Again on the cake case. First off, my last two posts:
I thought it was clear that I didn’t
agree with the ruling at all but I felt that their foundation for the
ruling was awful. If not, please read the one above titled “That awful
ruling.”
I have not defended the ruling. I
have never said I agreed with it. I did state that if they were going
to make the awful ruling, I would have thought they would do so on
reasons other than religious freedom. I felt that doing it on
religious freedom opened up a whole host of issues. Those issues
include corporate ‘rights.’ Adam Winkler (SLATE) explains:
Although
the justices never explicitly said so, the court seems to have quietly
established that business corporations have religious liberty rights
under the First
Amendment to the Constitution. If that is right, then Masterpiece Cakeshop
could be a groundbreaking decision with profound reverberations in American law.
As cases like
Citizens United remind us, business corporations have won an
ever-larger number of individual rights under the Constitution.
Religious liberty, however, has remained one of the few constitutional
rights corporations had not been held to have. (Hobby
Lobby held that corporations have religious liberty under a federal statute, which unlike the Constitution could be repealed by ordinary legislation.)
Masterpiece Cakeshop subtly extends this right to corporations.
And, in time, the case may well be used by many other business
corporations whose owners have religious objections to same-sex
marriage, LGBTQ rights, or birth control.
Emphasis on
may. For, like so many of us, the justices too gave scant
attention to the fact that a corporation was involved in this case.
Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion for the court discusses the facts
exclusively in terms of the baker—someone who clearly has
religious liberty rights under the First Amendment—and never even
mentions the most controversial question of the corporate entity’s
religious freedom. One possibility, then, is that future courts, when
confronted with corporate assertions of religious liberty,
will say that Masterpiece Cakeshop leaves the issue open and sets no definitive precedent.
Again, the ruling is awful. I
disagree with it. But the basis for the ruling? I find that even more
outrageous because of what it now creates. Hope that clears it up.
One day after Ecuadorian Foreign Minister María Fernanda Espinosa declared that her government would continue blocking WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange from all communications and deny him any personal visitors, she was elected president of the United Nations General Assembly. Today marks 10 weeks since Ecuador’s government deprived Assange of his rights, which it is obliged to honour after granting him political asylum in its London embassy in 2012.
The UN vote in support of Espinosa was a substantial 128, versus 62 for the only other nominee, Honduras’s UN ambassador Mary Elizabeth Flores Flake, and two abstentions. The vote suggests that the United States did not energetically intrigue on behalf of Honduras. Washington was believed to favour Honduras because its right-wing government supported the provocative relocation of the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
There is little doubt that the treatment of Assange by Ecuador’s government—and behind it, the small country’s corporate elite—is the outcome of pressure and threats by the US and other powers. Washington is demanding Assange’s head as the price of restoring relations. CIA director Mike Pompeo, now US secretary of state, asserted last year that WikiLeaks was a “non-state hostile intelligence agency,” due to its publication of documents exposing the operations of US intelligence.
Assange is being used as a bargaining chip in sordid negotiations between the US and Ecuador. On June 4, US Vice President Mike Pence met with Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno. Amid the stepped-up persecution of Assange, Pence issued a statement lauding their discussion on “opportunities to reinvigorate the bilateral relationship” between the two countries. In words dripping with imperialist deceit, he said they would work together “to protect and promote freedom” and “build prosperity, security and democracy.”
Such “freedom” does not include freedom of speech or freedom of the press. Such “democracy” does not include the right to expose or oppose the crimes of American imperialism or other capitalist governments. The Orwellian “freedom” espoused by Pence means submission and subservience to the control of the world’s wealth by a minuscule financial and corporate oligarchy.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Wednesday, June 6, 2018. Iraq . . . where democracy goes to die via assisted suicide.
AP can't get it right this morning. It's Wednesday, Hayder al-Abadi has done his weekly speech as prime minister of Iraq. In the speech, he announces that a body no one's heard of before, one he appointed from his own Cabinet has found 'irregularities' -- no details on what they are -- that will require calling off the votes of the displaced outside of Iraq and the displaced inside Iraq.
This would be the same Hayder, remember, who may be the outgoing prime minister because he did not win the elections last month. Hayder did not come in first, that was the Moqtada al-Sadr's alliance. Moqtada is the Shi'ite cleric and movement leader who was vastly underestimated by gas bags. Hayder did not come in second, that was the party of the militias. Hayder came in third. Distant third.
And now he's saying the election results are being tabled -- for the displaced.
Oh, and it gets worse.
Hayder's announced there will be recounts.
Why is that worse?
Because it's not allowed.
Ibrahim Saleh (ANADOLU AGENCY) reports:
So the loser, Hayder, who thought he'd win campaigning on his alleged defeat of ISIS doesn't like the results and thinks that's all it takes.
He doesn't have to follow the Constitution, he doesn't have to listen to the courts, he can just do whatever he wants, create his own commission and what he decides goes?
That's how it works now?
Let's drop back to note the hysterical reaction to Moqtada's win.
For example, Danny Sjursen (NATIONAL INTEREST) insists:
Sadr has since re-branded himself as an enemy of corruption and a cross-sectarian proponent of governance reform. Nonetheless, to my men and most U.S. troopers, he’ll always be the fiercely anti-American thug who sent his impoverished, hopeless fighters out into the streets to kill soldiers and marines.
So sorry, Danny, but you don't get to vote in the Iraqi elections. Yes, you invaded their country, yes, US weapons were used on the Iraqi people, but that doesn't mean you get to decide for them.
And, Danny, I'll take your hysterics a little more seriously after you call out the 2009 deal that released the leader of the League of Righteousness from US custody -- despite the fact that he did have US blood on his hands. You've never called that out. You've never even acknowledged it.
For any late to the party on that reality, let's drop back to the June 9, 2009 snapshot:
This morning the New York Times' Alissa J. Rubin and Michael Gordon offered "U.S. Frees Suspect in Killing of 5 G.I.'s." Martin Chulov (Guardian) covered the same story, Kim Gamel (AP) reported on it, BBC offered "Kidnap hope after Shia's handover" and Deborah Haynes contributed "Hope for British hostages in Iraq after release of Shia militant" (Times of London). The basics of the story are this. 5 British citizens have been hostages since May 29, 2007. The US military had in their custody Laith al-Khazali. He is a member of Asa'ib al-Haq. He is also accused of murdering five US troops. The US military released him and allegedly did so because his organization was not going to release any of the five British hostages until he was released. This is a big story and the US military is attempting to state this is just diplomacy, has nothing to do with the British hostages and, besides, they just released him to Iraq. Sami al-askari told the New York Times, "This is a very sensitive topic because you know the position that the Iraqi government, the U.S. and British governments, and all the governments do not accept the idea of exchanging hostages for prisoners. So we put it in another format, and we told them that if they want to participate in the political process they cannot do so while they are holding hostages. And we mentioned to the American side that they cannot join the political process and release their hostages while their leaders are behind bars or imprisoned." In other words, a prisoner was traded for hostages and they attempted to not only make the trade but to lie to people about it. At the US State Dept, the tired and bored reporters were unable to even broach the subject. Poor declawed tabbies. Pentagon reporters did press the issue and got the standard line from the department's spokesperson, Bryan Whitman, that the US handed the prisoner to Iraq, the US didn't hand him over to any organization -- terrorist or otherwise. What Iraq did, Whitman wanted the press to know, was what Iraq did. A complete lie that really insults the intelligence of the American people. CNN reminds the five US soldiers killed "were: Capt. Brian S. Freeman, 31, of Temecula, California; 1st Lt. Jacob N. Fritz, 25, of Verdon, Nebraska; Spc. Johnathan B. Chism, 22, of Gonzales, Louisiana; Pfc. Shawn P. Falter, 25, of Cortland, New York; and Pfc. Johnathon M. Millican, 20, of Trafford, Alabama." Those are the five from January 2007 that al-Khazali and his brother Qais al-Khazali are supposed to be responsible for the deaths of. Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Robert H. Reid (AP) states that Jonathan B. Chism's father Danny Chism is outraged over the release and has declared, "They freed them? The American military did? Somebody needs to answer for it."
Still waiting for honest discussions on that reality.
In the meantime, US troops don't get to decide who runs Iraq -- whether the US government sent them there or not. Guess that wasn't covered in basic training?
Didn't turn out quite the way you wanted
How were you to know
Boom town broke down
What a let down
Where did the mountain go?
-- "Chalice Borealis," written by Carole King and Rick Sorensen, first appears on Carole's SPEEDING TIME
The turn out for the latest election was low -- historically low.
Why might that be?
Maybe because Barack Obama nixed Nouri al-Maliki's plans for a third term and installed Hayder al-Abadi as prime minister. And -- or -- maybe because Nouri lost the election in 2010 and Ayad Allawi should have been named prime minister-designate. Instead, Nouri refused to allow the process to move forward. He dug his heels in. For eight months, Iraq was at a standstill. The political stalemate ended because Barack okayed The Erbil Agreement, a legal contract brokered by the US government which was signed off on by all party leaders -- but not by the Iraqi voters. This contract gave Nouri a second term in exchange for concessions to various parties. Nouri used the contract to get a second term, then stalled on honoring his side of the contract until his attorney announced that the contract wasn't valid.
Nouri, of course, was installed by the US in 2006. A nobody, a nothing. But he did have a CIA profile which found him to be highly paranoid and the US government felt that this could be worked, they could use it to control him.
Golly gee, after 2006's result, 2010's result and 2014's result, why do you suppose Iraqis might not feel the need to turn out and vote?
But Moqtada's supporters did.
Why was that a surprise?
He's demonstrated repeatedly over the years that he can get his followers to turn out. And to turn out in public, mind you, where they might be attacked. Getting them to turn out at the polls was so much easier.
The US government has been sputtering over Moqtada's win for weeks now.
And it's not even like Moqtada's going to be prime minister. He can't be. He didn't run for Parliament and the prime minister has to be an elected Member of Parliament.
But it's been non-stop hand wringing over Moqtada.
So now Hayder al-Nobody thinks he can disregard Iraq's Constitution and Iraq's judiciary. And you don't think that further destroys the average Iraqi's faith in democratic institutions?
Hayder's whining about the new electronic voting machines. We might manage to care if we weren't raising issues about that in March, long before the elections. If he's only concerned after he loses, then he's really not concerned about the machines, he's just got sour grapes over losing.
It's almost a month since elections. And yet again Iraqis have to wait because the process is not honored, the rules are not respected.
This is not how you grow democracy.
And at a time when the Islamic State is still active in Iraq, you need a peaceful and reasonable transfer of power. The longer this draws out, the more questions there will be for leadership. The more attacks by the Islamic State, the more this inability to follow the process becomes an issue.
The following community sites updated:
AP can't get it right this morning. It's Wednesday, Hayder al-Abadi has done his weekly speech as prime minister of Iraq. In the speech, he announces that a body no one's heard of before, one he appointed from his own Cabinet has found 'irregularities' -- no details on what they are -- that will require calling off the votes of the displaced outside of Iraq and the displaced inside Iraq.
This would be the same Hayder, remember, who may be the outgoing prime minister because he did not win the elections last month. Hayder did not come in first, that was the Moqtada al-Sadr's alliance. Moqtada is the Shi'ite cleric and movement leader who was vastly underestimated by gas bags. Hayder did not come in second, that was the party of the militias. Hayder came in third. Distant third.
And now he's saying the election results are being tabled -- for the displaced.
Oh, and it gets worse.
Hayder's announced there will be recounts.
Why is that worse?
Because it's not allowed.
Ibrahim Saleh (ANADOLU AGENCY) reports:
Iraqi
law does not allow election results to be annulled or manual vote
recounts to be conducted, Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council said Tuesday.
“Article
8 of the Electoral Commission Law No. 11 of 2007 gives voters the right
to challenge [poll] results before the Independent High Electoral
Commission’s board of commissioners,” the judicial council said in a
statement.
“If
the plaintiff is not satisfied by the board’s decision, they can bring
the issue before an electoral tribunal, which must rule on the appeal
within 10 days of referral,” the statement read.
It added: “There is no provision within the law giving the judiciary the authority to partially annul election results.”
“Nor
is there any provision within the law giving the judiciary the
authority to request a partial recount of poll results,” the judicial
council asserted.
So the loser, Hayder, who thought he'd win campaigning on his alleged defeat of ISIS doesn't like the results and thinks that's all it takes.
He doesn't have to follow the Constitution, he doesn't have to listen to the courts, he can just do whatever he wants, create his own commission and what he decides goes?
That's how it works now?
Let's drop back to note the hysterical reaction to Moqtada's win.
For example, Danny Sjursen (NATIONAL INTEREST) insists:
Sadr has since re-branded himself as an enemy of corruption and a cross-sectarian proponent of governance reform. Nonetheless, to my men and most U.S. troopers, he’ll always be the fiercely anti-American thug who sent his impoverished, hopeless fighters out into the streets to kill soldiers and marines.
So sorry, Danny, but you don't get to vote in the Iraqi elections. Yes, you invaded their country, yes, US weapons were used on the Iraqi people, but that doesn't mean you get to decide for them.
And, Danny, I'll take your hysterics a little more seriously after you call out the 2009 deal that released the leader of the League of Righteousness from US custody -- despite the fact that he did have US blood on his hands. You've never called that out. You've never even acknowledged it.
For any late to the party on that reality, let's drop back to the June 9, 2009 snapshot:
This morning the New York Times' Alissa J. Rubin and Michael Gordon offered "U.S. Frees Suspect in Killing of 5 G.I.'s." Martin Chulov (Guardian) covered the same story, Kim Gamel (AP) reported on it, BBC offered "Kidnap hope after Shia's handover" and Deborah Haynes contributed "Hope for British hostages in Iraq after release of Shia militant" (Times of London). The basics of the story are this. 5 British citizens have been hostages since May 29, 2007. The US military had in their custody Laith al-Khazali. He is a member of Asa'ib al-Haq. He is also accused of murdering five US troops. The US military released him and allegedly did so because his organization was not going to release any of the five British hostages until he was released. This is a big story and the US military is attempting to state this is just diplomacy, has nothing to do with the British hostages and, besides, they just released him to Iraq. Sami al-askari told the New York Times, "This is a very sensitive topic because you know the position that the Iraqi government, the U.S. and British governments, and all the governments do not accept the idea of exchanging hostages for prisoners. So we put it in another format, and we told them that if they want to participate in the political process they cannot do so while they are holding hostages. And we mentioned to the American side that they cannot join the political process and release their hostages while their leaders are behind bars or imprisoned." In other words, a prisoner was traded for hostages and they attempted to not only make the trade but to lie to people about it. At the US State Dept, the tired and bored reporters were unable to even broach the subject. Poor declawed tabbies. Pentagon reporters did press the issue and got the standard line from the department's spokesperson, Bryan Whitman, that the US handed the prisoner to Iraq, the US didn't hand him over to any organization -- terrorist or otherwise. What Iraq did, Whitman wanted the press to know, was what Iraq did. A complete lie that really insults the intelligence of the American people. CNN reminds the five US soldiers killed "were: Capt. Brian S. Freeman, 31, of Temecula, California; 1st Lt. Jacob N. Fritz, 25, of Verdon, Nebraska; Spc. Johnathan B. Chism, 22, of Gonzales, Louisiana; Pfc. Shawn P. Falter, 25, of Cortland, New York; and Pfc. Johnathon M. Millican, 20, of Trafford, Alabama." Those are the five from January 2007 that al-Khazali and his brother Qais al-Khazali are supposed to be responsible for the deaths of. Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Robert H. Reid (AP) states that Jonathan B. Chism's father Danny Chism is outraged over the release and has declared, "They freed them? The American military did? Somebody needs to answer for it."
Still waiting for honest discussions on that reality.
In the meantime, US troops don't get to decide who runs Iraq -- whether the US government sent them there or not. Guess that wasn't covered in basic training?
Didn't turn out quite the way you wanted
How were you to know
Boom town broke down
What a let down
Where did the mountain go?
-- "Chalice Borealis," written by Carole King and Rick Sorensen, first appears on Carole's SPEEDING TIME
The turn out for the latest election was low -- historically low.
Why might that be?
Maybe because Barack Obama nixed Nouri al-Maliki's plans for a third term and installed Hayder al-Abadi as prime minister. And -- or -- maybe because Nouri lost the election in 2010 and Ayad Allawi should have been named prime minister-designate. Instead, Nouri refused to allow the process to move forward. He dug his heels in. For eight months, Iraq was at a standstill. The political stalemate ended because Barack okayed The Erbil Agreement, a legal contract brokered by the US government which was signed off on by all party leaders -- but not by the Iraqi voters. This contract gave Nouri a second term in exchange for concessions to various parties. Nouri used the contract to get a second term, then stalled on honoring his side of the contract until his attorney announced that the contract wasn't valid.
Nouri, of course, was installed by the US in 2006. A nobody, a nothing. But he did have a CIA profile which found him to be highly paranoid and the US government felt that this could be worked, they could use it to control him.
Golly gee, after 2006's result, 2010's result and 2014's result, why do you suppose Iraqis might not feel the need to turn out and vote?
But Moqtada's supporters did.
Why was that a surprise?
He's demonstrated repeatedly over the years that he can get his followers to turn out. And to turn out in public, mind you, where they might be attacked. Getting them to turn out at the polls was so much easier.
The US government has been sputtering over Moqtada's win for weeks now.
And it's not even like Moqtada's going to be prime minister. He can't be. He didn't run for Parliament and the prime minister has to be an elected Member of Parliament.
But it's been non-stop hand wringing over Moqtada.
So now Hayder al-Nobody thinks he can disregard Iraq's Constitution and Iraq's judiciary. And you don't think that further destroys the average Iraqi's faith in democratic institutions?
Hayder's whining about the new electronic voting machines. We might manage to care if we weren't raising issues about that in March, long before the elections. If he's only concerned after he loses, then he's really not concerned about the machines, he's just got sour grapes over losing.
It's almost a month since elections. And yet again Iraqis have to wait because the process is not honored, the rules are not respected.
This is not how you grow democracy.
And at a time when the Islamic State is still active in Iraq, you need a peaceful and reasonable transfer of power. The longer this draws out, the more questions there will be for leadership. The more attacks by the Islamic State, the more this inability to follow the process becomes an issue.
The following community sites updated:
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Partisan games when we want peace9 hours ago
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FACEBOOK -- a geriatric pleasure9 hours ago
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Who sells dinos?9 hours ago
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