Law & Law Enforcement

Biden’s Doctor Claims Privilege and Takes The Fifth

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Former President Biden’s White House physician, Kevin O’Connor, refused to answer questions for the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the White House and Democratic cover-up of Biden’s mental decline and disability. News accounts from the Axis keep stating that Biden’s condition and a cover-up are “alleged” only, but res ipsa loquitur: what we already know, have witnessed and heard tells us all we need to know except the who, how, and how long. Biden was (is ) suffering from dementia of one kind or another. His condition was carefully, if insufficiently, hidden from the public. The fact that his power had to be exercised by unelected figures using the President as their agent, puppet or beard constitutes at least as great a scandal as Watergate, and perhaps a more substantial attack on our democracy.

This betrayal of the public trust requires at least as thorough an investigation as that definitive scandal in the Nixon White House received. Democrats, however, unlike the Republicans of the Watergate era, are refusing to do their duty and assist in the inquiry, probably because they have metaphorical blood on their hands. They were complicit. They were guilty. The House inquiry includes questions about whether Biden’s staff used the autopen to illegally carry out official actions in Biden’s name. One would think both Democrats and Republicans would be concerned about this. Apparently not. Make of that what you will.

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Addendum to “The Supreme Court Rules That The President Is In Charge of the Executive Branch, Just Like the Constitution Always Said.”

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

When I wrote the last post, I could not find a link to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s sole written dissent in the 8-1 SCOTUS decision today to, you know, let the President of the United States run the Executive Branch, which the Constitution says he controls. Well, I finally did find one here, and the dissent is exactly what you would expect if you’ve read her recent hysterical, legally incompetent rants because her party isn’t getting away with its various efforts to cripple the Trump Administration. She is distinctly echoing the primal scream of frustration that the Axis is emitting because its dreams of a Woke paradise are evaporating by the hour.

She wrote in part, “In my view, this was the wrong decision at the wrong moment, especially given what little this Court knows about what is actually happening on the ground. This case is about whether that action amounts to a structural overhaul that usurps Congress’s policymaking prerogatives — and it is hard to imagine deciding that question in any meaningful way after those changes have happened. Yet, for some reason, this Court sees fit to step in now and release the President’s wrecking ball at the outset of this litigation.”

This is a policy complaint, not a legal one. Remarkably, even the pathetic Justice Sotomayor went along with the majority. The fact that Presidents have sought authority to do what the Constitution makes clear that they already have the power to do does not amend the Constitution. The Court lifted the say because it believed it likely that the President’s reorganization of his own Branch would be found lawful. It’s a good bet, given that the Constitution backs him up and there is no progressive majority on the Court more concerned with blocking Republican policies than following the law.

The coalition of unions and activists that sued to block the cuts said in a statement, “Today’s decision has dealt a serious blow to our democracy and puts services that the American people rely on in grave jeopardy.”

Are you sick of this narrative yet? It’s a grave thret to democracy to allow the elected President of the United Sates do what he said he would do if elected. More…

“This decision does not change the simple and clear fact that reorganizing government functions and laying off federal workers en masse haphazardly without any congressional approval is not allowed by our Constitution.”

But it is. Nothing in the document requires Congressional approval for Presidential control of his own Branch. The Founders do not mention “federal workers” at all, and envisioned a government that would not have departments and agencies multiplying like rabbits. Jackson’s tell is the use of her term “wrecking ball.” That’s a political bias without relevance to the law or the Constitution. She is the one advocating an abuse of power, not the majority.

Revisiting “I Don’t Understand This ‘Niggardly Principle’ Story At All…Or Maybe I Do and Am Just Afraid To Accept the Truth”

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

The Rest of the Story: I’m reposting this essay from almost exactly a year ago because the Free Press has a disturbing update on Holden Hughes (“He Was Falsely Accused of ‘Blackface.’ It Derailed His Life.”), one of the boys whose 2017 selfie was used by an unidentified woke ethics villain to have the children tarred as racists during the George Floyd Freakout in 2020. That ethics villain was an ideological compatriot of my friends who are raving about MAGA and Trump today. That is their “side.”

He’s an adult now, but Holden’s life plans were seriously derailed when the private school he was attending expelled him, not because he really was wearing “blackface” in that photo (he and his friends were smeared with green anti-acne facial masks) but because the woke head of the school believed that appearances mattered more than reality. Last year, a successful law suit by his family against the school ended in a one million dollar verdict for him and another one of the boys. That was just money, however, the damage remained

Everyone should reflect on this cautionary tale (which the mainstream media scrupulously avoided reporting on, and you know why) when the Trump Deranged claim that progressives defend democratic values and deplore ideological bullying. The piece ends,

Last year, shortly after the lawsuit was settled, he started dating a girl he liked. On their second date, he told her about his past and after that, he said, she stopped responding to his texts. He told me that it’s hard to accept that “something completely out of my control kind of inhibits that relationship from going farther.” But he can’t change the past.

“It’s my life, and there’s no avoiding that. It made me who I am today.”

Throughout the entire ordeal of the last five years, Holden told me he would remind himself: “I know who I am. I know my values. I know the real story.” He knows the other story—the one that isn’t true—will continue to haunt him. “I don’t think it’s ever gonna leave me,” he said. But he wanted to speak to me because he believed that putting his story in print, knowing it would be on the internet forever, would be cathartic. For him, it is a chance to finally set the record straight, after trying to hide the lies for so long.

“I am not ashamed of anything that happened,” Holden said. “I have made a lot of mistakes in my life. I make them every single day, but doing an acne face mask in eighth grade was not one of them.”

Here is the post, from May 11, 2024:

Now get this: In 2017, three 14-year-old California teens, two of whom, Holden Hughes and Aaron Hartley, were about to begin attending St. Francis High School, a Catholic private school in Mountain view, were modeling anti-acne medicinal face masks that involved smearing dark green goo on their faces. (One of the boys had severe acne and his friends put the stuff on their own faces in an act of support). The teen who wasn’t headed to the private school snapped a selfie because the boys thought they looked funny. A similar photo taken a day earlier indicated that they had tried white medicinal face masks as well. 

A student at St. Francis found the image online and uploaded it to a group chat in June 2020. Not only was the George Floyd Freakout in full eruption, but the photo was circulated on the same day that recent SFHS graduates had posted on Instagram a satirical meme pertaining to Floyd’s demise, so the school was “triggered.” The gloriously woke student who decided to publicize the greenface photo claimed that the teens were using blackface; “another example” of rampant racism at the school, he posted, and urged everyone in the group chat to spread it throughout the school community—you know, to cause as much anger, division and disruption as possible.

I can’t find the name of that charming kid. He’ll probably be Governor of California some day.

Soon after this seed was planted, the Dean of Students at St. Francis Ray called the Hughes’s and Aaron Hartley’s’ parents to ask them if they were aware of the photograph. They explained that the teens had applied green facemasks three years earlier, long before the non-racial Minnesota incident that had no demonstrable racial significance and definitely no relevance to blackface. The parents added that the teens’ use of the acne medication had “neither ill intent nor racist motivation, nor even knowledge of what “blackface” meant.”

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Paramount/CBS Pays For Its Unethical Election Interference: Good!

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

It looks like the settlement will amount to around 16 million dollars when all is tallied up, more than what ABC paid for George Stephanopoulos repeatedly (but not maliciously, oh no, never that!) calling Donald Trump a “rapist” on national TV. Several cynics were telling me today that this was “a drop in the bucket” for Paramount—it doesn’t matter. The settlement is an admission of wrongdoing, and what CBS and “60 Minutes” did by stealth editing a Kamala Harris interview late in the Presidential campaign to make her sound like less of an idiot was wrong, another “enemy of the people” act, and a blatant attempt to mislead voters and support the Democratic Party under the guise of journalism.

More important than the symbolism of the money perhaps is CBS’s promise to install a mandatory new rule requiring the network to promptly release full, unedited transcripts of future Presidential candidate interviews. It is the “Trump Rule.” That a television news division had to be forced into institutionalizing such transparency tells us all we need to know about the dismal state of broadcast journalism.

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Ethics Villain CNN Pushes the First Amendment Envelope

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

What this despicable “enemy of the people” is doing by deliberately publicizing an anti-ICE app may be legal, but it is undeniably unethical. The Trump administration should prosecute anyway.

Joshua Aaron (above: he looks exactly like I assumed he looks!) is a musician and software developer who, because he’s an anti-American, pro-lawbreaking asshole, created an app called ICEBlock. It’s a descriptive name: it allows advocates of open borders and opponents of law enforcement to post sightings of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers across the country. Then the law-breakers they are seeking can more effectively avoid capture, and those who want to attack, harm, kill, or impede ICE agents have a metaphorical “leg up.” That’s nice.

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Being Married Without Your Consent? Yeah, I’d Say This Is “Toe in a Plug of Tobacco” Level Unethical: “Someone Has Been Very Careless”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Ethics Alarms has often cited the dry desiccated toe in the plug of tobacco that is the essence of “res ipsa loquitur,” or “the thing speaks for itself”: “Someone has been very careless.”

This leads me to the bizarre experience of a Texas man, whose name so far has been withheld, presumably because he feels like an idiot. He says he was married to his ex-fiancée without his knowledge. The 42-year-old victim was in a committed relationship with 36-year-old Kristin Marie Spearman. They were about to get a Wayne County marriage license but got into a heated argument that culminated in his breaking off their romance. His ex-fiancée was not one to give up without a fight, however.

Her ex- received a gift bag from Bath & Body Works containing some products along with a copy of an officiated marriage license with his and Spearman’s names on it and a photo of his ex-fiancee holding up the document legally declaring them to be husband and wife. Kristin had managed to get a local pastor to certify the marriage even though the groom wasn’t in attendance. She then took the certified marriage license to her local county clerk’s office and filed it with officials. As far as the records go, it’s a legal marriage.

Spearman has been arrested and charged with third-degree felony stalking. The pastor, meanwhile, has a lot of explaining to do.

Why People Don’t Trust Lawyers…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

A personal injury law firm whose name will remain unspoken “explains” on its website why exorbitant contingent fees are justifiable and ethical. The page says that a lawyer receiving a higher potential fee will probably do a better job representing the client than one who will receive a lesser proportion of the settlement or damages: more motivation!

This is exactly the opposite of what the ethics rules of every jurisdiction mandate. A lawyer is obligated to represent a client to the best of his or her ability regardless of the fee, including when the representation is pro bono, that is, for no fee at all. A lawyer who calibrates the effort and passion he or she puts into a case based on the size of the fee, negotiated or potential, is an unethical lawyer, an untrustworthy lawyer.

A bad lawyer.

And yet here is a law firm stating, “The more you pay us, the better job we’ll do.”

Disgusting.

But, somehow, not surprising….

On the Illegality of Illegal Aliens

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Guest column by Ryan Harkins

We have this report from HotAir explaining that that the ICE raid on the meat packing plant in Nebraska was not simply due to the fact that the plant hired so many illegals. Instead, the focus of the raid was on an identity-theft ring running out of that plant.

I want to make it clear I am all in favor of whoever in the world who wants to come to the United States to make a better life for themselves should have the opportunity. I’d give top priority to those who wish to become US citizens, but I’m generally in favor of letting into the country far more people than our current immigration system allots. How many more, I can’t say, as I’ve not crunched the numbers. But in general more immigrants means more workers, more production, higher demand for services, all which contribute to a growing economy that enriches everyone here.

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A Perfect Example of a “Trump Lie”

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

On both MSNBC and CNN today, a big deal was made over the fact that President Trump said that “no other country” confers automatic citizenship on those born within its borders. They were both sneering so hard that I bet they needed a lip massage afterwards, “Of course, 33 nations have birthright citizenship,” said one, with the other making a similar statement.

No question about it, they are right and Trump was wrong. What he meant, however, was “No nations anywhere but the Americas have birthright citizenship, and we are the only major power in the world that does.” Or, “Almost no nations that know what the fuck they are doing have birthright citizenship.” Presidents shouldn’t be that careless, but Trump is, he refuses to change, he’s not going to, and nobody should pretend that they are shocked when he does.

Here’s the list, as represented in the chart above: Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Gambia, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Lesotho, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

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Mahmoud v. Taylor: No, LBGTQ Indoctrination Is Not The Theory of Evolution

/ Jack Marshall / 39 Comments

…and shame on the three Progressive, woke Justices who are implying that it is.

24-297 Mahmoud v. Taylor (06/27/2025), just handed down by the Supreme Court, should have been an easy 9-0 decision. Sadly, the three female radicals on the Court (I once had high hopes for Justice Kagan, who’s not, you know, an idiot like the other two, but she clearly has been brain-washed with Clorox or something, so the tally was 6-3) opposed the holding that families choosing not to have their children exposed to pro-gay, bi-, trans, etc propaganda in their public school classes have a right to do so. (At least the majority didn’t say parents have an obligation to do so, which would have been my position.)

The decision declared illegal a Maryland school board’s decision to deny opt-outs for religious students during such scintillating in-class readings as “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” a story about a child’s gay uncle marrying a man, and “Pride Puppy,” an alphabet primer about a dog who gets lost at a gay pride parade. Incredibly, the lower court and Court of Appeals had sided with the school against a group of Muslim, Roman Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox parents who argued that the school board’s lack of an opt-out policy breached their right to exercise their religion under the First Amendment.

“The Board’s introduction of the ‘LGBTQ+-inclusive’ storybooks, along with its decision to withhold opt outs, places an unconstitutional burden on the parents’ rights to the free exercise of their religion,” Justice Samuel Alito Jr. wrote for the conservative majority. “[F]or many people of faith across the country, there are few religious acts more important than the religious education of their children…In the absence of an injunction, the parents will continue to be put to a choice: either risk their child’s exposure to burdensome instruction, or pay substantial sums for alternative educational services.”

To read the hysterical dissent from the three knee-jerk progressives, SCOTUS just returned to the bad old days of Tennessee v. Scopes (1925), when a state made it illegal to teach Darwin’s theory of evolution because it contradicted the Bible (as Clarence Darrow showed by making a monkey out of William Jennings Bryan on the witness stand, Darwin didn’t and doesn’t).

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