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Is the Government Spying on Reporters More Often Than We Think?

Sat, 18 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Julian Sanchez - May. 18 (Opinion) - The Justice Department's seizure of call logs related to phone lines used by dozens of Associated Press reporters has provoked a flurry of bipartisan criticism, most of which has cast the decision as a disturbing departure from the norm. AP head Gary Pruitt condemned the decision, part of an investigation into leaks of classified information, as a "massive and unprecedented intrusion." Yet there's plenty of circumstantial evidence suggesting the seizure may not be unprecedented—just rarely disclosed. The Justice Department is supposed to follow special rules when it seeks the phone records of reporters, in recognition that such snooping conflicts with First Amendment values. As Pruitt complained in an angry letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, those logs provided the government a "road map" of the stories his reporters were investigating, and there is evidence that such seizures deter anonymous sources from speaking to the press—whether they"re discussing classified programs ...

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Could Gosnell trial testimony end today?

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Philadelphia Inquirer - Apr. 24 (News Analysis) - After five weeks of prosecution evidence, the defense in the murder trial of West Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell could be over this afternoon.

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MIA at the Supreme Court: DOMA Lawyer's Most Homophobic Arguments

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Adam Serwer - Mar. 29 (Opinion) - Former Solicitor General Paul Clement, who was chosen by House Republicans to defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act before the Supreme Court, had previously argued that people can change their sexual orientation, that marriage is only for couples that can produce children, that gay and lesbian couples could be worse parents than heterosexuals, and that barring same-sex marriage "encourage[s] heterosexual relationships." But in a sign that the anti-same-sex marriage crowd may be losing faith in its own rhetoric, Clement didn't deploy any of those arguments at the Supreme Court on Wednesday . Instead, he stuck to trying to convince the justices that the Defense of Marriage Act didn't infringe on the states' power. Clement insisted that defining marriage as between one man and one woman was acceptable because the federal government needs to characterize marriage for its own purposes. Clement never bothered trying to prove that excluding same-sex couples from marriage is a ...

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Facing the Threat of the Trans-Pacific Treaty

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

The Tyee - By Raul Burbano, Kristen Beifus, Manuel Pérez-Rocha - Mar. 08 (Opinion) - Since NAFTA was signed almost 20 years ago, all three North American countries have seen good jobs vanish, worsening income inequality, public services weakened through underfunding or offloaded to the private sector, increased food insecurity (in particular in Mexico), and ecosystems on the point of breaking. NAFTA promised a flourishing North American economy that would benefit all. In Jan. 2014, NAFTA has been in place for 20 years and the promised trickle down benefits have not been realized by communities.

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Should Cops Be Allowed to Seize Your DNA?

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By Erika Eichelberger - Feb. 26 (News Analysis) - On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case that will decide whether cops should be allowed to force people they arrest to give a DNA sample. Since the early 1990s, 26 states have passed laws requiring DNA to be collected upon arrest for a serious offense, and loaded into a national database, where it can help match offenders to unsolved crimes. This is the first time the Supreme Court has reviewed this practice, and the case promises to produce one of the most significant Fourth Amendment rulings in years. The case at hand, Maryland v. King , centers around Alonzo King, who was arrested in 2009 after he was accused of pointing a gun at a group of people in Maryland. The police took his fingerprints and swabbed the inside of his cheek for DNA. King was convicted on assault charges and sentenced to four years in jail, but when his DNA profile was found to match evidence from an unsolved 2003 rape case, he was charged with that crime and sentenced to life in prison. King ...

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Inside the Radical Plan to Fight Foreclosures With Eminent Domain

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By Josh Harkinson - Jan. 07 (Special Report) - On a drizzly November morning, Steven Gluckstern speeds through the half-empty subdivisions that spread out for miles as you head east from San Francisco into California's Central Valley. Taking the exit in downtown Merced, a small city that's hit hard times, he passes a grizzled panhandler holding a sign that says, "Will work to get out of Hell."

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Study Reveals Disparities in Juvenile Justice

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New America Media - By Asian American Press - Oct. 28 (News Report) - Youth-of-color tend to be overrepresented nationally at justice-system decision points focused on accountability, including arrest, secure detention, petition-to-court and transfer to adult court.

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How To Sweep Dark Money Out of Politics

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Monika Bauerlein, Clara Jeffery - Jun. 18 - Justice John Paul Stevens had seen a lot of precedent overturned by the time the Supreme Court ruled on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in January 2010. Appointed to the court by Gerald Ford after a career as a distinguished Republican jurist, he'd been there for contentious cases on abortion, the death penalty, Gitmo, you name it. But none had prepared him for the way the court's new conservative majority, led by John Roberts, seized on an obscure campaign finance case expected to produce a narrow ruling and used it to shred nearly four decades of federal law. The majority opinion in Citizens United takes up 57 pages, but it's pretty efficiently boiled down as follows: (1) Money is speech; (2) corporations are people; (3) therefore, under the First Amendment, the government can't stop corporations from spending money on politics pretty much however they choose. Stevens penned an impassioned 90-page dissent lambasting the "glittering generality" of this construction. "Although ...

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In Defense of Marriage

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - Jun. 02 (Editorial) - The federal appeals court ruling last week that struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act did not say whether same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, but the decision sets the stage for what will almost certainly be a Supreme Court showdown over the unfair treatment of gay people and their families.

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Arizona's immigration law is back in court, "self-deportation" on the rise

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Public Radio International - By The Takeaway - Apr. 26 (News Report) - The term "self-deportation" started out as a joke made by Mexican-American satirist Lalo Alcaraz. Since then, the joke has taken on a life of its own, becoming a catch-phrase for supporters of anti-illegal immigration legislation.

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Prop. 8: Gay-marriage ban unconstitutional, court rules

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Los Angeles Times - By LA Times Staff - Feb. 07 (Breaking News) - A federal appeals court Tuesday struck down California's ban on same-sex marriage, clearing the way for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on gay marriage as early as next year.

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Tucson's ethnic-studies program violates Arizona law, judge rules

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Los Angeles Times - By Stephen Ceasar - Dec. 28 (News Report) - The ruling affirms a decision by the state schools superintendent and could end classes on Mexican American heritage.

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Newt Gingrich: Abolish Liberal, 'Anti-American' Courts

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Amanda Terkel - Dec. 15 (News Report) - Gingrich has called for the abolition of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which is despised by conservatives for many of its liberal rulings.

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U.S. District Attorney Goodwin: Alpha "not a life, it's not a being, it can't go to jail."

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Writing Corner - By Beth Wellington - Dec. 07 (Opinion) - Montcoal, WV. 3:27 PM on Monday, April 5, 2010. It was the worst U.S. coal-mining disaster in nearly 40 years. Twenty months ago, just across the river from Coal River Mountain on Cherry Pond Mountain near its mountaintop removal mine, Massey Energy's underground mine at Upper Big Branch exploded.

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'Clearing the Smoke': The Benefits, Limits of Medical Marijuana | PBS NewsHour | PBS Video

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

PBS - Sep. 07 (News) -

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Lessons from a gay student's killing

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Sandy Banks - Sep. 06 (News Report) - Neither family was satisfied when the jury deadlocked last week in the trial of an Oxnard teenager charged with murdering a gay middle-school classmate before stunned students in an English class. The parents of the dead boy, Larry King, stormed out of court when the mistrial was announced. The mother of defendant Brandon McInerney buried her face in her hands, slumped and sobbed.

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'Kids for cash' judge sentenced to 28 years for racketeering scheme

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - By Warren Richey - Aug. 12 (News Report) - A former juvenile court judge in Pennsylvania was sentenced to 28 years in prison on Thursday for his part in an alleged “kids for cash” scam considered one of the worst judicial scandals in US history. Mark Ciavarella Jr., 61, a former judge in Luzerne County, was also ordered to pay $1.17 million in restitution. Mr. Ciavarella was convicted in federal court in Scranton, Pa., in February on charges that he and a second judge, Michael Conahan, ran the local court system as a racketeering enterprise.

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What did Nixon say?

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Rick Perlstein - Aug. 09 (News Report) - A judge says the disgraced president's grand jury testimony, the one time he was required to tell the truth of Watergate, should be unsealed. Prepare to be shocked anew by the politician's venality.

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How USA Today Slips $82 Million a Year Onto Your Hotel Bill

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Forbes - By Jeff Bercovici - Aug. 02 (News) - Gannett Co., the publisher of USA Today, has been profiting to the tune of tens of millions of dollars a year from these small charges.

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The Ultimate Punishment

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Urbanite - By Michael Corbin - Jul. 28 (Special Report) - While capital punishment has been upheld in the courts and has high levels of support among the public, the death penalty is on the decline nationwide. Yet in Maryland, as in all death penalty states, major variations exist at the local level.

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City landlord pleads guilty in lead paint case

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Baltimore Sun - By Meredith Cohn - Jul. 19 (News) - A Baltimore landlord with a history of violations of lead paint abatement laws agreed to plead guilty Tuesday to three misdemeanor violations of the Toxic Substances Control Act. Cephus Murrell, who owns and manages 175 apartments in Baltimore, failed to notify tenants of potential hazards from lead paint, conducted abatement while children were on site and did not have a supervisor on site during the abatement, according to the office of the U.S. attorney for Maryland.

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Accused in robo-call case plead not guilty

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Aaron C. Davis - Jul. 18 (News) - A top campaign aide and a political operative who worked on former Maryland governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.’s bid to retake the governor’s mansion last year pleaded not guilty Monday to charges that they sought to use robo-calls to suppress turnout among black voters.

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Md. robo-call case going to court

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Aaron C. Davis - Jul. 17 (News) - As the case moves to court Monday, the lesser-known defendant and his often controversial, behind-the-scenes work for Maryland political campaigns are poised to take center stage.

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The Budget-Slashing Hysteria's Latest Victim: Legal Aid for the Poor

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Kat Aaron - Jul. 13 (Special Report) - "Demand is just going to keep going up. People are still losing their jobs. People are still struggling to put food on the table. Foreclosures are still happening," says Cynthia Martinez, spokeswoman for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, the state's largest legal-services agency. "Last year, we had to turn away half of the people that came to us because we just don't have the resources. And it's not like when we say no, the legal problems just go away."

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Court limits Sparrows Point pollution liability

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Baltimore Sun - By Timothy B. Wheeler - Jul. 12 (News) - In a ruling that's left Dundalk-area residents shaking their heads, a federal court has declared that recent owners of the century-old steel-making complex at Sparrows Point can't be made to clean up past contamination of surrounding waters.

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