Congress, International

Will Trump Use The National Emergencies Act To Impose A Tariff On Mexico For Illegal Immigration?
Flag of Mexico

President Donald Trump declared on Thursday that he would impose a 5 percent tariff on all goods entering from Mexico unless it stopped the flow of illegal immigration to the United States. The move would set a dangerous precedent of mixing trade and immigration issues — further destabilizing the economy and isolating the United States. If this unprecedented move is based on the National Emergency Act, it would again push the law to its extremes. Yet, as I have previously written on the controversy over the wall construction, Congress unwisely gave presidents sweeping and largely unchecked authority.

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Academia, Bizarre, Politics

Age Of Rage: Tribe Calls McConnell “McTurtle” And A “Flagrant Di**head!”

President Donald Trump’s penchant for personal and derogatory remarks about his critics and opponents is well known. Many of us have objected to how Trump’s tweets and attacks have tarnished the Office of Presidency. He has already given insulting labels to various candidates in the Democratic primary. However, such attacks are not just confined to Trump. Yet, as academics, such incivility runs against our tradition of civility in discourse. It often can take no small amount of restraint, but name calling and ad hominem attacks achieve little beyond joining a race to the bottom. That level of restraint was lost this week by Laurence Tribe, a renowned academic and the Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard University. While name calling is now routine, this instance is notable, and alarming, from one of the nation’s leading academics.

Tribe went after Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) this week after McConnell promised to fill any Supreme Court vacancy in 2020. McConnell had led the blocking of the confirmation of Merrick Garland in 2016 by citing that fact that it was an election year. When asked what would happen if Republicans faced a vacancy in 2020, McConnell was adamant: “Oh, we’d fill it.” That was too much for Tribe who attacked McConnell in what many would view Trump-like postings.

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Criminal law, International, Religion

Girl At Islamic School Accuses Headmaster of Assault . . . Mob Then Burns Girl To Death

We have previously discussed the violence and discrimination faced by girls and women in some Muslim countries. Nusrat Jahan Rafi, 19, is the latest such victim after she was burned to death. Her offense was reporting a sexual assault by Headmaster Siraj Ud Doula at her Islamic school, or madrassa. Sixteen people are accused of engaging in the conspiracy to murder this girl in Bangladesh.

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Bizarre, Military, Politics

Trump Staff Demanded Removal Of Warship Bearing John McCain’s Name Before Japan Visit

The White House reportedly told the Defense Department that it needed to send away the the USS John McCain so that it was not around when President Donald Trump visited Japan. Named after Trump’s Republican critic, the ship had to be “out of sight” by the time Trump arrived for a visit to the Yokosuka base. Trump has denied knowing about the order, but did not say that he would find out who issued the order and fire them. The idea of White House staff dictating the movement of warships is extremely serious and the Navy should have refused. These warships have missions and are not props. Moreover, the people serving on these ships are not some collective pariah due to petty politics.

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Justice, Lawyering, Media, Politics, Society

Wolff Book Prompts Rare Denial From Special Counsel’s Office

Michael Wolff made a killing on his last book on Donald Trump despite denials from his sources as to key statements. He is now back with a sequel entitled “Siege: Trump Under Fire.” As before, there were instantly questions about Wolff’s standards and sources in making sensational claims. Two such claims immediately stood out as highly dubious, if not facially untrue. The Special Counsel’s office has already made a rare public denial of one of those claims: that Mueller’s office actually drafted indictments against Trump for obstruction of justice.

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Congress, Politics, Society

California Emergency Rooms Overwhelmed With Wait Times Averaging Five And A Half Hours

Remember when national health care was going to finally clear our emergency rooms? It has not exactly worked out that way, particularly in California. While there are clearly other benefits from national health care, the hope that people would turn to regular medical visits rather than ER visits has not materialized in California where the average wait time is five and a half hours. An astonishing 57% of patients left before seeing a doctor due to the delay — that constitutes roughly 352,000 persons leaving without fully addressing their medical conditions.

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Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Free Speech, International, Media

Poll: Only 18 Percent Of Germans Feel Free To Voice Views In Public

For years, we have discussed the unrelenting attacks on free speech in Europe with the expansion of hate speech laws and the general criminalization of speech, including international speech crimes. Some in the United States would like to follow down that dangerous path (and universities are reinforcing the view of the need to regulate speech). The implications of such anti-speech policies are evident in Germany where a survey, conducted by the Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach(and published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) found that only 18 percent of Germans feel free to express their views in public. It is the most vivid example of how Europeans are learning to live without free speech. Undeterred, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the successor to Angela Merkel, is now calling on greater limits on free speech during election periods — a concept that would normally be viewed as counterintuitive outside of the new European model.

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Academia, Media, Politics, Society, Torts

Biographer: MLK Watched And Laughed During Rape Of Follower

Pulitzer prize winning author and MLK biographer David Garrow has written a disturbing piece in the British magazine Standpoint on his review of secret tapes of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. There have long been stories about MLK’s affairs and even discussions of reexamining his standing in the MeToo period. However, the details in this article are different and deeply unsettling, if true. If not, Garrow has ruined his own celebrated career and defamed an American icon. Either way, one would think that there would a huge amount of coverage of the allegations in the mainstream media. Instead, there has been very little coverage of the story. While Yahoo and MSN ran foreign-based stories, most of the coverage has come from newspapers outside of the United States.

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Bizarre, Science

Study: Umpires Wrong In 20 Percent Of Plate Calls

In 2018, Cubs player Ben Zobrist was thrown out in the ninth inning of a 2018 game against the Milwaukee Brewers after telling plate umpire Phil Cuzzi  “That’s why we want an electronic strike zone.” I have long agreed with Zobrist that it is insane that we continue to rely on umpires rather than electronic strike zones. Indeed, we watched games where an electronic strike zone is used to determine if an umpire was right. Instead of using that system, however, we use the less reliable human umpire at home plate. Now  a new study  of some four millions pitches found that umpires were wrong an astonishing 20 percent of the time. That is one out of five pitches in games that often turn on a handful of calls. It is insane to use the least accurate means for calling strikes and balls when so much depends not just for these games but for the players who deserve to be measured accurately on their performance.

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Columns, Criminal law, Politics, Religion, Society

Why Mueller May Be Fighting A Public Hearing

Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on why Special Counsel Robert Mueller may not want to testify in public. Mueller clearly had trouble explaining why he was refusing to reach a conclusion on obstruction in a meeting with Attorney General Bill Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. It could be a hundred times more difficult — and embarrassing — before a congressional committee.

Mueller failed to perform the most basic function of a special counsel to reach conclusions on possible criminal conduct. After accepting the job as Special Counsel, Mueller basically decided not to be a special counsel with respect to this core responsibility. It was like watching Bodexpress run in the Preakness without a rider. My first reaction to both scenes was: can he do that?  The answer in both cases is it is possible but this is not how it is done.  The Special Counsel is mandated to find possible evidence of criminal conduct. Period.

Here is the column:

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Academia, Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Free Speech, Media, Politics, Society

Trump Again Calls For Changing Libel Laws After NYU Professor’s Faked Quote [Updated]

President Donald Trump has previously — and unwisely — called for changing libel laws to combat what he calls “fake news.” I have previously criticized  Trump for his calls for greater liability of the media for its coverage of the controversies surrounding his Administration, including his desire to sue Saturday Night Live.  Now, due to the publication of a false quote from Trump by New York University Professor Ian Bremmer, Trump is again calling for a change in the law and ignoring that our defamation standard is anchored in the first amendment. Ironically, Trump himself was recently accused of posting a doctored clip of Nancy Pelosi and has repeatedly retweeted false or defamatory statements.

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Courts, Lawyering, Politics

Utah Judge Suspended Six Months For Anti-Trump Comments

We recently discussed a federal judge who gave a public speech excoriating President Donald Trump. While we discussed how the comments of Judge Carlton Reeves would violate judicial ethical rules, no discipline has been brought for the comments. Indeed, Reeves is back in the news for his ruling to enjoin the Mississippi anti-abortion law. Taylorsville Justice Court Judge Michael Kwan received a six-month suspension for his anti-Trump comments last week.

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Columns, Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Free Speech, Justice, Media, Politics, Society

The Assange Case Could Prove The Most Important Press Case In 300 Years

Below is my column for BBC on the Assange espionage charges. As I have written, I believe that Attorney General Bill Barr is dead wrong on these charges — a view apparently shared by at least two of the prosecutors on the team. Until now, President Donald Trump’s disturbing rhetoric against the media has been disconnected from actual moves against the media with the exception of suspending press passes or changing rules for the White House press corp. This is a quantum leap in the wrong direction. Indeed, this prosecution could easily become the most important press case since John Peter Zenger.

Here is the column:

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Environment

More Photos Along a Green Dot Road

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

A few days ago brought me another business trip comprising six hours of driving to facilitate one hour of actual work. It did nevertheless provide an opportunity to visit another green dot road within country I haven’t seen in nearly thirty-seven years.

For me it brought a few quick memories of places, memories that were occasional and fleeting as I drove past. It made for a convincing argument that we must as individuals return to what we found as hobbies during our teen years as something that can remind us of whom we were then–that was, in fact, the person from whom we evolved.

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