While the North Carolina House of Representatives has finally killed the bill to allow the state to establish a state religion, a new study found that 34 percent of adults would favor establishing Christianity as the official state religion. While 47 percent opposed the establishment of state religion, it was less than a majority.
Continue reading “Survey: 34 Percent Of Americans Want Christianity Made Official Religion”
By Mike Appleton, Guest Blogger
As it did for many people, the current recession produced serious financial difficulties for William and Mary Hoagland. So they did what thousands of other families do each year and filed a petition for relief under Chapter 13 of the Bankruptcy Code. Chapter 13 does for individuals what Chapter 11 does for corporations; it enables a family to keep its property and pay all or most of its debts over a period to time under court protection.
Chapter 13 even provides a method for reducing or eliminating secured debt in some cases. For example, if you have a second mortgage on your home, and your home’s value does not exceed the value of the first mortgage, the lien of the second mortgage can be “stripped” in a process known as “cramdown,” converting the holder of the second mortgage into an unsecured creditor. The problem is that cramdown is not available for a residential first mortgage, regardless of how far a homeowner is underwater. Chapter 13 can provide breathing space to catch up with arrearages on a first mortgage, but if you want to keep your home, the first mortgage will have to be honored according to its terms, unless the lender will agree to a modification. In the case of Mr. and Mrs. Hoagland, a modification agreement with Bank of America may have enabled them to satisfy a $227,000.00 first mortgage in slightly less than two years.
Continue reading “Modify This: How To Pay Off Your Mortgage In Two Years”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)- Guest Blogger
Last week I wrote about a disturbing joint FDIC and Bank of England plan that could allow big banks to grab depositors funds in order to balance their books. FDIC-BOE As a follow-up to that discussion, I saw an article discussing a proposed Senate bill that would require our biggest banks to support a higher capital requirement than their smaller counterparts. The bill in question is co-sponsored by Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown and Republican Senator David Vitter. I thought it was especially interesting when one of this proposed legislation’s critics seemed to indicate that this legislation is unnecessary because it disregards the role the FDIC plays in protecting depositors accounts.
‘ “I view it as a radical view of how American banks should be restructured that seems to disregard the role of the FDIC coverage, prudential regulation and the totally different structure of the 2013 economy,” Petrou said in an interview.” ‘ Bloomberg I guess Ms. Petrou didn’t read my article or the various articles before and after mine that discussed the plan that the FDIC made with the Bank of England to completely avoid the FDIC coverage and allow bankers to take depositors funds and replace those funds with stock shares in order to keep the bank afloat. Or then maybe she did? Continue reading “Bi-Partisan Support for Bill to Mandate a Higher Capital Requirement for Too Big to Fail Banks”
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
In October of 2010, the American Civil Liberties Union published a report titled In for a Penny: The Rise of America’s New Debtors’ Prisons. The ACLU had found that debtors’ prisons were “flourishing” in this country, “more than two decades after the Supreme Court prohibited imprisoning those who are too poor to pay their legal debts.” In 2011, Huffington Post reported that debtors’ prisons were legal in more than one-third of the states in this country. Continue reading “The Rise of “Debtors’ Prisons” in the US”
by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
Disclosure: I consider myself both a liberal and pro-2nd Amendment and my position on gun control is that while reasonable solutions can be found to prevent tragedies such as Newtown that going so far as to repeal the 2nd Amendment is both an ultimately futile solution (for the reasons discussed below) and most unwise Constitutionally speaking (for reasons discussed elsewhere on this blog). This article is not about my position on the 2nd Amendment.
In the wake of the horror of Newtown, a national debate has arisen between those who – at the extremes – would either outlaw guns or have them totally unrestricted. Most of the debate is somewhere in-between those two polar extremes. Most everyone agrees that keeping firearms out of the hands of the mentally unstable and known criminals is not a bad idea. This column is not about that debate proper over gun control. It is about the nature of technology and law as it is framed by that debate. In specific, it is about 3-D printing and use of that technology to make firearms. Is the problem the technology or the user?
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
It appears the Almighty is up to His tricks again. After appearing on trees, bird poop, and causing several statues to cry, the new medium of divine communication is now the ubiquitous pacifier of toddlers, the humble Goldfish cracker. Patti Burke, from Melbourne, Fla, was the lucky recipient this time, opening her package of the Pepperidge Farm product to find a circled cross and crown on one of the brightly colored orange fish. Patty was overjoyed at the find and the timing:
“When I picked this one up, I knew he was special,” the Melbourne woman said of her Holy Week discovery. “He had a cross on him, and he had a crown circle up by his head. Something I’ve never seen before out of all the Goldfish I’ve eaten.”
Submitted by Charlton Stanley, guest blogger
(Otteray Scribe)
This is my first post as a Guest Blogger. I am honored and humbled to be invited to post at one of the most respected legal opinion blogs on the ‘net. I will try to maintain the high standards already set by the heavy hitters already posting here. Thank you, Professor Turley, and all the other guest bloggers and regulars here. I have been posting here and on other blogs under the username Otteray Scribe. Otteray is the Cherokee name for the Blue Ridge Mountains where I live. When in the fourth grade, I learned about the scribes of old Europe. The idea of someone actually having a job writing things down for people who were illiterate fascinated me. My username combined two of my favorite words. Blue Ridge writer. That’s me.
Just a bit of background about me. I am a forensic psychologist with about 41 years of trying to get it right. I am passionate about my work, aviation, photography and my family. Other interests include law enforcement and corrections. In future stories, I plan to write about all those subjects. Hopefully, over the past four decades I learned a few things worth sharing.
For my first effort, I wanted to focus on how people who know little of aviation get a news story, and then mangle it into something that it is not. This is not new. There was a time not long ago when any kind of general aviation airplane crashed, it was described in the press as a, “Piper Cub.” Cubs are seldom seen these days, so that descriptor has evolved to a, “small Cessna.” Perhaps this story will set the record straight, and tamp down some of the ‘Hair-On-Fire’ hyperbole about flight restrictions over the oil spill in Arkansas. This environmental disaster is personal to me. At one time, I lived and worked only a few miles from Mayflower, and have flown in and out of the Conway airport many times.
Misinformation, hyperbole and conspiracy theories have been rampant about the flight restrictions around the oil spill at Mayflower, Arkansas. The problem started when local news media referred to Exxon-Mobil getting the FAA to establish a “no-fly” zone around the oil spill. To be clear, this is a completely different issue than what is happening on the ground. Links to some of those stories are at the end of this piece.
Continue reading “Whose Airspace Is It? When the media gets it wrong.”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
In 1964, during Barry Goldwater’s race for the White House, a book became a runaway best seller and it was titled “None Dare Call It Treason”. Its’ premise, typical of the thinking of many of that time, was that the United States was being sold out to Communism by its “liberal elites” who were pro-communist and thus wanted the USSR to win the “Cold War”. As the title clearly illustrates the book’s author, John A. Stormer, believed that the “elite” were traitors, liberal of course, who were so powerful that their “treasonous actions” couldn’t be challenged. I remember the popularity of the book at that time and how many who supported Barry Goldwater were believers in the books veracity. Goldwater himself seemed to be echoing Stormer’s theme of rooting out pro Communists in his Convention speech which produced the memorable phrase: “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” It is thus a meme that in many different ways has been played and re-played through our Country’s history by those of a more Conservative persuasion. That meme is that the true American patriots are those who are of Right Wing political persuasion. Continue reading “None Dare Call it Treason”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Loving v. Virginia (1967) was a case decided by a unanimous Supreme Court that invalidated all laws that prohibited inter-racial marriages. At the time, Virginia was one of 16 states that had statutes that prohibited and punished inter-racial marriages. Considering recent oral arguments regarding California’s Proposition 8 and the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the similarity to arguments made in support of anti-miscegenation statutes is striking.
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Watching the unfolding meltdown at Rutgers University this week you had to be struck by the full array of human weakness on display. Prompted in large measure by a disgruntled former employee (all truth seems to come out that way), the school was rocked when a compilation video surfaced showing three years of verbal, physical and mental abuse heaped on student athletes whose crime was winning a basketball scholarship and having the misfortune to play for Head Coach Mike Rice and Assistant Coach Jimmy “Baby Rice” Martelli.
Law Professor John Yoo has avoided criminal prosecution and bar charges for his now discredited defense of the Bush torture program. Even the Bush Administration ultimately rejected his infamous torture memos as poorly reasoned and unreliable. Undeterred, Yoo is back in the press condemning liberals for caring more about torture than diversity in not supporting a woman for the head of the CIA’s clandestine service. The woman was reportedly implicated in the torture program and is one of those officials who effectively got a “get out of jail free” card by President Obama when he pledged that no CIA employees would be prosecuted for torture at the start of his first term. Yoo is denouncing liberals for failing to support a woman simply because of a little thing like torture.
We have yet another horrific tale of the treatment of girls and women in traditional Islamic areas. In Pakistan, Gul Meena was forced by her family at age 12 to marry a 60 year old man. The man proceeded to beat her daily and when she ran to her family, they beat her and told her to go back to her abuser. She was bought and paid for. Instead, she ran away with a young man. However, her brother tracked them down and killed the man with an axe and stuck his sister 15 times. She survived the attempted “honor killing” by her friend.
The Justice Department has been repeatedly accused of prosecutorial misconduct in high-profile cases for terrorism cases in Detroit to the botched Ted Stevens case to the recent controversy in New Orleans. Many such allegations involved federal prosecutors not sharing evidence with defense counsel or the court — a long-standing problem for the Justice Department which shows no signs of reform. Indeed, prior Justice officials accused of abuse can often look forward to promotion. Now, infamous former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling may walk free due to alleged federal prosecutorial abuse. It would be the end of a multimillion dollar prosecution record of the Enron Task Force that resulted in a number of key acquittals, reversals, and the creation of bad precedent for the Justice Department.
Continue reading “Doing Justice: Will Skilling Walk In Another Case Of Prosecutorial Abuse?”
University of Rochester economics professor Steven Landsburg is under fire this week for his discussion of rape in a blog post. UR students have demanded his censure and are planning protests while UR has correctly refused to discipline Landsburg for an exercise of academic freedom. Indeed, these students (like the French students discussed earlier on the subject of free speech) have lost their bearings in demanding punishment for the expression ideas or opinions by a faculty members in my view.
Continue reading “University of Rochester Professor Under Fire For Blog Post”
Like many law professors, I am in the process of handing out evaluations this week and this posting on Reddit from a fellow law professor’s class caught my eye. Before leaving the classroom for the completion of evaluations, the professor apparently put up on the screen his favorite ding on evaluations with a student who wrote: “I don’t wear my seatbelt driving to school because I want to die before I make it to this class.”
Continue reading “More Art Than Science: Evaluating the Evaluations”