Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gather at the gates of Columbia University campus in New York last Tuesday. Photo: Ryland West/ALM
Winning big time. 13 Federal Judges Won’t Hire Columbia Graduates Over Campus Protests. Let’s hope that this also carrys over to the business world.
In a letter sent to Columbia President Minouche Shafik, the judges state that since the Oct. 7 attack, the college has “become ground zero for the explosion of student disruptions, antisemitism, and hatred for diverse viewpoints on campuses across the Nation.” The judges call for “Serious consequences for students and faculty who have participated in campus disruptions and violated established rules concerning the use of university facilities and public spaces and threats against fellow members of the university community.”
The judges accuse Columbia of having a double standard concerning the protesters, stating, “If Columbia had been faced with a campus uprising of religious conservatives upset because they view abortion as a tragic genocide, we have no doubt that the university’s response would have been profoundly different.” The letter concluded, “Considering recent events, and absent extraordinary change, we will not hire anyone who joins the Columbia University community—whether as undergraduates or law students—beginning with the entering class of 2024.”
In the past the PA Supreme Court had no issues with this and allowed it. Well the federal courts said no. So the Democrats tried again. and what happened? Democrat lawyers requested an en banc review (a decision from the court’s entire slate of judges) and the appeals court ruled against them.
In a 9-4 vote, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday denied a request for en banc review to reconsider whether the date requirement for mail-in ballots is enforceable in Pennsylvania.
18-20 year old are allowed to vote and protest, why not conceal and carry? U.S. District Court judge William S. Stickman decided this week against Pennsylvania’s prohibition on 18-20- year-olds securing a concealed carry permit in order to be armed on their persons for self-defense.
Another NY DA mess. You make the call. New York City Cop Acquitted Three Years After Punching Suspect Who Refused to Leave Apple Store.
It seems as if the NY DA has a history of going after the good guy and losing. This current prosecutor sticks out like a sore thumb Adds credence to those who say affirmative action at work.
Officer Salvatore Provenzano, a 17-year veteran of the New York Police Department (NYPD), was charged with third-degree assault in 2023 — two years after a body camera captured the October 2021 interaction between him and Kamal Cheikhaoui, a man who had repeatedly refused to leave the Upper West Side store, CBS News reported.
Cheikhaoui, whom the New York Postdescribed as a “repeat offender,” was reportedly acting “unruly” in the Apple Store before security asked him to leave, prompting Provenzano and other cops to step in to remove him.
Body camera footage that another responding officer captured begins with Cheikhaoui loudly demanding to purchase merchandise and trying to push past security as Provenzano takes him by the arm and leads him toward the exit. When the suspect gets loose from his grasp and suddenly turns, the officer strikes him in the face:
DA Bragg’s office convened a grand jury, which indicted the officer two years later.
Police union representatives happily announced on Thursday that the charges had finally been dropped.
The Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York (PBA), which represents more than 50,000 active and retired NYPD officers, said it was “grateful to get justice, but Manhattan prosecutors should never have brought the case in the first place.”
“This DA has to stop targeting New York City police officers and go after criminals. It needs to end now,” PBA President Patrick Hendry said during a press briefing. Bragg’s thoughts?
“We work in close partnership with the NYPD every day, and I have immense respect for the officers in uniform,” Bragg said in a statement. “I thank our prosecutors for their hard work and Judge Wiley for his careful and thoughtful consideration of this matter.”
Supreme Court and Donald Trump. Who loses if Trump isn’t granted partial Immunity. The answer is simple. Smith, Garland, Biden, Obama, Kennedy, and FDR.
If the court rules against Trump and he wins in November, those folks in the Obama and Biden Administration best take a permanent vacation to either Iran, Russia, China, or any socialist country like Cuba, Nicaragua, or Venezuela.
Trump would be able to have them all prosecuted for acts that they took while in office. Difference between Trumps alleged crimes and theirs is this. Except for a woman gunned down by a rogue cop, no one died because of Trumps actions. Not the case with Biden and Obama. Kennedy and FDR are dead, so there’s would be a mute point.
Having an Attorney on a jury makes no sense. Especially having two. This is just plain crazy. To have not one but two lawyers serving as jurists? It’s no longer a jury of 12, but two.
The problem with having a lawyer on the jury is that they can be a very strong voice and influence the rest of the panel. And so, if they are … strong to one side or the other, then that can swap everybody else on the panel.
Worse yet, what if one is pro Trump and the other is anti Trump? They would be conducting their own trial during deliberations. Seven New Yorkers were picked this week to serve as jurors.
Of those seven, one is a corporate attorney who lives in Chelsea and grew up in Oregon, while another juror is a civil litigator who lives in the Upper East Side and is originally from North Carolina.
DA Alvin Bragg — dodging criticism from elsewhere.
There have been few light moments in the thunderous collision between former President Donald Trump and the legal system.
But one incident Tuesday put a brief smile on Trump’s face.
Trump faces 34 counts of first-degree falsifying business records, which Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is prosecuting as felonies. The allegations against Trump are that ahead of the 2016 election, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000, so she would not go public with claims of an affair with Trump. Trump has denied the affair ever took place.
On the second day of jury selection, one potential juror said he had read Trump’s books “The Art of the Deal” and “How to Get Rich,” according to Newsweek.
After mentioning the second book, the juror asked if he got the title right.
Trump smiled and then nodded. The incident was not videoed because no cameras are allowed in the courtroom.
Although Monday was not very productive, with more than 50 of 96 potential jurors dismissed for saying they could not be fair and impartial, six people made the cut Tuesday, according to the New York Post. The names of jurors are being withheld.
The Post said the foreman of the jury is a married person from West Harlem who came to America from Ireland; another juror is a corporate lawyer who is an Oregon native; one is a female nurse at Memorial Sloan Kettering; and another is a female software engineer.
A juror described by the Post as a “young black woman” said during selection that she respected Trump because he “always speaks his mind.”
Also joining the jury is a 40-year-old from the Lower East Side who said Trump was “fascinating and mysterious.”
“He walks into a room, and he sets people off one way or another,” the IT consultant said. “I find that really interesting. Really, this one guy can do all of this. Wow, that’s what I think.”
On potential juror was rejected for having posted in 2017 on Facebook, “Good news!! Trump lost his court battle on his unlawful travel ban!!!”
He added, “Get him out, lock him up.”
Joshua Steinglass, a prosecutor, asked if the man still thinks Trump should be locked up.
The man drew a smirk from Trump when he replied that he no longer thinks so.
Judge Juan Merchan was irritated once with Trump and warned Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche that Trump mumbled something toward a potential juror “12 feet away from your client.”
“Your client was audibly uttering something,” the judge said. “I don’t know what he was uttering …”
“I won’t tolerate that. I won’t have any jurors intimidated in this courtroom. I will be crystal clear,” he said.
Question: If Merchan didn’t know what Trump said — per his own words — how could he decide Trump was trying to intimidate a potential juror?
Truth and Justice the NY way. https://heartofashepherd.com/
Is it just me or do these NY judges and prosecutors look like the folks who are in prison? I mean just take a look at them. What a bunch of scary looking folks.
And the one judge, the silver fox. Born in Columbia. His father served as a military officer in Colombia. His dad also worked in Colombia’s intelligence service. Need I say more?
And what they all have in common? Political lawfare. To see some of the charges and the restrictions. Trump is not allowed to comment, but all the other folks involved are. How crazy is that?
Special Counsel Jack Smith arrives to deliver remarks on a recently unsealed indictment including four felony counts against former U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Aug. 1, 2023. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Judge Rejects Jack Smith’s Plea, Allowing Trump Co-Defendant to Submit FBI Transcript in Classified Docs Case. Another reason that this trial must end now.
A federal judge has allowed a Trump co-defendant in the classified documents case to file a redacted FBI interview transcript with his motion to dismiss, in a blow for special counsel Jack Smith.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon said in a paperless order on Wednesday there were “even stronger” reasons to deny Mr. Smith’s “sweeping” request to overcome the public’s “common-law interest in access to these materials.”
Smith is going at this trial as if it’s a case that those charged should have no access to any witness or information that has been gathered against the defendants and how that information was gathered or received.
I guess the affirmative action queen thought that Trump wouldn’t have the bail so she had her sights on the Presidential suite. Well now that it’s gone, she’s not giving up. You believe this?
New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a notice on Thursday seeking more information about former President Donald Trump’s bond for the civil fraud case, which was issued by Knight Specialty Insurance Company.
KSIC is not admitted in New York, and James “takes exception to the sufficiency of the surety to the undertaking” given to Trump without a certificate of qualification being issued to the company, James said in the filing.
