Nashville mayor Megan Barry has resigned and pleaded guilty to felony theft as part of her affair with her police bodyguard. We often debate whether a politician should give a smiling mugshot (and risk looking non-contrite) or a frowning mugshot (and risk looking guilty). Barry went with the smiling option. She will now face three years probation and a criminal fine.
Continue reading “Nashville Mayor Resigns And Pleads Guilty To Felony Theft”
In Illinois, the Des Plaines Police Department has arrested three employees of the Kiddie Junction day care facility after allegedly discovering that the women gave children gummy bears laced with the sleep aid melatonin without parental consent. Ashley Helfenbein, 25, Jessica Heyse, 19, and Kristen Lauletta, 32, were charged with endangering children and battery. The battery charge is clear since the parents thought that they were paying for Kiddie Junction, not Kiddie Junkies. The endangerment charge could result in some challenges.
It was another breathless bombshell evening last night as media proclaimed that a “Former Trump Aide” said that he believed Trump “may very well have done something during the election with the Russians.” CNN carried a series of bizarre interviews with Sam Nunberg who was refusing to comply with a subpoena from Special Counsel Robert Mueller to produce documents and appear before a grand jury. Nunberg spouted off a series of accusations against Carter Page and others that were immediately picked up as potential confirmation of collusion. However, each CNN interviews made it more and more clear that the network had a virtual freak on a leash. Soon Nunberg denounced Sarah Huckabee Sanders as a “fat slob” and telling her to shut her “big fat mouth.” Nunberg was clearly neither credible nor under control but he drove the coverage for hours as a former aide supporting Russian collusion theories. It was part of our new media: NASCAR journalism where media rushes figures like Nunberg in front of cameras and viewers watch for the inevitable crash. Update: Nunberg now is saying that he will cooperate after all.
Continue reading “Sam Nunberg and Last Night’s NASCAR Press Pileup [Updated]”
Below is my column in USA Today on the legislation proposed to combat Russian trolling and Internet campaigns. There is a serious threat to free speech in these measures, which mirror efforts from (ironically) countries like Russia and China. The serious threat is not a handful of Russians playing on our deep divisions, but rather the hacking operations and attempt to interfere with voting systems.
Here is the column:
President Donald Trump and Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu meet today in the White House as a critical moment for both leaders. It is not just a common interest in Middle East peace that they have in common in this meeting. Both men now have key aides who have been cooperating witnesses for prosecutions investigating allegations of wrongdoing. While there is still not direct evidence implicating Trump, Netanyahu is facing a serious threat of indictment, particularly after his former key aides, Nir Hefetz and Shlomo Filber have agreed to testify against him. These witnesses are far closer to Netanyahu and are cooperating on criminal cases directly linked to Netanyahu — as opposed to the collateral crimes thus far addressed by the Special Counsel. One other difference is the respective Constitutional issues. As I discussed recently, Israel has long accepted that a Prime Minister can be indicted in office. I believe that the same is true for a president, but there is a long and good-faith debate over the question.
I recently criticized the new Polish law criminalizing any statements attributing the genocide of Jews to Polish forces or actions. The legislature approved a bill making it a crime to use statements suggesting Poland bears responsibility for crimes against humanity committed by Nazi Germany. You could receive up to three years in prison for calling Auschwitz-Birkenau a “Polish death camp.” USNews is reporting that the first target of this abusive law has now been announced: the Argentine Pagina 12 daily. The newspaper was accused of breaching a new law by suggesting that Poland was complicit in the Holocaust.
Continue reading “Controversial Polish Holocaust Denial Law Takes On Its First Media Target”
Keri Karman, 25, and Charles Karman, 61, were reportedly irritated by a two-year-old in a movie that kept asking for popcorn. Karman allegedly responded to the demand (and an argument with the mother) by dumping a bucket of popcorn on the child. They are now charged with endangering the welfare of a child.
We have often discussed the relatively low sentences handed out for animal abuse in the United States. A major exception to that pattern occurred this week in Plano, Texas where Judge Mark Rusch sentenced Andrew Callaway to 12 years in prison for animal cruelty and a probation violation. Callaway stomped on a boxer puppy named Diesel and threw it against a wall. The puppy later had to be put down due to the devastating injuries caused by Callaway, who told police he was upset at the time and regretted taking it out against the dog. Most of the sentence was for the probation violation.
Saying that “I’ve known Bob Mueller for 20, 30 years”, former Attorney General Eric Holder said on national television that Trump will be charged with obstruction of justice. Holder does not indicate why he is so confident or the specific basis for an obstruction charge. I have previously stated that I do not see a credible obstruction charge on the available evidence.Continue reading “Holder: Mueller Is Going To Charge Trump With Obstruction”
Erik Graeff, 42, is a Vancouver lawyer based in Oregon who is accused of taking a dispute with a former co-counsel to an extraordinary level in allegedly firing several shots into the Beaverton office of Terrence Hogan. No one was hit in the office but one bullet barely missed an Administrative Assistant. Graeff is reportedly a former decorated sniper in the Marines.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
A recent case before the Washington Court of Appeals for Division I highlights what has as a direct result of an increasingly punitive legislation become a perilous trap for a homeless, mentally handicapped citizen–and by extension likely many more.
In February 1998, when he was 23 years old, Jayson Lee Boyd had sex with a 15 year old. On May 27, 1999, Boyd pleaded guilty to Rape of a Child in the Third degree. Boyd was sentenced on July 29, 1999. He has not committed a sex offense since his original conviction. Nevertheless, he is required to register as a sex offender under RCW 9A.44.130 and RCW 9A.44.140. Since his original conviction in 1999, Boyd has been convicted of failure to register as a sex offender three times, all in Skagit County.
Thus his station in life: Seemingly perpetual incarceration is his future.
Below is my column in the Washington Post on the question of whether a president can be indicted while in office. Many academics believe that there is an implied immunity from such indictments in Article II of the Constitution. I do not agree as explained in the column below. Once again, I have stated that I do not see compelling evidence of any prosecutable crimes against President Trump. However, if such evidence did arise and satisfied a grand jury, the Special Counsel could indict even before any impeachment.
Continue reading “Yes, A President Can Be Indicted While In Office”
Two Indonesians have reason to be a tad confused this week after they were publicly whipped according to strict Sharia law. The problem is that they are Christian. However, pursuant to Islamic law in Aceh province, gamblers are to be flogged. They were found to be gambling on Sumatra island and whipped six times each by a robed and masked man.
Continue reading “Christians Flogged For Not Being Good Muslims In Indonesia”
Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on my view of the current evidence of collusion in the Russian investigation. I wrote the column to explain my skepticism over these oft-stated theories. President Donald Trump included my view in a quote in the Trump tweet which triggered something of a torrent of irate emails. He did not misrepresent my views. As explained below, I still do not see the compelling evidence for such a claim. As discussed yesterday, that is obviously not the view of CNN Legal Analyst and former White House ethics attorney Norm Eisen who declared that the case for collusion is now “devastating” and that Trump is “colluding in plain sight.” The column is an effort to actually bring some legal content to this debate. There have been countless hours of broadcast “analysis” but very little of the actual cited evidence and how it could fit with any criminal provision or even credible definitions of collusion.
Here is the column:
I just posted a column detailing why I am “skeptical” of collusion theories against President Donald Trump, a view that the President recently tweeted. CNN Legal Analyst and former White House ethics attorney Norm Eisen responded yesterday to my quote in the Trump tweet with his own analysis that the criminal case for collusion is now “devastating” and that Trump is “colluding in plain sight.” His evidence? Trump’s failure to respond sufficiently to Russian attacks. It does not seem to factor into Eisen’s analysis that the government is responding on various levels, imposed some sanctions, and that the specific means used to combat the Russians is a discretionary policy question that balances a wide array of technical, legal, and diplomatic factors. Nevertheless, Eisen assured the public that the criminal case is now devastating.