Transactional?

Nobody can claim to be surprised by the way Our President responded to CIA assurances that Prince MbS did, indeed, order the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.  Tr*mp did stop short of claiming that Khashoggi was an Iranian agent, but only by a hair's breadth.

News analysts, once again, had to come up with a term to describe Tr*mp's approach to foreign policy.  Seizing on his emphasis of $110 billion dollars in imaginary arms contracts, once again they settled on transactional.

Other terms come to mind — "morally bankrupt" is a strong contender — but rule books at major media outlets demand the appearance of neutrality, and transactional is such a neutral sounding word!  It started me thinking, though.  Rather than transactional, they could have used corporate.

The Supreme Court long has recognized corporate personhood.  (The recent Hobby Lobby decision maintains that a corporation is enough of a person to have religious beliefs!)  Unlike your average person, though, corporations have but a single objective: to increase the wealth of shareholders.  Pretty much any corporate "person" would have made exactly the same decision as Tr*mp: their values appear to be identical.  Tr*mp just might be the embodiment of corporate personhood.

If a corporation really were a person, driven by a single goal to the exclusion of all others, that person would be diagnosed as psychotic.  Presumably, Our President has a variety of goals; but, as we've seen, his approach to all of them is the same — transactional.

The Perils of Religious Extremism

Religious extremists are threatening our American way of life.  They are not immigrants: they are homegrown.  They are Christians.

Supreme Court candidate Neil M. Gorsuch found in favor of the Hobby Lobby plaintiffs, allowing private employers to claim religious beliefs as justification for denying the legal rights of their employees.  He can be counted on to let business owners discriminate against any customers who don't meet their "moral standards."  Opposition to abortion, of course, was a precondition for his nomination.

Betsy DeVos, nominee for Secretary of Education, supports school vouchers — long a goal of religious institutions seeking government subsidies for their indoctrination of the young.  She supports taxpayer funding for "Christian Academies" that disparage science, nurture authoritarian mindsets, and provide a convenient escape from integrated public schools.  Just add Jerry Falwell Jr. to direct the accreditation of for-profit colleges, like the vast online cash cow milked by his own Liberty University, and the educational Apocalypse is complete.

At yesterday's National Prayer Breakfast, Tr*mp promised to overturn the Johnson Amendment, which has forbidden political activity by churches since the Eisenhower administration.  Granted, the churches already actively endorse candidates without much government interference, but overturning Johnson would free those tax exempt organizations to spend tax deductible contributions on political campaigns.

Tr*mp's moral compass points unerringly up his own ass, but he has Pence to show him the way.  Religious bigots are much too important a segment of the bigot population for any right wing demagogue to ignore.

The Supremes

Abortion protest

In unanimously striking down the Massachusetts 35 foot protest barrier around the entrances to its abortion providers, the Court defended the free speech of protestors — and free speech should be defended.  The Court also suggested that harassment and physical abuse continue to be against Massachusetts law, and that those laws should continue to be enforced.

It may be wise for the Massachusetts legislature to have a fresh look at its laws defining the nature of harassment, and making certain that it's police forces (especially in Boston, where the worst of the crazies congregate) are trained and willing to hook up verbal abusers of vulnerable women.

Agency Fee

The Court carved out a "narrow" exception allowing certain employees represented by labor unions to stop paying for services provided to them by unions — essentially allowing them to become "free riders."

One obvious solution is to deny the deadbeats the benefits of the union contract, and force them to negotiate and fight employer abuses on their own.  How would the conservative Justices vote on that one?

Hobby Lobby

Corporations no longer are just "persons" who may enter into contracts while protecting shareholders with limited liability.  Since the Citizens United decision, they are "persons" who may dump unlimited funds into election campaigns.  Now a corporation can be a "person" who has a "religious belief."  Gag me with a spoon!

If one of the right-wing Justices were suddenly to drop dead while Obama still is President, I would not be among the mourners.  (NOTE:  This is not a suggestion that somebody assassinate one of those assholes, so please don't blame me if it happens.  If anybody reads this blog, it's unlikely that she or he owns a gun, or knows how to construct a bomb, or grow anthrax or whatever.  I certainly don't.)