Religion, Society

Question of the Day: Is It Time To Sack Lovie Smith?

220px-Lovie_Smith_in_2007Chicago-Bears-Logo2I have just finished my weekly exercise of self-flagellation in watching my Bears go down to yet another defeat to the Packers. It was a familiar feeling. While Aaron Rodgers is an amazing quarterback, the Bears lost this game again due to their own mistakes from recurring penalties (including one that cost us a touchdown) and continued sacks of Cutler. The question is whether it is time to a change in the head coach of the Chicago Bears at the end of this season. I like Smith and even allow my students to take “a Lovie” to pass on cases if the Bears win that week (a diminishing opportunity to be sure). However, this game shows how long-standing problems, including our porous offensive line, have gone unresolved. It has now gotten so bad that I am hoping for the Mayan apocalypse just to stop the Packers.

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Criminal law, Justice, Politics

You Call This Justice? DOJ Criticized for Its Settlement with “Too Big to Jail” Bank HSBC

DeptofJusticeSubmitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger

Federal officials appeared quite pleased with themselves earlier this week when they announced their $1.9 billion settlement with HSBC. HSBC, the world’s third largest bank, has been accused of laundering money for Colombian and Mexican drug cartels and clients with ties to terrorists.

Lanny Breuer
Lanny Breuer

In July, a Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report about its probe into HSBC and its shady financial dealings. The subcommittee found that HSBC and its affiliates in the United States “exposed the U.S. financial system to a wide array of money laundering, drug trafficking, and terrorist financing risks due to poor anti-money laundering (AML) controls.”

Democratic Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the subcommittee, said:

“In an age of international terrorism, drug violence in our streets and on our borders, and organized crime, stopping illicit money flows that support those atrocities is a national security imperative. HSBC used its U.S. bank as a gateway into the U.S. financial system for some HSBC affiliates around the world to provide U.S. dollar services to clients while playing fast and loose with U.S. banking rules. Due to poor AML controls, HBUS exposed the United States to Mexican drug money, suspicious travelers cheques, bearer share corporations, and rogue jurisdictions. The bank’s federal bank regulator, the OCC, tolerated HSBC’s weak AML system for years. If an international bank won’t police its own affiliates to stop illicit money, the regulatory agencies should consider whether to revoke the charter of the U.S. bank being used to aid and abet that illicit money.”

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Academia, Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Justice, Lawyering, Media, Politics, Religion, Science, Society, Supreme Court, Uncategorized

The Specious Roots of the Anti-Abortion Controversy

Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger

ImageI originally had a guest blog planned for today on a completely different topic, but I ran across an article in Friday’s Huffington Post, that changed my direction. Since I was a youth I have been aghast at the fact that I grew up in a country where such things as homosexuality and abortion were prohibited by law.  It seemed like this was too personal an interference by the State into the personal affairs of people and that this interference often ruined people’s lives. Then too, I grew up in New York State, where for so many years divorce was unobtainable leading to such ridiculousness as Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s wife having to establish Nevada residence in order to obtain a divorce from him. It seemed to me then, as it seems to me now, that religious dogma had no business invading our legal system.

Although there were many prior years of a movement building up in support of abolishing Abortion Laws, the decision of Roe vs. Wade in 1973 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade  was a breathtaking and welcome surprise. Immediately after, however, there started the blow-back against that decision that almost forty years later continues with fervor and intensity. The opposition cites “The Bible” as the source of their angry opposition and claims that their religion, as encoded in “The Bible” describes abortion as murder, with the life of the child beginning at fertilization. When they quote “The Bible” of course they mean the “New Testament” and what they call “The Old Testament”.  Jews actually don’t recognize the term “Old Testament”, to us it is called the “Torah”, since Jews believe that their “Torah” was never replaced by a “New Testament”. The anti-Abortionists need to cite the “Torah” for their beliefs, since the Gospels don’t discuss the abortion issue. Like much that exists in Christian Dogma today, there is a need to cite the “Torah” for their beliefs since there is no evidence in the Gospels that Jesus ever spoke on some matters. Christian “Torah” citation though is haphazard in that they choose what portions to recognize and what portions to ignore. The sentiments of those Christians against abortion are based in the “Torah”. What if their citation of this venerable book stemmed from an incorrect translation of it many, many centuries ago? If they cited it incorrectly in the first instance, doesn’t that destroy their whole argument that abortion is murder in God’s eyes, especially if the writers of the “Torah” never understood abortion to be murder? This is what I’d like to discuss. Continue reading “The Specious Roots of the Anti-Abortion Controversy” →

Constitutional Law, Courts, Society

The Unimperial President

-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger

madisonMost wartimes presidents are not known for their preservation of civil liberties. Lincoln’s suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and Roosevelt’s internment of Americans of Japanese descent are infamous examples. During the War of 1812, President James Madison, whether through principles or practicality, or a combination of both, set an example that no other president has followed. Biographer Ralph Ketcham deemed Madison the “unimperial president.”

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Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Politics, Society

The Wrong Fight At The Wrong Time

By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

ImageThe horrific events in Newtown, Connecticut have left us all with a sense of shock and helplessness. Twenty elementary school children dead, six educators slaughtered, and a place we all like to think of as a safe haven from the misery of the world polluted by horrific violence wrought  by weapons more properly used on a battlefield.  Politicians from President Obama to New York Mayor Bloomberg have called for “meaningful action” to combat gun violence which is endemic to America.

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Criminal law, Justice, Politics, Society

Obama Declares Pot Enforcement Will Not Be Priority In Legalization States While Justice Department States There Will Be No Change In Federal Enforcement

marijuana_leafPresObamaAs we discussed earlier, the Justice Department issued a statement after the passage of state laws legalizing marijuana that they would not affected federal enforcement. Obama officials also stated after the election (after being silent during the campaign) that marijuana policy would not change. Now, President Obama has given an interview that the federal government will not make enforcement a “priority” against recreational users. This is being billed as a major scope on “Obama’s pot problem.” However, there may be less than meets the eye here. He does not address the organizations and distributors of legal marijuana, which his Administration has cracked down on for the last four years. It also raises an interesting contradiction with other fields where Obama had insisted that matters are left to the Justice Department on questions of enforcement.

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Bizarre, Criminal law, Society

California Judge Sanctioned After Saying Women’s Bodies Can Prevent Rape

gavel2No, Todd Akin has not joined the California bench. Superior Court Judge Derek Johnson, a judge in Southern California, has been publicly admonished for saying a rape victim “didn’t put up a fight” and that if someone doesn’t want sexual intercourse, the body “will not permit that to happen.” Johnson is a former prosecutor in the Orange County district attorney’s sex crimes unit and said that the 2008 sentencing that he had cases where women’s vaginas were “shredded” by rape. The California Commission on Judicial Performance voted 10-0 to sanction Johnson for his bizarre and offensive comments.

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Media, Torts

News Anchor Found To Have Destroyed Potentially Key Evidence — Case Thrown Out Against CBS Affiliate

Unknown-1gavel2There is an interesting development in the saga involving two television anchors who reportedly had an alleged affair that then went bad . . . really bad. We have previously discussed the scandal involving Alycia Lane and Larry Mendte. Now a judge has thrown out Lane’s defamation claims against her former television station after learning that Lane went to an Apple store and asked for her computer to be wiped clean after she filed her lawsuit. The procedure wiped out key potential evidence of emails. She now works for NBC.

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Constitutional Law, Criminal law, International, Politics, Religion, Society

Pope Blesses Ugandan Leader Who Wants To Execute Gays

120px-Benedykt_XVI_(2010-10-17)_4539584_337626972981080_1808442652_nPope Benedict XVI this week raised an outcry among civil libertarians and gay activists by blessing Rebecca Kadaga, the Speaker of the Ugandan Parliament, who has promised to pass the country’s notorious Anti-Homosexuality Bill as a “Christmas gift”. Kadaga’s bill would execute gays who are found to be “repeat offenders.”

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Bizarre, Media

ESPN Panel Explores Robert Griffin’s Blackness and Whether He Is A “Cornball Brother”

rob-parker250px-Rg3_redskinsCable programming today often seems to cater to race-baiting or race-loaded interviews from the left. Whether it is Toure challenging the ability of white journalists to understand the Martin murder or anchors questioning the “blackness” of African-American Republicans, it has become weirdly acceptable to discuss the “blackness” of celebrities. Now ESPN allowed a panelist to explore the blackness of Redskin quarterback Robert Griffin III with columnist and ESPN analyst Rob Parker insisting, “my question, which is just a straight honest question, is [Griffin] a brother, or is he a cornball brother?” Parker then brought up that Griffin has a white fiancée and could be a Republican as raising such troubling questions of blackness. The anchor then followed up with another African American panelist who wisely demurred at the question.
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Bizarre, Media, Politics

When An Irresistible Force Meets The Immovable Object: Baltimore Lawyer Challenges Speed Camera Ticket For Non-Moving Car

220px-Red-light-camera-springfield-ohiomd-speed-cameras-more-er.jpgThe Baltimore Police force may be irresistible but it may have met the immovable object in lawyer Daniel Doty. Doty was a bit surprised when he received a $40 speed camera ticket for going 38 mph in a 25-mph zone. The problem is that Doty was not moving at all, as the picture clearly showed. The case highlights objections around country as cities increasingly rely on speed cameras for revenue and, reportedly, have been tolerating cameras with skewed pro-ticket settings.

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Torts

“Help Yourself To Happiness”: Golden Corral Implicated In Food Poisoning of 167 People At New Restaurant

250px-2008-11-20_Golden_Corral_in_DurhamThe recent opening of a Golden Corral in Casper Wyoming produced quite the buzz of conversation, just not what the Norovirus-like symptoms after eating at the restaurant. Norovirus is transmitted by fecal contamination of food or water.

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Congress, Politics, Society

Crying Fowler: Top Drafter of ObamaCare Returns From Whence She Came

250px-Max_S_Baucus300px-Revolving_DoorWe have previously discussed the obscene relationship between industry and Congress with staffers and members pushing through key legislation and then being given lucrative positions by industry. The pharmaceutical and telecommunication industries are particularly notoriously for such revolving door arrangements. Other members lobby for these industries after leaving office and current officeholders like President Obama have accepted money from lobbyists (despite his pledge not to). Now the top staffer to Democratic Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, who drafted Obamacare has reportedly accepted a prime position with Johnson & Johnson’s government affairs and policy group. Her name is Elizabeth Fowler and demonstrates that the Democrats are little better in this revolving door practice. Indeed, the ever revolving Fowler is an amazing example of how industry controls not just the drafting but much of the legislation in Congress.
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