July 12, 2004 - Legal Fecals
Today's Commentary: July 12th, 2004
Hello thinkers!
Great news guys and girls! If we are really lucky, we may get a trial lawyer for our next VP! Won't that be awesome? It certainly overshadows the other news I was going to bring you, which was that my "Voter Inertia" rant made the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune's Letters to the editor on July 7th.
http://home.comcast.net/~fish2xs/todayscommentary/2004-june-26-lite.html
While the Trib did edit out some of my favorite comments, they chose to title it "Democrats Continue Love Affair With Felons." That is an edit I can live with. My wife read the letter and after each chuckle, she gave me the "what are the neighbors going to think?" groan. Or maybe it was the "we're going to get a brick through our window because of you" groan. It's hard to tell them apart sometimes.
After she finished reading another 'outing' of my radical ideas to the Greater Merrimac Valley (and waiting for the bricks to fly), I happened to look at the next page where I found an op-ed from Marty Meehan. For those of you not familiar with Comrade Meehan, the Democrat Congressman from Lowell, MA, allow me the opportunity to enlighten you. Days after the attacks of September 11th, with the Pentagon and World Trade Center ruins still smoldering, Marty shrugged off the shackles of national unity and refused to let the inconvenient slaughter of 3,000 innocent Americans restrict him from the critical task of making partisan jabs at President Bush.
Apparently, Marty did not think that Air Force One made it back to DC fast enough. According to the Boston Herald, Marty scoffed at the idea that AF1 may have been a target of attack. "I don't buy the notion Air Force One was a target," Meehan was quoted as saying. "That's just PR. That's just spin." Nevermind the fact that in the first hours of the attack nobody knew what was going on - other than murder.
Well, that was then. And now, Marty is announcing to all the readers of the Eagle-Tribune that adding a trial lawyer to the Teresa Heinz ticket is a good idea. Marty opines in his op-ed that Kerry's choice is ideal because, "no one exemplifies the fight for working people more than John Edwards." Marty's love-fest continues, calling Edwards "the perfect combination of message and messenger." He also refers to Edwards as a "self made millionaire."
No doubt Mr. Edwards is a millionaire. Reports are this 'man of the people' is worth between $12 million and $60 million. Although he's not nearly as much a 'man of the people' as Anna Nicole-Kerry who's worth between $165 million and $600+ million, depending on his prenup with snookums. And while Edwards and his wife have three vacation homes worth over $1 million each, John Kerry has leeched onto a 90-acre farm in Pennsylvania, a vacation home in Idaho, as well as residences in Georgetown, Nantucket and Beacon Hill. Based on this statistic alone, Kerry is much more in tune with the man on the street and clearly deserves to head the Democratic ticket. If you want to see where Mr. Kerry does his best thinking about everyday Americans, check out:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1157494/posts
But let's get back to Senator Edwards. How did he become a self-made millionaire? He specialized in infant cerebral palsy and brain damage lawsuits in North Carolina. CP is a tragic disorder and while organizations like United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) work to understand CP, the science behind what exactly causes it, in each case, is still not perfect. In fact the UCP website states:
A large number of factors, which can injure the developing brain, may produce cerebral palsy. A risk factor is not a cause; it is a variable which, when present, increases the chance of something occurring -- in this case, cerebral palsy. Just because a risk factor is present does not mean cerebral palsy WILL occur; nor does the absence of a risk factor mean that cerebral palsy will NOT occur. If a risk factor is present, it serves to alert parents and physicians to be even more observant to the infant's development.
http://www.ucp.org/ucp_generaldoc.cfm/1/9/37/37-37/447#causes
However, this does not stop the litigation machine. If there is even a slight hint of victory, the feeding trough is opened and lawyers come sloshing. The US is a rare exception in western countries in that it does not implement a "loser pays" policy to help stem the rising tide of frivolous lawsuits. As a result, we all pay. Insurance rates rise, qualified physicians leave the profession, and legitimate injury claims are lost in a sea of fecal litigation. This is the fertile ground in which Edwards became a self made millionaire. Does this exemplify "the fight for working people?" Ask Marty - if he's not on John Kerry's yacht in Nantucket sound.
But if John Edwards loses his bid for VP, drops out of politics altogether, and encounters new policies to restrict flippant lawsuits (I had better stop - I'm getting excited), he can always get a gig working with Madam Cleo as a psychic channel. According to CNS News, John Edwards made the following statement in a trial where he represented Jennifer Campbell, who had CP and was five years old at the time:
"I have to tell you right now -- I didn't plan to talk about this -- right now I feel her (Jennifer), I feel her presence,' Edwards told the jury according to court records. "[Jennifer's] inside me and she's talking to you ... And this is what she says to you. She says, 'I don't ask for your pity. What I ask for is your strength. And I don't ask for your sympathy, but I do ask for your courage.'"
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=%5CPolitics%5Carchive%5C200401%5CPOL20040120a.html
In his defense, John Edwards may have confused this paranormal voice of Jennifer Campbell with Jennifer Smith, his financial advisor, or Jennifer Brown, his real estate agent. I am certain both of them were asking for the jury's courage as well, so there may have been some error. I will call Madam Cleo on this and get back to you.
But drowning in nonsense litigation is nothing compared to what I fear most from John Edwards as second-in-command. Having a liberal trial lawyer for VP meshes very well with the notion of subverting US sovereignty to the "World Court". You know, those guys in Hague that demand Israel stop protecting itself from suicide bombers. The same "World Court" that wants jurisdiction over our military, wants to end the death penalty in the US, and enforce restrictions like the Kyoto treaty - whether we want it or not. If you think junk lawsuits are rampant nationally, imagine what will happen if we allow nations like Sudan, North Korea, and Iran to sue us. If there is a greater violation of the letter and spirit of the Constitution, I can't imagine it.
Our nation needs laws and lawyers, but it does not need junk lawsuits and the 'victim mentality' perpetuated by senseless litigation. And besides, when was the last time a trial lawyer in a position of government power did anything good for this country? Oh yea, in early 2001, one of them left office.
Hello thinkers!
Great news guys and girls! If we are really lucky, we may get a trial lawyer for our next VP! Won't that be awesome? It certainly overshadows the other news I was going to bring you, which was that my "Voter Inertia" rant made the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune's Letters to the editor on July 7th.
http://home.comcast.net/~fish2xs/todayscommentary/2004-june-26-lite.html
While the Trib did edit out some of my favorite comments, they chose to title it "Democrats Continue Love Affair With Felons." That is an edit I can live with. My wife read the letter and after each chuckle, she gave me the "what are the neighbors going to think?" groan. Or maybe it was the "we're going to get a brick through our window because of you" groan. It's hard to tell them apart sometimes.
After she finished reading another 'outing' of my radical ideas to the Greater Merrimac Valley (and waiting for the bricks to fly), I happened to look at the next page where I found an op-ed from Marty Meehan. For those of you not familiar with Comrade Meehan, the Democrat Congressman from Lowell, MA, allow me the opportunity to enlighten you. Days after the attacks of September 11th, with the Pentagon and World Trade Center ruins still smoldering, Marty shrugged off the shackles of national unity and refused to let the inconvenient slaughter of 3,000 innocent Americans restrict him from the critical task of making partisan jabs at President Bush.
Apparently, Marty did not think that Air Force One made it back to DC fast enough. According to the Boston Herald, Marty scoffed at the idea that AF1 may have been a target of attack. "I don't buy the notion Air Force One was a target," Meehan was quoted as saying. "That's just PR. That's just spin." Nevermind the fact that in the first hours of the attack nobody knew what was going on - other than murder.
Well, that was then. And now, Marty is announcing to all the readers of the Eagle-Tribune that adding a trial lawyer to the Teresa Heinz ticket is a good idea. Marty opines in his op-ed that Kerry's choice is ideal because, "no one exemplifies the fight for working people more than John Edwards." Marty's love-fest continues, calling Edwards "the perfect combination of message and messenger." He also refers to Edwards as a "self made millionaire."
No doubt Mr. Edwards is a millionaire. Reports are this 'man of the people' is worth between $12 million and $60 million. Although he's not nearly as much a 'man of the people' as Anna Nicole-Kerry who's worth between $165 million and $600+ million, depending on his prenup with snookums. And while Edwards and his wife have three vacation homes worth over $1 million each, John Kerry has leeched onto a 90-acre farm in Pennsylvania, a vacation home in Idaho, as well as residences in Georgetown, Nantucket and Beacon Hill. Based on this statistic alone, Kerry is much more in tune with the man on the street and clearly deserves to head the Democratic ticket. If you want to see where Mr. Kerry does his best thinking about everyday Americans, check out:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1157494/posts
But let's get back to Senator Edwards. How did he become a self-made millionaire? He specialized in infant cerebral palsy and brain damage lawsuits in North Carolina. CP is a tragic disorder and while organizations like United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) work to understand CP, the science behind what exactly causes it, in each case, is still not perfect. In fact the UCP website states:
A large number of factors, which can injure the developing brain, may produce cerebral palsy. A risk factor is not a cause; it is a variable which, when present, increases the chance of something occurring -- in this case, cerebral palsy. Just because a risk factor is present does not mean cerebral palsy WILL occur; nor does the absence of a risk factor mean that cerebral palsy will NOT occur. If a risk factor is present, it serves to alert parents and physicians to be even more observant to the infant's development.
http://www.ucp.org/ucp_generaldoc.cfm/1/9/37/37-37/447#causes
However, this does not stop the litigation machine. If there is even a slight hint of victory, the feeding trough is opened and lawyers come sloshing. The US is a rare exception in western countries in that it does not implement a "loser pays" policy to help stem the rising tide of frivolous lawsuits. As a result, we all pay. Insurance rates rise, qualified physicians leave the profession, and legitimate injury claims are lost in a sea of fecal litigation. This is the fertile ground in which Edwards became a self made millionaire. Does this exemplify "the fight for working people?" Ask Marty - if he's not on John Kerry's yacht in Nantucket sound.
But if John Edwards loses his bid for VP, drops out of politics altogether, and encounters new policies to restrict flippant lawsuits (I had better stop - I'm getting excited), he can always get a gig working with Madam Cleo as a psychic channel. According to CNS News, John Edwards made the following statement in a trial where he represented Jennifer Campbell, who had CP and was five years old at the time:
"I have to tell you right now -- I didn't plan to talk about this -- right now I feel her (Jennifer), I feel her presence,' Edwards told the jury according to court records. "[Jennifer's] inside me and she's talking to you ... And this is what she says to you. She says, 'I don't ask for your pity. What I ask for is your strength. And I don't ask for your sympathy, but I do ask for your courage.'"
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=%5CPolitics%5Carchive%5C200401%5CPOL20040120a.html
In his defense, John Edwards may have confused this paranormal voice of Jennifer Campbell with Jennifer Smith, his financial advisor, or Jennifer Brown, his real estate agent. I am certain both of them were asking for the jury's courage as well, so there may have been some error. I will call Madam Cleo on this and get back to you.
But drowning in nonsense litigation is nothing compared to what I fear most from John Edwards as second-in-command. Having a liberal trial lawyer for VP meshes very well with the notion of subverting US sovereignty to the "World Court". You know, those guys in Hague that demand Israel stop protecting itself from suicide bombers. The same "World Court" that wants jurisdiction over our military, wants to end the death penalty in the US, and enforce restrictions like the Kyoto treaty - whether we want it or not. If you think junk lawsuits are rampant nationally, imagine what will happen if we allow nations like Sudan, North Korea, and Iran to sue us. If there is a greater violation of the letter and spirit of the Constitution, I can't imagine it.
Our nation needs laws and lawyers, but it does not need junk lawsuits and the 'victim mentality' perpetuated by senseless litigation. And besides, when was the last time a trial lawyer in a position of government power did anything good for this country? Oh yea, in early 2001, one of them left office.
posted by tuffbeingright at 12:55 PM
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