Hobby Lobby and Delusion of Corporate Personhood

The recent supreme court ruling regarding Hobby Lobby has a lot of people up on arms. Including me. I'm not sure how many of these people are upset for the same reasons, though. To me, this has less to do with religious rights than with the political fiction that corporations are people.

This legal fiction began back in the early 1800's so, it's nothing new. It's a convenient way of justifying making corporations pay taxes and protects their owners from some kinds of lawsuits and other legal matters. But things have gone a little crazy in the last several years. Corporations have the right to donate money to political campaigns, and are now exempt from the requirement to provide certain kinds of medical coverage demanded by the Affordable Care Act. What I believe we really need to do is sit back and evaluate just what corporations are, and what they are supposed to be.

In one very clear way, a corporation is a legally recognized group of people, acting in concert. The original idea of corporate personhood was intended to protect the constitutional rights of individual shareholders, when they acted collectively. Sounds all well and good, on the surface. The problem, as I see it, comes in two forms:

1. When a shareholder is allowed to act as himself, and as the corporation, the shareholder effectively becomes more than one person.
2. The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution is being used to protect the rights of corporations, but not their employees.

Let me explain. When it comes to political campaigns, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has decided that donating money to a cause is the same as political speech. Therefore, to protect the First Amendments rights of shareholders, corporations must be allowed to donate to political campaigns. In effect, then, a shareholder may donate twice, once as himself, and once as part of his corporation.

Political campaigns can only accept a certain amount of money from an individual, or corporation. Accordingthe Federal Election Commission, an individual may give up to $2,600 to each candidate of their choice. That money, however, is not counted against the additional $2,6000 that can be given through a PAC. Nor does it count the other multitude of ways a person can donate funds, as long as the individual donates through various corporations.

Many corporate shareholders own more than one company. Large corporations own smaller corporations and each corporation may be considered yet another “person,” even if, in the final measure, it is only one or two actual human beings. To put it simply, an individual can extend their political power and influence by owning more and more corporations. Why? Because each one of them is a legal “person” on paper. In effect, they are able to exercise certain rights more than other individuals because the law considers them to be more than one person. I can only guess at the other abuses this legal fiction enables.

Let's move on to my second point, and use Hobby Lobby as an example. For this to make sense, let's revisit the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

When we apply corporate personhood to this portion, “ No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law...” it becomes clear why the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby denying coverage of “morning after” birth control measures to their employees. If the shareholders of Hobby Lobby are acting as a “person,” they cannot be denied their right to exercise their religious beliefs regarding appropriate birth control measures. But here's the part the court's seem to have ignored, “nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” If the Affordable Care Act is a legal protection for employees, then ANY exception, if not specifically written into the law, would violate the Constitution. By that reading, any corporation seeking an exception to the Affordable Care Act would be violating the Constitutional rights of its employees.

All of this stems from the simple delusion that corporations are people.

If you want to help fight the legal fiction of corporate personhood, visit Move To Amend for more information.

Obama Abandons the Defense of Marriage Act

President Barack Obama has decided that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and has directed the Department of Justice to quit defending it.

Supporters of gay marriage are declaring a victory. Detractors are up in arms.

There's one problem that only a few people seem to get, President Obama doesn't have the authority to do that. Only the Judicial Branch, and ultimately the Supreme Court, can declare an existing federal law unconstitutional and stop it's enforcement. It can be repealed, but only by Congress. The Executive Branch has no say in the matter until such a move passes both the House and the Senate. Representative Feinstein, as much I am not a fan of her, at least understands that and has decided to put forth a bill calling for it's repeal.

I personally believe she won't be able to get it to pass in the House of Representatives. At least I hope she won't.

This is just one more move by this administration to spit on the Constitution and try and take more authority that it actually has. I used to shake my head in disbelief at the people calling for President Obama's impeachment. Now I'm not so sure they're wrong.

My own feeling is that, regardless of the bogus rhetoric, marriage, at it's core, is about having children. It's a sacred institution and should only be between a man and a woman. Putting religious differences aside, there are many compelling secular reasons as well. If you don't think same sex marriage hurt anyone, you may need to take a second look.

US to Give $50 Million for Cookstoves

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced that the US is poised to donate $50 million to the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. They area non-profit group dedicated to clean-burning cookstoves to under-developed countries that currently use open fires within their homes.
Such cooking practices create large amounts of carbon monoxide and black carbon soot that can significantly compromise a person's health. As a “foodie” and home cook, this problem is of great concern to me. What I'm confused about is why the U.S. Should be donating such a large amount of money in this down economy.

I'm also concerned about why we are donating to this specific organization in this way. It turns out that there are already many US government agencies and private companies that support this group. Why are we giving $50 million in addition to the money US taxpayers and corporations are already giving them? Other countries have pledged much less.

According to the New York Times:

Reid Detchon, vice president for energy and climate at the United Nations Foundation, one of the founding partners of the alliance, said that the plan was not simply to use donations to buy millions of new stoves and ship them out to the developing world.

Rather, he said, the group hopes to create an entrepreneurial model in which small companies manufacture or buy the stoves close to their markets, taking into account local fuel choices, food consumption patterns and methods of cooking.

There's a problem with this ideal. It turns out that one of the major manufacturers of these stoves is China. How is large scale manufacturing groups in China, who shamelessly belch out tons of greenhouse gasses, a small company model, in practice?

It also turns out that this “solution” has a built it replacement date. It's actually designed to be cheap, and break down, so it has to be replaced every few years:

“The idea is how to create a thriving global industry in cookstoves, driven by consumers’ desire to have these products at a price they can afford,” Mr. Detchon said.

“These stoves don’t have a long lifetime,” he said. “To produce low cost and high volume, you’ll have to replace them relatively frequently, perhaps every two, three or five years. You’ll need a supply chain and business model that delivers them, not on a one-time basis, but as a continuing enterprise.”

How is selling sub-standard equipment to a developing nation a good idea? This group positions itself as highly moral, wanting to help poor people. This sounds like they're taking advantage of them.

The solutions to carbon smoke and soot in the house was fixed hundreds of years ago with much simply, and in some cases less expensive, technologies and practices. While this may be a worthy cause, there are other things that can be done and many of them don't require any money at all.

Move the Stove Outside. An open flam in a closed space not only creates breathing problems, it's a major fire hazard.

Use a Chimney. Even a simple hole in the roof can help direct smoke upwards, and out of the home.

Use a Solar Oven. You can build an effective solar oven for next to nothing. Sure, there are fancy models that cost hundreds of dollars, but you can actually buy/build a cheap, but very effective ovens for much less. Solar ovens have a zero-carbon footprint, where the other cookers do not. Here's the other kicker – Secretary Clinton has known about it, and supported them, for over a year. Why change gears, now?

Photo by Sunil Lal

Michelle Obama's Spain Trip – Smoke and Mirrors

By now, you've probably heard many of the Right Wing pundits on radio and the web thumping their chests and pontificating about how terrible our First Lady Michelle Obama is being for taking a trip to Spain. “How dare she!” they rant, “When our economy is so terrible.” Sorry folks. I don't buy it. I don't even care. If I had the money to travel to take a vacation with my kids to Spain right now, and the First Lady has the money, the last thing you'd see of me for the next week is my backside as it enters the plane.

Was it smart, from a PR perspective? No way. Was it intolerable and, dare I say it, un-American? Same answer. No way.

Many Left Wing pundits and followers may be screaming, “Who's to blame for feeding it to the media, this way?” Outside of the European press, who first reported it, I'd say nobody. What I wonder, though, is if someone within the White House administration, or the upper-ups of the Democratic party, didn't leak it, first.

Now that I've got you totally confused, let me tell what the rants about her trip have amounted to: smoke and mirrors. However it got leaked, the Far-Right has bought into it, hook, line and sinker. They've been screaming about Michelle Obama going to Spain and completely lost two much more important things that happened at the exact same time: unemployment rose in July, and the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) downgraded the forthcoming economic outlook for America

U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis released a statement on the July 2010 Employment figures. Her report stated that the monthly unemployment rate has not changed — remaining at 9.5% — while the economy has had a net job gain of 71,000 in the private sector. Overall, employment declined by 131,000. How that big of a change doesn't effect the reported unemployment rate I can only guess. What we need to keep in mind is that the unemployment rate only reports the number of American's filing for unemployment benefits, not those that have lost their benefits because they've been out of work for too long, and are still unemployed.

I believe these figures has quite a bit to do with the FOMC lowering their economic outlook. I admit, the way the FOMC announced this bad news was hard to follow. They came out and and told people they were reinvesting certain funds to cope with the problem, rather than just say, “There's a problem.” To fully understand what they are doing to fix the situation may require a degree with at least a minor in economics. In one of the most interesting “spin doctoring” I've seen, the FOMC's statement said, “the pace of economic recovery is likely to be more modest in the near term than had been anticipated.” That's PollyAnna-speak for, “Things aren't going as well as we thought.”

To read more about un-employment rates, go to: Democracy Now and My Bank  Tracker.

You can find more about the Fed's actions at Business Week, NPR, and The Washington Post.