Archive for the Legal Category

Scott Walker – You’re not…You’re not Good.

Posted by Matt on Thursday, May 2nd, 2013

” ’5′ is the number of scandals I promise in 2013!”

Despite courageous union-busting and fundraising efforts, Governor Scott Walker is having a rough time turning America’s Dairyland into Galt’s Gulch. (Of course, Galt’s Gulch isn’t real, but not everyone knows this.)

[WI] has fallen from 11th to 44th in job creation since Walker took office.

The good news is that Walker created a taxpayer-funded pseudo-private agency to address this specific issue. The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation is just the shot-in-the-arm the state needs to aid in job creation and create a ”business friendly” environment. We’re looking forward to a new future starting in July, 2011. Whoops.

In effect for 2 years, the WEDC is running pretty smoothly except for the job creation part, right?

the WEDC has not done a good job of that since it became operational in July 2011 under its former CEO, Paul Jadin. The former Green Bay Area Chamber of Commerce president left the position after 16 months amid reports of a lack of oversight of $56 million in loans.

Ok, but other than the job creation and the initial growing pains and mismanagement, the WEDC is doing a great job, eh?

[2013] Auditors said employees of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., a quasi-private entity, made a number of questionable and unexplained purchases, including season tickets to UW-Madison football games and iTunes gift cards, [alcohol], and contracted for services without conducting open and competitive selection processes.

But still – Badger games are irresistible and these suits need to learn words to recent urban hit “Jump Around,” which is played between the 3rd and 4th Quarters. Hence the booze and iTunes gift cards.

So maybe there’s a little bit of waste in the agency, but other than the job creation, and the mismanagement, and the ethics considerations, and the monetary waste, Walker has maintained a pretty clean record through his first term. Correct?

‘What about John Doe?‘

In all, Milwaukee County prosecutors brought charges against six individuals as a result of the probe, which was opened in May 2010. Of those, three were former Walker aides, one was an appointee and another a major campaign contributor.

Walker’s total legal tab due to the John Doe probe: $650,000. Prosecutors closed the case without bringing charges against the governor or anyone in his current administration.

What about John Doe? This happened before he took office – doesn’t count. (Just like when he got busted for dirty campaign tricks at that college he never graduated from.)

Walker’s deputy chief of staff, Tim Russell, was sentenced in January to two years in prison for stealing from a charity meant for military combat veterans and their families.

Pssh.

Walker’s Veterans Services Commissioner Kevin Kavanaugh was convicted in December of stealing $51,000 from a charity for military combat veterans. He was sentenced to two years in prison.

That’s essentially the same as the last one. No double-dipping.

Computers and cellphones seized from the home shared by former Walker aide Timothy Russell and his domestic partner [& GOP Operative] Brian Pierick revealed a series of text messages that Pierick exchanged with a 17 year old boy from Waukesha, Wisc. in 2010. As a result, Pierick was charged on Thursday with child enticement and causing a child to expose his genitals.

First of all, what about the liberal media? Second, we can’t all surround ourselves with Albert Einstein’s and Bob Loblaw’s.

Folks. No one is better equipped to take Wisconsin from 11th to 44th and back to 39th better than Scott Walker. That’s exactly why he’s the guy national Republicans want to lead them into the future via the past!

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Record EEOC Award For Abused Disabled Plant Workers Doesn’t Really Assuage The Horror

Posted by Matt on Wednesday, May 1st, 2013

“Henry testified about his own health problems, including five heart attacks.” 6th one is on the house.

The EEOC is the primary government agency enforcing labor laws that deal with discrimination. While still understaffed from the Bush years, in my experience the EEOC can investigate workplace issues with the best of them. I can’t imagine some of the details they uncovered in this case.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A jury on Wednesday awarded $240 million to 32 mentally disabled men for what government lawyers say was years of abuse by a Texas company that arranged for them to work at an Iowa turkey processing plant and oversaw their care, work and lodging.

The award handed out by a federal jury in Davenport was the largest ever given in the 48-year history of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which filed the lawsuit against Henry’s Turkey Service.

The jury determined that the now-defunct Goldthwaite, Texas, company had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by creating a hostile environment and imposing discriminatory conditions of employment on the men. It found that Henry’s acted with “malice or reckless indifference” to their civil rights, and awarded each man $7.5 million in damages.

These men worked there since the 1970s and received $65/month (or .41 cents/hour). No raise. Because capitalism. During this time, no one from the company developed a conscience and alerted authorities. Maybe because the perks were so awesome?

The abuse was uncovered in 2009 after one of the men’s sisters tipped off Iowa officials to the unsafe and unsanitary conditions at the rural bunkhouse where the men were housed. State inspectors found the building, which is a several miles from the West Liberty plant where the men worked, to be falling apart, infested with rodents and full of fire hazards, so they shut it down and placed the men with new caretakers. The EEOC later sued.

Social workers testified that the men described a life of constant abuse by their Henry’s handlers. They said they had been forced to work through illness and injuries, denied bathroom breaks, locked in their rooms, kicked in the groin and, in one case, handcuffed to a bed. [...]

Rain entered their bedrooms through failing windows and made their beds wet. Supervisors forced them to walk in circles carrying heavy weights as punishment. Supervisors picked on a man who had a brace on his leg, often pushing him down. Another man had been kicked in the groin and was found with “testicles that were quite swollen.” Others were often locked in their bedrooms at night, said [Sue Gant, a developmental psychologist who interviewed the men.]

So how does something like this happen?

Henry’s began employing mentally disabled men in the 1960s and 1970s who had been released from Texas mental institutions. Hundreds of them were sent to labor camps in Iowa and elsewhere in the coming decades, where they were supplied on contract as workers to local employers. Company officials argued the arrangement was a benefit to the men, and that they were once praised for giving them employment opportunities.

Huzzah Henry’s! So don’t worry guys, criminal charges won’t be filed. Just ask company president Kenneth Henry (that’s the company’s name!). The defense’s only witness testified that he didn’t know anything for 40 years except for the terrible things he knew about.

Kenneth Henry, 72, of Proctor, Texas, also denied allegations that the workers — whom he repeatedly referred to as “the boys,” although most were in their 40s, 50s and 60s — were routinely abused or neglected.

But when asked whether he had exercised good judgment by allowing one of his supervisors to continue working with the men after others said they had witnessed the supervisor physically abusing workers, Henry replied, “Probably not.”

The company president also revealed that a worker who lived in the Iowa bunkhouse froze to death in the 1980s.

I see. You “didn’t know about it” just like Joe Paterno “didn’t know about it.” Well maybe you can get cancer and die soon too!

“I never had any complaints from the boys,” he testified. “If something was going on, I feel they most definitely would have said something to me.”

It’s their fault for being mentally disabled and their fault for not speaking up in a timely manner and their fault for not knowing how to report abuse to authorities. Rot.

Well at least the silver lining is that this company will be soaked, the victims compensated and future corporate abuse and malfeasance will be deterred.

The defunct company isn’t expected to be able to pay anywhere near the full amount of damages. The EEOC will work with the U.S. Department of Justice to examine company assets that could be seized to pay toward the judgment, including more than 1,000 acres of land in Texas worth up to $4 million, [EEOC attorney Robert] Canino said.

and we wept.

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Sandra Day O’Connor: Just 5000 Days Late And $6 Trillion Dollars Short

Posted by Matt on Monday, April 29th, 2013

Justice O’Connor’s recently released opinion in Hindsight v. History…

Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor says she has second thoughts on whether the Supreme Court should have accepted Bush v. Gore — the deeply controversial case that effectively decided the 2000 presidential election.

“It took the case and decided it at a time when it was still a big election issue,” O’Connor told the Chicago Tribune editorial board last Friday. “Maybe the court should have said, ‘We’re not going to take it, goodbye.’”

In a 5-4 decision at the time, O’Connor voted with the four other Republican-appointed justices to shut down the recount in Florida, the decisive state in the election.

“Obviously the court did reach a decision and thought it had to reach a decision,” the retired justice told the Tribune editorial board. “It turned out the election authorities in Florida hadn’t done a real good job there and kind of messed it up. And probably the Supreme Court added to the problem at the end of the day.”

The candor and self-awareness is appreciated. On the whole and even considering this sham of a clusterfuck of a nightmare, O’Connor was a pretty respectable Justice. Still, Sandra Meh O’Connor…

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We Can Feel Good About This Story: Integrated Prom 2013

Posted by Matt on Monday, April 29th, 2013

Watch each card you play and play it slow

I doubt I was alone in my shock upon learning that certain American high schools still have segregated proms, even in places like Wilcox County High School in Abbeville, Georgia.

“How can a school do this?” Well, technically it’s not the school. Since desegregation of the school system in 1971, these segregated proms have been invitation-only private affairs put on by the parents, which is probably more disheartening. To state the obvious, there is clear support for the separate proms in the community.

Wayne McGuinty, a furniture store owner and City Council member, who is white, said he had donated to fund-raising events for both proms in past years and saw no problem with separate proms. They do not reflect racism, he said, but simply different traditions and tastes. When he was a senior in high school, in the 1970s, he said, there were separate proms for those who liked rock music and country music.

“This whole issue has been blown out of proportion,” he said. “Nobody had a problem with having two proms until it got all this publicity.”

You see. White people prom like this. Black people prom like that.

So while last weekend’s segregated affair still took place (gross), this weekend Wilcox County High School had its first integrated prom! How’d they do it? Hint: Leave the adults out of it…

Organized by students, it is open to all, at a ballroom in nearby Cordele. Nearly half of the school’s 380 students have registered, with roughly equal numbers of black students and white students.

A group of four female students — two black and two white — came up with the idea, and they have received an outpouring of support from across the country. Their Facebook group has 24,000 fans, and it has raised enough in donations to rent a ballroom and buy food and gift bags for every couple.

[...] In response, the Wilcox County school board plans to vote this spring on making future proms official school events, which would prohibit racial segregation.

‘Cheers’ to these kids. It’s great when people realize “tradition” isn’t always sacred. Break the cycle. Be better than those before you.

This story was unique in its mileage. Not only was it shocking to learn that such antiquated events occur, it was horrific to read some of the pushback by elected officials in the state. We’re not talking about some county clerk goober, either. Check out Georgia Governor Nathan Deal.

Gov. Nathan Deal won’t take sides in the controversy over some Wilcox County teens’ efforts to integrate their prom.

By email, his spokesman, Brian Robinson, said Deal would have no response to a liberal group’s call for state officials, including the governor to speak out.

He wrote, “This is a leftist front group for the state Democratic party and we’re not going to lend a hand to their silly publicity stunt.”

[Non-profit organization] Better Georgia asked Deal and others “to publicly support the students of Wilcox County who are fighting to end a ‘separate-but-equal’ high school prom.”

“Publicity stunt.” I guess that’s one way to put it.

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Happy Bush Library Week! Read About How He Fought Regulation Of Chemical Plants Like The One In West, Texas!

Posted by Matt on Sunday, April 28th, 2013

Really well done by Chris Hayes and his staff. This site previously noted the muted Media response to the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, and some of the fishy circumstances that plagued the plant’s recent history.

In the aftermath of 9/11, heightened awareness of possible terrorist targets permeated the country. Logically, chemical plants such as the West Fertilizer Plant landed on many of these target lists. Many of these 15,000+ industrial chemical facilities contain large amounts of explosive materials and very little security.

Shortly after 9/11, Jon Corzine introduced the Chemical Security Act, approved 19-0 by the Senate Environment Committee, which would’ve required chemical plants to take certain safeguards, such as using safer chemical alternatives where possible, and bolstering plant security. The Bush Administration blocked the legislation as too burdensome on an industry that contributed roughly $8 million to the RNC and Bush Campaign between 2000-04.

a/k/a – Perry (right) with America’s Sweethearts.

Even Bush EPA head Christine Todd Whitman & DHS head Tom Ridge recognized the risks posed, and issued a joint-statement in October 2002 indicating voluntary safeguards put in place by the chemical industry were insufficient to protect plants and surrounding communities. Together they put together a plan to address the safety concerns.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Hayes pieced together a head-shaking, yet typical timeline of the Bush Administration’s response, which includes all the standard corporate cronyism and predictable Cheney-ness.

[Whitman and Ridge] came up with a plan to deal with the vulnerability. Whitman believed that the EPA was already empowered to expand her agency’s oversight of chemical plants under a section of the Clean Air Act and she and Ridge worked out a deal to do so.

That’s until the son-in-law of former Vice President Dick Cheney walked into the room, a guy by the name Phillip Perry, who was at the time the general counsel of the White House Office of Management and Budget. And he made it clear that the Bush administration was not going to support granting regulatory authority over chemical security to the EPA. According to reports, Perry claimed that their proposal was tantamount to overreach, and that they would need Congress to specifically authorize it.

So the 2 Cabinet secretaries went to Congress looking for a miracle. According to Whitman…

“Although both Tom and I agreed such legislation was necessary, strong congressional opposition–led by some Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee–to giving EPA even the modest additional statutory authority made it difficult to secure administration support for a meaningful bill.”

And so it goes. Hayes then moves forward to 2007, where Perry, now general counsel w/ DHS, makes another appearance…

And what he manages to do, in an uncontroversial bill, in an appropriations rider, is slip in industry-friendly language into the bill that moves the task of regulating chemical plants from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Department of Homeland Security. But DHS is given none of the tools it would need to actually do that. The Washington Monthly wrote this back in 2007:

“Perry reworked the language and helped to get it added to the spending bill in a conference committee. Under the new amendment, the DHS would have nominal authority to regulate the chemical industry but also have its hands tied where required.”

Let’s recap: The Bush administration’s own cabinet secretaries come up with a plan to regulate these chemical plants. It’s stymied by Phil Perry once. The Bush administration sides with the chemical industry when it’s brought before Congress. And then, basically in a backroom maneuver, Perry does the chemical industry’s bidding by moving the oversight of this from the EPA, which the chemical industry hates, to DHS, which the chemical industry thinks they can more easily manipulate.

One more nugget:

Now here’s what makes this all the more incredible. In 2006, when a bill was introduced in the Senate to make chemical plants safer, a bill that was blocked by Republicans, the young Senator who introduced that bill was now-President Obama.

As we pointed out a few days ago, West Fertilizer possessed 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Yet it’s not clear the plant was even on the DHS radar.

Hayes closes with the Chemical Industry’s continued fight against any EPA oversight.

Given that the Bush-backed bill moving oversight of big places storing fertilizer from EPA to DHS is law of the land, and Republicans in Congress aren’t going to change it, the administration has been considering recently granting the EPA the original authority that Christine Todd Whitman wanted. The chemical industry lobby hates this. So in February, 10 Republicans and one Democrat teamed-up with a bunch of chemical industry groups to fight this tooth and nail. Here’s a letter from the groups to members of Congress. It reads in part:

“We have concerns about EPA’s arbitrary application of the General Duty Clause as well as the potential for future expansion of the General Duty Clause to regulate the security of chemical facilities.”

We still don’t know the cause of the explosion. However, initial reports indicate ongoing negligence and noncompliance on behalf of the company and the situation itself exemplifies our willfully defanged regulatory apparatus (on state and federal levels).

So ‘Where’s Philip Perry?,’ you ask. He’s semi-retired and sells roadside crystals in Northern California.

No just kidding. He’s obviously in private practice working on behalf of megacorporations and doing terrible things. For instance, check out his work for Monsanto against those bastard alfalfa farmers who just wouldnn’t stop complaining about Monsanto’s genetically engineered alfalfa seeds infecting their crops and creating Hulk Weeds. (Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms, 130 S. Ct. 2743 (2010))

Conventional alfalfa farmers brought suit seeking an injunction against the Animal and Plant

Health Inspection Service‟s deregulation of a genetically engineered alfalfa strain resistant to the

herbicide Roundup. Monsanto Co., owner of the Roundup Ready Alfalfa, appealed the District Court‟s

injunction barring the deregulation and planting of the alfalfa to the United States Supreme Court, which

reversed the permanent injunction.

Perry earned his dimes. When the opinion was issued, Perry’s clients dumped a RoundUp-filled Gatorade cooler on him in celebration of their victory. Or at least they should have…

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Before The Koch Brothers Buy The Tribune Company, Read This Excellent Opinion Piece On Guantanamo

Posted by Matt on Wednesday, April 24th, 2013

Yes, the Koch Brothers are looking to buy more pulpits from which to whine about how rough life is for the Captains of Industry in a country where the top 1% has only captured 93% of all income gains in recent years.

But before this happens, 2 Jenner & Block attorneys who represent Guantanamo detainees managed to sneak in an excellent piece/plea:

I recommend reading in full here, but among the highlights…

Now, more than three years later [after Obama's Executive Order], the prison remains open with 166 prisoners, including 86 men cleared for release in 2010 by the presidential task force! Moreover, in the intervening years, no new reviews have been undertaken. Most of the men still in Guantanamo Bay have been imprisoned there — without charge or trial — for seven to 11 years. Most are locked in small maximum security cells, shackled when moving outside, served poor food, provided third-rate medical care and prohibited from having any visitors except lawyers.

[...]

For the first three years of the prison’s existence, captives were held in wire mesh cages and in isolation from the world. Many were subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques,” otherwise known as torture. They suffered daily degradation, physical and emotional distress, deep depression and a profound sense of hopelessness. Even now, the vast majority of these men — many of them totally innocent of any wrongdoing — have never been charged with a crime or given any hope of a trial at which their involvement in any alleged acts of terrorism could be fairly resolved. It is no wonder that they have reached the point of despair, which in turn has led to the current hunger strike.

[...]

The remedy must thus come from our fellow Illinois lawyer, President Obama. There simply is no reason — none — why charges cannot be filed and trials cannot proceed in an orderly manner against those detainees for whom the government has reasonable evidence of guilt, and the remainder returned to their home countries. Despite road blocks imposed by Congress, the president has adequate authority to do this, and we urge him to take steps to exercise that authority. The disgrace that is Guantanamo cuts to the very heart of America’s most fundamental commitment to the rule of law and the elementary concept of justice. It should be dealt with as Obama promised some four years ago.

Our legal system has had no problem charging and trying the Oklahoma City terrorists, individuals who have committed mass murder and other horrifying crimes, including major political assassinations. We are confident that the criminal proceedings against alleged terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, arrested last week in Watertown, Mass., will once again demonstrate how we respond to horrible acts with fidelity to the law. We should rely on our criminal justice system — the finest in the world — to properly charge and try the individuals at Guantanamo who warrant charges and trials. Although the United States Constitution does not permit preventive detention, that is precisely what we are doing at Guantanamo. To repeat what the president said in January 2009, our nation does not have “to continue with a false choice between our safety and our ideals.”

So the point still stands. Anytime you’re ready…

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GOP Pushes Restrictive Abortion Law – Version: MMDLXIX

Posted by Matt on Saturday, March 2nd, 2013

Your turn, Arkansas (from thinkprogess) -

Arkansas’ GOP-controlled legislature has voted to override their governor’s veto of a “fetal pain” abortion ban, ensuring the legislation will immediately take effect. Gov. Mike Beebe (D) vetoed the measure on Tuesday, explaining he felt the 20-week ban would run afoul of women’s constitutional right to an abortion under Roe v. Wade, but Arkansas lawmakers can override the governor with a simple majority in both chambers.

“Fetal Pain” is neither scientifically proven or the name of a local punk band. However, it has been used to circumvent Roe v. Wade in a handful of regressive states.

Evidence regarding the capacity for fetal pain is limited but indicates that fetal perception of pain is unlikely before the third trimester. Little or no evidence addresses the effectiveness of direct fetal anesthetic or analgesic techniques. Similarly, limited or no data exist on the safety of such techniques for pregnant women in the context of abortion. Anesthetic techniques currently used during fetal surgery are not directly applicable to abortion procedures.

As the genesis for the Asian Carp and Wal-Mart, at least Arkansas is consistent in their support of rampant, unwanted procreation.

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Attention: Gun Control Won’t Stop Machete-Wielding Octogenarians

Posted by Matt on Friday, March 1st, 2013

has he aged really well or really poorly? i can’t tell…

New Hampshire. haha, just kidding. (obviously Florida)

ZEPHYRHILLS — An 80-year-old man is accused of slicing his neighbor with a machete after a conversation soured Sunday morning.

Alfred Houghton became enraged because his neighbor, Michael Shultz Sr., had “junk” in his yard and he worried that the neighbor’s sickly trees would topple onto Houghton’s fence, the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office said. “I am going to kill you,” Houghton said, according to a report. He kicked the 57-year-old Shultz in the leg, brandished a rusty machete and nicked the man twice on the wrist and elbow, the report says.

Houghton continued to make threats against his neighbor after his arrest and “even eluded to putting out a ‘contract’ on Michael’s life,” the report states.

Just a heads up to potential hitmen – you’re getting paid in “junk.” Don’t take this job.

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Maldives Will Flog 15 Year Old Rape Victim Because That’s Their Thing

Posted by Matt on Thursday, February 28th, 2013

A 15-year old Maldivian girl who was raped by her stepfather will get 100 lashes. Because their glorious Allah is apparently a misogynist asshole.

The religious Adhaalath Party (AP) has declared that the 15 year-old rape victim who was recently sentenced to 100 lashes and eight months of house arrest “deserves the punishment”, as this is the penalty for fornication under Islamic Sharia.The party, members of which largely dominate the Maldives’ Ministry of Islamic Affairs, stated that the sentence of flogging had not been passed against the for being sexually abused by her stepfather, but rather for the consensual sex to which she had confessed to having on another occasion.

oh that’s nice. Her flogging is not because she’s an abuse victim, it’s because she had consensual sex – which is also the most evil thing a child can do. The ruling party cites some isolated nuggets of ancient text as rationalization for this criminal punishment.

Qur’an 24:2—The woman and the man guilty of illegal sexual intercourse, flog each of them with a hundred stripes. Let not pity withhold you in their case, in a punishment prescribed by Allah, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day. And let a party of the believers witness their punishment

So Does Allah give any other guidance to these men handing down the punishment?

Qur’an 60:8- God does not forbid you to be kind and equitable to those who have neither fought against your faith nor driven you out of your homes. In fact God loves the equitable.

adhaalathholez

The “equitable,” of course. But what about the poor souls who drew the shortest straw? The ones subjected to the most scarring of emotional tolls? The 15 YEAR OLD Rape victims??

According to His self-professed mediums, Maldivian Allah does not want these questions asked…

The Adhaalath Party further cautioned that criticising issues like this would “encourage enemies of Islam, create confusion among the general public and open up opportunities for people who aim to stop the practice of similar penalties commanded in Islam.”

Are you confused about the appropriateness of whipping a minor victim for harmless behavior? We should all take this opportunity to aim to stop the practice of similar penalties cherry-picked to conform to these jerks’ antiquated notion of women-as-chattel. Stop being terrible.

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Archive for the Legal Category

Scott Walker – You’re not…You’re not Good.

Record EEOC Award For Abused Disabled Plant Workers Doesn’t Really Assuage The Horror

Sandra Day O’Connor: Just 5000 Days Late And $6 Trillion Dollars Short

We Can Feel Good About This Story: Integrated Prom 2013

Happy Bush Library Week! Read About How He Fought Regulation Of Chemical Plants Like The One In West, Texas!

Before The Koch Brothers Buy The Tribune Company, Read This Excellent Opinion Piece On Guantanamo

GOP Pushes Restrictive Abortion Law – Version: MMDLXIX

Attention: Gun Control Won’t Stop Machete-Wielding Octogenarians

Maldives Will Flog 15 Year Old Rape Victim Because That’s Their Thing

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