5/15/2015 Now that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has apparently survived a near coup d’etat led by Democratic Senators Harry Reid and Elizabeth Warren, pending a successful re-vote, the battle over the large-scale trade deal will soon be heading to the House of Representatives. The vote in the House may be even more troublesome for the
5/15/2015 Politics are getting a little weird these days. Fresh off of Tuesday’s stunning blockage and negotiated do-over on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), in which President Obama found himself supported by Republicans amid staunch opposition by his own party, the Republican-led House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the USA Freedom Act by a 338-88 vote. The
5/14/2015 Harper’s Magazine revealed on Tuesday that deepwater drilling is set to resume near the site of the nation’s largest oil spill 5 years ago. The Macondo reservoir, located about 45 miles off of the Louisiana coast, was the site of the 2010 fire and massive BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill left 11 people dead
5/13/2015 In what may be a harbinger of the impending collapse of the large-scale, for-profit, college industry, two executives from ITT Educational Services as well as the company itself are facing charges of fraud from the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). On Tuesday, the Commission accused Chief Executive Officer, Kevin Modany, and Chief Financial Officer,
5/13/2015 What happened? When 8 pro-trade Democrat Senators left a strategy meeting on Tuesday and announced their opposition to continuing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) “fast-track” debate at 1pm, it marked the strongest rebuke of President Obama by his own party in his tenure. The resulting 52-45 vote, although technically gaining a majority of votes, will
5/12/2015 U.S. Justice Department lawyers presented a motion to dismiss MetLife’s suit against the government on Friday, May 8th in U.S. District Court in Washington DC. MetLife filed the suit in January, after being named by the U.S. Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) as a company that is a Systemically Important Financial Institution (SIFI), known
5/11/2015 In a decision that turns a bad situation even worse for the state of Illinois, the state’s Supreme Court unanimously declared a law to reduce the amount of pension benefits for state workers to be unconstitutional. The controversial law titled SB 1, signed in December, 2013 by then-Governor; Pat Quinn, reduced compounded cost-of-living increases
5/11/2015 Conservative writer and columnist, Charles Murray, wrote a poignant Saturday Essay in the Wall Street Journal, arguing for a citizens’ revolt over the increasingly complicated world of governmental oversight. Noting that there are currently over 175,000 pages of regulations on the books, and moving in an upward trend, Murray contrasts the amount of regulation
5/10/2015 In a pointed example of a mega-merger gone terribly wrong, jury selection has concluded for the trial of 3 executives from the former New York-based legal powerhouse, Dewey & LeBoeuf. Former Chairman, Steven Davis, former Executive Director, Stephen DiCarmine, and former CFO, Joel Sanders are each facing several charges including fraud, grand larceny, and
The WPLA allows claimants to recover for breach of express or implied warranties: “(2) A product manufacturer is subject to strict liability to a claimant if the claimant’s harm was proximately caused by the fact that the product was not reasonably safe in construction or not reasonably safe because it did not conform to the