The Patriot Post Digest 7-1-2015

________________________________________
The Patriot Post Digest 7-1-2015
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________

Daily Digest

Jul. 1, 2015

THE FOUNDATION

“The truth is, that, even with the most secure tenure of office, during good behavior, the danger is not, that the judges will be too firm in resisting public opinion, and in defence of private rights or public liberties; but, that they will be ready to yield themselves to the passions, and politics, and prejudices of the day.” —Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Man Who’s Never Had a Real Job Makes Rules for Businesses1

With a wave of his magic wand, Barack Obama just gave five million workers a raise — or so he’d like you to believe. In an op-ed explaining his new regulations on overtime pay for salaried workers, Obama wrote2, “We’ve got to keep making sure hard work is rewarded. Right now, too many Americans are working long days for less pay than they deserve. That’s partly because we’ve failed to update overtime regulations for years — and an exemption meant for highly paid, white collar employees now leaves out workers making as little as $23,660 a year — no matter how many hours they work. … My plan [is] to extend overtime protections to nearly 5 million workers in 2016, covering all salaried workers making up to about $50,400 next year.” And who doesn’t want a raise? Naturally, his proposal will be popular with those who think they stand to benefit, as well as those in need of an Economics 101 refresher. The real-world results will be that employers hire fewer workers, pay lower base wages, cut hours and nix benefits like work-from-home scenarios for employees who now have to scrupulously track their hours. Just mandating higher wages doesn’t mean businesses can afford to pay them. The conservative approach is to actually grow the economy — which, notably, Obama has not done. As John F. Kennedy once said, “A rising tide lifts all boats.” Not just the ones Obama points to with his wand.

State Dragging Its Feet During Clinton Email Release3

Last night, the State Department released 3,000 pages4 of Hillary Clinton’s email from when she served as secretary of state. This is the first batch of emails it released in response to a judge ordering the department to place Clinton’s emails in the public record on a rolling basis. Americans will get an email dump every month until the Democrat primary in January. Cue a Hillary headache. Nate Jones5, expert in the Freedom of Information Act at the National Security Archive housed at George Washington University, said he would be watching how much information the State Department redacts. “The emails were unclassified, so it will be eyebrow-raising if any more content is retroactively classified by State,” Jones said. “It will be extremely troubling if State wastes its resources to unnecessarily censor ‘deliberative process’ emails which Clinton herself stated she wants released.” Sure enough, the State Department redacted 25 emails because it deemed them classified. It also went ahead and struck the name of a man6 whose birthday Clinton’s office was celebrating. Last week, the House Select Committee on Benghazi discovered through interviewing Clinton lackey Sidney Blumenthal that Clinton’s staff sanitized the emails7 before dumping them on State. For all the platitudes, the effort to get the Clinton docs in the public record is all but sincere.

Justices to Rule on Forced Union Dues8

The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to add to next term’s docket Friderichs v. California Teachers Association, a lawsuit that could significantly loosen teachers unions grip over California and 19 other states. Because those states abide by the “closed shop” rule, collective bargaining requires that public teachers, even non-unionized ones, turn over portions of their paychecks to Democrat activists masquerading as unions. That’s not a bargain at all, which is why lead plaintiff Rebecca Friedrichs, a frustrated teacher veteran, filed a lawsuit two years ago to abolish the arbitrary system. Terry Pell, president of the Center for Individual Rights, the firm representing the plaintiffs, said in 2013, “We are going to get this case to the Supreme Court and win, and if we do, we will eliminate the close shop rules.” He was right about the first part, but we won’t know about the second for another year. But Reason’s Robby Soave believes that SCOTUS will get this one right. “The conservative 5-4 majority in 2012’s Knox v. SEIU essentially invited such a challenge, and the decision today by the Court to hear the case is a very good sign,” he writes. Furthermore, “A big win for Friedrichs could have massive consequences. California is just one of 20 ‘closed-shop’ states that require non-members to pay union dues. Compulsory unionization could be ruled unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds nationwide.” Recent rulings — namely on ObamaCare — caution us against high expectations, but unions have been put on high alert either way. Even an unfavorable ruling won’t silence the growing, vocal opposition to union contortions.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Could the Obergefell Decision Mean National Concealed Carry?9

By Jim Harrington

The Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision10 forcing states to recognize same-sex marriage has sparked a debate about whether the decision also provides legal precedent requiring states to recognize concealed carry permits. Let’s weigh that argument.

Bob Owens at Bearing Arms11 fired first, explaining, “The Court used Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment12 to justify their argument. … By using the Constitution in such a manner, the Court argues that the Due Process Clause extends ‘certain personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy’ accepted in a majority of states across the state lines of a handful of states that still banned the practice.”

Comparing Obergefell to concealed carry reciprocity, Owens points out, “The vast majority of states are ‘shall issue’ on the matter of issuing concealed carry permits, and enjoy reciprocity with a large number of other states.” And concealed carry is certainly “accepted in a majority of states across the state lines of … states that still [ban] the practice.” Before Obergefell, 14 states did not recognize his concealed carry permit. He argues the ruling means they must.

It’s certainly interesting that attorney Marc Greendorfer’s amicus brief against same-sex marriage filed for the Obergefell case invokes the Second Amendment. Greendorfer wrote13, “One day, this Court will have to explain how sweeping restrictions on every aspect of firearms ownership and use can be upheld yet traditional and long-standing regulations on marriage cannot be tolerated in any form or in any jurisdiction. … [After Heller], a number of state and local governments imposed draconian restrictions on firearms, claiming that the restrictions were reasonable and common sense, and did not infringe the core right protected by the Second Amendment.”

It’s true that the Supreme Court did not limit its interpretation of Due Process to same-sex marriage. But we also don’t hold out much hope that Owens' interpretation will, er, carry the day.

Three legal experts weighed in on the subject for Independent Journal Review14, and their take is more sobering.

Ilya Somin, professor of law at George Mason University, offered some optimism. “I think this argument may be plausible, but it is far from an open and shut case,” he said. “The Supreme Court has not ruled that having a concealed carry permit is a ‘personal choice central to individual dignity and autonomy.’ It hasn’t even (so far) ruled that the right to conceal-carry … is protected by the Second Amendment. … In the case of concealed carry permits, the Court has never ruled that states are required to issue them to their own citizens. I think such a ruling might well be required by the Second Amendment. But it hasn’t happened yet.”