Below is my column on the rather transparent calls for ethics investigations of Roy Moore and Al Franken despite the limited scope of potential discipline and the checkered history of congressional ethics.
Here is the column:
Continue reading “FOR ROY MOORE AND AL FRANKEN, HISTORY AND THE LAW IS ON THEIR SIDE”
I have been critical of the representation afforded by Gloria Allred and her daughter Lisa Bloom in past cases, including the rapid calling of press conferences at the height of news cycles. Bloom has had public squabbles with clients including Harvey Weinstein and Kathy Griffin. While media management is part of zealous representation, there are times when I am left uncertain as to the legal strategy behind press conferences. In the case of Allred’s representation of Roy Moore accuser Beverly Nelson, the press conference has not only resulted in her being nationally ridiculed but she is now accused of falsifying Moore’s signature on a yearbook. Allred’s defense of her client on the charge has been so anemic and uncertain that many have taken it as a concession. As a result, Allred has given Moore just the issue to paint all of these women as liars and made the failure to turn over the yearbook the element of doubt that he was so desperately searching for in this scandal. Just as I was critical of Moore’s counsel, this situation could not be worse for Allred’s client. This was a predictable attack that Allred should have anticipated and had a response (other than we will turn over the yearbook in time) to blunt the attack on her client . . . better parading her in front of cameras.
Wes Goodman is the Republican state legislator for Ohio who ran on a religious right agenda of opposing LGBT rights and same sex marriage. His career ended last week after the discovery of Goodman having sex with a man in his office. Things that makes this legislator less of a good man is not his apparent homosexuality but his dishonesty and hypocrisy. He is not only married to a woman but has been a leading voice against homosexuals.
Jim Bakker was last seen by most people after his sex scandal and then sentencing for fraud. Now he is back and he will totting pancake mix. Bakker is shilling for people to call a 1-888 phone number to give him $60 (plus shipping) for a bucket of pancake mix. The alternative appears to be starving your children and handing them over to the Biblical Beast.
Continue reading “Rev. Jim Bakker: Buy My Pancake Mix Or Make Flapjacks In Hell?”
It seems that Naval Aviators are taking a cue from their Air Force counterparts and “aiming high.” In what may be the greatest example of male exaggeration, a Naval pilot drew a giant phallus in the skies above Okanogan, Washington. I am ready to represent the pilot and argue that this is really nothing more than a cowboy hat and that the suggestion of anything more is merely an example of sexual repression revealed in an aerial Rorschach test. UPDATE: The pilots have been disciplined but will keep their “wings.”
Continue reading “Aim High: Military Pilot Draws Giant Phallus Above Washington State [UPDATED]”
It appears that crime is so low in Detroit that police are left trying to arrest each other. On the East side of Detroit, the 12th Precinct sent in a team of special ops officers to pretend to be drug dealers. At the same time, the 11th Precinct sent in officers pretending to a drug buyers. The rest will long be the subject of law enforcement legend.
Below is my column in USA Today on the plan to bar Roy Moore from taking his Senate seat, if he is elected in Alabama. For once in his checkered career, Moore would actually have the constitution on his side in challenging such efforts. Like the Kübler–Ross model of the stages of grief, the Senate may have to move from exclusion to expulsion to acceptance of a Senator Moore.
We have been discussing the dropping of mascots and team names due to claims of cultural appropriation and insensitivity. The latest school to do so is Marist College which is dropping the upstate New York school’s longtime mascot “Shooter the Fox.” Marist Athletic Director Tim Murray said that “Unfortunately, in our culture today, there is a negative stigma to that term ‘shooter.’ And I just didn’t think it was appropriate for us at this time to perpetuate that term.” However, Shooter would often appear at basketball games to “shoot” baskets. Now “Shooter the Fox” will be called “Frankie the Fox.” Does this mean that we will change the lexicon of basketball to drop references to “shoots?” Marist students can now be described as taking a Frankie for a basket.Continue reading “Marist College Drops Mascot “Shooter The Fox” Due To Violent Connotation”
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A Dallas County assistant district attorney Jody Warner is out of a job after berating and striking an Uber driver in an intoxicated rant. The Dallas County District Attorney fired her after the driver Shaun Platt, 26, posted an account of the encounter on Facebook.
Continue reading “Texas Prosecutor Fired After Posting Of Drunken Abuse of Uber Driver”
Below is my column in the Hill Newspaper on the need to end “blue slipping” in the United States Senate. I have long criticized the “courtesy” allowing a single senator to block a nominee as inimical to our constitutional system. I have maintained this position throughout both Democratic and Republican administrations.
Here is the column:
Continue reading “Time for Congress to end the abusive ‘blue slipping’ process”
The unfolding disaster surrounding Roy Moore truly gets worse the day. In the last 24 hours, two more women with highly compelling accounts described the same conduct of Moore pursuing very young girls while a prosecutors in his 30s. This includes a girl who Moore allegedly pulled out of her trig class in high school to ask out. She said that she later avoided him after one date where she felt he forced himself on her against her will. Moore has made the situation worse with conflicting and unconvincing statements about his alleged penchant for very young girls. However, if Moore’s self-defense has been wanting, the defense by two of his lawyers has been even worse.
Just when you thought allegations could not get worse for GOP Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, it does. New allegations have surfaced that Moore was not only widely known to be someone who hit on young girls in Gadsden, Alabama but he was allegedly put on a watch list for the local mall to be kept away from young girls due to predatory behavior. Despite virtually universal calls in Washington and the GOP for Moore to withdraw, he is refusing to do so even as his campaign is buried in allegations from an ever widening array of alleged victims, neighbors, former colleagues, and now mall workers. Even with the Senate majority at stake, the GOP majority leader Michael McConnell has said that he would prefer to lose the seat and possibly the Senate rather than have to seat the likes of Roy Moore. In the meantime, Moore went to a Baptist revival to reaffirm yesterday that he is not dropping out and that this is a “spiritual” battle for all faithful Alabamans.Continue reading “Mall Menace? Moore Allegations Mount As GOP Tries To Force His Withdrawal”
San Diego State has long rallied about its mascot The Aztecs, but may soon join other schools in changing its symbol to avoid objections over cultural insensitivity. We previously discussed the controversial decisions to drop the “Fighting Sioux” and “Chief Illini.” This decisions and polls show Native Americans largely supportive of team names referencing National American icons or tribes.
The controversy continues to grow at Rutgers University after the school hired Mazen Adi as a lecturer in its Political Science Department. Adi’s former position was a spokesman for the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Despite his work for this bloodsoaked mass violator of international law and human rights, Rutgers insisted that Adi’s expertise was in the areas of “international law and diplomacy.”
Former Alabama Chief Justice and U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore is facing new allegations today from yet another women who says that he pursued her as a young teenage girl. Beverly Young Nelson was 16 when she says that Moore tried to rape her after offering her a car ride home. Moore says that he does not know Nelson but the yearbook page above contains a personal message from him reading “To a sweeter girl I could not say Merry Christmas” — signed “Roy Moore D.A.” The pattern of allegations from so many women have made Moore’s continuance in the campaign untenable. Not only have GOP senators demanded his withdrawal but some are discussing an expulsion vote if he were to be elected. In the meantime, Moore is now threatening a lawsuit against the Washington Post for defamation, but the threat is curious in both its sole target and the specific fact being claimed defamatory. Notably, his wife has now said that she will also sue. There is not however an actual lawsuit at this time and the Moores are unclear on when a complaint will be filed.Continue reading “Moore Charges As The Alabama Candidate Threatens To Sue Washington Post”