Continue reading “The Sweet Song Of Segregation: Swedish Concert To Ban Men In The Name Of Equality”
Category: Criminal law
The Spokane County Sheriff’s Office has put out this picture of a woman accused of a truly despicable crime. After a shooting at the high school, panicked parents rushed to Freeman High School to find their children. Parents parked their cars along a highway and ran to the school. Police believe that this woman then stole items from the cars.
We have been discussing the rise of groups on campuses that assert the right not to simply protest but to prevent other students from hearing speakers or participating in events. The latest such incident occurred last week at the University of Virginia where members of a social justice group called UVA Students United disrupted a “cops and robbers”-themed party at a campus fraternity. The group would not allow a party that it claimed made “a joke of systems that kill and brutalize marginalized communities.” Ultimately, the party was canceled.
This is Gerard Grandzol, 38, a Philadelphia father who was killed Thursday in one of the most horrific and senseless acts of violence imaginable. Two men stopped Grandzol in front of his home in a carjacking. Grandzol would not turn over the keys of his car until he got his 2-year-old toddler out of the car. One of the men proceeded to murder him in front of his daughter.
Police and the public have searched for a man shown on a video throwing a dog not once but twice into a ravine. The man was eventually identified as Andres Spancky Raya, 21, and he was charged with animal cruelty. Fortunately, the pit bull — known as Mary Jane — survived with injuries but was eventually adopted by a family. As for Raya, he is heading to prison for five years.
It takes a great deal for me to feel sympathy of Martin Shkreli, but the recent filing by the Justice Department has me wondering if he is not being treated unfairly due to this infamous reputation. The DOJ has asked for Shkreli’s bail to be revoked because he offered to pay anyone $5000 for a hair of Hillary Clinton. It was a stupid posting that Shkreli later said was “satire” but the DOJ insists that it makes him a danger to society. I do not agree. What it does (as with so much of the statements and conduct of Shkreli) is undermine his case before the Court. Indeed, in addressing any fine, the court could take that view that (if Shkreli views a hair worth $5000 of his money) the sky is the limit for a truly impactful fine.
While Shkreli gained infamy as a pharmaceutical executive due to his obscene price increase for the drug Daraprim, was actually convicted in August of three of eight fraud counts related to hedge funds he ran. He is free on a $5 million bail.
These three men are accused of horrific crimes committed against a teenage girl in Alexandria, Virginia. Police say that Thomas Barker, 32, Steven Powers, 20, and Joshua Holby, 31, kidnapped and sexually assaulted the girl over the course of weeks. The girl only escaped by swimming across a lake.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has become an international pariah for his orders to police to murder drug suspects and his bragging about his own killings. Thousands of suspected drug dealers have been killed under Duterte. Now however he might want to reconsider his extra-judicial kill order. His son, Paolo, and his son-in-law have been implicated in a massive drug conspiracy. Paulo appeared before a Senate hearing to deny the allegations but then (on the advice of his father) refused to answer the questions of the Commission.
Continue reading “Duterte’s Son and Son-In-Law Implicated in Massive Drug Conspiracy”
Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the decision of President Donald Trump to rescind DACA and send the issue back to Congress with a six-month grace period. While I support some accommodation for those brought here as young children and hope that Congress will pass new legislation, I still view DACA as a flagrantly legislative act by President Barack Obama carried out through his unilateral executive authority.
Continue reading “DACA And The Costs Of Constitutional Short Sellers”
I have previously written about the myth created by TSA that jokes at an airport security point about bombs constitute a crime. In an odd twist, nine men have been thrown off an early-morning Ryanair flight to Madrid after one of them shouted “Allahu Akbar” “as a joke.” However, the phrase simply means “God is Great.” Nevertheless, the men appear to have thought it was funny to use the phrase associated with terrorist attacks.
Miami University in Ohio lost a major case in court after a student appealed his ban from the university after being accused on sexual misconduct. U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett ordered that the anonymous student known as “John Nokes” reinstated and found glaring unfairness in the rules and procedures of the university. As I have previously discussed, the Obama Administration forced many schools to limit due process rights of accused students in sexual misconduct cases.
Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the recent news about Comey drafting a statement declining to charge Hillary Clinton or her staff before key witnesses were interviewed or evidence reviewed. The question is why Comey pursued the investigation if he felt comfortable months in advance in drafting the statement. I do not share the President’s view that this draft shows a “rigged process,” though some FBI agents have objected to the drafting of the statement in this context. I take Comey at his word that he did not make up his mind until after all of the evidence was reviewed. However, the draft does show a markedly different approach to the investigation of the Clinton emails and the Special Counsel investigation of the Trump Administration.
Here is the column:
We previously discussed the crushing abuse and discrimination faced by Muslims in Myanmar. The Rohingya are denied basic rights and face continued violence in the country. While it was hard to imagine the abuse of these Muslims becoming any more extreme in the Buddhist nation, it just did. The government has allowed a new spasm of violence against this community which has been denied the most basic rights and the support. Rohingya children have been reportedly beheaded and civilians burned alive.
Continue reading “Myanmar Allows Another Reported Massacre of Muslim Minority Rohingya”
Palm Beach County clerk Anita Pedemey , 54, reportedly admitted to stealing the fees paid by exotic dancers. The reason, however, was a bit novel: she reportedly told police that her husband has been “spending a lot of money at Home Depot.” So much for the slogan “More Saving, More Doing.” I guess his “more saving” produced her “more doing.”
Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the Antifa movement and its implications for free speech on our college and university campuses. Yesterday, I shared a videotape from one such protest at GW near the law school a few months ago. My concern is with those faculty members who legitimize the anti-speech foundation for this movement. Yet, the violence at Berkeley has exposed this movement for what it is. This week Nancy Pelosi did criticize Antifa but then later qualified that criticism. She said:
“Look, people are out there heiling Hitler and then you have a group that is antifa — anti-fascist; they’ve been there forever — some people may have infiltrated them. We’ll see. But that is not an equivalence, in my view.”
I fail to see why there is a need to draw distinctions. Antifa is premised on the view that some speech is unworthy to be protected and that preventing people from hearing unworthy views is an act of “community self-defense.” As the column discusses, the distinction between Antifa and its opposing fascists is rather difficult to discern in terms of the effort to intimidate or assault those with opposing views. The threat of Antifa is summed up by the description of one of its most influential academic voices. Dartmouth Professor Mark Bray says that the movement has no interest in co-existence with opposing views and seeks not simply to oppose them but to “end their politics.”
Here is the column: Continue reading ““End Their Politics”: Antifa and the Rejection of Liberal Democratic Values”