illinilaw08

So that I am clear, you had an insurance policy that provided access to certain benefits and certain hospitals. After the ACA, that policy was cancelled and no policies were offered - anywhere at any price - that provided those benefits, or covered those hospitals? Or am I misreading your post?

How are they political organizations when they aren't engaging in political speech? So if a police union is collectively bargaining with the County on behalf of all of the officers in that County, how is that act political? Unions do engage in political speech, but the IL law in question expressly forbade those dues from going toward lobbying efforts and the like...

Greg, here's what you need to be able to distinguish between. I can both hope that America itself does not fail, and also hope like crazy that Donald Trump's un-American policies fail. Here's the point - I can't speak for Balta, but I strongly believe that a lot of Donald Trump's policies undermine the very best parts about America historically (or at least of the American ideal) - that we are a melting pot of cultures, that Americans do the right thing even when that is a difficult decision to make, that when history shakes out who are the good guys, and who are the bad guys, that America is not the baddies.* The success of many of Donald Trump's policies is a failure of that ideal of America. Separating children from their parents when they claim asylum. Lying constantly. Using his Twitter account to attack private citizens and businesses. Cozying up to authoritarians while harming our allies. Making racially divisive comments because it makes his base happy. And I can go on. Blind loyalty to the President's policies is the anti-thesis of being American. * There are a lot of historical examples of how America has failed in living up to those ideals, but not ripe for this discussion.

50, right? No vote from McCain, so the numbers are actually 50-49. They need one vote to cross the aisle without bleeding any votes the other way. The best pressure point on the moderate(ish) Republicans is to not change the complexity of the Court. I'm not saying that a Republican Senator will vote against a Trump nominee, but it's literally the best chance that the Democrats have right now...

Dems can't filibuster this with the rules post-Gorsuch, so this probably going to a vote before the November election. But they can attack some vulnerable, or socially moderate(ish) Republicans. No, the Court's swing vote isn't changing like we thought it would post-Scalia passing. Best case scenario here is that the Democrats lobby hard to get Collins/Murkowski/Heller to support a Kennedy clone. Not ideal, but keeps Roe v. Wade around and doesn't put Obergfell at risk.

SCOTUS just overturned a 40 year old precedent on public unions... today. Precedent isn't as sacred as some people would like it to be...

Kennedy retiring. https://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-justice-anthony-kennedy-announces-retirement-1530122570 We're two years from a Presidential election, and Donald Trump is already campaigning. It would be distasteful to appoint a justice under such circumstances. Let the people decide...

For the record, just in case people missed this last week. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-officially-declares-north-korea-still-a-threat-despite-his-claim-after-historic-summit/2018/06/22/bddfb3b0-7634-11e8-9780-b1dd6a09b549_story.html?utm_term=.b8a645a24b1f Remember two weeks ago, when Donald Trump told us that his summit with Kim Jong Un had officially ended the nuclear crisis with North Korea? Well, last Friday, the Trump administration continued economic sanctions on North Korea citing it as an "unusual and extraordinary threat." Here's the point - Trump took a victory lap after meeting with Kim, essentially saying that he de-nuclearized North Korea. He didn't. And you won't see the news from last Friday on his Twitter account...

Have you asked for Donald Trump to apologize for his rude and divisive behavior? With the amount of times you are on here when someone is rude to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, I would think you would also be on here every time that Donald Trump insults someone on Twitter. Where is the consistency, Greg?

Greg, why do you think you are conservative?

Fox News top headline is "JUSTICE DELIVERS - Gorsuch tips scales in union case as Trump agenda triumphs in another landmark case." http://www.foxnews.com/ Remember all those complaints from Conservative media about activist judges?

1) Illinois' pension crisis is not a national pension crisis. There are a lot of states with generous pensions that are funded. Using local issues to say that public-sector unions are a bad thing ignores the larger picture. 2) Isn't the larger issue in Illinois that the legislature - on both sides of the aisle - failed to fund pensions for so long that the issue spiraled out of control?

The last three 5-4 decisions had Kennedy as a swing vote where he sided with the Conservatives. They: 1) Upheld the Travel Ban (note the absence of religious freedom groups complaining about the Court's decision there); 2) Found that California could not require pro-life health care providers to provide disclosures regarding state resources available (remember that a SCOTUS opinion from the '90s says it is constitutional to require a bunch of disclosures before somebody gets an abortion). 3) Held that public sector unions cannot require a fee from non-members for the benefit of the union's services in collective bargaining, overturning precedent from a SCOTUS decision in 1977. In 2018, and again in 2020, remember that the Republicans stole a Supreme Court seat by refusing to consider Garland for 8 months. SCOTUS, more than any other part of the federal government, matters.

Haven't read the opinion yet either, but based on the article linked in the Democrat thread (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/27/supreme-court-rules-in-janus-labor-union-case.html), the Court said that avoiding "free riders" is not a compelling interest. To the extent that a public sector union cannot require the people that it serves to pay dues, this opinion will have a significant impact on the viability of public sector unions. Because this is the Republican thread, I will not comment further here... Edit: Just read the opinion. The Court clearly states that the Union is still the representative of everyone, regardless of whether they pay dues or not. "t is questionable whether the Constitution would permit a public sector employer to adopt a collective-bargaining agreement that discriminates against nonmembers."

Greg, it's a question of degrees. At worst, it is rude and impolite for a restaurant owner to refuse to serve Sanders because she works for the current administration. Is this the worst thing that is happening from the Left right now? If so, let's compare that to (just off the top of my head): - Reducing access to healthcare for the poor and sick. - Refusing to hold a vote on confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice because a presidential election was 10 months away. - Ripping migrant children away from their parents as a way to "deter" illegal immigration. - Fawning over Kim Jong Un while starting trade wars with allies over "national security." - Defending white supremacists at Charlottesville. - Routinely attacking people and businesses with differing political viewpoints from the PRESIDENT'S TWITTER ACCOUNT. - Continued efforts to make it more difficult for lower income minorities to vote in elections. I can only speak for myself, but relative to the stuff above, being rude to Sarah Huckabee Sanders is literally no big deal.

Over the past decade (at least), the Republican Party has moved further and further to the Right, allowing somebody like Donald Trump to not only earn the Republican nomination, but also get elected President of the United States. The policies that were fringe ideas during the Bush II Administration are now mainstream Republican positions. And when Donald Trump acts insane, and lies over and over and over again, a few Republicans issue chastise him and then go back to carrying his water because they are terrified of offending his base (and maybe his policies aren't that extreme to them). The Republican Party changed the rules to steal a Supreme Court seat that Obama should have appointed. They threw out the rules of decorum when it benefited them, and they got a lifetime appointment out of it - an appointment that probably swung both the cases that were decided today. There is a reason for anger on the left. This administration's words and actions toward minority communities are as bad as I have ever seen in my life in this country. And the left sees that the Republican Party was moved further and further to the right by the loudest and most extreme faction of their party. My issue with the Sanders stuff is that the Left just isn't as good at playing this game. The Conservative media (with a major assist from the mainstream media) continues to make Sarah Huckabee Sanders a martyr when she has not been treated nearly as badly as the President treats sitting Senators from his Twitter account (seriously, stop using a racial slur for Elizabeth Warren). That's red meat for the Republican base, and it's the type of thing that might turn off independent voters who the Democrats need to take back the House, and keep a reasonable margin (or even win back) the Senate. Keep up the heat on the issues. Keep showing how the Trump administration is failing the environment. Keep showing how the Trump administration's immigration policies are abhorrent and the anti-thesis of the American ideal. Keep showing the grift in Cabinet (hello Pruitt). Keep the spotlight on the complete and utter failure of the trade policies, and how the Administration pisses off our allies while cozying up to dictators (hey, maybe point out that we're already back to pointing out that the NK nuclear threat remains - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/22/us/politics/north-korea-national-emergency-trump-nuclear.html). You aren't going to win over his base, but you sure can win over independents and expand the tent with new voters. End rant...

Haven't read the opinion, but it seems really inconsistent to rely on statements by government officials about religion as persuasive evidence of unconstitutional government action in one case (Masterpiece - the gay wedding cake case), and to ignore Trump's statements regarding the ban - relying on the neutral language of the text alone - in another case. Interestingly enough, it appears the dissent did force Roberts to state for the first time that the 1944 decision okaying the internment of Japanese-Americans was wrongly decided. So there's that... ?

#2 is spot on. MLB is tougher to sell than the NFL. 162 games vs. 16 games (a) makes it a lot easier to turn fantasy football into a cottage industry; and (b) requires a lot less of a time commitment to be an avid fan. Bonus point is a good one as well.

I think this is pretty spot on. I look at a guy like Mike Trout and it's ridiculous to me how little traction he has with casual sports fans. Market your superstars, even if they are kind of quiet guys who play on the West Coast on a team that has only made the playoffs once in his career.

I generally agree that this was a stupid protest on the part of the restaurant owner (though it is clearly distinguishable from denying services to a protected class). The Us vs. Them narrative has been Trump's bread and butter with his supporters, and this is fuel to that fire. It's really, really annoying to me, however, that this stuff is effective. Sanders in one breath says that a baker does not have to provide services to an LGBTQ couple, and in the next breath is complaining about services denied to her. The President of the United States and his press secretary are attacking a private business (again) because they disagree with the owner's politics. Political norms just keep getting shattered by the administration.

I thought I saw it as 5-4 - and a very odd split at that. Ginsburg, Alito, Thomas, Kennedy and Gorsuch as the majority. Roberts, Breyer, Kagan and Sotomayor dissent.

Rabbit, your view of the FBI here literally makes me think of the Underpants Gnome episode of South Park: Step 1: Make statements, and take actions that harm Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election while not publicizing your investigation of Donald Trump. Step 2: ???? Step 3: Donald Trump is defeated! Final point here. It's possible that individuals investigating the Clinton e-mail server did not want Donald Trump elected President AND there was no partisan bias in the decision not to bring charges. Both of those things can be true! Unless the IG was also very biased (which would be a silly argument to make based on the fact that the Report had unflattering stuff to say all the way around), his conclusion that there was no partisan bias in not bringing charges against Clinton should be pretty solid evidence of that fact.

Greg, seriously dude. You need to learn the difference between opinion and news. Rush Limbaugh is not a policy expert. He's not a journalist. He's just spouting opinions. Rush Limbaugh is not the news.

Says the guy who has convicted Clinton on e-mails and exonerated Trump on Russia... Also of note, notwithstanding any perceived bias (and every one of your quotes above was from Strozk who does not equal the entire FBI), the IG Report says that the conclusion to not charge Hillary Clinton was not motivated by partisan bias. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-500-page-inspector-generals-report-in-900-words/ You are cherry picking quotes to get to the conclusion you want to get to - that the FBI was in the tank for Clinton and actively sabotaging Trump - when the IG Report does not agree with that, and the acts taken by the FBI don't support that conclusion.

McCain has voted with Trump 83% of the time. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/john-mccain/ So... I'm not sure McCain and HRC have agreed on everything since McCain got elected...