… Students pay $$ for this ?? [#thanksMichelleObama]…

.. I thus add my own voice to those of the students …

.. to think young people [even little kids] are getting lunches like the one pictured below …

.. [h/t — TruthRevolt.org]…
.. [link] to the blog news …

.. Michelle & Company think that something like this piece of crap is a ” healthy lunch ? ” …. You have to be kidding ? …

.. if you are going to feed kids , feed them , or let them bring their own bag lunches . Somehow , given the pittance that these kids get in school , and what they have found out , I have to think that mothers nationwide are furious about this . Feeding their kids this little , for what they are charged , is the height of outrageous ….

… Well , His Lordship Loses Again [#exec action][#immigration][#appeals court]…

.. yep , he lost again ..

.. in a 2 to 1 decision , POTUS had his request for the injunction on his policy change on DAPA [and DACA] to be lifted . The court heard the request . The court majority [the 2 judges] said no ..

.. they said that there was no reason to lift the injunction [it was granted properly] . Also , the case for which the injuction that was granted is still at the district court level . Judge Andrew Hanen of the 5th Circuit still has the case in his court . Also was it most important is whether the Government has the possibility of winning the case on the merits …

.. [h/t — McClatchyDC.com]..
.. [link] to the news story ..

.. the court said the likelihood was no .

… Victory in Court [#7th Circuit]…

.. the state of Wisconsin gets its Voter ID law back …

.. better yet , the court was very harsh , both on the district court judge , and on the plaintiffs in the case …

.. [h/t — RightWisconsin.com]..
.. [link] to the court decision …

.. the district court judge [a Bill Clinton appointee] was reamed out by the appeallate judges . The appeals judges bawled out the judge for completely and totally ignoring both pending 7th Circuit precedent , as well as US Supreme Court precedent ….

.. Stare Decisis [court precedent] is important for a court . A judge is supposed to follow court precedent . A judge is supposed to have a very , very important reason (or set of reasons) to ignore it or overturn it . In the Wisconsin Voter ID case , the circuit judge totally blew it off . That is a very big blunder for a district court judge . Higher ups can try that stunt , but not the lower court ….

.. also , the appeallate judges were very harsh in their judgements towards the plaintiffs . The plaintiffs argue both disparate impact theory , as well as Voting Rights Act violations . The judges were totally on point on crushing both arguments . The big problem in both cases is that intent is required . Disparate Impact theory does not even require intent . So , out the door it goes …

… A Leader knows that he / she Must make a Decision [#leadership]…

.. being a leader is about needing to make a decision .

.. sometimes you have the time to make a cautious and deliberative decision ..

.. sometimes you do not …

.. also , you need to know what you know , and what you do not know .

.. supreme arrogance is not a good idea ..

.. unfortunately , Obama has it , and that is a big problem ..

.. [h/t — americanglob.com]..
.. [link] to the commentary segment …

.. His Lordship cannot make a decision to save his life .

.. may God in heaven help us all …

… A Unique Dissent [#Hobby Lobby]…

.. you will find , sometimes , that judges or justices will absent themselves from parts of an opinion ..

.. it is rare at the appeals level .

.. However , it is much more common at the US Supreme Court . Sometimes , one justice has a different interpretation of the fact pattern from another . When they do , it can leade to a slightly different result …

.. the Hobby Lobby case is a case in point . Justices Breyer and Kagan absented themselves from part of Justice Ginsberg ‘ s dissent …

.. [h/t — m.NationalReview(BenchMemos)]..
.. [link] to the fact pattern …

In their one-paragraph dissent, Justices Breyer and Kagan say this (and this is their opinion in its entirety):

We agree with JUSTICE GINSBURG that the plaintiffs’ challenge to the contraceptive coverage requirement fails on the merits. We need not and do not decide whether either for-profit corporations or their owners may bring claims under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. Accordingly, we join all but Part III–C–1 of JUSTICE GINSBURG’s dissenting opinion.

Part III-C-1 of Justice Ginsburg’s opinion, concerning the rights of for-profit corporations, runs from page 13 to page 20 of her 35-page opinion, or about 20% of it.  There is no section of her opinion that is longer than this one.  Announcing that they do not join this part is the only reason for Breyer and Kagan to write separately.  They express neither disagreement nor agreement with the contrary conclusion of the Court that such corporations are protected under RFRA.  But it is very, very good news that there are only two justices on the Court–only Ginsburg and Sotomayor–who are willing to make the transparently bad argument that when you go into business for a profit under the corporate form, you lose your religious freedom under the law.

.. in this case , these two differed from the resulting judgement of the case . They did not agree with the majority opinion . However , they differed with Justice Ginsberg in one important section .. corporations and religious rights . Ginsberg does not evidently believe in them . However , from the writing of their concurring dissent [which is unusual] , they do , however .

.. So , as to the result of religion and corporations , the result of the case [which is all important] is not 5 to 4 . It is actually 5 to 2 , with 2 abstentions . Those abstentions are highly unusual , and with the Supremes , extraordinary …

… Victory at the Supreme Court [#Harris v. Quinn]…

.. hell , yeah !! ..

.. now , Pamela Harris can take care of her son in peace . Also , the unions [the S.E.I.U., in particular] can keep their collective noses out of a a disabled parent ‘ s business , caring for their loved one or elderly relative , in a home setting ..

.. what the public unions have been doing is nothing short of a power play . These are people who receive public subsidy money for taking care of their loved ones in their homes . Even nurses aides and private care nurses are swept up in this powergrab by the public sector unions …

.. [h/t — HotAir]..

.. [link] to  the blog news ..

.. these people are not public employees . They are not hired , fired , or are disciplined by the state or other jurisdiction . They are their own private employer , not anything else …

.. from HotAir …

The decision in this case narrowly centered on that distinction, but offers a window into a path for broader rollbacks of forced participation in PEU funding:

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 and it stopped short of overturning decades of practice that has generally allowed public sector unions of teachers, firefighters and other government workers to pass through their representation costs to nonmembers.

This AP read misses one essential fact from the Harris opinion, which is that it’s not about “nonmembers” at all, but about non-employees. “PAs are much different from public employees,” the court held in the majority opinion. The appellate court had found in favor of Illinois using Abood, which upheld the demand for “agency fees” from employees in a union shop that refused to join the union and/or objected to dues going to political activities. But Abood assumes that the union’s collective bargaining benefits non-members as well as members, which is only true if they have the same employment status.

That’s not the case in Harris, which means that agency fees cannot be collected:

The Illinois Legislature has taken pains to specify that personal assistants are public employees for one purpose only: collective bargaining. For all other pur­poses, Illinois regards the personal assistants as private­ sector employees. This approach has important practical consequences.

For one thing, the State’s authority with respect to these two groups is vastly different. In the case of full-fledged public employees, the State establishes all of the duties imposed on each employee, as well as all of the qualifica­tions needed for each position. The State vets applicants and chooses the employees to be hired. The State provides or arranges for whatever training is needed, and it supervises and evaluates the employees’ job performance and imposes corrective measures if appropriate. If a state employee’s performance is deficient, the State may dis­charge the employee in accordance with whatever proce­dures are required by law.

None of this applies to the PAs, nor does the state assume any liability for the conduct of PAs, either. The intrusion of state-imposed unionization of individual homes and employment would “invite problems,” chiefly on where to draw the lines:

Consider a continuum, ranging, on the one hand, from full-fledged state employees to, on the other hand, individuals who follow a common calling and benefit from advocacy or lobbying conducted by a group to which they do not belong and pay no dues. A State may not force every person who benefits from this group’s efforts to make payments to the group. See Lehnert, 500 U. S., at 556 (opinion of SCALIA, J.). But what if regula­tion of this group is increased? What if the Federal Gov­ernment or a State begins to provide or increases subsidies in this area? At what point, short of the point at which the individuals in question become full-fledged state em­ployees, should Abood apply?

If respondents’ and the dissent’s views were adopted, a host of workers who receive payments from a governmen­tal entity for some sort of service would be candidates for inclusion within Abood’s reach. Medicare-funded home health employees may be one such group. See Brief for Petitioners 51; 42 U. S. C. §1395x(m); 42 CFR §424.22(a). The same goes for adult foster care providers in Oregon
(Ore. Rev. Stat. §443.733 (2013)) and Washington (Wash. Rev. Code §41.56.029 (2012)) and certain workers under the federal Child Care and Development Fund programs (45 CFR §98.2).

Clearly this anticipates a much wider claim of government authority had Harris proceeded along the path granted by the lower courts.

However, the problems for PEUs don’t end there with the Harris opinion. The fate of Abood, which allows for forced collection of agency fees, looks potentially gloomy, depending on whether it gets challenged on its own. Justice Samuel Alito strongly hints that Abood itself might get reversed if directly challenged:

The Abood Court’s analysis is questionable on several grounds. Some of these were noted or apparent at or before the time of the decision, but several have become more evident and troubling in the years since then.

The Abood Court seriously erred in treating Hanson and Street as having all but decided the constitutionality of compulsory payments to a public-sector union. As we have explained, Street was not a constitutional decision at all, and Hanson disposed of the critical question in a single, unsupported sentence that its author essentially aban­doned a few years later. Surely a First Amendment issue of this importance deserved better treatment.

The Abood Court fundamentally misunderstood the holding in Hanson, which was really quite narrow. As the Court made clear in Street, “all that was held in Hanson was that [the RLA] was constitutional in its bare authori­zation of union-shop contracts requiring workers to give ‘financial support’ to unions legally authorized to act as their collective bargaining agents.” 367 U. S., at 749 (emphasis added). In Abood, on the other hand, the State of Michigan did more than simply authorize the imposition of an agency fee. A state instrumentality, the Detroit Board of Education, actually imposed that fee. This pre­sented a very different question.

This case did not challenge Abood but rather its extension to private-sector employees paid in part with subsidies from the state. That’s probably why the 5-4 majority didn’t summon the will to directly address Abood, but Alito has done everything except send semaphore signals to interested parties that might want to take a whack at overturning it. That would address the issues of PEU reform at its core by essentially mandating open shops in public-sector bureaucracies.

The direct ruling on Harris is bad enough for PEUS, but it may mean something worse down the line. For politicians looking to sell out home health-care workers to curry favor with union donors, it’s the end of one part of the gravy train, and an end to a potential line of reasoning that may have trapped a much wider part of the private sector into the government’s web of control and corruption.

Israel vs Iran

… if i were PM Netanyahu , i would not trust Vladimir Vladimirovich any more than i would Barack Hussein (obama) …

… i believe Israel will strike Iran, and soon. How soon? God only knows, but it will likely be before Labour Day (and the Convention(s))..

…Israel does not have the military oomph that we in the US do , but the Israelis have a National Command Authority (Bibi) with “balls,” which we do not…

…Netanyahu will wait as long as he can, but he will go, whether our government or the Russians, the British, the French, or anyone else likes it or not,…

… and when it starts, katey bar the door, because the guns of summer will fly all over the place ….