The Hobby Lobby decision is imminent, but first the Supreme Court placed new limits on the ability of public employee unions to collect agency fees from non-union members. Backstory here. Justice Alito’s decision here. At first glance this isn’t as bad for unions as it could have been, but it’s not good either.
Over the course of the last decade, Blackwater became a notorious symbol of military contracting run amok, with price-gouging, reckless behavior and your occasional atrocity. So it’s hard to imagine anything coming out that would genuinely shock anyone. Until this.
42 year old Albert Einstein, on his first trip to the United States. 1921.
For years the prospect of a new Islamic caliphate has entranced the minds of jihadi crazies around the globe and their polar opposite western islamophobes. Now ISIS has officially declared a reborn Caliphate with its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the new Caliph. They’ve even conjured up a purported genealogy for al-Baghdadi, making him a descendent of Muhammad. In an ancillary rebranding they’ve also dropped the IS or IL from their four letter abbreviation, now going simply by IS for “Islamic State”, as in, the Islamic state, the only legitimate one.
From a Department of Justice press release …
WASHINGTON – Ahmed Abu Khatallah, aka Ahmed Mukatallah, made his first appearance today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on a federal terrorism offense arising from his alleged participation in the Sept. 11 through 12, 2012, terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, which resulted in the deaths of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.
Lead Belly (Huddie Ledbetter) and Martha Promise Ledbetter. February 1935.
Cochran: Election went so well, no need to bring back Voting Rights Act.
Molly Crabapple on Syrians caught between ISIS and Assad.
A lot of calculations over recent weeks (in addition to a lot of political data and history) have assumed that Democratic senate nominee Travis Childers not only couldn’t beat entrenched longtime incumbent Thad Cochran but that he couldn’t even beat the erratic Tea Partier on overdrive Chris McDaniel. Now at least some people are wondering if that’s still true. And I’m at least starting to as well.