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Friday Night Music, with an endorsement

Friday, October 29, 2010

I know the people of California have been wondering where I stand on the marijuana initiative. I figured I would wait and announce my position to a time when I would have maximum impact, and that time is now. In the name of Freedom and Liberty, in the name of restoring the country to its roots, I do endorse the initiative, and urge all Californians to vote to pass it, and stay in the voting booth long enough to also vote against the rich ladies trying to buy political office in our sister state on the other coast. We here in Connecticut can feel your pain.

Now, to go along with this announcement, I figured it was only appropriate to do it on this regular feature, with some appropriate marijuana themed music. I figured it wouldn’t be so hard to come up with lots of possibilities, but when I attempted to wrack my brain, it wouldn’t wrack. Sometimes I think my memory is going. I can’t fathom why. It must be something I did in my youth. So, anyway, I turned to my brother in law, who I figured could help me out, and he did-by cheating and finding a web site that listed a number of songs, very few of which, it turned out, had decent videos on youtube. He did mention, however, that his personal favorite was One Toke Over the Line, by Brewer and Shipley, and lo and behold, I found it. Now, this one comes with a bonus, but for the full impact you can’t read ahead. First let me say that these guys had the honor of making Nixon’s, or at least Agnew’s, enemy list, which certainly gives them a claim to Friday Night honors. So, here they are:

Now, if you watched the whole thing, you will recall that one of them, be he Brewer or Shipley, mentioned that this song was performed on the Lawrence Welk Show. Now, for you youngsters, the Lawrence Welk show was-how shall I say this, how can I explain???… Norman Rockwell’s America with the life and humour strained out of it, set to the most wretched music known to man. That really doesn’t do it, but it’s the best I can come up with. Well, here’s your bonus, the very video Brewer or Shipley wished to see, proving yet again that everything is on the internet, for good or for ill. I am willing to bet this is the funniest thing ever on the Welk show, which I am proud to say we did not watch in my household, or if we did, I have successfully blocked the fact from my memory.

Did you catch Welk’s line at the end? Now, clearly Welk had no idea what this song was about, but there’s no way the apple cheeked singers didn’t. They were clearly alive and of a certain age (at least the girl appears to be), and unless they were hermetically sealed between shows they couldn’t help but learn about these things. Here’s hoping they were getting a real kick out of their chance to go one toke over the line on the Welk show.

Once again, to all you Californians out there, don’t forget to vote. Vote first, toke later.


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Enthusiasm gap, CT style

Friday, October 29, 2010

Republicans to the left, Dems to the right. It’s been like this every night in Groton.

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Martha Dean, courtroom wizard

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Earlier today I was searching (in vain) at the Courant’s website for news of Martha Dean’s lawsuit against Jepsen, when I came upon this column by Rick Green, who has some unkind words to say about Martha. (So far as I can see, the case is still undecided, and is not even mentioned on the front page of the Courant’s website).

What interested me was the comments to Green’s column. The rightwingers felt that Jepsen should, to borrow a phrase, “man up” and prove his eligibility for the office. It all seemed oddly reminiscent of the birther’s approach to Obama: it’s up to him to prove he’s an American citizen, bearing in mind that nothing he says or does will ever convince them. And so, of course, it will be for a time with Jepsen. Nothing he says will satisfy any of them.

When I first heard about the lawsuit, I did a little searching around on the Judicial Department website. You can view the entire list of Martha Dean’s cases here. Now, a few caveats. These only go back to 1995 and they don’t include criminal cases. But in that entire time, and it’s now fifteen years, Dean’s firm has entered appearances in only nine cases (There are no cases listed under her personal juris number). I don’t know if there are other attorneys in the firm, but lets assume that there aren’t, to give her the benefit of the doubt, and assume she was lead counsel (for her client) in all nine. Of those nine cases, one went to trial. In one, she her client was not a party; she represented someone who was seeking a protective order, likely to avoid being deposed. In that case Dean was one of eight defense lawyers (there were numerous defendants), including two assistant attorney generals, at least one town attorney, and two high powered Hartford firms, so I’d bet a pretty penny that she was a minor player in the case. In another, her client was not a party; she represented someone who was seeking a protective order, likely to avoid being deposed. In one, the case appears to have been dismissed because Dean failed to prosecute. In others, there’s no reason to think there was any need for her to actually enter a courtroom. Hardly a hefty litigation resume. I’ve shifted my practice almost entirely out of civil litigation, but I have had more active cases than Dean just in the past few years, and I’ve certainly tried more cases in the last year than she has in the last 15.

Now the court decision required “some measure of experience in trying cases”, a phrase that, under the circumstances, amounts to almost judicial malpractice on the Supreme Court’s part. What is that measure, and what makes Dean think she has met it. In my opinion, the concurring judges were right, the litigation requirement makes no sense. But the majority rules, and what’s sauce for the goose, etc. Were I the trial judge in the Jepsen case, I’d make Dean prove her qualifications before I granted her standing to challenge Jepsen.

By the way, I’m not saying she’s unqualified. I think she is, at least, qualified under the statute, as is Jepsen. She’s bat-shit crazy, but that’s another issue.

Postscript: I should point out that small claims and housing cases don’t come up on the court’s website, so Dean might have done a lot of those.

Postscript: A commenter, who I think made the same comment on the Green piece, points out that I didn’t check the federal courts, and that Jepsen is not even admitted to the 2d Circuit or the Supreme Court. The statute refers to active practice “at the bar of this state”, so the federal courts are irrelevant. That doesn’t make sense, but neither does the litigation requirement the court grafted into the statute. I suspect, in addition, that Ms. Dean’s federal court experience is as thin as her state court experience, and I would add that nowadays, you can litigate scores of federal cases without ever walking into court. Oral argument on motions is rare, and lots of cases are decided by summary judgment. As to the Second Circuit, I’m not admitted there either, since I’ve never had the need to join, and you have to jump through too many hoops to do so. It’s not worth doing unless you actually have a case to argue there. I’ve no doubt there are many top notch lawyers in this state, who have extensive practices in the state courts, who never handled a case in the Second Circuit. On the other hand, I’m sure there are lawyers who go out of their way to get admitted to the Second Circuit even though they have no need to do so. The Supreme Court is the opposite. Any lawyer can get admitted to the Supreme Court bar with little to no effort. It’s totally meaningless. Lot’s of lawyers do it to impress, but it doesn’t mean they’ve ever been to the Supreme Court, or any court for that matter.


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Ethical and moral values

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

The full text of an article from this morning’s Day:

The Republican challenger for the 39th District House seat has received several endorsements, including one from Newt Gingrich.

“I am very pleased you share my commitment to transforming government at every level to save America,” the former U.S. Speaker of the House wrote in an Oct. 5 letter to Andrew Lockwood. “Policies you are supporting … will also provide lower taxes, less government, and real job creation.”

“Callista and I wish you all success, on Election Day and in the all the exciting days that will follow,” Gingrich wrote, referring to his wife.

Lockwood, who is seeking to upset three-term incumbent Democrat Ernest Hewett also received endorsements from the Connecticut Citizens Defense League, a gun rights group, and the Family Institute of Connecticut, a nonprofit foundation that promotes Judeo-Christian ethical and moral values.

I really don’t see how taxes can get any lower for Andy, since he doesn’t pay his anyway, but let that pass.

I’m interested to know whether or not Newt charges per endorsement, or whether he gives them away for free, hoping to cash in his chits in 2012, when he will make another abortive attempt at the presidency. If the latter, he might think about vetting his endorsees a bit.

I’ve noted before that I’ve sued (on behalf of clients, of course) Lockwood at least twice in the past. The first time was on behalf of three sets of homebuyers, to whom Lockwood flipped run down houses at an approximate average markup of 400% to 500% of what he’d paid for them, courtesy of a corrupt appraiser. a subprime lender and closing lawyers who were adept at looking the other way. Back then (the late 90s) I guess you still had to pretend that borrowers were qualified. One house was purchased by a couple that was getting SSI (a form of disability benefit paid only to the disabled and impoverished) because they were mentally retarded. At least that’s how they made their money in the real world. In the subprime world the husband of the pair pulled down $5,000.00 a month managing a car dealership that Andy owned at the time. Now I’m not saying (though I said it then) that Andy provided that false information to the lender (not that the lender cared all that much, since it sold the note faster than greased lightning), but he was the only person in a position to do so. I never pushed that case to judgment against Andy (we got money from other defendants) because I’ve been in this business long enough to know when a defendant will turn out to be asset free- what we call “judgment proof”. It would have been a cakewalk to get a judgment, however, had I been so inclined.

In the course of my dealings with Andy, his lawyers, and his victims, I’ve heard him called a lot of things, but this is the first time I’ve heard him called an exemplar of ” Judeo-Christian ethical and moral values”. Maybe that’s just a synonym for “your average, everyday Republican grifter”.


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Obama to Democratic candidate: Drop Dead

Monday, October 25, 2010

Boy, this Democrat, a slimy worm named Frank Caprio, who’s running for governor of Rhode Island sure is a whiner, like all the rest of us Democrats that complain about Obama’s principle free, corporate based, tone deaf administration. This pitiful excuse of a man is complaining just because Obama won’t endorse him. What? He thinks Obama should endorse him just because he’s a Democrat, when Lincoln Chafee, former Republican and now Independent is running against him? Chafee endorsed Obama a few years back, which is all the excuse Obama needs to once again play the bi-partisan (or is it multi-partisan?) card yet again. Why should Obama feel any sense of loyalty to the Democrats who worked so hard to put him where he is, when he can play up to Lincoln Chafee, a guy so dense that it took him decades to see what the party of his forefathers had become. Why should Obama show the same type of party loyalty he expects from people like-well, people like Frank Caprio?

Obama is no doubt counting on the Republicans to behave so outrageously over the next two years that he will be propelled into a second term. He’s probably right, but it seems to me he should at least consider what might happen if more of us join with Caprio and tell him to shove it.


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Eating their own

Monday, October 25, 2010

It’s something of a truism that revolutions eat their own, which is further proof, if proof be needed, that the American Revolution was a horse of a different color-a rebellion, but not a revolution.

It appears that even billionaire funded faux revolutions may follow the same pattern, as Karl Rove is finding to his discomfiture. The prince of Liars finds that every time he slips and utters the truth, no matter if that truth is told in defense of the larger falsehood, he finds himself the target of erstwhile friends who declare him not extreme enough. He is now backtracking from a statement he made to the French press (French?-he talks to the French??) in which he characterized the tea baggers as unsophisticated. As he was referring to the rank and file he was most clearly correct, since dupes are, by definition, unsophisticated.

It was entirely predictable that this hodgepodge grouping of millionaires, billionaires and their useful idiots would eventually come to blows. There is a natural tension between the dupers and dupees that must break out eventually. If the Democrats hold on to both houses these disparate interests might stick it out, though they may fall to blaming each other for the failure. If they get the House, they may again paper over their differences, but it can’t last long, as sooner or later either success or failure will fracture them.

Imagine complete success: an alternative universe in which Sarah Palin or an analogue becomes president in 2012, backed by majorities in both houses. They will, of course, not allow any stinkin’ filibuster to get in their way, but will soon get to fighting as the various interest groups in the coalition fracture in the face of the disasters they would inevitably bring about. It would be worth watching if things had not already reached such a critical point. Nothing would destroy them as completely as complete success. Even the Democrats would have trouble screwing up badly enough to sustain them.


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Doctors on the Dole

Sunday, October 24, 2010

According to Pro Publica, the drug companies are doling out millions of dollars to pay doctors to shill their products to other doctors. Apparently, the companies can’t be bothered to check into the credentials of their salesfolks, as Pro Publica found a number of doctors who were either not particularly qualified, or who were distinctly not qualified.

The Ohio medical board concluded that pain physician William D. Leak had performed “unnecessary” nerve tests on 20 patients and subjected some to “an excessive number of invasive procedures,” including injections of agents that destroy nerve tissue.

Yet the finding, posted on the board’s public website, didn’t prevent Eli Lilly and Co. from using him as a promotional speaker and adviser. The company has paid him $85,450 since 2009.

In 2001, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ordered Pennsylvania doctor James I. McMillen to stop “false or misleading” promotions of the painkiller Celebrex, saying he minimized risks and touted it for unapproved uses.

Still, three other leading drug makers paid the rheumatologist $224,163 over 18 months to deliver talks to other physicians about their drugs.

And in Georgia, a state appeals court in 2004 upheld a hospital’s decision to kick Dr. Donald Ray Taylor off its staff. The anesthesiologist had admitted giving young female patients rectal and vaginal exams without documenting why. He’d also been accused of exposing women’s breasts during medical procedures. When confronted by a hospital official, Taylor said, “Maybe I am a pervert, I honestly don’t know,” according to the appellate court ruling.

Last year, Taylor was Cephalon’s third-highest-paid speaker out of more than 900. He received $142,050 in 2009 and another $52,400 through June.

Leak, McMillen and Taylor are part of the pharmaceutical industry’s white-coat sales force, doctors paid to promote brand-name drugs to their peers — and if they’re convincing enough, get more physicians to prescribe them.

The article makes clear that there’s actually some social good flowing from some of the talks given by some of the doctors that are being enriched by the drug companies. But that’s only because our system is so screwed up that doctors don’t have an unbiased continuing educational system that both operates outside of the present system and reaches the folks in those hard to get places. Enter the drug companies. The payoffs are part investments in duping doctors into using selected drugs, and part direct payoffs to the speakers for overprescribing the drugs in question.

The Health Care act made a dent in this sort of thing, in the typically indirect fashion that present day compromised politicians prefer. Instead of just putting a stop to it, and putting an unbiased continuing education system in place, the government is requiring the drug companies to disclose the payments, strictures they will no doubt find a way around and which, at all events, probably won’t make much difference. The result, no doubt, is increased health care costs and poorer health care, but who cares when you’ve deluded yourself into believing you have the best health care system in the world.

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Friday Night Music-Live From Sesame Street

Friday, October 22, 2010

Stevie Wonder


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Can’t buy her love

Friday, October 22, 2010

Well, it looks like Linda has peaked and Blumenthal is pulling away. At this point, it seems unlikely that any new attacks will do much good; the folks who were susceptible to them have already been won or lost. One must wonder whether there will come a point when Linda will stop throwing her money around quite so freely. After all, even for her, a million dollars here, a million there, it really starts to add up. My bet is she’ll keep on slogging. The dirt will keep coming, but there’s a real air of desperation about it now.

In any event, it appears that there are limits to what money can do.

It’s always been my belief that Linda is not interested in politics. During the debate that I watched, it seemed that she was rather bored, repeated her talking points sort of listlessly, and had no real interest in policy. She is not a true believer; no Joe Miller she. She doesn’t want to destroy the government, or improve it. Had the circumstances been different, she would have been happy to run as a Democrat. Policy is beside the point. She was interested in buying a Senate seat for much the same reason some folks buy English titles. She is and always will be just another grifter in this year of the grifter, and she figured buying her way into the Senate would confer respectability and prestige.

Money can buy a lot of things, and had things turned out differently (and who knows, they still might) Linda might well have been our next Senator, despite the fact that she doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the state or the people in it. But all things being close to equal, money’s not enough. If you’re unable to forge any connection with voters, if you project complete indifference about them, and if you make it clear that you are going to get their votes by buying them, a surprisingly large number of those voters will turn away from you, particularly if you also inundate their mail boxes with trash. Money can buy a lot of things, but it can’t buy love, and for Linda, it turns out that it can’t buy prestige or respectability.

A glimmer of hope in a world gone mad.


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Brilliant Billboard

Thursday, October 21, 2010

I spent all day writing two briefs, and my mind can’t cope with the idea of writing anything else of substance. So, in case you didn’t see it on My Left Nutmeg, here’s a brilliant billboard that thousands of people are passing each day on I-95.

Says it all, doesn’t it? Blumethal definitely owes the responsible folks a beer.


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