U.S. District Court Judge voids Utah's "ag-gag" law, ruling that it violates citizens' First Amendment rights. I find ag-gag supporters' arguments quite disgusting, not just in their indulgence of apocalyptic drama ("ZOMG TEH PETA IZ TRYINGZ TO DESTROYZ TEH FARMURZ!!!!!") but in their insistence that you either support people eating or you support animal rights' activists. As Judge Shelby says, the state "has a variety of constitutionally permissible tools at its disposal" to protect farms, but "suppressing broad swaths of protected speech without justification...is not one of them."
Simon Haeder at The Conversation tells us "Why Health Savings Accounts are a Bust for the Poor But a Boost for the Privileged." Of course this is because the poor don't make enough money to save, nor can they endure the high-deductible health insurance plan you need to start a health savings account, and thus only the relatively well-off can take advantage of it. It'll still shock you to hear people call health savings accounts "the new 401(k)," and some enterprising reporter should cite that phrase next time Paul Ryan talks about them. Also, too, do conservatives really believe HSAs will help people make "better choices"? You know what'll help people make better choices? When we make a world where folks don't feel like they have to run to stand still all the time.
Cora Currier at The Intercept finds some American border officials flat-out lying to asylum applicants in an apparent attempt to turn them away unlawfully. If you embrace the fact that civilization is supposed to be hard work, of course, you don't support this sort of thing, and if you're a law-and-order chest-thumper, you have no business supporting this sort of thing -- but if you're a Trump votary, who secretly admires how your Personal Lord and Savior has cheated his way through life, maybe you're fine with it, and if so, there's no talking to you.
President Trump suggests that British Prime Minister Theresa May "fix" the "press coverage" before he makes his trip across the Atlantic. To which I can only say: waaaaaaah! It's possible he's joking, I suppose, but really, if you're Donald Trump and you can't get the British tabloids on your side, that's your own damn fault. Besides, a lot of his votaries don't know he's joking -- they think he's expressing their sense of deprivation for them.
Finally, horror film director George Romero has died at the age of 77. If you've ever watched Walking Dead, and I bet you have, try to imagine it ever existing without Night of the Living Dead or Dawn of the Dead. Then consider that the former film cast a black man as the lead as if he were, you know, like anyone else, or as if he could be a hero in more or less the manner motion pictures made white folks heroes. And Dawn of the Dead is even better! Or maybe I just have a soft spot for apocalyptic films set in shopping malls.
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