Thanks for the last two post. I find them spot on.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/janus-decision-supreme-court-win-freedom/

“The case addresses an individual’s constitutional protection from coerced speech. It doesn’t deny unions the right to organize, recruit, bargain, strike, or collect dues from willing members. What it does deny is the unions’ right to force individuals who are opposed to their positions and policies to pay into union coffers.”

Annnd – I see that David French agrees with me, although he doesn’t make a connection to the Trump Travel case.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/janus-case-free-speech-wins-supreme-court-again/

“In Janus v. AFSCME, the court struck a strong blow against government-compelled speech for the third time this term.

Perhaps the worst government affront to the rights of conscience, far worse than mere censorship, is compelled speech, the practice of forcing Americans to fund or express ideas they find abhorrent. It’s one thing to tell a man or woman that they can’t speak. It’s another thing entirely to compel them to use their voice, their artistic talents, or their pocketbook in support of a cultural, political, or religious enterprise with which they disagree.

Yet that’s exactly what the state of Colorado tried to do in punishing Christian baker Jack Phillips for refusing to use his artistic talents in the service of a gay-marriage ceremony. That’s exactly what the state of California tried to do in legally mandating that pro-life pregnancy centers advertise for free abortions. And that’s exactly what the state of Illinois tried to do in requiring non-union public employees to fund union activities.
…
Illinois required these employees to pay a so-called agency fee that funded (among other things) collective bargaining, lobbying, social activities, membership meetings, and litigation.

Many of those items directly impact key and contentious elements of public policy, matters of public concern. And public employees themselves have widely divergent opinions. Yet they were all forced to fund the same point of view.
…

How does the media tend to cover these cases? By all-too-often downplaying the law and hyping up the political confrontation. So, in each case, the conflict wasn’t framed as “state power versus individual liberty” but rather as “gays versus Christians,” “abortion rights versus the pro-life movement,” or “labor unions versus conservatives.” But this is not how free-speech jurisprudence works. The political identity of the litigants should be completely irrelevant to the outcome. By vindicating individual liberty and protecting citizens from compelled speech, the Court created precedents that every citizen can use — in the appropriate context — regardless of partisan affiliation.

Do progressives really want red states to be able to compel their speech, to treat their professionals as second-class citizens, or to force their progressive friends to subsidize powerful, private conservative entities?
…

If you’ve followed Justice Kennedy’s career, you’ll note a recurring theme: He hates bullies and loathes intolerance. Much of his jurisprudence on gay rights was plainly motivated by his desire to protect a vulnerable population from what he perceived to be a discriminatory and bigoted majority. And now he’s protecting different vulnerable populations from different bullies.

The results are clear. Government activists, if you try to force a man to violate his conscience to advance your ideology, the Supreme Court has a message for you: You’re going to lose.”

Links and quotes “below the fold.”

Masterpiece Cake Shop – decided in the baker’s favor.
“In essence, Phillips won because the oxymoronic Colorado Civil Rights Commission was mean to him. ” (McCarthey).

Not, he argues, a verdict in favor of free speech / religion at all.

NIFLA – decided in the pregnancy center’s favor.
“a short and brutal concurrence to specifically chastise California for its apparent viewpoint discrimination and to express concern that pro-life citizens were specifically and intentionally “targeted” because of their beliefs.”
(French, paraphrasing Justice Kennedy).

Not an unalloyed victory for free speech (or rather, defeat for burdened speech).

In essence, the majority in both decisions took into account the verbally expressed motivations and ideology of the losers.

But then, this case turns on the majority’s rejection of the argument that Trump’s campaign rhetoric “tainted” the restriction order:

Trump’s Travel restrictions (third iteration) upheld.
“The entry suspension is an act that is well within executive authority and could have been taken by any other President—the only question is evaluating the actions of this particular President in promulgating an otherwise valid Proclamation.”
(Neo, quoting the decision).

I suppose I would argue that they are different because in the first two, the expressed hostility and bias was on the part of government agencies which are presumed to be (and should be) ideologically neutral in applying the law. The third case involves, well, campaign rhetoric by a person without any existing governmental power.

And of course, that pesky fact that the travel restrictions were not any kind of a “Muslim ban” as featured in the rhetoric.

Just throwing it out there.

(stick in the “http://www.” in front of each URL)
nationalreview.com/2018/06/masterpiece-cakeshop-setback-liberty/

nationalreview.com/corner/in-defense-of-free-speech-justice-thomas-wielded-the-scalpel-but-justice-kennedy-brought-the-hammer/

neoneocon.com/2018/06/26/scotus-upholds-trumps-revised-travel-order/#comment-2390499

Although not in an unlimited number of situations, thank goodness; just most of them.

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.

I think both the left and the right are about to make too much of the Kennedy retirement.

Gorsuch taking Scalia’s seat prevented a proponent of a “living constitution” from influencing decisions. Net change from Scalia’s presence = 0.

Kennedy was a swing vote. Many of his decisions were with the conservative majority, but not all of his decisions. To replace him with someone like a Gorsuch will direct the court toward originalist interpretations, but it will not have the extreme effect of Trump’s next supreme court pick if, in fact, he gets a third opportunity in his term(s?) as president.

I’ve been thinking of McConnell lately, and I agree.

I don’t think the right has given him enough credit for that.