Did Karl Rove set up Scooter
Libby? Does it matter?
Yesterday, Blawgletter marveled at Scooter Libby’s apparent combination of an "I forgot" defense to a perjury charge with a "Karl Rove framed me" defense. See here. The two seemed, um, inconsistent if not at war.
This morning we read in a NYT article that
And backdating options?
Insiders at chip-maker Broadcom cost the company $2.24 billion more than it previously disclosed as a result of backdating stock options, according to this WSJ story. Yesterday, Broadcom restated earnings from 1998 through the first quarter of 2006 to reflect charges for the options.
The revelation strikes Blawgletter as a big
Blawgletter has noticed that judges have started letting people in their courtrooms to sip from bottles of water. The practice contrasts with the days of yore, when lawyers and judges — but hardly anyone else — could drink stale government tap water from styrofoam cups or plastic cones that would tip over unless you put
Katrina money blows into three
states.
State Farm today settled homeowner claims relating to Hurricane Katrina, according to this report. The biggest home insurer in the U.S. will pay $130 million right away and may fork over several hundred million more depending on how many of about 35,000 eligible policyholders participate.
Go here for
A Washington Post story casts suspicion on the timing of Steve Jobs’s stock options reporting — even though Jobs handily beat the deadline for filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The options in question enjoyed the benefit of backdating, subjecting them to microscopic examination. The scoop? That Jobs filed timely but waited to do
Scooter Libby — patsy or
perjurer?
Blawgletter never has liked the "I forgot" defense. The "’tain’t so" defense usually works much better. The trial lawyers for Scooter Libby have come up with a combo — I forgot because ’tain’t so.
If that has set your mind to reeling, welcome aboard the Blawgletter train of wonderment
Blawgletter suspected that Internet gambling violates U.S. law. Now comes news that even supplying capital (by way of investment banking services) to operators of Internet gambling sites may break American statutes, too. See the NYT article here.
Sonny Bono — singer, Congressman,
and protector of small-time artists.
The Ninth Circuit just blunted an attack on the automatic extension of copyright protection for works that someone created between 1964 and 1977. The court thus refused to strike down — you guessed it — the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998. Kahle
Does that guy on the horse have a law degree?
Nathan Koppel of the WSJ has an interesting article out this morning — Big Law Firms Try New Idea: The True CEO. It makes a nice contrast to recent buzz about lawyer-CEOs at public companies.
Mr. Koppel tells about lawyers who give up their
Blawgletter may have celebrated the triumph of the rule of law prematurely last week (here).
Editorials today raised questions regarding the administration’s deference to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court. Lookie here (Houston Chronicle), here (NYT), and even here (WaPo). Oops.
Maybe Blawgletter will stick with
