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Why Doesn’t Obama Ban Iranian Press TV? by Kenneth R. Timmerman
The Case of CH2M HILL: $2 Billion in Crony Stimulation by Rusty Weiss
The Truth about George Soros by AIM Staff
Lifting the Veil on WikiLeaks by AIM Staff
The Truth about Al-Jazeera English by Cliff Kincaid
Reaganomics and Obamanomics in the Media and in Reality by Malcolm A. Kline, Don Irvine and Spencer Irvine
How State Budget Battles Could Mean More Criminals Back on the Streets by Michael Tremoglie
Radical Muslims, Environmentalists and the Green Jihad by Mark Musser
Russian-Backed Propaganda Networks Claim Obama is a CIA Agent by Cliff Kincaid
Media Conceal True Nature of Flash Mob Racial Violence by John T. Bennett
NBC’s Mitchell Should Resign Over Telling Gaddafi’s Lies (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) by Cliff Kincaid
CASA de Maryland: The Illegals’ ACORN by James Simpson
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Arbitration may be the answer. Lawsuits often seem to be no more than a form of lottery, in which many people who have been genuinely hurt or damaged may or may not get compensated, and even then have to share a sizable (often obscene) portion of their award to the lawyers. A former governor of California in attacking tort reform stated to the effect that whenever someone in California has a fender bender, he thinks he has won the lottery. People like Edwards might not get super rich in a system of arbitration, but there would certainly be a place for lawyers to ensure that people’s complaints are treated fairly. If I had a complaint of the sort which are the basis of today’s lawsuits, I would be foolish not to employ somebody who knows the ropes to see that I my complaint was accorded the proper procedure and arbitration. The total amounts paid out through arbitration might even be equal to those paid out in today’s wild system of haphazard suits, but there would be an element of fairness and real compensation to those really entitled to damages—not just to those with talented, often unprincipled lawyers. Class action suits have become the prime racket of today’s lawyers, often outright instruments of blackmail and often, while enriching the lawyers, paying the punniest of payouts to plaintiffs. I am not against the tort principle—people have to be held accountable for their actions, and I certainly would not want to live in a society without lawyers (although Shakespere’s admonition, “First we’ll shoot the lawyers” has always had some instinctive appeal to me given the gross misbehavior of lawyers like Edwards!) The racketerring (strong word, but I believe all too often applicable to trial lawyers) is not limited to trial lawyers and their paid advocates. I have a sneaking suspicion that the insurance companies, which complain so vocerifously, might be against arbitration as it would lessen the outrageous policy premiums which they justify today by the unpredictably of payouts through suits. So reform would challenge lawyers, insurance companies and the Congressmen and state legislatures which are now the recipients of lawyer largesse, making any reform possible by degrees at best. I offer the above as food for thought, or as a topic for brainstorming, as it is really too complicated for any easy, pat solution.
CTR
PS. One last point: I have always wondered that lawyers in the legislatures aren’t required to automically disqualify themselves when voting on issure like tort reform which affect them. directly.