Random News And Notes 21 May

I don’t know where most of you stand vis labor unions, and frankly, I don’t care. I am not a union supporter in most of the industrial west for a couple of reasons that all boil down to the fact that their time has passed. So when I saw this story of a Spanish union actively though unintentionally screwing it’s members I had to share.

This one requires a little bit of setup, so lets get that out of the way. Ryanair is a Dublin, Ireland based low cost airline. Think of a Euro version of Spirit. Ryanair is worse in that the airline actually does not give a f*ck. The CEO is on record stating he’d remove all the seats except for first class to get more passengers on each flight if he could get away with it. Now on to our story of union f*ckery.

Last year Ryanair came to a labor agreement with CCOO, a union representing part of Ryanair’s cabin crews. The airline extended the deal to all cabin crew as a gesture of goodwill. However, the union representing the rest of the flight attendants, USO, didn’t want to be part of that deal and sued to have their members removed. The Spanish courts sided with them in March.

So what did Ryanair do? They notified all cabin crew represented by USO that they would have to repay any salary increases they got while the CCOO deal that was in force until the Court ruled in favor of their union. That turns out to be a significant chunk of change. Some union members got emails telling them they had to repay more than €3000.

Oh well.

I have some sad news to share. Actor George Wendt has died. Wendt was best known for playing barfly Norm Peterson on the long running sitcom Cheers.

George Wendt was 76. Resquiescat in Pace.

An odd thing happened in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals last night. In what is usually an ordinary and per curiam (an opinion or order made not citing any specific judge) order acknowledging the reverse and remand order from the Supreme Court, there was a signed concurrence.

The case involved is A.A.R.P. v Trump. That’s the one where Tren de Aragua gang members are challenging their removal via the Alien Enemies Act. As a side note, the A.A.R.P. in this case is not the leftist old people organization. Rather it is the initials of the plaintiff.

Anyway, 5th Circuit judge James Ho wrote the concurrence and he also took SCOTUS to task over their handling of the case. I normally avoid covering these kinds of technical and procedural court machinations, as they are complex and frankly boring. This is a bit different. Judge Ho abandoned the usual collegial phraseology you see in court filings. Here are a couple of passages that I found most interesting. (citations omitted)

But I write to state my sincere concerns about how the district judge as well as the President and other officials have been treated in this case. I worry that the disrespect they have been shown will not inspire continued respect for the judiciary, without which we cannot long function. . .

. . . The amount of time considered too short in Does 1-3 was nine days. Compared to 42 minutes, however, nine days is a lifetime to decide a motion.

So the district court reasonably assumed that the principle invoked in Does 1-3 to justify denying relief to law-abiding citizens concerned about their religious liberties in the COVID-19 era would likewise justify denying relief to illegal alien members of a foreign terrorist organization. . .

. . . We seem to have forgotten that this is a district court—not a Denny’s. This is the first time I’ve ever heard anyone suggest that district judges have a duty to check their dockets at all hours of the night, just in case a party decides to file a motion. . .

While I am not a blood sucking leech err, lawyer, I am honestly shocked at the language used here. Judge Ho makes it crystal clear that he thinks SCOTUS got this wrong. I will add this to the list of things I’m watching and update you as needed.

SecDef Pete Hegseth is convening a panel to review the Afghanistan withdrawal. The panel will be led by Sean Parnell, LTC Stuart Scheller and Jery Dunleavy. They will be looking into who made what decisions and recommend further actions if needed.

While more transparency is always a Good Thing, I wonder where this is going if anywhere.

An English woman has been sentenced to 31 months in prison for a tweet. Lucy Connolly said in an X post in July last year: “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care … if that makes me racist so be it.”

The post, which was in response to the Southport stabbings where 3 little girls were stabbed to death and 5 more injured badly by a subhuman islamist Axel Rudakubana, was quickly deleted. She was charged with inciting racial hatred”. If you’re travelling to the UK any time soon watch what you post on SocMed while you’re there.