The Myth of Corporate Personhood

In Legal and Illegal, Politics by Pete

Today, instead of handing down the Affordable Care Act opinions like we all wanted, the Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of life without parole for minors, some immigration thing1, and a third case2 which tested some of the boundaries of their 2010 Citizens United ruling. Even if you’re not familiar with Citizens, you’ve probably heard about it. Most likely, you’ve heard people offering various sarcasm and snark about “corporate personhood”. Those who opposed the ruling and what it represents did an exceptional job of driving the narrative about the case toward what turns out to be an absurdist interpretation of the court’s opinion. You see, Citizens actually has a remarkably sane holding. So sane, in fact, that were one to read the …

Starting Over

In Miscellaneous by Pete

I have something of a packrat mentality. If it doesn’t cost much to keep something, why throw it away if there’s even the most remote chance you could get even the slightest use out of it again? Recently, I realized that I had boxes that have been with me for two or three years that have never been opened or unpacked. The things inside — whatever they were — had been completely forgotten about. I still had those things. I still owned them. But there was no way I’d have ever used them. So I purged. I threw away what must have been a dozen giant, black trash bags full of things that I had accumulated and carried around for …