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carldavidson · 5 years ago

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Book Review: Bringing Police Torture in Chicago to the Full Light of Day

The Torture Machine: Racism and Police Violence in Chicago By Flint Taylor Haymarket Books, Chicago March 2019, $27.00

By Carl Davidson LeftLinks

Flint Taylor's new book, 'The Torture Machine: Racism and Police Violence in Chicago,' is one of those remarkable works that won't fit under any one category. It's at once a history of a civil and human rights battles in Chicago with national and global reach, a text of modern urban sociology, an example of critical legal theory, a long polemic against white and class privilege, a literature of political exposure, a manual of strategy and tactics and, last but not least, for Flint himself, an autobiography. In its pages, Chicago's top lawyer of the left also shares with us the intense and determined commitment, with all his highs and lows, that lasted through five decades of his personal life to the present day.

The narrative begins with Taylor as a young man, teamed up with other young radical lawyers fresh from passing their bar exams. They had been working with Chicago's Black Panther Party and were among the first on the scene just after Fred Hampton was murdered in his bed. As the cops pulled out, the young lawyers managed to take over and secure the site, and pulled in the media and community leaders to examine the scene before any evidence was altered or disappeared. The reaction sent shock waves through Chicago, since it was clear there was no 'shoot-out,' as authorities had claimed, but cold-blooded assassination by Chicago police, with an assist from the FBI. To make a long story short, Hampton's killers were never tried and walked free, but Taylor and his fellow legal team won a substantial wrongful death settlement from the City of Chicago for Hampton's family in 1982. In the spirit of the times, the young lawyers took their share of the settlement and used it help sustain the People's Law Office (PLO), dedicated to fighting police brutality and other injustices in the greater Chicago area, which they had founded in 1969.

To this day, the Chicago Police Department has never stopped supplying the PLO and other progressive lawyers with a constant source of new clients seeking justice. Whether by mistreating young people of color on the streets, trying to suppress free speech and protest, abusing of men in prison, attacking the LBGTQ community, or warping the courts with false evidence and accusations, through the daily practice of the CPD, the State's Attorney's office and City Hall, Chicagoans experienced or witnessed a decades-long reign of terror carried out by a police force with the rarely, if ever, observed mission of 'we serve and protect.'

The book cover of 'The Torture Machine' features an odd graphic at the heart of the story. Anyone not yet familiar will be puzzled by it. It's a plain black box with a series of wires streaming out of it, along with a crank handle and knobs. It's a replica of a device concocted by GIs in Vietnam to torture captured Vietnamese, both soldiers and civilians. Based on field telephones that could be charged up by cranking the handle, the wires, with alligator clips, would be connected to fingers, ears, nipples, testicles and genitals to deliver severe shocks and burns. Its jerry-rigged purpose was to torture those it was inflicted upon, to punish, and to extract information, all at once.

What did the device have to do with Chicago? Taylor and the PLO team, in taking up brutality and wrongful conviction cases over several years, kept hearing from clients that 'confessions' had been extracted from them by torture, and these accounts often had one thing in common, the mention of this device and its use in Chicago's Area Two police headquarters, in its upstairs detective offices headed up by Lt. Jon Burge, and a team of more than a dozen detectives and other CPD officers. Flint Taylor

The PLO lawyers did a simple but radical thing. They took their clients at their word. They believed them and set about digging up the truth of their claims. They learned that Burge was a Vietnam veteran, and learned to use the electric shock device on prisoners during the war. Once Burge was in the CPD and moving up to detective rank, he had built at least one of his own, and was making use of it on Black male prisoners. And not just one or two prisoners, but at least 100 or more. Nor was it a rare event. Burge did it regularly, over decades. Nor did he do it alone; he had a squad of more than a dozen Area 2 and Area 3 detectives regularly using the box and other torture devices, such as plastic bags for suffocation. While they worked this evil mainly at night in the upstairs rooms of Area 2, they weren't hidden from other cops. Others, all the way to the top of the CPD, knew about it. Likewise, the States Attorneys, some judges, and the Mayor's office-in short, to one degree or another, the entire criminal justice system in the city was complicit in torture and other human rights abuses.

These assertions may seem far-fetched and over-the-top, at least to those unfamiliar with Chicago's politics and police. But the power of the book is Taylor's relentless and tenacious bringing the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, to the surface and the bright light of day. He had to do it doggedly, repetitively and sometimes little piece by little piece, decade after decade. But in the end, there it is, and there's no one who can deny it without turning beet red with shame.

The torture saga begins with an incident in the early 1980s, where two Chicago police officers were shot and killed in an altercation with several Black men they had stopped. Over the next five days, six men were soon rounded up and tortured, and two of them, Andrew and Jackie Wilson, brothers, made 'confessions' and were found guilty of the killings. Jackie Wilson contended that police abused him during interrogation, and his co-defendant and brother Andrew, was found by doctors after his interrogation to have numerous injuries. From prison, Andrew Wilson contacted the PLO and asked if they would work on a federal civil rights case, since his confession was extracted by torture.

'Labyrinthine' would be a mild word for the complex maneuvers through the courts on the cases of the two brothers over several years. But thanks to the PLO and allies, Jackie Wilson, sentenced to life, won his freedom. Andrew Wilson, sentenced to death, won a new trial, was convicted again, but was sentenced to life instead of death, and eventually died in prison. Andrew had also won a federal civil rights judgment.

Intermixed with the Wilson cases are dozens of others, some who committed no crime save being in the wrong place at the wrong time, with many victories for the defendants and their families. The crass examples of racial and class privilege and abuse in the prisons and courts introduced in Taylor's accounts could fill a book on any one of those charged.

Chicago authorities were not happy with the work of the PLO lawyers. Time and again they were slandered as liars, con artists and only in it for the money made in million-dollar settlements. The cops were especially hostile and the source of threats of violence as well. But opposing attorneys, politicians, and supposedly neutral judges piled on as well.

Several key points, however, stand out in the course of the book and the evidence behind it. First, Taylor and his PLO colleagues were meticulous in putting the interests of their clients and their client's families first and foremost. Second, they went to great lengths in 'seeking truth from facts', even when dangerous to themselves. Third, they deserved every penny they got, and continue to get, in settlements-a good deal of which keeps the People's Law Office alive and functioning for future cases.

But Taylor also had another motive, which weaves through the book like a red thread. He is determined to bring Jon Burge to justice, to try him in a court of law, and see him sent to prison. Moreover, he wants to see Burge's boss, Richard M. Daley, held accountable. To accomplish these goals, Taylor and the PLO are well aware that the effort will be political as well as legal.

This is where a unique value of 'The Torture Machine' shines. It's a field manual of strategy and tactics, and Taylor is very good at it. From the start, he seizes every opportunity at the use of media to build his clients' stories with a bigger picture of big-city politics, corruption, and injustice. It doesn't matter if it's a small neighborhood newsletter, the independent Chicago Reader, the widely read free paper selling futons along with progressive news, the Chicago Defender and other small Black newspapers, the Sun-Times and the Tribune, local and national TV, and the New York Times and other national publications. As one of his adversaries warned, 'there's nothing more dangerous than letting Flint Taylor get in front of a camera or microphone.'

Even in unfriendly news outlets, Taylor takes the trouble to find and befriend those reporters with an open mind and a degree of professional objectively, if not sympathy. His goal seems to be recognizing that the court record is not the only record of value, and once something is in print or on tape, it might have multiple uses elsewhere, in or out of court, and often does. Taylor is also deft at building organizations and making use of coalitions, acknowledging a truth that trials are not only won in courtrooms, but in the wider community as well. Organizations not 'officers of the court' can often speak more freely to the public. To win the victories and settlements aimed for, the PLO often had to assist in building an entire counter-hegemonic bloc, from people in the neighborhoods to the media and political groups, to a majority of the City Council.

Taylor and his comrades also do well in finding and making good use of conflicts and tensions in the camp of their adversaries. They evaluate judges one by one, check out the family inter-connections of various police officers and officials, looking for hints of bias, and make good use of the well-known differences between African American patrolmen and the rest of the force-all to find information to get them closer to the truths that will help their clients. A handful of cops even come forward out of the blue, disgusted with what they know is happening and breaking the 'code of silence.' One goes to great length to remain secret-Flint nicknames him or her 'Deep Badge'-but he or she helped reveal the scope and breadth of the torture scandal (it was early on in the history of the scandal)

In the end, Taylor gets his man. First Burge is suspended, then fired, and retires with his pension and boat, the Vigilante (you can't make this up!). But even as the statute of limitations runs out, Taylor makes trips to Florida (with bodyguard) to depose Burge, gets him back in court, and gets him found guilty of perjury, and finally sentenced to 4 and a half years in prison. Burge is broken physically but remains an unbowed racist and fascist to the bitter end. His luck with Daley is not quite as good. Taylor wins motion after motion to bring Daley to a deposition table, but Daley is not without resources and manages to parry all but one narrow last decision, one that might still go the wrong way for the former mayor. The final version of the book reveals that Daley, now suffering from the effects of a reported stroke, was deposed by Taylor in 2018 but the transcript is shrouded in court-ordered secrecy.

As Taylor notes, however, this is far from the only reason that Burge's fate is only a partial victory. True, the PLO and allied lawyers have forced the city to pay over $130 million to those tortured and their families-not counting the enormous costs of lawyers for the police. Many police involved remain free and many tortured prisoners remain behind bars. The torture outrages will 'never be behind us,' Taylor writes in his epilogue, not until Chicago 'reckons fully with the racist nature of law enforcement and mass incarceration.'

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Carl Davidson is the editor of Leftlinks, a DSA member and serves on the National Committee of Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. He is author of several books, including 'New Paths to Socialism,' available at Changemaker Publications.

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 6 years ago

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Okay! Here’s the last of the non-canon outtakes featuring Franziska and Phoenix’s arrest. This one follows that which I linked there. Phoenix and Franziska argued a little more, she stormed out, she and the rest of the family complained about Phoenix, which is where that bit with Diego came from, and then she has an idea. I like the part that gives some more insight into her relationship with Phoenix, as I discussed in the other outtakes post how close they used to be, and I most especially mourn the material of Franziska and Kristoph going head-to-head, but it just cannot fit with the overall arc I wanted.

But there’s actually not any rules, so if I want to post scrapped plot threads, who’s gonna stop me? Nobody that’s who.

She has never actually been to the office, despite it being one of Phoenix's frequent haunts; come to think of it, she cannot recall ever having gone to the Borscht, either. His physical presence faded from her life and a ghost tried to fill the hole caused by his absence. Traffic is heavy even at this time and she rehearses potential opening statements as she curses at the other cars and the slow crawl they are locked into. It is 4:52 when she pulls into the lot, scrambling from her car; on a Friday, he may have already left by now, leaving the work to the junior partners - though if he has, she is marching back to the detention center and telling his client that along with all of his other vices, he isn't even a dedicated attorney.

Gavin's office is like Grossberg's: much larger than Mia or Phoenix's holes-in-the-walls or even her father's office, hosting more than two attorneys, and the decor is as tacky and indulgent. Her feet sink into the plush carpet and she glances over the polished surface of the waiting room coffee table before she looks around for someone to speak to. There is a desk that looks like it is the reception area, but no one at it.

[This connecting segment never got written, but here she meets Apollo and asks him if Kristoph is still here because she needs to speak with him. Apollo asks for her name and she gives it as "Franziska Edgeworth" which ends up a brick joke with Apollo much later.]

Despite the fact that the boy - probably not a boy, he can't be that young if he works at a law office, at least 17 - said that Gavin was about to leave, he is sitting at his desk when Franziska enters his office, his hands folded in front of him like he has known to expect her for longer than he has. He can't have expected her. "Do shut the door behind you," he says, gesturing to it.

The office is well-decorated, fancy - more like many of the prosecutors' offices she has seen, nothing like any of the defense attorneys within her own family. She takes her time returning to the door which she left to swing ajar behind her, scanning the bookshelves and the coffee table. The latter holds a decorative paperweight, and the former, bookends, all heavy looking (injuries appear consistent with a strike from a blunt object and given the location of the wounding to the head the attacker appears to be shorter than the victim); on the desk there is a letter opener (stab wound to the throat, though shape of injury does not appear consistent with any kind of knife), but for that she would have to move toward him, away from the door. Better to run, for several reasons: the other attorneys are still in the office and would hear any skirmish taking place within the room, but Gavin would not risk his reputation chasing her down in front of them. She could claim self-defense - she would claim self-defense, she is not her father, she would not strike first - but she is the interloper in this office, and the only witnesses are people who have reason to be sympathetic to Gavin.

The door clicks closed. "What brings you here, Ms von Karma?" Gavin asks with a smile that could be pleasant if she did not know the true nature of the man. "Or - you didn't happen to change your name, did you?" He leans forward, his head tilting almost imperceptibly, but the light of his desk lamp catches on his glasses and for a moment the flash of the light hides his eyes behind them.

"No, I didn't," she replies. "However, I thought it best to be discrete, given that it is very much not customary for a prosecutor to show up unannounced at a defense attorney's office."

"And your reason for such is...?" One eyebrow arches. He nods at the chair in front of the desk. "Please, sit down."

"No thank you. I intend to keep this brief." She touches the back of the chair and gives one of the legs a nudge with her foot; solid, heavy, more likely to become a liability to her should she try to pick it up and use as a weapon. "Phoenix Wright."

Gavin's expression does not change from the tiny, closed-lipped smile he has been giving her. Cool under fire in the courtroom; why should he not be outside of it as well? "I do not make it a policy to discuss my cases with the prosecution, Ms von Karma."

"I am not prosecuting this case. What I am is a friend of the defendant’s, and concerned about him, and so have come to check in on how his case is progressing.”

Gavin does not respond right away. Instead he stares at her, as though through her. "Then ask him," he says. "It is not as if the police refuse a prosecutor come to speak with a detainee at any time of day or night. You have left your office early enough that even were you a defense attorney, you would be let in without trouble." The languid smile does not leave his face. "I think one of two things, Ms von Karma: either you have something you wish from me specifically, or you and the accused are not as close of friends as you thought."

Franziska blinks. "Pardon?" The part of her paranoid enough to assess Gavin as a threat is the part of her that keeps her mouth moving; she cannot allow him to know that she suspects him, but he has given her a different opening. "Phoenix and I are not - what, exactly?"

If she plays this right, she can make him hand her an alibi.

"You can hardly blame him, can you?" Gavin says. "How careful he has to be with his reputation since he was disbarred -- and for forging evidence, at that."

"He did not--"

Gavin holds up a hand. "You don't need to tell me that," he says. "I was, as you recall, the one person in the Bar Association--"

"--who voted in his favor. I am aware."

"But you understand where this places him. Whatever the truth, to the rest of the world, he forged evidence for the sake of personal victory. It hardly helps appearances for someone so accused to spend a great deal of time with a von Karma, now does it?"

For a moment she is struck silent. Phoenix pulled away from all of them, not just her. He closed himself off from everyone; he stopped confiding in Miles even though they live together, he drifted from Mia, Maya complained that he stopped texting. It wasn't just her--

-- Maya could coax him out to lunch when she came home from Kurain, Mia dragged him to get occasional haircuts, Ray saw him at Trucy's magic shows whenever Phoenix went -- Franziska went to Miles' apartment and only ever found him sleeping, she went to the office and saw his daughter more than him, she went weeks at a time without him answering her texts, she got her news of him from everyone in the Edgeworth-Fey grapevine but him, she stooped to texting Larry, she --

-- she wasn't abandoned by her oldest friend in the world because of what her goddamned father had done --

-- was she?

Gavin pushes his glasses up and his face curls in a smile that does not touch his cold eyes. "You never realized?" he asks. "I thought you more observant than that. We all have our blind spots, I suppose."

This morning in the detention center was the first time in years he was so open with her, and he wasn't open. Of everyone he locked his heart away from, it was her most of all. Her oldest friend in the world, who supported her every aspiration, who celebrated her getting her badge before him, who grinned at her for countless trials across the courtroom, setting her adrift as soon as her name became slightly inconvenient because of his own mistake.

She can't take this as an excuse for coming to see Gavin. She can't let this go. "He wouldn't," she says. "He believes in me -- not for a rumor -- nor for what my father did --"

"No? Then let me be frank with you -- I have looked into your court record, quite extensively. For a prosecutor, you have a very even ratio -- except in one particular instance. You have a perfect loss record against your own brother."

"Where are you going with this?" she snarls. She knows the bluffing sort and Gavin is not it -- he sees several moves ahead instead of just the backs of his opponent's cards.

[I unfortunately forget precisely how this line of dialogue would end. He basically implies she's corrupt and has been throwing trials to Miles, and turns it into a threat somehow -- I think he was going to threaten to bring an investigation down on her head. There was also going to be a jab somewhere obliquely referencing Klavier what with Kristoph remarking on Franziska's "remarkable loyalty" to her older brother, enough to hand him victory.

[She would then storm out and go back to the detention center to speak with Phoenix again. She tells him that she went and spoke with Kristoph, and that finally makes Phoenix crack. He has a speech that is something similar to what he says in Acing the Turnabout to Miles about being terrified that Kristoph is going to kill any one of them who investigates too closely.

[His fear gets to Franziska; we see her paranoid edge earlier with her looking for a weapon when going into Kristoph’s office (which by the way that paragraph is one of my absolute favorites I’ve written), and it returns here She doesn't want to go home alone for fear of walking into her death and she calls up Lana to accompany her home, because Lana knows what it's like to have someone making those threats toward her. She picks Lana up at the office where she works with Mia and Diego and two of them go back to Franziska's apartment, find it fine and empty, but Franziska packs a weekend bag and crashes with Miles for the weekend. She tells him it's to help him and Trucy; this is true, but it is also her being afraid to be on her own, and her afraid to leave then on her own. She doesn't know if Kristoph would target them.]

#bullshit defense au

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ourmrmel · 6 years ago

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Mel Feller MPA, MHR, Discusses Trusts to Own Real Estate Anywhere in the Country

Mel is the President/Founder of Mel Feller Seminars with Coaching for Success 360, Inc. and Mel Feller Coaching. Mel Feller Ministries. Mel Feller is an Innovator, Business Leader, and Investor. Mel Feller is currently working closely with his son-in-law and partner on an incubator for young entrepreneurs. Mel Feller currently maintains an office in Texas. Currently an MBA Candidate.

T rusts have been used as an entity to hold assets, such as real estate for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Obviously, it is old stuff. However, with each generation’s trials and tribulations, trusts evolve to meet new challenges. High Taxes and aggressive litigation are today’s motivators. Tax risks range from income tax to draconian death taxes that consume up to 55% of the assets a person leaves behind. Trusts are often used along with more modern adaptations of other old entities, such as partnership aberrations, to include family limited partnerships and limited liability companies. The quest is to keep what you have accumulated and to have some extended control of it, even after death.

Using Trusts

A perfect example of using ingenuity to keep one’s assets away from the grips of the tax man was a trust established by Maria Cristofori in 1984. Maria established a trust and transferred to it real estate with a value of $70,000. The primary beneficiaries were her two children and, as contingent beneficiaries, five grandchildren should the two primary beneficiaries die within 120 days of Maria. All was fine until Maria died and the IRS audited her estate tax return.

Naturally, the IRS wanted more money. They claimed that Maria failed to file a gift tax return and owed back gift taxes. The IRS argued that Maria was entitled to give $10,000 per year to the two primary beneficiaries, but that taxes were owed on the $50,000 not excluded. The estate disagreed, claiming that the five contingent beneficiaries did have an interest in the trust. The trust had a Crummy power and, in accordance with that power, the trustee had given written notice to all 7 beneficiaries of their right to withdraw. Thus, the full $70,000 was excludable.

This means that multiple-beneficiary trusts now can be used to expand the fit-tax exclusion. It took someone with a tolerance for risk to mix old law, and an old trust entity with a new way of looking at the old to save Maria’s family substantial wealth.

Over the years, trusts have been used extensively in the attempt to control how much the government inherits. Some of the more familiar trust names include Bypass Trust; Marital Deduction Trust; Generation Skipping Trust; Grantor Retained Income Trust; Insurance Trust etc. The common thread for all of these trusts is to legally avoid paying the majority of the deceased’s wealth to the government. Failure to act is to assure that the estate will pay the highest possible tax.

A NEED FOR PRIVACY: Trusts

Real Estate Investors often use trusts as business devices. It is hard persons never being in business to understand, but business can be war. There is an ever-growing number of enemy soldiers attempting to invade and plunder the investor’s castle of wealth. Sometimes this is accomplished by out and out illegal means, such as thieves that rob and destroy property or those who embezzle by not paying rent. The cruelest enemy is he who uses the law to plunder. Today, lawsuits are treated as a lottery.

Enemy troops look for excuses to sue; it is nearly a guaranteed profit. If a person can find some excuse to sue, even if very flimsy, the defendant will usually settle for at least a few thousand dollars because it is cheaper to settle than to incur the cost of legal defense. It has become so bad that in some cities, such as Buffalo, NY, unscrupulous people publish lists of landlords and divulge such things as the number of properties, the number of units and the total value of real estate owned. Why? Because contingency fee lawyers will not spend the time and money to go after someone with minimum assets. They look for the ‘fatted lamb’.

LAND TRUSTS

A result of this attack is a defense system. Some investors use trusts as a key part of their defense. The most common trust used in real estate investing is referred to as an Illinois style land trust. The primary purpose is to remove the legal title from the investor’s name. The title is held in the name of a trustee and the investor is both the grantor and the beneficiary to the trust. The trust does not offer the same kinds of protection a corporation or limited liability company can, but it has a place in the castle’s defense and is the most economical of all entities to set up and maintain.

Legal advisors often recommend trusts be used in conjunction with other business entities assuming the amount of wealth involved is sufficient to justify the cost of the business entity. Trusts, on the other hand, are usually very economical. An attorney prepares the original trust and it can be duplicated for additional use. The fee to have a knowledgeable attorney prepare a land trust can range from $300 to $1,000. Some of us do our own trusts, but a great deal of knowledge must be obtained before you consider doing this. There are no additional expenses, such as franchise fees or income tax returns. A land trust is reported on the beneficiary’s tax return as if the beneficiary personally owned the property.

OTHER TRUSTS

There are numerous possibilities for the name given to a trust. Such names are often chosen to reflect the primary function of the trust: Education Trust; Wealth Replacement Trust; Charitable Remainder Trust; Spendthrift Dynasty Trust, etc.

Since names are assigned to trusts, the public can get the wrong impression. It is often assumed that a named trust is like any other consumer good, such as the name ‘car’ or ‘truck’. A person wants to buy, say, a car but not a truck. They want a Spendthrift, but not an Education Trust. Actually all trusts are just trusts. The primary thing that differentiates them are clauses written into the trusts. For example, a single clause will turn an education trust into a spendthrift education trust.

The point is not to let names become confusing. The fundamentals of trusts are simple to comprehend. First, all trusts are either inter vivos or Testamentary. Inter vivos trusts are set up while the grantor is alive and are often referred to as a ‘living trust’. The testamentary trust, on the other hand, is set up after the person’s death by authority written in the deceased’s will. All trusts will be either an inter vivos or a testamentary trust.

REVOCABLE & IRREVOCABLE TRUSTS

Inter vivos trusts are either revocable or irrevocable. Revocable means the grantor can either revoke the trust or else maintain some significant power to maintain control of the trustee or use of the trust assets. Irrevocable means the grantor totally gives up rights and powers and walks away entrusting to the trustee all of the assets in the trust, referred to as the ‘corpus’.

The government treats most inter vivos revocable trusts as grantor trusts. As previously mentioned, grantor trusts are reported on the grantor’s tax return. Irrevocable trusts have tax returns that are more complex. in a nut shell, they are either a simple trust or a complex trust for tax reporting purposes. Professionals best prepare these returns.

Most investors will be dealing with inter vivos or living trusts. Trusts used to hold operational real estate would generally be revocable, grantor trusts. These trusts are more for operational purposes that estate tax planning purposes. In general, irrevocable trusts will be used to deal with estate tax planning.

Depending on the client’s objective, the attorney will draft a base trust to emphasize certain objectives, such as children’s education , or a land trust. Examples would be an education trust that is an irrevocable inter vivos trust and the land trust that is a revocable inter vivos trust.

COMMON CHARACTERISTICS of LIVING TRUSTS

Some common characteristics of the living trust are:

Assignment - In certain cases, trusts can be assigned to third parties without changing the public records. Thought we do not recommend it, some real estate investors have used this feature in dealing with due on sale clauses of mortgage contracts.

Assurance - The trust may provide greater assurance that the grantor’s wishes will be met. Disgruntled heirs and “want to be” heirs more easily contest wills.

Avoids Guardianship of the Assets - Using a Trust the grantor/beneficiary has greater assurance that his assets will be managed in a manner prescribed by him and will be spent as he instructs in the trust document. If a trust does not exist and a guardian is appointed by the courts, then the courts and guardian make these decisions with no input from the incapacitated party. A guardianship is more expensive to administer than a trust since the Court usually requires a periodic accounting by the guardian.

Incapacitation of Trustee - If the owner of the property becomes incapacitated, managing assets can become a problem. A trust allows an alternate trustee to step into the shoes of an incapacitated trustee without affecting management of the property.

Limited Liability - There is no significant liability protection. At best, the trust provides greater privacy as to who is the beneficiary. In most states, living trusts are treated as the alter ego of the grantor. As such, liability may be attributed to the grantor.

Privacy At Death - Ownership transferred upon the death of the grantor/beneficiary of a trust is private when contingent beneficiaries are listed. Unlike a will, which is probated, a trust document does not become public record. Land trusts typically do not have contingent beneficiaries and, therefore, any property held in the trust would simply be included in the deceased’s probated estate.

Privacy While Living - Some real estate investors wisely seek privacy regarding the ownership of their real estate. They do not want their name as the owner of the public property records, which would allow anyone to know how much wealth they owned in real estate and where that real estate is located. It can also cause a serious operational problem. For example, a judgment against the investor even for a small amount would give the judgment holder immense leverage diminishing the investor’s opportunity to negotiate a lower settlement on the judgment. The judgment attaches to all of the investor’s real estate. This would prohibit the investor from selling any real estate without first paying the judgment in full.

Probate - Where a trust has contingent beneficiaries listed, costs associated with probate are avoided since the trust is not probated at death.

Taxes (Income) - There is no tax benefit. The tax information is reported on the grantor’s personal tax return.

Taxes (Estate) - The Irrevocable trust, Insurance trust, Bypass trust and Marital Deduction trust are the most common trusts used to save estate taxes. Note that an irrevocable trust is a book trust and can be used for many purposes, such as the trust names indicate, Charitable Remainder Trust and Spendthrift Dynasty Trust. The revocable land trust saves no estate taxes.

Mel Feller, MPA, MHR, is a well-known real estate, business consultant, personal development Consultant and speaker, specializing in performance, productivity, and profits. Mel is the President/Founder of Mel Feller Seminars with Coaching For Success 360, Inc. and Mel Feller Coaching, a real estate and business specific coaching company and Mel Feller Ministries. His three books for real estate professionals are systems on how to become an exceptional sales performer. His four books in Business and Government Grants are ways to leverage and increase your business Success in both time and money! His book on Personal Development “Lies that Will Sabotage Your Success”. Mel Feller is in Texas. Visit www.melfellersuccessstories.com and www.melfeller.com

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lodelss · 5 years ago

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ACLU: Defending Immigrants’ Rights and Reproductive Freedom in the U.S. Supreme Court

Defending Immigrants’ Rights and Reproductive Freedom in the U.S. Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a number of cases this term that will have a crucial impact on civil rights and civil liberties — from LGBTQ equality to reproductive freedom and immigrants’ rights. Earlier in the term, the ACLU had two cases asking whether workers can be fired for being gay or transgender. On March 2, we will be arguing a case on immigrants’ rights, and we have filed or will file friend-of-the-court briefs in major cases involving reproductive freedom, contraceptive access, and religious freedom.

We sat down with David Cole, the ACLU’s national legal director, to discuss what’s in store for the ACLU next week, and what’s at stake for civil liberties this SCOTUS term.

Q: The ACLU is going to the Supreme Court next week. What is the case and what’s at stake?

We will be arguing Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam on Monday, March 2. It asks whether the Constitution guarantees judicial review of deportation orders. This is a fundamental question for every immigrant, and it’s all the more important because President Trump is seeking to deport as many people as quickly as he can, often with as little process as possible. To that end, the administration has expanded a program called “expedited removal,” which allows the government to order the deportation of foreign nationals while denying them the right to have their case reviewed in court.

We’re defending Thuraissigiam, who is a Tamil, an ethnic minority group in Sri Lanka. He fled to the United States seeking asylum after being abducted and tortured by government agents. He applied for asylum, but the asylum officer found that he did not present a “credible fear of persecution at home,” even though the violent treatment he suffered fits precisely the pattern of government abuse of Tamils in Sri Lanka.

We argue that Thuraissigiam has a constitutional right to have a court review whether the deportation was legal or not through ��habeas corpus,” a writ allowing any person facing detention to challenge its legality before a judge. The government argues that the Constitution does not protect immigrants, like Thuraissigiam, who challenge the legality of their removal from this country. In so arguing, it asks the court to depart from over 100 years of Supreme Court precedent. At the end of the day, if immigrants can be deported without judicial review, regardless of the legality of their deportation, then the rule of law in immigration proceedings will mean nothing. Under the government’s view, our client would have no judicial recourse, even if the Department of Homeland Security denied his request for asylum because he is dark-skinned.

Q: The court will also hear arguments on a Center for Reproductive Rights case related to abortion next week. What’s at stake there?

A: In this case, June Medical v. Russo, we filed an amicus brief supporting the abortion providers. The court will hear arguments on March 4. It’s a challenge to a Louisiana state law that requires doctors who provide abortions to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. But what’s at stake is whether the new Supreme Court with two justices appointed by President Trump will give states the green light to push abortion care further and further out of reach.

Four years ago, in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the Supreme Court struck down a Texas statute that was identical to the Louisiana law. In that case, the court said there is no medical rationale for requiring doctors who provide abortions to have admitting privileges in local hospitals. All the law did was make it harder for people to get abortions. Louisiana nonetheless argues that their identical law is constitutional. But to reach that result would likely either formally or as a practical matter overturn Whole Women’s Health, and if the court does that, it will be a very disturbing sign for the future viability of abortion rights.

Q: This is the first reproductive rights case that Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch will hear since being confirmed to the court. How do you think this will affect the decision?

A: That’s the million-dollar question. No one knows for sure. What we do know, is that President Trump promised to put justices on the court to reverse Roe v. Wade. So we know what his intention was, but the question will be whether these justices abide by precedent or feel free to break from it.

Q: Is there a common thread in both these cases?

A: The common thread is that for the court to rule against the position we are advancing would require it to break from precedent. We’re asking the court to hold fast to core principles that have long been decided. The opposing sides, in both cases, are asking the court to ignore precedent and make new law.

I think we’re well-positioned to address these issues, because we’ve been at the forefront of the struggles for immigrants’ rights and reproductive freedom for the last 50 years. We were involved in Roe v. Wade itself, and we’ve been involved in virtually all the court’s major immigrants’ rights and reproductive rights decisions for decades. Reproductive freedom and immigrants’ rights are two of the most important issues that we fight for every day, and never have they been more under attack than under the Trump administration.

Q: What is the biggest challenge we face in these two cases?

A: The biggest challenge is that we now have a court that is dominated by very conservative justices. The question will be whether the court decides these cases in a partisan way, or whether it will rise above the partisan divide and act like a court. We rely on Supreme Court justices to apply the law, not to enforce partisan political views. These cases will be a real test of that principle.

Q: The Supreme Court recently announced it will hear Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. What is at stake there?

A: This case, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, involves the City of Philadelphia’s taxpayer-funded foster care program and a nondiscrimination rule. Catholic Social Services, one of the nonprofits who contracted with the city to help carry out the city’s foster care program, refuses to certify same-sex couples as fit foster parents, even if they are otherwise fully qualified. Philadelphia’s law prohibits such discrimination. CSS claims that it has a constitutional right under the Free Exercise Clause to get government money to carry out a government program while violating the terms of the government program and engaging in discrimination with government money.

We represent two Philadelphia nonprofits that work with and for kids and families in the foster care system. We argue, alongside the City of Philadelphia, that if anyone wants to participate in a government program, they have to abide by the nondiscrimination rule and accept all qualified families. We won in the lower courts, but the Supreme Court has agreed to review the decision. This will be one of the most important cases argued next October. Catholic Social Services argues that they have a religious license to discriminate. We vehemently disagree.

Q: What other SCOTUS cases is the ACLU involved with this year?

A: We are involved in many cases, but I’ll just mention a few. We directly represented Aimee Stephens and Don Zarda in two cases that ask whether firing someone because they are LGBTQ is a form of sex discrimination in violation of federal law. The cases were argued in October, and we’re awaiting a decision. We argue that under the plain language of the statute, when you fire a woman for being attracted to women, but wouldn’t fire a man for being attracted to women, you are discriminating on the basis of sex. The same holds true when you fire an employee for coming to work as a woman because she was assigned male at birth. That is also discrimination because of sex.

We also filed an amicus brief challenging President Trump’s revocation of DACA, which provides legal status and work privileges to 700,000 undocumented young people who were brought to the U.S. as children. The lower courts held that the revocation was illegal. If the court rules otherwise, all DACA recipients will be in jeopardy of deportation.

Additionally, we are preparing an amicus brief in a Trump v. Pennsylvania, a case challenging a rule that would allow employers to deny insurance coverage to employees for contraception if the employer objects to contraception on religious or moral grounds. It essentially allows employees to impose their religious beliefs on their employees’ private lives. The lower courts ruled that the rule was illegal because the administration lacks the power to give employers the right to inflict their beliefs on their employees.

Q: What is the one key takeaway you want the public to know about the current SCOTUS term?

A: There is really one big thing to watch for this term: We have a new court with two new conservative justices. Are they going to apply the law and be bound by prior constitutional decisions, or are they going to break from those principles and use their majority power to make new law that undermines civil rights and civil liberties? Whatever happens, we can be sure of one thing: The ACLU will be there, advocating for the rights of us all.

Published February 28, 2020 at 02:22AM via ACLU https://ift.tt/3cdVeJB from Blogger https://ift.tt/2Vp2nAS via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Blogger

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nancydhooper · 5 years ago

Text

Defending Immigrants’ Rights and Reproductive Freedom in the U.S. Supreme Court

We sat down with David Cole, the ACLU’s national legal director, to discuss what’s in store for the ACLU next week, and what’s at stake for civil liberties this SCOTUS term.

Q: The ACLU is going to the Supreme Court next week. What is the case and what’s at stake?

We argue that Thuraissigiam has a constitutional right to have a court review whether the deportation was legal or not through “habeas corpus,” a writ allowing any person facing detention to challenge its legality before a judge. The government argues that the Constitution does not protect immigrants, like Thuraissigiam, who challenge the legality of their removal from this country. In so arguing, it asks the court to depart from over 100 years of Supreme Court precedent. At the end of the day, if immigrants can be deported without judicial review, regardless of the legality of their deportation, then the rule of law in immigration proceedings will mean nothing. Under the government’s view, our client would have no judicial recourse, even if the Department of Homeland Security denied his request for asylum because he is dark-skinned.

Q: The court will also hear arguments on a Center for Reproductive Rights case related to abortion next week. What’s at stake there?

Q: This is the first reproductive rights case that Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch will hear since being confirmed to the court. How do you think this will affect the decision?

Q: Is there a common thread in both these cases?

Q: What is the biggest challenge we face in these two cases?

Q: The Supreme Court recently announced it will hear Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. What is at stake there?

Q: What other SCOTUS cases is the ACLU involved with this year?

Q: What is the one key takeaway you want the public to know about the current SCOTUS term?

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247012 https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/defending-immigrants-rights-and-reproductive-freedom-in-the-u-s-supreme-court via http://www.rssmix.com/

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reprisalet · 1 year ago

Text

november activity check !

activity check : passed!

skill points 10 –> 11

monthly skill point faith C –> C

completed/dropped threads:

none

incomplete threads (for personal reference, ignore this if you aren’t me, though if we have a thread and it's not on here or something is mistakenly marked as your turn when it's mine please lmk!!!):

unnamed mini: w/ ike ! (their turn)

unnamed mini: w/ deirdre ! (their turn)

natures bounty: w/ forsyth! (their turn)

toxicodendron radicans: w/ sephiran! (my turn)

hey miss l’arachel i don’t feel so good: w/ l'arachel! (their turn)

galdr for a mount: w/ sakura! (their turn)

for want of the message: w/ leanne ! (their turn)

when a daddy wyvern and a mommy wyvern love each other very much: w/ naesala! (my turn)

a figure cloaked in ivory: w/ eldigan ! (my turn)

great news! i’m smarter than everyone AND i have an enemy for life!: w/ naesala !(my turn)

Birds of a Feather: w/ tibarn ! (their turn)

reyson wake up we fucked up big time!: w/ edain ! (my turn)

I’d Call it Karma But Reyson Didn’t Deserve This: w/ deirdre and arvis ! (deirdre’s turn i think)

neatly fold your skeletons but still can’t shut the closet door: w/ naesala ! (my turn)

Objection! This man is not fit for a court of law: w/ ike ! (my turn)

i do not feel like sharing this actually!!!: w/ naesala ! (my turn)

though you repent and don sack cloth: w/ arvis ! (my turn)

#toaactivity

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readbookywooks · 8 years ago

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[Of the inhabitants of Lilliput; their learning, laws, and customs; the manner of educating their children. The author's way of living in that country. His vindication of a great lady.] Although I intend to leave the description of this empire to a particular treatise, yet, in the mean time, I am content to gratify the curious reader with some general ideas. As the common size of the natives is somewhat under six inches high, so there is an exact proportion in all other animals, as well as plants and trees: for instance, the tallest horses and oxen are between four and five inches in height, the sheep an inch and half, more or less: their geese about the bigness of a sparrow, and so the several gradations downwards till you come to the smallest, which to my sight, were almost invisible; but nature has adapted the eyes of the Lilliputians to all objects proper for their view: they see with great exactness, but at no great distance. And, to show the sharpness of their sight towards objects that are near, I have been much pleased with observing a cook pulling a lark, which was not so large as a common fly; and a young girl threading an invisible needle with invisible silk. Their tallest trees are about seven feet high: I mean some of those in the great royal park, the tops whereof I could but just reach with my fist clenched. The other vegetables are in the same proportion; but this I leave to the reader's imagination. I shall say but little at present of their learning, which, for many ages, has flourished in all its branches among them: but their manner of writing is very peculiar, being neither from the left to the right, like the Europeans, nor from the right to the left, like the Arabians, nor from up to down, like the Chinese, but aslant, from one corner of the paper to the other, like ladies in England. They bury their dead with their heads directly downward, because they hold an opinion, that in eleven thousand moons they are all to rise again; in which period the earth (which they conceive to be flat) will turn upside down, and by this means they shall, at their resurrection, be found ready standing on their feet. The learned among them confess the absurdity of this doctrine; but the practice still continues, in compliance to the vulgar. There are some laws and customs in this empire very peculiar; and if they were not so directly contrary to those of my own dear country, I should be tempted to say a little in their justification. It is only to be wished they were as well executed. The first I shall mention, relates to informers. All crimes against the state, are punished here with the utmost severity; but, if the person accused makes his innocence plainly to appear upon his trial, the accuser is immediately put to an ignominious death; and out of his goods or lands the innocent person is quadruply recompensed for the loss of his time, for the danger he underwent, for the hardship of his imprisonment, and for all the charges he has been at in making his defence; or, if that fund be deficient, it is largely supplied by the crown. The emperor also confers on him some public mark of his favour, and proclamation is made of his innocence through the whole city. They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding, may preserve a man's goods from thieves, but honesty has no defence against superior cunning; and, since it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, and dealing upon credit, where fraud is permitted and connived at, or has no law to punish it, the honest dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage. I remember, when I was once interceding with the emperor for a criminal who had wronged his master of a great sum of money, which he had received by order and ran away with; and happening to tell his majesty, by way of extenuation, that it was only a breach of trust, the emperor thought it monstrous in me to offer as a defence the greatest aggravation of the crime; and truly I had little to say in return, farther than the common answer, that different nations had different customs; for, I confess, I was heartily ashamed. (2) Although we usually call reward and punishment the two hinges upon which all government turns, yet I could never observe this maxim to be put in practice by any nation except that of Lilliput. Whoever can there bring sufficient proof, that he has strictly observed the laws of his country for seventy-three moons, has a claim to certain privileges, according to his quality or condition of life, with a proportionable sum of money out of a fund appropriated for that use: he likewise acquires the title of SNILPALL, or legal, which is added to his name, but does not descend to his posterity. And these people thought it a prodigious defect of policy among us, when I told them that our laws were enforced only by penalties, without any mention of reward. It is upon this account that the image of Justice, in their courts of judicature, is formed with six eyes, two before, as many behind, and on each side one, to signify circumspection; with a bag of gold open in her right hand, and a sword sheathed in her left, to show she is more disposed to reward than to punish. In choosing persons for all employments, they have more regard to good morals than to great abilities; for, since government is necessary to mankind, they believe, that the common size of human understanding is fitted to some station or other; and that Providence never intended to make the management of public affairs a mystery to be comprehended only by a few persons of sublime genius, of which there seldom are three born in an age: but they suppose truth, justice, temperance, and the like, to be in every man's power; the practice of which virtues, assisted by experience and a good intention, would qualify any man for the service of his country, except where a course of study is required. But they thought the want of moral virtues was so far from being supplied by superior endowments of the mind, that employments could never be put into such dangerous hands as those of persons so qualified; and, at least, that the mistakes committed by ignorance, in a virtuous disposition, would never be of such fatal consequence to the public weal, as the practices of a man, whose inclinations led him to be corrupt, and who had great abilities to manage, to multiply, and defend his corruptions. In like manner, the disbelief of a Divine Providence renders a man incapable of holding any public station; for, since kings avow themselves to be the deputies of Providence, the Lilliputians think nothing can be more absurd than for a prince to employ such men as disown the authority under which he acts. In relating these and the following laws, I would only be understood to mean the original institutions, and not the most scandalous corruptions, into which these people are fallen by the degenerate nature of man. For, as to that infamous practice of acquiring great employments by dancing on the ropes, or badges of favour and distinction by leaping over sticks and creeping under them, the reader is to observe, that they were first introduced by the grandfather of the emperor now reigning, and grew to the present height by the gradual increase of party and faction. Ingratitude is among them a capital crime, as we read it to have been in some other countries: for they reason thus; that whoever makes ill returns to his benefactor, must needs be a common enemy to the rest of mankind, from whom he has received no obligation, and therefore such a man is not fit to live. Their notions relating to the duties of parents and children differ extremely from ours. For, since the conjunction of male and female is founded upon the great law of nature, in order to propagate and continue the species, the Lilliputians will needs have it, that men and women are joined together, like other animals, by the motives of concupiscence; and that their tenderness towards their young proceeds from the like natural principle: for which reason they will never allow that a child is under any obligation to his father for begetting him, or to his mother for bringing him into the world; which, considering the miseries of human life, was neither a benefit in itself, nor intended so by his parents, whose thoughts, in their love encounters, were otherwise employed. Upon these, and the like reasonings, their opinion is, that parents are the last of all others to be trusted with the education of their own children; and therefore they have in every town public nurseries, where all parents, except cottagers and labourers, are obliged to send their infants of both sexes to be reared and educated, when they come to the age of twenty moons, at which time they are supposed to have some rudiments of docility. These schools are of several kinds, suited to different qualities, and both sexes. They have certain professors well skilled in preparing children for such a condition of life as befits the rank of their parents, and their own capacities, as well as inclinations. I shall first say something of the male nurseries, and then of the female. The nurseries for males of noble or eminent birth, are provided with grave and learned professors, and their several deputies. The clothes and food of the children are plain and simple. They are bred up in the principles of honour, justice, courage, modesty, clemency, religion, and love of their country; they are always employed in some business, except in the times of eating and sleeping, which are very short, and two hours for diversions consisting of bodily exercises. They are dressed by men till four years of age, and then are obliged to dress themselves, although their quality be ever so great; and the women attendant, who are aged proportionably to ours at fifty, perform only the most menial offices. They are never suffered to converse with servants, but go together in smaller or greater numbers to take their diversions, and always in the presence of a professor, or one of his deputies; whereby they avoid those early bad impressions of folly and vice, to which our children are subject. Their parents are suffered to see them only twice a year; the visit is to last but an hour; they are allowed to kiss the child at meeting and parting; but a professor, who always stands by on those occasions, will not suffer them to whisper, or use any fondling expressions, or bring any presents of toys, sweetmeats, and the like. The pension from each family for the education and entertainment of a child, upon failure of due payment, is levied by the emperor's officers. The nurseries for children of ordinary gentlemen, merchants, traders, and handicrafts, are managed proportionably after the same manner; only those designed for trades are put out apprentices at eleven years old, whereas those of persons of quality continue in their exercises till fifteen, which answers to twenty-one with us: but the confinement is gradually lessened for the last three years. In the female nurseries, the young girls of quality are educated much like the males, only they are dressed by orderly servants of their own sex; but always in the presence of a professor or deputy, till they come to dress themselves, which is at five years old. And if it be found that these nurses ever presume to entertain the girls with frightful or foolish stories, or the common follies practised by chambermaids among us, they are publicly whipped thrice about the city, imprisoned for a year, and banished for life to the most desolate part of the country. Thus the young ladies are as much ashamed of being cowards and fools as the men, and despise all personal ornaments, beyond decency and cleanliness: neither did I perceive any difference in their education made by their difference of sex, only that the exercises of the females were not altogether so robust; and that some rules were given them relating to domestic life, and a smaller compass of learning was enjoined them: for their maxim is, that among peoples of quality, a wife should be always a reasonable and agreeable companion, because she cannot always be young. When the girls are twelve years old, which among them is the marriageable age, their parents or guardians take them home, with great expressions of gratitude to the professors, and seldom without tears of the young lady and her companions. In the nurseries of females of the meaner sort, the children are instructed in all kinds of works proper for their sex, and their several degrees: those intended for apprentices are dismissed at seven years old, the rest are kept to eleven. The meaner families who have children at these nurseries, are obliged, besides their annual pension, which is as low as possible, to return to the steward of the nursery a small monthly share of their gettings, to be a portion for the child; and therefore all parents are limited in their expenses by the law. For the Lilliputians think nothing can be more unjust, than for people, in subservience to their own appetites, to bring children into the world, and leave the burthen of supporting them on the public. As to persons of quality, they give security to appropriate a certain sum for each child, suitable to their condition; and these funds are always managed with good husbandry and the most exact justice. The cottagers and labourers keep their children at home, their business being only to till and cultivate the earth, and therefore their education is of little consequence to the public: but the old and diseased among them, are supported by hospitals; for begging is a trade unknown in this empire. And here it may, perhaps, divert the curious reader, to give some account of my domestics, and my manner of living in this country, during a residence of nine months, and thirteen days. Having a head mechanically turned, and being likewise forced by necessity, I had made for myself a table and chair convenient enough, out of the largest trees in the royal park. Two hundred sempstresses were employed to make me shirts, and linen for my bed and table, all of the strongest and coarsest kind they could get; which, however, they were forced to quilt together in several folds, for the thickest was some degrees finer than lawn. Their linen is usually three inches wide, and three feet make a piece. The sempstresses took my measure as I lay on the ground, one standing at my neck, and another at my mid-leg, with a strong cord extended, that each held by the end, while a third measured the length of the cord with a rule of an inch long. Then they measured my right thumb, and desired no more; for by a mathematical computation, that twice round the thumb is once round the wrist, and so on to the neck and the waist, and by the help of my old shirt, which I displayed on the ground before them for a pattern, they fitted me exactly. Three hundred tailors were employed in the same manner to make me clothes; but they had another contrivance for taking my measure. I kneeled down, and they raised a ladder from the ground to my neck; upon this ladder one of them mounted, and let fall a plumb-line from my collar to the floor, which just answered the length of my coat: but my waist and arms I measured myself. When my clothes were finished, which was done in my house (for the largest of theirs would not have been able to hold them), they looked like the patch-work made by the ladies in England, only that mine were all of a colour. I had three hundred cooks to dress my victuals, in little convenient huts built about my house, where they and their families lived, and prepared me two dishes a-piece. I took up twenty waiters in my hand, and placed them on the table: a hundred more attended below on the ground, some with dishes of meat, and some with barrels of wine and other liquors slung on their shoulders; all which the waiters above drew up, as I wanted, in a very ingenious manner, by certain cords, as we draw the bucket up a well in Europe. A dish of their meat was a good mouthful, and a barrel of their liquor a reasonable draught. Their mutton yields to ours, but their beef is excellent. I have had a sirloin so large, that I have been forced to make three bites of it; but this is rare. My servants were astonished to see me eat it, bones and all, as in our country we do the leg of a lark. Their geese and turkeys I usually ate at a mouthful, and I confess they far exceed ours. Of their smaller fowl I could take up twenty or thirty at the end of my knife. One day his imperial majesty, being informed of my way of living, desired "that himself and his royal consort, with the young princes of the blood of both sexes, might have the happiness," as he was pleased to call it, "of dining with me." They came accordingly, and I placed them in chairs of state, upon my table, just over against me, with their guards about them. Flimnap, the lord high treasurer, attended there likewise with his white staff; and I observed he often looked on me with a sour countenance, which I would not seem to regard, but ate more than usual, in honour to my dear country, as well as to fill the court with admiration. I have some private reasons to believe, that this visit from his majesty gave Flimnap an opportunity of doing me ill offices to his master. That minister had always been my secret enemy, though he outwardly caressed me more than was usual to the moroseness of his nature. He represented to the emperor "the low condition of his treasury; that he was forced to take up money at a great discount; that exchequer bills would not circulate under nine per cent. below par; that I had cost his majesty above a million and a half of SPRUGS" (their greatest gold coin, about the bigness of a spangle) "and, upon the whole, that it would be advisable in the emperor to take the first fair occasion of dismissing me." I am here obliged to vindicate the reputation of an excellent lady, who was an innocent sufferer upon my account. The treasurer took a fancy to be jealous of his wife, from the malice of some evil tongues, who informed him that her grace had taken a violent affection for my person; and the court scandal ran for some time, that she once came privately to my lodging. This I solemnly declare to be a most infamous falsehood, without any grounds, further than that her grace was pleased to treat me with all innocent marks of freedom and friendship. I own she came often to my house, but always publicly, nor ever without three more in the coach, who were usually her sister and young daughter, and some particular acquaintance; but this was common to many other ladies of the court. And I still appeal to my servants round, whether they at any time saw a coach at my door, without knowing what persons were in it. On those occasions, when a servant had given me notice, my custom was to go immediately to the door, and, after paying my respects, to take up the coach and two horses very carefully in my hands (for, if there were six horses, the postillion always unharnessed four,) and place them on a table, where I had fixed a movable rim quite round, of five inches high, to prevent accidents. And I have often had four coaches and horses at once on my table, full of company, while I sat in my chair, leaning my face towards them; and when I was engaged with one set, the coachmen would gently drive the others round my table. I have passed many an afternoon very agreeably in these conversations. But I defy the treasurer, or his two informers (I will name them, and let them make the best of it) Clustril and Drunlo, to prove that any person ever came to me INCOGNITO, except the secretary Reldresal, who was sent by express command of his imperial majesty, as I have before related. I should not have dwelt so long upon this particular, if it had not been a point wherein the reputation of a great lady is so nearly concerned, to say nothing of my own; though I then had the honour to be a NARDAC, which the treasurer himself is not; for all the world knows, that he is only a GLUMGLUM, a title inferior by one degree, as that of a marquis is to a duke in England; yet I allow he preceded me in right of his post. These false informations, which I afterwards came to the knowledge of by an accident not proper to mention, made the treasurer show his lady for some time an ill countenance, and me a worse; and although he was at last undeceived and reconciled to her, yet I lost all credit with him, and found my interest decline very fast with the emperor himself, who was, indeed, too much governed by that favourite.

#GulliversTravels

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ofradiances · 10 months ago

Text

Ike did try to look. His eyebrows furrowed together at the beautiful script that he nonetheless was powerless to attempt to read. It therefore didn't do him any good and he resisted the urge to frown. Cheating wouldn't do him any good.

"Right. Right he was across the monastery so it's likely he couldn't have done it. I should call on those witnesses right?"

It sounds simple when it's laid out like this. Straightforward, like a problem that can be solved if Ike just keeps pushing. He's good at that, good at pushing. He likes when things are straightforward. He likes when people are honest.

He knows the point of the exercise is that that won't always be the case. But he could dig honesty out of them probably.

"And ask them what they saw...?"

Objection! This man is not fit for a court of law!

#reprisalet #thread | objection! this man is not fit for a court of law #// Summons Herculean strength to write a single RP response and then immediately trips and falls into a ditch #// It's something; I won't let covid take my hobbies!!!!

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lodelss · 5 years ago

Text

ACLU: Defending Immigrants’ Rights and Reproductive Freedom in the U.S. Supreme Court

Defending Immigrants’ Rights and Reproductive Freedom in the U.S. Supreme Court

We sat down with David Cole, the ACLU’s national legal director, to discuss what’s in store for the ACLU next week, and what’s at stake for civil liberties this SCOTUS term.

Q: The ACLU is going to the Supreme Court next week. What is the case and what’s at stake?

We argue that Thuraissigiam has a constitutional right to have a court review whether the deportation was legal or not through “habeas corpus,” a writ allowing any person facing detention to challenge its legality before a judge. The government argues that the Constitution does not protect immigrants, like Thuraiisigiam, who challenge the legality of their removal from this country. In so arguing, it asks the court to depart from over 100 years of Supreme Court precedent. At the end of the day, if immigrants can be deported without judicial review, regardless of the legality of their deportation, then the rule of law in immigration proceedings will mean nothing. Under the government’s view, our client would have no judicial recourse, even if the Department of Homeland Security denied his request for asylum because he is dark-skinned.

Q: The court will also hear arguments on a Center for Reproductive Rights case related to abortion next week. What’s at stake there?

Q: This is the first reproductive rights case that Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch will hear since being confirmed to the court. How do you think this will affect the decision?

A: That’s the million dollar question. No one knows for sure. What we do know, is that President Trump promised to put justices on the court to reverse Roe v. Wade. So we know what his intention was, but the question will be whether these justices abide by precedent or feel free to break from it.

Q: Is there a common thread in both these cases?

I think we’re well positioned to address these issues, because we’ve been at the forefront of the struggles for immigrants’ rights and reproductive freedom for the last 50 years. We were involved in Roe v. Wade itself, and we’ve been involved in virtually all the court’s major immigrants’ rights and reproductive rights decisions for decades. Reproductive freedom and immigrants’ rights are two of the most important issues that we fight for every day, and never have they been more under attack than under the Trump administration.

Q: What is the biggest challenge we face in these two cases?

Q: The Supreme Court recently announced it will hear Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. What is at stake there?

A: This case, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, involves the City of Philadelphia’s taxpayer-funded foster care program and a nondiscrimination rule. Catholic Social Services, one of the nonprofits who contracted with the city to help carry out the city’s foster care program, refuses to certify same-sex couples as fit foster parents, even if they are otherwise fully qualified. Philadelphia’s law prohibits such discrimination. CSS claims that it has a constitutional right under the Free Exercise Clause to get government money to carry out a government program, while violating the terms of the government program and engaging in discrimination with government money.

Q: What other SCOTUS cases is the ACLU involved with this year?

Q: What is the one key takeaway you want the public to know about the current SCOTUS term?

Published February 27, 2020 at 08:52PM via ACLU https://ift.tt/3cdVeJB from Blogger https://ift.tt/3ad3Caw via IFTTT

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