When Jeff Zucker ran CNN, he famously had company-wide conferences every weekday morning at 9 a.m., and he would instruct his TV personalities regarding the appropriate messaging for the day.
Some employees lamented the straitjacket. For example, CNN media coordinator Nick Neville candidly expressed hope that CNN “could let the news people decide the news and have the executives stay out of it.”
Fox News does not use the CNN approach. For example, the views of Tucker Carlson on the Ukraine war are diametrically opposite the views of Sean Hannity, and it is also clear that people at Fox had differing views about the 2020 election.
I read that Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo implied that lawyer Sidney Powell was credible. On the other hand, it is clear that Carlson and Laura Ingraham had serious reservations regarding Powell’s information.
So what? I don’t see the crime. It seems normal and even healthy for different people in a news organization to hold different views. It doesn’t mean that anyone, on either side of the argument, is a liar. It also doesn’t make the entire network a liar. I guess that concept is a tough one for CNN to grasp.
Claims of election fraud are vastly larger than just Dominion.
This morning I saw a few minutes of MSNBC (my limit) and heard Joe Scarborough wonder if Carlson will now have to stop questioning issues related to the Jan. 6 “insurrection.” That is wishful and rather obtuse thinking.
The Dominion-Fox case was very narrowly focused on the claims of Powell and one particular voting machine vendor. The issues of election fraud and the Jan. 6 riots are immensely larger.
Unfortunately, people like Scarborough may try to use the Fox settlement as an argument for the increased censorship of anyone who questions the validity of any aspect of the 2020 election or its aftermath. That could affect people like me because, when I appear on a radio show or podcast, I itemize numerous irrefutable facts that call into question the validity of the 2020 election. I plan to continue.
Venue and jury selection, and the touchy issue of race
People wonder why Fox waited so long to settle. I suspect that the last-minute settlement may have been triggered by the last-minute selection of the jury. This requires a frank conversation.
Jurors were selected just before the settlement was reached. Some people on the left, like a journalist for Slate, seemed gleeful. Justin Peters put out a piece titled, “Meet the jury that will decide Fox News’ fate,” in which he pointed out that the jury appeared to be mostly minorities. Why did he feel it was important to describe the racial makeup of the jury?
Even the judge seemed to be thinking along those lines. CNN reported that after the "racially diverse jury” was selected, and after a settlement was reached, the judge told them, "Your presence here, short compared to what you thought, and uneventful in a certain sense, was extremely important. Without you, the parties would not have been able to resolve their situation."
Hmm! The judge thought that the very brief presence of the jury spurred a settlement. I wonder what he meant!
There is another factor that should be considered as we assess the significance of this settlement. In Wilmington, Delaware, only 30 percent of the public supported Donald Trump in the 2020 election. If only 30 percent had supported Joe Biden, do you think Dominion would have gotten a settlement of nearly $800 million? We all know the answer.
Legal venues are a huge problem for conservatives in America because almost all the big trials take place in big, very blue cities, where jurors can be expected to have a bias against Republicans. If you doubt this, ask Trump as he fights a ridiculous case brought by a partisan Manhattan district attorney.
Conservatives need to get their business out of left-wing jurisdictions. And eventually, we need to move some of our government agencies to America’s heartland.
The absurd amount in damages claimed
Dominion claimed that it lost $1.6 billion in value. By all accounts, $1.6 billion is vastly more than the company was ever worth.
In 2018, Staple Street Capital purchased a 76 percent share of Dominion for $38.8 million. That implies a total value, in 2018, of $51 million. Adding a 3 percent annual inflation factor brings the value to about $60 million. So why did Fox settle for so much?
Fox probably knew it could prove to a jury -- even one comprising mostly Democrats -- that Dominion was worth just a small fraction of $1.6 billion. However, the wild card in American civil suits is the punitive award.
In the hands of a hateful jury, the system of punitive awards puts a gun to the head of defendants. Vindictive juries can, and often do, assess ludicrous penalties against the organizations or people they despise. Legislation is needed to limit the size of punitive damages.
Finally, I truly worry about the impact on future news coverage.
Fox argues that claims by Trump and his attorneys were extremely newsworthy, and it was doing the right thing by giving Trump’s supporters a chance to make their claims. That is correct, without a doubt.
But what will the news coverage be like for the 2024 election? Already, liberals have dramatically reduced conservative news coverage by driving One America News and Newsmax from cable news platforms. Fox has been muted, and now it may be even more reluctant to do anything that could lead to a lawsuit.
It may seem discouraging, but this is not the time to retreat. Rather, this is the time to speak louder than ever and take stock of the tremendous power conservatives can wield. A great example is the Budweiser debacle, in which conservatives brought a giant company to its knees in a matter of weeks.
For years, left-wingers have attacked networks such as OAN, Newsmax and Fox. They have even attacked the utilities and other service providers of those networks. Meanwhile, conservatives have extended grace and tolerance to CNN and MSNBC.
I wonder how long that can continue.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
I think we’ve seen just about enough from the FBI to take action.
Over the past few months, we’ve heard from several whistleblowers (mainly former employees) who have had enough of Director Christopher Wray’s controversial decisions. This, on top of what we've seen at Mar-a-Lago and surrounding investigations of Hunter Biden, has just led to an amazing amount of imbalance.
And apparently, the House Judiciary Committee has seen enough, too.
Rep. Jim Jordan recently filed a subpoena for Wray, noting an internal memo that leaked earlier this year suggesting that the bureau was going to spy on Roman Catholic parishes in hopes of sniffing out “violent extremists.”
And despite Wray’s previous assertions that the memo wouldn’t be followed, the actions of an undercover agent suggest the FBI was ready to act on it regardless.
“Based on the limited information produced by the FBI to the Committee, we now know that the FBI relied on at least one undercover agent to produce its analysis, and that the FBI proposed that its agents engage in outreach to Catholic parishes to develop sources among the clergy and church leadership to inform on Americans practicing their faith,” Jordan said in the letter to Wray that accompanied the subpoena.
Here’s a statement from the FBI issued shortly after the memo came out: “The FBI is committed to sound analytic tradecraft and to investigating and preventing acts of violence and other crimes while upholding the constitutional rights of all Americans and will never conduct investigative activities or open an investigation based solely on First Amendment protected activity.”
Except that you weren’t upholding those constitutional rights and you were conducting those investigative activities.
This has just pushed me to the boiling point. We’ve already heard how the FBI is going after upstanding citizens merely because of their online opinions or religious beliefs. Wray has a lot to answer for.
So what now? We’ve basically caught the FBI in a number of bald-faced lies. Obviously, the first step is to get rid of Wray, because his inability to lead his agents in the proper direction is hard to miss. But what’s next?
Vivek Ramaswamy may have some ideas. The Republican presidential candidate recently noted how “toxic” the bureau has become. And when an agency gets to that level, it may be beyond the point of saving.
"When a federal bureaucracy becomes this toxic, there’s only one answer left. You shut it down," Ramaswamy said in a recent Fox News interview. "Top-down ‘reform’ becomes impossible.” He also said “career politicians are too meek” and that “this will take an outsider to get the job done.”
He has a solid point here. While the FBI has good agents in its ranks, they can do next to nothing because of the sheer corruption drummed up by Wray and his higher-ups. It’s like wanting to make changes for the better, only to be hit by a bureaucratic wall.
We’ve already faced enough of an uphill struggle over the past few years, with thousands of police officers resigning due to the fallout from the “defund the police” movement and the complete lack of funding for proper gear and mental health treatment. But now we’ve got our government bureaus acting on their own agendas, without any care for the American people.
The bottom line here is that these citizens -- and the officers who serve them -- deserve justice. And if that means raking Wray and his fellow corrupt agents over the coals to get some answers, so be it.
It’s time to get the justice we need to bring this country back from the brink.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The sentinels of our constitutional order are those who serve in our fighting forces. They’ve sworn an oath to defend our freedoms and liberties and are willing to sacrifice their lives for their fellow citizens.
Yet, with all the talk of coming conflict between the U.S. and its chief geopolitical rival China, there is growing concern that America is ill-prepared for the challenge. It’s certainly not because the Chinese Communist Party is an overwhelmingly impressive foe. Beijing steals most of its high-tech power from U.S. industry.
The problem, say critics, is that the U.S. military has gone woke.
One documented impact is not meeting enlistment quotas. And rather than military and civilian leadership taking responsibility for their failures to sign up America’s best and brightest, they say the problem is that the rising generation is too lazy, fearful and unfit. But as President John F. Kennedy showed, one of the crucial tasks of leadership is to inspire American youth; hence, one of his initiatives to guide them was the President’s Council on Physical Fitness.
Compare that to the current White House, which instead compelled military personnel to submit to failed and potentially dangerous mRNA vaccines. Instead of allowing for religious exemptions, the military cut loose thousands of its most devoted warriors.
And then there’s an often overlooked but essential data point explaining why recruitment is so low: Our military and civilian leaders no longer win wars. And they seldom suffer any consequences for losing them.
Look at the generals and senior intelligence officials who failed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead of being held accountable for their incompetence, they’re rewarded with seats on the boards of defense contractors and other private entities.
Is it any wonder that parents who served their country are now discouraging their children from following in their footsteps? Who would entrust their loved ones to men and women whose main focus is not the field of battle before them but a lucrative post-military career?
In this context, it’s easy to see that wokeness is a symptom of a larger problem that afflicts not just our military and civilian leadership but American society as a whole -- disdain for honor.
The true threat to our great nation isn’t China or any other foreign foe. Rather, it’s our own establishment elites who have betrayed America for money, prestige and power, used not to deter and destroy external threats but to lord their position over their fellow Americans.
The U.S. military is a reflection of our society. All of us have a role to play in preserving our constitutional order. Remember that, as the Founders argued, the Constitution was written for a moral and religious people -- that is, an honorable nation.
To demand accountability of our country, we have to assume responsibility for our communities, our families and, above all, ourselves.
It’s time we answer the call. Rise up, America. Our country -- our honor -- is at stake.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
Donald Trump’s flaws aside (he has them, just like any other human being who ever walked the earth), I voted for him in 2016 and 2020, and if he’s the Republican nominee, I’m going to vote for him again in 2024.
When Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) sufferers wonder how I can vote for someone who wants to "destroy democracy,” I realize that if I try to deprogram their brainwashed minds issue by issue, we could be there for hours.
Instead, I simply begin by saying, “Because the alternative is worse.”
By alternative, I mean any person with a realistic chance to grab the Democratic nomination and face Trump in the general election -- whether it be Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, etc.
And if Trump is not the GOP nominee, just about any other Republican with a realistic chance of winning -- whether it be Ron DeSantis, Mike Pompeo, Chris Christie, etc. -- would get my vote.
“What about Robert Kennedy Jr.?” I’m often asked. “What if he’s the Democratic nominee?”
My answer is still no, but importantly, it’s a no after a long pause. Here’s why: Whether or not I agree with Kennedy’s political ideology, I think he believes in what he says. He doesn’t need a gimmick to gain attention; he’s a Kennedy, for goodness’ sake! And not just a Kennedy, but the son and namesake of the second-most influential member of the vast Kennedy family over the past 60 years.
I think his activism is commendable, if at times misplaced. If forced to replace our current president with another Democrat, Kennedy’s most likely the one I’d choose.
Yet I can’t see myself voting for him. Not because of him personally, but because of the company he keeps: other Democrats.
A President Robert Kennedy would far more often side with Chuck Schumer than with Ted Cruz, with Elizabeth Warren than with Marsha Blackburn. I’ve made that mistake in my life -- not realizing that if you support one Democrat, you wind up with the whole kit and caboodle.
Now that we’ve got that settled, let’s examine why Kennedy’s candidacy is great for America.
Much like Trump, Kennedy isn’t afraid to criticize his own party, and Lord knows Democrats need a whole lot of criticism! While he won’t mince words attacking Republicans, Kennedy also won’t hold back against his fellow Democrats.
Not only that, but if Kennedy’s competitive in the primaries and the Democrats use dirty tricks to force him out, there’s a better-than-decent chance he’d run as an independent or on a third-party ticket and siphon enough votes away from the Democratic candidate in the general election to ensure a Republican victory. How’s that for an early Christmas gift?
But many in the establishment media are already aware of this, and they started attacking him as soon as he filed papers to run.
The Hill led with the headline: "Anti-vaxxer RFK Jr. files to run for president as Democrat." The media’s main feeding line, The Associated Press, wrote, "Anti-vaccine activist RFK Jr. challenging Biden in 2024." Surprisingly, The New York Times was less unprofessional, more accurately referring to Kennedy as a "vaccine skeptic."
The Wall Street Journal’s headline, "Robert Kennedy Jr. Files to Run for President as a Democrat," was the best of the lot, but, alas, the article itself was tainted from the first two words: “Antivaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed paperwork Wednesday to run for president.”
I could go on endlessly, but you get the point.
Kennedy was an assistant district attorney in New York, is the author of 10 books, and his environmental activism has extended throughout the world. I don’t necessarily share his perspective on what he calls “environmental justice,” but it’s fair to say that if there’s one big issue with which to associate him, it’s the environment.
Instead, most if not all of the big media outlets are labeling him an “anti-vaxxer” to simultaneously discredit his candidacy as well as the notion of questioning the safety of vaccines in general and the ones developed to combat COVID in particular.
This is not about whether Kennedy is right or wrong about vaccines. Rather, it is an egregious example of journalistic malpractice insofar as the media decides the issue with which to identify Kennedy, and then proceeds to mischaracterize his view.
He’s not against vaccines; he simply doesn’t buy that they’re all completely safe.
The modern-day establishment media knows no bounds. We see how they attack conservatives on a daily basis, and Trump on an hourly basis. But now they’re going after the quintessential liberal Democrat, the champion of fighting large corporations in the name of clean air and clean water. But, wait, he disagrees with them about vaccines. It doesn’t matter that they agree the other 99 percent of the time.
Canceled. That’s wokeness for you.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
Because of technology, we now know what is happening around the earth... and it’s terrifying.
Despite all the wars we wage, elections we hold, dollars we spend and tears we shed, people have lost hope.
A recent Gallup report said that most people believe we are living in the last days of humanity. Recent reports from Pew Research and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that even the youngest generations, who have their entire lives to look forward to, are struggling with an unprecedented mental illness epidemic of everything from depression to debilitating anxiety and suicidal ideation.
The only hope for this world and your life is not found in this world. We need God to enter into our lives, which is why Jesus Christ came to earth.
Jesus’ defeat of death shows us what awaits those who follow him in this life, through death and into eternal life.
This life is as close to hell as a follower of Christ will experience, and there is a future reward for and healing from all the pains, problems and perils of life forever. Only this long view of life gives us the courage and purpose to live a hope-filled life.
You must trust someone, and you should trust Jesus Christ. He said six things that no other major leader has ever said.
This weekend, the largest and most diverse global movement of any kind in world history will assemble as the church celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ from death. This Easter, the best thing you can do is attend a local church and learn more about him.
There is hope, and his name is Jesus Christ!
To learn more about Jesus Christ and his resurrection, please read this free e-book.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
It is now approximately eight weeks since President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address and, as expected, most Americans would be hard-pressed to recite any memorable words or phrases from the occasion.
Alas, the age of social media and a relentless 24/7 news cycle ensure that every president’s SOTU is soon forgotten. Throw this president’s staid style into the mix and the speech’s shelf life shrinks even further.
All of which makes it noteworthy that Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ official response still generates buzz, on the right and the left. The talk was well-written, well-delivered and crushed the always-low expectations for such an appearance.
One memorable line continues to reverberate. In framing the latest iteration of America’s culture wars, the governor went for the jugular: “The choice is between normal and crazy.”
Such a piercing choice of words (of course) triggered the usual suspects. A typical chorus of “vicious conservative” was the considered response from the easily triggered left.
This got me thinking about the point in time when the progressive political program abruptly shifted from the traditional to… what Sanders said.
For context, many of you will easily recall the good ol’ days circa six years ago, or really any point in time prior to the election of 2016.
It was during these years that the major political parties fought over large and important issues: defense spending and health insurance and Roe v. Wade and capital gains tax rates and trade deals. Your Econ 101 professor used to differentiate the parties’ respective priorities in rather simple terms: “More guns or more butter?”
And then things changed in the blink of an eye:
That many of these initiatives took root or metastasized as a reaction to the tenure of the uninvited disruptor, Donald J. Trump, is a matter of historical record. Indeed, the shocking election result of 2016 sent most of America’s power centers over the proverbial cliff.
But history will reflect that the establishment quickly coalesced around a common goal: Trump (and “America First”) had to be taken down, and the good ol’ USA had to be transformed.
And so an equally disruptive movement was hatched. It defeated the mean tweet machine from Queens… and has now indicted him. It has steadily gained acceptance within one of our major parties. It is extremely well-funded and viewed approvingly by many who rent space in our cultural power centers: Big Tech, the legacy media, academia, Hollywood and professional sports leagues.
Most important, it is focused on transforming just about everything viewed as traditional in America.
Back to Sanders’ speech. The really big question for 2024 is whether “crazy” will continue to carry the day or whether “normal” will make a long-postponed reappearance.
Some say the stakes have never been higher -- that a successful transformation would be difficult to walk back. Most of us flyover types tend to agree.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
Enough of this farce. Stop wasting everybody’s time. Judge Juan Merchan should dismiss the case against President Donald Trump NOW.
Unless he himself is too Trump-deranged to preside fairly over this case, he has to know that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case is nothing more than a disgraceful political hit job against a former president and current leading candidate for a major party’s nomination.
He knows this is unprecedented election interference. He knows it’s abuse of the legal system, lawfare at its worst. And we all know that he knows.
Bragg ran for office on a promise to "get Trump." That alone should be enough to discredit what he has done here. For those who might not agree that it is, the laughably insufficient indictment itself definitely is.
This is still America -- we can’t have this in our country. It is not acceptable.
We’d ask the same question posed by Dan Bongino: “What kind of a clown joker wrote this thing?”
Judicial Watch released a statement calling this indictment and arrest “a blow to the rule of law and our republican form of government.”
“This is an indictment about nothing,” it said, “based on non-crimes and politics. It is a rigged prosecution to rig an election. The courts must end this malicious prosecution before the nation is irreparably damaged.”
Judicial Watch called for Congress to immediately investigate Bragg’s election interference and his attack on Trump’s civil rights. Thanks to them for using the Freedom of Information Act to get the ball rolling until Congress holds hearings. But the way FOIA requests are slow-walked, it could take a year to get the information they seek. This case needs to be dropped NOW.
Legal analyst Margot Cleveland has a new column on Bragg’s indictment of Trump, which she says is “even more partisan and pathetic than we could have imagined,” to the extent that other Democrats will distance themselves from it to “avoid the fallout from the political targeting of Trump.” Bragg’s reputation as a prosecutor is cooked, on both sides.
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Trump, the indictment says, “with intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof, made and caused a false entry in the business records.” Thirty-four times.
We’d assumed that the 34 counts reflected 34 payments made to Michael Cohen, but Bragg broke them down even further than that. Each payment typically required several records: invoice from Cohen, general ledger, issuance of a check. Each one of those records is a separate count.
Bragg stacked this indictment as much as he possibly could. “The repetitiveness of the counts reeks of a desperate piling on by the Democrat prosecutor,” Cleveland says.
Bragg included a 13-page “statement of the facts” that offers no facts that would bolster the charges. He described a “catch-and-kill scheme” to try to keep unflattering stories out of the media. Bragg called this “unlawful,” but in reality, it’s quite common in the celebrity world and is certainly not a crime.
And as everyone knows by now, Bragg never did identify the “other crime” that these falsified records were in service to. The whole case stands or falls on this, and he left it out.
Bragg’s job was to convince the American public that "the evidence overwhelmingly supported his decision to criminally charge the former President of the United States.” He utterly failed.
Even with these glaring deficiencies, Bragg might “successfully sidestep initial efforts to have the case tossed,” Cleveland says. If he does, it’s hard even to imagine how damaging that will be.
“Evidently Bragg and I went to very different law schools,” said Trump civil attorney Alina Habba to Fox News’ Jesse Watters on Wednesday night. (Editorial note: Alvin Bragg went to Harvard Law, which doesn’t say much for Harvard Law. Ironic factoid: He was an editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review.) Habba had been waiting, she said, for “a little something” from the indictment, just as a challenge.
“He’s going to go down as a disgraced DA,” she said. “And this judge, same thing,” although she gave him credit for at least trying to appear measured and unbiased in court. Still, this is a judge who has “heard many Trump cases, and ‘somehow’ got another Trump case,” she added with a wide smile and no further comment.
She noted that Stormy Daniels had already come out with her story before the 2016 election; people knew about it. A court had already levied a $500,000 judgment against her for frivolously suing Trump for defamation, and another $190,000 was added to that the very day of Trump’s arraignment. Payments to Cohen were not recorded until 2017.
Note: As some legal experts have wondered, how can payments and records of payments made in 2017 be considered an FEC violation for the 2016 election?
For those who detest Trump, it doesn’t matter that there’s nothing to this indictment; he just needs to be prosecuted, for something.
As you know, James O’Keefe has a start-up business doing essentially what he did before -- namely, catching people unawares on camera so they tell us what they really think and are up to.
On Tuesday, he decided to go wandering around among the many journalists who were outside the courthouse to cover the arraignment. It was easy to strike up conversations with them and get them to reveal their leftist views and hateful attitudes toward Trump.
“Whatever reason [Trump] is in prison is good for me,” said a news producer at Eurovision Americas.
“Hopefully he doesn’t get the [nomination]. He just goes away,” an ABC News cameraman said.
“Whatever it takes, right?” said an unidentified journalist.
“Georgia seems like it would be better at taking him down than this,” said another. “I’ll take this!” said another.
O’Keefe spoke with a DA who works there in the courthouse, Sylvia Wertheimer, and she said, mystified, “I still don’t understand that people think [Trump] won the election.” She was also ready to “change a lot in the Constitution.”
Even Politico had to admit the support for Bragg among Democrats is weak. You know the case against Trump is a disaster when as big a political enemy as Mitt Romney says, “The prosecutor’s overreach sets a dangerous precedent for criminalizing political opponents and damages the public’s faith in our justice system.”
Still, this piece ends on the Democrats’ new talking point that it’s time to look ahead to the “acute legal threats” posed to Trump from other cases.
Among friends of Trump, attorney Joe DiGenova spoke out Tuesday, saying, “I think this indictment is an embarrassment to the historic Manhattan district attorney’s office. It’s an embarrassment to the Bar of the City of New York and the court system of New York.
"This case should be dismissed for a number of reasons: statute of limitations, prosecutorial misconduct, failure to state a crime. … There’s nothing of value the former president defrauded anybody of.”
DiGenova believes there’s a “silent majority” in the New York Bar that thinks this case is awful (“and so is Alvin Bragg”) and that Merchan should dismiss the case.
Even FBI agent-turned-CNN commentator Andrew McCabe, of all people, found the flimsy case a “disappointment.”
He said, “Everyone was hoping we would see more.” Whatever it might take to tie 34 misdemeanor charges to another crime to turn them into felonies “simply isn’t there.” (McCabe didn’t mention the problem with the statute of limitations on every one of those misdemeanors.) “It’s hard to imagine convincing a jury.”
This should never get to a jury. It’s maniacal to do this to a former president and current presidential candidate over a case that likely can’t even be made at all. It’s a colossal waste of time, resources and millions of dollars at a time when our country faces serious problems on virtually every front. (Thanks, Joe Biden!)
Trump, his family and the millions of non-deranged onlookers in this country will, of course, never receive the apology due to us for being subjected to such a malicious and abusive stunt, but the case should be dropped, NOW.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
Alvin Bragg’s (once) imminent indictment of Donald Trump is wilting.
The Manhattan district attorney seemed totally unwilling to arrest the former president once it became apparent that Trump was benefiting from what many see as a shameless case of political prosecution.
Egregiously, Bragg began stirring up the media before key witness Robert Costello took the stand before the New York grand jury. Costello’s testimony runs contrary to Bragg’s entire case and could exonerate the former president. As Costello told Fox News' Tucker Carlson, Bragg does “not want to get to the truth.”
At this moment, it does not matter whether Trump is brought in. The result, in either case, is the same. Another opportunistic DA was exposed for making his decisions based not on law but on who he thought was vulnerable enough to get.
This indictment kerfuffle comes as President Joe Biden has a judicial nominee sitting before the Senate who could not explain Brady motions -- a basic legal concept. If you do not know what Brady motions are, that's OK; Biden’s nominee doesn't either.
Brady motions are used by defendants in a criminal trial to obtain exculpatory evidence. Deriving their name from the case Brady v. Maryland (1963), Brady motions mean that the prosecution must hand over all evidence that would prove a defendant not guilty.
First, Biden’s nominee, Judge Kato Crews, told Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, “Senator, in my four and a half years on the bench, I don't believe I've had the occasion to address a Brady motion.” Then Crews admitted he could not recall Brady v. Maryland and wrongly guessed it had to do with the Second Amendment.
Whether Crews is not familiar with Brady motions out of ignorance or because his relatively short time on the bench has not afforded him the opportunity to encounter one, there is a problem in this country and Crews is not the only symptom of it.
In a decade-old dissent, the champion of Brady motions, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit, declared, “There is an epidemic of Brady violations abroad in the land. Only judges can put a stop to it.”
Prosecutors across this country have been abusing their power in ways that would make even Kamala Harris uncomfortable. Numerous cases demonstrate this.
In the 2000s, there were well-publicized hints that prosecutors had done something wrong in the wake of Enron’s collapse. Federal prosecutors made names for themselves by prosecuting anyone tangentially related to the Texas oil giant.
Indictments brought against Arthur Andersen collapsed the accounting firm and put more than 80,000 innocent people out of work on charges that would be overturned by a unanimous Supreme Court. Executives at Merrill Lynch faced a similar fate, with many of their convictions also overturned on appeal.
Sidney Powell, before she became well-known for defending former national security advisor Michael Flynn, was a defense attorney on the Merrill Lynch case. She wrote a must-read book titled "Licensed to Lie" about prosecutorial misconduct that covered alleged Brady violations in the Enron-related cases, as well as others.
A few contemporaneous news stories covered the Brady motions in the Merrill Lynch cases, and even critics of Powell and her book seemed suspicious that Brady had not been applied properly.
This could have been a blip in American criminal justice, but the prosecution of Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska was even more outrageous.
Shortly after the Arthur Andersen conviction, prosecutors brought a case against Stevens over an alleged failure to disclose gifts. As a result, one of the longest-serving senators in U.S. history narrowly lost his re-election bid.
A federal investigation into the Stevens prosecution revealed rampant Brady violations. The investigation found that two federal prosecutors had knowingly and deliberately withheld evidence that would have aided the elderly Alaskan senator against false criminal charges. Some of the evidence directly contradicted the prosecution’s case and demonstrated Stevens' earnest efforts to do business lawfully.
Stevens, a hero of World War II, would go to his grave without seeing his prosecutors reprimanded. Years later, when the prosecutors were finally disciplined, their punishments would be quietly overturned.
Prosecutorial misconduct and Brady violations do not just affect powerful men in suits.
In a joint lecture with Powell on prosecutorial misconduct, Kozinski recalled a case he heard on appeal involving about a dozen illegal immigrants brought into the U.S. by a man named Ramirez-Lopez.
Kozinski recounted that there was controversy among the apprehended aliens about whether Ramirez-Lopez had been their guide. Some said yes. Some said no. “Before there was even a defense lawyer involved,” Kozinski said, “[the federal government] deported most of those witnesses [who said no].”
The 9th Circuit ruled in favor of the government and Ramirez-Lopez’s conviction was upheld. But Kozinski wrote a scathing dissent that was "so excruciating that the government then filed a petition for a hearing.” Kozinski said, “Usually it is the losing party that files a petition for a hearing. In this case it was the winning party.” The petition was granted, and the conviction was reversed “so [the prosecution] could dismiss the indictment.”
Then came the kicker. A decade later, in an identical case from the same prosecutor, Kozinski noted that the government again deported witnesses. “Do you remember Ramirez-Lopez? I think you yourself argued the case,” Kozinski recalled reminding the prosecutor.
Then Kozinski relayed the prosecutor's dismissive response: "Well, that case was vacated. It has no precedential value." This interaction demonstrates the chicanery Americans should find intolerable.
Political prosecution, evidence suppression and other forms of prosecutorial misconduct cannot be tolerated in the United States. Kozinski is correct; judges must put a stop to this.
However, there are additional tools available. The Senate should reintroduce and pass Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s Fairness in Disclosure of Evidence Act, which would strengthen and standardize the obligations of federal prosecutors to disclose evidence favorable to the defense. States must pass similar legislation as well.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
Once upon a time, social media made us happy.
Unlike anything we had ever seen, mankind’s first experiences with social media two decades ago seemingly promised a radical new means of keeping up with friends and loved ones and making new acquaintances -- a worldwide engine for genuine relationship-building.
Today, such memories are a blur, obscured by social media’s unfortunate new role as a weapon used to manipulate, censor and propagandize entire populations.
Society itself has become social media’s latest victim, as executives of these companies have spent years testifying in government chambers, penning hyperbolic value statements and, of course, taking to their own platforms to justify their descent into technological tyranny.
In a similar vein, the phrase “social engineering” has found increased usage in the information security sector to describe some of the tactics hackers use to trick victims into jeopardizing themselves. IBM describes it as follows:
“Social engineering manipulates people into sharing information they shouldn’t share, downloading software they shouldn’t download, visiting websites they shouldn’t visit, sending money to criminals, or making other mistakes that compromise their personal or organizational assets or security.”
As a political idea, however, the term’s origins go back to the late 19th century, to the dawn of the technological revolution.
After American industry captains sought to use the notion of “social engineering” to increase workplace efficiency (sometimes known as the “efficiency craze”), the Soviet Union adopted the concept for itself, launching deadly social engineering campaigns designed to forcibly rewrite the social attitudes, cultural norms and individual behaviors of the Soviet people; similar efforts were infamously undertaken in China during Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward” and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.
The grisly history of social engineering should make us all the more wary of the eagerness with which social media companies have -- like their industrialist predecessors over a century ago -- embraced this practice.
Meta, the parent company of both Facebook and Instagram, has led the way in this shift. Once celebrated as a promising, dynamic start-up, Facebook has come to epitomize online tyranny for the untold millions who have found themselves censored in some way on the site.
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In May 2021, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg published a 5,700-word manifesto vowing that the company would work to “build the new social infrastructure to create the world we want for generations to come” -- an agenda he defined as “spreading prosperity and freedom, promoting peace and understanding, lifting people out of poverty, [accelerating] science … ending terrorism, fighting climate change, and preventing pandemics.”
This statement came just two months after Facebook announced its so-called “Together Against COVID-19 Misinformation” campaign -- a project launched alongside the World Health Organization.
It also came less than one year after Facebook vice president of global affairs and communications Nick Clegg (former deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom) announced the creation of the company’s Climate Science Information Center, which it has used to label posts with what it calls “factual information from leading climate organizations and resources.”
Alongside Meta in the implementation of social engineering has been YouTube. Fortunately, the company’s longtime CEO, Susan Wojcicki, resigned last month -- but not before setting YouTube on a path of no return against freedom of speech.
Throughout her term as CEO, Wojcicki remained cavalier about her megalomaniacal aims for the video platform. At a New York Times summit in March 2017, she responded to a question about “the greater good of the nation or humanity” by emphasizing what she called YouTube’s “social responsibility” to the world.
Then, in an Op-Ed published in The Wall Street Journal four years later, Wojcicki discussed YouTube’s relationship with an organization called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a flagship project of the World Economic Forum.
Wojcicki also cites YouTube’s status (along with Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft) as a founding member of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, an organization that “works to facilitate broad dialogue and analysis of how terrorism and violent extremism manifests across the ideological spectrum.”
(One does not need to have a large imagination to understand how such a body’s definitions of “terrorism” and “violent extremism” could be used against the political enemies of globalism in our lifetime.)
There are many alternatives to the problem of social engineering, but the best of them all is to build and support parallel social media platforms, free of centralized authority and authoritarian schemes. Until then, I will continue to believe that social media can become a place where people can be happy again.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
Is Elon Musk redefining how HR is done?
That is, to be crystal-clear, tongue-in-cheek. HR professionals are ordering massive vats of popcorn to munch as they watch things like this corporate nightmare of a Twitter exchange from Monday evening:
Believe it or not, it got much worse than this, with Musk opening Twitter up to a HIPAA violation by disclosing disability information about the employee, who later defended himself in a masterful thread that will surely lay the foundation for a civil lawsuit against Musk and Twitter.
There is a reason why what Musk did on Twitter is so uncommon. As attorney Krenar Camili explains:
“When a company humiliates an employee on social media, it can potentially face legal liability in several ways. The legal implications of such behavior depend on various factors, such as the specific circumstances of the incident, the laws of the jurisdiction involved, and the terms of any employment contracts or policies that may apply.”
Here are some of the potential legal liabilities that a company such as Twitter may face when it humiliates an employee on social media:
Defamation: If the company makes false or misleading statements about the employee that harm his or her reputation, the employee may have a defamation claim against the company.
Defamation occurs when someone communicates a false statement that harms another person's reputation. In such a case, the employee may be able to sue the company for compensatory and punitive damages.
Harassment: If the company's actions involve repeated or severe conduct that creates a hostile work environment for the employee, the employee may have a claim for workplace harassment.
Harassment is a type of discrimination that occurs when an employee is subjected to unwelcome conduct based on a protected characteristic, such as sex, race or age. In such a case, the employee may be able to file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or a similar state agency.
Breach of contract: If the company's actions violate the terms of an employment contract, the employee may have a claim for breach of contract.
In such a case, the employee may be able to sue the company for damages, including lost wages or benefits. In the thread linked above, Halli explains how he sold his company to Twitter and is owed money. There is definitely a breach of contract claim coming.
Intentional infliction of emotional distress: If the company's actions involve extreme or outrageous conduct that causes severe emotional distress to the employee, the employee may have a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
In such a case, the employee may be able to sue the company for damages, as Halli would here for what any court would deem egregious, head-shakingly dumb public humiliation by his employer.
It's worth disclaiming that legal liability is not always clear-cut in these situations, and the facts of each case will determine the extent of the company's liability. For example, if the employee's conduct was the cause of the company's actions, the company may have a defense against liability. Similarly, if the First Amendment protected the company's actions, the employee may not have a viable claim for defamation. This is not the case with Twitter, though this could change in the future with Supreme Court decisions due later this year.
The lesson here for Twitter, which will fall on intentionally deaf ears, is that it's important for companies to be mindful of the potential legal consequences of their actions, particularly when using social media to communicate with the public. By treating employees with respect and dignity, companies can avoid potential legal liability and maintain a positive reputation in the community.
The problem is this: For every rational person who understands that someone who owns a $44 billion company shouldn’t act this way in private or certainly in public, many applaud this as the management style of the future.
Of course, if this is indeed a style that other leaders will emulate, it will do one thing for certain -- create plenty of new work for lawyers.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
