Day: March 26, 2014

IST Op-Ed: The Personhood Trap

Opinion from the desk of IST Editor

This could be a post about the issues that conservs tried to get on a couple of votes but were soundly defeated……but alas that is NOT what this one is all about…..

I am sure that many of us know full well what the hoopla is all about in SCOTUS…..in case you do not….a couple of corporations are suing Obamacare because they do not want to pay for employees contraceptives on religious grounds.  It is a personhood question.  Are corporations the same as the person?

We know that SCOTUS has said that corporations are persons when it comes to political campaign contributions……that would have been the “Citizens United” ruling….and now a similar question is before the court…..can corporations violate a law on the grounds of the owners religious beliefs?

Before I begin….I would like to say that I may get some grief on what I think…..but I am willing to take it……my conclusion is logical and well thought out….at least I think so and since I am the author of this post….it must be true.

I have mixed emotions about the upcoming ruling by SCOTUS in June…….will they find that a corporation can dictate an individual’s choices or will they do the right thing and end all this speculation?

Like I said…I am torn….on the one hand I do not think corporations should be treated as a person…….and on the other…..I would like to see them rule in favor of Hobby Lobby and the other in the lawsuit…..I know….why on earth would I wish for that?

It would make the corporations on the same footing as a person and if so should be treated like a person when a crime is committed….instead of letting them off with impotent fines they would be sentenced as a person…..jail time and fines….restitution………etc………whatever the penalty is for us mere mortals they in turn would be charged and treated as such……..it is beyond time for these entities to be held responsible for their actions and crimes.

If I get that wish then many women will be screwed….that part I do not like……..and the fact that a corporation could force its employees to buy into their religious beliefs………. just sucks.

I wish I could venture a guess on the ruling……..but it is too close to call…..will women retain their right to personal decisions or will the corporation become a person?

June will hold the answer.

Crimea: Alaska Style

You know there are a wealth of stories that come out whenever there is some sort of upheaval that the world fixates on…….we have heard all the “experts” that are saying “I told you so” because they mentioned Russia sometime in their political lives….only because they could not remember the name of any place else…..but they are now officially an expert.

Sorry, had to rant a bit…….

Remember back in 2012 or maybe a little back when there was this amazing petition for Texas to secede from the good old US?  Or how abut the boy toy of a VP candidate that was the member of a party that wanted Alaska to secede?

Speaking of Alaska….there is so much more happening……..

Managing to get kicked out of the G8 apparently isn’t all that worrisome for at least 21,408 Americans. An anonymous Anchorage resident launched a petition on the White House’s “We the People” site Friday titled “Alaska back to Russia,” and that’s how many people have signed it as of this writing. As UPI notes, the petition needs 100,000 signatures by April 20 in order to get an official White House response. (Remember, though, when Texas petitioned to secede, signers did not get their way.)

Why should the US allow Alaska to secede and join Russia? As the petition explains, in what bears little resemblance to English: “Groups Siberian russians crossed the Isthmus (now the Bering Strait) 16-10 thousand years ago. Russian began to settle on the Arctic coast, Aleuts inhabited the Aleutian Archipelago. First visited Alaska August 21, 1732, members of the team boat ‘St. Gabriel »under the surveyor Gvozdev and assistant navigator I. Fedorov during the expedition Shestakov and DI Pavlutski 1729-1735 years.” Or, as KTUU puts it, the petition “cites historical evidence of previous visitors and claimants for ownership of the territory.” The US bought Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867.

Now I have to ask….are they serious?  There is a wealth of mental midgets but this goes beyond the pale………

Oh so much more that I could say but most of it would be derogatory….so I will let the article stand for itself and just Ask……are they serious?

Pay To Not Play

Today will be more assortment day….I usually try to have posts on the same subject or topic each day….but sometimes I go off on a tangent and have a little fun….today is one of those days……..

It is NO secret what I think of Ted Nugent……a musical hack and pedophile……I think he speaks, most times, before his brain is in gear, that assuming that he possesses such an organ…..but this story came to me over some breaking news and it was too good to pass up…….

A Texas town was so desperate to do away with a planned performance by Ted Nugent that it actually paid him $16,250 not to appear. The city of Longview was considering the outspoken rocker to headline its Independence Day celebration, but changed its mind after that incident in which Nugent called President Obama a “subhuman mongrel,”UPI reports. The problem? There was a dispute between city leaders, the promoter, and the booking agency about how far along the negotiations had gotten, and ultimately the city had to pay half of Nugent’s guaranteed performance fee for breaking a verbal contract.

Officials, of course, are downplaying the “mongrel” incident: A spokesperson for the city tells the Longview News-Journal there were “a variety of reasons. Cost, structure, is it the right musical act for this type of event—a city-sponsored, family-oriented overall event.” And the mayor concurs: Nugent “didn’t really fit what we trying to put together, a family-oriented program … that probably wasn’t the right act.” But the outgoing chairman of the Gregg County Republican Party disagrees: “It’s directly related to the state-level stuff,” he says, referring to the “mongrel” comment, which was made while Nugent was campaigning for Texas gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott. “We have paid $16,000 to Ted Nugent for political correctness.”

What can I say….only that I have a new found respect for the Texas town of Longview…..