Union Bosses Want Your Personal Info

Fed up with obnoxious telemarketing calls? How would you like to be harassed by union operatives when you answer the phone?

Speaking of regulatory overreach, while no one was paying attention on Friday afternoon, the union stooges on the National Labor Relations Board announced plans to move forward with a rule that will violate the personal privacy of non-unionized employees.

The Strokes of Candor blog has the story:

Undaunted by the constitutionally-questionable recess appointment of three members to Barack Obama’s National Labor Relations Board, union attorney and current NLRB chairman Mark Pearce declared in an Associated Press interview that he and his union comrades are continuing their assault on the 93% of private-sector employees who are union-free.  In fact, if Obama’s union appointees have their way, all employees who are targeted for unionization will have their employers forced to turn over their home telephone number and e-mail addresses to unions...

The depths the NLRB will go to disrupt free enterprise and the backing it gets from Obama is reprehensible and yet another example of this administration’s anti-business sentiment.  God help us from four more years.

Supreme Court Decision is Victory for Religious Liberty

Civil libertarians, including those who aren't religious at all, or perhaps even atheists, would likely applaud the U.S. Supreme Court's recent unanimous decision that protects religious liberty/religious freedom under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

While employers sometimes act in arbitrary (or worse) ways, that does not justify meddling by equally arbitrary (or worse) government bureaucrats, especially given widespread joblessness and economic dislocation.

The First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Under this amendment, federal appeals courts have traditionally recognized a "ministerial exception" that in general exempts religious institutions from employment laws. In Hosanna-Tabor vs. EEOC, the high court formally validated this exception.

In what may be its most significant religious liberty decision in two decades, the Supreme Court on [January 11] for the first time recognized a “ministerial exception” to employment discrimination laws, saying that churches and other religious groups must be free to choose and dismiss their leaders without government interference.

In the 9-0 decision that completed rejected the position taken by Obama administration lawyers, Chief Justice Roberts wrote in part:

Requiring a church to accept or retainan unwanted minister, or punishing a church for failing to do so, intrudes upon more than a mere employment decision. Such action interferes with the internal governanceof the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs. By imposing an unwanted minister, the state infringes the Free Exercise Clause, which protects a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments. According the state the power to determine which individuals will minister to the faithful also violates the Establishment Clause, which prohibits government involvement in such ecclesiastical decisions...

The interest of society in the enforcement of employment discrimination statutes is undoubtedly important.But so too is the interest of religious groups in choosing who will preach their beliefs, teach their faith, and carry out their mission. When a minister who has been fired sues her church alleging that her termination was discriminatory, the First Amendment has struck the balance for us. The church must be free to choose those who will guide it on its way.

This assertion by the Competitive Enterprise Institute is a fitting description of  all the radical, overreaching regulators that have infested this administration.

The extreme position taken by the Obama Justice Department in the Hosanna-Tabor case is a reflection of ideologically-based hiring. Under the Obama administration, the Justice Department has chosen to hire only liberal lawyers, not moderates or conservatives, for key Justice Department posts that are supposed to be non-political career appointments. Although many experienced lawyers are out of work in the current economic slump, the Obama Justice Department has hired many liberals who have no real-world legal experience, rather than hiring based on merit.

Lawyer Sues Ex For Online Posting Claiming He Cheated

Remember that old joke about the fictional law firm by the name of Dewey, Cheatem & Howe?

Well, a prominent Connecticut lawyer is suing two jilted ex-girlfriends for posting negative feedback (is there any other kind?) about his alleged cheating on liarscheatersrus.com--a website that bills itself as "simply a source of support and discussion regarding the topic of infidelity and betrayal of trust."

The attorney's civil lawsuit alleges tortuous interference with prospective business relations.

Regardless of who did what to whom in terms of unfaithfulness, perhaps the most sordid aspect of this dispute is that the women are being representative by publicity seeking ambulance chaser Gloria Allred, who seemingly specializes in press conferences rather than actual appearances in court.

The People's Court: Justice or Just Us?

                                                   photo credit: pvera via photopin cc

$5 million/year for what amounts to a part-time job?

Not bad at all.

That's what former Miami judge Marilyn Milian makes a year for presiding over TV's long-running The People's Court, according to today's New York Post, which claims the show has racheted up the controversy ("harsher and more sexualized in recent years") since the Judge Wapner era.

The Post article delves into how a recent plaintiff has gone to real court to stop an episode from being aired after she was allegedly humilated by the judge. Claudia Evert says that "“It was a nightmare, and I wish I never did it." The article also discusses missing person Michele Parker who disappeared shortly after her contentious appearance in the TV courtroom.

According to the article, the show pays the entire judgment for the loser in cases that originate in real small claims courts around the country as well as a nominal appearance fee to both litigants. This may be a change; some years back we saw a standard contract for the show that set forth a sliding scale of reimbursement based on the judgment amount. Since no money is apparently changing hands between the parties, it's interesting that the litigants still get very fired up when they plead their case on TV.

The long-running show is one of our guilty pleasures. The authors of the Post article aren't particularly enamored, however:

Milian, 50, is the fourth judge in the show’s history, and her immense popularity must be part of some visceral need Americans currently have to be hectored and lectured by well-coiffed middle-aged women (see: Nancy Grace, Judge Judy).

Milian, however, is a far more feminine, flirtatious presence. Although she also exhibits the Grace/Judge Judy brand of explosive, unpredictable female rage, her docket is far more sexed up, it’s cases like mini reality shows.

Our main issue with the show is that the judge sometimes doesn't allow the parties to get a word in edgewise (was that a timer next to her on the bench?). This may also be a function of having the litigants thoroughly pre-interviewed by producers. Yet, as we have written previously...

Okay, so she also showboats, grandstands, and yells at the litigants, and she sometimes even prevents the parties from introducing all of their evidence. Yet, the show is unusually informative for the viewer in that Judge Milian takes the time to explain how the principles of law apply to each case (as does the TMZ guy who does the wrap-around commentary in Times Square).

Another fun aspect of the show is when a plaintiff or defendant claims to have a key piece of evidence that will blow the case wide open, "but I don't have it with me."

Jenny Dell To Replace Heidi Watney on Red Sox TV

Dude, you're getting a Dell.

Jenny Dell, that is.

According to various news outlets, including ESPN Boston, Jenny Dell will become the new Boston Red Sox in-game reporter on the NESN sports network. She replaces Heidi Watney who returned to the left coast.

Keystone Pipeline is Shovel Ready, but Obama Blocks it Anyway

U.S. energy independence is both an economic and a national security issue. Canadian pundit Ezra Levant of the Sun News Network raises a basic question in this video: Why does the Obama administration prefer to buy oil from dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela rather than from our friend and ally Canada via the "shovel ready" Keystone XL Pipeline?

Does blocking the pipeline project make sense to anyone outside of radical environmentalists and other ideologues and cronies whose agenda supersedes the best interests of our country.

Levant: "Obama treats enemies like friends and friends like enemies."

If Prime Minister Stephen Harper does eventually go ahead and sell the oil to China instead, where does that leave us?

 

Writing at Forbes.com, Warren Meyer contends that that environmental impact concerns were exaggerated by those advocating "Medieval Socialism" and that "the Obama Administration could easily have approved the line with conditions or route modifications." Moreover...

The Keystone XL pipeline would have single-handedly carried more energy to the United States than the sum of all the green energy projects funded by the Obama Administration. And it would have done so entirely with private  funds rather than the [Administration's] increasingly ill-fated and ham-handed attempts at venture capitalism with taxpayer funds. The fact of the matter is that, for the foreseeable future, opposing fossil fuels is equivalent to opposing energy use.

Let's stop politicizing science.

The Most Interesting Man in the...South Carolina Primary

   [Image ©Glenn Francis, www.PacificProDigital.com]


GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum this week called front-running rival Mitt Romney "bland and boring."

Would any of remaining candidates, including Mr. Santorum himself, be considered charismatic?

If you were casting for the Dos Equis beer "the most interesting man in the world" radio and TV commercials, would any of these guys qualify?

We do know, however, that Newt Gingrich (particularly in his performance last night) is the best debater in the group.

The infighting among the the active candidates is one thing; what continues to be disturbing is the intense hostility among the commenters on the right-of-center blogs. "My candidate is perfect--your horrible candidate is fatally flawed." "My candidate is electable--your wretched candidate has no chance in November."

The actual comments aren't that polite.

If Romney is the nominee, we have no idea if he will be a good general election candidate. For one thing, in an ill-advised search for something to brag about in the 2008 presidential election, the former governor messed up bigtime by implementing RomneyCare in Massachusetts.

That being said, given the intellectually bankrupt mainstream media who will protect and push Obama at every turn, the Republican alternative--whoever he is--will have his hands full.

Only one person can get the GOP nomination. To save the country from socialism and crony capitalism, those on the right and in the middle must unite in support of that candidate in the 2012 general election.

To all those Romney bashers, as well as bashers of other candidates who seek "purity" on all issues, do you really want Obama by default spending four more years loading up the federal agencies and federal courts with radical ideologues?