Bobservations

I don’t have a Carlos Tale this week because he’s been busy working on a translation and has been very quiet. But I do have an example of how I will say just about anything …think Sophia, on The Golden Girls, who had a stroke that affected the part of her brain that censors speech; that’s me.

The other day at work my boss’ son was there and he pulled me aside to ask a question and this is what he said:

“Have you heard any rumors going around?”

“Rumors? Here?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it’s a small office in a small town. After we get done talking God and guns all that’s left is gossip.”

“Okay. I’m talking about a rumor about a romantic entanglement between a couple of employees.”

"I’m gonna need more. At least one name—”

“Nah, I shouldn’t say a name.”

I got up to walk away and then it hit me. I turned and said:

“Oh my god, are you talking about your dad and me? I mean, it’s cool, your mom knows.”

Stunned him into silence

Once again Tuxedo has proven that, like his two Dads, he has zero fucks left to give to these anti-masker, anti-vaxxer loons.

Lucky baby.

It was announced yesterday that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and his husband Chasten are set to become parents, and that lucky baby will be calling Pete “Daddy.”

Green is not a good color on me.

Greg Abbott has COVID. He says he’s been vaccinated but, you know, maybe if he’d covered his goddamned face with a mask he might not have contracted the virus.

Stupid is as stupid does, and I do not feel sorry for him. No, ma’am, I do not.

We are planning to replace the carpet in the house with hard wood floors; this has been an ongoing discussion forEVER but now we are ready. For a while, I wanted really dark floors, and was even thinking of going with an almost Black Bamboo style. But times change and so do I, and I have settled on—in our house, while there is input from all parties, I make the design and paint choices because even Carlos says I am better at it—three samples:

Ivory White Bamboo—we love that it’s a sustainable product, and very durable with pets and such. I love the lightness to it.

Natural Hickory—looks very typical in hardwood flooring [a negative in my book] but I love the gray tones, which pick up the gray walls in the living room.

Saddle Hickory—is a bit darker than we liked, and the planks are only about three inches wide, but I like the gray tones in this one, too.

We have a couple of other places to look at, and then we’ll decide, replacing the carpeted living room and hallway, and the :::ak::: parquet in the dining room.

With nearly 60% of Americans fully vaccinated, most of the nation’s blood supply is now coming from donors who have been inoculated. And that has led some patients, well, anti-vaxxer patients, to demand transfusions only from the unvaccinated.

If only there was a vaccine for ignorance.

The other day we couldn’t find Max Goldberg. I thought he’d somehow gotten outside, because he is a creature of habit and either sleeps on our bed, on the floor in the living room, in Carlos’ lap, or else he’s eating.

But try as we might, he was nowhere to be found, and as I was ready to search the yard, Carlos said maybe he was sleeping in the closet. Though I know Max doesn’t do this, I went back to check, and I heard his whiny little ‘mew.’ I called again, and the whiny mew intensified, and that’s when I saw him:

He has decided sleeping in my nightstand behind my books is a new thing.

It’s been said that QAnon nutbag Lauren Boebert gave tours to insurrectionists in the days leading up to the Capital Riots. I don’t know about that—though I wouldn’t be surprised if it was proven true—but I do know that Boebert, in the wake of the Taliban taking over Afghanistan, Tweeted out the following, before deleting it:

“The Taliban are the only people building back better.”

This from an elected official in America. Seriously, Colorado, this s the rabid traitor you elected?

Down in Florida, the Hillsborough County School Board will hold an Emergency School Board Meeting to discuss the best way to mitigate against the spread of the Delta Variant.

Too late, I think, since some 5,599 students and 316 employees in the district are now in isolation or quarantine.

DeathSantis is murdering Florida’s children and no one seems to care.

The Illinois Second District Appellate Court has ruled Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. violated state anti-bias laws by denying a transgender woman employee access to the women’s bathroom:

“[Meggan] Sommerville is female, just like the women who are permitted to use the women’s bathroom. The only reason that Sommerville is barred from using the women’s bathroom is that she is a transgender woman, unlike the other women [at least, as far as Hobby Lobby knows.]”

The ruling upheld a $220,000 judgment for emotional distress and attorneys’ fees against the company.

Good.

Dusty Lachowicz is Grade A beef. A model and fitness trainer from Wisconsin who is based in New York, Dusty has worked with Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein, and recently signed with Ford Models.

The face, the smile, the hair, the hairy chest … oy. And then there’s the love of the underwear shoot and skinny dipping and teasing us with an ass that is as real as it is spectacular.

Plus, you’ll note that Dusty, who just turned twenty-seven … what a baby …  not only loves the great outdoors, building a shelter of twigs, and spear fishing, but he’s equally at home at the sewing machine.

He works hard, he plays hard, he gets me … that's all

Bobservations

Carlos and I decided to make masks for when we venture outdoors into closed settings, like a supermarket. He found a pattern and plan on the CNN website and set about doing it. I followed him into the kitchen and called him ‘Betsy Ross.’

“Who?”

You don’t know Betsy Ross?”

“The lady that sewed the flag.”

“Yes!”

“See, I know my pop culture.”

“That’s not pop culture, that’s history.”

Seriously, he thinks Madonna and Betsy Ross are the same thing.

After defying COVID-19 orders to close their stores, because a craft store is an essential business, and since the CEO’s wife had spoken to God and God told them to stay open, Hobby Lobby will finally shutter itself. But, their employees will not be paid during the closure, you know because God wants Hobby Lobby owner, David Green and his wife to keep their coins.

According to three employees, each speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, managers delivered the news that they would be “furloughed” through at least May 1. One employee said it best:

“My question was, did God tell them they needed to close the stores and not pay us?”

Only the God of profits and wealth, that the Greens listen to.

Rudy Giuliani, who was in the center of the impeachment storm earlier this year as an unpaid private attorney for IMPOTUS is now apparently a doctor? See, Rudy has been touting the use of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug cocktail, that has shown some early promise in treating covid-19, but whose effectiveness has not yet been proved.

Here’s my suggestion: give COVID-19 to Rudy and then feed him that drug, and if it turns him from that Nosferatu-ghoul looking motherfucker into something that resembles a human, then maybe give it to the rest of the world.

Oh, but first, make _____ and his cronies divest their shares in the company that makes hydroxychloroquine. Uh huh, yes, they do.

It’s funny, kinda dumb and, for a few people, terrifying … in an effort to alert residents to a parish-wide curfew in Acadia Parish, Crowley, Louisiana police officers rode around town broadcasting an alarm signal at 9:00 PM … using the alarm from the Purge films.

If you don’t know, The Purge is as series of films where, one day a year, all crimes are legal, including murder.

So, yeah, maybe not the best alarm to sound?

Last week we learned that the _____ Administration was alerted to an impending pandemic as early as January, but guess what? That wasn’t the first time.

In briefings last November to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff and the White House, US intelligence officials warned that COVID-19 “could be a cataclysmic event.”

It appeared in the President’s Daily Brief in early January. He stayed silent until March.

Don’t forget.

Ellen DeGeneres is another multi-millionaire celebrity who wants y’all to know how hard it is staying home …in her $30 million Beverly Hills mansion or her $27 million Montecito estate or her $29 million beach house or … Doing her show from her mansion, Ellen said:’

“This is like being in jail, is what it is…mostly because I’ve been wearing the same clothes for ten days and everyone in here is gay.”

One fan responded:

“Petition to stick her in an actual jail after quarantine is lifted. Just for a month or so, so maybe she can learn something.”

Um, Ellen, love you, most of the time, but this was so out-of-touch and self-entitled. You have homes … giant homes … and all the money you need for food and medicine and anything you want, so to compare it to jail?

Sad.

_____ told his lapdog, and FOX News moronavirous, Sean Hannity that the ventilator situation is in “great shape” … because he heard it was such on Hannity’s show.

Yes. He doesn’t get his facts from staff, or medical personnel, but from a news hack.

Help us all.

And also this week, _____ accused people who vote by mail of “cheating,” even though he votes by mail. Listen to the dumbass trying to explain it:

_____: "I think mail-in voting is horrible, it's corrupt."

Reporter: "You voted by mail in Florida's election last month, didn't you?"

_____: "Sure. I can vote by mail"

Reporter: "How do you reconcile with that?"

_____: "Because I'm allowed to."

Dumb as fuck.

Ryan Barrett. He’s a Brit … love the accent… and a top runway model Ryan who has walked for Dolce and Gabbana, Versace, Vivienne Westwood and Thierry Mugler amongst others. 

But any man who looks that dreamy with his eyes closed … yum.

Ryan is also a potter and with that facial hair, he’s a Hairy Potter. 

Yeah, I went there. I’m locked up with Carlos, three cats and a dog. I need to amuse myself.

Hobby lobby Says 'Come To Work' ... Because God

While most America is self-isolating, one of those essential businesses is telling their employees to come to work … because God.

As of late last week, the Christian owned Hobby Lobby stores were open, and in a letter to employees founder of the chain, David Green, said his wife Barbara is a “prayer warrior” amid “this war with this latest virus,” suggesting that prayer will keep his workers safe, and keep them at work lining his pockets with coins. He said:

 “In her quiet prayer time this past week, the Lord put on Barbara’s heart three profound words to remind us that He’s in control. Guide, Guard, and Groom. We serve a God who will guide us through this storm, who will Guard us as we travel to places never seen before, and who, as a result of this experience, will Groom us to be better than we could have ever thought possible before now.”

So, come to work, Mama needs a new pair of Jimmy Choos and God told her the workers can pay for them.

Hobby Lobby Buys Stolen Goods, Funds Terrorism, All For The Bible

Oops! “Good Christian” arts-and-crafts company Hobby Lobby has been caught smuggling priceless black market Iraqi artifacts into this country for its ... wait for it, like the artifacts, its priceless ... Bible museum. And now Hobby Lobby must pay $3 million in fines, and turn over the stolen goods, to settle a federal case.

In a statement, Hobby Lobby President Steve Green acknowledged "regrettable mistakes":

"We should have exercised more oversight and carefully questioned how the acquisitions were handled."

I guess they didn’t think buying these religious items from some dude in an overcoat who dragged them from the trunk of his car in Alphabet City wasn’t clue enough? I kid; Hobby Lobby went to the Middle East to steal these things.

Green says Hobby Lobby fully cooperated with the investigation ... after they were caught illegally buying these items.

In 2009, Hobby Lobby—best known for its Supreme Court victory in a 2014 religious freedom case over banning their insured employees from using their insurance for contraception—decided to amass a collection of books and artifacts "consistent with the Company’s mission and passion for the Bible" to place in a Bible museum they bankrolled to the tune of $500 million. So they illegally purchased some of their Biblical memorabilia when Green and a consultant traveled to the United Arab Emirates to inspect cuneiform tablets that were thousands of years old, along with engraved seals and the clay impressions they made; Green purchased the looted items for some $1.6 million.

And, you know, most if not all of that wound up in the hands of ISIS, who has received hundreds of millions of dollars annually in funding from selling stolen antiques like the ones acquired by Hobby Lobby on the black market.

Hobby Lobby Funds Terrorism. How’s that for the headline?

According to the civil complaint, an expert, hired by Hobby Lobby, warned Green that there was a risk the items it wanted to buy had been looted; that expert told Green to make sure the country of origin was properly labeled on customs forms. Instead, Green shipped the 5,500 artifacts without proper documentation, with labels describing them as "ceramic tiles" or "samples" from Turkey or Israel.

And Hobby Lobby never even paid the dealer who supposedly owned the items, but instead wired $1.6 million in payments to seven other individuals. So, clearly, they knew they were buying stolen goods, but hey, it’s for a Bible museum so God will not have a problem with it, right?

Green maintains that Hobby Lobby didn't know the items were from Iraq ... but, again, why lie about what they were and where they were from ... and has vowed to put safeguards in place to ensure future acquisitions are properly vetted... so they don’t get caught lying, cheating, and stealing again.

Oh, Hobby Lobby, what would Jesus do with you?

Patheos

NBC News

The Funny Papers

Steve Sack, Jack Ohman, Nate Beeler, Paresh Nath, Clay Bennett, Mike Luckovich, Nick Anderson, Peter Brooks, Rob Rogers

This Is Hobby Lobby

In July 2010, Felicia Allen was hired as a part-time cashier at a Hobby Lobby in Flowood, Mississippi. Soon after she began working, she discovered she was four months’ pregnant with her third child and, because she had only been employed a short time, she did not qualify for leave under the federal Family Medical Leave Act—something Hobby Lobby offers for maternity leave.

Felicia Allen went to her supervisor.

“I asked her would I lose my job due to me being four months and only having five months before I have my child. She told me ‘no.’ I felt like everything was OK. I had talked to my boss, and she let me know that everything would be OK. I would still have my job.”

But five months later, when the time came to take her leave of absence to have her child, that same supervisor told her she would be terminated for taking unpaid time off to have a baby, but she could reapply afterwards if she wanted her job back; side note: she tried to come back to work three weeks after her child was born but she was denied..

“I was like, I can’t get fired. She can’t terminate me because I have to go have my child. I started asking everybody on the job, ‘Can they do this?’ And even the assistant manager who had just got hired [said,] ‘No, that’s not right.’”

And it got worse. The so-called Christian craft store then tried to prevent Felicia Allen from accessing unemployment benefits and she was not allowed to sue the company for those benefits. See, Hobby Lobby, which likes to crow about operating its business based on “Christian” values—like firing a pregnant woman then refusing to rehire her—requires  its employees to sign a binding arbitration agreement saying they cannot sue the company to resolve employment disagreements, but instead go through arbitration. Companies like Hobby Lobby claim arbitration is better for both parties because it tends to take less time and money, and usually employers are required to cover employees’ legal fees.

But Hobby Lobby has a different arbitration policy from most corporations in that it allows for “Christian-influenced” arbitration. The mutual arbitration agreement Felicia Allen signed gives employees the option of an arbitrator through the nonprofit American Arbitration Association [AAA] or the Institute for Christian Conciliation [ICC], run by a nonprofit called Peacemaker Ministries which views arbitration as “a process for reconciling people and resolving disputes out of court in a biblical manner”:

“Generally, Christians are not free to sue other Christians, at least not until they have exhausted the process that Jesus sets forth in Matthew 18:15-20 and 1 Corinthians 6:1-8. God instructs Christians to resolve their disputes within the church itself, with the assistance of other Christians if necessary.”

Christians can’t sue Christians, but Christians can fire a pregnant woman and then tell her she cannot be rehired.

At the end of the arbitration — during which Allen says Hobby Lobby’s corporate office gave a false version of events, claiming she could have taken off personal leave but chose not to — she won her claim for unemployment benefits, but felt she had been wrongly discriminated based on the fact that she was pregnant. And so, in February 2012 she tried to sue, but her lawsuit was dropped because of that arbitration agreement she was forced to sign.

These days Felicia Allen works at Xerox while pursuing an associate’s degree in accounting and says she is through with Hobby Lobby.

“How can you be Christian and lie about something to hinder your employee or don’t want them to come back after they’ve had their baby? Or you’re taking up for your manager knowing that they had done the wrong thing. I feel like that’s not being Christian at all. That’s why I don’t even shop there anymore. I used to shop at that store all the time.”

Naturally, Hobby Lobby has no response because, well, liars and hypocrites. 

source

Think It Can't Happen? Think Again

So, yeah, right after the Supremes ruled that Hobby Lobby, a corporation, could tell their employees what kind of contraceptives they could use—while Hobby Lobby invests in, and profits from, the very contraceptives they are ALLEGEDLY against — Carlos and I wondered about The Gays; specifically the Gays with HIV/AIDS.

What if some corporation decided that their faith said that being gay was a sin, and therefore against the beliefs of that person corporation, and that corporation decided that their healthcare plan wouldn’t pay for their gay employees HIV meds?

I thought, Well, that can’t happen here …

Then I thought again, because, immediately after the SCOTUS decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. a decision celebrated, celebrated, by a number of anti-LGBT activists, the thought has come up. The new Hobby Lobby decision could very well have an impact on Truvada, a controversial "miracle drug" that blocks HIV infection and may revolutionize the battle against HIV/AIDS.

When taken properly, Truvada — a pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) treatment combining two different antivirals, for use by patients deemed at risk for HIV/AIDS — reduces the risk of HIV by more than 99% effective.

However, with our new SCOTUS ruling that corporations are people and their corporate religious beliefs can impact their healthcare choices and options, perhaps Truvada might not be allowed under certain corporations healthcare plans because, well, God and The Gays.

Back in April, USA Today ran a piece on the similarities between the controversy surrounding Truvada and conservative opposition to birth control. In that piece, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis noted that the Truvada debate is very similar to the way birth control was viewed by many in the 1960s, who saw it as an excuse for promiscuity; women could run around having all the sex they wanted and never get pregnant because they had The Pill. Now, some folks think that gay men will use Truvada in that same way.

So, again, I wonder, is it any great leap to think that an employer might use his or her faith, using similar arguments to the ones made in the Hobby Lobby case to justify denying health insurance coverage for Truvada.

Think it can’t happen here? Remember how many of us thought the Hobby Lobby case couldn’t happen … until it did.

via Media Matters

The Funny Papers: SCOTUS Gets Lobbied ... Hobby Lobbied