No Religious Tests...Again.

Certainly have refrained from commenting on the Orlando shooting. This is in part because I had a feeling that more information would be forthcoming that would confound a straightforwards Islamic terrorism angle. In the meantime, I see once again that Obama is trotting out the No Religious Tests(tm) argument against the proposed temporary bad on non-citizen Muslims entering the country (particularly from States involved in Jihadi activities). The commander in chief, a proclaimed Constitutional Scholar [sic] apparently thinks that the "no religious tests" commentary, derived from the US Constitution applies to immigration. I've had the opportunity to discuss the No Religious Tests argument back in 2011:

So apparently not only do some people in the Rick Perry camp think that Mormonism is a cult but also think that not being a "true believer in Christ" is a disqualification for the office of President of the United States. While the Ghost could care less what anyone thinks about someone's religion, it strikes him as particularly odd that a party that purports to be about the "protection of the constitution" would apparently have not read the document.

People love to trot out the Constitution when it suits their purposes. Of course it helps to actually know what the document says:

Article VI: The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

It would be nice if members of the press would do their job and correct any politician, including our Constitutional Scholar [sic] Obama, that the "no religious tests" portion of the Constitution only applies to those Senators, Representatives, Judicial Officers and other "Office or public Trust". It does not apply to immigration or naturalization.

That is all.

Justice [sic] Department Goes Full Orwell

Those of us who are very aware felt the "disturbance in the force" when we heard or read the AG announce it's lawsuit against the state of North Carolina. It was unfortunate, though probably inevitable that it would be a black woman who would stand up and take a sledge hammer to truth, facts and constitutional principle in one go. Before I quote let me remind the reader what this entire process is really about. This is not about bathrooms. This is about recognizing a class of people who are, in fact, mentally ill (gender dysphoria) or who simply enjoy annoying the fuck out of other people. It is providing Civil Rights not based on "deeply held values" like religion or immutable human characterists such as race or sex. It is the ultimate "cannot say no" disease (or shall I say policy) that is being applied to the majority population.

Now, the North Carolina General Assembly passed House Bill 2 in special session on March 13 of this year. The bill sought to strike down an anti-discrimination provision in a recently passed Charlotte, North Carolina, ordinance, as well as to require transgender people in public agencies to use the bathrooms consistent with their sex as noted at birth, rather than the bathrooms that fit their gender identity. [my underlines]

This "conflict" between sex "as noted at birth" and 'gender identity" exists solely because the left has had 50 odd years to create this "legal fiction" of gender. It successfully infiltrated the language because most people, like myself up to a few years ago, assumed and therefore used, gender and sex interchangebly. We thought that "gender" was a polite or "genteel" way of saying sex, much in the way that many parents avoid saying "sex" in front of their children. We had no idea that we were being primed to mentally accept a concept of self that was divorced from one's genetic code or body as it naturally developed.

Once this new word (new speak) gained normalcy the next level was thrown down. This is where we have people referred to as "cis" this or that. The "cis" being borrowed from Chemistry where a compound may have the same chemical makeup but "present" physically different.

But the important thing here is that for thousands of years and hundreds in the case of the US, there has never been a need to have this discussion in legal terms because the common culture was clear about the acceptability of transsexualism in the public square. It was not that such men and women did not exist, they simply knew better than to attempt certain public things. However; as the common culture has been under withering attack over the past 50-60 years, the left has taken off the mask and gone for broke.

The bill was signed into law that same day, and in so doing, the legislature and the governor placed North Carolina in direct opposition to federal laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex and gender identity.

There are no federal laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity. Lynch knows this. There is federal laws against discrimination based on sex but transexuals are not being "discriminated against" based on their sex as the legislation does not pick on a tranny of only one actual sex. And that all assumes the law is "discrimination" at all. I don't even consider it "discriminatory" as no one is being denied access to any and all bathrooms. If a tranny feels so offput by a state agency or a private entity saying that he or she has to use the appropriate bathroom that they don't go to any bathroom, that is their choice. They better wear some Depends though.

Tranny's who think they are men and who dress in "male" clothes and perhaps draw on some facial hair are free to enter any female bathroom and "take a seat". Similarly Tranny's who feel themselves to be women are free to dress in their "freakum dress" and paint up their face and enter the men's bathroom and assume the position at a urinal. They are free to do this like every other biological male and female in the United States. How is it discrimination?

It is "discrimination" in the eyes of the Justice [sic] Department because they are now in the business of protecting "feelz". The left believes that there is some constitutional rights to "good feelz" (for them of course) and have been pursuing these policies like a rabid dog for the past couple of years. It is not surprising given that this is the result of a generation (and their parents) who have obsessed over the "feelz" of their children. Prizes of losing. Against spanking, etc.

Continuing:

More to the point, they created state-sponsored discrimination against transgender individuals, who simply seek to engage in the most private of functions in a place of safety and security, a right taken for granted by most of us.

As demonstrated above it does no such thing. It merely bars the mentally ill from imposing their mentally ill actions on the majority of the population that wants no part of it.

I'm going to skip over a few paragraphs so as to get to the Big Point"

And what we must not do, what we must never do is turn on our neighbors, our family members, our fellow Americans for something that they cannot control and deny what makes them human.

And this is why none of us can stand by when a state enters the business of legislating identity and insists that a person pretend to be something or someone that they are not or invents a problem that does not exist as a pretext for discrimination and harassment. [My underlines]

Up is down. Left is right. Right is wrong. Persons who suffer from gender dysphoria are the only persons involved here who are "pretending to be something or someone they are not". It is not the state that is legislating identity. Lynch has put the cart before the horse and the driver is facing the wrong way. It is the state of North Carolina that is recognizing the actual identities of those persons suffering from gender dysphoria and deciding it will not play along (actually as of now they are ducking under the cover of "protected class"). That nobody in the conference, as far as I know, pointed this simple fact shows how far the rot has gotten. The Extortion/Theft Racket Now that the federal government has amassed so much power over the states, it is now able to strangle these states by extorting the taxes they remit to the federal government and stealing their tax monies to use as leverage against the states.

We are seeking a court order declaring HB-2’s restroom restriction impermissibly discriminatory, as well as a statewide bar on its enforcement. Now, while the lawsuit currently seeks declaratory relief, I want to note that we retain the option of curtailing federal funding to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety and the University of North Carolina as this case proceeds.

Assuming such an action is in fact a part of legislation that created this agency (or the agency doing the actual withholding), it shows the tyranny of good intentions. I'm almost certain that no legislator at the time of the passage of the legislation thought that it would be used in such a manner. These threats of withholding "federal money" as if it was created by the federal government as it's own property to dispense with however it wishes is something that should be addressed by Congress. The federal government gets it's money via taxes on the people. The purpose of those taxes is to carry out the function of government. I don't think it was every thought that the federal government could, after taking the taxpayer's money, refuse to deliver the services that it is obligated to render/

I was under the impression that it was congress that determined what and where money got spent by the federal government. This could be yet another example of the congress abdicating it's responsibility to some agency(ies) with disastrous consequences.

This is what it has come to. Using (and staining) the legacy of black struggle for their civil rights due them as natural citizens. Not as people who take drugs to stop/delay puberty. Not as people who have "medical procedures" to remove perfectly functional body parts. Not as people who take drugs and hormones for the rest of their (usually) short lives with many ill effects. I reject any and all associations of the struggles of black folk with the mental issues of an extremely small (less than 1%) proportion of the population.

The US government has gone full Orwell and it is using extortion tactics on a population it has carefully made dependent upon it to implement and enforce it's new rules.

Who We Won't Vote For

While Ben Carson is catching heat for stating his personal position that he would not support a Muslim for US President, as if he isn't constitutionally guaranteed his right to hold his position and to speak on it in public, little is being said about the fact that among both Republicans ANDDemocrats, if you simply do not believe in God at all, nearly half to more than half of them won't vote for you either:

But don't expect this to be a topic of discussion.

Clarence Thomas: Prophet?

In pondering events of the past few years including the recent Supreme Court rulings I have come to the conclusion that it is entirely possible that Clarence Thomas is in a sense a prophet. What would make me come to this conclusion? His statement during his confirmation hearings:

This is not an opportunity to talk about difficult matters privately or in a closed environment. This is a circus. It's a national disgrace. And from my standpoint, as a black American, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate rather than hung from a tree.[63]

Of course Thomas was referring to the allegations of sexual impropriety towards Anita Hill. But we know that the reason that Anita Hill was even put forth against Thomas was because he was a black conservative. The same black folks, including me at the time, were perfectly fine with seeing Thomas embarrassed publicly and the chance to keep him off the Supreme Court while simultaneously defending Bill "first black president" Clinton for lying about receiving head from an intern (among other events). Bill Clinton was the "right kind of person". Thomas was not. But if we look at Thomas' statement in a more abstract sense we find that he was in fact telling us what was coming down the pipe.

As I've discussed before the purpose of public lynchings is to keep order(Please note that my posts from that era were done in a program that failed to honor paragraphs. That's why they look like one big run on sentence. Sorry about that). That is, whites who lynched black people who may or may not have been guilty of a particular crime (or social custom) did so to let the surviving blacks know who was in charge and to what ends those persons in charge are willing to go to maintain control.

Once you understand lynching as a tool of a larger purpose, rather than simply as an act of violence then you start to pay attention to the WHY rather than the WHAT. This is of course what Thomas meant when he said:

it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you.

The events of the past few years would justify modifying this statement to read:

it is a high-tech lynching for uppity [straight, generally male, generally Christian], who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to [the new] order, this is what will happen to you.

Isn't that what happened to the Baker? The Florist? Brandon Eich? The people on the "wrong side" of GamerGate? Tim Hunt? The UVA Fraternity members? Hell Donald Trump (who I have my issues with). If anything, we saw during the entire Ferguson episode that there was an actual lynch mob mentality as in black people actually holding signs asking for a lynching. But worse than that there was an actual attitude that if you wished to get at the facts and the truth that somehow something was wrong with YOU.

Just now there have been a bunch of black churches burnt down. Out of 7 so far, only one has been deemed actual arson with an unknown suspect. Yet news [sic] reporters keep showing people talking about how they know it was some white supremacist. Not a single one of these reporters [sic] asked basic questions such as: How do you know? Do you have proof?

Tim Hunt was fired from his job due to the tweets of a person who purposely distorted his presentation. What was worse than the random tweet was that the alleged adults that run the university Hunt worked for didn't even have the maturity to look at the entire situation to find out whether Hunt was in fact putting down female scientists or if he was actually noting how backwards his own attitudes towards women were. Hint: it was the latter.

Now as soon as someone on twitter makes noise, governments and corporations go into full censorship mode. The government can't legally do it yet, but they can certainly lean on corporations. After all, no corporation wants an EEOC or DOJ investigation as to why x,y or z "hateful" [enter subject matter here] is still available in their stores or why x,y or z employee is still employed after making a,b or c statement that the "right group" has found upsetting. Sometimes I think I'm the only one who remembers the old "does not mean we endorse...." mantra. Now "guilt by association" is the new normal, even if the associate is not guilty of anything!

The dictionary defines fascism as:

(sometimes initial capital letter) a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.

When I first learned this term, I focused almost entirely on the race angle. At the time, for me it was the central problem of fascism. I could not conceive of fascism divorced from race. Yet if we were to remove the racial angle and the need for a dictator we could easily see that we are in the formative stage (some say "formed") of fascism. If you step out of line on a growing number of ideas you will find yourself in trouble. Your ability to work, even for yourself, will be destroyed with the full cooperation of the business community and a helping from the state.

One could argue that there is in fact Democratic Fascism. Instead of having a dictator you simply have a growing state apparatus, with "justice departments" that can swoop down on any individual, company, town or state and inflict a high tech lynching with real time feedback from Twitter. All a Democratic Fascism needs is for the elected representatives to be believers in the institutional line and willing to enforce them to the death (of those who oppose of course).

Isn't this all what Clarence Thomas told us would come to pass? Clarence Thomas: Prophet?

First The Fourth Now The First

For those of us who understood the Supreme Court decision on same sex marriage for what it was, we knew that it effectively nullified the first amendment of the US Constitution. We knew that it was only a matter of time before the state would step in and declare free speech and free exercise to be illegal if such speech and exercise did not meet the approval of certain entities. Though some private companies like newspapers decided to gag their audience, private companies are supposed to be able to regulate what appears in their private property. However, I believe today marks the first time that a state agency has explicitly abridged the first amendment rights of a private citizen:

The Oregon official imposed a gag order on the couple, mandating that they “cease and desist” from speaking publicly about not wanting to bake cakes for same-sex weddings based on their Christian beliefs.

While the state may issue a gag order in such cases like a trial or a settlement case that has a gag provision as a part of it's agreement, the state may not order a private citizens to not discuss their beliefs and activities in public if they so choose. Such activities are explicitly protected by the US Constitution. The order is on pages 42-43 of the decision The flimsy reasoning offered by Oregon:

“This case is not about a wedding cake or a marriage,” Avakian wrote. “It is about a business’s refusal to serve someone because of their sexual orientation. Under Oregon law, that is illegal.”

In actuality the business refused to participate in a wedding which violated their beliefs. They did not refuse service to homosexuals. Homosexuals, as far as I know the case, can still buy items from that place of business. The way the Oregon court thought[sic] about it was that the Oregon Bureau has a mandate to make sure people aren't discriminated against and if it means restricting your first amendment rights to do that then so be it. Prior to last week's ruling I would have said that based on the Hobby Lobby decision, enumerated rights would triumph over these kids of rules. But since then I believe there is no reason to believe that any court in the US will uphold enumerated rights and if any court does, it is only a matter of running to another with the same or slightly modified argument to get what they want.

And remember, just last week Justice "I am the law" Kennedy told us that Christians and others who object to SSM on religious principles would be free to speak. Well that was quick wasn't it.

"Plain Meaning Arguments"

Allow me to present a thought argument. Imagine if you will that you have a child in school and they had a test. A math test. Say that little junior said that two plus two equals three. imagine that the teacher marked the answer correct. Imagine that for every question that junior answered incorrectly, the teacher actually marked it correct. You'd be very concerned right? Concerned enough to go to the school (or at least call) to find out what's going on right? Because since we all know that two plus two equals four, why would any teacher mark any other answer as correct??!! How would you feel if upon asking about the clear discrepancy the teacher told you:

"Although in plain meaning, your argument that two plus two is four are quite strong the context and structure of the problem as well as a desire to not have a calamity lead me to just mark the answer correct."

If you are a sane person your next move would be to the principals office to have the teacher removed.

Lets try another one. imagine you are on trial for murder. And you're in a death penalty state. Say we have an expert witness who is supposed to testify as to the time of death of the person you are accused of murdering. Your alibi is that you couldn't have done the crime because you were too far away to have possibly made it to the crime scene, committed the crime and then arrive back at the location where you said you were. Say that the expert witness had data that showed that the body's drop in temp showed the murder took place 2 hours [ago] but on the stand said it was something like 7. That time difference puts you in the execution chamber. Upon cross examination your attorney challenges the clearly wrong interpretation of the data and the prosecution objects saying that though the plain meaning of the argument is strong, the context and structure of the testimony as well as a desire to not have to go find another witness or are more likely suspect which would be calamitous means we should just let that testimony stand.

Yeah. me too.

Now imagine that there is no appealing this objection, which of course was granted. Well you're dead.

This my friends is what the Supreme Court of the United States did yesterday. In their ruling in favor of the Obama administration we find the following in the summary:

(e) Petitioners’ plain-meaning arguments are strong, but the Act’s context and structure compel the conclusion that Section 36B allows tax credits for insurance purchased on any Exchange created under the Act. Those credits are necessary for the Federal Exchanges to function like their State Exchange counterparts, and to avoid the type of calamitous result that Congress plainly meant to avoid. Pp. 20–21.

I haven't read past that. It is unlikely I will because the statement here is so powerful that it will undoubtedly have a profound effect on future courts and the nation as a whole. How is it that "plain meaning arguments" in a court of law be less important than congresses duty to write law properly and for the courts to enforce the laws as written? Consider the recent case in Mass. where a man was caught filming up women's skirts in a store. He was arrested and prosecuted based on what the state thought was the law. They thought that surely the statute meant to include that kind of behavior. The judge in that case read the law and saw that whether the intention was there or not, the law as written did not criminalize the actions of that person. The Mass. legislature did what they are constitutionally bound to do: legislated and created a law that added upskirting as a crime.

This is exactly what the courts are supposed to do. If the legislature wrote a law in a manner that excluded something they may have wanted to included, the legislature must amend that law. It is not for the courts to change the "plain meaning" of the laws to fit whatever views that the justices may have. This is what is meant to be governed under LAW and not men. Consider their very brief explanation for dismissing the "plain meaning" argument:

Petitioners’ arguments about the plain meaning of Section 36B are strong. But while the meaning of the phrase “an Exchange established by the State under [42 U. S. C. §18031]” may seem plain “when viewed in isolation,” such a reading turns out to be “untenable in light of [the statute] as a whole.” Department of Revenue of Ore. v. ACF Industries, Inc., 510 U. S. 332, 343 (1994). In this instance, the context and structure of the Act compel us to depart from what would otherwise be the most natural reading of the pertinent statutory phrase.

Reliance on context and structure in statutory interpretation is a “subtle business, calling for great wariness lest what professes to be mere rendering becomes creation and attempted interpretation of legislation becomes legislation itself.” Palmer v. Massachusetts, 308 U. S. 79, 83 (1939). For the reasons we have given, however, such reliance is appropriate in this case, and leads us to conclude that Section 36B allows tax credits for insurance purchased on any Exchange created under the Act. Those credits are necessary for the Federal Exchanges to function like their State Exchange counterparts, and to avoid the type of calamitous result that Congress plainly meant to avoid.

I would agree with this IF the "context" was that there was only that one statement. However I wrote extensively on the subject and showed that the term "state" was used a number of times in relation to Fed and that the paragraph in question, not just the quote in contention clearly never mentions the federal government even though in the context of the legislation, when they wanted to put the federal government on the hook, they were not shy about doing so. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that these justices, like many of the congresspeople who voted for the ACA didn't actually read the document.

But here's another thing with the statement by the court. If the "context of the entire document" is going to be the standard then it's probably time to let the gun control people have a go at the second amendment. It has been pointed out by many that the second amendment's right to bear arms is in the context of a well maintained militia.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

So it is veryeasy with the context argument to say that individuals not connected with a militia have no right to keep and bear arms. It's an easy argument to make on both "plain meaning" and "context" grounds. But perhaps they don't want to in order to avoid "calamity".

Walter Scott shooting: Officer Slager refused to speak to investigators on scene

In what apparently comes to a shock to the LA Times (and others):

According to South Carolina Law Enforcement Division spokesman Thom Berry, investigators from the agency arrived at the shooting scene around 10:30 a.m. on April 4, less than an hour after Slager fatally shot 50-year-old Walter Scott.

When investigators attempted to speak to Slager, he told them he had retained an attorney, Berry said.

"We ceased any questioning and we then contacted his attorney," Berry told The Times on Tuesday. David Aylor, who at the time was representing Slager, told law enforcement officials that he would make Slager available to investigators on April 7 at his office.

Because apparently people at the LA Times (and perhaps elsewhere) are shocked to learn that police officers are citizens as well and have the right to remain silent.

I'm sure it also comes as a shock to the people at the LA Times (and elsewhere) that a person has a constitutional right to not be compelled to incriminate themselves. So for us who know the law, Slager's refusal to speak without the presence of his attorney is evidence of nothing and not striking in the least bit. And after the fiasco that was Ferguson, ANY officer involved in a shooting ought to remain silent and retain a lawyer quickly.

What Is Freedom of Association or FROM Association

I was all set to write a linked up piece on the STUPID uproar about the Indiana (and 18 other state) law re-enforcing religious freedom but this dude went and did a video that says what I was going to write. SOOO here you go:

Credit to Countenance Blog. Yeah, deal with it.

Update: I want to point out ONE minor issue I have with the video. When he comments on the idea that those against the law think you have no right to have a business. I think he understates the issue. I believe that evidence shows that the actual line is that you have no right to LIVE.

Think about it. They want to tell you what to think and say when you are employed by some private company. People who have spoken in ways not approved of by certain people, have had their employers contacted and have been fired. Say now that person goes and opens their own business to do business with whomever they want to (within legal limits not discussed now). Now they want to tell them how to operate their business. So if you cant be employed because of your views and you can't be self employed due to your views, then essentially they want you to drop dead.

Unfit For The Court

Either one believes in equality and equal opportunity (not outcome) or one does not. If one does not, then one should not find oneself on the seat of the highest court in the US. Ginsberg, who apparently didn't consider that she ought not have alcohol before sitting in the front row of the State Of The Union address, has said:

People ask me sometimes, when — when do you think it will it be enough? When will there be enough women on the court? And my answer is when there are nine.

Now some will argue that for much of its history the Supreme Court has been all male. And that was because folks did not believe in equality (under the law) and equal opportunity (not outcome). But given we have generally moved away from that kind of thinking, it is unacceptable for a supreme court justice (or any judge for that matter) to think that the court should be all female as it would be unacceptable to say it should be all white.

It is statements like that which lead me to question feminism as an ideology. Too many persons who claim such a title say contradictory (in terms of equality) stuff like that. Such as all men are potential rapists, which is technically true in so much as, because there are male rapist any man 'could" be one. Of course that idea falls down under it's logical extension that, since there are male burglars then all men are potential burglars. Same for thefts, murderers, arsonists, etc. In fact anything any human has ever done makes any other human a potential to do that same act. Thus one actually goes by the odds of such behavior. When we do that we see that since 95% of men do not engage in sexual assault, then any man you see on the street is very UNLIKELY to be a rapist.

But since many of these statements are never held to account, because apparently it is sexist to do so, they continue to be perpetuated and eventually people who should know better start saying whatever comes to mind because they are on the "right" side of the narrative.

The New Left Crow

The name Jim Crow is often used to describe the segregation laws, rules, and customs which arose after Reconstruction ended in 1877 and continued until the mid-1960s. How did the name become associated with these "Black Codes" which took away many of the rights which had been granted to blacks through the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments?

-Ferris State University

“The New Left Crow offers a devastating account of a legal [social and growing economic] system doing its job perfectly well. We [are] simply replac[ing] one caste system (Jim Crow) for another one (economic destruction, social pariah making, mass censorship of ideas and a growing body of laws) that keeps the majority of minorities [and women] in a permanent state of [entitlement]. [The author] looks in detail at what [MSM] usually misses, namely the entire legal structure of the courts, parole, probation and laws that effectively turn a perpetrator of [no] crime into a moral outlaw who is unworthy of rehabilitation [that he often does not need]. . . [The Author] does a fine job of truth-telling, pointing the finger where it rightly should be pointed: at all of us, liberal and conservative, white and black.” —Forbes [lifted and reworded from here. Forbes did not and does not endorse this entry.

For the purposes of this piece we focus on the "laws, rules and customs" as it applies to the rights of persons legally residing in or are citizens of the United States.

I suppose it's fate that I finally get to write this particular post on the day set aside to recognize Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Who wished for all people to have equal access to liberties established by the founding documents. That persons would be judged by the content of their character rather than simply by the color of their skin.

Since at least 2008 there has been a mood and a movement arising from the left that are in blatant violation of these principles and resemble that which we have known as Jim Crow. Lets look at some events.

Last summer in Ferguson a white cop was deemed a racist killer simply for being white. Lets be clear. I have written enough about it, with plenty of quotes to know this to be the case. To make matters worse there were people openly asking for a lynching of officer Brown. How do a people who have been the subject if lynching then call for one?

On the one hand black folks rightly proclaim that they should not be seen or assumed to be criminals because they are black. They have rightly proclaimed that they should receive fair justice when accused of crimes. Black folks have rightly proclaimed that extra judicial "justice" is unacceptable. And yet, when faced with a real test of those convictions, black folks as a group failed miserably in applying these very principles which today they are tasked with observing in the person of MLK Jr.

Anyone that brought up the relevant facts of the case, including Brown's just attempted strong arm robbery was branded as a racist on the level of Bull Conner. How has it become the case that the truth and the facts are not relevant?

How did the case of Mike Brown overshadow the far stronger case of Eric Garner who was, for all intents and purposes arrested and killed for selling loose cigarettes which NY State had already gotten sales taxes on when he bought the original pack (assuming said cigarettes originated in NYS)?

So after all that, the usual suspects start talking about changing the grand jury process. Why? Because the outcome they desired did not occur. That's a poor reason for changing an entire process and certainly NOT was being fought for by MLK Jr.

Moving on from Mike Brown and Eric Garner we had the UVA Rolling Stone article that slandered the reputation of a fraternity and a university. Rather than defend the concept of due process and do what is commonly referred to an impartial investigation, the head of the university enacted group punishment on all Greek letter organizations. Once again, anyone who asked serious (and obvious) questions about the story as reported and pointed out the journalistic errors (not confirming the existence of the accused and other characters), were branded sexist rape apologists.

Of course the "sexist, rape apologists" were correct in their critique of the story. What happened? No punishment for the liars. Further scrutiny of greek letter organizations who had done nothing wrong.

This in a current atmosphere where it's NOT OK to mention that some women falsely claim rape because they regret the sexual activities they engaged in but it IS OK to get on a program and make the inference that all men are rapists until taught otherwise. It is where a father tells his 5 year old son that he is a rapist.

It is where men, exclusively men can be discriminated in public spaces, in this case an airplane, by being seated away from a child passenger he is not related to, because of fears of molestation. Never mind that such things rarely happen and that most child abuse occurs between children and women (typically a close relative including and mostly the mothers).

Can you imagine what would happen if a black man was told he couldn't sit next to white women because black men, statistically speaking, rape and sexually assault white women more often than they do any other group of women? Or how about since some white people aren't comfortable with black people for whatever reason they ask to not have one seated next to them?

We do not and should not treat black people like they are all criminals yet for some reason it is deemed OK by certain airlines to treat all male customers as if they are child molesters. This is a knew and recent phenomenon brought to you by the New Left Crow where fear of a statistically rare event is cause for deep concern and anyone who points out how rare the event is and therefore how overblown the response is is deemed to be an enabler of criminal activities if not an outright supporter of said activity.

A principled business response to such women making such requests would be that they should buy themselves a ticket and fly with their child or kindly fuck off with their business because they do not treat their paying customers as criminals. And then back that statement up when the social media chatter starts.

Before the UVA case we had the events of Ray Rice and his wife (then engaged). We had black talking heads in the sports commentary world who were calling for Rice's head (and any other dude merely accused of anything). Once again I had to wonder how those who belong to a group of people who had been subject of lynchings on the say so of any random white person could even have two brains cells spark up the idea of assumed guilt.

Currently we have NYS governor Cuomo who ran the last few weeks of his campaign as the women's governor has proposed a new NYS law based on the one in California.

Calling campus sexual assault a national epidemic, the governor said: “This is Harvard and Yale and Princeton, Albany and Buffalo and Oswego. It is not SUNY’s problem by origination. I would suggest it should be SUNY’s problem to solve and SUNY’s place to lead.”

I don't know what qualifies as an "epidemic" but of all crimes rape is one of the least prevalent in Western nations. Since most leading rape prevention organizations have debunked the 1 in 5 stat as well as dismissed the whole "rape culture" theory. Why is it that the head of state, responsible for upholding the US and NY State constitutions is proposing laws that further erode the concept of due process?

“Consent is clear, knowing and voluntary,” the SUNY rules will say. “Consent is active, not passive.

“Silence, in and of itself, cannot be interpreted as consent.”

Consent need not be verbal, but it must be unambiguous and mutual.

So which is it? Not silent or silent? That no one even bothered to question this man on such a contradictory statement is evidence of the New Left Crow. That there are even laws on the books now trying to regulate the details in intimate human interactions is even more evidence of the totalitarian nature of the New Left Crow.

The proposed changes also include a Sexual Assault Victims’ Bill of Rights, a simple and widely distributed document to inform victims of their right to go to the police, as well as campus security, with complaints;

What crime victim does not know they have the "right" to go to the police or security? Serious question. These are people who successfully graduated from High School right? Here's a suggestion: If the prospective student does not know that they should go to the police after being a victim of a crime, do not admit them to your campus.

a promise of immunity for students who report sexual assault but who might have been violating laws or campus rules, like the prohibition on under-age drinking;

Special rules for alleged victims. Lets understand this in the context of Eric Garner. If a woman, no girl, goes to a party and has alcohol, which she legally cannot consume because the law exists to protect her from the exact situation which might happen due to her poor judgment, she cannot be held responsible for her actions. Meanwhile Eric Garner lies dead because he had to face the consequences of selling a loose cigarette on the street.

I wonder, would such rules apply to a student who has been wrongly accused? Would the university say, oh by the way we know you were drinking under age and supplying a minor with alcohol in blatant violation of the school rules, but since you were wrongly accused and all, we'll let that slide. In my experience in witnessing what happens to people accused of breaking "school rules" where it involves a female, the school WILL usually stoop to punishing him (and it's usually him) with whatever incidental rules broken.

It all leads reasonable people to ask whether women and girls are in fact considered fully human adults capable of being responsible for themselves or if they actually require supervised environments to live in. Of course such a question is "sexist" under the Left Crow regardless to how much evidence points to this being the case.

Some people are clearly more equal under the law than others....just like the old Jim Crow.

SUNY encompasses almost a half-million students, at two-year community institutions and colleges with bachelor’s and graduate programs. Excluding the community colleges, the university reported 238 sexual assault complaints among 219,000 students during the 2013-14 academic year.

238 out of 219,000 students in the represented group of institutions?

That's 0.108675799087% of the total population that has reported a sexual assault. There would have to be two orders of magnitude increase in reporting to get anywhere near the 1 in 5 number that has been claimed by various parties. What kind of epidemic is this? And those are "reports" not even proven cases.

But this is the New Left Crow. Using fake stats to further demonize a population and then enact laws that either puts unconstitutional burdens on them, like the recent proposal that those accused of rape must prove they had consent, effectively shifting the burden of proof off the state to the defendant.

That is just like the literacy tests imposed on black folks (as shown in the movie Selma). It was wrong and unconstitutional then and such moves are wrong and unconstitutional now. Simply because the target is a formerly "super enfranchised" group now does not make any of it OK. Another sign of the New Left Crow is David Agema's censure by the RNC.

David Agema, a Michigan national committeeman who has come under fire for recently re-posting an article from a white supremacist magazine on his Facebook page.

Seriously? Posting a link to a page from a source gets you 'under fire"? Under fire from whom? Why? I've read the article in question and regularly follow the website in question. In fact anyone interested in issues of race ought to be following that and other sites. They are certainly following black websites. Quite carefully I might add. Does that make me a white supremacist? Does it mean I endorse the website and its ideology? Or does such assumption or not, only come with certain skin tones and ancestry?

If a post on said White Supremacist site is a review of an article from say the NY Times or some peer reviewed journal like Nature, does that make the NYT or Nature a disreputable source of info since it is "supportive" of or "referenced by" a white supremacist?

Is 2+2=4 only true if it appears on The Atlantic?

Per the article that David Agema posted to Facebook. I too have posted it (and others) to my G+ page (only social media I participate in). Is it OK for me to do so because I am black? Is it OK if such a piece was referenced in say Slate, Huff Post, etc. because those sites are "legitimate"? What if I were to act like I didn't find the material on said sites and went to their source information and pass it off as if I found it myself? Does that now make the material more legitimate? And what happens when I see "mainstream" and "legitimate" publications writing the same material, particularly in such a way that it is clear as day that they sourced the information and ideas from said "illegitimate" sources. Should they be called out? Is their writing illegitimate?

What are these rules under the New Left Crow that determine who and under what circumstances on may post a link to a writing by any group? And why aren't people in a political party under the US polity defending the fundamental freedom of speech of it's members? Why is the RNC afraid of the New Left Crow?

As for the linked article, I found it interesting because of it's implications for black people entering the criminal justice system. If so called "liberal" lawyers actually view their clients in such a way as described in that linked piece shouldn't the public know it? I know for a FACT that at least one other such lawyer thinks as the lawyer in that piece does because I know someone who dealt with such a lawyer, who was did not believe that his client was in fact Ivy League educated and thought that his "proper speech" was some kind of game.

The book that the AmRen posting references also discusses the experiences of a teacher and MTA employee. Again, with those stories I knew of events and experiences of current teachers and MTA employees that confirm those kinds of events. So is it racist to mention it? Or is it only racist when certain people mention it? And if one decides that censorship is how you deal with information one doesn't like doesn't that make said information, which is not only factual but observable by any seeing person, migrate to those entities who are not afraid of the New Left Crow but are also economically independent of those institutions that are beholden to the New Left Crow.

That would also mean that the public at large is less informed because more and more information is hidden from view lest one of the special groups are offended.

Then we have the "anti-gay" link entitled :Everyone Should Know These Statistics on Homosexuals which included:

Consider this dubious bullet-point from the essay: “The median age of death of lesbians is 45 (only 24% live past age 65). The median age of death of a married heterosexual woman is 79 (8)."

What makes it dubious? I've never looked into the media age of death of lesbians. Though since I know that median means the middle number of a given set of data. I know that half of the deaths were before that, indicating highly probable suicides and half are after that, indicating deaths from other causes. Given the history of homosexuality in the US shouldn't it be obvious that "out groups" like lesbians would be subject to more suicides, therefore bringing the median age of death down relative to heterosexual women who do not experience such ostracizing? But the author of the article doesn't even bother to look into that and present counter statistics. Declare the stat "dubious" and move on.

This is the New Left Crow. They dismiss that which they do not like and name call the person. But they rarely engage in the data.

Then there is this:

The Fields facts used in the essay reposted by Agema (and written by Joseph) are all similarly outrageous: “37% of homosexuals engage in sadomasochism,” “60% say they have had sex with strangers in bathhouses,” “Homosexuals are 100 times more likely to be murdered,” etc...

I don't know whether the statement is true. I don't spend my time researching the sexual practices and fetishes of homosexuals. Nor have I looked into how often they are murdered relative to the heterosexual population. But again, there is no rebuttal of the statements with any data. I would suppose that given what I've seen on the news, and read, that homosexuals are a targeted group, usually by heterosexual men who somehow think that proving that they are "better" than homosexuals is done by beating on homosexuals rather than by, I don't know..fucking women and raising their kids. Therefore homosexuals would be murdered at a higher rate than heterosexuals if homosexuality is one of the reasons one might be murdered for.

I do know that early in the AIDS epidemic one of the things that was cited for the quick spread within the NY homosexual community was the fact that they were engaging in sex in bath houses and whatnot (Chicago Tribune, NY Times). This was stated in public many times. So exactly what is the problem with pointing out what is likely a fact?

Ahh the New Left Crow, where you cannot point out facts about a group that can show that group in a negative light. Then of course comes The Smear(tm):

“Edward Fields has been active in white supremacist and anti-Semitic groups since he was a teenager in the late 1940s ... Fields was a significant force in the racist world ...”

Ahh this guy is not to be believed because not only is he a non-practicing Chiropractor, like you can only know about your particular field of employment, but he's racist to boot. Of course when asked whether 2+2=4 even if it is written by a racist, the answer completely guts the "and he's a racist" argument.

This the essence of the New Left Crow. Nowhere does the article actually deals with the actual claims of the offending articles in question. Rather we are brow beaten into believing the articles are "bad", "racist" and "homophobic" simply because "we" are not supposed to agree with the kinds of people making the statement. And even worse, the statement is verboten!

See Watson, of famous Watson and Crick, made some statements regarding the intellectual capacity of Africans (and various other races of people including admixtures thereof) and he's a pariah. Good luck teaching about genetics without mentioning him. I recently finished reading The Bell Curve, because I finally decided I wasn't going to let other people tell me what subject matter was "racist" without actually reading the material myself.

The book is not racist. Having read it I can honestly say that whoever is calling it racist has either not read the book, did not understand the subject matter, or understood the subject matter and decided to label it racist anyway because they were deeply disturbed by the implications of what was presented.

While reading the book I took a Raven Progressive Matrices test. I did so because I didn't want to take the author's or the reviewers word on how "biased" the test would be. It is not biased. Well no, that's not true. It is biased against blind people. If you can recognize patterns you can take the test. The only way to say that it is biased against black people is if you honestly believe black people are incapable of recognizing patterns. THAT would be racist.

And the thing that stood out to me the MOST with the discussion of IQ in that book (and of other studies I've read) is that for a concept that is allegedly biased against "People Of Color", Asians seem to do quite well. Quite well indeed. Why would a people who believe themselves to be The Master Race go out of their way to create a test in which they perform worse than those "yellow chink bastards"? No one ever seems to have an answer for that question. And that's the New Left Crow. They don't have to answer the question. They get to point and call names. Unless Asians aren't people of color....

Also,no one ever asks teachers, the ones who see the students every day. What do THEY see? Do they not see that when they give an exam that a subset of students tend to finish first with high scores, a bulk finishes later with average scores and then there is a trailing end of students who finish last (or do not finish) and do very poorly?

Is that not prima facie proof that there is intelligence and it varies?

Has anyone asked the teachers who have mixed racial composition in their classes about which groups fall mostly into each categories of finishers?

Don't many schools have advanced placement classes for students of exceptional (above average) ability? Isn't it the POINT of those classes to give those students so gifted the kinds of intellectual challenges that they do not get when having to deal with students of lesser ability? Do we know the proportion of students of each race that make it into those programs? Yes we do. And the data closely reflects what is written in The Bell Curve.

And what is worse for the Left Crow is that because there is a standardized test (which yours truly barely remembers taking...and not liking one bit) the low enrollment cannot be blamed on bias in admissions by admissions officers. It is strictly merit. You either are qualified or you are not. You spend time watching TV and playing video games, you're unlikely to make the cut. And as The Bell Curve has laid out in great detail, test prep only does so much (I also know this from my own pre and post test prep SAT exam scores).

Offending data No.1

Offending data No.2

Once you understand the data presented above you understand why so few black students attend the merit based elite high schools in NYC (and elsewhere). I think the reason that many people dismissed The Bell Curve is because they are at the far left of the curve and do not come into contact with those on the other side of the median (as suggested by the authors). I know from my own experiences in web forums and attending higher education that ranges from Ivy League to HBCU, I can say I was PAINFULLY aware when I was in the company of persons not simply more informed that I was but who were much more intelligent (in terms of grasping complex concepts (particularly math) than I was.

It is the case that in everyday life most people do not interact with people who are much brighter than they are (it would usually be a quite aggravating experience for both parties) or much richer (or poorer) than they are. Therefore what they consider "average" is highly skewed by their experiences. So when people do research of large swatches of people and those researchers come to the same conclusions, your average person thinks there is something wrong.

In addition to that the New Left Crow has an entitlement complex. Just as Jim Crow operated to keep the undesirables in line, the Left Crow increasingly leverages the law to enforce it's on privileges. No longer is it the case that you should leave those one dislikes or disagrees with alone. One must also endorse that which they do.If you do not you are to be sanctioned. Do you own a store that happens to make wedding cakes. If you don't make one for a gay wedding you get to have a day in court and possibly get run out of business. Is it because you told the gay couple to get out your store?

Nope.

Is it because you would sell them a muffin, coffee, birthday cake, retirement cake or any other cake? Nope?

That doesn't matter. Because all that matters is the wedding cake. And the courts amazingly allow these suites to not only go forward but for the plaintiffs to win. It never occurs to these judges that all one has to do is put the shoe on the other foot and have a business, say a black or jewish singing group provide services to the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Suddenly they would understand you don't make people provide services for group events one does not wish endorse. That businesses have a legitimate reason to decline services in such a way that is not legally discrimination. A business may not be allowed to decline a person of service because of that person but a business can decline to provide service to behavior they do not wish to be associated with.

Of course what is also entirely different here is that none of the Knights of the KKK would bother to BOTHER such a group to begin with. But not for these folks. The Left Crow says it's OK to purposely invade other peoples spaces and force themselves on them.

Similarly folks on the left thought they could force a business to pay for women's contraception simply because the employee is a woman. These self-centered people feel entirely entitled to other people's money to support their own lifestyle choices. They think this to be a fundamental right trumping the enumerated rights of those person's who object. And what do they call those who object? Sexist!

Used to be that the objective was to get the government out of the reproductive decisions of individuals. Now The New Left Crow is all about using the levers of government to get into the reproductive decisions of individuals.

These are but a few examples of this new era that is upon us. Hopefully this little piece helps to restore, better yet, create a balance where the adults are in control and the emotional cripples are kept in check. Some may object to my comparison to Jim Crow. That's fine. The important thing is to recognize the patterns of behavior and the purposes of those behaviors. They are more similar than it seems.

Hobby Lobby Decision: Enumerated Rights Come First

Here is the decision: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-354_olp1.pdf I have not had time to read the entire thing, including the dissent. I intend to. In the meantime I point the reader to my discussion of the case in Hobby Lobby, Enumerated Rights, State Privileges And Saying "No" To Women

Hobby Lobby, Enumerated Rights, State Privileges And Saying "No" To Women

Currently the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is in the middle of a debate that really ought not even exist. The contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act combined with a virulent strain of feminism that features a total disregard for the concept of limited government and ignorance of constitutional guarantees and the purposes thereof have combined for a mashup of epic legal proportions. Let's get some basics out of the way.

There are constitutional rights and there are state privileges. There are needs and there are wants. In both cases people often confuse the latter with the former and frequently sane people are not around to disabuse these folks of their flights of fancies. And for good measure, when these differences are pointed out accusations of racist, sexist and/or hate the poor soon follow

The constitution of the United States explicitly lays out the rights of citizens through a varied set of amendments. These are referred to as enumerated rights. You have the right to speak freely without government prior restraint. This is an enumerated right. The government is prohibited from establishing any religion as a state religion AND from restraining the freedom of expression (practice) of whatever religion a citizen may adhere to. This last example is what has sparked the Hobby Lobby suit.

There are of course exceptions to the freedom of exercise right. You cannot murder a person via human sacrifice regardless as to whether the person volunteers to be killed. Why? Because your free exercise of religion stops when it runs afoul of laws designed to protect the lives of other people. The number of restraints on free exercise are very few and far between and are very specific because the free exercise clause is pretty clear.

Now if you continue to read the US constitution you will find no enumerated right to contraception. Go ahead and read it. You don't even find the right to education, healthcare or many other things that may be desirable (or not) Therefore any argument stating that somehow these things are rights, as in constitutional rights, are flat out wrong. They may be “moral” arguments but moral arguments are not constitutional arguments.

Back in the 70's SCOTUS overturned bans on abortion on the grounds that it was an unreasonable invasion of the privacy of women. That is, the woman's body was her property and the state did not have the right to tell her what she could do with it. One of the justices pointed out that the only way to bypass such a ruling would be to declare a fetus a person. In such a case, as in my example of human sacrifice, the state would have a legal reason to intervene: preventing murder.

In my opinion, women won a significant victory. If the state did not consider the fetus a person that needs legal protection from murder then why does the state have any right to tell women what to do with their body in which the fetus resides? My body, my choice. That's fair AND falls within constitutional understanding of private property (Your body is your property) and limited government power over individuals and their property. It also rebuffed the idea that a religious group could use the levers of government to impose their rules of living onto persons who do not ascribe. That's a big win for individual liberty and keeping the state free from endorsing a religious view of conception, etc. Fair deal all around.

Under the Obama administration someone thought it was a good idea to include contraception in “healthcare”. Contraception for women that is. Now the first problem is that the contraception mandate is a clear violation of the equal protection clause because it discriminates against men by not covering condom purchases Birth control is birth control. Cover all of it or cover none of it. How that escaped the geniuses in Washington is beyond me but there it is. Apparently it also didn't occur to these folks that such a law would also run afoul the “free exercise” constitutional guarantee of religious individuals and institutions.

Then again, it probably did. Many people on the left are hell bent on fucking with those of certain religious convictions. Having grabbed onto the levers of power they have gone to great lengths to disenfranchise those individuals and groups under the ruse of “hate”. Those people have “hateful” ideologies and ideas and therefore they don't get protection. Mind you I disagree with many of the views held by religious people and institutions however my position is that I give them wide berth, don't spend my money or time with them BUT make sure their rights are protected as much as I want mine to be. And I said “rights”.

One of the things that is dear to a number of religious people and the institutions they create is that they do not believe in contraception. Some go as far as to say none at all and some say anything that prevents implantation or disrupts development after implantation. It doesn't matter whether I think that's BS or not. It doesn't matter if 99.9% of the people in whatever religion actually use those methods of birth control. The matter of fact is the constitution explicitly allows for those persons to have said beliefs and to practice them freely. That also means that the state cannot compel them to participate in such things that run counter to their beliefs. To do so would run afoul of the free exercise clause.

How did contraception get to be thought of as a right? Cue feminists. At some point in recent history it became the idea that to oppose just about anything a woman wants is sexist and oppressive. This bullshit has run up the political mainstream because there are a number of men in power who are literally scared to death of their wives and women in general. Men generally are trained to seek female approval and if a woman says “hey pay for my shit!” these men ask “how much do you need?” rather than “why the fuck should I?” or “Pay for it yourself since you, you know, work.”

If you read statistics you will see that it is claimed that women “influence” the majority of purchases. I've always asked myself what exactly that meant. I would think a grown man with his own money who wants to buy something wouldn't be asking for permission or approval to do so but apparently this is not the case. Even Microsoft had an advertisement a few months back where persons (male) would fill out a form letter asking their “honey” to allow them to buy an X-Box One. The only objection raised in the media about it was that the advertisement was “hetero-normative”. Not that is was blatantly sexist and implied that men need approval of women to spend their money. My reaction to that is, if I have 4 bills to drop on an X-Box and my bills are paid and investments funded, I'm buying one and nobody can tell me otherwise. If my “honey” doesn't like it, she can have a seat and fix her face. I don't expect my “honey” to pass her entertainment plans by me for approval and I don't expect to do so either. You want it, you got money for it, knock yourself out.

I take the same stance with contraception. Why should I be on the hook for your lifestyle choices? Why should the state, who women rightfully got out of and off of their bodies, now want to the state to force other people to pay for or otherwise provide for their contraception? I believe a woman should have the right to contraception. No state should be able to prohibit women from getting contraception forms of their choosing. What I don't believe is that the state should be able to force any other individual, male of female, to pay for or provide it for them. And there is no basis in the US constitution to do so.

If the State wishes to provide contraception to its citizens at no out of pocket (or little out of pocket) cost to them, then the state should do so via it's own program (and I note here that with Single Payer this would not even be an issue). For example the state could provide tax deductions for the cost of contraception via the yearly taxes. It could do so under a monthly program much like tax collection. It could set up a program with pharmacies whereby the state is billed for contraceptives sold by them. Whatever way the state chose to (or not to) provide free or low cost contraception would still not prohibit women from getting contraception. So there is no threat of the state denying women access to contraception regardless of what certain parties wish to be the case.

But then we run into the entitlement problem. Due to the inability of government of late to simply say “no” to women in fear of being tarred with the “sexist” brush, certain groups think they are entitled to make other people finance their personal sex lives. They are upset that Hobby Lobby, etc. refuse from doing so against their beliefs. They say that Hobby Lobby is 'denying” women their “right” to contraception coverage. First, we explained already that there is no such right. Secondly Hobby Lobby, or any other person or organization should not be on the hook for financing the personal sexual lives of it's employees anymore than it should be dictating how their employees engage in their personal sex lives.

What these groups are arguing is that they have the right to force those who object to finance their personal sex lives. That is unsupported by any reading of the constitution. There are no civil rights at stake here. This decision should be simple for the SCOTUS. But that requires saying “no” to women. Do the men on the court have the fortitude to do so? Do the women of the court have the sense to understand that they are treading on very dangerous legal grounds by endorsing such an entitlement mentality among their gender peers?

Personally, I doubt it.

The Hobby Lobby case has brought up arguments about those who wish to oppose things such as blood transfusions and whatever other medical procedures they find objectionable on religious grounds. Let's end this line of thinking quickly. The difference between the contraception argument and the “we don't like blood transfusions” is that the former is not a life saving medical intervention while the latter is. Hobby Lobby cannot (and is not) saying that they can or should dictate to a hospital what forms of life saving medical treatment an insurance company can provide. And it should not be able to. If Hobby Lobby had the right to tell a hospital that it cannot provide a blood transfusion to a patient or to prohibit a medical insurance company from covering a blood transfusion, Hobby Lobby would find itself on the receiving end of wrongful death lawsuits galore and soon find itself out of business.

Similarly, Hobby Lobby cannot put itself between an employee who may object, on religious grounds, blood transfusions and demand that a hospital give a patient one over the patient's objection.

Similarly, if Hobby Lobby is against living wills that contain DNR orders, it cannot compel an insurance company or hospital to ignore the DNR order from a patient's family.

In other words neither Hobby Lobby or anyone else can (or should be able to) stand between a doctor and life saving medical treatment. Contraception is not life saving medical treatment and should not even be discussed in the same breath as those procedures.

Lastly, Hobby Lobby is not a person. This is agreed upon by even those on the Left who are pushing to [further] impose the state on Hobby Lobby. As a non person, Hobby Lobby is therefore the property of it's founders. It is the expression of the free will of the founders and should therefore be protected like any other property. Who's property is it? The Founders. What do the founders want to do with their property? Not provide for contraception. Why? Because it's a religious conviction of the property owners. End of story.

In the end the SCOTUS should remember that it's primary function is to uphold the constitution and the rights enumerated therein. Enumerated rights always come before acts of congress granting state privileges. Hobby Lobby has an enumerated right to the free exercise of it's founders religion and it's expression through it's businesses and it's business practices. Women and men who do not care for the offerings made by Hobby Lobby should be and are free to not work at Hobby Lobby. Perhaps Hobby Lobby will lose out on very talented people as a result of it's decision. That's Hobby Lobby's loss. But the government ought not be involved with that. The SCOTUS should be very careful in enforcing state created privileges over enumerated rights.

Here's the bottom line: Not a single woman will be unable to obtain birth control as a consequence of Hobby Lobby's actions. They may not be able to afford to buy it, but “affordability” is not an enumerated right.

A decision in favor of Hobby Lobby will not give them control over a woman's body. In fact it maintains the very correct legal idea that a private company AND the government has no business IN the body of a woman.

Some women may be inconvenienced by Hobby Lobby's policy. Convenience is not an enumerated right and should not be the basis of law and definitely not an argument against an enumerated right.

The limits of an enumerated right should be few and far between with maximum deference given to the right. There is only one party in the Hobby Lobby case that has an enumerated right and therefore should be given great deference by the court. We rightfully circumscribe free speech in cases of screaming fire in a crowded theater because such speech endangers the public. We rightfully restrict exhortations to violence in circumstances where such exhortations can predictively precipitate violence against other citizens. And even then, saying things like “I wish someone would run my boss over with their car” is protected speech even though it is a clear “exhortation”. Absent the likelihood that someone would actually act on such a statement is why it is protected. But make that same statement while surrounded by amped up persons willing to commit such an act and it's an entirely different thing. That's a narrow definition.

Declining to pay for someone's contraception does not in any way meet such a high bar of “danger to the public”. This is clear.

Put Up Or Shut Up Part 2

When I posted that it was for the NSA to put up or shut up I said that there were conditions they had to meet:

let him provide the proof, as in actual credible plots, not some rambling by someone who was pissed off. Not someone talking shit to his boys back home. Actual factual, in the works plots by people that had not been identified by any other legal, above board means or could not have been identified by any other above board means prior to the so called "terrorist act".

This is the litmus test. You don't get to do something just because it is "easier" or "more convenient". The point of the constitution is to restrain government. It should be relatively "difficult" for the government to spy on citizens. In any case the news today fails the above test spectacularly.

Mr. Joyce described a plot to blow up the New York Stock Exchange by a Kansas City man, whom the agency was able to identify because he was in contact with “an extremist” in Yemen who was under surveillance.

What was this? already under surveillance? If that is the case, then there is no need or justification for mass collection of user call data. The subject of this example was clearly within established law. No FISA court would even be needed since the Yemeni (or person in Yemen) was already under surveillance. This means that there was probable cause as required by the 4th Amendment to get a warrant for a tap on the target's phone.

So no, this example does not explain how the NSA program uncovered plots.

The second example is very murky:

. Mr. Joyce also talked about a San Diego man who planned to send financial support to a terrorist group in Somalia, and who was identified because the N.S.A. flagged his phone number as suspicious through its database of all domestic phone call logs, which was brought to light by Mr. Snowden’s disclosures.

Was this a "known" terrorist group? Who was the contact in Somalia? Unlike the previous example there is no claim of a foreign target that was already under surveillance. But this example is HIGHLY problematic. Number one, "sending financial support" is not an "imminent threat" to the US and therefore cannot even be claimed to have been thwarting ANYTHING dangerous at all.

Secondly this guy was "searched" and "seized" without a warrant. His phone number was "suspicious"? How do you get a "suspicious" phone number?

Seriously? An agent of the government can tap your shit because you have a "suspicious phone number"? I think this is the kind of activity the 4th amendment was designed to prevent. No lives were threatened by this person. No plot was unfolding and by this description there was no probable cause to look at this fellows call data.

It's pretty shocking to me that lawmakers who are oath bound to uphold the US Constitution did not hammer this guy over this example.

I won't even get into the bullshit claim about how 9-11 coulda, woulda been prevented. A number of the persons directly involved with 9-11 were known to authorities already and were allowed to board planes even though it was known that there was a plot involving planes underway.