99 and 44/100% Pure…or Not

First Marilyn Chambers, now this.
Public health and environmental advocates faced off against household cleaning giants Procter & Gamble, <a href="http://www.colgate.com/app/Colgate/US/HomePage.cvsp”>Colgate-Palmolive, Church and Dwight and Reckitt-Benckiser in a fight for transparency about the toxic chemicals in cleaning products.
The specific brands targeted in the lawsuit are familiar names and include such popular items as Lysol, Tom’s of Maine, Ivory and Oxiclean, to name a few.
The lawsuit filed in the New York State Supreme Court alleges that these specific manufacturers do not disclose information about the chemicals in their
products and the health risks they pose, as they are required to do under New York regulations.
The first-of-its-kind lawsuit could have national implications and comes as momentum builds nationally and internationally for toxics chemical reform.

Cold Case May Become Closed Case

tylenol poison victims

I am referring to the 1982 Tylenol murders in Chicago when seven people died after taking Extra-Strength Tylenol medicine capsules which had been laced with potassium cyanide. This case, code-named TYMURS by the FBI, is still not solved. However, there has been a break in the case.

All along, the major suspect of this crime has been James Lewis, the individual who at the time of the poisonings mailed an extortion letter to Johnson & Johnson, the manufacturers of Tylenol, demanding $1 million to “stop the killing.” In addition, after his arrest, he gave authorities detailed plans on how the capsules could have been injected with lethal doses of cyanide. He, however, denied that he was the culprit and unfortunately, there was not enough evidence to charge him with this crime. He was charged with extortion and served 13 years of a 20-year sentence. He was released in 1995.

Now, however, with advances in DNA forensics, the government may have a second crack at him. Lewis has been ordered by the Massachusetts court to hand over DNA and fingerprint samples which will be checked against an original smudge found on one of the original tampered Tylenol bottles.

The Tylenol murders, which occurred near Halloween, resulted in a frenzy of panic throughout the country and changed the way foods and medicines are packaged in the U.S. Approximately six weeks after the initial reports of the poisonings, the FDA exercised their seldom-used right to bypass the notice-and-comment requirement of the Administrative Procedures Act, and went directly to a final rule, establishing the requirement for tamper-resistant packaging. Prior to this, there was no such regulation regarding packaging of medicines.

Johnson and Johnson acted swiftly during this crisis and recalled 31 million bottles of Tylenol capsules from store shelves and offered replacement product in the safer tablet form free of charge. Johnson and Johnson’s handling of this tampering crisis is considered by public relations experts to be one of the best in the history of public relations and a shining example of corporate social responsibility.

THOMAS Turns Fifteen

Initially launched in January of 1995, THOMAS, the legislative database hosted by the Library of Congress, is celebrating its 15th Anniversary this month. Named after Thomas Jefferson,(“If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed“, Jan. 6, 1816), this government website provides free public access to federal legislative information, including bills, resolutions, activity in Congress, Congressional Record, schedules, calendars, committee information, Presidential nominations, treaties, and other government resources.

In response to user feedback and in celebration of its fifteenth anniversary, THOMAS has been updated for the second session of the 111th Congress. The new items include a bookmarking and sharing toolbar, top five bills of the week, a new RSS feed, highlighting how to contact Members of Congress, a tip of the week, enhanced visibility of bill
PDFs, and an increased timeout interval.

The bookmarking and sharing toolbar, found near the top of most THOMAS
pages, allows users to save or share a permanent link via bookmarks,
email, or social networking sites such as Twitter or Facebook. The
toolbar also includes quick links to subscribe to THOMAS RSS feeds and to print.

If you are not familiar with THOMAS, check it out. It is a great source for legislative information. And if you are already using THOMAS, check out the new enhancements.

“Airline Passengers have Rights”

So said Department of Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood, today when he announced a new rule that significantly strengthens protections afforded to consumers by establishing a hard time limit of three hours, after which U.S. airlines must allow passengers to deplane from domestic flights. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, there were 864 flights delayed on runways by three or more hours this year through Oct. 30.

In addition, the new rule also requires airlines to provide food and water to passengers within two hours of a delay, keep the lavatories functional and provide medical attention to passengers who may need it. Failure to provide these services can result in fines of $27,500, per passenger, per violation, according to LaHood. Depending on how many passengers are aboard these fines can be mighty hefty.

Some additional requirements -
• Prohibits airlines from scheduling chronically delayed flights, subjecting those who do to DOT enforcement action for unfair and deceptive practices;
• Requires airlines to designate an airline employee to monitor the effects of flight delays and cancellations, respond in a timely and substantive fashion to consumer complaints and provide information to consumers on where to file complaints;
• Requires airlines to display on their website flight delay information for each domestic flight they operate;
• Requires airlines to adopt customer service plans and audit their own compliance with their plans; and
• Prohibits airlines from retroactively applying material changes to their contracts of carriage that could have a negative impact on consumers who already have purchased tickets.

The rule would apply to planes with more than 30 seats and goes into effect April, 2010.

Work Emails Deemed “Privileged”

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in the case, Convertino vs. U.S. Department of Justice, found that private emails belonging to a Dept. of Justice employee, were protected by the attorney-client privilege.

U.S. Attorney Jonathan Tukel, has won his fight to conceal e-mails he sent to his attorney over the government’s computers, contradicting a popular belief that employees have no expectation of privacy on work computers.

The party trying to get the e-mails is former federal prosecutor Richard Convertino. Convertino, who believes he was retaliated against for blowing the whistle on incompetence in the Bush administration’s war on terror, is trying to find out who leaked confidential information to the Detroit Free Press concerning an investigation into his conduct during a trial of suspected terrorists.

Convertino was the lead Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Detroit Sleeper Cell prosecutions of Karim Koubriti et al. The Justice Department, however, removed Mr. Convertino from his position and asked the courts to dismiss the convictions of these men, on the grounds that Convertino had failed to disclose evidence to which the defense was entitled.

The Twelve Legal Rules of Christmas

(Compiled by attorneys for The Rutherford Institute)

Unfortunately, Christmas has become a time of controversy over what can or cannot be done in terms of celebrating the holiday. In order to clear up much of the misunderstanding, the following twelve rules are offered:

1. Public school students’ written or spoken personal expressions concerning the religious significance of Christmas (e.g., T-shirts with the slogan, “Jesus Is the Reason for the Season”) may not be censored by school officials absent evidence that the speech would cause a substantial disruption.1

2. So long as teachers are generally permitted to wear clothing or jewelry or have personal items expressing their views about the holidays, Christian teachers may not be prohibited from similarly expressing their views by wearing Christmas-related clothing or jewelry or carrying Christmas-related personal items.2

3. Public schools may teach students about the Christmas holiday, including its religious significance, so long as it is taught objectively for secular purposes such as its historical or cultural importance, and not for the purpose of promoting Christianity.3

4. Public school teachers may send Christmas cards to the families of their students so long as they do so on their own time, outside of school hours.4

5. Public schools may include Christmas music, including those with religious themes, in their choral programs if the songs are included for a secular purpose such as their musical quality or cultural value or if the songs are part of an overall performance including other holiday songs relating to Chanukah, Kwanzaa, or other similar holidays.5

6. Public schools may not require students to sing Christmas songs whose messages conflict with the students’ own religious or nonreligious beliefs.6

7. Public school students may not be prohibited from distributing literature to fellow students concerning the Christmas holiday or invitations to church Christmas events on the same terms that they would be allowed to distribute other literature that is not related to schoolwork.7

8. Private citizens or groups may display crèches or other Christmas symbols in public parks subject to the same reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions that would apply to other similar displays.8

9. Government entities may erect and maintain celebrations of the Christmas holiday, such as Christmas trees and Christmas light displays, and may include crèches in their displays at least so long as the purpose for including the crèche is not to promote its religious content and it is placed in context with other symbols of the Holiday season as part of an effort to celebrate the public Christmas holiday through its traditional symbols.9

10. Neither public nor private employers may prevent employees from decorating their offices for Christmas, playing Christmas music, or wearing clothing related to Christmas merely because of their religious content so long as these activities are not used to harass or intimidate others.10

11. Public or private employees whose sincerely held religious beliefs require that they not work on Christmas must be reasonably accommodated by their employers unless granting the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the employer.11

12. Government recognition of Christmas as a public holiday and granting government employees a paid holiday for Christmas does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.12

For more information, email The Rutherford Institute at staff@rutherford.org.

Climategate

Britain’s University of East Anglia says the director of its prestigious Climatic Research Unit, Phil Jones, is stepping down pending an investigation into allegations that he overstated the case for man-made climate change.

The university says he will relinquish his position until the completion of an independent review, headed by Sir Muir Russell, into allegations that Mr. Jones worked to alter the way in which global temperature data was presented.

Climategate began last month with the hacking of a server used by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, England. The hacker anonymously disseminated over a thousand e-mails and 3000 other documents over the internet. Many believe that the hack was done either by an insider or by someone inside the climate community.

According to the British newspaper, the Telegraph, some of the emails included discussions of how to combat the arguments of climate change sceptics, keeping scientists who have contrary views out of peer-review literature, and talk of destroying various files in order to prevent data being revealed under the Britain’s Freedom of Information Act. One email message stated we “will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” , referring to scientists who do not share the belief in man-made global warming.

The United Nations IPPC(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) also plans to investigate these claims that University of East Anglia scientists manipulated data to support the case that human activity is driving global warming.

The authenticity of these emails has been confirmed by most of the relevant parties including the CRU at University of East Anglia and many of the authors.

Ten Questions, Ten Minutes

is the time it will take to fill out the 2010 Census form.

In March of 2010, census forms will be delivered to every residence in the United States and Puerto Rico. This time around, the census questionnaire consists of 10 short questions. The census cannot be completed online. It must be filled out and mailed back. For those citizens who do not mail a completed census form back, a census taker will have to go to their home and personally ask them questions from the form.

The U.S. Census counts every resident in the United States, and is mandated by Article 1, Section 2, of the Constitution to take place every 10 years.

The Census helps communities receive billions in federal funds each year for funding:
* Hospitals
* Job training centers
* Schools
* Senior centers
* Bridges, tunnels and other-public works projects
* Emergency services
The data collected by the census also help determine the number of seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Right now the U.S. Census Bureau is recruiting temporary, part-time census takers for the 2010 Census. These short-term jobs offer good pay, flexible hours, paid training, and reimbursement for authorized work-related expenses, such as mileage incurred while conducting census work. Best of all, census takers work right in their own communities. If interested, check out this website to get additional details and how to apply.

Collateral Damage

Upon hearing this term, many are reminded of the 2002 movie of the same title starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Collateral damages, or collateral consequences, however, also refers to a legal issue that has been simmering for years: when, whether and how defendants should be informed about the collateral consequences of pleading or being found guilty.
Last month this issue was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case, Padilla v. Kentucky.

Originally from Honduras, Jose Padilla is a legal permanent resident —not a citizen — who has resided in the United States for nearly 40 years, and served in the U.S. Armed Forces during Vietnam. In 2001, Padilla was indicted on three drug counts (two drug possession misdemeanors, and one drug trafficking felony) and one tax-related crime for an unmarked vehicle. Following negotiation, Padilla was informed by his lawyer that if he pled plead guilty to the drug offenses, the tax offense would be dropped. Before agreeing to the plea, however, Padilla asked his counsel whether his plea might have any consequences for his immigration status. His attorney assured him that he “did not have to worry about immigration status since he had been in the country so long.”. This, unfortunately, proved to be very inaccurate advice.

Following the enactment of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) in 1996, Padilla’s felony is considered an “aggravated felony” under the Immigration and Nationalization Act (INA). In addition, deportation following a guilty plea to such a charge was also made essentially mandatory by another statute enacted in 1996: the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act.

Padilla to sought post-conviction relief to set aside the plea on the ground that he had received ineffective assistance of counsel. The Kentucky Supreme Court, by a vote of five to two, rejected Padillia’s request for relief and held that, even when mandatory, deportation is a “collateral consequence” of a conviction “outside the scope of the guarantee of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.” This decision flowed from its earlier decision in Fuartado v. Commonwealth(2005), holding that attorneys have no duty to advise their client about the immigration consequences of a guilty plea.

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Too many Women…Not enough Men

No, I am not referring to the pool of single people over 35. Apparently this is also the case when it comes to college applications.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has begun examining whether selective colleges are discriminating against women in undergraduate admissions, as the rapidly growing proportion of female applicants threatens gender balance on those campuses.
Title IX Education Amendments of 1972, aka Title IX, and renamed in 2002 by President George W. Bush as the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act, prohibits colleges and universities from discriminating against applicants based on gender.

Gail Heriot, a commissioner and a law professor at the University of San Diego, proposed that the Commission on Civil Rights evaluate this gender bias issue and they agreed.

The commission’s inquiry, which it calls the “FY 2010 Project on Sex Discrimination in Higher Education Admissions,” expects to determine if selective coeducational institutions, both private and public, are giving undue preference to male applicants to avoid becoming “too female.”