Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Free Speech, Politics, Society, Things That Tick Me Off

Homeowner’s Association Targeted After Supporting Pro-Third Amendment Group

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

No Quartering Association LogoA controversy is developing in Cornwallis, Washington where residents of a neighborhood bordering the army’s Joint Base Lewis McChord (JBLM) say the city council’s latest ordinance is yet another example of an overreaching government.

During the Christmas recess the mayor called a midnight city council meeting, with no public notice, and reportedly of all places in a Seattle pub. After seven exhausting hours the council voted 5 to 4 to enact a law that was purportedly intended to ease the severe traffic jams along Interstate 5 which runs through JBLM. But these intentions some believe were not so benevolent.

The law allocated nine tracts of park land to build high density housing for military personnel and their families. The land is just west of the Berkeley Bridge and soldiers going to and from the base would not need to use I-5. However the land is platted within the realm of the Lafayette neighborhood and its homeowner’s association. Residents angrily objected to their former park being taken over by the city, and in response turned to a relatively unknown civil rights advocacy group, the No Quartering Association, (NQA) to seek redress for the city violating the Third Amendment’s prohibition of quartering soldiers in citizens’ homes. Unfortunately for them, the worst was yet to come.
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Animals, Bizarre, Courts, Criminal law, Justice, Things That Tick Me Off

81 Year Old Woman Jailed Two Days For Allegedly Violating Pet Ordinance

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

Mary RootIn an outrageous lack of discretion,  some members in the animal control and court system in Havre de Grace, Maryland put 81 year old great grandmother Mary Root through a harrowing ordeal.

Mary Root says her pets somehow got loose from her yard several times. A neighbor took pictures of the dogs running down the street and reported her to Animal Control.
The agency slapped Root with a $7,000 fine or she could spend nearly a year in jail.

“I’m struggling to pay my house taxes. I couldn’t pay it. It’s a different thing when you leave your dogs out and you don’t care. But I do care,” Root said. But when the cancer survivor failed to show up at court on her doctor’s orders, a judge had Root arrested.

She was booked, fingerprinted and issued a striped jumpsuit. She waited to see a judge in a cell without her cancer medication.
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Media, Politics, Religion, Science

“Cosmos” Host Neil deGrasse Tyson Speaks Out about the News Media, Flat Earthers, Science Deniers, Climate Change Skeptics, Religion, and Dogma

NeildeGrasseTyson - CopySubmitted by Elaine Magliaro, Weekend Contributor

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist and director of the Natural History Museum’s Hayden Planetarium in New York City. He is also the host of Fox Networks’ new science series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. Last Sunday, Tyson appeared on CNN’s Reliable Sources program and spoke with Brian Stelter. During the program, Tyson talked about “the hypocrisy of people dismissing scientific theory while simultaneously embracing the fruits of scientific discovery ‘that we so take for granted today.’”

Tyson said that our civilization “is built on the innovation of scientists and technologists and engineers who have shaped everything that we so take for granted today. So some of the science deniers or science haters, these are people who are telling that to you while they are on their mobile phone. They are saying, ‘I don’t like science. Oh, GPS just told us to go left. So it’s time for people to sit back and reassess what role science has actually played in our lives. And learn how to embrace that going forward, because without it, we will just regress back into the caves.”

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Bizarre, Justice, Politics, Society, Things That Tick Me Off

Washington’s Destructive New Medical Marijuana Bill “Sleeping With The Fishes”

Entreating the Godfather

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

Due to the close of the legislative session, the various families in the legislature were not able to agree how to put the Medical Marijuana industry out of business. Bosses at the Liquor Control Board and the two prominent political families worked all session to preserve the state’s business interests in the Recreational Marijuana Racket, with its excessive taxation and protection.

This had the potential to force medical marijuana patients to give up their medical privacy, pay more for their medicine, and force the medical dispensaries out of business. This in the hope of shunting people in to the state sponsored highly taxed recreational marijuana racket. Luckily for now, the bill is dead.
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Constitutional Law, Politics, Society

Montana Ballot Measure Seeks To Establish Equal Representation of Men And Women In Legislature

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

Universal SuffrageThe Montana Secretary of State Office approved the ballot a measure that would mandate the legislature be equally represented by men and women. Presently, women hold 41 of the 150 seats in the state legislature. There are several more processes to surmount before the ballot measure becomes listed on the general election ballot. A signature drive follows and must obtain valid signatures of ten percent of the total voters in Montana and ten percent in each of the forty legislative districts. The signature gathering with the requisite signatures must be collected by June 20th if to be placed upon the ballot.

While certainly laudable in an effort to obtain greater participation of women in the political process, which is still not at parity, the likelihood of this measure, if it becomes law, surviving a constitutional challenge is weak.
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Congress, Constitutional Law, Politics, Society

A Government Unto Himself: Obama Administration Creates New Sweeping Exemption Under The ACA [UPDATED]

President_Barack_ObamaI recently testified (here and here and here) and wrote a column on President Obama’s increasing circumvention of Congress in negating or suspending U.S. laws. This week, President Obama went even further with the announcement of a new sweeping exemption that not only has no foundation in the federal law but directly contradicts the law. It also happens (again) to be a change debated but not accepted by Congress. The exemption appears an effort to blunt growing criticism of Obama for a false assurance given to citizens before the enactment of the ACA. It is also coming at a time of new polls indicating that Obama is not only hitting a record low in popularity but Republicans appear poised to gain seats in both houses (and potentially could retake the Senate as well as add seats in the House). [Update: The White House is now denying that it will implement the hardship exemption despite the article in the Wall Street Journal and other media]

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Academia, Constitutional Law, Free Speech, Society

California Professor Faces Possible Assault Charges After Stealing Sign From Pro-Life Protesters On Campus

milleryoungincident2 We have recently discussed a number of incidents of professors acting badly in shouting down student protesters or journalists on campus. (here and here and here). This has include prior attacks on pro-life demonstrators. Now a teenage pro-life demonstrators has accused a University of California (Santa Barbar) professor of taking her sign and assaulting her on campus. Thrin Short, 16, and her sister Joan, 21, have posted a videotape of Feminist Studies Associate Professor Mireille Miller-Young walking away with their sign and getting into a confrontation with the teenagers.

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Bizarre, Criminal law, International, Religion, Society

Getting The Fat Out Of Fatwas: Saudi Cleric Declares Buffets To Be Anti-Islamic

220px-Chinese_buffet2It is a good thing that it is not April 1st because this would an obvious April Fool’s joke. Then again most of the fatwas coming out of Saudi Arabia seem like jokes to most people living in the 21st Century. Saudi cleric Saleh al-Fawzan has issued fatwa against all-you-can-eat buffets in Saudi Arabia — declaring that the popular lunch establishments will now be viewed as unlawful under Sharia law. You might want to get Sharia defense counsel before going to that Smörgåsbord in Jetta.

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Constitutional Law, Free Speech, Media, Politics, Society

Wisconsin High School Student Writes Investigative Story On School’s “Rape Culture” . . . Principal Censors Article And Takes Over Newspaper

IMG_5886210px-FondDuLacHighSchoolEntranceWe have been discussing a variety of stories lately that reflect the rapidly shrinking free speech rights of students, including a recent column. A story out of Wisconsin shows just how arbitrary administrators have become in stomping out students engaging in free speech and student press rights. Fond du Lac High School senior Tanvi Kumar showed precisely the type of courage and creativity that we want to instill in the young. While other kids were at the Mall and fighting over fashions, Kumar wrote an investigative piece that documents what was described as a “rape culture” at the school. The school officials immediately moved to censor and block the publication — joining a growing population of draconian administrators teaching students to yield to arbitrary authority. In this case, Fond du Lac High School Principal Jon Wiltzius was able to gut principles of free speech and free press in one overarching authoritarian gesture.

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Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Lawyering, Media, Politics, Society

CIA Acting General Counsel Accused Of Attempted Intimidation Of Staffers Investigating His Role in Alleged Torture Program

225px-dianne_feinstein_official_senate_photoCIAWe have previously discussed the irony of Senator Dianne Feinstein expressing outrage over the fact that her staff was subject to warrantless CIA surveillance. Feinstein’s outrage over the spying on her staff is only matched by her lack of outrage over the spying on the rest of America. However, she does have an good point to raise with regard to the role of one lawyer who seems to be dancing along the edge of both ethical and legal standards. He is the acting CIA general counsel Robert Eatinger who is believed to have played a large role in the programs and actions under investigation. Eatinger is well known to civil libertarians as someone involved in past abuses by the agency.

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Academia, Free Speech, Society

New York Student Suspended For Wearing NRA Tee Shirt To School

imagesWe previously discussed the free speech implications of the arrest of a student for wearing a NRA tee shirt to school. Now we have another case of a student, Shane Kinney, 16, who has been disciplined for wearing his NRA tee-shirt to the Grand Island High School. Once again, it is not clear why this tee shirt falls under the school’s written prohibition and appears to be content-based censorship by the school.

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

THE FOURTH ESTATE: FIFTY YEARS AFTER NEW YORK TIMES V. SULLIVAN

220px-Nytimes_hqSupreme CourtBelow is a longer version of my column that ran today in USA Today. The column was originally written for a longer format but had to be reduced to fight the page. The column looks at state of the Fourth Estate on the 50th anniversary of the decision in New York Times v. Sullivan. I do not wish to understate the threat against the media in 1964 but it is hard to overstate the threat against the media in 2014.

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Politics, Society, Torts

The Meter’s Running: Chicago Taxi Publication Threatens to Out Secretly Gay Aldermen Unless Demands Are Met By Next Month

chicagocitycouncil220px-Toyota_Camry_Hybrid_VA_08_2009_7020There is an astonishing controversy in my hometown of Chicago this week after The Chicago Dispatcher, and its publisher George Lutfallah, threatened the City Council with outing five members as homosexuals unless it capitulated on a list of demands for legal and policy changes. If this were a serious attempt at extortion, it would be as shocking as it is self-defeating. Some demands seem an attempt as humor, though the strong suggestion is that you should not mess with drivers who see more than politicians would want to be known to their voters.

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