A California judge has recommended the disbarment of John Eastman for giving legal advice that Democrats don’t like

The New Neo Posted on by

Part of the Democrats’ lawfare against Trump and the right is their decision some years ago (see this) to go after lawyers for Trump or Trumpian causes and make them afraid to defend him or give him legal advice. The latest victory in that war on the right is the judicial recommendation for the disbarment of John Eastman in California:

The attorney and former law school dean facing imminent disbarment from the California Bar, based on a recommendation by California Bar Court Judge Yvette D. Roland for his legal work in support of President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to resolve irregularities in the 2020 presidential election, promised to fight for his reputation and livelihood in a statement released his legal team.

Here is her very lengthy opinion.

Eastman’s lawyer had this to say:

“Dr. Eastman maintains that his handling of the legal issues he was asked to assess after the November 2020 election was based on reliable legal precedent, prior presidential elections, research of constitutional text, and extensive scholarly material,” Miller said.

“The process undertaken by Dr. Eastman in 2020 is the same process taken by lawyers every day and everywhere – indeed, that is the essence of what lawyers do,” he said.

“They are ethically bound to be zealous advocates for their clients – a duty Dr. Eastman holds inviolate. To the extent today’s decision curtails that principle, we are confident the Review Court will swiftly provide a remedy,” he said.

From Judge Roland:

…[Eastman pursued] a strategy to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election that lacked evidentiary or legal support. Vigorous advocacy does not absolve Eastman of his professional responsibilities around honesty and upholding the rule of law. While his actions are mitigated by his many years of discipline-free practice, cooperation, and prior good character, his wrongdoing is substantially aggravated by his multiple offenses, lack of candor and indifference.

In other words, she disagrees with his argument and thinks it has no merit. So what? He’s a lawyer; lawyers argue meritless stuff all the time. Not that I agree Eastman’s advice has no merit; I’m just saying that, even if it had no merit, that wouldn’t be a reason for disbarment.

And if someone accused of something doesn’t think he or she did wrong, then lack of remorse is simply honesty.

Much more at the link.

I’m unaware of any similar case to this, and I find this sort of political lawfare very dangerous. One comparison Judge Roland cites is the Segretti case, whose facts are extremely different (“dirty tricks” under the lawyer’s direction in a campaign).

I certainly hope Eastman wins on appeal. I think to do so he might have to go further than a California appeal, however. I believe that SCOTUS does [see *NOTE below] have jurisdiction over a case such as this:

The State Bar “acts under the authority and at the direction of the Supreme Court[,]” which has “inherent jurisdiction over the practice of law” in the state. Cal. R. Ct. 9.3.

*NOTE: It’s been called to my attention that “Supreme Court” in the above sentence might be referring to the California appellate court rather than the US Supreme Court. I tried to get clarification on the question of whether the US Supreme Court has any jurisdiction in a case like Eastman’s, but I haven’t found anything so far on it.

Dershowitz reaches a turning point of sorts

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m talking about this statement:

US Law Professor Alan Dershowitz spoke to Channel 12 News about the Biden Administration’s decision not to veto a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza during Ramadan and criticized the administration for its stance.

“I was surprised by the US decision not to veto Israel. This is a terrible decision, because it gives Hamas everything it wants, without demanding anything in return. This will lengthen the war. This is a terrible decision both for us and for Israel,” Dershowitz said.

He added, “Many Americans won’t vote for Biden after this. This vote is not a difference between Biden and Netanyahu, this is a difference between Biden and Israel. There is no dispute about the need of getting the hostages back. Biden is going against Israel.”

On a personal note, Dershowitz said, “I’ve been voting Democrats since 1960. This is the first time that I am thinking of not voting for them. I can’t vote for them, because that is a vote against Israel.”

As I’ve said many many times, a mind is a difficult thing to change.

RIP Joe Lieberman

The New Neo Posted on by

Joe Lieberman was 82 years old:

Joe Lieberman, a longtime senator from Connecticut who became the first Jewish American to be nominated on a major party’s ticket, died Wednesday. He was 82.

Lieberman’s family stated that he died “due to complications from a fall. He was 82 years old. His beloved wife, Hadassah, and members of his family were with him as he passed.”

Halfway through his 24-year Senate career, Lieberman was chosen as Al Gore’s running mate for the 2000 presidential election. The ticket lost one of the closest elections in American history.

Lieberman was an old-fashioned Democrat and not a leftist. Not long after his vice-presidential run, he was effectively drummed out of the party and he ran (and won) the race for senator in 2006 as an Independent.

Not only was Lieberman Jewish, he was an Orthodox Jew. He praised Trump for moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and he recently attacked Schumer:

Earlier this month, he wrote a column in the Wall Street Journal attacking Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for saying that Israel needed to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as its leader.

“While Mr. Schumer’s statement undoubtedly pleased American critics of Israel,” he wrote, “for the Israelis it was meaningless, gratuitous and offensive.”

RIP.

Roundup!

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) Mexico’s president has shared his point of view on drug cartels:

Over the years, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has laid out various justifications for his “hugs, not bullets” policy of avoiding clashes with the cartels. In the past he has said “you cannot fight violence with violence,” and on other occasions he has argued the government has to address “the causes” of drug cartel violence, ascribing them to poverty or a lack of opportunities.

Actually, history is replete with examples of successfully fighting violence with violence.

More recently:

But on Friday, while discussing his refusal to go after the cartels, he made it clear he viewed it as part of what he called a “Mexico First” policy.

“We are not going to act as policemen for any foreign government,” López Obrador said at his daily news briefing. “Mexico First. Our home comes first.”

One would think that even a “Mexico First” policy would encourage going after the cartels. But one would think wrong.

(2) RFK Jr. has chosen a leftist running mate, 38-year-old Nicole Shanahan. Mainstream Democrats seen to think this will hurt Biden’s chances of re-election. I sure hope so. Kennedy doesn’t have a chance to win; he’s just a spoiler. I hope he spoils Biden more than Trump, and this VP pick might help that happen.

(3) The IDF has confirmed that Marwan Issa was killed in an airstrike eleven days ago. He was third in command of Hamas. I’m not sure how these confirmations work, but I would assume that DNA is involved.

(4) Disney settles with DeSantis and Florida. I call that a win for DeSantis.

(5) Anti-Semitism and education are correlated.

Positively, not negatively:

Anti-Semitism has long been thought to be primarily a function of ignorance. Events since October 7, however, have disabused us of that view, as America’s most prestigious educational institutions have become the centers of virulent anti-Semitism. …

… a study by professors Jay P. Greene, Albert Cheng, and Ian Kingsbury, found that the more education a person has, the more anti-Semitic he is likely to be.

Though earlier studies had suggested a correlation between low education levels and anti-Semitism, Greene et al suspected that those with higher education were too sophisticated to give “wrong” answers when asked straight up how they felt about Jews or whether they agreed with blatantly anti-Semitic stereotypes. So instead, the researchers used a test based on double standards by asking about comparable cases involving a Jewish example and a non-Jewish example. And they found that “more highly educated people were more likely to apply principles more harshly to Jewish examples.”

In the test, no subject was asked both about the Jewish case and the non-Jewish case to prevent them from discerning the nature of the test. When asked, for instance, whether “attachment to a foreign country creates a conflict of interest,” respondents with four-year degrees were 7 percent more likely, and those with advanced degrees 13 percent more likely, to express concern when the country was Israel than when it was Mexico. Those with advanced degrees were 12 percent more likely to support the military in prohibiting Jewish yarmulkes than in prohibiting Sikh turbans. While a majority of respondents supported a ban on public gatherings during Covid, those with advanced degrees were 11 percent more likely to do so with respect to Orthodox funerals than BLM protests.

(6) The Francis Scott Key bridge was especially vulnerable because of where it was built, and this was known:

“Classical education” making a small comeback

The New Neo Posted on by

This trend is of interest:

The future of the controversial classical education movement will be showcased later this month [it already has occurred] when Columbia University senior lecturer Roosevelt Montás is scheduled to deliver a keynote address at a national symposium hosted by Great Hearts, the biggest classical charter network.

The views of Montás, author of the widely praised memoir “Rescuing Socrates,” are well to the left of many in the classical charter movement, which is rooted in Christian conservatism. What makes Montás’ upcoming speech so notable, then, is the signal it sends about the movement’s effort to diversify its brand and project a welcoming attitude as it seeks to expand beyond conservative strongholds and suburbs where it began.

But not everyone is enamored of the effort, neither educational conservatives nor local school officials, unions, and progressive advocates. The latter liken classical charters to a Trojan Horse, sneaking quasi-Christian right-wing dogma into public education under the cover of liberal arts. …

In all, there are about 250 classical charters today, according to one study, making them a small niche within the broader charter sector of 8,000 schools and campuses …

By making common cause with a range of prominent black and Latino thinkers and educators like Montás, classical charter leaders hope to show that their style of moral education is valuable to students from all backgrounds and beliefs.

There is no reason a classical education would have to be tied to belief in a specific religion. As some in the movement have said:

“We base ourselves in the West, in the culture of freedom that produced the Magna Carta, the founding documents of this country, and the civil rights movement,” said Dan Scoggin, co-founder of Great Hearts and a Claremont alum. “We read Marx, Rousseau – writers who push back on the Christian tradition, but it’s also a big part of Western culture. To those who try to pigeonhole classical charters as pseudo-Christian, no, we are not.”

Here’s a website to promote classical education with a broader outreach.

I wish them luck. Education has been so destructive in recent years, and the rot so pervasive, that it’s hard to come up with something that could reverse it. Any movement that would do so would have to be able to appeal to a broad swath of people, and academic rigor can be a very tough sell.

NOTE: See also this.

Hamas rejects proposed deal for the Israeli hostages

The New Neo Posted on by

We still know next to nothing about the current state of the remaining Israeli hostages Hamas and other Gazans took on October 7. That’s about five and a half months ago. It’s pretty much a certainty that many are dead, but how many? I believe many are alive, being kept that way because of their great value. Hamas doesn’t value them as human beings but rather as pawns of great price, to be exchanged for prisoners – including many murderers – held in Israel.

Hamas is well aware of the precedent of prisoner releases by Israel in order to get hostages back. The most notorious one involved a single hostage, Galid Shalit, who was returned in an exceedingly lopsided deal:

[The Shalit deal was] a 2011 agreement between Israel and Hamas to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,027 prisoners — almost all Palestinians and Arab-Israelis … Two hundred and eighty of these had been sentenced to life in prison for planning and perpetrating various attacks against Israeli targets.

Hamas military leader Ahmed Jabari was quoted in the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat as confirming that the prisoners released under the deal were collectively responsible for the killing of 569 Israelis. The agreement came five years and four months after Palestinian militants captured Shalit in southern Israel along the Gaza Strip border.

It was a costly deal then, and turned out to be even more costly in terms of the future, because many of those released – including Sinwar – were involved in the planning and execution of the October 7 massacre. How could it have been otherwise? What were the Israeli authorities thinking when they negotiated that deal? Part of the reason they did it was intense political and emotional pressure from many Israelis. And note how long the negotiations took – over five years between Shalit’s capture and his release.

More:

While in captivity, Hamas refused to allow the International Red Cross access to Shalit, and the only indications that he was still alive were an audio tape, a video recording, and three letters.

The International Red Cross has had no access to the current hostages, nor is the organization even asking for it, as far as I know. And Shalit’s family got more evidence of life than the current hostage families are receiving. Hamas thinks it is holding a very very strong hand, and that strength also involves the neutrality or even the approval of much of the international community. The only pressure Hamas faces is military pressure from Israel, and the UN and most countries on earth – including the US under the Biden administration – are determined to get Israel to relax that pressure.

Yesterday’s UN Security Council resolution – from which the Biden administration abstained – demanded a ceasefire and hostage release, but did not make the first demand contingent on the second and was therefore worse than useless. Hamas believes it can get its ceasefire and continue to hold the hostages.

So why negotiate? And predictably, yesterday Hamas rejected a hostage deal that seems to me to have been unconscionably favorable to the terror group:

Hamas informed the mediators on the hostage deal that it would maintain its original position regarding a ceasefire, Reuters reported on Monday. This includes the withdrawal of IDF troops from the Gaza Strip, returning Palestinians to their homes, and exchanging prisoners.

Hamas’s response comes after Israel agreed on Saturday to a compromise proposed by the US regarding the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released and was waiting for the terror group’s response.

According to Israeli media on Sunday, citing Israeli officials, Israel reportedly agreed to release some 700-800 Palestinian prisoners in return for 40 hostages.

The Palestinian prisoners in the recent exchange proposal are reported to have included many murderers, just as with the Shalit exchange. And of course, 40 hostages are only about a third of those Hamas holds (dead or alive). The hostages are money in the back for Hamas, and their worth increases over time, with interest. Why should they acquiesce before all their demands are met?

Netanyahu responded today [emphasis mine]:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement released on Tuesday, “Hamas’s position clearly proves that Hamas is not interested in continuing negotiations for a deal and is an unfortunate testimony to the damage created by the Security Council’s decision.

“Hamas once again rejected any American compromise proposal and repeated its extreme demands: an immediate end to the war, a complete withdrawal of the IDF from the Gaza Strip, and the remaining in power so that it could repeat the massacre of October 7 again and again, as it had promised to do,” the statement continued.

I have to say it is also “unfortunate testimony to the damage created by” the Shalit exchange and other such prisoner exchanges. Netanyahu was Prime Minister of Israel when the negotiations were concluded, although he didn’t hold that position when they began. Ehud Olmert did.:

Unofficial talks between Israel and Hamas [on Shalit] began on 1 July 2006, six days after the abduction of Shalit, mediated by Gershon Baskin, an Israeli peace activist, co-director of the Israeli-Palestinian think tank IPCRI—the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information. On that day, Baskin arranged a telephone conversation between Hamas Government spokesman Ghazi Hamad and Noam Shalit, the father of the soldier. …

On 9 September 2006, Baskin arranged for a hand written letter from Shalit to be delivered to the Representative Office of Egypt in Gaza, the first sign of life from Shalit and the proof of an actual channel of communication had been established. … In the end of December 2006 the Egyptians presented the agreed formula for a prisoner exchange in which Israel would release 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit in two phases. This was the same agreement reached five years later.

After Olmert resigned from office on corruption charges and following elections in Israel which brought Netanyahu to power, Deckel was replaced by former Mossad agent Hagai Hadas who worked primarily though the good offices of a German Intelligence Officer, Gerhard Conrad. Hadas resigned in failure in April 2011 and was replaced by Mossad Officer David Meidan. Meidan took over on 18 April 2011, he was contacted by Gershon Baskin the very same day. The secret back channel run by Baskin and Hamas Deputy Foreign Minister Ghazi Hamad was authorized by Netanyahu in May 2011.

Netanyahu responded to a pilgrimage march, called by Shalit’s father for his release, by saying he was willing to release 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit, but that top Hamas leaders would not be among those released. Shalit’s father had previously blamed the US for blocking talks on his son’s release.

The Baskin–Hamad secret back channel produced a document of principles for the release on 14 July 2011 which was authorized by Prime Minister Netanyahu and Ahmad Jabri. In August 2011, Egyptian-moderated negotiations on determining the list of names of the prisoners to be released began with Hamas represented by Ahmed Jabari and three other Hamas officials and Israel represented by David Meidan and two other Israeli officials. Haaretz reported that Israel proposed a prisoner swap, and threatened that if Hamas rejected the proposal, no swap would occur. Hamas responded by warning that an end to negotiations would lead to Shalit’s “disappearance”. Negotiations were hung up over disagreements between the two parties regarding Israel’s unwillingness to release all of the so-called “senior prisoners” into the West Bank—a demand Hamas rejected—and regarding the particulars of releasing prisoners who were leaders of Hamas and other organizations.

Netanyahu seems to have caved to the pressure, because in the end 280 of the prisoners released were serving life sentences for being involved in lethal terrorist attacks on Israelis. The decision was put to a vote by the Cabinet. Twenty-six members voted to approve it, while three opposed it:

[The three in opposition were] Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe Ya’alon, and Minister of National Infrastructure Uzi Landau. Ya’alon (Likud) argued that the prisoners would “go back to terrorism” and that they would destabilize the security situation in the West Bank. Landau (Yisrael Beiteinu) warned that the deal would be “a huge victory for terror” and that it would encourage more abductions of Israelis.

Well, they get to say “I told you so,” although I imagine that’s scant comfort. And if Netanyahu was going to approve the recent deal, it sounds as though little has been learned on this score since 2011 – except by Hamas.

At the time, there was a great deal of disagreement over the deal. One of the players, Dan Schueftan, whom I’ve seen and heard making statements opposing any present-day deal, called the Shalit swap deal at the time “the greatest significant victory for terrorism that Israel has made possible since its establishment.” He gets to say “I told you so” as well.

And then there’s Daniel Bar-Tal, professor of political psychology at Tel Aviv University. At the time of the Shalit deal he said this:

Here we see the basic dilemmas between the individual and the collective, and we see victim pitted against victim. Gilad Shalit is a victim who was violently kidnapped, in a way that Israelis do not consider to be a normative means of struggle. Therefore, one side says, he should be returned at any price. But the families of those killed in terrorist attacks and the people who were wounded in those attacks are victims, too, and they say that no price should be paid to the murderers. And it is truly a dilemma, because no side is right, and no side is wrong.

I beg to differ, at least somewhat. I see it as a disagreement about the “collective” itself and what the result will be of its actions, including results for individuals. It seems to me to be inevitable and inarguable that releasing so many violent terrorists to return one hostage will guarantee more hostages – individuals – of the same sort and in the same predicament. Therefore it pits one present innocent victim against future innocent victims who will be victimized as a result of the release. That hurts more individuals – although not this particular individual, Shalit – and it also harms the collective as a whole. It seems to mean that one side is right – although rational and cold-blooded – and one is wrong.

I am very glad that I’m not in charge of any such negotiations, however. And I’m extra-glad not to know anyone taken hostage, and might even be found among the “release them at any price!” contingent if I did. But governments must resist such demands if that sort of desire to free the innocent conflicts so strongly with the need to avoid rewarding the hostage-takers and emboldening them to continue in their vicious path.

Baltimore bridge collapses after being struck by cargo ship

The New Neo Posted on by

This is a shock:

The Francis Scott Key Bridge along I-695 in Maryland collapsed into the Baltimore harbor following a “ship strike” early Tuesday morning, setting off a search and rescue mission for those who plunged into the chilly waters.

A livestream of the bridge at about 1:30 a.m. showed a cargo ship colliding with a support beam, causing the bridge to break apart and fall into the Patapsco River. Multiple vehicles were on the bridge at the time, but no update on casualties has been offered.

Eight members of a construction crew that was doing routine work filling potholes on the bridge fell into the water, Paul Wiedefeld, secretary of the Maryland Department of Transportation, told reporters. Six of these members were unaccounted for, while two were rescued. One of the rescued members was in the hospital, while the other refused treatment.

When asked about how many vehicles went into the water and the condition of those people that were in the vehicles, Weidefeld said no information was available at this time.

If this had happened in the daytime, I’m fairly certain the toll would have been much greater.

I know next to nothing about bridge design or the navigation of cargo ships. But when I heard this news, I wondered whether there’s a way to make bridges less vulnerable to a single strike such as this one. Here’s a relevant article:

The bridge did not appear to have pier protection to withstand the cargo ship crash, according to a professor of civil and environmental engineering.

Professor Roberto Leon, of Virginia Tech, said he reviewed the video of the crash Tuesday.

“If a bridge pier without adequate protection is hit by a ship of this size, there is very little that the bridge could do,” Leon said.

Maryland recently retrofitted another bridge with pier protection devices for about $100 million, he said.

It’s expensive, but the price would pale in comparison with expected losses from the damaged bridge, including additional miles driven, fuel and business costs, he said.

Yes, but this sort of event is highly unusual, isn’t it? And since no one could predict which bridge would be hit, the protection retrofitting would have to be done for every bridge. It still might be worth it, though – and my guess is that the ultimate cost of last night’s collapse could definitely include lawsuits by families of the dead and injured.

The cargo ship is reported to have lost power before hitting the bridge. Of course, a ship can’t stop on a dime even with no power; it will keep going for quite some time.

The ship’s crew issued a mayday call moments before the crash took down the Francis Scott Key Bridge, enabling authorities to limit vehicle traffic on the span, Maryland’s governor said.

It appears to have been an accident, but I’ve seen plenty of chatter online speculating otherwise. I subcribe to the accident explanation.