Mad-City, with Food Pics!!!

July 9, 2014

Ms. J and I were in Madison, WI over the Independence Day weekend to visit our daughter. She’s spending the summer working in Mad-City, and clearly enjoying herself immensely.

Madison is the Wisconsin state capital. It’s also the home of the University of Wisconsin’s main campus, and Wisconsin’s second largest city.

We had a wonderful time. We stayed about three blocks from the state capitol building. Here are pictures.

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Legislation

Legislation

Justice

Justice

Liberty

Liberty

Government

Government

The rotunda

The rotunda

One cool building! (It’s also the host for Dane County Farmers’ Market, the largest producer-only farmer’s market in the nation.)

We ate very, very well at Graze and Restaurant Muramoto, thought The Old Fashioned was OK, and had a nice breakfast at Marigold

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The Wednesday Curator – 7/9/14

July 8, 2014

Out of the box, I need to mention www.evernote.com and David “even my mom calls me Griff” Griffis. Griff is an old friend, and a mostly unsung hero for literacy in Tucson. Months ago we had a long lunch, talking about a pre-Mark Rubin Writes project. He shared Evernote as a tool, and for the Wednesday Curator it has become an invaluable tool. Thanks, Griff, for the suggestion, and for all you do and have done for our community. (Check out Evernote as a very versatile tool for having whatever you need, wherever you are.)

Michael Ignatieff, in the July 10 issue of The New York Review of Books, asks Are the Authoritarians Winning? Not a thought to contemplate happily,

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Hobby Lobby and Final Thoughts

July 8, 2014

Here are a few final thoughts on Hobby Lobby. (I’m pretty sure I’ve said that before; however, Hobby Lobby seems to be the case that won’t go away.)

The Supreme Court takes about 70 cases during each nine month term. It only takes those cases it chooses to hear. Matters of great import, and cases where the federal circuits are split, represent its caseload. And, while its decisions directly affect the parties in the case, broad principles and clarifying/shaping the law provide its raison d’etre.

We pay the justices to handle the hard questions. And we expect, rightfully, that they come at each case straight up. (Yes, I know five male, Catholic members of the Court gave companies

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The Wednesday Curator – 7/2/14

July 2, 2014

I posted last night, completely forgetting the fact that it was Tuesday, which meant I should have been working on The Wednesday Curator. Here goes:

You may have heard the one about President Obama exceeding his Constitutional authority 9X, 6X, 13X, etc. That Obama, just a lawless you-know-what! Well, PolitiFact.com, a project of the Tampa Bay Times, go to the bottom of it here. The answer? FALSE!

Here’s something really depressing:  The New Red State Fad:  Spending Big Bucks to Pollute More? “Yah, I got my truck, I got my rollin’ coal, and life is good.” Rollin’ coal? The piece is short, and worth a quick look, but for those in a hurry, these people get their

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“Not” Hobby Lobby!!!

July 1, 2014

I almost wrote a disquisition on Stern v. Marshall, No. 10-179, a big-deal bankruptcy case that involved Anna Nicole Smith and the estate of her deceased husband, a partner of the Koch brothers’ father. Not being super-sharp on the issue, I thought instead that I’d write about the Highway Trust Fund. (You’ll be hearing about the issue over the next 30 days, for sure.) Or about the alleged, “it’s coming,” John Boehner suit against President Barack Obama.

I suspect you’ve figured this one out by now:  I was simply looking for anything, anything lighter and easier to get through than what the U.S. Supreme Court has visited on us in the last several days. Alas, I struggled. Then

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Hobby Lobby? I’m Done with You!

July 1, 2014

“Where do I begin … ?” Let’s start with the fact that, had the alleged model for the protagonist in Love Story, Albert Gore, Jr., been inaugurated in 2001 and re-elected in 2004, the Supreme Court would be issuing very different decisions. Elections matter!

That said, the Republic will survive Hobby Lobby and much of the rest of the Court’s mischief during the recent past. Certainly, in many ways the Court has made life in these United States worse for many people, but we’re strong and we will survive.

Lots and lots of commentary on this decision, and it’s all over the map. Frankly, I found much of it not very helpful, although I do commend the SCOTUSblog,

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Breaking: Last Two Cases of the Term

June 30, 2014

In Harris v. Quinn, No. 11-0681, the U.S. Supreme Court has distinguished between full-fledged public employees and home health care workers with respect to any obligation to pay union dues. More tonight/tomorrow, but the decision was 5-4, and does not appear to be the death knell for public unions that you may be reading about elsewhere. No good news for unions anymore, but the decision looks like it could have been much worse.

And Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, No. 13-354? Bad, bad news! Another 5-4 outcome, and the Court has seemingly made a hash of corporate law.

More by tomorrow morning!

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Court Tomorrow … and a Primer on Business Entities

June 29, 2014

Two cases await decisions at the Supreme Court for this term, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and Harris v. Quinn. Hobby Lobby should address whether a for-profit corporation can have religious beliefs which it can express in the context of an Affordable Care Act provision which requires that health insurance policies include contraception benefits, where the corporation need not purchase insurance for its employees. Think I loaded the deck? Really, I didn’t, for this is the fact-pattern associated with Hobby Lobby and its companion cases.

Harris involves an Illinois statute that affects whether home health care workers must join a union, where the state pays those people through Medicaid. Hard to imagine the Court not finding the law unconstitutional, given

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Less Pissed Off … But Still!

June 29, 2014

Less pissed off I am! I understand—and will try to explain—the majority decision in McMullen v. Coakley; still, the decision troubles me.

The First Amendment provides, expressly, that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech … .” (Not important, here, is the means by which the First Amendment applies to a law adopted by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.) Political speech gets special protections, for the First Amendment was designed to protect it.

Time, place and manner restrictions are permissible. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in Schenck v. United States, stated what seems obvious:  “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing

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