Reporters covering Sen. Hillary Clinton’s speech on housing in Philadelphia last Monday described one of her proposals as “tort reform.” Here’s the AP intro:

PHILADELPHIA: Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton proposed several remedies to the nation’s home mortgage problems Monday, including one tool more often associated with Republicans than Democrats.

The New York senator proposed greater protections for lenders from possible lawsuits by investors, a variation of so-called tort reform.

Well, the term didn’t cross her lips, but here’s the passage from the transcript.

The fourth and final part of my plan involves passing new legislation to clarify legal liability for mortgage companies that act to help more borrowers stay in their homes.

Right now, many mortgage companies are reluctant to help families restructure their mortgages because they’re afraid of being sued by the investment banks, the private equity firms, and others who actually own the mortgage papers.

Because, remember, all of these mortgages were bundled up in these huge packages and sold around the world. So you can’t just go down to see your mortgage broker or your bank or your other lender to work out a deal, because they no longer own the paper.

This is the case even though writing down the value of a mortgage is often more profitable than foreclosing, both for mortgage companies and for most of those who own the mortgages.

That’s why I will be proposing legislation, when Congress returns, to provide mortgage companies with protection against the threat of such lawsuits.

And the passage from her campaign’s policy paper on housing:

Clarifying Legal Liability for Mortgage Servicers to Help Unfreeze the Mortgage Market. Many mortgage servicers who want to work with families are deterred out of fear of litigation. Senator Clinton is introducing legislation to provide them with legal protection when they act to help struggling homeowners to modify mortgages.

Looks like tort reform to us. Very good.

And if tort reform is a good and helpful step to strengthen the housing market, then it should also be for health care, right? And the manufacturing of affordable consumer goods.

One would think.

An editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal, “One Missed Call.”

In Michael Mukasey, President Bush finally seems to have an Attorney General worthy of the current moment. In Nancy Pelosi’s hometown this week, the former judge who once tried terror cases told the Commonwealth Club audience that even he had no idea of the extent of the threat.

Speaking of what he hears in his national security briefings, Mr. Mukasey said, “It is way beyond – way beyond anything that I knew or believed. So, if I was picked for the level of my knowledge . . . that was a massive piece of false advertising.”

As reported by the New York Sun, he also offered a perspective, partly personal as a former Manhattanite, on the necessity of warrantless antiterror surveillance. Before 9/11, Mr. Mukasey said, “We knew that there had been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn’t know precisely where it went. We’ve got” – here the Attorney General paused with emotion – “we’ve got 3,000 people who went to work that day, and didn’t come home, to show for that.”

The AG also addressed why immunity from lawsuits is vital for the telecom companies that cooperated with the surveillance after 9/11. “Forget the liability” the phone companies face, Mr. Mukasey said. “We face the prospect of disclosure in open court of what they did, which is to say the means and the methods by which we collect foreign intelligence against foreign targets.” Al Qaeda would love that. The cynics will call this “fear-mongering,” but most Americans will want to make sure we don’t miss the next terror call.

We have a slightly disrupted supply chain of Cool Stuff Being Made videos this week, soon to be rectified. But in the meantime, we return to last week’s video — one that received an especially large number of hits.

Besides, Instapundit is knife-blogging today, with all sorts of links to interesting commentary and coverage, so the subject is timely.

So again this week, we take a gander at U.S. manufacturing in all its hand-crafted skill and beauty, as W.R. Case & Sons Cutlery brings us a video showing how fine knives are made.

Case’s commitment to quality is evident in the 125 pairs of hands it takes to create one knife. Artisans shape handles from rare Brazilian cattle bone and Buffalo horn to more delicate substances like rosewood, mother-of-pearl, and stag. Metals like brass, nickel, and silver highlight each form, bringing together a knife that’s not only beautiful, but one that will stand the tests of time and use.

And there’s lots of tradition, American tradition.

The company’s rich history began in 1889 when William Russell (“W.R.”), Jean, John, and Andrew Case began fashioning their knives and selling them along a wagon trail in upstate New York. A unique tang stamp dating system used since the very early days of its history has cemented the Case brand as one of the most recognized and valuable collectibles in the industry. Today the Case Company is owned by Zippo Manufacturing, another family-owned business based in Bradford.

That’s Bradford, Pa., home as well to the Zippo/Case Visitors Center.

Thank you to the good people at Case who sent us the video. We’re pleased to feature it at Cool Stuff Being Made and encourage other manufacturers to share their stories.

Our friends at California Manufacturers and Technology Association are making the great trek from U.S. Bank Building to new offices at 1115 Eleventh Street (Sacramento, CA 95814), right across from the state Capitol. Why, they’re practically in the lobby!

Good luck and good lobbying….

America is headed for trouble if it doesn’t kick its spending habit, says Tennessee Democratic Rep. John Tanner, a guest on this week’s “America’s Business with Mike Hambrick” radio program. The federal debt is a massive $9 trillion dollars.

All that money spent paying interest on this debt could go to fixing roads and bridges and investing in human capital such as education and healthcare, says Tanner, co-founder of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats.

“There is no country that I know of in recorded civilization that had an unhealthy, uneducated population that was strong and free,” Tanner says.

President Bush is pressing Congress to approve an agreement to open Colombia’s markets to American goods and services. Politico reporter Victoria McGrane will talk to Mike about the odds Congress will back the deal.

The Senate may also take up a climate change bill that critics say wouldn’t stop global warming and would wreck the economy. William O’Keefe from the George C. Marshall Institute will talk more about the bill’s down side.

National Association of Realtors economist Lawrence Yun will tell us whether the stagnant housing market will turn around soon. And Loews Corp. President and Chief Executive James Tisch will tell Mike why a lower corporate capital gains tax rate would benefit business.

In our regular segments, Renee Giachino of American Justice Partnership gives us the latest on tort reform and commentator Hank Cox recalls the “The Way It Was.” And the National Association of Manufacturers President Gov. John Engler will close the program with “The Last Word.”

For more about “America’s Business with Mike Hambrick” and to listen to the program online, please click here. And for video highlights and more, check out www.americasbusiness.org.

Brian Faughnan at The Weekly Standard punches some holes in a New York Times report full of bloviating about “green jobs.” So activists claim green jobs won’t be exported to Asia.

First off, what’s wrong with Asia? Do environmentalists not want Asians to have jobs? Second, if a green job cannot be outsourced, does that mean that manufacturing solar panels isn’t green? After all, they can be produced anywhere. And why do green jobs — not including functions such as accounting — require more skill than traditional jobs? Another green jobs advocate tells the Times that a traditional mining job magically becomes green when the metal is used for a green purpose. So which is it?

Advocates also say that green jobs are different because they produce things ‘the world wants.’ I suppose that sets them apart from traditional capital intensive and polluting jobs such as say, producing food and energy.

We’re all in favor of green jobs. And blue ones, and orange ones, and, oh, that’s a nice magenta.

And as for thinking, crystal-clear is our favorite.

Eighty-seven days have passed since the U.S. research and development tax credit expired, nearly an entire fiscal quarter.

And in the meantime, other countries are expanding their incentives for R&D. From Britain comes the news…

The chancellor announced that large companies carrying out new technology R&D would receive higher tax incentives from HMRC. Tax credit enhancements rise to 175 percent for large companies from 150 percent, which means an organisation spending £100,000 on R&D will see a tax saving of £7,500.

So we weren’t the only ones dissatisfied with the New York Times’ editorial reaction/misrepresentation of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Riegel v. Medtronic. From the AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Antonin Scalia took the news media to task Thursday for some recent coverage of the Supreme Court.

At a conference of attorneys in Washington, Scalia said news organizations often fail to focus on the text of the laws the court interprets, citing accounts of last month’s 8-1 decision that made it harder for consumers to sue makers of federally approved medical devices.

He singled out for criticism a New York Times editorial on the case headlined “No Recourse for the Injured.”

The media often make it appear as though the court is reaching policy judgments on its own rather than basing its decisions on the text of the law at issue in a case, Scalia said.

In some instances, said Scalia, the news media leave the impression that no ruling based on the text of a law “is even possible.”

Our February 22nd blog post, reacting to the same editorial: “What Ruling Did the New York Times Read?”

(Hat tip: David Freddoso)

John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, was on CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning talking about presidential campaign rhetoric versus reality on issues like NAFTA, labor standards, and exports. Video here.

He raises one tax issue that doesn’t get talked about enough, repatriation. Engler:

One of the things that Congress could do that would really help is to knock out some of these antiquated laws such as repatriation of foreign earnings. More and more companies today have half or more of their earnings overseas — you have them on the show all the time — and to bring that money back to the United States, they’ve got to subject it to the highest corporate tax rate in the world.

Pretty good lineup this morning: Former National Economic Council Director Larry Lindsey, former Treasury Secretary John Snow, and James Lockhart, director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO).

From the Turkish Press:

ANKARA – Turkish Energy & Natural Resources Minister Hilmi Guler said Tuesday Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) can cooperate with Cuba in oil and natural gas exploration as it does in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Libya.

“TPAO is eager to join natural gas and oil exploration tenders in Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico and Ecuador,” Guler told reporters after meeting Marta Lomas Morales, the Cuban minister of foreign investments and economic cooperation, in capital Ankara.

Guler said the corporation will also carry out researches in Cuba. “We may cooperate with Cuba in oil and natural gas exploration,” he told.

Including Cuba-controlled portions of the Caribbean, we’re talking within 45 miles of Florida’s shores…while development in adjacent U.S. territorial waters is banned.