Profit Seeking Firms are Right to Feel Demoralized by the Rent Seeking of Others

Money and politics
Ask what your country can do for you

Oct 1st 2011

MUCH as some businesses whine about government intrusion, others do pretty well out of it. An index based on the amount of lobbying that American firms do has outperformed the broader market since its creation in 2008; data going back to 1998 show that it has done better over the longer term, too.

The index is produced by Strategas, an investment-research firm. A first effort, to rank firms on the amount they spend on lobbying, was no use: it just corresponded with the largest firms. Strategas now looks at the intensity of lobbying—expenditure as a percentage of assets—to create an index of 50 firms that is revised quarterly.

In aggregate the results have been stunning, comparable to the returns of the most blistering hedge fund. The index has outperformed the S&P500 by 11% a year since 2002 (see chart). There have been bumps along the way: the index fell sharply in 2008 and again this summer, when debt-ceiling brinkmanship raised the prospect of government austerity. But at other times, it seems remarkable that companies would do anything but lobby. A particularly vivid example was in 2004, when an aggressive corporate campaign prompted Congress to grant a one-off tax holiday for American companies to repatriate foreign earnings. The outright return on lobbying costs, according to one of the various studies that served as inspiration for the Strategas index, was $220 for each $1 spent.

"It's Not for the Money" Unethical?

"The attorney handling the case is Larry Klayman, the founder of Judicial Watch and now of Freedom Watch, who said money is not the issue.

"This case is filed as a matter of principle," he said. "We need more Bradlee Deans in the world and hateful left wing television commentators must be made to respect not only his mission but the law."

Torts has the aim of compensating the plaintiff for damages. Any other purpose should be considered an improper purpose. Such an utterance justifies a complaint to the ethics agency, a motion for dismissal with all costs assessed to the assets of the plaintiff attorney and plaintiff, and a civil suit for misuse of a civil procedure. An improper purpose is an element of most states' misuse of a civil procedure laws.

Maximum Sentence for Norway Shooter

21 years.

Thank the lawyer for 1) slap on the wrist, and what abolitionists really want for the USA;

2) Disarming law abiding citizens, so they cannot shoot back;

3) allowing paranoids to kill thousands a year. Now the shooter qualifies for involuntary commitment.

The Google Mistrial

Go to page 71.

Asking the judge to question jurors in the middle of the trial may emerge as a new tactic to get a mistrial declared.

"...But the ubiquity of instant, electronic communication
and mobile applications for social networking sites such
as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and LinkedIn allows
jurors to research the issues in the cases on which they
serve, as well as to immediately interact with others. So,
how does this play out?
In a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, drug trial in March 2009,
a juror informed the judge seven weeks into the trial that
she overheard a fellow juror talking about researching
the case. The judge interviewed all 12 jurors, and after a
majority admitted searching Google for the defendant’s
name and medical terms, the judge declared a mistrial.
Other instances of Google “research”—including juror
use of Google’s Earth Street View to examine crime
scenes—have occurred with such frequency in recent
years that legal experts have coined the phrase, “Google
mistrial.” John Schwartz, As Jurors Turn to Web, Mistrials
Are Popping Up, N.Y. Times, Mar.17, 2009. In February
2009, an Arkansas juror used his handheld mobile device
to post messages on Twitter during court proceedings,
including the following tweet: “I just gave away twelve
million dollars of somebody else’s money.” Id. The judge
denied the defense counsel’s motion for a new trial, and
the decision has been appealed. Id.
A January 28, 2010, memorandum to all federal district
judges from U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson—
chair of the Committee on Court Administration and
Case Management of the Judicial Conference of the
United States—endorsed a set of suggested jury instructions
that district judges should consider to deter jurors from using electronic technology to research or communicate
about trials on which they serve.
The proposed model instructions cover juror conduct
through a judge’s acceptance of a jury’s verdict:
You should not consult dictionaries or reference materials,
search the Internet, websites, blogs, or use any
other electronic tools to obtain information about
this case or to help you decide the case…. You may
not communicate with anyone about the case on your
cell phone, through e-mail, Blackberry, iPhone, text
messaging, or on Twitter, through any blog or website,
through any Internet chat room, or by way of any
other social networking websites, including Facebook,
MySpace, LinkedIn, and YouTube."

New Series: Ideas from Sentencing Law and Policy Blog

This blog is a rare one that has not banned the Supremacy. The Supremacy rarely uses bad language, rarely makes personal remarks. Blogs will tolerate personalized death threats, links to bestiality sites, to foreign pharmacies, vicious personal remarks. What lawyer blogs do not tolerate is the questioning of the fundamentals of their criminal cult enterprise beliefs, which are supernatural. Supernatural legal doctrines are unlawful in our secular nation. Prof. Berman, the owner, has bravely resisted massive calls for the banning of the Supremacy. The charge now? Repetitiveness. Well the idiocy and illegality of the lawyer profession is repetitive, so its loving criticism has to be repetitive. In any case, Prof. Berman is an expert at provoking debate and thought. So the Supremacy will begin listing some of the ideas evoked by this blog.

Connick Decision: Insurmountable Obstacle to Prosecutor Liability

"Held: A district attorney’s office may not be held liable under §1983 for failure to train its prosecutors based on a single Brady violation. "


If tort liability is a substitute for violence, the obverse is true in formal logic. Immunity justifies violence.

Immunity is a form of unauthorized stealthy industrial policy because it grows the entire enterprise, and liability deters the entire enterprise, not just a defendant.

The sole justification for sovereign immunity in the common law is that the Sovereign speaks with the Voice of God. That is a psychotic delusion and not a valid reason to allow immunity of any government entity.

Because the sole tool of the court is punishment, it qualifies for strict liability. Professional standards of due care is sufficient, however.

Finally, the court will say it has no time for lawsuits. The welder's time is far more valuable than that of the coffee swilling, lazy, do nothing government workers on the Supreme Court.

Immunity may also be a factor in the failure of every self stated goal of every law subject. Accountability may prod the intelligent lawyer into being more competent and productive. The rule of law is an essential utility product. Its utter failure is a huge drag on the progress and development of the nation.

An amendment should be passed to end the immunity of all government agencies, including prosecutors, courts, and regulators. To deter.

Dealing with Denial of Care by Insurance Doctor Reviewer

The doctor is a traitor to clinical care, and a clueless dunce. Evidence based medicine is the medicine of 7 years ago, after academia has caught up with their research paper shuffling. It represents deviations from current standards of due care, but a convenient pretext to deny care by traitors to clinical care.

Appeals are totally rigged against spending by insurance, and phony time consuming procedures.

Here are other ideas to get approval.

1) Keep submitting or calling about approval. Eventually, a low level reviewer will randomly approve the request. Most of the decision are inappropriate and driven by personal profit from denial of care. This doctor should tell us whether he gets bonuses from company profits.

2) Have a standard letter to be signed by a patient. When these insurance company collaborators deny adequate care, send a formal request for an investigation by the licensing board. If the doctor is out of state, not licensed in the state of the patient, the denial of care is a medical act, requiring a license. Submit a request for an investigation into the unauthorized practice of medicine.

If the doctor is licensed in the state of the patient, but qualified outside the specialty of the prescriber, ask for an investigation into practice outside the scope of training and knowledge.

If the reviewer is licensed in state, and deny care within his own specialty, ask for an investigation into a medical act taken without direct evaluation of the patient, on an unknown patient. Records are not transcipts, so they are not adequate substitutes for a thorough evaluation in person by the reviewer.

3) If there will be a difference in pay, refer to the Department of Justice for a violation of the Stark Amendment and Anti-Kickback statutes.

To deter.

Proposed New Profitable Prison Industry - Making Barbiturates for Execution Injections

European governments are pressuring drug manufacturers to cut off the states from their barbiturate supplies. This is to impose their abolitionist views on the United States and an attack on US and on state sovereignty.

There are likely many meth amphetamine manufacturers with chemistry training in some state prisons. Barbiturates represent mid-19th Century technology, and should not be challenging to produce. Because no health claims are being made for these products, but they are to be used as intentional poisons, FDA oversight should be avoided.

Here is an example of a recipe: for making a kilogram at a time. DEA oversight seems appropriate to prevent diversion of any supplies or output by prisoners, guards, etc.

Commentary on the Child Porn Law Entry Below this One

If a law has an aim, and it can be shown to result in the opposite of that aim, shouldn't the law be void? If mere expert testimony must meet certain standards of reliability under Daubert or Frye, shouldn't a far more prescriptive and coercive utterance such as a law meet even higher standards of reliability? For example, an expert testifies to some standard of practice in a torts trial. That expert is telling all practitioners in that jurisdiction the minimum required from them as a standard, under pain of civil liability. He is bossing all practitioners. The Supreme Court has set standards of reliability for such prescriptive testimony. Here is a legal resource on that standard of testimony:

http://www.daubertontheweb.com/

Now, the criminal law is far more prescriptive, bosses the entire population not just practitioners, and carries penalties that are harsh. (From the introduction of Section 2251, "Whoever, in the course of an offense under this section, engages in conduct that results in the death of a person, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for not less than 30 years or for life."

Then, shouldn't a law meet even more stringent criteria of reliability than mere influential expert testimony? If a law is meant to reduce child abuse by punishing its visual depiction and possession of such, but the opposite has taken place, shouldn't the law be voided as toxic and harmful itself. Here. Organized crime profits from high prices, and is the biggest beneficiary of the child pornography. Most of the child porn is produced in Eastern Europe, and one wonders about jurisdiction questions if the law is to prevent child abuse. May a US law have its biggest impact on foreign territory?

The law was passed in 1977. Since then, child sexual abuse has doubled, according to this review.

http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/statsinfo/nis3.cfm#national

In studies, porn consistently reduces the incidence of sexual crimes, including the sexual abuse of children.

http://healthland.time.com/2010/12/02/study-making-pornography-more-accessible-may-curb-child-abuse/

According to this academic institute, pics of children playing in a bathtub can be indicative of pornography, kids at the beach, splashing, and fully clothed in swimwear, can be indicative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copine_scale

One suspects feminist lawyers and rent seeking. However, beyond that suspicion, shouldn't a law be scientifically valid or overturned? The law against child porn is an example, but this question applies to all law making. The Supreme Court has surprisingly or not surprisingly addressed scientific validity of laws or regulations only once to my knowledge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_v._Environmental_Protection_Agency

And the Supreme Court ruled that a law need not be scientifically valid to be upheld (What the ...!@#?), allowing the EPA to classify carbon dioxide as a pollutant. It is allowing faith based law making, even in the face of evidence of opposite effects to the intent of the statute.