The Supreme Court ruled decades ago that students have some free speech rights, but left the water muddied, perplexing courts and schools to the present day. Consequently, school free speech cases are very complicated. School authorities usually “are motivated by a desire to maintain order, av[...]
Archive for the ‘Law and Courts’ Category
June 10th, 2024 - 3:16 pm § in Law and Courts, Schools & Colleges
Student tests school free speech with anti-gay tee-shirt
June 8th, 2024 - 9:29 pm § in Law and Courts
Pizzeria owner guilty of forced labor
In Boston, the gulag may be as close as the corner pizza shop. Stavros Papantoniadis (photo, left), 48, owner of a pizza chain, was convicted of forced labor on Friday, June 7, 2024 (details here). According to a Boston legal aid office, he hired illegal immigrants and used threats, intimidation, an[...]
Manhattan D.A. says he’ll testify
Just days after Trump was convicted in a Manhattan court, GOP Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) demanded the prosecutors, Alvin Bragg and Michael Colangelo, show up in Washington D.C. this Thursday, June 13, to testify in a hearing that “will examine actions by state and local prosecutors to engage polit[...]
June 8th, 2024 - 4:13 pm § in Law and Courts, Misc.
Bicycle rage
This incident happened on Sunday, June 2, 2024, in Wyoming, Michigan, a city of 76,500 people in Kent County (read story here). I’ve encountered aggressive cyclists, probably we all have, and problems are especially likely to arise on foot paths where bicycle and pedestrian traffic mingle. But[...]
June 7th, 2024 - 12:58 am § in Law and Courts, Misc.
Top climber trades rock walls for prison walls
A federal judge in California sentenced a professional rock climber to life in prison on Tuesday, June 4, 2024. Charlie Barrett (photo, left), 40, has a shocking history of assaulting women, threatening victims, and retaliating against witnesses (see details here). He preyed on female climbers, and [...]
GOPer shows off his literary prowess
Derrick Van Orden is a first-term GOP congressman representing a district in southeast Wisconsin. He lost his first election in 2020, but won in 2022. I think the voters were right the first time. Van Orden impresses me as someone who goes around with his mouth open and ears closed (see photo at le[...]
June 6th, 2024 - 5:17 pm § in Donald Trump, Law and Courts
White House or Big House?
I recall there were predictions that if Trump lost the 2020 election, he would “spend the rest of his life in court.” This could explain his desperation to overturn that election, and also why he’s running again in 2024. After all, Trump isn’t known for being motivated by ide[...]
June 5th, 2024 - 9:31 pm § in Law and Courts
Bremerton “swatter” gets 3 years in prison
Ashton Connor Garcia, 21, of Bremerton, Washington, was sentenced to 3 years in federal prison on Wednesday, June 5, 2024, for a multistate series of “swatting” hoaxes. Dubbed a “cyberterrorist,” which he thought was funny, Garcia eventually confessed to “20 false repor[...]
Trump complains because jury didn’t smile at him
Donald Trump, who famously adores being adored, says his felony conviction is unfair because the jurors never smiled at him (story here). But that doesn’t prove the jury was biased against him. It probably just means they took jury duty seriously, which is what you want them to do. Or maybe th[...]
Everything is Joe Biden’s fault!
Inflation is his fault, even though it’s global, and America has one of the developed world’s lowest inflation rates. The unfulfilled promise of student loan forgiveness is his fault, even though the Supreme Court’s rightwing justices struck it down. Hunter Biden’s shenanigan[...]