Michael Bloomberg

Next From The Nanny State: Bloomberg Tries To Make You Not Think About Cigarettes

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Mr. Burns: Since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun. I shall do the next best thing: block it out.
Mr. Bloomberg: Yes. The people must be protected from the sun’s harmful UV radiation!
Mr. Burns: Umm, sure, whatever. [Activates Sun Blocker]
Mr. Bloomberg: Excellent.

I fully believe that Bloomberg would ration sun time if he could — or at the very least force everybody to wear sunscreen. Like your mother, he simply thinks that he knows what is better for you and what you should be allowed to do. And he’s willing to use any means necessary, fair or unfair, legal or illegal, to make you do what he thinks you should be doing.

The latest: since he can’t force stores to display horrific images with the purchase of cigarettes, he now wants to prohibit stores from displaying cigarettes at all.

Will the courts smack him down again?

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Judge Overturns NYC Soda Ban; NOW WE JUST NEED SOME POP ROCKS!

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I guess soda pushers will have to go back to slinging rocks.

In case you haven’t been following along with developments inside Mike Bloomberg’s militarized nanny state, last year our elected tyrant outlawed the sale of soda in sizes over 16 ounces at movie theaters and other public places. The mayor felt that nobody needed more than 16 ounces of soda in one sitting, notwithstanding the fact that nobody asked him what my mother thinks.

The law sparked a lawsuit, and today a judge overturned Mayor Bloomberg’s ban.

Bloomberg was not immediately available for comment, most likely because his lawyers were busy drawing up documents to move forward with Bloomberg’s new purchase of the “New York Supreme Court”….

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Non-Sequiturs: 01.16.13

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Don’t sue her because she’s beautiful: Constance Jablonski (via Getty).

* Not a Victoria’s Secret angel’s fantasy: being sued for $3.3 million. [Fashionista]

* Should a widow be able to extract sperm from the body of her husband, who recently committed suicide, so she can have a child with him? Some thoughts from Professor Glenn Cohen of Harvard Law. [Bill of Health]

* Speaking of suicide, controversy over the prosecution of the late Aaron Swartz rages on. [How Appealing and Instapundit]

* Professor Ann Althouse isn’t a fan of the “if we can save one life” argument for gun control. [Althouse]

* I don’t know anything about football, but even I chuckled at this. [Life in Biglaw]

* ‘Tis the season… for replacing law school deans. Congratulations to Michael Hunter Schwartz, the new dean at Arkansas – Little Rock. [Faculty Lounge]

After the jump, Elie challenges Mike Bloomberg to make him skinny….

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Is Breastfeeding Right For Biglaw Women?

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Breastfeeding is in the news again, and as usual it’s because some man has something to say about it.

The king of the nanny state, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is promoting “Latch On NYC” in an effort to pressure new mothers into breastfeeding. The new program asks mothers to give reasons for wanting formula bottles and for signing them out. Health care professionals are then supposed to talk to mothers about the benefits of breastfeeding.

When the mayor of your city starts dictating lactation policies, it might be time to elect a new public health dictator mayor.

I wrote a whole editorial in the New York Daily News, in which you can hear me cry “freedom” as if I was in Braveheart. Check it out here.

First he came for the cigarettes, then the soda, now the formula. Obviously, it’s Mike Bloomberg’s city and we’re all just living in it.

But is breastfeeding even a plausible option in a Biglaw environment?

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Breaking: Judge Stallman Rules Against Occupy Wall Street Protesters

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Mayor Bloomberg has reason to smile today.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg can have his way with the Occupy Wall Street protesters. According to the Associated Press, Justice Michael Stallman of New York Supreme Court just shot down the Temporary Restraining Order sought by the protesters against Mayor Bloomberg.

Let’s hope everybody keeps their cool.

The ruling on the TRO appears below…

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On The Train With Occupy Protesters As They Roll Toward Trinity Church

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November 15th, 2011, there was a riot in the streets, tell me where were you? While you were at home watching your T.V., I was participating in some anarchy.

Well, there wasn’t really a riot in the streets. And I wasn’t really participating in it so much as taking the 5 train to work today. But I did bump into some would-be Occupy Wall Street protesters looking to join the movement after the main group was evicted from Zuccotti Park under the cover of darkness early this morning. The people on the train asked for my legal advice.

I laughed — then told them I could do them one better. Let’s see if we can’t crowdsource a legal recourse for the Occupy protesters now that big bad Bloomberg has put his jackboot on the movement….

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Morning Docket: 11.10.11

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* Herman Cain’s got Wood over all of these sexual harassment accusers. No, seriously. He hired Bryan Cave defector L. Lin Wood to handle his possible defamation claims. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Sad and depressing old man news: Joe Paterno’s legal innocence was irrelevant. Instead of letting him retire at the end of the year, the Penn State Board of Trustees fired him last night. [New York Times]

* A woman from Idaho with some real backwoods charm. What to do when your husband — a lawyer — plots to kill you? Stand by your man and blame the corrupt government. [ABC News]

* Tired of getting screwed? Mayor Bloomberg makes nice with the OWS people, congratulating them for “generally . . . not break[ing] the law.” What a sad great accomplishment. [New York Post]

* And this is why you don’t play games with your résumé, folks. Here’s some proof that next time you lie about being covered in Ivy, you’re going to get a wicked bad rash. [Boston Herald]

* If assignments like this appeared more often, I bet people would stop procrastinating so much and do their homework all day, every day (and then do it again for extra credit). [Arizona Republic]

* Have the Biebs’s lawyers learned nothing from Bill Urquhart? Always CHECK YOU EMAILS to avoid a public Maury Povich-esque paternity problem. [New York Daily News]

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Is The ‘Perp Walk’ Contrary To Justice?

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I’m sure that somewhere there is a gang of civil rights activists and defense attorneys saying, “So, we’re only going to talk about this if it happens to a rich European?” But hey, let’s not dwell on why the perp walk is suddenly generating some controversy, and instead embrace the fact that people are willing to talk about it at all.

As you may have heard, IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested in Manhattan over the weekend on sex crime charges. As is customary in this country, Strauss-Kahn was paraded before the news media in handcuffs (see picture; feel free to point, stare, laugh, as is traditional).

This common American practice is illegal in France. Under French law, the media is not allowed to show pictures of people in handcuffs unless they’ve been convicted of a crime. Apparently, the French believe that such pictures are highly prejudicial to the defendant.

We’re not so much worried about that in America….

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Non-Sequiturs: 01.27.11

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* An interesting interview with Professor Benjamin H. Barton about his new book, The Lawyer-Judge Bias in the American Legal System, which demonstrates what many laypeople suspect: namely, that the legal system is rigged to benefit lawyers over the public. Professors Barton and Reynolds discuss why this might be the case and also compare the legal to the medical profession in this respect. [Instavision with Glenn Reynolds / PJTV]

* Eric Turkewitz channeling Mayor Michael Bloomberg: “Look, let’s be blunt here. Who is in a better position to pay the costs of an injury if a city bus injures people? Our strapped city budget, or the victims?” [New York Personal Injury Law Blog]

* Obama says drug legalization is worth a debate. For those scoring at home: we can talk about legalizing drugs, but we can’t talk about controlling guns. [Huffington Post]

* Meanwhile, Florida criminalizes… bath salts? Bonobo Bro has the winning blurb: “Check out this example of the brocist nanny state trying to get in the way of spring break, bath salts that have cocaine like effects and a few other of the principals this great nation was founded on.” [WJHG]

Fred Thompson

* Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana won’t seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. [Politico]

* Speaking of former Republican presidential hopefuls, Fred Thompson prepares to lobby on behalf of trial lawyers. Seriously. Cancel Law & Order and the universe starts breaking down. [WSJ Law Blog]

* The number eight proves lucky for one taker of the New Hampshire bar exam — and the number $140,000, not so lucky. After passing the NH bar exam on his eighth try, the debt-laden lad gets dinged on character and fitness — a familiar tale by now. [Legal Profession Blog via ABA Journal]

* Gotta love it when Jamie Dimon gets catty. [Dealbreaker]

* A corporate partner in the Moscow office of Baker Botts apparently took his own life. John Sheedy, R.I.P. [Am Law Daily]

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Morning Docket: 01.20.11

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* Modesty reared its ugly head after Jersey Shore’s JWoWW discovered that she might not be able to cash in on her naked photos. [New York Law Journal]

* Which is Mayor Bloomberg more pissed about — that some more ice melt could’ve saved a life, or that it could’ve saved $20 million? [Wall Street Journal]

* No more time outs for federal prosecutors behaving badly. Thanks to Eric Holder, they’ll be subject to a much swifter spanking. [USA Today]

* You really can get anything on Groupon, even legal services. What you can’t get is your dignity back after peddling coupons for cash. [ABA Journal]

* A lawsuit that’s sure to balloon into notoriety. If copying Jeff Koons is wrong, then I don’t want to be copyright. [New York Times]

* Failing the bar exam is one thing, but failing to sell your law degree on eBay is quite another. Resume Goddess did both. [Out of the Storm News]

* R. Sargent Shriver, former Fried Frank name partner, R.I.P. [Associated Press]

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