This week, it was announced that budget cuts would now include canceling the Mars missions. However, Rep. Cliff Steans (R-FL) wants to go further. In a recent speech, Steans called for the selling off of national park lands. We have previously seen states sell off park lands, government buildings and other property — even as we burned hundreds of billions in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Ok, maybe not eternal. A Guatemalan court sentenced former special forces soldier Pedro Pimentel, 55, to 6,060 years in prison for his role in a 1982 massacre of 201 people. The Las Dos Erres massacre was carried out by a group of some 20 soldiers in December 1982.
An assistant basketball coach at a basketball game of sixth graders is accused of biting off part of another coach’s ear at a Catholic Youth Organization game in Springfield, Massachusetts. Timothy Lee Forbes is reportedly the father of one of the players on his team that lost the game at Holy Name School in the Catholic Youth Organization final. He is charged with first punching the opposing coach and then going Mike Tyson on his ear. Jesus
The new rankings for law schools are now out for 2012. Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Columbia, Chicago, NYU, Berkeley, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Michigan round out the top ten schools this year. That is basically the same group from last year but there are changes. Stanford passed Harvard to take the second position. Berkeley moved from 9th to pass Michigan and tie for 7th place. Michigan had the biggest hit — falling from to 10th. George Washington is again at 20th. (GW is also ranked again as having the second best part-time legal program in the country after some other school named George-something)
Continue reading “U.S. News & World Report Rankings 2012 Released For Law Schools”
Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Elizabeth have canceled speeches in Toronto, Canada out of concern that they would be set upon by people who oppose torture and want Cheney arrested. While Americans appear reconciled with the torture program, citizens in other countries still demand that Bush officials be arrested according to international law.
Continue reading “Cheney Cancels Meeting in Canada With Spectre To Avoid Attempts To Arrest Him”
We have previously looked at the liability questions surrounding injuries and deaths linked to herpes transmissions from Rabbis during ultra-Orthodox circumcision rituals known as metzizah b’ peh. During the ceremony, the rabbi or mohel removes blood from the wound with his mouth. The latest tragedy occurred with the death of a two-week-old boy in Brooklyn who contracted herpes from the Rabbi. In 2005 another infant died from the same alleged transmission from a rabbi. This could raise a difficult question on defining the “reasonable rabbi.”
Continue reading “The Reasonable Rabbi Standard? Brooklyn Prosecutors Reportedly Investigate Rabbi Who Transmitted Herpes To Baby In Circumcision Ceremony”
I recently wrote a column on how the West is curtailing free speech under blasphemy, hate speech, and anti-discrimination laws. As if on cue, lawyer Gloria Allred has called for the criminal prosecution of Rush Limbaugh for calling law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and “prostitute.” I previously wrote that I believe Limbaugh’s comments were protected speech under the first amendment and constitute opinion for the purposes of any libel action. Such a prosecution would threaten core free speech principles and the law cited by Allred would appear not only inimical to free speech but overtly sexist.
Ok, you may need a cup of coffee to follow this one so pay attention. According to police, Texas personal injury attorney Jeffrey Stern (left) was having an affair with Michele Cabrera Gaiser (right below) and wanted to get rid of his wife, Yvonne Stern. So Stern and Gaiser allegedly solicited Nhut Nguyen to shoot Yvonne. Yvonne was shot in the stomach on May 5, 2010 but survived and filed for divorce — citing adultery. Later, however, Yvonne reconciled with Jeffrey Stern, who is currently charged with soliciting her murder and she is now suing Gaiser in tort. Got that?
As our allies in Afghanistan have embraced a new edict declaring women worth less than men, militias in Iraq have reintroduced gruesome executions of anyone viewed as “gay” because of their haircuts or dress. So called “Emo killings” are on the rise with gays being beaten to death with cement blocks with little investigation or apparent concern from local police. Roughly 60 people have been murdered in the last six months alone in such killings
Steven Mulhall, 21, appears to have a wealth of bad ideas. According to police, his first bad idea was a series of thefts leading to being put on probation. His really bad idea was to pry the nameplate of a Broward Circuit Judge Michael Orlando off his door while visiting the courthouse. His really really bad idea was to take a picture of himself with the nameplate. His really really really bad idea was to post the picture on his girlfriend’s Facebook site.
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
It seems that you can’t go anywhere on the Internet and not read an attack on the EPA by a Republican member of Congress. The Hill; McClatchey Unfortunately, I was not surprised how many of the Republican Congressmen were attacking the EPA and its attempts to control and eliminate air pollution. However, I was surprised by how many of those Congressmen were physicians.
“What would you think if your physician told you, “Keep smoking because quitting would kill tobacco and health care jobs.” Or, “Don’t take your high blood pressure medicine, you can’t afford it.” And, “Don’t lose weight, no one has proven obesity is bad for you.” That’s exactly the quality of medical advice we are getting from the 18 Republican physicians currently serving in Congress. Some of the most well known are the father and son team of Rep. Ron Paul and Sen. Rand Paul, and Sen. Tom Coburn. Almost all of these physician/Congressmen have been key soldiers in the Republican war on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), calling it a “job killer,” pronouncing relevant health science “unproven,” claiming we “can’t afford” their regulations.” Truthout Continue reading “Congressional Malpractice”
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Have you heard about “pink slime” lately? Do you know what it is? You should. According to a number of news reports, pink slime is a “filler” that can be found in approximately 70% of hamburger meat that is sold in supermarkets.
Pink slime is produced by grinding together low-grade trimmings like connective tissue, cow intestines, and beef scraps that would normally be destined for dog food and rendering. (Such trimmings are said to come from the parts of the cow that are highly exposed to fecal matter.) The ground concoction is then simmered in low heat in a centrifuge in order to separate fat and tissue and treated with ammonia-hydroxide to kill pathogens, including salmonella and E. Coli. “The resulting pinkish substance is later blended into traditional ground beef and hamburger patties.” The United States Department of Agriculture says it’s safe to eat.
Kit Foshee, who was once a corporate quality manager at BPI–a company that manufactures pink slime–said of the substance, “It kind of looks like Play-Doh. It’s pink and frozen. It’s not what the typical person would consider meat.” Foshee claims that he was fired by BPI after he had complained “about the process used to make the filler, and the company’s claims about it.”
Because the FDA considers ammonia to be a processing agent, it’s not required to be listed as an ingredient on food labels.
Continue reading “From the Lunch Lady Chronicles: Hey, Kids, It’s Time for Pink Slime!”
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Well, good morning all you sleepy heads. The government has decreed you’ve lost an hour of your life commencing at 2:00 a.m. this morning or was that 3:00 a.m.? Stretching back to the suggestion of Benjamin Franklin in his 1784 essay, An Economical Project, the hoary practice has become the ritual of Spring and Fall as we all spring ahead or fall backward in the marker of days we call “time.”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Jonathan Blanks, a research assistant at Cato Institute, has written an essay about the incoherent position of those libertarians who defend the Confederacy and claim that the Confederacy was within its rights to secede from the Union. Banks writes: “there is no legal or moral justification for supporting the Confederacy in the Civil War, it is impossible that there could be a libertarian one.” Continue reading “Libertarians And The Civil War”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
When it comes to standard of living I can’t complain. Between a pension and social security I live comfortably, though definitely without luxury. I have no investments and minimal savings so that I in essence live from check to check, as do most Americans less fortunate. Would I like thousands in the bank, of course? Would I like to travel overseas, as I never have, of course I would. It would also be nice to have a luxury auto that accommodates my long legs, 72” 3D plasma TV and many other accoutrements of our consumer society. I know I’d enjoy them, but frankly I am content with what I have and do not begrudge those with far more material things, savings and income. In this respect I am decidedly a creature of what has been known up to now as the “Middle/Working Class”. It is a vanishing citizen category that I identify with most closely and is gradually through conservative policies being driven down towards underclass status.
In addition, my entire working career was spent dealing with those people who can be roughly characterized in American terms as the “Underclass” due to poverty, race, ethnicity, disability, mental illness, criminality and addiction. I know first hand the depredations suffered by this portion of our citizens and this knowledge via experience, is something not shared by most Americans. My work exposed me to the basic unfairness of our system and I must admit my experiences fill me with rage towards those who lack empathy for the ignored and maltreated. Some say that this disparity is merely the result of lack off effort on their part, or of the natural result of lack of ability. Those that do are basically people ignorant of how the American system works and the fact that the putative “race” towards the top is a fixed affair, in all of its’ aspects. Since this is a legal opinion blog I would be giving its purpose short shrift was I not to mention that inequity of result has been a standard of our legal system since our Country’s inception. With a few exceptions used to demonstrate the opposite, the truth is as Leonard Cohen states so eloquently “Everybody knows the game is rotten”.
To me it is a fact that inequality is inherent in our system. Please indulge me to look at what I find most perplexing in this state of things and why I think it exists. Why does it seem that many people, who have received so much benefit from the fruits of this nation, are so begrudging of having those less fortunate at least live more comfortable lives? Continue reading “What Motivates the 1%?”