Just when you thought that you have seen every bizarre crime, Roberto Daniel Arroyo steps forward. Police in Salina, California are looking for Arroyo who was caught on surveillance video licking a family’s doorbell for three hours and then relieving himself in the front yard.
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Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has reignited the debate over tax rates with her proposal a 70 percent top federal income tax rate. While few Democratic leaders are supporting such a proposal, most continue to criticize the wealthy for not “paying their fair share.” However, data from the Congressional Budget Office shows that the top 20 percent of earners in the country pay roughly 90 percent of the income taxes. When all taxes are considered, the top 20 percent pays roughly 70 percent. What is clear is that both sides are shading data in this debate.
Continue reading “Tax Hikes or Tax Hypes? Both Sides Start The Spin Toward 2020 On Tax Politics”
There is an interesting postscript story to the controversy surrounding New York attorney Aaron Schlossberg. As we discussed earlier, Schlossberg who went on a bizarre tirade against Spanish-speaking restaurant workers has quickly become the most hated man of the week in New York. The New York Post reported that he has now been kicked out of his office by Corporate Suites, the company that held his lease. Now, Schlossberg’s former client, Niche Music Group LLC, is suing him for embarrassing the company by its association to him. While I have little sympathy for Schlossberg (who is a GW grad), the lawsuit raises a troubling question over the liability of lawyers for statements or conduct made in their private lives. The premise of the action is that a lawyer can be sued if his views or actions cause embarrassment by association with clients.
Continue reading “Notorious New York Lawyer Aaron Schlossberg Sued By Former Client”
Statutory rape is a crime that has critics over its application and scope. Some object to the use of the law against teenage boys but not the girls in a consensual affair. Others object to cases where age is concealed or close to the age of majority or the other partner. However, few people disagree that sex with a child can ever be truly consensual . . . outside of Finland. Finland’s Supreme Court recently rejected the appeal filed by prosecutors of a three-year prison sentence for sexual crimes. The lower courts rejected rape charges on the ground that the 10 year old girl consented to sex in 2016 with an adult man. The man, a 23-year-old asylum seeker, argued that he did not force the girl into the sexual relationship with him and the courts agreed.
Continue reading “Finland’s Courts Just Ruled That Sex With A Ten-Year-Old Girl Was Not Rape”
Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on President Donald Trump’s most recent comments on impeachment.
Here is the column
Continue reading “Democrats Lay Impeachment Trap, But Will The President Step In It?”
There is a bizarre controversy in Portland, Oregon after the city began to put up notices on buildings that it deemed unsafe for possible earthquakes. The city is trying to prepare for “the big one” — a massive earthquake that is now overdue. It is identifying older buildings susceptible to collapse with public signs. However, it is facing a challenge from the NAACP of Portland which has declared the signs to be the embodiment of “white supremacy” and racism. There is also a challenge for building owners.
Continue reading “NAACP Declares Portland Earthquake Warnings To Be Racist”
In torts, we learn about animal liability rules governing dogs. While domesticated animals are generally not subject to strict liability, a dog with a vicious character (or one that has previously attacked) does fall under the strict liability standard. However, what about a vicious owner. Police are looking for a woman who attacked a jogger who used pepper spray to fight off her dog. The woman, not the dog, bit the jogger.
Continue reading “One Free Bite? Jogger Fights Off Dog With Pepper Spray . . . Dog Owner Bites Jogger”By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In an interview with AFP, Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces Senior Commander and Spokesman Redur Khalil stated “Reaching a solution between the autonomous [Kurdish] administration and the Syrian government is inevitable because our areas are part of Syria.”
The interview occurred shortly after United States President Donald Trump announced the upcoming withdrawal of American forces from Syria.
The statement might come as a surprise to many given the long and bloody civil war facing all of Syrian society, it does beg the question of whether it is the result of the realpolitik forced on the Kurds by Presidents Trump and Erdogan.
Continue reading “Kurdish Commander: “Deal With Assad Regime Inevitable””By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
You know you’ve reached a level of notoriety when someone creates a Hitler Goes Ballistic meme in your disfavor. Well, now it has happened for our friends at Patreon where a creator dubbed over a clip from the WWII film “Der Untergang / Downfall” and had the charity to cast Patreon CEO Jack Conte as Hitler.
The reported author surely displays courage to craft this, considering that he receives significant funding from Patreon, who’s Trust and Safety Team seems bent on wiping out what they disagree with, or what others label as being “Nazi” or such. Casting Mr. Conte as Hitler is worth a laugh in itself for the irony.
Continue reading “Hitler Goes Ballistic Over Patreon Censorship: Patreon Part 5”By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
The damage resulting from Patreon’s ill-advised venture into censorship continues with the departure of both content creators and their patrons.
Among many others, two of Patreon’s largest subscribers not only announced their departure but that they also intend to construct a crowd-funding source that they hope will insulate content creators from the whims of Patreon’s and other exchanges’ staff’s political or personal ideals. Many regard their departure not just in terms of protests in the name of free speech, but as sound financial stewardship to protect their own livelihood from a possibly unreliable payment and revenue source.
The bleeding continues
Continue reading “Exodus: Patreon: A Threat To Free Speech Part 4”
After fueling impeachment calls in the election, some Democratic leaders are trying to tamp down on the issue despite the filing of impeachment articles on the first day of the session. The leaders could now have a serious problem in controlling dozens of members who secured their fees in part on impeachment pledges. That was obvious this week when newly elected Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) proclaimed the intention to “impeach the motherf**ker” at a reception for the liberal group MoveOn. The statement obviously delighted the crowd but undermined the credibility of the new Democratic majority in seriously examining the basis for impeachment. In a measure of the distemper that has taken over our politics, Tlaib has refused to apologize.
Continue reading “New Democratic Member: “We Gonna . . . Impeach The Mother**ker””
Shortly before becoming House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) made an interesting statement in an interview with the New York Times that the Constitution makes her to be President Donald Trump’s equal. While President Donald Trump is criticized for misconstruing his inherent powers (often for good reason), Pelosi also appears to need a basic constitutional primer on the office.
Continue reading “No, Pelosi Is Not The Constitutional Equal To The President”
We have been following the unfolding disaster in Venezuela where the socialist dream of Hugo Chavez and his dim-witted successor Nicolas Maduro has reduced a major nation to virtual starvation. The central planning of Maduro’s nation has destroyed the oil-based economy and triggered inflation that is projected to reach one million percent within the year. Maduro however continues to follow the absurd economic model of Chavez and his chief ally, Cuba (another economic basket case). Rather than change course, Maduro ordered five zeros to be simply erased on the inflated currency while increasing the minimum wage by over 3000 percent. Venezuela now has been confirmed as having an annual inflation rate at the end of 2018 was 80,000%.
Continue reading “Venezuela’s Inflation Rate Hit 80,000 Percent In 2018”
I have been writing for weeks about the how many new Democratic members ran on the pledge to insist on new leadership, particularly in the opposition to Nancy Pelosi resuming as Speaker. Pelosi remains one of the most polarizing figures in the country and has long been unpopular with the majority of voters. However, these elections are not about the voters or even the party. It is about the members and their interests. Pelosi spent weeks working members with promises of committee positions and support. The result is that the new Democratic Party looks a lot like the old Democratic Party — and the new members have found a new home in the Washington establishment. Pelosi, 78, will resume the speakership today while Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), 78, will return as Majority Whip . . . and all is well in the Beltway after another “revolutionary” election.
Continue reading “Vive La Révolution: Meet The Faces Of The New Democratic Party”
This week I published a column on how the Democratic Party seems to have jettisoned many of its defining values to simply become the anti-Trump party. The best example of that transformation is the automatic opposition to Trump’s decision to pull troops out of Syria and other countries. At the same time, liberal media outlets like CNN and MSNBC have been airing continual experts denouncing the “hasty” withdrawal. Now veteran NBC award-winning journalist William Arkin has resigned in protest of what he says is the unrelenting support of the network for endless wars. He notes that the anti-Trump agenda at the network has overwhelmed what used to be critical coverage of “the machine of perpetual war acceptance and conventional wisdom to challenge Hillary Clinton’s hawkishness.” Now the reflective anti-Trump response at the network has overwhelmed all such considerations, according to Arkin. While Arkin calls Trump “an ignorant and incompetent impostor,” he cites the transformation of NBC into an opposition network as the main reason for his departure.
Continue reading ““The Machine of Perpetual War Acceptance”: Veteran NBC Journalist Resigns In Protest Over One-Sided Coverage”