The Daily Drift

The Daily Drift

We were afraid of that ...! 

 

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Today in History

Today in History

1347		Six burghers of the surrounded French city of Calais surrender to Edward III of England in hopes of relieving the siege.
1492		Christopher Columbus leaves Spain on his voyage to the new world.
1546		French printer Etienne Dolet, accused of heresy, blasphemy and sedition, is hanged and burned at the stake for printing reformist literature.
1553		Mary Tudor, the new Queen of England, enters London.
1610		Henry Hudson of England discovers a great bay on the east coast of Canada and names it for himself.
1692		French forces under Marshal Luxembourg defeat the English at the Battle of Steenkerke in the Netherlands.
1805		Mohammed Ali becomes the new ruler of Egypt.
1807		The trial of Aaron Burr begins. He is accused of plotting the secession of New England.
1864		Federal gunboats attack but do not capture Fort Gains, at the mouth of Mobile Bay, Alabama.
1882		Congress passes the Immigration Act, banning Chinese immigration for ten years.
1908		Allan Allensworth files the site plan for the first African-American town, Allensworth, California.
1911		Airplanes are used for the first time in a military capacity when Italian planes reconnoiter Turkish lines near Tripoli.
1914		Germany declares war on France.
1916		Sir Roger Casement is hanged for treason in England.
1945		Chinese troops under American General Joseph Stilwell take the town of Myitkyina from the Japanese.
1958		The first nuclear submarine USS Nautilus passes under the North Pole.
1967		President Lyndon B. Johnson announces plans to send 45,000 more troops to Vietnam.
1972		Former Beatle Paul McCartney announces formation of his new group, Wings.
1975		Louisiana Superdome dedicated.
1977		Radio Shack unveils TRS-80 personal computer, which with Apple and Commodore would form the "1977 Trinity." Its price and Radio Shack's established retail outlets made it a bestseller for several years.
1990		US commits naval forces to Persian Gulf region in wake of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
2004		Statue of Liberty's pedestal reopens to visitors after being closed following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Non Sequitur

Daily Comic Relief

 

The catholic cult Has A Constitutional Right Not To Compensate Victims Of Sex Abuse

The Wrong Decision

Says Federal Judge

Cardinal Timothy Dolan transferred church funds into a separate trust in order to protect them from clergy abuse lawsuits

A federal judge in Wisconsin handed down an opinion yesterday granting the catholic cult — and indeed, potentially all religious institutions — such sweeping immunity from federal bankruptcy law that it is not clear that it would permit any plaintiff to successfully sue any church in any court. While the ostensible issue in this case is whether over $50 million in church funds are shielded from a bankruptcy proceeding triggered largely by a flood of clerical sex abuse claims against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, Judge Rudolph Randa reads the church’s constitutional and legal right to religious liberty so broadly as to render religious institutions immune from much of the law.
The case involves approximately $57 million that former Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan transferred from the archdiocese’s general accounts to into a separate trust set up to maintain the church’s cemeteries. Although Dolan, who is now a cardinal, the Archbishop of New York and the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, has denied that the purpose of this transfer was to shield the funds from lawsuits, Dolan penned a letter to the Vatican in 2007 where he explained that transferring the funds into the trust would lead to “an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.”
The issue facing the court is, essentially, whether the funds that Dolan split off into a separate trust can now be reabsorbed into the archdiocese’s assets in order to enable sex abuse victims and other creditors to be paid out of these assets. In holding that these funds cannot be so absorbed, Randa relies on a law that limits the federal government’s ability to “substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion,” Randa cites to the current Archbishop of Milwaukee’s statement that “the care and maintenance of catholic cemeteries, cemetery property, and the remains of those interred is a fundamental exercise of the catholic delusion,” and concludes that this statement alone is enough to shield the church’s funds. As Randa explains, “if the Trust’s funds are converted into the bankruptcy estate, there will be no funds or, at best, insufficient funds for the perpetual care of the Milwaukee catholic Cemeteries.”
And Randa does not stop there. He goes on to argue that senior church officials get to unilaterally decide what constitutes a “substantial burden” on their faith for purposes of federal law — “Archbishop Listecki’s declaration stands unopposed, and on the issue of religious doctrine, it is unassailable. Moreover, the issue of substantial burden is essentially coterminous with religious doctrine.” In this case, an archbishop declared cemetery funds to be untouchable in a bankruptcy proceeding, but Randa’s reasoning could extend much farther. Nothing in his opinion would prevent a cult’s officials from declaring that every single line in every single ledger kept by the church is mandated by the sacred word of god — and therefore every single dollar owned by the church is untouchable so long as the cult engages in the kind of accounting gymnastics Dolan allegedly performed.
The same federal law that protects religious liberty also permits substantial burdens on religion when such a burden is “in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest and is the least restrictive means of furthering that interest.” Randa largely glosses over this exception, however, holding that the “interests advanced by the bankruptcy system are not compelling.” That very well be true, but there is another, overriding interest in this case — whether an employer whose employees stand accused of widespread sexual abuse can evade accountability by engaging in accounting tricks. At least 45 Milwaukee priests face sex abuse accusations. One priest in particular was accused of personally molesting close to 200 deaf boys. Yet Randa does not even consider whether America has a compelling interest in deterring the church from allowing future such incidents to occur.
If Randa had stopped there, his opinion would still award the cult — and, indeed, potentially all religious institutions — a breathtaking degree of legal immunity. Taken to its logical conclusion, Randa’s framework would allow a church to run up whatever debts it chooses, then effectively protect the entirety of its assets from its creditors through a combination of creative accounting and a bankruptcy filing. Yet Randa does not even stop there. After reaching this sweeping interpretation of federal religious liberty law, he then turns to the First Amendment of the Constitution. With little analysis, and in an almost certain conflict with a binding Supreme Court precedent, Randa concludes that the church has a constitutional right to shield its funds. By raising his opinion to constitutional status, Randa effectively strips Congress of its ability to correct his sweeping interpretation of the law.
Judge Randa, a George H.W. Bush appointee, has a history of being reversed by higher courts in cases involving hot button social issues, so there is a good chance that his opinion will ultimately be reversed on appeal. In the meantime, however, Randa effectively places the church above the law — and leaves what could be hundreds of sexual abuse victims in the cold.

Did you know ...

Did You Know ...

About Jenny McCarthy's anti-vax fear mongering

About college students vs. the corporate machine

About the animals with the longest lifespan

Here's the periodic table of elements in pictures

A Reality Many Americans Don't Want to Admit: Our Constitution is Outdated and Broken

The State Of The Nation

From Forward Progressives

by Allen Clifton

First let me say, I believe our Constitution is one of the most remarkable documents ever written.  While flawed, it set the foundation to build a nation the likes of which the world had never before seen.

Many of the men responsible for writing it were ideological geniuses.

But the truth of the matter is it was written over 200 years ago.  We didn't have the internet, cell phones, satellites, semi-automatic weapons-hell, we didn't even have electricity.

So it's always somewhat baffled me to see people cling so tightly to something that was written so long ago.  To see highly educated individuals try and determine the correct "interpretation of the law based on the Constitution" for situations that didn't even exist when it was written, just doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.

Tell me, how the heck can we determine "Constitutional interpretation of law" based on laws which govern situations or events that couldn't have even been imagined when it was written?
And don't give me the "Constitutional Amendment process."  It's completely broken.  When our process for passing a Constitutional Amendment was written we had a handful of states and a Congress that was a fraction of the size.  It wasn't unheard of to get two-thirds of both the House and Senate as well as three-fourths of the states to ratify something.  Granted it wasn't easy, but it was much more realistic with numbers that were much smaller.

Obama Tells repugicans To Shove It As He Implements His Agenda Without Them

News of the positive sort

President Obama is done caring about what congressional repugicans think. The president is meeting with Democrats in order to implement his agenda without them.
According to Politico:

With the clock running on Obama’s time in office — he’s even started marking the number of days left in public speeches — the president is done caring about congressional Republicans calling him a dictator. Or calling him at all.

….

And he’s used the executive authority tactic before, including last summer’s controversial move to cut deportations for younger illegal immigrants and the mental health focus he announced as part of his gun control agenda after the Newtown massacre.
But administration officials and advisers say what’s ahead will be more extensive and frequent than previous efforts, and the White House is on the hunt for anything that can move without congressional approval, including encouraging efforts like Attorney General Eric Holder’s lawsuits to find new avenues of enforcement in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision on the Voting Rights Act last month.

In short, the president is telling repugicans to take their obstruction, shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.
Nothing enrages obstructionist congressional repugicans more than Obama working around them. The power to obstruct is only power that repugicans have left. John Boehner’s office has already been howling about a presidential power grab on every issue, but this is nothing different from what the Speaker has been saying for more than two years.
The repugicans have no one but themselves to blame for their current plight. They could have had a grand bargain on the taxes, the debt, and deficit. They could have worked with the president to modify Obamacare. They could have had a hand in immigration, but each time that the president offered cooperation and compromise, they said no. The repugicans have said no so often that President Obama’s only choice is to implement as much of his agenda as possible through executive action.
This course is nothing new for Obama. He did it on immigration. He didn’t need Congress to get rid of DADT. He doesn’t need Congress to implement parts of what he wants to do. It is refreshing to hear that President Obama doesn’t care anymore. The president seems to have realized that his legacy will be judged by what he accomplished, not what his political opponents called him.
The repugicans already think that he is an evil socialist dictator sent straight from Kenya. What could they possibly do beyond what they have done in their attempts to wreck his presidency?
The fact that President Obama no longer cares about repugicans means that this president is ready to get things done.
The repugicans pushed Obama too far, and in the process they have pushed themselves completely out of relevance.

Obama Has Put repugicans In a No Win Position With Offer To Cut Corporate Taxes

News of the positive sort

 

The repugicans claim to support free market capitalism and the idea that any operation must bring in revenue over and above expenses to increase profit. However, when it comes to government their goal is reducing revenue at all costs, and if there is new revenue they demand it is transferred directly to corporations and the wealthy. The repugican’s primary purpose in governing, besides killing jobs,  is increasing corporate profits at all costs by providing them with low tax rates and in many cases allows them to operate tax-free. America’s corporations enjoy some of the lowest tax rates in the world and it is primarily because the tax code provides write-offs, loopholes, credits, and tax breaks that allow many of the largest and most profitable corporations to pay nothing in taxes on perpetual record earnings.
The repugicans, at the behest of their corporate masters, complain bitterly that corporations are burdened with crushing federal taxes and spent the past four years demanding that President Obama support corporate tax cuts and reforms to increase business’s bottom line as well as reduce government revenue. On Tuesday, President Obama proposed corporate tax reform to increase government revenue for job creation primarily aimed at the shrinking and economically suffering middle class. As is their wont, repugicans demand that tax reform is revenue neutral because they will not tolerate spending one penny to create jobs and boost economic growth. In fact, Americans should be well aware by now that every policy proposal, agenda, and piece of legislation repugicans support in Congress and the states is solely to increase corporate profits while killing Americans’ jobs.
The corporate tax rate is, on paper, 35% but the real rate is 12.6% as of 2010 due to tax code loopholes allowing corporations to pay a lower rate than middle-class Americans. The President’s proposal will eliminate some of those loopholes while reducing the tax rate to produce new revenue he intends to use to create jobs. Corporations and repugicans demand that tax reform reduces the corporate rate and remain revenue neutral to prevent the federal government from bringing in new revenue to fund  $50 billion on infrastructure spending. Incidentally, a recent analysis shows that America desperately needs to invest $1 trillion in infrastructure to keep up with the rest of the civilized world, so $50 billion will hardly help the nation’s competitiveness, but it will create much-needed middle class jobs.  The repugicans claim reducing the corporate tax rate will lead to greater economic growth, but it is as false as their thirty year contention that giving the rich greater tax cuts is the key to job creation and a booming economy.
The President’s proposal includes raising revenue by taxing offshore profits that allow the largest corporations to enjoy obscene income tax free, but repugicans support big business’s proposal to bring their hoards of cash back to America only if they are given a “no-tax” holiday. In 2004, repugicans allowed corporations to bring untaxed earnings home and gave them a one-time-only tax rate of 5.25% if they repatriated the profits within a year, but the deal barely increased short-term revenue, and was a huge long-term revenue loss.  Corporations that took advantage of the deal used 92% of $300 billion of repatriated profits for payouts to their wealthy shareholders while eliminating thousands of jobs to cover their “burdensome” one-time repatriation tax rate. While corporations profited from the “tax holiday” and killed thousands of jobs, the government lost billions in revenue over the long haul that contributed to the deficit repugicans are using as a reason to cut spending, kill jobs, and oppose new job creation measures. As is usually the case with any proposal repugicans support, the economy, the people, and government loses to increase profits for their precious corporate donors.
President Obama’s proposal is not giving corporations a tax holiday for bringing their profits back to America as some critics complain because his reform plan includes changes in the way that corporations pay tax on international income. The benefit to the nation is it raises more much-needed revenue immediately than in later years, and curtails corporate domestic tax expenditures according to director of the National Economic Council. He said, “This is not…a repatriation tax of any kind… In any corporate tax reform that’s been done in other countries or any proposal that you see currently, there is one-time revenue” and it is exactly what the President is demanding to help create jobs. The President even pre-empted repugican demands that corporate tax reform be revenue neutral by making it clear that any reform has to be judged on the revenue raised in the second ten years of enactment and not just initial increases.
The President is offering a fair deal to corporations that have not paid taxes on their profits for too long, and eliminating tax-free gimmicks in exchange for a lower corporate tax rate is more than a generous offer from the American people who are picking up the tab when corporations avoid taxes. The repugicans complain that expecting corporations to pay their fair share on profits retards growth, but an Economic Policy Institute (EPI) economist debunked their claims as not holding up to scrutiny. He said “there is no apparent association between the statutory corporate tax rate and economic growth after examining every possible scenario including statutory tax rates, effective rates, effective rates on capital income rather than corporate income, as well as inserting a one-year lag in the data to see if the putative growth effects were being hidden.” However, the benefit to the nation’s economy is immeasurable in the jobs created if repugicans can concede spending a measly $50 billion on infrastructure improvement.
In repugican parlance, revenue neutral means giving corporations reduced rates, a tax-free holiday on repatriated profits, and an all-clear to kill more jobs by keeping their operations overseas to take advantage of unfair tax incentives. The President cannot change the tax code on his own, and his proposal is more generous than corporations deserve, but repugicans will oppose any offer that does not reduce government revenue. It is important to remember that repugicans have signed a solemn pledge to Grover Norquist to never increase taxes under any circumstances, and coupled with their blind obedience to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Koch brothers, and Wall Street to oppose any reform that does not starve the government of revenue (their definition of revenue neutral), it is unlikely they will even consider the President’s proposal.
President Obama is putting repugicans in a no-win position with the public by proposing to cut the corporate tax rate in exchange for reforming the corporate tax code. Many of the largest corporations are hoarding hundreds of billions of dollars offshore on international profits, and besides the most profitable American corporations paying zero taxes, those that do pay enjoy a low 12.6% rate that is a lower than most Americans in the middle class. Americans in the middle class are quickly slipping into poverty, and even though $50 billion in infrastructure spending is twenty times less than what the country requires to remain competitive, it will assuage the devastating effects of the $85 billion sequester cuts and help offset the millions of jobs being eliminated indiscriminately.
Americans have experienced a thirty-year experiment in giving tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations that has decimated the middle class and created a nation of peasants barely able to survive. Although President Obama’s proposals will not completely solve the economic malaise or create full employment, it is a step in the right direction that leaves repugicans with little choice but admit their goal is killing growth, jobs, and transferring what is left of 98% of the population’s wealth directly to the uber-rich and their corporations, or pass the President’s tax reform and invest in infrastructure spending to create jobs. However, with their stated war on the people in full swing, their apparent joy at killing jobs, cutting domestic programs, and creating poverty, the chance they will break their no-tax pledge to Grover Norquist or disobey their corporate masters means they will block the President’s reform proposals. With the President’s recent propensity to speak to the people with brutal candor and take his case to the public, repugicans are going to face an angry middle class that, like the President, has had enough of the repugican cabal.

Onion accurately predicts repugican opposition to anti-asteroid initiative

Well, What Do You Know

Congressional repugicans are fighting Obama's plan to put a base on the moon and use it to launch an asteroid-capture program which would give NASA some practice in deflecting future asteroid-strikes -- as well as setting the stage for more ambitious missions, such as one to Mars. This whole kerfuffle was predicted by the Onion, two years ago, in a story called "repugicans Vote To Repeal Obama-Backed Bill That Would Destroy Asteroid Headed For Earth."

The Onion, one of America's leading satirical news outlets, has predicted the future before. Al Qaeda squabbling with 9/11 truthers, for instance. Or the Onion's piece on George W. Bush ushering in an era of war and economic recession...published in January 2001.

The Onion Predicts Real Life: repugicans Block NASA's Asteroid Plan 

Let them eat ... nothing

Lunatic Fringe 

That's the repugican plan.

The $20.5 billion in food stamp cuts that wasn't enough cutting for many house repugicans would kick more than 5 million people out of the program, according to a new report from the health impact project. Of that 5 million, more than 500,000 are currently suffering from food insecurity despite getting food stamps, and another 160,000 to 305,000 people could become food insecure as a result of the cuts. That's a whole lot of people who would go hungry as a direct result of cuts that, let's repeat, are not big enough for many house repugicans.

If you are, repugican-like, tempted to think "sure, people will go hungry, but we'll save money," consider this: no, we won't. increased food insecurity and increased poverty would raise the risk of many illnesses, raising health care costs. - More

Boehner's Congress

Lunatic Fringe

Repeal This! Speaker Boehner’s Do-Nothing Congress

It’s simply an objective fact that this Congress is on track to be the least productive in modern history, owing largely to the inability or unwillingness of Speaker John Boehner (r-OH) to move almost even the most basic legislation through the House of Representatives. That’s right, the Senate is a font of bipartisan comity and productivity compared to the do-nothing House.

Asked about this yesterday on Face the Nation, Speaker Boehner offered up this thoroughly ridiculous defense of Congress’ historically unproductive session:

    We should not be judged on how many new laws we create. We ought to be judged on how many laws we repeal. We’ve got more laws than the administration could ever enforce.

Even by Boehner’s own bizarre standard, Congress has still been spectacularly ineffective. House repugicans have not successfully repealed Obamacare or Wall Street reform, but they have wasted millions of dollars and weeks of time trying — and failing — to do so. As MSNBC’s Steve Benen noted, “In other words, by Boehner’s own standards for evaluating Congress on the merits, he’s failing.”

All that said, we’ll take the Speaker at his word. With that in mind, here’s some things we’d love for him to get to repealing as soon as possible:

•     The Defense of Marriage Act: While the Supreme Court threw out the part of DOMA that prohibited the federal government from recognizing legally valid same-sex marriages, the part that allows states to refuse to do so is still on the books. Congress should get rid of that part too.
•     Giveaways to Big Oil: Oil prices are once again creeping up, which is a good reminder that oil companies don’t need billions of dollars a year in giveaways from taxpayers. Some of these giveaways have been on the books for a century, so they definitely seem ripe for repeal at a time of sky-high oil prices and Big Oil profits to go along with them.
•     Restrictions on Abortion in the District of Columbia: Unable to impose their will on the nation, Republicans have used Congress’ enduring control over the affairs of the District of Columbia’s more than 600,000 disenfranchised residents to advance various pet causes. One of them has been to forbid the District from using funds generated by the taxpayers of the District themselves (i.e local, not federal funds) to pay for abortions for low-income women.
•     Giveaways to Hedge Fund and Private Equity Managers: The so-called “carried interest” loophole is the one that allows hedge fund and private equity managers — and hedge fund and private equity managers alone — to avoid paying their fair share in taxes on billions in income by erroneously classifying ordinary income as investment income. It has no economic justification and allows people like Mitt Romney to get away with paying a lower tax rate than many middle class workers.
•     Restrictions on Commonsense Gun Violence Prevention Measures: Similar to the aforementioned restrictions on abortion in Washington, D.C., Congress has also seen fit to put numerous restrictions on the ability of the federal government to take commonsense steps to reduce gun violence. These NRA-backed “riders” in annual appropriations bills, including those preventing even basic public health research on gun violence and measures meant to reduce gun trafficking, should be repealed instead of being extended for yet another year.

We could go on. In fact, there’s nearly $1 TRILLION in wasteful and unnecessary giveaways in the tax code alone that Congress could repeal today. Boehner also said yesterday that his top priority is repairing the nation’s finances. If reducing the deficit and repealing things are his top priorities, these giveaways would seem to be a good place for Boehner to start.

NSA warned to rein in surveillance as agency reveals even greater scope

The State Of The Nation

From The Guardian

The National Security Agency revealed to an angry congressional panel on Wednesday that its analysis of phone records and online behavior goes exponentially beyond what it had previously disclosed.

John C Inglis, the deputy director of the surveillance agency, told a member of the House judiciary committee that NSA analysts can perform "a second or third hop query" through its collections of telephone data and internet records in order to find connections to terrorist organizations.

"Hops" refers to a technical term indicating connections between people. A three-hop query means that the NSA can look at data not only from a suspected terrorist, but from everyone that suspect communicated with, and then from everyone those people communicated with, and then from everyone all of those people communicated with.

Inglis did not elaborate, nor did the members of the House panel - many of whom expressed concern and even anger at the NSA - explore the legal and privacy implications of the breadth of "three-hop" analysis.

But Inglis and other intelligence and law enforcement officials testifying before the committee said that the NSA's ability to query the data follows rules set by the secret FISA court, although about two dozen NSA officials determine for themselves when those criteria are satisified.

Ziggy

Daily Comic Relief

NSA-loving, Internet-hating Rep Mike Rogers' staffers say criticism is "defamation"

Lunatic Fringe 

Rep Mike Rogers (r-MI) is a former FBI spook turned Congressman. In addition to being an authoritarian creep (he was one of CISPA's co-sponsors) who hates Internet users (he dismissed CISPA's millions of vociferous opponents as "14-year-olds in their basement clicking around on the internet") and loves warrantless NSA spying -- he's also apparently a coward, whose staffers reportedly say that criticizing him on the Internet is defamation. According to a Michigan reporter, they told the press that Rogers could sue Techdirt's Mike Masnick for "defamation" for closely and critically covering his policies. As Masnick says, it's "unbecoming of an elected official to try to chill the free speech of those who criticize his statements and actions with implied threats of lawsuits to silence their public participation."

I had a fun phone call with a reporter in Michigan earlier today who is apparently working on a story about Rep. Mike Rogers. In doing some research for the article, he spoke with staffers in Rogers' office about some of the things I've written about Rogers and his position on internet surveillance and cybersecurity. The reporter told me that the staffers said they're "well aware of" me, but that they felt I was "an extreme liberal" and that I was using "liberal" talking points to attack him. Also, according to this reporter, they said that they could sue me for defamation concerning things I'd said about Rogers. Yes, it's come to this.

Staffers For Rep. Mike Rogers Apparently Claim They Could Sue Me For Defamation

TGI Friday franchisee fined over booze swap claim

From the "Greedy and Stupid" Department

A top TGI Friday's franchisee will pay $500,000 after claims that it refilled bottles of premium booze with cheap swill. The Briad Group operated restaurants raided by New Jersey officials in May, during which some 250 bottles were seized. From the New Jersey Attorney General:

The operation focused on 29 establishments because of information from confidential informants, consumer complaints and testing of samples conducted by both the ABC and the manufacturers of the brands. The samples were taken in January and February when ABC investigators visited 63 licensed establishments across the state and covertly took 150 samples. The undercover ABC detectives visited these establishments and secured samples of premium brand spirits by paying for drinks ordered “neat” – that is with no ice or mixer. Some of the locations visited had previous complaints against them, and some were chosen at random. The investigation remains ongoing with respect to the other establishments targeted in “Operation Swill.”

Children, 7 and 10, faced "lifetime gag" in fracking settlement

Corporate Arrogance 

A natural gas well is drilled near Canton, in Bradford County, Pennsylvania. After their home was "ruined" by nearby drilling operations, Stephanie and Christopher Hallowich were so frightened of the potential effects that, in return for a settlement, they agreed to a gag order that forbade them—and their minor-age children—from ever discussing the subject in public.
From The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

The non-disclosure agreement prohibiting Chris and Stephanie Hallowich from talking about the 2011 settlement of their high-profile Marcellus Shale damage case in Washington County, or saying anything about gas drilling and fracking, isn't unusual. It happens often in settling such cases. But the insistence that their two minor children, then ages 7 and 10, are also bound by the "gag order" is.

"Our position is it does apply to the whole family," said James Swetz, the attorney representing Range Resources at the settlement hearing. "We would certainly enforce it."
The drillers paid $750,000 to the family after being accused of ruining their home, making their land unsellable, and threatening the health of the two children.
Barbara Miller, a staff writer at the Observer-Reporter, writes that the company has now backed off from the lifetime gag claims after they were publicized by reporters: "The kids can say whatever they want."

Court Clerk Fired For Helping Secure DNA Test That Proved A Man’s Innocence

Judicial Malfeasance

by Nicole Flatow

 

A 70-year-old woman employed by the same court for more than 34 years was fired just nine months before her scheduled retirement, for helping an inmate obtain a DNA test that led to his exoneration.
Robert Nelson was freed from prison last month, after serving years for a rape he maintained he didn’t commit. After testing his DNA, the Kansas City Police Department’s crime lab determined that DNA tests excluded Nelson from the evidence recovered from the rape, according to the Associated Press.
Nelson had been convicted 25 years earlier, but the DNA testing wasn’t available then. When DNA testing did become available, defendants were not made aware of new technology, or offered testing. Nelson first sought to have his DNA tested in 2009, but a judge rejected his motion because he did not meet statutory criteria. Nelson tried again two years later with no success. Acting on his own, from his prison cell, without a lawyer, Nelson did not have the legal wherewithal to file the motion himself.
In late 2011, court clerk Sharon Snyder did something that made all the difference. She gave Nelson’s sister a copy of a similar motion filed in another case. Using that motion as a reference, Nelson succeeded in securing DNA testing on his third try, in February 2012. Only then was he assigned a lawyer. And more than a year later, that DNA test secured Nelson’s freedom.
Days later, Snyder was fired for violating court rules about assisting a party in a case. As Conor Friedersdorf points out in the Atlantic, Snyder emerged relatively unscathed, retaining her pension and having planned to retire soon anyway.
But the real travesty is that, had Snyder not violated rules and risked her termination, Nelson might have never been exonerated. There are several reasons for this. One is that he had scant access to a lawyer until he successfully made a motion on his own that he was not equipped to make, with no guidance or even template for moving forward. Another is that many prosecutors are vigorous opponents to testing that could provide definitive, scientific evidence about a case. DNA evidence exonerating one person is not only evidence that person is innocent; it is also evidence that the real perpetrator may still be at large. The third, glaring, hallmark of injustice is that defendants do not have a right to test their own DNA, even at their own expense. All of this means that inmates are remaining in jail unnecessarily — and death row inmates remain on death row, even as new evidence continues to emerge about the significant flaws in several other types of forensic evidence.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last term that states may keep searchable databases with DNA of those arrested but not convicted, for use by prosecutors. Whether or not this is a violation of Fourth Amendment, the most lamentable element of this decision is that law enforcers now have more access to suspects’ DNA than defendants have to their own.

Falling dentures thwarted bride-to-be's plan to pass drugs to jailed groom with a kiss

Dumb Crooks

A would-be bride was arrested last Wednesday and charged with attempting to smuggle drugs into the Scott County Jail, Tennessee, when she allegedly arrived for her nuptials with a jail inmate with more than just her wedding gown.

Brita Lee West, 47, of Jamestown, showed up at the Scott County Justice Center to marry Willard Tinch, a Jamestown man who is incarcerated at the jail. Instead of a wedding, West was booked on drug possession charges when corrections officers allegedly discovered narcotics hidden inside her mouth.

According to a report filed by the Scott County Sheriff’s Department, West inquired about being able to kiss her groom during the marital ceremony as she was being searched prior to entering the facility. Corrections Sgt. Tiffany Byrge reportedly noticed that West’s “false teeth kept falling down while she was talking and noticed a package in her mouth,” according to the report. The package turned out to be a gum wrapper containing two strips of suboxone, an addictive pain relief narcotic, and an amount of crystal methamphetamine.

West was placed under arrest. A subsequent search of her vehicle allegedly revealed another package of crystal meth, along with crushed pills and “various drug paraphernalia.” She was booked on felony charges of possession of meth, possession of a Schedule III controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and introduction of drugs into a penal facility. She was placed under a $25,000 bond. The wedding ceremony was cancelled.

Daily Comic Relief

Daily Comic Relief

Sayings 2.0

Odds and Sods

Those old sayings we used to live by have been updated for the hi-tech world we live in, one by cousin Nab, and the rest by Doghouse Diaries.

Ladies and gentlemen, stop your engines

Odds and Sods

Ladies and gentlemen, stop your engines: Americans driving less

Miles driven by U.S. motorists in light-duty vehicles are down about 5 percent since its peak in 2006, says a University of Michigan researcher. Following up his recent research that showed that the number of [...]

A Russian 1916 Wooden Aircraft Carrier?

Odds and Sods

No, that couldn't be right… This 100+ meter ship is really a river barge with its cargo stacked artfully on top! Wooden ships like this were built by stacking logs in the forests of Russia, and after they floated down the Volga and Vetluga rivers, they were disassembled. What craftsmanship to put into a ship for one trip! That's why photographs of the boats are few, but you can see more of them and read about these huge wooden river ships at Dark Roasted Blend.

Random Photos

Pictures Say A Thousand Words

The Alberta Oil Sands Have Been Leaking for 10 Weeks

It's Only The Environment After All

 

Photos provided by a government scientist show the site of an oil spill in Cold Lake, Alberta. 

 

Ten weeks ago, an oil leak started at a tar sands extraction operation in Cold Lake, Alberta, and it's showing no signs of stopping.

 The Toronto Star reported that an anonymous government scientist who had been to the spill site—which is operated by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.—warned that the leak wasn't going away. "Everybody [at the company and in government] is freaking out about this," the scientist told the Star. "We don't understand what happened. Nobody really understands how to stop it from leaking, or if they do they haven't put the measures into place." The Star reported that 26,000 barrels of watery tar have been removed from the site.

The impacted area spans some 30 acres of swampy forest, said Bob Curran, a spokesperson for the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER), which oversees these sites. According to the Star, pictures and the documents provided by the scientist show that dozens of animals, including loons and beavers, have been killed, and some 60,000 pounds of contaminated vegetation have been removed. You can see the pictures at the Star's website.

It's Not Like We Don't Have Another One

The Floating Icebergs Of Jökulsárlón

Planet Earth

The Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon in Iceland is situated on the country's southeast coast. With its powder blue icebergs floating, bobbing and flipping atop the water's surface, Jökulsárlón has become one of Iceland's most famous sights.

Science News

Scientific Minds Want To Know

Desert 'carbon farming' to curb CO2

Researchers say that planting large amounts of trees in deserts could cheaply and effectively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

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Ocean mud yields novel antibiotic

A completely new and unusual antibiotic compound has been extracted from a marine microbe found in sediments off the coast of California.

• Silver 'boost to antibiotic success'
• Science spend 'vital for economy'

Dinosaurs had 'flight-ready' brains

Several ancient dinosaurs evolved the brainpower needed for flight long before they could take to the skies. scientists say.

• Bird ancestor reshuffles fossil pack
• Feathers fly in first bird debate

Swedish authorities tell nightclub music is too loud for its fish

Animal News

A Gothenburg nightclub has been told to turn down the music after authorities found the club's pet fish were suffering from the noise.

When the County Administrative Board (Länsstyrelsen) checked up on the nightclub, representatives found the beats were so loud that the cichlids in the fish tanks were deemed to be at risk.

Swedish rules state that music cannot be played over 65 decibels for extended periods when pet animals are in the vicinity, and the nightclub's music was recorded to be at 100 decibels. The owner of the nightclub, however, claims that the measurements were carried out incorrectly, and that the fish were in a separate room where the noise does not affect them.

But the board insisted that the club gets either new aquariums or quieter music, otherwise it risks losing its permit to have animals on the premises. Cichlids are a popular freshwater fish, often kept as pets, with well over 1,500 species recorded.

Cattle farmer suspects aliens could be mutilating her livestock

Extraterrestrial News

A cattle farmer who has found cows mutilated in her fields is not ruling out the deaths could be extraterrestrial related after vets were unable explain the mystery. Lyn Mitchell, from Henry County, Missouri, said the deaths of three separate beasts could not be explained by science with the cows suffering strange injuries and dying under mysterious circumstances and now thinks aliens could be to blame for killing her livestock. Initially she thought the deaths were the result of a satanic ritual or cruel teenagers, but the extent of the injuries and char mark surrounding the corpses left her at a loss to explain how it came about.

Mitchell found the first cow in December 2011. "She had obviously been cut on the side of her jaw," Mitchell said. "Her tongue was gone, her ear was gone." She initially assumed the animal had fallen victim to teenagers or was part of a sacrificial ritual, until earlier this month. Mitchell made the next discovery on July 9. "I looked first to see her tongue was gone, then immediately noticed the udder had been completely removed," Mitchell said. The reproductive organs were gone too, Mitchell said. A char mark outlining the cow's body - still visible today - made the death even more mysterious.

Finally on July 19, Mitchell found the third cow. She said its heart was exposed and its teats were cut off. All three animals' tongues were also cut out. Mitchell said the cuts all looked surgical with clean, precise incisions. And in all three deaths, Mitchell said there was no blood despite the animals' gaping wounds. Since the cows graze in such an isolated place, nobody saw or heard a thing. Mitchell said the sheriff's department and a veterinarian have investigated, but can't come up with an answer.

YouTube link. LiveLeak link.

"The more it happens, the more questions you get. And the more you learn, you find more and more things that make you ask more questions," Mitchell said. With all other reasonable causes debunked, Mitchell said she is open to the possibility that extraterrestrial life could be responsible. Mitchell is considering installing cameras to catch the person or thing in action the next time they visit her ranch. She just wants the killing to stop. "Something happened to these cows and it's not something that you see every day, it's not in your normal, so something else is going on," Mitchell said.

Animal News

Animal News

Many Stranded Bottlenose Dolphins May Be Deaf

The causes of hearing loss in dolphins aren't clear, but aging, shipping noise and side effects from antibiotics could play roles.

'Mysterious' Cow Mutilations Spur Alien Theories

Mysterious cattle mutilations on a Missouri ranch have spawned many wild theories, but science may have the answer.

Rat Laughs Off Cancer With HA

Naked mole rats live very long lives for a rodent and hardly ever get cancer. What's their secret? Scientists have identified a molecule named HMM-HA that seems to keep cancer at bay. 

'Dolly' Scientist Says Mammoth Should Be Cloned

The man responsible for creating the world's first cloned animal says the preserved blood from a frozen mammoth should be used to make another mammoth.

Animal Pictures

Animal Pictures

The kids can be a pain in the ass!