July 28, 2014

One Direction’s Zayn Malik tweets #FreePalestine hashtag


Last night, heartthrob Zayn Malik of the popular U.K. boy band One Direction waded into Middle East affairs with this succinct “#FreePalestine” tweet.

Malik’s tweet, posted from his verified account, has more than 134,000 retweets so far (and the count is rising rapidly).

Whereas singer Rihanna and basketball player Dwight Howard deleted their pro-Palestine tweets, Malik has left his up.

July 27, 2014

The Conversation

'The Walking Dead' is loved for both its strengths and its flaws

In response to Phenomenal 'Walking Dead: Season 5' Trailer:

That is a pretty sensational trailer - more alluring than half the big-budget movie trailers I've seen this year.  It always seemed odd that the Biggest Show On Television would suffer from such obvious budget restraints, keeping the action stuck in certain locations much longer than it should have been, but judging from these clips, that's no longer an issue.
It looks as though a certain terrible event from much further along in the comics will be flash-forwarded and carried out at the Terminus compound.  If that's the case, part of this season is going to be very hard to watch.
"The Walking Dead" is a bona fide phenomenon, the next step after "TV show with great ratings."  It's been a while since anything on TV got its hooks so firmly into the broad pop-culture audience, and it's all the more amazing because it's such a grisly program.  The Zombie Moment was surfed with a remarkable combination of lucky timing and skill by the cast and crew.
I think the weaknesses and cliches of a phenomenon contribute to its popularity, in addition to its strengths.  Not only do you pick up the "hate-watchers" who seem to watch the show entirely so they can go into online forums and rant about how much it stinks - their eyeballs count for ratings too! - but the imperfections of a flawed gem make it endearing and approachable to its genuine fans.  All these decades later, jokes about "red shirts" and other tropes from "Star Trek" are part of the pop-culture language.  It's comparably easy to wail "WHERE'S CARL?!?" and watch everyone in earshot grin.  I wonder if part of what makes people love a show like "Walking Dead" is because its flaws inspire their imaginations and make them think about how they'd tell the story differently... an impulse that has kept classic stories alive across history.
And really, nothing silly about this show - primarily the outbreaks of lunkheaded behavior among the survivors, and the rather low-grade menace the slow-moving and easily killed zombies seem to pose - dilutes what it does well.  The survival-horror setting is haunting, the drama caused by people forced to make impossible decisions is intense, and the characters are generally well-drawn and well-acted enough to make you genuinely care about what happens to them.  If one of those scenes glimpsed briefly in the trailer means what I think it means, that sense of audience connection to the characters is going to get a hell of a workout this fall.

July 26, 2014

John Hawkins
Terrible ideas never really die on the Left; they just come back over and over again, like a gas station sandwich after a night of heavy drinking. So it is with reparations for slavery, which liberals would happily embrace en masse if they ever thought they could ram it through Congress. Here's why reparations for slavery are a bad idea.
1) How do you prove that slavery is responsible for problems black Americans are having today? If it were 1866, it would be easy to prove that black Americans who had been enslaved were hurt by the practice. They were mistreated, deprived of their freedom, and were not paid wages for their labor.
On the other hand, if you fast forward to today, it’s extraordinarily difficult to show that anybody’s problems were caused by something that happened almost 150 years ago. Keep in mind that there were white indentured servants forced to work alongside slaves back then. There were white Americans who were kidnapped and enslaved by the Barbary pirates. There were Japanese and Italian Americans who were forced into internment camps during WWII and many of them actually had their property confiscated and sold. The relatives of many Jewish Holocaust survivors live in America as well. So while black Americans have been treated worse than any other group in America, there are a lot of other groups that have seemingly bounced back with little damage from how they’ve been treated in the past.
Additionally, while black Americans are indisputably doing worse than most other groups in America, there are certain subsets of African-Americans that are doing just fine. For example, black female college graduates make 102% of what white female college graduates earnAfrican immigrants also outperform black Americans who were born here in a number of ways.
A new paper (pdf) from University of Chicago PhD candidate Alison Rauh finds that black immigrants tend to be more successful than black Americans. They out-earn black natives (after accounting for age) and are more likely to be employed. This is not surprising; white immigrant groups outperform their native cohort too. But what’s most intriguing is how their children fare. The children of black immigrants are more likely to go to and complete college than native blacks (and whites) and are less likely to drop out of high school. The children of black immigrants also earn more than native blacks or first generation immigrants.
If there are certain subsets of black Americans who are doing well, that suggests that there is no one universal factor like slavery that can be blamed for the difficulties black Americans face.
2) Who would pay reparations? If John Smith gets drunk, runs a stop light, and hits the car of Susie Jones, we know who's at fault. It's John Smith. We also know that Susie Jones is the injured party. We can look at the damage to the car, injuries to Susie Jones, and costs she had to bear because of the wreck and get a rough idea of damages that she sustained because of John Smith's behavior.
How do you make any of those determinations with reparations?
The Civil War ended in 1865; so all the slaves and slave masters are all long dead. Moreover, even in the South, depending on which numbers you believe, somewhere between 80-95% of white Americans never owned slaves. There were also several thousand BLACK AMERICANS who owned slaves -- yes, really. Certainly they would be more responsible for slavery than a white man who didn't own slaves, right? Getting beyond the South, why would a white northerner from a state that didn't have slaves owe "reparations" for slavery? For example, what wrong would a Republican abolitionist -- who hated slavery, voted for Abe Lincoln, and fought in the Civil War -- have done that would require "reparations?"
We don't hold people responsible for what their ancestors did and even if we did, most white Americans, even in the South, didn't own slaves. So 149 years after the Civil War ended, there simply is no way to hold the people responsible for slavery accountable for what they did. Victimizing people who did nothing wrong today to make up for a wrong that was done 150 years ago wouldn't make anything right.
3) Who would receive reparations? There are no living slaves; so it's impossible to compensate the people who were hurt by the cruel and oppressive practice of slavery. So, would we compensate black Americans in general on the theory that slavery has held them back? Blaming the economic problems someone has today on something that happened to his ancestors almost a century and a half ago seems like one heck of a stretch, but let's say we buy into the argument. What do we do about people like Barack Obama and Tiger Woods who are of mixed heritage? Would Obama pay reparations to himself? Would a black man who immigrated to the United States a decade ago be eligible? What about incredibly wealthy black Americans like Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, and BET's Robert Johnson? Why should some white middle manager in suburbia be asked to kick in money for them?
These are the sort of thorny questions you have to wrestle with when you're talking about "reparations" as opposed to a communistic "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" transfer of wealth from one group of people to another, which is really what most people who support reparations seem to want to see happen.
4) It focuses on the wrong solution: Just giving people money seldom helps to fix their problem. That’s why America’s “war on poverty” has been an utter and complete failure. After doling out more than 21 trillion dollars over the last 50 years, we’ve done nothing to reduce the poverty rate.
Shortly after the War on Poverty got rolling (1967), about 27% of Americans lived in poverty. In 2012, the last year for which data is available, the number was about 29%.’
In fact, it’s entirely possible that the poverty rate would be LOWER today if there had never been a “war on poverty.” You can see this same dynamic with aid to Africa. After handing out more than a trillion dollars, much of the continent has gone BACKWARDS over the last 10-15 years. Even winning the lottery doesn’t tend to make a generational impact.
A paper by economists Hoyt Bleakley and Joseph Ferrie traced the results of the Georgia land lottery down the generations. They found that, “one generation after the distribution of the Georgia land, sons of winners have no better adult outcomes (wealth, income, literacy) than the sons of non-winners, and winners’ grandchildren do not have higher literacy or school attendance than non-winners’ grandchildren.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything. No American should have to live in an area where he’s afraid to let his children play in the yard because drug dealers sell openly on the corner. Terrible inner city schools disproportionately impact black Americans. That’s why school vouchers and charter schools disproportionately benefit them. Slashing tax rates in depressed areas down to almost nothing would encourage businesses to move in and would help black entrepreneurs. Micro-loans could help aspiring small business owners to get on their feet. Helping black Americans to help themselves would do more to create success and prosperity than any giveaway program ever could.
5) The government has already paid out an enormous amount of “reparations:” Just to give you an idea of how common slavery is in human history, keep in mind that the Brits who brought American colonists here kept slaves. The Indians we took the land from kept slaves. Our neighbors to the north and south (Canada and Mexico) kept slaves. We acquired slaves from nations in Africa that kept slaves. Many of the slaves that ended up in America were captured by Middle Eastern slave traders who also kept slaves. Even some white Americans were enslaved by the Barbary pirates.
Still America had a particularly large and thriving slave trade and we’ve already paid an enormous price as a nation for it, starting with the 625,000 Americans who died during the Civil War. Keep in mind that America had a population roughly 1/10 the size we have today; so that would be the rough equivalent of 6.25 million Americans dying today. As a point of comparison, the 2nd term of the Bush Administration was practically destroyed by less than 4,500 military deaths in Iraq.
Additionally, although whites make up the majority of Americans on welfare, percentage wise, roughly twice as many black Americans take government assistance as white Americans. Additionally there are Affirmative Action programs and racial set-asides that discriminate against white and Asian Americans to make it easier for black Americans to get jobs and get into college.
So, when you add it all up, hundreds of thousands of Americans have died, numerous special programs have been created for black Americans, and trillions in government assistance have already been paid out. Other than Great Britain, there’s no other nation on Planet Earth that’s done even a fraction of that much to make up for engaging in slavery. So, if anyone wants reparations, it would be fair to say that they’ve already been paid.

July 25, 2014

Pope Francis talks with Archbishop Charles J. Chaput on March 26. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
Pope Francis talks with Archbishop Charles J. Chaput on March 26. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
Posted in Local News, on July 25th, 2014

Archbishop Chaput confirms pope to visit Philadelphia in September 2015

BY NANCY WIECHEC
Catholic News Service
FARGO, N.D. (CNS) — Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said Pope Francis has accepted his invitation to attend the World Meeting of Families in the U.S. next year.
Archbishop Chaput made the announcement July 24 before giving his homily during the opening Mass of the Tekakwitha Conference in Fargo.
“Pope Francis has told me that he is coming,” said the archbishop as he invited his fellow Native Americans to the 2015 celebration being held in Philadelphia Sept. 22-27.
“The pope will be with us the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of that week,” he said.
Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said July 25 Pope Francis has expressed “his willingness to participate in the World Meeting of Families” in Philadelphia, and has received invitations to visit other cities as well, which he is considering. Those invitations include New York, the United Nations and Washington.
Some Mexican media have cited government officials saying a September trip to North America also could include stops in Mexico, but Father Lombardi said that at this moment “nothing operational has begun relative to a plan or program for a visit to the United States or Mexico. Keep in mind, there is still more than a year to go before the meeting in Philadelphia.

July 21, 2014

Occupy protester threatened to kill two officer’s families

The Occupy Wall Streeter who once sobbed in court because she had to appear in the same dress twice also threatened to kill two cops’ families, court papers show.
Couture-crazed protester Cecily McMillan — who became a poster child for OWS indignation after socking a cop in the eye in 2012 — was arrested again in December 2013 during a subway scuffle.
She was busted after allegedly urging two turnstile jumpers not to cooperate with a pair of cops in the Union Square subway station — and then made death threats against the officers, according to the papers.
“You don’t know who I am! Wait until you figure it out! You probably don’t have kids or a wife, but if you do, I’ll kill them!” McMillan, 26, allegedly screeched to the officers.
After four hours in custody, McMillan hissed to officers, “Look at what I am wearing! It is a botanist dress,’’ the papers state.
“This is a cocktail dress to be worn only standing up maximum four hours! I had three to four people that helped me get into this dress. The NYPD, you must supply me with clothing!”
McMillan said her dress was so tight that “my chest hurts” and demanded an ambulance.
The ranting revolutionary also ordered the cops to give her a pair of sweat pants and a T-shirt.
“You are a male chauvinist pig!” she yelled at one cop.
McMillan had already been arrested and was awaiting trial for punching the officer in 2012. On Dec. 7, 2013, she allegedly played counselor to the two fare-beaters during their bust.
“You don’t have to talk to them,” she allegedly told the suspects. “Don’t pay any attention to them. They did not identify themselves. I know the law. I’m a lawyer. Don’t cooperate with them.”
McMillan, who, in fact, is not a lawyer, was then arrested herself and promptly sniffed to officers, “I have dealt with the police before. I’m not scared of your scare tactics.”
The New School grad was convicted in the 2012 incident and spent two months in jail. She was just released from Rikers Island.
She has pleaded not guilty to the subway obstruction-of-justice rap, which carries a possible jail sentence of one year, and will appear in court on that charge Sept. 15.
She turned down a no-jail plea deal offered by prosecutors that would have required her to take anger-management classes.

July 20, 2014

The entire world population could fit in the state of Texas and it’d only have the population density of New York City!


People freak out all the time about how we’re overpopulating Earth and we’re all going to die, because we can’t sustain ourselves. There isn’t enough land to produce enough food to sustain us, let alone have any space to move around at all. There are 6.8 billion people on Earth. Calculations show that if we wanted to make everyone in Earth live on a space that had the same population density as New York City, we could fit everyone in about 666,265 square kilometers, which is less than the size of Texas!
So, every man, woman, and child could fit pretty comfortably within the perimeter of the state of Texas. Not only does that leave the other 49 United States open, but it leaves all the other countries clear and open, too. So, it is pretty safe to say that we have enough space, the entire world except Texas, to farm and ranch for our food supply.
Would water be a problem, though? It's calculated that we need 350 billion liters of water per day to properly hydrate 6.8 billion people. It seems like a lot, but the Columbia River alone could produce that amount in less than a day. By the way, the Columbia River is the U.S.’s fourth largest river. So, again, that leaves the rest of the world’s water supply open and ready to serve. So, we’re not really overpopulated. We just need to be better at managing our resources

Read more at http://www.omgfacts.com/Interesting/The-entire-world-population-could-fit-in/55348#8wcOmhYZL2FCESQk.99

July 15, 2014

CDC: Gay Population 2.3%; Thanks to Media, Americans Think Number is 13 Times Higher

Everyone knows there are gays and lesbians in everybody’s family. And no office would be complete without a sassy gay character. And just about every other kid in high school is wresting with his sexuality. I know. I watch TV.
Except it isn’t true, and the Centers for Disease Control just proved it. A new comprehensive study by the CDC with over 33,000 participants has confirmed earlier estimates; less than 3 percent of the U.S. population self-identifies as gay, lesbian or bisexual. Earlier, much smaller-scale surveys have put that number at 4 percent.
The National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), published July 15 by the CDC, was the first large-scale study of it’s kind. Data was collected from the Census Bureau, as The Washington Post reported, and 33,557 adults between the ages of 18 and 64 participated in the study, which included in-person interviews as well as follow-up phone questions.
The NHIS study found that, while 96.6 percent of adults identified as “straight”, 1.6 percent identified as gay or lesbian, and 0.7 percent called themselves bisexual. 1.1 percent responded “I don’t know” or said they were “something else” not listed.
That sure doesn’t sound like society according to Hollywood, or the news media, which have young Americans convinced 30 percent of the population is gay.
Maybe that’s because gay characters pop up in just about every product out of Hollywood. Men dress as women, give lap dances to other men and even get married in national awards shows likethe Grammys and Tony Awards. Media festivals likeSouth by Southwest and Sundance celebrate gay sex and all other kinds of relationships as completely normal. TV shows like “Modern Family,” “The New Normal” and “The Fosters” attempt to show that gay families are just as common and normal as any other family.
The news media does their part too. CNN has a particularly cozy relationship with GLAAD, the gay speech police. CNN’s Paul Begala claimed in 2011, “One out of 10 Americans is gay...At Least 10 percent of us are gay or lesbian.” The media attacks businesses and churches as being out of step with reality, and calls for children’s organizations like the Boy Scouts to include gay scout leaders.
Meanwhile the media highlights stories of transgender toddlers and invokes pity for the handful of gay students who go to Christian colleges and are open about their sexuality, then complain when they are asked to abide by the school’s religious rules.
Gay activists who say hateful things get a pass from the media too. Take Dan Savage, who has said all kinds of vile comments towards conservatives, Christians, and women, yet the media ignores his hate. The moment a Christian refers to the Bible on homosexuality, the media relentlessly attacks the person, their family, and tries to take away their livelihood. They did that with Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty and Chic-Fil-A’s Dan Cathy.
A much higher percentage of the population believes marriage should be between man and a woman. The annual March for Marriage is the largest march of its kind yet themedia refuse to report on it each year.


Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kristine-marsh/2014/07/15/cdc-gay-population-23-thanks-media-americans-think-number-13-times-h#ixzz37YjOkdpl

July 14, 2014

Updated  

EDITORIAL: Colorblind Harry Reid continues to divide

Harry Reid is the da Vinci of distraction. The moment any scandal, policy failure or political defeat crashes down on him — and there have been plenty the past few years — the Senate majority leader unleashes outrageous rhetoric that’s better suited for a sandbox than what once passed for the world’s greatest deliberative body. Worse, the Nevada Democrat has become especially fond of slinging race cards just to crank up the outrage.
Last week, Sen. Reid was in rare form following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn part of the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate. The 5-4 ruling declared that closely held for-profit businesses, such as craft retailer Hobby Lobby, do not have to provide some forms of birth control to female employees if doing so violates the owners’ religious beliefs. Sen. Reid eviscerated the decision. “The one thing we are going to do during this work period, sooner rather than later, is to ensure that women’s lives are not determined by virtue of five white men,” Sen. Reid said.
That Sen. Reid would inject race into criticism of a ruling with gender-based ramifications was bad enough. What made the comment far worse, however, was that it was completely false. Justice Clarence Thomas, who happens to be black, sided with the court’s majority in the Hobby Lobby case.
Sen. Reid’s slip was no accident. He believes racial and ethnic minorities are ideologically monolithic constituencies who are incapable of independent or — gasp! — right-of-center thinking. In the majority leader’s mind, Mr. Thomas is not an African-American because the justice doesn’t blindly subscribe to liberal orthodoxy.
Recall that during Sen. Reid’s 2010 re-election campaign, he put Latinos in the same box. “I don’t know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, OK? Do I need to say more?” Never mind that Brian Sandoval, who was running for Nevada governor that same year, is a Hispanic Republican.
Never mind that Sen. Reid himself, like the entire Senate Democratic leadership, is as white as an Irishman in a snowstorm. And never mind that after more than five years of Democratic control of the White House and the Senate, black and Hispanic unemployment — especially among teenagers — remains scandalously high. Sen. Reid’s “fix” for this problem — a higher minimum wage — will actually make it worse.
We thought the 2008 election of Barack Obama as president was supposed to herald an age of post-racial politics. So much for hope and change. Quit the race-baiting already, Sen. Reid. You’re clearly colorblind — in all the wrong ways.

July 10, 2014

10 of the Most Hysterical Hobby Lobby Reactions

American women have plunged into a bottomless dungeon of servitude -- by the Supreme Court no less -- in the new ruling that Hobby Lobby can be exempted from paying for employees’ abortifacients. Or so the liberal media and "women's rights" activists claim.
But they won’t let that long night of barbarism descend without raising the alarm, and resisting in small, symbolic and deeply stupid ways. From the media comparing the craft-store chain to the Taliban and segregationists to even suggesting protesters “redecorate” stores, here are the 10 of the worst media reactions to Hobby Lobby
1. “Fantastic, Fun, Non-procreative Sex” Makes Women “Human”
Finally! Someone admitted birth control is about sex: a columnist for The Guardian US, Jessica Valenti argued, “Women like sex. Stop making 'health' excuses for why we use birth control.” A founder of Femninistg.com, Valenti also serves on the board of NARAL Pro-Choice America.
For her piece, Valenti described contraception as “arguably the most important laboratory discovery for women of all time” that women use for the sake of “hot, sweaty, fantastic, fun, non-procreative sex.” “That doesn't make us ‘sluts,’” she continued, “it makes us human.” In a shallow, debased sort of way.
Ironically, contraception is about sex for conservatives too, according to Valenti. For them, “contraception is not about health,” but, “it's about sex, their fear of sex, and a panic over women having sex that doesn't lead to babies.”
2. Hobby Lobby is a “Religious Civil War” with Female “Slavery”
Writing for Salon, Al Jazeera columnist Paul Rosenberg claimed in his title, “This is a religious civil war” and warned Hobby Lobby was “only the beginning for new religious theocrats.” With the Tea Party in the House and “religious extremists” in the Supreme Court, he warned, “We're approaching a very scary time.”
Rosenberg described Hobby Lobby’s “deeply held beliefs” as “transparently bogus” and “scientifically invalid.” But with religious freedom, he explained, “You’re free to be a religious hypocrite, because letting someone else judge your sincerity can lead too easily to real religious tyranny.” Clarifying his “civil war” twist, he continued, “But when you’re already in a position to tyrannize others — as Hobby Lobby is — that’s a whole different ballgame. The tyrant’s freedom is everyone else’s slavery.”
OK, let’s think this through a moment. Hobby Lobby is in a position to tyrannize others by … paying them to work there? Because they’d rather not provide a certain benefit to employees who are absolutely free to go work somewhere else, the company is actively tyrannizing employees who choose to work there? Barbaric!
3. Use “Crafting Supplies to Spell Out ‘PRO CHOICE’ Aaaaaalll Over” Hobby Lobby Stores
At the blog Jezebel, Callie Beusman recommended a “fun craft idea” in her latest piece: “Pro-Choice Trolling in Hobby Lobby Aisles.”
For examples, Beusman applauded Feministing’s recognition of Jasmine Shea, a woman who “rearranged various alphabetical crafting supplies to spell out ‘PRO CHOICE’ aaaaaalll over” one Hobby Lobby store – and Policy Mic, which featured ThinkProgress Digital Editor Adam Nathaniel Peck who rearranged crafts to read “all women deserve birth control.”
To nurture the new trend, Beusman linked to the “official store locater” for Hobby Lobby, the “large corporation-person whose interests include crafting, God and denying women affordable contraception access.”
4. Hobby Lobby Supporters Similar to “Segregationists” 
During a June 30 MSNBC “Morning Joe” segment, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson explained how “long, long ago, there were segregationists who made a religious argument and said that they found somewhere in the Bible a justification for racial segregation in the South and, obviously, that did not hold water.”  While he admitted “this is perhaps a bit different” from Hobby Lobby, “it deals with employees of the company.”
With a nod to MSNBC’s Donny Deutsch, he continued, “nobody has an obligation to go to work for Hobby Lobby but there is another side of this and there is case law on the other side of this. I'm not sure which way they are going to go.” 
So if “nobody has an obligation to go to work for Hobby Lobby,” how is it relevant to bring up segregation?
5. “The Supreme Court is at War with Women”
You’ll be shocked to find MSNBC’s Ed Schultz on the list. But he interviewed National Organization for Women president Terry O'Neill for a podcast. Although, from his transcript, he appeared more as the interviewee: “This should be a real wake-up call to every women in America that the Supreme Court is at war with women,” he raged. “This is discrimination is what it is. And this, this puts the government between you and your employer!” 
But wasn’t it the government that inserted itself there in the first place? Yes, Ed, it was.

6. Hobby Lobby like a “Taliban” Corporation 
Former Washington Post reporter and New Yorker staff writer Steve Coll repeatedly compared Hobby Lobby to the Taliban. After the Supreme Court’s decision, he asked, “If the Pakistani Taliban, aided by clever lawyers, organized a closely held American corporation, and professed to run it on religious principles, might its employees be deprived of insurance coverage to inoculate their children against polio?”
But he didn’t stop here. Coll continued to say that if “the Supreme Court’s majority cannot fully imagine that religiously motivated litigants—Muslim, Christian Scientist, Hindu, or other—as qualified and as American as the Hobby Lobby owners might ultimately use Monday’s ruling to enforce beliefs” then “that is another failure of their reasoning.”
As an example, Coll continued:
T]he impact on children, living and unborn, of the Taliban public policy on vaccines is not, arguably, different in category from the impact that the Hobby Lobby decision will likely have on the families of those who work at companies whose owners claim to run them on Christian principles, in one respect: the extrapolation of religious beliefs into public policy will damage the over-all health of affected families.
Except that, “arguably,” it is. Justice Alito’s ruling made clear that the government might have compelling interests that trump Hobby Lobby’s exemption. Vaccinations would be one of them. But it’s just fun to call religious folks “Taliban,” isn’t it, Steve?
7. “Religious Extremists” Are Taking Away Rights
Featured by lefty site Upworthy, a video produced by the Coalition for Liberty & Justice declared that “religious extremists” use freedom of religion to “claim that any organization should be able to discriminate against their employees, whether it's a church, a school, or even a business, like Taco Bell.” 
The video uses cartoon drawings to erect cartoon straw men, which are then knocked down with cartoon reasoning. The enemies are scary, frowny-face Catholic bishops. “Using bogus arguments about religious freedom to deny women birth control is just the tip of the iceberg.” 
8. Hobby Lobby “Endangers” the “Lives of Many American Women” 
Huffington Post Blogger Lincoln Mitchell set out to explain “How Hobby Lobby Undermines All Americans' Freedom.” He bashed the Supreme Court for “set[ting] a horrible precedent that if followed will endanger the health and lives of many American women.” 
“If Hobby Lobby can tell people how they can or cannot use their health care benefits,” he questioned, “why can't they also tell people they can't, for example, use their salaries to donate to pro-choice political candidates or pro-marriage equality causes?” He concluded that while the answer should appear obvious, “the recent court decision makes it considerably less clear.” 
Slippery slopes are horrible things when liberals find themselves on them. 
9. SCOTUS Ruling Will Drive Women to Democratic Party in 2016

MSNBC
Contributor Michelle Bernard of the Bernard Center for Women, Politics and Public Policy noted how, “With this whole notion of corporate personhood, I think that you are going to see women think that this is a large problem that corporations are not people.” 
Looking into her glass ball, she continued, “And you will see married women, I think you will see single women, you will see African-American women, Hispanics, the quote/unquote other category of women that are looking at a long list of issues” and “saying if corporations are equal to individuals this is not the party that we want to vote for.
So women aren’t intelligent enough to understand that when people open businesses they do not forfeit their First Amendment rights to religious freedom?  That’s a winning argument. 
10. Hobby Lobby is Somehow About Shaming Women Over Sex and Abortion
That seems to be what the morally disabled former “Goonies” star Martha Plimpton was stating on the abortion-celebrating blog, “A IS FOR…” Offing your offspring is the most natural thing in the world, according to Plimpton. “It is time we stop pretending that abortion is some anomalous act that is outside the realm of the acceptable and normal.” No, it’s like getting a haircut or hitting the warehouse store, with even less mental strain. “That it somehow damages the family structure or the meaning of motherhood. It does neither of those things. It reinforces them. Anything that strengthens the health and lives of women is good for families.” Unless you’re the unwanted member of the family. Kinda sucks for you. But it’s all about Martha’s rights. 
She concluded: “Until our culture accepts that abortion is a normal aspect of women’s lives, an essential one, a natural one in fact, we will be struggling with the political fight over our right to be respected as citizens with equal rights under the law.”

--Editor's Note: Matt Philbin contributed to this report.


Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/katie-yoder/2014/07/10/10-most-hysterical-hobby-lobby-reactions#ixzz375c8a6Nh