Fintan Dunne:

EXCLUSIVE BY FINTAN DUNNE Bloggers already know of the association between Barack Obama, Michelle Obama and Steve Gibson. The latter's Righthaven firm has launched a legal war on websites over alleged copyright infringement. All three worked for Chicago Law firm Sidley Austin LLP, where Gibson and Michelle Obama coincidentally specialized in copyright-related "intellectual property" law for the firm. I've just uncovered a further Obama link to this new copyright war. Just two weeks ago Detroit-based Dickinson Wright PLLC acquired Steven Gibson's Las Vegas-based legal firm of Gibson Lowry Burris LLP, with Gibson becoming managing partner of what is now Dickinson's Las Vegas office. Gibson will now have as a new Dickinson colleague Patrick Miles Jr., who works with Dickinson Wright's Grand Rapids office --one of ten satellites of the parent law firm. Miles Jr. is currently running for the Michigan 3rd Congressional District seat which Vern Ehler

What do you call a thousand lawyers chained together at the bottom of the ocean? A good start. But let's begin with just three lawyers: Barack Obama, Michelle Obama and Steve Gibson. All three worked for Chicago Law firm Sidley Austin LLP, where Gibson and Michelle Obama specialized in "intellectual property" law for the firm. You know..... copyright law and such. Now, in a totally coincidental move, Steve Gibson, via his Righthaven firm, has launched a salvo of legal suits demanding a payoff of $75,000 from internet websites, for alleged copyright law infringements incurred when the sites posted extracts from major media news articles. The tactic is designed to severely damage internet free speech; and to bolster the declining fortunes of major media --while also raking in the RICO dollars for Mr. Gibson. When I say 'RICO,' I mean: as in racket. The clever part that only a lawyer could have thought up, is that Gibson's firm first identifies news a

The BBC recently interviewed Professor David Harvey, author of the Marxist treatise 'The Enigma of Capital.' Prof. Harvey does make one very good point about the failure of far too many capitalists to invest in socially valuable new production systems and instead investing money in money itself by means of derivatives or swaps or currency bets or other esoteric financial products. He didn't have time to elaborate why they do this, but I will. It's because in a time of global competition, the era of easy large profits from production is long over. Developing countries now have production systems which compete with ours --and this progressively destroys the profit margin on capital for corporations. So they turned to cartel financial products to bolster their profits. We need to limit that. But Harvey's Marxist analysis is otherwise vague and unconvincing. He made one telling admission in part 2 of that BBC interview : "Capitalism has been a very