Governor, It's called due diligence

Dear Jim,

The Journal Sentinel has now reported that your senior legal adviser has resigned because  she was unlicensed to practice law.  That's gotta be embarrassing, how are you going to explain this one?  Perhaps send a spokesman out to explain the error.  You've now done that.  Your spokesman  has now explained that:

Jim Doyle assumed his senior legal adviser was licensed to practice law because he understood she had passed the state bar exam.

Sensenbrenner further explained: 

It's not known why, if she passed the exam, her license application would have been rejected -- or if she ever even formally applied.

Actually,  it's very easy Jim.  Go to  www.wisbar.org.  See that little box on the right hand corner asking for first and last names?  You were an attorney general, try it, type your name into the little box.  Hey, what do you know, you're still in good standing.  Congrats on getting all those CLE requirements done.  

Ok now enter Chandra Miller Fienen's name into that box.  Uh oh, why did this come up ... Why is there no attorney by that name in the state? Perhaps, it's because she has not been admitted to the Wisconsin State Bar? 

 Now, if she did pass the bar exam and is still not licensed, why might she not be admitted into the state bar?  As every Wisconsin and Marquette law grad should know, you still have to pass the ethics background check.  I guess in your administration ethics don't matter.

Cheers,

Super Id.

A Lawsuit that is not going anywhere and that's the point

A Chicago landlord sues a tenant, Amanda Bonnet for tweeting:

"Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay."

Well, is it a moldy apartment?  

Since, mold is generally everywhere it will be impossible to prove the statement false.  But, my interest is not the tweeting.  Instead, I want to illustrate what I suspect to be  a proactive defense lawyer tactic of suing first.   Typically, contingency fee lawyers do not provide a defense and if our tweeter threatened suit, a preemptive strike by the landlord will makes a tenant suit more difficult.    So while other commentators will inevitably claim this is a frivolous suit... I say nice move.

Cheers,

P.s. In any event, I  do note that the Tweet is down.

Cheers

Private Clubs and Public Hypocrisy

I personally find it amusing that Sotomayor quits women's club after GOP criticism. Why should there be GOP criticism? Any GOP criticism to Sotomayor comes from within a glass house--that can be broken by a sliced drive. Fore, the conservative National Review fully supports keeping Augusta National all male. Also, Burning Tree, a golf course in the Washington D.C. area, has an exclusive all male membership. Yet Ford, Nixon, and Bush have all played a few rounds there.

This mock criticism stuff just looks the GOP look petty and hypocritical. If there's criticism of Sotomayor, it should be on her record, and not which knitting club or golf course a justice belongs to.

cheers.

Getting Suhrly

Perhaps just one question has separated me from from GOP3 commentator Daniel Suhr.   Our backgrounds are similar as best as I can tell (I've never met him).  We both grew up in conservative and religious families.  We both attended Jesuit law schools within several years of each other, we are both eagle scouts, and we even have enough of the same LinkedIn connections that he occasionally comes up as a recommended connection.

So how did I become an atheist asshole when he became the GOP poster boy?

I asked the question "why" and wasn't afraid of its answer.  You see, that question threatens to destroy one's entire being.  When you ask that question you have but two options.  You can either answer it within your existing framework or you can let the answer destroy your world view.  

Now, I don't mean this post to be disrespectful to Dan in any way.  I respect him.  He is well-spoken, erudite, and intelligent.   But he choose to answer the question "why" within his framework.  And I let the answer destroy mine.

Take, for example, the issue of religion.  Why do we accept it as "truth" that 2000 years ago someone named Jesus was crucified, died and was buried and then rose from the dead?  What is our evidence, the Bible?  A book written decades after the purported resurrection, yet we have direct quotes from Jesus.  You know what it's called when a witness claims that someone said something?  It's hearsay and it has no evidentiary value.  Take the "virgin birth"--what is our evidence?  Nobody that wrote about it was there.  Yet people are afraid of the answer, so we refuse the answer logic dictates and respond to it with faith.  Then, we hail faith as if it were a virtue.  But, in reality it's just Semantics.  Faith is just another term for ignorance.

Politics is no different.  Conservatives adopt the views they believe conservatives should have and liberals do the same.  The problem is that the views they adopt are logically inconsistent.  Take Mr. Suhr, for example, whose profile states: 

Daniel Suhr is an attorney in Washington, D.C.  He’s a big fan of small government, judicial restraint, strong national defense, and a culture of life and virtue.

Small government.  Sounds great, but how exactly is that consistent with a "strong national defense" or "a culture of life and virtue"?  From Mr. Suhr's other posts we can surmise that he is pro-life and against gay marriage.  Yet he wants small government.   But making abortion illegal necessarily makes government bigger.  The more acts that are illegal, the more powerful government becomes.  Yet it is small government Dan wants to determine the definition of marriage.  Dan's views are conservative, they are also but they are also inconsistent.  Perhaps he is afraid to ask the question--"why"?

RYAN IS RIGHT

 Rep. Paul Ryan was interviewed after the fall elections. He hit the nail on the head:

We have too many politicians afraid of embracing change and big ideas in our own party. What matters most is not whether we can come up with great sound bites or have soothing rhetoric. What matters is that we come up with the best ideas, based upon our principles that solve our problems.

So what are the Wisconsin Republican’s big ideas? Here’s the platform from the Republican Party of Wisconsin:

1.      We believe that keeping the reference to “One Nation Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance is very important.

That’s going to stimulate the economy, fix the budget, alleviate our energy independence?  We have problems as a country, but this “big idea” ain’t fixing them.  

2. We will hold true to our values and traditions that strengthen families, builds moral character and protects the innocent.

I realize that this is a verbose way of saying we’re against gay marriage and abortion. But when we're relying on traditions we’re in trouble because it means we don’t have new ideas.

3.       We believe that English should be the official language of government.

Sounds like protectionism to me.  Shouldn’t the party who promotes the free market welcome an open competition for the official language? 

4.       We believe we have an obligation to be good stewards of God's creation for future generations, and we will do so while safeguarding our property rights.

If you know what this one means let me know.  Does this mean we are now the party of environmentalist or did we just want to say were god’s party?

5.       We believe taxpayers should be given the option of a single rate system that will give them the convenience of filing their taxes with just a single sheet of paper.

Are we getting rid of deductions?  Let’s be bold. Let’s just have a sales tax and then we won’t need the convenience of filing our taxes with a single sheet of paper.

6.       We believe that The United States should only grant citizenship to those who want to embrace and defend American values and culture.

More protectionism.  Nor is it a big new idea.  News flash:

“In the United States political debate on immigration has flared repeatedly since the US became a nation”

7.       We believe that every worker should continue to have the right to a federally supervised secret ballot election when deciding whether to organize a union.

Do we really care? Secret supervised ballot elections aren’t going to win us any votes from workers. IMO, the only reason we have taken this position is that we believe that this will take strength away from unions, which typically support the other guys.  Instead, why don’t we get some ideas that win us some union votes?

8.       We will defend our right to protect family and home while defending America and her allies and defeating America's enemies.

Has potential.  Let’s protect family and home by not bankrupting the country chasing after America’s enemies.

9.       We will demand accountability in all public institutions and at all levels of government.

Until we get back into power. 

10.       We will lead our state into a new era of prosperity, innovation and opportunity for all.

Great. Shouldn’t this one lead our list?  I’m afraid by the time we get through the first 9, we’ll forget about this one.

11.       The changes we propose in government have to occur in all 513,000 elected offices throughout the country and will start here in Wisconsin.

Oh do tell.  This will requires a major change of the constitution so that the other 49 states must do what Wisconsin proposes.

We not only lost the election, we lost our ideas. And we wonder why we lost the election. We'll necessity is the mother of innovation.  We are now in need. 

Cheers.

From Monkey to President.

Now, its Obama's turn to get the Chimp comparison.   But now it becomes a racist thing sparking protests.  Even the the Rev. Sharpton gets on a soap box (not that he needs much encouragement):

"I guess they thought we were chimpanzees,"

   But in this mock outrage, let's remember that Bush received the same comparisons:

 Perhaps its a presidential thing.   Or a human thing.  After all, as much as, Pat Robertson and Rev. Sharpton would like to deny it, we are all chimps--its called evolution:

 So, let's just get off our soap boxes. We have much more important things to worry about.

 

Cheers

Rethinking Med-Mal Caps: Judicial Activism or Judicial Surrender

Judge Koschnick cites the med-mal caps case as an example of Justice Abrahmson’s “judicial activism.”  The case Koschnick refers to is Ferdon. 

Although damage caps sound nice in theory, in practice there is little evidence that they are effective.  As observed by the Street.com’s Weiss ratings: 

There is no doubt that the implementation of non-economic damage caps has resulted in lower claim payouts for insurers. For caps to be considered successful, however, the lower payouts would need to translate into lower med mal premiums for medical professionals. Unfortunately, that has not been the case.

In other words, the only parties benefiting are the insurance companies.  Not the doctors, not the patients seeking access to more doctors, and certainly not the individuals injured by malpractice.

In Ferdon, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that a  $350,000 cap on non-economic damages is a violation of the equal protection clause and is unconstitutional. None of the parties disputed that the cap did not apply equally.  It was more detrimental to the young and more seriously injured victims.  Thus, the Court concluded, as other researchers have, that there was no rational basis because the caps simply didn’t enable the stated objective. In other words, the legislature exceeded its authority in passing such a cap.  

Wisconsin Courts are hardly alone in making such a ruling: For example, Illinois appellate courts have struck down a $500,000 cap and Georgia ruled that a $350,000 cap was unconstitutional.  Other courts have held that caps were constitutional.

We hear a lot about the separation of powers.  Courts are accused of judicial activism when their actions encroach on the powers of the legislature.  But this presents an interesting question: 

Does the legislature have the power to cap damages? Or is the determination of damages inherently the role of the judiciary? 

The Georgia case raises this interesting question. Judge Bessen’s opinion states: 

In effect, the statute completely disregards the jury’s deliberations and findings in determining the amount of damages which, in their sole discretion, fairly compensates the plaintiff. Instead, in all cases to which it applies, the cap substitutes a predetermined amount of noneconomic damages which the legislature has deemed appropriate. Moreover, it does so arbitrarily, without any consideration of the specific facts and circumstances of the case. Equally importantly, it does so without the option of a new trial for the injured plaintiff. As such, it unduly encroaches upon the judiciary’s constitutional right and prerogative to determine whether a jury’s assessment of damages is either too excessive or too inadequate within the meaning of the law. 

So when we hear a “judicial conservative” claim that striking down med-mal caps is judicial activism, perhaps we should be asking why he wants to surrender the judiciary’s power to the legislature. 

Cheers.