Cream cheese is cheese? For legal purposes in the US, is cream cheese considered "cheese"? Who regulates this and what definitions do they give? If someone is contractually obligated to provide cheese and they provide cream cheese, is that acceptable under the law?
The FDA promulgates regulations regarding what "cream cheese" etc. is, in 21 CFR Part 133 which covers cheese and related products. Cream cheese is described in §133.133, and there are sections on cottage cheese, cheddar, and so on. There is no general definition of "cheese" in this part, nor in related Part 131 covering milk and cream. Although there is no regulation defining the general term "cheese", by its regulatory inclusion with cottage cheese, cheddar and myriad other standard cheeses, one can argue that cream cheese is a kind of cheese (assuming there is no state regulation or contractual term that pins down what counts as "cheese"). By way of contrast, labne, often co-labeled "kefir cheese" (sometimes equated with "Greek yogurt"), is not included in any federal regulation, and at least one brand does not identify itself as a "type of yogurt", leaving the monolingual consumer with only "kefir cheese" to tell you what it is. Supplying labne as an instance of cheese would be in shaky legal ground, not so with cottage and cream cheese. If a person is contracted to supply "cheese" with no further specification, they can rely on ordinary usage of the term, and the evidence of ordinary usage would include cream cheese as a kind of cheese. If someone were to supply labne as an instance of cheese, that would be more problematic.
It isn't obvious that one must be certified to advertise your product as "Kobe Beef" in the United States. The designation "Kobe Beef", in theory, is supposed to operate a lot like a trademark, but it is a geographic designation that presumably belongs to officials from the geographic area, rather than a true trademark that is owned by a private individual or corporation. It is one thing to state you have "certified Kobe Beef" when you don't and another to say merely that you have "Kobe Beef" in a place where no certification is required by law and the term is not well defined. The United States frequently does not honor foreign law procedures necessary to establish a geographic designation. As another example, the U.S. routinely tolerates the marketing of "champagne" in the sense of a generic term for sparkling wine, even though it is regulated as a geographic designation for sparkling wine made in a particular manner in a particular place within France when used in the European Union. The handful of geographic designations that are treated as enforceable under regimes like the ones for Kobe Beef and Champagne arise under U.S. specific laws. For example, federal law (strictly speaking a federal regulation promulgated pursuant to federal law) mandates that the term Bourbon whiskey refer to a product made at least 50% of distilled spirits made in a certain way in Kentucky. There are deceptive trade practices laws in many states that require designations of origin to be truthful and the Lanham Act also prohibits false advertising. But, to the extent that beef originates from the Kobe vicinity (i.e. Hyōgo Prefecture) in Japan but is not certified Kobe Beef under the Japanese geographic designation laws, this would not violate either of these laws because the geographic designation is accurate. Hyōgo Prefecture where certified Kobe Beef comes from is shown in red on this Wikipedia map. Alternatively, the sellers of Kobe Beef could argue, probably with a good chance of success, that in American English the term "Kobe Beef" refers not to "certified Kobe Beef" or even to beef actually produced in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan as a geographic designation, but to beef with some important qualities of certified Kobe Beef, without regard to where it is actually made, for example, using the same breed of cow raised so that it has a similar level of fattiness. I would guess that hundreds of places in the U.S. sell "Kobe beef". In the same vein, "Kentucky Fried Chicken" does not mean chicken fried in Kentucky in American English, instead it means chicken fried in the style made famous in Kentucky, a Philadelphia Cheese Steak in American English means a sandwich made in the style of cheese steaks sold in Philadelphia and not a sandwich actually made in Philadelphia, and a Boston Cream Pie in American English means a cream pie made in the style of pies made in Boston and not a pie made with cream that is actually produced in Boston. U.S. law, in general, and American language conventions as well, are quite hostile to the notion that what other countries might consider a geographic designator does anything more than describe a style of making food as opposed to making a true statement regarding place of origin. In American English an unambiguous statement regarding place of origin would normally be made with a statement like "Made with beef imported from Kobe, Japan" as opposed to a mere product description of "Kobe Beef". The inference one makes that "Kobe Beef" is certified Kobe Beef from Kobe, Japan is probably an unreasonable assumption and certainly the question would be a disputed question of fact on falsity that a court could reasonably rule in favor of the restaurant upon. (Similarly, if you say you are headed to "my house" you aren't necessarily implying that I own the house, merely that it is associated with me in some way.) Also, to quantify damages, one would have to determine the difference between the fair market value of fine beef in a fancy restaurant that is not certified Kobe Beef and certified Kobe Beef as you would have to in order to prevail and win damages in a lawsuit like that one, is non-trivial and might determine that, for example, the alternative still charges $300, greatly reducing damages. And, the number of meals involved still probably isn't huge, perhaps in a thousand per year. So, maybe the damages if someone prevailed might be $150,000 for all meals sold in the period covered by the statute of limitations even if one could successfully prove that in a class action lawsuit. It is also possible that no one has decided to take any action to enforce what is a violation of the law, even to the extent that it is indeed a deceptive trade practice. It isn't economical to sue over a single $350 beef purchase, particularly when there are non-frivolous defenses of the type that I have identified. People who purchase this kind of meal aren't easy to identify in order to bring a class action that could lead to a more viable lawsuit, particular as the patrons might be spread all over the world. The New York State attorney general might decide that it has higher priorities than suing a business that is getting people to willingly and happily pay $350 for an entree at a single restaurant that mostly benefits the nine certified Kobe Beef restaurants. And those nine restaurants may likewise have decided that it wasn't worth suing under the Lanham Act because even if they prove false advertising which is causing patrons there to pay $50 more than they should per entree, it isn't at all obvious that this caused any damage to the restaurants in question that couldn't be solved with more advertising of their own.
"Tamper" implies action taken with intend to improperly change the meaning. "Alter" simply means "change". "Mutilate" simply means "damage" but in this context implies "Make unreadable". "Obliterates" here means 'make unreadable" or "remove". As a practical matter, there is not much if any difference between these words in this context, and no authority will spend any time at all considering whether some action is 'tampering" or "mutilation". The word "or" is used precisely to avoid such arguments. Any of these shades of meaning is equally forbidden. English-language laws and regulations often specify multiple synonyms or near-synonyms , connecting them with "or" so that anything within the more general scope of the concept is included. Charles Rembar, in his book The Law of the Land, asserted that this dated to the period in England shortly after the Norman Conquest, and that lawyers tended to include equivalent terms from Latin, Norman French, and English. He mentions such combinations as "Give, devise, and bequeath" and "Promise, covenant, and agree" as typical and often-used examples of this tendency. When this sort of multiple terminology is used, it is generally only useful to try to understand what is covered by the combined phrase, and of no value to try to determine which term covers which part of the concept. In the cited cases, anyone who tries to change a passport to say something that the government didn't intend, or who tries to damage or destroy a passport, or anything similar, would be guilty of the forbidden act. And similarly, anyone who tries to make an MVID read differently, or to make it unreadable, would be guilty.
In general, anyone can buy potentially dangerous chemicals. My local service station sells petrol, my local liquor store sells alcohol, my local supermarket sells ammonia, my local pool shop sells chlorine, my local hardware store sells poisons and my local chemist sells drugs. The world is full of dangerous stuff and all of it is for sale. Certain governments may regulate the sale of certain products. Such regulations may cover packaging, storage, quantities, reporting and limits on who can be a buyer or seller. For example, who can be a buyer of Uranium is pretty strictly limited. The decision about what and how to regulate is a political one, not a legal one. In general, governments apply a cost/benefit approach (including political costs/benefits). The fact that one (or a small number) of people use something inappropriately must be balanced with the cost that regulation imposed on government and legitimate users. Also, in most parts of the developed world people are allowed to take risks with their own bodies - climbing mountains, surfing, parachuting and, yes, injecting themselves with foreign substances. It’s unwise but it’s not illegal. I am unable to assist you with who would be responsible for regulating such matters in France but I can suggest that neither the FDA nor the EPA would be relevant in the USA because its neither a food nor a drug (FDA) nor is it being sole in quantities that are likely to adversely affect the environment (EPA).
You may want to ask Reich what he personally was talking about. There is a distinction within the US between states which prohibit mandatory union membership versus allow mandatory union membership. In about half of the states, a union cannot force an employer to accept a contract which obligates that a person join the union. These are known as right-to-work laws. No state requires all workers to join a union, and no state forbids the formation of unions.
Well, moral obligations are not laws, nor sometimes even moral obligations. Some laws are based on what some courts and legislatures think are moral obligations. We think cannibals have a moral obligation not to eat people; cannibals think non-cannibals are fools for passing up a good BBQ. As for a leader's moral responsibility for millions of lives, we can take as extreme examples Mao, Hilter, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc., that there are no obligations. The law that could apply in the case of a POTUS who does not "faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States..." (oath of office for POTUS) is that of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors", the grounds for most impeachments. But "faithfully executing the Office of President" has no moral obligation; it has legal implications, that's all. High crimes or misdemeanor are legal definitions, not moral, and depend on previous cases of what a crime or misdemeanor is. Insobriety can be illegal; there are laws on the books concerning public drunkenness. But in the contest of POTUS (one who is hopefully not passed out on the sidewalk in front of the WH), it remains to be seen if insobriety is a high crime or misdemeanor. That would be up to the House Judiciary Committee and US House of Representatives, which by Constitutional powers handles impeachment proceedings. The Twenty-fifth Amendment outlines who succeeds the president due to "Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office," but it does not state who has the power to declare a President incapacitated. It's possible that a POTUS who incapacitates himself with alcohol is guilty of a "high crime or misdemeanor." But how drunk do you have to be to be incapacitated? Drunk enough to think a Game Boy is the nuclear football? Again, that's up to the House. Some past presidents have arguably been functional alcoholics (or functional recovered alcoholics.) But incapacitated? That can be subjective when it comes to the application of the law. And morals have little to do with it, unless those morals have a basis in that same law. Update 12/04/16: Some federal judges have been impeached due to drunkenness: http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/judges_impeachments.html and http://www.crf-usa.org/impeachment/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors.html
You have accurately summed up the conundrum. There is little else to say. You need to accept that there is confusion, even within the law itself, and rely on context to establish in any given instance which meaning is meant. You will come to find that there are many instances of such confusion in the law. The historic technical distinction in the law (especially in tort law) between assault and battery has been collapsed in the everyday vernacular and this had made its way even into the way that the words are used even by law enforcement officers and legislators, who grew up speaking the vernacular language like everyone else. Where I live, in Colorado, the word "menacing" has been used be legislators to replace the historic sense of the word "assault" and the words "assault" and "battery" have become synonymous. But, in England, they are struck with a situation in which the meaning of the word "assault" has become context specific.
Because you are on their premises and they get to decide what people can or can't do while on their property. This has nothing to do with if recording is legal or not, it has to do with basic property rights and trespass. Let's assume that recording is perfectly legal: so is eating ice cream. However, if its my shop, I can require that you do not make recordings just as I can require that you do not eat ice cream. If I make this requirement known you have three options: you can comply, you can leave or you can stay and do the thing I have prohibited. The first two are legal, the last one isn't; its trespass which is both a tort for which I can sue you and a crime for which you can be arrested and prosecuted.