Michigan State Representative Todd Courser has an alleged bizarre way of spinning scandal. The conservative Republican ran on a religious right affiliation and was reportedly about to be implicated in an affair with another conservative lawmaker. According to a transcript released by Detroit News was to instruct his aide to implicate him in a sex scandal with a male prostitute. That’s right, it is better to be caught with a male prostitute than a fellow Republican legislator. It could be all part of Courser’s belief in what he calls “God inspired encouragers.”
Category: Politics
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Earlier we featured the story of the Washington Supreme Court reversing the murder conviction of Odies Walker after an attorney with the Pierce County Prosecutor’s office made inflammatory and especially prejudicial power point slides during closing arguments. Citing an unacceptably large number of reversals and substantiated accusations of Prosecutorial Misconduct and Vindictiveness, Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Jay Roof ruled that there was sufficient cause to proceed with gathering signatures for a recall election. A ruling of this nature is required under the Washington Constitution to recall an elected official.
Organizers will need to gather 39,000 signatures for the recall to be held in an election to recall County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist.
Continue reading “Washington Judge Authorizes Recall Measures Against County Prosecutor”
We have previously discussed the criminal investigation of Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane for alleged prosecutorial misconduct. Kane, once a rising Democratic star in the state, has now been charged with leaking grand jury information and lying about it to a grand jury. She is not alone however. In Texas, her counterpart was also charged this week with criminal acts of securities violations. Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is now a criminal defendant facing two counts of his own.
Continue reading “Two State Attorneys General Charged Criminally In Same Week”
There is a relatively rare case developing in Connecticut where Professor Minati Roychoudhuri, 62, has been charged with making a false police report after charging that she was racially profiled by a police officer. A review of the dash cam video contradicted factual assertions made by Roychoudhuri in her sworn statement.
The India government is under fire for a sweeping censorship move blocking hundreds of adult websites as a social nuisance. A total of 87 websites were blocked — denying millions of adults the right to choose their own associations and entertainment. It is a triumph for morality codes and a significant erosion of free speech and privacy protections for the Indian people.
Continue reading “India Blocks Adult Websites In Sweeping Censorship”
The controversy over the use of a private server by Hillary Clinton has deepened with the classification of an addition 41 messages by the State Department. While Clinton has insisted that there was nothing classified on her email system and that any dispute is just a bureaucratic squabble “between agencies” the classification of many of these emails is no surprise to many of us who regularly deal with classified material. The classification of these emails will likely reignite demands for Clinton to turn over the server and raise the question of those thousands of emails that Clinton’s aides unilaterally deleted before turning over emails to the government. The classification level however of most of these messages are at the lowest level of such designations.
Continue reading “State Department Classifies Dozens of Additional Clinton Emails”
Yishai Schlissel, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man, stabbed six marchers in the annual Gay Pride Parade in Jerusalem. What is equally disturbing is that Schlissel was just released after serving 10 years for stabbing participants in the Gay Pride Parade in 2005. Schlissel immediately demanded a court held in accordance with Jewish law, a request which was denied.
Continue reading “Ultra Orthodox Man Stabs Six At Jerusalem Gay Rights Parade”
The Obama Administration has been accused by public interest groups of being one of the most hostile administration toward whistleblowers since the Nixon Administration. Not only whistleblowers but reporters have been subject to abusive investigations and crackdowns under President Obama. Now, that record has taken an even more dangerous turn. The Justice Department is facing bipartisan criticism after it moved to restrict access of inspectors general to documents needed to ferret out corrupt and abusive practices. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued a controversial 68-page memo that says that the department’s inspector general would be required to get permission from the agencies it is investigating to obtain wire taps, grand jury testimonies, and credit information.
Continue reading “Obama Administration Moves To Sharply Curtail Authority Of Government Watchdogs”
For those who are already upset about the prospect of the country again being given simply a choice between a Bush or a Clinton in the general election, they might not want to read the recent interview of President George W. Bush and Bill Clinton in Time magazine. In a revealing aside, Bush shrugs off the real significance of the result of the election so long as it is either a Clinton or a Bush: says it really does not matter so long as it is either a Bush or Clinton: “What difference does it make,” he said at the time, “if the order is Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama/Clinton or it is Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama/Bush?” It appears that we have a dynastic democracy.
Despite the determination of investigators at the State Department and intelligence agencies that Hillary Clinton did use her personal email system to handle confirmed classified information (and potentially compromised “hundreds of classified emails”), Clinton dismissed such allegations and assured the public that it is “pretty clear” that there was no classified information on her personal email system — a system that she used rather than the secure State Department system.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Obama Administration is preparing to release one of this country’s most notorious spies in an effort to placate Israel in the aftermath of Iranian agreement. Jonathan Pollard, an Israeli spy, betrayed his country and was arrested as he attempted to flee to the Israeli embassy in 1985. He was not only convicted of espionage but the Justice Department and intelligence agencies have long maintained that he did untold harm to the national security. The question of the release of Pollard has always raised interesting political, social, and legal questions. Thirty years is certainly not an insignificant amount of time and Pollard reportedly has health issues. My greatest concern is one of special treatment, particularly on sentencing policy for other national security cases. (For full disclosure, I have handled and continued to serve as lead counsel in national security cases). Continue reading “Concession or Coincidence? Pollard Reportedly To Be Released In Aftermath Of Iran Deal”
In a major development on the Clinton email scandal, the New York Times is reporting that the inspectors general for the State Department and the intelligence community have asked the Justice Department to open an investigation into whether there was mishandling of classified information by Hillary Clinton using a personal email account while secretary of state. While the newspaper referred to the action as a criminal referral, the Administration quickly moved to counter the story and insist that it is not technically a criminal referral. We have previously discussed this story and the insistence of Clinton that she did nothing wrong in maintaining a private email system and that none of the emails were classified. I disagreed with both premises as well as expressed great skepticism over Clinton’s insistence that she was really not trying to control her emails and insulate them from review but rather simply did not want to carry around two phones. According to the New York Times, investigators believe that Clinton’s email archive contained “hundreds of potentially classified emails.” Nevertheless, the Justice Department appears to be moving to counter any expectation of a criminal investigation against the former Secretary of State under Obama. We have previously discussed the special treatment historically given powerful figures in violating national security rules or practices.
The Jefferson Jackson Bailey dinners are famous events for the state Democratic Party in Connecticut. However, as part of the backlash against historical figures who owned slaves, the NAACP demanded that both names be stripped away from the dinner and the state Democratic Party agreed.
Continue reading “Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson Dropped From Democratic Events”
In a story that could easily be a skit for Saturday Night Live, the leading public relations firm MWW has hired former Congressman Anthony Weiner to give advice to the firm which specializes on “crisis communications.” Presumably MWW clients will identify with someone who created his own crises and then managed them. The only problem is that Weiner managed his self-inflicted crises not just badly but disastrously . . . over and over again.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has long been a target of civil libertarians criticizing his dismissive attitude toward basic rights and particularly speech and privacy rights in that country. As if to prove his critics right, Cameron has publicly made comments that can be best described as Orwellian and some have gone as far as describing as fascistic. In calling for new extensive powers, Cameron said “For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone. It’s often meant we have stood neutral between different values. And that’s helped foster a narrative of extremism and grievance.” It seemed like a scene out of V for Vendetta as Cameron called on citizens to give up their rights to fight the threat of terror.