Free Republic

A coalition of consumer, immigrant and civil rights groups warned Tuesday that a Port of Long Beach loan program to help thousands of mostly low-income truck drivers replace old, polluting rigs with newer, cleaner-burning vehicles could plunge the truckers into debt. Port officials counter that the loans are a bargain and that truckers would not be able to afford new rigs without them. But the coalition foresees a wave of "foreclosures on wheels."

Philadelphia - Gov. Ed Rendell (D) said in a federal deposition on Jan. 2, 2002 that if asked under oath about a hypothetical instance of adultery on his part, he might not answer honestly, The Bulletin has learned. Mr. Rendell was then a gubernatorial candidate responding to lawyers for Don and Teri Adams about events that transpired on Oct. 2, 1998, when the brother and sister protested a Philadelphia visit by Bill Clinton in anticipation of the president's impeachment. Members of the Teamsters union assaulted the two that evening. Mr. and Miss Adams received civil recompense for the actions of...

Philadelphia - A union staffer's 2002 court declaration asserted that current governor and former Philadelphia mayor Ed Rendell (D) encouraged Teamsters to pursue assault charges against a nonviolent protester, The Bulletin has learned. Testimony Mr. Rendell offered earlier that year differed markedly from the account. The differing versions emerge from the saga of assault victim Don Adams's arduous legal battles. After the Teamsters agreed in March to settle his almost decade-long civil action, Mr. Adams found the justice he received welcome, if incomplete. Mr. Adams, his sister Teri and about 40 others went to Center City to protest a visit...

Believe it or not, The New Republic is doing the "Lord's Work" in exposing the crime syndicate Obama is part of. Read the whole thing despite the obligatory swipe at Bush. The Teamsters in Chicago are continually linked to organized crime--so why is a presidential candidate from that city promising to end federal oversight of the union?

The Labor Department’s seven-year effort to improve financial reporting and disclosure by unions could come to a screeching halt once President Bush leaves office. Sen. Barack Obama’s support for ending federal oversight of the Teamsters is the clearest indication yet of how a Democratic administration would treat labor unions. Both Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton wooed the Teamsters in hopes of securing its coveted endorsement. But only Obama went so far as to say that government oversight had “run its course.” The union endorsed Obama in February. Since then, Obama’s ties to Teamsters President James P. Hoffa have grown stronger....

Almost every week, a new damaging story emerges about Barack Obama. Lucky for this wounded "messiah" that his disciples in the mainstream media neglect, until the last possible minute, their duty to investigate these reports. This week, there's a brand-new one, which has surfaced too late to affect the critically important Indiana and North Carolina primaries, but demands scrutiny nonetheless. The Wall Street Journal -- admittedly a mainstream media outlet, save the editorial page -- has started the ball rolling on this one with a May 5 article examining the possible reasons behind the International Brotherhood of Teamsters' endorsement of...

Sen. Barack Obama won the endorsement of the Teamsters earlier this year after privately telling the union he supported ending the strict federal oversight imposed to root out corruption, according to officials from the union and the Obama campaign. It's an unusual stance for a presidential candidate. Policy makers have largely treated monitoring of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters as a legal matter left to the Justice Department since an independent review board was set up in 1992 to eliminate mob influence in the union.

What started as a small, online grassroots effort now appears to have the potential for something bigger. Dan Little, the owner/operator of a livestock hauling company in Carrollton, Mo., estimated Tuesday that at least 1,000 other truckers from across the United States have committed so far to joining him in a strike on April 1. At issue is the rising cost of diesel fuel, which has reached or exceeded $4 per gallon in at least 17 states. But Little does not expect his strike to bring down the per-gallon price of gas, nor does he expect to have any effect...

PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE FOR CONSTITUIONAL JUSTICE P.O. 306, Cheltenham, PA 19012 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Don Adams CLINTON PROTESTERS AND TEAMSTERS END TEN YEAR LEGAL BATTLE Philadelphia, PA (March 21, 2008) -- One of the few remaining civil suits stemming from the Clinton-era Lewinsky scandal—involving the vicious beating of two anti-Clinton siblings by pro-Clinton Teamsters outside Philadelphia’s City Hall during a 1998 presidential visit—settled out of court today. The victims, Don Adams and Teri Adams, signed an agreement after Teamsters Local 115 and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters opted to pay an undisclosed sum in exchange for dropping the suit, which...

NASHVILLE — A former Nashville police officer/union organizer has been indicted on federal charges in connection with the break-in and illegal surveillance of a Fraternal Order of Police youth camp. Calvin Edward Hullett was indicted on bribery, misappropriation of union funds and other charges. Hullett, who was arrested last July, also has an aggravated burglary charge pending in state court. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Fraternal Order of Police have been engaged in a bitter battle for the representation of Nashville police and Shelby County deputies. In Nashville, the Teamsters took over representation of the police in 2005...

WASHINGTON – A senator wants Congress' investigative arm to determine whether the Transportation Department has broken the law by spending federal money on a program allowing Mexican trucks on U.S. roads. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., called for the investigation by the General Accountability Office a few hours after Transportation Secretary Mary Peters warned of economic losses if Mexican trucks are prohibited from driving deep into the U.S. Peters has been fighting in court to prevent the program's end. But Dorgan and others say Congress prohibited spending money on the program last year. “When Congress passes a law that says no...

Texas spirit was alive and well at the Navasota DEIS public hearing on Feb. 28. Opposition groups, such as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, came from as far as Washington, D.C. to give recorded testimony, and get a first hand look at TxDOT process procedures. Assistant Director of Communications, Leigh Strope, who attended the meeting on behalf of the 34,000 Texas Teamsters Union members, says, “Teamsters want to stop the dangerous trend of selling our roads and bridges to foreign investors so they can slap tolls on the driving public. We are also concerned because the Trans-Texas Corridor would form...

Teamsters Set to Back Obama By Steven Greenhouse In a surprising boost for Senator Barack Obama, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters will announce this afternoon that it is endorsing him, a top union leader said. With the Teamsters’ move, labor leaders said, Change to Win, a five-million-member coalition of unions that broke away from the A.F.L.-C.I.O., will likely vote on Thursday to endorse Mr. Obama. The seven unions in that coalition — the service employees, the food and commercial workers, the Teamsters, the carpenters, the laborers the United Farm Workers and Unite Here (which represents hotel, restaurant and apparel workers)...

Union officials say the powerful Teamsters union will endorse Barack Obama. The officials say the International Brotherhood of Teamsters is expected to make an official announcement later Wednesday. Teamster President James P. Hoffa plans to meet with Obama in Austin, Texas, before an announcement is made.

A federal appeals court considered Tuesday whether the Bush administration can go ahead with a pilot program that allows a small number of Mexican trucks to travel freely on U.S. highways, despite a new law by Congress against it. Members of the Teamsters Union and their supporters packed a courtroom at 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where an apparently divided three-judge panel heard arguments in the case, which may boil down to the meaning of "establish." Several tractor trailers also were parked outside the courthouse and union members and their supporters carried signs opposing the program, which allows participating...

Bush Administration Defies New Law by Continuing Pilot Program WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Bush administration broke yet another law in continuing to allow long-haul trucks from Mexico to use U.S. highways, according to a letter filed Monday by the Teamsters Union in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Congress passed an omnibus budget, signed into law Dec. 26, that includes a provision banning funds "to establish a cross-border motor carrier demonstration program to allow Mexico-domiciled motor carriers to operate beyond the commercial zones." The Bush administration pretends the law doesn't apply to the existing program....

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 --Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa today praised Congress for banning funds for the Bush administration's reckless pilot program to let trucks from Mexico travel freely on U.S. highways. The ban was part of the omnibus spending bill that Congress passed Wednesday. The Teamsters opposed the pilot project from the start because of real concerns that trucks from Mexico aren't safe. "Congress just made driving safer in the United States by ensuring that dangerous trucks from Mexico aren't lurching along our highways like unguided missiles," Hoffa said. "We expect the Bush administration to obey the law and put...

SAN DIEGO – Saying he was here to fight for the safety of America's roads, Teamsters union General President Jim Hoffa led a rally Wednesday morning at the Otay Mesa border crossing to protest a pilot program that allows long-haul trucking across the U.S.-Mexico border. “The big money boys want to have trucks coming through here that are dangerous,” Hoffa said over cheers from dozens of Teamsters and the roar from Mexican trucks leaving the U.S. inspection station on Enrico Fermi Drive. “Wake up America, fight back,” Hoffa told supporters. The pilot project, which has been up and running since...

LOS ANGELES—A powerful Hollywood Teamsters branch has told its 4,500 members they can honor picket lines if TV and film writers strike this week. Teamsters Local 399 advised its members in a Web posting late Monday that as a union, it has a legal obligation to honor its contracts with producers. But the local, which represents truck drivers, casting directors and location managers, said the clause does not apply to individuals, who are protected by federal law from employee retribution should they decide to honor picket lines. "As for me as an individual, I will not cross any picket line...

COMMITTEE FOR CONSTITUTIONAL JUSTICE P.O. Box 306, Cheltenham, PA 19012 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 10, 2007 Contact: Don Adams, ###.###.#### Teamster Beating Victims Appeal Judge’s Order To Pay Union $15 Grand Philadelphia – Two Clinton protesters, viciously beaten up by a group of pro-Clinton teamsters outside Philadelphia’s City Hall during a presidential visit nine years ago, last week appealed a federal judge’s order to pay two teamster unions $15,000.00 in legal costs stemming from an October, 2000 Federal Civil Rights suit. Five members of Teamsters Local 115 eventually pled guilty to criminal assault, conspiracy, and various other charges in the...

Interstate Bakeries threatens to liquidate unless unions grant concessions By JENNIFER MANN The Kansas City Star Bankrupt Interstate Bakeries Corp. said Thursday it could be forced to liquidate if it is unable to extract major concessions from its 20,000 union workers soon. The assertion, the latest in an escalating labor confrontation, came in the struggling company’s request to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for still more time to exclusively formulate a plan of reorganization. The current deadline is Oct. 5. The Kansas City-based company, once the nation’s largest wholesale baker, sought protection from creditors and time to reorganize the business in...

While the Minutemen protest, the Teamster try to recruit the Mexican Drivers.

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA   DON ADAMS, ET AL.,     PLAINTIFFS        v.   TEAMSTERS LOCAL 115, ET AL.,     DEFENDANTS   CIVIL ACTIONNO. 99-CV-4910   JUDGMENT AND NOW, this 4th day of Sept., 2007, judgment is hereby rendered in favor of defendant Teamsters Local 115 and against plaintiffs Don Adams and Theresa Adams in the amount of $450.10.   William H. Yohn, Jr., Judge IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA   DON ADAMS, ET AL.,     PLAINTIFFS        v.   TEAMSTERS LOCAL 115, ET AL.,     DEFENDANTS   CIVIL ACTIONNO. 99-CV-4910  ...

Telling a women's conference in Houston that the effort is dangerous, leader vows Teamsters will fight funding Calling a new pilot program opening the border to Mexican trucks dangerous, Teamsters President Jim Hoffa said today in Houston the union will lobby to cut its funding. Hoffa said money for the new program came from somewhere and the union will press Congress to stop it. "We can do that," he said. In prepared remarks, the union president said the Bush administration has "sucker-punched" American workers by opening highways to Mexican trucks. Under the year-long pilot program, up to 100 Mexican carriers...

Mexican trucks are rolling over the U.S. border, freely bound for anywhere in America, and it seems that nothing -- not furious Teamsters nor angry environmentalists, not even Congress -- can stop them. Are the drivers properly licensed and sober or well-rested with the legal amount of down time? Do they speak English or understand U.S. road signs? Will the trucks be carrying illegal immigrants, drugs, terrorists, nuclear or biological weapons or other contraband? Will they belch tons of banned pollutants into America’s air? Will lower-paid Mexican drivers put American truckers out of work? Will the trucks gut the tax...

SAN DIEGO — Dozens of truckers waved signs and American flags at a border crossing Thursday to protest a program that will allow up to 100 Mexican trucking companies to freely haul their cargo anywhere in the United States. The U.S. Transportation Department was expected to begin issuing operating permits in the pilot program as early as Thursday. The Teamsters union, Sierra Club and nonprofit group Public Citizen sued to try to stop the program, arguing that there won't be enough oversight of the drivers coming into the U.S. from Mexico and public safety would be endangered. A federal appeals...

THE TEAMSTERS WILL BE PROTESTING TOMORROW AT 6AM IN OTAY MESA. THAT IS CLOSE TO YELLOW HOUSE. IT WILL BE AT THE TRUCK SCALES. 2335 ENRICO FERMI DR, SAN DIEGO THE CONTACT PERSON IS JIM SANTANGELO I JUST NOW GOT THE WORD. SPREAD THE NEWS GOD BLESS

Jimmy Hoffa doesn’t have a presidential candidate he and his powerful Teamster’s union is backing, but he praises Democratic candidate John Edwards for making strong appeals to labor a centerpiece of his campaign. Since James P. Hoffa, the son of the legendary Teamster’s boss, took the presidency of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in 1999, he has energized his 1.4 million membership, making the country’s 4th largest union once again politically relevant and influential. At 66, Hoffa is not only busy building union membership – conducting recruiting efforts among workers at UPS, FedEx, and solid waste companies – but also...

Blowing the whistle on Big Labor By Michelle Malkin  •  September 3, 2007 01:30 AM  The Center for Union Facts is marking Labor Day by reminding Americans of union fatcats and the corruption of Big Labor. The state of the unions is…not good: * Union membership is down to 7.4 percent of private sector employees and down to 12 percent overall (government employees are highly unionized, at a rate of 36.2 percent) – that’s down from a high of 20.1 percent in 1983* Union bosses continue to be criticized for their lavish salaries, even while their membership declines* Even after several...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration can proceed with a plan to open the U.S. border to long haul Mexican trucks as early as next week after an appeals court rejected a bid by labor, consumer and environmental interests to block the initiative. ADVERTISEMENT The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco late on Friday denied an emergency petition sought by the Teamsters union, the Sierra Club and consumer group Public Citizen to halt the start of a one-year pilot program that was approved by Congress after years of legal and political wrangling. The Transportation Department welcomed the decision...

SAN FRANCISCO - The Bush administration can go ahead with a pilot program to allow as many as 100 Mexican trucking companies to freely haul their cargo anywhere within the U.S. for the next year, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request made by the Teamsters union, the Sierra Club and the nonprofit Public Citizen to halt the program. The appeals court ruled the groups have not satisfied the legal requirements to immediately stop what the government is calling a "demonstration project," but can continue to argue their case. The trucking...

Teamsters president James Hoffa on the G. Gordon Liddy Show re: 100 Mexican Carriers (trucking companies)invited onto American Highways, the Security and Prosperity Partnership, etc. You can click to listen. "We're aware of the SPP (...) this is a conspiracy of big business (...) all [safety] interests will be put aside to [eliminate borders] (...) [they're building] an enormous port down in Mexico [with a ten-lane highway](...) Toll roads built with foreign money (...) All this is being greased by big business (...) they don't want regulations, they don't want food inspection (...) This is what the "NAFTA Superhighway" is...

WASHINGTON -- The Teamsters Union said it has been told by officials in the Transportation Department's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that the first Mexican trucks will be coming across the border on Saturday. The union said Wednesday it would ask a federal appeals courts to block the Bush administration's plan to begin allowing Mexican trucks to carry cargo anywhere in the United States. Teamsters leaders said they planned to seek an emergency injunction Wednesday from the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco. "What a slap in the face to American workers, opening the highways to dangerous...

WASHINGTON - The Teamsters Union said Wednesday it will ask a federal appeals courts to block the Bush administration's plan to begin allowing Mexican trucks to carry cargo anywhere in the United States. ADVERTISEMENT The union said it has been told by officials in the Transportation Department's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that the first Mexican trucks will be coming across the border on Saturday. Teamsters leaders said they planned to seek an emergency injunction Wednesday from the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco. "What a slap in the face to American workers, opening the highways to...

Hoffa Says Bush Administration Needs To Get It Right (WASHINGTON, D.C.) _ The Teamsters Union strongly endorses the House of Representatives’ move today to block the Bush administration’s cross-border trucking program. The House voted by voice vote to amend the Transportation-HUD 2008 appropriations bill by limiting funding for the pilot project. The amendment had bipartisan support, with sponsorship by Reps. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., Nancy Boyda, D-Kan., Gary Miller, R-Calif., and Duncan Hunter, R-Calif. “The Transportation Department needs to get it right before throwing open our borders to Mexican trucks,” Hoffa said. “The Bush administration has been too eager to endanger...

In the interest of your fetish with the poorly named "Fairness Doctrine," I have decided to spend a little "equal time" giving the party of FDR some friendly advice. Free of charge. First and foremost, if you want to get into more power (after all, that’s the goal of every politician, right?), try standing for something. For the last thirty years, I have only heard of what you are opposed to. Opposing your opponent is no longer enough to convince voters what you plan to do with the power bestowed upon you by the "consent of the governed." You have...

The new Democratic Congress has finally found a government agency whose budget It wants to cut: an obscure Labor Department office that monitors the compliance of unions with federal law. In the past six years, the Office of Labor Management Standards, or OLMS, has helped secure the convictions of 775 corrupt union officials and court-ordered restitution to union members of over $70 million in dues. The House is set to vote Thursday on a proposal to chop 20% from the OLMS budget. Every other Labor Department enforcement agency is due for a budget increase, and overall the Congress has added...

Hot on the Hoffa trail Taylor cop thinks he has the answer to 1975 vanishing of union leader July 1, 2007 BY JOEL THURTELL FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER Jimmy Hoffa's last car ride took less than two minutes. On July 30, 1975, he rode one long block south from a two-story house at 17841 Beaverland in Detroit's tough Brightmoor neighborhood and turned right -- west -- on Grand River Ave. He passed the greens of William Rogell Golf Course and a scenic footbridge, crossed the woodsy Rouge River, cruised past the brown brick Redford Granite Co. building and the Mt....

Charges dropped against ex-San Jose Mayor Gonzales, aide GuerraBy Rodney Foo and Barry Witt Mercury News Article Launched: 06/12/2007 02:35:32 PM PDT All charges against former San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales and his aide Joe Guerra were dropped by a Santa Clara County District Court judge. The charges, including bribery, stemmed from a deal with trash hauler NorCal Waste Systems Inc. Charges against Norcal were also thrown out. Judge John Herlihy signed an order Monday dismissing the charges. In the order, Herlihy cited errors given to the grand jury as grounds for throwing out the entire indictment against Gonzales and...

POTTSVILLE, Pa. -- Dick Yuengling Jr., fifth-generation owner of the brewery that bears his name, called his employees together a few weeks before their labor contract was set to expire to talk about the future of the business. "Read between the lines," he told them at one point, according to government documents on the management-union feud that followed. Depending upon whom you ask, Mr. Yuengling's speech was either a pep talk to urge employees to work harder or an ultimatum to dump the Teamsters union, which is what they did. The union has been trying to strike back, urging a...

A lawsuit has been filed by the Teamsters against the Transportation Department's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration over a pilot plan to allow Mexican truck drivers – and trucks – access to U.S. highways. As WND has reported, the government will have no access to whether those truckers have any criminal records, and the system is being set up to allow those trucks loaded with goods to cross the border in as little as 15 seconds. The action was filed Monday in federal court in California, alleging the Bush administration's program failed to publish proper, advance notice of the pilot...

FEW issues find common ground among right-wing conservatives and left-of-center liberals. But the so-called "NAFTA Superhighway," potentially stretching from the Mexican border to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minn., is apparently one of them. Across the political spectrum people have worked themselves into a frenzy over a massive futuristic transportation project that may simply be a figment of their imagination. Talk of a new north-south Texas toll road to accommodate extra truck traffic coming from Mexico has renewed bipartisan passion about the feared superhighway. There is almost a conspiratorial edge to some critics who are convinced that the "Trans-Texas...

WASHINGTON - A new Texas road being planned to accommodate truck traffic between the United States and Mexico has riled Ohio members of Congress who fear it's the first phase of a "NAFTA Superhighway" that would be used to funnel cheap imports to the Midwest as it links Mexico, the United States and Canada. Texas and federal highway officials deny that a proposed North-South toll road running parallel to Inter-state 35 is part of a planned international superhighway, and say there are no plans for a transcontinental road. They insist the new thoroughfare would merely handle some of the extra...

WASHINGTON - Mexican trucks could have to wait longer than anticipated to haul freight deep into the United States. The Bush administration in February announced that it would soon allow 100 Mexican trucking companies to travel beyond the current 20-mile limit for a one-year pilot project. But a Senate panel on Thursday voted to delay the plan by requiring the administration to publish details about it and giving the public time to comment on it. The action came as part of a supplemental spending bill to pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "The administration is rushing to open the...

The state House gave final approval Monday to a proposed law that would make it easier for workers to organize... House Bill 1072...changes Colorado's Labor Peace Act, which has been on the books since 1943. Business groups oppose the measure, saying making it easier to require all workers to pay union dues will deter prospective employees and employers looking to locate in Colorado. The full House passed the bill 35-29 Friday, with almost all Democrats for it and all Republicans against... A main sticking point among Republicans: All-union agreements require all of a company's employees to pay union dues as...

A federal appeals court refused yesterday to revive civil-rights claims against Gov. Rendell, District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham, and Teamsters Local 115, part of a lawsuit filed eight years ago by a man who says he was beaten and falsely prosecuted after protesting a 1998 appearance by President Clinton. The opinion by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is likely the end of the federal suit filed by Don and Theresa Adams, although Adams has said he will press civil claims involving state law in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court. Neither Adams, 46, of...

DETROIT - FBI Director Robert Mueller said Tuesday the decades-old disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa will eventually be solved. Mueller spoke during a question-and-answer session with reporters at the FBI's Detroit office, months after an expensive search at a southeastern Michigan horse farm turned up nothing. "We have a long, long memory," Mueller said. "We will continue to follow any lead that comes to our attention." Hoffa was last seen alive on July 30, 1975. Over the years, theories have suggested Hoffa was buried at Giants Stadium in New Jersey or dumped in a Florida swamp. The day he...

DETROIT, United States (AFP) - Unions believe they played a key role in the Democrats' success in the US elections this week and now they want a payback. Organized labor leaders are demanding that the Democrats now forge ahead with promises to raise the minimum wage, take action about the cost of health care, and protect jobs. The American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) estimated that it put more than 200,000 volunteers into get-out-the vote campaigns across the country. Volunteers knocked on the doors of 8.25 million union members, made more than 30 million phone calls and mailed...

<p>PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- A special three-judge panel of the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals will convene tomorrow to hear arugments as to whether a federal civil rights suit may proceed against Governor Ed Rendell for his alleged role in the 1998 Teamster beating of two Clinton protesters outside Philadelphia's City Hall. The incident occurred during a presidential fundraising visit at the height of the Lewinsky scandal, when calls for Clinton's impeachement were at a fever pitch.</p>

Cuccinelli & Day, PLLC   September 24, 2006 Office of the Clerk United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit 21400 U.S. Courthouse 601 Market St. Philadelphia, PA 19106     Re:    Adams v. Teamsters Local 115 (No. 03-3680) Dear Clerk: In light of the significant period of time that has elapsed since Appellants’ Reply Brief was filed with the Court on December 3, 2004, and the scheduled hearing of this case by the Court on October 18, 2006, Appellants wish to provide the Court with a brief update of legal authority pertinent to the issues presented in the case. Appellees have...