| Blog and Media Roundup - Saturday, January 9, 2016; News Roundup | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 9 2016, 06:42 AM (191 Views) | |
| abb | Jan 9 2016, 06:42 AM Post #1 |
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http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/clay-waters/2016/01/08/faux-feminists-ny-times-suddenly-think-bringing-sex-harassment-way Faux Feminists at NY Times Suddenly Think Bringing Up Sex Harassment 'Way Out of Line' By Clay Waters | January 8, 2016 | 8:04 PM EST Fascinating: The New York Times, an outlet that has respectfully pondered the idea of a flourishing “rape culture” in the United States, and which irresponsibly furthered false accusations against three Duke University lacrosse players accused of rape by a stripper in 2006, suddenly doesn’t think sexual harassment is worth talking about. Or at least not when the accused is Democratic “big dog” Bill Clinton, and the topic might risk his wife becoming president in 2016: "Mr. Trump is way out of line bringing up Mr. Clinton’s philandering." After Donald Trump re-injected Clinton’s sordid sexual past into the news stream, the paper responded on Friday with an oddly written, bottom-of-the-page editorial, “Donald Trump Drags Bill Clinton’s Baggage Out.” They do not approve, and accuse Trump of trying to “tar” Hillary Clinton in “sexist fashion” to her husband’s dark sexual past – even though Hillary herself tore down the reputations of her husband’s accusers in order to save the couples’ political skin. The Times may be afraid that millennial voters hypersensitive to signs of “rape culture” -- and who aren’t aware of the former president’s history with women -- may be appalled to learn about Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey, and Paula Jones. Or the lengths that current candidate Hillary Clinton went to smear those same women, who accused her husband of sexual harassment and worse. The editorial actually mentions the names of Clinton’s accusers, which is a start. Broaddrick, who accused Bill Clinton of sexually assaulting her in 1978, had previously been mentioned precisely once in the New York Times since 2003. But the Times editorialists failed to remind readers why those names are significant. Donald Trump seems to view his role as the person who dredges up what nobody else wants to talk about. And so he has dragged out Bill Clinton’s marital infidelity. It’s clear the Times doesn’t want to talk about it. The editorial quoted Trump’s counterattack after Hillary Clinton accused him of having a “penchant for sexism.” Trump responded: “If Hillary thinks she can unleash her husband, with his terrible record of women abuse, while playing the women’s card on me, she’s wrong!” The paper sniffed: Voters will judge that one, but Mr. Trump is way out of line bringing up Mr. Clinton’s philandering. That behavior, especially his White House affair with a 22-year-old intern, is a blot on his career. It is also a tired subject that few Americans want to hear more about. If Mr. Trump has not read enough, he can curl up with a copy of the Starr report. The editors then proceeded to criticize Hillary Clinton in the mildest fashion imaginable. For decades Mrs. Clinton has helped protect her husband’s political career, and hers, from the taint of his sexual misbehavior, in part by attacking the character of women linked to her husband.... The Times doesn’t seem to know what to do with this awkward-for-Hillary issue. Last month in New Hampshire, a young woman challenged Mrs. Clinton on that. Speaking at a town hall event, the woman referred to several women who have said they were sexually harassed by her husband. “You recently came out to say that all rape victims should be believed,” she said, asking if Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones should also be believed. Mrs. Clinton’s response was odd, and unhelpful. “I would say that everybody should be believed at first until they are disbelieved based on evidence,” she said. Then the editorial puzzlingly played the “sexist” card: Mr. Trump, of course, is not drawing distinctions between Bill Clinton’s behavior and Hillary Clinton’s attacks on her husband’s accusers. His aim is to dredge up an ancient scandal and tar Mrs. Clinton with it in a clearly sexist fashion. There should be no place for that kind of politics in this country. Reporter Amy Chozick also tried desperately to write around the allegations in a front-page story late last month. - See more at: http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/clay-waters/2016/01/08/faux-feminists-ny-times-suddenly-think-bringing-sex-harassment-way#sthash.fhXhkIPO.dpuf |
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| abb | Jan 9 2016, 12:57 PM Post #2 |
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State Bar disciplinary hearing slated for innocence attorney By MARTHA WAGGONER Associated Press RALEIGH, N.C. A North Carolina attorney who has worked tirelessly for the release of the wrongly convicted from prison now faces accusations of misconduct. A disciplinary hearing before the North Carolina State Bar is scheduled to begin Monday for Chris Mumma, who is accused of violating rules of professional conduct in a case involving Joseph Sledge. Sledge was imprisoned for almost 40 years for a double murder before being released one year ago. Some of the men whom Mumma helped free from prison plan to attend the hearing, including Greg Taylor, the first person exonerated by the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission that Mumma helped establish. Mumma represented Taylor and several other men directly, and others have been released through the commission's work. She also referred cases to the Duke Law Innocence Project that resulted in exonerations. Taylor served almost 17 years in prison for murder before a three-judge panel released him in February 2010. "The prosecution has everything on their side and all Chris has is the truth," Taylor said. "And sometimes that's not enough. And she sees that over and over again when she sees people who are going to die in prison when they're innocent." The State Bar's Disciplinary Hearing Commission can dismiss the charges or can issue punishment ranging from admonishment to disbarment. Either side can appeal discipline to the state Court of Appeals. The complaint before the State Bar says Mumma, director of the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence, violated rules as she pursued DNA testing on a water bottle she took from the home of family members of men who she thought might be guilty of the murders of a mother and daughter from Bladen County who were stabbed to death in 1976. Sledge was convicted of those murders. The complaint says that during a visit to the home of Marie Andrus, Mumma left with a water bottle that didn't belong to her. When she realized this, she didn't return the bottle to Andrus. When Andrus declined to provide family members' DNA samples, Mumma submitted the bottle for DNA testing anyway. In November 2013, she learned the DNA didn't match the crime scene evidence. Mumma then called Andrus back and asked if anyone else had been in the home during their earlier interview. She again requested DNA samples, which Andrus again refused to provide, the complaint says. "Mumma never mentioned to (the relative) that she had already obtained a DNA sample that may have been ... family DNA that was tested which did not match DNA from Davis crime scene evidence," the complaint says. Part of the State Bar complaint accuses Mumma of violating Andrus' rights. However, in a statement that's part of the evidence, Andrus said she doesn't support the prosecution of Mumma. "I know Ms. Mumma does good things for our criminal justice system in trying to get wrongful convictions overturned and innocent people out of prison, and I think it would be a shame if she was not allowed to continue doing that work," Andrus wrote. Katherine Jean, who leads the State Bar's prosecution of lawyers, declined to discuss the case, as did Mumma and her attorneys. In her response, Mumma has agreed to some of the facts of the case as presented by the bar but questions whether she violated the rules. Mumma also faces a second charge of turning over a transcript of a commission hearing to a reporter before it was certified. Commission officials say the transcript isn't public record until it's certified. http://www.innocencecommission-nc.gov/ http://www.ncbar.com/ http://www.nccai.org/ Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article53885345.html#storylink=cpy |
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| abb | Jan 9 2016, 07:32 PM Post #3 |
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http://academicwonderland.com/2016/01/09/a-vanity-fair-surprise/ A Vanity Fair Surprise January 9, 2016 kcjohnson9Leave a comment As The Hunting Ground continues its pre-awards season publicity crusade, an odd article appeared in Vanity Fair. The purported topic is a profile of two of the documentary’s chief protagonists—Annie Clark and Andrea Pino. (Pino is the UNC accuser who can’t keep her central vignette straight.) But the article mostly serves as an example of how poorly the media handles both sexual assault and The Hunting Ground controversy. Consider the following items: In January of 2013, Clark and Pino were among five students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who filed a federal Title IX complaint against their school to the U.S. Department of Education. They said they had been sexually assaulted, and, despite various efforts, the university no longer felt safe to them. What were these “various efforts”? Does the fact that “the university no longer felt safe” to students (who had, it’s worth noting, filed no report with the police or made a sexual assault allegation against the university) constitute legitimate grounds for a Title IX complaint? Was Pino more consistent in her interview with Vanity Fair about what an unnamed UNC administrator/professor told her than she’s been elsewhere? VF reporter Leora Yashari leaves these questions unanswered. More: The Hunting Ground posits that campus sexual assault is not only endemic—statistics cited in the film say that one in five women are sexually assaulted while in college—but that universities take pains to cover up instances on their own campuses. The idea that modern American universities—thousands of them, from all over the country—are capable of this sort of massive cover-up is laughable. But if so, a conspiracy of this type would merit a criminal investigation. To the extent that the handful of the cases described in The Hunting Ground are emblematic of this “cover up,” the documentary’s trouble with facts casts strong doubt on its thesis. Yashari continues, Meanwhile, 19 Harvard Law School professors, in conjunction with Slate’s Emily Yoffe,_have written an open letter discrediting the film’s statistics. They point to the featured case of former student Kamilah Willingham against fellow student Brandon Winston.__ Willingham accused Winston of assaulting her when she was unconscious. According to the film, Winston was dismissed from the university in September 2011, but appealed a year later and was re-instated. The letter, which refers to The Hunting Ground as “biased” and “propaganda,” strongly supports Winston as the victim of its release, and accuses the filmmakers of falsifying facts and statistics. [odd bolding pattern in original] It’s not clear how Yashari—in a column under the heading of “true stories”—concluded that the HLS professors’ letter came “in conjunction with Slate’s Emily Yoffe.” (I tweeted her asking for evidence; she didn’t reply.) Does Yashari believe that law professors weren’t capable of writing the letter without the assistance of a journalist? Also, a trivial error, but reflective of Yashari’s casual approach to the fact: Yoffe writes for The Atlantic. More: According to Clark and Pino, the media backlash is indicative of the kind of scrutiny that many survivors of sexual assault face. “[There is an] obsession with taking instances and picking apart traits in the story to make it an anomaly,” Pino said. “We focus so much on deconstructing them and disproving them, which is unlike any other crime.” The cultural phenomena of Making a Murderer and Serial are, if nothing else, “taking instances and picking apart traits in the story”—in these cases, of murders rather than sexual assault allegations. Has Pino ever read the crime section of a newspaper? Any decent newspaper has at least one reporter who focuses on “taking instances and picking apart traits in the story.” Has she ever attended a trial, or listened to remarks from a criminal defense attorney? The remark illustrates the delusional mindset behind one of The Hunting Ground’s central protagonists—and someone, as Vanity Fair informs readers, who is now working with the Senate’s leading foe of students’ civil liberties, Kirsten Gillibrand. |
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