We have periodically discussed hunting accidents and the sometimes curious treatment given by juries in excusing negligence. Thomas Jadlowski, 34, faces the latest such charge. He shot and killed a woman who was walking her dogs in western New York.
TIME Magazine contradicted the assertions of President Donald Trump that he was offered to be Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year” but declined the offer. Trump tweeted that “Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named “Man (Person) of the Year,” like last year. But I would have to agree to an interview and a major photo shoot. I said probably is no good and took a pass. Thanks anyway!” The magazine now claims that the account is false.
Continue reading “Time Is Not On His Side: Magazine Contradicts Trump’s Person-of-the-Year Claims”
Teen Vogue columnist Emily Lindin is under fire this week after writing how she is “not at all concerned about innocent men losing their jobs” over false allegations of sexual assault or harassment. Lindin dismissed the dangers of false claims as low in joining other feminist writers in arguing that women must be believed in such cases. Indeed, Lindin wrote that even raising false claims could be a sign of hostility to women. I wrote recently how this standard was not used during the Clinton presidency where leading feminists not only supported Bill Clinton but continue to flock to events featuring the alleged sexual harasser and assaulter.
London detectives are searching for a man who placed a small camera in a toilet at Starbucks in Vauxhall. They have one big advantage: the first picture taken by the creep was of himself installing the camera.
David Williams, 56, finally resolved who will not be invited to Thanksgiving. He is clearly off the list. The Queens man became angry about who would be invited, specifically whether his girlfriend would be included. When his sister Dianna Gadson, 66, objected, he grabbed a knife. The rest is Norman Rockwell meets Jerry Springer.
Shakes the Clown allegedly added an unwanted scary element to a haunted house this Halloween: groping women. Two women complained to police and, according to a criminal complaint, Brandon Goral, 43, grabbed their breasts as they were waiting to enter a “haunted barn” at a campground in Janesville, Wisconsin.
Continue reading “Shakes The Clown Charged With Sexual Assault”
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. We begin this day with the Turley Turkey bowl with our neighbors and family. This is a tradition that has been held for over 50 years. It is an early game with copious amounts of hot chocolate, donuts, and treats. (It was 32 degrees this morning but blue skies). We then follow with my favorite meal of the year with roughly a large assemblage of friends and family. It is hard to imagine a better day (beyond the other Bears prevailing in a towering victory for Monsters of the Midway).
Many fans are debating today whether to watch football in a long-standing American tradition (including in my house) on Thanksgiving or join the growing boycott of the National Football League over the continued national anthem protests. Viewership and stadium attendance continues to drop around the country. Recently we discussed how the NAACP proposed simply dropping the national anthem as a way to resolve the controversy — a position that some of us strongly objected to. Now the NFL is proposing an equally bizarre solution: if you cannot get rid of the anthem, get rid of the players. The NFL is working on a proposal to keep players in the locker room for the national anthem. No players, no protest. It is an idea that President Donald Trump rejected for good reason.
In celebration of Thanksgiving, I give you our annual Turkey Torts of civil and criminal cases that add liability to libations on this special day (with past cases at the bottom). Many criminal defense attorneys and torts attorneys give special thanks for a holiday that can involve copious amounts of alcohol, strained family relations, over-the-hill amateur football players, “Black Friday” sale stampedes, and novice cooks. Indeed, this year, the Kellem family started early by bagging a 30-pound wild Turkey in Indiana when it went smashing through their rental car window. Indeed, this year saw repeated warnings of aggressive wild turkeys during mating season causing accidents and injuries. The result is a horn of plenty for litigators.
Of course, some accidents have happy endings. For example, the Macy’s parade (as discussed below) has had its share of balloon accidents but last year’s parade featured Miss Piggy saving singing icon Tony Bennett from a potentially disastrous slip and fall.
Likewise, no one was hurt when a wife reportedly varnished her turkey. Her husband decided earlier to put some varnish in a container in the refrigerator. The wife proceeded to baste the turkey with it. The guests remarked on how picture perfect it looked but then discovered that beauty is only skin deep.
Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving!
Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the ever-increasing list of politicians and celebrities accused of sexual assault or harassment. The latest news cycle has brought more instances of strategic belief or non-belief. When Clinton was accused in his first term, many of us wondered how Democrats would ever be able to regain their credibility on future sexual harassment cases. The solution is simple. You delay your believing until it no longer costs you politically or personally.
President Donald Trump indicated that it was better to elect Roy Moore over a liberal to guarantee a majority in the Senate. Trump’s advisor KellyAnne Conway also made highly controversial comments that appeared to dismiss the allegations against Moore as less relevant than the loss of his vote on the tax bill. It is one thing to say that you simply do not believe the allegations and quite another to want to secure this vote at any moral cost. As I have previously stated, I found the allegations of these women (who are largely Republican, Trump voters with no partisan axe to grind) to be highly credible. It is not enough to simply dismiss the allegations as “unproven” or (as noted by President Trump) denied by the accused. Even if the statute of limitations had not run, there would be no time for a trial before the election. Voters have to reach their own conclusions based on the credibility of women and their allegations. That is what many voters (and President Trump) did in finding the accusers of Clinton credible despite Clinton’s denials. Many struggle to ignore the large number of women alleging a pattern of abuse by Moore — accounts supported by an array of neighbors and former colleagues (including a police veteran who came forward yesterday to say that she was told to keep Moore away from teenage cheerleaders). It is still an inconvenient time to believe alleged victims despite the different standard applied to Clinton’s controversies.
What is striking is that some do believe these women but still insist that the need to secure a GOP vote takes priority over the concerns that Moore is a possible pedophile or even a rapist. These people are selling their ethics (and the ethics of Republican Party) quite cheaply. It is not everyday that one is able to establish your specific price on ethics. In this case, it is a vote on a tax bill. For others, there is no choice but to draw a line in the sand . . .with Moore on the other side. Indeed, when so many politicians are standing on principle in Washington, you know that there is no real alternative. If you find these women credible, there is no principled way to vote for Roy Moore. I find them quite credible.
Here is the column:
University of California -Riverside student Edith Macias achieved a degree of fame (or infamy) when she was involved in an ugly incident in September with a fellow student wearing a Make America Great Again hat. Macias ripped the hat off the head of student Matthew Vitale and then spouted profanities in a college office. Now Macias is looking at a charge of misdemeanor grand theft with the possibility of jail time.
Harvard University has been accused of failing to cooperate with an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice on its use of race in admissions. While such lack of cooperation with discrimination investigation was once the signature of universities fighting desegregation, it has now become something of a badge of honor for academics who are obstructing efforts to determine if students are being turned down based on their race, particularly Asian students.
Continue reading “Harvard Faces Federal Investigation Over Racial Discrimination In Admissions”
Yesterday, the Hill posted my column on the hypocritical responses by both Democrats and Republicans to sexual harassment and assault allegations against figures ranging from Harvey Weinstein to Al Franken to Roy Moore. In the last 24 hours, CBS anchor Charlie Rose and Rep. John Conyers have been added to the list. However, the most glaring disconnect in the response to such allegations remains Bill Clinton, who was just accused of additional incidents of sexual harassment and assault after his presidency. Putting aside the veracity of such new claims (which remain based on anonymous sources), Clinton has a long and well-documented history of affairs and allegations ranging from sexual harassment to rape. However, Democrats gathered in Little Rock, Arkansas to hold an adoring tribute to Clinton on the 25th anniversary of his election as president. The event, headed by James Carville, failed to mention a single allegation of his assaulting women even as Democratic politicians and commentators have begun to acknowledge that these women should have been believed and Clinton held more accountable. Indeed, opening the Clinton fest with Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop” was rather ominous given the allegations of ongoing misconduct.
Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, is the latest focal point for the growing free speech crisis on college campuses. University student Lindsay Shepherd, 22, teaches tutorials on language use for first year communications students in a class called “Canadian Communication in Context”. She showed brief clip featuring psychology professor Jordan Peterson who is against forced use of genderless and “made-up” pronouns. Shepherd said that the clip spurred a lively and beneficial discussion in the class. However, one student filed a compliant and now Shepherd is facing an investigation for creating a “toxic environment” for showing the clip without publicly denouncing the views expressed in the clip. It appears that the school’s motto, Veritas Omnia Vincit (“Truth Conquers All”), applies only to university sanctioned truth.
We have hit another milestone today with over 33,000,000 views. We are also expected to reach 35,000 followers on Twitter. That hardly makes us competition for the largest sites but it is still an impressive collection of people seeking a place for civil but passionate discourse on legal and policy issues of our time (and perhaps a few wacky stories). We often use these milestones to look at the current profile of the blog and its supporters around the world.
As always, I want to offer special thanks for our weekend contributors: Mike Appleton, Larry Rafferty, Darren Smith, Kimberly Dienes, and Cara Gallagher (particularly Darren who continues help up with periodic technical problems etc).
I particularly want to thank our regular commentators and readers. We try to keep this blog as an open forum with as little interference or monitoring of the comments as possible. Given our free speech orientation, we try not to delete comments and, for that reason, we are deeply appreciative of how most people avoid personal or offensive comments in debating these issues. We have had to delete a handful of comments with personal attacks or profanity but the number remains quite low for a blog of this size. The success of this blog is due to the fact that we offer something more than the all-too-common troll-driven, angry, and insulting commentary of the Internet. Thank you for voluntarily assuming restraint over the tenor and content of your comments. Continue reading “RES IPSA HITS 33,000,000”