We have been following the constitutional challenges to the new cigarette advertising regulations requiring graphic images on packages. I have been highly critical of those images and agree with the constitutional and policy concerns raised by the regulations. Now we have two decisions — one from the Sixth Circuit and one from the D.C. district court — reaching opposing results on the constitutionality of regulations. The district court decision sets up the possibility of a split in the circuit with the appeal now going to the D.C. Circuit.
Category: Courts
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
When the Patriot Act was signed into law back in 2001, there was significant discussion about and distrust in the broad powers granted to the FBI and other intelligence gathering agencies. I won’t go into the uproar that ensued back then, but I do want to discuss the latest events pertaining to the infamous Section 215 of the Patriot Act. Section 215 of the Patriot Act is the section that has been dubbed as the “business records” provision of the Act. In the last few days, two United States Senators reconfirmed their concern over the possible misuse of the broad powers granted to the government in Section 215. Senator Ron Wyden and Senator Mark Udall have made public their recent letter to Attorney General Holder expressing their grave concerns on just how Section 215 is being interpreted and used to spy on Americans. Continue reading “How Patriotic is the Patriot Act?”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
Being in my late 60’s and having grown up in a liberal family, politics and history have been always among my greatest interests. Those much younger than I would no doubt list 9/11 as the most traumatizing historical event of their lifetime. While 9/11 of course affected me greatly, no historical event in my life has affected me as much as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I believe that it traumatized my generation so extensively that most of us have not been able to fully believe in our country and its government since that tragic day and its aftermath. Most Americans alive today, who were born in 1960, or afterwards, have only second hand accounts of the total turbulence of the 60’s and the trauma experienced by those who lived through it. There is no doubt that 9/11 has traumatized this nation, but initially it drew most of us together, only to have that unity frittered away by the Bush Administration. The 60’s did that for my generation and that trauma led directly to our current political chaos and deep distrust of government as my generation took the reins of political power.
To most people growing up in the 50’s, on its surface America was the land of opportunity. The USA was a great democracy, unparalleled in human history in the prosperity of its citizens and its standing among nations. For many though, there were obvious cracks in this version of the America Myth. If you were a Black American you faced the viciousness of “Jim Crow” in the South and the somewhat more “genteel” racism pervading the rest of the country. People of Spanish speaking heritage also faced the status of second class citizenship. Native American’s were treated just as badly as they had been from the first European landing on these their shores. Women were, with few exceptions, expected to be subservient to male expectations and were uniformly portrayed as being intellectually inferior. Homosexuals were viciously and violently persecuted. And so it went in 1950’s America. Some great white writers like Mailer, Kerouac, Steinbeck and many others were taking on the myth of the America Dream. Africa American writers like Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin were standing on the shoulders of their predecessors from the Harlem Renaissance, in exposing the oppression Black people faced. There was among many Americans a weariness of the canards of the Eisenhower Administration, the fear based militarism of the Cold War and a recognition that all was not well with a good portion of the population. There was also for many, a hope for purposefulness in their own lives, beyond marriage, house in the suburbs, new car and two kids.
Arriving on the scene, promising to revitalize the country, was JFK, a brilliant speaker, handsome man and charismatic leader. He won a close election against the unlikable Richard Nixon and proceeded to galvanize the nation with the dreams of his New Frontier. JFK also was the source of great enmity among the Washington Establishment. Seen as nouveau riche by the plutocracy, too idealistic and naïve by the Defense, State Departments and CIA, hated by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, too “Nigra Friendly” for Southern racists and a threat to the “business as usual” Corporate status quo. He was murdered on a Friday Afternoon in 1963 as my University suspended activities and I sat with friends stunned with grief listening to a car radio and puffing Marlboro’s. That day is etched permanently in my mind and the disturbing events that followed it throughout those turbulent 1960’s forever changed the way I viewed the world. Lee Harvey Oswald was improbably murdered as I watched on TV that Sunday; a flawed Warren Commission Report arrived filled with holes; the murder of Martin Luther King and then Bobby Kennedy; along with the prosecution of a vicious and illegal war; with all this my faith in American Democracy and exceptionalism faded into skeptical disbelief. Life for us ordinary citizens, however, still went on and pleasure, friends, lovers, spouses, families and careers took up most of our time and attention. Nevertheless I devoured everything I could read about the JFK murder and indeed about the history taking place as I lived my mundane life. Recently a book brought all those strange feelings back to the surface and provided a possible explanation why our world seems so much crazier these days. Continue reading “A Real History of the Last Sixty-Two Years?”
Rick Santorum is continuing his faith-based campaign with a pledge to wipe out pornography in his Administration. The problem is that pornography is lawful and now a multi-billion dollar industry. It is obscenity that can be criminalized, but what is obscene remains exceptionally vague and ill-defined. Indeed, many may find parts of this presidential campaign to border on the obscene.
The Arizona Senate has overwhelmingly passed the so-called “wrongful birth” bill — a piece of legislation that not only strips citizens of core torts protections but is based on a legal mythology of abusive litigation. The law would prevent lawsuits against doctors who withhold information on health problems of a fetus — even withholding the information intentionally.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
When it comes to standard of living I can’t complain. Between a pension and social security I live comfortably, though definitely without luxury. I have no investments and minimal savings so that I in essence live from check to check, as do most Americans less fortunate. Would I like thousands in the bank, of course? Would I like to travel overseas, as I never have, of course I would. It would also be nice to have a luxury auto that accommodates my long legs, 72” 3D plasma TV and many other accoutrements of our consumer society. I know I’d enjoy them, but frankly I am content with what I have and do not begrudge those with far more material things, savings and income. In this respect I am decidedly a creature of what has been known up to now as the “Middle/Working Class”. It is a vanishing citizen category that I identify with most closely and is gradually through conservative policies being driven down towards underclass status.
In addition, my entire working career was spent dealing with those people who can be roughly characterized in American terms as the “Underclass” due to poverty, race, ethnicity, disability, mental illness, criminality and addiction. I know first hand the depredations suffered by this portion of our citizens and this knowledge via experience, is something not shared by most Americans. My work exposed me to the basic unfairness of our system and I must admit my experiences fill me with rage towards those who lack empathy for the ignored and maltreated. Some say that this disparity is merely the result of lack off effort on their part, or of the natural result of lack of ability. Those that do are basically people ignorant of how the American system works and the fact that the putative “race” towards the top is a fixed affair, in all of its’ aspects. Since this is a legal opinion blog I would be giving its purpose short shrift was I not to mention that inequity of result has been a standard of our legal system since our Country’s inception. With a few exceptions used to demonstrate the opposite, the truth is as Leonard Cohen states so eloquently “Everybody knows the game is rotten”.
To me it is a fact that inequality is inherent in our system. Please indulge me to look at what I find most perplexing in this state of things and why I think it exists. Why does it seem that many people, who have received so much benefit from the fruits of this nation, are so begrudging of having those less fortunate at least live more comfortable lives? Continue reading “What Motivates the 1%?”
The New York Times has an interesting article on the continuing debate over whether lies are protected under the first amendment — a debate that we discussed earlier in relation to the Supreme Court’s consideration of the constitutionality of the Stolen Valor Act. Mark W. Miller, however, is fighting this issue in a different context — challenging a law that makes it a crime to lie in a political campaign. I have always viewed these laws as inimical to free speech and contrary to the First Amendment. The Supreme Court could resolve the question in the Alvarez case — or reinforce the ability of states to prosecute people for falsehoods utterly in political campaigns.
Continue reading “Ohio Case Challenges Law Criminalizing “Lies” In Political Campaign”
Below is today’s column in Foreign Policy magazine on Attorney General Eric Holder’s speech at Northwestern University Law School. UPDATE: FBI Director declines to answer whether the new doctrine allows the killing of citizens in the United States.
Attorney General Eric Holder was at Northwestern University Law School yesterday explaining President Barack Obama’s claimed authority to kill any American if he unilaterally determines them to be a threat to the nation. The choice of a law school was a curious place for discussion of authoritarian powers. Obama has replaced the constitutional protections afforded to citizens with a “trust me” pledge that Holder repeated yesterday at Northwestern. The good news is that Holder promised not to hunt citizens for sport.
Continue reading “Holder Promises To Kill Citizens With Care”
U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg has struck down Maryland’s handgun law to the extent that it requires residents show a “good and substantial reason” to get a handgun permit. While he is being criticized for the opinion, I believe that Judge Legg is on sound legal ground in light of the Supreme Courts decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. Chicago (2010). The case does enter into largely unmapped territory on what standard of scrutiny to apply in such cases — a matter that could prove quite important in future cases.
Continue reading “Federal Court Strikes Down Maryland’s Handgun Law”
We have been following the disturbing trend of arrests of citizens videotaping police in public — the subject of this prior column. Illinois has been featured prominently in these stories due to its strict law on eavesdropping. Now Cook County Criminal Courts Judge Stanley Sacks ruled that the law unconstitutional due to its vague language, which sweeps “wholly innocent conduct” within its scope.
Continue reading “Illinois Judge Declares State Eavesdropping Law Unconstitutional”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
This week Huffpost ran an article titled:“IBM’s Role in the Holocaust — What the New Documents Reveal”, written by Edwin Black. The article was a followup to Mr. Black’s book “IBM and the Holocaust” published in 2001. As Mr. Black puts it justifying this particular article:
“Newly-released documents expose more explicitly the details of IBM‘s pivotal role in the Holocaust — all six phases: identification, expulsion from society, confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, and even extermination. Moreover, the documents portray with crystal clarity the personal involvement and micro-management of IBM president Thomas J. Watson in the company’s co-planning and co-organizing of Hitler’s campaign to destroy the Jews.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/edwin-black/ibm-holocaust_b_1301691.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009
These are of course pretty serious charges being made about one of the world’s most famous companies and about its founder. While I will present the nature of these charges and the specificity of the author’s alleged proof in the piece, it really is not my focus to condemn IBM one way or another, or even to vouch for the truth of the article. I will provide a link that offers a different perspective on these charges and will leave it to you the reader to decide what you think of them. My real purpose here is to discuss the necessary amorality of Corporations and what effect that amorality has upon nations and people. Continue reading “A Corporate Tale”
A campaign to pressure Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., is well underway, but it is not the usual parade of industry lobbyists that run feral in the halls of Congress. Rather, Camp is facing demands that he pressure his adviser Aharon Friedman to grant a Jewish “get” to his wife who wants to divorce him. Jewish community members are seeking to pressure Friedman by pressuring Camp, but is that an appropriate matter for a Member of Congress or any employer?
Continue reading “Should A House Member Force An Aide To Grant A Jewish “Get”?”
Georgia Chief Judge David Barrett, chief judge of the Enotah Judicial Circuit, has resigned over what the district attorney called “a poor rhetorical point.” District Attorney Jeff Langley’s description may not quite capture the moment. Barrett pulled out a gun in his courtroom in the Enotah Judicial Circuit and told a women in a domestic assault case “You might as well shoot your lawyer.”
Chief U.S. District Judge of Montana Richard Cebull is under fire for a joke that he sent to friends from his court email. The email has been denounced as racist and “compares African-Americans to dogs.” He insists that it was not for public circulation and reflected his dislike for the president, not black people.
Continue reading “Racist or Clueless? Chief Judge of Montana Under Fire For Obama Joke”