Category: Congress

Bizarre, Congress, Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Politics, Religion, Society

American Taliban: Pastor Worley and How To Solve The “Homosexual Problem”

It appears that there is nothing quite so inspiring for a Sunday morning like a good old-fashioned homicidal homophobic homily. Pastor Charles L. Worley has propelled himself into the national limelight with a hate-filled sermon that lays his faith-based fantasy for homosexuals — concentration camps with electric fences where they would be left to die off. In what could be viewed as a violation of the tax-exempt status of the church, he rails against President Barack Obama and says that it would be impossible to vote for him.

Continue reading “American Taliban: Pastor Worley and How To Solve The “Homosexual Problem”” →

Congress, Constitutional Law, Justice, Media, Politics, Society, Supreme Court

Health Insurance and Rebate Checks

Respectfully Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger

I have to admit that I was not aware that the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, as its detractors call it, mandates that the insurance companies who don’t spend at least 80% of premium money on actual medical care expenses, must send rebates to policy holders.  “But the rebate provision of the law — the fruits of the so-called “80/20 rule” — is about to kick in big time, as millions of Americans receive rebate checks or premium reductions from insurance companies who have failed to spend enough on patient care. This cash could be a true game changer in public attitudes about whether the law actually is beneficial and good public policy. The rebate provision of the law has been known and discussed in health care policy circles for months, but has largely flown below the radar in the political world and for voters—until now.”  Time   Continue reading “Health Insurance and Rebate Checks” →

Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Justice, Supreme Court

Can You Hear Find Me Now?
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.)

by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger

In these days of ever eroding civil rights, it is important to recognize those in Congress willing to stand up for your rights.  This is especially true given the ever increasing domestic surveillance of citizens without warrant by government agencies in cooperation with the telecommunications industry; a clear abuse of citizen’s 4th Amendment rights “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”   Love him or loathe him, this week the Congressman willing to fight the good fight for your rights is Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.).

Continue reading “Can You Hear Find Me Now?” →

Congress, Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Politics

House Members Introduce Legislation To Punish States With “Stand Your Ground” Laws

Reps. Keith Ellison and Raul Grijalva introduced a bill yesterday that would amend the House appropriations bill for Commerce, Justice and Science to add a provision punishing states with “Stand Your Ground” laws — the law at the heart of the trial of George Zimmerman in Florida. While I have been a long critic of both Castle Doctrine laws and “Stand Your Ground” laws, I believe this bill is a mistake and represents an attack on federalism principles.

Continue reading “House Members Introduce Legislation To Punish States With “Stand Your Ground” Laws” →

Congress, Politics, Uncategorized

Going Postal in Washington, D. C.: The USPS, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, Union Busting, and Paving the Road to Privatization

Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger

Here are some questions for you:

– Do you know how the United States Postal Service (USPS) is funded?

– Do you know why the USPS is having such serious financial problems?

– Would the closing of more than 200 postal processing centers and more than 3,000 post offices across this country, eliminating Saturday mail delivery, and cutting more than 100,000 postal jobs be the best way to save the USPS?

– Would slowing down mail delivery help the USPS to take in more revenue?

– What would happen to rural communities if their post offices were closed?

– What do you know about the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006?

– Have you heard about H.R. 1351?

Yes, the USPS is experiencing serious financial problems. I’ve heard on the news and read in the papers that drastic measures must be undertaken in order to save this great American institution. I think that it’s important to understand the causes of those problems and to know what could happen to the US Postal Service unless Congress solves them without severely impacting the institution and the services it provides to Americans.

Continue reading “Going Postal in Washington, D. C.: The USPS, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, Union Busting, and Paving the Road to Privatization” →

Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Justice, Lawyering, Politics, Society, Supreme Court, Things That Tick Me Off

Shame on Yoo

Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger

We haven’t heard his name for quite some time now, but former Bush-era Office of Legal Counsel attorney, John Yoo is in the news again.  The United States 9th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out an appeal by convicted terrorist, Jose Padilla attempting to hold Yoo liable for the torture used on Padilla while in U.S. detention centers.

Believe it or not, the Justices stated that the law on what constituted torture was not clear when Padilla endured the Bush Enhanced Interrogation methods. “A three-judge panel of the court said laws governing combatants and the definition of torture were unclear during the years policies were crafted.  Padilla alleged he was subjected to death threats, given psychotropic drugs, shackled and manacled for hours at a time, denied contact with family or a lawyer for 21 months and refused medical care for potentially life-threatening conditions. “That such treatment was torture was not clearly established in 2001-03,” Judge Raymond C. Fisher, a Clinton appointee, wrote for the court.” LA Times Continue reading “Shame on Yoo” →

Academia, Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Free Speech, Justice, Lawyering, Media, Politics, Society, Supreme Court

What The %#@!$*

Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger

The following link was sent to me by Otteray Scribe, who is among the most erudite and respected people among those who frequently comment on this blog. He is an extremely well educated man, with masterful writing ability and a creatively active mind. The title of his E mail to me and the other guest bloggers was WTF? and this is what he wrote:

“This is beyond strange.  Horace Boothroyd III is disabled and apparently has nothing to do but sit at his computer.  He monitors everything going on regarding OWS and police misconduct.  I won’t try to describe this, but it is more than passing strange. Might be worth following up.”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/03/1088516/-Occupy-Minnesota-WTF-Cops-picking-up-sober-Occupiers-and-Drugging-them-for-Training-

When someone who I like and respect as much as I do Otteray Scribe, is at a loss for words to describe something, I take notice. When I clicked the link and read this story from Daily Kos, my own reaction mirrored his: WTF? It took me more than twelve hours to respond to his E mail because I needed to let it gestate in my own mind and figure out just what to write about.

Rather than me regurgitating the story I think it is an important one for the readers to view for themselves and present their own take on the why, wherefore and implications inherent in the story.

While allowing you make your own judgments, let me give my bottom line opinion on all of the issues and questions the story raises and let’s see what you the reader makes of it on your own. I believe that the actions detailed in this story are indicative of our beloved America fast moving towards becoming a police state, in the same manner that the USSR, its successor Russia and China are police states. That is that all protest against the status quo is to be repressed. The police/security/intelligence/military forces are not only to act as agents of this repression, in many instances on their own volition without sanction, but also are taking part in the use of counter-insurgency techniques towards those elements within the society deemed dangerous to the status quo. In the minds of those in power openly and behind the scenes the question of what is threatening to the country is in most instances a self-serving rationale for what is politically/economically threatening to them. We must ask ourselves are we to be mere observers meekly silent for fear of our own security, or will we act openly to oppose the destruction of the Constitution of the United States and with it our rights and freedoms?

Academia, Congress, Courts, Environment, Free Speech, Media, Politics, Science, Society

PBS: Why I Watch, But Don’t Contribute

Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger

On September 16, 1962 Edward R. Murrow, who was the greatest TV Journalist and a particular hero of mine http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=murrowedwar, premiered the opening of Public Television on Channel 13 in New York City. You can watch that very short broadcast in this link so you can understand the mission of this station at its beginnings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gr-QxU1Sz0

At the age of 17, I watched Mr. Murrow enthralled as he laid out the defined purpose of this station, which was to provide educational, non-commercial television, that would innovate new programming to educate/inform and amuse its’ listeners. This opening occurred two weeks after the death of my mother. My father (who would die a year later) and I watched this show together, bonded by the sorrow we shared and by the fact that Ed Murrow had been someone whose news shows we three had watched together for a decade. Given that he was a ninth grade dropout, my father was a man of intellectual depth who read Camus, Sartre and was a devotee of avante garde cinema. He passed his tastes on to me. So for us, this was a momentous event, given the inanity that characterized much of commercial TV with its’ intellectual paucity. This beginning initiated an emotional link with me to the concept of public TV that has lasted ever since.

In the years that followed Channel 13 would become an anchoring member of the Public Broadcasting System. I was a dedicated viewer and modest financial contributor via yearly membership. I could go into a litany of the presentations that informed me, moved me and entertained me through the years, but that is not my purpose here. Somewhere along the way from the beginning of non-commercial television until today, I became skeptical about contributing to it, while still availing myself of it’s’ services. I write about why this skepticism developed and why it remains. Continue reading “PBS: Why I Watch, But Don’t Contribute” →

Columns, Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Lawyering, Media, Politics, Society, Supreme Court

Nothing Succeeds So Much As Failure: Obama Could Use A Loss In The Immigration Case

Below is today’s column in the USA Today on the arguments this week in the immigration case, Arizona v. United States. (Docket No., 11-182). At issue is Arizona’s Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act (S.B. 1070) directing state law-enforcement officers to cooperate and communicate with federal officials regarding the enforcement of federal immigration law. Beyond the difficult constitutional and statutory questions in the case, there is another element to the case that could come within months of the 12th anniversary of Bush v. Gore

Continue reading “Nothing Succeeds So Much As Failure: Obama Could Use A Loss In The Immigration Case” →

Congress, International, Politics, Society

Burn, Baby, Burn: Detroit Fire Chief Proposes To Let Vacant Properties Burn Down To Save Money

Faced with additional cuts in its budget, Executive Fire Commissioner Donald Austin has proposed an easy way to save money: let buildings burn down. Austin would like to allow such drastic action if the building is over 50 percent ablaze and does not endanger surrounding dwellings. In the meantime, Baltimore is looking into advertisements on the side of fire trucks. They are the latest examples of the insanity that has taken hold of this country as we burn hundreds of billions in Afghanistan and Iraq because our leaders have lacked the courage to withdraw forces from those countries. Instead, we will allow buildings to burn down while building facilities for Iraq with one of the world’s largest oil reserves.

Continue reading “Burn, Baby, Burn: Detroit Fire Chief Proposes To Let Vacant Properties Burn Down To Save Money” →

Bizarre, Congress, Society

Trademark Wars: Lawsuits Filed Over Ownership of “Yuuup!”

I have repeated complained about the ludicrous scope of U.S. copyright and trademark laws in allowing people to claim common terms, symbols, and expressions (here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). Now, R&B singer Trey Songz is in court in a dispute with Storage Wars personality Dave Hester over rights to profit from the word “Yuuup!”

Continue reading “Trademark Wars: Lawsuits Filed Over Ownership of “Yuuup!”” →

Bizarre, Congress, Politics, Society

Stones Fly In City Of Glass Houses: Congress and the White House

As a longtime critic of congressional junkets and travel, I am a bit confused by the effusion of shock and contempt by our congressional leaders in both parties over the recent Nevada conference by GSA employees. There is no question that the conference was outrageous and an abuse. However, these are the same people who have spent hundreds of millions on trips that have long been denounced as little more than paid vacations and long fought for the right to be wined and dined by lobbyists and other interests at swank hotels and restaurants (here and here and here). In the meantime, recent reports show that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has cost the taxpayers $860,000 to fly back and forth on weekends to his home in California. That is almost the exact amount spent at the Nevada conference. They sound like a city of Claude Rains, “shocked, shocked” by the allegations as they rush to make their private flights on government aircraft.

Continue reading “Stones Fly In City Of Glass Houses: Congress and the White House” →

Bizarre, Congress, Criminal law, Politics

What Happens in Vegas, Stays In Vegas: GSA Official Invokes Right To Remain Silent in Congressional Hearing

This is not exactly the picture you want public when you are invoking your Fifth Amendment Privilege Against Self-Incrimination. The picture shows General Services Administration official Jeff Neely enjoying a spa tub and wine as part of the $822,000 Las Vegas conference that is now the subject of a congressional investigation, as previously discussed. Neely, the GSA’s Public Buildings Service regional commissioner, invoked his Fifth Amendment rights in a hearing. His seat remained vacant at the hearing after his invocation.
Continue reading “What Happens in Vegas, Stays In Vegas: GSA Official Invokes Right To Remain Silent in Congressional Hearing” →

Congress, Constitutional Law, Supreme Court

Did The Founding Fathers Back Health Insurance Mandates? (Updated)

-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger

Harvard Law School professor Einer Elhauge writes that the very first Congress, in 1790, passed a law that included a mandate that ship owners buy medical insurance, but not hospital insurance, for their seamen. That Congress included 20 framers and was signed by another framer: President George Washington. In 1792, Washington signed another bill, passed by a Congress with 17 framers, requiring that all able-bodied men buy firearms. In 1798, Congress, with 5 framers, passed a federal law that required seamen to buy hospital insurance for themselves.

Why weren’t these examples cited by the Solicitor General during his oral argument?

Continue reading “Did The Founding Fathers Back Health Insurance Mandates? (Updated)” →

Congress, Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Justice, Lawyering, Politics, Society

Jury Selection Starts In Edwards Case with Controversial Campaign Finance Charges

Jury selection began yesterday in Greensboro, N.C., in the federal trial of former presidential candidate John Edwards. Because of the extremely prejudicial aspects of Edwards’ infidelity while his wife was battling cancer, voir dire and pre-trial motions in limine will be critically important in the case. Equally important will be the legal basis for the campaign finance charges in the case over the use of third-party funds to hide his affair with Rielle Hunter. In my view, the charges stretch the law too far but the government will still have to convince a jury. The greatest danger for the defense remains the prejudicial elements and how they may warp the jury’s view of the facts and legal standard.

Continue reading “Jury Selection Starts In Edwards Case with Controversial Campaign Finance Charges” →