Free Republic

DAILY CURRANT – Colorado is reconsidering its decision to legalize recreational pot following the deaths of dozens due to marijuana overdoses. According to a report in the Rocky Mountain News, 37 people were killed across the state on January 1st, the first day the drug became legal for all adults to purchase. Several more are clinging onto life in local emergency rooms and are not expected to survive. “It’s complete chaos here,” says Dr. Jack Shepard, chief of surgery at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Denver, “I’ve put five college students in body bags since breakfast and more are arriving...

A federal judge in New York on Friday ruled that the National Security Agency’s program that is systematically keeping phone records of all Americans is lawful, creating a conflict among lower courts and increasing the likelihood that the issue will be resolved by the Supreme Court. In the ruling, Judge William H. Pauley III, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, granted a motion filed by the federal government to dismiss a challenge to the program brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, which had tried to halt the program. Judge Pauley said that...

The head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement defended the role of federal agents in transporting illegal immigrant children after a federal judge complained they were hand-delivering smuggled kids to parents in the United States. “While the court’s comments did not relate specifically to ICE, it is clear that the transportation of unaccompanied children (UAC) by ICE personnel is appropriate and legal,” acting Director John Sandweg wrote in a brief email obtained by FoxNews.com. The email was sent Monday and addressed to “all ICE employees.”

TORONTO (AP) — Canada's highest court struck down the country's anti-prostitution laws Friday, a victory for sex workers who had argued that a ban on brothels and other measures made their profession more dangerous. The ruling drew criticism from the conservative government and religious leaders. The court, ruling in a case brought by three women in the sex trade, struck down all three of Canada's prostitution-related laws: bans on keeping a brothel, making a living from prostitution, and street soliciting. The ruling won't take effect immediately, however, because the court gave Parliament a year to respond with new legislation, and...

Received a note on our door from the county tax assessors office "informing us that they required access to our home. Never heard of this before. Is that legal? Not sure if I want a government tax agent snooping around my home. Not in the current climate here in WI. Any serious advice?

WASHINGTON – Reports of the Russian government abusing its gay citizens are based upon false propaganda by gay rights groups in the United States, Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, claimed at a Nov. 15 symposium hosted by The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society. "Please understand what's really going on in Russia and cast aside all of the propaganda that you hear in the United States and elsewhere. It's just not true," Ruse urged. He was the main speaker at the symposium, "Family Policy Lessons From Other Lands: What Should America Learn?" and...

**SNIP** “I wonder if he has the legal authority to do this,” Dean told an MSNBC panel Thursday afternoon. “Since this was a congressional bill that set [the Affordable Care Act] up.”

Though not the type of story Coach is Right is known for posting, this caught our interest as an example of the sort of long term damage which can be caused by vanity, arrogance and utter contempt for the future of one’s own children. What sort of father could take his wife to court, regardless of her faults, hoping to prove that his children are ugly, all for the purpose of...

Can anybody cite the law that exempts people (Sellers) from divulging their SS#s during real estate transactions? I know this can be done (at least in NH) because I was at a closing 8.5 years ago, where the Seller was refusing to release his. The in-house lawyer was then called upon and, when he came out, he and the Seller had a bit of a back-and-forth about it in front of everyone. The Seller then told the lawyer that he could prove it to him if he'd just come with him outside the room (presumably out to a telephone?). When...

Uruguay’s drug czar says the country plans to sell legal marijuana for $1 per gram to combat drug-trafficking, according to a local newspaper. The plan to create a government-run legal marijuana industry has passed the lower house of Congress, and President Jose Mujica expects to push it through the Senate soon as part of his effort to explore alternatives in the war on drugs. The measure would make Uruguay the first country in the world to license and enforce rules for the production, distribution and sale of marijuana for adult consumers. …

Lawsuit reform is an issue that enjoys wide-ranging bipartisan support, with demonstrated appeal to advocates of small government and progressive government alike. All Americans have an interest in the fundamental rule of law and in the fair and justified treatment of participants in our economy. As lawsuit reform aims to pursue accurate justice, so it aims to keep the economy properly functioning. Oklahoma legislators recently voted in bipartisan majorities to reinstate more than two dozen lawsuit reforms that had previously been struck down on a technicality by the state supreme court. Alabama passed a key lawsuit reform with overwhelming majorities...

BANGALORE: As legal help becomes exorbitantly expensive in the United States, an increasing number of middle-class Americans are reaching out over the internet to lawyers in India for advice and assistance. A growing community of Indian lawyers is finding a business opportunity in helping Americans prepare legal documents. Compared with the $150-300 ( 9,150-18,450) per hour that US lawyers typically charge, enterprising Indian counterparts with online shops are offering their services for as little as $7-20 ( 400-1,200) an hour. "This is proving to be lucrative as requests from US clients are increasing," says advocate Mitul Desai who runs a...

A new conservative political committee that’s clearly no fan of Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has nevertheless incorporated her name in its title — and federal regulators are pushing back. In a letter to Stop Pelosi PAC, an Alexandria, Va.-based hybrid political action committee that officially formed Sept. 5, the Federal Election Commission tells the group it must remove the "Pelosi" from its name unless its an authorized committee of the congresswoman herself. It is not. Stop Pelosi PAC's "failure to adequately respond" by Oct. 17 could lead to an "audit or enforcement action," writes Paul Stoetzer, a senior...

The speaker of the House wants to know what the legal justification for war with Syria is. And more than a quarter of the House says President Barack Obama can’t launch an attack on Syria alone. But the president has yet to give them — or the public — a response. White House spokesman Josh Earnest repeatedly declined Thursday to give a legal justification for an attack on Syria — something that the United Kingdom has already detailed — or give an explanation on how the president can act on his own without Congressional authorization. That will come if and...

<p>SANFORD -- After five weeks of trial and 56 witnesses, few legal observers believed prosecutors came close to proving Sanford neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman committed second-degree murder when he shot and killed Trayvon Martin in February 2012.</p> <p>So for many legal analysts, it was no surprise that jurors rejected even a lesser “compromise” verdict of manslaughter, acquitting Zimmerman outright of all criminal charges and deciding he acted in a reasonable way to protect his own life.</p>

The PIL, filed by a former Dean of Law Faculty of Delhi University Professor S N Singh, alleged such largescale spying by the USA authorities is detrimental to national security and urged the apex court to intervene in the matter. The issue of the US National Security Agency monitoring internet data of India today reached the Supreme Court with a PIL filed seeking its direction to the Centre to initiate action against internet companies for sharing information with foreign authority in "breach" of contract and violation of right to privacy. The PIL, filed by a former Dean of Law Faculty...

ICE Agent Crane to Obama: "Mr. President, you've overstepped your boundaries. It's your job to enforce the law, it's Congress' job to enact the law."- Last week, ICE union chief Chris Crane won a stunning initial court victory in his lawsuit against the Obama Administration. As we reported, Federal Judge Federal Judge Reed O’Connor told the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that they had no power to refuse to deport illegal aliens, and that he was likely to strike down Obama’s virtual “DACA” amnesty for millions of illegal aliens. The ruling stunned Washington, and Crane’s lawsuit could derail Obama’s four-year...

When I applied to law school in 1975, the nation was recovering from a severe and prolonged recession. Even so, I always assumed that I’d be able to make a comfortable living with a legal degree, although I didn’t think that practicing law would make me rich. Three and a half years later, I became a new associate at one of the nation’s largest law firms, Kirkland & Ellis. It had about 150 attorneys in two offices, Chicago and Washington, D.C. My annual salary was $25,000, which is $80,000 in 2012 dollars. There were rumors that some partners in large...

Denies media credentials to political bloggers, including Legal Insurrection I literally had to walk outside for some fresh air to calm down after I received the email below from David Ferguson, Executive Director of the Maryland GOP.I wrote, expecting an explanation that it all was just a misunderstanding: I have read about the restrictions for credentialing bloggers, http://www.quintonreport.com/2013/04/18/md-gop-cracks-down-on-bloggers/.The operative limitation seems to be this sentence:“MARYLAND REPUBLICAN PARTY will not allow journalists to register as “media” for the purpose of writing a personal online blog, ….”Can you explain what you mean by “personal online blog”? For example, would a blog which covers politics be...

Summary: According to a new, comprehensive report by Lex Machina, more than half of all patent lawsuits in the US now come from patent trolls.Patent lawsuits are used as weapons in business wars between companies such as Oracle vs. Google and Apple vs. Samsung. Behind the intellectual property (IP) headlines, however, Lex Machina, a Silicon Valley startup, has found that patent troll lawsuits have increased from 24 percent of cases filed in 2007 to 56% in 2012. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a "patent troll uses patents as legal weapons, instead of actually creating any new products or coming...