It appears some things do not stay in Vegas. State District Judge Eugenio S. Mathis, 58, of Las Vegas, N.M., has resigned from the bench after being accused of sextexting his wife from the bench as well as other alleged misconduct. He has also agreed never to hold a judicial position again.
Continue reading “New Mexico Judge Resigns Amid Allegations of Sextexting and Misconduct”
Attorney General Eric Holder this week held out the possibility that the President could kill an American citizens with a drone attack on U.S. soil without any criminal charge or trial. After Holder announced President Obama’s kill list policy, many apologists for the Administration insisted that the policy was limited to targets outside of the United States and was subject to a form of due process of the President’s own making. At the time, I wrote that these arguments were nothing but spin by the Administration and its supporters since the underlying claim of authority would have no such limitations. Holder now appears to have confirmed that even they do not believe in such limitations. This follows the release of a memo showing that Holder’s description of the policy at Northwestern University Law School was narrower than the actual policy described within the Administration.
The murder trial of George Zimmerman just got a bit more complicated after an attorney revealed in open court that the girlfriend of teenager Trayvon Martin, known as Witness 8, is believed to have lied about her whereabouts following his death. The girlfriend has supplied a key account that portrayed Zimmerman as the aggressor from a brief telephone call with Martin. However, Mark O’Mara revealed in court that she is believed to have lied in stating under oath that she did not go to Martin’s funeral because she was hospitalized. While that does not change the account of the telephone call, it would be a lie under oath that could be prosecuted and would chip away at her credibility, particularly with another witness saying that Martin was seen on top of Zimmerman shortly before the shooting.
Continue reading “Key Witness In Zimmerman Accused Of Lying Under Oath”
Schools in Beaver County, Pennsylvania were shutdown on the basis for a voicemail greeting in which a student sings the theme air of “Fresh Prince of Bel Air.” That’s right, there appears little inquiry that is made between a call of a receptionists who misheard the lyrics of a song and a total police shutdown of a county.
We have yet another case of lunacy in our schools as part of the zero tolerance policy regarding guns. We have previously explored how teachers and school administrators are expelling or suspending students for everything from finger guns to stick figures. (here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). For a prior column, click here. Now, Josh Welch, 7, was suspended for two days because he nibbled on his strawberry tart and made it look like a gun. He picked up the fearsome Danish and said “bang, bang” and a teacher reported was irate.
We have been criticizing President Barack Obama for years over the failure of his Administration to prosecute officials responsible for torture as well as the intentional destruction of torture tapes at the CIA. Now a high-ranking United Nations official is joining the condemnation of Obama and his Administration. Ben Emmerson, U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights, has condemned the failure to prosecute a single person for the official torture program implemented during the Bush years. The Obama Administration has thrown the books at those who leaked the information on our torture program but Obama himself promised the CIA after his election that CIA personnel would not be prosecuted despite our obligations under international treaty.
Continue reading “U.N. Investigator Criticizes Obama For Record On Torture”
There is an astonishing story coming from Pennsylvania where the wife of Supreme Court Justice Seamus P. McCaffery appears to not only pull a salary as his chief judicial aide but has reportedly pulled in hundreds of thousands of dollars in referral fees from law firms who appear before her husband. In just one such referral fee, Lise Rapaport, received $821,000.
It appears that something borrowed and something blue is often the same item in some marriages in China. Chinese police are dealing with a rather novel crime: people digging up corpses to be buried with dead bachelors. They are called “ghost marriages” and four men have been arrested in this bizarre criminal enterprise.
Continue reading “Four Funerals and a Wedding: Chinese Police Crackdown On “Ghost Weddings””
There is an interesting torts lawsuit out of Houston where Layne Hardin, 44, is suing Obstetrical and Gynecological Associates, PA for allegedly giving two vials of his sperm to an ex-girfriend who proceeded to have his child. She is also suing the former boyfriend. The boy is now 2 years old. Hardin says that Tobie Devall has never let him see the boy while her lawyer says that he has never asked to see the boy.
Continue reading “Texas Man Sues Ex-Girlfriend and Clinic for Theft of Sperm Used To Produce Child”
Connecticut State Rep. Ernest Hewett, a five-term Democrat from New London, is desperately trying to explain a comment made to a high school girl during a hearing on the funding of youth programs. The girl had explained that one of the youth programs had cured her of her fear of snakes. Hewett then suggested that he had a snake under the desk for her to test herself on. Hewett insisted that the comment was entirely innocent and not sexual but he has been stripped of his leadership title. On his legislative site (which is still announcing his promotion to the leadership), Hewitt posts the defining quote of his career: “Never get so high that no one can touch you, never get so low that no one will want to touch you.” It appears that no one is touching Hewitt, or his snake, this week.
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
In recent years, we have heard and read a lot about the failure of public schools in the United States. “Our schools are failing” has almost become a mantra with members of the media, many of our politicians, and the advocates of school reform. I have seen few people who have questioned the assertions made by the media, elected officials, and school reformers that schools in this country are not adequately educating our youth and that our educational system is a total and abject failure.
Many of those who criticize our public education system offer charter schools and the privatization of public schools as solutions to the “education problem” in this country.
I’m a retired public school educator. I have known and am friends with many current and former public school teachers. I know that there are many fine classroom practitioners working in our public schools today…and many excellent schools where our children receive a quality education. I am aware that there are also many schools where children may not be receiving the highest quality education. (What often go unmentioned in the media are the real reasons—including poverty—why some schools in this country may be failing.)
One problem with the “our schools are failing” mantra—as I see it—is that all our schools are lumped together in one basket labeled “failing.” How did this come to be? Do we Americans really believe that NO public schools in this country provide their students with an adequate education? Do we believe that all schools need to be reformed? If not, do we believe that even the schools which are actually doing an estimable job of educating their students need to be reformed?
I think it is time we start taking a good look at the individuals and organizations that are behind the push to establish thousands of charter schools and to use taxpayer money to fund private and religious schools as the means of raising the quality of education in this country.
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)- Guest Blogger
You may recall the demonstrations against the NATO Summit that was taking place in Chicago in May of 2012. On May 16th, 2012, the Chicago Police Department made a military style raid on an apartment where several demonstrators were staying during the Summit.
“On May 16, 2012, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) conducted a violent midnight preemptive raid of an apartment housing 11 activists. Two of them, it would later be exposed, were actually undercover informants working on behalf of the CPD. Staying in an apartment in the Bridgeport neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, the activists were in town to protest the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit, held May 20-21. The military-style raid led to the eventual charging of three of those activists in the Windy City to protest the NATO Summit with conspiracy to commit acts of domestic terrorism and other related charges – under Illinois’ terrorism statute – in the form of a legal bail proffer. It was the first time the law – passed in haste by the Illinois legislature after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks – had ever been used.” Truthout Continue reading “The NATO 3 and Free Speech”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
One of America’s greatest novels in my opinion is “The Great Gatsby” and I think many literary critics feel the same. If you’re not familiar with it, the short synopsis is that it is the tale of Jay Gatsby, a mysterious figure of self made wealth who arrives on Long Island’s North Shore, known as the “Gold Coast”, back in the “Roaring Twenties”. His life intertwines with Tom and Daisy Buchanan, a “golden” young couple with inherited wealth and the best social pedigrees. The interplay between these three leads to ultimate tragedy for Gatsby and more than a few other characters swept into the social vortex surrounding the Buchanan’s. On the last page of this magnificently crafted book, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the narrator Nick runs into Tom and Daisy who are gaily embarking on a trip to Europe after some cataclysmic events of their causing and he says of them:
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
Continue reading ““The rich are not like the rest of us””
The Obama administration appears to have celebrated the unveiling of the statue of Rosa Parks in the Capitol by arguing that same-sex couples should be allowed to move halfway up the marital bus. In its amicus brief filed his week in Hollingsworth v. Perry. The Administration spent much of its first term fighting to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and refusing to accept that same-sex couples are entitled to the same protection as other couples. Now, the Administration is advancing a highly nuanced argument that conspicuously falls short of calling for a constitutional right to marriage for all couples. Instead, it is arguing for a type of constitutional balkanization where gay and lesbian couples would be given equal treatment under an “eight-state” solution.
Continue reading “Obama Administration Supports Gay Marriage . . . Sort Of”
Rev. Pat Robertson is back with a glimpse into the mind of religiously unhinged. In this video, Robertson talks matter-of-factly how demons can latch on to garments. Before putting on that Satanic Sweater or Demonic Dress, a fabric exorcism might be necessary.
Continue reading “The Devil Wears Prada: Pat Robertson Warns About Demons In Garments”