This being America, no good deed goes unlitigated, but sometimes the good deed still wins. So it is in Michigan, where on Wednesday the state Supreme Court turned a union lawsuit on its head and said the state’s right-to-work law applies to 36,000 government workers.Choice wins one.
In 2012 Michigan passed a right-to work statute that lets workers decide whether to join a union and thus pay union dues. The United Auto Workers (UAW), which represents 17,000 state workers, brought a lawsuit claiming the law doesn’t apply to its members because their employment terms are set by the Michigan Civil Service Commission.
Bad call. The Civil Service Commission had long held that, while public employees could opt out of the union, they had to pay union fees. On Wednesday the Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the commission had no such constitutional authority “to compel civil service employees to make involuntary financial contributions.” Justice Robert Young wrote for the majority that the commission’s rule amounted to a form of taxation, and the power to tax is held exclusively by the legislature.
This is great news for self-government, empowering an elected legislature over courts and an unelected bureaucracy. But it’s even better news for state employees, who will now be able to decide if they want to pay the fees that finance an organization whose purpose and practices they may not support.
Top Pentagon officials plan to meet Monday to lay out the road map for allowing transgender troops to serve openly in the military, a Defense Department official said Wednesday.
Meantime, on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Ash Carter sent a memo to top military brass and civilians formally outlining his plan that would protect transgender troops from being discharged and directs officials to develop a plan within six months to incorporate those troops into the ranks.
How transgender troops will be housed, what uniforms they'll be permitted to wear and what medical treatments they'll be entitled to will be among the key issues for the Pentagon to resolve, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the discussions publicly.
"The working group will start with the assumption that transgender persons can serve openly without adverse impact on military effectiveness and readiness unless and except where objective, practical impediments are identified, and shall present its recommendations to me within 180 days," Carter wrote in his memo.
Clinton thumps Trump 48 - 36 percent. She gets 41 percent to Bush's 42 percent and gets 44 percent to Walker's 43 percent.
Biden tops Trump 49 - 37 percent. He gets 43 percent to Bush's 42 percent and ties Walker 43 - 43 percent.
Sanders beats Trump 45 - 37 percent. Bush edges Sanders 44 - 39 percent and Walker slips past Sanders 42 - 37 percent.
The economic expansion—already the worst on record since World War II—is weaker than previously thought, according to newly revised data.
From 2012 through 2014, the economy grew at an all-too-familiar rate of 2% annually, according to three years of revised figures the Commerce Department released Thursday. That’s a 0.3 percentage point downgrade from prior estimates.
The revisions were released concurrently with the government’s first estimate of second-quarter output.
Since the recession ended in June 2009, the economy has advanced at a 2.2% annual pace through the end of last year. That’s more than a half-percentage point worse than the next-weakest expansion of the past 70 years, the one from 2001 through 2007. While there have been highs and lows in individual quarters, overall the economy has failed to break out of its roughly 2% pattern for six years.
“Black street predators are merely living their preferred lifestyle where property destruction and primitive brutality bring them the sadistic entertainment and power they enjoy,” Newburn said. “What’s worse is that there is nobody in the mainstream media or in political office willing to step up in the light and call the community-killing exactly what it is. Worse yet, they outright lie about these black crimes by using some Orwellian newspeak to redirect accurate descriptions of the predators.
“Cowardice by the power elite fuels the carnage while hastening the death of business and communities. And more blacks will end up dead or in prison.
“As a prison psychologist I've talked with hundreds of young black predators who simply said they "was just havin' fun." They did not have a recognizable conscience, no thoughts of personal responsibility or feelings of guilt or empathy for their victims, nor did they remotely have a grasp of the pain and community destruction they and their "homeboys" caused.
“Having the emotional maturity level of a pre-adolescent, ages 8 to 12 inclusive, they act on emotions, not thought. They are completely infantalized due to never being held accountable for their actions. Because of never having been taught delayed gratification and consideration of others, they also live and act on impulse, never thinking of possible consequences.
“They are classic narcissists where the world must conform to their impulses or demands.
“That the media and political powers are willing to turn a collective blind eye on the pathology helps black crime grow. It demonstrates a tacit acceptance of the mayhem.
“Not accurately reporting the willful destruction and assaults of others by black street predators is a form of caring in their eyes, but it's pathological altruism at its sickest. It's a very sick form of "understanding" under the belief that they are being compassionate toward their imagined put-upon black people as said black people live a libertine lifestyle.
“All they're doing is helping increase the insanity as the black predator knows he covered with a blanket anonymity, and that there is no one in power who will hold him personally responsible. Until they end up dead or in prison, they enjoy the predator lifestyle.”
