5/19/2015 Many people were caught off-guard in 2010 by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United vs. FEC ruling that in many ways equated the amount of political speech one was able to express by the amount of money the speaker was able to spend. The New York Times, however, notes that the Court made a similar
5/18/15 If there were any doubts about whether or not many banks broke the law while selling bad mortgages to investors or if their clients were merely victims of bad timing, Manhattan Federal Court Judge, Denise L. Cote, would like to eliminate them. Finding Japanese bank, Nomura Holdings and the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)
5/15/2015 Now that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has apparently survived a near coup d’etat led by Democratic Senators Harry Reid and Elizabeth Warren, pending a successful re-vote, the battle over the large-scale trade deal will soon be heading to the House of Representatives. The vote in the House may be even more troublesome for the
5/12/2015 A former sales executive for the money transfer service, Intermex, filed a lawsuit last week in Kern County Superior Court in central California, alleging that she was fired for disabling a company-required app on her phone that constantly tracked her motions. Myrna Arias, who worked at the Bakersfield-area company, claims she was fired after
5/12/2015 U.S. Justice Department lawyers presented a motion to dismiss MetLife’s suit against the government on Friday, May 8th in U.S. District Court in Washington DC. MetLife filed the suit in January, after being named by the U.S. Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) as a company that is a Systemically Important Financial Institution (SIFI), known
5/11/2015 In a decision that turns a bad situation even worse for the state of Illinois, the state’s Supreme Court unanimously declared a law to reduce the amount of pension benefits for state workers to be unconstitutional. The controversial law titled SB 1, signed in December, 2013 by then-Governor; Pat Quinn, reduced compounded cost-of-living increases
5/8/2015 Contrary to yesterday’s post regarding the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that warrantless access to phone records is not an invasion of privacy; a 3-judge panel from the 2nd Circuit ruled unanimously on Thursday, May 07th that the National Security Agency (NSA) spying program is illegal. Although both programs base their justification on
5/7/2015 Just a quick rule of thumb that I tend to go by; when representatives for FIRE industries (Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate), try to tell me that something they are doing is for my benefit, I assume they mean it in the same manner that punching them in the face to keep their sinful
5/7/2015 A panel of judges ruled 9-2 in the 11th District U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta that cell phone customers do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy concerning searches of phone records. The Tuesday, May 5th ruling concerns the case of Miami resident, Quartavious Davis, who was convicted of several felonies, including robbery
5/6/2015 The for-profit college system, Corinthian Colleges, filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection in Delaware Federal District Court on Monday, May 4th, amid a year-long financial crisis. Corinthian’s system, including Everest Institute and WyoTech, consisted of over 100 campuses nationwide and about 74,000 students and over 10,000 faculty and staff. The system is facing the