Yesterday, I got an alert from CPR that the Christian Glass case has been settled, and that the settlement is the largest known single payout for police violence in the state’s history – $19 million. He was the 22-year-old who had car issues in the middle of nowhere (Clear Creek actually) in the dead of night and called police. As a retired insurance person, the main thing that struck me about that case was that it was 100% preventable. Had he had, and called, a roadside assistance progeam instead of the cops, he would be alive today. Besides the ones available from groups like AAA and Car Talk (theirs is greener than most), which follow the person who holds them and can be used for any car, even if you are neither the owner nor the driver, a lot of insurance companies offer them – that’s the kind I have, and it follows the car, so that if someone else needed to use my car and needed assistance, it would be there. That costs me just over $15.00 a year. There is no reason anyone should need to cal the cops for car problems. That is not to blame him or his parents of course. I’m just ranting because his loss felt like such a tragic waste to me (as, of course, it was.)
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ProPublica – He Became Convinced the School Board Was Pushing “Transgender Bullshit.” He Ended Up Arrested — and Emboldened.
Quote – ProPublica identified 59 people arrested or charged over an 18-month period as a result of turmoil at school board meetings across the country. In the coming weeks, ProPublica will continue to publish stories about how that unrest has played out in various communities and upended once-staid school board meetings. In the dozens of incidents ProPublica examined, some of which involved threats and violence, only one person who disrupted a meeting was given a jail sentence: a college student protesting in support of transgender rights. Click through for details. We can’t all be crazy – I know a lot of us are sane – but you wouldn’t know that from this article. I sometimes call myself the “queen of workarounds” – but that’s only on computers. What’s needed is a workaround (maybe multiple workarounds0 for normal people to co-exist with wingnots. Because there will always be wingnuts. We have to face that fact.
Crooks & Liars – Biden Goes Full Dark Brandon At G7 Over Question About Russia
Quote – At the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Biden took a question about Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko, saying that Western countries will be running “colossal risks” if they supply Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets. Dark Brandon calmly responded: “It is for them.”… Biden didn’t cave to Russia’s warning. Trump would have. Click through for story. In a word, GOOD.
Talking Feds (while Glenn is on vacation – he has some fillers but not to cover every day) – Novel Legal Theory TESTED in New Lawsuit to Counter Extremism
Farron Balanced – Giuliani Hit With Lawsuit From Man He Falsely Claimed Assaulted Him
Robert Reich – Haven’t We Learned?
Parody Project Strangers on the Right
Guy Is The Best Friend A Squirrel Could Have
Beau – Let’s talk about Democratic messaging issues….
Yesterday,I did manage to get out and cut a couple of the irises to bring indoors. They won’t last very long … but they’ll be fun while they do. I also put ogether a grocery order for today, so if there are excssive typos tomorrow, that will likely be the explanation.
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Civil Discourse – The Week Ahead
Quote – Protective orders like this are used when a defendant’s conduct threatens the safety and well-being of witnesses, victims, or anyone else related to the case. Prosecutors argued Trump’s history of making “harassing, embarrassing, and threatening statements” about other people in his various other legal disputes merited this action. Judge Merchan scheduled the hearing that requires Trump’s virtual attendance the day after Trump appeared on CNN’s town hall and lied, offered fake excuses, and insulted people. He called the prosecutors’ indictment in the Manhattan case a “fake charge.” Click through for various potential happenings. I appreciate Joyce giving us some stuff to watch out for.
Colorado Public Radio – France gave Colorado a thank-you train car after WWII. Then Colorado lost it
Quote – In 1947, Europe was rebuilding from the destruction of World War II. Big-hearted Americans wanted to help. So a train crossed this country gathering aid. The Friendship Train collected tens of millions of dollars in food and supplies. The Europeans were grateful. In 1949, the French sent a thank you note. Well, much more than a thank you note. France bestowed upon the United States 49 Merci train cars — one for each state at the time. (“Merci” is French for thank you.) Hawaii and The District of Columbia shared the 49th because of their notable contributions. Alaska didn’t get one. And these train cars were full. Click through for history. OK, this is not exactly breaking news. But it did happen within my lifetime, and t happened in every state except Alaska (which was then still a territory), and I was 4 years old in California, and I had no clue. None. This may not be one of the most inportant events in the history of the earth, or even i the history of the war, but dammit, it does have implications for foreign policy. I can understand people spuuressing, or trying to suppress it after 9/11, but this vanished from public knowledge long before that.
Yesterday, I had an uneventful drive both ways and enjoyed (as I always do) my visit with Virgil. We played Scrabble again – finished three games and almost finished a fourth (which we knew we wouldn’t finish whwn we started it, so we relaxed the rules to save time – accepted foreign words not in common use and some acronyms – I was wishing we’d done that sooner, because at one poit in one of the first three games I had 2 F’s along wirh an A and an O, and oh, how I wanted to use “FAFO.”) Anyway, Virgil returns all greetings. When I got back I noticed I have some deep purple irises blooming in a flowerbox at the far corner of my front yard. I’m supposed to have one more day before it starts raining again, so maybe I can get out there and brng a couple in. Only one iris has showed up in the bed by the porch, and right now it has zero buds, and isn’t very tall, but looks healthy otherwise. I scraped a little dirt away to try to get some sun on the rhizome, which hs necessary for them to bloom. We had had so much rain last week that the earth was still soft, and so much dryness today that I could use my fingers without getting muddy. I don’t know whether I did it soon enough or well enough – we’ll have to wait and see. I do want to share a delightful graduation photo of Mary Trump’s daughter Avary, which she posted oon Twitter and someone shared at DU. Mary Trump’s father was a decent human being,unlike the rest of the family that we know of, so of course she is too and I assume her daughter as well.
Cartoon – 22 abraham-lincoln
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Media Matters – Conservative pundits are increasingly open about who they think should be killed
Quote – The two stories illustrate a growing trend in right-wing media to argue that the deaths of marginalized and criminalized populations are not only justified but actually desirable, whether those killings are carried out by the state or by vigilantes. Bloodlust is nothing new in right-wing media. From the proto-fascist Father Charles Coughlin through Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, conservative pundits and writers frequently fantasize about violence aimed at their political opponents or marginalized people. In 1989, Donald Trump, who was a media personality for decades before entering politics, called for the execution of the wrongly convicted Central Park Five, a group of Black and Latino teenagers railroaded into false confessions by the New York Police Department. The conservative ecosystem made a celebrity of Kyle Rittenhouse — who killed two people and injured a third during an August 2020 Black Lives Matter demonstration in Kenosha, Wisconsin — and tried to justify the killings of Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, and Eric Garner. Click through for article. I think I agree that it’s getting worse, but for me it’s just an impression since I, as the saying goes, “don’t watch Fox for the same reason I don’t eat out of the toilet.”
https://crooksandliars.com/2023/05/republicans-take-next-step-book-ban-laws Crooks & Liars – Republicans Take Next Step In Book Ban Laws: Jailing Librarians
Quote – Terrorizing librarians is the obvious point. If they face terrible consequences from putting any books on shelves that someone might find “harmful,” they’re more likely to avoid any risk of that in the first place. Or to put it another way, the censorship will stop before the material is on the shelf. Click through for story. I knw, I know, this has been going on for centuries And it’s stil awful, and it’s never going to be anythng other than awful.
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
Back in the day, when i was doing shift work, I cconsidered it a matter of principle to volunteer to work holiday shifts so the at least one person with children would not have to. I would have been very unhappy, to put it mildly, if an employer had wanted to impose that on me. But a case currently in oral arguments a SCOTUS is apparently considering permiting exactly that.
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Co-workers could bear costs of accommodating religious employees in the workplace if Supreme Court tosses out 46-year-old precedent
The Supreme Court may require employers to be more accommodating to religious requests in the workplace. Victor Plop/500px via Getty Images
The Supreme Court may soon transform the role of faith in the workplace, which could have the effect of elevating the rights of religious workers at the expense of co-workers.
On April 18, 2023, the court heard oral arguments in Groff v. DeJoy, a case addressing an employer’s obligation to accommodate religious employees’ requests under federal law. The dispute involves a Christian postal worker who quit his job and sued the U.S. Postal Service after he was unable to find coverage for his Sunday shifts. Current law requires employers to make accommodations for workers’ religious requests only if doing so doesn’t impose more than a minimal cost on their business, known as the “de minimis” standard.
After listening to the oral arguments in the case, I believe it’s very likely the court will overturn the de minimis standard and require employers to accommodate more religious requests. As Justice Gorsuch stated, “I think there’s common ground that de minimis can’t be the test, in isolation at least, because Congress doesn’t pass civil rights legislation to have de minimis effect, right?”
In my view, as a scholar of employment discrimination, the only questions are how far the justices will go – and who will ultimately pay the price.
Religious rights in the workplace
Employers are required to accommodate the religious needs of employees under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, so long as they can do so without imposing an “undue hardship.”
Congress didn’t define what that term meant, and it took another dozen years for the U.S. Supreme Court to do so in Trans World Airlines v. Haridson. The court determined that Title VII does not require employers to bear more than a “de minimis” or minimal cost in accommodating religious employees.
Relying on this narrow decision, employees requesting religious accommodation in the workplace have generally fared poorly in the courts. Supporters of more religious accommodation in the workplace have tried many times to amend Title VII to redefine undue hardship as a “significant difficulty or expense.”
From 1994 to 2013, over a dozen bills attempting to codify this definition were introduced in Congress, with none coming close to passage. After failing to persuade Congress to amend Title VII, religious advocates turned to the Supreme Court. However, the court’s decision to hear this case is highly unusual, since it suggests it is considering overturning its own long-standing precedent.
The other key issue in the case is whether or not a religious accommodation that imposes on co-workers can count as an undue hardship on the employer.
Since Trans World Airlines v. Haridson, most federal appellate courts have determined that accommodations affecting religious employees’ co-workers – such as those requiring them to take over undesirable weekend shifts – can be an undue hardship, even if the business is not directly harmed. In practice, that has made it easier for an employer to avoid accommodating a religious request.
Business interests vs. religious rights
Ultimately, the Groff case pits business interests against religious rights. That presents a unique dilemma for the current court led by Chief Justice John Roberts, which is both the most pro-business and the most pro-religion court in recent memory.
One way to resolve these two apparently competing interests would be to overturn the de minimis standard and require employers to provide greater accommodation to religious employees while allowing employers to sometimes shift this cost to co-workers.
Based on what the justices said at the hearing and their discussion about accommodations that affect worker morale, I believe it’s likely that that’s exactly what the Supreme Court is going to do. That would have the effect of dramatically limiting employee rights.
Take, for example, one common type of accommodation request, which is time off from work for religious observance.
In those cases, either co-workers can bear the cost of accommodation, by covering for the religious employee without necessarily earning more income, or the employer can bear the cost of accommodation, by hiring additional workers, paying premium wages or suffering a loss of productivity. If the Supreme Court determines that a cost to co-workers alone can never be an undue hardship under Title VII, employers would likely shift the cost of accommodation onto co-workers – for example, requiring them to work an undesirable weekend shift.
Unless an accommodation also leads to a significant difficulty or expense on the business itself – such as through a loss of productivity or efficiency – harm to co-workers would never be a justification for denying an accommodation, as it has been in most federal appellate courts.
The court could promote employees’ religious rights at the expense of their LGBTQ colleagues. AP Photo/Susan Walsh
Co-workers bearing the brunt
Co-workers could also be harmed in cases involving accommodation of religious expression. This is of particular concern in cases in which religious expression demeans LGBTQ+ people.
In 2004, the 9th Circuit determined that it would pose an undue hardship and be demeaning to co-workers for a religious employee to post in his cubicle the Bible verse “If a man also lie with mankind … both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death.”
Yet if the Supreme Court broadens the definition of undue hardship and determines costs to co-workers alone never create an undue hardship, employers might be required – by a civil rights law originally aimed at prohibiting employment discrimination – to accommodate religious expression that demeans LGBTQ+ employees.
Assuming the Supreme Court decides this case as expected, the losers would be co-workers who will bear the brunt of the increased religious accommodation requirement. And the Roberts court would maintain its status as one of the most pro-business and pro-religion courts in modern times.
============================================================== Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, at this point, it is quite premature to try to predict what the court eill do. But the author of this article was concerned enough to write it as a caution, and it would not hurt to consider thr possibilities.
Yesterday, The radio opera was Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.” Of course everyone knows the legend of Don Juan, the great seducer, and that the story has many variations, including laughs in some (Mozart called it a “drama giocoso,”and yes, that’s “joke” in the “giocoso.” It’s one of the operas studied in “Music Appreciation” classes, and it’s frequently performed, and I really thought I knew it until a week or two ago the broadcast had a “Singers’ Round Table” – a feature in which singers discuss how they appraoch their roles, how they prepare, what the latest director has come up with, and the like. Two of the singers were two of the sopranos in this broadcast, and one of them caught my attention by saying (of course I paraphrase) “It’s not just that Giovann’s a bad man – its that he ruins everything. He comes into a room and cjaos comes with him.” Prior to this, I had not thought of Don Giovanni as a Republican. Now that it’s been pointed out, I definitely see it. Seeing Giovanni as a Republican gave me an additional new insight – at the end when he defies the Commendatore’s ghost, he’s often portrayed as “Well, he’s awful, but atleast he’s brave.” No, he’s not. To be bravr, one needs to overcome fear, and the only thing he’s afraid of is looking weak, which he thinks he would if he admits he’s wrong or even just not perfect. So he caves in to that fear and just doubles down. And incidentally enters the “find out” stage of FAFO. Incidentally, I learned of a new job in the world of opera. In addition to the Director, most operas require a chorus director, and many require a fight director. But this is the first I have heard of an “intimacy director.” I wonder what the qualifications are. Well, I’m off to see Virgil. I’ll report my safe return as soon as I can.
Cartoon – 21 Alexander Nevsky
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Crooks & Liars – George Santos’ Comms Director Roots For His Expulsion, Resigns
Quote – She resigned by email, writing “Unfortunately, you never took one point of professional advice given.”… “With respect for my colleagues, the people of New York, and most importantly, myself, I am honored to tender my resignation,” Woomer said in her resignation email. Click through for story. Oddly, she doesn’r seem to have said anything about not getting paid. But I doubt she did. At least not in full.
Wonkette – Of Course The ‘Homeless Vets Displaced For Immigrants’ Story Is A Hoax
Quote – At no point did any of these people take a moment to ask themselves, “Why would anyone do something that would obviously garner so much bad publicity by kicking unhoused veterans out of those specific hotels when there are obviously many, many other hotels and motels throughout New York state?” Clearly, not one of them considered the wise words of the great American jurist Judge Judith Sheindlin here — “If it doesn’t make sense, it’s usually not true.” It did not make sense. And it wasn’t true, which was quickly discovered after the hotels in question were asked about it. The whole thing was a hoax cooked up by Sharon Toney-Finch, whose only excuse now is that she thought it would help the imaginary veterans who were kicked out of their imaginary hotel rooms in order to be cruelly displaced by imaginary immigrants. Click through. I’d seen this a couple of places and decided to share it from Wonkette, which gives it the sarcasm it deserves.
