New York State Senator, Majority Leader, Sentenced To Five Years in Prison

New York State Senate Majority Leader Dean (left), and son Adam, Skelos

[From article]
Ex-state Senate majority leader Dean Skelos was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison for using his political power to line the pockets of his do-nothing son Adam.
Adam Skelos — who once threatened to “smash” in the head of a supervisor at a job his dad got for him — landed six and a half years behind bars.
Along with the prison sentences, Manhattan federal Judge Kimba Wood imposed a $500,000 fine on Dean Skelos.
The father-son duo were convicted in December of bribery, corruption and conspiracy after prosecutors with Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara’s office played tapes showing that the Long Island Republican strong-armed companies into paying his 33-year-old son more than $330,000.
“You sent a message that you, one of the three most powerful politicians in New York State, were in some measure corrupt,” Judge Wood said of Dean Skelos.
“Your crimes were more egregious than most, with the exception of Sheldon Silver,” she said referring to the corrupt former state assembly speaker, who landed a 12-year prison term just last week in a separate case.
[. . .]



“These cases show — and history teaches — that the most effective corruption investigations are those that are truly independent and not in danger of either interference or premature shutdown.”
The comment was a not-so-thinly-veiled jab at Gov. Cuomo’s Moreland Commissioner.
The governor set up the commission in 2013, saying it was needed to “root out corruption in politics and government.” He then abruptly pulled the plug on it less than a year later after strong opposition from lawmakers.
A smiling Dean Skelos strolled into the courtroom before his sentencing and waved to his wife, Gail. His brother, retired Nassau County state appellate-court Judge Peter Skelos, also was in court for the proceeding.
“You can’t argue that you robbed a bank repeatedly over a course of years and you did it for your family,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Masimore said of Dean Skelos in court. “I think the evidence was very clear that Dean Skelos was strong-arming these victims and forcing them to pay.
[. . .]
Shortly after his conviction, the Long Island Republican began receiving taxpayer-funded pension payments of $95,000 per year.
At trial prosecutors argued that the elder Skelos used his influence to help Adam get jobs he either wasn’t qualified for or that he barely showed up for, including AbTech, an environmental tech company seeking state-funded contracts.
At one point AbTech agreed to increase Adam’s monthly paycheck from $4,000 to $10,000 after Adam threatened to use his father’s influence to block a $12 million contract that would help the company, it emerged at trial.
In another cushy gig his dad got him, the younger Skelos ​threatened his supervisor for criticizing him about his repeated absences.
“Guys like you couldn’t shine my shoes. You’ll never amount to anything. If you talk to me like that again, I’ll smash your f—–g head in,” Adam told his former supervisor, Chris Curcio, at medical ​malpractice ​insurance firm PRI, Curcio testified.

http://nypost.com/2016/05/12/ex-ny-senator-dean-skelos-gets-five-years-in-prison-for-corruption/

Ex-NY senator Dean Skelos gets five years in prison for corruption
By Kaja Whitehouse, Jennifer Bain and Danika Fears
New York Post
May 12, 2016 | 12:07pm

Supreme Court Of the United States Writes Laws, Interprets Them and Corrects Them

[From article]
Misapplying the U.S. Constitution is one thing. Usurping the constitutional powers of the federal legislature is altogether another.
The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has done plenty of the former during the last century. So far in this century, however, it has brazenly embarked on the latter. After its Obamacare and homosexual marriage decisions, Americans must now realize they no longer live in a democracy. They now live in a SCOTUSocracy. They are now governed by judicial rather than political decision-making.
In both its Obamacare decisions, SCOTUS rewrote federal law. In its homosexual marriage decision, however, it went even farther and actually wrote de novo federal law. SCOTUS has no constitutional power to write or rewrite federal law. In fact, SCOTUS has no constitutional power even to judicially review the constitutionality of federal law.
The net effect is this: not only has SCOTUS usurped the constitutional powers of the federal legislature, but it has now also denied Americans their most basic constitutional right – the right to democratically govern themselves through their political representatives.
[. . .]
Most Americans probably don’t realize that SCOTUS has no constitutional power to judicially review the constitutionality of federal law. That it has done so for 212 long years stems simply from its unilateral judicial assumption of that unconstitutional power in an 1803 case involving William Marbury’s dispute with James Madison over the delivery of a justice of the peace commission to which John Adams had appointed Marbury. Thus, the power of the majority of unelected lifetime judges to have recently forced Americans to purchase something they didn’t want to purchase (Obamacare) and to accept something they didn’t want to accept (homosexual marriage) is an artifact of a mere justice of the peace commission 212 years ago. From little acorns do great trees grow.
[. . .]
If the legislature “inartfully” drafted Obamacare, then the proper constitutional remedy should have been the legislature itself more “artfully” drafting a legislative amendment. Roberts should be impeached.
[. . .]
If the states’ same-sex marriage bans were unconstitutional, then the proper constitutional remedy should have been the legislature itself proscribing them. Kennedy should be impeached.
[. . .]
Ruth Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Stephen Breyer should also be impeached, but Kennedy was the balance of SCOTUS power that resulted in constitutionally denying the states and the American people their right to limit marriage to persons of the opposite sex. Besides, Ginsburg and Kagan should have recused themselves after having both, previously and prejudicially, officiated at same-sex marriages.
[. . .]
The only possible conclusion is that the American people are too immature to preserve either their sovereignty or their Republic.
They have traded their democracy for what now amounts to a mere SCOTUSocracy.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/06/scotuscare_scotussexuality_and_scotusocracy.html

June 29, 2015
SCOTUScare, SCOTUSsexuality, and SCOTUSocracy
By Michael L. Grable

NH Politicians Lament Parental Oppositon To Common Core

[From article]
This video is going viral and it SHOULD. It’s bad enough that parents are frustrated by the Common Core aligned curriculum that is destroying any chance at their child’s future in a math field. But now we have a New Hampshire State Representative bothered by parents who contact him and exercise their voice in this democratic process.
[. . .]
There was overwhelming support by parents in favor of SB101 which would prohibit the state from requiring implementation of common core standards. Why? Because parents are fed up with these new academic standards in math and English.
This petition already has almost 1500 signatures calling for the end to Common Core in NH.
Where are all of those parents who want Common Core? No where to be found.
[. . .]
We can also look at past comments from the U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan who also patronized moms who opposed Common Core as, “….white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were…”
We’ve got news for the elitists who think they know better than parents, we do know what we are talking about and we still don’t like Common Core.

http://stopcommoncorenh.org/sccnh/2015/03/31/nh-democratic-representative-disparages-parents-who-contacted-him-with-their-opinions-on-common-core/

NH Democrat Representative Disparages Parents Who Contacted Him With Their Opinions On Common Core

Last Of The Lower East Side Politicians in New York City

New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver walks out of the Federal Courthouse after his arraignment on January 22, 2015 in New York City. 

Photo by AFP

[From article]
Sheldon Silver has perverted the courts as well as the Capitol.
His law firm, Weitz & Luxenberg, gets its asbestos cases — and paydays — moved more quickly than those of other attorneys, and reaps a fortune from favorable rulings by friendly judges, charge lawyers and tort-reform advocates.
Silver’s East Village firm handles more than half the cases in a special section of Manhattan Supreme Court called NYCAL (New York City Asbestos Litigation). So dominant is the firm, the court’s Web site refers to cases as “Weitz” or “non-Weitz.”
The chief asbestos judge, Sherry Klein Heitler — also Manhattan’s chief civil judge — has handled dozens of Weitz & Luxenberg cases.
[. . .]
As one of the state’s most powerful Democrats, Silver also strongly influences his party’s nomination of candidates for judgeships in Manhattan and elsewhere. Heitler and Madden are both Democrats, and both first ran for the bench during Silver’s tenure as speaker.
“He has a hand in judicial appointments, and judges know not to bite the hand that feeds them,” said Mark Behrens, a DC attorney who advocates for asbestos-litigation reform for defendants.
To top all that, Silver persuaded former Gov. David Paterson in 2009 to appoint Jonathan Lippman, his boyhood chum from the Lower East Side, as the state’s highest jurist, Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, Village Voice reporter Wayne Barrett wrote at the time. Silver had boosted Lippman’s career for years. He was the court’s chief administrative judge from 1996 to 2007.

http://nypost.com/2015/01/25/silvers-law-firm-rakes-in-cash-as-asbestos-court-fast-tracks-claims/

Silver’s law firm rakes in millions from judges he controls
By Susan Edelman
New York Post
January 25, 2015 | 3:00am

* * *

[From article]
Silver’s fall, on what are expected to be corruption charges related to undisclosed payments from a law firm, comes as the Lower East Side old boys network he ruled continues to self-immolate.
Silver was a member of a tight-knit coterie of Jewish political operators who came up together in the co-op developments on Grand Street. Many had working class roots, belonged to the Bialystoker Synagogue on Willett Street, and developed power together through the same few Jewish institutions.
Now, that Lower East Side crew is falling to pieces. William Rapfogel, Silver’s close ally, is in state prison after pleading guilty to embezzling millions a executive director of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty. Silver was a key benefactor of the Met Council, and William Rapfogel’s wife Judy is Silver’s chief of staff. Heshy Jacob, the traditional third member of Rapfogel and Silver’s Lower East Side power troika, was traveling in Israel and said he was unaware of Silver’s arrest when reached via telephone.

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.638596

Sheldon Silver's fall signals end of a (Jewish) era in New York politics
Silver, one of the most powerful men in state politics, was arrested by FBI on corruption charges; his arrest marks the falling to pieces of Lower East Side Gang.
By The Forward and Josh Nathan-Kazis

Jan. 23, 2015 | 4:20 AM

Lawless Washington DC Bureaucracies

Sir William Blackstone

[From article]
Everything you really need to know about the Constitution (and that’s barely an exaggeration) -- why it is structured the way it is, what led to it, its purposes -- is found in pages 2 – 12 of the March 9 concurring opinion by Justice Thomas in the Dept of Transportation v Assn of American Railroads case. Although it received little media attention, Justice Thomas has provided us a masterpiece of constitutional thinking, explaining why “administrative law” -- the practice of delegating to bureaucrats the making and enforcement of rules with the force of law – is so profoundly unconstitutional.
[. . .]
The Constitution corrected several flaws of the English system including limiting the authority of the legislative branch by placing the Constitution – this written law of the land – over all three branches of government.
[. . .]
Professor Philip Hamburger and his brilliant book, Is Administrative Law Unlawful?, Justice Thomas shows America is back to the problems that the Constitution was written to prohibit by writing a mini-treatise on the Constitution itself.
[. . .]
William Blackstone…. defined a tyrannical government as one in which “the right both of making and of enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same man, or one and the same body of men,” for “wherever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty.”
[. . .]
vintage Justice Thomas -- plainly written, and just plain brilliant.
We have overseen and sanctioned the growth of an administrative system that concentrates the power to make laws and the power to enforce them in the hands of a vast and unaccountable administrative apparatus that finds no comfortable home in our constitutional structure. The end result may be trains that run on time (although I doubt it), but the cost is to our Constitution and the individual liberty it protects.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/03/a_littlenoted_masterpiece_of_constitutional_scholarship_by_justice_thomas.html

March 20, 2015
A little-noted masterpiece of constitutional scholarship by Justice Thomas
By Mark J. Fitzgibbons

Who Needs Rules?

Cambridge City Council which is obligated to run its meetings using Robert's Rules of Order has a simple solution. Few Councilors know those rules. They suspend the rules (MA legislature does it too) when they want to do something. As for speaking too long the US Senate and US House restrict members' speaking to one minute on occasion. The Cambridge City Council has no limit for their members who drone on, and repeat what others say even after saying "I want to echo what my colleague said." It is humorous to watch them. Try it you'll like it. In olden times high school fraternities used Robert's Rules and it was never a problem. But that was then. Robert's Rules are way too rational for today, when emotions rule and propaganda dictates. Too bad that students are "very busy and have different time priorities” preventing them from learning how to run meetings.

Another consideration is how courts are run allegedly according to strict procedural rules. They too take time and are tedious. It is called Due Process. Perhaps for expediency those rules too can be ignored. Then people can just punish suspects who are accused of crime. It is not even necessary to give the suspect notice of what they are accused. Just punish them for whatever someone says. That is what numerous local police agencies, crime families, FBI informants, Communists, Harvard University campus police, building superintendents, and graduate students in psychology at Harvard Medical School did to me for 45 years. 

[From article]
As a result, some members of the Council are questioning the effectiveness of following parliamentary procedure, which they say causes meetings to run too long.
“I’m for it in theory, but it’s tedious in practice,” Nasrollahzadeh said.
[. . .]
Currier House representative Stephen A. Turban ’17 [. . .] said he believes parliamentary procedure should be done away with altogether.
“We exist as a student government, not a real government,” Turban said. “We’re a group of students that are very busy and have different time priorities.”
Council members point to some representatives’ lack of understanding of the procedures to explain why it slows down the process.
[. . .]
“You don’t want to give the power in the meetings to the few people who know parliamentary procedure,” he said. “It’s ironic.”
[. . .]
“People talk for far, far too long,” Kanuparthy added. “It’s the nature of things that people like to hear themselves talk.”

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/3/6/UC-procedures-process-tediousness/

‘Tedious in Practice’: UC Questions Meeting Procedures
By JALIN P. CUNNINGHAM

Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
March 5, 2015

New York State's New Assembly Speaker Accused of Accepting Money From Crime Family Members

[From article]
Between 2003 and 2008, more than $2,800 flowed into the Bronx Democrat’s campaign coffers from Tri-State Employment Services and its top executives, including reputed Bonanno associate Neil Messina, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison last April in connection with a 1992 home-invasion murder.
Heastie also directed at least $250,000 to the Bronx Business Alliance. The now-defunct nonprofit’s head, John Bonizio, was convicted of manslaughter in 1982 for bludgeoning a man to death with a baseball bat. Bonizio also made a plea deal after being indicted in the same year for trying to bribe an NYPD detective.
[. . .]
Heastie took over as Assembly speaker last month amid corruption charges against former Speaker Sheldon Silver.
Silver was arrested by the FBI in January for allegedly accepting nearly $4 million in bribes and kickbacks dating back to at least 2000.

http://nypost.com/2015/03/02/records-show-heastie-accepted-cash-from-a-convicted-mobster/

Sheldon Silver’s replacement took cash from a convicted mobster
By Michael Gartland
New York Post
March 2, 2015 | 4:32am

New York Governor Cuomo Says Corruption Is Normal In Albany

Gov. Andrew Cuomo

Photo: AP
The very thing that makes voters and taxpayers cynical is accepted by the ruling elite. At a book reading about wholesale corruption of the Boston Field Office of the FBI,  I asked the authors. "Are we are supposed to believe that when (Boston crime boss) James Bulger became a fugitive (for 16 years), all of the gambling  and drug rings operating in the Boston area vaporized, and that all policemen became honest?" They laughed and admitted that the reason Bulger was a problem was that he killed too many people, and corrupted too many police and FBI agents. So as Cuomo suggests, having some corruption is how politicians do business. Bulger's brother William, the Massachusetts State Senate President stated that reformers do not get re-elected. Then there is William Bratton NYC police Commissioner who famously said when Rudolf Giuliani was mayor, "People do not like whistle blowers."  

[From article]
There will always be corruption in government — and Albany is no worse than anywhere else, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday.
“You’ve always had and you probably always will have some level of corruption,’’ said Cuomo in an interview with New York 1.
“Power corrupts, and government is a source of power, you have it in the City Council, you have it in the state Legislature, you have it in the Congress of the United States, so, that continues.”
His remarks stood in stark contrast to those of US Attorney Preet Bharara, who last week noted that state lawmakers are more likely to be arrested than be tossed out at the polls.
“When you have a degree of corruption that is that deep and pervasive and frequent, that’s a big problem,” Bharara told MSNBC.
[. . .]
Good-government groups say it’s hard to compare Albany’s cesspool of criminality with other houses of power because ethics laws vary by jurisdiction.
[. . .]
Cuomo said there are no plans to hang any photos of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who resigned in ignominy after getting caught in a hooker scandal.

http://nypost.com/2015/02/17/cuomo-says-there-will-always-be-some-corruption-in-albany/

Cuomo says there will always be some corruption in Albany
By Aaron Short
New York Post
February 17, 2015 | 12:17am

Updated: Feds Arrest New York Assembly Speaker

Posted December 31, 2014 3:09 PM ET; Last updated January 22, 2015 8:25 PM ET




[From article]
The stunning five-count criminal complaint accused the Manhattan Democrat, an Albany power broker for decades, with pocketing millions in bribes and kickbacks in return for wielding his massive influence.
“Speaker Silver lied and misled the public about his outside incomes,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara told a news conference hours after Silver turned himself in.
“These charges go to the very core of what ails Albany — a lack of transparency, lack of accountability and a lack of principle joined with an overabundance of greed, cronyism and self-dealing.”
Bharara’s office received court warrants to seize $3.4 million from eight of Silver’s accounts at a half-dozen banks.
Each of the counts against Silver carries a maximum 20-year jail term — five years longer than the length of time that prosecutors claim the speaker was collecting his crooked cash.
[. . .]
The state money was provided to Dr. Robert Taub for research by the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation — with some of the additional funds going for unspecified “additional benefits” to the doctor’s family, the court papers charges.
Taub, who is affiliated with Columbia University, is cooperating with the FBI, court papers revealed. Silver sponsored a May 2011 “official resolution” by the assembly honoring Taub.
Silver collected more than $3.2 million in referral fees from the law firm after directing more than 100 clients to Weitz & Luxenberg for asbestos litigation, according to the complaint.
[. . .]
The schemes date back to 2000, and the complaint charges the speaker with multiple counts of fraud and using “the power and influence of his official position to obtain for himself millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks masked as legitimate income earned by Silver as a private lawyer.”
Silver arrived early Thursday at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan after officials allowed him to surrender and avoid a perp walk, law enforcement sources said.
[. . .]
Silver, along with Cuomo and Senate Republican Majority Leader Dean Skelos, are known as the “three men in the room” because they negotiate most everything that gets done in Albany.
[. . .]
Silver has also been dealing with a lawsuit filed by two Assembly staffers who charge that the speaker and the Assembly did not protect them from being sexually harassed by former Assemblyman Vito Lopez. After the initial accusations that Lopez groped staffers made news, Silver suddenly found himself embroiled in controversy when it was reported that he had previously paid two other staffers who had accused Lopez of sexual harassment a then-secret, taxpayer-funded settlement in excess of $100,000.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/assembly-speaker-silver-arrested-report-article-1.2087758

N.Y. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver accused of $4 million bribery and kickback scheme, Dems continue to support him
Silver, who has been one of the most powerful lawmakers in Albany for more than two decades, surrendered to authorities Thursday morning. A five-count federal complaint accuses him of accepting millions from firms seeking his influence in Albany.
BY KENNETH LOVETT , JOHN MARZULLI , GREG B. SMITH 

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS 

Published: Thursday, January 22, 2015, 1:55 AM Updated: Thursday, January 22, 2015, 4:40 PM

* * *


Sheldon Silver

Photo: Shannon DeCelle
[From article]
Sheldon Silver, the longtime speaker of the New York state Assembly, is expected to be arrested on corruption charges by federal authorities on Thursday after prosecutors subpoenaed records in a probe of undocumented payments he received from a law firm, according to a report.
Silver, a Manhattan Democrat who has served as speaker for more than 20 years, is expected to be charged following an investigation sparked when Gov. Cuomo abruptly shut down an anticorruption commission he had created in 2013, The New York Times said.
The specific details of the charges were not clear, but The Times said that it was related to money Silver received from a small real-estate tax law firm.
[. . .]
The probe came after an investigation by Cuomo’s Moreland Commission panel, which was looking into corruption in Albany when the governor shut it down.
One of the issues that the panel was looking into was how state lawmakers earn income from their non-government jobs.
Silver is a personal-injury lawyer associated with the high-profile law firm Weitz and Luxenberg.
Goldberg & Iryami specializes in an arcane form of law known as “tax certiorari,’’ according to the Times.
[. . .]
The Times added that the law firm has sought tax reductions for many properties on the Lower East Side, which is the area Silver represents.
In addition the financial controversies, Silver also became entangled in the Vito Lopez sex-harassment case when it became public that the speaker had hired two firms to defend the disgraced former assemblyman, spending nearly $700,000 in public funds.

http://nypost.com/2015/01/22/sheldon-silver-to-be-arrested-on-corruption-charges-report/

Sheldon Silver to be arrested on corruption charges: report
By Joe Tacopino
New York Post
January 22, 2015 | 2:08am
* * *
 [From article]
The investigation into the Goldberg firm’s payments to Mr. Silver grew out of the work of the Moreland Commission, an anticorruption panel that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, created in 2013 but abruptly shut down in March. Before it was shut down, the commission had investigated how lawmakers earn money outside of Albany, though the inquiry was stymied by a legal challenge from lawmakers and their employers.
The shutdown of the Moreland Commission itself is a major scandal, and if the feds bring an indictment and get a conviction, then Cuomo’s action will be shown to have shielded at least one lawbreaker, raising the question of what else he was covering up. To put it mildly, New York State has never been regarded as an exemplar of good government, and once rocks start getting overturned, who knows what will come crawling out?
[. . .]
Mr. Silver’s income from his private law practice well exceeds his legislative salary, which as speaker totals $121,000. On his most recent financial disclosure form, for 2013, he reported earning more than $650,000 from his outside legal work. But what he does to earn that money has long been shrouded in secrecy.
Nice income for a part-time job!

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/12/top_new_york_pol_under_federal_investigation.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook#.VKLPR1sPDbs.twitter

December 30, 2014
Top New York pol under federal investigation
By Thomas Lifson

Republicans Control 66 of 99 State Legislatures

[From article]
It should be noted that in 2020, state legislatures will redraw congressional district lines.  That will mean that the GOP will have an opportunity to carve out districts favorable to their candidates.  For those who cry "gerrymandering," I would gently point out that both parties do it and that almost every state's redistricting is subject to judicial review.

http://americanthinker.com/blog/2014/11/did_you_know_the_gop_now_controls_66_of_99_state_legislative_houses.html

November 6, 2014
Did you know the GOP now controls 66 of 99 state legislative houses?
By Rick Moran

CA Politicians Wants To Change 1988 Law To Permit Non English Public School Lessons

[From article]
On Tuesday, a few hours after Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto said that Illegal Aliens deserve justice in the USA and Gov. Jerry Brown welcomed all illegal immigrants to California, lawmakers in Sacramento passed a proposed ballot measure seeking to dismantle the English-only mandate for public schools and increase multilingual education programs.
[. . .]
The proposal by California lawmakers is designed to jettison the 1998 law which required English-only instruction in California classrooms. Many believe that inserting Spanish into the classroom only delays and hinders learning for English as second language children.

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-California/2014/08/27/CA-Lawmakers-Aim-To-Ban-English-Only-Instruction-in-Public-Schools

CA LAWMAKERS AIM TO BAN ENGLISH ONLY INSTRUCTION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
by ROBERT WILDE

27 Aug 2014

U.S. House Speaker Sues President For Abusing of Power

[From article]
“This is about defending the institution in which we serve,” he said. “What we’ve seen clearly over the last five years is an effort to erode the power of the legislative branch.”

http://nypost.com/2014/06/25/boehner-to-sue-obama-for-abusing-executive-power/

Boehner to sue Obama for abusing executive power
By Associated Press
New York Post
June 25, 2014 | 2:40pm

Misguided CA Law Jeopardizes Privacy of Young Students

Privacy For All Students

Privacy for All Students Coalition Launches Referendum Campaign To Let Voters Decide Fate of School Bathroom and Shower Legislation

Sacramento - A coalition of parents, students, nonprofit and faith groups today launched a referendum effort to give voters the right to decide whether to accept legislation that gives students the ability to utilize intimate school facilities such as showers, rest rooms and locker rooms based on their so-called gender identity and not their actual sex. The legislation also allows students to participate on formerly sex-segregated school sports and athletics teams based on gender identity. AB 1266 was signed into law on August 12th and is the only legislation of its kind ever enacted in America.

"AB 1266 is extreme, poorly drafted and utterly lacking in standards and safeguards," said Karen England, Executive Director of Capitol Resource Institute and a member of the Privacy for All Students coalition. "California law already protects transgendered students against discrimination and bullying. This bill is rife for abuse and subjects all California students to an unwarranted invasion of privacy, allowing them to be exposed to fully mature students of the opposite sex in school showers, bathrooms and locker rooms. It goes way too far."

The Privacy for All Students coalition must collect approximately 505,000 voter signatures by November 12thto qualify the referendum to the November 2014 ballot. Once signatures are submitted to elections officials, the law is put on hold and does not take effect until voters approve or reject it.

Existing California law prohibits discrimination and bullying against students on the basis of gender, gender identity, sexual orientation and gender non-conforming appearance and behavior. Further, some school districts have existing policies giving students access to facilities and athletic teams based on gender identity, but those policies have provisions that seek to provide safeguards and balance the interests of all students. AB 1266 contains no such provisions.

"AB 1266 is not about protecting the rights of transgender students because they are already protected against discrimination and bullying under California law," said Dr. John Eastman, professor of law at Chapman University and former Dean of the Chapman University School of Law. "It's about an adult political agenda that seeks to use the public schools to strip gender and gender differences from societal norms. It's the wrong agenda for California, and it's particularly wrong of these advocates to use school children as a weapon in waging their culture war."

Initial members of the Privacy for All Students coalition includes the Capitol Resource Institute, Pacific Justice Institute, Faith and Public Policy, Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, and ActRight, a national clearinghouse for conservative activists headed by Brian S. Brown.

"We all want students to be safe in school, but AB 1266 is so poorly crafted that it jeopardizes the safety of students," said Pastor Jack Hibbs of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills. "The bill forces a clumsily-drafted one-size fits all solution on California that is completely lacking in safeguards and guidelines, provides no role for parental involvement and fails to balance the interests of all students. It should be rejected."

Student leaders also spoke out against the legislation. "Our student body is supportive of all students, including those who consider themselves to be transgender. But it's wrong to subject students to being exposed to people of the opposite sex in intimate situations such as showers and restrooms," said one student leader with the coalition. "There are many less-intrusive approaches that can be adopted at the local level without sacrificing the privacy, safety and security of others, and without opening our showers, restrooms and locker rooms to abuse by students who wish to take advantage and misuse the law."

ActRight's president predicted that people throughout California and around the nation would rally to support the referendum campaign.

"This legislation is so extreme and far out of the mainstream that it will serve as a catalyst for involving parents and others in the effort to overturn it," said Brian Brown, ActRight's president. "The bill is so poorly crafted that a student need not ever have demonstrated any identification with the opposite gender before showing up demanding access to intimate school facilities reserved for members of the opposite sex. I have no doubt that people across the ideological spectrum, of all faiths, backgrounds and beliefs will oppose this extreme legislation."

The coalition also announced that Frank Schubert of Mission Public Affairs, LLC has agreed to advise the coalition during the referendum qualification phase and will manage the campaign once it qualifies for the ballot. Schubert, twice named the nation's top political consultant, has managed 15 California ballot initiative and referendum campaigns, winning 14 of them, including passing Proposition 8 in 2008. He explained his reasons for supporting the referendum campaign in an article written for Flash Report.

Bathroom Privacy is Common Sense

Californians are taking a stand for privacy, safety and common sense.

Eight days ago, Governor Brown signed AB 1266 into law. Finally, he thought, California students would be liberated from the burden of sex-segregated bathrooms.

He forgot that Californians still have something to say about their laws.

Within days a referendum effort was filed to overturn AB 1266. Karen England, Executive Director of Capitol Resource Institute, appeared on The Mike Huckabee show over the weekend to comment on the new law, the first of its kind in the nation. Media Matters was quick to dismiss her comments. Apparently they have bought the idea that the most compassionate response to a 16-year-old boy struggling with his sexual identity is to tell him to start dressing down in the girl's locker room.

Capitol Resource Institute intends to be a conduit of information and opinions on this new law and the effort to overturn it.

Will you partner with CRI in that effort?

Please make an online donation today!

To Mail Donations:
Capitol Resource Institute
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NV Legislator Expelled, Then Arrested After Police Chase

Concerning: The arrest came only days after the Assembly announced the unprecedented creation of a seven-member committee to investigate Brooks' behavior (file photo)



Prior record: Brooks was previously arrested for violent disturbances twice in two months

[From article]
Brooks' arrest came the same day he became the first lawmaker in Nevada history to be expelled from the Legislature.
[. . .]
representing a North Las Vegas district.
[. . .]
‘He was yelling something to the effect that, “These cops are going down!”’ Reilly said. ‘He was yelling quite a bit.’
[. . .]
Brooks was sworn in at the Legislature on February 4, but was arrested again February 10 at his estranged wife's home in Las Vegas after police alleged he threw punches and grabbed for the gun of an officer who responded to a domestic dispute. He faces a court hearing in May in Las Vegas on one felony and three lesser charges.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2301317/Expelled-Nevada-politician-Steven-Brooks-leads-police-high-speed-chase.html

Expelled Nevada politician leads police on high speed chase a day after he is thrown out of office
By ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORTER
Daily Mail (UK)
PUBLISHED: 17:11 EST, 29 March 2013 | UPDATED: 11:13 EST, 30 March 2013



* * *

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/29/nation/la-na-nevada-assemblyman-20130330

Ousted Nevada legislator arrested near Barstow after car chase
Steven Brooks is jailed in San Bernardino County, accused of resisting arrest, hours after being expelled from the Nevada State Assembly.
March 29, 2013
By John Glionna
Los Angeles Times

Exploiting Crises for Profit

Promoters of more mental health treatment sound like Rahm Emanuel "Let no crisis go to waste." Here is an opportunity to promote more funding for more psychiatry and more drug sales. Taxpayers willingly pay government psychiatrists to force chemicals into young people to make them more violent and less human. No father? More drugs. No job? More drugs? No religion? More drugs. Drugs will solve all problems and make the drug companies and the psychiatrists rich. Campaign contributions to legislative courtesans will result in laws to help make more zombies of young people. Who needs fathers? Who needs education? Drugs will teach them what they need to know.

http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1246253

Suicide prompts call for youth mental-health aid

By O’Ryan Johnson
Boston Herald
Sunday, April 11, 2010

CT Legislature Hard at "Work"


Should we buy them larger screen computers - or - a ticket home, permanently?

Politicians at work.

This is one of the THREE DAY WORK WEEKS funded by taxpayers. Some voters want to start from the beginning by voting out all elected officials and not letting any of them stay in office for more than two terms. No more lifelong healthcare, retirement, voting in their own pay raises, taking perks on our taxes, etc.

CT House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, pictured standing, far right, speaks while colleagues Rep. Barbara Lambert, D-Milford and Rep. Jack F. Hennessy, D-Bridgeport, play solitaire Monday night as the House convened to vote on a new budget. (AP)

The guy sitting in the row in front of these two... he's on Facebook, and the guy behind Hennessy is checking out the baseball scores.

These are the folks that can't get the budget out by Oct. 1, Seriously!!!

They got a 30 day budget extension. 30 days from now they will be in the same boat. That makes it easy for journalists, as all they have to do is recycle the same headlines from this week and from 2 years ago. And these yo-yos will still be playing SOLITAIRE!!!

Legislature Enables Psychiatric Abuses, Violence

Legislature Enables Psychiatric Abuses, Violence

NAMI's letter ("Tolman does good job for mentally ill," Letter, Cambridge Chronicle, February 14, 2007) is an example of why I asked twice to speak with the new editor of the Chronicle. It is a recurring problem with new editors. Few journalists are aware of the role of NAMI, and how many serious psychiatric abuses are accepted.
NAMI gets a few million each year from drug companies to promote drug treatment. For evidence of NAMI's drug funding, see here:
www.psychsearch.net/nami_checks.html
and for a story on the funding see here:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1999/11/nami.html
NAMI says, "The National Alliance on Mental Illness of Massachusetts, [is] a family-based advocacy and support group." That sounds as if they are concerned with protecting patients from abuses. NAMI promotes treatment. They work for the drug companies as a corporate "grass-roots" lobbyist. It is the most successful deception by corporations in the US.
Sen. Tolman gets awards from NAMI because he delivers for their campaign contributions to promote more taxpayer funds for more treatment. We see over and over again and again the results of the over-drugging of young people, most recently at Lincoln-Sudbury High School where a young man on psychiatric drugs killed another student.
Edel Quinn's anger ("Appalled at DSS," Letter, Cambridge Chronicle, February 14, 2007) should be directed at the legislature, which wrote the laws permitting the drug abuses of young people. Clonidine, the drug Riley overdosed on, is a hypertension drug approved for adults, but not for children. Rather than honoring NAMI and Tolman they should be exposed as the cause of much violence in this country.
US journalists and politicians remain ignorant of the clinical studies in England proving that psychiatric drugs cause violence. It is time to expose the abuses of NAMI and the drug companies, and to stop them.

Roy Bercaw, Editor ENOUGH ROOM

Letter: Tolman does good job for mentally ill
Cambridge Chronicle
Letter
Wednesday, February 14, 2007 - Updated: 12:38 PM EST

Boston, Cambridge, Belmont and Watertown should be grateful they have a legislator such as Chairman Steven Tolman, who has taken an active and committed interest in the well-being of those in the commonwealth who suffer from a mental illness. He has filed legislation that will ensure that the restricting of access to effective and/or innovative medications, especially those for acute mental illness, will not occur without public input.
As the Senate assistant vice chairman on Ways and Means, and the past chairman of the Joint Committee on Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Chairman Steven Tolman has worked tirelessly on behalf of the mentally ill so that they can receive the proper treatment that they deserve and need.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness of Massachusetts, a family-based advocacy and support group, is proud to support Chairman Tolman’s mission to protect the quality of care provided to those citizens of Massachusetts with mental illnesses.

TOBY FISHER, MBA/MSW
Executive Director NAMI-Mass.

Letter: Appalled at DSS
Cambridge Chronicle
Letter
Wednesday, February 14, 2007 - Updated: 12:42 PM EST
I am appalled again to see the mistakes made by DSS in the case of the death of little Rebecca Riley, RIP. The last time I was so appalled was when Haleigh Poutre’s case was shown on television. The then-governor of the state of Massachusetts requested a report on her case to be prepared by an independent panel, but it seems the mistakes made then are being repeated again and again by DSS.
Is there no accountability in this state? How many more children in this state have to suffer at the hands of their parents — the ones who are supposed to be taking care of them? When they fail, then the state must provide a better home for them. We do not want to read about the death of another child. Please, Lord.
EDEL QUINN
Huron Avenue
[Cambridge, MA]