Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

And they say Republicans are the party of the rich…

Drudge reports:

John Kerry is set for a 5-day luxury break at his Sun Valley.... 19.5 rooms at 7,749 square-feet, with a market value of $4.9 million [property taxes of more than $30,000 annually], Kerry's Idaho vacation getaway will be the setting of a Spring Break regroup and unwind....

Kerry is looking forward to enjoying the property, including the grounds, which have been freshly landscaped with Canadian Bluegrass, Fescue and Brome Mixes at a cost of more than $200,000, records show. ... The mansion's "Great Room" is a 500 year old Barn, imported from England and then reassembled in Idaho. ...

While rejuvenating in Sun Valley, Kerry may meet with neighbor George Soros. The financier and philanthropist - and outspoken critic of the Bush administration - recently purchased a 9,000-square-foot 11-bedroom spread close to the Kerry compound.

If the GOP is the party of the rich, maybe the Democrats are the party of the super-rich?

Stewart Appeal

The key plank of Martha Stewart's pending appeal comes as no surprise:

Martha Stewart's lead attorney Robert Morvillo intends to appeal her conviction by arguing the judge unfairly prevented him from explaining to the jury Stewart had not been charged with criminal insider trading, according to a person close to the defense team.

"We think that was important," a person knowledgeable with the strategy told CNNfn. "Some of the jury comments afterwards indicated they felt they were punishing her for the trade. We should have been able to explain you're not being asked to judge the propriety of the trade."

Prosecutor Karen Seymour in her opening argument said Stewart "was told a secret tip" from broker Bacanovic that "the head of ImClone was trying to get rid of his shares." "Morvillo was never allowed to clarify that," the source said. "If you're looking at the state of mind of Martha Stewart you need to know there's no underlying crime to cover up."

It's not a legally very strong case, in my view, but it makes a key moral point about this indictment; namely, the oddity (if not outright unfairness) of charging somebody with lying to you about an underlying activity you decide not to prosecute. Given that the jury clearly was impacted by the prosecutor's "secret tip" allegations, as well in all probability by outside of court publicity, Judge Cedarbaum's refusal to allow Morvillo to drive the point home has long struck me as singularly unfair.

Satellite Competition

Interesting Slate article on efforts by "local" broadcasters to block XM from offering local programming - traffic, news, weather, etc... - over its satellite radio. The radio interests claim that satellite competition would be bad for local mom and pop stations - or something like that. As Thomas Hazlett points out, however, there are very few - if any - of those stations left:

But in this era of industry consolidation, relatively speaking, there are fewer small, independent broadcasters left to protect. And the FCC's regulations, no matter what their original intent, now serve mainly to spare incumbent broadcasters—tiny or huge—the effort and expense of competing with their satellite rivals.

The notion that traditional broadcasters deliver idiosyncratic menus closely tailored to local audiences is a quaint one. Nationally syndicated content has become the order of the radio day, and satellite programming is, if anything, less cookie-cutter than its earth-bound analogs. That this debate has been framed along such outmoded lines illustrates how increasingly strained the concept of "local" has become.

What this debate is really about is whether Clear Channel, Infinity, et al. can block competition. They know what's at stake. After all, Direct TV and other satellite broadcasters became a much more attractive option relative to local cable when the satellite broadcasters began offering local channels. If competition's good in the TV market, why not extend it to radio? (On a related note, why doesn't somebody offer a combined satellite radio, CD player, and navigation system into which I could pug my iPod? If some car maker had one as OEM, that might well determine my next car.)

Regulatory Burdens

A must read post over at Asymmetrical Information on the burdens regulation places on business, with an interesting digression into the relative merits of public and private enforcement. The bottom line strikes me as being absolutely right, based on what I see happening in corporations:

It isn't just highly-ranked professionals or insurance and technology budgets. Simple open discourse is jeopardized. Institutions are beginning to govern intra-firm correspondence, or even investigative legal work product with an eye towards protecting themselves when this correspondence is made public. Critical expression must be oral and off-the-record, or it must be without substance. The ultimate effect is not just to disclose communication but to impede it. Without open, direct communication the firm stagnates. Writ large, these trends would seem to be a strong force for economic stagnation.

This is one of those "I wish I'd written that" posts. Go read the whole thing.

Bainbridge, J., dubitante?

Normally when an appellate judge issues a separate opinion, he will indicate either that his opinion concurs with or dissents from the opinion of the judicial panel as a whole. Every once in a while, however, a judge will issue his opinion "dubitante." (As 7th Circuit Judge Frank Easterbrook recently did in a campaign finance case.) What's that mean? Indiana Law Blog has the answer.

No brag. Just fact.

Sometime in the last hour, while I was in class, my visitor counter rolled over 250,000 (since October 10, 2003). Cool. Thanks to all for your support.

Spitzer. Sigh.

Once again, NY AG Eliot Spitzer has forced financial institutions (this time Bank of American and FleetBoston Financial) to cut mutual fund fees in order to settle market timing charges. I grow weary of trying to explain why this is bad policy, so let me just refer you to: Spitzer's Impact on Mutual Fund Fees and Eliot Spitzer is at it Again: More on Mutual Fund Fees .... Oh, to heck with it. Let me just refer you to the archive of Spitzer posts. Oh yes, and my TCS column Spitzer Goes Over the Line.

Martha’s Likely Sentence

SLW has details (w/ links) on Martha Stewart's likely sentence and probable prison conditions. The clothes alone will probably drive her nuts. (Actually, it probably will be the loss of control over her environment that will be hardest for her to stand.)