Law

Commissioners Sued Over Liquefied Methane Gas Zoning

June 12, 2014 Sarah Fleischman, www.somdnews.com Resist! Fracking, Gas, Law, Maryland

The Accokeek Mattawoman Piscataway Creeks Council is suing the Calvert County Board of County Commissioners over the board’s decision to exempt liquefied natural gas facilities from county zoning ordinances. The case was heard Friday by visiting Judge James P. Salmon as protestors rallied outside the courthouse. The amendment to exempt LNG facilities was adopted after a joint public hearing with the Calvert County Planning Commission in October. Attorney Atty J. Holzer, representing the AMP council, said the amendment passed Oct. 29, 2013, was “unquestionably property specific,” meaning the text amendment to the zoning ordinance was created solely for the proposed export project at Dominion Cove Point in Lusby. But county attorney John Norris said the amendment applies to all 430 properties zoned as I-1 within the county. The amendment was to allow LNG facilities to bypass local zoning and permitting regulations, but not state or federal ones like those regulating the critical area. Facilities such as Dominion Cove Point and Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant are highly regulated by federal agencies and the county does not have the expertise to deal with them, he said. The 2006 ordinance already included the nuclear plant, but the 2013 amendment was expanded to include LNG terminals.

Judge Rejects Teacher Tenure For California

June 12, 2014 Jennifer Medina, www.nytimes.com Educate! Education, Law, Unions

A California judge ruled Tuesday that teacher tenure laws deprived students of their right to an education under the State Constitution and violated their civil rights. The decision hands teachers’ unions a major defeat in a landmark case, one that could radically alter how California teachers are hired and fired and prompt challenges to tenure laws in other states. “Substantial evidence presented makes it clear to this court that the challenged statutes disproportionately affect poor and/or minority students,” Judge Rolf M. Treu of Los Angeles Superior Court wrote in the ruling. “The evidence is compelling. Indeed, it shocks the conscience.” The decision, which was enthusiastically endorsed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, brings a close to the first chapter of the case, Vergara v. California, in which a group of student plaintiffs backed by a Silicon Valley millionaire argued that state tenure laws had deprived them of a decent education by leaving bad teachers in place. Both sides expect the case to generate more like it in cities and states around the country. David Welch, a Silicon Valley technology magnate, spent several million dollars to create the organization that brought the Vergara case to court — Students Matter — and paid for a team of high-profile lawyers, including Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., who helped win a Supreme Court decision striking down California’s same-sex marriage ban. While the next move is still unclear, the group is considering filing lawsuits in New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Oregon, New Mexico, Idaho and Kansas as well as other states with powerful unions where legislatures have defeated attempts to change teacher tenure laws.

Fracking: Class Action Lawsuit Filed

June 11, 2014 Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, www.celdf.org Resist! Colorado, Environment, Fracking, Law

LAFAYETTE, CO: Today, residents of Lafayette, CO, filed a first-of-its-kind class action lawsuit against the State of Colorado, Governor John Hickenlooper, and the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. The lawsuit was filed to protect the rights of the people of Lafayette to self-governance, including their right to ban fracking. In November 2013, residents of Lafayette overwhelmingly adopted a Home Rule Charter Amendment banning all new commercial extraction of natural gas and oil within the City limits. The Amendment establishes a Community Bill of Rights - including the right of human and natural communities to water and a healthy environment. The Bill of Rights bans fracking and other extraction as a violation of those rights. In December, the Colorado Oil and Gas Association filed a lawsuit against the City of Lafayette to overturn the Community Bill of Rights. The association is contending that the community does not have the legal authority to protect itself from fracking, and that corporate members of the association have the constitutional “right” to frack.

City Agrees To Largest Occupy Wall Street Settlement Ever

June 11, 2014 Nick Pinto, www.gothamist.com Resist! Law, NYPD, Occupy, Police

During Occupy Wall Street’s heyday in 2011 and 2012, the NYPD made them pay, again and again and again, for exercising their right to assembly and free speech. Nearly three years later, New York City taxpayers are still paying for the NYPD's approach to policing lawful protest. Today, lawyers announced the largest settlement with New York City yet, with the city paying out $583,024 to 14 protesters who were arrested for disorderly conduct on January 1st of 2012. Sources familiar with today’s settlement said that that the case was ready to go to trial before Judge Shira Scheindlin until a few months ago, when, while being deposed for the trial, a senior NYPD official who was present during the arrests was unable to point out in videos of the event a single moment when any of the defendants committed any act of disorderly conduct. According to the protesters' complaint, the demonstrators were part of a march passing through the East Village that night when police ordered them to disperse. “This was a constitutionally unlawful order,” said Wylie Stecklow, a lawyer for the protesters, at a press conference at City Hall today. “The march was not yet blocking the sidewalk, and just minutes before this unlawful dispersal order, the police had ordered the marchers to keep walking.”

How Corporations Get Away With Rampant Wage Theft

June 10, 2014 Myron Levin, Stuart Silverstein and Lilly Fowler, www.salon.com Educate! Law, Minimum Wage, Wage Theft

For workers stuck on the bottom rung, living on poverty wages is hard enough. But many also are victims of wage theft, a catch-all term for payroll abuses that cheat workers of income they are supposedly guaranteed by law. Over the last few years employers ranging from baseball’s San Francisco Giants to Subway franchises to Farmers Insurance have been cited for wage violations. More often, though, wage abuses are not reported by victims or punished by authorities despite being routine in some low-wage industries. “If you steal from your employer, you’re going to be hauled out of the workplace in handcuffs,” said Kim Bobo, a Chicago workers rights advocate and author. “But if your employer steals from you, you’ll be lucky to get your money back. Victims typically are low wage, low-skilled workers desperate to hang on to their jobs. Frequently, they are immigrants—the most vulnerable and least apt to speak up. “They know that if they complain, there’s always someone else out there who is willing to take their job,” said Maria Echaveste, a former labor official during the Clinton administration who is now at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. While heart-breaking for employees, wage theft also robs federal and state treasuries of many billions of dollars in taxes, and puts employers who play by the rules at a serious competitive disadvantage.

Youth Denied Critical Climate Change Relief By US Court

June 9, 2014 Our Children's Trust, www.ourchildrenstrust.org Resist! Climate Change, Law, Youth

On June 5, 2014, a panel of judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia refused to grant important climate change relief sought by youth appellants. The young people’s lawsuit asked the federal government to do its part in restoring the atmosphere to 350 parts per million (ppm) of CO by the end of the century. The appellants’ requested relief was based on the urgent warning of leading international climate scientists that failure to do so will result in disastrous climate disruption during the lifetimes of the youth. The Court refused the requested relief and affirmed Judge Robert Wilkins’s U.S. District Court order, dated May 31, 2012, that dismissed the young people’s climate change lawsuit. The Court of Appeals reasoned that there was no federal jurisdiction because the Public Trust Doctrine is a matter of state, not federal, law. The panel did not address the appellants’ separate constitutional claims, nor did it address how disparate states would protect the one atmosphere they all share, under 50 separate state public trust responsibilities. “We strongly believe that the U.S. Constitution protects the right to a stable climate system,” said Philip Gregory, with Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP, co-counsel for the Youth

DEA Refuses To Support Modifying Minimum Sentences

June 9, 2014 Clifford Thornton, www.greenshadowcabinet.us Organize! DEA, Drug Policy, Law

The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration is refusing to support a bill backed by the Obama administration that would modify mandatory minimum sentences for federal drug crimes, putting her at odds with her boss, Attorney General Holder. He hopes to make the bill, the “Smarter Sentencing Act” a centerpiece of his legacy. Sign the petition here. As DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart explained, “Having been in law enforcement as an agent for 33 years, [and] a Baltimore City police officer before that, I can tell you that for me and for the agents that work for DEA, mandatory minimums have been very important to our investigations. We depend on those as a way to ensure that the right sentences are going to the... level of violator we are going after.” Administrator Leonhart, appointed by Bush a Deputy Administrator of the DEA in 2004 and served as Acting Administrator of the DEA in 2007, was appointed by President Obama as Administrator in 2010 over the objections of many drug policy reformers. She has been at the DEA since 1980.

Court Rules Gas Pipeline Co. Violated Law

June 7, 2014 Delaware Riverkeeper Network, www.delawareriverkeeper.org Resist! Environment, Law, Pipeline, Water

In a decision issued June 6, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, ruled that the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, the NJ Sierra Club and New Jersey Highlands Coalition were correct in their legal challenge to the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company’s Northeast Upgrade Project and ordered additional analysis and review. The Court stated: “On the record before us, we hold that in conducting its environmental review of the Northeast Project without considering the other connected, closely related, and interdependent projects on the Eastern Leg, FERC impermissibly segmented the environmental review in violation of NEPA. We also find that FERC’s EA is deficient in its failure to include any meaningful analysis of the cumulative impacts of the upgrade projects. We therefore grant the petition for review and remand the case to the Commission for further consideration of segmentation and cumulative impacts.” “On the record before us, we find that FERC acted arbitrarily in deciding to evaluate the environment effects of the Northeast Project independent of the other connected action on the Eastern Leg.”

Does Kingdom Of Hawaii Still Exist?

May 29, 2014 Australia Network News, www.abc.net.au Educate! Hawaii, Law, Sovereignty

The CEO of the Hawaiian Affairs Office (OHA) has retained his job and gained public support to challenge the US on whether the Kingdom of Hawaii still exists as a sovereign country. Kamanaopono Crabbe sparked an internal crisis when he sent a letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry, asking for a ruling on whether the Kingdom of Hawaii still legally exists. The letter, which was quickly rescinded by the OHA's trustees, was prompted by the US Government's acknowledgment that the overthrow of the kingdom in 1893 was illegal. Political scientist Dr Keanu Sai, from Windward Communtiy College in Honolulu, told Pacific Beat the OHA board thought Dr Crabbe had violated their policy by sending the letter without approval, but later realised they were mistaken. "[Dr Crabbe] was not in violation of any policy of the board but rather was operating on his diligence and risk management," Dr Sai said. Mr Crabbe has now won the support of the OHA trustees, who have moved to send the letter again and retain him in his role as CEO. "They're in full support and they say that his questions definitely do have merit."

Jurors Need To Know Their Power: “Jury Nullification” Prevents Injustice

May 28, 2014 Kevin Mathews, www.truth-out.org Educate! Jury, Law, Legal System

Did you know that, no matter the evidence, if a jury feels a law is unjust, it is permitted to “nullify” the law rather than finding someone guilty? Basically, jury nullification is a jury’s way of saying, “By the letter of the law, the defendant is guilty, but we also disagree with that law, so we vote to not punish the accused.” Ultimately, the verdict serves as an acquittal. Haven’t heard of jury nullification? Don’t feel bad; you’re far from alone. If anything, your unfamiliarity is by design. Generally, defense lawyers are not allowed to even mention jury nullification as a possibility during a trial because judges prefer juries to follow the general protocols rather than delivering independent verdicts. Surprisingly, the Supreme Court has routinely agreed that judges have no obligation to inform juries about jury nullification. Paradoxically, jury nullification is permitted to exist as an option to all juries, yet this option cannot be discussed in most courtrooms. A few years ago, Julian Heicklen handed out pamphlets to passersby on jury nullification to people outside of a federal courthouse. While the former professor was merely attempting to educate people about how the jury system works, he was charged with jury tampering. The prosecution labeled Heicklen “a significant and important threat to our judicial system,” but the judge ultimately disagreed and dismissed the case.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

assetto corsa mods

Daily movement news and resources