For many who watched the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial, some of the most outstanding moments involved his defense counsel Yarelyn Mena. It was an extraordinary opportunity for the 29-year old graduated from CUNY (2015) and, by all accounts, Mena performed well. It was considered the turning point of one of the most famous trials in modern history. It is something that should be a matter of great pride for the CUNY community and, not surprisingly, the website did an article on their graduate. However, it has now been deleted with an apology after people objected that they were upset or traumatized by the recognition due to Heard’s allegations of abuse.
The now deleted article told the intriguing story of how a young associate out of CUNY became a global sensation as a key member of the defense team. Yarelyn explain “I am a third year associate and am fortunate to have worked a trial so early in my career. Most cases don’t go to trial.” It is an extraordinary story for a woman who came with her family from the Dominican Republic. She proceeded to graduate from CUNY and then received her law degree from Fordham University. That is a quintessential American story of achievement that any institution should relish and highlight. She noted in the interview that “(Law) was the first career that I knew of before I even really understood what it was.”
Apparently, CUNY graduates and students were outraged and unwilling to separate the act of representation from the rivaling abuse allegations in the case. It turned out that neither could the school.
The school acknowledged the objections raised to “our newsletter featuring a recent CUNY graduate who worked on Johnny Depp’s legal team.” It then apologized:
“We understand the strong negative emotions this article elicited and apologize for publishing the item. We have removed it from our CUNYverse blog. The article was not meant to convey support for Mr. Depp, implicitly or otherwise, or to call into question any allegations that were made by Amber Heard. Domestic violence is a serious issue in our society and we regret any pain this article may have caused.”
The “pain” caused by the article was an account of a graduate doing her job as an advocate. We have gotten to the point that people are incapable of recognizing that everyone is entitled to a rigorous legal defense and that the lawyers are fulfilling essential roles in protecting the rule of law. The only thing that matters is that the lawyer represented someone accused of abuse (even though the jury clearly found that Heard lied with malice in the trial). Even lawyers defending a client must now be cancelled to protect others from the pain of dealing with a trial on spousal abuse.
The role of the school in such a cancellation effort is shocking. CUNY trains lawyers, including criminal defense lawyers. The message being sent to those students and graduates is that the school will shun you and disassociate itself if you represent a client in an unpopular cause.
This is disturbingly similar to the firing of House Dean Ronald S. Sullivan Jr, a Harvard Law professor, after he decided to represent accused sexual abuser Harvey Weinstein. As with Yarelyn Mena, the students and school could not separate Sullivan’s role as counsel from the alleged acts of his client.
The deletion was noted by Brooklyn College History Professor KC Johnson, who said with considerable understatement that the move is “not a good look for CUNY, to put it mildly.”
CUNY has previously been the center of controversies discussed on this site. That includes Law Dean Mary Lu Bilek cancelling herself for a single remark in a faculty meeting, a law school administration that believes that cancelling speakers is an exercise of free speech, a professor who views math and meritocracy to be products of white privilege, and the effort to block an honorary degree over a poet’s political views.
I’m glad they were traumatized by the article, what great lawyers they are going to be!
I am a graduate of Brooklyn College and New York Law School. When I refer to them, I always say,”when they were good.”
We need to stop referring to these events as if they are isolated (tree view) examples of a woke culture and instead call them what they are; tactical assaults in a strategically coordinated war (forest view) on our entire system of justice and ultimately our constitutional republic.
We need a leader that recognizes that and can communicate a strategic plan to fight it.
Insanity has been normalized in our elite institutions.
“INSANITY”
The singular American failure is the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court.
The sole charge of the judicial branch is to assure that actions comport with statutory and fundamental law.
Justices swear an oath to support the Constitution.
Rather, they deny, nullify and void the Constitution at every opportunity and compel the implementation of the principles of the Communist Manifesto.
There was NEVER a constitutional right to abortion, Obama and Harris do not comport with the constitutional requirement to be a “natural born citizen,” and secession was and remains fully constitutional.
Impeachment and conviction must be directed at the judicial branch for its gross dereliction of duty and egregious, nay, treasonous crimes of high office.
Success of the American republic requires restrictions on the vote, adherence to the “manifest tenor” of the Constitution, and the actions of good men, not dastardly bleeding-hearts.
It is worse in medical education. Consider the application process to become a physician, run by the monopoly AAMC. See below. Medicine is not a science based discipline anymore.
https://students-residents.aamc.org/form/participate-aamc-learner-feedback
WHAT BEST DESCRIBES YOUR CURRENT GENDER IDENTITY?
MAN
WOMAN
TRANS MAN
TRANS WOMAN
AGENDER
GENDER QUEER/GENDER NON-CONFORMING
NON-BINARY
ANOTHER GENDER IDENTITY
WHAT BEST DESCRIBES YOUR CURRENT SEXUAL ORIENTATION?
ASEXUAL
BISEXUAL
GAY OR LESBIAN
HETEROSEXUAL OR STRAIGHT
PANSEXUAL
QUEER
OTHER
Let’s Get Biden To Quit
I say Biden stays and appoints all 9 justices after they are impeached and convicted as you recommend.
So, you are delusional too!!
The answer to both those questions is “None of your business.”
Darren, The placement of your response is confusing since there are no questions above. Are you responding to questions/comments that I asked in the July 28th post related to the Jeff S revocation? Please clarify. Thanks.
Are you responding to questions/comments that I asked in the July 28th post related to the Jeff S revocation?
Darren may or may not have been referring to his/her/they concern about xim/xer/they who suffer Adverse Drug Reactions due to gender affirming hormonal therapy. Being an other-directed moderator, Darren may or may not have been expressing empathy for said xim/xer/they who act bat schlitz crazy on this blog possibly warranting snipping their lifeline.
😉
Adverse effects of gender-affirming hormonal therapy in transgender persons: Assessing reports in the French pharmacovigilance database
In transgender men taking testosterone enanthate, all reported ADRs were cardiovascular events, with pulmonary embolism in 50% of cases. Median time to onset (TTO) was 34 months. In transgender women, antiandrogens, mainly cyproterone acetate, were involved in 68% of cases, and estrogens in 77% of cases, mostly in association with progestin or cyproterone acetate. Meningiomas were the principal ADRs, followed by cardiovascular events, with a median TTO of 5.3 months. Our data show a previously unreported, non-negligible proportion of cases indicating cardiovascular ADRs in transgender men younger than 40 years. In transgender women, cardiovascular events were the second most frequent ADR.
Yelehe M, Klein M, El Aridi L, Maurier A, Gillet P, Feigerlova E. Adverse effects of gender-affirming hormonal therapy in transgender persons: Assessing reports in the French pharmacovigilance database. Fundam Clin Pharmacol. 2022 Jun 2. doi: 10.1111/fcp.12806. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35653182.
Thanks for the clarifications!
Estovir, this is bizarre and disturbing! It is non of their business to know.
I refuse to answer any of those questions either in the doctors office or for the census takers. However, some of that data has clinical meaning for physicians
RE:”Estovir, this is bizarre and disturbing! It is non of their business to know…” Opinion notwithstanding, those whose interests are best served by the knowing will comply. It moves their clock forward.
The delicious irony: to be fully ‘woke’ is now to be fully brain-dead.
Kars4Kids goes WOKE!
The Local Communist Party Political Officer assures at least one “minority” in every scene on TV and in movies.
No more pesky Americans ’round heah!
Wy wife graduated from CUNY a couple of decades ago, and the have fallen so far it’s tough to quantify. That these people will be clerks and attorneys should put all of us on high alert. What CUNY has become is indicative of every higher institution of learning in America. It’s far beyond time to defund them and start over.
We need a Madame Defarge knitting a record of all the inanities and partisan hackery done by academics and their production output (graduates) that now contaminate our intellectual (I use that word with reservation at this point) ether.
The description given by Professor Turley spells out the danger that we face: the cadre that controls the Dem party is not a point of view, but a cult. I do not want a cult running America.
RE:’WE REGRET ANY PAIN’…”Holy ‘if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen\, Batman!!” Pathetic Orwellian snowflakes. America be warned, This is the future of the nation’s laws and practitioners thereof. What’s that trial doing on the networks at all. ‘Yentavision!!”
“A coward dies a thousand deaths” is an appropriate editorial comment. I think we need leaders and citizens with backbone.
‘Yentavision!!”
ZZ, I never heard that word used that way. If you coined it, congratulations. If not, thanks for bringing it to our attention. I love it.
Does CUNY now regret the “pain” they are causing for graduates who will now be regarded with reluctance by law firms?
They’d be part of the crowd howling to cancel John Adams, if they could, I suppose.
Prairie Rose,
Give it time.
They will try to cancel John Adams, George Washington, The Constitution, and ultimately America.
Prairie, what an awesome comment! Sadly the people whining won’t even know what you are referencing.
More on the Adams family and their fair-mindedness:
“I have been much diverted with a little occurence which took place a few days since and which serve to shew how little founded in nature the so much boasted principle of Liberty and equality is. Master Heath has opend an Evening School to instruct a Number of Apprentices Lads cyphering at a shilling a week, finding their own wood and candles.
James desired that he might go. I told him to go with my compliments to Master Heath and ask him if he would take him. He did and Master Heath returnd for answer that he would. Accordingly James went. After about a week, Neighbour Faxon came in one Evening and requested to speak to me. His Errant was to inform me that if James went to School, it would break up the School for the other Lads refused to go. Pray Mr. Faxon has the Boy misbehaved? If he has let the Master turn him out of school. O no, there was no complaint of that kind, but they did not chuse to go to School with a Black Boy. And why not object to going to meeting because he does Mr. Faxon? Is there not room enough in the School for him to take his seperate forme? Yes. Did these Lads ever object to James playing for them when at a dance? How can they bear to have a Black in the Room with them there? O it is not I that object, or my Boys. It is some others. Pray who are they? Why did not they come themselves? This Mr. Faxon is attacking the principle of Liberty and equality upon the only Ground upon which it ought to be supported, an equality of Rights. The Boy is a Freeman as much as any of the young Men, and merely because his Face is Black, is he to be denied instruction? How is he to be qualified to procure a livelihood? Is this the Christian principle of doing to others, as we would have others do to us? O Mam, you are quite right. I hope you wont take any offence. None at all Mr. Faxon, only be so good as to send the young men to me. I think I can convince them that they are wrong. I have not thought it any disgrace to my self to take him into my palourparlour and teach him both to read and write. Tell them Mr. Faxon that I hope we shall all go to Heaven together. Upon which Faxon laugh’d, and thus ended the conversation. I have not heard any more upon the subject. I have sent Prince constantly to the Town School for some time, and have heard no objection.
… Adieu my dear Friend do not let any thing put out of your Mind your ever affectionate
A Adams”
https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L17970213aa
That’s the bad news, I agree. The good news is that many if not most are historically illiterate, so they don’t actually know who John Adams is.
Hopefully someday we’ll return to an administration which puts America first and roots out political corruption. When that time arrives all these weenies should be drafted into military service for a minimum of 3 years. They may have been educated but when it comes to maturity and life they are on empty.
Has to be old school Draft Army. Old school Army not today’s WOKE Army. First you would have to purge Milley, the Joint Chiefs and purge the Army of WOKENESS. 2 years and send them overseas.
It’s not just the Army. All the services need to get rid of every officer/NCO who supports WOKE ideology. Silly Milley and the Joint Chiefs are just the tip of the iceberg. Our current military couldn’t fight its way out of a wet paper bag with holes in it.
RE:”Has to be old school Draft Army. ….”God, Mother and Apple Pie” is the way I grew up in the United States of America. To borrow from a old phrase…now it’s ‘Better Red than Dead!” Where did the Greatest Generation and the one that followed erred, to have caused this ‘Titanic’ to be launched?
Twenty years from now they will look back at this with horror and amusement….somewhat akin to looking at a class picture from the early seventies and seeing everyone with sideburns in earnest and wondering why? . Who does this benefit? Amber Heard? Wrongo Marylou…she is just a big loser who played the abuse card so badly it was like watching a looped mid-air collision backwards. These Snowflakes who can’t take a punch are crying foul when the sky isn’t falling…it’s beyond bothersome
Sideburns were bad, but it’s the bib sized ties that give me the shivers.
What? Bell-bottoms & platform shoes were ok?
Josh, I wish that you were right but if history tells us anything it tells us that in 20 years the lunatics will be totally in control and people will be hired to erase history.
“Twenty years from now”? There’s a video of chicom Uyghur prisoners blindfolded, cuffed from behind, cross legged on the ground, each guarded by a uniformed guard. Their being loaded on trains to work camps with crematorium. If we’re not careful we maybe subject to a mini version of that right here in the good ole USA in twenty years. Think it’s not possible? Bet you never thought we’d be using letters to describe words someone told you, you couldn’t say or Americans believing men can have babies? Keep alert!
I commend this young lady and the path she has traveled. No small accomplishment by any means and then to star in presenting her client’s defense. We should all be so good when we are called for our first at bat. I wish her well, irrespective of her college’s lack of appreciation. Do they not teach in Law school that our system demands that all get representation in criminal and civil law no matter how despicable they may be as a person or their political views or or other not popular views. As I remember that was what the ACLU used to do. One of the best discussions I even heard about this was in “A Man For All Seasons” many years ago as Paul Schofield played Sir Thomas Moore and argued with a young friend and lawyer about the need for a defense even for Satan, should that time ever arise. It was so eloquent and thoughtful and Passionate and framed the discussion beautifully and made it part of the centerpiece of the movie.
Too many people (public, lawyers, politicians ) have failed to understand they may not always be in power and when they are not in power who will protect them when they have stripped away all the protections of the law during their time in power. People must speak and be able to defend themselves appropriately in court. If you remove all such rights and protections for the opposition then they begin to think, “well what do I have to lose”. That is not a conversation you want people to have because it leads to worse.
i love that film, and have since I first saw it, nearly half a century ago with my father. He then gave me a 4-LP set of the entire soundtrack, which was wonderful to listen to (those great British actors can paint the picture with their voices).
I’ve posted that particular clip many times, but those who are convinced without evidenc and whom evidence does not convince are pretty much hopeless cases, I far.
Pope Benedict XVI visited England in September 2010 and went to Westminster Hall where Thomas More had been sentenced. In attendance were the British political establishment, including British prime ministers Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, John Major, & Margaret Thatcher and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Pope B16 said a few words vindicating St Thomas More, but, more to our present day cultural situation, he said the following that applies more so today:
As I speak to you in this historic setting, I think of the countless men and women down the centuries who have played their part in the momentous events that have taken place within these walls and have shaped the lives of many generations of Britons, and others besides. In particular, I recall the figure of Saint Thomas More, the great English scholar and statesman, who is admired by believers and non-believers alike for the integrity with which he followed his conscience, even at the cost of displeasing the sovereign whose “good servant” he was, because he chose to serve God first. The dilemma which faced More in those difficult times, the perennial question of the relationship between what is owed to Caesar and what is owed to God, allows me the opportunity to reflect with you briefly on the proper place of religious belief within the political process……
And yet the fundamental questions at stake in Thomas More’s trial continue to present themselves in ever-changing terms as new social conditions emerge. Each generation, as it seeks to advance the common good, must ask anew: what are the requirements that governments may reasonably impose upon citizens, and how far do they extend? By appeal to what authority can moral dilemmas be resolved? These questions take us directly to the ethical foundations of civil discourse. If the moral principles underpinning the democratic process are themselves determined by nothing more solid than social consensus, then the fragility of the process becomes all too evident – herein lies the real challenge for democracy.
https://thepapalvisit.org.uk/home/replay-the-visit/day-two/pope-benedicts-address-to-politicians-diplomats-academics-and-business-leaders/
Justice Samuel Alito, a trained Catholic scholastic, no doubt had these words when he and the other Catholic Justices reflected on overturning Roe v Wade.
Benedict’s words likely washed over the heads of many just like the truths of the Founding Fathers, in founding the United States, are also dismissed by politicos today who seek to run the United States like King Henry VIII. Clearly Merrick Garland is no Thomas More.
“If the moral principles underpinning the democratic process are themselves determined by nothing more solid than social consensus, then the fragility of the process becomes all too evident – herein lies the real challenge for democracy.”
In other words, America needs a combined power of church and state.
Still believe that there are not religionists itching to transform America into a theocracy?
When a “social consensus” is reached using lies, smears, censorship, and coercion by one side against the other the consensus is false, and thus worthless. Unfortunately, our civilization has been divided by powerful people wielding unprecedented power and influence over every aspect of human life. So, no. I do not believe America in particular, or the West in general is in danger from the Right, the danger is clearly coming directly from the Leftist-dominated Democratic Party.
RE:” our civilization has been divided by powerful people wielding unprecedented power and influence over every aspect of human life.” The fault dear Samuel is not due to powerful people wielding unprecedented power. It is in ourselves that we are so manipulated and controlled.
Present company excepted, my friend – LOL. Most people understand, at least on a basic level, they’re being manipulated whenever they tune-in. However, many people, in my view, don’t understand the reach these manipulators have over us, the greater culture, and the profound impact they have over the official narrative, which is essentially the Democratic Party’s agenda.
With the failure of legacy media to offer viewers with objective, truthful, accurate, and timely news reports people stopped watching Leftist outlets. Much of the slack has been taken up by Fox News, but, they have their corporate biases as well.
Sources such as Dr. Malone’s blog, or newsletter or whatever its called is an example of, since nature abhors a vacuum, alternative sources of news and information are being created that offer long-formatted videos which allows for uninterrupted hours long conversations covering topics regardless of controversy and free from woke speech codes are filling the void.
RE:”However, many people, in my view, don’t understand the reach these manipulators have over us..” The ability to separate wheat from chaff is indispensable People need to have been exposed to a diversity of sources in order to have developed a useable knowledge base of incontrovertible fact so as to differentiate from commentary or opinion. The educational process has traditionally been this resource. It is, regrettably now being perverted in more ways than one.
Opinions are like a** holes. Everyone has one.
Better to consult with wiser, experienced, learned men and women like those who founded the United States.
George Washington’s Presidential Farewell Address was originally written by James Madison, edited by Alexander Hamilton, and delivered by George Washington in 1796.
Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
https://www.mountvernon.org/education/primary-sources-2/article/washington-s-farewell-address-1796/
“Opinions are like . . .”
Ever notice how those who reject reason, often degenerate into vile insults?
For those who are more civilized and possess more self-control —
Your constant reference to the Founders, to justify a union of religion and state, would have us believe the following:
That the Founders really wanted to create a theocracy, but (in spite of centuries of history at their fingertips), they just couldn’t figure out how to create one.
“In other words, America needs a combined power of church and state.”
Non-sequitur
“Still believe that there are not religionists itching to transform America into a theocracy?”
There are people actively succeeding in making the US more socialist,
and other seeking to make it communist.
The are far more bad actors on the left.
Every system of government MUST have a moral foundation to survive.
The moral foundation of the US government rests on the principle of individual liberty.
“You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I’d like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There’s only an up or down – [up] man’s old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.”
Ronald Reagan.
More, not Moore
The woke idiots have managed to turn “pain” into a joke.
These phony liberals would have no issue supporting someone who defended an accused terrorist that flew planes into buildings in their own city. They would have no issue supporting attorneys for an accused pedophile if said pedophile just happened to be trans, a minority and gay. But here they are outraged that someone defended a guy that was found to NOT have been an abuser?!?!?!?
This is the same city that houses the NY Times, a paper that had the staff quaking because a sitting US Senator wrote an arguable sane editorial and yet the staff had no qualms about an editorial by the TALIBAN member who ends up was housing the number two to Osama who was taken out by Joe Biden last week? Tom Cotton…ooh, I have the vapors, Taliban supporter of Al Qaeda…hey man, it’s free speech. Sickeng example of life here in “Doublestandardstan” (TM).
A society of infantiles, thanks to juvenile parents and an educational structure complemented with immature individuals and effeminate behaviour.
Yankeehood has destroyed NY. The problem is that the very same destroyers want to come down here and further destroy us with the same tainted stupidity. Why are Yankees so intent upon destroying this country?
This will continue until reasonable-minded students themselves stand up and yell stop. I audited some classes a couple years back in political science and history (foreign policy and political philosophy). While my classmates were generally more liberal than me (who isn’t?), there were only 1 or 2 who might fall in a group of agitators such as these. Those students have to drop their apathy and fear of cancellation (or worse, even fear of physical harm), and stand up for their rights.And it is well past time for University administrations to stop taking the side of the loudest and most dangerous on their campuses
I am a graduate of Brooklyn College. At the time I attended the City University of New York was among the best schools in the country. It is very troubling to see these so called educated people turning into complete morons. I am personally horrified by the last paragraph in this article. What have we become?
In reality—and perhaps as hard as it to admit—they were complete morons from the onset….I dare say birth. One would think that having been fortunate enough to escape the abortion lottery —that some many millions have not,— they would have a penchant for truth, morals, civility, and fairness. But clearly, they do not! It is overt Satanic possession… and as a result, we are witnessing the “Generacion de los Pertidos”.
edit: “Perdidos”