The Classic Definition Of Chutzpah

On Tuesday, The Hill reported the following:

The group of Venezuelan migrants flown from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., last week by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) filed a class-action suit against the governor and the state’s transportation secretary on Tuesday.

The suit provides a detailed account of how the migrants came to board the two planes allegedly under false pretenses, arguing the relocations violated their Fourth and 14th Amendment rights and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

People who broke the law to get here and are here illegally have rights? Wow. Does America have the right to arrest them for breaking into our country?

The article continues:

The suit, filed in a federal trial court in Massachusetts, asks a judge to declare DeSantis’s relocations illegal under the Constitution as well as federal and state laws. It also asks the judge to prevent Florida from inducing immigrants to travel across state laws by fraud and misrepresentation.

Did Martha’s Vineyard have the right to move them to another part of Massachusetts?

The article reports:

Alianza Americas, a network of groups supporting immigrants, filed the class action suit with three unnamed migrants DeSantis relocated, claiming the scheme also constituted intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment and fraud.

Boston-based group Lawyers for Civil Rights said its attorneys, who have been on the island since last week, are representing the plaintiffs.

Are any of those lawyers offering to house any of the illegal immigrants?

The article concludes:

The plaintiffs said the migrants boarded the flights with the belief they would land in Washington, D.C. or Boston, but they were told while in the air they would instead be arriving in Martha’s Vineyard.

They were also allegedly given a brochure that outlined support services in Massachusetts, but the programs referenced had “highly specific eligibility requirements” that the migrants did not meet, the suit said.

“Once the individual Plaintiffs and class members landed, it became clear that the promises made to induce them on the planes were in fact bold-faced lies,” it stated.

The migrants have since been relocated to a military base elsewhere in Massachusetts. 

DeSantis has said the flights were “just the beginning” of relocation efforts.          

I believe it is noteworthy that the migrants were removed from Martha’s Vineyard less than two days after they arrived. It is off season on the Vineyard, and it would have been very easy to put 50 people up in hotel rooms. However, that was not allowed to happen. I wonder if the year-round residents of the Vineyard will now take down their yard signs that say everyone is welcome here and hate has no place here. It’s very easy to welcome everyone when you are an island only accessible by plane or boat.

The Wrong People Are Paying For This

On January 11th, The Daily Signal posted the following article, “Conservative Groups Targeted in Lois Lerner’s IRS Scandal Receive Settlement Checks.”

The article reports:

The federal government in recent days has been issuing settlement checks to 100 right-of-center groups wrongfully targeted for their political beliefs under the Obama administration’s Internal Revenue Service, according to an attorney for the firm that represented plaintiffs in NorCal v. United States.

Three of the claimants in the $3.5 million national class-action suit are based in the Badger State.

“This is really a groundbreaking case. Hopefully it sets a precedent and will serve as a warning to government officials who further feel tempted to discriminate against U.S. citizens based on their viewpoints,” Edward Greim, attorney for Kansas City, Missouri-based Graves Garrett LLC told MacIver News Service.

Most of the claimants will each receive a check for approximately $14,000, Greim said. Five conservative groups that were integrally involved in the lawsuit get a bonus payment of $10,000 each, the attorney said.

About $2 million of the settlement goes to cover the legal costs of five long years of litigation. IRS attorneys attempted delay after delay, objection after objection, trying to use the very taxpayer protection statutes the plaintiffs were suing under to suppress documents.

The agency has admitted no wrongdoing in what a federal report found to be incidents of intrusive inspections of organizations seeking nonprofit status. Greim has said the seven-figure settlement suggests otherwise.

Folks, these checks are coming out of our tax dollars. As taxpayers we are paying for the corruption in the IRS during the Obama administration.

The article continues:

Disgraced former bureaucrat Lois Lerner led the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt groups. A 2013 inspector general’s report found the IRS had singled out conservative and tea party organizations for intense scrutiny, oftentimes simply based on their conservative-sounding or tea party names. The IRS delayed for months, even years, the applications, and some groups were improperly questioned about their donors and their religious affiliations and practices.

Lerner claims she did nothing wrong. In clearing her of wrongdoing, an Obama administration Department of Justice review described Lerner as a hero. But she invoked her Fifth Amendment right in refusing to answer questions before a congressional committee. The plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit took the first and only deposition of Lerner, a document that the former IRS official and her attorneys have fought to keep sealed.

“At one level, it’s hard to even assess a dollar amount to what they did, it’s so contrary to what we think our bureaucrats in Washington should be doing. It boggles the mind,” Greim said.

This was an egregious violation of free speech and disregard for the law, and no one actually was held accountable. That is sad.

Do Employers Have The Right To Set Conditions Of Employment?

The Hill posted a story today about today’s Supreme Court ruling that employers can include clauses in employment contracts that force employees to settle disputes individually with a third-party arbitrator.

There are a few aspects of this ruling–the most obvious one is that employers can write employment contracts without government interference. Another is whether or not employers have the right to include in employment contracts clauses that include the prohibition of class-action lawsuits to settle disputes over wages and working conditions.  These clauses preventing class-action lawsuits in employment contracts are fairly common. It should also be noted that many companies have mandatory arbitration procedures–that is the proper way to deal with conflicts. Our society has often been too quick to seek legal action as a way to gain instant wealth. Not all class-action lawsuits have merit. We live in a society where people are free to change jobs. If salaries or working conditions are unacceptable, a company will not be able to find quality employees. The system will police itself. There are also federal avenues available to address valid salary or working condition complaints.

The Hill reports:

The EPI ( Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a liberal think tank) found in a survey last year that 53.9 percent of nonunion private-sector employers already have mandatory arbitration procedures.

Software company Epic Systems Corp., accounting and financial firm Ernst & Young LLP and Murphy Oil USA Inc. were the employers at the center of three cases the court consolidated that argued in support of the agreements.

The government, which changed its position under President Trump, had also intervened in support of the employers, arguing that Congress enacted the Federal Arbitration Act in 1925 to “overcome judicial resistance to arbitration.”

The court’s decision settles a deep split among the lower courts. The 2nd, 5th and 8th circuit courts of appeal and the California and Nevada supreme courts had ruled these arguments are fully enforceable, while the 7th and 9th circuits, along with the National Labor Relations Board, ruled the agreements violate the NLRA.

Government does not belong in the business of writing employment contracts or telling employers what to put in them.

The Lawsuit The Media Has Overlooked (Purposely??)

On Tuesday, Mary 16, Legal Insurrection posted a story about two class-action lawsuits brought against the Democratic National Committee.

The article lists the two complaints involved:

1) It’s shenanigans during the primary to weigh the nomination in Hillary Clinton’s favor.
2) Failure to pay its campaign workers for overtime.

The article explains:

This class action lawsuit has been making its way through the court system since October of 2016, and reports are now available covering the the hearing in the U.S. District Court of Southern Florida in which the DNC requested the base be dismissed.

The lawsuit alleges that the DNC and DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz violated the DNC charter and helped tip the scales in favor of Hillary Clinton.

As most conservatives usually have little interest in liberal politics, and the media has even less desire to cover this topic, it took some searching to discover interesting analysis from Bernie supporter and Washington DC show host Tim Black and Huffington Post author H.A. Goodman: Seven Jaw-Dropping Revelations From DNC Fraud Lawsuit’s Motion to Dismiss.

The article lists the seven revelations (taken from the CounterPropa website):

1. The crux of the Motion to Dismiss asserts the Judge is not in a position to determine how the Democratic Party conducts its nominating process.
2. The Democratic Party views itself as having authority to favor a candidate without any legal repercussions.
3. Judge Zloch appeared skeptical, noting the Democrats’ interest to obscure the guarantee of the Party’s impartiality clause.
4. The Democrats insist that “impartial” cannot be defined, so the DNC’s impartiality clause is akin to a political promise in that it can not be guaranteed.
5. DNC’s legal counsel appeared unaware of any procedures in place to determine how the DNC supports state parties as they conduct individual primary nominating contests.
6. The Democrats’ lawyers takes the position that while the Democrats are not legally obligated to conduct the primary fairly, they did in fact conduct the 2016 primary fairly.
7. In closing remarks, U.S. Federal Court district judge emphasized: “Democracy demands the truth”.

Has anyone seen any reports in the mainstream media about this lawsuit?

It was noted in the Legal Insurrection article that some Democratic Workers who supported the platform plank of a $15 per hour minimum wage were not paid anywhere near that amount. Another example of do as I say, not as I do.