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Politics & Money

Pensioners now, social security next…

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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a chemical company may be able to cut the health benefits of its retired workers, unanimously reversing an appeals court ruling that said the benefits had vested for life.

“Courts should not construe ambiguous writings to create lifetime promises,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court, adding that “retiree health care benefits are not a form of deferred compensation.”

via Supreme Court Rules Against Retirees in Union Health Benefits Case – NYTimes.com

Sign up for a job, work til retirement, part of the deal: pensioners get full health benefits. Now, those benefits: revoked thanks to the Roberts court.

“The mistake I made there was to protest against segregation generally…”

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On tactical errors, and the need of a protest movement to have a goal:

The mistake I made there was to protest against segregation generally rather than against a single and distinct facet of it. Our protest was so vague that we got nothing, and the people were left very depressed and in despair. It would have been much better to have concentrated upon integrating the buses or the lunch counters. One victory of this kind would have been symbolic, would have galvanized support and boosted morale. But I don’t mean that our work in Albany ended in failure. The Negro people there straightened up their bent backs; you can’t ride a man’s back unless it’s bent. Also, thousands of Negroes registered to vote who never had voted before, and because of the expanded Negro vote in the next election for governor of Georgia—which pitted a moderate candidate against a rabid segregationist—Georgia elected its first governor who had pledged to respect and enforce the law impartially. And what we learned from our mistakes in Albany helped our later campaigns in other cities to be more effective. We have never since scattered our efforts in a general attack on segregation, but have focused upon specific, symbolic objectives.

via "Militant as Well as Moderate": Martin Luther King's Longest Interview

With letters like these…

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I can’t imagine how these letters requesting leniency in sentencing for former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell are helping his cause.

The Washington Post reported Saturday on the letters of support daughters Jeanine McDonnell Zubowsky and Cailin McDonnell Young wrote to a federal judge asking for leniency in their father’s sentencing, which is scheduled for Jan. 6.

“Through my life, I have seen my dad wear t-shirts with holes in them, shoes with the soles falling off and pants that are too short,” Zubowsky wrote. “My dad is the least materialistic person that I have ever known and he has never cared about things … my Mom, in contrast, has always been concerned with getting discounts or freebies.”

via Bob McDonnell’s Daughters: Don’t Sentence Our Dad For Our Mom’s Faults.

I haven’t been following the trial to know if the federal judge sentencing McDonnell does or doesn’t believe Maureen McDonnell is indeed mentally ill and ultimately a victim of stresses of being isolated in public life exacerbated her condition. I do know the jurors thought the McDonnell’s were guilty.

I have no reason to doubt that their father is the least materialistic person Bob McDonnell’s daughters know. They could probably benefit from knowing a few more people.

You have nothing to worry about if you don’t…work for the senate

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Lack of oversight affects senators too:

A panel investigating the Central Intelligence Agency’s search of a computer network used by staff members of the Senate Intelligence Committee who were looking into the C.I.A.’s use of torture will recommend against punishing anyone involved in the episode, according to current and former government officials.

The panel will make that recommendation after the five C.I.A. officials who were singled out by the agency’s inspector general this year for improperly ordering and carrying out the computer searches staunchly defended their actions, saying that they were lawful and in some cases done at the behest of John O. Brennan, the C.I.A. director.

You have nothing to worry about if you don’t…work for the senate

Why doesn’t DHS vet airline IT like Apple vets Apps?

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A BuzzFeed intern and NYU senior recently claimed to have hacked Delta’s paperless boarding pass system by changing just one digit in a URL. “On Delta, you can change the URL of your boarding pass and get someone else’s boarding pass,” Dani Grant wrote in a Medium post. “Even if they’re on a different airline.” This seems crazy.

A URL Trick Let You Use Someone Else’s Delta Boarding Pass.

This is where the DHS can have value. Instead of thousands of under-tasked security guards doing what airline staff can be trained to do, they should be rigorously running airline IT through the ringer.