Corp Reform - Not Tort Reform

If John McCain can’t stand up to Obama at a debate…

How can we expect him to stand up to terrorists?  Or Iran?  Or South Korea?  Or Russia?  Or any of the other people who are far more threatening than Obama?

Instead of McCain/Palin, the signs should say McCain/Pathetic.

Pay caps for bailed out execs?

How about $250k?  That’s a popular figure among the tort reform crowd.  

Some Democrats are seeking, nevertheless, to add provisions to the massive rescue bill, such as limiting pay for executives of the troubled companies in need of the bailout. And Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services panel, accused Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson of pushing too hard to get out a bill quickly.

Source: Bush, Democrats differ on bailout’s passage - U.S. business- msnbc.com

Finally, someone says what needs to be said about elitism in politics:

I couldn’t agree more.

Ask yourself: how has "elitism" become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn't seem too intelligent or well educated.

Source: Sam Harris on Sarah Palin and Elitism | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008 | Newsweek.com

Still think it’s a good idea to put someone in the White House who hasn’t gone to law school?

Yet another reason to support Obama & Biden – they’re both Constitutional law scholars and won’t need someone to teach them what the Constitutional limits on the President and Vice-President are:

ABC News' David Wright reports: At a joint rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Thursday, Republican John McCain slammed the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) for being "asleep at the switch" saying that if he were president, he would fire Chris Cox, the chairman of the SEC since 2005 and a former Republican congressman.

McCain said the SEC has allowed trading practices such as short selling to stay in place that turned the "markets into a casino."

"The regulators were asleep, my friends," McCain said. "The chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the president. And in my view has betrayed the public trust. If I were president today, I would fire him."

But while the president nominates and the Senate confirms the SEC chair, a commissioner of an independent regulatory commission cannot be removed by the president.

From time to time, presidents have attempted to remove commissioners who have proven "uncooperative."  However, the courts have general upheld the independence of commissioners. In 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt fired a member of the Federal Trade Commission and the Supreme Court ruled the president acted unconstitutionally. 

Source: Political Radar: McCain Flub? Republican Says He'd Fire SEC Chair as President

I’m sure that Palin would only be interested in firing the SEC head if he was married to one of her relatives.  She’s a pathetic joke of a candidate for VP and anyone who can’t see it is either blinded by partisanship or her gender.

Technorati Tags: McCain,Palin,Constitution,SEC

Word of the day: Misdemeanant

As in:

"I write to express my view that the Fourth Amendment forbids an officer from discharging repeated bursts of electricity into an already handcuffed misdemeanant--who is sitting still beside a rural road and unwilling to move--simply to goad him into standing up." So begins the dissent from a non-precedential ruling that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued yesterday.

Source: How Appealing#030233

And that’s the dissent, folks. 

Technorati Tags: Tasers,don't tase me bro,How Appealing,Howard Bashman

Twitterlanch… - UPDATED

Not sure what prompted it, but four people have begun following me in the last hour.  All with legal backgrounds – has someone just published a list of all the “legal types” who twitter?  For those who care, my twitter name is justinianlane, and my Spotjots name is justinian.  Spotjots is like twitter, but with GPS.

Technorati Tags: Twitter,Spotjots,Justinian Lane

Yes, there was a published list.  Check out “145 legal professionals to follow on twitter.”

Tort Reform T-Shirts and Stickers

I finally got around to ordering my own tort reform T-Shirt and sticker from Cafepress.  I’m very pleased with the quality of them, and will be designing more swag. 

I love wearing my t-shirt to classes in which I know I have a conservative professor, and I put the sticker on the lid of my laptop, so everyone sees my position on the issues.

Thanks to all of you who have already ordered products.  Check out the Corpreform Store and order your own gear.

Technorati Tags: Tort reform,Corpreform,Justinian Lane

Google putting old newspapers online – this is too cool

There is so much history people have forgotten that was covered mostly in newspapers.  The dangerous drug Oraflex and John McCain’s ties to the Savings & Loan scandal, for example.

San Francisco - Google is expanding efforts to put offline materials online by adding old newspaper content to its Google News Archive application, the company announced on Monday.

The effort uses scanning technology leveraged in Google Book Search, which enables Web viewers to read books online as if they were still in their original paper form. The initiative is intended to "bring old newspapers online and make them searchable and make them discoverable," said Marissa Mayer, Google vice president of products and search, at the TechCrunch50 2008 conference in San Francisco.

Already able to access old content from such newspapers as the Saint Petersburg Times and Pittsburgh Post Gazette, the application is to be expanded to include content from more newspapers.

Source: Google brings old newspapers online - Yahoo! News

Here’s hoping Google will keep this program going and expand it to cover everything in microfiche…

How about setting damage caps at…

Somewhere between $9.3 and $14.1 million dollars?

Over the years, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac showered riches on many winners: their executives, Wall Street bankers and Washington lobbyists. Now the foundering mortgage giants are leaving some losers in their wake, notably their shareholders, rank-and-file employees and, in the worst case, American taxpayers.

But even after the government seized the mortgage finance companies on Sunday and dismissed their chief executives, the companies' outgoing leaders could see big paydays — a prospect that angers many investors, particularly because ordinary stockholders could be virtually wiped out.

Under the terms of his employment contract, Daniel Mudd, the departing head of Fannie Mae, stands to collect $9.3 million in severance pay, retirement benefits and deferred compensation, provided his dismissal is deemed to be "without cause," according to an analysis by the consulting firm James F. Reda & Associates. Mudd has already taken home $12.4 million in cash compensation and stock option gains since becoming chief executive in 2004, according to an analysis by Equilar, an executive pay research firm.

Richard Syron, the departing chief executive of Freddie Mac, could receive an exit package of at least $14.1 million, largely because of a clause added to his employment contract in mid-July as his company's troubles deepened. He has taken home $17.1 million in pay and stock option gains since becoming chief executive in 2003.

Source: Former executives at Fannie and Freddie stand to collect big paychecks - International Herald Tribune

I had to make conservative arguments

I’m taking a very interesting class on Food and Drug law, and one of the assignments is to debate policy choices.  I was assigned the opposite position of what I would normally take, and ended up having to argue:

• The cost of saving lives didn’t justify the cost;
• Consumers can choose to buy less-expensive, less-safe products;
• If consumers wanted safer products, the market would provide them.

I can’t wait to go take a shower.

Technorati Tags: FDA,Justinian Lane,Michigan State University,Food and Drug Law