It was 45 years ago today that President Lyndon Johnson enacted national health insurance for millions of elderly Americans with the stroke of a pen – a pen handed to him by Harry Truman.

Immediately afterward, Johnson signed the paperwork that would make Truman and his wife, Bess, the very first Medicare enrollees.

“They told me, President Truman, that if you wish to get the voluntary medical insurance you will have to sign this application form, and they asked me to sign as your witness,” Johnson told the former president. “You’re getting special treatment, since cards won’t go out to the other folks until the end of this month – but we wanted you to know, and we wanted the whole world to know, who is the real daddy of Medicare.”

While Teddy Roosevelt was the first president to publicly endorse national health insurance, Truman did more than any other to advance the concept that would become Medicare. During World War II, Truman was troubled by the number of draftees who failed their induction physicals due to untreated medical conditions. Truman saw this as evidence that too many ordinary Americans couldn’t afford adequate care. “That is all wrong in my book,” he said. “I am trying to fix it so the people in the middle-income bracket can live as long as the very rich and the very poor.”

With the war’s end in 1945, Truman proposed the first national health care plan to Congress. Originally conceived to cover most Americans, the proposal was gradually scaled back until, by the end of his presidency in 1953, it was roughly equivalent to Medicare.

President John F. Kennedy resurrected the Medicare concept in a 1962 speech, but it continued to face formidable opposition from most Republicans and from the American Medical Association, which regarded any government involvement in health care as “socialized medicine.” At the height of its campaign against Medicare in 1963, the AMA hired actor-turned-pitchman Ronald Reagan as its spokesperson, just a year before Reagan launched his political career with an energetic pitch for Barry Goldwater at the Republican National Convention.

In 1964, Johnson defeated Goldwater in a landslide – and with large Democratic majorities riding Johnson’s coattails into both houses of Congress, the stage was set for Medicare’s passage.

220 Internal Revenue

220V Income Taxes

220V(I) Deductions

220V(I)1 In General

220k3300 k. Evidence.

Deductions are a matter of legislative grace, and the taxpayer has the burden of proving that he or she is entitled to any claimed deductions.
John v. C.I.R., 2004 WL 2526253 (T.C. 2004)

(Provided by West Reference Attorneys)

99 Copyrights and Intellectual Property

99I Copyrights

99I(J) Infringement

99I(J)2 Remedies

99k72 Actions for Infringement

99k75 k. Defenses.

A “Calypso” song “Rum and Coca-Cola” referring to conduct of Trinidad women and American soldiers in rather cheap and vulgar way, was not so immoral as to preclude relief against infringement.
Khan v. Leo Feist, Inc., 165 F.2d 188 (2d Cir. 1947)

That’s the caption provided by our final winner, Andrew M. of New York City, in our WestlawNext Mobile Photo Contest. Andrew, whose creative effort earned him an iPod touch, says he was on the shore of one of the Great Lakes in beautiful northern Michigan on the Fourth of July when he suddenly felt inspired to frame a shot with one of the framers of the Constitution – who, incidentally, also looks quite relaxed in this photo.

Andrew works as a tax lawyer for a large firm in New York City, where he assists in advising clients on financial products, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, and other transactions. He tells us his work entails a considerable amount of legal research and writing, and he uses KeyCite almost daily to verify his work and perform comprehensive searches of cases, administrative sources, and secondary articles on a specific topic.

Thanks, Andrew, for taking WestlawNext on your vacation! And thanks for letting old Ben tag along, too – he really did need some time off.

Martinez v. Desert Sky Esplanade LLC

2009 WL 605171 Verdict Summary

2009 WL 2917774 Video of Plaintiff’s Expert’s Trial Testimony

Note: The links above are intended for Westlaw users. You will be asked to sign on to Westlaw before being taken directly to the document.

Publish Your Cases

411 Woods and Forests

411k8 k. Forest Reservations, Preserves, or Parks.

Under Act June 8, 1906 [16 U.S.C.A. §§ 431-433], authorizing the President to declare historic landmarks and other objects of historic or scientific interest on government lands, national monuments, and reserve as a part thereof parcels of land confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of such objects, the President was authorized to establish a monument reserve embracing the Grand Canyon, of the Colorado river; it being an “object of scientific interest.”
Cameron v. U.S., 40 S. Ct. 410 (1920)

“America is a nation that conceives many odd inventions for getting somewhere, but it can think of nothing to do once it gets there.” – Will Rogers

America has always prided itself as a land of innovation, with numbers to back up that claim. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office approved more than 167,000 utility patents in 2009 – a rate of more than 19 patents an hour, 24 hours a day.

If your work involves patent prosecution or litigation, Westlaw Patents has the content and tools to help you keep pace. And now there’s a quick, easy way to get up to speed on Westlaw Patents content and tools: Short online lessons for our most popular products.

We came up with the eLearning series after hearing a handful of customers confess that they don’t always understand what some of our patent products are intended to do or how to use them. And we took their advice and kept the lessons short and sweet: Most lessons require just 2 or 3 minutes of your time.

To access these lessons, sign on to the West eLearning Center, then click on the Westlaw Patents link on the left side of the page. (It’s the last item in the list.)

We’ve divided the self-paced lessons into two categories – litigation and prosecution – with several choices in each list. Two of the most popular modules include

• Using KeyCite to Verify and Expand Patent Research – Learn how to use KeyCite to go beyond the text of a patent and view its context.
• Searching Markman Orders – Save hours of work and frustration by searching and finding claim construction orders on Westlaw.

And check back later this summer for a new self-paced lesson on Claims Locator, our latest “invention” that will enable you to search for claims without knowing the exact terminology.

More info on Westlaw Patents is available on the West website. And we didn’t invent the quotes above – we found them in Uncle Anthony’s Unabridged Analogies, which is available at a 10% discount to Westlaw Insider readers. Check it out!

51 Bankruptcy

51IX Administration

51IX(E) Compensation of Officers and Others

51IX(E)3 Attorneys

51k3180 Items and Services Compensable

51k3182 k. Necessity of Service.

Debtor’s attorney is not entitled to be compensated from bankruptcy estate for futile efforts aimed at achieving unattainable objectives; fees generated in tilting at windmills will be disallowed.
In re Saturley, 131 B.R. 509 (Bankr. D. Me. 1991)

Q. How do I use WestlawNext without directory links?
A. The search box on WestlawNext has many functions, including identifying available content. When you begin typing the name of the specific publication you’re looking for, a drop-down list will appear that shows relevant databases. For example, if you begin typing “Norton,” the drop-down list will show a link to Norton on Bankruptcy publications. This also works when typing in the old database sign-on identifiers such as CA-ST-ANN.

You can also find a list of resources by browsing from the home page. For example, if you want to find a list of materials related to Family Law, just click on the Topic tab on the home page and then the link for Family Law.

Q. How long do Folders, Notes and Eyeglasses last on a document?
A. The Folders and Notes will stay with your documents until you delete them and will appear regardless of which Client ID you have logged in under. The eyeglasses remain for 30 days and are specific to the Client ID.

Q. In what order do the results on KeyCite Negative History appear?
A. The documents in KeyCite Negative History appear in the same order as they do in Westlaw. We’ve always put them in order of worst treatment first; WestlawNext simply shows more information about the treating document. The Negative Treatment tab displays all negative references and uses the “most negative” label to highlight the same reference that was listed at the top of the document text.

Q. Why are there two search boxes on the Key Number page?
A. The tabbed search box at the top of the page will run a full-text search of headnotes for the selected jurisdiction. You can select a Topic, or even drill down to a specific Key Number, before running a search. The Title Search box on the right is a quick way to scan through the Key Number titles to locate the Key Number you want.