In Illinois, the Des Plaines Police Department has arrested three employees of the Kiddie Junction day care facility after allegedly discovering that the women gave children gummy bears laced with the sleep aid melatonin without parental consent. Ashley Helfenbein, 25, Jessica Heyse, 19, and Kristen Lauletta, 32, were charged with endangering children and battery. The battery charge is clear since the parents thought that they were paying for Kiddie Junction, not Kiddie Junkies. The endangerment charge could result in some challenges.
It was another breathless bombshell evening last night as media proclaimed that a “Former Trump Aide” said that he believed Trump “may very well have done something during the election with the Russians.” CNN carried a series of bizarre interviews with Sam Nunberg who was refusing to comply with a subpoena from Special Counsel Robert Mueller to produce documents and appear before a grand jury. Nunberg spouted off a series of accusations against Carter Page and others that were immediately picked up as potential confirmation of collusion. However, each CNN interviews made it more and more clear that the network had a virtual freak on a leash. Soon Nunberg denounced Sarah Huckabee Sanders as a “fat slob” and telling her to shut her “big fat mouth.” Nunberg was clearly neither credible nor under control but he drove the coverage for hours as a former aide supporting Russian collusion theories. It was part of our new media: NASCAR journalism where media rushes figures like Nunberg in front of cameras and viewers watch for the inevitable crash. Update: Nunberg now is saying that he will cooperate after all.
Continue reading “Sam Nunberg and Last Night’s NASCAR Press Pileup [Updated]”
Chris Bourg, director of libraries at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has issued a prime directive that “Star Trek” posters and nerdy cultural images should be removed to create a more welcoming workplace for women: “Replace the Star Trek posters with travel posters, don’t name your projects or your printers or your domains after only male figures from Greek mythology, and just generally avoid geek references and inside nerd jokes. Those kinds of things reinforce the stereotypes about who does tech; and that stereotype is the male nerd stereotype.” It is not clear if the MIT seal is also problematic as a male dominated (and fairly geeky) cultural icon.
Continue reading “Prime Directive: MIT Librarian Declares Star Trek Posters To Be Male”
On Tuesday, March 6, at noon, I will have the pleasure of speaking as part of the screening of Democracy’s Messengers: The Never-Before-Told Story of Young Americans on Capitol Hill at the National Archives. Narrated by Cokie Roberts, the film Democracy’s Messengers tells the story our page system. I was a House page in 1978-79 and eventually served as a House Leadership Page. I will be part of a panel discussing our experiences ij the program. Register to attend online. You can also watch the program live streamed on the National Archives YouTube channel.
Below is my column in USA Today on the legislation proposed to combat Russian trolling and Internet campaigns. There is a serious threat to free speech in these measures, which mirror efforts from (ironically) countries like Russia and China. The serious threat is not a handful of Russians playing on our deep divisions, but rather the hacking operations and attempt to interfere with voting systems.
Here is the column:
President Donald Trump and Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu meet today in the White House as a critical moment for both leaders. It is not just a common interest in Middle East peace that they have in common in this meeting. Both men now have key aides who have been cooperating witnesses for prosecutions investigating allegations of wrongdoing. While there is still not direct evidence implicating Trump, Netanyahu is facing a serious threat of indictment, particularly after his former key aides, Nir Hefetz and Shlomo Filber have agreed to testify against him. These witnesses are far closer to Netanyahu and are cooperating on criminal cases directly linked to Netanyahu — as opposed to the collateral crimes thus far addressed by the Special Counsel. One other difference is the respective Constitutional issues. As I discussed recently, Israel has long accepted that a Prime Minister can be indicted in office. I believe that the same is true for a president, but there is a long and good-faith debate over the question.
I recently criticized the new Polish law criminalizing any statements attributing the genocide of Jews to Polish forces or actions. The legislature approved a bill making it a crime to use statements suggesting Poland bears responsibility for crimes against humanity committed by Nazi Germany. You could receive up to three years in prison for calling Auschwitz-Birkenau a “Polish death camp.” USNews is reporting that the first target of this abusive law has now been announced: the Argentine Pagina 12 daily. The newspaper was accused of breaching a new law by suggesting that Poland was complicit in the Holocaust.
Continue reading “Controversial Polish Holocaust Denial Law Takes On Its First Media Target”
We have been discussing the rollback of free speech in France where writers and speakers are now routinely prosecuted for what would be protected political or religious speech in the United States, including the recent conviction of Robert Menard, mayor of Beziers and a top adviser to Menard was found guilty of inciting hatred against Muslims for complaining about the increasing numbers of Muslim children in French schools. Now Le Pen is again being charged herself. She has been accused of the “distribution of violent images” for sending out tweets depicting ISIS propaganda and violence. It is again an example of France’s denial of free speech and particularly political speech. Regardless of how one feels about Le Pen’s views, these were core political expressions.
Continue reading “Le Pen Faces New Criminal Charges For Sending Pictures of ISIS Abuses On Twitter”
With South Africa’s poor economy showing slight improvement and a major credit decision looming, the new government of President Cyril Ramaphosa would be expected to chart a careful and conservative approach. However, its new leaders are turning to two measures that have historically triggered utter disaster for African nations: land expropriation without compensation and the even more dangerous plan to simply print more money and give it to the poor. I have long admitted to have a Chicago School bias from my undergraduate days, but this does not seem promising for this struggling country.
Continue reading “South Africa’s New Economic Plan: Expropriation of Land and Printing Money”
There are moments in life that are so perfect and magical that one can only sit back and just bask in its glory. That moment came for Ardsley High School basketball player Julian McGarvey who intercepted a pass with only 2.4 seconds left to play and won the championship for his school in an incredible 70 foot throw.
Continue reading “Taking The Shot: Julian McGarvey And The Self-Defining Moment”
Keri Karman, 25, and Charles Karman, 61, were reportedly irritated by a two-year-old in a movie that kept asking for popcorn. Karman allegedly responded to the demand (and an argument with the mother) by dumping a bucket of popcorn on the child. They are now charged with endangering the welfare of a child.
The head of Harvard’s massive endowment, Jane Mendillo, has reported a staggering loss of roughly $1.1 billion in its holdings — an amount larger than the total value of most academic endowments. It is an astonishing loss coming only six years since Mendillo took over the endowment and is being attributed to her heavy bet on natural resource investments.
Continue reading “Harvard Writes Off As Much As $1.1 Billion In Endowment Losses”
We have often discussed the relatively low sentences handed out for animal abuse in the United States. A major exception to that pattern occurred this week in Plano, Texas where Judge Mark Rusch sentenced Andrew Callaway to 12 years in prison for animal cruelty and a probation violation. Callaway stomped on a boxer puppy named Diesel and threw it against a wall. The puppy later had to be put down due to the devastating injuries caused by Callaway, who told police he was upset at the time and regretted taking it out against the dog. Most of the sentence was for the probation violation.
Saying that “I’ve known Bob Mueller for 20, 30 years”, former Attorney General Eric Holder said on national television that Trump will be charged with obstruction of justice. Holder does not indicate why he is so confident or the specific basis for an obstruction charge. I have previously stated that I do not see a credible obstruction charge on the available evidence.Continue reading “Holder: Mueller Is Going To Charge Trump With Obstruction”
Erik Graeff, 42, is a Vancouver lawyer based in Oregon who is accused of taking a dispute with a former co-counsel to an extraordinary level in allegedly firing several shots into the Beaverton office of Terrence Hogan. No one was hit in the office but one bullet barely missed an Administrative Assistant. Graeff is reportedly a former decorated sniper in the Marines.