freshwest
freshwest's JournalThe OK ACLU says Hobby will lose. And the blowback is building:
to MrScorpio:
No Moral Ground...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024741559
A hundred voted to sanction. Likely it has to do with this:
Budapest Memorandum on Security AssurancesThe Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances is a political agreement signed in Budapest, Hungary on 5 December 1994, providing security assurances by its signatories relating to Ukraine's accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
The Memorandum was originally signed by three nuclear powers, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom.
Thus the USA has a say in this.
China and France gave somewhat weaker individual assurances in separate documents...[1]The memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine as well as those of Belarus and Kazakhstan.
But did not ensure that the signatories would use force. Note Ukraine tried, but was unable to get NATO involved, as it is not a member. Military action such as NATO can and does enforce when a member needs it, does not apply. It appears Ukraine has minimal redress and is unable to resist.
As a result Ukraine gave up the world's third largest nuclear weapons stockpile between 1994 and 1996.[2][3]
A big price to pay. Interesting some Ukrainians are quoted as wanting to 'nuke' enemies, so perhaps some wish they hadn't signed the agreement. Hope there are no nuclear materials.
Following the 2014 Crimean crisis, the U.S., Canada and U.K. all separately stated that Russian involvement is in breach of its obligations to Ukraine under the Budapest Memorandum, and in clear violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity.[4][5][6][7]
The Wikipedia page has a lot of details of the relationship with Russia over the years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances
Just a little bit to think about.
Eric Holder excoriated them on this issue. Near the end of this post I made, here is part of it:
Answer to your question:
The Justice Department brief, authorized by Attorney General Eric Holder, emphasizes that the company formerly allowed “preventive services” within employee health insurance plans, dismissing the “alleged religious beliefs” of the company’s owners...
I like the 'alleged religious beliefs' part of that. Some more of my post on the case:
Kagan Throws Scalia's Own Religious Liberty Arguments Back In His Face - TPMDC
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024724945
Women Justices Rock the Hobby Lobby Argument
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024726315
Re: the Obama administraion's defense of the ACA on this issue, and this is not from a purely liberal source, but you can see the Hobby position, which is dishonest, and our defense against their lawsuit:
Analysis: Hobby Lobby case -- Matters of principle or “alleged religious beliefs”?
Ryan Kiesel of the American Civil Liberties Union, Oklahoma chapter, told CapitolBeatOK the U.S. government will succeed in its defense of the ACA provisions, including the “HHS” (Health and Human Services) mandate requiring the coverage.
He said, “For decades courts have held that religious liberty does not grant secular employers a license to discriminate against their employees or customers. Whether that discrimination is based on race or gender, courts have routinely held that claims of religious liberty by the owners or managers of a company are no justification.”
In mandating coverage of “preventative medicine with no co-pay,” Kiesel believes, Congress was “taking steps to address the inequity felt by women in the workplace. If Hobby Lobby were a church, this would be a different story altogether. However, as a private, for-profit company they do not have the right to impose their beliefs upon their employees...”
The Justice Department brief, authorized by Attorney General Eric Holder, emphasizes that the company formerly allowed “preventive services” within employee health insurance plans, dismissing the “alleged religious beliefs” of the company’s owners...
http://capitolbeatok.com/reports/analysis-hobby-lobby-case-matters-of-principle-or-alleged-religious-beliefs
Still waiting for my socialist paradise! I'm not kidding! Really! Where is it? Where?!! I want!!!!
BTW, if that was a 'rant' your real name must be Clark Kent.
You know, the mild-mannered reporter and all of that...
Like the Woodward fiasco, trying to regain his Watergate fame. Everyone's gotta make a living:
Bob Woodward’s Anti-Obama Biasby Noam Scheiber
THE MOST VIVID scene in Bob Woodward’s new book has almost nothing to do with his central narrative, but reveals a lot about the narrator. The scene takes place in February of 2009, as Congress is laboring to ward off an economic collapse. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker, is hunkered down in her office with Harry Reid, her Senate counterpart, to negotiate a stimulus bill that can pass both chambers. This is no easy task. The bill must be modest enough to survive a Republican filibuster, but ambitious enough to satisfy Pelosi’s liberal caucus. But, then, these are veteran legislators—born deal-makers at that. They get to work with all the seriousness you’d expect.
At which point the president calls in via speaker phone and starts droning on about “unity of action” and “unity of purpose” (Woodward’s paraphrasing). It’s the kind of blather that can wow a stadium full of college students but means nothing in the power corridors of Washington. Pelosi and Reid thank the president coldly, and yet he doesn’t take the hint. Finally, Pelosi reaches over and hits the mute button. “They could hear Obama, but now he couldn’t hear them,” Woodward writes. “The president continued speaking, his disembodied voice filling the room, and the two leaders got back to the hard numbers.”
This is riveting stuff. Three weeks into his term, and the top Democrats in Congress had already written off Obama as a self-important windbag! Not surprisingly, Pelosi has denied the episode, prompting Woodward to release a transcript from a source in the room. But setting aside whether the scene is literally true—and I’d put my money on Woodward—the real question relates to its implication: Does it mean what Woodward insinuates? Was Obama a bystander while Pelosi and Reid pulled the country back from the abyss?
Not even close. In fact, the stimulus bill was heavily shaped by the White House. If anything, Pelosi was the bystander in the endgame. The final contours of the stimulus package were hashed out among a handful of Senate moderates with two of the president’s top advisers—Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Budget Director Peter Orszag—helping to broker the negotiations. Pelosi felt so betrayed when she heard about their deal that she unloaded on a top White House official. (Woodward doesn’t provide enough detail to say for sure, but I suspect the meeting he’s referring to took place over the next few days, when Reid and the White House smoothed things over by tweaking some numbers.)
So it goes with The Price of Politics. Critics have complained about the tediousness of this latest Woodward volume, which focuses mostly on the debt-ceiling negotiations between the White House and Republicans during the summer of 2011. The reviews in The New York Times and The Washington Post point out that the ground has been tilled by a succession of other writers, most exhaustively by Matt Bai of The New York Times. But I didn’t find Woodward’s book unusually tedious. In fact, I learned a lot from it. What I found it to be was remarkably slanted...
http://www.tnr.com/book/review/bob-woodward-price-of-politics#
to n2doc
Oct 11, 2012
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101644392
RW knows what appeals to their base and demoralizes ours. No wonder we've got a troll invasion.
I knew the bashing was sweet music to them. Why anyone doesn't believe it effects new voters and Democrats, and independents, is beyond me. I'm not sure how they can read the forum if they can't see that. Sadly predictable results.
Thanks for the OP and your words. And a warning from an effective activist:
These Do-Nothings profess a commitment to social change for ideals of justice, equality, and opportunity, and then abstain from and discourage all effective action for change. They are known by their brand, 'I agree with your ends but not your means'.
~ Saul Alinsky
Rec'd. Don't see much in the other threads that show anyone gives a flying fuck about people...
These Do-Nothings profess a commitment to social change for ideals of justice, equality, and opportunity, and then abstain from and discourage all effective action for change. They are known by their brand, 'I agree with your ends but not your means'.~ Saul Alinsky
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