The school pushed the story originally of how Shaw was at a family party in Palmdale, Calif., Saturday when jumped to save his 7-year-old nephew, Carter.
According to the Trojans’ website, Shaw claimed he had jumped from a second-story balcony onto concrete before dragging himself into the pool and rescuing his nephew, who doesn’t know how to swim.
Shaw has admitted that he lied after the LA Times uncovered that there was a police account sharply contradicting his story. On the night that he claimed to have jumped from a second-floor balcony to save his nephew there was a police report of a woman screaming at an apartment complex about 60 minutes from Shaw’s family function. A woman told police that she saw a man run across a balcony and provided a description. That description was read to another woman at the complex who said “Sounds like my boyfriend, Josh Shaw.”
After going national with the hero story, the university was livid. Head coach Steve Sarkisian stated “He let us all down . . . Honesty and integrity must be at the center of our program.”
Shaw, a senior cornerback and team captain, has retained a lawyer.
The question is the appropriate sanction for such a false statement. The most serious aspect is not the false public account but lying to the university. The indefinite suspension from the program is obvious but should there be the additional suspension from the school? I think the team suspension is more than sufficient and a very sad blow at a critical point in this promising career. Not only will Shaw miss key games to show his abilities but NFL teams are leery of athletes with off-field problems though it did not bar Manti T’eo ultimately in joining the San Diego Chargers as a linebacker this year. The suspension is indefinite, which raises the possibility that he may never play again for the Trojans.
I expect that this is a nightmare for Shaw and his family. Teenagers can do and say stupid things. Most of us are not held up to the national limelight on such occasions. There is no indication of a crime here, but there is a serious violation in not just lying but claiming to be a hero. As an academic, I find such cases very difficult because we have all seen good kids (and adults) who get caught up in a lie that snowballs out of control. I would have much preferred his admitting the lie before the LA Times debunked the story but I hate to see a young man like this crash and burn over such a scandal.
What do you think?
Source: LA Times
Oh my gosh Squeeky, you should revive your blog, you’re writing style is hysterical. You’re quite gifted. I may not agree with about half of your politics, but I’d get a kick out of reading a political blog written by you.
@Squeeky
I’m going to have to second Annie’s suggestion about your blog. It is sensational, and not in the derogatory sense of the word. I do see your point about serious journalism and realize that the Birthers are deadly serious, along with the Sovereign Citizens. There’s a whole world out there that I’m certainly aware of, but make no pretense of understanding. If I were to name who I would call a “sovereign citizen”, my choice would be a Native American, but who am I to say? They have long ago been marginalized. Your last document is interesting, to say the least, and I think that there have been debunkers to debunk the debunkers. The wheels of the bus go round and round…
@Annie
I think maybe they are with some of the more extreme type Oath Keepers. I see a lot of “natural law” arguments in the Birther articles, and some Birthers are out and out Sovereign Citizens. For example:
http://birtherthinktank.wordpress.com/2012/08/27/gordon-of-khartoon-falls/
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky,
Oh and yes note 4 was hilarious.
Squeeky, aren’t the Sovereign Citizens aligned with the Oathkeepers? I don’t know for sure, but weren’t those two groups at the Bundy Ranch?
@Annie
They have jumped on Cruz, and Rubio, and Jindal. Free Republic began making them shut up last year, although they allowed Birthers free run of the site for years. I even got banned for clobbering the Birthers with logic.
http://birtherthinktank.wordpress.com/2013/08/31/the-great-freeper-birther-purge-of-2013-too-little-too-late/
I think you will find the link in that article at Note.4 funny. It was when they banned me.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
@maxcat06
Oh, if Cruz runs, we will go through it again. Instead of some Republicans pretending to be Birthers, this time, some Democrats will pretend to be Birthers to stir the pot. The legal quack type people do not go away. They are not rational. If you are not aware how many of them there are, or how many legal quack theories there are, see here:
http://archive.adl.org/mwd/suss1.html
Some of the Birthers are out and out Sovereign Citizens, while others flirt with them.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Oh do you mean if Ted Cruz wins the nomination? Yep I wonder why the birthers haven’t jumped on that one.
@Squeeky
Personally, I like the link at Note 4. The photograph is particularly compelling!
Ohhhhh, wow Squeeky. You were a birther? I’m glad you came to your senses after Obama’s birth long form birth certificate was released.
Liar, liar, pants are on fire. But suspended from school?
@Maxcat06
No, Mario Apuzzo, Esq. tries to avoid the 1898 Wong Kim Ark case and prefers selectively editing and chopping up the 1875 Minor v. Happersatt case. IIRC, an two-citizen parent Birther attorney out of Tennessee got hit with sanctions for filing a frivolous lawsuit and wasting everybody’s time and money. That seems to have slowed down that branch of Birtherism in the Courts.
@Annie
Orly Taitz, Esq. mostly represents a second denomination of Birther, of which I used to be one. I approached it as a matrix of reasons why Obama did not release his long form, with none of the reasons being good. That branch is simply suspicious of Obama’s documentation and thinks he was probably born elsewhere. I ceased being suspicious when he released his long form birth certificate.
Prior to that I attacked the two-citizen parent Birthers with a passion because their theories were obviously of the legal quack school. After the release of the long form, I began attacking both branches of Birtherism with a passion. Both sides are incorrect. the Orly Taitz branch are simply your run of the mill conspiracy theorists. The two-citizen parents Birthers are legal quacks.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
http://youtu.be/F9Ur9-MH5V8
Orly Taitz, still filing lawsuits, lol. I though she was disbarred.
@Squeaky
They may be quacks, but they’re well-heeled quacks. I may be a Democrat, but I truly hope we don’t go through this again with Ted Cruz. Established fact and law should be enough, especially once it involved both an amendment and the Supreme Court. Both sides have issues they feel are important; why don’t the birthers join in? I’m asking you, I suppose, as you self-identify as a former Birther.
Yep, can you imagine another go round of “Give me what I want, or I’ll shut the government down”?
Like Orly Taitz. What was up with her and her followers?
@Squeaky
Read your article. We seem to have crossed posts. Apuzzo doesn’t plan to give up, does he? I’m not a lawyer, but his reasoning seems a bit convoluted to me. He disallows any past precedent (or past rulings, for that matter) in favor of his own interpretations, doesn’t he?
@Squeaky.
Interesting case. The 14th Amendment and Wong Kim Ark certainly seem to put paid to any birther contention of non-“natural born” citizenship, whether it be Barack Obama, Ted Cruz, Mitt Romney, John McCain or any future case. The amendment, the Supreme Court ruling plus the history of the Presidents whose lineage isn’t exactly “red, white and blue” makes me wonder why anyone would spend the money to litigate.
@maxcat
I couldn’t do two links, so here is the second link, to the full article:
http://birtherthinktank.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/with-2020-foresight-the-once-and-future-apuzzo/
FWIW, Mario Apuzzo, Esq. is the preeminent Birther two-citizen parent theory lawyer.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
@maxcat
I think Cruz will be found to be a natural born citizen. Actually, I KNOW he will because I have remotely viewed the Federal District Court Order from 2020 wherein the Birthers tried to derail Cruz’s run. Don’t ask me how. Here is a copy of it:
http://birtherthinktank.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/apuzzo-order1.pdf
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Thanks. I figured he would be; it just makes sense. Once again, the past rulings just seemed to weigh in his favor.
Things will be the way they are until they are not.
Repeal happened to Prohibition, Gov. Davis, CA, slavery, free enterprise, Confederacy, self-reliance, Lincoln, Vietnam War, Prop 8, Kennedy, Space Shuttle, Fukushima, Jack Ruby, etc.
All kinds of things get repealed.
Putin is repealing Ukraine’s borders.
ISIS will repeal hot pants and tank tops (damn, I hate that one – Rolling Stones,…”I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes…,” not in Mecca, Mick).
Justice Roberts repealed the Constitution, “legislated from the bench” and passed Obamacare. He repealed free enterprise in America, in part.
Because liberals have controverted the Preamble, Constitution and Bill of Rights, doesn’t mean it will always be such.
Things will be the way they are until they are not.
@John
Well, until or unless Wong Kim Ark (1898) is overturned, the case is good law. It is still being cited in Birther cases. Like Ankeny. And Birthers keep losing their cases based on the holdings in WKA and Ankeny. Sooo, I like my chances of being right, here. And as even Vattel recognized a few paragraphs down from where you cited, at paragraph 214. Well, you should read The Birther Bible when you get a chance. It explains a lot of this stuff.
From The Book of Vattel, Chapter 2: 6-9. . .
6. But the fast tongues of the Anti-Vattelites did not stop there.
7. No, for the blasphemous tongues of the Anti-Vattelites fashioned the very words of the Prophet himself into a snare for the unwary, saying unto them, “But did not Vattel himself say in paragraph 214 of Book 1, that “there are states, as, for instance, England, where the single circumstance of being born in the country naturalizes the children of a foreigner.”
8. Their slick words caused many to doubt, for of a truth those words do seemeth to indicate to the unlearned that the Prophet Vattel taught England was a nation unto itself, wherein mere birth inside the kingdom was sufficient for citizenship.
9. Yet, the wise Birther, who hath studied the matter thoroughly, doth understand that there were two Englands, and that the Prophet was speaking of the other one, not the one from which sprangeth the United States.
http://birtherthinktank.wordpress.com/the-birther-bible/
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
You mean someone actually had the power to throw out the Constitution and its contemporary basis, the Law of Nations?
All I can say to that and your entire screed is, “they repealed the 18th Amendment, didn’t they?”
There has to be a whole lotta repealin’ goin’ on around here!!!
When ISIS gets here, I can only speculate that the 19th will be the first to go.
I’m just sayin’.
Ted Cruz is not eligible but who knows what will be the case after America falls from the “tipping point” into the abyss…and then there is John Roberts who adjusts the Constitution to suit his ideological bent and agenda.
Oops!
P.S. Oops! No SCOTUS title. Geez! I hope there is free speech in these parts.