Malaysian businessman Low Taek Jho wanted to meet Barack Obama, but as a foreign national, could not buy his way to a meeting through campaign contributions. So he used Rapper Pras Michel of the Fugees as his conduit, feeding Michel money to contribute to Obama. Things did not turn out as well as hoped.

On April 26, 2023, a jury convicted Defendant Prakazrel Michel (“Michel”) of ten (10) counts related to his conduct in three (3) schemes involving conduit contributions, witness tampering, and foreign lobbying. Before the Court is Michel’s  Motion for New Trial (“Motion” or “Mot.”). Michel moves under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure (“Rule”) 33(a) for a new trial, arguing that a myriad of errors undermine the jury’s verdict.

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One of the things that has been pretty darn impressive about the candidacy of Kamala Harris is how she’s avoided making her sex or gender an issue. Granted, there are plenty of others to do it for her, not the least of whom is the orange guy claiming she magically became black one day, but Harris can’t be blamed for what others say or do. Still, John McWhorter raises a very interesting point that I hadn’t considered, and McWhorter is likely one of the very few people in media who could pull it off.

‘Joy’ Is a Euphemism for a Word No One Wants to Say Out Loud

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If it’s legal to smoke weed, and it’s a fundamental constitutional right to keep and bear arms, how is it possible the two combined are illegal per se? The Fifth Circuit in U.S. v. Connelly holds that they’re not, at least sometimes.

Paola Connelly is a non-violent, marijuana smoking gunowner. El Paso police came to her house in response to a “shots fired” call. When they arrived, they saw John, Paola’s husband, standing at their neighbor’s door firing a shotgun. After arresting him, they spoke with Paola, who indicated that she would at times smoke marijuana as a sleep aid and for anxiety. A sweep revealed that the Connellys’ home contained drug paraphernalia and several firearms, including firearms owned by Paola. There was no indication that Paola was intoxicated at the time.

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Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act protects concerted activities “for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection” in the workplace. If you squint hard enough and aren’t a slavish opponent of chaos theory, an argument could be mustered that pretty much any concerted activity by employees is protected under Section 7. After all, everything relates to everything else if you try hard enough.

Except going to Black Lives Matter demonstrations. And stunningly, this conclusion comes from both an NLRB administrative law judge and the National Labor Relations Board itself, which has rarely found any conduct by employees unprotected. Continue reading →

If you’re a computer user of a certain age, you will remember when you had many choices from which to choose your default search engine. From Infoseek to Ask Jeeves, Lycos to Alta Vista, and even one with the silly name Yahoo!. They had two things in common. They weren’t very good at searching the interwebs and their business model had no path to profitability. Then came Google.

Google is by far the dominant player in the field. It’s not that there aren’t other options, like Bing or Duck, Duck, Go, but it’s not even close. And that makes many people, particularly the government, sad. Continue reading →

In the heady days of February, 2016, in the empowered City of Seattle, two police officers shot and killed a 47-year-old black man named Che Taylor. The shooting was found to be justified by police and an inquest jury, and no charges were filed. It was, nonetheless, controversial.

The two officers were conducting an undercover operation in search of another man when Taylor arrived in a car, according to police and testimony at an inquest hearing into Taylor’s death.

Spaulding and Miller said they recognized the 47-year-old Taylor as a known felon and career criminal with convictions for rape and robbery. As a felon, he was barred from having a gun, but Miller told Spaulding he had seen a handgun in a holster on Taylor’s hip when Taylor exited the car.

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It was unseemly that UCLA had to be enjoined from permitting the exclusion of Jewish students on its campus. It was even more unseemly that UCLA appealed the temporary injunction. Were they fighting for the right to exclude Jews? Someone apparently decided that “unseemly” wasn’t the best tact, and so UCLA voluntarily dismissed its appeal. Smart move.

Its lawyers just filed a notice of voluntary dismissal, and UCLA announced this to employees, with a link to FAQs “to help employees understand how to carry out their responsibilities consistent with the requirements of the preliminary injunction.”

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Juneau is the capital of Alaska. It’s pretty big as far as land mass is concerned, but doesn’t even come close to matching the population of several large cities. That’s because to live in Juneau, you either need to be harder than a tenpenny nail, slightly insane, or a combination of both.

Costs are about 30% higher in Juneau compared to everywhere else because there’s no land route to Juneau. Everything either comes in via boat or plane. Amazon deliveries take three days instead of two because Jeff Bezos can’t dominate everything. Continue reading →

I’m not personally a fan of Kamala Harris’ rhetorical style. Still, it’s far, far better than Trump’s. I remain unclear about what Kamala Harris plans to do with the office. Then again, will Trump follow the Project 2025 roadmap or do whatever pops into his head at any given moment? In a convention that was at times a bore, at times cringey and at times pretty damn good, did Kamala Harris make the case that she is ready to be President of the United States?

Katie Herzog does a recap of the acceptance speech Harris read off the teleprompters.

Here’s the TL;DR, in order of appearance: hard work; family values; civil rights; fight for the little guy; Trump’s an asshole; January 6; democracy at stake; protect the middle class; jobs; economy; lower costs; cheaper groceries; Trump tax; your body, your choice; gun violence; gay stuff; clean air/water; climate change; voting rights; border security; space; cease-fire soonish but big hearts to Israel; wait, here’s a bone to Palestine too; folksy wisdom from Mom; strength; freedom; opportunity; dignity; We Are Not Going Back, We Are Not Going Back, We Are Not Going Back.

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While we watch the convention of vibes, thus far devoid of any substance beyond “she’s not Trump” and prosecutors “know that type” of convicted felon, as they’ve claimed for generations when convicting the innocent and guilty alike, one name has gone unuttered in Chicago or the New York Times.

Former President Donald Trump could still face a criminal trial for allegedly conspiring to overturn the 2020 election – but say that the odds of any trial starting over the next year depends on the results of the election, the speed of pre-trial hearings examining the extent of Trump’s immunity and whether special counsel Jack Smith moves to narrow the indictment.

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