A new study from the Rand Corporation finds that there is actually less crime near medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles as opposed to other areas of the city, where the researchers conducted a rigorous examination of crime trends. via New Study Finds That There Is Actually Less Crime Near Medical Marijuana Dispensaries |…
Category: Law
EMU joins other Michigan universities in banning medical pot on campus
Eastern Michigan University became the latest university to formally ban medical marijuana on its campus. Despite state laws allowing those with medical marijuana cards to smoke the drug, federal law still lists it as illegal. That makes it necessary for universities to ban it as well, university officials said, because EMU and other higher education…
Border/Enforcement Spending and Deportation Levels Continue to Skyrocket Under Obama
Republican charges that the Obama administration is giving border security and immigration enforcement short shrift are false. In conjunction with the fact that border security spending and personnel have also increased in recent years, the deportation numbers show that an aggressive “enforcement-only” immigration policy built during the Bush Administration is still the status quo of…
Obama set to outpace Bush on deportations
President Barack Obama says he backs immigration reform, announcing last month an initiative to ease deportation policies, but he has sent home more than 1 million illegal immigrants in 2 1/2 years — on pace to deport more in one term than George W. Bush did in two. The Obama administration had deported…
‘Anonymous’ Wall Street Protesters Arrested Under Antique ‘Anti-Mask’ Law
And as for the police response to the protests, well, that too has proved to be creative and unpredictable. Seven individuals had been arrested as of Monday, according to Bloomberg. But up to five people have been issued a citation for violating an 1845 “antimask law” that prohibits masked gatherings of two or…
Yahoo Appears To Be Censoring Email Messages About Wall Street Protests
Over the weekend, thousands gathered for a “Tahrir Square”-style protest of Wall Street’s domination of American politics. The protesters, organized online and by organizations like Adbusters, have called their effort “Occupy Wall Street” and have set up the website: www.OccupyWallSt.org. However, several YouTube users posted videos of themselves trying to email a message…
Union reps lawsuit seeks to remove Detroit schools emergency manager
Union employee Robert Davis filed a lawsuit Monday in an effort to remove Roy Roberts, the emergency manager for Detroit Public Schools, because he did not take the oath of office before he started working in the position.While the lawsuit is asking the removal of the leader of the state’s largest school district…
Canada to Rogers Cable: we want fix for game throttling by next week
Canada’s telecommunications regulator appears none too pleased with Rogers Communications explanation for the throttling of game streams over its cable ISP network. The Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission wants the company to crank out out a plan for fixing the problem—and by Tuesday, September 27. Bottom line: Rogers must come up with a scheme…
Copyright Troll Righthaven Says It’s Nearing Bankruptcy
The Las Vegas copyright-trolling firm Righthaven told a Nevada federal judge Friday it might file for bankruptcy protection, or cease operations altogether. To prevent that, Righthaven is asking U.S. District Judge Philip Pro to stay his decision requiring Righthaven pay $34,000 in legal fees to an online commenter it wrongly sued for infringement. Judge Pro…
The ‘Violent Muslim’ Hysteria Goes Much Deeper Than You’d Believe
I kinda yawed a little when I read Spencer Ackerman’s scoop on the FBI’s bigoted, brain-dead Islam training. You think this is bad? As a soldier and former first responder, I’ve been sitting through this dreck for the better part of a decade. It’s just part of the noise in the system that…
Affordable Care Act is already working, Part III
Most of the provisions in the Affordable Care Act don’t kick in for a few years, but in the meantime, we’re already seeing indications that the law is working as intended. We talked yesterday about the fact that the number of young adults — those between the ages of 19 and 25 — with health…
Michigan House Moves to Ban Domestic Partnership Benefits
Domestic partners of Michigan state employees were supposed to start getting state benefits on October 1, but the Republican-controlled state House is having none of that: The bills, HB 4770 and 4771, prohibit any government entity in the state – including universities and city governments – from providing such benefits and prohibit unions from including them in collective bargaining…
Strict eavesdropping law ruled unconstitutional in Illinois case
An Illinois judge ruled the state’s eavesdropping law unconstitutional as applied to a man who faced up to to 75 years in prison for secretly recording his encounters with police officers and a judge.Share: · Facebook· LinkedIn· EmailPrintLink“A statute intended to prevent unwarranted intrusions into a citizen’s privacy cannot be used as a shield for…
N.Y. Worker Accuses State of Illegal GPS Spying
A New York state worker has accused government officials of violating the state constitution after they installed a GPS tracker on his private car and recorded its whereabouts for a month. The state Department of Labor placed the device secretly on the worker’s car without a warrant and tracked the vehicle 24 hours a…
Obama signs patent reform bill
President Barack Obama signed legislation Friday that will overhaul the U.S. patent system for the first time since 1952. “We have to do everything we can to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit wherever we find it,” Obama said at a signing ceremony at a high school in Arlington, Virginia. This measure “cuts away the red tape…
US Rep: Copyright has actually been an “impediment” to rightsholders
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) has a rejoinder to those who argue copyright laws must be further strengthened: “I think if we were to do nothing on copyright law, we would be getting it just about right.” Lofgren, who represents Silicon Valley, spoke this week at a meeting of the Intellectual Property Breakfast Club in Washington,…
House OKs ban on schools automatically deducting union dues from pay
The Michigan House today narrowly passed a bill that would prohibit school districts from automatically deducting union dues from employee paychecks. The bill passed on a 55-53 vote in the Republican-controlled House. It now goes to the Republican-controlled Senate. House Speaker Jase Bolger, R-Marshall, praised the vote, saying school employees “should be able to ask…
Judge blocks Fla. law restricting doctor gun talk
A federal judge Wednesday blocked a Florida gun law that restricted doctors from asking patients about firearms. Judge Marcia G. Cooke said doctors had a First Amendment right to ask about firearms, and she rapped the state’s lawyers for failing to provide more than anecdotal evidence to show the law was needed. “The State has…
GOP Makes Last Ditch Effort To Postpone Repeal Of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
In a last ditch effort to prolong Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) and Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), who chairs the Military Personnel subcommittee, have written a letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Pannetta asking the Pentagon to postpone the scheduled repeal of the ban against open…
GOP Jobs Plan: More Snakes?
GOP members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today called attention to a proposed regulation that would restrict the transportation and importation of nine types of snakes, including the Burmese Python. In a new report entitled “Broken Government: How the Administrative State has Broken President Obama’s Promise of Regulatory Reform,” GOP…