Stevens’ Legal Legacy, Goldman Sachs and Internet Gambling

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is retiring.

The SEC is charging Goldman Sachs with securities fraud.

Opponents of internet gambling are circulating a memo tying pro-gambling organizations to Jack Abramoff.

 

1. LEGAL

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is retiring.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Counsel Hans Bader on Stevens’ legacy.

“Carney notes that the seizure that Stevens upheld in his Kelo ruling left a “bulldozed neighborhood” in its wake that “is still rubble” today, and that neither the jobs nor the hotel that the seizure’s backers claimed would result from the seizure and demolition have ever materialized, contrary to Stevens’ claims that we should trust the government and show “deference” towards its claims about the benefits of such seizures. Stevens’ Kelo decision violated basic axioms of constitutional interpretation. President Obama will now nominate a replacement for Justice Stevens on the Supreme Court.  Obama praised Justice Stevens and promised to pick another justice ‘like Justice Stevens’ in terms of judicial philosophy.”

 

2. FINANCE

The SEC is charging Goldman Sachs with securities fraud.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of the Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs John Berlau on why the Obama-Dodd financial reform bill is going to enrich Goldman Sachs.

“Ironically, at the same time the SEC is seeking justice for Goldman’s alleged victims, President Obama and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) are pushing a bill would reward the firm with potentially billions of dollars by instituting a so-called “resolution authority” that would, in practice, be a permanent bailout fund. Supporters of Dodd’s bill maintain that it does not create bailouts because the failing firm’s shareholders would be wiped out and its managers would be fired. But what they don’t say is that the money from the $50 billion resolution fund would be used to frequently give creditors of this firm a better deal than they would have in bankruptcy.”

3. INTERNET

Opponents of internet gambling are circulating a memo tying pro-gambling organizations to Jack Abramoff.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Policy Analyst Michelle Minton on the smear campaign against gambling legalization.

“The arguments expressed in memos like the one connecting Internet gambling to the Abramoff scandal simply demonstrate why legislators should be restricted to protecting individual rights and nothing else. Does it protect anyone if we ban an activity that 86% of Americans have chosen to engage in? We could protect a lot of people from harming themselves if we banned chocolate–but we don’t do that because Americans have the right to make choices about their own lives (to a certain extent…for now).”