Here.
Category: Law Page 26 of 27
The tax code is so complicated that the Republicans can’t even figure out how many pages it runs. But it has something to do with the Bible.
I’m not sure how DC Mayor Tony Williams will be viewed by history, but those in the here and now can’t deny that the man has a sense of humor – how many big city mayors do you know that’ll do a cannonball into a pool to open the city pools? Eight years in a row, no less!
Think the former Liberian president will call his good friend Pat Robertson as a character witness in his war crimes trial?
Bill Campbell was sentenced to 30 months in prision today. CNN tells us:
Former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell, who presided over the city’s economic renaissance of the 1990s, was sentenced Tuesday to 30 months in prison and fined more than $6,000 for racketeering and tax evasion.
When he was first elected to office, I was very happy – I thought he’d provide a much needed modernization of the city then led by Maynard Jackson. He had a stellar background and seemed genuinely capable of helping Atlanta take off. And take off, it did. Unfortunately, he decided he wanted to use the power of his office to help friends share in that success in ways not available to the rest of us. As he got called on that, he became more interested in defending himself than running a great city. Glad to see he’s getting what he deserves.
Unless there’s a successful appeal to the Supreme Court of today’s Court of Appeals decision, May 14, 2007 is the deadline by which your broadband and VOIP provider must provide law enforcement with a means to listen in on your conversations.
The Court of Appeals decision isn’t so appalling as is what the FCC’s done here, as a culmnation of its reclassification efforts. It’s essentially blown up the common carrier model in favor of a regulatory scheme by the only thing that is asked of a communications provider is that it ensures that the government has access to the consumer’s private information, on demand. In return, the providers are essentially freed of all obligations (e.g., open access, support for universal service, etc.).
Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) and Pretend Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D- Doesn’t Have a Vote) introduced a bill to the U.S. House this morning that would apportion two new House seats – one to DC, and one to Utah. Now, as appalling as it is that even something as fundamental as the right to vote has to fall victim to partisan concerns about party control of the House, I’d gladly give Utah two seats to secure the fundamental right of District citizens to have the same representation as every other American citizen.  You do realize that citizens of DC don’t have a Representative in the House, right? Or a Senator? The closest thing they have to effective representation is Virginia’s Tom Davis, and he’s not even a little accountable to them (Holmes Norton doesn’t have anyone’s ear, nevermind the vote).
The House Committee on the Judiciary just finished a very informative hearing on the issue of net neutrality. I’m going to wait until I can get a hold of the Q&A to go into detail, but I say this right now – I hope more and more organizations get Tim Wu to deliver the message of the importance of net neutrality. I’ve been familiar with Tim’s academic and policy work for a while, but until this year, I’d never heard him speak. He’s very engaging, and if anyone is going to find a way to make this matter accessible to the public, he’s among my top candidates to do it. His prepared testimony is here.
ITV tells us that:
“[the]woman who heckled Chinese President Hu Jintao on a visit to the White House has been charged with a criminal offence by a US court.
Wang Wenyi, 47, could face up to six months in jail for “harassing, intimidating and threatening a foreign official”.”
I’m so glad to see that the US is showing China how serious it is about human rights abuses.
Slate’s Ryan Grim highlights the effects of the Federal law denying financial aid to any student that admits having been convicted of possession.
I joined what I expect will be pegged at 50,000+ fellow Americans on the Mall today. I, along with everyone else there, went to stand in opposition to the attack on common sense, American values, and basic human dignity that is H.R. 4437. You’ve almost certainly heard a lot of (mis)information about it, but just in case you haven’t, this is a good start. I agree – our immigration system is most certainly broken – but H.R. 4437 and its relations aim only to smash the system to bits.
Instead of listing out the abominations contained in that bill and proposed by its supporters, I’ll offer something different here: hope. The people – the energy – in the march was amazingly positive. While recent protests such as Operation Ceasefire were full of passionate believers in freedom and decency, there was a palpable sense of futility, of raging against the wind. This? This was very different. I had forgotten what it was like to hear “U.S.A! U.S.A!” chanted with hope, instead of fear and anger. It was the same excitement about America that I heard on a flight so long ago. It was the sound of people thinking that the America we know and love will win this one.
SÃ, Se puede. Yes.we.can.
