Monday, April 17th, 2006,
by Fred (,
courts, crime, law, Missouri, sex offender registry
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Missouri legislators are considering a bill designed to limit a form of corporate welfare, tax increment financing, which allows developers to use the future property taxes, sales taxes and other taxes that their projects will generate. But critics of the bill say it doesn’t go far enough.
Since the law was passed in 1982, cities across the state have set up hundreds of TIF districts that have diverted hundreds of millions of dollars to developers. County governments, school districts, library boards and ambulance districts are among the entities that forgo revenue.After hours of debate over several days, the Senate decided to leave intact the vague definition of “blight” that has allowed the program to spread. Areas can be declared blighted based on factors such as defective street layout and obsolete platting.
But under the bill, vacant fields or farmland in the St. Louis region would no longer qualify. The region is defined as the city of St. Louis and St. Louis, St. Charles, Jefferson and Franklin counties.
Statewide, undeveloped or vacant land would be ineligible if the project consisted solely of homes or apartments. The idea is, schools can’t afford to lose property taxes from new subdivisions full of children who need educating.
TIF and its necessary partner, eminent domain, have created huge problems in St. Louis County. Local municipalities have created hundreds of TIF districts, exempting the regions from taxation. Meanwhile, a fragmented sales tax system has left many municipalities dependent upon economic development projects to fund local government, so the municipalities heavily recruit developers, which requires even more TIF districts and eminent domain abuse. It’s a vicious cycle that will only be circumvented if the government limits (or, better yet, eliminates) TIF.
This bill certainly doesn’t go far enough. Developers, as always, have the upper hand, claiming that the projects will go to Illinois or Kansas instead. But does anyone really believe that Home Depot would shun Missouri if TIF was not available? Should taxpayers really be subsidizing this development? No and no.
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Wednesday, April 5th, 2006,
by Fred (,
Congress, Constitution, law, politics
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Eric Mink takes issue with the Supreme Court on Padilla
President George Bush is playing games with the Constitution, and a majority of the justices on the Supreme Court either don’t realize it, don’t care or don’t take the situation seriously.
That’s a serious charge against the Court. It’s also not true.
On Monday, the court refused to accept an appeal filed by Jose Padilla, an American citizen from Chicago whom the government claims is a terrorist. Padilla’s complaint, essentially, is that for the last four years the United States government has defied the Constitution, disregarded the rule of law and acted pretty much like a tin-horn Third World dictatorship.
The court, by a vote of 6 to 3, declined to hear his case, noting — again, in essence — that the Bush administration finally had begun to handle Padilla’s case in accordance with the law. Therefore, there no longer was any reason to review the government’s previous four years of bad behavior.
Padilla’s complaint is that, as an American citizen, he is entitled to a trial in a civilian criminal court, with all of the civil rights guaranteed to criminal defendants under the Constitution. The government claims he is an enemy combatant not entitled to the protections of the fourth and fifth amendments. The only appellate court to rule on the issue agreed with the government. However, before the Supreme Court could hear the case, the government gave Padilla what he said he wanted - it transferred his case to the civilian justice system. That makes his appeal of the original Circuit Court decision moot.
Mink and many of his cohorts in the media don’t get that last point.
Here, then, is the meaning of Monday’s Supreme Court action:
The president of the United States can have you, an American citizen, snatched off the street. He can declare you to be an enemy combatant and have you thrown into a military prison. He can publicly denounce you as a criminal but not charge you with any crime. He can deny you access to a lawyer and keep you locked up without ever presenting evidence against you to a judge or jury. And he can keep you imprisoned for as long as he wants — unless and until a legal appeal manages to wend its way through the multiple layers of the judicial system to the doorstep of the Supreme Court.
Boiled down to its essence, that is essentially true. The government can do any number of things to you, and doesn’t have to stop until ordered to do so by the courts. But the courts can only act in response to a case or controversy. If there is no dispute, the courts are powerless to act. This has been the clear law of the land since the republic was established (see, e.g. the discussion in Muskrat v. U.S.). That is why the Supreme Court had no choice but to take no action in the Padilla case. The Supreme Court exists to adjudicate disputes, not to punish the executive branch for bad behavior, unless the bad behavior itself is criminal. And that is how it should be. Limiting the Court’s authority to issues in dispute prevents a corrupt court from becoming a Star Chamber. It also has the effect of preventing an uncorrupted court from checking executive action in certain cases.
Does this mean the administration can act unconstitutionally without recourse if they just back down before the Court gets the case? Of course not. The ultimate power to punish the executive branch lies with the Congress. They could bring articles of impeachment. They could use their investigatory power. They could pass legislation enabling defendants like Padilla to bypass the intermediate appellate court and go straight to the Supremes. Or they could clarify the law by passing a statute declaring that citizens are to be charged in all instances in civilian courts.
The Court did the right thing Monday. Not because the administration says Padilla is a terrorist. Not because the administration says we are at war. Not because a wartime President has unlimited power (he doesn’t). But because the checks and balances of the Constitution are vital even as they are messy. It is important that the government not deprive its citizens of their right to counsel and right to a fair trial. It is just as important that the powers of each branch be limited.
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Friday, March 24th, 2006,
by Fred (,
Barry Bonds, baseball, law, MLB, steroids
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A judge has denied Barry Bonds’ request to block profits of the book accusing him of using steroids.
Bonds’ attorneys say the book’s authors, publisher Gotham Books, the San Francisco Chronicle and Sports Illustrated, which published excerpts of the book, should be held liable for publishing “illegally obtained grand jury transcripts.”But Judge James Warren said free speech protections shielded the defendants from such accusations and that he thought Bonds’ lawsuit had little chance of success.
Notably, Bonds’ attorneys did not allege that the claims in the book were libelous. They base their request on an assertion that the book’s authors illegally obtained grand jury testimony. A lawyer for Bonds says that he doesn’t consider this to be a libel or slander case (audio link - ESPN insiders only). This is because everyone knows that the allegations are true. Bonds used steroids. the only questions are what baseball is going to do about it, and who else shares the blame.
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Thursday, March 23rd, 2006,
by Fred (,
Black Jack, law, Missouri
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Turns out the Black Jack ordinance that forbids more than three people from living together unless they’re related by blood, marriage or adoption doesn’t have anything to do with overcrowding after all, as Black Jack had claimed during its attempts to kick Olivia Shelltrack and Fondray Loving out of town.
Mayor Norman McCourt has insisted the city ordinance is intended to prevent overcrowding.But in a November 1999 letter he wrote regarding a similar but unrelated case involving the unwed parents of triplets, McCourt makes specific comments about the city’s “morals and standards.”
Black Jack officials and residents “do not believe that an unmarried couple having children residing in our community is an appropriate standard that they wish to approve,” he wrote.
It’s presumptuous that the mayor of Black Jack would say that residents don’t want an unmarried couple with children living in their town. It’s offensive that the government would say what type of family arrangements are or are not acceptable. And it’s great that the mayor’s own words are now being used to show just how small-minded he and his cronies are.
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Wednesday, March 1st, 2006,
by Fred (,
Hobbs Act, law, protests, RICO, St. Louis
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Napster says it’s Microsoft’s fault Napster has been crushed by Apple
Napster chief executive Chris Gorog took Microsoft to task Tuesday, telling Reuters that Microsoft and its hardware partners were to blame for his company’s inability to make headway against market leading iTunes. Recent surveys show Apple’s music software has more than 80 percent of the market, with that number continuing to rise.Gorog called Microsoft’s execution “less than brilliant” and said that technical glitches with the company’s digital rights management technology was hurting Napster’s business.
Napster relies on Microsoft’s digital music ecosystem and its PlaysForSure technology, which has continued to sputter in the face of strong competition from Apple with the iPod and iTunes.
There are a lot of reasons Apple has dominated this space, including the impressive design of the iPod and the device’s seamless interaction with iTunes and the iTunes Music Store, but a large part of Napster’s failure to compete comes from its failure to convince customers that renting music is preferable to owning it. Napster itself admits that the subscription model is a paradigm shift. People want to own stuff, and Apple is the only digital music vendor dedicated to allowing people to own stuff.
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