The New Face of the Coyote: Fraudulent Use of The Violence Against Women Act and State Divorce and Custody Laws
As a few immigrants have realized in recent years, there is a federal law that, especially when combined with popular divorce and child custody statutes across the nation, allows them to relatively easily and quickly acquire permanent residency and even citizenship status in the United States whereas such would have been nearly impossible beforehand, use that immigration status to bring over loved ones from their homeland via family reunification visas, and if they play their cards right, receive spousal and even child support soon after arrival to cover their living and shopping expenses: alas, the American dream, all for the price of a broken heart and a ruined life - not their own, of course.
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Child Abductions, California Child Custody Law, and International Human Rights
The California Family Law System is deeply dysfunctional, and it is need of some serious positive changes. Though the problem of child abductions is connected to various international issues which shall be discussed later in this article, on the local level alone, it is often inextricably linked to the discussion of California Child Custody and Divorce laws regarding domestic violence.
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Peaceful Democratic Revolution in the Middle East Calls for Regime Change
Problematically, the nations of Europe, North America, and South America have said very little or nothing at all, and have shown no tangible support whatsoever for the courageous protesters in the Middle East who are crowding the streets of Egypt, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Yemen, and Kuwait, demanding an end to thousands of years of oppression by hostile monarchies, military dictatorships, and fake democracies.
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Proposition 19 Defeated by California Voters in 2010
Proposition 19 has been defeated by California voters in the 2010 state elections, resulting in more concerns about marijuana related crime and drug violence in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Monterey Bay Area. As a result, police forces in Alameda County, Santa Clara County, San Francisco County, and Santa Cruz County will continue to be burdened by dealing with marijuana possession and distribution crimes, and the courts and jails in these areas will have to deal with overcrowding with persons alleged to have violated non-violent drug possession and distribution crimes.
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American Tea Party Helps Republicans Win the House in 2010
The American Tea Party styles itself as fundamentally focused on upholding the core values of the US Constitution, yet in reality it is politically essentially a socially and fiscally conservative branch of the Republican Party, backed heavily by polarizing politicians such as Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. Tea Party candidates strongly oppose immigration, gun control, abortion rights, affirmative action, social welfare, uniform health coverage, and other big government policies. Basically, the American Tea Party takes the entire retinue of ultra-conservative Republican Party values and attempts to justify them by a perspective on American jurisprudence that disregards the two centuries of legal precedent and evolution that has occurred since the drafting of the US Constitution, and rather focuses on that original document much like a text as sacred as the Bible is to Christians.
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BART Cop gets 2 year Sentence for Killing Oscar Grant. Michael Vick received the same sentence for killing dogs.
The inherent violence of Mr. Mehserle's act is clarified by his decision to Taser Mr. Grant, as he thought he was doing. It is a grossly unnecessary and aggressive level of violence to choose to Taser at close range a face down, unarmed youth who is arrested for fighting on a train platform. It is the presence of such violence in the act, albeit an act that was ultimately a tragic and involuntary killing, that should have urged the judge in this matter to give Mr. Mehserle the maximal sentence of 4 years. Mr. Mehserle was lucky that he did not threaten Mr. Grant before he reached for the weapon, as those few words may have been sufficient to convict him of second degree felony murder with an underlying felony of aggravated assault, leading to a possible life sentence. More so, Mr. Mehserle was lucky that the judge used his wide discretion to give him the minimum sentence here. Mr. Grant, his family, and the African-American community should be so lucky.
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California Prison Reform amidst Private Prison Profiteers
The California prison system is the largest in the nation, and it suffers from serious problems of overpopulation, violence, and insufficient health and education services for its juvenile and adult inmates, especially for those with special needs. It is unconstitutional for a State prison system to operate at such dilapidated levels, because “cruel and unusual punishment” is illegal under the State and Federal Constitution.
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Business Investment Fraud on the Rise
In this poor economy, our nation is seeing a sharp spike in the number of reported business fraud cases being reported by investors, as reported in a USA Today article written on August 5, 2010 by John Waggoner - "Investment Scams Thriving; Folks with Big Stock, 401(K) Losses Have Taken Some Hits." According to the USA Today article, investors who are seeking to recoup major losses from their retirement plans are falling prey to con-artists posing as entrepreneurs seeking venture capital or investment moguls seeking partners.
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California Same Sex Marriage Federal Lawsuit Rumbles amidst a Backdrop of Centuries of Catholic Church and State Interference in Marriage Rights
The role of government and religion in the creation and regulation of the institution of marriage is hundreds of years old, specifically dating back to 1563 when the Council of Trento decreed that marriage is a lifelong sacrament meant only for one man and one woman. The dramatic backdrop to this pivotal decision is filled with anti-Jewish sentiment, xenophobia, political posturing, and military strategies.
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25 Brilliant Things To Do For Our Planet
I am committed to practicing the law in an environmentally sustainable manner. I promote a paperless law practice, use recyclable and energy-efficient office products, support public transportation and e-conferencing, favor organic foods and local businesses, and conserve energy as much as possible to reduce pollution in our environment. As a result, my law practice model is extremely sustainable and environmentally friendly.
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Clash of Civilizations, American Jurisprudence, and Islamic Law and Policy in the Middle East
As Mary Robinson, the former UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, recently stated in her lecture at UC Hastings, the frightening convergence between purportedly “religious,” “fundamentalist” Western and Eastern political, industrial, and military leaders upholds free trade concerns while simultaneously degrading human rights, and that this international trend is truly “backwards,” taking us back decades in human rights reforms. In his book, Democracy Matters, Cornel West calls this “free market fundamentalism,” supported by the related theorems of “aggressive militarism” and “escalating authoritarianism,” the current era’s greatest threats to universal democracy. The violent international clashes between thousands of human rights-minded citizens and WTO or NAFTA convention security forces is one example of this trend.
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Environmental Pollution, Comparative Law, and Jurisprudence in California and India
The people of the United States cannot point to a Constitutional provision that guarantees them the fundamental right to good health and a clean environment. However, certain States in our Union have provided just such a right in their case law and constitutions, such as Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Illinois, and Montana. Either through subsequent case law, or through explicit language in the constitutional provisions themselves, these States have indicated that the rights to a healthy environment are self-executing rights. Hawaii and Montana have also relaxed standing requirements for citizens bringing claims for violations of their rights to a clean environment, allowing any person to file suit for any violation of the constitutional provision, regardless of whether the violator is a public or private party. Twenty-one States in the USA have constitutional provisions providing citizens the right to a clean environment.
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The Debate over Mr. Hamdan: Sources of Law and The Three Branches
The Bush Administration has worn away at the legal liberties and protections afforded our Nation’s free inhabitants as well as its accused criminals, who are still allegedly presumed innocent until proven guilty. All things considered, I am reminded of a famous quote by our Nation’s eldest Statesman and most prominent Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin – a signatory to the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris, and the US Constitution: “Those who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security.” Now, this is for the Court to decide.
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