The legal assault on three Hampton towns by the East End Eruv Assn. aided by Verizon, LPEG/LIPA and two huge law firms, is an example of lawyers running amok, robbing Americans of two freedoms—free speech and freedom of religion as well as freedom from religion.
Founders of the country wanted to start with a fresh slate—barring the “seditious” libel that led to drawing and quartering of government critics in the U.K. and belief in anything supernatural, which spawned the Inquisition, among other abuses. The word “god” is not in the Constitution.
Under the U.K. system, Parliament had free speech but not the press or people. Offenders were tortured and executed for something they said. The modern Inquisition is the legal system where frivolous lawsuits can bankrupt a company or individual.
Few Trust U.S. Court System
Anti-lawsuit sites such as Faces of Lawsuit Abuse say 87% of the public fears frivolous lawsuits. Only 16% trust the legal system to defend them against such suits, says a Harris poll. They cost Americans at least $200 billion yearly.
Lawyers started to drag America back to the British system with the Sedition Act of 1798 that allowed Congress to penalize Americans for the “crime” of expressing “dissent.” Libel laws that could be used against the press and others were soon added.
 Ramos |
New York Supreme Court Judge Charles Ramos argued in a 5,000 word article in the July 24, 1995 New York Law Journal that media should not be sued for libel because free speech was deterred. Half of PR execs polled by the O’Dwyer Co. agreed including Howard Rubenstein, Richard Edelman, PRSA president John Beardsley, Robert Dilenschneider and Mark Ragan, Ragan Report.
The number of lawyers has now reached 1.22 million. They file 15 million civil lawsuits yearly—a far greater proportion of both than in any other country. Japan has 23 lawyers per 100,000 citizens whereas the U.S. has 391 or 17 times as many. Canada has 26 lawyers per 100,000.
Eruv Lawsuits Are Frivolous
“The U.S is choking on litigation…anyone can sue for anything no matter how absurd or egregious,” wrote Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby May 9, 2014.
An example of frivolous suits is the multiple actions against Westhampton Beach, Southampton and Quogue that are now in their fifth year with no end in sight. This has cost the towns and Jewish People Opposed to the Eruv $1 million+ so far in payments to their law firms. The towns are threatened with millions in penalties and court costs.
The courts unfortunately have bowed to this irrationality in some but by no means all communities. The Federal District Court for Tenafly, N.J., ordered an eruv in that city removed but was over-ruled by an Appeals Court. There are no eruvim in Paris and only two small ones in the entire country. The French know the meaning of “secular.”
Get Those Symbols Off Our Poles
Despite the hundreds of thousands of words filed in this litigation, it is a no-brainer. Jewish Orthodox markings do not belong on utility poles any more than the sign of the cross or Muslim symbols. One filing, complained Judge Kathleen Tomlinson, was 70 gigabytes. Answers.com said if there are 200 words on a page, one gigabyte would total 125 million pages.
For a sample of tortured logic, legal hair-splitting on what is or is not a sign, specious and fatuous reasoning, plus verbal overkill, readers should explore some of the more than 70 legal links on the WHB website
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What they will find is an almost bottomless swamp of verbiage in which they will quickly drown unless they have some life preservers of logic. That is the object of these massive legal actions—intimidate and discourage examination by citizens. Reporters, who ask a simple question and get “a roomful of information” are familiar with this ploy.
The job of the press and concerned citizens is to cut through this overgrown jungle and get to the heart of the matter. Both press and citizens have to mobilize public opinion. Vigorous public discussion is needed, the bedrock of democracy. Lawyer are often in the position of tamping down public discussion.
Mayor Caved on “Twin Police Chiefs”
Proof that Mayor Marie Moore and the WHB trustees will cave to public opinion is their retreat from the “twin police chiefs” bubble that was popped by 62 citizens at a meeting Feb. 12.
Virtually everyone in the room shot up their hands that night when it came time for public comment. It was the biggest meeting since the 1960s, said local blogger Dean Speir. www.whbqt.info Our take on this is that the twin chiefs idea was just a ruse to distract citizens from the real problem—the eruv lawsuits that are costly to defend and result in WHB being slammed in the suits and in the press as anti-Semitic. A New York Post editorial Jan. 9 headlined “Making room for Jews” accused WHB residents of “bigotry.”
WHB appears to be governed by a team of lawyers. Thomas Moore, husband of Maria, is a law clerk to Suffolk County Superior Court Judge John Rouse. He operates the blog www.progress4whb.com that covers his wife’s administration. The blog does not appear to accept comments. The only photo of Thomas Moore that we can locate is the property of 27east.com which will not let us use it. A telephone call to Thomas Moore was not returned.
Leading citizens and major taxpayers in WHB should demand that Mayor Moore call a town meeting on the eruv threat.
WHB Library Should Host Info Meeting
The new $7.5 million WHB library is going to be a white elephant if it does not do what other libraries are doing and take a lead role in this discussion. It is taking a pass thus far.
The Public Library Assn. of the American Library Assn. hosts the annual Gordon M. Conable Award
for libraries that have “demonstrated a commitment to intellectual freedom and the Library Bill of Rights in various ways, including developed and promoted collections that include diverse points of view; provided programs that promote community dialog on controversial issues…”
Two O’Dwyer reps went to the Feb. 11 meeting of the WHB library board, on which Mayor Moore sits, and presented two of the more than 20 legal papers, stories, blogs and other material on the eruv battle that are on odwyerpr.com. The trustees accepted the materials but would not discuss them. State law provides for public access to library board meetings but there is no rule that trustees talk to anyone who attends.
We then received an email from library director Danielle Waskiewicz that the library will not keep on hand any O’Dwyer materials on the battle. A request for reasons for the denial has yet to be answered.
Maggie Moran, who is well-connected in New Jersey and New York Democratic politics, has established Moxie Strategies in Asbury Park, NJ.
Husch Blackwell Strategies has added FleishmanHillard alum Michael Slatin as a principal in its public affairs group.
Rory Cooper, a veteran Republican operative and policy specialist, has joined Teneo’s Washington office as senior managing director in its strategy & communications practice.
Brian Fallon, who served as national press secretary for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run, is signing on next month as Vice President’s Kamala Harris’ campaign communications director.
TikTok is nothing more than a Chinese propaganda tool that poses “a grave threat to America’s national security and, in particular, impressionable children and young adults,” say two Congressmen who want the platform registered as a foreign agent.
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