Judge doles justice with his pocketbook [[Gulf disaster)

[Sstashmoo]

Another in the long line.. This guy needs to be disbarred and jailed.


""[[AP) NEW ORLEANS [[AP) - The Louisiana judge who struck down the Obama administration's six-month ban on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico has reported extensive investments in the oil and gas industry, according to financial disclosure reports. He's also a new member of a secret national security court.

U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman, a 1983 appointee of President Ronald Reagan, reported owning less than $15,000 in stock in 2008 in Transocean Ltd., the company that owned the sunken Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

Feldman overturned the ban Tuesday, saying the government simply assumed that because one rig exploded, the others pose an imminent danger, too.""

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/...n6609745.shtml

[Retroit]

Tens of thousands of people die every year in car crashes, so should the federal government ban cars? [[Don't answer that, Detroitnerd! ) It would be appropriate to require certain safeguards, but I think a total ban is misguided.

[firstandten]

Another in the long line.. This guy needs to be disbarred and jailed.

agreed, or at the very least he should have recused himself from making a decision since there could be a perceived conflict of interest.

[Sstashmoo]

Quote: "He's also a new member of a secret national security court."

I have to ask, what the heck is a "secret national security court"??

[Detroitnerd]

http://www.counterpunch.com/lindorff06232010.html

Regans Dead Hand Rises in the Gulf

The Oil Industry's Go-To Judge Comes Through

By DAVE LINDORFF
As the BP well in the Gulf of Mexico continues to spew out ever more toxic oil and methane into the sea, floating toxic sludge, by the millions of gallons, starts destroying the wetlands across the American Southeast, the dead hand of President Ronald Reagan is at work, making sure nothing is done to prevent yet another such disaster from occurring.
The name of that dead hand is Martin Leach-Cross Feldman, a federal judge in Louisiana, a part of the notoriously right-wing Fifth Circuit.
Feldman, appointed to the federal bench by President Reagan and approved by the Republican-led Senate in 1983, has been a craven supporter of corporations over the public interest for years. In the wake of the Katrina disaster in New Orleans, for example, Judge Feldman ruled against homeowners who tried to bring a racketeering case against Clipper Estates, the corporate owner of their housing development, claiming that the company had stolen money it collected from them allegedly for repairs, for the owner’s personal use. The judge ruled that homeowners had no standing to sue.
Now, using classic Reaganesque logic [[remember our senile ex-president’s mocking argument to environmentalist that because trees release carbon dioxide at night, they must be “polluters”?), Judge Feldman has issued a temporary restraining order against the White House’s six-month freeze on offshore drilling. His rationale for overturning the moratorium on drilling: The government hadn’t provided an adequate justification for it.
As the judge put it: "If some drilling equipment parts are flawed, is it rational to say all are? Are all airplanes a danger because one was? All oil tankers like Exxon Valdez? All trains? All mines? That sort of thinking seems heavy handed and rather overbearing".

[oladub]

agreed, or at the very least he should have recused himself from making a decision since there could be a perceived conflict of interest.

I agree that if he owns such stock, he should have recused himself. The article didn't say, though, if he owns [[present tense) that stock. It said he owed it two years ago.

It may be necessary to drill a large number of wells aound the leaking well if the two relief wells now being drilled fail to stop the leak. "Doing everything possible" means that such additional wells should be drilling now. But no, we have to let this thing leak for another month or two before we even find out if the relief wells work. If they don't, the options seem to be to either nuke it or drill a bunch of wells to reduce the pressure and remove more of the oil safely.

[Detroitej72]

When will people stop supporting the appointment of conservative activist judges?

I guess this judge is the best justice that oil money can buy and it is not surprising he was appointed by Reagan. Thanks, Ronny, were still feeling the effects of your failed legacy.

[Jimaz]

Not to make light of a serious issue, but is that really the judge's name?!

[MCP-001]

Don't agree with Pres. B.O.'s ruling.

But I do agree that the Judge should've recused himself.

Given that MMS was responsible in the first place to inspect these rigs, given their past record in this area, is this really a good idea to put them [[or whatever, they're called this week) back in a position to screw things up again?

Also looking at the bigger picture, an outright ban is still a problem.

Our society still runs on fossil fuels. If we don't get that from the Gulf, then we'll import it via tanker.

Guess which one leaks more often: Rigs or tankers?

[gibran]

this is a oneof those moments...should we continue to drillknowing the technology is still the same as 68 days ago...or should we stop and let the econonmy take a double hit...Sure agony....If the rigs can prove they have a backup plan and things in place ot mitigate future leaks...ok...but until such plans are in place...it could be handled case by case after reviewing each rigs risk. I think this should be a call to technology for alternative resources...but I am not an expert.

[jiminnm]

Federal judges' financial disclosures are public info. So, this info was out there from before the suit was filed. I can only presume that the US Atty did not think it was material enough to raise as an issue [[I hope this does not speak to the quality of law practice of the current solicitor general and likely next Supreme Ct justice). I read several of the stories and none mentioned whether the issue was raised before trial, whether the judge disclosed his holdings before trial, or whether he even owns those stocks today.

My best guess is this much ado about nothing by sore losers.

[Detroitej72]

My best guess is this much ado about nothing by sore losers.

My best guess is that you proudly voted for Bush, and are an unapologetic Republican who agrees with Rush that this is not a big deal, since oil is a natural product, therefore nothing to fear.

[Mikeg]

Originally Posted by jiminnm
My best guess is this much ado about nothing by sore losers.

Jiminnm is exactly right.

The judge no longer owns those stocks. According to this source:

Feldman owned those stocks in 2008; however, he sold those shares long before issuing his ruling this week. In fact, this updated information will be released in the next report on his stock holdings.

If Feldman held financial interests in any of companies involved in the lawsuit or the Deepwater Horizon rig, he would not have been allowed the take the case. The 5th District Court uses a sophisticated computer system to check whether judges have a conflict of interest in any legal proceeding. This system automatically determines whether a judge needs to be recused from a particular case. In this lawsuit, Feldman was allowed to take the case because he did not own any stock related to the parties involved.

[Sstashmoo]

Then there's this story, from a much more credible source:

Yesterday we reported that 2008 financial disclosures showed that U.S. [COLOR=#366388 ! important][COLOR=#366388 ! important]District [COLOR=#366388 ! important]Judge[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] Martin Feldman, who issued an injunction yesterday barring enforcement of President Obama's proposed moratorium on deepwater drilling, owned stock in a variety of oil drilling companies that could have been affected by the ban. A review of [COLOR=#366388 ! important][COLOR=#366388 ! important]federal [COLOR=#366388 ! important]court [/COLOR][COLOR=#366388 ! important]records[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] by Yahoo! News shows that Feldman continued to hold at least some of those stocks as recently as May of 2010.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/201006...s/ynews_ts2795

Held those stocks as recently as last month. Mike, it's called damage control. Feed the web with countering BS on unknown websites.

[Mikeg]

Cut to the chase - your "much more credible source" agrees with my alleged "unknown" source on the key point: the judge did not own the stocks at the time he heard the case.

Much ado about nothing.

[Sstashmoo]

May is last month. The article goes on to say, he presided over other oil industry rulings under contradictory circumstance. Oh it will be swept under the rug. I mean come on, the guy is member of a "secret" court.

[Jimaz]

Should Judge Martin Feldman be Impeached?

U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman, a 1983 Reagan appointee to the federal bench, issued what, on its face, would have to be regarded as an astounding decision in which he blocked a six month moratorium on deep water off shore drilling, ruling that the Department of the Interior had erroneously assumed that because one rig failed, there was an imminent danger of others failing as well....

Setting aside what appears to be an inappropriate judicial intrusion by a Federalist Society-connected jurist into the prerogatives of the Executive branch in protecting public health, safety and the environment, setting aside the misguided notion that the burden rests with the government rather than the oil companies when it comes to demonstrating whether deep water drilling procedures are safe, Judge Feldman's decision --- and his failure to recuse himself despite conflict-of-interest concerns --- raises a significant question as to whether he should be impeached...

Seven of the 12 federal judges of the Eastern District of Louisiana already have cited potential conflicts of interest in bowing out of cases brought by fishermen, charter operators, tourist services and families of those killed in the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Recusals in oil industry cases have become so common among the judges that the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals last month left in limbo a landmark case brought by Hurricane Katrina victims because the court couldn't muster a quorum to review it. Eight of the circuit's 17 judges stepped down because of financial interests in the oil, gas and chemical companies being sued for alleged culpability in global warming.

The problem is that in this instance Judge Feldman did not recuse himself. While he did not have a direct financial interest in Hornbeck Offshore Services, the petroleum products transport company which brought the lawsuit, Feldman swiftly moved to enjoin enforcement of the moratorium knowing full well that his decision could favor his own personal financial bottom line. Feldman has thus issued what has to be seen as a "corrupt decision" that strikes at the heart of our concepts of impartial courts and due process of law --- one which merits impeachment and removal from what otherwise is a lifetime appointment to the federal bench.

Federalist Society Hypocrisy

In "Citizens United: A Case Which Will Live in Infamy" I described the counter-revolution in law which saw our courts stacked by jurists who hailed from the Robert Bork-founded, billionaire-funded Federalist Society. I described the radical nature of its "Unitary Executive" theory, noting:

The Federalist Society deference to unchecked, dictatorial executive power is so great that in his dissenting opinion in Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld, a case in which the Court held that a U.S. citizen designated as an "enemy combatant" had a right to contest the factual basis for his detention before a neutral arbitrator, Justice Thomas argued that any effort by the courts to act as a check against executive lawlessness would destroy "the purpose of vesting primary responsibility in the unitary Executive."

What Judge Feldman has revealed, however, is that while these "radicals-in-robes" can't defer fast enough to the powers of the "Unitary Executive" when it comes to arrest, detention and torture of innocent detainees who had been snatched up by CIA rendition teams, they are ready to squelch any and all efforts of that same "Unitary Executive" to impede unchecked corporate wealth and power.

So yes, he should be impeached despite the likelihood that these cases will simply go instead to another of the many oil-soaked judges down there. They need to know that there will be consequences to their corruption too.