Memories

 

Compare and contrast headlines

This FOX News’ Dr. Ablow Wants Male Veto Over Reproductive Rights

I believe that in those cases in which a man can make a credible claim that he is the father of a developing child in utero, in which he could be a proper custodian of that child, and in which he is willing to take full custody of that child upon its delivery, that the pregnant woman involved should not have the option to abort and should be civilly liable, and possibly criminally liable, for psychological suffering and wrongful death should she proceed to do so.

to this: She, the decision maker.

In a significant decision, the Punjab and Haryana High Court last week ruled that the right to abort a pregnancy in a marriage rests with the wife and not husband. “A woman is not a machine in which raw material is put and a finished product comes out. She should be mentally prepared to conceive, continue the same and give birth to a child. The unwanted pregnancy would naturally affect the mental health of the pregnant woman…” said the court.

This Why Iceland Should Be in the News, But Is Not

What happened next was extraordinary. The belief that citizens had to pay for the mistakes of a financial monopoly, that an entire nation must be taxed to pay off private debts was shattered, transforming the relationship between citizens and their political institutions and eventually driving Iceland’s leaders to the side of their constituents. The Head of State, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, refused to ratify the law that would have made Iceland’s citizens responsible for its bankers’ debts, and accepted calls for a referendum.

to this: Factbox: Greek austerity and reform measures

Greece's cabinet approved late on Saturday 325 million euros ($428 million) of extra austerity measures needed to complete a 3.3 billion euro package of cuts -- the price demanded from Athens for a new EU/IMF bailout. 

This: In a 325-Page SEC Letter, Occupy's Finance Gurus Take on Wall Street Lobbyists

Yesterday, a group affiliated with Occupy Wall Street submitted an astounding comment letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Point by point, it methodically challenges the arguments of finance industry lobbyists who want to water down last year's historic Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms. The lobbyists have been using the law's official public comment period to try to kneecap the reforms, and given how arcane financial regulation can be, they might get away with it. But Occupy the SEC is fighting fire with fire, and in so doing, defying stereotypes of the Occupy movement.

to this: Thomas Frank Talks With Truthout on How Wall Street Doubled Down on Trashing America's Economy 

It is the absurd theme that runs throughout "Atlas Shrugged," where the main character, who has organized a strike of the billionaire class, describes himself as "the defender of the oppressed, the disinherited, the exploited - and when I use those words, they have, for once, a literal meaning." That's right, in one of the most popular novels in recent history, billionaires are said to be - insisted to be! - the "disinherited" and "exploited" class.
Understanding how conservatives get themselves to this point is slightly trickier. They merely understand "elitism" in a different way than you and I. The true powers of society are not the rich, but the professionally-credentialed and the government-connected. Conservatives basically invert the populist categories of yore. Instead of blue-collar workers or farmers being the exploited producer class, it is entrepreneurs, who work so hard and have to comply with regulations and pay taxes and put up with the whining of their tattooed hipster employees. And it is the rest of us who are the real parasite class. 

Ouch...

BAGHDAD – Iraqis seeking justice for 17 people shot dead at a Baghdad intersection responded with bitterness and outrage Friday at a U.S. judge's decision to throw out a case against a Blackwater security team accused in the killings.

The Iraqi government vowed to pursue the case, which became a source of contention between the U.S. and the Iraqi government. Many Iraqis also held up the judge's decision as proof of what they'd long believed: U.S. security contractors were above the law.

"There is no justice," said Bura Sadoun Ismael, who was wounded by two bullets and shrapnel during the shooting. "I expected the American court would side with the Blackwater security guards who committed a massacre in Nisoor Square."

What happened on Nisoor Square on Sept. 16, 2007, raised Iraqi concerns about their sovereignty because Iraqi officials were powerless to do anything to the Blackwater employees who had immunity from local prosecution. The shootings also highlighted the degree to which the U.S. relied on private contractors during the Iraq conflict.

But look at the judge who arrived at this painful decision:

Ricardo M. Urbina
Notable cases
[edit] Guantanamo Bay detainees

Urbina presided over a number of habeas corpus petitions submitted on behalf of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.[3] In October 2008, he ordered the release of a small group of Uighur detainees from Guantanamo into the United States because they are no longer regarded as enemy combatants.[4]
[edit] Saeed Hatim v. Barack Obama

On December 16, 2009 Urbina ordered Guantanamo captive "Saeed Hatim" to be released.[5] According to Carol Rosenberg, writing in the Miami Herald Urbina's release order was sealed, and it "brought the so-called habeas corpus scorecard to 32 losses and nine victories by the Pentagon of detainee challenges from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba." Dean Boyd, a Department of Justice spokesman, told Rosenberg the Government was reviewing its options in how to react to the ruling.
[edit] Blackwater Baghdad shootings prosecution

A month before five Blackwater security guards implicated in the September, 2007, Nisour Square, Baghdad, shooting incident were to go on trial before Judge Urbina, on New year's Eve, in a 90-page ruling on December 31, 2009, Judge Urbina did not address the substance of the case but said prosecutors had misused statements made by the defendants under promise of immunity. DOJ spokesman Boyd said the government was considering its options. The immunity issue was a problem that lawyers for the government anticipated as long as a year ago when they briefed Congress on the matter. Judge Urbina dismissed the indictment of the five men who pleaded not guilty to voluntary manslaughter and firearms violations: Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard, Donald Ball and Nicholas Slatten.[6]

Dozens of Iraqis, including the estates of some of the victims allegedly killed by Blackwater employees, filed a separate lawsuit last year alleging that Blackwater employees engaged in indiscriminate killings and beatings. The civil case is still before a Virginia court. Blackwater contractors had been hired to guard US diplomats in Iraq. The guards said insurgents ambushed them in a traffic circle. Prosecutors said the men unleashed an unprovoked attack on civilians using machine guns and grenades. The shooting led to the unraveling of the North Carolina-based company, which since has replaced its management and changed its name to Xe Services.

Following the letter of the law makes us protect bad guys and idiots along with good guys and smart people.... And we should not have it any other way.

Update: Iraq is going to sue the Blackwater guards involved in the massacre.

Blackwater Xe seeks gag order

Jeremy Scahill for the Nation:

Now, Blackwater (which recently renamed itself "Xe") is attempting to use other means to silence its victims. On July 20, the company's high-powered lawyers from Mayer Brown, which boasts that it represents eighty-nine of the Fortune 100 companies and thirty-five of the fifty largest US banks, filed a motion in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to impose a gag order on Iraqi civilians suing the company. The motion also seeks to silence the lawyers representing the families of Iraqis allegedly killed or injured by Blackwater in a series of violent incidents spanning several years. Four cases in the Washington, DC, area were recently consolidated before Judge T.S. Ellis III of the Eastern District of Virginia for pretrial motions. After preliminary issues are resolved, each case is slated to be tried individually.

The July 20 motion, filed on behalf of Blackwater by Peter H. White of Mayer Brown, requests that Judge Ellis issue "an Order restraining extrajudicial statements relating to these cases by the parties and their counsel to ensure that all parties receive a fair trial and a decision from an impartial jury." The motion specifically seeks to prohibit statements to "the national and local news media."

At the same time, according to a court filing, Blackwater is also asking Judge Ellis to seal evidence that Blackwater claims is confidential or could impact national security. The company argues that if its contracts with the State Department and its "Tactical Standard Operating Procedure" guide are publicly revealed, it "could give valuable information to those who wish to plan more effective attacks against diplomatic personnel stationed in Iraq." Susan Burke, the lead attorney on the civil lawsuits against Blackwater, is not contesting Blackwater's request to seal these specific documents--primarily because they will still remain evidence. But, it does mean that the public will not be able to view them. "Blackwater is basically trying to keep from public view all of the evidence that shows their criminality," says Burke. "They are trying to ensure that we cannot apprise the public of the progress of the lawsuit."

Because if we ever get to read all the shit they got away with, .... what? Sue them to death? Stomp our feet and point?

Ooo... maybe appoint a special prosecutor? Have an investigation? Try to find out how all those millions and millions of dollars were spent?

Now THAT's a good idea!

If this was my great grandfather....

I'd be pissed.

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut - The U.S. Justice Department asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by descendants of Apache leader Geronimo, whose remains were purported to be stolen long ago by members of a secret society at Yale University.

The government filed the motion June 10 to oppose a lawsuit filed in February by 20 of Geronimo's descendants, who want to rebury the warrior near his birthplace in southern New Mexico's Gila Wilderness.

Stupid Skull and Bones. Get another legal skull from somewhere and give Geronimo's head back to his descendants. How hard could it be?

So... can everybody do this to avoid liens and taxes and stuff?

Or is this an action only disgraced CEOs can do under the radar?

Richard Fuld, the disgraced former chief executive of Lehman Brothers, sold his $13.3 million (£9.6 million) Florida mansion to his wife in November for $100, according to real estate records.

Mr Fuld, who is widely blamed for the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September last year, bought the house with his wife, Kathleen, in March 2004 for $13.75 million.

On November 10, the 62-year-old banker transferred the seaside mansion into Mrs Fuld's name in return for $100.

Mr Fuld is expected to face civil lawsuits from shareholders furious that he allowed Lehman to fall into bankruptcy rather than be sold months earlier.

When will there be a lawsuit

That stops police from using Tasers as if they were harmless?



Maybe we can get Josh Brolin and Jeffrey Wright to sue to show that the misuse of Tasers by authority figures has gotten out of hand. The eager willingness to torture by the police must be addressed by the courts.

This reflects the Bush administration just a bit too closely ....

Tasers can kill

They are not a toy for police to play with on the defenseless citizenry. They are not to be used for crowd control, punishment, domination, or whim. Police training needs to expose this misunderstanding that tasers are an easy tool for controlling a person. THEY HAVE KILLED PEOPLE and will do so again.

We need to get this message out there for when the police kill the next person. Then it will be intentional murder rather than an oops. And there will be lawsuits.

Tasers kill, have killed, and will kill again.

Update 12/20: Digby has more.

12/25: And another one. Digby has even more.

University of Phoenix

Apollo Group Inc. has agreed to pay $1.89 million to settle a federal lawsuit alleging discrimination against non-Mormon employees at its University of Phoenix Online division.

The amount of the settlement, which still requires court approval, is believed to be the largest in a religious-discrimination case brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, according to EEOC regional attorney Mary Jo O'Neill.

The class-action lawsuit, filed two years ago, covers 52 former enrollment counselors who charged that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were favored in sales leads, promotions, tuition waivers and more at the for-profit school.

[snip]

The University of Phoenix and Apollo were long dogged by murmurs of Mormon influence. Apollo's longtime chief executive officer, Todd Nelson, was active in the church, and the company was said to heavily recruit church members as enrollment counselors.

I wonder if they teach how to hate gays at this school as well?..

Will there be justice?

Six attorneys rejected from civil service positions at the Justice Department filed a lawsuit today against former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and three other top officials for allegedly violating their rights by taking politics into consideration in the hiring process.

The suit is an attempt to hold top officials accountable for the hiring scandal that ultimately led to Gonzales' resignation last year, said Daniel Metcalfe, the attorney for the plaintiffs who is also executive director of its Collaboration on Government Secrecy at American University's Washington College of Law.

"My clients wish that they hadn't had to bring this lawsuit -- they would have greatly preferred to be working inside the Justice Department, where by all rights they deserved to be, defending the government in court rather than standing as victimized examples of government wrongdoing," said Metcalfe, a former longtime Justice Department official.

This case won't get anywhere with Mukasey hanging around. Hope this lawsuit arrives in court AFTER January 20th, 2009....

Blackwater wants to apply Sharia law to a lawsuit

Because the plane crashed in Afghanistan. Sharia law would not let the company be sued for worker's neglect.

RALEIGH - To defend itself against a lawsuit by the widows of three American soldiers who died on one of its planes in Afghanistan, a sister company of the private military firm Blackwater has asked a federal court to decide the case using the Islamic law known as Shari’a.

The lawsuit “is governed by the law of Afghanistan,” Presidential Airways argued in a Florida federal court. “Afghan law is largely religion-based and evidences a strong concern for ensuring moral responsibility, and deterring violations of obligations within its borders.”

If the judge agrees, it would essentially end the lawsuit over a botched flight supporting the U.S. military. Shari’a law does not hold a company responsible for the actions of employees performed within the course of their work.

(The comments following Drum's post are hilarious).

Update: interesting discussion about the State Department extending Blackwater's contract for 5 more years. One more mine being planted by the Bush administration for President Obama to deal with.

Fur imunity's sake!

Think Progress quotes Georgie:

Companies that may have helped us save lives should be thanked for their patriotic service, not subjected to billion-dollar lawsuits that would make them less willing to help in the future.

The House bill may be good for class action trial lawyers, but it would be terrible for the United States.

Apparently the Department of Homeland Security needs to know

Scientists' sexual backgrounds or else the terrorists win...

(CBS) LOS ANGELES Twenty-eight senior scientists and engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging what they call the federal government's invasive background checks into their personal lives, including their sexual orientations.

At issue is a 2004 executive order signed by President Bush requiring federal agencies and facilities to institute an identification badge.

The plaintiffs -- all long-term California Institute of Technology employees -- allege the Bush administration is requiring them to consent to broad written waivers permitting investigators to obtain records from their past employment files.

Investigators will also be allowed to question the employees’ friends and associates about their emotional and financial well-being, as well as their sexual histories, according to Dan Stormer, one of their attorneys.

"They're being required to give up every personal record they have," Stormer said. "It's just a despicable incursion into constitutionally protected rights."

Isn't it supposed to be legal for only Republicans to expose national secrets for political gain

Without facing legal consequences?

SAN FRANCISCO --A lawsuit alleging that Verizon Communications Inc. illegally turned over customer records as part of the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program should go forward because of a recent admission by the U.S. spy chief, lawyers argued Thursday.

In a newspaper interview published last week, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell acknowledged that private-sector companies helped the government investigate suspected terrorists in a probe authorized by President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Outrage over the eavesdropping tactics, including obtaining private telephone logs without a warrant, has led to some 50 lawsuits against telecommunications companies and the government, all of which are before U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco.

[snip]

McConnell did not identify specific companies that aided the government. However, he said in the interview with the El Paso Times of Texas that the companies that helped are being sued and risked going bankrupt if the litigation is successful and the government doesn't protect them.

It was his first public acknowledgment of the assistance of private companies in the NSA investigation.

Lawyers for Verizon customers seized on the comments during arguments Thursday before Walker. They said the quotes are enough to connect New York-based Verizon to the government probe, and undermine the government's assertion that confirming any relationship with companies would cause "exceptionally grave harm" to national security.

Update: Somehow this post needs Harry Potter doing the warrantlessly wiretapped Banana Phone!:

When the handcuffs were on their wrists

That was the moment when they realized how far the United States had fallen away from supporting freedom of speech, freedom of assembly..... as they were being arrested and removed from the hotel where Bush was to yammer about all those freedoms in a Fourth of July speech.

Logan Murphy at Crooks and Liars:

On July 4th, 2004, Jeffery and Nicole Rank attended an public Independence Day event in Charleston, WV where President Bush was to speak. Despite the fact that the event was open to the public and was held on public land, the Ranks were arrested for wearing anti-Bush t-shirts. On Monday’s “Hardball” the couple told their astonishing story of being arrested, the charges that were filed against them and eventually dropped and why they decided to sue the United States government — a suit they thankfully won.

Diebold loses court case

To a bunch of college kids:

Diebold Loses Key Copyright Case

Kim Zetter

Students who sued Diebold Election Systems won their case against the voting machine maker on Thursday after a judge ruled that the company had misused the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and ordered the company to pay damages and fees. Lawyers for the students call the move a victory for free speech.

A judge for the California district court ruled that the company knowingly misrepresented that the students had infringed the company's copyright and ordered the company to pay damages and fees to two students and a nonprofit internet service provider, Online Policy Group.

Last October, students at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania posted copies and links to some 13,000 internal Diebold company memos that an anonymous source had leaked to Wired News. The memos suggested that the company was aware of security flaws in its voting system when it sold the system to states.

Diebold sent several cease-and-desist letters to the students and threatened them with litigation, citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA. Online Policy Group was also threatened after someone posted a link to the memos on a website hosted by the ISP. Diebold said the memos were stolen from a company server and that posting them or even linking to them violated the copyright law.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which took on the case for the Online Policy Group, argued that the memos were an important part of the public debate on electronic voting systems.

After a slew of bad publicity criticizing their strong-arm tactics, Diebold backed down and withdrew its legal threats in December, but a spokesman said at the time that no one should interpret the move as implying that the DMCA did not apply in the case.

"We've simply chosen not to pursue copyright infringement in this matter," spokesman David Bear told Wired News.

But the California district court judge ruled otherwise.

Johnson and Johnson makes its move

And demands Red Cross give up its logo.



Have all corporations gone insane? Or do they know sanity will return in January 2009 so all the crazy shit they've dreamed about they've gotta do now?

WTF?

Why being able to fill judicial posts

Gives the president so much power:

Yesterday, federal district Judge John D. Bates “dismissed a lawsuit filed by former CIA officer Valerie Plame and her husband [Joe Wilson] against Vice President Cheney and other top officials over the Bush administration’s” retaliatory leak of Plame’s identity. Bates’s decision yesterday is in line with a long record of injecting his personal political agenda into the administration of law.

This man has shielded the Bush administration in several lawsuits and was appointed to FISA where he promptly allowed the White House to continue its domestic spying program.

It's going to take years sifting out these clunkers in our judical system.

OOOoo!! Fox News being sued for fake news story!!

Have they ever broadcast a real news story? Can we get in line to sue over all the propaganda they spewed?

Think Progress:

In April, Think Progress noted that Fox News morning show “Fox & Friends” aired at least eight segments about a fake news story claiming a school in Maine had formed “an anti-ham ‘response plan’” after a Muslim student complained of being harassed with a ham steak. After the Fox report, the school’s superintendent received threatening calls and hate mail. He’s now suing Fox News.

How... delicious!

Blackwater sues to silence

Families of Blackwater contractors who have died on the job. Via Steve Bates at Yellow Doggerel Democrat and Rook at Rook's Rant, AlterNet:

The following article is by the lawyers representing the families of four American contractors who worked for Blackwater and were killed in Fallujah. After Blackwater refused to share information about why they were killed, the families were told they would have to sue Blackwater to find out. Now Blackwater is trying to sue them for $10 million to keep them quiet.

Raleigh, NC -- The families of four American security contractors who were burned, beaten, dragged through the streets of Fallujah and their decapitated bodies hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River on March 31, 2004, are reaching out to the American public to help protect themselves against the very company their loved ones were serving when killed, Blackwater Security Consulting. After Blackwater lost a series of appeals all the away to the U.S. Supreme Court, Blackwater has now changed its tactics and is suing the dead men's estates for $10 million to silence the families and keep them out of court.

Following these gruesome deaths which were broadcast on worldwide television, the surviving family members looked to Blackwater for answers as to how and why their loved ones died. Blackwater not only refused to give the grieving families any information, but also callously stated that they would need to sue Blackwater to get it. Left with no alternative, in January 2005, the families filed suit against Blackwater, which is owned by the wealthy and politically-connected Erik Prince.

A point was made in Rook's comments that these lawyers are in it just for the big bucks. With the secrecy and lack of accountability, I don't care what the motives of the lawyers are. Just drag Blackwater and all other defense contracting businesses out into the sunlight.