- In job bias dispute: “Federal Court Says Veganism Might Qualify As A Religion” [Religion Clause]
- Perennially credulous L.A. Times drops broad hints that Toyota settlement vindicates sudden acceleration theories, others know better [LA Times, NLJ earlier]
- “Cato Named America’s Most Effective Think Tank Per Dollar Spent” [Dan Mitchell, Nick Rosenkranz]
- Disappointing: Transportation Sec. LaHood said to be “sticking around for a while” [Roads and Bridges, earlier] That was quick: only hours later, he says he’s leaving after all [WaPo]
- It became necessary to destroy the sex workers in order to save them [Melissa Gira Grant/Reason]
- Profile of lefter-than-thou NY attorney general Eric Schneiderman [NY Mag]
- As rural pub tradition declines, Irish government rejects proposal to ease DUI laws [AP]
You searched for:
schneiderman
Some politicians just want there to be random shortages [WSJ editorial]:
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has subpoenaed the Craigslist website for the identities of people who advertised gas for sale at high prices. Mr. Schneiderman is doing this in the name of a New York law that forbids charging an “unconscionably excessive price” during an “abnormal disruption in the market.”
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- Mortgage robo-signing settlement not actually as punitive toward the banks as you might think, succeeds in sticking costs onto various parties not at table [FT, more (US taxpayers could wind up covering much of write-down costs through HAMP program); Felix Salmon (write-downs of underwater mortgages should not be assessed at face value); Mark Calabria, Cato and more, Bloomberg (banks managing to offload much of the cramdown onto investors such as pension funds); Daniel Fisher/Forbes one, two, three (banks get covert benefits, politicos get social engineering and fees -- shades of the collusive tobacco settlement!); Above the Law (Schneiderman steers money to legal services programs); Linette Lopez, BI (banks still exposed on many issues). More: Hans Bader, John Steele Gordon.
- "Burned at mediation by my own Facebook post" [Stuart Mauney, Abnormal Use]
- As anti-discrimination law advances, religious liberty retreats [Roger Pilon, Cato] Two views on the birth control mandate [Cathy Young, David Henderson] More: Adler, Frum.
- Motel Caswell case from Tewksbury, Mass. heads to court, could test forfeiture law [Balko] More: Washington Post editorial.
- Which is more unreasonable, OSHA regulation or FAA’s? Open to dispute [John Cochrane, Grumpy Economist]
- Indiana becomes a right to work state. On to Michigan next? [Shikha Dalmia, Reason]
- Warning! Tale of trial psychologists in wizard garb comes from a sinister source, namely me ["In the News," forensic psychologist Karen Franklin, handsome illustration swiped from Cato site]
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In a move likely to be welcome to his Left base, the president is naming New York’s business-bashing attorney general to head up a probe into banks’ mortgage misconduct. Capital New York’s headline says it all: “Obama elevates Eric Schneiderman, Who Was Too Liberal for Andrew Cuomo.” Another view: Felix Salmon (& Roger Donway, Atlas Business Rights Center).
- Arizona officials say “accents were never the focus” of teacher fluency monitoring suspended at feds’ insistence [NYTNS, earlier] Reactions to my piece last week include columnist “Johnson” at The Economist (taking issue) and Hans Bader and Carrie Lukas (favorable);
- Another highlight of new “jobs” bill: financial institution customers would help pay for auto bailouts [John Berlau]
- Key New Orleans Police Department officer in charge of integrity of traffic-cam program accused of altering own plates [WWL] Red light cameras defended [Noah Kristula-Green, FrumForum] Why Massachusetts won’t raise the speed limit on Route 3 north of Burlington (NMA blog via @radleybalko)
- Eight bad reasons for going to law school [Campos] Law schools have demographic but not socioeconomic diversity [Richard Sander, Denver U. Law Review via Legal Ethics Forum] And besides my own contribution on law school reform at the recent Truth on the Market symposium, check out the contributions by Hans Bader and Larry Ribstein;
- Fellow federal agency FERC worried that EPA’s power-plant crackdown could lead to outages [WSJ] EPA’s plan to regulate dust from farmers’ fields led to public opinion blowback for President Obama [Diane Katz/Heritage, Environmental Legal Blogs, Radley Balko] Shutting down EPA isn’t likely under GOP reign, but reforming EPA might be [Adler, NYT "Room for Debate"]
- Left rallies around New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman [Ben Smith, Politico]
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My new op-ed at the New York Post looks at the history of Spitzer-to-Cuomo-to-Eric Schneiderman prosecutorial overreach and asks: how exactly did the New York Attorney General come to have so much power with so little constraint? (& welcome Instapundit, Real Clear Markets, Timothy Carney/Examiner, CEI readers)
More: I and others have written about the act here and at Point of Law.
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Feel free to discuss in comments. Some results (our preview post from Monday is here):
* In Iowa, Rep. Bruce Braley, a former plaintiff’s lawyer and leading spokesman for trial bar interests on Capitol Hill, appears to have squeaked through, but former ATLA/AAJ president Roxanne Conlin came nowhere close in her Senate bid against incumbent Chuck Grassley.
* Demagogic attacks on Michigan Supreme Court Justice Bob Young failed, as Michigan voters retained him. Illinois Supreme Court justice Thomas Kilbride, greatly aided by cash from unions, Democrats and you-know-who, won’t pay a retention price for a lawless decision striking down legislated limits on med-mal suits.
* The New York attorney general race wasn’t that tight after all, with Democrat Eric Schneiderman winning by 11 points, nor was the Connecticut senate race, where perennial Overlawyered bete noire Richard Blumenthal won by 10. Despite suggestions that attorney general candidate Kamala Harris was too far left even for California, she was running slightly ahead in late returns.
* Rhode Island voters turned down a proposal to change the official name of their state, “”State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations,” to appease the misplaced sensitivities of some who imagine that the word “plantations” implies a connection to slavery.
* Oklahomans ill-advisedly voted to forbid their courts from considering international law, even in the relatively narrow and well-defined circumstances where it has been traditional for them to do so. More: Roger Alford, OJ.
* Big news from Ohio, where voters turned out of office Democratic attorney general Richard Cordray, lately lionized by the New York Times as the next big activist A.G. The “next Eliot Spitzer” Times curse lives on!
* Via B.L.T., the House Judiciary Committee is set for a truly monumental ideological remake assuming that Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) is replaced by Lamar Smith (R-Tex.). Some changes will be coming along at Senate Judiciary as well.
* Republicans scored surprise inroads in Madison County, Illinois, the pro-plaintiff jurisdiction near St. Louis that has long generated vastly more than its share of high-ticket litigation. In particular, they managed to beat influential state representative/trial lawyer Jay Hoffman of Collinsville, a one-time floor leader for Gov. Rod Blagojevich, per reports by Ann Knef at the Chamber-backed Madison County Record and the Edwardsville Intelligencer.
* Mandatory employer recognition of unions on a “card check” basis without so much as a secret ballot? No thanks, say voters in four states [Wood; Hirsch/Workplace Prof].
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