As previously discussed California’s infamous Knoller case involving a vicious dog attack and the sentencing of two lawyers for the death of a young woman coming home from a jog. Now, the owner of four pit bulls has been charged with the murder of a jogger with the use of DNA testing of the blood found on their snouts. Alex Johnson, 29, will stand trial in the death of Pamela Dewitt, 63, who was bitted 150 to 200 times by his pit bulls.
“The United States is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers any paid vacation time and is one of only a few rich countries that do not require employers to offer at least some paid holidays.”
-Rebecca Ray, Mila Sanes and John Schmidt, No Vacation Nation (Center for Economic and Policy Research, May, 2013)
The leisure and hospitality industry in Central Florida employs over 216,000 people, more than 20% of the entire Metro Orlando workforce. These are primarily low-wage jobs, with few benefits. Hotel maids, for example, earn a median wage of $9.20 per hour. It is estimated that 81% of the lowest-wage workers have no ability to earn paid sick time. Nationally, a study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research concluded that 37% of working women (some 13,000,000) in companies with more than 15 employees cannot take a paid sick day if they or a family member are ill. Among employed Latinos (a quickly growing demographic in Orange County, Florida), 49% lack access to any paid sick leave.
The combined effect of low wages and no benefits means that on any given day tens of thousands of Metro Orlando workers must decide whether to go to work sick, send a sick child to school, or stay home without pay and even risk termination of their employment. In May of 2012, a coalition of Orlando activists began a citizen’s initiative to mandate that private employers in Orange County with 15 or more employees provide workers with up to 7 days of paid sick leave each year. That effort has generated two lawsuits to date and the quick adoption of an ALEC-inspired state law preempting the Orange County initiative. Continue reading “ALEC in Wonderland, An Act In Two Plays (Part 2)”→
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
Over the years we have heard the stories about Supreme Court justices coming under fire for attending political rallies and symposiums and for taking gifts from political organizations. Abe Fortas and his subsequent resignation from the Supreme Court is one instance that comes to mind. More recently, of course, Justice Clarence Thomas’ exploits come to mind. “Justice Clarence Thomas is an ethics problem in a black robe. Just eight months after ThinkProgress broke the story of Thomas’ attendance at a Koch-sponsored political fundraiser, we learn that Thomas doesn’t just do unethical favors for wealthy right-wing donors — they also do expensive favors for him.
Leading conservative donor Harlan Crow, whose company often litigates in federal court, provided $500,000 to allow Thomas’s wife to start a Tea Party group and he once gave Thomas a $19,000 Bible that belonged to Frederick Douglass. The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank which frequently files briefs in Thomas’ Court, also gave Thomas a $15,000 gift.” Think Progress
What we may have missed in those earlier discussions is how important the lower courts and appeals court judges are in enforcing corporate or political legislation and policies. What would you say if corporations and partisan foundations or think tanks and oil companies were deeply involved in making sure the judges know who their real “friends” are? Continue reading “It’s All About the Judges”→
Submitted by Charlton Stanley (Otteray Scribe) guest blogger
Pvt. Bill Millin with his pipes 6 June 1944, Sword Beach, Normandy
June 6 marks the anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy, and the beginning of the end for World War II. Thousands of scared kids racing though red-stained sea water onto red-stained sand. Some made it off the beach that day, and some never even made it out of the water onto dry land. Of all those thousands of scared kids, there was one that stood out from most of the rest. Twenty-one year-old Private Bill Millin, “The Mad Piper of D-Day.” He was assigned to the Highland Light Infantry, Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, No. 4 Commando. On that fateful day, he was personal piper to Brigadier Simon Fraser, 15th Lord Lovat, commander of 1 Special Service Brigade. When he was assigned to pipe the troops ashore, Private Millin at first declined, reminding his commanding officer that it was against British War Office regulations. Lord Lovat replied, “Ah, but that’s the English War Office. You and I are both Scottish, and that doesn’t apply.” Although pipers had been used in battle for centuries, the official position of the British War Office was that the pipes were to be restricted to rear areas. The reason for the policy was that too many pipers had been killed during WW-I after the enemy figured out how much a good piper was worth in morale for the Highland troops nicknamed the “Ladies From Hell.” It was said that a good piper was worth an extra five hundred men due to the morale boost for the Highland troops upon hearing the skirling of the pipes.
Brigadier Simon Frasier 15th Lord Lovat
As they were ready to disembark from their landing craft, Lord Lovat asked Private Bill Millin to play Hielan’ Laddie, a tune also known as Highland Laddie. So Private Millin played the ancient march as the troops waded ashore on Sword Beach. As he stepped off the landing craft ramp into the water, his kilt floated up around him like a ballerina’s tutu. The soldier next to him was shot in the face and killed instantly, his body bumping against the piper’s bare legs. As tradition dictated, he marched up and down the beach, standing erect with his pipes, while all those around him were taking cover as best they could. Later, he led them as they left the beach, heading inland, piping Road to the Isles.
When I started as a college student about 50 years ago I took the Sociology I course as a required subject. There is little I remember from that course and less I remember about the instructor, except for his introductory words on the first day of class. To paraphrase him he said: “You will be taking a lot of courses in what are called the Social Sciences. Approach them all, including mine, with skepticism because they really aren’t science courses like those you’ve learned as a high school student. They will spend a lot of lecture time though trying to prove they are truly scientific, don’t believe them”. His clear meaning was that although the Social Sciences try to operate as if they are using the scientific method of experiments/research to prove theories, most of the work done is skewed to prove the theory of choice by those doing the research. In the five decades since that lecture my own experience and reading has taught me how true the advice from that long forgotten Sociology instructor is.
The social science that has my attention at the moment is Economics. I’ve read many an economist, from all points on the political spectrum and frankly while I favor those such as Krugman and Baker, I take most of what they say as opinion, rather than scientifically determined truth. Yes I’ve even read “Freakonomics” by Levitt and Dubner and the follow-up “Superfreakonomics” and while they were good reads I see them as not only bad science, but a conflation of economics with other social sciences that is superficial at best. This is really the problem with many economists and their theories. They presume to divine human behavior via the prism of economic theory. In the end their proofs are merely retrofitting their pre-judgments. That brings me to the “Austerity” movement which has hampered the recovery from the economic “depression” brought on by the wars and tax reductions of the Bush years, while it has also caused a crisis worldwide through its imposition upon many nations. The foundation research that has justified this “Austerity” movement came from two Harvard Professors: Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff. A University of Massachusetts student Thomas Herndon found that their work was filled with mathematical errors in their research spreadsheets. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/16/reinhart-rogoff-austerity-research-errors_n_3094015.html Their spreadsheets were their “proofs” that economic austerity promotes economic recovery and this theory, long held by many economists, is the basis for the imposition of austerity onto so many Nation’s economies and is the source of bitter national debate in our own. Though I will present some overview and links amplifying “austerity’s” false assumptions, my interest is in presenting my view on why the powers that be have imposed this doctrine, whose effects fall squarely upon 99% of the people of these nations, leaving the wealthiest unscathed. Continue reading “The Austerity Conspiracy”→
Author’s Note: Grace Under Pressure is an on-going series of posts honoring everyday people who courageously make positive differences in their own lives and consequently in the lives of others. It is my own personal affirmation that unexpected heroes reside among us and that they serve as quiet but unshakable proof that virtue really is its own reward – and ours, too.
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
On the blog, we justifiably point out the civil rights abuses we see committed by our law enforcement. Clothed with police power and enormous discretion to affect our lives and the lives of our family and friends, we expect more from them than the average citizen in terms of sensitivity to our wellbeing. When pointing out those abuses we do well to remember there is another side, too, when we get much more than we expect.
Scott County, Arkansas is a hardscrabble place with a population just over 11,000. That’s a little less that the number in 1900 and the 3000 or so families that live there trace their community’s roots back to the times of President James Monroe. The terrain is rugged as you’d expect from the land smack dab in the middle of the Ouachita Mountains (derived from the bastardized Choctaw words for “large buffaloes”), and the folks there are as independent, hardy, and proud as you would expect from people whose closest neighbor is often a mile or so away. The hollers, crags, and slopes of the Large Buffaloes mountains are criss-crossed with little streams and runs that give the scene a bucolic vista that attracts painters and photographers. Those streams form the Fourche La Fave River which runs about 150 miles through some of Arkansas’ most undisturbed, idyllic countryside. It may not be Heaven, but to outdoor enthusiasts it’s close.
James Lowder and Katie Young hay have the best wedding picture ever. The credit for the idea goes to photographer Quinn Miller volunteered to shoot wedding photos for his friends. He suggested that the entire wedding party pretend that they were running from something and then added a T-Rex with the help of Photoshop.
The idea for this guest blog came from Anonymously Yours, who has been around at Jonathan Turley’s Blog, for at least as long as I have. We have had an E Mail relationship, offline for many years. He sent me the link that I’ll be basically using and I think his judgment was on the money. The topic is George Washington’s Farewell Address, how prescient our First President was and how much good advice he gave that we should heed today, after the passage of 218 years.
Like every other American child what I learned about George Washington came from school and little else. When I started learning about him and the revolutionary war, it was common when speaking about him to call him “The Father of Our Country”. As the years passed this description has seemingly fallen out of consciousness and we usually only see him referenced wearing a white wig and a tri-corn hat on President’s Day selling cars. Certainly too, as my education progressed through High School and College, the view of Washington as one of our Founding Father’s was diminished as compared to his more glamorous and brilliant cohort among the Founding Fathers, Jefferson, Franklin and Madison. It is easy to see why this change came about. When you think of Washington, most would see the famous portrait I’ve used as a picture above. The portrait shows a prim-mouthed, rather dour man with a wig. History has given us certain personal details like his famous wooden false teeth. History has also supplied a childish, hagiographic mythology that he never told a lie and threw a coin across the Potomac. There is even some debate about his competence as a General. Indeed, the traitor Benedict Arnold is considered by many to be the best military mind on our side during the Revolution.
So when AY sent me his E Mail, I was at first skeptical about the project until I read the link. While in some sense I knew about his Farewell Address in the back of my mind, rereading it and the commentary on it caused me to rethink George Washington. As I see now he was a great man, in a true sense and he at least gave this country a good start. He also made a contribution regarding how he felt this country should comport itself that is relevant today, although certainly not heeded. Let’s explore Washington’s message and see what wisdom we can draw from it today, or should have drawn in the ensuing 218 years since it was written. Continue reading “The Father of Our Country”→
We just discussed a story of a kindergartner who was disciplined for a LEGO gun that he brought to school that was smaller than a quarter. Now we have another kindergartner who was suspended for the rest of the year (10 days) for bringing an orange-tipped toy gun to school. Rather than simply discuss the matter with his parents, school officials proceeded to interrogate him for hours without calling his parents– a growing problem that we discussed in another story today. The toy was in the boy’s backpack and he was pulled into an interrogation with police. I cannot imagine what officers did for two hours in questioning a 5 year old child but it is clear that Calvert County officials have zero crime and even less judgment. During his detention with the officials and police, the boy wet his pants.
John Dryden, is a social studies teacher at Batavia High School in Illinois. It may have been his social science background or his concern for basic rights of students, but Dryden felt that he should mention that students have constitutional rights not to incriminate themselves in a school-mandated survey. The survey, after all, was asking the student if they had used drugs, tobacco, and alcohol. In response, the school disciplined Dryden and docked his pay.
Many people in the world have been waiting for the departure of extremist Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. From the sounds of his likely replacement, Saeed Jalili, some may look back with longing. Jalili is a former Revolutionary Guard who continues the extremist Islamic principles of governance of his predecessor. This week, he promised to “defend the rights of women as mothers” as opposed to what he referred to as “economic context” of feminists and the West. Men will continue of course to be defined as men as opposed to fathers.
The Catholic Church’s top exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth is calling on Pope Francis to relax current limits on priests performing exorcisms. He insists that the demand of the faithful for exorcisms is rising and the Church needs to increase the supply of the rites. For his own part, Amorth now claims to have sent 160,000 demons to hell — that is over 1818 a year or roughly 5 a day or one demon every 4.8 hours every day every week every month.
In the last couple weeks, it has been astonishing to watch Democrats once again abandoning a core principle — in this case the protection of the free press — to excuse another abuse of the Obama Administration. The new talking point for defenders of the Obama Administration is that it is really not that bad to seize the records of journalists or label a journalist a potential criminal co-conspirator so long as they are not actually prosecuted. None however are quite so adamant as Georgetown Professor and MSNBC Political Analyst Michael Eric Dyson who called Eric Holder our “law giver” and “the Moses of our time.” In this case, of course, Moses came down from the mountain and endorsed the killing of any citizen deemed a national security threat, allowed warrantless surveillance, blocked public interest challenges to abuses of power, and attacked the free press. While some of us believe Holder should be fired, Dyson apparently believes Holder should be be beatified.
There is a troubling case out of Harris County, Texas where a court has issued an order barring 16 individuals from a Houston neighborhood on the ground that prosecutors alleged that they are gang members up to no good. However, this was a civil proceeding where the 16 individuals were neither given representation nor were present. The precedent established by such a public nuisance ruling is chilling if prosecutors can bar citizens from neighborhoods based on associations or future conduct.
As previously discussed California’s infamous Knoller case involving a vicious dog attack and the sentencing of two lawyers for the death of a young woman coming home from a jog. Now, the owner of four pit bulls has been charged with the murder of a jogger with the use of DNA testing of the blood found on their snouts. Alex Johnson, 29, will stand trial in the death of Pamela Dewitt, 63, who was bitted 150 to 200 times by his pit bulls.
