Author: Richard Eskow

A federal judge struck down Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s controversial welfare drug testing law this week. A blatant violation of the Constitution, the judge ruled as such saying that the law encroached upon citizen protections against unreasonable searches. Judge Mary Scriven of the United States District Court of Orlando ruled that “The court finds there is no set of circumstances under which the warrantless, suspicionless drug testing at issue in this case could be constitutionally applied.” Scriven put a preliminary injunction on the law in 2011, temporarily nullifying it. The law, enacted in July 2011, required parents applying for...

Late last month, Bank of America was found guilty of fraud in connection to selling defective mortgages to which the U.S. Department of Justice recommended to the court hearing the case that the bank be fined close to $900 million. This week, Bank of America argued that no penalty should be imposed at all. The case involved a scandal specifically with Bank of America’s Countrywide Financial group in a scam known as “Hustle,” or “High Speed Swim Lane,” or “HSSL” for short. The scam removed checks for loan quality and employee compensation was based purely on production, regardless of...

To the surprise of many and according to Arizona Daily Star columnist Tim Steller, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) suggested to the audience at a town hall event in Phoenix Thursday that marijuana legalization should be “on the table.” It could be that after all of the time spent in an enemy prison camp in North Vietnam, the Senator from Arizona can understand the pain other veterans suffer. This unforgiving mental anguish is commonly known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. The Veterans Administration is starting to listen to many other veterans who complain about harsh drugs prescribed by...

The right-wing Supreme Court opened the campaign funding “flood gates” when they allowed Citizens United to stand. Following that glorious Republican moment, the GOP has conducted themselves like kids in a candy store. Millions of dollars were laundered through Political Action Committees, known as PACs. Contributors like the Koch brothers and Texas billionaire Harold Simmons make Republicans believe that the GOP could actually buy an election. Fundraising is a politician’s business. They spend most of their waking hours pulling those greenbacks into their campaign coffers and they don’t care where it comes from. Republicans’ ethical standards seem to be...

In New York, US District Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled that the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) “stop-and-frisk” method is unconstitutional. Judge Scheindlin said that the police “adopted a policy of ‘indirect racial profiling’… resulting in the disproportionate discriminatory stopping of tens of thousands of blacks and Hispanics,” Reuters reports. “No one should live in fear of being stopped whenever he leaves his home to go about the activities of daily life,” she stated in her opinion. Stop-and-frisk allows New York police to stop anyone that they suspect of having the intention to commit a crime, without cause. Many feel...