Monthly Archives: June 2014

SCOTUS Strikes Again

Posted on by

The Supreme Court released two decisions this morning, both of them decided along liberal/conservative lines, 5 to 4.  The first decision, from Illinois health care workers against SEIU, sided against the union. It wasn’t unanimous but it was a rebuke to unions planning to expand at the expense of the public. On a 5-4 decisions, SCOTUS says that public service unions like SEIU cannot force non-members to pay dues.

Court: Public union can’t make nonmembers pay fees

By SAM HANANEL, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court dealt a blow to public sector unions Monday, ruling that thousands of home health care workers in Illinois cannot be required to pay fees that help cover the union’s costs of collective bargaining.

In a 5-4 split along ideological lines, the justices said the practice violates the First Amendment rights of nonmembers who disagree with the positions that unions take.

The ruling is a setback for labor unions that have bolstered their ranks – and bank accounts – in Illinois and other states by signing up hundreds of thousands of in-home care workers. It could lead to an exodus of members who will have little incentive to pay dues if nonmembers don’t have to share the burden of union costs.

But the ruling was limited to this particular segment of workers – not private sector unions – and it stopped short of overturning decades of practice that has generally allowed public sector unions to pass through their representation costs to nonmembers.

Writing for the court, Justice Samuel Alito said home care workers are different from other types of government employees because they work primarily for their disabled or elderly customers and do not have most of the rights and benefits of state employees.

You can read the entire article here.

A lawyer friend of mine explained that the defense, the Illinois health care litigators, argued for an exception. Therefore, SCOTUS could only grant that exception. If the grounds of the argument had been wider or on other grounds, the decision could have been different—knocking down all union extortion of dues from non-members…or siding with the union. In any case it was a step in the right direction even it it does apply only to public sector unions.

The second decision announced today is one the religious and 1st Amendment advocates have been waiting for. It is the famous Hobby-Lobby, Mardel and Conestoga suit against HHS that would force these companies to provide contraception insurance against the company owner’s religious views.

Hobby Lobby Wins Contraceptive Ruling in Supreme Court

Jun 30, 2014, 10:25 AM ET

Companies are not required to pay for employees’ contraceptives for women if they have religious objections, the Supreme Court ruled today.

The justices’ decision came in a 5-4 ruling in the much anticipated case.

The court holds: “As applied to closely held corporations the HHS regulations imposing the contraceptive mandate violate RFRA”

Alito wrote that “RFRA applies to regulations that govern the activities of closely held for profit corporations like Conestoga and Hobby Lobby” and the “The HHS contraceptive mandate substantially burdens the exercise of religion.”

“The Government has failed to show that the contraceptive mandate is the least restrict means of furthering that interest,” according to the majority opinion.

Alito wrote that the onwers of Hobby Lobby believe that the coverage required of the health care law “is connected to the destruction of an embryo in a way that is sufficient to make it immoral for them to provide the coverage … HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] has not shown that it lacks other means of achieving its desired goal without imposing a substantial burden on the exercise of religion by the objecting parties in these cases.”

“Protecting the free-exercise rights of corporations like Hobby Lobby, Conestoga and Mardel protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control those FRFR companies,” Alito wrote in the majority opinion.

The rest of the article can be read here.

Justice Ginsberg called Alito’s written decision, ‘radical’. She thinks the 1st Amendment is radical, too. She has said before that she believes the Constitution is not a good example for other countries.

It was not a good day for Obama and his union sycophants. It was a good day for the rest of us. Missouri HB 1617 was passed in this last legislative session and will be put before the voters in the November general election. HB 1617, also known as ‘Paycheck Protection’ will require public service unions in Missouri to acquire written permission to deduct dues and from state employee’s paychecks. The unions will no longer force the state to arbitrarily act as the union’s agent to collect union dues.

As a friend of mine says, “It’s a good day for Liberty!”

Facebook

Election Issue: Sales Tax Increase

Posted on by

August 5, 2014 is the Missouri Primary. In addition to selecting candidates for the general election in November, there are a number of other issues added to the ballot. I’ve mentioned one Missouri Constitutional amendment passed in the legislature as SJR 36. That is Constitutional amendment #5.

There will be another issue on the ballot—raising the sales tax for Transportation. The state and counties like St Louis, has been wasting their highway maintenance money for decades. A couple of years ago, the state started repairing a number of small bridges throughout the state.

St Louis, on the other hand, did not. They just continued to whine for more state money. And…they have the unions and construction companies on their side; lusting after that tax money.

If you read the description from Ballotpedia above and scroll down the page, you will see the list of supporters for this tax increase. There is a wide spread surge of political ads across Missouri in support of this tax increase. Most of the funding is by MISSOURIANS FOR SAFE TRANSPORTATION & NEW JOBS INC. This organization is a front created by the construction unions in Missouri.

I was given a link yesterday that disclosed the contributions to this orgranization. Here is the contributions for one day, June 25, 2014.

C131133 06/26/2014 MISSOURIANS FOR SAFE TRANSPORTATION & NEW JOBS INC The Monarch Cement Company PO Box 1000 Humboldt KS 66748 6/25/2014 $10,000.00
C131133 06/26/2014 MISSOURIANS FOR SAFE TRANSPORTATION & NEW JOBS INC Central Plains Cement LLC 2200 North Courtney Road Sugar Creek MO 64050 6/25/2014 $25,000.00
C131133 06/26/2014 MISSOURIANS FOR SAFE TRANSPORTATION & NEW JOBS INC Ash Grove Cement Company PO Box 25900 Overland Park KS 66225 6/25/2014 $10,000.00
C131133 06/26/2014 MISSOURIANS FOR SAFE TRANSPORTATION & NEW JOBS INC Continental Cement Co LLC 10107 Highway 79 Hannibal MO 63401 6/25/2014 $20,000.00
C131133 06/26/2014 MISSOURIANS FOR SAFE TRANSPORTATION & NEW JOBS INC Pace Construction Company 1620 Woodson Road St Louis MO 63114 6/25/2014 $17,500.00
C131133 06/26/2014 MISSOURIANS FOR SAFE TRANSPORTATION & NEW JOBS INC Massman Construction Co PO Box 8458 Kansas City MO 64114 6/25/2014 $50,000.00

If you add the contributions, it adds up to $132,500 in just one day! If you want a real eye-opener, use the Advanced search option on that webpage, enter the month of June 2014 for the beginning and end search dates, with the Committee ID (MECID) of C131133.

Never let it be said the dems—and a few RINOs, never saw a tax increase they didn’t like. Especially if they can grab some of it for themselves. Unions are having trouble justifying their exorbitant pay scales. Here, they have a captive supplier and they see an opportunity to seize taxpayer money and they’re willing to spend millions to get it.

Facebook

Once is an accident, twice…

Posted on by

Yesterday, SCOTUS announced a unanimous decision against law enforcement searching personal phones without a warrant. That unanimous decision was a rarity.

So we thought.

Two more decisions were announced today. The first was a suit against Obama’s ‘recess’ appointments to the NRLB. The suit contents the appointments were illegal because Congress was not in recess. The Executive, Obama, cannot decide if/when Congress is in recess. Only Congress, the legislative branch, can make that decision. Obama lost 9-0. Another unanimous decision by SCOTUS.

Supreme Court strikes down Obama recess appointments

By JOSH GERSTEIN and JOHN BRESNAHAN | 6/26/14 10:19 AM EDT Updated: 6/26/14 10:39 AM EDT

In a rebuke to President Barack Obama, the Supreme Court struck down three of his recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board as unconstitutional.

The decision gives the Senate broad power to thwart future recess appointments, but did not go as far as some conservatives hoped to undercut the president’s ability to fill vacant executive branch posts and judicial slots.

The court ruled 9-0 that Obama’s appointments were unconstitutional because the Senate was not truly in recess when he made them during a three-day break in pro forma meetings of the Senate.

You can read the entire column here.

The second decision was McCullen v. Coakley. The Massachusetts state government passed a law prohibiting abortion protesters within 35 feet of an abortion facility and expressly banning them from public sidewalks and other public areas. The Court struck down the Massachusetts law, again on a 9-0 vote, as violating the 1st Amendment by prohibiting protests on public property.

U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Mass. Abortion Buffer Zone Law

June 26, 2014 11:30 AM

WASHINGTON (CBS/AP) – The United States Supreme Court has struck down the Massachusetts buffer zone law that excluded protesters outside abortion clinics.

The unanimous decision released Thursday morning overturns the state law setting a 35-foot protest-free zone outside the clinics, saying it violates the First Amendment rights of protesters.

Chief Justice John Roberts said authorities have less intrusive ways to deal with problems outside the clinics.

While the court was unanimous in the outcome, Roberts joined with the four liberal justices to strike down the buffer zone on narrow grounds.

In a separate opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia criticized Roberts’ opinion for carrying forward “this court’s practice of giving abortion-rights advocates a pass when it comes to suppressing the free-speech rights of their opponents.”

Liberal and conservative justices alike expressed misgivings about the law during arguments at the high court back in January.

This is the third unanimous decision released in two days. The old adage, “Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, thrice is a conspiracy.” Some across the country would like to believe the latter, that the liberals on the Court have realized that Obama will not last forever and their fortunes lies elsewhere—they are no longer dependent on Obama.

Another opinion is that the easy decisions are being announced first and the more contentious will be released tomorrow, or next week. They also believe that the unanimous decisions just aren’t all that rare as many believe.

At the Supreme Court, an uptick in unanimity

Richard Wolf, USA TODAY 12:06 a.m. EDT June 22, 2014

WASHINGTON — Amid the discord and dysfunction in the nation’s capital comes this curiosity: a more united Supreme Court.

For the first time under Chief Justice John Roberts, the high court will complete its term June 30 with more than half the cases decided unanimously. Just five years ago, fewer than one-third of the cases carried that distinction.

While the number of 9-0 rulings has grown, the number of 5-4 decisions has shrunk — even though the court has five justices named by Republican presidents and four by Democrats. Only eight cases have come out that way so far; last term, there were 23.

One reason for the Kumbaya quotient: less-controversial cases. The current term does not include anything as divisive as last year’s same-sex marriage, voting rights and affirmative action cases. Nor does it have a marquee case, such as the 2012 showdown over President Obama’s health-care law.

Another factor could be afoot as well: Roberts has strived for agreement among the justices whenever possible, often by steering the court toward narrow rather than sweeping verdicts.

“It seems to me that Roberts deserves at least some of the credit,” says Michael McConnell, a former U.S. Court of Appeals judge now teaching at Stanford Law School.

Out of 57 argued cases that have been decided by the court since October, 36 have produced unanimous judgments. Many of those were in technical areas of the law not prone to ideological division: patents, taxes, bankruptcy, civil and criminal procedure, and matters involving legal jurisdiction.

Yet even on cases involving constitutional issues such as freedom of speech, the court often has spoken with one voice. Justices united this week behind a ruling that political speech is protected even when its accuracy is in doubt; they also voted unanimously against free-speech rights of protesters deemed a potential threat by the Secret Service or military authorities.

Some of the most controversial cases of the term, on the other hand, have been decided narrowly. Those include 5-4 rulings by the court’s conservative majority that allowed wealthy donors to spread more money around political campaigns and Christian clergy to dominate the prayers invoked at local government meetings.

…

Experts on the high court have several theories for the uptick in unanimous rulings. Some cite a large number of concurring opinions from justices who agreed with a ruling’s judgment but for different reasons, rather than dissenting. Others note the number of cases that came to the court with most lower courts in agreement, rather than a deep split. Still others single out seemingly aberrant rulings from appellate courts that cried out for reversal.

Most agree the trend is a result of the cases themselves, rather than any fledgling change in the court’s dynamics. And they warn it may not last — perhaps not even into next week.

Whatever the reason, the sudden unanimity of the Court is surprising to everyone.

Facebook

The Good and the Bad (Updated: 6-25-14 @ 3:00pm)

Posted on by

I like to start out with the good. The Supremes released some decisions this morning, The Supreme Court banned warrantless cell phone searches. It was a win for 4th Amendment and privacy advocates.

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that police cannot go snooping through people’s cell phones without a warrant, in a unanimous decision that amounts to a major statement in favor of privacy rights.

Police agencies had argued that searching through the data on cell phones was no different than asking someone to turn out his pockets, but the justices rejected that, saying a cell phone is more fundamental. — The Washington Times.

The decision was unanimous. That alone is striking. The article says the decision is a clear 21st century update of privacy rights. In answer to LEO questions about searching cellphones, Chief Justice Roberts response was simple, “Get a warrant.” This decision now places cellphones—and the information contained within, in the same category as a person’s home.

“The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the unanimous court.

“Our answer to the question of what police must do before searching a cell phone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple— get a warrant.”

Justices even said police cannot check a cellphone’s call log, saying even those contain more information that just phone numbers, and so perusing them is a violation of privacy that can only be justified with a warrant.

The chief justice said cellphones are different not only because people can carry around so much more data — the equivalent of millions of pages of documents — that police would have access to, but that the data itself is qualitatively different than what someone might otherwise carry.

He said it could lay bare someone’s entire personal history, from their medical records to their “specific movements down to the minute.” — The Washington Times.

There is another similar case winding its way to the Supreme Court. In this case, the device is a laptop instead of a cell phone. A similar case that upheld a ‘legal exception,” known as ‘the border search,’ placed restrictions on searching personal tablets and laptops within 100 miles of the US border.

The decision released today is a win for all of us, regardless.

***

On the other hand, the bad occurred yesterday in Mississippi. Thad Cochran won the run-off election for the GOP Senatorial candidacy. He did so by asking democrats to illegally cross party lines to vote for him. An estimated 35,000 did so.

Congratulations To The GOP Establishment On Their Pyrrhic Victory In Mississippi Yesterday

Written By : John Hawkins, June 25, 2014

Last night, Thad Cochran beat Chris McDaniel in a primary run-off and became the GOP’s Senate candidate in Mississippi.

It wasn’t an honorable victory.

Cochran won by getting Democrats to vote in a Republican primary. This was done by touting his support of food stamps. It was done by paying “walking around money” to buy votes. It was done by smearing Tea Partiers as racists.

That’s what it took to re-elect a senile 76 year old man that few people even believe is mentally capable of serving out another term in the Senate.

The cost of that victory was the integrity, personal honor and reputations of prominent Cochran supporters like Haley Barbour, Karl Rove, Mitch McConnell, John McCain and the NRSC, who were all undoubtedly congratulating each other on their sleazy victory last night, while today they’ll begin to try to distance themselves from the dishonorable conduct they winked at during the campaign. We may never know which of them was ultimately responsible for smearing Tea Partiers as racists or centering the run-off campaign around getting Democrats to vote in a GOP campaign. But what we do know is that if Haley Barbour, Karl Rove, John McCain or the NRSC found it unacceptable, they could have put their foot down and demanded the campaign put a stop to it. None of them did because they were just fine with using those sort of tactics to defeat grassroots conservatives.

In return, they will probably get their doddering moderate senator elected instead of adding another grassroots conservative in D.C. But, the cost will be millions of turned-off conservatives, fund raising hits for the already failing NRSC, and even more animosity and venom between Tea Partiers and the establishment.

What was it King Pyrrhus said after his “victory” over the Romans that cost him many of his best officers and troops?

“One more such victory and we are lost.”

How many more “victories” like the one Thad Cochran won yesterday can the GOP stand without shattering to pieces?

I call myself a conservative. At the moment, my allegiance is to the GOP…at the moment.

The Cochran-McDaniel primary isn’t over yet. McDaniel has not conceded.

MCDANIEL MAY CONTEST RESULTS
After Cochran sealed the GOP nomination Tuesday night, McDaniel spoke to supporters, but did not concede. Instead he spoke of “dozens of irregularities” in Tuesday’s voting. Supporters told Fox News today that McDaniel’s team was up all night looking into whether his campaign should challenge last night’s results. McDaniel backers accuse Cochran of pandering to black Democrats, an incendiary charge in the state with a freighted recent history on race relations. But Cochran’s outreach to black voters is nothing new. In a piece from 1984, NYT reports, “Mr. Cochran assiduously courted the black vote, flooding black radio stations with advertisements featuring ‘The Harrises, Mississippi’s Favorite Family,’ a fictional black family. To the strains of soap opera music, they debated the campaign and concluded that ‘Thad’s all right’ and ‘the other side is lying about him.’”
 
“There is nothing strange at all about standing as people of faith for our country that we built, that we believe in. But there is something a bit strange, there is something a bit unusual about a Republican primary that is decided by liberal democrats.” –Challenger Chris McDaniel’s election night speech. — FOX News First, By Chris Stirewalt, June 25, 2014.

 

Update: McDaniel will contest the election.

More and more conservatives, Shawn Hannity among them, are calling for a third party. I’m not in that party controlled socialism to corporate socialism, I’ll have to look for an alternative. At times like this, that decision point seems to be getting closer every day.

 

Facebook

Driving Ms K…

Posted on by

I’m playing chauffeur this morning. That’s OK, no topic caught my eye for a post anyway. See y’all tomorrow.

Facebook

Did you know…?

Posted on by

…that the 2nd Amendment does not protect hunting nor hunters? According to one Federal Judge, it does not.

http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140509023613/vsbattles/images/8/8f/Elmer_fudd-2.jpgHave you heard the term, “Zumbo” or “Fudd?” It refers to the cartoon character, Elmer Fudd. Second Amendment rights activists use it in another form.

Fudd: Slang term for a “casual” gun owner; eg; a person who typically only owns guns for hunting or shotgun sports and does not truly believe in the true premise of the second amendment. These people also generally treat owners/users of so called “non sporting” firearms like handguns or semiautomatic rifles with unwarranted scorn or contempt.

I’ve not heard of any Second Amendment supporter use the term. I can understand how it could be used when we have hunters and hunter advocates support gun control. If it doesn’t affect hunting and hunters, they aren’t concerned. After all, an AR isn’t a hunting rifle (tell that to numerous varmint hunters!)

A legal case about hunting came before a Judge. The hunters attempted to use the 2nd Amendment in their case. The Judge ruled the 2nd Amendment didn’t apply to hunting.

Judge Rules That The Second Amendment Doesn’t Protect Hunting

Posted by on June 19, 2014 at 5:29 pm

“Fudd” isn’t exactly a term of endearment.

Fudds are generally uninterested in the Second Amendment, and are therefore the favorite of anti-gun politicians and the news media, like this collection of Fudds in a recent Jamie Tarabay article used to attack the National Rifle Association. They could generally care less about fighting for gun rights, because they assume that their guns are safe.

How is that working out for you now, Elmer?

A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit by a hunters’ group that had challenged Pennsylvania’s long-standing ban on Sunday hunting, saying she saw no proof the hunters’ constitutionally protected rights were being harmed.

U.S. District Judge Yvette Kane made the ruling in a suit brought by the Lancaster County-based Hunters United for Sunday Hunting against the Pennsylvania Game Commission, the agency that enforces the state’s game code.

Kane said she could find no proof that courts have extended Second Amendment protections to include recreational hunting. She also found that the hunters could not prove that the law unfairly discriminated between classes of hunters or that the ban on Sunday hunting violates their religious freedoms.

As stunning as this is for the Fudds, the ruling must be even more perplexing for gun control cultists. They’ve spent the last 30 or more years arguing that if the Second Amendment applied at all outside of their collectivist interpretation, then surely, the Second Amendment only applied for the purposes of hunting.

Now a federal judge has knocked over that strawman, and stomped that sucker flat.

It’s going to be interesting to see if this ruling registers with the gun controllers—my guess is that they’ll ignore it entirely, since it is inconvenient—but even more interesting to see if this has any effect on the Fudds, who are probably going to find out that they aren’t the “protected species” that they always assumed that they were.

When you hear hunters support gun control, tell them about this. They have as much invested in a strong 2nd Amendment as do the rest of us.

Facebook

Life interrupted

Posted on by

Sigh…

I had the morning all planned—wake, shower, breakfast, write blog—then the phone rang. It must have been my morning for phone calls. First one, then another…and another. None were SPAM calls and each took time that I’d budgeted for other tasks.

Please come back Monday. I hope I’ll have a nice post for you.

Facebook