Monthly Archives: May 2017

Real World Utopia Comes at a Terrible Price: Freedom CNSNews.com However, there is a problem with utopia. It doesn't exist. It never has, and it never will, at least not by human standards and by human hands. You see, utopia comes at a terrible price. It comes at the price of freedom. It comes at the price of ...

View original post here:

Real World Utopia Comes at a Terrible Price: Freedom - CNSNews.com

Senators, including Judiciary Chairman Charles E. Grassley, arewarning the Federal Communications Commission about its treatment of reporters after a CQ Roll Call reporter was manhandled Thursday.

The Federal Communications Commission needs to take a hard look at why this happened and make sure it doesnt happen again. As The Washington Post pointed out, its standard operating procedure for reporters to ask questions of public officials after meetings and news conferences, the Iowa Republican said. It happens all day, every day. Theres no good reason to put hands on a reporter whos doing his or her job.

A pair of Senate Democrats are separately pressing the FCC for answers about the treatment of CQ Roll Calls John M. Donnellyat Thursdays open FCC hearing.

Yesterdays incident at the FCC is not an isolated one and seems to be a part of a larger pattern of hostility towards the press characteristic of this Administration, which underscores our serious concern.Recent examples make this most recent incident a new low point in a disturbing trend, Sens. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Tom Udall of New Mexico wrote in a letter.

Donnelly, the senior defense reporter at CQ Roll Call and the National Press Clubs Press Freedom Team chairman and president of the Military Reporters & Editors Association, described beingpinned by a pair of FCC security personnel when he attempted to question Commissioner MichaelORielly for a story that was not related to the days debate about net neutrality.

That incident, for which the FCC saidit apologized, was the second noteworthy occurrence in recent weeks of confrontations between reporters attempting to ask questions and senior government officials.

Prominent Washington journalists were quick to respondafter hearing about the confrontation, including New York Times chief Washington correspondent Carl Hulse.

Outrageous and offensive. John is an accomplished veteran reporter and knows how to do his job in DC. This and WV arrest are ominous, Hulse tweeted.

The West Virginia arrest was one of the incidents referenced by Hassan and Udall in an attachment to their letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. The senators also cited incidents from the 2016 presidential campaign, including when then-Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski physically grabbed reporter Michelle Fields at an event in Jupiter, Florida.

The two Democrats noted that the Trump administration allowed Russian state-run media to cover a meeting between the presidentand Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, while denying a similar opportunity to U.S. outlets.

Given the FCCs role as the primary authority for communications law and its regulatory role with respect to the media, the FCC should set a sterling example when it comes to supporting the First Amendment and freedom of the press for other government entities here in the United States and around the world, Hassan and Udall wrote.

Get breaking news alerts and more from Roll Call on your iPhone or your Android.

Read this article:

Senators Warn FCC, Trump Administration About Freedom of the Press - Roll Call

On May 23, 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision inAbood v. Detroit Board of Education. It was a terrible decision for worker freedom, and advocates for freedom have been trying to overturn it ever since.

The controversy prompting the case started, because Michigan law allowed unions to become the exclusive representatives of state employees. These workers had to pay union dues for this representation or agency fees, even if they were not union members. The fees purportedly only covered the cost of collective bargaining, not political spending, though the unions determined what the collective bargaining costs were.

After the Michigan Public Employment Relations Act was amended in 1965, the Detroit Board of Education held an election and the Detroit Federation of Teachers won an election and agreed to a collective-bargaining contract with the board on July 1, 1969.

Two months before the agreement was to become effective, though, on November 7, 1969, Christine Warczak, aDetroit schoolteacher for seven years, and other teachers sued the board, the union, and union officials in state court. The teachers didnt want to pay agency fees and didnt want collective bargaining in the public sector. The plaintiffs urged the state court to find the agency fees invalid under state and federal law, specifically the First and 14th amendments of the United States Constitution.

The state district court, unfortunately, dismissed the case. The plaintiffs appealed to the Michigan Court of Appeals, whichupheldthe agency fees even though it recognized that the rights of the teachers were being violated. The court felt that the plaintiffs should have told the unions what spending they objected tobeforesuing in the state trial court in 1969.

The Michigan Supreme Court declined to review the case, but the U.S. Supreme Courttookthe case in 1976. In deciding the case, the Supreme Court first looked at precedent,Railway Employees Dept. v. Hanson(1956),andMachinists v. Street (1961).

InHanson, railroad employees sued to eliminate agency fees. While the Nebraska Supreme Court decided that these fees violated the First and 14th amendments, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the decision on grounds that the fees promoted labor peace. The court, however, decided that if the fees were not used for collective bargaining, that would be a different question.

The court inStreet, however,found that using fees for political purposes violated the Constitution. This case was similar toHanson, but there was actual evidence that the fees had been spent on political causes.

Because ofHanson, however, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it could not stop the fees and returned the case to the lower court for a more limited solution. When the court took up the issue again inAboodin 1976, itquotedthe concurring opinion of Justice Douglas inStreetto explain its decision to uphold the agency fees:

The furtherance of the common cause leaves some leeway for the leadership of the group. As long as they act to promote the cause which justified bringing the group together, the individual cannot withdraw his financial support merely because he disagrees with the groups strategy. If that were allowed, we would be reversing theHansoncase,sub silentio.

The Supreme Court next explained the plaintiffs arguments. Their first argument was thatHansonandStreetshould not influence the decision here because in this case, the workers were government employees. In addition, collective bargaining in the public sector is political. Unfortunately, the court rejected both arguments, saying public employees were not very different from private workers.

The justices then said the violation of the workers First Amendment rights was not all that great, because public employees could vote, volunteer for a campaign, and express their differences of opinion from the union.

The court held that while workers should not be forced to contribute to a political organization to keep their job, the union could charge fees to pay for collective-bargaining costs.

The opinionconcludedby sending the case to the lower court and saying the court would determine if this was a good solution in a later case.

In the decades afterAbood, the Supreme Court heard several important labor cases and came to conclusions that did not seem to fit with theAbooddecision.

Then in 2013, one brave woman decided she was tired of paying agency fees to a union that spent money on political issues she disagreed with.

Rebecca Friedrichs was a public elementary school teacher in Orange County, California. She taught for more than 28 years. In a 2015Washington Postprofile, Friedrichsexplainedher teachers union, California Teachers Association (CTA), did not represent her. She believed the union protected abusive and incompetent teachers while denying opportunities for younger and better teachers.

She also said the union failed to respect her political views. She described in the article how she wasshunnedfor supporting educational choice:

My union rep right there in front of everybody called me a radical right winger for daring to not stand against vouchers. Iwas trying to follow my conscienceand I was abused for that. That whole school year I was shunned and treated like a second-class citizen.

After these experiences, she resigned from the union but still had to pay agency fees even though the union chooses to represent non-members.

In 2013, Friedrichs sued her union inFriedrichs v. California Teachers Associationto eliminate agency fees, because she disagreed with what the union bargained over andfeltthey violated her First Amendment rights:

Here in California, most public officials have been put into office by union dollars. So youve put them into office and now you come to the bargaining table. The official you put into office is one side and the union is on the other side and youre bargainingfor taxpayer money, only the taxpayer doesnt get invited to the table. Thats political, in my opinion.

On Dec. 5, 2013, however, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Californiaruled against her. The court agreed with CTA thatAboodallowed agency fees, and, therefore, the court couldnt decide on the issue.

Friedrichs then appealed the decision on July1, 2014, to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Fortunately, the Ninth Circuitupheldthe lower courts decision on Nov. 18, 2014, so that the case could be heard by the Supreme Court.

On March 29, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court, however, affirmed the Ninth Circuits ruling, because Justice Antonin Scalia unexpectedly passed away in February 2016. Without Justice Scalias vote for freedom, the court was divided, and,therefore, the Ninth Circuits ruling against Friedrichs stood.

It was ablowto worker freedom advocates, especially since they thought they would win this case after hearing the oral arguments.

Unions, however, were thrilled with the decision. On March 29, 2016, the day of the decision, several unions had a presscall. Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU),said, during the call:

We know the wealthy extremists who pushed this case want to limit the ability for workers to have a voice, curb voting rights and restrict opportunities for women and immigrants, and we know the way to stop them is by taking our fight to the polls in November.

Union Banditry Disappears

Why were unions celebrating aboutFriedrichs? They had seen what happened to unions in Wisconsin after Act 10 was passed.

On June 29, 2011, Gov. Scott Walker (R)signed Act 10 or the Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill into law in the Badger State. The bill limited collective bargaining for most public sector employees to base wages, and employees were no longer required to pay dues. As a result, union membershipdroppedalmost 40 percent. Within fiveyears, Wisconsin taxpayers also saved $5.24 billion.

After seeing what happened in Wisconsin and learning about theFriedrichscase, the California Teachers Association actually held a conference to discuss the possible loss of revenue, membership, and staffing and the potential financial difficulties if the Supreme Court invalidated agency fees.

Freedom Is on the Horizon for Workers

Although the unions breathed a sigh of relief afterFriedrichswas decided, they still have much to worry about because workers and their allies are still fighting for worker freedom.

On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump was elected president. President Trump has now appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, and on April 10, 2017, Justice Gorsuch was sworn into Justice Scalias seat.

Justice Gorsuch has an impressive background, graduating from Columbia (B.A.), Harvard (J.D.), and the University of Oxford in England (PhD). He also clerked for Supreme Court justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy and was a partner for Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel in Washington, D.C.

On May 10, 2006, President George W. Bush nominated him as a judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Colorado. He was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on July 20, 2006.

As a judge, Gorsuch has asimilar judicial philosophy as Justice Scalia, using the text of the Constitution to decide a case. He is most well-known for his concurring opinion on the Hobby Lobby religious freedom case, which the Supreme Court upheld on June 30, 2014.

It still remains to be seen, however, how Justice Gorsuch will rule on labor law cases, but we may get that opportunity soon.

Possible New Supreme Court Cases

Worker freedom advocates have not given up the fight to overturnAboodand get rid of mandatory agency fees.

There are several cases in the lower courts that the Supreme Court could decide the question of agency fees, possibly as early as the fall, but the two most likely cases areYohn v. CTAandJanus v. AFSCME.

Yohn v. CTAbegan on February 6, 2017, when Ryan Yohn and seven other experienced California teachers sued the California Teachers Association in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. They do not want to pay agency fees because they violate their First and 14th amendment rights.

Plaintiff Yohnexplainedhis frustrations with the agency fee system in a Center for Individual Rights press release:

My constitutional rights to free speech and association dont stop at the school entrance, said Ryan Yohn, one of the plaintiffs and a 13-year middle school teacher for the Westminster School District. Each year, public school teachers in California must pay the union to promote policies that work against many of our own political, and sometimes moral, interests.

The plaintiffs complaintsaysthe agency fees violate the teachers First Amendment rights in two ways. First, agency fees require the teachers to contribute to collective bargaining expenses that violate the beliefs of the teachers and support other expenses. Secondly, the teachers have to opt out every year to avoid paying union dues.

Laws that potentially violate free speech have to be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest. The plaintiffs argue that agency-shop laws arent narrowly tailored and they dont serve a compelling government interest.

The complaint also points out that the agency fees mostly go to the state and national unions, not the local union that does the actual collective bargaining.

Further, the union does not bargain for certain benefits, like disability insurance (which covers maternity leave), but rather, it gives disability insurance to its members. So, non-members dont receive valuable benefits and cant bargain with the state for them. Similarly, a union can opt not to pursue a grievance that has occurred to a non-member, but the non-member cant pursue the grievance on his or her own.

The second case,Janus v. AFSCME, wasdecidedon March 21, 2017, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Like Michigan inAbood, Illinois has a similar law that requires non-union members who work for the government to pay agency fees. In 2015, however, Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) sued, arguing the fees violated the First Amendment rights of workers. The district court decided not to hear the case, because the governor was not paying the union fees. Two public employees, Mark Janus and Brian Trygg, however, added themselves to the case as plaintiffs, arguing they need the case to go to the Supreme Court so thatAboodcan be overturned.

Interestingly, Janus never challenged the fees before this case, but Trygg had. Trygg complained before the Illinois Labor Relations Board and then before the Illinois Appellate Court. He also argued that the law requiring the payment of fees ignored another law that said the fees could be paid to charity instead. In that case, Trygg won and was able to pay his fee to charity.

The unions, therefore, argue inJanusthat Trygg has already gotten relief in the earlier case. The federal Seventh Circuit agreed, saying he could have argued his constitutional claims before the Illinois Appellate Court.

Surprisingly, the plaintiffs actually got what they wanted in this case: a chance to possibly be heard by the Supreme Court. The plaintiffs could only get this chance if they lost at this level and appealed to the Supreme Court.

In aChicago Tribunearticle published on January 5, 2016, called Why I dont want to pay union dues Janusexplainedwhy he was suing:

I dont see my union working totally for the good of Illinois government. For years it supported candidates who put Illinois into its current budget and pension crisis. Government unions have pushed for government spending that made the states fiscal situation worse The union voice is not my voice. The unions fight is not my fight.

Interestingly, the most important constitutional claim for Abood,Friedrichs, Yohn and Janus is that the agency fees are violating the plaintiffs First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and association.Janus, however, includes paycheck protection, which would forbid the automatic deduction of fees from worker paychecks.

What would happen ifAboodwere overturned?

Public employees would gain more freedom, and unions would no longer be allowed to violate their First Amendment rights. They could join a union if they wanted or not join, just like any other group or association. In addition, private employees attempts to pass Right-to-Work would be bolstered, because private workers could argue more strongly that their rights were being violated as well by agency fees.

Perhaps in anticipation of a Trump Supreme Court deciding cases like the ones above, the SEIU announcedin a December 14, 2016, memo that it would cut its budget by one-third byJanuary 1, 2018. It would start by cutting ten percent of its $300 million budget at the beginning of 2017.

SEIU President Mary Kay Henryexplainedin a staff memo:

Because the far right will control all three branches of the federal government, we will face serious threats to the ability of working people to join together in unions. These threats require us to make tough decisions that allow us to resist these attacks and to fight forward despite dramatically reduced resources.

The group that would suffer the most ifAboodwere overturned would be Democratic politicians, who rely heavily on campaign contributions from unions. According to theWall Street Journal, which analyzed Federal Election Committee campaign-finance filings, labor unions spent almost $110 million on the 2016 election between January 2015 and August 2016. Only a couple of unions supported Trump during the election, i.e. the Fraternal Order of the Police.

Unions also organized their members to knock on doors, make phone calls, and participate in rallies in 2016. For example, on October 15, 2016, hundreds of union membersknockedon more than 5,000 doors in Philadelphia for Clinton. Union members also rallied in West Philadelphia, where the presidents of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and AFSCME spoke to them.

According to the Center for Union Facts, there are 14.3 million union members in America. The amount unionsreceivefrom those members is more than $8.5 billion annually, and union assets total more than $9 billion.

If Aboodwere overturned, it would be especially devastating to Democrats in battleground states, like Colorado, Michigan, and Minnesota. Because of Act 10, for example, Trump won Wisconsin by 1 percentage point, and Trump even won Michigan by 1.3 percentage points due in part to its labor reforms.

The United States was founded on the belief that all citizens have the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Unions and politicians have eroded the liberty of workers for many decades. But maybe not for much longer.

Read more from the original source:

Freedom is Aboodiful Thing - American Spectator

The false claim that Trump conspired with Russia to engineer the 2016 election has reached the height of absurdity. The media and Democrats are trying to bamboozle the country by conflating several isolated incidents. They have no evidence but have created a story that combines the allegations about the Russians and the firing of FBI Director James Comey.

Claim 1: Trump conspired with Russia to interfere with the election

The first bogus allegation by the radical media and carried forward by many Democrats is that Trump somehow participated with Russia to influence the 2016 election. The advocates of this disinformation hit this off-tune piano key early and often. But Obama-era Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified under oath that there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

The FBI and two congressional committees continue to investigate the extent of Russian activities. Unlike those who keep throwing wet wood on a match and producing smoke where there is no fire, I am content to wait for the outcome of those investigations and not jump to unwarranted and unsubstantiated conclusions.

Claim 2: Trump disclosed confidential information to Russian diplomats

The media and Democrats, sensing that people are not buying their first false Russian claim, have turned to an unnamed source who cites an unseen memo to make their second false claim. They allege that Trump disclosed confidential information to high-level Russian officials. No independent evidence to date corroborates the assertions.

Unlike the Washington Post, CNN, New York Times, and other outlets using unnamed sources, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, who were actually in the meeting, publicly deny the reports.

The media have buried the lede. The real problem here is that either there was a criminal leak by someone in attendance at the meeting that jeopardizes national security and stature, or the media has once again grabbed a false story in its zeal to delegitimize the Trump presidency.

Claim 3: The firing of FBI Director James Comey and his memo

The Washington Post was the first to try and get the fire started, but was joined by radical members of the media. Here is a line from a CNN piece: "Comey wrote, quoting Trump in the document, which CNN has not viewed but which was described by the sources."

Democrats keep fanning the wet wood, producing only smoke. In their effort to delegitimize Trump and encourage a never-will-happen impeachment proceeding, they claim that the as-yet-unseen Comey memo is evidence of obstruction of justice.

Oddly enough, the unobservant media failed to acknowledge that an actual witness testified under oath before the Senate. In a recent hearing, Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe said, "There has been no effort to impede our investigation today." That's right the FBI testified under oath that there has been no obstruction of the investigation.

If Comey believed that his conversation with Trump constituted obstruction, he was obligated to report the offense to his superior (See 18 U.S.C. Section 4).

Democrats looked the other way when 30,000 emails were deleted from Hillary Clinton's server. They do not care that the alleged Russian interference with our election occurred under Obama's administration. The media's double standard for the Trump administration is unseemly. Simply put, the media and the Left have become unhinged over unsourced accusations.

The American people can clearly see there is an unprecedented, orchestrated effort to undermine Trump, in an attempt to subvert the will of the American people. I have never seen this level of fervor in American politics where anonymous sources dictate talks of impeachment, special counsels, investigations and obstruction of justice.

In spite of this incredible divisiveness, Trump has been productive. In the first four months of his administration, he has saved taxpayers billions of dollars by repealing government regulations, aided a rapid rise in economic growth, enforced our nation's immigration laws to help lower illegal border crossings and given us Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. He has an ambitious agenda, and I believe that he will receive more successful outcomes in the future as he works to keep his promises.

Republicans in Congress can keep our promises to the American public by maintaining focus on our agenda to repeal Obamacare, reform tax structure for every American, build the border wall and facilitate creation of jobs and economic growth by reducing additional regulations. I look forward to working with my colleagues and the White House to these ends.

Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) represents Arizona's fifth district in the U.S. Congress.

Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read ourguidelines on submissions.

See the article here:

Freedom Caucus member Andy Biggs: False claims against Trump are reaching the height of absurdity - Washington Examiner