Oh my. Weird Mark Sanford is getting creepy:

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford must appear in court two days after running for a vacant congressional seat to answer a complaint that he trespassed at his ex-wife's home, according to court documents acquired by The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The complaint says Jenny Sanford confronted Sanford leaving her Sullivans Island home on Feb. 3 by a rear door, using his cell phone for a flashlight. Her attorney filed the complaint the next day and Jenny Sanford confirmed Tuesday the documents are authentic.

The couple's 2010 divorce settlement says neither may enter the other's home without permission. Mark Sanford lives about a 20-minute drive away in downtown Charleston.

Sanford is in the midst of running for a vacant congressional seat against Elizabeth Colbert Busch.

"I am doing my best not to get in the way of his race," Jenny Sanford told the AP. "I want him to sink or swim on his own. For the sake of my children I'm trying my best not to get in the way, but he makes things difficult for me when he does things like trespassing."

There has been no comment from Sanford or his campaign as yet, but don't be surprised if we hear another "God forgives people who are imperfect,” recital, as we heard after his days long disappearance into the Appalachian Trail that turned out to be a trip to Argentina to visit his mistress, who is now his fiance.

Update: National Republicans "are pulling the plug on Mark Sanford's suddenly besieged congressional campaign," Politico reports, "a potentially fatal blow to the former South Carolina governor's campaign against Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch."

And that's all she wrote, folks!

Red Lake Tribal Members from the group Nizhawendaamin Indaakimincan(Ojibwe for We love our land) protest at Enbridge Energy's HQ in Bemidji. Enbridge has been trespassing on Red Lake Sovereign land for 64 years and red lake community members demand Enbridge remove their pipelines from their land. One member locked down to Enbridge's door, she said,"Enbridge has been trespassing on our land for 64 years, and now I'm trespassing on theirs."

Video footage of New Years at Zuccotti Park.

A group of 14 Occupy Wall Street protesters filed a lawsuit in federal court this week claiming that the NYPD violated their Constitutional rights by arresting them during an impromptu march near Zuccotti Park in the early hours of New Year's Day. Attorneys for the plaintiffs claim that the NYPD used an "illegal 'trap and arrest' tactic" to detain the protesters with the orange netting that has become an ever-present threat during Occupy events. "Whenever the police unlawfully arrest peaceful protestors, it chips away the people's Constitutional right to protest for redress of grievances," attorney David Thompson stated in a press release.

Nearly 70 protesters were arrested that evening, many for trespassing or the catchall charge of obstructing governmental administration. The suit asks for damages and other forms of relief.

A few days after the 1993 assassination of Dr. David Gunn, a Florida abortion provider, Todd Akin's longtime anti-abortion and militia pal, Tim Dreste, stood in front of the health care clinic of abortion provider Dr. Yogrenda Shah with a sign that read: “Dr. Shah, are you feeling under the Gunn?” (See the video above.) Shortly afterwards, Akin contributed $200 to Dreste's dark horse race for state representative.

A new report has revealed that Missouri Republican Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin was arrested at least eight times in the 1980s at anti-abortion protests, according to newly obtained records.

That is four arrests in addition to four the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported last month based on a review of its archives. The arrests were missed in previous searches because the news stories had listed Akin by his given first name, William.The four additional arrests each occurred at a reproductive health clinic in Ballwin, Missouri in St. Louis County between 1985 and 1987.

The arrests reported by the Post-Dispatch came in the same period, between March 1985 and May 1987, but occurred at other clinics. Three were in St. Louis and one in Granite City, Illinois.

On one of those occasions, police had to physically carry Akin into an elevator when he refused to leave the premises, according to an article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

"Right Wing Watch," a project of People For the American Way, a nonprofit group critical of Akin's ties to radical elements of the pro-life movement, obtained incident reports on the arrests Friday from the St. Louis Country Police Department under Missouri's sunshine law, and provided them to news media.

Akin's views opposing abortion are well-known. In August of this year, he infamously said that women who are victims of "legitimate rape" are physically able to stop themselves from becoming pregnant, a remark that was ridiculed and rejected by medical professionals, women's advocates, and politicians on both sides of the aisle. Akin teamed up with Paul Ryan in 2011 to try to narrow the definition of rape, voted in 1991 for an anti-marital-rape law, called for an end to the school-lunch program and a total ban on the morning-after pill. In 1992, Akin even fought for a narrower definition of child abuse.

Most polls are showing Missouri's incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill with a strong lead over Akin, even though she missed a week worth of campaigning due to the recent passing of her mother, Betty Anne Ward McCaskill, 84.

If you missed Josh Glasstetter's recent post detailing Akin's extremist and militia ties, be sure to read it here.

Anonymous is bringing an alleged injustice to light in the Philadephia area:

Hello Citizens of the world, We are Anonymous. Dear brothers and sisters: Now is the time to open your eyes and expose the truth!

Recently it has come to the attention of Anonymous that Ori Feibush, a business developer, in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Point Breeze, is facing legal action after voluntarily cleaning up more than forty tons of trash from a vacant lot neighboring his local business. Mr. Feibush spent more than twenty thousand dollars of his own money to not only remove the trash but also to level the soil; add cherry trees, fencing and park benches; and repave the sidewalk.

As a result of this man's benevolent contribution, the city agencies demanding that Mr. Feibush return the vacant lot to its previous condition have said they are considering legal action against him. City officials are currently calling him a "trespasser."

Ori Feibush tried to purchase the lot and even visited the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority to present his plan. But the city told him to stop, warning he was "endangering the public."

If the city did the same project it would have cost about one million five hundred thousand dollars. Another intensive might have been to dive down property value then develop it for a profit.

Continue reading »

[Occupy Wall Street members enter a plaza known as Duarte Square that is owned by historic Trinity Church, one of lower Manhattan's largest land-owners December 17, 2011.]

Eight protesters with Occupy Wall Street that include a retired Episcopal Bishop who won both the Bronze and Silver Stars for his service in Vietnam, have been convicted of misdemeanor trespassing for entering a lot owned by Trinity Church a month after the Zucotti Park encampment was dismantled.

A judge in Manhattan Criminal Court found the protesters guilty Monday after a weeklong trial. One of the defendants was also convicted of trying to slice through the fence's locks with bolt-cutters.

The defendants had been charged after a Dec. 17th incident when protesters scaled a chain-link fence or crawled under it to get to a lot to use it as a new camp site.

The original camp in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan was shut down in November. Protesters had wanted church officials to let them occupy the church-owned property but were refused.

[Via]

In a legal brief made public yesterday, the NYCLU argues that Brookfield Properties had no legal right to force Occupy Wall Street protesters out of Zuccotti Park on November 15th of last year. The civil liberties group intends to file an amicus brief in support of a protester named Ronnie Nunez, who was arrested when he refused to leave Zuccotti Park after the NYPD raid and eviction. According to the NYCLU, Brookfield had no legal authority to exclude people from the park, which Brookfield is legally required to keep open to the public at all times. . From the NYCLU filing:

City zoning law makes unambiguously clear that private owners must obtain the advance approval of the City Planning Commission (“CPC”) before enforcing any restrictions on public access to a privately owned public space [POPS]. The law also makes clear that before the CPC can authorize any restrictions, there must be strict compliance with important procedural protections that are designed to protect public access.

Since the creation of Zuccotti Park in 1968, the public has had a permanent license to be present. In lieu of CPC approval, Brookfield had no authority to exclude Mr. Nunez or anyone else from Zuccotti Park. Therefore, the accusatory instrument against Mr. Nunez is insufficient and Defendants’ motion to dismiss the information should be granted.

POPS are akin to “an easement held by the public on the owner’s property.” As spaces legally mandated to be open and accessible for the public’s benefit and use, POPS are subject to constitutional protections as traditional public fora under the First Amendment. Indeed, courts have acknowledged that when a space is explicitly designated for public use, like a POPS, it is clear that such areas are “inherently compatible” with First Amendment activity and subject to constitutional protections as traditional public fora.

Mr. Nunez is facing charges of trespassing, obstructing governmental administration and disorderly conduct. His attorney tells the New York Times, "All of those charges have to start with a lawful order, otherwise the cops are just bouncers with badges."

After the busy "Day of Action" on Friday in San Francisco, the final total arrests of occupiers is 23, most for trespassing. Four arrested during the occupation of the Cathedral Hill Hotel allegedly threw Bibles at police from the roof, it's not clear what those charges were.

Two officers were also allegedly injured during the hotel incident, one who was hit in the chest with a brick and another suffered a hand injury.

[Via]