Some News For The Day...

Europe Urged to Restrain Foreign Spies

BERLIN, March 1 -- Europe has become "a happy hunting ground" for foreign intelligence agents looking to kidnap terrorist suspects, the leader of the continent's top human rights group said Wednesday, urging European governments to crack down on operatives working for the CIA and other spy services.

Terry Davis, chairman of the Council of Europe, also criticized several European countries for not being more forthcoming about whether they have helped the CIA carry out extralegal counterterrorism operations on their soil. These include the secret detention and abduction of suspected members of al-Qaeda.

"I strongly support cooperation between Europe and the United States of America on all issues and especially the fight against terrorism," Davis said at a news conference at the council's headquarters in Strasbourg, France.

"But I also insist that European governments should have sufficient confidence to participate in such cooperation as equal partners."

The council, a group of 46 governments, issued its report after a three-month investigation in which it had only limited powers to force countries to provide information.

The report contends that the CIA has unfettered ability to mount covert counterterrorism operations in Europe with little regard to European legal and human rights standards. But the council said it was unable to collect any fresh evidence or obtain independent confirmation of several alleged CIA plots to apprehend or detain suspects on the continent.

Does anyone see a violation of NATO here? Since NATO is a ratified treaty, and as such it has the same status as an article or amendmentof the Constitution. And once again the Bush administration has violated the "supreme law of the land" and their oaths of office.

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The Abusive New Federalism

After a murky legislative process distinguished by a lack of any public hearing, the House is ready to rush to approve a special-interest measure for the food industry today. The bill would pre-empt all state food safety regulations that are more protective than federal standards. A bipartisan majority behind this clearly dangerous bill is echoing the industry's line that the goal is simply to end consumers' confusion about varying state regulations that govern warning labels and protective inspections.

No good law has ever been made by rushing it through congress. This particular law pre-empts state laws and state authority in a manner that is inconsistent with long-standing porecedent and constitutional principle (Tenth Amendment). We are seeing the Republican-dominated congress grab for powers that are specifically celineated to the congress with an over-reaching understanding of the "commerce clause."

If consumers believe that, then we have some bottled water to sell them that no longer warns of arsenic levels, and a salmon fillet that drops the distinction between fish originating in the wild and fish from a farm. Such information and a much larger array of warnings could be expunged under the bill.

Professional associations of state health, farm and consumer officials — denied a hearing before Congress and taxpayers — warn consumers that countless protections on the state and local levels would be gutted in favor of a lowest-common-denominator dictated by food and retail interests. The broad proposal threatens existing food safety programs affecting things like restaurant sanitation and sales of milk and numerous other vital products. The bill would invent a burdensome process by which states would have to petition federal officials to restore the safety regulations they now have.

This is a bad law for consumers, for children and for the elderly that are dependent upon medications for mainataining health.

The driving force behind the bill seems to be the challenge to industry forces posed by California, which is leading the way in demanding consumer warnings about mercury levels in fish, lead in calcium supplements and other hazards. Other states have followed suit. Proponents of the bill in the food industry and Congress claim that their goal is being misunderstood. If so, they should pull the bill back and prove their case at open hearings that treat the public interest as something more than a nonentity.

Another pro-Big Business move by the Republican controlled congress.

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U.S. Is Reducing Safety Penalties for Mine Flaws

CRAIGSVILLE, W.Va. — In its drive to foster a more cooperative relationship with mining companies, the Bush administration has decreased major fines for safety violations since 2001, and in nearly half the cases, it has not collected the fines, according to a data analysis by The New York Times.

Federal records also show that in the last two years the federal mine safety agency has failed to hand over any delinquent cases to the Treasury Department for further collection efforts, as is supposed to occur after 180 days.

With the deaths of 24 miners in accidents in 2006, the enforcement record of the Mine Safety and Health Administration has come under sharp scrutiny, and the agency is likely to face tough questions about its performance at a Senate oversight hearing on Thursday.

"The Bush administration ushered in this desire to develop cooperative ties between regulators and the mining industry," said Tony Oppegard, a top official at the agency in the Clinton administration. "Safety has certainly suffered as a result."

Didn't we just hear that congress was going to tighten mine safety requirements and increase fines for safety infractions? Didn't we hear congress critters thumping their chests about the lack of using equipment that would improve mine safety? Chest thumping and lying... a Republican trait?

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Supreme Court Debates Tax Giveaways For Business: Corporate Welfare on Trial?

The Supreme Court grappled Wednesday with whether taxpayers can challenge lucrative tax breaks their elected officials give to businesses as incentives to expand or move operations into certain cities or states.

The high court's decision in the case brought by DaimlerChrysler Corp. could have a significant impact nationally because nearly every state uses billions of dollars in tax breaks to attract companies.

Chief Justice John Roberts seemed to be seeking a way to allow a lawsuit to proceed in federal court by taxpayers whose homes or businesses were taken by the city of Toledo to make way for a $1.2 billion Jeep assembly plant.

Other members of the high court, including Justices Antonin Scalia and David Souter, were skeptical about taxpayers' claims that Ohio's investment tax credit discriminates against Ohio companies that do business outside the state.

If a company decides not to take advantage of the credit and expands elsewhere, Souter said, "That's not discrimination. That's a free choice."

DaimlerChrysler is asking the justices to overturn a ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals two years ago that struck down Ohio's tax credit on new equipment, saying the practice hinders interstate commerce because the incentives are available only to businesses that invest in Ohio.

This will have a lot to do with the eminent domain issues as well. Since we know how the court ruled on the eminent domain issues, can we predict another "pro-government, pro-business" decision here? Anyone want to wager? My money if on business and government.

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High Court Patent Ruling a Victory for Big Business

Acting in a case at the intersection of patent and antitrust law, the Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a ruling that makes it harder for upstart companies and generic manufacturers to challenge patent holders' power in the marketplace.

The 8-0 decision, written by Justice John Paul Stevens, overturns a 1947 decision that was issued when Stevens was a law clerk for the late Justice Wiley Rutledge. Rutledge voted in the majority.

The decision Wednesday said that a patent on a product does not automatically mean that the patent holder has market power of the type that would trigger an antitrust "tying" violation. Tying occurs when a seller conditions its sale of one product on the purchase of another product.

Without the presumption the ruling means competitors will have to actually prove that the patent holder has market power -- an uphill battle that critics say will put many patent-related tying arrangements beyond legal challenge.

The ruling also has a spillover effect on copyright law. For example, movie theater owners warned the Court that if the presumption was removed, they could be forced to buy and show unwanted movies along with the titles they do want to show. On the other side, Daniel Swanson of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, who wrote a brief in the case for copyright holders including the Motion Picture Association of America, said, "The Court's holding has enormous significance for successful individual and corporate holders of intellectual property rights, who might be confronted with antitrust suits as a result of their use of package marketing arrangements that make economic sense and are pro-consumer."

What's that? Another major decision for Big Business? Another case where the consumer and "Average Joe" gets screwed in the process? Not from our Supreme Court... Say it isn't so!

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Federal Judge Raises Alarm Over Vacated Arbitration Awards

The trend to overrule arbitration decisions is fast becoming a mainstay of the courts in most states and at the federal level. Why bother having alternative dispute resolution at all if an arbitration ruling is consistently overturned? This decision can have long-lasting impact on the rights of workers.

Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton has drawn a line in the sand over vacating labor arbitrators' awards -- he wants it to stop.

"I do not understand how we can alter the parties' delegation of decision-making authority in this case merely because one of those parties (the employer) now thinks that the arbitrator botched the interpretation of the contract," wrote Sutton. Michigan Family Resources Inc. v. Service Employees International Union Local 517, No. 04-2564.

He said it is high time the full court re-examined its long-standing, four-part test for vacating labor arbitration awards, saying that it has fallen far from the U.S. Supreme Court's nearly "absolute deference" to arbitrator's decisions.

The Supreme Court has not vacated a labor arbitration decision since 1960, yet the 6th Circuit has vacated 25 percent of all such decisions since 1986, or 19 of 75 cases, he said. For published decisions only, the rate rises to 29 percent, according to Sutton.

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Small Firm Helps Win $554 Million Award in Nuclear Plant Lawsuit

This is a case where we were supposed to be able to trust the US Government, the Department of Energy and the Nuclaer Regulatory Commission... You know what "supposed to" did, don't you? (Had to steal that line from my father!)

BTW, guess who gets to foot the bill for this little bit of negligence? "We the people" that pay the taxes.

In a bit of a David vs. Goliath scenario, Philadelphia firm Berger & Montague helped secure a $554 million verdict last month in a class action suit against two companies that ran a government-owned nuclear weapons production plant until its closure in 1989.

The jury in the federal district court in Denver found for nearly 12,000 property owners whose health and property values were affected by plutonium knowingly leaked on the plant site, according to court documents.

The site is owned by the Department of Energy, but was run by two companies since its opening in 1952, Rockwell International Corp. and Dow Chemical Co.

Although Rockwell and Dow were the defendants, the DOE paid the legal bills and will have to pay the final damages amount, which has yet to be entered by Judge John L. Kane Jr., Berger & Montague attorney David F. Sorensen said.

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And as a bottomline note... Can anyone believe that the Bush administration has been caught in yet more lies? How many more lies will we tolerate before we say the word "I-M-P-E-A-C-H-M-E-N-T"? If Bush were a Catholic and I were a Bishop, I would call for excommunication... certainly lying in this fashion has to be evidence of moral bankruptcy and cause for separation from the Church.