A Beijing sperm bank is looking for millions of fellow travelers in possible donor sperm. Peking University Third Hospital has insisted that donors must “love the socialist motherland.” You must also pass medical testing.
Continue reading “Chinese Sperm Bank Limits Donors To Those Who “Love The Socialist Motherland””
Below is my column on The Hill newspaper on the significance (and coverage) of the Washington Post story that President Donald Trump is not a target of the Mueller investigation but only a subject of the investigation. None of this means that the risks for Trump in a sit down interview do not remain high. Even as a subject, he could be accused of false statements — a concern with a President known to go “off script” in meetings.
EPA administrator Scott Pruitt was adamant in his disastrous interview with Fox’s Ed Henry that he was unaware of the controversial raises given to two aides and that he attempted to find out which officials were responsible. The interview not only did not sit well many viewers, it clearly did not sit well with people at the EPA and the White House. The Washington Post is reporting that he personally instructed agency staff to approve raises for two top aides who had previously served under him in Oklahoma, The Post reports that two EPA officials and a White house official confirmed that Pruitt not only knew of the raises but instructed underlings to approve them.
Tasha Lynn Schleicher, 41, has achieved an ignoble distinction after being arrested for DUI in Illinois. The arrest of the Minnesota mother of 11 was her 12th arrest in ten states. She is now charged with two counts of felony aggravated drunk driving, two counts of misdemeanor drunk driving, not having vehicle insurance, driving with a revoked license and transportation of open alcohol while driving.
Police in Warwickshire, England are looking for this man and I would hope that he is not particularly hard to spot. Indeed, I am not sure what the burglary suspect resembles more: the character in The Mask or the Cheshire Cat. I am also not sure who the sketch artist was but he may have previously worked on Ecce Homo in the Sanctuary of Mercy Church near Zaragoza.
After declaring that Democrats who want her to be quiet are sexist, Hillary Clinton is back on her speaking tour blaming her defeat on everyone from the James Comey, self-hating women, Russians, Bernie Sanders, and misogynists for her defeat. Everyone except herself. Now Clinton has added “Pizzagate” to the lengthening reasons for her defeat.
Clinton continues (with Nancy Pelosi) to be the rallying cry for independents and Republicans moving into the midterm elections. Clinton has been told that she is hurting Democratic efforts to retake Congress but has refused to yield to the calls of various Democratic leaders as we discussed earlier. In the meantime, Clinton now stands alone among former presidential candidates who have uniformly become more popular after their losses. Clinton is the only one who has become even more unpopular. The reason is likely her unsuccessful effort to shift the blame for her loss against the second more unpopular person to ever run for the White House. In the meantime, Clinton has warned that, with Trump, “I Don’t Think We’ve Seen The Bottom Yet” Those are chilling words for Democrats growing increasingly alarmed over her impact on marginal voters needed to retake Congress.
California reached a milestone recently in its immigration laws: the state has now given over one million illegal or undocumented immigrants driver’s licenses. Passed in 2013 by sponsor Luis Alejo, Assembly Bill 60 required the California Department of Motor Vehicles to issue driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants as long as they can prove their identity and residence within the state. As of March 31st, some 1,001,000 undocumented immigrants have received licenses. The state has reached this goal at a time when it is on a collision course with the Trump Administration on immigration enforcement as well as some of its own cities. The result is rising rhetoric on both sides and an inevitable court fight.
Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the curious timing of a legal defense fund for Andrew McCabe — started and closed before the release of a report on his conduct. With the sentencing of the first Mueller defendant, Dutch lawyer Alex van der Zwaan, there are obvious questions of why people like Flynn and van der Zwaan should face prison for single false statements while McCabe is accused of lying four times, including twice under oath. Mueller’s office insisted that anyone who lies to investigators deserves to be sentenced and punished, but that standard appears to change be somewhat fluid when a former high-ranking FBI official is implicated. Nevertheless, I can certainly understand McCabe’s interest in a legal defense fund given the ongoing IG investigation and addition of a prosecutor to the team. However, the money was raised before donors could know the full account of the allegations against McCabe. Moreover, McCabe can use this money for any legal needs as he enters private life.
Here is the column:
Continue reading “The Curious Case of The Andrew McCabe Legal Defense Fund”
For a number of years, I have been writing about the lack of due process for our students and faculty in cases of alleged sexual harassment or assault in colleges or universities. (For prior columns, click here and here and here). This problem grew far worse under the Obama Administration when Russlynn Ali, then assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education, issued a “Dear Colleague” letter that effectively forced schools to strip away basic due process protections from internal proceedings. Various faculties objected, though they were largely ignored by administrators who feared losing federal funds or appearing “soft” on sexual harassment claims. Now, 23 Cornell Law School law professors have signed a letter denouncing such failures in a recent case. Unfortunately, some 41 law professors at Cornell opted not to join in the effort.
Police in New Jersey are facing a rather novel case of two women in the same car who are both charged with impaired driving because they allegedly took turns driving drunk. Jamila Banks, 24, of Virginia andJanelle Green, 23, switched seats over the weekend. It did not help. Both women allegedly smashed into cars. It appears that drunk driving is not one of those things that improves with numbers.
In torts, we discussed the long-standing debate over the use of potentially lethal force to protect property. The common law has long barred the use of lethal force to solely protect property given the value of a human life. That issue appears at the heart of a first-degree murder case in Memphis where a store clerk followed a teenager out of a store after the teen allegedly stole a beer. The clerk, Anwar Ghazali, 28, shot and killed Dorian Harris, 17.
Continue reading “Memphis Store Clerk Charged With Murder In Shooting Alleged Shoplifter”
There is an interesting disclosure in the filing this week by Special Counsel Robert Mueller that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein last August expanded the mandate for Mueller in allowing him to pursue collusion allegations against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort as well as criminal conduct linked to his controversial dealings with Ukraine. The expansion shows not only the close supervision by Rosenstein but the care taken by Mueller not to exceed his mandate, which was already quite broad. The disclosure comes in the week with the first scheduled sentencing of a Mueller defendant. Warning: the story below contains foul language.
Continue reading “Filing: Rosenstein Expanded Mueller’s Mandate in 2016”
We have previously discussed the alarming rollback on free speech rights in the West, particularly in France (here and here and here and here and here and here) and England ( here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). Even the Home Secretary has been accused of hate speech for criticizing immigrant workers. South Africa now appears to have crossed the Rubicon of speech criminalization with a two-year sentence for a white woman, Vicki Momberg, who espoused racist statements in a confrontation with a police officer. The prosecution is being heralded as the start of a new era for speech prosecutions.
Continue reading “South African Sentenced To Two Years For Racist Comments”
There is a new controversy in Great Britain over the expanding criminalization of speech. An arrest has been made after an intensive investigation of napkins left at a Chinese restaurant containing racist language. The napkin was left by a young couple at the Hong Kong Star, a restaurant in Dumfries, Scotland. As vile as the language was on the napkin, the investigation and arrest illustrates the degree to which speech is being criminalized in Great Britain. Warning: this article has profane and racist language below.
Continue reading “Scottish Man Arrested After Leaving Napkin In Restaurant With Racist Language”
Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the push for new legislation to Robert Mueller. I supported the appointment of a Special Counsel and still believe that Mueller must be allowed to complete his work. However, this legislation would do little in terms of real protection while putting at risk a major piece of precedent from the Supreme Court.
Here is the column: