Just finished this. Show about a guy and his stalker based on a true story. Was really good. Highly recommend.

One of the most liberal appellate courts in the country has ruled that a Catholic high school could fire a teacher for marrying another man, a victory for conservative and religious advocacy groups that have pushed back against anti-discrimination law.

The unusual decision came from three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which in recent weeks has issued two major rulings in favor of transgender rights. Crossing ideological lines, a Biden and a Reagan appointee joined to warn that a Clinton appointee’s view of the case would put hundreds of thousands of people at risk of losing their jobs based on their sex, race or age.

The court ruled that Lonnie Billard, who taught English and drama before becoming a substitute teacher at a Catholic high school in Charlotte, counts as a “minister” who can be fired for not adhering to the Church’s religious beliefs on homosexuality.



“This is a massive victory,” said Luke Goodrich of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, who argued the case. No other court, he said, had ruled that a substitute teacher who did not teach religious classes counted as a “minister.” “Under the logic of this ruling, almost every teacher at almost every religious school” could be dismissed for “violating core religious beliefs.”
Billard announced on Facebook in October 2014 that he was engaged to his partner of 14 years, about two weeks after same-sex marriage became legal in North Carolina. He was subsequently let go from his job. The American Civil Liberties Union backed his lawsuit alleging sex discrimination.


The Supreme Court in 2020 set out a broad “ministerial exception” to anti-discrimination laws, saying that under the First Amendment, religious organizations can decide who represents the faith. But the court also ruled recently that federal civil rights law protects gay and transgender workers from discrimination. Conservative religious groups have argued that after that ruling, the ministerial exception must be even broader to allow them to maintain their belief that homosexuality and gender transition are sinful.



Charlotte Catholic High School actually denied that Billard was a minister. Teachers of secular subjects at the school do not have to be Catholic and are generally discouraged from discussing religion with students, according to the court record.
But the judges concluded that Billard was still “a vital role as a messenger of [the school’s] faith.” Teachers at the school were scored in their annual evaluations on whether their lesson plans were “agreeable with Catholic thought.” Billard testified that he coordinated with religion teachers to make sure his teaching of plays like “Romeo and Juliet” were “in tune” with the doctrine. Classes began with a prayer, and Billard took his students to Mass.
All that, the court argued, made him a minister who could be let go for failing to, in the school’s view, properly represent Catholicism.



While the decision is a blow to gay rights and free speech groups that represented Billard, the court said it was avoiding a legal theory that could have led to more widespread discrimination. The school had argued that a religious institution has a right to fire any employee who they see as contradicting their beliefs, whether that person is a minister or not.
Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that a wedding business owner could refuse to do work for a same-sex couple under the First Amendment’s free speech protections. The school argued that the ruling also helped its case, and that a church school has a related right to choose not to “associate” with gay people. But the school’s primary argument was that Billard’s firing fell under a different exception written into federal civil rights law — that faith groups can choose to employ “individuals of a particular religion.” A district court in Texas has agreed with that interpretation.
A ruling in favor of the school on those grounds could legalize not just firing of gay employees but “race and national-origin discrimination” as well, the majority said, as long as the decision was justified on religious grounds. “We have understood that exemption to operate as a defense only to claims of religious discrimination — allowing religious institutions to favor co-religionists in hiring — and not to claims of race or sex discrimination,” they said.



The ruling was written by Judge Pamela Harris, a Biden appointee, and joined by Paul V. Niemeyer, a Reagan appointee. In dissent, Judge Robert B. King, a Clinton appointee, wrote that he agreed with the decision but said the court was “obliged” to rule that the exception to federal civil rights law barring employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin applies. He did not respond to the majority’s argument that his interpretation would allow for racial and ethnic discrimination.
Goodrich dismissed those arguments as strawmen. “You haven’t seen any of those hypotheticals manifest, and there’s multiple reasons for that,” he said, including that other federal laws explicitly bar racial and ethnic bias in employment. When the court held public arguments over this case last year, Harris suggested those are also under threat. The Trump administration tried to limit enforcement of one law Goodrich cited; the Supreme Court recently raised the bar for proving bias under another.
“That is very much an active issue,” Harris said. “I don’t think we should consider that sort of a stable area of the law.”



But Goodrich argued that religious justifications for firings are rare, while a broader ministerial exception gives religious groups far more power to fire employees without fear of a lawsuit. The Supreme Court has ruled it applies to claims of discrimination based on age or disability.

Under this ruling, he said, “the vast majority of claims are barred for pretty much every teacher in every religious school.”

Bar fights aren’t what they used to be

Shooting at Buckhead club leaves 2 dead, 4 injured overnight: Atlanta Police

Login to view embedded media

Incredibly influential. And the source of many glimpses of bared breasts in my formative years. Died at 98.

SIAP

Happy Mother’s Day!

Forgotten songs thread got me thinking, here are a few of my favorites:
Login to view embedded media Login to view embedded media Login to view embedded media Login to view embedded media Login to view embedded media

Enjoy your special day!

A lot of countries still do this and most, obviously not all, are pretty solid overall. Would help solve a lot of equitable situations the US has if it was enforced. I know both sides of poor and rich would figure a way to dodge; but, would give a lot of kids a purpose and insurance.

I think it would be amazing if we required two years of service.

Just finished watching the end again. What a great movie. I highly recommend it to those that have not seen it.

Most strikeouts in over 20 years. I think 25 years since that mark was matched. He's being disrespected but the stats and wins say otherwise

Not a great movie, but it did remind me that Seinfeld is a terrible, terrible actor.

Which one of you did this?! 😂

Login to view embedded media

When I was 7 years old, my Aunt (no pics) got a small fluffy white dog. My brother and I were obsessed with her and I asked my Dad every night for a year if we could get our own dog. My parent's owned a crazy Cocker Spaniel and Dalmatian they had to re-home years earlier so they weren't too keen on getting another dog.

Fast forward to one summer later. I was at my parent's beach house in Delaware with two friends and my Dad drove down.

Everyone was outside and I walked out. My Dad was holding a blue leash attached to an adult Collie that looked just like Lassie. I was shocked. I asked him: "What is that?" He said: "He's your new dog."

I was so shocked I went inside and vomited in the bathroom. 😆

What was the greatest day of your life?


Login to view embedded media

Man, isn’t it about time to dump this silly tradition? When cards were $2 or $3 fine, but now they’re up to $7-8!

Who’s with me?

A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the U.S. government from trying to limit credit card late fees, siding with banks and other business lobbyists that had challenged the policy as unconstitutional.

Get a curated selection of 10 of our best stories in your inbox every weekend.

The cap on penalties was set to take effect next week, but the new ruling from U.S. District Judge Mark T. Pittman, nominated by President Donald Trump in 2019, would block swift financial relief for millions of Americans who have fallen behind on their bills.

Under the contested policy, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sought to restrict most penalties for late or missed credit card payments to $8 per month, unless banks could point to data showing that they needed to charge more to make up for their financial losses.

The regulations aimed to close a loophole in federal law that had allowed some companies to charge an average of $32 a month in late fees, enriching an industry that reaped $14 billion in such payments in 2022, the CFPB found.


“The American people are tired of being played for suckers,” President Biden said in March as the agency unveiled its plans.
But major banks and credit card companies sharply opposed any limits on what they could charge late borrowers. After an unsuccessful, year-long lobbying campaign to deter the CFPB, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce joined bank lobbyists and other groups in suing the government this spring, stressing that fees are essential for “deterring late payments.”

On Friday, Pittman granted those lobbying groups’ requests, temporarily halting a policy that would have taken effect May 14. The decision in the Northern District of Texas marked a major early win for Bank of America, Capital One, Citibank and JPMorgan Chase, whose executives serve on the boards of directors for the organizations that sued the government, including the American Bankers Association and the Consumer Bankers Association.


The temporary injunction buys more time for the two sides to argue over the merits of the rules in court. The battle already has been mired in politics and controversy, amid ethics complaints about judges’ stock holdings and fights within the judicial system over who should have the authority to review the case in the first place.

The decision comes as the future of the CFPB itself remains unsettled, hinging on a pivotal Supreme Court case challenging the agency’s funding that is expected to be decided in the coming weeks.

Can’t be surprised though… the greatest rock’n roll show band ever! Sounds like their Hackney Diamond tour will be their best yet!
God bless ‘boomers!
I got my tix for Chicago, end of June! See ya there! (Apparently it will be the best $2k I will have spent since my last divorce!).

Sioux County, for example

Date: Feb. 27, 2024

Sale price: $29,600

Corn Suitability Rating Index (CSR2): 99.7 and 99.1

Selling via the buyer’s choice auction method, 117.41 acres in two separate tracts were sold near Orange City, Iowa. Tract 1 consisted of 40 acres, with 39.50 tillable acres. Tract 2 consisted of 77.41 acres, with 76.44 tillable acres. Both tracts sold for $29,600 per acre for a total price of about $3.5 million. That came out to $301 per point for Tract 1, and $302 per point for Tract 2.

Both tracts had easements with Summit Carbon Solutions, a carbon pipeline company.

A Georgia Republican official who pushed false claims that the 2020 election was “stolen” was found to have voted illegally nine times, a judge ruled this week.
Brian Pritchard, first vice chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, was ordered to pay a $5,000 fine, as well as investigative costs, and be publicly reprimanded.


Cut through the 2024 election noise. Get The Campaign Moment newsletter.

Pritchard had been sentenced in 1996 in Pennsylvania to three years’ probation for felony check forgery charges. His probation was revoked three times — once in 1999, after he moved to Georgia, and again in 2002 and 2004. In 2004, a judge imposed a new seven-year probationary sentence on Pritchard, thus making him ineligible to vote until at least 2011 in Georgia, where state law prohibits felons from voting.

Despite that, court documents showed that Pritchard signed voter registration forms in 2008 in which he affirmed that he was “not serving a sentence for having been convicted of a felony involving moral turpitude.” He then cast ballots in four Georgia primary and general elections in 2008, as well as five special, primary and general elections in 2010.


According to court documents, Pritchard testified that he thought his felony sentence had ended in 1999.

Follow Election 2024
“Do you think the first time I voted, I said, ‘Oh, I got away with it. Let’s do it eight more times?' ” Pritchard said, as reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Representatives for the Georgia GOP and for Pritchard’s attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Pritchard is a conservative talk show host and the owner of fetchyournews.com, which he has described as a conservative political news site. He also ran unsuccessfully in a special election for a Georgia Capitol seat last year.
In a 2022 story for his website, Pritchard railed against those who had alleged he had voted illegally, accusing them in turn of trying to “manipulate an election.” He also maintained he had done nothing wrong.


“Yes, for those who think a person charged with a felony can’t vote, wrong. First, in the state of Pennsylvania the only time you lose your voting rights is if you are incarcerated,” Pritchard wrote. “Considering I have never spent a night in jail in my entire life …(can everyone say that) I never lost my voting rights in PA. Once your sentence has expired you can vote in the state of Georgia. Yes it’s true!”

Pritchard has also touted former president Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him. In a 2022 episode of his talk show, Pritchard criticized the “corrupt media” and Georgia election officials for being “complicit” in what he called stealing the election.
“I do not believe 81 million people voted for this guy,” Pritchard said, referring to President Biden.
In a questionnaire he filled out while running for first vice chairman of the Georgia GOP last year, Pritchard said he hoped to “leverage the influence of the grassroots conservative movement to improve election integrity.”

Good stuff. Paul Pelosi looks like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world lol

Login to view embedded media Login to view embedded media