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By executive order on Aug. 4, President Barack Obama refused entry to the United States of war criminals and human-rights violators (jurist.org, Aug. 4). He ignored, as he often does, the deeply documented factual evidence of war crimes committed by the Bush-Cheney administration along with grim proof that the Obama administration also violates our anti-torture laws and the U.N. Convention Against Torture we signed. Take, for example, right now under Obama, "The CIA Secret Sites in Somalia" (the nation.com, July 12).

The death of Osama bin Laden has sparked a debate over whether torture of suspects held at places such as the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay helped track down and kill the al-Qaeda leader. Some claim the mission vindicated controversial Bush policies on harsh interrogation techniques. We speak with Matthew Alexander, a former senior military interrogator in Iraq. "The laying of the groundwork, if you will, of these [Bush-era] techniques, I believe wholeheartedly, slowed us down on the road towards Osama bin Laden and numerous other members of al-Qaeda," Alexander says. "I'm convinced we would have found him a lot earlier had we not resorted to torture and abuse." [includes rush transcript]

This American life of ours has long been pro-violence and anti-sex, unless the two can be merged so that violence is the dominant theme. The U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed that historical record on Monday in declaring California's ban on the sale of violent video games to minors unconstitutional while continuing to deny constitutional protection to purely prurient sexual material for either minors or adults.

Robert Reich, a visiting professor at the UC, Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy and former U.S. Secretary of Labor talks about the inequality of income, wealth and opportunity in the United States and asks his audience to speculate on what will happen if these trends continue. Series: "Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley" [5/2005] [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 9521]

Obama hasn't closed Guantanamo and people are still being tortured at Bagram[2], the U.S. is bombing at least six Muslim countries that we know of (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan)[3], and the healthcare bill fiasco in which he had secretly traded away the public option from the beginning[4] very clearly show that he definitely hasn't changed the way Washington works. If anything he's made every conceivable pernicious undemocratic influence stronger.

Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) -- The top U.S. derivatives regulators voted 3 to 2 today to curb trading in oil, wheat, gold and other commodities after a boom in raw-materials speculation, record- high prices and years of debate and delay. The rule has been among the most controversial provisions of the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul, enacted last year, which gave the Commodity Futures Trading Commission the authority to limit trading in over-the-counter commodity swaps as well as exchange-traded futures. The rule will limit the number of contracts a single firm can hold. "Our duty is to protect both market participants and the American public from fraud, manipulation and other abuses," Chairman Gary Gensler said at the commission's meeting in Washington in support of the rule. "Position limits have served since the Commodity Exchange Act passed in 1936 as a tool to curb or prevent excessive speculation that may burden interstate commerce." The rule limits traders to 25 percent of deliverable supply in the month nearest to delivery. The spot-month limits apply separately to physically settled and cash-settled contracts. Deliverable supply will be determined by the CFTC in conjunction with the exchanges.

Fraudulent Defense Contractors Paid $1 Trillion

On May 19, 2016, Unified Patents Inc. filed a petition for inter partes review, IPR2016-01060, against claims 1-4, 9, 10, and 21 of U.S. Patent 8,933,945, directed to a method for optimizing memory requests by dividing them.

On June 22, 2016, pursuant to a settlement agreement, Unified Patents Inc. filed a motion to terminate their petition for inter partes review, IPR2016-00836, against claims 1-3, 5-7, 9-16 and 19 of U.S. Patent 8,285,648 (owned and recently asserted by Verify Smart Corp.). A copy of that public filing can be found here.

On September 8, 2016, Unified Patents Inc. filed its 55th petition for inter partes review, challenging all claims of U.S. Patent 6,442,261 as unpatentable over multiple grounds. The patent, related to identifying dropped telephone calls, had been asserted against automotive companies. A copy of the petition can be found below.

On September 2, 2016, Unified Patents Inc. filed a petition for IPR against all claims of U.S. 7,490,037, a patent ostensibly owned and asserted by Digital Audio Encoding Systems, LLC against 28 companies since June 2016. A copy of the petition is found below. Unified Patents Inc. v.

On August 31, 2016, Unified Patents Inc. filed against a patent owned by Plano Encryption Technologies, LLC. The patent, U.S. 6,466,983, has not been asserted in any district court to date. A copy of the petition can be found below. Unified Patents Inc. v. Plano Encryption Technologies, LLC, IPR2016-01644, Paper 1 (Aug.

On July 25, 2016, Unified Patents Inc. filed a petition for inter partes review of all claims 1-15 of U.S. Patent 6,415,207. In IPR2016-01465, Unified challenged a patent directed to automated tracking, one that Shipping and Transit has asserted against more than 90 small businesses. A copy of the filing can be found below.

On May 27, 2016, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) of claims 1, 4, 6, 7, 10-13, and 16 of U.S. Patent 8,706,627, owned and asserted by Sentegra, LLC in various district courts. The technology is directed to electronic ticketing on a mobile device.

Around 2:21 the video shows Unified's 2015 Patent Dispute Report statistics The U.S. economy is driven by innovation, but unwelcome "patent trolls" are gunking up the system. Patent reform bills sit idle in Congress as the "trolls" set up companies for the sole purpose, critics say, of shaking down inventors while never creating anything.

On August 1, 2016, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted an IPR petitioned by Unified on a patent owned and asserted by Rothschild Connected Devices Innovations, LLC. The Board instituted trial on U.S. 8,788,090 over the sole claim asserted in district court litigation. A copy of the filing can be found below.

On July 22, 2016, Unified filed for inter partes review of all claims 1-16 of U.S. Patent 7,454,002, owned and asserted by Sportbrain Holdings, Inc. The subject matter relates to the devices providing data via the Internet, commonly known as the Internet of things. A copy of the petition is found below.

On July 10, 2016, Unified Patents Inc. filed a petition for inter partes review, IPR2016-01374, against claims 1, 2, 3, 8, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 26, 27, and 28 of U.S. Patent 6,339,428, directed to a video graphics texture mapping.

On June 29, 2016, Unified Patents Inc. filed a petition for inter parties review challenging the patentability of all claims of a patent owned and asserted by Uniloc Luxembourg S.A. and Uniloc USA, Inc. The patent, U.S. Patent 8,566,960, was asserted against a number of parties on May 30, 2016, in the Eastern District of Texas.