Kakinuki Law Office, PC PC

This week, a companion bill to Representative Ilhan Omar’s House Resolution 5734 was introduced to the Senate by Senator Mazie Hirono. These bills, titled The Neighbors not Enemies Act, seek to repeal the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) which was signed into law over 200 years ago in 1798. The AEA has been used to deport, incarcerate, and withhold the rights of foreign nationals in the United States during times of war. The largest use of the AEA was in World War II, when it was used... as a legal basis to imprison and deport, German, Italian, and Japanese immigrants in the United States. Executive Order 9066 followed on February 19, 1942, expanding the scope to create exclusion zones from which those deemed a threat might be forcibly removed. Once the exclusion orders were issued, the scope had expanded to include non-aliens, a euphemism for US citizens. As a result nearly 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated. Most recently, the AEA has been used as a justification by the current administration for the creation of the Muslim Ban. The current administration has continued to put forward policies that actively promote attacks against Muslim immigrants and refugees as well as the separation of families at the border. With the AEA still in effect, it allows for the legality of these policies and laws to be put in place. https://www.hirono.senate.gov//hirono-booker-markey-sander See more

It's already been 20 years? It makes me feel old. I remember when my friend Yasuyoshi Goto and I were working at the time on things like the digital signatures (), eNotary (), and other legal issues vital to e-commerce.

An important trademark decision from the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office was arguing for an almost per se rule, that is, whenever a generic term is combined with a generic top-level domain like ".com," the resulting combination must also be generic. Justice Ginsburg countered that this would be contrary to the USPTO's own practices of allowing trademark registrations for "ART.com" for art prints, and "DATING.com" for dating services. https://www.aipla.org//scotus-rules-that-addition-of-.com-

Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. Likely, they weren’t thinking about many of the act’s consequences that have become apparent over the years, including its prohibition against discrimination on the basis of motherhood or its ban on the sexual harassment of male employees. But the limits of the drafters’ imagination supply no reason to ignore the law’s demands. This is the way a true conservative jurist rules--following the law, rather than some political ideology. https://www.nytimes.com//gorsuch-supreme-court-gay-transge

Excerpt from the 1968 Kerner Commission report, 52 years ago: One of the first witnesses to be invited to appear before this Commission was Dr. Kenneth B. Clark, a distinguished and perceptive scholar. Referring to the reports of earlier riot commissions, he said: ‘I read that report. . . of the 1919 riot in Chicago, and it is as if I were reading the report of the investigating committee on the Harlem riot of '35, the report of the investigating committee on the Harlem riot of '43, the report of the McCone Commission on the Watts riot. ‘I must again in candor say to you members of this Commission--it is a kind of Alice in Wonderland--with the same moving picture re-shown over and over again, the same analysis, the same recommendations, and the same inaction.’ http://www.eisenhowerfoundation.org/docs/kerner.pdf

"Technological sophisticates in Silicon Valley would be wise to drop their dismissive attitude towards manufacturing as a commoditized activity and treat it as being as valuable as R&D work. And corporate America should start viewing workers not purely as costs to be slashed, but as practitioners keeping alive knowledge essential to the production process." https://www.bloomberg.com//why-american-manufacturing-can-

I was told by Bank of America Telephone Customer Support that I would need to go to a branch to make an urgent international wire transfer to a client. Most of the transactions with that account I handle online or on my iPhone app, but this one I had to do in person. I waited outside the downtown San Rafael branch for over an hour, then inside for quite a while. The people in the bank were very kind and helpful, but the entire process took nearly three hours. I cannot charge my client for that time, so I will write off the time and chalk it up to another new experience from the Pandemic.

#BeKindToLawyersDay https://happydays365.org//international-be-kind-to-lawyer/

Instead of laying off 10% of its aviation workforce, firing 2,600 workers, and "temporarily" laying off 50% of its maintenance workers, why isn't GE converting its idle jet engine factories to make ventilators? GE Healthcare already has the technology, which it could provide to its sister company GE Aviation, saving jobs AND lives. And their employees are willing to do it. GE has been suffering from poor leadership since at least the time I worked there in 2006-2009, and they made misstep after misstep during the Global Financial Crisis, thinking only of the short-term bottom line and not their employees or customers. Let's hope they don't repeat that pattern this time.

Please see our firm’s refreshed Website at: https://kakinukilaw.com/

Santa Clara, Contra Costa County, San Mateo, San Francisco, Alameda and Marin counties are now officially ordered to Shelter In Place.

This is sad and unfortunate, but Judge Dannenberg has my deepest respect for taking this action.