Law
August 17, 2019 — Scott Johnson
The Wall Street Journal has adapted Charles Kesler’s editorial in the forthcoming issue of the Claremont Review of Books — we’ll be getting to a few highlights ourselves next week — into the column “California’s biggest cities confront a ‘defecation crisis'” (subhead: “Lawmakers ban plastic straws as a far worse kind of waste covers the streets of San Francisco and L.A.”). Having turned one of the most beautiful cities in
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August 13, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Scott Jenkins is the sheriff of Culpeper County in Virginia. In that capacity, and pursuant to requests from the federal government, he turned an illegal immigrant over to ICE once that immigrant finished serving his criminal sentence. The illegal immigrant had been arrested for driving without a license and for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The Culpeper County Jail received a detainer from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
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August 13, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Today is the official publication date of my friend Andrew McCarthy’s Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency. Courtesy of Encounter Books I read an advance copy of the book last week and want to recommend it enthusiastically to Power Line readers. Even though I have closely followed the “collusion” story as it has come into public view since January 2017, I was reminded
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August 6, 2019 — John Hinderaker
In 2017, the New York Times ran an editorial that, by any normal standard, libeled Sarah Palin. It harkened back six years to 2011, when Jared Loughner, an insane person who listed the Communist Manifesto among his favorite books and may never have heard of Sarah Palin, murdered six people in Tucson, Arizona. Democrats made the absurd claim that Loughner’s spree was caused by the publication of a map by
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August 4, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Students of ancient history may recall the victimization of Nicholas Sandmann by the Washington Post and other organs of the mainstream media this past January. Working from their reports, social media amplified the wrongs committed against Sandmann by the mainstream media. In due course Sandmann filed defamation lawsuits against the Washington Post and others. Our own comments on the lawsuit against the Post focused on the constitutional protection afforded defamation
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August 1, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Federal Judge John Koeltl has dismissed the Democratic National Committee lawsuit against the Trump campaign, Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, George Papadopoulos, Richard Gates, Roger Stone, the Russian Federation, various Russians, Joseph Mifsud [!], Wikileaks, and Julian Assange. The DNC alleged in the lawsuit that the Russian Federation had hacked the DNC computers and stolen its emails during the 2016 campaign. The Russian Federation, however, is protected by
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July 29, 2019 — Steven Hayward
The controversy about rat-infested cities provokes a strong sense of deja vu, as a proposed federal rat eradication program was perhaps the turning point against LBJ’s “Great Society” back in 1967. A little background and the climax to this story from the first volume of my Age of Reagan: Many poor urban neighborhoods have yet to recover [from the rise in crime], for it was precisely the poor, and largely
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July 18, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, decided that Virginia’s statutory scheme of regulating and prosecuting “habitual drunkards” is unconstitutionally vague and violates the Eighth Amendment rights of alcoholics. The vote was 8-7. All eight judges in the majority were nominated by Democratic presidents. One, Roger Gregory, was also nominated by a Republican. George W. Bush renominated Gregory, who wasn’t confirmed while Bill Clinton was president, as
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July 17, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, I discussed briefly George Conway’s Washington Post op-ed, in which he claimed that President Trump is a racist. The op-ed was long on biographical information about Conway, but devoid of argumentation. That’s fitting, because Conway’s biography is his calling card when it comes to getting op-eds published by the mainstream media. From the Post’s perspective, he’s a two-fer — a Republican and the spouse of one of Trump’s most
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July 9, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, in discussing the new charges brought against Jeffrey Epstein by the U.S. Attorney’s office in New York, I said I was unclear as to whether, or to what extent, Epstein can use the sweetheart plea deal his lawyers negotiated with Alex Acosta to fight the new charges against him. Ken White, a former federal prosecutor, takes up the subject in an article for The Atlantic. White observes that “every
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July 2, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Purdue University suspended a male student for a year after his former girlfriend accused him of sexual assault. The male student was also kicked out of the school’s Navy ROTC program. This cost him his scholarship and his plan to pursue a career in the Navy. The male student denies committing sexual misconduct. He also alleges that Purdue took the disciplinary action through a shoddy process in which, among other
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June 17, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Last year, I wrote about the case of Virginia Uranium, Inc. v. Warren, which the Supreme Court had just agreed to hear. The issue was whether the Atomic Energy Act preempts a state law (a ban on uranium mining) that on its face regulates an activity within its jurisdiction (uranium mining), but has the purpose and effect of regulating the radiological safety hazards of activities entrusted to the Nuclear Regulatory
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June 9, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Arriving on the tenth floor of the Hennepin County Government Center for the sentencing of Mohamed Noor on Friday morning, one could see that Somali supporters of the defendant constituted the vast majority of those turning out. The line of Somali supporters going through tenth floor security for the hearing was so long at 8:30, a half hour before the hearing, that I was asked to go to another floor
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June 8, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Since she was first elected to public office in November 2016, Ilhan Omar has rarely avoided the opportunity to talk for public consumption. We happened upon an exception to the rule back in 2016 in the course of Omar’s campaign for the Minnesota legislature when we learned of Omar’s then current marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi. At the time she held out Ahmed Hirsi as her husband on her
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June 7, 2019 — Scott Johnson
This morning’s sentencing hearing in the case of former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor was an emotionally devastating affair. Cameras in the courtroom captured much of the drama in the victim impact statements, the defendant’s statement to the court, and Judge Quaintance’s pronouncement of conviction and sentence. The Star Tribune has a decent narrative account here. I have embedded all the videos I could find from the hearing below. I
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June 7, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Following an emotionally devastating hearing including victim impact statements and a related video of the victim’s family and friends, Hennepin County District Judge Quaintance sentenced former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor to 150 months in prison for the third-degree murder of Justine Ruszczyk (Damond). Judge Quaintance rejected the defendant’s arguments in favor a dispositional or durational departure as unsupported by any relevant legal argument. She specifically rejected the therapeutic options
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June 7, 2019 — Scott Johnson
The sentencing of former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor for killing Justine Ruszczyk (Damond) is set for this morning at 9:00 a.m. before Judge Kathryn Quaintance. Minnesota operates under a set of sentencing guidelines that indicate presumptive sentences for a given conviction. (The current sentencing guidelines and commentary are accessible here.) Noor’s presumptive sentence for third-degree murder is about 12.5 years. Noor’s attorneys have asked for a sentence including no
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