Tag: law

Reason enough to vote for him

Ruth Ginsburg fears a President Trump:

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg believes “everything” will be up for grabs if Donald Trump is elected president and has the opportunity to appoint several justices to the high Court.

“I don’t want to think about that possibility, but if it should be, then everything is up for grabs,” Ginsburg said of the presumptive Republican nominee succeeding in his bid for the White House in an interview published Friday by The Associated Press.

The 83-year-old justice, who belongs to the court’s liberal wing, said it’s “likely that the next president, whoever she will be, will have a few appointments to make.” Ginsburg is the oldest of the eight justices currently on the bench, while two of her colleagues – Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer – are closing in on 80.

If the Left is more afraid of Trump than any Republican nominee since Reagan, isn’t that alone sufficient reason to support him? Trump isn’t a Good Republican like Chief Justice Roberts, who will fall in line when the global elite snaps its fingers.

What he is, we don’t really know, but at least he isn’t that.

Hillary skates again

Well, Justice Thomas already warned us that the Rule of Law no longer applies to the United States of America:

FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday announced the agency is not recommending the Justice Department bring charges against Hillary Clinton, while also denouncing the former secretary of state and her aides for the way they handled classified information through private email servers.

“Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is information that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,” Comey told reporters in Washington, D.C., noting that the probe has found that the former secretary of state used several different email servers and numerous devices during her time in office.

Even so, Comey added later, “Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before deciding whether to bring charges.”

Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said the campaign was happy the FBI probe was now in the rearview mirror. “We are pleased that the career officials handling this case have determined that no further action by the Department is appropriate,” Fallon said in a statement on Tuesday afternoon. “As the Secretary has long said, it was a mistake to use her personal email and she would not do it again. We are glad that this matter is now resolved.”

Seriously, how on Earth does this woman continue to get away with everything? I mean, even if you were a Power That Be, why would this, of all women, be the one that you’d go out of your way to protect no matter what she does?

They can’t find anyone more competent? They can’t find anyone less cartoonishly hateful?

The corruption continues

As if we needed more confirmation that there is no rule of law in the USA:

According to sources that are familiar with the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton‘s use of a private email server, the former Secretary of State is not expected to face charges in the probe. This, according to CNN’s Senior Producer Edward Mejia Davis, who took to Twitter shortly ago to indicate the likely announcement of “no charges”:

Edward Mejia Davis @TeddyDavisCNN
Sources tell CNN’s Evan Perez: expectation is that there will be announcement of no charges in Clinton email probe w/in next two weeks or so

The world of the 1980s appears to have gone full circle. The Americans are evil totalitarians bent on global conquest through their third-world proxies, the Russians are good guys defending Christianity, and Italy’s politicians are less criminal and corrupt than their US counterparts.

#GamerGate wins! #GamerGate wins!

Gawker Media files for bankruptcy:

Gawker Media has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after a Florida judge issued a $140 million final judgment in favor of Hulk Hogan in the invasion-of-privacy lawsuit over the posting of a sex tape.

The online news organization founded in 2003 by Nick Denton which now includes other sites like Deadpin, Jezebel and Kotaku, reports that it has less than $100 million in assets and hundreds of millions in liabilities. Gawker is currently facing a wrath of litigation that’s been connected to Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel. Besides the Hogan suit, there’s claims from a journalist and the alleged inventor of e-mail who both say they were defamed. Gawker is also facing off against the parent company of Daily Mail in court and was hit with a copyright lawsuit this week over a photograph of an Uber car.

Gawker has hired the investment bank Houlihan Lokey to advise it on both a possible sale and the restructuring process.

According to bankruptcy papers, Gawker has also secured a $7.66 million loan from Silicon Valley Bank with a line of credit of $5.3 million. Additionally, it’s got a second credit agreement worth $15 million with US VC Partners. All told, that’s $22 million in debtor financing as Gawker aims to restructure itself and fight off collection efforts from Hogan as its dispute with the former professional wrestler goes to an appeals court.

Thank you, Peter Thiel! We are all Hulkamaniacs now.

Thank you, Peter

Peter Thiel was fundamental to dealing Gawker what appears to be its death blow:

Billionaire Peter Thiel, PayPal cofounder and early investor in Facebook, called financing the $150 million crushing lawsuit against Gawker filed by former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan “one of my greater philanthropic things that I’ve done” in a revealing interview Wednesday.

“I saw Gawker pioneer a unique and incredibly damaging way of getting attention by bullying people even when there was no connection with the public interest,” he told the New York Times, telling them it was “less about revenge and more about specific deterrence.”

This is first interview Thiel has granted after it was revealed that he had helped fund former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against the gossip blog for posting a secretly-recorded sex tape. While a Florida jury originally rewarded Hogan with $115 million in March, the amount has since climbed by the tens of millions in further damages from Gawker Media and founder Nick Denton.

It’s pretty incredible. He spent $10 million in order to take down Gawker. Reprisals are good. Deterrence is even better. If you’re on Twitter, express your appreciation by using the #thankyoupeter hashtag.

A judge worthy of the name

I am a harsh critic of the American judiciary. I think it is, structurally speaking, probably the biggest single problem in the USA today besides the immigrant invasion. But even in the morass of political corruption that is the judiciary, there are a few good men worthy of the title they bear:

Sgt. Joseph Serna of the US Army Special Forces was arrested and charged with driving under the influence in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He got probation and entered a treatment program. He had to regularly report to the court on his treatment. During one of those court appearances, he confessed to Judge Lou Olivera that he had lied about a recent urine test.

Judge Olivera was himself a veteran, having served during the Gulf War. He understood that though Serna had broken the law, he was not a criminal by nature.

But he had to do his duty, so Judge Olivera sentenced Serna to spent 24 hours in jail. Then he took off his robe and joined Serna in his cell for the full 24 hours. The Fayetteville Observer reports:

    “Where are we going, judge?” Serna asked.

    “We’re going to turn ourselves in,” Olivera said.

    “He said he was going to stay with me,” Serna said. “I couldn’t process a judge being my cellmate.

    “They take me to the cell, and I’m sitting on my bunk. And, then, in walks the judge.

And then the two veterans talked:

    Mostly, from five in the afternoon on April 13 until 6:30 a.m. the next day, the judge and the veteran talked about their respective military service, Serna’s post-traumatic stress disorder from three tours of duty in Afghanistan and how the inmate could turn around his downward spiral that had resulted in a driving-while-impaired charge and other serious traffic offenses. […]

    “We talked for hours about our families and our military service,” Olivera says. “Our dreams for us and our families, and the road to take us there.”

The judge wanted to help Serna climb out of the hole:

    “I thought about a story that I once read,” Olivera says. “It talked about a soldier with PTSD in a hole,” he says. “A family member, a therapist and a friend all throw down a rope to help the veteran suffering. Finally, a fellow veteran climbs into the hole with him.

    “The soldier suffering with PTSD asks, ‘Why are you down here?’ The fellow veteran replied, ‘I am here to climb out with you.’

 One has the responsibility to do one’s duty. That is one measure of a man. But how one does one’s duty is arguably a more significant measure.

The abortion misstep

Trump mishandles a media ambush on abortion:

  • Host Chris Matthews presses Trump on anti-abortion position, repeatedly asking him, “Should abortion be punished? This is not something you can dodge”
    • “Look, people in certain parts of the Republican Party, conservative Republicans, would say, ‘Yes, it should,’” Trump answers
    • “How about you?” Matthews asks
    • “I would say it’s a very serious problem and it’s a problem we have to decide on. Are you going to send them to jail?” Trump says
    • “I’m asking you,” Matthews says
    • “I am pro-life,” Trump says
    • “How do you actually ban abortion?” Matthews asks
    • “Well, you go back to a position like they had where they would perhaps go to illegal places but we have to ban it,” Trump says
  • Matthews then presses Trump on if he believes there should be punishment for abortion if it were illegal
    • “There has to be some form of punishment,” Trump says
    • “For the woman?” Matthews says; “Yeah,” Trump says, nodding
    • Trump says punishment would “have to be determined”
    • “They’ve
      set the law and frankly the judges, you’re going to have a very big
      election coming up for that reason because you have judges where it’s a
      real tipping point and with the loss of Scalia, who was a very strong
      conservative, this presidential election is going to be very important,”
      Trump says
    • “When you say what’s the law, nobody knows what the law is going to be. It depends on who gets elected,” Trump says

Obviously, this was “gotcha” journalism on Matthews’ part (once he established that he was referring to illegal
abortions he knew he could pin Trump between having to either say women
should be punished or that women could break the law with impunity),
and as we saw last year with the whole Kurds/Quds Hugh Hewitt debacle,
Trump is susceptible to badgering. The other problem here is that it
isn’t clear that Trump truly believes some of the things he’s forced to
say as a Republican candidate, which leads to exchanges like that
recounted above. “Don’t overthink it: Trump doesn’t understand the
pro-life position because he’s not pro-life,” a Cruz aid tweeted. Here’s
Politico with a bit of context:

Trump’s policy idea is a departure from most state abortion
restrictions, which don’t impose penalties on the women who get
abortions. Typically, any penalties are imposed on the physician who
does the procedure.

The anti-abortion movement in recent decades has shied
away from the perception that it is “punishing” women for getting
abortions. Instead, it has focused on penalties for the
physicians who provide them, such as imposing medical or legal
restrictions on their practice. In some rare situations, women have
faced charges associated with abortions they have attempted on their
own.

Having realized this had become a PR fiasco, Trump promptly walked back his comments.

This is a statement released just moments ago, in which the
billionaire revises his statement, calling the women “victims”, and
stating it is doctors who should be held legally responsible for
performing the illegal act:

If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and
the federal courts upheld this legislation, or any state were permitted
to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other
person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be legally
responsible, not the woman. The woman is a victim in this case as is the
life in her womb. My position has not changed – like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions.

That’s one of the risks of being outspoken and unafraid. People will lay traps for you, and from time to time, you will step in them. Trump made an initial mistake by hemming and hawing, thereby letting Matthews know that he didn’t have an effective position staked out and encouraging him to press on it. Then, he made the mistake of answering the dilemma posed instead of falling back on the trusty old “I’ve got people for that” evasion.

And finally, he compounded his error by backing down. The correct thing would have been to stand by his correct position in the abstract – women absolutely SHOULD be punished for murdering children  – while providing a practical temporization of it by observing that the primary goal is to save children, and politically, it will be impossible to stop legal abortion in a female-majority democracy if women are punished for having abortions.

In other words, he should have said that while he believes women are responsible for their criminal actions, and ideally should be held responsible for them, in this particular case, the interests of the unborn children should be prioritized and the punishments focused on the abortion providers.

The medical police state

There is no way that California can be permitted to proceed with its vaccine totalitarianism:

In a brazen act of medical tyranny, California recently became the first state in the U.S. where lawmakers removed religious exemptions to those opposing vaccines for their children. The bill now signed into law, SB277, faces legal hurdles in court next.

Now, legislators in California want to pass the “first US adult vaccine mandate with NO personal exemptions and CRIMINAL penalties for failure to comply.” SB 792, would eliminate an adult’s right to exempt themselves from one, some, or all vaccines, a risk-laden medical procedure.

There is a much better case to be made for the legal rape and forced impregnation of American women than there is for forcing vaccines on adults or children. This is a moral and constitutional abomination; every legislator who voted for this should be impeached.