Payday loan opponents struggle to get a fair hearing

Payday loans are high-interest short-term unsecured small loans that borrowers promise to repay out of their next paycheck, typically two weeks later. Interest rates are typically 300% to 500% per annum, many multiples higher than the exorbitant rates charged by banks on their credit cards. A typical payday borrower takes out payday loans to pay utility bills, to buy a child’s birthday present or to pay for a car repair. Even though payday loans are dangerous financial products, they are nonetheless tempting to people who are financially stressed. The growth of payday lenders in the last decade has been mind-boggling. In many states there are more payday lenders than there are McDonald’s restaurants. In Missouri Payday lenders are even allowed to set up shops in nursing homes. Missouri’s payday lenders are ferociously fighting a proposed new law that would put some sanity into a system that is often financially ruinous for the poor and working poor. Payday lenders claim that the caps of the proposed new law would put them out of business. Their argument is laughable and their legislative strategy is reprehensible. Exhibit A is the strategy I witnessed Thursday night, February 18, 2010. On that night, Missouri State Senator Joe Keaveny and State Representative Mary Still jointly held a public hearing at the Carpenter Branch Library in the City of St. Louis City to discuss two identical bills (SB 811 and HB 1508) that would temper the excesses of the payday loan industry in Missouri. Instead of respecting free and open debate and discussion regarding these bills, payday lenders worked hard to shut down meaningful debate by intentionally packing the legislative hearing room with their employees, thereby guaranteeing that A) the presenters and media saw an audience that seemed to favor payday lenders and B) many concerned citizens were excluded from the meeting. As discussed further down in this post, payday lenders are also responsible for flooding the State Capitol with lobbyists and corrupting amounts of money.carpenter-branch-library When I arrived at 7:00 pm, the scheduled starting time, I was refused entry to the meeting room. Instead, I was directed to join about 15 other concerned citizens who had been barred from the meeting room. There simply wasn’t room for us. But then who were those 100 people who had been allowed to attend the meeting? I eventually learned that almost all of them were employees of payday lenders; their employers had arranged for them to pack the room by arriving en masse at 6 pm. Many of the people excluded from the meeting were eventually allowed to trickle into the meeting, but only aspayday-employees other people trickled out. I was finally allowed into the meeting at 8 pm, which allowed me to catch the final 30 minutes. In the photo below, almost all of the people plopped into the chairs were payday lender employees (the people standing in the back were concerned citizens). This shameful tactic of filling up the meeting room with biased employees has certainly been used before.

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Clarence Thomas wants only sterilized criticism.

Clarence Thomas is upset that many people have leveled intense criticism at the U.S. Supreme Court in light of the Citizen's United decision:

Questioning the Supreme Court and other government branches needs to stay within the range of fair criticism or "run the risk in our society of undermining institutions that we need to preserve our liberties," Justice Clarence Thomas said Thursday.
Dear Justice Thomas: If you don't like the criticism, there are several things you can do about it. You can resign. Or you can quit supporting the conservative wing of the Court when it makes decisions that undermine the institutions that we need to preserve our liberties. What did you possibly think would occur when you invited corporations to pour unlimited money into the elections of our politicians (as if it weren't bad enough already). Consider, too that Citizen's United will allow corporations to purchase state judges too (and consider this revealing look at the "judicial philosophy of John Roberts, with whom you've aligned yourself). Didn't it occur to you that you could have invoked stare decisis, and at least not made the problem worse? And answer this: Why should people continue to have respect for the United States Supreme Court when it delivers repeated crippling blows to the ability of the People to run their own government? Do you think that letting corporations buy politicians was the "original intent" of the Founders? Can you think of any liberty that is more fundamental than the ability of the Citizens to elect representatives who will be honestly responsive to them, not corrupted by huge amounts of money? But you really don't want to hear any of this. You'd rather that people simple pretend that you are doing a great job now matter how badly you screw up.

Continue ReadingClarence Thomas wants only sterilized criticism.

Judgment In Wichita

After 37 minutes of deliberation, a Kansas jury has found Scott Roeder guilty of first degree murder in the death of Dr. George Tiller, who Roeder shot at church, claiming that he was preventing future deaths of unborn children. Roeder's defense wanted a lesser charge, voluntary manslaughter, but Judge Warren Wilbert denied the motion, stating that Roeder was not permitted to use the necessity defense. Roeder seems to think he was justified. Years of debate over abortion has led to some people immersing themselves so deeply in the conviction that a fetus is fully human, with all the rights of someone walking around, talking and interacting with others, that it inevitably results in the emergence of those who feel justified in acting as if they were engaged in a geurilla war against an occupying force. They will see themselves as heroes. They will not see how such actions are themselves violations of the very standards they uphold and claim are superior to the law of the land. At many points along the way since Roe v. Wade there have been opportunities for the two sides to come together to find a middle path. The simple expedient of increasing sex education and the availability of contraception would have, over the last thirty-plus years, alleviated a great deal of the necessity for practices many---even supporters of the right of a woman to choose---find troubling. But that was not to be. Those, like Randall Terry of Operation Rescue, see contraception as another form of abortion. A ridiculous stance, but one that has poisoned many chances for accord.

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Judicial Temperment

Judges are supposed to stay above the emotional fray. They are supposed to apply the law even-handedly. The attached court Order (which I recently found in some of my old paperwork) is a strikingly honest admission by one judge that he would have been unable to maintain judicial composure in a particular case.  It's an Order recusing himself from the case of a man that had been accused and convicted of murdering a police officer as that officer slept. This is not a case I handled, but it was a case of which I was aware.  I once met this judge (back in the 1980's), and he was a generally pleasant man. A clerk from the Phelps County, Missouri Court verified for me that this case was actually handled in that Court. I'm posting this Order signed by Judge John Brackman of Franklin County, Missouri, because I find it to be a stark reminder that most judges maintain their composure, despite what they might be feeling inside.  This Order is one of those glimpses inside one judge's psyche, reminding us that judges are capable feeling strong emotions, which reminds me of this earlier post on emotions and decision-making. brackman-order-1

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No option for those killed or injured by medical devices

When it comes to scrutinizing the use of new medical devices, the FDA has fallen down on the job.

Two new studies find shortfalls in the Food and Drug Administration's approval process for heart devices such as pacemakers and stents. Safety targets often weren't clearly spelled out in the research submitted by device makers and important patient information was missing. . .
If you are killed or injured by a defective medical device, you can still sue the manufacturer though, right? No longer true. State products liability suits are no longer available. They have been preempted by the U.S. Supreme Court case of Riegel v. Medtronic. These two revelations demonstrate that safety of consumers of medical devices is not the highest consideration of lawmakers.

Continue ReadingNo option for those killed or injured by medical devices