A String of Obvious Questions

File under Stupid:

Green River Community College went into lockdown Monday morning after a threat was made against the school, Auburn police said.

Cmdr. Steve Stocker of the Auburn police said an unknown person made the threat to a faculty member at about 10:15 a.m., saying something to the effect that there was going to be a shooting.

(KOMO News)

Perhaps a number of factors are coincidental. We do, in our society, have a problem with misogyny that reached a dramatic height at GeekGirlCon earlier this month, when someone issued a bomb threat against the convention; apparently the mixing of females and technology is a mortal offense? And the deadly violence at Marysville-Pilchuck High School seems, ostensibly, to have been about a girl.

But we don’t really know what pushed the GRCC terror threat, and that is important to note.

Yes, we need to address misogyny, but there are also a number of other factors to consider.

The thing is that each part of the issue has a way of spilling over its banks and soaking the others. This sort of overlap causes confusion for many people; indeed, we at This Is have a good friend who is bright and rational and all of those nice things we appreciate about people, but he is by nature incapable of comprehending what guns have to do with anything.

Not that we need to campaign against guns, specifically, but it does make some sort of point to acknowledge that there are people in this world who wonder what guns have to do with mass murder by firearm. It happens. To wit, he says, “Don’t make new laws, enforce the ones we have!” But there are some laws he believes exist everywhere despite observable reality.

And, you know, it might be kind of a low blow, but he also wonders why anyone would ever prosecute someone who negligently shot his own son to death with a handgun he was prohibited by law from carrying. And while that tragedy out of Pennsylvania has seemingly little to do with what has been going on around the Seattle area of late, there is also more there than it seems.

One of the Most Fascinating Political Questions of the Year

“Despite my deep respect and admiration for Ginsburg and her inspiring career, I find her approach extraordinarily reckless. For all of our sakes, here’s hoping her gamble pays off.”

―Steve Benen

And as much as we all at This Is adore Mr. Benen’s insightful analyses, we do indeed disagree on occasion. And in the matter of whether or not Justice Ginsburg should retire, a simple question asserts itself: Do we trust Justice Ginsburg?

Benen’s overview is sufficient, let there be no doubt. And, to be certain, it is fair to point out that Ginsburg’s political calculations are not without risk. Furthermore, of course we all, as such, hope the gamble pays off. But in a time so uncertain as to cloud the prognostications of conventional wisdom, it also pays well to remember that not all things are equal. On paper, sure, the analysis suggesting Ginsburg is taking too big a risk by her political calculation is at least arguable. But what of the human terms? The variables resolve with diverse values, and in that, quite frankly, it is not a matter of who does one trust, Mr. Benen or Justice Ginsburg. The question to consider is whether or not one trusts Justice Ginsburg.

If her calculation is so dangerously awry, she ought not be on the Court in the first place. Those of us who not only appreciate her presence on the Court but also recognize the magnitude of what kindness history will speak of her tenure have every reason to trust Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

In a way, it does help to point out: Remember, she’s the one throwing down. And before anyone stutters about Scalia or Alito or whoever, that is beside the point. Ginsburg recently let the lower courts know what was on the minds of the Supremes and while Justice Scalia was in Texas explaining why the perspectives of self-centered supremacist bigots from the eighteenth century should describe the twenty-first, Ginsburg explained to law students in Minnesota that the nation’s ranking court would not get involved in the growing noise and bluster over same-sex marriage unless lower courts botch it all up.

The American Dream

Matt Bors reflects on the American Dream, and what it has come to signify in the twenty-first century. I can’t wait until a board of directors becomes a prerequisite for basic family planning. Incorporate! Now, damn you! Via Daily Kos.

The Unfortunate State of Things

Jen Sorensen undertook the obvious point in the wake of the Supreme Court’s quixotic disaster otherwise known as Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. And, yes, she wins the race on style.

Still, though, a question arises. To the one, we are Americans, and everyone knows just how undignified it would be if people actually acted like those depicted in the cartoon. To the other, we are Americans, and everyone knows just how undignified it is to behave that way unless one is a patriot using a gun to menace locals in the name of the Second Amendment, or shouting at, threatening, and assaulting women.

The truth is that no matter how much Justice Scalia might need to be tomatosmacked upside the head, it would be inappropriate to actually start chucking table vegetables.

Meanwhile, the question arises, looms, persists: Then what does it take?

The explanation for this is simple enough under a general psychoanalysis of history: We judge women’s humanity as a reflection of manhood.

Almost, But Not Quite, Funny

Let us try to wrap our heads around something that is at once entirely expected and wholly unbelievable:

When Obamacare compelled businesses to include emergency contraception in employee health care plans, Hobby Lobby, a national chain of craft stores, fought the law all the way to the Supreme Court. The Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate, the company’s owners argued, forced them to violate their religious beliefs. But while it was suing the government, Hobby Lobby spent millions of dollars on an employee retirement plan that invested in the manufacturers of the same contraceptive products the firm’s owners cite in their lawsuit.

Documents filed with the Department of Labor and dated December 2012—three months after the company’s owners filed their lawsuit—show that the Hobby Lobby 401(k) employee retirement plan held more than $73 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that produce emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices, and drugs commonly used in abortions. Hobby Lobby makes large matching contributions to this company-sponsored 401(k).

Several of the mutual funds in Hobby Lobby’s retirement plan have holdings in companies that manufacture the specific drugs and devices that the Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby, is fighting to keep out of Hobby Lobby’s health care policies: the emergency contraceptive pills Plan B and Ella, and copper and hormonal intrauterine devices.

(Redden)

No, really.