For the last year, I have been criticizing over-wrought and at times irresponsible legal analysis proclaiming “slam dunk” criminal cases and long-sought “smoking gun” discovery sealing the fate of President Donald Trump or his close associates. This includes months in which legal analysts referred to the crime of collusion despite there being no such crime. Unfortunately, this trend continues with the recent interview of Jill Wine-Banks, a former Watergate prosecutor, who told MSNBC that Trump’s recent tweets can constitute “obstruction of justice, witness intimidation, and it’s obstructing justice by saying to agents you better not dig too deep, you better not find anything because I will attack you.” I can see little support for such a position in the criminal code or past cases.
Michael Joseph Oleksik, 23, has a curious crime alleged in Florida. He reportedly became upset when an ATM machine gave him too much money so he proceeded to pummel the machine. It is not clear why he was enraged by being over-paid, but any concern for the bank’s assets did not extend to the machine itself.
Continue reading “Man Arrested For Beating Up ATM Machine After Being Given Too Much Money”
In Minnesota, there is a troubling case brought by Rice County Attorney John Fossum who has confirmed that he has charged a 14-year-old girl with felony child pornography for sending a fellow teen a selfie of herself. In such a twisted logic, the child is both the victim and the felon of child pornography.
Continue reading “Minnesota Teen Charged With Child Pornography For Sending Selfie”
Many of us are excited to see the new biopic “Darkest Hour” on the towering historical figure of Winston Churchill. What is less welcomed is a truly ridiculous warning added to the move that “the depictions of tobacco smoking are based solely on artistic consideration.” It is not even clear what smoking “based solely on artistic consideration” means but is clearly meant as a gesture to those who would immediately run from the film in shock at the scene of a twentieth century leader smoking. It turns out that while, “History is written by the victors,” it is rewritten by cringing Hollywood producers.
Continue reading “Churchill Biopic Features Warning Against Second Hard Smoke”
A feminist activist from the extremist group Femen ran onto the Nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Monday and tried to steal the baby Jesus. The woman screaming “God is woman” was tackled by Vatican gendarme. The group identified the culprit as Alisa Vinogradova and proudly declared her to be a “sextremist”. This is not the only effort his season to “jack” Jesus. These cases represent a convergence of the Corpus delicti and the Corpus Christi.
Best wishes to everyone celebrating Christmas.
I am in Chicago with the family for Christmas with my 90-year-old mother Angela. We got our wish this year for a white Christmas with a few inches on Christmas Eve. The Chicago Bears completed the perfect Christmas by winning on Sunday. Even though the Browns are the worst team in the country without a single win this year, none of us made any assumptions given the record this year.
Below is my column in the Hill Newspaper on an annual list of Christmas torts and mishaps. Santas feature prominently this year.
Continue reading “Christmas Torts: The 2018 Listing Of Holiday Mishaps and Madness”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
I received this week a true gem of a phishing e-mail. I have to admit however that I was a bit disappointed in its transparency.
Usually the notion of the Confidence Man of the past involves lavishing praise on his mark. Since the 1990s when a flim-flam attempted to scam a person they often provide respect by extending the courtesies of a learned barrister representing wealthy Nigerian politicians or royalty. But it seems cynicism finally overcame this fraud and it consumed him.
But then again, this onerous email might act as a filter to winnow out the intelligent from the truly gullible who are more easily victimized.
Despite a recent order from the Supreme Court lifting lower court injunctions on the travel ban, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that Travel Ban 3.0 is little more than a bad sequel with the same unconstitutional theme. I have previously written that I view the controlling precedent as favoring President Trump on the travel ban. While I respect this three-judge panel and their analysis, the opinion did little to change my mind on that legal point. The panel correctly put the ruling on hold pending a review by the Supreme Court, so we are not set for the long-awaited showdown in Washington on these legal issues.
Continue reading “Ninth Circuit Strikes Down Travel Ban 3.0”
Cornell University’s Black Students United presented the University president with a list of demands with one particularly surprising addition: a call to reduce the admission of African and Caribbean students in favor of African Americans. The demand would define true African American students as those who are at least second generation Americans.
The University of Virginia has reversed a decision of VA student council to refuse to recognize a conservative student organization because it catered to conservative students. This absurd decision was based, according to Ty Zirkle, UVA student council’s vice president for organizations, on a strained reading of state law. The decision was in sharp contrast to other groups which cater to shared viewpoints. The concern should be with the selective application of this perceived rule by the student council.
With much fanfare months ago, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a lawsuit alleging that President Donald Trump had violated the emoluments clause. The constitutional challenge was billed as meant “to stop President Trump from violating the Constitution by illegally receiving payments from foreign governments.” I previously stated that the lawsuit was unlikely to succeed.
Continue reading “Federal Judge Throws Out Emoluments Complaint Against President Trump”
There is an interesting hearing to be held in Minneapolis where a court will decide whether a new trial is warranted for Michael Smith, who has a record of offenses including fourth-degree assault convictions in 2005 and 2006. He is challenging his conviction four years ago after two jurors have stated that their votes were swayed by another juror calling him a “banger from the hood.” While statements of prosecutors are often the basis for post-conviction appeals, this is a statement from other jurors in deliberations that are rarely the subject of such detailed review.
Glen Alveris has a curious way of impressing a girl. He first shot an innocent woman walking her dog to impress his girlfriend with how “crazy” he was and then stabbed the girlfriend when we was clearly not impressed enough. He is likely to impress the heck out of a jury in New Orleans.
Despite the threat that the Administration was “taking names” of any country that voted to condemn the move of the United States embassy to Jerusalem, Some 128 countries voted to do so. Only nine voted “no” with another 35 countries abstaining, including Mexico and Canada. Our allies of France and England joined in voting for the resolution. The nine negative votes came from US, Israel, Guatemala, Honduras, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Togo.