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On July 31 2014 11:17 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2014 10:12 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 31 2014 09:54 IgnE wrote:On July 31 2014 09:29 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 31 2014 09:12 IgnE wrote:
Government is different from private capital. If you want to liken the two, you should liken the two.
Supplying a franchisee with scheduling software and advice is hardly the only grounds of the case.
A franchisee has multiple legal ties that restrict his own control over his capital. The legal fiction is clear cut only insofar as it is clear that a franchisee is not a "normal" corporation. I'm not likening government to private capital. I'm applying the standard of what constitutes an employer-employee relationship. The NLRB is arguing that a much looser definition of who has control, and is thus the real employer, is appropriate. What are the other merits of the case? The only other thing I recall you citing was a quote from McDonald's CEO where you misinterpreted what he said. So what of the legal ties? A lender may require debt covenants, it does not make the lender the owner and responsible for employment practices. The lender would only be the real owner if they were really acting as such. For that, you'd need a fair amount of evidence as proof. If you want to discover what constitutes an employer-employee relationship maybe you should start with profits. The government doesn't earn the profits, nor does it collect franchise fees. I really don't feel like this particular thread needs to continue. Your suggestion that there is no difference between a franchisee and a government that imposes a minimum wage is a dumb one. "Lending" the name McDonalds is nothing like "lending" a car that a private businessman drives around in. I never argued that there was no difference between a franchisee and a government. My argument was that if "rule setting" with regard to labor practices is the defining characteristic of an employer, than the government is "employing" fast food workers since it sets rules for them. I don't see where profits come into the picture. McDonalds doesn't earn profits off of its franchisees. They do collect fees, but so what? Lenders receive cash flow from the business as well. So do employees and various governments. But yeah, I'm fine dropping the discussion too. The basic gist is: McDonalds franchisees follow McDonalds lead on hiring, firing, threatening and penalizing workers who are agitating to form unions.
It is somewhat implied that this is the case, though it hasn't been said outright. It could be the opposite - the franchisees are breaking from McDonalds lead and so McDonalds needs to be held accountable so that they can, in turn, hold the franchisees accountable.
McDonalds, which only runs about 10% of the 16,000 locations in the US has motivation and means to organize franchisees and affiliates to prevent unionization, as it pays near minimum wage and, through its prohibitive licensing model, forces franchisees to pay near minimum wage.
The first part is a bit contradictory. If McDonalds only owns 10% of the locations, they should have less incentive to prevent unionization (assuming they want to do so in the first place). I haven't seen any evidence that McDonalds franchise system is forcing franchisees into a difficult financial position. This seems entirely speculative on your end. If there is a problem with the franchise system, that should be taken up with the SEC which regulates franchises.
Employees who have experienced these unlawful practices in response to their organizing efforts have tried to say that McDonalds should be a joint employer. The NLRB board counsel said he found merit in 43 of the 181 cases brought before the board since November 2012. This seems very plausible given McDonalds multibillion dollar scope, incentive to prohibit McDonalds employees from unionizing, and McDonalds relative control over its franchisees labor practices and economic decisions. If you are organizing workers at one franchise, but you can't sue McDonalds, which itself is quashing workers at all of the hundreds and thousands of other franchises, you are going to have a difficult time ever accomplishing anything. If McDonalds has enough influence and control over its franchises to prevent effective organization across its franchises, then it should not be granted protection under the guise of the corporate veil by virtue of its franchiser-franchisee relationship.
I don't think the corporate veil has anything to do with this. Moreover, nothing here supports the idea that McDonalds is behind the cases the NLRB has found to have merit.
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Yeah we'll have to wait for more info to come out. Your point about franchises losing money is odd though. Many restaurants lose money. The fact that some McDonalds franchises lose money does not mean that the franchise agreement is the cause. Moreover, given how many McDonalds there are, it suggests that the franchise agreement is quite good.
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If a U.S. court declines to offer Argentina more time to cut a deal with "holdout" investors, Buenos Aires may face its second default in 12 years.
Economy Minister Axel Kicillof scrambled to New York on Tuesday to join last-ditch negotiations, holding the first face-to-face talks with the principals of New York hedge funds who demand full repayment on bonds they bought at a discounted rate after the country defaulted in 2002.
Kicillof on Wednesday said the country offered a group of holdout creditors the same reduced payment terms it has agreed to pay other holders of its restructured bonds, but the holdouts refused.
Without a stay of U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa's order preventing Argentina from making the July 30 deadline — representing the end of a 30-day grace period — for a coupon payment on exchanged bonds, the country will fall into default for the second time in 12 years.
The hedge funds are owed $1.33 billion, but an equal-treatment clause in an agreement Argentina made with bondholders in 2005 would cost Argentina many billions more. For years, the Argentine government has called the hedge fund creditors "vultures" for picking on the carcass of its record $100 billion default in 2001.
After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in mid-June that the country must pay billions in repudiated bonds, Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, dismissed the ruling as "blackmail" by international "vulture funds."
Latin America's No. 3 economy has for years fought the holdout hedge funds that rejected large writedowns of the debt, but after exhausting legal avenues Argentina faces default if it cannot reach a last-minute deal.
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July 31 (Reuters) - A U.S. attorney has threatened to investigate the administration of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for possible obstruction of justice or witness tampering, amid its broader probe into the disbanding of an anticorruption commission, the New York Times reported on Thursday.
The warning was sent in a letter to the lawyer for the disbanded commission on Wednesday from the office of Preet Bharara, in Manhattan, which has been investigating the panel's shutdown and pursuing its unfinished corruption cases.
The Times reported last week that Cuomo's office meddled with the commission, which he created last year to root out corruption in state politics.
In the letter, prosecutors alluded to public statements made by panel members earlier this week in which they defended Cuomo's handling of the commission, and said at least some of the statements were prompted by requests by the governor or people acting on his behalf, the Times said.
"We have reason to believe a number of commissioners recently have been contacted about the commission's work, and some commissioners have been asked to issue public statements characterizing events and facts regarding the commission's operation," prosceutors wrote, according to the letter which was read to the Times.
"To the extent anyone attempts to influence or tamper with a witness's recollection of events relevant to our investigation, including the recollection of a commissioner or one of the commission's employees, we request that you advise our office immediately, as we must consider whether such actions constitute obstruction of justice or tampering with witnesses that violate federal law."
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WASHINGTON -- The House abruptly removed a bill from its schedule that would provide $659 million in funding to address the ongoing border crisis, after initially planning to vote on the measure Thursday afternoon.
The bill had significant opposition from Democrats, but GOP leadership decided to add a separate vote, if the first were to pass, on a measure meant to bring on conservative support: ending a key Obama policy that allows undocumented young people in the U.S. for years to remain in the country.
That move wasn't enough to get to 218 votes. The GOP leadership -- House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio), Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Majority Whip Steve Scalise (La.), and Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.) -- issued a statement saying the House "will continue to work on solutions to the border crisis and other challenges facing our country."
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Oh my God! There's a border crisis! Someone do something!
Us? Don't ask us to do anything. We want the president to use an executive order so we can sue him over it.
We're also going on vacation for five weeks, later!
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WASHINGTON -- Following reports that Central Intelligence Agency employees improperly accessed computers used by U.S. Senate staff to investigate the agency, Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) on Thursday called for the resignation of John Brennan as CIA director.
"After being briefed on the CIA Inspector General report today, I have no choice but to call for the resignation of CIA Director John Brennan," Udall said in a statement. "The CIA unconstitutionally spied on Congress by hacking into Senate Intelligence Committee computers. This grave misconduct not only is illegal, but it violates the U.S. Constitution’s requirement of separation of powers. These offenses, along with other errors in judgment by some at the CIA, demonstrate a tremendous failure of leadership, and there must be consequences."
According to a CIA Inspector General’s Office report first obtained by McClatchy, agency employees in 2009 hacked Senate computers being used to compile a report on the agency’s infamous detention and interrogation program -- a move that some critics have characterized as a significant breach of the separation of powers. Brennan has apologized to Senate intelligence committee leaders, including Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who took the floor earlier this year to excoriate the agency for skirting the law and attempting to intimidate Congress.
Brennan later adamantly denied that his agency had broken the law. "As far as allegations about CIA hacking into Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth," he said. "We wouldn't do that. That's just beyond the scope of reason."
White House press secretary Josh Earnest issued a full-throated defense of the CIA chief on Thursday, telling reporters that Brennan had "been candid about the inconsistencies that the IG found."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who has tangled with the intelligence community over spying practices before, also issued a statement expressing disapproval of Brennan and the CIA. But the public privacy advocate notably stopped short of issuing a vote of no confidence.
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On August 01 2014 07:25 SnipedSoul wrote:
Oh my God! There's a border crisis! Someone do something!
Us? Don't ask us to do anything. We want the president to use an executive order so we can sue him over it.
We're also going on vacation for five weeks, later!
They've earned that vacation! Everyone thought the last Congress would hold the record for a while for doing the least work for the most money, but alas, this congress has managed to muster up the effort to accomplish even less.
At this rate we'll be able to count the number of things congress gets done on our fingers and toes...
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GOP Tells Obama to Ignore Congress One Day After Suing Him for Ignoring Congress
On Wednesday, House Republicans sued President Obama for acting on his own without approval from Congress. On Thursday, House Republicans told President Obama he should act on his own to fix the border crisis.
The messaging whiplash resulted from Speaker John Boehner's failure – so far – to pass a Republican spending bill that would provide $659 million to help stem the child migrant crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border.
In a statement following the decision to abruptly scrap a vote on the measure, Boehner and his fellow GOP leaders tried to put the onus back on Obama, saying the president had the power to act unilaterally, "without the need for congressional action," to respond to the crisis.
There are numerous steps the president can and should be taking right now, without the need for congressional action, to secure our borders and ensure these children are returned swiftly and safely to their countries."
Yet that was a polar opposite message from the one Republicans delivered a day earlier, when they voted to authorize a lawsuit against Obama for "bypass[ing] the legislative process to create his own laws by executive fiat," according to an accompanying committee report.
http://news.yahoo.com/gop-tells-obama-ignore-congress-one-day-suing-203633750.html
That brought a smile to my face, your damned if you do and dammed if you dont. Maybe oboma should ask the gop for a calender so he knows when he is allowed to go over there head on stuff.
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GOP blocks aid to Israel.
this is just...spectacular
After Senate Republicans blocked Democrats’ $2.7 billion border aid package, which also included $225 million for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system and $615 million to fight Western wildfires, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tried to split off the Israel and wildfire money as a standalone bill, hoping to put aside the dispute over border funding and appeal to Republicans’ deep ties to Israel. “We’ve all watched as the tiny state of Israel, who is with us on everything, they have had in the last three weeks 3,000 rockets filed into their country,” Reid said. “Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel asked for $225 million in emergency funding so that Israel’s arsenal as it relates to the Iron Dome could be replenished. It’s clear that is an emergency, and we should be able to agree on that.” It didn’t work. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/senate-blocks-israel-aid-109617.html#ixzz397WAXaGy
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It's also pretty sick that Reid insisted on attaching a wildfire bill that was 2.5X what the Israel bill is. Why not make all 3 seperate bills? Pretty clear that Reid knew this was a win-win for him- either the GOP vote yes on the bill and Israel gets what it needs, or they vote no and Reid can start with the talking points.
That vote certainly would have had me noodling for quite some time.
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On August 01 2014 16:27 Introvert wrote:
It's also pretty sick that Reid insisted on attaching a wildfire bill that was 2.5X what the Israel bill is. Why not make all 3 seperate bills? Pretty clear that Reid knew this was a win-win for him- either the GOP vote yes on the bill and Israel gets what it needs, or they vote no and Reid can start with the talking points.
That vote certainly would have had me noodling for quite some time.
You fish for catfish with your bare hands?
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On August 01 2014 16:58 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2014 16:27 Introvert wrote:
It's also pretty sick that Reid insisted on attaching a wildfire bill that was 2.5X what the Israel bill is. Why not make all 3 seperate bills? Pretty clear that Reid knew this was a win-win for him- either the GOP vote yes on the bill and Israel gets what it needs, or they vote no and Reid can start with the talking points.
That vote certainly would have had me noodling for quite some time. You fish for catfish with your bare hands?
Maybe you aren't familiar with the idiom- it's a common word/phrase in some of the children's books I had growing up.
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/noodling
And no, I hate fishing. It's boring. Though I suppose real noodling is somewhat more exciting.
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As a general policy; I favor separating bills that are easily separable. I hope it improves the overall quality of bills passed, though I have not looked into it.
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On August 01 2014 20:00 zlefin wrote:
As a general policy; I favor separating bills that are easily separable. I hope it improves the overall quality of bills passed, though I have not looked into it.
It seems to be normal tho to attach totally irrelevant things to the same bill in the US tho. Just another problem with its basic governing structure.
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On August 01 2014 16:27 Introvert wrote:
It's also pretty sick that Reid insisted on attaching a wildfire bill that was 2.5X what the Israel bill is. Why not make all 3 seperate bills? Pretty clear that Reid knew this was a win-win for him- either the GOP vote yes on the bill and Israel gets what it needs, or they vote no and Reid can start with the talking points.
That vote certainly would have had me noodling for quite some time.
I wished Washington worked like that too, but doing that certainly isn't a uni-partisan habit or new.
But why vote against the wild fire money anyway?
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Probably because you don't want Israel getting money, or something like that. It is kind of ridiculous how random things get attached to other things in the US for no apparent reason.
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House wants provisions to deport people faster & change language on limiting deferrals/work permits.
Senate doesn't.
So Senate wants to tie their Border bill + Israel + Wildfire all together, so they can keep out the deportation provisions.
And don't forget we are 90 days out from solving this little issue as well. (Real clear politics map from today)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/vAy6CLS.jpg)
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On August 01 2014 21:32 RCMDVA wrote:House wants provisions to deport people faster & change language on limiting deferrals/work permits. Senate doesn't. So Senate wants to tie their Border bill + Israel + Wildfire all together, so they can keep out the deportation provisions. And don't forget we are 90 days out from solving this little issue as well. (Real clear politics map from today)
Well not really? Because if somehow the Republicans take the Senate, and Obama is supposed to 'stand up for his principles' like the right has been screeching for their reps to do, then Dems should expect him to veto practically everything Republicans propose and Repubs wont have enough to override a veto (without Dem support).
As of now, they can't even pass their own damn immigration bill. Pretty shameful if they called them back and then couldn't even vote on (let alone pass) something (considering it's not even a slight risk of having any real meaning).
I mean how ridiculous do all the people claiming 'Obama refuses to negotiate' look when the people they want him to negotiate with (over real laws), can't even come to an agreement among themselves (on theatrical laws)...?
This immigration bill fiasco is just more proof that even if the Republicans did completely write the ACA (as they did this immigration bill) they would of still voted against it.
In light of all the recent news, I think the perfect word to describe the Republican party currently is schizophrenic.
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EPT
