We just discussed a story of a kindergartner who was disciplined for a LEGO gun that he brought to school that was smaller than a quarter. Now we have another kindergartner who was suspended for the rest of the year (10 days) for bringing an orange-tipped toy gun to school. Rather than simply discuss the matter with his parents, school officials proceeded to interrogate him for hours without calling his parents– a growing problem that we discussed in another story today. The toy was in the boy’s backpack and he was pulled into an interrogation with police. I cannot imagine what officers did for two hours in questioning a 5 year old child but it is clear that Calvert County officials have zero crime and even less judgment. During his detention with the officials and police, the boy wet his pants.
Category: Criminal law
In the last couple weeks, it has been astonishing to watch Democrats once again abandoning a core principle — in this case the protection of the free press — to excuse another abuse of the Obama Administration. The new talking point for defenders of the Obama Administration is that it is really not that bad to seize the records of journalists or label a journalist a potential criminal co-conspirator so long as they are not actually prosecuted. None however are quite so adamant as Georgetown Professor and MSNBC Political Analyst Michael Eric Dyson who called Eric Holder our “law giver” and “the Moses of our time.” In this case, of course, Moses came down from the mountain and endorsed the killing of any citizen deemed a national security threat, allowed warrantless surveillance, blocked public interest challenges to abuses of power, and attacked the free press. While some of us believe Holder should be fired, Dyson apparently believes Holder should be be beatified.
There is a troubling case out of Harris County, Texas where a court has issued an order barring 16 individuals from a Houston neighborhood on the ground that prosecutors alleged that they are gang members up to no good. However, this was a civil proceeding where the 16 individuals were neither given representation nor were present. The precedent established by such a public nuisance ruling is chilling if prosecutors can bar citizens from neighborhoods based on associations or future conduct.
I have previously written about my concern with the criminalization of conduct in America, particularly at our schools. A case in Columbia, Missouri again raises this issue with a 17-year-old Hickman High School junior facing possible felony charges for a prank. The student changed the last name of Raigan Mastain to “Masturbate” and more than 700 yearbooks went to press with the change. Now a prosecutor is considering a charge of first-degree property damage and harassment — a felony prosecution for an immature prank.
Continue reading “High School Student Facing Potential Felony Charge For Yearbook Prank”
I have previously expressed my view of the meeting ordered by President Barack Obama of Attorney General Eric Holder with representatives of the media. This feeble response was taken in lieu of the more obvious step of firing Holder for his attack on the free press. The proposed meeting was, in my view, an insulting gesture of effectively having Holder investigate Holder. It was made even more transparent by the decision of the Justice Department that the meeting had to be off-the-record. That was too much for two principled media organizations New York Times, CNN, and Associated Press which have refused (correctly) to attend. Continue reading “Media Refuses To Attend Holder Confab Over Monitoring Of Reporters”
The Iranian government is continuing its crackdown on non-Muslim faiths this month with a shocking arrest of a minister in the middle of a service at Iran’s largest Persian-language Pentecostal church. One can only imagine the response of Muslims in the country if a Muslim cleric was arrested in the middle of a service in another country. However, the Iranian government pulled Pastor Robert Asserian off the altar and literally dragged him out of the church. The move is viewed as a warning to non-Muslims before the June 14 presidential election to replace President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Here is today’s column in USA Today calling for the firing of Attorney General Eric Holder (I have added a couple lines removed in editing). Holder is not the only individual who needs to leave federal office but he is the first. Equally responsible are his deputy, James Cole, and Ronald Machen Jr., the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia who played critical roles in the investigation of journalists with Associated Press and Fox News. Notably, Obama reportedly “fired” IRS Director Steve Miller (who was reportedly already leaving) over the IRS scandal though there is no indication of any knowledge on his part. In Holder’s case, he was personally involved in targeting journalists (in the Fox case) and launched an attack on the media that has been condemned by a wide array of public interest and media groups. Yet, Holder has been asked to hold a simple meeting with aggrieved media representatives by Obama.
We previously discussed the effort of the defense team for George Zimmerman to introduce text messages, pictures, and history showing that Trayvon Martin had a history of discipline and drug problems. Judge Debra Nelson ruled today that most of this evidence would be kept out despite the fact that Zimmerman’s history and prior statements will be likely introduced. Zimmerman is arguing that it was Martin who attacked him and that this evidence shows a troubled teen with an obsession with guns and gangsta culture.
A recent story caught my eye out of Suffolk, Virginia. A bus driver was shocked when a mother allegedly mooned the bus after a confrontation last November with roughly 45 students onboard. The mother, Lisa Grant, 34, admits that she was upset that the driver sent a note home with her middle school son for misbehaving. She apparently thought yelling at the bus would be an appropriate response to the claim of misconduct. However, the videotape below shows the bus driver as equally irritated and loud in the confrontation and there remains a controversy over whether a true moon appeared along the roadside.
There is an interesting conflict that has arisen between Interpol and the Putin government. Putin’s government has demanded the arrest of UK-based fund manager William Browder for his alleged tax evasion and told Interpol to put him on its list of wanted individuals. In a rare denial, Interpol decided that the Putin regime was pursuing Browder for offenses “of a predominantly political nature” and refused to assist the Russians.
Continue reading “Interpol Rebuffs Putin On Demand For Whistleblower’s Arrest”
Truong Duy Nhat, 49, is a leading blogger in Vietnam who has been challenging the government on its authoritarian laws. The Communist government has now responded by arresting him for “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe on the interests of the state.” This truly Orwellian charge could result in a seven year sentence for the blogger.
Continue reading “Leading Blogger Arrested In Vietnam In Major Crackdown On Free Speech”
While Attorney General Eric Holder is legitimately taking the heat for his scorched Earth policy toward journalists and whistleblowers. His deputy, Jim Coles, is also being criticized for signing off on the investigation of the Associated Press. However, a third prosecutor has largely escaped attention in the scandal and is equally worthy of immediate termination for his role in this scandal. He is Ronald Machen Jr., the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. As with Holder, Machen was a friend and campaign contributor to Obama when he was selected to serve as U.S. Attorney. He proceeded to discard any concern for the freedom of the press in his investigation, particularly his pursuit of sources for Fox reporter James Rosen. He was also involved in the refusal to prosecute Holder for contempt of Congress in refusing to turn over critical documents in the “Fast and Furious” scandal.
Continue reading “Meet Ronald Machen: The Obama Administration’s Media Menace”
As many on this blog know, I am not a big fan of Roman Polanski and his successful evasion of arrest for the sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl in 1977. Many folks in France continue to rally behind Polanski who has successfully fought extradition for decades. Now, during the unveiling of his movie “Venus in Fur,” a satire on sexism starring his wife Emmanuelle Seigner, Polanski decried the loss of real women and how birth control pills are “masculinising” women. Of course, it is some small degree of progress that Polanski is actually focusing on fully grown women at this point. Yet, most women would find him a rather unwelcomed expert on anything dealing with females given his continued fugitive status as a child rapist.
Continue reading “Femininity and The Felon: Polanski Laments How Pill Is “Masculinising” Women”
Below is today’s column in the Washington Post’s Outlook Section on the dangers of America’s growing administrative state. Ask any elementary student and you will hear how the Framers carefully designed a tripartite, or three-branch, system to govern the United States. This separation of powers was meant to protect citizens from tyranny by making every branch dependent on each other to carry out the functions of government. These three branches held together through a type of outward pressure – each holding the other in place through their countervailing forces. Add a fourth branch and the structure begins to collapse. That is precisely what is happening as federal agencies grow beyond the traditional controls and oversight of the legislative and executive branches. The question is how a tripartite system can function as a quadripartite system. The answer, as demonstrated by the last two decades, is not well. The shift from a tripartite to a quadripartite system is not the result of simply the growth in the size of the government. Rather, it is a concern with the degree of independence and autonomy in the fourth branch that led me to write this column.
Continue reading “The Rise of the Fourth Branch of Government”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
About one year into Barack Obama’s first term as President I began calling the White House demanding that Attorney General Eric Holder should be fired. I was disturbed by the lack of prosecutions and by the trend towards stricter enforcement of the Drug Laws. Clearly this was not the change I envisioned from a Constitutional Law professor, or his Attorney General. I guess my support in the election wasn’t important enough to get The President to hear my plea to rid himself and us, of both Holder and Geithner. Here we are now more than four years later and both of these bozos are still on the job and doing harm to our Constitution and our economy. With the Associated Press eavesdropping scandal we have just the latest contretemps committed by the Justice Department and its hapless leader. Having lived through Attorney General’s John Mitchell and Ed Meese, I understand full well the importance of the position and how if it is filled with the wrong man mischief will arise. Eric Holder is in the tradition of both these men since he too seems nonplussed when it comes to upholding the constitution. This article was in reaction to reading about Holder signing off on the AP probe in Thursday’s Huffington Post, I give credit to them for this story and I will provide links. Here are six instances of Holder’s using his office to achieve what I see as disastrously wrong actions. Continue reading “Eric Holder Should Go!”