DAN MARKEL UPDATE: Dan Markel’s Law Prof Colleagues Finger Ex-Wife’s Family In Murder-For-Hire Killing. How likely is it, really, that the family did it, but the ex-wife didn’t know anything? I mean, it’s possible, but . . .
Archive for 2016
June 10, 2016
PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Jack Montague Sues Yale Over Sex Assault Expulsion:
The night of the alleged sexual assault, the accuser “willingly accompanied Montague to his bedroom, removed her clothing as he removed his, got into his bed, and engaged in consensual sexual conduct,” according to the lawsuit. The accuser then claimed the “intercourse that followed the consensual sexual foreplay was nonconsensual.”
Even Yale’s own report on the investigation appeared to suggest Montague was right to believe he had consent. For instance, the accuser said she told Montague the she wanted to “hook up but not have sex” but admitted to the panel she didn’t believe he heard her. Based on the accuser’s other actions — which were all similar to what she had done in previous consensual sexual encounters — would give the impression Montague reasonably believed he had consent.
Yet Yale still expelled him, after apparently encouraging the accuser to tell her story. See, it wasn’t the accuser who came forward in this case, it was her friend, who told Yale’s Title IX coordinator in an unrelated conversation that the eventual accuser had a “bad experience.” The Title IX coordinator and the friend then worked to get the accuser to come forward.
After the accuser talked to the Title IX coordinator, she began reinterpreting her encounter with Montague. She started thinking he was dangerous and that she needed to save the rest of the students at Yale from him.
From the beginning, Yale appears to have misled the accuser into believing Montague had a history of sexual misconduct.
Bright college years, rife with official dishonesty and oppression.
CIVIL WAR: 4-in-10 GOP insiders want to derail Trump at the convention.
The majority of GOP insiders, a little more than 60 percent, expressed either hesitance or disdain for such an effort. Many warned against overturning the will of the GOP electorate: Trump has won 1,447 bound delegates and has commitments from another 95 unbound delegates — putting him well over the 1,237 needed to clinch the nomination.
But with just six weeks to go until the GOP convention, more than a third want to see the party throw out those rules, unbind the delegates and allow them to choose a different candidate. For many of them, it isn’t as much about winning this year’s election: Trump as the nominee, they believe, represents an existential threat to the party.
“Trump’s continued descent into madness is dragging the GOP down with him,” said a Florida Republican, who like all respondents, completed the survey anonymously. “A convention switchup would be great politics and save the GOP.”
“More than a third” doesn’t seem like enough to overturn a nomination, but it is enough to split a party.
THE MAJESTY OF SOCIALISM: As hunger mounts, Venezuelans turn to trash for food.
HORROR IN HORNSBY, AUSTRALIA: “Four people reportedly injured in a Sydney shopping centre knife confrontation,” Tim Blair writes, adding that Sydney television “reports the man was heard shouting ‘Allahu Akhbar.’”
Related: CNN deletes tweet, apologizes for headline which questioned Tel Aviv terror attack.
DISPATCHES FROM THE LEFT’S WAR ON BATHROOMS: New York City Taxpayers Billed $265,000 for Bathroom Ads.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the Northeast Corridor, “Gender-inclusive classroom guide is free, but requires you to identify as male, female, or other.”
Nobody said reaching PC nirvana would be easy — you have to break a few pronouns to make a gender-free omelet.
ELI LAKE: U.S. Taxpayers Are Funding Iran’s Military Expansion.
It all starts with $1.7 billion the U.S. Treasury transferred to Iran’s Central Bank in January, during a delicate prisoner swap and the implementation of last summer’s nuclear deal to resolve a long-standing dispute about Iran’s arms purchases before the revolution of 1979.
For months it was unclear what Iran’s government would do with this money. But last month the mystery was solved when Iran’s Guardian Council approved the government’s 2017 budget that instructed Iran’s Central Bank to transfer the $1.7 billion to the military.
Unclear to whom?
NEVER GIVE UP! NEVER SURRENDER! ‘Still Standing’: Sanders Rallies Supporters in DC.
“Here we are in June and still standing,” the Vermont senator told supporters at a rally of more than 3,000 in the District of Columbia on Thursday night. The event might well be the last of his presidential bid.
Sanders addressed the excited crowd gathered in the parking lot of Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in southeast D.C. Earlier in the day Sanders met with President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in the Senate , the beginning of the end of his campaign.
He ended his day of meetings at the rally, on a picture perfect night, surrounded by supporters who said they showed up to prove to Sanders that they still had his back.
You know, if he’d really tried to beat Hillary, he might have managed it.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Ninth Circuit Ignores Second Amendment to Uphold Ban on Concealed Carry.
HOUSE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN LACERATES EPA, INTERIOR: Rep. Rob Bishop is chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources. The Utah Republican is a long-time critic of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior.
But what he told the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group’s Ethan Barton about the deception of the two federal departments about the true cause of the Gold King Mine disaster is truly searing. This is Barton’s fifth story this week and it ends the Gold King Mine series with the question – what is Congress going to do about an obvious coverup by bureaucrats?
YOU DON’T SAY: Minimum wage, maximum mess in Oregon.
Wages will rise to $12.50 in rural Oregon, $13.50 in mid-size regions and $14.75 in greater Portland, all by the year 2022.
But before the ink was even dry, Democrats, who control the state House, Senate and governor’s office, announced they wanted to change the bill that was rammed through in a five-week legislative session despite fierce Republican opposition.
“They just wanted to pass something,” said economist Eric Fruits, a Portland Republican. “They were really worried about the 15 Now people sending something to the ballot, and I think they got so snakebit they would have passed anything that was called a minimum wage increase.”
Labor unions, spearheaded by the S.E.I.U., had been collecting signatures for a $15 statewide wage initiative and hoping to build on recent victories in several cities.
But Oregon Democrats acted before state economists even had a chance to weigh in. Last week, state analysts concluded in a prepared forecast the high wage will “result in approximately 40,000 fewer jobs in 2025 than would have been the case absent the legislation.”
If only there were some kind of economic law describing the relationship between price and demand, then politicians wouldn’t keep producing these unintended consequences.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Clemson’s Fake Hate Crime Story Gets Worse:
An email exchange between top Clemson officials suggests that the administration welcomed the opportunity to use the now infamous “banana banner” incident to push a progressive agenda.
On Monday, April 11, a bunch of bananas was found hanging from a banner mounted on campus honoring the history of African Americans at Clemson, resulting in on-campus protests and a sit-in that lead to the arrest of five students.
According to emails released by Clemson under the Freedom of Information Act that were obtained by Campus Reform, key players involved in the incident seemingly regarded its racial undertones as an occasion to suffocate conservative sentiments out of the administration.
Last week, in response to a separate FOIA request, Clemson released emails sent by top administrators in the immediate aftermath of the incident, one of which seemed to suggest that school officials believed that the students who hung the bananas were not racially motivated.
“Two students came forward and told they had done bananas,” Vice President for Student Affairs Almeda Jacks wrote in an email to other administrators on the evening of April 11. “Their claim is [that] they had no idea of pole or banner,” she explained, adding, “nobody will believe that tho [sic] our folks think true.”
In a more recent correspondence between Altheia Richardson, executive director of Clemson’s Harvey and Lucinda Gantt Multicultural Center, and Professor Todd May, who apparently has been trying with little success to move conservative administrators away from their “party line,” the two seem to hint at the potential leverage the incident could afford in future conversations with school leaders.
Some Clemson students, who were verbally intimidated at a protest after the incident, commented on the exchange and offered their own theories on its significance.
“From what I read, it seems like Altheia was warning those two professors [another professor was copied to the exchange but did not participate] not to assume that Clements and Almeda were unprogressive,” student Miller Hall, member of a free speech activist group known as “We Roar,” told Campus Reform, saying it is likely that Richardson was “convincing them that they could get them to cooperate with the progressive agenda.”
Zach Talley, another WeRoar member who also serves as editor-in-chief of The Tiger Town Observer, explained that May has in fact been trying for years to infiltrate the administration with his liberal ideologies, but has been repeatedly stonewalled by a reluctant president.
“He has been for years and years and years pushing a liberal agenda,” Talley remarked. “May is the brain behind the operation, and he tries to accomplish his liberal agenda through minorities on campus because he is a straight white male.”
Notably, one of the student protesters involved in April’s sit-in is the son a top administrator at Clemson, Alesia Smith, who later recused herself from leading the investigation into the banana banner incident due to a conflict of interest. The date of her recusal is noted as April 14, which is in the middle of the date range for records released in the latest Freedom of Information Act response, yet while the dump does include emails from other administrators concerning the university’s conflict of interest policy, no mention of her recusal is included in the release.
I imagine the South Carolina legislature will look into this.
A PICTURE’S WORTH A THOUSAND DELETED EMAILS: Clinton BlackBerry photo led to State official’s query about email account.
But as Glenn Thrush of the Politico would say, she looks so “badass” in it…
GREAT MOMENTS IN SOVIET PSYCHIATRY: Study showing conservatives showed signs of ‘psychoticism’ turns out to be bunk.
Perhaps instead of “psychoticism,” the “researchers” at Virginia Commonwealth University should have simply used the phrase “philosophical intoxication” — I’m sure they’d concur that it has an excellent pedigree.
“By the way, your tax dollars paid for this essential social science research,” Steve Hayward adds at Power Line. “A note at the end says, ‘The data for this article were collected with the financial support of the National Institute of Health.’ And people wonder why Republicans in Congress want to cut off federal funding for social science research. As an alternative, I suggest redirecting federal social science funds to Retraction Watch. And cue Emily Litella whenever you’re ready.”
WORSE THAN DETROIT: No apology coming from Detroit Free Press editor Stephen Henderson who envisions charter school proponents fed to rabid animals.
Related: To hell with you people.
I’M NOT GIVING UP YET: Is It All Over For America?
NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER IN PAPER AND FOR PURCHASE IN E-BOOK: Through Fire (Book 4 of Darkships, book 2 of the Earth Revolution.) Be aware that if you ordered it before the dance of the release dates, that purchase was cancelled, so if you still want it, you’ll have to re-order. (Please.)
THOSE OLD BOURGEOIS VIRTUES OF THRIFT, CONTINENCE AND DELAYED GRATIFICATION COUNT FOR MORE: Why intelligence, talent and charisma are vastly overrated.
OH, HI, SHOCKED FACE: How Ayatollah Khomeini suckered Jimmy Carter.
THEY ALSO FIGHT WHO CREATE NEW CLOTHING: How heatproof fashion is helping the military defeat our enemies.
TEACH YOUR CHILDREN WELL: HAMILTON. What’s better than seeing the hottest show on Broadway? Creating a forever memory.
FOR ONLY $1 A DAY, YOU CAN END THE SCOURGE OF TERMINAL NARCISSISM: This is why kids are turning out so screwed up.
YEAH, OKAY, SO LONG AS WE DON’T TEACH GIRLS THAT ANY OF THEM CAN DO THIS WITHOUT TRAINING BY VIRTUE OF HAVING A VAGINA: She took down a mugger with MMA, then auditioned for Miss Universe.
TELL ME AGAIN HOW THE OBESE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND ITS INTRUSIVE REACH INTO MY HEALTH CARE IS PROTECTING ME FROM THESE: The ‘superbug’ is here — and America’s not ready for it.