Wall St. Journal: “The wheels on the bus won’t go ’round and ’round in many playrooms this year if the Consumer Product Safety Commission has its way. On Wednesday, the Commission voted against a petition to exempt small pieces of brass used in the wheels on toy cars, tractors and buses from draconian lead standards. The fiasco is one more sign that Congress must address the chaos created by its 2008 law regulating lead in toys.”
Big Government: “Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.”
Westchester Magazine: “When the human resources department at Richard Michaels’s job told him that he’d been accused of sexual harassment, he was confused. The representative told Michaels, a manager at his company, that one of the employees he oversaw alleged that he had kissed her. Experts agree that forcible touching of employees by managers is a serious matter, morally dubious, and legally actionable on almost every jurisdictional level, including the federal. Michaels even knew that the accusation was true. He had, in fact, kissed the woman. Yet he felt sure that he had done nothing wrong.”
Internet Cases: “Appellant Miller and his dad robbed Wedge’s Liquor Store in Logansport, Indiana back in November 2007. During the robbery Miller pulled out a shotgun and pointed it at the clerk’s face. During closing argument at trial, the prosecutor showed the jury a video from YouTube to illustrate “how easy it was to conceal a weapon inside clothing.” The video was not admitted as evidence but was used merely as a demonstrative aid.”
Arizona Republic: “The U.S. Supreme Court has indicated it is interested in hearing an appeal from business groups that, for the past two years, have been trying to have Arizona’s controversial employer-sanctions law thrown out. The sanctions law, which punishes companies for hiring illegal immigrants and requires all Arizona employers to use a federal electronic system to verify the work status of employees, has been upheld by two lower courts.