Horrible Supreme Court Continues to be Horrible.

(Via NY Times)

WASHINGTON - In its first campaign-finance decision since its 5-to-4 ruling in the Citizens United case last year, the Supreme Court on Monday struck down an Arizona law that provided escalating matching funds to candidates who accept public financing.

Wow! So the same judges who just ruled that money = speech are against a law that would provide more speech because um, I don't get it. What exactly is the problem with having more speech. I thought speech was good?

The vote was again 5 to 4, with the same five justices in the majority as in the Citizens United decision. The majority said the law violated the First Amendment rights of candidates who raise private money. Such candidates, the majority said, may be reluctant to spend money to speak if they know that it will give rise to counterspeech paid for by the government.

 Jeezus! So it's not enough that one candidate has more money, he also gets to prevent his opponent from getting more? And since when is making someone "reluctant" to "speak" the same thing as infringing on his right to speak? The Scalia wing of the court will do all manner of impressive mental gymnastics to make the law fit the decision they want to make. Rather than looking at the law, weighing the arguments pro and con and then arriving at a decision, they seem to begin with a decision, then try to figure out how to make the law agree with that decision.

Okay, we all agree that we hate public financing of elections, right?

Oh, sure, yeah! Really inhibits the corrupting influence of zillionaires!

 

So, we're agreed that we'll strike down this law, 

now what principle can we twist to justify this decision?

 

I dunno, freedom of speech? We could say that giving one candidate the ability to have more speech is actually taking free speech away from the other candidate?

 

Bra - Vo! 

Well done, Mr. Scalia. Make it so. 

And set a course for happy hour.

I'm pretty sure it goes something like that.

Also, Carol Channing, because why the hell not?

It's Open Season On Minors

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Governments cannot ban the sale or rental of violent video games to minors because it would violate free-speech rights, the U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday in its first ruling in a video game case.
By a 7-2 vote, the high court struck down a California law, which also imposed strict video game labeling requirements, as unconstitutional. It said video games, like books, plays and movies, deserve free-speech protection.

So, if you can't restrict the sale of violence to minors, I have to assume that the same principle applies to sex + nudity, right? Now you no longer can put an "Adults Only" sign on the door of the strip club or say that you have to be 18 to purchase Huslter Magazine, I guess. Because either the Supreme Court is saying that exposing children to graphic violence is less harmful than exposing them to a naked lady, or they're saying that they don't care if repeated exposure to super-violent imagery is harmful to minors.

That's how I'm reading this, anyway.

I thought that we had a long tradition in this country of saying that, say, X-rated books or gory movies are afforded the protection of the First Amendment, but that doesn't mean that you can sell them to kids. You can ban the sale of porn to children without infringing on the First Amendment rights of the pornographer. This decision seems like a pretty radical departure from that principle. I'm getting used to radical decisions from this court, but I really don't get this. Why would they want children to be able to buy a "Grand Theft Auto," or whatever other ultra-violent mayhem-based games there are. What would be the motivation for this decision?

The ruling was a victory for video game publishers, distributors and sellers, including the Entertainment Software Association. Its members include Disney Interactive Studios, Electronic Arts, Microsoft Corp and Sony Computer Entertainment America.

Ah.

Let's see if Larry Flynt and Al Goldstein get the same treatment from the Supremes.

Is Al Goldstein still alive?


It doesn't matter.

Here's the main takeaway:

This:






Is horribly harmful to children.




This, on the other hand,

Is apparently fine.

Flashback Friday - American Music Club

One of the few bands I've seen live multiple times, American Music Club used to play all the clubs in San Francisco before Lead singer Mark Eitzel relocated to New York or some other such gawd-awful place. California is one of my all-time favorite albums, most of these songs are from that album.

Disturbing Showtune Lyrics

I remember seeing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" with Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra on TV years ago. And I remember being horrified to the lyrics from one of the songs, whose name I could never remember. So finally I looked it up, and it's called "Yes, Indeedy."


It tells the story of the love 'em & leave 'em antics of the two main characters as they leave a trail of broken hearts across the USA, which is really kind of  dickish behavior to be celebrating in song, but that's not even the half of it.

The first verse is just about the type of jerk behavior one might expect from a baseball star cum vaudeville song and dance man:

I kissed a gal in old Wyoming,

She rode a horse in a wild west show

When I said, baby, I'm bent on roaming

She cried we just got started

And she thought we can't be parted,

When I left her broken hearted at the rodeo.,

Oh yes indeed, yes indeedy. . .

But the song quickly takes a rather dark turn:

I kissed a gal in old Poughkeepsie

That `s where the college of Vassar's found,

She couldn't study, love made her tipsy

Her teachers wouldn't pass 'er,

And so she just turned on the gas

And now the sweetest gal at Vassar's in the cold cold ground.

Yes indeed, yes indeedy,

Yes indeed, the boy's unbound,

Yes Indeed, yes indeedy,

The sweetest gal at Vassar's in the cold cold ground.

Holy shit! They're singing - quite merrily, I might add - about a girl committing suicide!

They're very jovially singing about her being "in the cold, cold ground!"


And they seem to view this as some sort of triumph.


But the next verse might be even worse:

I kissed a gal down in Mississippi,

A Southern belle named Emmy Jo

I thought for once love has got me tippy

She called me Lucky Seven,

Said my kisses were from heaven,

But I learned she was eleven, and I had to go.

ELEVEN! A grown man was making out with an ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD GIRL! And this is, what, just one of the hazards of the swingin' bachelor lifestyle? Sometimes, the girl you're putting the moves on turns out to be pre-pubescent? Haha, hey, who hasn't had that happen, amirite? Just one of those pitfalls of modern life!


Maybe, MAYBE, you could get away with the light-hearted approach to statutory rape if the girl was 17, maybe even 16. Then maybe you could go with the old "how was I to know? She looked 18 to me!" But Eleven? Eleven? There is no way in Hell anyone could mistake an eleven-year-old girl for a grown woman. That's just disgusting.


I'm totally not making this up. See for yourself:


Frank Sinatra & Gene Kelly - Yes Indeedy 1949 by kamatrikero

Are We Supposed to be Impressed?

Obama address: Surge troops home by summer 2012

WASHINGTON – Pulling home the Americans he sent to war, President Barack Obama plans to announce Wednesday night the withdrawal of more than 30,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of next summer

Yeah, that'd be great if there weren't around a Hundred Thousand troops there.
So the plan is basically to spend the next year getting the number of troops in Afghanistan back to the Bush-era levels. And we're supposed to, what, applaud? We're supposed to be encouraged by this?

This fucking war is never going to be over. There is never ever ever going to be a time when Afghanistan is such a pro-western, freedom-loving democracy that the troops can be allowed to finally come home. This war is permanent. Too many companies are making too much money for their minions in DC to ever allow this racket to end. When withdrawing 30,000 troops out of a pointless, immoral war is considered controversial, it seems like war in Afghanistan is just the new normal.