A judge threw out a conviction of a woman for laughing at the confirmation of Jeff Sessions, because, in the judge's view, laughter was not enough to support a conviction for disruption of Congress.
Additionally, the defendant argued that she laughed involuntarily when Jeff Sessions announced that he treats all Americans equally.
So, it's official, folks - laughter at the stupidity of your public officials, right in their faces, may be deemed involuntary (like, you cannot control your natural spontaneous reactions) - cannot be the basis for a criminal conviction.
Who would think that reason will take the upper hand?
Or, did reason take the upper hand only because of the identity of the much disliked public official in question?
And the result would have been different if the disruption of Congress would have been at the confirmation of a judge - like it happened to #ElenaSassower, who simply asked a question if she may testify (which she asked, without an answer, in writing prior to the confirmation hearing, too) in opposition to confirmation of federal judge Richard Wesley to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit and got 6 months in federal prison for her efforts, and especially for refusing to apologize for doing nothing wrong.
So, it is official, but still fuzzy, who you can laugh at.
The nominee for the U.S. Attorney General for the President kicked by the "liberal" press - oh, yes, of course, you can laugh at all you want.
As to a judge - nope, you cannot even ask a question at a pre-arranged spectacle of a confirmation hearing.
Saturday, July 15, 2017
Tuesday, July 4, 2017
South Carolinans in need of new glasses or contact lenses - South Carolina new law, sponsored by optometrists, "protects" you - from new technology
New technology making goods and services cheaper and better is good.
Right?
Maybe not in South Carolina.
Not for people in need of new glasses or contact lenses, anyway.
Because there exists a new technology - in the form of a smartphone app, affordable to a wide range of consumers - that can read your retina, access your need for a lense and bypass an optometrist.
Would an optometrist do a better job than a smartphone app in assessing your needs for a new contact lense or glasses?
It is debatable.
First, a smart app does not cost much or long to develop, and is cheap.
On the contrary, medical equipment in an optometrist's office is expensive, as well as an optometrist's services - and is necessary built into the price of your lenses.
Moreover, an optometrist most definitely cannot afford to replace his medical equipment with newer one every year while retina reading and assessing smartphone app can be enhanced daily.
And, isn't it the consumer's final choice whether he or she wants or does not want an optometrist to advise him (presumably, with a higher level of precision), what kind of glasses/contact lenses he needs rather than a retina-reading smartphone app?
Not so, asserts the South Carolina optometrist association that lobbied a legislature that:
Right?
Maybe not in South Carolina.
Not for people in need of new glasses or contact lenses, anyway.
Because there exists a new technology - in the form of a smartphone app, affordable to a wide range of consumers - that can read your retina, access your need for a lense and bypass an optometrist.
Would an optometrist do a better job than a smartphone app in assessing your needs for a new contact lense or glasses?
It is debatable.
First, a smart app does not cost much or long to develop, and is cheap.
On the contrary, medical equipment in an optometrist's office is expensive, as well as an optometrist's services - and is necessary built into the price of your lenses.
Moreover, an optometrist most definitely cannot afford to replace his medical equipment with newer one every year while retina reading and assessing smartphone app can be enhanced daily.
And, isn't it the consumer's final choice whether he or she wants or does not want an optometrist to advise him (presumably, with a higher level of precision), what kind of glasses/contact lenses he needs rather than a retina-reading smartphone app?
Not so, asserts the South Carolina optometrist association that lobbied a legislature that:
- passed South Carolina House and Senate;
- was vetoed last year by the then-governor Nikki Haley; and
- the veto was overridden by South Carolina Senate.
So, now we have the law that prohibits the sale of eye lenses and glasses in South Carolina without an optometrists' prescription.
And the law, of course, is called Eye Care Consumer Protection Act.
The company that was selling online eye tests - OpterNative (out of Chicago, IL), has moved out of South Carolina after the Governor's veto was overridden.
Now, are South Carolinan patients in need of new glasses or a contact lense better off now?
The shameless optometrist-lobbied legislation did not protect consumers - it only prevented consumers from saving money on eye tests, and stripped them of their choices of providers of services.
Which brings me to a million-dollar-question as to any and all occupational licensing - if it exists for protection of consumers, why not allow consumers to OPT OUT of it? And choose providers according to their own volition instead of from lists pre-approved by the government?
After all, if the government pre-approval/licensing of any professionals exists to just HELP consumers in their marketing and choice of providers, can't we, the consumers of any licensed services, tell the government - thank you for your help, but no, thank you?
And if not, why not?
Why the government thinks it can treat their own boss, their sovereign, the People (who are also consumers of various services of providers licensed by the government) as mentally incompetent in need of being forced to accept high-priced services we may not want - or need?
Do you want to pay less for your glasses?
Like $60 for glasses AND online vision test - as Opternative offers?
I certainly do.
But now, South Carolinans cannot get that order fulfilled in their own state. They will have to go to another state to do that - which, in terms of costs, defeats the purpose of saving.
Great job, South Carolina Optometrist Association.
You won, we lost. For now.
Yet, your temporary victory may turn out Pyrrhic. Like Luddites in the 19th century, weavers destroying weaving equipment, you will not be able to stop technology from progressing.
Imagine that we would be forced, nowadays, in the 21st century, to buy weaved fabrics from individual weavers and not from factory manufacturers, because, under the guild-lobbied legislation, that was supposed to be "better for us".
The Optometrists Association's fight with technology - instead of embracing it - appears as bad.
Of course, nobody wants to see their income derived from costly training and licensing, disappear because of technology.
But, that's life, and, the concept of consumer PROTECTION should not be put on its head in order to shield service providers from doom brought on by technology - which HURTS consumers.
And, your efforts to stop technology (which hurts consumers, and you know it) only shows that occupational licensing, "even" of doctors, is nothing but a sham where a cheaper technology is available.
Consumers must be given a choice of buying what they need from whoever they need, approved by the government or not.
It is that simple.
Why cap taxi medallions?
Yet another piece on how occupational licensing makes no sense and injures consumers instead of protecting them - which is what occupational licensing is declared to be doing to justify its existence.
It is reported that the cost of a taxi medallion in New York City (a right to operate a taxi business, one car) has dropped over the latest 4 years from the whopping $1.3 million per medallion to "just" $241,000 in March this year.
I wonder, of course, whether the drop in the cost was because of the Trump administration's efforts to corral illegal immigrants - who were most likely used as drivers by the wealthy owners of such medallions.
But, the question is - WHY, given that the declared purpose of occupational licensing (including taxi licensing) is PROTECTION OF CONSUMERS, would New York City CAP the number of taxi permits (medallions) in a multi-million city of residents, with more millions of people coming every day as tourists and to do business in New York City - to the meager 13,587?
It does not seem like protection of consumers, does it?
It seems like restricting competition to the existing taxi owners from potentially incoming competitors in order to keep supply of taxi services low and prices high.
Right?
Of course, everybody knows that the actual taxi drivers are often new immigrants (legal and illegal) whose command of the English language is limited and for whom driving a taxi may be the only way to earn a living.
These people most definitely cannot pay either $1.3 or $241,000 per "taxi medallion", so they have to work for richer people who do not driver that car, but who exploit these immigrants.
New York City, the self-proclaimed "sanctuary city", is supposed to be friendly to immigrants. Right?
Then, how come that it not only allows, but promotes and establishes cruel exploitation of immigrants by taxi barons?
Why not reduce of taxi licensing to checkup on the car and checkup on the driver (background check and knowledge of the city)?
After all, that's all that is needed to establish safety and quality of service for consumers?
And why not cancel any caps on taxi medallions?
It is reported that the cost of a taxi medallion in New York City (a right to operate a taxi business, one car) has dropped over the latest 4 years from the whopping $1.3 million per medallion to "just" $241,000 in March this year.
I wonder, of course, whether the drop in the cost was because of the Trump administration's efforts to corral illegal immigrants - who were most likely used as drivers by the wealthy owners of such medallions.
But, the question is - WHY, given that the declared purpose of occupational licensing (including taxi licensing) is PROTECTION OF CONSUMERS, would New York City CAP the number of taxi permits (medallions) in a multi-million city of residents, with more millions of people coming every day as tourists and to do business in New York City - to the meager 13,587?
It does not seem like protection of consumers, does it?
It seems like restricting competition to the existing taxi owners from potentially incoming competitors in order to keep supply of taxi services low and prices high.
Right?
Of course, everybody knows that the actual taxi drivers are often new immigrants (legal and illegal) whose command of the English language is limited and for whom driving a taxi may be the only way to earn a living.
These people most definitely cannot pay either $1.3 or $241,000 per "taxi medallion", so they have to work for richer people who do not driver that car, but who exploit these immigrants.
New York City, the self-proclaimed "sanctuary city", is supposed to be friendly to immigrants. Right?
Then, how come that it not only allows, but promotes and establishes cruel exploitation of immigrants by taxi barons?
Why not reduce of taxi licensing to checkup on the car and checkup on the driver (background check and knowledge of the city)?
After all, that's all that is needed to establish safety and quality of service for consumers?
And why not cancel any caps on taxi medallions?
When a plumber is given authority to tell you whether you can sue a plumber - why do we need courts?
Occupational licensing is not a front-line topic these days.
Yet, it should be.
Now and again, across the U.S., rich and powerful professional guilds, under the guise of protection of our interests as consumers, gain privileges from state and federal legislatures to continue their cozy and lucrative monopolies, at our financial expense and at the expense of injuries to customers.
The last resort of any consumer is the court.
Court proceedings are costly and cumbersome - but still, for injured people sometimes such proceedings do bring remedies.
And that was, apparently, a big problem in the blessed state of Kentucky.
The state of Kentucky has snuck in a law that puts an additional hurdle for people injured by medical professionals to overcome before they can sue - "screening panels".
Apparently, in Kentucky, the legislature does not trust courts with their preliminary procedures, such as motions to dismiss, and juries to screen lawsuits. Or, courts and juries were in fact awarding something to injured consumers of medical services which doctors were not happy about.
The principal sponsor of the new legislation, reportedly, was a Senator who is a licensed physician - which is an irreconcilable conflict of interest, but apparently, State Senator Ralph Alvorado does not care about that.
Moreover, the "screening panels" that are put, by new law, in the position to precede and substitute for courts and juries, must consist of 3 doctors
- which is an even bigger conflict of interest.
How can an unelected panel of three licensed doctors be allowed to usurp the role of the courts to resolve conflicts regarding mistakes of their own colleagues?
And how does that protect consumers?
Does Senator Dr Alvorado care that the declared purpose of occupational licensing (including licensing of any medical professional, which means his own medical license) is protection of CONSUMERS, not doctors?
This legislation very obviously has as a purpose protection of doctors from injured consumers, blocking injured consumers from ever having any remedy.
The flurry of court filings before the legislation kicked in indicates how much patients and their lawyers trust in doctors in these panels "judging" and screening medical malpractice cases fairly.
Contrary to popular belief, it is not that easy for a medical malpractice lawsuit to survive. The main hurdle is to prove causation - that the particular actions of a particular physician have caused injury and damages to the plaintiff. Proof in such cases require expert evidence and testimony.
If it pertains to surgery, when the injured patient was under general anesthesia or sedation, proof can be manipulated by the defendant physicians and their personnel, by manipulating records about the surgery to protect themselves from liability.
If it pertains to any other procedure when the patient was conscious, there are informed consent forms which may be signed without necessary information provided to the patient to form that informed consent - but still can be used against the patient.
And, in general, it is difficult to find a doctor who would be willing to testify against his colleague in court - for fear of being blackballed, disciplined and stripped of his own license and livelihood by his own profession.
Now, when debates about the fate of Obamacare are raging in the federal government, mainstream and social media, such "minor issues" as blocking access to court of victims of medical mistakes fall by the wayside as not so important.
Yet, with any coverage, even a perfect medical insurance coverage, our hope to quality medical care will remain illusory if doctors are going to be allowed to block our access to court to address their mistakes that cause injuries.
It is for people of the state of Kentucky to demand repeal of this shameful legislation.
For people in other states, where similar legislation can be pushed by the medical guild - beware.
And, here is a cautionary tale - of a person who has brought about a $500,000 cap on recovery in medical malpractice lawsuits - only to be later injured through a medical mistake, with damages from the injury amounting to millions of dollars, but capped, by his "own" legislature, at $500,000.
The sponsor of the shameful "doctor panel" legislation in Kentucky, the State Kentucky Senator Dr Ralph Alvorado is young and arrogant,
he occupies all the key positions that conflict with his role as a lawmaker without any scruples, such as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Kentucky Medical Association, American College of Physicians, Kentucky "One Health Med Group", "BD Vice Chair Wealth MD".
Of course, while doing a quite self-interested and un-Godly thing, Senator Alvorado does not forget to rub in his religiosity by putting into his official biography that he is a deacon of Grace Baptist Church.
Senator Dr Alvorado apparently presumes he himself or his loved ones will never be victims of medical mistakes, as it happened to Frank Cornelius in the State of Indiana - or that he can through his weight about at all times to manipulate those doctors in medical panels to pave a path to court that he blocked to everyone else?
Power and authority, and high elective positions come and go.
People are mortal, they retire and die, leaving vulnerable their own family - and everybody else who was hurt by such "laws" created to satisfy self-interested greed of a professional guild at a particular moment.
Nobody can guarantee that Senator Dr Alvorado and his loved ones will not fall victim to the very legislature he crafted and pushed through, for himself and his colleagues.
But of course, who thinks about karma when abusing his power to satisfy his own greed...
What is really bad is that the Kentucky legislation only started on the slippery slope of blocking access to courts for consumers injured by various service providers.
If doctors can screen access to court of consumers injured by other doctors - why can't other providers be allowed to do just the same?
Just imagine - if a contractor screwed construction of your house, you cannot sue him directly, but must first have your case "screened" by a panel of three - gasp! - contractors, who will decide whether you can sue their colleague or not.
Or, if a plumber screwed up your toilet, flooding half of your house with fecal matter, you cannot sue the plumber unless a panel of his 3 colleagues allows you to do that.
Which brings us to a million dollar question - why do we need courts at all in consumer injury cases?
We can just have service providers, in each consumer injury case to gather into TROIKA panels and tell consumers what such TROIKA panels will most definitely tell injured patients in Kentucky - BUZZ OFF.
And abolish all courts.
Yet, it should be.
Now and again, across the U.S., rich and powerful professional guilds, under the guise of protection of our interests as consumers, gain privileges from state and federal legislatures to continue their cozy and lucrative monopolies, at our financial expense and at the expense of injuries to customers.
The last resort of any consumer is the court.
Court proceedings are costly and cumbersome - but still, for injured people sometimes such proceedings do bring remedies.
And that was, apparently, a big problem in the blessed state of Kentucky.
The state of Kentucky has snuck in a law that puts an additional hurdle for people injured by medical professionals to overcome before they can sue - "screening panels".
Apparently, in Kentucky, the legislature does not trust courts with their preliminary procedures, such as motions to dismiss, and juries to screen lawsuits. Or, courts and juries were in fact awarding something to injured consumers of medical services which doctors were not happy about.
The principal sponsor of the new legislation, reportedly, was a Senator who is a licensed physician - which is an irreconcilable conflict of interest, but apparently, State Senator Ralph Alvorado does not care about that.
Moreover, the "screening panels" that are put, by new law, in the position to precede and substitute for courts and juries, must consist of 3 doctors
- which is an even bigger conflict of interest.
How can an unelected panel of three licensed doctors be allowed to usurp the role of the courts to resolve conflicts regarding mistakes of their own colleagues?
And how does that protect consumers?
Does Senator Dr Alvorado care that the declared purpose of occupational licensing (including licensing of any medical professional, which means his own medical license) is protection of CONSUMERS, not doctors?
This legislation very obviously has as a purpose protection of doctors from injured consumers, blocking injured consumers from ever having any remedy.
The flurry of court filings before the legislation kicked in indicates how much patients and their lawyers trust in doctors in these panels "judging" and screening medical malpractice cases fairly.
Contrary to popular belief, it is not that easy for a medical malpractice lawsuit to survive. The main hurdle is to prove causation - that the particular actions of a particular physician have caused injury and damages to the plaintiff. Proof in such cases require expert evidence and testimony.
If it pertains to surgery, when the injured patient was under general anesthesia or sedation, proof can be manipulated by the defendant physicians and their personnel, by manipulating records about the surgery to protect themselves from liability.
If it pertains to any other procedure when the patient was conscious, there are informed consent forms which may be signed without necessary information provided to the patient to form that informed consent - but still can be used against the patient.
And, in general, it is difficult to find a doctor who would be willing to testify against his colleague in court - for fear of being blackballed, disciplined and stripped of his own license and livelihood by his own profession.
Now, when debates about the fate of Obamacare are raging in the federal government, mainstream and social media, such "minor issues" as blocking access to court of victims of medical mistakes fall by the wayside as not so important.
Yet, with any coverage, even a perfect medical insurance coverage, our hope to quality medical care will remain illusory if doctors are going to be allowed to block our access to court to address their mistakes that cause injuries.
It is for people of the state of Kentucky to demand repeal of this shameful legislation.
For people in other states, where similar legislation can be pushed by the medical guild - beware.
And, here is a cautionary tale - of a person who has brought about a $500,000 cap on recovery in medical malpractice lawsuits - only to be later injured through a medical mistake, with damages from the injury amounting to millions of dollars, but capped, by his "own" legislature, at $500,000.
The sponsor of the shameful "doctor panel" legislation in Kentucky, the State Kentucky Senator Dr Ralph Alvorado is young and arrogant,
he occupies all the key positions that conflict with his role as a lawmaker without any scruples, such as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Kentucky Medical Association, American College of Physicians, Kentucky "One Health Med Group", "BD Vice Chair Wealth MD".
Of course, while doing a quite self-interested and un-Godly thing, Senator Alvorado does not forget to rub in his religiosity by putting into his official biography that he is a deacon of Grace Baptist Church.
Senator Dr Alvorado apparently presumes he himself or his loved ones will never be victims of medical mistakes, as it happened to Frank Cornelius in the State of Indiana - or that he can through his weight about at all times to manipulate those doctors in medical panels to pave a path to court that he blocked to everyone else?
Power and authority, and high elective positions come and go.
People are mortal, they retire and die, leaving vulnerable their own family - and everybody else who was hurt by such "laws" created to satisfy self-interested greed of a professional guild at a particular moment.
Nobody can guarantee that Senator Dr Alvorado and his loved ones will not fall victim to the very legislature he crafted and pushed through, for himself and his colleagues.
But of course, who thinks about karma when abusing his power to satisfy his own greed...
What is really bad is that the Kentucky legislation only started on the slippery slope of blocking access to courts for consumers injured by various service providers.
If doctors can screen access to court of consumers injured by other doctors - why can't other providers be allowed to do just the same?
Just imagine - if a contractor screwed construction of your house, you cannot sue him directly, but must first have your case "screened" by a panel of three - gasp! - contractors, who will decide whether you can sue their colleague or not.
Or, if a plumber screwed up your toilet, flooding half of your house with fecal matter, you cannot sue the plumber unless a panel of his 3 colleagues allows you to do that.
Which brings us to a million dollar question - why do we need courts at all in consumer injury cases?
We can just have service providers, in each consumer injury case to gather into TROIKA panels and tell consumers what such TROIKA panels will most definitely tell injured patients in Kentucky - BUZZ OFF.
And abolish all courts.
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
New York judges fixing cases for sex, and the brave New York State Attorney General
A New York town justice Paul Lamson was sentenced to jail after accepting sexual favors from reportedly TEN female litigants in exchange for favorable rulings.
TEN.
How could that possible happen?
Why wasn't the guy caught after the first such ruling? Were people who knew afraid to report it? Were people afraid to investigate or prosecute the judge until the number of victims grew so much that they could not longer ignore it?
And this is the second judge from the same locality who was convicted for the same crime?
The interesting part of it is not even that the judges were charged and convicted - that's a rarity in New York.
The interesting part is that both judges are "town justices" and not attorneys - so their conviction will not result in an automatic disbarment for either one of them.
Yet, no judge in New York for many years was convicted of a felony, saving them from disbarments, and even the judge who was convicted (in a federal court sitting in New Jersey), Sol Wachtler, was given his attorney license back.
I will not believe for one second that judges above the level of town justices do not commit crimes.
Yet, judges above the level of town justices, judges who are attorneys, are regulators of the NYS AG's and county prosecutors' own law licenses.
And, for that reason, their criminal prosecution, no matter how bad their crimes, will not result in a felony conviction and disbarment.
No matter how the NYS AG pounds his chest in claiming that he is the defender of human rights.
He is a coward.
TEN.
How could that possible happen?
Why wasn't the guy caught after the first such ruling? Were people who knew afraid to report it? Were people afraid to investigate or prosecute the judge until the number of victims grew so much that they could not longer ignore it?
And this is the second judge from the same locality who was convicted for the same crime?
The interesting part of it is not even that the judges were charged and convicted - that's a rarity in New York.
The interesting part is that both judges are "town justices" and not attorneys - so their conviction will not result in an automatic disbarment for either one of them.
Yet, no judge in New York for many years was convicted of a felony, saving them from disbarments, and even the judge who was convicted (in a federal court sitting in New Jersey), Sol Wachtler, was given his attorney license back.
I will not believe for one second that judges above the level of town justices do not commit crimes.
Yet, judges above the level of town justices, judges who are attorneys, are regulators of the NYS AG's and county prosecutors' own law licenses.
And, for that reason, their criminal prosecution, no matter how bad their crimes, will not result in a felony conviction and disbarment.
No matter how the NYS AG pounds his chest in claiming that he is the defender of human rights.
He is a coward.
On Masterpiece Cakeshop, discretionary enforcement of the U.S. Constitution and the right of every individual to have their constitutional rights enforced
I wrote today about two U.S. Supreme Court cases, which the court chose out of 8,000 petitions, 99% of which the court tosses (it decides about 70 cases out of over 8,000 filed each year).
One of the cases chosen by the U.S. Supreme Court was decided in favor of debt collectors.
There, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it has no power to amend an Act of Congress.
The other case was against the Trump administration where the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review jurisdictional threshold issues and instead amended (without authority) another Act of Congress, after its justices received multiple benefits over the years from one of Trump's opponents, the State of Hawaii University School of Law, and after Justice Ginsburg has actually made a trip while one of the related cases was being decided by the lower appellate courts and had "meetings with faculty" of that state law school (part of the party in litigation in front of her), while the "faculty" included 3 law clerks of the judge of the federal appellate court deciding the case.
The U.S. Supreme Court has also ruled in June on LGBT rights of same-sex couples, continuing the line of cases started by its decision in 2015 in Obergefell v Hodges, just one precedent so far on the issue of gay rights.
The issue in Pavan v Smith decided on June 26, 2017 was that a male spouse is considered by default a parent and is included on the child's birth certificate, whether the child is or is not the male spouse's biological child, but a female same-sex spouse is not so included on the birth certificate of the child by default.
Now, the U.S. Supreme Court has announced that, out of the 8,000 petitions filed, it has chosen yet another gay-rights case, verifying whether a cake-shop owner had a right to refuse to decorate a cake for a same-sex wedding.
Yet, the same U.S. Supreme Court, while paying lip service to prohibiting the government to regulate speech based on its content, stubbornly refuses to take up any whistleblower cases against the government - and thus refuses to uphold a long string of its own precedents.
There are PLENTY of U.S. Supreme Court precedents indicating that the government cannot regulate speech based on its content - yet, this year, the U.S. Supreme Court chose to apply this principle not to whistleblower/retaliation cases, but to cases of credit card companies charging extra fees, and, lately, the right to trademark derogatory names.
It comes to the point that many people in the whistleblower community who have suffered retaliation from the government for criticism of misconduct of government officials expressed (even though discreetly) in their communications that, unless you are gay or transgender, nowadays it is impossible to get a review from the U.S. Supreme Court.
And such a resentment is understandable.
Nobody - nobody - should be given a free right to choose whose constitutional rights are to be enforced, and whose to be ignored.
Yet, that is exactly what the U.S. Supreme Court is doing, based on the 1925 Judiciary Act.
Choosing cases favoring debt collectors, credit card companies, "Wonder Doodles", birth certificates for gay rights, have much less impact on society than establishing, once and for all, access to justice for all by prohibiting the government to yank occupational licenses of attorneys who criticize judges IN MOTIONS TO RECUSE - yet, that is happening left and right, such attorneys are left without jobs, without money, without opportunities of employment, while the public is left without independent representation, because attorneys that remain license are intimidated that the same will happen to them if they do their job properly.
And, of course, ruling in favor of attorneys - or other whistleblowers against the government - will require honest, integrity, courage, and neutrality, while the U.S. Supreme Court, very apparently, lacks all of the above.
People, including same sex couples, will continue to get into situations where judicial bias and corruption will require to file a motion to recuse.
Yet, people will continue to run into reluctance of attorneys to do that because judges are both regulators of their livelihoods and decision-makers in court cases, which creates an untenable situation where attorneys cannot dare do their jobs and ensure for their clients their constitutional right to impartial judicial review, for fear of losing their own livelihoods.
That is a countrywide human rights problem, which the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to address.
Instead, it addresses issues whether it is constitutional when an artist is being punished for refusing to create a piece of art on a certain topic - a clear case of politically-correct compulsion of artistic expression.
It may be a violation of the artists' 1st Amendment rights. And, it is an obviously frivolous lawsuit.
An artist may refuse to create a work of art for you for any reason, including lack of inspiration, which cannot be commanded.
Think about it. Will you sue an artist for lack of inspiration regarding you?
With the current amount of political unrest in our society, it will be for everyone's benefit to abolish the 1925 Judiciary Act and make ALL petitions for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court mandatory, so that people would not feel resentment that a gay couple - yet again - is given review while a whistleblower against the government - yet again - is denied review of glaring violations of constitutional rights.
Moreover, the U.S. Supreme Court, whose judges are sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution, should not be given a free reign as to which constitutional violation to address and which to ignore.
Not to mention that if the Court wants any kind of respect for upholding its own precedents, it should actually do that in all cases.
Not only for those who can afford to pay (taxpayer money) for the judges' vacations, for those represented by the judges' former law clerks, or for those whose cases will get the most publicity for the judges, and thus more opportunities for judges' paid speeches and readership for their books.
Let us make the U.S. Supreme Court actually work.
One of the cases chosen by the U.S. Supreme Court was decided in favor of debt collectors.
There, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it has no power to amend an Act of Congress.
The other case was against the Trump administration where the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review jurisdictional threshold issues and instead amended (without authority) another Act of Congress, after its justices received multiple benefits over the years from one of Trump's opponents, the State of Hawaii University School of Law, and after Justice Ginsburg has actually made a trip while one of the related cases was being decided by the lower appellate courts and had "meetings with faculty" of that state law school (part of the party in litigation in front of her), while the "faculty" included 3 law clerks of the judge of the federal appellate court deciding the case.
The U.S. Supreme Court has also ruled in June on LGBT rights of same-sex couples, continuing the line of cases started by its decision in 2015 in Obergefell v Hodges, just one precedent so far on the issue of gay rights.
The issue in Pavan v Smith decided on June 26, 2017 was that a male spouse is considered by default a parent and is included on the child's birth certificate, whether the child is or is not the male spouse's biological child, but a female same-sex spouse is not so included on the birth certificate of the child by default.
Now, the U.S. Supreme Court has announced that, out of the 8,000 petitions filed, it has chosen yet another gay-rights case, verifying whether a cake-shop owner had a right to refuse to decorate a cake for a same-sex wedding.
Yet, the same U.S. Supreme Court, while paying lip service to prohibiting the government to regulate speech based on its content, stubbornly refuses to take up any whistleblower cases against the government - and thus refuses to uphold a long string of its own precedents.
There are PLENTY of U.S. Supreme Court precedents indicating that the government cannot regulate speech based on its content - yet, this year, the U.S. Supreme Court chose to apply this principle not to whistleblower/retaliation cases, but to cases of credit card companies charging extra fees, and, lately, the right to trademark derogatory names.
It comes to the point that many people in the whistleblower community who have suffered retaliation from the government for criticism of misconduct of government officials expressed (even though discreetly) in their communications that, unless you are gay or transgender, nowadays it is impossible to get a review from the U.S. Supreme Court.
And such a resentment is understandable.
Nobody - nobody - should be given a free right to choose whose constitutional rights are to be enforced, and whose to be ignored.
Yet, that is exactly what the U.S. Supreme Court is doing, based on the 1925 Judiciary Act.
Choosing cases favoring debt collectors, credit card companies, "Wonder Doodles", birth certificates for gay rights, have much less impact on society than establishing, once and for all, access to justice for all by prohibiting the government to yank occupational licenses of attorneys who criticize judges IN MOTIONS TO RECUSE - yet, that is happening left and right, such attorneys are left without jobs, without money, without opportunities of employment, while the public is left without independent representation, because attorneys that remain license are intimidated that the same will happen to them if they do their job properly.
And, of course, ruling in favor of attorneys - or other whistleblowers against the government - will require honest, integrity, courage, and neutrality, while the U.S. Supreme Court, very apparently, lacks all of the above.
People, including same sex couples, will continue to get into situations where judicial bias and corruption will require to file a motion to recuse.
Yet, people will continue to run into reluctance of attorneys to do that because judges are both regulators of their livelihoods and decision-makers in court cases, which creates an untenable situation where attorneys cannot dare do their jobs and ensure for their clients their constitutional right to impartial judicial review, for fear of losing their own livelihoods.
That is a countrywide human rights problem, which the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to address.
Instead, it addresses issues whether it is constitutional when an artist is being punished for refusing to create a piece of art on a certain topic - a clear case of politically-correct compulsion of artistic expression.
It may be a violation of the artists' 1st Amendment rights. And, it is an obviously frivolous lawsuit.
An artist may refuse to create a work of art for you for any reason, including lack of inspiration, which cannot be commanded.
Think about it. Will you sue an artist for lack of inspiration regarding you?
With the current amount of political unrest in our society, it will be for everyone's benefit to abolish the 1925 Judiciary Act and make ALL petitions for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court mandatory, so that people would not feel resentment that a gay couple - yet again - is given review while a whistleblower against the government - yet again - is denied review of glaring violations of constitutional rights.
Moreover, the U.S. Supreme Court, whose judges are sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution, should not be given a free reign as to which constitutional violation to address and which to ignore.
Not to mention that if the Court wants any kind of respect for upholding its own precedents, it should actually do that in all cases.
Not only for those who can afford to pay (taxpayer money) for the judges' vacations, for those represented by the judges' former law clerks, or for those whose cases will get the most publicity for the judges, and thus more opportunities for judges' paid speeches and readership for their books.
Let us make the U.S. Supreme Court actually work.
New York partially upholds its right to underfund public schools - while suing the federal government to fund those same public schools. 10th Amendment, full speed
After Donald Trump became President of the U.S., the so-called "resistance" swamped federal courts with various lawsuits against him - not because the President was doing something wrong (the "wrongs" alleged were the same "wrongs" that the Obama administration was doing all along), but because the backers of the "resistance" did not get to the trough - oops, the wheel.
One of the type of lawsuits currently litigated across the country against Donald Trump, is for denying discretionary federal funds to states, including for public education that must be financed by states, not by the federal government.
Amazingly, these frivolous lawsuits are asserted under the 10th Amendment - which actually gives the state the right to act on their own in deciding issues of care and safety of their residents, and with the right comes an obligation to financially provide for such care.
But, anyway, the states are suing the feds under the 10th Amendment claiming that denial of discretionary federal funds will cripple state efforts to fund public education.
Great.
The interesting wrinkle on this argument in New York though is that recently some parents in New York City sued New York State, under the State Constitution, for failing to properly fund public schools.
The case reached all the way to the top court of the state, the New York Court of Appeals, which heard it and, while having dismissed two causes of action, remanded (allowed to proceed) a cause of action challenging "the adequacy of defendant State's education funding accountability mechanisms”.
That's the "education funding accountability mechanisms" of the same State that claims, like a leech, an entitlement to get federal funds to put into the same hole.
Will New York now lose its federal lawsuit regarding its alleged "entitlement" to put more federal money down that same hole without trying to device "education funding accountability mechanisms"?
One of the type of lawsuits currently litigated across the country against Donald Trump, is for denying discretionary federal funds to states, including for public education that must be financed by states, not by the federal government.
Amazingly, these frivolous lawsuits are asserted under the 10th Amendment - which actually gives the state the right to act on their own in deciding issues of care and safety of their residents, and with the right comes an obligation to financially provide for such care.
But, anyway, the states are suing the feds under the 10th Amendment claiming that denial of discretionary federal funds will cripple state efforts to fund public education.
Great.
The interesting wrinkle on this argument in New York though is that recently some parents in New York City sued New York State, under the State Constitution, for failing to properly fund public schools.
The case reached all the way to the top court of the state, the New York Court of Appeals, which heard it and, while having dismissed two causes of action, remanded (allowed to proceed) a cause of action challenging "the adequacy of defendant State's education funding accountability mechanisms”.
That's the "education funding accountability mechanisms" of the same State that claims, like a leech, an entitlement to get federal funds to put into the same hole.
Will New York now lose its federal lawsuit regarding its alleged "entitlement" to put more federal money down that same hole without trying to device "education funding accountability mechanisms"?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)