Michigan SEIU branch allowed to keep millions taken from home health care workers

A Michigan court ruled that the state branch of the powerful Service Employees International Union does not have to pay back tens of millions of dollars in dues taken from home health care workers who were forced into unionization.
The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled last week that the SEIU Healthcare Michigan does not have to pay back more than $34 million in dues collected from over 40,000 home health care workers. Many were forced into the union under state requirements that they join because they were taking care of sick family members at home.
The SEIU successfully lobbied for the plan in multiple states that classified unpaid family members as "home health care workers." Dues were then automatically collected from the care recipients' Medicare or Medicaid checks.
The Court of Appeals ruling was in favor of SEIU Healthcare Michigan’s motion to have the case dismissed because the union had paid back dues to Patricia Haynes and Steven Glossop, who had filed suit demanding dues they were forced to pay be returned. The court noted that Haynes and Glossop were paid back more than they requested in their lawsuit.
The Court of Appeals also said it dismissed the case because the law had changed and “to allow appellants to proceed with this appeal to vindicate the possible interests of third parties would improperly allow them to litigate abstract questions of law in which they are no longer interested parties.”
Officials at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which represented the two, said the overpayment was a devious move by the union in an attempt to hold onto the millions it took from the others.
“The SEIU overpaid our clients to prevent a full review by the court,” Patrick J. Wright, vice president of legal affairs for the Mackinac Center, said in a statement provided to FoxNews.com. “It was pretty obvious the SEIU did not want the court to take a close look at its tactics. Unfortunately, that means the union gets to keep the money it took from the other approximately 39,998 people who were caught up in this scheme. We’re going to review our legal options and look at other possible ways to vindicate all of these victims.”
The ruling comes after the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in June, that public sector unions in Illinois cannot collect fees from home health care workers who don't want to be part of a union.
The SEIU had sent checks to the Mackinac Center on behalf of Haynes and Glossop after that ruling.
The forced unionization ended in 2013 in Michigan and enrollment in the SEIU’s Michigan chapter plummeted the next year.
According to reports the union filed with the U.S. Department of Labor, over 44,000 home-based health care workers left SEIU Healthcare Michigan after learning they did not have to join the union or pay dues.
The Michigan Court of Appeals also said that the Michigan Employment Relations Commission does not have a platform for allowing class action matters.
Officials for the Mackinac Center say they are still weighing their options.
“It’s unfortunate,” said Ted O’Neil, spokesman for the legal group. “The SEIU wanted to make this go away as quietly as possible. If this had continued in court it would have brought the issue to the public spotlight. It’s also unfortunate because of the statute of limitations there was a limit to what anyone could have gotten back.”
O’Neil noted that despite the fact the SEIU “siphoned” $34 million, in the future it will no longer be able to collect money for “basically doing nothing.”
“Hopefully, that is somewhat comforting to those that were ripped off,” he said.
Officials at SEIU Healthcare Michigan said to FoxNews.com that they did not have a comment immediately available.

US considers softening demands on Iran nuke deal, report says

Bailey: " It would be a stupid move on the government's part, as Iran already looks upon the Americans as being weak and stupid!"

The United States is considering softening demands that Iran scales back its uranium enrichment program, instead agreeing to a new proposal that would allow Tehran to keep almost half of the program intact, diplomats say.
The initiative, reported late Thursday by The Associated Press, comes as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has sought to leverage the crisis in the Middle East to ease sanctions on his country as part of nuclear talks, suggesting in a United Nations address that security cooperation between Iran and other countries could only occur if they struck a favorable nuclear deal.
While focusing in large part on Islamic extremists in the region, Rouhani made clear Iran’s cooperation in addressing these threats hinges on the outcome of ongoing nuclear talks – as he once again urged other nations to drop what he described as “excessive demands.”
The U.S., fearing Tehran may enrich to weapons-grade level used to arm nuclear warheads, ideally wants no more than 1,500 centrifuges left operating. Iran insists it wants to use the technology only to make reactor fuel and for other peaceful purposes and insists it be allowed to run at least the present 9,400 machines.
The tentative new U.S. offer attempts to meet the Iranians close to half way on numbers, diplomats told The Associated Press.  They said it envisages letting Iran keep up to 4,500 centrifuges but would reduce the stock of uranium gas fed into the machines to the point where it would take more than a year of enriching to create enough material for a nuclear warhead.
That, they said, would give the international community enough lead time to react to any such attempt.
Rouhani said a deal could mark the “beginning of multilateral cooperation” and allow for “greater focus on some very important regional issues such as combating violence and extremism.”
Iran insists it does not want atomic arms but the West is only willing to lift nuclear-related sanctions if Tehran agrees to substantially shrink enrichment and other activities that Iran could turn toward making such weapons.
The diplomats emphasized that the proposal is only one of several being discussed by the six powers -- the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany -- and has not yet been formally submitted to the Iranians.
The new proposals reflect Washington's desire to advance the talks ahead of a Nov. 24 deadline that was extended from July.
They are running up against a Nov. 24 deadline to reach a comprehensive agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for easing sanctions.
GOP lawmakers have also warned that the Obama administration may be willing to give too much ground to Iran in pursuit of an agreement.
Failure to seal a deal could see a return to confrontation, including U.S. and Israeli threats of military means as a last resort to slow Iran's nuclear program.
"My message to Iran's leaders and people is simple: Do not let this opportunity pass," President Obama said Wednesday in his own address to world leaders.
At the same time, Rouhani has been critical of the U.S. bombing campaign of Islamic State group strongholds and the growing coalition of countries seeking to stop the extremists by military means. "Bombing and airstrikes are not the appropriate way," Rouhani said in his address to the United Nations, warning that "extraterritorial interference ... in fact only feeds and strengthens terrorism."
There are other issues that could further complicate negotiations. American officials are furious with Iran for detaining Jason Rezarian, a Washington Post journalist who has both American and Iranian citizenship, as well as his wife.
Iranian officials have not specifically said why the couple is being held, and Rouhani has dodged questions about their fate. Asked again Wednesday about Rezarian, he said he would be freed if he is innocent of any crime.

First Step Cartoon

Climate change? China rebuts Obama

EXCLUSIVE: While President Obama challenged China at the United Nations to follow the U.S. lead in pushing for drastic reductions in national carbon emissions to save the planet from “climate change,” it appears that China has dramatically different ideas. As in: no.
According to a document deposited at the Geneva-based U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in advance of a planned meeting next month, China -- now the world’s largest source of greenhouse gases -- insists that the U.S. and other developed countries endure most of the economic pain of carbon emission cutbacks, and need to make significantly more sacrifices in the months ahead.
Carbon emission cutbacks by China and other developing countries, the document says, will be “dependent on the adequate finance and technology support provided by developed country parties” to any new climate accord.
In other words, only if Western nations pay for it.
More specifically, only if Western taxpayers ante up.  Among other things, the Chinese communist regime insists that the incentive payments it demands must come from “new, additional, adequate, predictable and sustained public funds" -- rather than mostly private financing, as the U.S. hopes.
In addition, the Chinese state:
-- A promised $100 billion in annual climate financing that Western nations have already pledged  to developing countries for carbon emission control and other actions by 2020 is only  the "starting point" for additional Western financial commitments that must be laid out in a "clear road map," which includes "specific targets, timelines and identified sources;"
--In the longer run, developed countries should be committing “at least 1 percent” of their Gross Domestic Product — much more than they spend on easing global poverty” into a U.N.-administered Green Carbon Fund to pay for the developing country changes;
--In the meantime, the $100 billion pledge to the same fund should be reached by $10 billion increments, starting from a $40 billion floor this year;
--Western countries also need to remove “obstacles such as IPRs [intellectual property rights]” to “promote, facilitate and finance the transfer” of “technologies and know-how” to developing countries in advance of any future climate deal;
CLICK HERE FOR THE PAPER
The Chinese submission is part of the paperwork submitted by a variety of nations in advance of negotiations on a new global climate treaty, which is slated to be unveiled at a grand climate summit meeting in Paris at the end of 2015. This week’s ballyhooed climate summit in New York City was intended to kick-start the diplomatic process that will wend toward the Paris finale.
The Paris 2015 treaty is supposed to replace the tattered Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2020, and which the U.S. never ratified — in large measure because huge greenhouse emitters like China and India were given a pass from most of its strictures.
Since then, countries like Canada and Russia have left the protocol, and others, like Japan, have declined to tighten the screws further on carbon emissions in a time of faltering economic growth.
But while President Obama was telling the summit attendees in New York that “nobody can stand on the sidelines on this issue,” and advising world leaders that he had told China’s top delegate at their meeting that “we have a special responsibility to lead,” China has staked out its much tougher position  in a nine-page position paper drearily titled, “Submission on the Work of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Durban Platform for Enhanced Action.”
The working group, part of the UNFCCC process, is pulling together international positions to develop a consensus starting point for the Paris treaty negotiations, which will supposedly be unveiled at a meeting in Lima, Peru, in December. The Chinese paper, however, went to an earlier preparatory meeting slated to begin in Bonn on October 25.
According to the Chinese, all of the additional Western action is necessary because developing countries have already done their part at greenhouse gas cutbacks—or, as the position paper has it, in typical U.N. climate-speak, “have already communicated and implemented ambitious nationally appropriate mitigation actions.”
Indeed, the paper continues, “Their contribution to global mitigation efforts is far greater than that by developed countries.”
That conclusion appears to largely draw on the fact that China believes that Western countries are “responsible for the current and future concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere because of their historical, current and future emissions,” while “developing countries have the right to equitable development opportunities and sustainable development.”
That was largely the logic behind the faltering Kyoto Protocol, in which China pledged only to reduce the “carbon intensity”—the relative greenhouse gas efficiency-- of its industrialization, without any effort at actual cutbacks.
Optimists now believe that China will move in the new round of climate negotiations toward an actual trajectory of cutbacks, but there is no sign of that ambition in the current position paper.
In fact, the paper argues that any new agreement should “be based and built” on the structures of the old Kyoto deal, with “developed country Parties taking the lead in greenhouse gas emission reduction.”
There is perhaps one major exception: “Commitments by developed country Parties [to the new treaty] on providing finance, technology and capacity-building support to developing country Parties shall be of the same legal bindingness as their mitigation commitments.”
In other words:  pay-as-you-go on “climate change”  means that so far as China is concerned, the U.S. and other advanced countries should do all the paying, and most of the going.

US, allies target ISIS oil supplies in Syria

The U.S. and Arab allies unleashed a new round of airstrikes against Islamic State militants in eastern Syria late Wednesday, targeting a dozen small oil refineries.
U.S. officials told Fox News the latest round of strikes was designed to target a dozen so-called “modular oil refineries”-- essentially small, ISIS-built refineries that the terror group uses to fuel its vehicles and to fund its operations. “This is not going to look like the oil fields burning in Iraq,” one official said, referring to the Gulf War.
A Department of Defense official said ISIS made roughly a $2 million a day profit from the modular oil refineries, which produced 300 to 500 barrels a day.
Officials said all the aircraft made it back safely from the strikes.
The U.S. Central Command said in a statement partner nations in the mission included Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and the 13 airstrikes were conducted by both piloted aircraft and drones. Initial indications were the strikes were successful, the statement said.
U.S. officials said the goal was to leave the refineries largely intact, so they eventually could be used again, but to destroy the support facilities used by ISIS.
Earlier airstrikes Tuesday and Wednesday in Iraq and Syria were carried out by a mix of attack, bomber and fighter aircraft.
Two airstrikes west of Baghdad destroyed two ISIS armed vehicles and a weapons cache. Another two airstrikes, southeast of Irbil, destroyed ISIS fighting positions.
A fifth airstrike damaged eight ISIS vehicles in Syria in an area northwest of the Iraqi town of Al Qa'im, according to U.S Central Command.
All aircraft exited the area safely.
A senior defense official told Fox News that Jordan also conducted an airstrike against ISIS in Syria on Wednesday.
In a separate statement, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said the strikes in eastern Syria hit a staging area used by the militants to move equipment across the border into Iraq.
He did not specify exactly where the air raids took place, but the Iraqi town of Al Qa'im is across the border from the Syrian town of Boukamal, where Syrian activists reported at least 13 airstrikes on suspected Islamic State positions on Wednesday.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was not immediately clear who carried out the airstrikes in and around Boukamal, but it cited locals as saying the intensity of the air raids was similar to that of strikes on the town early Tuesday by the U.S.-led military coalition.
To date, the U.S. Central Command says it has conducted 198 airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and 20 in Syria – with the help of partner nations.
In the opening salvo of the campaign, the U.S. on its own also hit Al Qaeda's Syria branch, known as the Nusra Front. American officials said the strikes targeted the so-called Khorasan Group, which the U.S. says consists of hardened jihadis who pose a direct and imminent threat to the United States.
On Wednesday, the Nusra Front said it was evacuating its compounds near civilian areas in Idlib province in northwestern Syria. The announcement, made on a Facebook page associated with the group's Idlib operations, follows a U.S. airstrike on a Nusra Front base in the village of Kfar Derian that killed around a dozen fighters and 10 civilians, according to two activists.
Another Syrian rebel group, Ahrar al-Sham, was also clearing out of its bases, weapons workshops and offices, according to the Observatory. It said the group issued a statement calling for fighters to limit the use of wireless communication devices to emergencies, to move heavy weapons and conceal them, and to warn civilians to stay away from the group's camps.
An activist in Idlib who goes by the name of Mohammed confirmed that Ahrar al-Sham was evacuating its bases throughout the northern area. He said he was not aware of any strikes against the group, but said the fighters thought they would be targeted by the coalition because of their ultraconservative Islamic beliefs.
Ahrar al-Sham has been among the steadiest and most effective forces fighting to oust President Bashar Assad in Syria's civil war. It has also been on the front lines of a nine-month battle in northern Syria against the Islamic State group. But the U.S. has long looked at Ahrar al-Sham with suspicion, considering the group too radical and too cozy with the Nusra Front.
The U.S.-led campaign in Syria has drawn a mixed response from the country's multitude of rebel brigades, many of whom cooperate with the Nusra Front and have been locked in a deadly fight with Islamic State militants since January. But the rebels' ultimate goal is to topple Assad, while the U.S. is focused on defeating the Islamic State group.
On Wednesday, the main Western-backed Syrian opposition group criticized the American-led airstrikes for being limited to the Islamic State group and other extremists while leaving Assad's government untouched.
"We regret that the international community has come up with partial solutions to the Syrian conflict in which hundreds of thousands were killed or detained by the Assad regime," said Nasr al-Hariri, secretary general of the Syrian National Coalition.
In a statement, al-Hariri also said that any effort other than helping Syrians overthrow Assad will only fuel extremism.

Oval Office Cartoon

Obama uses coffee cup to salute Marines

Real Classy ain't he.

President Barack Obama returned a formal military salute with a one-handed coffee-cup salute Tuesday, only a few hours after he dispatched the nation’s military on their attack mission into northern Syria.
White House aides posted the sloppy salute video on Instagram.
The commander in chief offered the coffee-cup salute when he disembarked from his U.S. Marine Corps helicopter in New York, as he made his way to the United Nations General Assembly.
“President Obama just landed in New York for #UNGA2014,” says the caption.
The salute is “the most important of all military courtesies,” says a manual for Marine Corps officer candidates.
“In some situations, the salute is not appropriate,” says the manual. “In general, do not salute when… carrying articles with both hands or being otherwise so occupied as to make saluting impractical,” says the manual, titled “Customs and Courtesies.”
Some of the comments on the Instagram account were very critical of Obama’s unconventional salutation.
“Put the damn coffee down and salute correctly,” said part of a message from “gatorman1361.”

Karzai says US has not wanted peace in Afghanistan during farewell speech

Outgoing Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai took one final swipe at the U.S. Tuesday, telling a gathering of Afghan government employees that the 13-year American-led military action had failed to bring peace to his country. 
"We don't have peace because the Americans didn't want peace," said Karzai, who will officially give way to President-elect Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai when the latter is sworn in Monday.
"If America and Pakistan really want it, peace will come to Afghanistan," Karzai added, referring to his country's eastern neighbor as well as the U.S. "The war in Afghanistan is to the benefit of foreigners. But Afghans on both sides are the sacrificial lambs and victims of this war." Karzai also thanked a number of countries for their efforts in Afghanistan — India, Japan, China, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Germany — without thanking the U.S.
Karzai's words were met with a furious response by the American ambassador to Afghanistan James Cunningham, who called the comments "ungracious and ungrateful."
"It makes me kind of sad. I think his remarks, which were uncalled for, do a disservice to the American people and dishonor the huge sacrifices Americans have made here and continue to make here," Cunningham told a gathering of journalists.
Karzai's spokesman Aimal Faizi told The Washington Post that while the president appreciates the efforts of U.S. troops and taxpayers to rebuilt the war-torn country, he also believes that the U.S. did not do enough to confront Pakistan-backed militants in the country and that Washington and Islamabad "sabotaged" efforts to reach a peace deal with the Taliban. 
Karzai is the only president Afghanistan has known since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion removed the Taliban from power. In the intervening years, The United States has spent more than $100 billion on aid in Afghanistan since 2001 to train and equip the country's security forces, to pave crumbling dirt roads, to upgrade hospitals and to build schools. More than 2,200 U.S. forces have died in Afghanistan operations since 2001. Nearly 20,000 have been wounded.
The United Nations says that some 8,000 Afghan civilians have been killed in the conflict over the last five years alone. Karzai for years has railed against U.S. military strikes for the civilian casualties that some of them cause — although the United Nations has said insurgents are to blame for the overwhelming majority of casualties.
In his final year in office Karzai refused to sign a security agreement with the U.S. that would set the legal framework to allow about 10,000 American military advisers and trainers to stay in the country next year. Ghani Ahmadzai has said he will sign it.
Samehullah Samem, a member of parliament from the western province of Farah, said as a decade-long ruler Karzai has earned respect among Afghans, but that he should be more careful with his words toward an ally. He noted that the Afghan economy is faltering.
"We are completely dependent on the international community. We need the support of the international community, especially the United States of America," Samem said.
U.S. military and intelligence operatives helped transport Karzai around the region in late 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington. That U.S. connection helped pave the way to the presidency.
Ghani Ahmadzai's entrance is more conventional. A former finance minister, the new president has worked at the World Bank and earned a PhD. from New York's Colombia University. His path to the presidency follows a long election season that ended with negotiations for a national unity government and the election commission giving him 55 percent of the runoff vote.
Cunningham said the U.S. was asked to be involved in the unity negotiations and that the U.S. exerted itself to help Afghanistan succeed, an important achievement especially given the "psychic investment as well as blood and treasure" here since 2001.
The 13-year war against the Taliban has largely been turned over to Afghan security forces, a development that has seen casualties among Afghan soldiers rise significantly this year.