turbinetree
turbinetree's JournalPolice Dog attempts CPR.....................
Trump Baby Blimp Ready for Take off....................
I know the critical choice issue will be the next nominee to the US. Supreme Court
another issue since public / labor unions were eviscerated today, but I was wondering what the court would do about the minimum wage in this country..................any thoughts....................because in some states they attacked this issue......like Missouri
https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/history/flsa1938
Who's on Trump's short list to replace Supreme Court Justice Kennedy?
Source: Politico
By MATTHEW NUSSBAUM and JOSH GERSTEIN 06/27/2018 04:01 PM EDT
President Donald Trump will replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy with one of 25 people from a previously released list, he affirmed on Wednesday after news broke that Kennedy, the court’s longtime swing vote, is retiring.
Trump said the process of nominating a new justice will “begin immediately.”
"Hopefully we will pick someone who is just as outstanding," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "It will be somebody from that list.”
Here is a look at the 25 people Trump has said he will choose from:
Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/27/anthony-kennedy-replacements-supreme-court-trump-679941
This is just fucked up..........................
Cannabis growth is killing one of the cutest (and fiercest) creatures in the US
The Humboldt marten could soon be an endangered species in California as the weed industry threatens its habitat
Fierce yet adorable, Humboldt martens have been described as the west coast’s own Tasmanian devils. The biologist Tierra Curry compares the red-chested mammal to another small, tenacious creature: “It’s a kitten that thinks it’s a honey badger,” she said. “It will crawl right into a bee nest and eat the honeycomb and larvae, getting its face stung the whole time.”
But there are some dangers that the marten cannot withstand – such as marijuana cultivation.
The state of California has announced that it is seeking to declare the Humboldt marten an endangered species, owing to the risks it faces from deforestation and, surprisingly, the cannabis industry. It is not the only species for which pot poses a lethal problem.
Martens live in dense forests where low branches, decaying logs and evergreen bushes provide them with cover from predators like coyotes and bobcats. Along with honey they eat lizards, insects, birds, voles, squirrels and flying squirrels. “They are secretive deep forest dwellers,” said Curry, a senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity, a not-for-profit advocacy group that has petitioned state and federal authorities to list the animal as endangered. “They symbolize the wild heart of the forest.”
But as redwood forests have shrunk in northern California, so has the marten population. There are two populations, with 100 in Oregon and an estimated 200 in three northern California counties – which, unfortunately for them, overlap with California’s Emerald Triangle, an epicenter of cannabis cultivation.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/27/cannabis-humboldt-marten-california-endangered
Koch Brothers-Linked Group Declares New War on Unions
Source: Bloomberg
The Supreme Court decision to kill “agency” fees triggers a massive campaign to accelerate the demise of the American labor movement.
By Josh Eidelson
June 27, 2018, 1:51 PM EDT
Following a U.S. Supreme Court decision that millions of public sector workers can stop paying union fees, a group tied to Republican billionaires long opposed to organized labor and its support of the Democratic Party has pledged to build on the landmark ruling to further marginalize employee representation.
The conservative nonprofit Freedom Foundation said that starting Wednesday, it will deploy 80 people to a trio of West Coast union bastions: California, Oregon and its home state of Washington. The canvassers were hired in March and trained this month, according to internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg News. The goal of the multi-pronged campaign is to shrink union ranks in the three states by 127,000 members—and to offer an example for similar efforts targeting unions around the country.
“Their employer isn’t going to tell them, and the union isn’t going to tell them,” said the anti-union group’s labor policy director, Maxford Nelsen. “So it falls to organizations like the Freedom Foundation to take up that mantle and make sure that public employees are informed of their constitutional rights.”
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-27/koch-brothers-linked-group-declares-new-war-on-unions
Hey Maxford Nelsen....................your Right to work for less is BS and we will abolish the Taft-Hartley................mark my words
Wall Street tumbles on renewed trade uncertainty
Source: Reuters
JUNE 27, 2018 / 7:41 AM / UPDATED 14 MINUTES AGO
April Joyner
(Reuters) - U.S. stocks reversed course on Wednesday, falling on renewed uncertainty regarding the U.S. stance on Chinese investments in American technology companies.
Earlier in the session, U.S. stocks rose as President Donald Trump said he will use a strengthened national security review panel — the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) — to deal with potential threats from Chinese acquisitions of U.S. technology, instead of imposing China-specific restrictions.
The decision was seen by investors as a somewhat softer approach than reported earlier plans to block firms with at least 25 percent Chinese ownership from buying U.S. tech firms.
But U.S. stocks moved lower after White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow later said in an interview on Fox Business Network that Trump’s announced plan did not indicate a softened stance on China.
The S&P 500 technology sector .SPLRCT fell 1.0 percent, weighing the most on the broader S&P 500 index. Chipmakers, which derive much of their revenue from China, fell even lower. The Philadelphia semiconductor index .SOX slid 2.0 percent.
“Investors are back in concern mode,” said Kate Warne, investment strategist at Edward Jones in St. Louis. “We had clarity this morning, but now that’s been removed.”
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-stocks/wall-street-tumbles-on-renewed-trade-uncertainty-idUSKBN1JN1GV
Justice Kennedy deserves this nasty, unflinching sendoff
Anthony Kennedy was a horrible justice, and his last decision was his worst
IAN MILLHISER JUN 27, 2018, 2:01 PM
One of my favorite genres of writing is the charitable obituary written about a political opponent. My remembrance of Judge Robert Bork, the conservative icon President Ronald Reagan tried and failed to put on the Supreme Court, highlighted his more admirable calls for judicial restraint. My obituary of Justice Antonin Scalia was titled “In Praise of Scalia.”
I want to establish these facts up front as I begin my obituary of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s judicial career, because what follows will not be especially charitable. Justice Kennedy was a Cadillac’s intellect in a Lamborghini’s job. His writing ranged from needlessly flowery to completely incoherent. And, while his views sometimes placed him to the left of men like Scalia and Bork, his “liberal” opinions were frequently his most incomprehensible.
Kennedy could have been a perfectly adequate lower court judge, but he was in over his head at the Supreme Court. And, for that reason, his most celebrated opinions will be very easy to dismantle.
Most of the time, of course, Kennedy was also no friend to liberals. He authored the Court’s Citizens United decision, joined its decision hobbling much of the Voting Rights Act, and he voted to repeal the entire Affordable Care Act. The entire presidency of George W. Bush might have been avoided but for Kennedy’s vote in Bush v. Gore. And, in a moment when liberal democracy itself is threatened by an authoritarian president, Kennedy decided that it would be a good idea to give that president another seat on the Supreme Court.
https://thinkprogress.org/kennedy-was-a-bad-justice-76e464024d78/
The horrifying consequences of Justice Kennedy's retirement
It was fun having anti-discrimination laws, while it lasted.
IAN MILLHISER JUN 27, 2018, 2:01 PM
Donald Trump is an accidental president. He lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million ballots. And he would be far more powerless if not for the fact that the United States Senate is an anti-democratic relic. The 49 senators in the Democratic caucus represent almost 40 million more people than the 51 in the Republican caucus.
And yet, thanks to Justice Anthony Kennedy’s decision to hand his seat on the Supreme Court to Trump, the illegitimate president will be one of the most consequential American leaders of the modern era. Roe v. Wade will soon be a memory. Anti-discrimination laws will become shriveled husks. The LGBTQ rights revolution will halt and, most likely, begin to march in reverse.
Judgeships could quite literally be up for sale. Religious conservatives will gain sweeping power to defy the law. Executions will flourish. And our best hope of ending partisan gerrymandering will come to a close.
The Court’s “swing” vote is now Chief Justice John Roberts — the man who authored a decision holding that America isn’t racist enough to justify a fully operational Voting Rights Act three years before Donald Trump was elected. Things are going to get bad. Fast.
https://thinkprogress.org/the-horrifying-consequences-of-justice-kennedys-retirement-90c450d9d106/
"Things are going to get bad. Fast."
November 2018 cannot get here fast enough
The dangerous hypocrisy of the Supreme Court's new swing justice
John Roberts chooses businesses over workers.
IAN MILLHISER JUN 27, 2018, 2:53 PM
One of the most difficult questions facing Supreme Court justices is when they should overrule a prior decision. In a pair of cases handed down this term, Chief Justice John Roberts gave a revealing answer to this question: Courts should apply a very strong presumption in favor of past decisions when those decisions benefit business interests, but not when they benefit workers.
With Justice Anthony Kennedy’s announcement on Wednesday that he will leave the Court, Roberts now becomes the only member of the Court’s Republican majority who could plausibly be convinced to vote with the liberals on any of the issues that currently divide the Court. So his bias in favor of business will now be a driving factor in the Court’s future decisions.
The first of the pair of cases was South Dakota v. Wayfair, which overruled a 1967 Supreme Court decision holding that states cannot charge sales taxes to businesses without a physical presence in that state — think of online retailers that do business entirely through the internet and the mail.
Every member of the Court agreed that this 1967 decision was wrongly decided, but they split 5-4 on whether stare decisis — the strong presumption that current judges should follow past decisions — should compel the Court to defer to this erroneous decision. Roberts wrote for the four dissenters, arguing that stare decisis should control.
https://thinkprogress.org/the-dangerous-hypocrisy-of-john-roberts-2e06aee2fd36/
And if anyone has read Ian Millhiser book:
Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted by Ian Millhiser (24-Mar-2015)
its pretty much sums up the court........................
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