Friday, June 29, 2018

Welcome to Gilead?


These are unusual times we live in.  The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood may have been more realistic than many suspected.*  For one example, consider one candidate rumored to be on Trump's shortlist for the Supreme Court:  Amy Coney Barrett.

Rammesh Ponnuru, a right-wing pundit, wants her to be the nominee, because then the Republicans overturning Roe wouldn't all be men!

I love that.  I do love sick humor in a sick era.

In 2017 the New York Times had this to say about judge Barrett:

Ms. Barrett told the senators that she was a faithful Catholic, and that her religious beliefs would not affect her decisions as an appellate judge. But her membership in a small, tightly knit Christian group called People of Praise never came up at the hearing, and might have led to even more intense questioning.


Some of the group’s practices would surprise many faithful Catholics. Members of the group swear a lifelong oath of loyalty, called a covenant, to one another, and are assigned and are accountable to a personal adviser, called a “head” for men and a “handmaid” for women. The group teaches that husbands are the heads of their wives and should take authority over the family.

The bolds are mine, if such boldness is still allowed from the feebler sex.

I have some serious concerns about a Supreme Court which is so very unrepresentative of the general population in religion that the overwhelming majority is already Roman Catholic.  I get the arguments for ignoring the judges' religions, but the Catholic Church does not exactly advocate equality of men and women, or approve the use of contraceptives.

But I have much more serious concerns about the idea of a Supreme Court Justice who believes that the husbands are the heads of the wives.  If Barrett is placed on the bench, then the real Justice would be her husband, right?  Because he can overrule her in everything.

And I also have problems with that lifelong oath of loyalty to each other that the members of this sect swear.

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* A joke appearing around the time the book was first published goes something like this:
Women in Britain:  What a thrilling tale!
Women in Canada:  The tale makes me a little uncomfortable.
Women in USA:  How much time do we have?


Thursday, June 28, 2018

Judging The Conservative Supreme Court Judges


The US Supreme Court, now nicely on its way to becoming a permanent subsidiary of the Global Trump Corporations, decided on three important and interesting cases during the last week.  The Republican Boys' Club was the 5-4 majority in all the cases, and their three decisions shared a fascinating fact:

They all serve to strengthen existing power hierarchies:


Monday, June 25, 2018

Fuck Civility. My First Post on the Sarah Huckabee Sanders Controversy.


The Sarah Huckabee Sanders controversy is fuckin hilarious.  Sanders, the spokeswoman of our Dear Leader, the Supreme Shining Commander, the Troll-in-Chief and the Eternal Emperor Donald fuckin Trump, was denied service at a Virginia restaurant on Saturday.

That denial-of-service (heh) appears to have been a protest against Trump's treatment of little children who crossed the US border with their parents or guardians who didn't have proper papers.  Those little children were then separated from their parents or guardians and caged.

Various people inside Washington's power circles clutched their pearls (or, in most cases, their jockstraps) contemplating the rudeness of the restaurant owner who refused to serve Sanders and her companions: