Roy Lester, 61, has filed a rather novel challenge against the New York Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Lester is a bankruptcy lawyer who has worked as a Long Island lifeguard as a second job. He has filed an age discrimination suit based on the requirement that he wear either a speedo swimsuit or, alternatively, a loose-fitting swimsuit. He insists that he should be allowed to wear swim jammers and that the denial of his choice constitutes age discrimination. Lester is a bankruptcy lawyer and this lawsuit indicates that he is better suited for that field than constitutional and discrimination law.
Continue reading “Swimsuit Lawsuit: Bankruptcy Lawyer Sues New York Over Swimsuit Requirements in Lifeguard Tryouts”
South Carolina Dale Richardson has been arrested on charges that he is a serial rapist who kidnapped women and assaulted them in a trailer behind his Freedom Free Will Baptist Church.
Continue reading “South Carolina Pastor Charged With Serial Rapes Of Women Behind Church”
For months, critics have observed that the rebels in Libya contains worrisome elements of religious extremists and that the rebel forces have been accused of war crimes (as have the government forces). The concern is that, like our work in Afghanistan (ultimately helping Al Qaeda and the Taliban), we have little understanding of who we are bringing to power in Libya in our intervention into that civil war. That concern is magnified this week by the release of the draft constitution, which (unless changed) would make Sharia law the governing law of Libya.
Continue reading “Proposed Libyan Constitution Would Make Sharia The Governing Law”
Industry lobbyists and political allies are launching a full court press against the closure of highly polluting coal-fired plants across the United States this month. The effort dovetails with the focus of Republican candidates like Bachmann, Gingrich, and Perry to demonize the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and even call for its elimination. However, this move has been delayed too long and is expected to save thousands of lives. The story is the latest example of how industry is able to treat such health risks as abstractions while fighting to keep such plants operating.
Continue reading “Industry Launches Campaign Against Closing Outdated Power Plants”
Even wonder how those lobbyists let candidates know where the money is coming from? A camera caught a Bank of America executive quietly assuring Gov. Rick Perry of the support of the Bank of America.
Continue reading “Bank of America Executive Caught Promising Perry Support”
There was an interesting story out of Germany where researchers have found a highly carcinogenic substance in a flask of lotion believed to have belonged to Queen Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut ruled Egypt 3,500 years ago and was known to have powerful enemies, including her stepson Thutmose III. However, she may have died from poisoning at her own hand.
Continue reading “Was Queen Hatsheput Poisoned? Scientists Find Evidence of What Could Be One Of The World’s Oldest Product Liability Cases”
This week, Atlantic Magazine ran a story on Rick Perry, Manly Man — a piece exploring how Perry is known to emphasize his manliness — both physically and verbally. The magazine considers how well the macho image will play across the political spectrum. However, that may be the least of the problems for the Perry camp. Word has now reached our shores of the selection of the Scots, not the Americans, as the world’s most manly specimens. Now, I take nothing from the Scots. It takes a lot of guts to wear kilts in a cold, wet climate. However, the world’s manliest? Followed close by the English? I fully expect this to become a major issue in the presidential election: the manliest gap.
Continue reading “The Manliness Gap? Scottish Men Selected As World’s Most Manly”
There is an interesting video of Todd Palin out in the last few days that finally admits what many have long argued: Sarah Palin quit the Alaskan governorship to cash in on her celebrity status. When a woman confronted Todd about his wife not finishing her term, he responds “What would you do” with “thousands and thousands of dollars a day?” He notes that the had “all this debt” and made the obvious choice.
Continue reading “Todd Palin: Of Course Sarah Quit For The Money”
Respectfully Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty-Guest Blogger
We have heard both sides of the aisle claim that they have the next big idea to bring jobs back to Main Street. Recently President Obama, according to an article from former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, has claimed that he will be submitting a Jobs Bill to Congress when they return from their 5 week summer hiatus. Continue reading “The Unofficial Turley Blog Job Creation Plan”
Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
A recent development in Congress is the creation of the so-called “Super Congress”; a bi-partisan committee tasked with recommending steps to reduce federal budget deficits by at least $1.5 trillion over 10 years. Like most committees, the Super Congress has to submit its recommendations to the rest of Congress for consideration. Unlike most committees, the Super Congress has a loaded back-end provision that will institute automatic military and domestic (read Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid) spending cuts in 2013 that neither side wants will be triggered. This would seem to give the committee some incentives to find viable solutions. But does it really?
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Many years now at this site there have been side debates raging about false identities, used by people who are being paid to disrupt our discussions by making comments aimed at sidetracking issues. OpEdNews, a site run by Rob Kall, which I subscribe to sends me daily updates of articles of interest. Yesterday I received this intriguing article from Thom Hartmann’s podcast. It is an interview with Lee Fong from ThinkProgress on just this subject. Check out this link and see what you think.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Caught-Fake-conservative-by-Thom-Hartmann-110820-341.html
Continue reading “Who’s Really Who on the Blogs?”
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to respond to allegations made by a whistleblower that the agency had destroyed files from preliminary investigations of financial firms—including Goldman Sachs, SAC Capital Advisors, Deutsche Bank, AIG, and Bernie Madoff
Investment Securities.
A Bloomberg article reported that Grassley’s request was prompted by a letter that he received from SEC attorney Darcy Flynn claiming that the SEC had “destroyed documents including materials related to Goldman Sachs’ trades of American International Group Inc. (AIG) credit- default swaps in 2009, insider-trading probes of Deutsche Bank AG (DBK), Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LEHMQ) and SAC Capital Advisors LP, and investigations of possible financial fraud at Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) and Bank of America Corp. (BAC) in 2007 and 2008.”
Here is our picture of the week from our erstwhile colleague in the City of Light, Eric Tenin.
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
We have previously discussed the case of Dr. James Corbett, a history teacher at Capistrano Valley high school, who was sued over comments he made when he referred to creationism as “superstitious nonsense.” A three-judge panel for The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unanimously ruled that the district court’s judgement on the constitutionality of Corbett’s statements be vacated. The appeals court affirmed the district court’s finding that Corbett was entitled to qualified immunity.
Continue reading “Ninth Circuit Appeals Court Rules In Favor Of Teacher Who Criticized Creationism”
Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Before the early part of the twentieth century most methods of treating infection were based on medical folklore. It’s true that in the nineteenth century Pasteur and Koch had observed and isolated various bacteria and postulated their connection to disease and some vaccines had been developed, but, by and large, medical researchers had failed to take up the challenge of curing bacterial infections. It wasn’t until the 1930’s with Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin that antibiotics were developed which attacked bacterial infections directly. This mass alleviation of disease and suffering has been hailed as one of the greatest developments in medicine.
Continue reading “Have Todd Rider And MIT Banned The Common Cold?”