agents with a sophisticated understanding of an employer’s finances, and lawyers who can trace out the full consequences of every contract provision under discussion. If non-union members can enjoy the benefits of belonging to a unionized workplace — according to one study, unionization raises wages by about 12 percent (http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/quantile_2008_05.pdf) on average — then they will get something for nothing while their co-workers who join the union will bear the costs.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/06/29/3453767/harris-preview/

Funding[edit (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defen se_Foundation&action=edit&section=1)]

The National Right to Work Foundation is a public foundation that operates under the tax-exempt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax-exempt) status of Section 501(c)(3) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501(c)(3)) of the Internal Revenue Code meaning it is eligible for tax-deductible donations. The Foundation says its supporters are "union members, former union members, independent employees, business owners, and others" and that "individuals, corporations, companies, associations and foundations" are eligible to donate, but that the group receives no government support.[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defense_Foundation#ci te_note-4) It says it has received donations from "more than 350,000 Americans."[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defense_Foundation#ci te_note-history-3)
The identities of donors are not disclosed, but some of its funding has been traced to conservative (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_States) foundations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_foundations).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defense_Foundation

NRTWF is part of the VRWC, aka "movement conservatism", to wage non-stop War on Employees.

[FromWayDowntown]

Hobby Lobby being read now.

[FromWayDowntown]

It appears that HL wins its case -- closely-held corporations cannot be required to provide contraception coverage because the RFRA applies to regulations that govern the activities of such entities and the government failed to show that the ACA mandate is the least restrictive means of advancing its interest in ensuring cost-free access to contraception. Apparently, the opinion is highly-qualified; as the SCOTUSBlog people are saying: the opinion "concerns only the contraceptive mandate and should not be understood to mean that all insurance mandates, that is for blood transfusions or vaccinations, necessarily fail if they conflict with an employer's religious beliefs," and "does not provide a shield for employers who might cloak illegal discrimination as a religious practice."

Notably, Justice Kennedy in a concurring opinion says that the government could pay for the coverage itself.

[CosmicCowboy]

Yeah, i expected them to limit it to closely held corporations.

[boutons_deux]

It appears that HL wins its case -- closely-held corporations cannot be required to provide contraception coverage because the RFRA applies to regulations that govern the activities of such entities and the government failed to show that the ACA mandate is the least restrictive means of advancing its interest in ensuring cost-free access to contraception. Apparently, the opinion is highly-qualified; as the SCOTUSBlog people are saying: the opinion "concerns only the contraceptive mandate and should not be understood to mean that all insurance mandates, that is for blood transfusions or vaccinations, necessarily fail if they conflict with an employer's religious beliefs," and "does not provide a shield for employers who might cloak illegal discrimination as a religious practice."

Notably, Justice Kennedy in a concurring opinion says that the government could pay for the coverage itself.

The VRWC/Christian War on Vaginas nails another vagina to its trophy wall.

[CosmicCowboy]

The VRWC/Christian War on Vaginas nails another vagina to its trophy wall.

Did it hurt, Boo?

[FromWayDowntown]

I would say this about today's opinions: the majority, which was the same in both of the cases (CJ Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito), could have easily gone much further in each case than it chose to. And it's not like that majority is constrained in some way by anything other than a belief in the rule of law. I say that without reading the opinions and just taking the commentary about them at face value.

[Blake]

Sidebar opinion:

I still think the fact that we only have 9 Supreme Court judges is ridiculous.

[FromWayDowntown]

And apparently, the Court did hold that corporations are persons for the purposes of the RFRA (to extend Citizens United). Where it ultimately distinguished closely held a corporations from other larger forms of entity is by concluding that closely-held corps can have a particular religious belief without deciding whether a larger, publicly-traded entity can have such a belief.

[FromWayDowntown]

Sidebar opinion:

I still think the fact that we only have 9 Supreme Court judges is ridiculous.

Frankly, I'm not sure how many more would be workable. Nor am I sure that more would make a significant difference. Is 11 or 13 or 15 really that much different than 9? Would a 6-5, or a 7-6, or an 8-7 opinion in a close case really be more acceptable than a 5-4?

[boutons_deux]

The VRWC SCOTUS-court packing continues to screw Human-Americans.

a corporation is a person? bullshit.

this bullshit "person" can Taleban-like impose its religious bullshit on its employees? bullshit

Thanks, Repugs and Repug voters.

[CosmicCowboy]

Boos vagina hurts.

[boutons_deux]

5-4, employees/unions LOSE AGAIN

[boutons_deux]

so those Harris home care workers get to have their hourly knocked down from union $11 back to $7.

How wonder how much the VRWC paid these low-wagers to fuck themselves over.

[CosmicCowboy]

It will be interesting to see just how broadly Harris is interpreted. Can a conservative member of a union that is in the pocket of the Democrats refuse to pay dues that are used to benefit political candidates he disagrees with?

[boutons_deux]

It will be interesting to see just how broadly Harris is interpreted. Can a conservative member of a union that is in the pocket of the Democrats refuse to pay dues that are used to benefit political candidates he disagrees with?

I'm sure the VRWC/Repugs will launch 10s or more of suits buildingon/expanding this precedent.

[FromWayDowntown]

Boos vagina hurts.

An aside: I don't really get why suggesting that a man is a woman is an insult. I never have, and I doubt that I ever will. I certainly don't think my daughters, wife, or mother are weak because they're female and it's never occurred to me to try to insult a guy by ascribing female qualities to him.

Probably just me.

Carry on.

[boutons_deux]

Boos vagina hurts.

right-wing misogynist employer exposes his assholiness

[Winehole23]

the decision: http://www.scribd.com/doc/231968677/Supreme-Court-Hobby-Lobby-decision-dissents

[Blake]

Frankly, I'm not sure how many more would be workable. Nor am I sure that more would make a significant difference. Is 11 or 13 or 15 really that much different than 9? Would a 6-5, or a 7-6, or an 8-7 opinion in a close case really be more acceptable than a 5-4?

We have 100 senators and 435 congressmen making law but 9 (ultimately) interpreting it.

I think 100 judges would be great. I'm tired of seeing extremely important issues being decided on counts of 5-4.

[FromWayDowntown]

We have 100 senators and 435 congressmen making law but 9 (ultimately) interpreting it.

I think 100 judges would be great. I'm tired of seeing extremely important issues being decided on counts of 5-4.

With 100 judges, you'd likely get only a handful of cases decided in any given year, given the consensus building that would be necessary to gain a majority on any particular issue. And, at that, you'd get such fractured opinions that they'd most likely provide no real workable framework for application in real life contexts.

I'm not sure that either of those possibilities would tend to make the Court a particularly useful institution. (setting aside political views about the usefulness of the Court with its current makeup).

As it is, there are more than 600 other federal judges who are working on the sorts of issues that reach the Supreme Court and work through arguments concerning those issues. So, there are actually more judges deciding these types of issues than there are legislators. And, yes, I saw your word "ultimately," but the truth is that on a significant number of issues of federal (and Constitutional) law, the ultimate word on those issues is coming from the Courts of Appeals and not from the Supreme Court.

[boutons_deux]

Changing the number of justices would NEVER get past the Senate Repugs (as long as their extreme right-wing, activist, political operatives hold the 5-4 advantage).

[Blake]

With 100 judges, you'd likely get only a handful of cases decided in any given year, given the consensus building that would be necessary to gain a majority on any particular issue. And, at that, you'd get such fractured opinions that they'd most likely provide no real workable framework for application in real life contexts.


I'd probably be ok with it considering that in some instances, interpreting the law is in effect making law. I'm sure they could figure out a system to provide framework.

And sure, 100 is probably over the top, but 9 at the highest level sucks.

[FromWayDowntown]

I'd probably be ok with it considering that in some instances, interpreting the law is in effect making law.

I tend to think that the People would prefer that their judiciary be a bit more responsive than having its Supreme Court deciding less than 20 cases a year (if that many).

If the concern is for narrow majorities, I don't think changing the number of justices will change that. The surer way to get to that end, I think, would be to elect the justices or to hold retention votes for them.

[CosmicCowboy]

I tend to think that the People would prefer that their judiciary be a bit more responsive than having its Supreme Court deciding less than 20 cases a year (if that many).

If the concern is for narrow majorities, I don't think changing the number of justices will change that. The surer way to get to that end, I think, would be to elect the justices or to hold retention votes for them.

Wow. That would be crazy. It would be a double edged sword with huge pendulum swings in precedent as party majorities come and go in popularity...

[FromWayDowntown]

Wow. That would be crazy. It would be a double edged sword with huge pendulum swings in precedent as party majorities come and go in popularity...

To be sure, I'm not a fan of either expanding the Court or electing its justices.

[m>s]

Liberal tears taste so fucking good!!!!!

[Blake]

To be sure, I'm not a fan of either expanding the Court or electing its justices.

I like the idea of electing judges vs one president appointing his party choice.

[CosmicCowboy]

I like the idea of electing judges vs one president appointing his party choice.

You would have loved the court when Reagan, Bush, etc. won by landslides. They would have carried the supreme court on their coattails.

[angrydude]

I like the idea of electing judges vs one president appointing his party choice.

The SCOTUS agrees on most everything. It's only a few cases a year that split on partisan lines. And even then its not always because red team wants this, blue team wants that. It's more "will this hinder the march towards unlimited government power" vs "how can I help my corporate overlords today?"

[FromWayDowntown]

You would have loved the court when Reagan, Bush, etc. won by landslides. They would have carried the supreme court on their coattails.

Without an electoral college (and with positions that wouldn't have any particularly reasonable need to be geographically fixed) I'm not even sure that landslides would be necessary to pack the Court with partisans of either persuasion at various points in time.

[boutons_deux]

By a 5–4 vote on Monday, the United States Supreme Court settled a dispute that Justice Samuel Alito said was “at its core about the rights of women versus the rights of people.”

Writing for the majority, Justice Alito wrote, “It is the duty of this Court, whenever it sees that the rights of people are being threatened, to do our best to safeguard those rights. In this case, it is clear that people’s rights were being threatened by women.”

Acknowledging that some women “might argue that they, too, have some claim to being people,” Justice Alito wrote, “That is an interesting question for another day.”

While the Court’s decision caused an uproar across the country, it received a big thumbs-up from one of the Justices who voted with the majority, Antonin Scalia.

“This has been a crappy year or so around here, what with all that gay-marriage stuff, but at least we finished strong,” he said.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/06/supreme-court-majority-calls-case-a-dispute-between-women-and-people.html?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=borowitz&mbid=nl_Borowitz%20(93)

[SnakeBoy]

By a 5–4 vote on Monday, the United States Supreme Court settled a dispute that Justice Samuel Alito said was “at its core about the rights of women versus the rights of people.”

Writing for the majority, Justice Alito wrote, “It is the duty of this Court, whenever it sees that the rights of people are being threatened, to do our best to safeguard those rights. In this case, it is clear that people’s rights were being threatened by women.”

Acknowledging that some women “might argue that they, too, have some claim to being people,” Justice Alito wrote, “That is an interesting question for another day.”

While the Court’s decision caused an uproar across the country, it received a big thumbs-up from one of the Justices who voted with the majority, Antonin Scalia.

“This has been a crappy year or so around here, what with all that gay-marriage stuff, but at least we finished strong,” he said.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/06/supreme-court-majority-calls-case-a-dispute-between-women-and-people.html?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=borowitz&mbid=nl_Borowitz%20(93)





Damn are you ever going to grasp what satire is?

[Aztecfan03]

You would have loved the court when Reagan, Bush, etc. won by landslides. They would have carried the supreme court on their coattails.

If it was by election, they would probably have to have 18-year terms with one judge elected every 2 years or something like that.

[boutons_deux]

heard some interesting possibilities on NPR

what if a privately held company's owners interpreted their religion as forbidding the federal law on minimum wage?

Now that the Repug SCOTUS5 has opened the door for companies' owners to trump federal law with their religious beliefs, impose their religion on their employees, where does it stop?

and you can bet very safely the self-congratulating, self-satisfied, self-righteous Christian Taleban won't stop with this one ruling.

btw, "privately held" company covers a LOT of employees:

http://www.forbes.com/pictures/eggh45efje/1-cargill-8/

[DD]

Liberal tears taste so fucking good!!!!!

My favorite flavor

[boutons_deux]

U.S. Senator Agrees With Supreme Court Decision Because Women Use Birth Control ‘Largely For Recreational Behavior’ (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/06/30/3455063/senator-agrees-women-use-birth-control-for-recreational-behavior-hours-after-hobby-lobby-decision/)

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/06/30/3455063/senator-agrees-women-use-birth-control-for-recreational-behavior-hours-after-hobby-lobby-decision/

:lol you tea bagger libertarians really got some thorough-going nasty, ignorant assholes leading y'all around. :lol

[CosmicCowboy]

You sure are a hysterical little bitch Boutons. This ruling only applied to 4 current drugs that abort the fertilized egg.

I could give a shit if women use the morning after pill but some people do. The SCOTUS ruling was totally consistent with the first amendment.

[FromWayDowntown]

The SCOTUS ruling was totally consistent with the first amendment.

That's true, but only if you agree with the preliminary notion that corporations can have constitutional rights (and if you can explain why, then, they shouldn't be treated the same way as people in all other legal respects).

[boutons_deux]

You sure are a hysterical little bitch Boutons. This ruling only applied to 4 current drugs that abort the fertilized egg.

I could give a shit if women use the morning after pill but some people do. The SCOTUS ruling was totally consistent with the first amendment.

bullshit, per usual, right wingers perverting the 1st amendtment like they pervert murderously the 2nd amendment.

there was nothing FORCING the closely-held religious extremist to give the contraception to the employees. the employees were not FORCED to use the contraception

total freedom for all parties.

As Hilllary said, the slope is very slippery, and now the Christian Taleban (and why not other religions, even Flying Spaghetti Monster) will use this precedent to impose their religion on their employees, even worse in the context of the shitty job market where employees simply can't go find another, equal job that doesn't have religious oppression.

[Winehole23]

suggests Hobby Lobby's (successful) RFRA claim violates the Establishment clause:

http://www.vanderbiltlawreview.org/content/articles/2014/03/Gedicks-and-Koppelman_Invisible-Women.pdf

[boutons_deux]

How Many Companies Will Be Touched By Court's Contraception Ruling?

When the Supreme Court ruled Monday that "closely held" corporations don't have to pay for workers' contraception (file:///C:/Users/aschneider/Documents/My%20Documents/326926331), you may have assumed the decision applied only to family-owned businesses.
Wrong.

An estimated 9 out of 10 (http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/encyclopedia/Clo-Con/Closely-Held-Corporations.html#ixzz368MtxrMy) businesses are "closely held."

However, some benefits experts question just how many of those companies would want to assert religious views.

The IRS defines (http://www.irs.gov/Help-&-Resources/Tools-&-FAQs/FAQs-for-Individuals/Frequently-Asked-Tax-Questions-&-Answers/Small-Business,-Self-Employed,-Other-Business/Entities/Entities-5) a closely held corporation as having more than half the value of its stock owned by five or fewer individuals. That's individuals — not just family members.

Closely held companies tend to be small — many are far too tiny to offer any type of insurance. But some are huge and include some of the best-known names in American business, such as Mars Inc., with more than 70,000 workers, and Cargill Inc., with more than 140,000.

It appears that under Monday's ruling (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-354_olp1.pdf), such huge enterprises may be able to refuse to offer contraception coverage if they assert a religious view. The majority of the justices said: "Protecting the free-exercise rights of closely held corporations thus protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control them."

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, noting that " 'closely held' is not synonymous with 'small.' "

In her written opinion, she suggests there may be many future legal battles involving these large, complex enterprises because the Supreme Court's majority fails to "offer any instruction on how to resolve the disputes that may crop up among corporate owners over religious values and accommodations."

In other words, even if the number of owners is small, they could have big disagreements about religious issues. "How is the arbiter of a religion-based intra-corporate controversy to resolve the disagreement?" Ginsburg asked in her dissent.


The 5-4 majority opinion said that protecting the free-exercise rights of owners of corporations such as Hobby Lobby Stores, Conestoga Wood Specialties and Mardel protects religious liberty. Such owners don't forfeit their religious rights just because they choose to organize their business as corporation, not a sole proprietorship or partnership.

A study (http://web-docs.stern.nyu.edu/salomon/docs/corporategovernance/S-CG-02-06.pdf) from New York University, done in 2002, showed that slightly more than half of private sector employees work for closely held companies rather than companies that publicly trade stock on open exchanges.

Still, even though most companies are closely held, the number of companies refusing to offer contraception coverage may turn out to be quite small, according to Tim Goodman, an employee benefits expert and partner at the law firm Dorsey & Whitney.

"There may be lots of these types of corporations, but not many that would assert" this religious view, Goodman said. "It takes effort and energy to bring these assertions, so it takes someone with very strong religious beliefs" to make the case, he said.

Hobby Lobby Ruling Cuts Into Contraceptive Mandate (http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/06/30/327065968/hobby-lobby-ruling-cuts-into-contraceptive-mandate)

Goodman said that to follow in the path of Hobby Lobby, a company would have to expend a lot of time working with its insurer to shape a special policy. And then an employee could bring a court challenge, questioning the employers' religious sincerity. And there could be bad publicity, both with customers and potential employees, he said.

( note: but it's an employer's job market now, and will be for years, PLENTY of religious-extremist-minded job candidates to choose from )

For most company owners, "you are a lot more interested in making your business work than taking this on," he said.

So most likely, changes to insurance coverage will be confined to smaller, family-owned businesses with very deeply held religious views, he said.

http://www.npr.org/2014/06/30/327071978/how-many-companies-will-be-touched-by-courts-contraception-ruling?sc=17&f=1001&utm_source=iosnewsapp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=app

As I said, the precedent opens the door for all kinds of shit. Thanks, Repugs!

[boutons_deux]

How Hobby Lobby Ruling Could Limit Access to Birth Control

The Supreme Court ruling in the Hobby Lobby case (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/01/us/supreme-court-ruling-in-contraceptive-case-is-awaited.html)raises at least two questions: How will it affect access to contraception, and what do the drugs and devices the company objected to on religious grounds actually do?

A growing body of evidence shows that it is already hard to obtain certain kinds of contraception, and the ruling seems likely to increase barriers. A significant number of pharmacists — 6 percent in one study (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953610002765) — say they would refuse to dispense oral contraceptives or other medications to patients for moral reasons if they were permitted to do so.
This dynamic played out in a recent study by a health services researcher, Tracey Wilkinson, who had callers pose as adolescents to see if pharmacies had emergency contraception (http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1357835) and would dispense it – legally – to them.

The first key finding was that in about 20 percent of pharmacies, no emergency contraception, like Plan B (http://www.planbonestep.com/), was available at all.

Even when it was, however, almost 20 percent of the time adolescents were told, incorrectly, that they couldn’t have it under any circumstances. They were told this significantly more often when calling pharmacies in low-income neighborhoods.

(http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/07/02/upshot/how-hobby-lobby-ruling-could-limit-access-to-birth-control.html#modal-lightbox)As part of the study, Dr. Wilkinson also had physicians call the pharmacies (http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/129/4/624.long). Misinformation was given to them only 3 percent of the time. For some reason, those in the pharmacies were more likely to make it harder for the patients themselves to get the emergency contraception they could legally obtain.

If other family-owned corporations choose to emulate Hobby Lobby and win an exemption from the Affordable Care Act’s requirement for broad coverage of contraception, cost will become a higher barrier for more women. Emergency contraception costs, on average, $45 without insurance (http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1357835).

The cost of an IUD (http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-info/birth-control/iud), one of the most effective forms of birth control, is considerable. It requires a visit to the doctor, and a procedure to have the device put in place. Medical exams, insertion, and follow-up visits can run upward of $1,000. Without insurance coverage, it’s likely that many women will be unable to use them.

The reason that contraception is covered at all is that the A.C.A. says that important preventive services must be covered by insurance.

After an extensive review made at the request of the government, the Institute of Medicine made eight recommendations (http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2011/Clinical-Preventive-Services-for-Women-Closing-the-Gaps/Report-Brief.aspx?page=2) for such services, including “a fuller range of contraceptive education, counseling, methods, and services so that women can better avoid unwanted pregnancies and space their pregnancies to promote optimal birth outcomes (http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2011/Clinical-Preventive-services-for-Women-Closing-the-Gaps.aspx).”

The owners of Hobby Lobby told the Court that they were willing to cover some forms of contraception but believed that the so-called morning-after pills and two kinds of IUDs can cause what they believe to be a type of abortion, by preventing a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterine wall or causing an already implanted egg to fail to thrive.

As colleagues have noted (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/health/research/morning-after-pills-dont-block-implantation-science-suggests.html), the scientific consensus is against this idea, and it’s worth reviewing some basics here.

Even without contraception, fertilized eggs often fail to implant naturally.

Intrauterine devices are not often discussed in the lay media. That doesn’t mean they are uncommon. More than 15 percent of all women worldwide (http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/13625180903519885) who are married or living with a partner use IUDs at the primary measure of birth control. Use in North America is lower, at around 2 percent.

IUDs come in a number of forms. They can be inert, or have copper or hormones embedded within them. Most scientists believe that they interfere with the ability of sperm to get to an egg in time to fertilize it before they die.

Research does not support the idea that they prevent fertilized eggs to implant. The journal Fertility and Sterility published a study (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Absence+of+Chorionic+Gonadotropin+in+Sera+of +Women+Who+Use+Intrauterine+Devices) in 1985 that followed three groups of women for 15 months. One group had an IUD, one group had their tubes tied, and one group was trying to get pregnant. They then measured hormone levels to see if fertilization occurred. It did so only in the group trying to get pregnant.

Another study (http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/13625180903519885) found that a telltale sign of fertilization — a surge of the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin — occurred in only 1 percent of 100 cycles in women using IUDs. This would be consistent with the failure rate of IUDs in general. In other words, IUDs do not appear to work by aborting a fertilized egg.

Emergency contraception, which is really just a large dose of the hormones in a birth control pill, works in a similar manner (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/health/research/morning-after-pills-dont-block-implantation-science-suggests.html?pagewanted=all). The pills can thicken the mucus in the cervix to make it difficult for sperm to reach the egg, and they prevent ovulation from occurring in the first place. Because the doses of medication are very short-term, they probably cannot affect the uterine lining in such a way as to affect implantation.

Moreover, the fact that both of these forms of contraception can fail, and allow pregnancies to occur, provides evidence that if a fertilization occurs, it can move on to implant and grow.
Regardless of the data, or lack of it, many still believe that these forms of contraception are different than others. Today, the Supreme Court gave those beliefs weight. This seems likely to make it harder for women to get contraception in the future.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/07/02/upshot/how-hobby-lobby-ruling-could-limit-access-to-birth-control.html

HL and other religious extremists, and Repugs who inflame them, DENY THE FACTS, naturally, habitiulally, that their ABORTIFACIENTS simply aren't. They "believe" bullshit and impose their bullshit on the non-believers under their control. just like the Taleban.

[boutons_deux]

Ohio Archy going the same way

Ohio Catholic School Contracts Controversy Dismissed as Overblown

“We do consider all of our teachers, including those who are not Catholic, to be ministers of the Church, because our schools are a ministry — that’s the reason we open up the doors in the morning. It’s not just to provide a great education, great discipline, although we do that: It’s to spread the Gospel.”

The contract gives examples of prohibited conduct, including “public support of or publicly living together outside marriage, public support of or sexual activity out of wedlock, public support of or homosexual lifestyle, public support of or use of abortion … public membership in organizations whose mission and message are incompatible with Catholic doctrine or morals.”

The wording is important, Andriacco said, for its concern with public — not private — acts and its extension beyond the bounds of the classroom: “A teacher’s function as a role model doesn’t end at the classroom door.”

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/ohio-catholic-school-contracts-controversy-dismissed-as-overblown/

=========================

Stoking Fire: Why Are Some Teachers Being Asked to Swear Allegiance to Catholic Doctrine?


While the exact wording of each contract varies, the bottom line, he says, is that faculty teaching in Catholic elementary, middle, and senior high schools in affected areas need to heed the party line and sign a multi-page contract indicating that they oppose abortion, contraception, extramarital sex, premarital sex, masturbation, pornography, in vitro fertilization, artificial insemination, and homosexuality. What’s more, Berkowitz explains, this applies regardless of whether a teacher is Catholic and regardless of the subject taught.

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/06/19/stoking-fire-teachers-asked-swear-allegiance-catholic-doctrine/

[TheSanityAnnex]

If other family-owned corporations choose to emulate Hobby Lobby and win an exemption from the Affordable Care Act’s requirement for broad coverage of contraception, cost will become a higher barrier for more women. Emergency contraception costs, on average, $45 without insurance (http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1357835).




If you don't have $45 dollars to spare on emergency contraception I'd suggest not having unprotected sex. And this is coming from a non-Christian.

[CosmicCowboy]

If you don't have $45 dollars to spare on emergency contraception I'd suggest not having unprotected sex. And this is coming from a non-Christian.


No shit. Or give the dude a choice. Wrap it or pony up the $45 for the morning after pill.

[CosmicCowboy]

bullshit, per usual, right wingers perverting the 1st amendtment like they pervert murderously the 2nd amendment.

there was nothing FORCING the closely-held religious extremist to give the contraception to the employees. the employees were not FORCED to use the contraception





:lmao

Of course the employers were being forced to offer the contraception options as a minimum requirement of their broader insurance package. Not only that but the employer had to pay 100% making them in their minds morally culpable. Boo, you are so blindly full of shit.

[boutons_deux]

told ya

Pacific Islanders on Hawaiian police force say it's their religious right to have tattoos. :lol

[boutons_deux]

You sure are a hysterical little bitch Boutons. This ruling only applied to 4 current drugs that abort the fertilized egg.

I could give a shit if women use the morning after pill but some people do. The SCOTUS ruling was totally consistent with the first amendment.

ya gotta keep up, CC

SCOTUS: Ruling Applies Broadly To Contraception Coverage

The Supreme Court on Tuesday confirmed that its decision a day earlier extending religious rights to closely held corporations applies broadly to the contraceptive coverage requirement in the new health care law, not just the handful of methods the justices considered in their ruling.

The justices did not comment in leaving in place lower court rulings in favor of businesses that object to covering all 20 methods of government-approved contraception.

Oklahoma-based Hobby Lobby Inc. and a Pennsylvania furniture maker won their court challenges Monday in which they refused to pay for two emergency contraceptive pills and two intrauterine devices.

Tuesday's orders apply to companies owned by Catholics who oppose all contraception. Cases involving Colorado-based Hercules Industries Inc., Illinois-based Korte & Luitjohan Contractors Inc. and Indiana-based Grote Industries Inc. were awaiting action pending resolution of the Hobby Lobby case.

They are among roughly 50 lawsuits from profit-seeking corporations that object to the contraceptive coverage requirement in their health plans for employees. Contraception is among a range of preventive services that must be included in the health plans, at no extra cost to workers.

The justices also ordered lower courts that ruled in favor of the Obama administration to reconsider those decisions in light of Monday's 5-4 decision.

Two Michigan-based companies, Autocam Corp. and Eden Foods Inc., both lost their cases in the lower courts. The justices ordered the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its decisions against the companies.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/scotus-says-hobby-lobby-ruling-applies-broadly?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

[boutons_deux]

the Court’s ruling also serves as a reminder of just how cautiously the GOP must tread when speaking on any issue in a social and cultural context. In 2012, Republicans paid a heavy price (http://www.npr.org/2014/01/25/265992565/eyes-on-2016-gop-revisits-the-rebranding) for their increasingly militant and unpopular positions on social issues, and in 2014 they cannot afford to speak too loudly on social issues just months ahead of midterm elections.

As a Democracy Corps analysis (http://www.democracycorps.com/wp-content/files/February-National-Memo.pdf) pointed out in February, 2012, the public has long disagreed with Republicans on contraception and Planned Parenthood funding. According to the survey, voters “wonder why at a time of great economic distress, Republicans are consumed with denying birth control coverage for women.”

With theHobby Lobby ruling dominating the news, the GOP must again confront contraception and women’s access to health care services, among other social issues – ones on which women and young voters tend to side with Democrats.

Voters have not shifted towards the Republican point of view on the issue. Just one day before the Supreme Court released its Hobby Lobby decision, Reuters revealed the findings of a new Reuters/Ipsos poll (http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/29/us-usa-court-contraceptives-idUSKBN0F408B20140629): When asked “whether employers should be able to choose what forms of contraceptives their health plans provide based on their religious beliefs,” 53 percent of Americans disagreed — and only 35 percent agreed.

A Gallup poll (http://www.gallup.com/poll/154799/americans-including-catholics-say-birth-control-morally.aspx) released in May similarly found that a massive 89 percent of Americans — including 88 percent of Republicans — say that the use of birth control is morally acceptable.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/gop-forced-walk-thin-line-hobby-lobby-ruling/

ok, polls, but will Repugs who disagree with their politicians/SCOTUS5 abstain or vote Dem?

Repugs have their wedge issues, dividing, weakening America bitterly, but the side of the wedge they pander to/dupe is quite a bit smaller than the other side of the wedge.

[Aztecfan03]

No shit. Or give the dude a choice. Wrap it or pony up the $45 for the morning after pill.

Or take the free birth control, that is still covered, ahead of time.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Or take the free birth control, that is still covered, ahead of time.
Personal responsibility is a lost art.

[Jacob1983]

I'm tired of the celebrations of gay marriage rulings and birth control shit. I want to hear about some news that helps the majority of America ie jobs and student loan debt. How is our wonderful congress and amazing president gonna help a broths out on dat shit? I don't give a fuck if two men want to get married and fuck or if a woman wants a pill that prevents a guy's jizz from making a mistake in her. I don't care. America is a business.

[boutons_deux]

I'm tired of the celebrations of gay marriage rulings and birth control shit. I want to hear about some news that helps the majority of America ie jobs and student loan debt. How is our wonderful congress and amazing president gonna help a broths out on dat shit? I don't give a fuck if two men want to get married and fuck or if a woman wants a pill that prevents a guy's jizz from making a mistake in her. I don't care. America is a business.

the Repugs you elected, esp the your tea baggers like Cruz, Lee, will block all progress in Congress.

Look at the number of bills passed in the past 2,3 years in comparison with other legislative years. law-less is really Repugs descrption of themselves.

The gamed, rigged status quo is vastly in favor of the 1%, the corps, so they have $Bs to spend electing/maintaining the Repug/tea party turds to clog up Congress, defund govt, de-populate govt, and will sue/impeach Obama for trying to do anything by executive order, which in fact is VERY limited.

[boutons_deux]

Hobby Lobby Is Only the Beginning

The larger controversy, however, won’t be settled so easily.

Supporters of the mandate countered that a victory for the plaintiffs would allow large corporations, under the cover of religious freedom, not just to impede women’s exercise of their reproductive rights but also to defy civil rights statutes with impunity.

Amid this heated talk, it was easy to lose sight of the fact that this was a statutory case, not a case decided under the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of religion.

The statute in question, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, states that the government “shall not substantially burden” the exercise of religion without satisfying a demanding legal test.

It is worth noting that the act was championed by President Bill Clinton (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/bill_clinton/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and passed in 1993, with near unanimity, by a Democrat-controlled Congress. The act was drafted in response to a controversial 1990 Supreme Court decision that made it easier — far too easy, according to critics of all political stripes — for the government to burden the exercise of religion.

The decision in Hobby Lobby was no shock to anyone familiar with the heavy weight that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act places on religious accommodation. The fate of the case was sealed 21 years ago — not by a slim majority of the court, but by virtually every member of Congress. In a dissenting opinion on Monday, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued that the court’s ruling in Hobby Lobby was one of “startling breadth,” but the statute itself is deliberately broad.


The first source of controversy is the collapse of a national consensus on a key element of religious liberty: accommodation. Throughout American history, there has been widespread agreement that in our religiously diverse and widely devout country, it is good for the government to accommodate religious exercise. We have disagreed about particular accommodations (may a Muslim police officer wear a beard, despite police department policy?), and especially about whether religious accommodations should be ordered by judges or crafted by legislators. But we have generally agreed that our nation benefits when we help rather than burden those with religious obligations. That consensus seems, quite suddenly, to have evaporated.

A second source of controversy is that many people view the Hobby Lobby case as concerning not just reproductive rights but also, indirectly, rights for gays and lesbians. Advocates for same-sex marriage (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/same_sex_marriage/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) have long insisted that their own marriages need not threaten anyone else’s, but citizens with religious objections to same-sex marriage wonder whether that is entirely true: Will a small-business owner be sued, for instance, for declining to provide services to a same-sex couple?

Conversely, and understandably, gay and lesbian couples wonder why they do not deserve the same protections from discrimination granted to racial and other minorities. For both sides, Hobby Lobby was merely a prelude to this dawning conflict.

The third source of controversy is a change in our views of the marketplace itself. The marketplace was once seen as place to put aside our culture wars and engage in the great American tradition of buying and selling. The shopping mall has even been called the “American agora.” But today the market itself has become a site of cultural conflict. Hobby Lobby is one of many companies that seek to express faith commitments at work as well as at home and that don’t see the workplace as a thing apart from religion. Many companies preach and practice values, religious and otherwise, that are unrelated to market considerations.


A country that cannot even agree on the idea of religious accommodation, let alone on what terms, is unlikely to agree on what to do next. A country in which many states cannot manage to pass basic anti-discrimination laws covering sexual orientation is one whose culture wars may be beyond the point of compromise.

And a nation whose marketplace itself is viewed, for better or worse, as a place to fight both those battles rather than to escape from them is still less likely to find surcease from struggle.

Expect many more Hobby Lobbies.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/07/02/opinion/for-the-supreme-court-hobby-lobby-is-only-the-beginning.html?_r=0

"religious freedom", "religious accommodation" for "Christians" is their "right" to impose their religion on everybody else, granting no one freedom FROM their religion.

And let's see if those Pacific islander police in Hawaii will be able to work with their tattoos uncovered

And lets see if a turbaned/bearded Sihk is ever allowed to be a policeman, or in the military.

[boutons_deux]

The US screws up, while Europe doesn't

European rights court rules in favor of French burqa ban

The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday rejected a claim by a young Muslim woman that France's ban on the wearing of burqas and niqabs in public violates her rights.

The French law banning the burqa, a full-body covering that includes a mesh over the face, and the niqab, a full-face veil with an opening for the eyes, went into effect in April 2011. (http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/04/11/france.burqa.ban/)

It has pitted religious freedom advocates against those who say the Islamic veil is demeaning to women and inconsistent with France's rigorously enforced secularism.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/01/world/europe/france-burqa-ban/

"France's rigorously enforced secularism" of course dates to the French Revolution that over through the toxic, corrupt 100s-years oppression by the royalty + Catholic church.

Contrast with the US Christian Taleban supremacists LYING that US was founded as Christian country, and that Ten Commandments/Bible should replace the US penal code.

[m>s]

This is what you really mean to say
>names himself boner-ific
>obsessed with male n!gg3rs

faggot confirmed

[Winehole23]

in theory, the impact could be wide, depending on what other matters of conscience corporations choose to uphold:


The Supreme Court ruled Monday that "closely held corporations" cannot be forced to pay for their employees' birth control (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/supreme-court-sides-with-employers-over-birth-control-mandate/2014/06/30/852e5c84-fc61-11e3-b1f4-8e77c632c07b_story.html?hpid=z1) if they have religious objections -- a decision hailed by religious groups and denounced by women's groups.
So what exactly is a "closely held corporation?" And how many people will this effect?


Some initially thought that this verbiage effectively narrowed the decision to a limited number of businesses, but it's actually the same language Hobby Lobby sought in seeking its exemption from the contraception mandate. It's also a term that covers a lot of businesses and Americans -- like, a lot.


Here's how the IRS defines "closely held corporation" (http://www.irs.gov/Help-&-Resources/Tools-&-FAQs/FAQs-for-Individuals/Frequently-Asked-Tax-Questions-&-Answers/Small-Business,-Self-Employed,-Other-Business/Entities/Entities-5):




Has more than 50% of the value of its outstanding stock owned (directly or indirectly) by 5 or fewer individuals at any time during the last half of the tax year; and
Is not a personal service corporation.


Basically, "closely held" is a term that covers as much as 90 percent (or more) of all businesses (http://openarchive.cbs.dk/bitstream/handle/10398/7622/wpec1099.pdf?sequence=1), according to a 2000 study.


But while it covers the vast majority of employers, it doesn't necessarily cover the vast majority of employees. That's because publicly traded companies tend to have many more employees than private ones.


Still, according to studies from Columbia University (http://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/mygsb/faculty/research/pubfiles/4049/Governance%20Problems%20in%20Closely%20Held%20Corp orations.pdf) and New York University (http://web-docs.stern.nyu.edu/salomon/docs/corporategovernance/S-CG-02-06.pdf), closely held corporations employed 52 percent of the American workforce and accounted for slightly more than half -- 51 percent -- of economic output from the private sector.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/06/30/a-lot-of-people-could-be-affected-by-the-supreme-courts-birth-control-decision/

[Wild Cobra]

I'm not against birth control, but I am against authoritarians trying to force their views on others.

[boutons_deux]

George Takei: What if Hobby Lobby was run by Muslims imposing Sharia law on workers?

Former Star Trek actor George Takei blasted Monday’s decision by the Supreme Court allowing the craft store Hobby Lobby to opt out of the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act.
In a post on the website for his new play, Allegiance (http://www.allegiancemusical.com/blog-entry/hobby-lobby-aint-church-its-profit-business), the openly gay Takei called Monday’s decision “a stunning setback for women’s reproductive rights.”

“The ruling elevates the rights of a FOR-PROFIT CORPORATION over those of its women employees and opens the door to all manner of claims that a company can refuse services based on its owner’s religion,” Takei wrote.

“Think about the ramifications: As Justice Ginsberg’s stinging dissent pointed out, companies run by Scientologists could refuse to cover antidepressants, and those run by Jews or Hindus could refuse to cover medications derived from pigs (such as many anesthetics, intravenous fluids, or medications coated in gelatin).”

“(O)ne wonders,” he said, “whether the case would have come out differently if a Muslim-run chain business attempted to impose Sharia law on its employees.”

Takei pointed out what many have noted, that Hobby Lobby has invested in multiple companies that manufacture abortion drugs and birth control (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/02/hobby-lobby-contraceptives-are-bad-for-employees-but-good-for-business/). The company receives most of its merchandise from China, a country where overpopulation has led to mandatory abortions and sterilizations for women who try to have more than one child.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/02/george-takei-what-if-hobby-lobby-was-run-by-muslims-imposing-sharia-law-on-workers/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

[boutons_deux]

Here's that Hobby Lobby slippery slope in action (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/02/1311250/-Here-s-that-Hobby-Lobby-slippery-slope-in-nbsp-action)

Who could have predicted that the U.S. Supreme Court was going to empower religious organizations to start screaming for federal exemptions to everything they find icky? Pretty much everyone, actually, saw that coming andhere's the first of it (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/hobby-lobby-is-already-creating-new-religious-demands-on-obama/373853/). A group of faith leaders, including an Obama supporter, has asked the administration to allow them to continue to discriminate against the gays in their hiring practices.


Their call, in a letter sent to the White House Tuesday, attempts to capitalize on the Supreme Court case by arguing that it shows the administration must show more deference to the prerogatives of religion.

"We are asking that an extension of protection for one group not come at the expense of faith communities whose religious identity and beliefs motivate them to serve those in need," the letter states. […]

It comes from as group of faith leaders who are generally friendly to the administration, many of whom have closely advised the White House on issues like immigration reform. The letter was organized by Michael Wear, who worked in the Obama White House and directed faith outreach for the president's 2012 campaign. Signers include two members of Catholics for Obama and three former members of the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

"This is not an antagonistic letter by any means," :lol :lol :lol Wear told me.

But in the wake of Hobby Lobby, he said, "the administration does have a decision to make whether they want to recalibrate their approach to some of these issues."

The leaders state that without the religious exemption to the executive order on federal contractors, "this expansion of hiring rights will come at an unreasonable cost to the common good, national unity and religious freedom." They base their argument on both the new political reality of Hobby Lobby and on the fact that the Senate-passed Employment Non-Discrimination Act includes such an exemption for religious organizations. The difference between ENDA and the pending executive order is that the latter applies only to federal contractors, not to all employers with more than 15 employees.

The White House hasn't released the order yet, and didn't comment on the issue to The Atlantic's Molly Ball, who reported this story.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/02/1311250/-Here-s-that-Hobby-Lobby-slippery-slope-in-nbsp-action?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29#

Fucking Christian, self-righteous haters, fuck 'em all.

[boutons_deux]

right wing intellectual/thought leader with a great solution: "Stop fucking, ladies!"


Limbaugh returns to slut shaming: Women who need the pill should stop doing ‘a certain thing


http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/02/limbaugh-returns-to-slut-shaming-women-who-need-the-pill-should-stop-doing-a-certain-thing/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

[spurraider21]

why is this being called a war against women? are men outraged that companies don't provide free Trojans? :lmao

obvious decision in a stupid case. if you wanna fuck, do it on your own time and your own budget. its a choice you make and are free to make

[boutons_deux]

insurance covers "floppy dick" drugs. I figure the old white Christian men know that problem up close

[spurraider21]

insurance covers "floppy dick" drugs. I figure the old white Christian men know that problem up close
i thought this case was about contraceptives?

[boutons_deux]

i thought this case was about contraceptives?

goddam, you're stupid.

Why didn't Hobby Lobby also wanted to block floppy dick drugs.

Many women take the pill for medical problems, not so they can be sluts.

Many women take the pill so they won't get pregnant then get fired, not so they can be sluts.

Many women do contraception because they can't afford more kids, are working on the careers (US is ONLY industrial country with no national pregngancy leave), don't want any more kids, NOT because they want to be sluts.

goddam, you're stupid.

[vy65]

goddam, you're stupid.

Why didn't Hobby Lobby also wanted to block floppy dick drugs.

Many women take the pill for medical problems, not so they can be sluts.

Many women take the pill so they won't get pregnant then get fired, not so they can be sluts.

Many women do contraception because they can't afford more kids, are working on the careers (US is ONLY industrial country with no national pregngancy leave), don't want any more kids, NOT because they want to sluts.

goddam, you're stupid.

Viagara isn't a contraceptive you fucking idiot.

[FromWayDowntown]

Viagara isn't a contraceptive you fucking idiot.

I think his point is about happily funding medical things that will facilitate intercourse but refusing to do the same for medical things that might deal with its consequences, which are borne, decidedly, by women.

[vy65]

I think his point is about happily funding medical things that will facilitate intercourse but refusing to do the same for medical things that might deal with its consequences, which are borne, decidedly, by women.

I know, and that point is irrelevant Hobby Lobby's objection on religious grounds. I'm not aware of any Christians having problem with the dick pill.

[boutons_deux]

Viagara isn't a contraceptive you fucking idiot.

you fucking idiot, Viagra, etc is drug to treat a medical problem.

In the Christian Taleban madness to block contraception (which is not even an abortion), they also removed contraception as medical treatment, you fucking idiot.

[vy65]

you fucking idiot, Viagra, etc is drug to treat a medical problem.

In the Christian Taleban madness to block contraception (which is not even an abortion), they also removed contraception as medical treatment, you fucking idiot.

Contraception violates christian morals. Viagara doesn't. What aren't you understanding?

[spurraider21]

Boo either not understanding what a contraceptive is, or the scope of this case :lol

[boutons_deux]

Contraception violates christian morals. Viagara doesn't. What aren't you understanding?

no, it doesn't. I bet every damn pastor's wife in USA has used contraception, and a bunch of them and their daughters have had abortions

the contraception pretext is nothing the Hobby Lobby perverts/Christian Taleban imposing their narrow morals, a power play in the Christian/conservative War on Vaginas, on their FEMALE employees

[vy65]

no, it doesn't. I bet every damn pastor's wife in USA has used contraception, and a bunch of them and their daughters have had abortions

Christians are hypocrites. Again, bc violates christian beliefs. Viagara doesn't.


the contraception pretext is nothing the Hobby Lobby perverts/Christian Taleban imposing their narrow morals, a power play in the Christian/conservative War on Vaginas, on their FEMALE employees

Not true. The decision probably extends to condom subsidies too, beginning the Christian/conservative War on Dicks, on their MALE employees.

[Clipper Nation]

Boo either not understanding what a contraceptive is, or the scope of this case :lol
Guaranteed, Boutons has never had sex in his entire miserable life, so of course he doesn't know this stuff :lol

[spurraider21]

I bet every damn pastor's wife in USA has used contraception
i accept. how much we betting for?

[spurraider21]

Guaranteed, Boutons has never had sex in his entire miserable life, so of course he doesn't know this stuff :lol
he's going to refute that claim by spamming several articles from liberal blogs, tbh :lol

[TheSanityAnnex]

goddam, you're stupid.

Why didn't Hobby Lobby also wanted to block floppy dick drugs.

Many women take the pill for medical problems, not so they can be sluts.

Many women take the pill so they won't get pregnant then get fired, not so they can be sluts.

Many women do contraception because they can't afford more kids, are working on the careers (US is ONLY industrial country with no national pregngancy leave), don't want any more kids, NOT because they want to be sluts.

goddam, you're stupid.The pill is still covered by hobby lobby's insurance policy you fucking dipshit. If a female hobby lobby employee wants the morning after pill or an IUD I suggest she find another job or pay for it out of pocket.

You mother must have been told you were a mistake baby all your life, its the only logical reason this gets you so outraged. If only she could have been given free morning after pills or better yet learned to keep her legs shut.

[CosmicCowboy]

The pill is still covered by hobby lobby's insurance policy you fucking dipshit. If a female hobby lobby employee wants the morning after pill or an IUD I suggest she find another job or pay for it out of pocket.

You mother must have been told you were a mistake baby all your life, its the only logical reason this gets you so outraged. If only she could have been given free morning after pills or better yet learned to keep her legs shut.

Actually SCOTUS clarified that it is not. Didn't say they could fire them for using it, just that they didn't have to pay for it.

Personally I am pro-abortion and pro birth control. Just find it hilarious how Boo and Fuzzy are freaking out over the decision.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Believe it was just morning after pills and IUD's they don't have to cover. Regular birth control pills still covered iirc.

[CosmicCowboy]

Believe it was just morning after pills and IUD's they don't have to cover. Regular birth control pills still covered iirc.

Scotus clarified the decision.

[boutons_deux]

Believe it was just morning after pills and IUD's they don't have to cover. Regular birth control pills still covered iirc.

the "day after", the SCOTUS5 said their ruling covered ALL forms of contraception, not just those few mentioned the Monday.

[TheSanityAnnex]

the "day after", the SCOTUS5 said their ruling covered ALL forms of contraception, not just those few mentioned the Monday.
And hobby lobby will still cover the pill.

[mercos]

The decision continued a dangerous precedent regarding the rights of corporations that started with Citizens United. However, this one will hurt Republicans a lot more than Citizens United did. The right wing is already hailing the Hobby Lobby decision, and you can bet every Democrat in the country is going to use that against them in the midterms this fall. The war on women has become a very powerful wedge issue for Democrats. It arguably won them the governor's race in Virginia last fall. Combined with Republican's fear to touch immigration after Eric Cantor was sacked, conservatives are painting themselves into a corner.

[boutons_deux]

‘Hobby Lobby’ Is Just the Beginning: A Flood of Corporate Religious Objections Is Coming

The Roberts Court does nothing in small measures, so when Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority inBurwell v. Hobby Lobby (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-354_olp1.pdf), insists the decision granting closely held corporations religious objection rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) is limited only to the birth control benefit in the Affordable Care Act, don’t believe him. It’s not.

Like the Court’s decision in McCullen v. Coakley (http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/06/27/dont-tread-grandma-supreme-court-reframes-abortion-free-speech-debate-mccullen/) and Town of Greece v. Galloway (http://rhrealitycheck.org/tag/town-of-greece-v-galloway/), which also greatly advanced conservative causes but under the guise of “limited” First Amendment opinions, the decision in Hobby Lobby is an exercise in radical incrementalism. The 5-4 majority decision did not strike altogether the birth control benefit, nor did the decision rule broadly that corporations have First Amendment religious rights independent of the RFRA—but it set the path for future courts to do so.

Take first the issue of whether or not secular, for-profit corporations are “people” under the RFRA. As Justice Alito notes (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-354_olp1.pdf), the legal fiction of corporate “personhood” exists largely to provide protections to their individuals. What Justice Alito doesn’t note is that protections have never before been used to burden the rights of employees to the benefit of corporate owners.

Alito writes:

When rights, whether constitutional or statutory, are extended to corporations, the purpose is to protect the rights of these people. For example, extending Fourth Amendment protections to corporations protects the privacy interests of employees and others associated with the company. Protecting corporations from government seizure of their property without just compensation protects all those who have a stake in the corporations’ financial well being. And protecting the free-exercise rights of corporations like Hobby Lobby, Conestoga and Mardel protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control those companies.


In order to find corporations can exercise religious beliefs, Alito must conflate two very different scenarios.

The first involves cases where the legal interests of employers and employees are largely aligned against those of the government;

the second includes cases like Hobby Lobby, where corporate interests are trying to hide behind constitutional protections to deprive their employees of their rights.

It’s a quick, but important, conflation that makes it possible for Alito to continue in the rest of his opinion to ignore the interests Hobby Lobby employees have in being free from religious discrimination by their employer.

With that judicial sleight-of-hand accomplished, Alito moves on to the larger question of just how a corporation can exercise these newly found religious rights. As it turns out, corporations practicing religious beliefs is remarkably simple, and just because a corporation seeks to maximize profit doesn’t mean it can’t do so in the name of religion:

While it is certainly true that a central objective of for-profit corporations is to make money, modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not do so. For-profit corporations, with ownership approval, support a wide variety of charitable causes, and it is not at all uncommon for such corporations to further humanitarian and other altruistic objectives. … If for-profit corporations may pursue such worthy objectives, there is no apparent reason why they may not further religious objectives as well.


Did you catch that? If some corporations can support charitable causes, Justice Alito reasons (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-354_olp1.pdf), why not allow others to pursue religious causes such as avoiding complying with federal law?

As if sensing the alarm bells ringing in the wake of just proclaiming the existence of corporate religious rights, Justice Alito is quick to point out that because both Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corporation are “closely held corporations,” the Court’s order is limited to similar businesses. Justice Alito doesn’t go so far as to say that the decision actually limits religious objections to those kinds of businesses—it just notes that no publicly traded companies have raised religious objections to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) like Hobby Lobby. Yet.

Having firmly established that closely held corporations (and probably publicly traded ones as well) can assert religious objections under the RFRA, the Court turns its attention to the birth control benefit specifically.

And here is where the Court’s deeply ingrained misogyny shines brightest.

Justice Alito writes that the Hahns and the Greens—the families who, respectively, own Conestoga Wood Specialties and Hobby Lobby—have a sincere religious belief that life begins at conception and that their religious beliefs provide both that they offer insurance coverage for their employees, but only insurance coverage that conforms to those religious beliefs. Justice Alito takes this as an opportunity to misstate the coverage requirements of the ACA. “Before the advent of the ACA, they were not legally compelled to provide insurance,” wrote Alito, “but they nevertheless did so—in part, no doubt, for conventional business reasons but also in part because their religious beliefs govern their relations with their employees.”

Of course, the ACA does not require employers to provide any health insurance coverage for their employees. Instead, the law requires those employers that do provide health insurance coverage offer that coverage equally for both men and women.

This a la carte type of coverage, where employers maintain ultimate veto authority over the scope of employee benefits, is of course the endgame to all these contraception challenges, and by opening the door to religious objections like Hobby Lobby the Court has set the stage for just that.

The parties in Hobby Lobby sincerely, and wrongly, believe that emergency contraception and some forms of intrauterine devices (IUDs) act as abortifacients. But according to Alito, it doesn’t matter that the Greens and Hahns are wrong. All that matters is that they sincerely believe they are right.

n these cases, the Hahns and Greens and their companies sincerely believe that providing the insurance coverage demanded by the HHS [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] regulations lies on the forbidden side of the line, and it is not for us to say that their religious beliefs are mistaken or insubstantial. Instead, our “narrow function … in this context is to determine” whether the line drawn reflects “an honest conviction” and there is no dispute that it does.


The decision is a bad one. So bad, in fact, that Alito spends the rest of his attention in the decision explaining that the Court’s conclusions are not as radical as they appear.

“HHS and the principal dissent argue that a ruling in favor of the objecting parties in these cases will lead to a flood of religious objections regarding a wide variety of medical procedures and drugs, such as vaccinations and blood transfusions, but HHS has made no effort to substantiate this prediction,” Alito writes. “HHS points to no evidence that insurance plans in existence prior to the enactment of ACA excluded coverage for such items. Nor has HHS provided evidence that any significant number of employers sought exemption, on religious grounds, from any of ACA’s coverage requirements other than the contraceptive mandate.”

HHS provided none of the evidence Justice Alito asks for because, as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg points out in her dissent, “until this litigation, no decision of the Court recognized a for-profit corporation’s qualification for a religious exemption from a generally applicable law, whether under the Free Exercise Clause or RFRA.” In other words, that evidence didn’t exist because until this decision no corporation had made those kinds of claims.

Alito must really be concerned that his opinion will be dismissed as radical because his next move is to suggest that what the Obama administration really wants to do is force insurance coverage for abortions. If only!

“It is HHS’s apparent belief that no insurance-coverage mandate would violate RFRA—no matter how significantly it impinges on the religious liberties of employers—that would lead to intolerable consequences,” says Alito. “Under HHS’s view, RFRA would permit the Government to require all employers to provide coverage for any medical procedure allowed by law in the jurisdiction in question—for instance, third-trimester abortions or assisted suicide.”

Alito continues:

In any event, our decision in these cases is concerned solely with the contraceptive mandate. Our decision should not be understood to hold that an insurance-coverage mandate must necessarily fall it if conflicts with an employers’ religious beliefs. Other coverage requirements, such as immunizations, may be supported by different interest (for example, the need to combat the spread of infectious diseases) and may involve different arguments about the least restrictive means of providing them.


In other words, it’s not discrimination if it affects women, and it’s probably not discrimination if it affects the LGBT community either.

Oh, and there’s a good chance conservatives will use this opinion to launch a broader attack on civil rights protections in the name of religious liberty even though (wink wink, nudge nudge) the Court is only concerned with the contraceptive mandate.

Not surprisingly, it took Justice Ginsburg more than 30 pages to dispense with that dangerous nonsense in a scathing dissent that simply shreds Alito’s claims that his opinion is a narrow one.

In a decision of startling breadth, the Court holds that commercial enterprises, including corporations, along with partnerships and sole proprietorships, can opt out of any law (saving only tax laws) they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs. Compelling government interests in uniform compliance with the law, and disadvantages that religion-based opt-outs impose on others, hold no sway, the Court decides, at least when there is a “less restrictive alternative.”

And such an alternative, the Court suggests, there will always be whenever, in lieu of tolling an enterprise claiming a religious-based exemption, the government,[I]i.e., the general public, can pick up the tab.


This is not the first time Justices Alito and Ginsburg have been on opposite sides of a gender employment discrimination case. Last term, while Justice Ginsburg was reading from her dissent in Vance v. Ball State (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-556_11o2.pdf), the case that severely curtailed who is considered a supervisor for purposes of sexual harassment claims, Justice Alito rolled his eyes at claims she made that the decision didn’t reflect the realities of workplace harassment. It was a rare moment of displayed hostility by a sitting justice toward a colleague, but one that perfectly captures (http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/06/25/justices-alito-and-kennedy-mansplain-away-your-rights/) the disdain Alito shows for women, and especially women workers.

Like she did in Vance, Ginsburg schools Alito on the workplace barriers women face, and once again it’s clear Alito doesn’t care (http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/06/28/why-justice-alito-may-be-the-most-dangerous-man-on-the-bench/).
Ginsburg writes:

In the Court’s view, RFRA 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.


But just what kind of accommodation will satisfy the conservatives on the Roberts Court remains an open question. Justices Alito and Kennedy suggest accommodating corporate religious beliefs the same way the administration is currently trying to accommodate nonprofit religious beliefs as one possibility. Naturally, the Court withholds judgment on whether it believes the current religious accommodation is actually constitutional, and with cases winding through the appellate courts on that very question (http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/01/30/latching-little-sisters-order-notre-dame-asks-court-block-contraceptive-mandate/), that’s very much a live issue, as is nearly every issue in these cases.

Just how far do corporate religious rights extend? Who knows.

Will federal courts be put in a position to pick and choose which religious beliefs are sincerely held and which ones are not? It looks that way.

Will the decision be used to enable employers to object to providing other health-care services, like HIV treatments? Seems likely, but we’ll have to wait for the lawsuits.

In fact, it seems Monday’s decision really only answered one question:

When given the opportunity, will conservatives on the Court rule against the fundamental humanity of women?

The answer is yes. Every time

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/07/01/hobby-lobby-just-beginning-flood-corporate-religious-objections-coming/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rhrealitycheck+%28RH+Reality+ Check%29

If there were a hard-core, universal govt-health-insurance, this Corporate-American "our bullshit _sincere_ beliefs trump all laws and negate all science" would be moot.

[boutons_deux]

Doctors, nurses condemn Hobby Lobby ruling, call for immediate action (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/02/1311228/-Doctors-nurses-condemn-Hobby-Lobby-ruling-call-for-immediate-nbsp-action)

The 5-4 decision was immediately criticized by the American Medical Association, theAmerican Nurses Association (http://www.nursingworld.org/FunctionalMenuCategories/MediaResources/PressReleases/ANA-Calls-for-Womens-Health-Care-Protections.pdf) (PDF), the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists for allowing employers to meddle in the exam room.

The decision “intrudes on the patient-physician relationship and will make it more difficult for many women to make their own personal medical decisions,” said Dr. Robert Wah, president of the AMA.

“We encourage the administration to provide alternative pathways to secure coverage for patients unable to obtain these services as a result of the court's ruling.”

Each of the groups urged officials in Washington to work quickly to restore coverage options for all insured women, saying that limiting insurance coverage would force women to take additional steps or pay out of pocket for birth control—which affects low-income women in particular.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/02/1311228/-Doctors-nurses-condemn-Hobby-Lobby-ruling-call-for-immediate-nbsp-action?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29

[boutons_deux]

The 8 Best Lines From Ginsburg's Dissent on the Hobby Lobby Contraception Decision

"in a decision of startling breadth," would allow corporations to opt out of almost any law that they find "incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs."

Here are seven more key quotes from Ginsburg's dissent in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby:

"The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga would…deny legions of women who do not hold their employers' beliefs access to contraceptive coverage"

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

"Any decision to use contraceptives made by a woman covered under Hobby Lobby's or Conestoga's plan will not be propelled by the Government, it will be the woman's autonomous choice, informed by the physician she consults."

"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."

"Would the exemption…extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah's Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations[?]…Not much help there for the lower courts bound by today's decision."

"Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be 'perceived as favoring one religion over another,' the very 'risk the [Constitution's] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude."

"The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield."

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

The little old Jewish lady taking her vicious handbag, and her superior legal mind, to the 5 Repug/Catholic justices.

[Aztecfan03]

goddam, you're stupid.

Why didn't Hobby Lobby also wanted to block floppy dick drugs.

Many women take the pill for medical problems, not so they can be sluts.

Many women take the pill so they won't get pregnant then get fired, not so they can be sluts.

Many women do contraception because they can't afford more kids, are working on the careers (US is ONLY industrial country with no national pregngancy leave), don't want any more kids, NOT because they want to be sluts.

goddam, you're stupid.

WHy didn't Hobby Lobby ban 16 of the 20 contaceptives including the pill that is taken for medical reasons?

[boutons_deux]

As Ruth's dissent said:
(http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2014/07/03/3456438/religious-exemption-letter-pushback/)
After Hobby Lobby, Faith Groups Reject Push To Perpetuate Discrimination Against Gays On Religious Grounds (http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2014/07/03/3456438/religious-exemption-letter-pushback/)

the day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to exempt closely-held corporations from the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate on religious grounds, a group of 14 prominent faith leaders sent a letter to the President (http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/faith-leaders-exempt-religious-groups-from-order-barring-lgbt-bias-in-hiring/2014/07/02/d82e68da-01f1-11e4-b8ff-89afd3fad6bd_story.html) arguing that faith-based nonprofits that use federal funds but who do not embrace homosexuality should be exempt from the order.

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2014/07/03/3456438/religious-exemption-letter-pushback/

Since the REPUG SCOTUS5 "opinion" (aka "fact free") says to "sincerely believe" some religious shit is all that's needed to be Hobby-Lobby-Legit, let's try this one:

I "sincerely believe", with The Lord Jesus Christ as my witness, based on the scientifically/historically PERFECT Word of God in the Bible:

"Book of Genesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Genesis) ("And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell" (Gen. 4:5), suggesting that Cain underwent a permanent change in skin color.
In an Eastern Christian (Armenian) Adam-book (5th or 6th century) it is written:

“And the Lord was wroth with Cain. . . He beat Cain’s face with hail, which blackened like coal, and thus he remained with a black face".[21] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_and_mark_of_Cain#cite_note-21) "

http:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_and_mark_of_Cain

... that My-God-Cursed "The Negro" is not fit to served by my company, or the front of my bus, or use white man's toilets, drinking fountains.

That'll do it! yeah! My SINCERE BELIEFS trump all laws.

[boutons_deux]

Fall out on both cases has come rapidly. It is expected that over 70 corporations (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/30/after-hobby-lobby-these-77-corporations-will-drop-birth-control-coverage.html) could drop birth control coverage now, thanks to the Supreme Courts allegedly “narrow” decision.

If the President asks Congress to find a work around, such as a better way to make sure that birth control is subsidized, well, conservatives want to see that nipped in the bud, too (http://thefederalist.com/2014/07/01/otc-birth-control-your-body-your-choice-your-responsibility/), since apparently that would offend the religious liberties of some tax payers and as such is not allowable.

Allegedly, there is a compromise answer both sides of the aisle are supposed to agree on, and that’s allowing over the counter pill sales. But while that may sound like a good idea, it doesn’t address the expense issue (after all, take a look at the costs of other OTC medicines, which you can’t subsidize with a co-pay), or the fact that you can’t get an IUD or other long acting reversible contraception that way, which are both the most effective and have the biggest price tags up front.

Of course, conservatives really want OTC contraceptives not because they think people should have the ability to prevent pregnancy, but because they hope that would put Planned Parenthood out of business. Once again, that is always the end goal.

The buffer zone ruling has had immediate impact as well.

Abortion opponents (http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/06/29/antiabortion-activists-march-wake-abortion-clinic-buffer-zone-ruling/BybtGa7MlkH6IJDH6K3OAL/story.html?p1=ArticleTab_Article_Top) are celebrating with walks in Boston now that the buffer is down. Long time “sidewalk counselors” are testing the new limits and joyously embracing the ability to get up close and personal with patients again. What’s most interesting about the articles written about the return to the sidewalk post buffer ruling is the number of people who are also quoted when the ruling went into place.

One example is Ruth Schiavone (https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/06/28/protesters-gather-planned-parenthood-clinic-first-saturday-after-supreme-court-ruling-against-buffer-zone/TkOlnXO5G6HSFlfZ9XB3NK/story.html?p1=ArticleTab_Article_), who felt thwarted when the buffer went into place in 2007 (http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/12/09/buffer_zone_law_passes_its_first_test/), and who sued (http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/386/45/632391/)to get the original bubble law tossed prior to that (the original bubble was replaced by a buffer because police found it too hard to enforce). Looking at Schiavone’s interactions with violating the prior order shows how careful lawyers were when they picked a face for their case.

As Massachusetts deals with their new buffer-less cities,

Montana feels confident (http://missoulian.com/news/local/abortion-rights-groups-say-montana-buffer-intact-opponents-see-opening/article_bb760214-fe6a-11e3-8185-001a4bcf887a.html) their bubble is legally sound.

In Minnesota a new Planned Parenthood is being protested (http://www.kare11.com/story/news/local/2014/06/30/planned-parenthood-clinic-opening-draws-protesters/11768895/) despite it not offering abortion.

In Ohio, a Cincinnati clinic (http://www.wlwt.com/news/magistrate-upholds-decision-to-close-sharonville-abortion-clinic/26725590#%216tUIk) may close after a judge has ruled its transfer agreement isn’t good enough to pass local muster, a sure sign that Ohio really is planning to pick off all of their clinics one by one.

The “medical experts” who run Operation Rescue are touting the death of a patient in Cleveland (http://www.gospelherald.com/articles/51794/20140702/pro-life-groups-plan-demonstration-in-cleveland-after-abortion-causes-young-womans-death.htm) as a sign of the dangers of abortion. The argument lies on a massive amount of assumptions, of course. Considering the group can’t even seem to remember that a fetus that is just over 19 weeks gestation is not actually “a few days from Ohio’s legal limit,” which is 24 weeks gestation according to the later abortion ban Ohio passed in 2011 (http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/bills.cfm?ID=129_HB_78), their medical knowledge should be taken with a grain of salt.

Meanwhile, National Right to Life Committee’s Mary Spaulding Balch is admitting to the fact that abortion really isn’t more dangerous than childbirth, and is safer than many other medical procedures (http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/07/02/national-right-life-director-admits-pregnancy-risky-abortion/).

Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell is promising more abortion restrictions on a federal level (http://www.dailyindependent.com/local/x611398014/McConnell-Tide-turning-on-abortion-issues) if he is reelected and Republicans take over the Senate.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/24789-repro-wrap-here-comes-the-fall-out-from-the-supreme-courts-reproductive-rights-rulings

[boutons_deux]

Reason #1 SCOTUS Will Regret Hobby Lobby (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/03/1311556/-Reason-1-SCOTUS-Will-Regret-Hobby-Lobby)


That separation is what legal and business scholars call the "corporate veil," and it's fundamental to the entire operation. Now, thanks to the Hobby Lobby case, it's in question. By letting Hobby Lobby's owners assert their personal religious rights over an entire corporation, the Supreme Court has poked a major hole in the veil. In other words, if a company is not truly separate from its owners, the owners could be made responsible for its debts and other burdens.

So says Alex Park (http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/07/hobby-lobbys-other-problem), writing in Salon today.


"If religious shareholders can do it, why can’t creditors and government regulators pierce the corporate veil in the other direction?" Burt Neuborne, a law professor at New York University, asked in an email.That's a question raised by 44 other law professors, who filed a friends-of-the-court brief that implored the Court to reject Hobby Lobby's argument and hold the veil in place. Here's what they argued:


Allowing a corporation, through either shareholder vote or board resolution, to take on and assert the religious beliefs of its shareholders in order to avoid having to comply with a generally-applicable law with a secular purpose is fundamentally at odds with the entire concept of incorporation. Creating such an unprecedented and idiosyncratic tear in the corporate veil would also carry with it unintended consequences, many of which are not easily foreseen.


This is definitely going to complicate things for the religious extremists on the SCOTUS and empire wide as these lawsuits inevitably proliferate. Putting on the popcorn....now.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/03/1311556/-Reason-1-SCOTUS-Will-Regret-Hobby-Lobby?detail=email#

false alarm, if "punctured corporate veil" case hits SCOTUS5, they will obviously, incomprehensibly, undoubtedly, contradictorily rule in favor of corporations

[spurraider21]

you do realize nobody here reads your spam, don't you?

[Winehole23]

does not care. he's like a cat covering his turds.

[boutons_deux]

you do realize nobody here reads your spam, don't you?

you right-winger would be a lot smarter if you read my stuff, hmmm, maybe just tiny bit smarter since your intellectual capacity is so minuscule

[boutons_deux]

does not care. he's like a cat covering his turds.

whine hole joins the Boutons stalking posse

[boutons_deux]

New Study Helps Explain Why Hobby Lobby Supporters Are So Fiercely Opposed To Birth Control (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/07/09/3458058/new-study-hobby-lobby-birth-control/)

Throughout the ongoing debate over Obamacare’s contraceptive coverage requirement, a common theme (http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/news/a28164/sexist-hobby-lobby-tweets/) has emerged among many of Hobby Lobby’s supporters:

the idea that ensuring access to affordable birth control is harmful to society because it leads to promiscuity and infidelity (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/11/14/2944151/birth-control-female-sexuality/).

Several right-wing groups filed amicus briefs (http://www.salon.com/2014/03/06/how_hobby_lobby_supporters_talk_about_religious_li berty_5_outrageous_quotes_that_show_its_all_about_ sex/) in favor of the crafts chain arguing that women simply shouldn’t be having consequence-free sex (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/06/30/3455063/senator-agrees-women-use-birth-control-for-recreational-behavior-hours-after-hobby-lobby-decision/).

According to new research (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-014-0320-4) published in Archives of Sexual Behavior, the attitude that women shouldn’t be having sex can at least partly be traced back to the idea that women are supposed to be economically dependent on men (http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/07/some-people-get-enraged-women-have-sex.html). The researchers suggest that this link may drive conservative religious communities’ insistence on sexual purity.

found that the people who believe that casual sex is wrong also tend to believe that women need a partner to support them financially (http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/07/some-people-get-enraged-women-have-sex.html).

Within that worldview, sex outside of a serious monogamous relationship is simply too risky. If women don’t have “paternity certainty,” then how will they know who they need to rely on to support them and their future child?

The researchers conclude that this outdated attitude toward women’s pregnancy risks and financial needs hasn’t totally gone away, despite the fact that modern contraception (http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/03/03/hormonal_contraception_one_great_side_effect_of_th e_birth_control_pill_is.html), legalabortion rights (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/02/07/3265331/dee-dee-abortion-draw-line/), and greater workplace equality (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/04/16/3427220/women-work-hours-gdp/) have created an entirely different society.

“The beliefs may persist due to cultural evolutionary adaptive lag, that is, because the environment has changed faster than the moral system,” the paper concludes (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-014-0320-4/fulltext.html#Sec25). “Religious and conservative moral systems may be anti-promiscuity because they themselves arose in environments where females depended heavily on male investment.”

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/07/09/3458058/new-study-hobby-lobby-birth-control/

yes, right-wingers, Hobby Lobby and other such bullshit is part of the War on Women, War on Vaginas.

( explains why the Christian assholes and pro-lifers don't go after fertility clinics for dumping 1000s of embryos: NO SLUTS' VAGINAs INVOLVED. )


iow. it's that old "a good woman is barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen"

[spurraider21]

you right-winger would be a lot smarter if you read my stuff, hmmm, maybe just tiny bit smarter since your intellectual capacity is so minuscule
:lol copy pastes articles
:lol once posted an article without realizing it was satire

[boutons_deux]

:lol copy pastes articles
:lol once posted an article without realizing it was satire

which one was that?

[FromWayDowntown]

Reason #1 SCOTUS Will Regret Hobby Lobby (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/03/1311556/-Reason-1-SCOTUS-Will-Regret-Hobby-Lobby)


That separation is what legal and business scholars call the "corporate veil," and it's fundamental to the entire operation. Now, thanks to the Hobby Lobby case, it's in question. By letting Hobby Lobby's owners assert their personal religious rights over an entire corporation, the Supreme Court has poked a major hole in the veil. In other words, if a company is not truly separate from its owners, the owners could be made responsible for its debts and other burdens.

So says Alex Park (http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/07/hobby-lobbys-other-problem), writing in Salon today.


"If religious shareholders can do it, why can’t creditors and government regulators pierce the corporate veil in the other direction?" Burt Neuborne, a law professor at New York University, asked in an email.That's a question raised by 44 other law professors, who filed a friends-of-the-court brief that implored the Court to reject Hobby Lobby's argument and hold the veil in place. Here's what they argued:


Allowing a corporation, through either shareholder vote or board resolution, to take on and assert the religious beliefs of its shareholders in order to avoid having to comply with a generally-applicable law with a secular purpose is fundamentally at odds with the entire concept of incorporation. Creating such an unprecedented and idiosyncratic tear in the corporate veil would also carry with it unintended consequences, many of which are not easily foreseen.


This is definitely going to complicate things for the religious extremists on the SCOTUS and empire wide as these lawsuits inevitably proliferate. Putting on the popcorn....now.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/03/1311556/-Reason-1-SCOTUS-Will-Regret-Hobby-Lobby?detail=email#

false alarm, if "punctured corporate veil" case hits SCOTUS5, they will obviously, incomprehensibly, undoubtedly, contradictorily rule in favor of corporations



I don't know if that is reason #1, but this notion of recognizing the "rights" of corporations to act in the manner their officers elect does raise some significant legal questions about where the line of demarcation between the corporation and its directors lies, and it will engender some interesting (or, perhaps, alarming) efforts to distinguish the willingness to acknowledge corporate rights in some aspects while denying them in other ways that don't intrinsically benefit the entities. The bankruptcy example strikes me as an interesting one; there are also some significant questions about why this shouldn't expand the susceptibility of corporations to the jurisdiction of courts in ways that had not been recognized previously.

[boutons_deux]

I don't know if that is reason #1, but this notion of recognizing the "rights" of corporations to act in the manner their officers elect does raise some significant legal questions about where the line of demarcation between the corporation and its directors lies, and it will engender some interesting (or, perhaps, alarming) efforts to distinguish the willingness to acknowledge corporate rights in some aspects while denying them in other ways that don't intrinsically benefit the entities. The bankruptcy example strikes me as an interesting one; there are also some significant questions about why this shouldn't expand the susceptibility of corporations to the jurisdiction of courts in ways that had not been recognized previously.

I suppose we can assume there are 100s, 1000s of trial lawyers just itching to test it when their contingency fee is big enough.

[FromWayDowntown]

I suppose we can assume there are 100s, 1000s of trial lawyers just itching to test it when their contingency fee is big enough.

I think it's much more likely that the real test to the limits of this notion will come when the well-heeled, tall-building lawyers representing creditors in corporate bankruptcies try to make their clients whole.

[boutons_deux]

On many levels, the Hobby Lobby case is a mess of bad facts, political opportunism, and questionable legal theories that might be laughable had some federal courts not taken them seriously.

Take for instance Hobby Lobby's argument that providing coverage for Plan B and Ella substantially limits its religious freedom.

The company admits in its complaint that until it considered filing the suit in 2012, its generous health insurance plan actually covered Plan B and Ella (though not IUDs).

The burden of this coverage was apparently so insignificant that God, and Hobby Lobby executives, never noticed it until the mandate became a political issue.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/03/hobby-lobby-supreme-court-obamacare

iow, Hobby Lobby suit is PURE FRAUD for political objectives, a LIE, having nothing to with God or their perverted religious beliefs.

[boutons_deux]

Hobby Lobby long term goal: "Mandate" 4 Year Bible Curriculum - that HL writes - in Public Schools (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/10/1313048/--Hobby-Lobby-long-term-goal-Mandate-4-Year-Bible-Curriculum-that-HL-writes-in-Public-Schools)

STEVE GREEN: “We're working on 4 year public school bible curriculum. The first year will be a summary of all three of those section. It's history, it's impact and it's story.

Then the next 3 years is going in depth in each of those -- a year for the history, a year for the impact and a year for the story -- in some order... The nation is in danger because of its ignorance of what God has taught. . . . If we don’t know it, our future is going to be very scary ... We were looking - uh- we -- we were talking - - discussed a college curriculum but it's no -- we really want to get -- be into the - um - high school level because we want to reach as many as possible.

Someday, I would argue, it should be mandated. Here's a book that's impacted our world, unlike any other, and you're not gonna teach it? There's -- there's something wrong with that."

The long term goal of Steve Green, President of Hobby Lobby, is to have a 4 year bible curriculum, that they write, be mandated in all public schools. In April of this year, the Mustang School Board approved Green's Bible Curriculum even though, as of June 2014 the curriculum was still in draft form and was still undergoing revisions.

Draft Copy of Steve Green's 4 year Bible Curriculum:

In May, the AP also reported that they got a draft copy of Steve Green's 4 year Bible curriculum:

The curriculum says people should rest on the Sabbath because God did so after six days of creation, and says people risk God's punishment if they do not obey him.~excerpt from draft copy (http://bigstory.ap.org/article/school-board-members-met-privately-bible-class) of Hobby Lobby President Steve Green's 4 year bible curriculum obtained by the AP.


While Steve Green has admitted he wants his 4 year bible curriculum to be mandatory but, he realizes that in order to 'creep' his 4 year bible curriculum into the public school system it must start off as an 'elective.' What better way to silence critics than to say 'hey, it's an elective.' And once those critics are silenced, they stop paying attention at which time Steve Green can then 'creep' his stated goal of mandating his 4year bible curriculum into public schools.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/10/1313048/--Hobby-Lobby-long-term-goal-Mandate-4-Year-Bible-Curriculum-that-HL-writes-in-Public-Schools

prime example of Christian Taleban supremacist/theocratic objectives. Green family and their scumbag ilk are profoundly UN-American, UN-Constitutional as are their enablers the Repug SCOTUS5.

[boutons_deux]

Repugs' wonderful reachout to (unmarried) women continues its astonishing success

Democrats fail in attempt to reverse Hobby Lobby contraceptive ruling

http://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/07/democrats-push-to-reverse-supreme-court-hobby-lobby-decision-with-not-my-boss-business-act-105136.html#ixzz37f0HcOm4

[cantthinkofanything]

hmmm...if only there were another low cost solution for not getting pregnant...

[spurraider21]

you literally could be spamming the same exact article, over and over again, in every single thread, and nobody would have noticed. save urself the time of digging up articles

[cantthinkofanything]

you literally could be spamming the same exact article, over and over again, in every single thread, and nobody would have noticed. save urself the time of digging up articles

I have a sneaking suspicion that spare time is the only thing boutons has

[boutons_deux]

thanks for reading my "spam", RIF if it includes comprehension.

[Winehole23]

In a statement, the Satanic Temple said (http://thesatanictemple.com/campaigns/medical-info/) that it will use the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/tag/hobby-lobby/) to exempt its believers from state-mandated informed consent laws that require women considering abortions to read pro-life material.


Informed consent or “right to know” laws state that women seeking elective abortions be provided with information about alternatives to the procedure, often couched in language that attempts to personify the fetus. According to the Guttmacher Institute (http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_MWPA.pdf), 35 states currently have informed consent laws, and of those, 33 require that the woman be told the gestational age of the fetus.


In some states, that information consists of pro-life propaganda that links abortion to a higher incidence of breast and ovarian cancers, or discusses “post-abortion syndrome,” a mental condition not recognized by any major medical or psychiatric organization.


Because the Satanic Temple bases its belief “regarding personal health…on the best scientific understanding of the world, regardless of the religious or political beliefs of others,” it claims that state-mandated information with no basis in scientific fact violates its “religious” beliefs.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/28/satanists-want-to-use-hobby-lobby-decision-to-exempt-women-from-anti-abortion-laws/

[boutons_deux]

more and more shit hitting the fan, thanks Repugs!

Judge: Hobby Lobby Decision Means Polygamous Sect Member Can Refuse To Testify In Child Labor Case (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/09/16/3568063/hobby-lobby-child-labor/)

Citing Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-354_olp1.pdf), the Supreme Court’s decision last June holding that the religious objections of a business’ owners could trump federal rules requiring that business to include birth control coverage in its health plan, a federal judge in Utah held last week that a member of a polygamist religious sect could refuse to testify in a federal investigation into alleged violations of child labor laws (https://ecf.utd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?213cv0281-121) because he objects to testifying on religious grounds.

The federal child labor investigation arose from a CNN report investigating claims that Jeffs “ordered all schools closed for a week so children could go to work picking pecans off trees at a private ranch (http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/07/warren-jeffs-child-labor/)” in Utah. The report included video of “hundreds of children, many of them very small” working on the ranch. When the reporters arrived, CNN also caught video of the FLDS children fleeing the cameras.

Yet, according to an order signed by Judge David Sam, a Reagan appointee to a trial court in Utah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sam), the federal officials investigating this alleged violation of child labor laws will not be able to require an FLDS member named Vernon Steed to provide information that could aid the investigation because Steed objects to giving certain testimony on religious grounds (https://ecf.utd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?213cv0281-121). Steed claims that he’s made “religious vows ‘not to discuss matters related to the internal affairs or organization of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.’” According to Judge Sam’s opinion, that’s enough to exempt him from providing the testimony he does not want to give.

Before Hobby Lobby, it’s unlikely that Steed’s claim would prevail.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/09/16/3568063/hobby-lobby-child-labor/

yep, Repugs FUCK UP EVERYTHING.

money is speech, corporations are people, religion shields me and my crimes.

[boutons_deux]

more abuse of 1st Amendment which guarantees Freedom of Upskirt Photos

Pervs in Texas Can Still Legally Snap Photos Up Women's Skirts, Court Rules

http://www.alternet.org/files/styles/story_image/public/story_images/upskirt.png


Ensuring that creeps will still be able to slip their camera phones under unsuspecting women's skirts, snap photos, then plaster them all over the Internet, Texas' highest criminal court struck down part of a law that would have banned “upskirt” photos (http://www.salon.com/2008/11/25/upskirting/) [3] this week.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that banning "improper photography or visual recording," goes against First Amendment freedom of speech rights. It argued that photos taken without permission in public are protected, and went as far as to say that such a ban was "paternalistic" as it would attempt to regulate photographer's thoughts.
In the court’s 8-1 opinion Judge Sharon Keller wrote:

“The camera is essentially the photographer’s pen and paintbrush. A person’s purposeful creation of photographs and visual recordings is entitled to the same First Amendment protection as the photographs and visual recordings themselves.”

http://www.alternet.org/gender/pervs-texas-can-still-legally-snap-photos-womens-skirts-court-rules?akid=12266.187590.tsPiAA&rd=1&src=newsletter1019995&t=7

holy shit, TX, and its Repug judges, are really really fucked up.

[boutons_deux]

cops will kick your ass, destroy you device if you try to take pictures, vids of them, but shooting photos upskirts is "protected speech" :lol

.

[boutons_deux]

Inmate Sues Prison Claiming His Religious Liberty Entitles Him To Dress Like A Pirate (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/10/29/3586041/inmate-sues-prison-claiming-his-religious-liberty-entitles-him-to-dress-like-a-pirate/)
http://d35brb9zkkbdsd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/pirate-e1414599193383-638x370.jpg

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/10/29/3586041/inmate-sues-prison-claiming-his-religious-liberty-entitles-him-to-dress-like-a-pirate/

There was already a case in NY state where an atheist wanted to convoke a town meeting but was denied. Probably a Muslim or Hindo would be denied.

iow, "free speech" and "free religion" are applied selectively, no surprise.

[Winehole23]

It seems of all sources, new litigation may be forth coming from an organization of satanists or satan worshipers known as the “Satanic Temple”. They are planning on using the recent Supreme Court ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby to argue for their own sense of “religious freedom”, making the case that their members who seek abortions in states that have state-mandated informed consent laws that require women considering abortions to read pro-life material, should be exempt from doing that based on religious grounds.


The “pro-life” literature that is required reading by those seeking abortions in the 35 states that currently have “informed consent laws”, try and link abortions to different forms of breast and ovarian cancers and suggest that it also leads to something called “post abortion syndrome”, a supposed mental condition that has not been medically recognized by legitimate members of the medical community. And according to Satanic Temple followers, their beliefs are solely “based on scientific medical facts regardless of the religious or political beliefs of others”. And because some of the findings in state required “pro-life” literature is not based in scientific fact, that their members should be exempt based on “religious freedom.”

http://www.occupydemocrats.com/hobby-lobby-decision-backfiring-as-satanists-turn-the-tables/

[boutons_deux]

As predicted, the right-wing extremist political SCOTUS hacks' ruling on Hobby Lobby opened a veritable Pandora's box

Christian Taleban implementing sharia in FL, other red states to follow

ACLU Condemns Committee Passage of Florida Bill Allowing Agencies to Put Religious and Moral Beliefs over Children's Needs in Foster and Adoption Placements

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2015/03/19/aclu-condemns-committee-passage-florida-bill-allowing-agencies-put-religious-and

[Winehole23]

wrong link

[TeyshaBlue]

It's TPM. Does it matter? :lol

[boutons_deux]

It appears that HL wins its case -- closely-held corporations cannot be required to provide contraception coverage because the RFRA applies to regulations that govern the activities of such entities and the government failed to show that the ACA mandate is the least restrictive means of advancing its interest in ensuring cost-free access to contraception. Apparently, the opinion is highly-qualified; as the SCOTUSBlog people are saying: the opinion "concerns only the contraceptive mandate and should not be understood to mean that all insurance mandates, that is for blood transfusions or vaccinations, necessarily fail if they conflict with an employer's religious beliefs," and "does not provide a shield for employers who might cloak illegal discrimination as a religious practice."

Notably, Justice Kennedy in a concurring opinion says that the government could pay for the coverage itself.

Under new Obama administration rule, Hobby Lobby employees will get birth control if they want it

But on Friday, the Obama administration made its final ruling (https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2015-17076.pdf) on how employers will handle birth control in their health insurance plans — they'll provide it regardless of their moral beliefs. Birth control methods will be covered at no cost to employees, even if their employer objects.

For-profit companies have the option of writing a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) if they wish to object to coverage. Under the new rules, the HHS will notify a third-party insurance company, which will then provide the birth control coverage to the company’s female employee without infringing any additional cost onto the company itself.

“Women across the country should have access to preventive services, including contraception,” HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell said in a statement (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/10/white-house-birth-control_n_7771004.html?utm_hp_ref=health-news&ir=Health+News). “At the same time, we recognize the deeply held views on these issues, and we are committed to securing women’s access to important preventive services at no additional cost under the Affordable Care Act, while respecting religious beliefs.”

The ACA outlined the parameters of the coverage when the law went into effect in 2012. It required all employers to provide the full range of birth control methods with exceptions to places of worship. Since then — in less than three years — it has saved women across the country $1.4 billion (http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/34/7/1204.abstract) in birth control.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/under-new-obama-administration-rule-hobby-lobby-employees-will-get-birth-control-if-they-want-it/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

[boutons_deux]

‘Hobby Lobby’ Is About Blocking Contraception Access, Not Religious Liberty

When Hobby Lobby sued—and won (http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/07/01/hobby-lobby-just-beginning-flood-corporate-religious-objections-coming/)—for a right to be exempted from the Affordable Care Act regulation requiring employee health-care plans to cover contraception without a copay, the official claim from both Hobby Lobby and its conservative defenders was that this was not an attempt to deprive women of contraception. No, the official argument was that it was simply an attempt by Hobby Lobby’s religious owners not to be party to behavior they consider immoral by “paying for” it.

Well now the Obama administration has created a workaround that more than satisfies the official claim that this isn’t about preventing contraception use; it’s just about not participating in it. All employers (http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/07/10/after-hobby-lobby-ruling-hhs-announces-birth-control-workaround) who have this oh-so-sincere belief, all they have to do is send in a letter formally declaring that contraception violates their religious doctrines, and they won’t have to pay for it. Instead, the insurance company will just pay directly. No big surprise here. But the supposed defenders of religious liberty are already outraged, because that’s never been what this is about. Rather, it’s about imposing anti-choice dogma on people who don’t agree with it.

If the actual concern was participation in behavior that violates religious principles, then the Obama administration’s new policy should more than address that. All that is required is a statement of principles. People make sincere statements of religious belief in order to get religious exemptions from laws all the time. Conscientious objectors to the draft, for instance, had to make such statements. It’s not considered a burden because there is no shame in expressing a belief you legitimately hold.

If, however, the “sincerely held” argument is a dishonest gambit to cover up for the real goal among much of the right—depriving women of contraception and asserting employer ownership over their private lives—then we can expect that conservatives will reject this new policy. After all, while it meets the stated demand of accommodating religious belief, it does not prevent women from getting affordable contraception outright.

Anyone who has been watching the right become more overtly anti-contraception in recent years can probably guess what is happening: Conservatives are throwing a fit over this. “The government keeps digging the hole deeper,” Adèle Auxier Keim of the Becket Fund, which represented Hobby Lobby in its suit, told U.S. News and World Report (http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/07/10/after-hobby-lobby-ruling-hhs-announces-birth-control-workaround). “The government still won’t give up on its quest to force nuns and other religious employers to distribute contraceptives.”

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/07/15/hobby-lobby-blocking-contraception-access-religious-liberty/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rhrealitycheck+%28RH+Reality+ Check%29

Repugs, Christian Taliban supremacists are obsessed with the sex lives of women (only, not men).

[boutons_deux]

Will Native American religious freedom count as much as Hobby Lobby's? (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/24/1405475/-Will-Native-American-religious-freedom-count-as-much-as-Hobby-Lobby-s)

Members of the San Carlos Apache tribe, as well as other members of the Apache nation and Native American groups, have exposed (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/29/opinion/selling-off-apache-holy-land.html?_r=1) a national travesty on the part of Arizona senators John McCain and Jeff Flake, both Republicans. At the very last minute, the two senators attached a policy rider to a must-pass spending bill, the National Defense Authorization Act. That rider ended 60 years of federal protection of Oak Flat, an ancient Apache holy place located within the Tonto National Forest, and handed the land over to a private, Australian-British mining concern. It's now a proposed site for a massive copper mining project. Members of the Apache tribe spoke with Think Progress about their efforts (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/07/24/3683935/citing-religious-freedom-native-americans-fight-take-back-sacred-land-mining-companies/) to have this law repealed.


"It's our sacred land—it's where we come to pray," Carrie Sage Curley, an Apache woman, told ThinkProgress. […]"I have a great-grandmother who is buried at Oak Flat, we want to respect her, let her rest in peace," said Sandra Rambler, an Apache woman from San Carlos, Arizona, told ThinkProgress. "My granddaughter had a [religious] dance there last year, and I’m hoping that my future grandchildren will dance there as well."

The religious connections to Oak Flat are so powerful that mining the land could constitute a violation of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. That law, which was passed in 1978, stipulates that the federal government has an obligation to protect the religious liberty of Native Americans—including guaranteeing access to sites they hold sacred.

"It's the same thing as a church," Curley said. "We protect these temples, why can't we do the same for our sacred land?"


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/24/1405475/-Will-Native-American-religious-freedom-count-as-much-as-Hobby-Lobby-s?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29

VERY interesting. Will the courts respect N-A's religious freedom as they respect BigCorp's religious freedom?

[boutons_deux]

Appeals Court Thwarts Evangelical Pharmacists’ Objections To Filling Prescriptions

Something every human being experiences is an inner sense of what is right or wrong in one’s conduct that impels them toward right action founded on the complex ethical and moral principles that control or inhibit their actions or thoughts.

For an alarming number of Americans, their thoughts and actions are not driven by their inner sense of right and wrong, or their conscience, but rather what their bastardized Americanized Christianity tells them is right and wrong.

Since demigod Ronald Reagan’s administration, the religious right inculcated in their weak-minded followers that what is morally right is using their religious conscience to control and impose their will on other Americans; particularly American women.

In that sense, the American religious right’s conscience is identical to the extremist ISIS and Taliban conscience in that their “inner sense” informs their religious right to force compliance to their religious concept of right and wrong.

In America, the idea that a Christian’s conscience gives them authority to withhold medical services from non-compliant Americans is the foundation of the various Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRA) being passed in theocratic Republican states.

For the record, those “religious freedoms” were not restored from a previous time; they are a relatively new concept first introduced by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in the late 1970s to early 1980s and quickly embraced by theocratic extremists in the religious right movement.

However, those so-called “religious freedoms” to use “religious conscience” to deny medical care were dealt a setback this week in Washington state.

According to a unanimous decision (http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2015/07/23/12-35221.pdf) by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, “pharmacy owners do not have a constitutional religious right to refuse to dispense medicines.”

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/07/28/appeals-court-thwarts-evangelical-pharmacists-objections-filling-prescriptions.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+politicususa%2FfJAl+%28Politi cus+USA+%29 (http://www.politicususa.com/2015/07/28/appeals-court-thwarts-evangelical-pharmacists-objections-filling-prescriptions.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+politicususa%2FfJAl+%28Politi cus+USA+%29)

Misogynist religious theocrats kicked in their black hearts again.

[Winehole23]

religiously affiliated nonprofits can't block contraceptive coverage:


A federal court of appeals ruled today that religiously affiliated nonprofit employers can’t block their employees’ health care coverage for contraceptives. The ruling finds that the plaintiffs, which include Catholic health care systems and Catholic high schools, are not burdened by having to formally object to covering contraceptives for employees. The ACLU supported the government’s arguments by participating in a friend-of-the-court brief.

“Today’s victory is not only incredibly important for the more than 12,000 employees who stand to gain contraception coverage, but it also sends a clear message that an employer’s religious beliefs can’t be used to deny health care benefits to employees,” said Brigitte Amiri, senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Freedom Project. “We fight hard to protect religious freedom at the ACLU, but that right doesn’t allow employers to discriminate against their female employees.”

[Winehole23]

Today’s decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the religious accommodation in the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive rule imposed no substantial burden on the plaintiffs’ religious freedom. The plaintiffs challenged a requirement that employers that object to including contraceptive coverage in their employee’s insurance plans notify their insurers or the government of their objection. The insurer must then arrange and pay for the contraceptive coverage separately.


With the decision today, the Second Circuit joins six other circuits that have found that the accommodation poses no substantial burden on the nonprofits’ religion, including the D.C., Third, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Tenth Circuits. No circuit court has ruled the other way.

https://www.aclu.org/news/catholic-health-care-system-cant-block-employees-contraceptive-coverage-court-rules

[boutons_deux]

Move to Amend Rejects US Court of Appeals Decision in National Association of Manufacturers v. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

On Tuesday, panel of US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit has issued a decision in National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) v. US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), holding that publically-traded corporations have a First Amendment right to hide whether their products contain conflict minerals from the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the majority opinion, two out of three judges on the panel struck down a DC Circuit en banc ruling upholding regulations requiring businesses to disclose a product’s country of origin, ruling such disclosure rules only apply to advertisements.

“Rulings such as this one send the message that so-called corporate ‘rights’ actually trump ‘We the People’s’ rights. In this case a corporation is hiding behind the First Amendment to avoid accountability for their actions, and the Court has ruled their right to secrecy is more important than the public’s right to know,” stated Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, National Director of Move to Amend. “We reject this opinion and call on the American people to build a movement to amend the U.S. Constitution to make clear that corporations do not have Constitutional rights.”

Move to Amend is a rapidly growing national grassroots coalition of nearly 400,000 individuals and thousands of organizations working to pass a constitutional amendment to state that Constitutional rights belong to human beings only, not to corporations and other artificial entities, and that campaign spending is not a form of protected speech under the First Amendment and can be regulated. The group formed in in 2009 in preparation for the Supreme Court's Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commissionruling on January 21, 2010. Their We The People amendment was introduced in the US House of Representatives on April 29, 2015.

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2015/08/19/move-amend-rejects-us-court-appeals-decision-national-association-manufacturers

C-U gonna screw Americans and America for decades. Thanks, Repugs!

[boutons_deux]

Conflict Mineral Ruling 'Sets Dangerous Precedent' on Corporate Personhood

'A corporation is hiding behind the First Amendment to avoid accountability for their actions, and the Court has ruled their right to secrecy is more important than the public's right to know.'

Ron Fein of Free Speech for People said (http://freespeechforpeople.org/u-s-court-of-appeals-reaches-decision-in-nam-v-sec/) the ruling would have implications beyond conflict mineral disclosure. "[T]hese judges are coming for the entire set of transparency laws that help make our stock markets the most trusted in the world," he said. "And perhaps they won't stop there; according to these judges, nearly every disclosure or sunshine law in modern society is now subject to corporate First Amendment challenge."

Zorka Milin, senior legal advisor at Global Witness, agreed (https://www.globalwitness.org/press-releases/conflict-minerals-law-remains-books-despite-damaging-decision/). "Today's decision affects not only the conflict minerals rule but could also be exploited by companies to bring legal challenges to other corporate transparency laws," she said in a statement.


"The convoluted logic of the decision is a perversion of the First Amendment and intrudes on the mandate of a democratically-elected Congress," she continued. "Given the potential implications of the ruling, in particular, the warped interpretation of the First Amendment, we urge the court to reconsider and overrule this decision."

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/08/19/conflict-mineral-ruling-sets-dangerous-precedent-corporate-personhood

Human-Americans can know almost nothing about Corporate-Americans, but Corporate-Americans violate H-A's privacy every minute of every day.

[boutons_deux]

Appellate Court Judges Cite '1984' to Expand Corporate First Amendment Rights (https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/08/20/know-else-required-corporations-disclose-whether-use-conflict-minerals/)

A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a decision (http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/7677C9E435244EC985257EA50054F3D4/$file/13-5252-1568402.pdf) on Tuesday supporting a deeply-cherished belief of many huge corporations: that the First Amendment shields them from government requirements to provide information about their products.

The case (http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/18/sec-court-conflictminerals-idUSL1N10T14920150818) involved a provision in the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform act ordering corporations to disclose their use of “conflict minerals” from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The DRC is rich in minerals used in cell phones, laptops and many other gadgets, and demand for them has helped fuel what’s been called “Africa’s World War (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/books/review/Gettleman-t.html).”

In finding for the National Association of Manufacturers, the D.C. Circuit judges declared that to be unconstitutional compelled speech.

There have been some similar previous cases. In 2011, tobacco companiessued the Food & Drug Administration (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fdas-graphic-cigarette-labels-rule-goes-up-in-smoke-after-us-abandons-appeal/) on First Amendment grounds and stopped it from requiring them to put graphic photographs (http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/cigarette-warning-labels/) of the effects of smoking on cigarette packages.

But when the wonderfully-named American Meat Institute sued the Department of Agriculture (http://www.startribune.com/industry-abandons-lawsuit-against-meat-origin-labels/291404181/) to try to roll back regulations forcing them to tell consumers where the animals they’re eating were born, raised and slaughtered, they lost.

What’s most noticeable about the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals conflict minerals decision — written by George H.W. Bush appointee Raymond Randolph and joined by Reagan appointee David Sentelle — is that it reads less like a dispassionate legal treatise and more like an extremely long, nicely-typeset right-wing blog post.

For instance, Reynolds muses, “If the government required labels on all internal combustion engines stating that ‘USE OF THIS PRODUCT CONTRIBUTES TO GLOBAL WARMING’ would that be fact or opinion?” Of course, that would be a fact, but to Reynolds it’s merely “the opinion of many scientists.”

But best of all are his quotations from both 1984 and Darkness at Noon — perhaps the two most famous anti-totalitarian novels ever written. The citations don’t make much sense wedged into the decision, but the implication is clear: forcing Apple to tell you whether there’s tantalum from Congoin your iPad is the kind of thing Joseph Stalin would do.

Obama appointee Sri Srinivasan strongly disagreed, noting that the government justifiably requires public companies to disclose lots of facts they would rather keep to themselves. But he was outvoted 2 to 1.

The ruling is yet more evidence that the current extremist ideology of corporate America and its judicial allies is not going to moderate itself.

They have a specific future in mind for us — one in which the Constitution protects all huge corporations and no actual humans — and they’re doing everything they possibly can to make it happen.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/08/20/know-else-required-corporations-disclose-whether-use-conflict-minerals/

America is FUCKED by VRWC/Repugs and is unfuckable.
]

[boutons_deux]

Catholic hospital denies pregnant Michigan woman’s request to have her tubes tied

A pregnant Michigan woman told her hospital that she would like to have her tubes tied after she delivered her third child because of a tumor in her brain.
However, according to the Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/a-pregnant-woman-wanted-her-tubes-tied-her-catholic-hospital-said-no/2015/09/13/bd2038ca-57ef-11e5-8bb1-b488d231bba2_story.html), her Catholic hospital has refused to perform the procedure citing religious laws against reproductive sterilization.

Jessica Mann is 33. Her doctor suggested that due to the risk from an inoperable tumor in her brain, she should take pains to prevent future pregnancies after the birth of this baby, who is due next month. Mann decided to have a tubal ligation while under anesthesia during the upcoming birth.

Her hospital, however — Genesys :lol Regional Medical Center — has refused to allow the procedure to take place on its premises.

The University of Illinois’ Robin Wilson explained to the Post that religious institutions like Catholic hospitals have “iron-clad” legal protections against being forced to perform abortions, vasectomies or tubal ligations.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/09/catholic-hospital-denies-pregnant-michigan-womans-request-to-have-her-tubes-tied/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

[Winehole23]

Texas Judge blocks ACA transgender rule:

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3249186/Injunction-Franciscan-Alliance-v-Burwell.pdf.

[boutons_deux]

Texas Judge blocks ACA transgender rule:

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3249186/Injunction-Franciscan-Alliance-v-Burwell.pdf.


Christian Taliban imposing their hateful, weaponized Christian Sharia

[boutons_deux]

The last time there was a union vote, SCOTUS was 4-4

Now with the pro-oligarchy/employee-hating ideologue Gorsuch, it would be extremely surprising if the SCOTUS does not vote 5-4 to destroy public sector unions, and allow non-union employees to "free-ride" the benefits of working alongside govt employees who due pay union membership.

[boutons_deux]

Fate of public unions may rest with Supreme Court


The Supreme Court Monday seemed poised to overturn a 41-year old ruling that requires some government workers to pay certain fees even if they're not union members, in a case that could hurt the political power of public employee unions.

The rationale for the original ruling was that the so-called agency or "fair share fees" cover part of the cost of contract negotiations - and that all public sector employees benefit, even those who opt out of the union.
Mark Janus, an Illinois state employee who brought the present case, argues that a state law requiring him to pay the fees violates his First Amendment rights — because the unions engage in political activity and he might be forced to support views with which he doesn't agree.
“The fundamental issue is my right to choice,” Janus said on the Supreme Court (http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/us/supreme-court.htm) steps after the court heard arguments.

Public-sector unions say the case could adversely affect millions of government workers across the country,

Neil Gorsuch (http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/us/neil-gorsuch.htm), who became the ninth justice after Scalia, could prove to be the pivotal vote, but did not weigh in during arguments.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-hearing-public-sector-union-case/story?id=53349617

Janus is being financed and pro-bono'd by the oligarchy wanting to destroy public sector unions so the oligarchy can pocket their salaries.