"Abortion clinic buffer zones’ fate in hands of high court" by Milton J. Valencia | Globe Staff, December 29, 2013
In a case closely watched by First Amendment scholars, the Supreme Court is set to hear a challenge to the law in January, the deepest scrutiny of an abortion clinic buffer zone -- a “buffer zone” meant to shield patients and staff from harassment while allowing the protesters to communicate their message -- in more than a decade.
And legal analysts say the court will have a specific task in reviewing the Massachusetts law: It will have to weigh free speech rights against the state’s ability to enact what it considers a public safety regulation, citing years of intimidation and harassment by protesters. Since the court agreed in June to hear the case, more than 30 groups have filed briefs for or against the law.
Not that I approve of intimidation and harassment, but the state itself is the biggest intimidator and harasser if you stray outside the political and cultural orthodoxy.
“Someone should be able to go to a health care clinic, without being yelled at, screamed at, without being harassed,” said Attorney General Martha Coakley, whose office has defended the law in the courts.
I suppose that is true; I oppose abortion, but per principle it is a state's rights issue and I must respect the will of my fellow citizens as much as I deplore it.
Related: Coakley Violated Campaign Finance Laws
Also see: Coakley moves to fix finances
Coakley takes swing at Baker on minimum wage
Save your energy, Marty, because Grossman is going to be the next governor.
But to Anthony, 64, a retired Marine who said he has demonstrated outside abortion clinics for more than 20 years “to help save lives,” the law unfairly targets peaceful demonstrators like him.
“The buffer zone is just a feel-good measure to violate my free speech rights,” he said in an interview outside the Boston clinic.
The country’s highest court does not say why it agrees to hear specific cases, but legal analysts say that this case combines hot-button issues in one question: abortion rights and free speech, and a state’s responsibility to balance the two….
The law, which prohibits any type of demonstration for or against abortion within a 35-foot zone around driveways and entrances of abortion clinics, had been unsuccessfully challenged in federal court in Massachusetts several times. A federal appeals court in California struck down parts of a similar law there in 2011, however, finding that the law was not neutral because police officers were one-sided in their enforcement, citing protesters but not people who were defending the patients.
Supporters of the Massachusetts law, arguing there has been no evidence of lopsided enforcement here, say the law was based in part on restrictions that the courts have already approved, and that it was an evolution of past Massachusetts laws and practices that, until 2007, failed to address concerns of protesters rushing patients and staff, and blocking clinic entrances.
I generally try to avoid confrontation. One reason I'm so antiwar I guess.
In 2000, for instance, the state approved a law that created a 6-foot “bubble” around patients once they reached 18 feet of a clinic entrance. That led protesters to block entrances, and line up across a patient’s path, said Marty Walz, CEO of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, who was a state legislator in 2007 and sponsored the law.
I'm not even going to type it.
Walz said the “bubble” zone law was difficult to enforce, and that protesters aggressively approached anyone who entered the zone. She said she visited the Boston clinic in 2007, only to be confronted and intimidated by a large protester.
“I had one of the protesters literally standing inches from my face, screaming at me, at full volume,” she said.
I'm way back here behind a keyboard, and you don't have to read me.
While supporters of the buffer law agree that shooting rampages, like the one carried out by John C. Salvi III at two Brookline clinics in 1994 that killed two women, are the extreme, they would regularly see aggressive protesters harassing patients, physically contacting them, and threatening them, blocking them from leaving their cars or entering the facilities.
That I oppose in all its forms.
Walz cited a history of violent protests dating back to the 1980s, when a group called Operation Rescue would strategically block entrances, or go into clinics and block rooms. Then, a group that called itself Operation Pink that supported abortion rights began to confront the protesters, which fueled public safety concerns. The 2007 law was meant to restrict any type of advocacy within the 35-foot buffer zone.
Wow, militant leftist feminists.
“It has dialed down the tension outside the door, and it feels less acrimonious,” said Teresa Roberts, 46, a nurse who worked at Planned Parenthood’s Brookline offices when Salvi went on the rampage in 1994. After a brief leave from Planned Parenthood, she returned to the agency in 2003.
“People are able to communicate, to express themselves, but it feels safer to staff, and, I believe, to patients,” she said. “There’s less of a sense of intimidation and tension, the yelling, following, stalking.”
“The law strikes the right balance, and everyone on the sidewalk, protesters, patients, staff, are safe,” Walz said, arguing that the zone is no different than buffer zones regulating conduct around schools, polling places, funerals, even the US Supreme Court.
Only two other states, Colorado and Montana, have statewide buffer zone laws for health clinics. In recent years, however, municipalities across the country have created fixed buffer zones similar to Massachusetts’ 2007 law. San Francisco, for instance, recently filed a court brief supporting the Massachusetts law, and Portland, Maine, recently created a 39-foot buffer zone.
Opponents of Massachusetts’ 2007 law, and the petitioners in the case, argue that the US Supreme Court review could decide the future of those laws as well, which they argue are far more intrusive than past laws because the buffer zone keeps them too far from patients, interfering with their ability to communicate with them.
“This is really a First Amendment case,” said Philip Moran, a Salem-based lawyer who is part of the team representing the five protesters in the case. “There’s a big difference between being able to speak to someone eye to eye, in a conversational tone, compared to speaking to someone 35 feet away with a bullhorn.”
Or on the internet, or so I have been told (no comments please).
--more--"
UPDATE: Justices question Mass. abortion clinic buffer zones
No big deal regarding the "free-speech" zones that protect political puppets and slaves or their corporate ma$ters.
UPDATE: Justices question Mass. abortion clinic buffer zones
No big deal regarding the "free-speech" zones that protect political puppets and slaves or their corporate ma$ters.
Related: Let's Not Talk
Looks like we won't be because I'll never be allowed to load for you.
"Court says time limit on suing health plan is legal; Woman sought benefits after being denied" Associated Press, December 17, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Monday that a contractual limit on suing over health plan benefits is legal.
The high court ruled unanimously against Julie Heimeshoff, who worked as a Walmart senior public relations manager.
Heimeshoof filed for long-term disability benefits with Hartford Life & Accident Insurance Co., after being diagnosed with lupus and fibromyalgia in 2005 but was denied in 2007. She sued in federal court for her benefits in 2010, but Hartford says her claim had to be filed within three years and she missed the time limit.
Heimeshoff said the Employee Retirement Income Security Act doesn’t have a time limit but Justice Clarence Thomas said for the court that the contract is enforceable.
‘‘A participant and a plan may agree by contract to a particular limitations period,’’ Thomas said.
The corporate court agreed with the in$urance company? No kidding?
Also see: Obamacare website in Spanish: Troubled in two languages
None of us can understand it no matter what language it is in.
It Is Unhealthy to Blog About Obummercare
It's a real bummer, man, and I think you can $ee lie (sic)!
In other action Monday:
■ The high court said it will not decide whether the Obama administration violated a judge’s order that struck down its temporary moratorium on deep water drilling after BP’s 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The court refused to hear an appeal from offshore service companies that challenged the moratorium.
Well, this administration is acting more like a dictatorship every day.
A federal judge overturned the Interior Department’s decision to halt new permits for deep water projects and suspend drilling on 33 exploratory wells after the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion killed 11 workers and triggered the spill.
However, the agency issued a second nearly identical suspension, leading the judge to issue a contempt finding. A federal appeals court concluded that the officials did not violate the injunction.
I have a pile of clippings regarding the BP trials over the last few months and might get to them shortly. Then again, I might not. Sorry.
■ The justices rejected an appeal from sisters in western Pennsylvania who sued the local school system for its failure to stop another student from verbally and physically assaulting them in 2008.
Brittany and Emily Morrow contended that the Blackhawk School district in Pennsylvania’s Beaver County had a constitutional duty to protect them from another student’s bullying. A divided US appeals court in Philadelphia upheld a trial judge’s dismissal of the lawsuit.
■ The justices said they would not hear an appeal from a Nevada developer over the Grand Canyon Skywalk. The late Las Vegas businessman David Jin invested $30 million to build the bridge that opened in 2007. He and the tribe disagreed on management fees and an incomplete visitors’ center.
His lawyers say the Hualapai tribal court system lacks authority to hear the case. But tribal attorneys say the operation of the popular glass bridge in northern Arizona is governed by Hualapai law. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco sided with the tribe.
■ The court decided not to hear an appeal over Michigan’s sore loser law that kept Gary Johnson from appearing as a Libertarian presidential candidate on the 2012 state ballot after running in the Republican primary.
State law says candidates who run in a primary must run as the party’s candidate in the general election or as unaffiliated. Johnson said the law should not apply to presidential elections, but the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld the Michigan law.
They lost my deaf ear on those, sorry.
--more--"
You smell something?
"Supreme Court hears case on air pollution rules" by Adam Liptak | New York Times, December 11, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a knotty environmental case over how to hold states responsible for air pollution that drifts across their borders and causes harm in downwind states.
If there was consensus among the justices, it concerned only the complexity and difficulty of the issues before them….
'cuz we talking' bout corporate dollars here!
The Obama administration’s solution, a trading system in which the states could buy and sell pollution credits, was struck down last year in a 2-to-1 ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
This is the cap-andtrade carbon $cheme that will benefit bankrupt government and Wall Street banks that will literally create cash out of thin fart mist.
The appeals court said that the Environmental Protection Agency had exceeded its authority under the Clean Air Act in the way it apportioned the cleanup work among 28 upwind states.
The air in those states, mostly in the Midwest and South, may meet regulatory standards within their borders even as pollutants from their power plants and refineries drift across state lines, preventing neighboring states from meeting their legal obligations.
The affected states are largely in the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic….
I'm being poisoned and yet I'm glad they struck it down because this is about more than me.
--more--"
Related: West Virginians Stink
Yeah, don't worry about the real environmental hazards like chemical poisoning of land, air, and water, the dead Gulf that got corextited, or the Fukushima radiation dump of 300 tons into the Pacific every day.
"Supreme Court hears state’s case vs. Indian casino" December 03, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court seemed wary Monday about making any changes to tribal sovereignty laws as it considered whether Michigan can block a Native American casino….
In a separate matter Monday, the Supreme Court turned away a Christian university’s attempt to overturn a key part of the Obama administration’s health care law. The justices did not comment in leaving in place a ruling dismissing Liberty University’s lawsuit.
Why doesn't Obummer just waive it? He's waived everything else except the tax penalty.
The Lynchburg, Va., school made several arguments in challenging the portion of the health care law that requires most employers to provide health insurance to their workers or pay a fine. The court is considering taking other cases on similar issues.
--more--"
"Supreme Court reviews President Obama’s power; Justices hear case on appointments during recesses" by Mark Sherman | Associated Press, January 13, 2014
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is refereeing a politically charged dispute between President Obama and Senate Republicans about the president’s power to temporarily fill high-level positions.
The case being argued at the high court Monday is the first in the nation’s history to consider the meaning of the provision of the Constitution that allows the president to make temporary appointments to positions that otherwise require Senate confirmation, but only when the Senate is in recess.
How come Democraps never made a big deal when George W did it?
The court fight is an outgrowth of partisanship and the political stalemate that has been a hallmark of Washington for years, and especially since Obama took office in 2009….
Unless you are Wall Street, Israel, or the Pentagon war machine. Then everything is going ju$t fine, thank you.
Folks, I'm sick of the shit narrative of the Zionist-controlled Amerikan ma$$ media. Sorry.
The Supreme Court case involves a dispute between a Washington state bottling company and a local Teamsters union in which the NLRB sided with the union. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned the board’s ruling. Hundreds more NLRB rulings could be voided if the Supreme Court upholds the appeals court decision.
Oh, this is only about labor. Who gives a f***? According to my corporate pre$$, labor is a cancer on this country and its economy.
More broadly, if the justices ratify the lower court ruling, it would make it nearly impossible for a president to use the recess power.
Good. The president already has too much power in the office of the imperial executive. W left the outlines of dictatorship, and Obama has only advanced the plan.
Under such a ruling, presidential nominees could be blocked indefinitely when the president’s party does not control the Senate….
Situations like the one that led to the current court case are unlikely to arise in the short term….
Until Republicans take control of the Senate next year. Then it will be an issue.
The big issues are….
Time for me to take a recess.
--more--"
Related: Justices voice doubts on Obama recess appointments
Also see:
Justices hear airline, pilot security case
Justices decline to stop state from taxing online purchases
What a $hock!
Supreme Court to rule on Internet TV broadcast service
Who cares or watches that slop?
"Rare bobbleheads a supreme hit" Associated Press, December 31, 2013
WASHINGTON — They are some of the rarest bobblehead dolls ever produced. They’re released erratically. They’re given away for free, not sold. And if you get a certificate to claim one, you have to redeem it at a Washington law office.
The limited edition bobbleheads of US Supreme Court justices are the work of law professor Ross Davies, who has been creating them for the past 10 years. When finished, copies arrive unannounced on the real justices’ desks, secreted there by unnamed confederates. And fans will go to some lengths to get one….
Scalia is most popular!
--more--"
Globe has my head bobbing on a swivel these days.
Looks like we won't be because I'll never be allowed to load for you.
"Court says time limit on suing health plan is legal; Woman sought benefits after being denied" Associated Press, December 17, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Monday that a contractual limit on suing over health plan benefits is legal.
The high court ruled unanimously against Julie Heimeshoff, who worked as a Walmart senior public relations manager.
Heimeshoof filed for long-term disability benefits with Hartford Life & Accident Insurance Co., after being diagnosed with lupus and fibromyalgia in 2005 but was denied in 2007. She sued in federal court for her benefits in 2010, but Hartford says her claim had to be filed within three years and she missed the time limit.
Heimeshoff said the Employee Retirement Income Security Act doesn’t have a time limit but Justice Clarence Thomas said for the court that the contract is enforceable.
‘‘A participant and a plan may agree by contract to a particular limitations period,’’ Thomas said.
The corporate court agreed with the in$urance company? No kidding?
Also see: Obamacare website in Spanish: Troubled in two languages
None of us can understand it no matter what language it is in.
It Is Unhealthy to Blog About Obummercare
It's a real bummer, man, and I think you can $ee lie (sic)!
In other action Monday:
■ The high court said it will not decide whether the Obama administration violated a judge’s order that struck down its temporary moratorium on deep water drilling after BP’s 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The court refused to hear an appeal from offshore service companies that challenged the moratorium.
Well, this administration is acting more like a dictatorship every day.
A federal judge overturned the Interior Department’s decision to halt new permits for deep water projects and suspend drilling on 33 exploratory wells after the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion killed 11 workers and triggered the spill.
However, the agency issued a second nearly identical suspension, leading the judge to issue a contempt finding. A federal appeals court concluded that the officials did not violate the injunction.
I have a pile of clippings regarding the BP trials over the last few months and might get to them shortly. Then again, I might not. Sorry.
■ The justices rejected an appeal from sisters in western Pennsylvania who sued the local school system for its failure to stop another student from verbally and physically assaulting them in 2008.
Brittany and Emily Morrow contended that the Blackhawk School district in Pennsylvania’s Beaver County had a constitutional duty to protect them from another student’s bullying. A divided US appeals court in Philadelphia upheld a trial judge’s dismissal of the lawsuit.
■ The justices said they would not hear an appeal from a Nevada developer over the Grand Canyon Skywalk. The late Las Vegas businessman David Jin invested $30 million to build the bridge that opened in 2007. He and the tribe disagreed on management fees and an incomplete visitors’ center.
His lawyers say the Hualapai tribal court system lacks authority to hear the case. But tribal attorneys say the operation of the popular glass bridge in northern Arizona is governed by Hualapai law. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco sided with the tribe.
■ The court decided not to hear an appeal over Michigan’s sore loser law that kept Gary Johnson from appearing as a Libertarian presidential candidate on the 2012 state ballot after running in the Republican primary.
State law says candidates who run in a primary must run as the party’s candidate in the general election or as unaffiliated. Johnson said the law should not apply to presidential elections, but the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld the Michigan law.
They lost my deaf ear on those, sorry.
--more--"
You smell something?
"Supreme Court hears case on air pollution rules" by Adam Liptak | New York Times, December 11, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a knotty environmental case over how to hold states responsible for air pollution that drifts across their borders and causes harm in downwind states.
If there was consensus among the justices, it concerned only the complexity and difficulty of the issues before them….
'cuz we talking' bout corporate dollars here!
The Obama administration’s solution, a trading system in which the states could buy and sell pollution credits, was struck down last year in a 2-to-1 ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
This is the cap-andtrade carbon $cheme that will benefit bankrupt government and Wall Street banks that will literally create cash out of thin fart mist.
The appeals court said that the Environmental Protection Agency had exceeded its authority under the Clean Air Act in the way it apportioned the cleanup work among 28 upwind states.
The air in those states, mostly in the Midwest and South, may meet regulatory standards within their borders even as pollutants from their power plants and refineries drift across state lines, preventing neighboring states from meeting their legal obligations.
The affected states are largely in the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic….
I'm being poisoned and yet I'm glad they struck it down because this is about more than me.
--more--"
Related: West Virginians Stink
Yeah, don't worry about the real environmental hazards like chemical poisoning of land, air, and water, the dead Gulf that got corextited, or the Fukushima radiation dump of 300 tons into the Pacific every day.
"Supreme Court hears state’s case vs. Indian casino" December 03, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court seemed wary Monday about making any changes to tribal sovereignty laws as it considered whether Michigan can block a Native American casino….
In a separate matter Monday, the Supreme Court turned away a Christian university’s attempt to overturn a key part of the Obama administration’s health care law. The justices did not comment in leaving in place a ruling dismissing Liberty University’s lawsuit.
Why doesn't Obummer just waive it? He's waived everything else except the tax penalty.
The Lynchburg, Va., school made several arguments in challenging the portion of the health care law that requires most employers to provide health insurance to their workers or pay a fine. The court is considering taking other cases on similar issues.
--more--"
"Supreme Court reviews President Obama’s power; Justices hear case on appointments during recesses" by Mark Sherman | Associated Press, January 13, 2014
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is refereeing a politically charged dispute between President Obama and Senate Republicans about the president’s power to temporarily fill high-level positions.
The case being argued at the high court Monday is the first in the nation’s history to consider the meaning of the provision of the Constitution that allows the president to make temporary appointments to positions that otherwise require Senate confirmation, but only when the Senate is in recess.
How come Democraps never made a big deal when George W did it?
The court fight is an outgrowth of partisanship and the political stalemate that has been a hallmark of Washington for years, and especially since Obama took office in 2009….
Unless you are Wall Street, Israel, or the Pentagon war machine. Then everything is going ju$t fine, thank you.
Folks, I'm sick of the shit narrative of the Zionist-controlled Amerikan ma$$ media. Sorry.
The Supreme Court case involves a dispute between a Washington state bottling company and a local Teamsters union in which the NLRB sided with the union. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned the board’s ruling. Hundreds more NLRB rulings could be voided if the Supreme Court upholds the appeals court decision.
Oh, this is only about labor. Who gives a f***? According to my corporate pre$$, labor is a cancer on this country and its economy.
More broadly, if the justices ratify the lower court ruling, it would make it nearly impossible for a president to use the recess power.
Good. The president already has too much power in the office of the imperial executive. W left the outlines of dictatorship, and Obama has only advanced the plan.
Under such a ruling, presidential nominees could be blocked indefinitely when the president’s party does not control the Senate….
Situations like the one that led to the current court case are unlikely to arise in the short term….
Until Republicans take control of the Senate next year. Then it will be an issue.
The big issues are….
Time for me to take a recess.
--more--"
Related: Justices voice doubts on Obama recess appointments
Also see:
Justices hear airline, pilot security case
Justices decline to stop state from taxing online purchases
What a $hock!
Supreme Court to rule on Internet TV broadcast service
Who cares or watches that slop?
"Rare bobbleheads a supreme hit" Associated Press, December 31, 2013
WASHINGTON — They are some of the rarest bobblehead dolls ever produced. They’re released erratically. They’re given away for free, not sold. And if you get a certificate to claim one, you have to redeem it at a Washington law office.
The limited edition bobbleheads of US Supreme Court justices are the work of law professor Ross Davies, who has been creating them for the past 10 years. When finished, copies arrive unannounced on the real justices’ desks, secreted there by unnamed confederates. And fans will go to some lengths to get one….
Scalia is most popular!
--more--"
Globe has my head bobbing on a swivel these days.
