In 1999, I was retained by a female employee of the National Restaurant Association concerning several instances of sexual harassment by the then-CEO. She made a complaint in good-faith . . .

He spontaneously denies that the complaint was made in bad faith. This might signal that the complaint was, indeed, made in bad faith. At the very least, he is going out of his way to be defensive on this point.

But even more importantly, this defensive denial is only a very weak denial. Complaining “in good-faith” absolutely does not mean that the complaint was well-founded. It just means that there was no blatantly fraudulent intent. An overly-sensitive (or crazy) person could complain about even innocent behavior “in good-faith.” So even if I assumed that this lawyer were telling the absolute truth here about “good faith,” it would not mean that Herman Cain did anything wrong.

. . . about a series of inappropriate behaviors and unwanted advances from the CEO.

So apparently, this woman complained about various activities – only some of which (allegedly) involved “unwanted advances.”

And the other activities did not apparently include rape, or coercion, or anything or anything else terribly serious, because the lawyer uses the rather mild word “inappropriate” to describe them. When I wear white socks to court, that is inappropriate. Rape is not “inappropriate.”

 Those complaints were resolved in an agreement with her acceptance of a monetary settlement. She and her husband see no value in revisiting this matter now, nor in discussing the matter any further — publicly or privately. In fact, it would be extremely painful to do so.

Why would it be “extremely painful”? Possibly because she cheated on her husband in some way. Or perhaps because she just knows that she fabricated all these accusations, or that the silliness and triviality of the accusations will cause her embarassment if the details become public.

She is grateful that she was able to return to her government career, where she is extremely happy serving the American people to the very best of her ability. She looks forward to continuing to work hard for them as we face the significant challenges that lie ahead.

More defensiveness and stupid rhetoric. He is going out of his way to paint the woman as a saint — and laughably, merely because she gets a paycheck from the government. She very easily could work at a post office, yet she is supposedly saving America from the significant challenges that lie ahead.

She wishes to thank the media for the restraint they have shown her, . . .

This part is basically just a lie. The media has not shown restraint. This comment demonstrates that the lawyer does not have much respect for the truth.

. . . and thank her family for their love and support, her colleagues and supervisors for their patience and forbearance, and her advisers for their wise counsel, and most of all her dear husband of twenty-six years.

When he thanks ”her advisors for their wise counsel,” he is indicating that her “advisors” had to persuade her not to speak. This somewhat contradicts the earlier statement — that she is keeping quiet merely because it would be “extremely painful.” Instead, she is apparently keeping quiet because all her “advisors” have advised her to keep quiet.

He also points out that she was married when these alleged incidents occurred.

Everyone is entitled to be treated with dignity and respect in the workplace. Sexual harassment is unfortunately very much alive, and with us even today, and women must fight it in all kinds of workplaces and at all levels.

Generalities. He is saying that “women” in general must fight it — not that his client had to fight it.” Basically, he is trying to justify his dubious law practice. In his mind, sexual harassment occurs in all workplaces at all levels — and so therefore it was acceptable for him to attack Herman Cain. He is saying that some men engage in bad behavior, not that Herman Cain did. Notably, not once in this entire statement does this lawyer ever directly accuse Herman Cain of anything. Rather, the lawyer simply reports that his client made some accusations — and then the lawyer goes out of his way to distance himself from the client.

My client stands by the complaint she made.

First, this is an extremely DEFENSIVE comment. And basically, the lawyer’s entire statement is defensive.

The lawyer does not say, “Herman Cain is a predator,” or even any stronger defensive statement, like “Our complaint was justified.” Rather, he simply says that “[m]y client stands by the complaint that she made.” The complaint was not necessarily just, but she does stand by it. She made the complaint, not him. She stands by it. He does not. He is distancing himself from her.

Finally, in another interview, the lawyer also made the following very telling comment:

There’s an expression that where there’s smoke, there’s fire . . . . The fact that there are more complainants tells me that it’s more likely than not that there was some sexual harassment by this man at that time.

He did not believe his client, originally. But after learning that other women supposedly made similar allegations, this pattern “tells” him to have more confidence in his client. Thus, he now considers it “more likely than not” that his client was telling the truth. Notably, this is still a rather low level of confidence.

He also points out that another woman came to him, with a similar allegation, but decided not to pursue it. What are the chances that two women went to this same lawyer by chance? More likely, the news that one woman made the accusations had become public within the company. And this publicity brought other company malcontents out of the woodwork. Women are herd creatures.

My question is:  Does anyone really care? This allegation seems to me like a defective indictment that fails to allege an actual offense. It’s like, even if we assume that any of this were true, so what? So what if he did sexually harass some women? I don’t see much point in having good-looking women at your business if you can’t harass them every now and then. (But then, do we even know whether these anonymous women were attractive, and thus worth harassing?)

People keep talking about this story even though I suspect that most people do not even know what sexual harassment is. Broadly speaking, Wikipedia defines sexual harassment as “intimidation, bullying, or coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors” (emphasis added). I highlight the conjunction “or” to emphasize that sexual harassment does not even necessarily include sexual solicitation. Notably, another website specifically points out that “[s]exual harassment isn’t limited to making inappropriate advances.” Rather, “harassment” can include just saying things that are “suggestive,” or making “lewd jokes,” or making “sexual gestures,” or communicating “sexual comments about appearance.” I would go out on a limb and declare that even if a person were married and did any of the aforementioned forms of harassment, it would still not actually be wrong.

As far as legality, who knows. Everything is a crime nowadays. For example, I had a bonfire at my house recently. According to Tennessee, that is illegal unless I first ask for permission from the government. Come get me, Sheriff Long!

But whatever. I guess it’s always cool when you can throw vague accusations against people without backing anything up. My whole life story.

I cannot find any passage in the Bible that says: “Oh Ye Faithful: The poor shall sacrifice so that the rich may retain their wealth,” but that appears to be the fundamental policy of the fundamentalists.

Hmm. How about Exodus 30:13-15.

Each one who crosses over to those already counted is to give a half shekel, according to the sanctuary shekel, which weighs twenty gerahs. This half shekel is an offering to the LORD. All who cross over, those twenty years old or more, are to give an offering to the LORD. The rich are not to give more than a half shekel and the poor are not to give less, when you make the offering to the LORD to atone for your lives.

Well, that was easy.

But the Post continues:

I do not pretend to be an expert or scholar on Christian teachings, but I know they are replete with references to caring for the poor, the hungry and the sick.

It sure sounds to me like he is pretending to be an expert on Christian teachings. He is just failing at it. And then in the very next sentence, he refers to real Christians as “Bible-thumpers.” Technically, that is supposed to be a derrogatory term. But realistically, I like Bibles, and I like thumping people. So it seems to me like thumping someone with a Bible would not be a particularly bad idea. You just need to get one that in addition to being a good translation, is also sturdy and made from good materials.

Under the current law, parents are required to report to the police that their child is missing, but do not suffer any penalties if they fail to do so. Caylee’s Law will make it a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison and a $2,500 fine if a parent fails to report a missing child within 48 hours of the child’s disappearance. Further, if the child experiences serious bodily injury or death during the course of their disappearance, the offense upgrades to a Class C felony punishable by three to fifteen years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

 

State Representative Craig Fitzhugh said he drafted the bill in response to the many emails he received from concerned Tennessee citizens following last week’s verdict. Many citizens in Tennessee and around the country were outraged by the verdict, believing Casey had to have done something to Caylee or else she wouldn’t have waited 31 days to report her as missing. Naturally, this sparked an online movement to enforce laws like “Caylee’s Law” to prevent another situation like Caylee’s.

How stupid. Just what we need, another criminal law. This ”Caylee’s Law” wouldn’t have changed anything in the Casey Anthony case, anyway. What Casey Anthony did (false reporting to investigators) was already illegal in Florida, and is already illegal in Tennessee, and she was specifically convicted of it. And most people who do that sort of thing when the child winds up being found dead nearby would be obviously guilty of murder.  The only reason Casey Anthony got off on the homicide charge is because defense lawyers convinced the jury that she lied due to her craziness, and not necessarily due to any guilt. (Personally, I think the jury maybe could have gotten her for manslaughter, because her lying would at least seem to indicate a sense of guilt, but whatever.)

If you actually do MURDER YOUR CHILD, we do NOT need new laws to punish you for that. If you do not murder your child but are simply slightly insane (like Casey Anthony argued she was), then we do not need to punish you for some new artificial crime for being insane. And a new law is not going to deter your insanity. If you do not murder your child but do lead the police on a wild goose chase, then we already have laws for that.

And under this proposal, parents would have to report missing kids within 48 hours?? From what I have heard, the police do not even take parents seriously when they call to report missing people within 24 hours. So under this proposal, parents would have essentially a 24-hour window in which to report children missing, and if they missed the window and it turns out that the child did come to some harm, it would be a Class C felony (i.e., 3-15 years).

The reason police do not take reports seriously when kids are missing for only a short people of time is because it often amounts to nothing. So what this law would do is further deplete police resources, requiring either taxes or (more likely) more official corruption/graft, in the form of traffic citations to further fund our overworked police force.

It also seems probably unconstitutional (based on the Fifth Amendment) to punish someone for not reporting their own crimes to the police — which is what this proposed law is obviously intended to do.

I get so fed up with the Tennessee legislature. Just recently, they made it a class A misdemeanor to say something OFFENSIVE to someone via Facebook. Then they made it a crime to cause harmful accidents with your car or to run into bicyclists (Have these people never heard of TORT LAW?). Then there was also that big DUI bill they passed effective January 1, which allows judges to steal the driver’s licenses of people charged with (but not actuall convicted of) DUI.

Seriously, we elected a bunch of Republicans because we genuinely could not stand things like taxation, welfare, abortion, etc., and because we were fed up with President Obama and the national Democrats. And then what do these idiots do when they get in office? They make up a bunch of crummy new criminal offenses. These people truly misunderstand their mandate. And although the article quotes a Democratic House member, it turns out that both the House and Senate versions of the bill are sponsored by Republicans. In fact, the Senate version is sponsored by the same idiot Sen. Ketron who made it a crime to say something mean over Facebook. Thinking that we were taking back our liberty, it appears that we have only elected a bunch of authoritarians.

In the Hannah Overton case, apparently Texas convicted a woman of murder in 2007 because the government claimed that she forced her adopted son to eat salt until he died. Seriously. Even on its face, that conviction sounds at least slightly ridiculous. But now it actually turns out that the prosecutors had a medical report showing that the level of salt in the kid’s stomach was LOW, not high.

Now, the assistant prosecutor has come clean and at least tried to appear as if she is repenting of her wickedness:

“I am writing this letter because I do believe that an injustice has been done. I do not believe there was sufficient evidence to indicate that Hannah Overton intentionally killed Andrew Burd,” Jimenez wrote in February.

But why doesn’t she try saying things a bit more accurately: “I am writing this letter because I HAVE HELPED CAUSE an injustice.” These people never seem to experience much shame for their misdeeds. They just pass the buck. Then we find out later that even though this lady has herself been promoted to District Attorney — that is, the person who is the BOSS of the prosecutors’ office — she is still allowing one of her underlings to RESIST letting the defendant have a new trial! The woman is so ridiculously two-faced. Or in this case, maybe you should call it “three-faced” since she keeps flip-flopping all over the place.

“It is because I witnessed Sandra Eastwood’s behavior before, during and after trial that I fear she may have purposely withheld evidence that may have been favorable to Hannah Overton’s defense,” she added.

So she seemingly admits that she saw questionable acts years ago and did nothing.

Doug Norman, the assistant Nueces County district attorney handling Overton’s appellate matters for the state, said Tuesday he does not see anything that qualifies as “a smoking gun” in Orr’s latest pleading, including the low stomach salt contents.

It doesn’t have to be a “smoking gun” to equal an unconstitutional Brady violation. Idiot. Try actually studying some law before you open your mouth.

“I may harbor doubts, but a jury heard this case and made a decision, and everyone has to respect that decision,” he said in a Tuesday interview.

Yes, we should all respect jury decisions based on an incomplete/false picture presented by dishonest prosecutors suppressing evidence. I know that I personally can barely contain my “respect.”

“I’ll put it this way. My job requires me to be an advocate for the state. As long as I can make a nonfrivolous argument, I’ll make it, but nothing in my job prevents me from praying for a more just outcome,” he said.

See, this is the type of garbage we have today. For whatever reason, some people actually imagine that being an “advocate for the state” just means keeping the maximum number of people in jail. You think the government is your friend? Well according to this government worker, his job is not to do the right thing, but rather to put you in jail. And he will make every effort to put you in jail as long as he can make a non-”frivolous” argument. The standard isn’t supposed to be whether an argument is non-”frivolous” but whether the government can prove the argument by the requisite standard of proof.  And yet this guy just admitted that he has made a career out of pursuing every single non-”frivolous” action he possibly can “on behalf of the State,” which is just code for ”on behalf of the jail.”  If I were on the Texas Board of Professional Responsibility, I’d be tempted to suspend this guy’s law license for just making such a ridiculous and corrupt statement.

And he also essentially admits that in this particular case, he does not even have enough evidence to convince himself that the woman is guilty. And this is a guy who, practically speaking, is paid to be convinced of guilt.

And despite all this nonsense, people still call criminal defense lawyers slimy. A criminal defense lawyer is required by law to support a specific individual who is given by law a right to a trial. (That is, without a defense lawyer you CANNOT go forward.) And even if the client is guilty of something, the lawyer does not have much choice in the matter but must simply support the client. By contrast, these criminal prosecutors aren’t required by law to do ANYTHING, except to honestly pursue justice. And they apparently can’t even pull that off.

I think these prosecutors act the way they do – and then sometimes later come forward and act publicly like heroes for setting the record right — because they have almost absolute immunity. In my mind, intentionally suppressing this type of stuff is not much different from perjury. And granted, it’s usually hard to prove intent with this sort of thing.

And granted, even actual perjury by prosecution witnesses is almost never punished. But if you want my view on how we should start handling all this type of nonsense, here it is:

Deuteronomy 19:16-21
If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse a man of a crime, the two men involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the Lord before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time. The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against his brother, then do to him as he intended to do to his brother. You must purge the evil from among you. The rest of the people will hear of this and be afraid, and never again will such an evil thing be done among you. Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

We just don’t take the right things seriously enough today.

Buzz driving is drunk driving? Well why don’t you tell that to the Tennessee General Assembly — because the real law actually states that you are not committing a crime unless your blood alcohol concentration is .08% or higher. Granted, even .08% is itself a bit low and should arguably be raised. But I think .07% could pretty easily qualify as being “buzzed,” yet it would clearly NOT be drunk driving according to the law. So the ads are flatly false and deceptive.

These damned nanny-staters feel like they are doing a good deed, when in reality they are just lying to the public (with our tax dollars). I don’t know whether these jackasses are actively trying to taint juries, but such tainting seems like an inevitable result of this deception. These statists are giving out the false impression that “a few beers” equals crime. But according to most of the charts I’ve seen, a few beers over about an hour and a half would still be under the limit for most men. And even if drinking an amount like that did put someone over the limit, supposedly a normal human burns up about one beer’s worth of alcohol every hour. So in such cases the proper solution would be…wait around a little bit.

But then these wicked, lying fools won’t be satisfied until alcohol is absolutely prohibited, as if we were in some Islamic caliphate or something. God made wine to make people happy. Get it through your thick skulls, you creeps. Quit trying to ruin everyone’s day.

It is pretty clearly evident that the birth certificate recently offered by the White House has been digitally altered. And significantly so. All you really have to do is go to the official file, zoom in to about 6400%, and then look at the word “Barack” in “Barack Obama” to see that something has been altered. Note that the pixels on ALL the letters except the letter “R” are only one-fourth the size of the pixels in the letter R. That is, the non-R letters have four times as many pixels per area.

Also note that substantial portions of the type are computer-generated. As the following video points out, you can tell they are computer-generated and not real ink, because the pixels are all black. With real ink, you would be able to see multiple different shades of gray (as with the “R” in “Barack”!). See this point, and also other, arguably even more blatant errors, below:

As far as I can tell from looking back at news video, Obama never did actually show any reporters a physical copy of this alleged birth certificate. I doubt that one even exists. All he did was let everyone know that he had posted the PDF file on the White House website “for everyone to see.” Granted, to further the scam, I guess he could always just try printing out a copy of the PDF listed on the White House website, but that probably would not look realistic because it would be on the wrong type of paper.

Maybe I’m crazy, but this seems HUGE to me. People always say that the crime isn’t the big deal in politics; it’s the coverup. Here, regardless of what underlying crime there may be (i.e., whether Obama is eligible or foreign), it appears rather obvious that Obama is covering something up. If this news really gets out, it seems like it could be a major scandal.

Anyway, until now I’ve always considered myself healthily agnostic on this Birther issue, but this is flatly ridiculous. I don’t think I’m crazy. This whole situation is what’s insane.

IN THE the 1931 movie “Bad Girl,” a husband reacts to his wife’s suggestion that she get a job so they can have an apartment of their own. He explodes in anger (go to minute 09:09). “My idea of a husband is a guy that looks after a wife and takes care of her… If I can’t do that, I won’t be a husband.”

This movie character’s idea is contemptible. Seriously, what idiot first thought up the idea that women should never work? “Hey guys, I have a wonderful plan to spur economic growth — Let’s keep half the population at home to loaf around all day!” A man who considers his masculinity to be dependant on his spoiling of a woman is not a natural man. Rather, he has gone the way of matriarchy. He may think that he is simply loving his wife, but he is actually worshipping a goddess.

We see the results of this goddess-worship played out today on many of these recent Housewives of ________ shows on Bravo. Women without children stay at home and gossip and leach off the productivity of others. Anyway, the Thinking Housewife does suggest one emotional reason why women should not work:

Husbands of working wives felt less adequate as family breadwinners than did husbands of housewives, and this appeared to account for their lower levels of job and life satisfaction.

Yeah, but the manly solution is to earn more yourself. The solution is not to drag your wife down to make yourself feel better. And if you do expect that specific a girl can earn more than you (and if that matters to you, which it reasonable might), then DO NOT MARRY her. Simple.

Of course, I do understand how this extreme “traditional” idea derived that women should abstain from work. Natural women will tend to have children over time. While the women are pregnant, they will become at least partly and temporarily disabled from performing strenuous work. And then once the kids are born and still young, someone will need to raise them. Having to raise the children can obviously place some limitations on women’s ability to work. But these natural limitations on women’s ability to work are no reason to prohibit women from working altogether. The correct solution is simply to discourage careerism in women, not to discourage them from making sensible efforts to stay productive. Women should focus on their family in their hearts, and value it above the idea of a career. Then the right work moves will flow from that proper attitude. Obviously, this generalization does not apply to women who plan to stay single and not have children. But most women are not like that.

But this glorification of female idleness is wrong. It is basically a joke of a position.

Proverbs 31:10-31

Who can find a capable wife?
She is far more precious than jewels.

The heart of her husband trusts in her,
and he will not lack anything good.

She rewards him with good, not evil,
all the days of her life.

 She selects wool and flax
and works with willing hands.

She is like the merchant ships,
bringing her food from far away.

She rises while it is still night
and provides food for her household
and portions for her servants.

She evaluates a field and buys it;
she plants a vineyard with her earnings.

She draws on her strength
and reveals that her arms are strong.

She sees that her profits are good,
and her lamp never goes out at night.

She extends her hands to the spinning staff,
and her hands hold the spindle.

Her hands reach out to the poor,
and she extends her hands to the needy.

She is not afraid for her household when it snows,
for all in her household are doubly clothed.

She makes her own bed coverings;
her clothing is fine linen and purple.

Her husband is known at the city gates,
where he sits among the elders of the land.

She makes and sells linen garments;
she delivers belts to the merchants.

Strength and honor are her clothing,
and she can laugh at the time to come.

She opens her mouth with wisdom,
and loving instruction is on her tongue.

She watches over the activities of her household
and is never idle.

Her sons rise up and call her blessed.
Her husband also praises her:

“Many women are capable,
but you surpass them all!”

Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting,
but a woman who fears the LORD will be praised.

Give her the reward of her labor,
and let her works praise her at the city gates.

Like I said, there are certainly some productive things that a woman can do at home. And raising children is indeed one of those productive things, which should be encouraged. And like I said, women should generally avoid careerism, because most women want to have children at some point. But I just do not like this idea that women should flatly avoid work. It is a stupid notion.

Throwing Osama’s body out into the middle of the ocean for sharks to eat was kind of cool, I guess.

But I think it might have been better if we had smeared pigs blood all over him, and then cut up his body into eight parts, and then threw one piece of him into each of the seven seas, and finally put his head (the eighth piece) up onto a pike on the White House lawn, to keep up for at least 100 days. But whatever. Since I’m not the one in charge of America, I guess we can’t demand perfection. The situation is still pretty cool, anyway.

Let murderers be haunted until death.

Note that from a domestic policy standpoint, none of these events has been all that important. Maybe the moral of the story is that once Republicans take office to block continued Leftist activity, the domestic disasters and general heading off the cliff tend to die down, and hence the media have less of the exciting domestic doomsday information to report.

I guess the two or three weeks spent discussing the stupid teacher strike in Wisconsin was at least mildly important. But only mildly. And I never did find it interesting enough to warrant a post. Even listening to Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin lately has become somewhat of a chore, and I have frequently found myself changing the station to listen to music by Katy Perry, Kesha, and other somewhat annoying artists. I don’t know; maybe I am just getting too old for this politics stuff.