The opening day has finally arrived for many of us who are football fans. However, if there was hope to have a season without the highly divisive anthem controversy, those hopes were dashed as the NFL officially announced that it would go forward on its policy against protests during the anthem. Further fueling the controversy will be Nike’s campaign featuring “Just Do It” ad, narrated by Colin Kaepernick. Nike is referencing Kaepenick’s stand as an example of courage despite the opposition of many football fans. I have previously written about the legal aspects of these protests.
Update: The Dolphins led the protests today with players kneeling during the anthem. Continue reading “Just Do It: The NFL Backs Out Of Anthem Policy As Nike Takes A Knee With Kaepernick [Updated]”
Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos was sentenced Friday to just 14 days in prison for lying to the FBI despite the position of Special Counsel Robert Mueller that he should spend at least six months in jail. The position of Mueller appeared to reflect a view that Papadopoulos was not as cooperative (or perhaps productive) as a witness. In the end, Papadopoulos appeared in an almost hostile position vis-a-vis Mueller. 
Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing and the opening statement of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse attacking the conservatives on the Supreme Court as a virtual ideological cabal. I have always found Whitehouse an articulate and insightful member of the Congress. He was not alone in these attacks. However, I found the attack on the current justices to be unwarranted and distorted. There is a tendency when you disagree with a decision like Hobby Lobby to conclude that the motivations of the justices must therefore be raw politics. The possibility that the justices, including Justice Kennedy, are following a coherent jurisprudential view is dismissed in favor of partisanship.
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Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore has long been an perpetual litigation machine. Indeed, Moore and his wife appear to have created a cottage industry out of being themselves — getting people to give them huge amounts of money to fight their enemies. 
The hysteria and hypocrisy that characterizes modern American politics seems to be worse by the day on both sides of the political aisle. One of the latest examples of distemper is an attack on the woman who was placed behind Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh for his hearings. Handlers will often put someone over the shoulder of a nominee for the right optics to reflect his supporters. With attacks over his view of Roe v. Wade, it is not surprising that the White House chose a young former female clerk of Kavanaugh named Zina Gelman Bash. Bash however found herself being called a white supremacist for flashing an “OK” gesture associated with the “white power” movement. It seems clearly to be just the arbitrary positioning of her hands but liberal bloggers like Amy Siskind, president and co-founder of the feminist advocacy group New Agenda, went into full riot over the alleged reveal of Bash’s white power links. The problem is that Bash has Jewish roots and Mexican heritage and has absolutely no ties or association with such groups. She simply crossed her arms and fingers during the long hearing. It is the ultimate sign of our times in how we have lost all decency and decorum in our politics. 
Below is my column in The Hill on the continuing promotionals for “The Notorious RBG.” I have long been a critic of this trend toward celebrity justices and the discomfort over these campaigns is not simply about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The culture of the Court is changing and I do not believe it is changing for the better.
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This weekend I discussed a surprising, and unreported, allegation made on CNN by former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili against the latest cooperating witness of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, former Republican lobbyist and Paul Manafort associate, Sam Patten. Saakashvili preceded me on CNN and accused Patten of threatening to ruin him if he went public with allegations about Patten’s work with Russian interests in Georgia. Since Saakashvili could easily be called as a rebuttal witness to Patten, the threats could be viewed as witness tampering. Saakashvili viewed them as outright Russian-style blackmail. Since I ran that column, I have heard from a great number of people on both sides, but I received an email this morning from Christina Pushaw, who identifies herself as Saakashvili’s representative. Pushaw sent the underlying material supporting Saakashvili’s charges and confirmed that they have given the allegation and evidence to the FBI today. The complaint to the FBI only magnifies the problems for both Patten and Mueller that I discussed earlier. A submission to the FBI, including a criminal allegation, comes with added penalties for false statements or submissions. Both sides in this dispute have been the subject of serious criminal allegations in Europe. Yet, such communications (if true) from a cooperating witness would unlikely be approved by prosecutors. Mueller’s team is about to present its prosecution of Paul Manafort for witnessing tampering for contacting potential witnesses to shape their accounts. That creates a rather awkward situation when its most recent cooperative witness is allegedly the subject of a complaint to the FBI.
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If Paul Manafort needed any further indication of his rapidly reducing future, it came in a new filing in New York last week. No it was not Special Counsel Robert Mueller,
Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on the departure of White House Counsel Don McGahn. Trump is now strongly suggesting that he may allow Attorney General Jeff Sessions to remain but only until after the approaching November elections. At that point, the situation could change rapidly and dangerously with a divided Congress. With the expected departure of both McGahn and Sessions, the next chapter appears a paraphrase of Dick the Butcher in Henry VI ”The first thing we do, let’s 
