TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 685.
Archive for 2015
March 25, 2015
YEAH, THAT’S BECAUSE THEY’RE A BUNCH OF LYING LIARS: Megan McArdle: Rolling Stone Fails A Police Fact Check.
I called for the Charlottesville Police Department to investigate the case forthwith.
Well, they did. And today, at a press conference, they shared the results of that information. To summarize: “Jackie,” the alleged victim, refused to cooperate with police. The fraternity, however, did, and extensive attempts to corroborate her story failed.
There wasn’t much new here for people who have followed this case closely, and know about the various problems with Jackie’s story. They already knew that the guy she told friends raped her, with whom her friends had actually exchanged text messages with prior to their date that night, was a character named “Haven Monahan” who supposedly worked with her at the University’s Aquatic Center. Earlier reporting indicated that this is not the name of a UVA student, and the number they were texting belonged to a web-based service that allows people to send texts. Fraternity records do not show an event that night.
Mostly the police provided a few extra details here and there, which they were able to do because, well, they’re the law. For example, the story also includes a later incident where Jackie was attacked by people who threw a beer bottle at her, which broke on her eye. After that incident, Jackie told police that her nursing student roommate had had to take glass out of her skin from the thrown beer bottle; the roommate apparently denies this, and the police, who saw her wound about a week after the incident allegedly happened, said that while she did have an abrasion near her eye, appears to be more of an abrasion rather than a blunt trauma injury. . . .
Meanwhile, they said they actually found a timestamped photograph of the accused fraternity’s side entrance, taken at 11:30 pm on the evening of the rape, and it shows a guy standing there alone, with two chairs, which is not consistent with the sort of party described in the article, since the side entrance is right near the main staircase.
The police were at pains to say that they don’t know that nothing happened on the evening of Sept. 28, 2012, and that they are not closing the investigation, just “suspending” it, since they have no evidence with which to prosecute a crime. But what I took away from their press conference is that whatever happened on that night, it is almost certainly not what Sabrina Rubin Erdely wrote in Rolling Stone.
Well, that’s because what she wrote was a hoax, and she and the Rolling Stone either knew or should have known that it was false.
NO, JUST THE WORST: Is Teresa Sullivan The Unluckiest College President In America? And even this story can’t spin things convincingly on her behalf, despite heroic effort.
I’D RATHER SEE THE MEDIA END ITS SUBSERVIENCE: Ron Fournier: 5 Ways To End Hillary Clinton’s War On The Media. Of course, as someone noted on Twitter, when Hillary said she wanted an “open relationship” what she really meant was that they would both screw other people. . . .
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WE TRIED THAT “DON’T BE EVIL,” THING, BUT IT ADVERSELY IMPACTED SHAREHOLDER VALUE: Google Makes The Most Of Close Ties To White House.
On Nov. 6, 2012, the night of Mr. Obama’s re-election, Mr. Schmidt was personally overseeing a voter-turnout software system for Mr. Obama. A few weeks later, Ms. Shelton and a senior antitrust lawyer at Google went to the White House to meet with one of Mr. Obama’s technology advisers.
By the end of the month, the FTC had decided not to file an antitrust lawsuit against the company, according to the agency’s internal emails.
It is unusual for White House aides to talk with officials at a company or agency about law-enforcement matters involving the company or agency. Officials in the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division typically don’t meet with the White House during major investigations.
Yeah, but people who help swing elections are unusual too.
CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Homeland Security exec used ‘improper influence’ to favor Reid, McAuliffe:
Department of Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas exerted “improper influence” on behalf of three applicants for a federal program that grants residency to foreign investors in U.S. projects, including one with links to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and another to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
Mayorkas was then director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency with Homeland Security and made multiple changes in the Employment-Based Fifth Preference program even though it represented a tiny slice of his overall responsibilities in the position, according to the Homeland Security inspector general in a report made public Tuesday. . . .
Mayorkas created a hand-picked “deference review board” that reversed a series of decisions by the LA Films center to reject applications linked to film projects of Sony and Time Warner. “This board did not previously exist and was never used again after it voted to reverse the adjudicators’ proposed denials. Remarkably, there is no record of the proceedings of this board,” the inspector general said.
In the Las Vegas example, Mayorkas intervened at the request of Reid seeking “expedited review of investor petitions involved in funding a Las Vegas hotel and casino, notwithstanding the career staff’s original decision not to do so.” The inspector general said “Mayorkas pressured staff to expedite the review. He also took the extraordinary step of requiring staff to brief Senator Reid’s staff on a weekly basis for several months.”
In the Gulf Coast example, the inspector general said Mayorkas mounted an “unprecedented” intervention in the denial of an EB-5 application for funding of a firm “to manufacture electric cars through investments in a company in which Terry McAuliffe was the board chairman.” The inspector general said that “because of the political prominence of the individuals involved, as well as USCIS’ traditional deference to its administrative appeals process, staff perceived it as politically motivated.”
They’re crooks who belong in jail, not in office.
COMPARING THE PRESS TO GOEBBELS, ON THE OTHER HAND, WOULD HAVE BEEN A FAIR COP: No, George Zimmerman didn’t compare himself to Anne Frank. “The Post has not run a retraction, correction, or apology.”
LIFE IN THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE: ‘Important Time’ to Prep Country for Chemical Weapons Attacks. “The head of the nation’s chemical defense program warned that the nation faces ‘an important time’ when it comes to addressing the potential for toxic attacks and the federal government is working with local agencies to both defend against assaults and go over how to respond should one occur. Appearing before the House Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response and Communications, Dr. Mark Kirk, director of the Chemical Defense Program in the Department of Homeland Security, reminded lawmakers that chemical agents are used to kill or incapacitate large numbers of people, cause permanent or long-lasting harm, contaminate critical infrastructure and create uncertainty, fear and panic.”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Appalachian State University Publicly Shames ‘Privileged’ Students.
This is a civil-rights suit waiting to happen.
WHY SHOULD WE BELIEVE A STORY THAT EVEN THE TELLER WON’T STAND BY? How are we supposed to handle sexual assault accusers who won’t cooperate?
The story Jackie told was easy to discredit — her friends denied her account of a conversation between them, the fraternity didn’t hold a party the night in question, and even the supposed date she had that night was a fictitious person. But the police still wouldn’t close the case because something could have happened to Jackie and maybe one day, if she decides to cooperate or someone else comes forward, justice can be done.
But the situation brings up an interesting question: How should we handle accusers who refuse to cooperate, especially when their word is the only evidence available?
At some point, isn’t the collective societal good supposed to overtake the good of the individual? Isn’t that the liberal way?
Let’s say something horrible did happen to Jackie, something so terrible that she would rather tell a false story about a gang rape from phantom fraternity brothers than the truth. That would mean there’s a monster out there who could harm other students, other women. And if she is the actual victim of something, she’s not helping herself or other students who could be future victims.
Advocates who claim women should be taken at their word may continue to support an accuser’s right to proceed — or not proceed — with an investigation on her own terms. That could mean giving a statement to a college administrator, or to the police, or doing nothing at all. And that might be acceptable for the single accuser, but there’s a larger population in danger.
Sometimes, when an accuser refuses to cooperate with an investigation — even by a school — the case is dropped. This happened with Columbia University student Paul Nungesser. One of the three women who accused him of sexual misconduct stopped cooperating with the university and her accusation was dismissed.
Other times, an accuser’s word in the absence of other evidence is used to expel an accused student, as was the case with Joshua Strange, even when police couldn’t indict.
Of course, such behavior from the universities leads to lawsuits and headaches, and is one element in the current national debate over campus sexual assault. But as more lawsuits from accused students come in and are settled, more due process will have to be afforded to these students, resembling a more formal police process. And if, ideally, these cases are handled by the police, an accuser’s refusal to tell her story or provide any clues as to what happened will be a detriment to the case.
This isn’t about justice. This is about preparing the battlespace for Hillary 2016’s “war on women” narrative, and the preparers don’t care who gets hurt in the process: men, or women.
CHARGES BROUGHT ESSENTIALLY WITHOUT INVESTIGATION, UPON ACCUSATION ALONE: 20-year-old found not guilty of raping University of Akron student.
Charles Anderson, 20, of North Jackson was acquitted last Thursday by a jury made up of seven women and four men. The trial lasted two and a half days and the jury came back with a decision in about an hour.
“I would never sexually assault a girl or rape a girl,” Anderson said from his lawyers office near Youngstown surrounded by his mother and step father.
“I’m just relieved and thank God that I’m able to wake up today and wake up in my bed,” he continued.
The University of Akron student told campus police Anderson sexually assaulted her at her sorority house Alpha Delta PI on Spicer Street. The alleged assault happened around 5 a.m. as the victim said she was surprised and attacked.
Anderson did not testify in court but told police he and the victim had sent text messages to each other before and after the incident. The actual texts were not allowed in court. . . .
The victim and Anderson had been friends since middle school and met on social media, according to him. He said the two had been in a relationship and the September visit was not the first time he had gone to see the alleged victim at the University.
“There are 16 women in the sorority house,” said Anderson’s attorney Edward Hartwig. “There was the testimony from the alleged victim that she fought and she did yell. We thought it would have been prudent for officers to interview the women in the house that night and that wasn’t done.”
Hartwig said police only interviewed two women in the house some six months after the incident and a week before the trial.
Anderson said he has a new job and is working to reclaim his life and get his name back.
Note that the “victim” isn’t named.
DIVERSITY IS OUR STRENGTH: Cornell dean says ISIS welcome on campus in undercover video.
March 24, 2015
WELL, GIVEN THAT THE ACTUAL VICTIM WAS AN INNOCENT FRAT SMEARED AND ASSAULTED BY TERESA SULLIVAN’S BROWNSHIRTS, OKAY: Dem Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand: Let’s not blame the victim in this bogus UVA/Rolling Stone rape story.
But, of course, what Sen. Gillibrand really means is don’t blame me, for making political hay out of this now obviously made-up story. “Gillibrand et al. not wanting to deny Jackie her ‘victim’ status is also a function of them wanting to cover their own asses for having uncritically accepted the Rolling Stone UVA rape story. If Jackie’s a sympathetic figure even now, well, then the torches-and-pitchforks crowd really shouldn’t bear any blame for having viciously attacked Rolling Stone’s skeptics as rape enablers who might as well have been in the room at Phi Kappa Psi while Jackie was being assaulted. They reacted harshly only because they care so much about making sure that skepticism didn’t discourage genuine rape victims from coming forward. Gillibrand describing Jackie as a victim is a vestige of that attitude. Skepticism towards any accusation, for whatever reason, must be resisted to the bitter end and even beyond the bitter end, when the whole world knows what Jackie really did, and why.”
REASON’S JESSE WALKER finds another reason to back Ted Cruz.
HOPELESSLY CORRUPT: Report: DHS showed favoritism to Democrat-linked immigrants. It’s all about importing enough Democratic voters to take over.
ED MORRISSEY: Former federal prosecutor: Rolling Stone-UVa fiasco shows danger of WH Title IX pressure. Activist Emily Renda, who had roles at the White House and the University of Virginia, may have been a conduit. Has anyone heard from her lately?
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Jill Curry sentenced to 4 years in prison for sex with inmate. “Authorities said the sexual misconduct occurred while a deputy was at lunch, when Curry, a civilian jail services technician, was alone in the unit’s control room.That’s where she pushed a button, unlocking the inmate’s cell, and then met him in a supply closet. This occurred 13 times, said prosecutor Jeff Lesowski.”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: U. of Virginia pats itself on the back even as police decry lost evidence in ‘Jackie’ case. There’s literally nothing about this case that should leave the University of Virginia feeling good about itself.