Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is back in the news and it could not be more bizarre. This week Spitzer was accused of allegedly threatening to stab a restaurant patron’s crotch for stating that he respected Spitzer’s nemesis, Home Depot founder Kenneth Langone. Jamie Antolini says that Spitzer yelled “I’ll get a f**king knife and stab you right in your f**king cock!” Spitzer resigned as Attorney General after disclosure of his patronage of high-end prostitutes.
Adam Hettig, 32, may not have thought out his latest crime with very far. Hettig is accused of robbing a Subway in North Chili, New York while wearing his ankle monitor from the parole office.
Continue reading “New York Man Allegedly Robs Restaurant While Wearing Ankle Monitor”
Another major case has been thrown out due to prosecutorial abuse by the United States Department of Justice. We have previously discussed cases where federal prosecutors have withheld evidence and filed false or misleading statements to the court. Now, U.S. District Court Judge Gloria Navarro has issued a dismissal with prejudice against the Justice Department in the case against Cliven Bundy and his sons due to what Navarro describes as flagrant and knowing violations of professional ethics and federal law by the Justice Department. In past cases, the Justice Department has shown little commitment to discipline, let alone terminate, anyone for the violations (or the waste of millions of dollars). In this case, however, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has called for a review of the case.
We have been discussing how Germany has led the West in the criminalization of speech, an anti-free speech trend that is now raging in England, France, Canada and other Western nations. Germany has continued its plunge into censorship and criminalization despite the failure of its speech laws to curtail extremism. The most recent case involves a 32-year-old German neo-Nazi who has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for incitement after posting picture of a miniature of the Auschwitz death camp on Facebook with an offensive caption.
We recently discussed how University of Illinois math professor Rochelle Gutierrez triggered a national controversy over her work “Building Support for Scholarly Practices in Mathematics Methods” in which she criticized math classes as a “tool of whiteness.” Now, CUNY Professor Laurie Rubel has published a peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Mathematics Education arguing that the concepts of meritocracy and “color-blindness” are ideological precepts that work against minorities. It is a worrisome trend among academics to challenge even the most objective fields of advancement as requiring a more race-conscious approach.
Our close ally Egypt has long been a symbol of religious intolerance and anti-free speech values — a government partially subsidized by billions in U.S. aid. Now, Amr Hamroush, the head of parliament’s religious committee, has announced that Egypt is moving toward the criminalization of disbelieving in God. That’s right, you will be committing a crime in Egypt if you do not believe. Akin to the policy of the “beatings will continue until morale improves,” Egypt may soon instill belief in God by jailing people for not believing.
Continue reading “Pray or Perish: Egypt Moves Toward Criminalizing The Disbelief In God”
The opening of ANWAR to drilling by President Donald Trump was a major loss for environmentalists. My views in favor of preserving such areas are well known. However, the opening up of the entire coastline of the United States has angered even Republican governors and politicians. The position of the White House is that the drilling is too valuable to pass up, but now tiny Belize has shown the alternative view: the nation has permanently suspended oil operations in its ocean waters to protect the ocean.
Continue reading “Belize Permanently Stops All Drilling To Protect Ocean”
We recently discussed a controversy at the GW International School where the Administration told faculty that panels had to be gender diverse or face cancelation. Now there is an analogous controversy in Sweden where Professor Erik Ringmar, a senior political science lecturer at Lund University, is under attack for refusing to include an author on his curriculum solely because of her gender. Critics have objected to the school gender quota as an attack on academic freedom.
Tosten Walsh Lommen, 30, was looking at a serious series of charges after driving drunk and taking South Dakota police on a high-speed chase. However, it became far, far worse when the arresting officers opened his trunk and found a dead woman wrapped in a blanket. The initial charges included a charge that may not be familiar to many on the blog: aggravated eluding.
Continue reading “South Dakota Police Declare Dead Body Found In Car Trunk “Suspicious””
We previously discussed the erroneous portrayal of U.S. defamation laws by President Donald Trump. Trump has complained previously about the inability to sue his critics due to the protections recognized in the First Amendment. He has returned to that theme at Camp David this weekend and criticized our libel laws as too protective and restrictive. These comments were made in the wake of the failed effort of Trump to prevent the publication of the Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. As discussed earlier, the threats made by Trump’s lawyer were facially weak, if not meritless, in claiming defamation. That was not a problem of our libel laws. The statements by Steven Bannon leading to the notice letter were clearly opinions and protected under even the weakest defamation law.
Continue reading “Trump Again Suggests U.S. Libel Laws Need To Change”
The decision of Attorney General Jeff Sessions to rescind the Obama policy allowing states to legalize marijuana without federal interference has caused a firestorm of controversy, including an array of irate Republicans. As we have been discussing, recreational and medical marijuana is now a multi-billion dollar industry that is pouring tax revenues into states. More importantly, it is very popular and it is becoming more so by the day. Indeed, there is now an overwhelming majority of Americans who want to see pot legalized and taxed. A new Pew poll shows not only 61 percent of people supporting legalization but an overwhelming number of Republicans in every age group except the oldest voters. For that reason, the decision of Sessions to open up this new political front could cost an already besieged GOP in retaining its control of Congress. At a minimum, it threatens to drive a wedge between the GOP and the young voters — a voting bloc desperately needed in 2018 and 2020. Some members are grumbling that they were already fearing the loss of one or two houses before this decision. The new policy will only make it that much harder to retain the majority in Congress. Moreover, various GOP members have denounced the Administration for breaking a promise made by Trump to let states make these decisions.
Continue reading “Poll: Sixty-One Percent Of Americans Favor Legalization Of Marijuana”
The New York Times is reporting that Special counsel Robert Mueller has confirmed that President Donald Trump took the extraordinary step of ordering White House counsel Don McGahn to Attorney general Jeff Sessions to prevent him from recusing himself in the Russian investigation. I was one of the earliest voices calling for Sessions to recuse himself and continue to believe that he made the right decision not only for himself and the Justice Department but Trump. The account in the Times states that Trump was irate at hearing that Sessions would follow the advice of his ethics advisors and recuse himself. He allegedly asked why he does not have an Eric Holder or Roy Cohen to protect his interests. If true, it was a grossly inappropriate decision and an even more worrisome analogy. I have been a long critic of Holder and his highly political tenure at the Justice Department. As for Roy Cohen, he is one of the most reviled and disreputable figures in history. It would be akin to a CEO asking where is his Bernie Madoff to protect profits. The accounts is based on two sources that are anonymous and we have not heard from the President. Obviously, McGahn could also deny the truth of the story but we have not heard from either McGahn or Trump’s personal counsel.
Continue reading “NYT: Trump Tried To Stop Sessions From Recusal”
Since the first allegations (and denials) in the Roy Moore allegations surfaced, I have speculated on when either Moore or one of the women would sue. As I discussed recently, Moore had promised to sue for defamation but he thus far failed to keep that promise. Similarly, Gloria Allred has been blustering about lawsuits without filing on behalf of her clients. Now, however, one of the women has sued and we may be able to get some answers under oath for the first time in the scandal. Leigh Corfman accused Moore of molesting her when she was 14 and he was in his 30s. She has now filed in court. The only thing that has been abundantly clear in this controversy is someone is lying. It is time to try to find out who that is.
Continue reading “Finally . . . Roy Moore Sued For Defamation”
I have previously expressed my skepticism over the claims of James Comey that he had a right to remove memos from the FBI and leak them to the media through a friend. As I have previously written, Comey was in clear violation of FBI rules and may have knowingly removed classified material. According to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, there is growing evidence to suggest that Comey not only violated FBI guidelines (which is clear) but that he violated federal law in the removal and disclosure of classified material. Indeed, it may come down to simple math. Four of the memos that Comey removed are now believed to be classified. He reportedly gave four memos to his friend to leak to the media. That would suggest that at least one memo given to Columbia University Professor Daniel Richman was classified.
There is an interesting controversy brewing at Fordham University, which has been sued by students over the failure of the school to recognize their pro-Palestinian group. The group is called the Students for Justice in Palestine and the university overturned the student government in recognizing it. Fordham has fought the students for more than two years. Now that the university is in court, it has made a curious offer: it will recognize the group if they use a name other than “Students for Justice in Palestine.”
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