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The Believer's Guide to Legal Issues is favorably reviewed in the August, 2008, issue of Pulpit Helps Magazine. "The author gives practical advice on a number of issues," notes reviewer Glen H. Jones, writing in the Pastors' Library literary section. "[Author Stephen Bloom's] legal calling is geared toward Christians who must often face conflicts between the law and their Christian profession," he continues. Jones rates the book "highly recommended" for all readers. Pulpit Helps has provided help and resources for pastors and Bible teachers for 30 years.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- One year ago this week, Barack Obama promised activists with the nation's largest abortion business that the first thing he would do as president is overturn every pro-life law in all 50 states. He said his first action would be signing the mislabeled Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). The measure, if it becomes law, would codify Roe v. Wade by making the infamous Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited abortions the law of the land. But it would go further and overturn hundreds of state laws that have put limits on abortion like parental involvement, partial-birth abortion...

The FDA continues its habit of making mountains out of mole hills. The discovery of a single jalapeño with Salmonella Saintpaul at the warehouse of a tiny distributor named Agricola Zaragoza on the McAllen Produce Terminal Market simply doesn’t mean very much. ...Once again, needlessly and with reckless disregard for the rights of innocent people, the FDA has destroyed an industry. ...Dr. Acheson thinks that it is within his authority to destroy the fortunes of innocents. ...Repeating the words “public health” as a mantra, though, does not make it true. The bottom line is that the risk for healthy people...

In the end, this new copyright law is going to suffer the same fate that many other well intentioned laws have suffered in China; most people will probably never even hear about it. I was just in an Internet cafe yesterday. To my right someone was giggling as they watched Meet the Fockers and to my left someone else was spellbound by an old episode of Prison Break. What did I think? I guess I was happy that they could find some enjoyment in the midst of the harsh reality that probably confronts them every day in this developing country.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (Legal Newsline)-A Missouri candidate for the state Legislature says he has returned a $300 contribution from fellow Democrat state Sen. Chris Koster, who's running for attorney general. Dr. Vernon (Doc) Harlan of St. Louis is running for the 71st District state House seat in the Aug. 5 primary. Harlan said he returned the contributions amid recent revelations that Koster's campaign may have "been connected to laundering of political funds."

What is the ages old misconstruction of Shakespeare? "First kill all the lawyers." Well, one might excuse bloggers if they might wish to add the officers of the courts to that death sentence, at least if the experience of the bloggers at New York's "Room 8" blog are concerned. For Ben Smith and his fellow "Room 8" bloggers, the world got a bit topsy-turvey not long ago when he was served with a grand jury subpoena by state prosecutors demanding that the identities of anonymous posters on his website be revealed. Worse, the court wouldn't inform Mr. Smith exactly why...

Drivers who cause fatal accidents while on mobile phones face up to 14 years in jail Last updated at 11:09am on 15.07.08   Getting tough: The new sentencing rules target mobile phone use by drivers. Posed by model. Motorists who cause fatal accidents while texting or talking on mobiles could face up to 14 years in prison from today. Drivers involved in death crashes after drinking or taking drugs face similar penalties, as will those who were driving at greatly excessive speed over long distances. Under new sentencing guidelines sent to the courts today which come into immediate effect, there...

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The Townswomen's Guild are meeting to debate a radical reform in the law on prostitution. Their template? The Swedish model. (edit) The debate comes as the Government here is drawing up proposals for law reform that could de-criminalise prostitutes who would, instead, be offered help to get out of the vice trade or given anti-social behaviour orders, in favour of a crackdown on men who trawl for sex.The approach, championed by women ministers such as Harriet Harman, has met with fierce resistance from the Home Office. While Diane Abbot has tabled an Early Day Motion, to date it has...

Greetings Veterans and lawyers on FR, I received the following email yesterday."is it illegal to misrepresent yourself as a soldier? In any venue. I know of someone who is telling people that she is a four year veteran of the iraq war. she is only twenty..so im sure that she is full of crap...I have family in the armed forces and would like to know becuase it is a great insult to those of us who actually have family and freinds risking thier lives for our country" -Sxxxxxxxxx Gxxxxxx" (name redacted by me) I went to thomas.gov looking through the...

Washington is poised to make driving while talking on hand-held cell phones illegal. New Jersey has already been down this road. The cell-phone ban for Washington will start Tuesday and will be similar to a New Jersey law that went into effect in 2003. Washington's law makes it a secondary offense. That means police must find a driver committing another violation such as speeding before stopping drivers for holding a cell phone up to their ear. New Jersey's law also began as a secondary offense. State officials there found the law toothless and difficult to enforce, said William Cicchetti,...

The nation's largest immigration law firm is under federal scrutiny over whether it helped major U.S. corporations disqualify American job applicants and give thousands of high-paying positions to immigrants. The unprecedented Labor Department inquiry centers on Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy -- a New York firm at the forefront of a political effort to ease hiring of skilled foreign workers. The Labor Department is auditing all pending applications for legal immigrant workers the firm has filed on behalf of its corporate clients. Fragomen's prestigious client roster includes General Electric Co., IBM Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Intel Corp. and Bank...

The couple's quarrels reached a crisis in 1994, when the wife pried open a bedroom door with a kitchen knife, slashed the sheets and lunged with the blade toward her husband . . . The marriage did not improve. In the 2003 affidavit, the husband testified he was afraid of his wife and had only stayed in the relationship “for the sake of the kids,” their two teenage sons. . . . But about 4:45 a.m. Monday, police said, Glen Denson ambushed his wife, Sharon Denson, at the North Side home of her boyfriend, shot them both and set them...

RALEIGH - To defend itself against a lawsuit by the widows of three American soldiers who died on one of its planes in Afghanistan, a sister company of the private military firm Blackwater has asked a federal court to decide the case using the Islamic law known as Shari’a. The lawsuit “is governed by the law of Afghanistan,” Presidential Airways argued in a Florida federal court. “Afghan law is largely religion-based and evidences a strong concern for ensuring moral responsibility, and deterring violations of obligations within its borders.” If the judge agrees, it would essentially end the lawsuit over a...

In reading the majority opinion I am struck by the utter waste that is involved here... all those years... studying how adherence to legal precedent is the bedrock of the rule of law, when it turns out, all they really needed was a Pew poll, a subscription to the New York Times, and the latest edition of “How to Make War for Dummies.” It is truly stunning that this court has seen fit to arrogate unto itself a role in the most important issue facing any country, self-defense, in a case in which Congress has in fact repeatedly acted. This...

A federal appeals court on Friday invalidated campaign finance rules that give wealthy donors broad latitude in underwriting expensive political ads. Limits on coordinated campaign spending apply too narrowly to time frames just before elections and should be expanded, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said in the decision. Judge David Tatel said in the ruling that interest groups often engage in early advertising, in some cases more than a year before an election. The restrictions the Federal Election Commission imposed apply only to spending within 90 days of a congressional election and 120 days...

IN THE AMERICAN hierarchy of relationships, friendship often seems distinctly second-class. We obsess about the "work-family balance," but the leisurely conversation with an old friend is a quick casualty when it conflicts with either one. Just in the last generation, the number of real confidants we have outside the family has dropped substantially, according to one 2006 study. more stories like thisNow, a number of scholars are seeking to shore up friendship in a surprising way: by granting it legal recognition. Some of the rights and privileges restricted to family, they argue, should be given to friends. These could be...

" A couple of years ago, a Canadian magazine published an article arguing that the rise of Islam threatened Western values. The article's tone was mocking and biting, but it said nothing that conservative magazines and blogs in the United States did not say every day without fear of legal reprisal. Things are different here. The magazine is on trial. ... Some prominent legal scholars say the United States should reconsider its position on hate speech. "It is not clear to me that the Europeans are mistaken," Jeremy Waldron, a legal philosopher, wrote in The New York Review of Books...

This is one of the most frightening things I've learned in a long time. Over in the US, a bill has passed the House of Representatives and is heading to Congress – with a huge amount of support. The PRO-IP bill, H.R.4279, significantly increases the state's power to detect and prosecute IP infringement, carrying with it a whole host of new law enforcement positions and capabilities. It establishes an IP Czar, someone with the job of overseeing zealous action on behalf of copyright and trademark owners, and includes such powers as the ability to seize equipment if it contains just...

The Senate is debating a cap-and-trade proposal, and although it's unlikely to pass, it will return because all the major presidential candidates support the concept. Cap and trade extends the long government tradition of proclaiming lofty goals that are impossible to achieve. We've had "wars" against poverty, cancer and drugs; but poverty, cancer and drugs remain. President Bush called his landmark education law No Child Left Behind rather than the more plausible Few Children Left Behind. Carbon-based fuels (oil, coal, natural gas) provide about 85 percent of U.S. energy needs and generate most greenhouse gases. So, the simplest way to...

Earlier this week, we spoke to Senator James Inhofe from the Senate floor, where he led the opposition in debate on the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade bill. He seemed confident that the bill would not pass in the Senate, and told us that the overwhelming vote to open debate had nothing to do with support for the bill, but the opportunity to argue against massive regulation of energy production in the US. Inhofe apparently had it more right than he knew, as it appears that the debate will end much more quickly than anyone guessed — and that the bill is dead...

Two recent events should give for-profit companies new reasons to re-evaluate the ways in which they use open source software as well as the extent to which they use it. These events are: (1) the release of a new version of the widely used license that covers such software, i.e., the General Public License version 3, and (2) a round of lawsuits filed by the Software Freedom Law Center against for-profit companies using the software for commercial gain. Four companies to date, the largest of which is Verizon Communications Inc., have been sued for violation of the GPL. Although the...

I often find myself wondering how seemingly normal people ever wind up being criminal defense attorneys. When even Harvard law professor and one-time member of O.J. Simpson’s so-called dream team Alan Dershowitz claims that over 90% of all criminal defendants are guilty, why would any sane person want to devote his life to trying to spring hundreds, maybe even thousands, of felons?

The Midwest Book Review has just published the following review of The Believer's Guide to Legal Issues in its June 2008 Reviewer's Bookwatch! Stephen Bloom provides astute counsel to Christian families in "The Believer's Guide to Legal Issues." I found myself quickly engrossed in Stephen's practical counsel, examples, illustrations, and his solid stand on Biblical principles when facing legal issues so prevalent in society today.The chapters are made up of several parts. Each chapter begins with two fictional vignettes reflecting life lessons and more life lessons, Biblical insights, concluding with practical counsel. Individual sections complement each other and integrate Biblical...

Growing global demand and a weak dollar have given us $4-a-gallon gasoline. The way to lower prices would seem obvious: pump more oil domestically and strengthen the dollar. That's too obvious for Congress, apparently, which instead wants to solve the problem through litigation: The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices,

Other gun bloggers (War on Guns and Snowflakes in Hell, to name a couple), have covered the outrageous (and criminal) police harassment of open carry activists in Dickson City, PA. The police thuggery eventually led to the arrest of a man who had broken no laws, and the confiscation of his entirely legal firearm. As I said, this has already been well covered. The reason I am writing about it today is to respond to this editorial piece, "Big difference in right v. smart." Police detained one of the armed diners and temporarily confiscated his weapon when he declined to...

BELLEVUE, Wash., May 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Chicago Alderman Richard Mell ought to be prosecuted like any other negligent gun owner for failing to re-register his firearms under an ordinance he helped pass, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today. "I don't care if anti-gun Mayor Richard Daley supports giving Mell a break, and it doesn't matter that Mell is the father-in-law of Gov. Rod Blagojevich," said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. "For years, the draconian ordinance supported by Mell and enforced by Daley has terrorized Chicago gun owners. It's time for Mell to face his...

Stefan Ferrari got his required vaccines before he was 18 months old. At the time, his parents said, he was a healthy, verbal boy. But after his last round of booster shots, Stefan stopped speaking and, now 10 years old, he has not spoken since. Stefan's parents, Marcelo and Carolyn Ferrari of Atlanta, filed suit, alleging the vaccines caused neurological damage to their young son. On Tuesday, the family's lawyer asked the Georgia Supreme Court to let the case against two vaccine manufacturers, Wyeth and GlaxoSmithKline, go forward. Lawyer Lanny Bridgers told the court it was bad timing when Stefan...

By a vote of 4-3, the California Supreme Court struck down a state ban on same-sex marriage – changing the definition of marriage by judicial fiat. The decision is a disappointing one and represents another example of an activist judiciary that overreached by taking this issue out of the hands of the state legislature where it belongs. The California high court failed to uphold what the state legislature and an overwhelming majority of California voters clearly understand – that the institution of marriage is limited to one man and one woman.

Up Next: watch the promo May 18, 2008 on WGVU-TV West Michigan:#820 Christians in the Courtroom Witnesses place their hand on the Bible before they testify: how would principles from that Bible play out if it were actually opened up and applied? Would prosecutors be arguing for forgiveness? Stephen Bloom, attorney with Irwin & McKnight law firm in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and author of The Believer's Guide to Legal Issues, wonders with host Karen Saupe how empty courtrooms might become. Inner Compass is a television interview show that explores how people make their decisions about ethical, religious, and social justice issues....

WASHINGTON - A California Supreme Court decision clearing the way for gay marriages in the state injects an element of uncertainty into a presidential race in which the Iraq war and the sputtering economy have largely overshadowed social issues. John McCain, the GOP nominee-in-waiting whose position on the issue rankles the Republican Party's conservative base, sought to strike a delicate balance to the Thursday ruling. He "supports the right of the people of California to recognize marriage as a unique institution sanctioning the union between a man and a woman, just as he did in his home state of Arizona,"...

A Nation of Men and Not Laws: The Leftist Perversion of American Thought By: Rob Shepherd (Mr. Shepherd is a first-year law student at Quinnipiac School of Law and the former three-term Treasurer of the Club; he doesn’t like hippies) As National Review's Richard Brookheiser noted in his most recent work, answering what the Founding Fathers would think of our modern nation is largely left up to interpretation. Thus, while some may claim that issues such as the abortion or drug legalization run contrary to the goals of our nation's founders, this assertion is left up to debate. What is...

One has to admire the Sisyphean tenacity of the Congress as it starts to roll another boulder up the mountain of public opposition to the federal encouragement of illegal immigration. The latest attempt, HR 5515, masquerading under the euphemistic label “New Employee Verification Act” (NEVA) is another unworthy successor to the recently demised “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act” and “Dream Act” in its insolent attempt to procure cheap labor and voting constituencies for the political ruling classes, Democrat and Republican alike. Pushed as replacement for the current E-Verify system (formerly Basic Pilot) by which employers can use the Internet to verify...

PHILADELPHIA - Seven more police officers were taken off street duty Thursday as investigators look into the videotaped police beating of three shooting suspects during a traffic stop.

Shearman and Sterling is the lead lawyer for terrorist detainees at Gitmo. It managed to get Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi released.According to Mudville Gazette: Three years ago, Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi, a Kuwaiti soldier who deserted to fight in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban, sat in a detention cell at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, while lawyers argued whether he was an "enemy combatant." Thank to Shearman and Sterling: Al-Ajmi denied all charges that he was an enemy combatant and a jihadist, and that documented statements were untrue. He was repatriated to Kuwaiti authorities on Nov. 3, 2005. It was...

CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE ADDER — Members of the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division, Australian Army and Italian Provincial Reconstruction Team of Dhi Qar Province teamed up to train members of the Iraqi Army, Iraqi Police and 4th Military Academy on international law and human rights recently. A group of 18 Iraqi servicemembers attended a 10-day course to learn basic principles of the Law of Armed Conflict, human rights, police ethics, and their legal obligations and responsibilities while conducting operations. “The course was focused on training legal advisors and operators for the Iraqi Security Forces,” said Capt....

((The bill allows for fines as high as $10,000 when an employer knowingly hires an illegal immigrant. Sanford says federal law won't allow fines that range that high.)) COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford says the Senate's illegal immigration bill has penalties that can't be enforced by the state. Sanford says he will consider vetoing the bill if changes aren't made. Senators passed a bill Wednesday that allows for fines as high as $10,000 when an employer knowingly hires an illegal immigrant. Sanford says federal law won't allow the state to impose fines that range that...

I am preparing for an exam, and I expect one question will deal with perceived lack of legal services for low and moderate income people. I am looking for ideas that could expand availability of services, but retain a conservative / free market philosophy. How does this sound, as one idea: instead of funding a legal services organization, use that money to subsidize regular legal firms. They do pro bono work already, and the subsidy would be "gravy" to them. This approach reduces the bureaucracy of legal services organizations and their associated overhead expense. What other approaches would you suggest?...

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers have agreed to make it illegal for employers and insurance companies to deny applicants jobs and health care coverage because DNA tests show they are genetically disposed to a disease. Supporters of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act said Wednesday that the Senate planned to vote on it Thursday. The House also is likely to give quick approval to the bill, sending it to President Bush for his signature. A similar bill passed the House by a 420-3 vote a year ago. The White House, at the time, indicated its support for the legislation. Sponsors reached an agreement...

A Buda man accused of sexually assaulting a then 14-year-old Bowie High School student after meeting her on MySpace pleaded guilty today to injury to a child under a plea bargain that calls for him to spend 90 days in jail. Pete Ignacio Solis was 19 in 2006 when he met the girl on the popular online social networking site. His lawyer contends that Solis did not force the girl, younger than the legal age of consent in Texas, to have sex. The incident prompted the girl's mother to sue MySpace, a case that was dismissed last year by U.S....

MADISON, Wis. -- A ruling that freed a woman from prison and cast doubt on "shaken baby syndrome" prosecutions will stand, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has decided. The decision is a victory for former daycare provider Audrey Edmunds, who has long maintained her innocence against charges she shook a baby to death in 1995. Edmunds spent more than 10 years in prison after a jury convicted her of first-degree reckless homicide in 1996. But she was freed in February after an appeals court said new research into "shaken baby syndrome" cast doubt on her guilt. The Wisconsin Department of Justice...

The State of Oregon takes exception to Web sites that republish the state's Revised Statutes in full, claiming that the statutes contain copyrighted information in the republication causes the state to lose money it needs to continue putting out the official version of the statutes. Oregon's Legislative Counsel, Dexter Johnson, has therefore requested that legal information site Justia remove the information or (preferably) take out a paid license from the state. All citizens are legally presumed to know the law, so claiming copyright over it might seem like an odd position for a state to take; wouldn't massive copying be...

Australian Gun Law Update After One Year Here's a thought to warm some of your hearts... From: Ed Chenel, A police officer in Australia ! Hi Yanks, I thought you all would like to see the real figures from Down Under. It has now been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced by a new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by our own government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more than $500 million dollars. The first year results are now in: Australia-wide, homicides are up 6.2 percent, Australia-wide, assaults are up 9.6 percent ;...

Welcome to 'Lawfare' - A New Type of Jihad by Brooke Goldstein Family Security Matters April 14, 2008 The Islamist movement has two wings – one violent and one lawful, which can operate apart but often reinforce each other. While the violent arm attempts to silence speech by burning cars when cartoons of Mohammed are published in Denmark, the lawful arm is skillfully maneuvering within Western legal systems, both here and abroad. Islamists with financial means have launched a "legal Jihad," filing frivolous and malicious lawsuits with the aim of abolishing public discourse critical of Islam and with the goal...

City Council passed five gun control measures today that are expected to still face a legal challenges. Mayor Nutter has said he will sign the bills into law. The five bills limit handgun purchases to one a month; require lost or stolen firearms to be reported to police within 24 hours; forbid individuals under protection from abuse orders from possessing guns if ordered by the court; allow removal of firearms from "persons posing a risk of imminent personal injury" to themselves or others, as determined by a judge; and outlaw the possession and sale certain assault weapons. Council members Darrell...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE HAMMER — Col. Doug House, a military lawyer assigned to the Baghdad-8 embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team, attached to the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, met with three judges at the courthouse in Jisr Diyala to gauge their needs April 8. Judge Razaq Jabbar Alwan, chief investigative judge of the qada, welcomed House. “I am glad that you are here and we have the opportunity to meet you,” Alwan said. “It is because of people like you that we are all sitting here in my office today. Your country has helped my country a great deal.” The current...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal appeals court tossed out an $800 billion class-action lawsuit against tobacco companies on Thursday brought by smokers who said they were deceived into believing "light" cigarettes were healthier. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said the smokers could not sue collectively. The decision means each individual smoker must prove that she or he had selected the product for perceived health benefits. The smokers had sued the tobacco companies under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, contending they were misled by the industry's marketing and branding efforts into believing "light" cigarettes...

Print Story | Email Story | | Good News on the Law: Which book will you open? By Steve BloomGood News Daily You’re a Christian. You’ve been in a serious auto accident or hurt on the job. Now what? What’s the first thing you should do? Open the Yellow Pages to find a lawyer? What do you think? Typical secular legal wisdom says yes, open the book. But is the telephone book really the first place followers of Jesus Christ should turn when we think we might have a legal claim? Let me suggest a better idea. When a Christian...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Class-action lawsuit king Melvyn Weiss pleaded guilty on Wednesday to U.S. racketeering charges in connection with a scheme to pay kickbacks to plaintiffs, apologizing to his former law firm and saying he deeply regretted his conduct. The Bronx-born Weiss, who pioneered high-stakes shareholder litigation in U.S. courts, pleaded guilty to a single count of racketeering conspiracy as part of an agreement with federal prosecutors. As part of the plea deal the 72-year-old attorney, who landed some $1 billion in settlements for investors hurt by the Drexel Burnham Lambert junk bond scandal in the 1980s, faces between...

OLYMPIA -- Toy safety rules that started as a strong sprint, then nearly stumbled out of the race, finally wobbled across the finish line Tuesday when Gov. Chris Gregoire signed into law the toughest standards in the nation. After considering a veto of the Children's Safe Products Act because of worries that it would cause a broad ban on toys, Gregoire selectively nixed portions of the bill, keeping intact most of the restrictions on dangerous chemicals -- at least for now. The governor said she would convene an advisory group to review the proposed standards, timelines and testing requirements before...