SCOTUS has got its work cut out for it on the presidential immunity question

The New Neo Posted on by

Jonathan Turley has written a good article on the dilemma facing the Court:

There are cliffs on both sides of this case. If the court were to embrace special counsel Jack Smith’s arguments, a president would have no immunity from criminal charges, even for official acts taken in his presidency.

It would leave a president without protection from endless charges from politically motivated prosecutors.

If the court were to embrace Trump counsel’s arguments, a president would have complete immunity. It would leave a president largely unaccountable under the criminal code for any criminal acts. …

Alvin Bragg is the very personification of the danger immunity is meant to avoid.

With cliffs to the left and the right, the justices are looking at a free-fall dive into the scope of constitutional and criminal law as they apply to presidential conduct.

They may be looking not for a foothold as much as a shorter drop.

Some of the justices are likely to be seeking a third option where a president has some immunity under a more limited and less tautological standard than the one the DC Circuit offered.

The problem for the court is presidential privilege and immunity decisions are meant to give presidents breathing room by laying out bright lines within which they can operate.

Ambiguity defeats the purpose of such immunity. So does a test that turns on the motivation of an official act. …

The line-drawing proved maddening for the justices in the oral argument.

Maddening, but necessary.

And now it’s the president of Columbia who may be guilty of academic fraud

The New Neo Posted on by

Here we go again.

I get a bit tired of starting posts by saying something like “It comes as no surprise … “. But indeed, it comes as no surprise that Columbia’s president Nemak “Minouche” Shafik, who recently testified in front of Congress and who has been AWOL in dealing with the vicious anti-Semitic “demonstrations” at the school, is now suspected of having taken false sole credit for a highly-cited academic paper:

Shafik got a B.A. in economics and politics from UMASS-Amherst, an M.S. in economics from the London School of Economics, and a PhD in economics from Oxford.

In one of the comments at “X”:

Unbelievable. Has plagiarism now become a prerequisite for those applying for the position of President of elite US universities?

So far, the academics involved have also all been seeming DEI hires: women, and also some are minority women.

One of the commenters says this, however:

You might want to go slow here; in research jobs it is not uncommon to credit the research director despite what is often a very minor role in the product.

I assume we’ll hear more. She might get canned in the meantime for other reasons – and get replaced by another leftist apparatchik.

The unintended and yet totally foreseen consequences of raising the minimum wage

The New Neo Posted on by

Whoever could have guessed such as thing? Everyone:

In response to recent minimum wage increases in California, fast food restaurants across the state are shifting to automation to get rid of wage-earning humans.

The move to making customers place orders at digital kiosks alleviates what owners say is the financial strain of rising labor costs after the minimum wage for the state’s fast food workers increased on April 1 from $16 to $20 per hour.

Harsh Ghai, a Burger King franchise owner who manages 140 outlets along the West Coast, is leading the transition to automation. He plans to introduce digital kiosks across all his restaurants within months — a drastic acceleration from his original timeline of five to 10 years.

Note that it was going to be happening anyway, just on a slower schedule.

And – Harsh Ghai? Is he a harsh guy?

Here’s another article on the effects of the new minimum wage law.

How could anyone not realize that this was coming as a result of the law? Minimum wage law hikes tend to ignore economics but make those who support them feel good – at the workers’ expense.

This was inevitable: defamatory race hoaxer meets voice AI

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m surprised this took as long as it did – which was not very long, actually. The black perp, who had been athletic director at the school, combined race hoaxing with workplace revenge in order to frame his white principal:

A high school athletic director in Maryland has been accused of using artificial intelligence to impersonate a principal on an audio recording that included racist and antisemitic comments, authorities said Thursday.

Authorities said the case appears to be among the first of its kind in the country and called for new laws to guard against the technology. Experts also warned that artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly powerful, while the ability to detect it may lag behind without more resources.

Dazhon Darien faked the voice of Pikesville High School’s principal in response to conversations the men had about Darien’s poor work performance and whether his contract would be renewed, Baltimore County police said. …

The audio clip quickly spread on social media and had “profound repercussions,” the court documents stated, with the principal being placed on leave. The recording put the principal and his family at “significant risk,” while police officers provided security at his house, according to authorities.

The recording also triggered a wave of hate-filled messages on social media and an inundation of phone calls to the school, police said. Activities were disrupted for a time, and some staff felt unsafe.

Darien apparently used Large Language Models to create his fake, and fortunately the police got some experts to analyze it. Darien was about to be arrested, but was boarding a flight to Houston and was stopped because of “how he had packaged his firearm for the flight.”

The article I linked, which is from Fox but was originally from AP, never mentions that Darien is black and the principal white. I only know that fact because earlier I had read another article that mentioned it, but I can’t locate that one at the moment. Interesting omission by AP.

Just to check on the rest of the MSM, I read this CBS coverage of the story. No mention of the race of either man. I also watched a video there, which did have a photo of the principal. But nothing of the sort about the perp, and no mention of his race. These omissions are highly highly unlikely to be accidental.

The New York Court of Appeals says that Harvey Weinstein gets a new trial

The New Neo Posted on by

You can find the details here. The gist of it is this:

There’s a rule that you can’t put on evidence of prior “bad acts” to prove that a defendant committed the specific bad acts he’s being tried for in the present case.

It’s not that such evidence is completely irrelevant; it’s that it’s unduly prejudicial to the defendant. Such evidence tends to poison the jury against the defendant well out of proportion to the actual light it sheds on the current crime being judged at trial.

But that’s what the state of New York did to get their conviction. …

Another exception, which seems to be the one used in this case, is to claim you’re not putting on these witnesses to prove his prior bad acts, but to shed light on his state-of-mind he had when committing the acts he’s on trial for.

The prosecution put on three witnesses to accuse Weinstein of prior rape, and claimed they weren’t presenting this evidence just to show he’s generally a rapist, but to prove that his state in mind in the current case was one of intent to commit a sexual assault. That is, it wasn’t just a mistake where he misread the woman’s level of interest in him.

But I mean, come on: You can’t tell the jury “don’t consider this testimony as evidence that he committed the current crime, just consider it as far as his state-of-mind.” That’s telling people to put the information in a special vault in their brain that they cannot access except to answer one particular question. No one’s brain works like that, not even the brain of Noted “Compartmentalizer” Bill Clinton.

And speaking of Bill Clinton – a somewhat similar approach was used in the Paula Jones case to query him in a deposition about none other than the extent of his sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, and that’s what led to the entire Lewinsky story coming out in public and leading to his impeachment. I was against such questions then, and I’m against them now. To refresh your memory in the Jones case [emphasis mine]:

Jones’s lawyers decided to show to the court a pattern of behavior by Clinton that involved his allegedly repeatedly becoming sexually involved with state or government employees. Jones’s lawyers therefore subpoenaed women they suspected Clinton had had affairs with, including Arkansas Appeal Tribunal employee Gennifer Flowers, as well as White House employee Monica Lewinsky. In his deposition for the Jones lawsuit, Clinton denied having “sexual relations” with Monica Lewinsky. Based on testimony provided by Linda Tripp, which identified the existence of a blue dress with Clinton’s semen on it, Kenneth Starr concluded that Clinton’s sworn testimony was false and perjurious.

During the deposition in the Jones case, Clinton was asked, “Have you ever had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, as that term is defined in Deposition Exhibit 1, as modified by the Court?” The judge ordered that Clinton be given an opportunity to review the definition. It said that “a person engages in sexual relations when the person knowingly engages in or causes contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of any person with an intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person”. Clinton flatly denied having sexual relations with Lewinsky. Later, at the Starr Grand Jury, Clinton stated that he believed the definition of sexual relations agreed upon for the Jones deposition excluded his receiving oral sex.

It was upon the basis of this statement that the House of Representatives voted to impeach Clinton on December 19, 1998, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. Clinton was subsequently tried before the Senate, where votes on either charge both fell far short of the 2/3 supermajority required for conviction.

Also, please see this post of mine about the cases against Weinstein:

Of course, the fact that one woman may have lied—or been mistaken, because perhaps she was drunk—about the nature of their sexual contact does not mean they all have lied or been mistaken. As I’ve said before, each accusation must be taken on its own merits (although few people seem to do that): even assuming that the weight of accusation indicates that Weinstein is guilty of some violations “does not mean that all his accusers are telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” …

With Weinstein, there are so many stories that it is easy to think that most of them must be true. But that temptation must be resisted. The trouble is that truth and falsehood can be fiendishly difficult to ascertain in cases such as this. …

Are people usually that clearly in touch with their own behavior, thoughts, and feeling around complicated situations of a sexual nature, in which fear mixes with desire to advance one’s career, and in which all of it is mixed with the liberal consumption of alcohol or other substances? The vagaries of memory are part of the problem as well, and revisionism can occur either much later or very shortly after the act in question. Regret, confusion, trauma, forgetfulness, defensiveness, rationalization—all can play into it in various ways for the alleged victim.

Mass graves and the MSM: spreading the lies

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s the latest in media reporting of Hamas’ tall tales. No need to listen to the whole thing, although it’s interesting. You can get the gist of it in ten or fifteen minutes, or perhaps even less:

More on the subject can be found at Legal Insurrection.

Plus:

The Palestinian “narrative” is lies all the way down. But the edifice of lies has become most people’s truth, because the lies have been picked up and amplified by their willing handmaidens in our very own MSM as well as the press in much of the world. I’ve been reporting on this for twenty years, and so have many many other people with far more readers. It’s obvious, and has been for a long long time. And yet the lies have sped round and round the world while the truth keeps laboriously putting its boots on.

One of the many many hallmarks of Palestinian lies is the way they actually reverse the truth. For example, relevant to this story: who is it who respects the dead and who is it who desecrates dead bodies? We know that the Israelis do the former and the Palestinians the latter. So this recent report is an example of the kind of Orwellian reversal we keep seeing in this conflict and so many others.

As I read in one of the YouTubers’ comments to that first video:

Palestinians redefine many words:
• War becomes a Genocide.
• Rape becomes Resistance.
• Borders become Concentration Camp walls.
• Suicide bombing becomes Heroism.
• Moving civilians out of harm’s way, becomes Ethnic Cleansing.
• Hostages become Prisoners of War.
• Keeping citizens separate from the terrorists they want to kill, becomes Apartheid.
• People returning to their ancient homeland become Colonizers.
• Terrorists become Freedom Fighters.
• Palestinian migrants become Natives to the land.
• Children dying in a war as collateral damage becomes Murder.
• Something rightfully obtained that was never theirs, becomes Theft.
• Being on land that you 100% control per LAW, becomes Occupation.

Indeed.

Trump’s chances in New York

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: commenter “Karmi.”]

Trump is trapped in New York City for the duration of his show trial there. The Democrats may think they’ve checkmated him – it’s certainly their hope – and perhaps they have. But Trump is nothing if not creative:

“I think we have a good chance of winning here and we’re gonna give it a big plan,” Trump said about New York State. “We’re going to the South Bronx to do a rally.”

“We’re going to be doing a rally at Madison Square Garden, we believe,” Trump added.

The rallies will focus on honoring police, firemen, and teachers. “We’ll be honoring the people that make New York work,” Trump said. “It’ll be very exciting, but we think we have a really good chance of winning.”

I have to say that Trump deserves some sort of award for sustaining his spirit in the face of a degree of persecution that would have felled most people long ago. Whether that translates into having a chance in New York – well, let’s just say it’s a real longshot. Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden both beat him in that state by about 20 points, getting about 60% of the vote. Trump’s way behind there in polls now – but not anywhere near as far behind as that. For example, in a very recent Siena poll (April 15-17):

“The good news for Biden is that he continues to hold a double-digit lead over Trump in solidly blue New York. The bad news for Biden is he only leads by 10 points, 47-37%, after leading 48-36% in February, in a state where enrolled Democrats outnumber Republicans better than two-to-one,” Greenberg said. “While Biden has support from 72% of Democrats, Trump has the support of 81% of Republicans and leads with independents, 46-32%.”

Also notice that Biden’s total is under 50%, and that only 84% of respondents picked either Biden or Trump. I was curious about the rest, and it turns out that 4% said they’d vote for someone else, 7% said they wouldn’t be voting, and 5% haven’t made up their minds yet. Interesting.

Actually, I don’t really think Trump has a chance of winning New York. But wouldn’t it be fabulous if the trial ended up backfiring and he won the state in 2024? Such poetic justice. He’s certainly highly unlikely to get actual justice in his trial there.

Hamas releases video of hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin

The New Neo Posted on by

A breaking story:

The Hamas terror group has published a new propaganda video showing signs of life from 23-year-old Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin.

In the nearly three-minute-long video, Goldberg-Polin, who is seen missing one of his hands, identifies himself and asks the Israeli government to return them home.

The video is not dated, but Goldberg-Polin says he has been held captive for “nearly 200 days,” indicating it was filmed recently.

It indicates it but it doesn’t prove it. Goldberg-Polin would understandably say anything he was told to say, although I’m going to assume this was indeed filmed recently. But why not use the time-honored technique of showing him next to a current newspaper?

If in fact it is a recent video, it supports my oft-stated point that although many hostages are dead there are still a significant number left alive. Hamas isn’t dumb, and the living ones have many uses for them, including for propaganda purposes as well as bargaining chips of great value:

In it, Hersh Goldberg-Polin is seen reading a pre-prepared script blaming Israel for October 7th and everything that has transpired since.

Golberg-Polin was taken captive at the Nova Music festival that Hamas attacked, slaughtering hundreds of people in the process. He can be seen missing his arm in the video, an injury he sustained that day at the hands of the terrorists after they threw grenades into a shelter he was in.

I don’t blame him one iota for anything he is made to say in the video. He is under their total control and has suffered greatly.

I wonder if Biden will have anything to say about this. I think it’s no accident that Hamas chose to feature an American, as a tease and a test.