Consistency

I am a landlord. This is not to suggest that I am some kind of a wealthy landowner with cash coming out of my pockets.. Last year, my wife and I purchased a duplex home, with the intent of renting out the upstairs apartment to reduce our costs.

It has been no picnic. Our first tenants, Avril Leslie (AKA "April Leslie," as if we don't know what Avril means in French) and Eric Ford (also known as Erie Ford) were our first tenants. Turns out they are professional scam artists, living off of one landlord after another by suing them for stuff that was not wrong with the apartment. They sued us for mold that was non-existent. The scam was to initiate a lawsuit and then they would not need to pay the landlord any rent. They did have to pay the Court, though and they were very careful to do that.

Then they get crazier and crazier, making the landlord worry about what must have happened to the apartment with them inside of it. But they didn't reckon with us. We informed them that they were in violation of the rules of the lease. We did everything very legally. They had signed a lease permitting one car in our driveway. We towed one. We noted that Avril has specifically applied for the apartment with the intention of moving her daughter in. Then she proceeded to take her daughter to school every day at a nearby town, which is theft of town services. We went over to that town's town hall and produced evidence they needed to expel her daughter. While I do not think they did that, life became a real struggle for Avril. We do not recommend to any landlord that he or she ever rent so much as a lean-to shed to them.

They moved out. But during this process, we were in court a lot and we watched the judge.

The judge tended to favor tenants and nail landlords. Landlords sell time. And the one thing one cannot get back is time. Once it passes, that's it. So rulings against landlords were particularly galling to us. But some won when a ruling had all ready been made by that self-same judge. You see, he was consistent.

Above every judge, there is an appeals court. Judges need to be consistent so that, if any case of theirs is appealed, they can justify their rulings as in keeping with a general thrust of judgements. These judgements, over time, wind up being how law is interpreted, especially in the appellate courts in a system called "English Common Law," or law by precedent.  This is distinguished from statutory law, which is generated as a bill by a legislature and signed by a chief executive and is complementary to it. This is to say that the two work together to create a structural framework for a country that fits the needs of the country as developed over time.

Here, we see our Supreme Court as in direct violation of the premise that common law needs to be complementary to statutory law. This is staggering. Every single Republican nominee to this court swore before the Senate of the United States in their hearings that they were not "activist judges," that they would interpret the laws and the Constitution and not make law from the bench.

Here, we see five Justices more than willing to write legislation in their decisions. The first one is, of course, the decision in Citizens United. According to Politifact, they did not "overturn 100 years of lawmaking to limit political contributions." I disagree. In his 1905 address to Congress, Theodore Roosevelt recommended that Congress act to restrain corporate contributions, The resultant Tillman Act was signed into law by Roosevelt on January 26, 1907. Congress has been trying to control corporate funding of elections since then.

Now, What is going on here is this reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which, in Section I states:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Now, at issue here is the word "persons." As a matter of interpretation of the word "person" in the Fourteenth Amendment, U.S. courts have extended certain constitutional protections to corporations. This allows them to get into contracts, to sue and be sued and to do all manner of things that real humans can do, once they are 21 or older.

And this particular Supreme court seems to think that, since they cannot vote, corporations ought to be able to spend way more money influencing politicians and our political process possibly can because they cannot.

I would like to think that one thing that government ought to do is to level the playing field between the super-rich and the poor, the corporations and the individual. Of course the right calls that "class warfare." I have read about "class warfare." It did happen, you know. In the French Revolution. Wealthy persons were dragged out of their homes and killed on the spot. Now that is class warfare. What the right is complaining about is how their special rights are being threatened just a little.

So let us get into this issue of special rights. In this last session, the Supreme Court has decided that "Closely-held Corporations," a term that the majority refused to define, have special rights to completely ignore US law. The only law they suggested that these corporations need to follow is tax law. They can discriminate against women and have all ready begun discriminating against persons whose gender preference offends the "closely held" owners. What's next? reversal of all civil rights for "closely-held corporations?"

So, now the Supreme Court has established a principle that corporations can exercise and promote religion. And they can do so without any respect to the rights of the persons who happen to have flesh and blood, skin and brains. You know, the ones that Thomas Paine was writing about in 1791. If I ever again hear anything that the right and the five activist right-wing Justices say about "the founders" again, my "BS" meter will be pegged. I let the reader discern what kind of barnyard smell the "BS" meter is designed to detect.

Three of the flesh and blood "persons" on the United States Supreme Court happen to be women. And I have to say that when Bush replaced the first female Justice, Sandra Day O'Connor with John G. Roberts, an opportunity to have four women on the Supreme Court was lost. O'Connor eventually allowed her feelings to be known about Bush's decision to keep the same number of women on the court. She thought Bush's choice to be disappointing. One can only imagine what might have happened with the Hobby Lobby decision had there been four women on the Supreme Court.

Alito agreed with the Majority opinion, but it is interesting to see his dissent in another case. in the 2011 decision Snyder v Phelps, to give Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps the First Amendment right to picket funerals of dead marines, the court ruled 8-1 in Phelps’ favor. Scalia dissented, saying "Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case." He referred to Snyder as having been "brutalized" by Phelps. Then, right away, he ignored this decision in agreeing with a 5-4 majority decision to erase "buffer zones" around parental planning clinics which provide abortion services in McCullen v Coakley. I guess he thinks bombings, shootings of physicians and screaming at women entering these clinics is not brutalization.

Despite the presence of three women on this court, you should be afraid in the United States if you are a woman. Corporations have more rights than you. There is no consistency in law that protects women.

The most Liberal Revolution

John F. Kennedy in 1946

Today, I read Ira Stoll's opinion piece in Time Magazine, suggesting that the Patron Saint of the Democrats, John F. Kennedy had made July 4th into a religious holiday. He then proceeded to twist Kennedy's words, uttered in 1946 when he was not running for President; when he was running for a Massachusetts Congressional seat and proceeded to conflate a speech given in front of a few hundred in front of Faneuil Hall with a philosophy for the entire Democratic Party as well as the Kennedy Presidency.

I would remind Mr. Stoll that the Patron Saint of the Republicans, Ronald Reagan was a Democrat at the time Kennedy made that speech. He switched his affiliation in 1962.

Kennedy was speaking to a largely Irish Catholic crowd who he knew would vote for him. But Stoll seems to think that this makes the American Revolution into a Religious revolution and proceeds to try to redefine our Liberal Revolution as some kind of a religion-inspired Christian-based movement. Nothing could be further from the truth. Conservatives continue to call our Revolution a "Christian Revolution" and a "Conservative anti-tax Revolution." This is absolutely false.

Kennedy and the rest of Congress did want to make a stand against "Godless Communism," as they saw it as a threat to the United States. The desire to oppose the Soviets came about because of the increasingly hostile stance between the Soviets and the western world. We do this today, opposing Sharia Law (without understanding anything about it) and by "trying to foster Democracy" (when the United States is a Republic with representatives, not a Democracy) in countries that are mostly Muslim-dominated these days.

Mr. Stoll loves to "cherry-pick" history and take things out of context to fit into his scheme to take back our Liberal Revolution so that it supports his Conservative aims. Were he a staunch Conservative then, he would have been called a "Loyalist," and certainly would have lost all property he owned in the United States in his move to Canada or, perhaps, England. Please see my earlier article dealing with that.

King George III around 1770

Mr. Stoll completely forgets who, exactly, the Continentals were revolting against. King George III, By the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Archtreasurer and Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg.

Since Mr. Stoll doesn't seem to know what all that means, allow me to translate. George III was King "By the Grace of God." This is a reference to the Divine Right to Rule: A political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving his right to rule directly from the will of God. Not only did George III claim that he had this divine right, but he was also arbiter of all things divine here on earth, as he retained the style given to Henry VIII, "Defender of the Faith." In other words, George III proposed that he was subject to no earthly authority and that he, alone, would determine and defend the will of God.

The Declaration of Independence was primarily addressed to King George III and his Parliament but was also meant to be read by other countries. It was a diplomatic document designed to allow for the recognition of the United States by foreign powers, which would enable us to ask for loans from the French King, Spain, Holland and other governments. The Sultan of Morocco mentioned American ships in a consular document as early as 1777 and this must really have bothered England, as they commissioned propagandists to point out the declaration’s flaws and rebut the colonists’ complaints.

As such, one needed to write a document that would be read widely and understood by all governments, no matter what their societal and religious views.

Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin were commissioned by the Continental Congress to write the Declaration. And this document was researched, unlike Mr. Stoll's opinion article in Time. The idea that any part of a kingdom could claim legitimacy for breaking away from another part of a kingdom, let alone its ruler (divinely-ordained, by the way) was pretty earthshaking. So Jefferson drew from several sources that he referred to as giving us the right to do this.

The first source was an act of Parliament in February 1776, called the Prohibitory Act. This, essentially, called for a blockade of all Colonial ports and declared all ships from these shores to be enemy vessels. I am certain that Mr. Stoll would agree with me that a port blockade is an act of war and that allowing any and all of your ships to declare ships from a certain region as enemies, when all they are doing is carrying goods for sale and picking up more goods to bring here a bit rash. But maybe there is religion involved. Maybe God wanted all of our shipping sunk. In the declaration:

He [George III] has given his assent to… legislation… cutting off our trade with all parts of the world. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

Remember, the Conservatives here are thinking the King is justified. After all, God made him King and absolute arbiter of divine will.

The most telling example of Jefferson's patient research is this:

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

James II of England Abdicated by Fleeing

This is a direct reference to the Revolution of 1688, also known as the Glorious Revolution in which King James II of England was overthrown by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau. James II fled to France on December 23rd of 1688. On January 28th, 1689, a committee of the whole House of Commons decided by acclamation that James had broken "the original contract"; had "abdicated the government"; and had left the throne "vacant." What Jefferson is doing in the line above is offering a similar declaration that the "throne was vacant" here in the Colonies because the King had abdicated by these acts of war. We were, thus, allowed to create any form of government we so chose.

This was a very careful argument and quite devastating to the King of England.

Our religions, as practiced here in the Colonies had nothing to do with this. The mention of "the laws of nature and of nature's God," "their Creator,"the "Supreme Judge of the world" and "reliance on the protection of Divine Providence" do not make the Declaration into a religious treatise but, rather, offer enhanced legitimacy to the opposition of the King's "divine right" to rule here.

Breathtaking

Do you remember the Bush Administration? I sure do. It seemed, every week brought with it another breathtaking development in neo-conservitive overreach, from GW Bush's signing statements, refusing to execute laws passed by Congress to the disastrous war in Iraq that, today, has a country we don't like ascendant in that region (Iran) and a country he said would be a "cradle of Democracy in the region" involved in a civil war.

And the explanations given for overreach were breathtaking, too. Iraq had Weapons of Mass-Destruction; they had purchased yellowcake uranium for enrichment, they were making an atomic bomb (no, that was Iran, who Bush put in the catbird seat in the region). They were funding terrorism (again, Iran). They were a safe-haven for terrorists (not until after we invaded and then didn't govern them—and that was Afghanistan, where Bush let the terrorists get away in the mountains of Tora Bora along the border with Afghanistan and the ungoverned region in Pakistan).

Worst. President. Ever.

But now, we have the same thing happening. Not in the Executive, but in the Judiciary in the Supreme Court. It used to be that only one Justice on the Supreme Court was violating the rulings that he, himself had previously made. That was Clarence "The Clown" Thomas, whose rulings vie with each other as the most contradictory and the most politically-motivated. I brace myself as we approach July now as we begin to hear the rulings of the Roberts Court with their five-to-four rulings that, once again, take my breath away as uniquely bad. Three women sit on this Court and each of these three women were opposed by almost every Republican in the US Senate for confirmation.

The US Supreme Court with all smiling, save Clarence, the Sad Clown.

This latest decision in the Hobby Lobby case is breathtaking because the majority (a bare five) decided to take an obscure law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, and twist it, applying it as a specific test that allows corporations to discriminate against women in the workplace. Oh, they state that only "closely-held corporations" may apply their religious objections and discriminate against a class of US Citizen, but they utterly fail to define what a "closely-held corporation" is and leave it to lower courts to hash it out.

I read through their tortured logic and it is very clear to me that they believe Corporations are people. This is a belief that completely defies logic. As Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her marvelous dissent stated:

"In a sole proprietorship, the business and its owner are one and the same. By incorporating a business, however, an individual separates herself from the entity and escapes personal responsibility for the entity’s obligations. One might ask why the separation should hold only when it serves the interest of those who control the corporation."

Let me explain this a little better: You own a company. When you own a company, you assume risk. The work that you do may generate lawsuits if it is shoddy. Someone trips on your office step and you may be sued for negligence (you did not clear the snow, your step is loose, etc.). All of these can be offloaded to "not-you" if you incorporate. Now, in many ways, a corporation can wind up with a lot more risk than an individual. And, with respect to lawsuits, corporations sometimes face awards in the millions that an individual might never have to pay. But your personal bank account and your personal accountability are completely separate from those of the corporation.

But we're talking rights here. And I have to ask, why is it that these five Justices think that a corporation gets "special rights?" I seem to recall that every time "The Gay" came up in terms of rights, Republicans would term any laws that afforded "The Gay" equal rights to heterosexual citizens, they were "special rights." While everyone with any sense understands that equal rights are not special rights, these five justices have just created a special rights case for something that they call "A closely-held corporation." I'll bet "closely-held corporations" will want to discriminate against "The Gay" next, because it is against their religion to tolerate "The Gay."

Here's the deal: They can now pay less for employer-provided benefits so that they can discriminate—based on some religious beliefs that they decide is pertinent. This means, they have an advantage over non-closely-held corporations, like GE. If I was Pfizer, I would be going crazy at this ruling. Conestoga and Hobby Lobby now can get lower-cost health insurance coverage because of the board of Directors' religion and I cannot.

Now I am omitting, here, the whole "special rights" they get that regular citizens can't get. Regular citizens cannot go out and buy a health insurance plan through the Affordable Care Act's website without needing to pay for all manner of contraceptives. This means that a minister who believes that there should be no contraception cannot sign up for health insurance on the healthcare.gov website and avoid paying for women getting contraceptives, but "closely-held corporations" can create a special instance where they can negotiate lower rates, based on some made-up religious intolerance to women.

Now of course the headlines on Facebook are funny today:

Supreme Court Rules JCPenney Allowed to Sacrifice Employees to Appease Cthulhu
SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS LITTLE CAESAR’S RIGHT TO FEED CHRISTIAN EMPLOYEES TO LIONS
Hobby Lobby Stones Gay Employee to Death
Closely-Held Corporation Imposes Sharia Law
Welcome to the USA Where Corporations are People but Women Aren't

What is not funny is how a special class of corporation has just been created that can, essentially, get around all US law on the basis of religious objection. All so that the five men on the Roberts Court who agreed with this tortured decision can single women out for special discrimination.

I note that Hobby Lobby's retirement plan held more than $73 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that produce emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices, and drugs commonly used in abortions when they filed their suit to discriminate against female employees.

I guess, where money is to be made, nothing violates one's religious principles, but where money is to be spent, those principles are paramount.