SILER, Circuit Judge. Through a series of transactions and agreements between 1999 and 2002, Defendants JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A., and JP Morgan Chase & Co. (collectively, “JP Morgan”), served as the agent for a consortium of lenders that advanced credit to Venture Holdings Company, LLC (“Venture”), which was owned by Plaintiffs Larry J. Winget and the Larry J. Winget Living Trust (collectively, “Winget”). In 2002, JP Morgan and Winget executed the most recent and significant amendment to their original credit agreement, and, at the same time, also executed guarantees and pledges of collateral. These documents allowed JP Morgan significant access to Winget’s companies, both Venture and its subsidiaries. As Venture’s financial situation deteriorated and the company initiated bankruptcy proceedings, JP Morgan and the other lenders sought increasingly greater control over Winget’s companies, eventually resulting in the takeover of one of Venture’s subsidiaries. In an alleged attempt to force Winget into a financial settlement, JP Morgan and Defendants Black Diamond Commercial Finance, LLC, and Black Diamond Capital Management Living Trust (collectively, “Black Diamond”) (collectively, JP Morgan and Black Diamond are the “Defendants”) installed managers at Venture’s subsidiaries that acted to significantly devalue the company’s assets and initiate additional bankruptcy proceedings. Eventually, the assets of Venture and its subsidiaries were sold pursuant to Section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code. Winget brought its present claims of breach of the guaranty and pledge agreements and requests for declaratory judgments, following a suit by JP Morgan, which sought inspection of the collateral. The district court dismissed Winget’s complaint (the “Complaint”), holding that Winget’s claims were barred by res judicata, and premature to the extent that they were claims regarding future attempts to repossess collateral. Without seeking leave of the court, Winget filed an amended complaint, which the district court struck. After filing, and losing, a motion for reconsideration, Winget appealed.

Winget now argues that the district court erred in (i) dismissing the Complaint without granting Winget leave to amend; (ii) striking Winget’s amended complaint; (iii) failing to apply the correct standard of review when it dismissed the Complaint; (iv) looking to bankruptcy court orders in dismissing the Complaint; (v) not giving Winget the benefit of every inference from the allegations in the Complaint; (vi) ignoring Winget’s defensive claims as a guarantor; (vii) holding that Winget’s claims were barred by the April 2005 bankruptcy sale order; and (viii) holding that the claims asserted in the Complaint were premature.

SILER, Circuit Judge. Dr. Timothy Landis, O.D., brought suit against Pinnacle Eye Care, LLC, dba VisionFirst, John Schmitt, Louisville Optometric Centers III, Inc., successor to Louisville Optometric Centers II, Inc., and Rod Rallo (collectively “Defendants”), alleging employment discrimination based on his military service and his age. The district court granted the Defendants’ motion to stay the suit and ordered the matter to arbitration. Landis now appeals. We AFFIRM.

SUTTON, Circuit Judge. In 2003, while a Democrat occupied the Kentucky governor’s mansion, Linda Back, a registered Democrat, received a civil-service position in the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security. In 2005, one year after a Republican administration took the reins of State government, Keith Hall and Joel Schrader, Back’s supervisors, fired her. Back sued them under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that they fired her based on protected speech and political affiliation in violation of the First (and Fourteenth) Amendment. Before discovery commenced, the defendants asserted qualified immunity, which the district court granted as to Back’s freedom-ofspeech claims but denied as to Back’s political-affiliation claims. Hall and Schrader seek interlocutory review of the district court’s political-affiliation decision, and we affirm.