Posts Tagged ‘legislation’

At Public Citizen’s Watchdog Blog, Graham Steele & David Arkush point out the problematic tendency of the press to treat issues of civil justice as clashes of special interests. Insurance companies vs. trial lawyers. Doctors vs. trial lawyers. Debt collectors vs. trial lawyers.
Always somebody vs. trial lawyers. Not “insurance companies vs. patients” or “debt collectors [...]

“By the time the Senate returns next Monday from its July 4 recess, some 55,000 more homes will have entered foreclosure. And that’s hardly the full picture of the growing calamity. More than three million homeowners are currently at risk of default and millions more are expected to join them in the coming year as [...]

The Minnesota legislature put the Subprime Borrower Relief Act on Governor Pawlenty’s desk last week. The Act would have put Minnesota home foreclosures on hold for a year to give homeowners a chance to sell, refinance, or negotiate a workout plan with their lenders.
It was, in all respects, a reasonable and fair compromise that would [...]

Insurers would love to assess your risk based your genes. That is, if you were high risk for cancer, your insurer would prefer to charge you a higher premium, since there would be a good chance it will be paying for expensive cancer treatment at some point.
Of course, everyone has some genetic predispositions. But many [...]

Minnesota Representative Keith Ellison co-sponsors the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008, which, contrary to other high-sounding legislative initiatives, actually does what it says. It would prevent ISPs from discriminating against certain internet traffic based on its content, source, etc. (via freepress)

Last week, Ben Popken at Consumerist suggested that the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 by a Republican Congress was a gift to Wall Street that encouraged banks to issue the sketchy mortgages that, failing spectacularly across the country, have dragged the economy into the toilet.

The proposed bills would work together to address the deepening foreclosure crisis in Minnesota. From the StarTribune:

One would prod homeowners facing foreclosure to get help, even forwarding their phone numbers to foreclosure prevention counselors. It would also give tenants notice of pending foreclosures and spell out the terms for owners to get their homes back [...]

The blogosphere is buzzing with the news that President W signed the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007 into law today, prohibiting the removal of phone numbers from the National Do Not Call Registry. If you have not done so already, add your number to the National Do Not Call Registry.

Apparently, the RIAA thinks you should have to pay $1.5 million for that copy of MC Hammer’s “Too Legit to Quit” you downloaded for your last 80s party.
Google’s copyright lawyer, William Patry, commented that the bill was the most “outrageously gluttonous IP bill ever introduced in the US.” I think that might be putting it [...]