By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
A woman in Ohio claims a University of Cincinnati Medical Center employee provided her ex-boyfriend with a medical record indicating a diagnosis of Syphilis. The employee was later fired.
She states that she refused to inform her ex-boyfriend as to why she was a patient at the hospital, and in her lawsuit she alleges he then contacted an employee, who he was romantically involved, and she provided the record.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
The inertia against state prohibition of gay marriage continues to rise. United States District Court Judge Barbara Crabb declared Wisconsin’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional.
In 2006 Wisconsin voters amended the state constitution outlawing gay marriage in any form. The ACLU filed the lawsuit in February on behalf of eight couples who believe their constitutional rights to due process were violated consequently depriving them of protections married couples enjoy due to their gender.
Court clerks in Madison and Milwaukee immediately afterward opened their doors to register marriage licenses to gay couples beginning at 5:00 PM on the sixth, just over an hour after the court issued its ruling. Many couples welcomed this opportunity immediately, due in part to a belief among some that this might be a limited window of opportunity before a possible halt to the marriages during an appeals process.
Continue reading “Federal Judge Strikes Down Wisconsin’s Gay Marriage Ban, Wedding Bells Ring”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In a new twist to the bureaucracy retailers in the fledgling retail marijuana business in Washington face, the City Council of Wenatchee has denied a business license to a retailer approved by the State Liquor Control Board, which regulates the industry, to begin setting up shop.
Shaun Preder, an owner on behalf of SMP Retail, LLC last Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the city in Chelan County Superior Court seeking declaratory and injunctive relief for prohibition of plaintiff’s right to sell marijuana. The declaratory relief sought is for the court to find that the city’s prohibition violates state law codified in RCW 69.50.608 and Article XI Section 11 of the Washington Constitution.
If the city elects to litigate the case there could be ramifications throughout the state and possibly others where recreational marijuana is legal.
There is a controversy surrounding another confrontation between a police officer and a citizen over filming officers in public. We have been following the continuing abuse of citizens who are detained or arrested for filming police in public. (For prior columns, click here and here). Despite consistent rulings upholding the right of citizens to film police in public, these abuses continue. The latest story has a weird twist. Critics are alleging that, after Michael Burns had a confrontation with Lakeland officer Javier Perez, the officer allegedly placed an anonymous call to claim that Burns was masturbating in his car.
We have previously discussed of former Broward Circuit Judge Ana Gardiner who had a secret intimate relations with a prosecutor trying a capital murder case in her court in 2007. She has now been disbarred despite her earlier resignation from the court. That is far harsher punishment than what was received by former assistant state attorney Howard Scheinberg, who was suspended for two years due to the relationship.
Things just keep getting rougher for average citizens in Europe. Some have faced government seizure of accounts to help fund government operations and requirements that they explain withdrawals to their banks. Now, the European Central Bank (ECB) is imposing a negative interest rate on banks for their deposits. So, you can keep your money under your mattress or put it in a bank where the bank will use it to earn money while charging you for the pleasure. This is of course the central bank which directly relates to individual banks as opposed to individual depositors. Those banks will now pay to park their money and those costs will be passed along to depositors. Banks are likely going to try to hide the fact that the interest rate is now negative through fees and other measures.
Continue reading “European Central Bank Introduces The Negative Interest Rate”
I previously wrote on the scandal at General Motors (GM) over its lethal defect in the ignition switch on various models. Now General Motors has fired 15 employees and disciplined five others after an internal investigation by attorney Anton Valukas. The move raises some interesting litigation issues going forward in the controversy with both civil and criminal elements.
Continue reading “General Motors Fires 15 Employees After Internal Report”
Magdalena Brojek, a mother of two from Enniskillen, Ireland, has been sentenced to three months in jail after admitting that she made up a gang rape by three Lithuanian men to cover up an affair with a man who she met online. It was only the first lie that she told before admitting the truth.
Continue reading “Irish Woman Jailed After Rape Allegations Found To Be Hoax”
Every once in a while, we will get a poll that is truly unnerving like the percentage of Americans who entirely reject evolution or think that the Earth is only a few thousand years old. However, a University of Chicago study on conspiracy theories is enough for you to put on your tinfoil hat and look yourself in your underground shelter. Eric Oliver and Thomas Wood at the University of Chicago found that half of the country holds these conspiracy theories and some are just plain wacky.
Southwest has been fined again for advertising cheap fares on seats that did not exist. The airline advertised on eight Atlanta stations in which the narrator told viewers, “Discover amazing low sale fares” of $59 “to places like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.” The problem is that, when people went to book the fares, they were told no seats were available.
Continue reading “Southwest Fined For Advertising $59 Seats That Did Not Exist”
Police in Manchester have decided not to press charges against Steven Peers who was arrested for impersonating an officer. The twist is that Peers was wearing a pig mask at the time and a toy bobby’s helmet. Peers is an electrical engineer who uses his comic character ‘Officer 666’ to highlight the “violence, corruption and bad behavior.”
There is a statistic that I ran across today that I found quite remarkable. Legal cannabis sales in the United States are expected to reach as high as $2.57 billion this year. That is only the sales for medical marijuana in the 21 states allowing its sale. At the same time, Colorado is reporting a continuing increase in legal marijuana sales with $19 million in recreational pot sale for March — up from $14 million from February. The figures reveal the greatest challenge for opponents. As revenues and experimentation increases, there will be greater pressure for legalization. Businesses are likely to take note of a 2.5 billion dollar industry that has taken hold even with the limitations of medical marijuana and less than half of the states participating. Both the money and the public response appear to be moving in favor of the legalization movement.
Gallup has released a new poll that shows that Americans still reject the concept of evolution of humans in high numbers. Indeed, twice the number of Americans believe that humans were created by God in their current image than there are those who believe in natural evolution. Indeed, those 42 percent believe that man was created by God in the last 10,000 years. That is a considerable difference even if you focus only on anatomically modern humans which appeared in the Middle Paleolithic period about 200,000 years ago. For those who believe in the science behind evolution, the news is not all bad. Nineteen percent believe in evolution without divine involvement while another 31 percent believe that there was evolution from “less advanced forms of life” but that God directed that process. That is fifty percent. Of course, that does appear to leave eight percent that is still . . . well . . . evolving.
Continue reading “Gallup: Forty-Two Percent Of Americans Reject The Concept Of Evolution In Humans”
I have previously written about my concerns over the elimination of basic rights of due process at universities for students accused of sexual assault or harassment under pressure from the Obama Administration. That pressure continues to build this year with the Obama Administration investigating dozens of universities and threatening to take away federal funds if they do not remove certain protections under their rules of adjudication. Now a North Carolina judge has issued a rare order enjoining Duke University from expelling a male student, Lewis McLeod, who was accused of raping a female freshman. The concern over the lack of due process afforded the accused is of course a continuation of the criticism of Duke over its handling of the infamous Duke lacrosse team case. I have previously written about my view that Duke abandoned not just those students but any sense of due process or fairness in joining the mob accusing them of raping a stripper.
We previously discussed the horrific injuries to a baby after a Georgia SWAT team threw a stun grenade into a house in a no-knock raid that landed in the baby’s crib. The family had no connection to the alleged crime, the suspect was not in the house, there were no drugs found at the house, and no weapon was found at the house. Just a baby near death after having an grenade explode in his crib. Now the police chief has come out to cast blame on the suspect, Wanis Thometheva, 30, and the prosecutor has suggested that he may be charged with the injury caused by the SWAT team despite the fact that he was not even in the house.