March 19 (Reuters) - MAKO Surgical Corp :
* Announces patent enforcement actions against stanmore entities
* Filed complaints against stanmore implants worldwide and stanmore inc with the U.S. international trade commission
* Says patent infringement actions are directed at stanmore's computerized orthopedic surgery guidance systems
* Says patents at issue relate to computerized orthopedic surgical devices and software
* Further company coverage
((Bangalore Newsroom; +1 646 223 8780))
A New Jersey company decides to re-verify all of its workers’ status after they complain of health and safety violations. A California supermarket decides to voluntarily join the federal E-Verify program just as workers' labor organizing campaigning intensifies. An Alabama restaurant worker is arrested and deported after trying to collect two months of unpaid wages.
Across the country, unscrupulous employers are gaming the enforcement system in order to silence “problem” workers and dodge both immigration and labor laws.
Immigration reform gives us a chance to fix this most perverse failure of our broken immigration system.
Office of the Press Secretary
WASHINGTON, DC – White House Domestic Policy Council (DPC) Director Cecilia Muñoz, Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) Janet Napolitano, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Alan Bersin and Acting Associate Attorney General Tony West met with law enforcement officials from across the country today at the White House’s Eisenhower Executive Office Building to discuss the need for commonsense reform to fix our nation’s broken immigration system. DPC Director Muñoz outlined the principles at the heart of the President’s proposal: continuing to strengthen border security, cracking down on employers that hire undocumented workers, creating a pathway to earned citizenship, and streamlining our legal immigration system. Secretary Napolitano highlighted the Department’s work with local law enforcement to enforce immigration laws while securing our borders, and noted that in order to continue making progress, we need to modernize our immigration laws.
Secretary Napolitano also highlighted the significant progress that has been made as the Administration has dedicated historic levels of personnel, technology, and resources to the Southwest border over the last four years, and undertaken an unprecedented effort to transform our nation's immigration enforcement systems into one that focuses on public safety, border security, and the integrity of the immigration system. Attempts to cross the border illegally totaled nearly 365,000 nationwide in FY 2012, representing a nearly 50 percent decrease since FY 2008 and a 78 percent decrease from their peak in FY 2000; and that from FY 2009 to 2012, CBP and ICE seized 71 percent more currency, 39 percent more drugs, and 189 percent more weapons along the Southwest border as compared to FY 2005 to 2008.
The Secretary made it clear that commonsense immigration reform is the single best step we can take to continue to enhance border security, enabling our officers and agents along the border to spend the bulk of their time focused on public safety and national security threats. Law enforcement officials agreed that immigration reform will strengthen trust between communities and law enforcement agencies, and allow officers to focus resources on public safety.
Participants in today’s meeting included: Los Angeles County, Calif. Sheriff Leroy Baca; former New York Police Department/Los Angeles Police Department Chief of Police Bill Bratton; Calhoun County, Ala. Sheriff Larry Amerson; Oakwood, Ohio Chief of Police Alex Bebris; Loudoun County, Va. Sheriff Michael L. Chapman; Harris County, Texas Sheriff Adrian Garcia; Fremont, Calif. Police Chief and International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) President Craig Steckler; Tuscaloosa County, Ala. Sheriff Edmund Sexton; Cambridge, Mass. Police Department Commissioner Robert Haas; Vermont State Police Director Thomas L’Esperance; Montgomery County, Md. Chief of Police Thomas Manger; Cook County, Ill. Homeland Security Executive Director Michael Masters; Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority Superintendent-in-Chief Joseph O’Connor; Arlington County, Va. Chief of Police Douglas Scott; Utah Department of Public Safety Deputy Commissioner Keith Squires; IACP Director of the Research Division John Firman; Police Executive Research Forum Chief of Staff Andrea Luna; and Prince George's County, Md. Assistant Chief of Police Kevin Davis.
On Feb. 4-5, Secretary Napolitano traveled to San Diego, California and Clint and El Paso, Texas to inspect border security operations at the Southwest border, meet with state and local stakeholders, and discuss the Department’s on-going efforts to secure the border while facilitating lawful travel and trade.
For more information on the President’s proposal and how it would help officers and agents along the border better focus on combating public safety and national security threats by continuing to build upon the progress already made – including by investing in ports of entry, and making it harder for transnational criminal organizations to operate, click HERE. For more information on the Department of Homeland Security visit www.DHS.gov.
President Obama urges Congress to act to avoid a series of harmful and automatic cuts—called a sequester—from going into effect that would hurt our economy and the middle class and threaten thousands of American jobs.
Here's quick glimpse at what happened this week on WhiteHouse.gov.
Vice President Biden's Chief of Staff Bruce Reed sat down with us to give us a quick update on the work the President and Vice President have been doing since the President released his plan to reduce gun violence.
view all related blog postsOffice of the Press Secretary
Roosevelt Room11:28 A.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Well, Vice President Biden and I just want to thank the police chiefs and sheriffs who are here today representing law enforcement officials all across the country who obviously share our deep concern about issues of gun safety and how we can protect our communities and keep our kids safe.
A couple of weeks ago, I appeared along with Joe to present the administration's ideas in terms of steps that we have to take. And I issued a number of executive actions that should be taken unilaterally in order to improve our collection of data to make sure that we're coordinating more effectively with state and local governments, and to do everything that we could to improve the issue of gun safety and to make our communities safer.
But, as we've indicated before, the only way that we're going to be able to do everything that needs to be done is with the cooperation of Congress. And that means passing serious laws that restrict the access and availability of assault weapons and magazine clips that aren't necessary for hunters and sportsmen and those responsible gun owners who are out there. It means that we are serious about universal background checks. It means that we take seriously issues mental health and school safety.
We recognize that this is an issue that elicits a lot of passion all across the country. And Joe and my Cabinet members who have been involved in this have been on a listening session over the last several months. No group is more important for us to listen to than our law enforcement officials. They are where the rubber hits the road.
And so I welcome this opportunity to work with them; to hear their views in terms of what will make the biggest difference to prevent something like Newtown or Oak Creek from happening again. But many of them also recognize that it's not only the high-profile mass shootings that are of concern here, it's also what happens on a day-in-day-out basis in places like Chicago or Philadelphia, where young people are victims of gun violence every single day. That’s why part of the conversation that we're going to be having today relates not only to the issue of new laws or better enforcement of our gun laws, it also means what are we doing to make sure that we've got the strongest possible law enforcement teams on the ground? What are we doing to hire more cops? What are we doing to make sure that they're getting the training that they need? What are we doing to make sure our sheriff's offices in rural counties have access to some of the resources that some of the big cities do in order to deal with some of these emergencies?
So I'm looking forward to a robust conversation. I know that this is not a shy group, mainly because they're dealing with life-and-death situations every single day. But I'm very grateful to them for their participation. This is a representative group. It comes from a wide cross-section of communities across the country. And hopefully, if law enforcement officials who are dealing with this stuff every single day can come to some basic consensus in terms of steps that we need to take, Congress is going to be paying attention to them and we'll be able to make progress.
All right? Thank you very much, everybody.
END
11:32 A.M. EST
On Thursday, January 31 at 1:00 p.m. ET, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council Cecilia Muñoz will join the latest "Fireside Hangout" for a conversation about immigration reform.
President Obama speak from Las Vegas about creating a fair and effective immigration system that lives up to our heritage as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants.
President Obama announced today that he has approved a new round of humanitarian assistance, an additional $155 million to provide for the urgent and pressing needs of civilians in Syria and refugees forced to flee the violence of the Assad regime. This brings America’s contribution to date to $365 million, making the United States the largest single donor of humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people.
view all related blog posts
Following the lead of Wyoming and Texas, state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R) introduced unconstitutional legislation on Wednesday to make enforcing federal anti-gun violence measures a felony in Pennsylvania.
Metcalfe said he aims to make federal law unenforceable to protect Pennsylvanians’ “sacred personal liberties” from the “chains of government tyranny”:
Passage of my legislation will send the message that there will never be additional gun control, anywhere in Pennsylvania. Whether by White House executive orders, congressional fiat, or judicial activism, we will never allow the left to benefit from the wicked acts of murderers in order advance their senseless gun-grabbing agenda which would only succeed in replacing one of our most sacred personal liberties with the chains of government tyranny.
However, if Metcalfe referred to the Constitution, he would quickly find his bill violates the Supremacy Clause, which states that “duly-enacted” federal laws “shall be the supreme law of the land” and trump state laws. This means states cannot nullify laws or arrest officials for enforcing them simply because lawmakers do not like them, or even because they make their own determination that the law is unconstitutional.
While gun extremists’ response to sensible gun policy has ranged from states’ unconstitutional campaigns to calls for the President’s impeachment, other Republicans have acknowledged that nothing about gun violence prevention is unconstitutional.
The President and First Lady walk in the 2009 Inaugural Parade flanked by Secret ServiceFour years later, President Obama will be sworn in for the second time, prompting a new rounds of preparation to ensure his safety as he takes the oath on the steps of the Capitol Building. With the swearing-in ceremony a little over 48 hours away, planning is moving along at full-tilt, including arranging the security measures required to keep the President and First Lady safe throughout. The Secret Service takes point in designing and implementing security plans during what are called National Security Special Events, gatherings of the size of the Inaugural that would be prove likely targets for terrorism. Partnering with local law enforcement and the military, the result is an estimated 20,000 law enforcement officials prepared to patrol the District of Columbia.
In conjunction with that effort, the FBI is prepared to handle crisis management should an incident incur, along with providing intelligence analysis ahead of the event. It’s in that role that Jacqueline McGwyer, an agent at the Washington Field Office of the FBI, confirmed to ThinkProgress that there is currently “no credible or corroborated threat” towards the President ahead of the Inaugural. In addition, according to McGwyer, there’s less chatter that would suggest a potential attack compared to the same period in 2009.
The decrease in overall noise tracks with what independent observers are seeing as well. What worries J.M. Berger more is the severity of what he’s seeing from the far right. Berger tracks terrorism in the form of both jihadi extremists and white supremacists through their Internet presence on his website Intelwire. According to Berger, “There are certain phrases that you see, that are always in the mix, but are more prominent now.” He described these phrases as calls to action, such as “The time is now,” that ebb and flow in their usage, but have peaked in the last few days.
Compounding the chatter surrounding the inauguration are the President’s recent proposals to reduce gun violence. Volume among the fringe right is as high today as it was immediately after the tragedy in Newtown, CT, Berger said. The real concern, he said, is that protesters will flow into the city in the hopes of setting off a confrontation with law enforcement. Berger described the feeling among the far right-wing internet communities as akin to a “powder-keg poised to go off.” Should the weekend pass without seeing that influx though, Berger predicted that the communities he monitors will calm down until the passage of any firearms legislation in Congress.
The possibility is still out there that a new threat may arise to the President along the same vein as the possible threat that arose during the last Inaugural. In 2009, law enforcement officials were reported to be tracking down leads of a potential threat from the Somalia-based jihadi group al-Shabaab. While that threat was never corroborated and clearly never came to pass, the intelligence community remains high alert.
At least one event scheduled for this weekend shows the potential for getting the far right further riled. Media Matters for America reported on Friday that the “Gun Appreciation Day” event due to take place on Saturday in protest of Obama’s gun proposals is being sponsored in part by a white nationalist group called American Third Position. Groups like American Third Position were the subject of a recent study by the Combating Terrorism Center highlighting the threat that fringe right-wing groups pose to the United States.
“…the soldiers out of rage and hatred, nailed those they caught, one after one way, and another after another, to the crosses, by way of jest.”
– Flavius Josephus (HT:Wikipedia)
In the video above, Al Armendariz discusses how his agency should enforce regulations on Oil and Gas extraction firms. The term crucifixion enters into the discussion. I’m sure it was just a rhetorical flourish in the proud tradition of Huey “The Kingfish” Biden, however, our choice of wording does offer a nice, handy window into our souls.
The EPA’s crucifixion agenda was on leafy, green display when they ruled that power generation facilities could not emit more than 1,000 pounds of CO2 per megawatt of electricity produced. The people getting nailed to the cross predictably come from locations that rely on coal-fired power for their electricity. The Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin describes why this poses a difficulty for coal-fired generation facilities.
“The average U.S. natural gas plant, which emits 800 to 850 pounds of CO2 per megawatt, meets that standard; coal plants emit an average of 1,768 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt.”
This would be fine and dandy to anyone who doesn’t dig or ship or burn coal except for two wee problems. The US currently derives 45% of its electricity from coal-fired plants. These plants would have to install carbon sequestering technology which does not exist at a level yet where it can be commercially mass-produced.
In and of itself, we wouldn’t be dead just from enhanced regulatory costs levied against coal-fired electrical production. The problem occurs when the EPA uses other regulatory actions to also squeeze the viable alternatives to coal-fired plants. Natural Gas extraction firms have rapidly increased supply availability via the use of frakking methods to force previously unavailable natural gas out of the ground. Senator Jim Inhofe describes EPA actions towards natural gas producers following Armendariz’s infamous crucifixion edict.
“Not long after Administrator Armendariz made these comments in 2010, EPA targeted US natural gas producers in Pennsylvania, Texas and Wyoming.
“In all three of these cases, EPA initially made headline-grabbing statements either insinuating or proclaiming outright that the use of hydraulic fracturing by American energy producers was the cause of water contamination, but in each case their comments were premature at best – and despite their most valiant efforts, they have been unable to find any sound scientific evidence to make this link.”
(HT:Cnsnews.com)
And meanwhile at The Bureau of Labor Statistics, we learn that the Glorious Obama Recovery seems to have hit a rough patch. Employers added only 120,000 new jobs to their payrolls last March after several months of averaging twice as many. Meanwhile, the four-week moving average of new unemployment claims hit 381,750. This is as poorly as this indicator has fared since early January.
This stalling economic activity occurs in synonymy with rising energy prices. It occurs at the same time our Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, claims that the US Government has no control over the price of gasoline. He says this while the EPA does everything in its power to increase two possible substitute goods for crude oil in power generation. His disingenuous response bears no relation to what the explicit goal of President Obama’s energy policies have been since 2008. Here is how President Obama described the economic outcome of his environmental policy goals.
Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad. Because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, you name it — whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, uh, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money.
(HT:Hot Air.com)
So does the EPA have a deleterious effect on the current economy? A reflexive thought would be that firms undergoing regulatory crucifixion tend not to have excess funds to hire new staff. They also tend to stay away from anything that would require them to take regulatory risk. Regulatory crucifixion leads firms to stop asking where they should explore and start asking what they need to shut down if they don’t want nail holes in their hands. Logically, this should lead to a necessary level of damage to American economic vitality.
Logic also suggests that higher electricity prices, as President Obama indicated he believed would occur, should create negative externalities in consumer spending and on hiring in mechanization-intense industries. This quite possibly shows up in the perniciously stubborn U3 rate of unemployment that only seems to decline when hoards of perpetually idled workers get officially classified as “discouraged.” Or maybe this is all just a result of American velleity.
I tend to think the crucifixion philosophy at the EPA, the high prices of energy and the slowing rates of economic vitality are all components of a system. The EPA regulatory posture has a steady-state effect that increases the prices of energy inputs to production. The things firms produce have a higher manufacturing overhead, so that they are harder to make. The firms hire fewer workers and charge consumers more for their goods and services. This is how The Government-Centered Society kills economic vitality.
