Last week, New Jersey charged eight businesses with gouging customers with exorbitant prices after Hurricane Sandy — seven gas stations and a hotel. What struck me as curious was the relatively low increases that were the basis for the change, including an eleven percent increase.
Continue reading “New Jersey Charges Seven Gas Stations and a Hotel With Gouging”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
Normally, when I work on a guest blog it takes me some hours of research and writing since I type slowly and try to be as accurate as I can be. This one will be a little different because it is written mainly to refer you to the transcript and/or podcast of a fantastic interview with the investigative journalists Donald L.Bartlett and James B. Steele. The interview was conducted by Rob Kall, whose OpEdNews website http://www.opednews.com/ is one that I look to for interesting insight into the political issues of the day. The interview deals with these authors’s current book which is called: The Betrayal of the American Dream”.
Rob Kall’s interview with the author’s is lengthy and so rather than my usual effort to provide a synopsis and relevant quotes of a position that I endorse, I’m going to give you a hint of what this interview contains and the provide you the links so that you can make your decision on the author’s thesis and hopefully be informed on some very important issues for all of us. Readers here know I supported President Obama for re-election, but have been critical of many of his policies. This interview and the book that it is about, demonstrate that the forces at play in the rapid decline of the American Middle Class seem beyond the power of our government to control, simply because they are backed by an elite that not only finances election campaigns, but that has also dominated the discussion with so much false propaganda, that today’s politicians who were born later than 1960 are not even familiar with the reality of how much our economic landscape has changed. Because of this unfamiliarity many don’t even have the conceptualization that things used to be different and why they’ve changed so drastically. In that sense this is less about conspiracy and more about the effect poor education, corporate media and propaganda can accomplish. When I say that the problem is beyond government’s power to fix, it is with the caveat that if the issues presented here were first understood, then maybe we could combat them. In some sense we are all blind men, hypothesizing the nature of an elephant by touching different parts. This interview and the book it is about can miraculously cure the blindness and start the discussion on how we can deal with this 3,000 pound elephant in the room we call America.
I will mention two, among many, of the major factors in the decline of the American Middle Class laid out by the authors. The first is that until the 1970’s our Income Tax was really graduated to the point that government had ample revenue to do its job. The second is that one of the major revenue sources for the Federal Government was tariffs. It was the dismantling of the graduated Income Tax and the proliferation of trade agreements reducing tariffs (and tariff revenue) that have been major pieces in the shipping of jobs overseas, increasing our national debt and destroying what was the greatest industrial economy in the World. For me, a child born to politically aware parents, before the end of World War II, I’ve lived through this history and watched in dismay as these changes took effect. Most Americans though, except for those most prescient, have no idea of what was done, simply because these changes took effect before they were born, or in their early youth. This election past and the polling of attitudes that went with it, show that the majority of Americans perceive that they are being cheated, but often their perception of how, has been skewed by the disinformation that is rampant to the extent that they blame it on the wrong source. If you read either the transcript of this article: “The Selling Out of the Middle Class is No Accident” at this link: http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/The-Selling-Out-of-the-Mid-by-Rob-Kall-121017-79.html or listen to the interview at this podcast: http://www.opednews.com/Podcast/Applying-Investigative-Jou-by-Rob-Kall-120915-680.html
I deeply believe that it will be time well spent.
There is another study that offers strong support for the dangers of both smoking and second-hand smoke. The study at the University of California – San Francisco found a dramatic decline in hospitalizations in areas with laws banning smoking at work and public areas.
In torts class, I promised an esteemed lecturer who spent a lifetime of work on animal liability. Yesterday, they met the professor who had a biting wit and a dogged socratic style: my dog Molly. Her qualifications are that she has spent a lifetime as a dog and has studied most animals under clinical conditions. Herr Professor is tamed but untenured.
Continue reading “Meet GW’s Newest Scholar: Professor Molly Turley”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
I’m a legal resident of Florida and this week I took advantage of early voting. While I’ve been a political activist for most of my life and usually have a good idea of the issues involved in any particular election, this vote brought home to me that I wasn’t as smart and informed in this election as I supposed. This thought occurred to me the night before I voted, when I carefully looked over the sample ballot sent to me by my County Board of Elections. The sample ballot had six pages and the opportunity to vote twenty six separate times. The first seven of the twenty-six votes, were “no brainers” since it started with the Presidency and ended with County Commissioner. I was familiar with each of these elective offices and the issues entailed in each particular race, but that’s where my familiarity with the issues involved in the next nineteen votes ended. The next possible votes were on whether each of three particular State Supreme Court Judges should be allowed to continue their terms? Not knowing these Judges and/or their judicial views how was I to make such a decision? The next vote was also on whether a particular Justice of the Court of Appeals should be retained in office. The final electoral decision was a vote between one of two people for a four year term to the County Soil and Water commission. This was not a party affiliated position, so other than their names, I had no idea who to vote for, or what their particular conservation philosophy entailed.
Needless to say, I went on the web and found out what was going on in the Judges recall. This is the story and its’ Washington Post link: A Koch Brothers-backed campaign is seeking to vote out three Florida Supreme Court justices.
“A loosely organized Internet campaign against the court two years ago has been fortified by the conservative group Americans for Prosperity, founded by billionaire activists Charles and David Koch. And then came the surprise announcement that the Republican Party of Florida had decided to oppose all three justices, an unprecedented move in the nonpartisan vote.
Party leaders said that “collective evidence of judicial activism” showed the jurists to be liberals who are out of touch with the public. Opponents point to the court’s death penalty decisions and a ruling that kept an “Obamacare” referendum off the 2010 ballot. But the justices’ supporters say an effort is underway to pack the court with new appointees and deliver Republicans the only branch of state government they don’t control.”
While it is true that I had no clue that such a Campaign was going on, in my defense I was out of State for the entire summer and not paying attention to local affairs. This guest blog, however, is not about the Koch’s judicial ploy, but about what followed it on the Florida Ballot. This was the vote on eleven Florida Constitutional Amendments and why I believe that the nationwide movement for voter ballot initiatives is an idea to support democracy, which in practice is anti-democratic in nature. Continue reading “Too Much Democracy?”
Former Penn State President Graham B. Spanier has become the latest and highest ranking former university official to be charged in the scandal involving child molestation by former coach Jerry Sandusky. He is the third school official to be accused of crimes in the alleged cover-up. We have previously discussed the case as a pile up of bad legal advice and horrendously bad judgment by the university president and his general counsel.
Continue reading “Former Penn State President Indicted In Child Abuse Scandal”
There has been a major breakthrough in the diagnosis of schizophrenia. Scientists at Aberdeen University have reportedly developed a way with near 100 percent accuracy to detect whether a person has schizophrenia — an eye test.
Continue reading “Scottish Scientists Develop Eye Test That Detects Schizophrenia”
Noam Chomsky, considered one of the world’s leading intellectuals, makes a surprising appearance in this MIT takeoff of the popular Gangnam Style video. Chomsky is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT.
It appears that Bill Gates is a virtual proletariat businessman in compared to some. A website called Celebrity Net Worth calculated the wealth of well-known historical and contemporary rich guys and found that 14th century African king Mansa Musa I was the richest person in history.
Mansa Musa I had an estimated $400 billion fortune. In comparison, Gates weighs in with $136 billion. Fourteen of 25 are Americans. Here is the list of the adjusted incomes:
1. Mansa Musa I – $400 billion
2. The Rothschild family – $350 billion
3. John D. Rockefeller – $340 billion
4. Andrew Carnegie – $310 billion
5. Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov – $300 billion
6. Mir Osman Ali Khan – $230 billion
7. William The Conqueror – $229.5 billion
8. Muammar Qaddafi – $200 billion
9. Henry Ford – $199 billion
10. Cornelius Vanderbilt – $185 billion
Musa I lived between 1280 to c. 1337. He was the tenth Mansa or “King of Kings” over territory formerly belonging to the Ghana and Melle (Mali) empires.
Mansa Musa controls key shipping routes and showed great ambition. Arab-Egyptian scholar Al-Umari quotes him as saying:
The ruler who preceded me did not believe that it was impossible to reach the extremity of the ocean that encircles the earth (meaning the Atlantic). He wanted to reach that (end) and was determined to pursue his plan. So he equipped two hundred boats full of men, and many others full of gold, water and provisions sufficient for several years. He ordered the captain not to return until they had reached the other end of the ocean, or until he had exhausted the provisions and water. So they set out on their journey. They were absent for a long period, and, at last just one boat returned. When questioned the captain replied: ‘O Prince, we navigated for a long period, until we saw in the midst of the ocean a great river which flowing massively. My boat was the last one; others were ahead of me, and they were drowned in the great whirlpool and never came out again. I sailed back to escape this current.’ But the Sultan would not believe him. He ordered two thousand boats to be equipped for him and his men, and one thousand more for water and provisions. Then he conferred the regency on me for the term of his absence, and departed with his men, never to return nor to give a sign of life.
—Mansa Musa
The Romney campaign has immediately issued a press release that Mansa Musa “did build that.” However, the Obama campaign has stressed that his tax rate was still lower than the planned increase for top earners in the U.S.
Associate Justice Antonin Scalia has long proven a lightning rod on the Court, particularly his consistent and controversial habit of making highly charged public comments. I have previously criticized him and other justices for the increasing public speeches, often to highly partisan groups, that undermine the legitimacy of the Court. This week Scalia raised eyebrows in his advice to law students not to take “Law and Women” or “Law and Poverty” courses which he says amount to little more than professors teaching their “hobbies.”
Continue reading “Scalia: Take “Bread and Butter” Courses Not “Law and Women””
There was an interesting mistrial announced this month in a discrimination case against the University of Iowa law school. Jurors were unable to reach a verdict on a 14th amendment claim by the part-time legal writing professor who claims that she was passed over for a full-time position and then lost her adjunct position due to hiring bias against conservatives. Teresa Wagner (left) worked for pro-life causes and says that law professor Randall Bezanson (right), a former law clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun, campaigned against her hiring (Blackmun wrote the Roe v. Wade decision). She further noted that only one faculty member at Iowa is a registered Republican.
Continue reading “Jury Deadlocks On Bias Lawsuit Against Iowa By Former Law Professor”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)- Guest Blogger
I guess I should not be surprised that the State of Mississippi is once again in the news because the Federal Government has filed a Civil Rights lawsuit against it. The Department of Justice has filed a suit against the State of Mississippi, and the City of Meridian, along with the county and various state agencies, alleging that the defendants have worked to operate a “school to prison” system that allegedly violated the rights of African-American students and students with disabilities. Continue reading “The Department of Justice Sues Mississippi…Again!”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
This blog post is the result of our well known regular contributor Blouise sending me a link, sent to her by one of our other long time contributors GBK. I thank them for not only the vital information they shared with me, but also for the inspiration it gave me. When people ask me what kind of blog to I write for, I explain to them that it is the creation of the well-known Constitutional Law Professor and Civil Rights Advocate Jonathan Turley. The common thread that links most of us here is our support for Jonathan’s work and our belief in upholding the Constitution. The topic raises is vital to all of those purposes.
On May 4th, 1970 I was twenty-six years old. I worked for NYC’s Department of Social Services (welfare) as a caseworker in Brooklyn. Was active in the Peace Movement and had in the last year lost in my bid for the Presidency of the radical welfare caseworkers union. Long haired, full bearded and habitually wearing shirts open to almost my waist, with tight-fitting bell bottom jeans. I was a happy and carefree imbiber of psychedelics and had a great social life. I had failed my Draft physical four years prior due to high blood pressure, which would later turn into severe heart trouble requiring me to have a transplant, but back then I was just grateful that I didn’t have to make the choice between my ideals and the Selective Service Law. So many young men whose lives were drastically changed for the worse by being drafted into that conflict, were less lucky than I because they were my contemporaries, I felt I needed to help bring them home.
Even with the 60’s decade of assassinations, Civil Rights protests ending in violence, Nixon’s election and the Viet Nam escalation, I was still hopeful that my generation would really change things for the better in this country and that the future would bring great changes in economic freedom and social justice. So hopeful was I, that I was attending my first year of Law School at night and envisioned myself becoming a Legal Aid attorney in the future. Then I heard the news about Kent State, the murder of four students and shooting of nine during what was a relatively peaceful protest. Suddenly, this brought home to me the reality of what we were facing in our country. My optimism for change died that day, but not my commitment to fight for it.
As the news proliferated the story just didn’t add up. Supposedly the young National Guardsmen heard sniper shots and in a panic returned fire. That the students shot were at a distance of at least three hundred feet and the ammunition was armor-piercing rounds. It was claimed that there was no order to fire given and that the young National Guardsmen thought they were firing in self defense. As it turned out these were lies and propaganda foisted to cover the fact that those in power in the administration and their follower, the Republican Governor of Ohio, wanted to send a message to those opposing the War, that we were in mortal danger if we dared to try to thwart their murderous rampage in South East Asia. Continue reading “Murder at Kent State”
In a blow to science and rational thought, Italian prosecutors have succeeded in convicting seven of that country’s leading scientists of manslaughter for failing to predict the 2009 earthquake that struck central Italy. Despite objections from the world’s science community that such accurate and consistent predictions are still impossible, the government blamed the scientists for failing to alert the public that an earthquake was coming.
Continue reading “Leading Italian Scientists Convicted Of Failing To Predict 2009 Earthquake”
Turkey was long a bastion of secular politics — a rare position in the Muslim world. After the ascension of an Islamic party-controlled government, however, religious extremism is taking hold in a variety of areas to the alarm of civil libertarians in Turkey and around the world. The most recent example is a series of books issued to schoolchildren that are filled with anti-Semitic and anti-Darwinian references. Darwin is actually described as a Jew (he wasn’t) with a big nose and a weird fetish for monkeys.
Continue reading “Turkish Schoolchildren Issued Anti-Semitic and Anti-Darwin Textbooks”