Category: Uncategorized

Politics, Uncategorized

“The Guardian” Reveals the State Policy Network’s Coordinated Effort for 2014—An Assault on Education, Taxes, Healthcare, and Workers

Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger

In November, I wrote a post titled State Policy Network (SPN)—The “PR Firm” for ALEC and a Right-Wing Agenda. According to the Center for Media and Democracy, SPN “is funded largely by global corporations and by groups and foundations associated with conservative billionaires David and Charles Koch.” Journalist Jane Mayer provided a good description of SPN in her article Is IKEA the New Model for the Conservative Movement?—which appeared in The New Yorker this past November.

Mayer:

In every state in the country, there is at least one ostensibly independent “free-market” think tank that is part of something called the State Policy Network— there are sixty-four in all, ranging from the Pelican Institute, in Louisiana, to the Freedom Foundation, in Washington State. According to a new investigative report by the Center for Media and Democracy, a liberal watchdog group, however, the think tanks are less free actors than a coördinated collection of corporate front groups—branch stores, so to speak—funded and steered by cash from undisclosed conservative and corporate players. Although the think tanks have largely operated under the radar, the cumulative enterprise is impressively large, according to the report. In 2011, the network funnelled seventy-nine million dollars into promoting conservative policies at the state level.

The Guardian newspaper has dug up more information about the workings of SPN…and its plans for 2014. The paper published an article on the subject entitled State conservative groups plan US-wide assault on education, health and tax just last week. According to Ed Pilkington and Suzanne Goldenberg, the authors of the article, SPN and its affiliated conservative groups/”think tanks” are planning “a co-ordinated assault against public sector rights and services in the key areas of education, healthcare, income tax, workers’ compensation and the environment…”

Continue reading ““The Guardian” Reveals the State Policy Network’s Coordinated Effort for 2014—An Assault on Education, Taxes, Healthcare, and Workers” →

Congress, Constitutional Law, Justice, Media, Politics, Society, Uncategorized

Revamp the Federal Reserve

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Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger

This past week the main stream media made a big deal about the unemployment rate declining to the five-year low of 7%.  While it was good news that over 200,000 jobs were added to the economy and that the unemployment rate decreased, the economy and main street are still lagging behind Wall Street.  The Federal Reserve has been attempting monetary easing strategies in an effort to stimulate the economy.  It may have worked for Wall Street, but the rest of us are still catching up.

“The Federal Reserve is the only central bank with a dual mandate. It is charged not only with maintaining low, stable inflation but with promoting maximum sustainable employment. Yet unemployment remains stubbornly high, despite four years of radical tinkering with interest rates and quantitative easing (creating money on the Fed’s books). After pushing interest rates as low as they can go, the Fed has admitted that it has run out of tools.” Ellen Brown  Continue reading “Revamp the Federal Reserve” →

International, Military, Society, Uncategorized

Remarkable People: My Cousin Jimmy Gates and the Flower Bed, Seventy-Two Years Ago Today.

Contributed by Charlton Stanley (aka Otteray Scribe), Guest Blogger

Hickham Field Pearl Harbor 7 December 1941
Hickam Field
Pearl Harbor
7 December 1941

I remember where I was and what I was doing shortly after one o’clock in the afternoon on December 7, 1941. My dad called me in to where he and a couple of his friends were sitting by the huge Stromberg Carlson 350R console radio, its front doors swung open. They were leaning forward, hanging onto every word coming out of the polished walnut cabinet. The breathless announcer was talking so fast he sometimes stumbled over his words. The usual calm and soothing baritone of a professional radio news reporter was replaced by an almost panicked staccato, an octave higher than his voice would have sounded normally. One phrase has stayed stuck in my mind’s ear all these years, “They stabbed our boys in the back!”

At first I thought they were talking about Japanese soldiers bayoneting our soldiers and sailors in the back, as I had seen them do in the newsreels of the massacre of Nanking. Even as a kid, I knew war was on the horizon. Six weeks earlier, a Nazi U-boat had sunk the destroyer USS Reuben James as it escorted a convoy of cargo ships carrying food and supplies to England.

Everyone thought that when war did come, it would come from Europe. No one but a few farsighted tacticians like General Billy Mitchell were looking west, and even predicting that an attack would come by air. Mitchell was Court Martialed for his outspoken military and political heresy. When Americans were killed in what was to be the first military engagement of WW-2 with the sinking of the Reuben James, President Roosevelt held back committing troops and sailors to combat despite the provocation. Hitler was counting on that kind of restraint, or he would not have been so bold as to sink an American warship. He knew the US was not prepared to fight a war, since American troop levels had been drawn down to very low numbers, and much of the equipment was either obsolete or obsolescent. The country was recovering from the Great Depression, and needed time to re-arm.

Admiral Yamamoto took Roosevelt’s options away from him that Sunday morning. Hitler was said to be furious with his Japanese allies.

Which brings us to the story my cousin Jimmy.

Continue reading “Remarkable People: My Cousin Jimmy Gates and the Flower Bed, Seventy-Two Years Ago Today.” →

Free Speech, International, Justice, Media, Politics, Society, Uncategorized

To Walmart with Contempt

Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger

bins1-15660341jpg-b2a282e054d52e53 walmart

The picture above really says it all. Walmart, our country’s largest retail operation is run by people who are so clueless that they’ve created a culture that doesn’t even understand the massive irony in running a Thanksgiving Food Pantry for its own employees.  The photo comes from a Walmart in Canton, Ohio. The concept of food collections for the poor at retail establishments is widespread in America, even as many Americans deny that anyone in this country goes hungry. The irony of this food drive though is that it is asking Walmart employees, who are already low paid, to donate food to fellow employees who are even worse off than they are. It is also ironic that the food drive is for Thanksgiving Dinner, since almost all Walmart Stores have been open all day for Thanksgiving for many years, so one wonders what type of Thanksgiving Dinner Walmart associates will have at all? What is new this year is that “Black Friday” for Walmart customers will begin at 6:00pm on Thanksgiving Day and run through the night.

The average Walmart Associate makes $8.81 per hour which translates into a yearly income of $15,576 if the Associate works a full time schedule.  Most Associates don’t work full time because working full time would entitle them to benefits that Walmart doesn’t want to pay. Interestingly, the current U.S. poverty level for a three person family in our country is $19,530. So we see that the rare Walmart full time employee, with two dependents, earns about $4,000 per year below the nation’s poverty level. Indeed, Walmart has made it a practice to inform its employees about benefits like Snap and Public Assistance. At the risk of being portrayed as a “bleeding heart” by some of our readers, let me state that I think this company is disgusting in its personnel policies and is an example of what is worst about our country. Let me explain further. Continue reading “To Walmart with Contempt” →

Criminal law, Society, Uncategorized

Michigan Teen Tries To Play Knock-Em-Out With Taser But Encounters Man With Concealed Weapon

marvellweaver-600x450Across the country, including here in Washington, teenagers are playing a dangerous game called “Knock-em-out” where a person is selected at random and a teenager tries to knock him or her out with one punch (often from behind). As the video shows, victims often hit their heads on the pavement and risk serious injury. One teenager, Marvell Weaver, in Lansing Michigan however picked the wrong guy. On this twitter, Weaver is shown holding a shotgun and saying he would “blow your mouth back.”

Continue reading “Michigan Teen Tries To Play Knock-Em-Out With Taser But Encounters Man With Concealed Weapon” →

Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Free Speech, Society, Uncategorized

Former American Flight Attendant Sues Leno And The Tonight Show For Defamation

245px-JayLenoJul08200px-Rattus_norvegicus_1There is a truly bizarre defamation lawsuit filed against the Tonight Show and Jay Leno by former American flight attendant Louann Giambattista who was the subject of rather crude jokes by Leno referencing allegations that she had snuck a pet rat on flights in her underwear.  Giambattista denies the allegations and says that she was falsely portrayed as “engaging in bestiality and sexual misconduct with a rat.”

Continue reading “Former American Flight Attendant Sues Leno And The Tonight Show For Defamation” →

Media, Politics, Society, Uncategorized

State Policy Network—The “PR Firm” for ALEC and a Right-Wing Agenda

Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger

A recent report published by the Center for Media and Democracy has alleged that there is a network of think tanks across this country that has been “quietly pushing the agenda of right-wing groups with funding from Koch brothers-affiliated organizations.” The umbrella organization that these sixty-four think tanks are collaborating with is called the State Policy Network (SPN)—“a nonprofit that nurtures conservative think tanks in all fifty states.”

From SPN’s website:

Founded in 1992 by Tom Roe at the urging of Ronald Reagan, State Policy Network is the only group in the country dedicated solely to improving the practical effectiveness of independent, non-profit, market-oriented, state-focused think tanks. SPN’s programs enable these organizations to better educate local citizens, policy makers and opinion leaders about market-oriented alternatives to state and local policy challenges.

According to the Center for Media and Democracy’s report, SPN and its “member think tanks” promote an “extreme right-wing agenda” that is much the same as that of “David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity, Charles Koch’s Cato Institute, and Koch’s Citizens for a Sound Economy spin-off FreedomWorks–all of which happen to be associate members of ALEC.”

Continue reading “State Policy Network—The “PR Firm” for ALEC and a Right-Wing Agenda” →

Bizarre, Justice, Science, Society, Torts, Uncategorized

Worked To Death: Fatigue and the health professions, the dirty little secret.

Submitted by Charlton Stanley (aka Otteray Scribe), Guest Blogger

The dirtiest secret of all in the health care professions is not insurance. It is about tired staff.

Nurse Emblem Letha's MarkerOn March 16, 2013, Registered Nurse Elizabeth Jasper had just gotten off work. She was driving her small SUV eastbound on Ohio 50 when it left the road, going airborne, and hitting a tree. The wreckage careened into a parking lot. One does not need to be an accident reconstrucionist to know the crash was not survivable, by just taking one glance at the wreckage.

Beth Jasper, RN, is dead at the age of 38. She leaves her husband and two children. The preliminary investigation so far has revealed Nurse Jasper was supposed to work three 12-hour shifts that week, but had been held over to work extra doing specialized procedures. She is believed to have fallen asleep at the wheel.

Since that time, James Jasper, her widower, has filed a lawsuit against her employer, Jewish Hospital and its parent company, Mercy Health Partners of Southwest Ohio. As details of the lawsuit emerge, it shines a spotlight on a fact of corporate health care in this country which most people never knew.

Continue reading “Worked To Death: Fatigue and the health professions, the dirty little secret.” →

Bizarre, Courts, Criminal law, Justice, Lawyering, Testimony, Uncategorized

Remarkable People: Curtescine Lloyd, a woman not to be trifled with.

Submitted by Charlton Stanley (aka Otteray Scribe), Guest Blogger

“If you’ve got ’em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.”
– Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th President of the United States.

Town of Edwards, MSI should have known something was up. I came home from work one day and my wife met me at the door. “Somebody broke into Curtescine’s house and tried to rape her.” Curtescine Lloyd was one of the nurses on the oncology floor at the hospital. Curtescine lived in Edwards MS, a small bedroom community just a few miles west of where we lived.

Shocked, I asked if there was any word on whether she was hurt, and did we need to go to the hospital. My wife responded, “Not exactly.”

Continue reading “Remarkable People: Curtescine Lloyd, a woman not to be trifled with.” →

Constitutional Law, Religion, Society, Uncategorized

Regarding the Separation of Church and the State’s Money: Charter Schools with Religious Affiliations Being Publicly Funded

SchoolClassroomSubmitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger

As a former public school educator, I have been following what has been going on with school reform in this country. I have written posts about some of the groups and individuals involved in the current reform movement (here), the push to privatize public schools (here), school vouchers (here and here), and charter schools (here and here). Despite all the research that I’ve done on the subject, I hadn’t been aware until recently that there are many publicly funded charter schools across this country that have religious affiliations.

In December 2011, Tiffany Gee Lewis (Deseret News) wrote that there had been a “veritable explosion of charter schools over the past two decades.” She noted that a number of the schools that were riding this charter trend were “founded or authorized” by religious and cultural organizations. As she said, the subject of religion in public schools “has always been a hot-button topic.” She added that “the rise of charter schools that tie themselves to a certain ethnic or religious group introduces a new shade of complication to public schooling.”

According to Jessica Meyers of The Dallas Morning News, “Church-charter partnerships are springing up across the country as private institutions lose funding and nontraditional education models grow in popularity. Their emergence prompts questions about the role religious groups should play in the development of publicly funded schools.” She added, “Critics fear the fuzzy division means taxpayers are footing the bill for religious instruction.”

Continue reading “Regarding the Separation of Church and the State’s Money: Charter Schools with Religious Affiliations Being Publicly Funded” →

Bizarre, Society, Uncategorized

“Royals” by a Seven Foot Tall Sad Clown

Submitted by Charlton Stanley (Otteray Scribe), Guest Blogger

It has been rather intense around the Turley Blog the past couple of days. Time for a break, and hopefully, a smile.

Lorde, the sixteen-year-old singer, songwriter, activist from New Zealand wrote a catchy little song that is a commentary on entitlement, status and excess.  Her song, “Royals,” has won awards and recognition for the teen. Perhaps the most flattering thing for her is the fact it has been done as a cover by numerous performers. One of the most interesting covers is the one done by Puddles, the sad clown with the golden voice. Did we mention that Puddles is about seven feet tall?

Congress, International, Justice, Military, Politics, Society, Uncategorized

Ireland and The End of Austerity?

Flag_of_Ireland_svg

Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)- Guest Blogger

Everyday we read about the latest call for drastic cuts in government spending and claims that our national debt is killing us.  Those calling for the cuts claim that austerity is the only way that we can get the economy moving again.  To that end they call for cuts in Social Security, Medicare, SNAP and many other assistance programs, but consistently refuse to cut our immense defense budget.  Where else have these calls for austerity been made into law and what are the results of these programs?

If you look to Ireland, you can see just one example how austerity has brought a country and its people, to their knees.   Continue reading “Ireland and The End of Austerity?” →

Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Courts, Justice, Lawyering, Society, Uncategorized

Sixth Circuit Ruling Prompts Tennessee DCS to Stop Removing Endangered Children from Homes Without a Formal Hearing.

Submitted by Charlton Stanley (aka Otteray Scribe), Guest Blogger

Tennessee Department of Children's Services Logo
Tennessee Department of Children’s Services Logo

6th Circut logo

On an August afternoon in 2008, Hickman County, TN resident Robert Andrews was working on a trailer in his yard when two deputy sheriffs pulled up in front of his house, along with three caseworkers from the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services. They approached Mr. Andrews and asked permission to go inside his home. They did not have any kind of warrant or court order, so Andrews told them they did not have permission to enter his home.

Despite his refusal, all three caseworkers and one of the deputies entered the home and searched the place. They also took each of his four children aside for interviews out of his earshot. Then the officials left. Neither Andrews nor his wife, Patti, was ever accused of a crime in connection with the visit. They were not afforded the opportunity to contact a lawyer or have a lawyer present for the interrogations of the children. At no time before or since that incident was any member of the Andrews family ever accused of any crime in connection with that visit.

In March 2002, a police officer in Cuyahoga County, Ohio kicked in Nancy Kovacic’s door, allowing caseworkers to enter her home and seize her two children. The children were placed in foster care, where they stayed 10 months. There were no criminal charges of any kind against Nancy Kovacic. Her attorney, Jay Crook, told reporters, “Caseworkers can’t just make a judgment call and say, ‘Well, I don’t like this, and with the power of the state, I’m taking these children,’ ”

The children are now grown and were part of the lawsuit. They report being abused while in foster care. They have been in therapy for several years due to the trauma of being removed from their mother. Mr. Crook added, “Without that neutral arbiter, that magistrate, that judge; even over the phone, you have lost all your due process safeguards.”

Those events at the Andrews home led to a lawsuit against the caseworkers. There was also a similar lawsuit from another family in Ohio. Both cases ended up in front of the Sixth Circuit. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit used the cases to specify that caseworkers, like police, are agents of the State, and therefore controlled by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. This is the first time a Federal appeals court has specified that caseworkers from children’s services departments must abide by the Constitution.

More over the flip, including the full text of both Sixth Circuit decisions.

Continue reading “Sixth Circuit Ruling Prompts Tennessee DCS to Stop Removing Endangered Children from Homes Without a Formal Hearing.” →

Bizarre, Media, Society, Uncategorized

R.I.P Lou Reed

Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger

Lou_Reed_(5900407225)Lou Reed Rock N’ Roll Poet, Singer and Musician died this week at the age of 71. To my mind he was a far greater artist than the world gave him credit for being. What made him special besides his guitar virtuosity; the distinctive sound of his music; his unique voice; was that his lyrics reflected his raw emotional reaction to the life he saw around him. We see many of the Rock N’ Roll Idols of our youth trade their revolutionary sentiments for a knighthood and celebrity lifestyle. Yet Rock N’ Roll in its inception began as outlaw music in the 50’s. The main cause of R&R’s horrifying the mainstream in America was that it was White musicians copying the blues styles of what were then called “Race Records” because they were performed by great Black artists. The initial horror at Elvis wasn’t just the movement of his hips, but the fact that this quintessentially southern White boy was singing Black music. The music industry soon tamed Elvis as it tamed those to come with some exceptions. Lou Reed was never tamed and was never really listed in the top tier of Rock Legends by a public that found his lyrics too raw and too filled with what was the seamy side of American life. What follows are the lyrics to one of Lou Reed’s angriest and greatest songs as pertinent to America today as it was when he wrote it in 1989. Afterwards you can hear him sing it. To me one of the two great American poets of the last 100 years died this week and people think he was just another Rock N’ Roll singer. Continue reading “R.I.P Lou Reed” →