The Supreme Court today heard a challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s mandated coverage of contraceptives. Two cases of corporations owned by religious zealots trying to impose their religious beliefs on their employees while claiming their religious rights are being infringed upon (welcome to opposite world) were rolled into this one hearing before the highest court in the land.
It looks like the audio from today’s arguments won’t be posted until Friday. When it is posted, it will be found here.)
Meanwhile, the Obama administration just lifted the ban that kept BP from pursuing new leases in the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon disaster, clearing the way for them to win new leases- including a new tract right near their blown Macondo well.
If we keep this up we’ll likely destroy to food chain so severely we may not need birth control in the future.
Today on the show, Greg Palast joined in to talk about his work investigating the Exxon Valdez disaster that began 25 years ago yesterday. Although he writes about it in Vultures Picnic, Palast has a new article about his investigation on behalf of what happened.
Two decades ago I was the investigator for the legal team that sold you the bullshit that a drunken captain was the principal cause of the Exxon Valdez disaster, the oil tanker crackup that poisoned over a thousand miles of Alaska’s coastline 25 years ago on March 24, 1989.
The truth is far uglier, and the real culprit—British Petroleum, now BP—got away without a scratch to its reputation or to its pocketbook.
And because BP’s willful negligence, prevarications and fraud in the Exxon Valdez spill cost the company nothing, its disdain for the law, for the environment and for the safety of its workers was repeated in the Gulf of Mexico with deadly consequences, resulting, two decades later, in the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
They say history repeats itself. We’re doomed.
All eyes today were on the Supreme Court, where Hobby Lobby and Conseta Wood’s attorney argued that the religious nuts who own those companies should be able to decide what medical and preventive care their employees will get under the health insurance they provide as part of those employees’ compensation, under the guise of religious freedom.
Jessica Mason Pieklo, senior legal analyst for RH Reality Check, wrote a great background piece on the players and the issues, and joined me this morning to discuss it.
And Karin Roland, campaign director at Ultraviolet told us about the video they produced with Lizz Winstead, “Hey Supreme Court: Keep Bosses Out of Our Bedrooms”:
Speaking of Ultraviolet, they also just launched this petition aimed at Florida Governor Rick Scott:
“Angela Corey’s decision to seek a 60-year sentence for Marissa Alexander is a blatant abuse of power. Remove her as state attorney.”
Please sign that now!
