Today over at Cafe, we’re continuing the Scholars Strategy Network‘s exploration of the future of the Republican Party. Today, University of Washington poli-sci professor Christopher S. Parker wonders if the GOP is on a path to eventual suicide: “Like the GOP in the past, the current Republican Party needs to pursue a new constituency – if it wishes to survive and gain ground in national politics.”
Former employment attorney Sheila Bapat breaks down the other major Supreme Court decision today, in Harris v. Quinn, which she says analyzes “the First Amendment in a way that further entrenches the notion that domestic work is not ‘real’ work.”
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Ginsburg: “The absence of such precedent is just what one would expect, for the exercise of religion is characteristic of natural persons, not artificial legal entities.”
We’re mainly focused on the big Court decisions today. But don’t miss this weird and disturbing look at the series of meetings Maine’s Tea Party Governor has held with extremist “sovereign citizen” activists in his state.
Here’s a helpful summary from Elena Kagan’s dissent in today’s anxiously awaited Supreme Court case on union agency fees:
The Hobby Lobby decision just came down. Authored by Justice Alito, the decision is a win for the plaintiff companies who were opposed to the contraceptive mandate, but is narrowly applied to closely held corporations. More soon.
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.