Combat! - Page 163 of 406 - A blog by Dan Brooks

SCOTUS: family-owned corporations don’t need to cover contraception

By Dan Brooks in Church People June 30, 2014 3 Comments

Aunt Jemima, one of many family business owners whose insurance won’t need to pay for birth control

First of all, Aunt Jemima has gotten a lot less racist over the years, but the basic concept remains extremely problematic. Second, and in no way related to pancakes: the Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 that family-owned corporations like Hobby Lobby are exempt from federal laws requiring them to provide comprehensive insurance coverage for certain types of contraception. In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Burwell, the court determined that forcing companies to pay for birth control methods that prevent the implantation of fertilized eggs—which some Christians consider a form of abortion—constituted a violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. So get ready to see more pregnant girls working at Hobby Lobby, as I presume the company’s founders intended.

Friday links! Freedom isn’t free of assault teams edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links June 27, 2014 0 Comment

A SWAT team assists in the eviction of a Colorado couple from their foreclosed home.

You can’t have a free country just by letting people do whatever they want. “Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins,” said Zechariah Chafee, and he makes a good point: how am I to swing my arms if people keep getting their noses in my way? The problem with freedom is that the lower orders will always try to strip it from their betters. Free to have a nice town where I can walk along the river in peace? Nope—some derelict is lying on the bank, spoiling my view. Free to choose my religion and uphold its values? Nope—gay hippies are taking a break from rapping to smoke marijuana out of each other’s buttholes. These people are undermining the country with their laziness and dissipation, and there’s only one way to preserve American liberty: incarcerate them with paramilitary assault teams. Today is Friday, and freedom isn’t free. Won’t you enjoy membership in a class that can still afford it with me?

Sadly, ballot season is over before it began

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized June 26, 2014 2 Comments

Democracy

Two fun ballot initiatives for the 2014 Montana elections met untimely ends last week. The Healthy Montana Initiative, which would have accepted federal funds for Medicaid expansion after the state legislature refused them, fell just short of the required 25,000 signatures after a series of legal challenges. Meanwhile, Charter Communications’ I-172—which would have reclassified the telecommunications outfit as a cable company, reducing by approximately half the $34 million they owed in back property taxes—was withdrawn after Charter settled with the state. These two initiatives dropped out of contention before balloting season even began: one to reverse legislators’ decision to refuse to implement federal Medicaid expansion, and one to reverse a court’s decision to make the cable company pay its taxes. It was a classic David and Goliath story, and you can read all about it in my column for the Missoula Independent. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must watch the United States thwart Germany on the field of international contest, again. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links.

N. Korea announces “gust of hatred and rage” over James Franco movie

By Dan Brooks in Fascism June 25, 2014 2 Comments

Kim Jong Un visits the dolphinarium at the Rungna People's Pleasure Ground. Nothing in this caption is made up.

Kim Jong Un visits the dolphinarium at the Rungna People’s Pleasure Ground. Seriously.

The good news, if you are an asshole, is that James Franco and Seth Rogen are making another high-concept buddy movie. The bad news, if you are an even bigger asshole, is that the comic premise is Kim Jong Un. In The Interview, Franco and Rogen play journalists whom the CIA recruits to assassinate the North Korean dictator. Normally Kim has a great sense of humor about himself, but this time Hollywood has pushed it too far. According to a spokesman for North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

If the United States administration tacitly approves or supports the release of this film, we will take a decisive and merciless countermeasure…[The film] is the most blatant act of terrorism and an act of war that we will never tolerate.

Somewhere in the State Department, a whole office is dedicated to interacting with these people.

Lawsuit signals endgame for Ravalli treasurer

By Dan Brooks in Montana Politics June 24, 2014 4 Comments

Suspended Ravalli County treasurer Valerie Stamey, now the object of a lawsuit

It seems the litigator has become the litigated: the Ravalli County Commission has sued ~~embattled~~ ~~suspended~~ hilarious treasurer Valerie Stamey for $29,000, citing 58 instances of neglected duties at $500 a pop. This news follows last Friday’s meeting, in which commissioners offered Stamey the chance to resign rather than be suspended without pay. Stamey did not attend that meeting, saying it would violate her right to due process. At the same event, independent auditor Jim Woy said “there is absolutely no doubt” Stamey failed to perform the duties of her office. You may remember Woy from Stamey’s plan to sue him for libel, which her attorney promised would be the “first of many” lawsuits. As of press time, the legal counterassault seems to have stalled.