I don’t know what fresh hell our Supreme Court plans to unleash upon us next week, but on Friday they ruled 8-1 that our government can keep domestic abusers from owning guns. I’ve never liked using law-breaking as a pretext to take rights away, but then I’m no longer sure having a gun should be a right per se, and when right-wingers throw a tantrum over our Court saying “the Second Amendment is not absolute” (that’s Justice Barrett, from her concurrent opinion), they’ll show us their ass yet again, and I guess that’s useful. Of course Justice Thomas dissented, saying that since governments have barely ever prosecuted domestic violence victims then of course there’s no “historical precedent” to follow! I bet he likes bitcoin, too.
Our Supreme Court, in Moore v. United States, also rejected (at least in this case’s context!) right-wing arguments that our government can only tax “realized” income. Had our Court sanctified that pile of dung, our government would never be able to tax the kind of wealth rich people accumulate these days – capital gains, accumulated interest, stock options, and the like. Rich folks pay themselves like this so they can avoid taxes! Let’s see you and I try that! And now for the bad news: four out of nine Justices on our Supreme Court explicitly blessed the “realized income” argument; two of these merely differed on whether these particular plaintiffs had a case regarding their income.
Clearview AI – a player in the facial recognition software game, a game that should shame for all eternity anyone who plays it – is now so broke after all the lawsuits against it that it’s actually offering promises of future earnings in its settlement. Like they’re ever going to make money again! I mean, they’re not a name your grandmother knows, like Home Depot or Microsoft or DuPont. Well, at least a lot of idiots lost a lot of money boosting an absurd corporation (Clearview) as well as an absurd notion (that facial recognition software doesn’t completely suck). And, you know, it scraped all those photos off the internet without the consent of the photographed; turns out you don’t surrender all your rights just because the cynical say so.
The Tampa Bay Times profiles Rich Logis, who used to be a Trumphole but now runs a group aiming to help other ex-Trumpholes escape. I don’t believe anyone as emotionally-invested in Republican electoral fortunes as Mr. Logis was in 2015 could be an “independent” – no, not even if they voted for Ralph Nader four times! – and I never said losing friends and communities was easy, either, but the work of being yourself is the most important work you can do, and I’m pleased he’s now doing it, even if he never wants to tax the rich like I do. I’m also pleased January 6 and Gov. DeSantis’s mishandling of the COVID Delta wave pushed him away, because these should have pushed away every reasonable person. And while I’ve long said the work of redeeming Trumpholes is God’s work, not ours, maybe Rich Logis is doing God’s work.
When I hear that our government has designated a Swedish neo-Nazi group as terrorists, I’m more than a bit conflicted: I’ve never been thrilled that our government designates anyone a terrorist, and this is also a pretty obscure, faraway group; why, it’s almost as if they don’t have the guts to designate some American hate group a “terrorist” organization! Or, our government thinks Americans will more readily accept a “terrorist” designation of a domestic American hate group one day if they get one of an obscure foreign one first, but that’s also quite the double-edged sword. Still and all, fuck neo-Nazis with a broomstick sideways.
When I hear that Democratic strategists have expressed alarm over Joe Biden’s re-election strategy, I’m very, very tempted to say: these are same people who consistently snatch defeat from the jaws of victory! Your strategy can get no better endorsement! Now I could criticize Mr. Biden’s strategy – he’s not telling us that America is fighting monopolies again, for example – but of course none of these strategists seem to have that complaint. Actually, it’s hard to tabulate the complaints they do have, what with all the behind-the-scenes who’s-in-who’s-out drama the article describes. Why, it’s almost like the whole article was a bait-and-switch!
Finally, a megachurch pastor’s “confession” of a “moral failure” involving an underage girl – a failure that, of course, went on for many years – is an amazing document mainly for the utter lack of confessing that goes on in it! “Young lady”? Uh, ladies aren’t 12! “It was kissing and petting and not intercourse, but it was wrong”? Try it was wrong – nobody likes confessions that tabulate the sins one could have committed but didn’t. But best of all? “In March of 1987, this situation was brought to light, and it was confessed and repented of.” Not “I confessed” and “I repented”? Why, that sounds like someone who’s done neither! Remember: the passive voice hides evil.
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