Last night’s presidential debate left many of us in a deep depression over the state of our politics. Once again, the duopoly of power in this country has reduced a population of over 300 million to two subpar choices. President Donald Trump’s conduct and comments have been rightfully denounced while Biden offered little beyond not being President Trump. There were however two clear and surprising winners last night: Proud Boys and Antifa. Continue reading “Proud Boys and Antifa Emerge As The Winners From The Presidential Debate”
In a relatively rare move, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned a first-degree murder conviction this week due to the inappropriate comments made by the prosecutor that the jury could dispense with notions of the presumption of innocence. As a criminal defense attorney, I have dealt with this issue of abusive prosecutorial statements in closing arguments. Yet, courts often do little, if anything, in response. This case could offer a real deterrent for such prosecutorial misconduct.
Louisville Metro Police Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly is reportedly moving forward with defamation actions against those who have called him a “murderer” for his role in the Breonna Taylor case. His attorney Todd McMurtry has been unclear on who would be sued for the commonly used label following the shooting of Taylor and her boyfriend Kenneth Walker. A defamation is possible but it would be highly challenging under controlling case law and this specific context. Continue reading “Does Officer Jonathan Mattingly Have A Defamation Case In The Coverage Of The Breonna Taylor Case?”
I recently wrote about law professors who embraced Chinese censorship on the Internet as a mind-blowing contradiction for intellectuals. However, China has done one better. A school textbook changes a critical story in the Bible to support the authoritarian rule of the Communist Party. In the Chinese version of the story from The Gospel of John, Jesus still stops people from stoning a woman to death but when they leave, he then stones her to death because . . . well . . . she deserved it and that is the law. Fortunately, Jesus did not appear to make any direct reference to rendering Hong Kong unto Beijing.
Below is my column in The Hill on the comparison of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Judge Amy Coney Barrett. With the exception of their conclusions on the law, both women share striking similarities and Barrett represents a triumphant moment of conservative feminists in the country. She is a brilliant jurist with a stellar background, much like the jurist she would replace.
Here is the column:
We have been discussing a crackdown on some campuses against conservative columnists and newspapers, including the firing of a conservative student columnist at Syracuse, the public condemnation of a student columnist at Georgetown, and a campaign against one of the oldest conservative student newspapers in the country at Dartmouth. Now, The Badger Herald, a student newspaper at the University of Wisconsin Madison, has dismissed columnist Tripp Grebe after he wrote a column opposing the defunding of police departments. What was equally disturbing was how the rationale for this raw act of viewpoint intolerance tracked the rationale used by the New York Times in a controversy over the column by Sen. Tom Cotton on the George Floyd protests.
It appears that Judge Amy Coney Barrett has gone from a “cult member” for being a devout Catholic to a possible “white colonizer” for adopting two Haitian children. Where most of us saw a loving interracial family at the White House ceremony on Saturday, Ibram X. Kendi, the new director of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, saw a possible case of effective baby snatching by “White colonizers.” Continue reading “Boston University Professor Denounces Barrett As “White Colonizer” For Adopting Two Haitian Children”
We have been discussing the anti-Catholic attacks on Judge Amy Coney Barrett and how various commentators are calling her a “cult member” and a religious “monster.” Most responsible writers and newspapers have condemned the attacks but the New York Times has run a column that appears to justify the attacks using the same anti-Catholic tropes. (For the record, I was raised Catholic and attended a Catholic high school in Chicago). The column by Elizabeth Bruenig explains why the attacks may “not be entirely baseless” in exploring historical and philosophical sources. While I do not believe Bruenig holds or wants to advance long-standing anti-Catholic prejudices, the column references sources and advances stereotypes that are painfully familiar to many Catholics.
A tape has surfaced of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden bizarrely claiming that he “started” at a historically black college in speaking to supporters in South Carolina during the primary. Biden has never made any mention of going to Delaware State University and it is not clear why the many reporters in attendance at the event did not ask when he attended a HBCU. Indeed, he would be the first president to claim such a distinction. He might also have been inartfully referencing his start as a politician. Alternatively, this would seem like an academic version of cultural appropriation. It would seem a valid point of clarification for the media.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
California Governor Gavin Newsom last Wednesday issued Executive Order N-79-20 establishing a state goal that “100 percent of in-state sales of new passenger cars and trucks will be zero-emission by 2035”. The order also establishes extensive regulatory goals and practices mandating research and reporting standards extending to energy generation facilities such as petroleum extraction, public transit, and environmental protection. The proffered policy guidance does not mandate, at least in its current format, that existing non-zero-emission vehicles be forceably withdrawn from service by a hard date. There does seem to be an implication that constraints mandated against petroleum generally might as a consequence be unviable to the consumer and usher them into zero-emissions vehicle ownership.
California has over the last several decades established itself as a de facto policy maker nationally given the size of the state in terms of market share and the state’s jurisdication over such share. The Executive Order presents a very large reach given the current dependence on petroleum fueled Internal Combustion Engines for passenger vehicles. The goals could be achievable. Whether or not the implementation cost is something the public is willing to accept remains to be seen.
Below is my column on the fierce attacks that have mounted against Judge Amy Coney Barrett, including articles suggesting that her conservative Catholic views and support for a charismatic group makes her a virtual cult member. The announcement of the new nominee will come today and Barrett has been viewed as a frontrunner. The religious intolerance unleashed by her likely nomination has continued to grow. Last night, “Real Time” host Bill Mayer came unglued with a vulgar attack on Barrett that even brought in Trump’s alleged affair with Stormy Daniels: “We’ll be saying this name a lot I’m sure because she’s a f—ing nut. . . ‘m sorry, but Amy [Coney] Barrett, Catholic — really Catholic. I mean really, really Catholic — like speaking in tongues. Like she doesn’t believe in condoms, which is what she has in common with Trump because he doesn’t either. I remember that from Stormy Daniels.” Imagine if a conservative commentator responded to President Obama’s nomination of Kagan or Sotomayor by referring to sex with a stripper or referring to Kagan a “really, really Jewish.” These continuing attacks do not bode well for the confirmation fight ahead — regardless of the nominee. To paraphrase Sen. Feinstein, “[Religious prejudice] lives loudly within you.”
Here is the column:
Continue reading “Judge Amy Coney Barrett On Her Intellect, Not Her Faith”
Below is my column in USA Today on the growing calls for packing the Supreme Court with up to six new members as soon as the Democrats gain control of both houses of Congress and the White House. I was critical of Democratic nominee Joe Biden this week when he refused to answer a question of whether he supports this call by his running mate Kamala Harris and other Democratic leaders. Biden told reporters “It’s a legitimate question, but let me tell you why I’m not going answer…it will shift the focus.” That was an extraordinary statement since if the question was legitimate, the refusal to answer it was not. Many of us would not support a presidential candidate who supported the packing of the Court. If Biden considers this a viable option, he is not a viable candidate for many of us. This is a central issue in the presidential campaign that has been pushed by Harris and top Democrats. Yet, Biden is refusing to confirm his position. What is particularly concerning is that Biden precisely and correctly denounced court packing schemes like the one supported by this running mate. Just a year ago, he insisted “No, I’m not prepared to go on and try to pack the court, because we’ll live to rue that day.”
Here is the column: Continue reading “Destroying The Court To Save It: Democrats Wrongly Use Ginsburg To Push Court Packing Scheme”
Democratic members are introducing a blatantly unconstitutional bill that would limit the tenure of U.S. Supreme Court justices to 18 years. In claiming to defend the Constitution, members like Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Cal.), Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D., Mass.), and Don Beyer (D., Va.) are offering a plan that is as illogical as it is unconstitutional. While the bill also includes a provision that I proposed decades ago for the expansion of the Court, the term limit would be dead on arrival at any court.
We recently discussed the absurd case of a school sending police to the home of a 12-year-old boy in Colorado because he showed a toy gun inside his own home. Despite teaching such children virtually, the school treated the toy gun as a violation of “in school” policies. Now Ka Mauri Harrison, 9, who attends Woodmere Elementary in Harvey, has been suspended because a teacher spotted a BB gun in his room. As with the Colorado case, Louisiana school officials defended this new case of virtual insanity. Continue reading “Virtually Insane: 12-Year-Old Louisiana Boy Suspended After BB Gun Spotted In His Room By Teacher”
The Daily Kos and other sites are heralding the interview of Dr. Jason Johnson, MSNBC contributor and Morgan State journalism professor, who denounced the Kentucky Grand jury and prosecutors in the Brionna Taylor case as engaging in raw “state-sponsored white supremacy” in falling to indict the three police officers with murder. Others declared the result as the product of obvious racism in the justice system and many ridiculed Kentucky Attorney General Kenneth Cameron as a traitor to the black community or “the Bull Connor” of black lawyers. These attacks ignore the legal barriers to the murder charges demanded by many. While there are good faith reasons for many to criticize the charges or underlying decisions of the police, some of us warned that the case would present serious challenges given the shooting by Taylor’s boyfriend and the wounding of an officer.