Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Quick Hits: Volume CCCXXXIII

 - After last week's disgraceful performance in front of the House Committee on Education, Harvard President Claudine Gay has had a new scandal crop up: plagiarism


Hard to see her hang on to her job after all that, right? 


“As members of the Harvard Corporation, we today reaffirm our support for President Gay’s continued leadership of Harvard University,” (Harvard's corporate board) wrote in a University-wide statement on Tuesday. “In this tumultuous and difficult time, we unanimously stand in support of President Gay.”


Liz Magill, one of the three university presidents who couldn't unequivocally condemn on-campus Anti-Semitism in her House testimony last week, resigned her post shortly after a wealthy benefactor withdrew a $100 million gift to the school. Is that what it will take for Gay to resign? Who knows, but her remaining president certainly doesn't enhance Harvard's rapidly declining reputation.


On a different note, what kind of punishment will a Harvard student face in the future should they be determined to have engaged in plagiarism? 'Cause that could get awkward.



- Say, did ya miss Monday evening's Green Bay Packers-New York Giants tilt? Prince Akeem provided a solid recap......35 years ago?!?!?!





The only way that movie scene would have been more prescient to Monday's game is if Joe Pesci had a cameo.  



- Sen. Amy Klobuchar will always have a seat in the U.S. Senate as long as she wants it. But as I wrote nearly 3-1/2 years ago, she's persona non grata nationally (i.e. aspirations for President, VP, U.S. Attorney General, etc.) after there were serious questions raised over the murder conviction of Myon Burrell while Klobee was Hennepin County attorney. After nearly 18 years in jail, Burrell's sentence was commuted in late 2020.


Fast forward to this past Monday


Nearly two decades after being convicted of murder, 36-year-old Marvin Haynes was released from the Stillwater prison Monday morning after a Hennepin County judge vacated his conviction.

“Almost twenty years ago, a terrible injustice occurred when the state prosecuted Marvin Haynes. We inflicted harm on Mr. Haynes and his family, and also on Harry Sherer, the victim, his family, and the community,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement. “We cannot undo the trauma experienced by those impacted by this prosecution, but today we have taken a step toward righting this wrong.”

The Great North Innocence Project, which represented Haynes, said in a press release Monday that Moriarty’s office agreed to vacate Haynes’ conviction following a November evidentiary hearing during which attorneys “presented evidence showing that the identification procedures used to convict Mr. Haynes were inconsistent with best practices and unnecessarily suggestive.”

Hennepin County Judge William Koch signed an order Monday vacating the conviction, writing that “absent introduction of the unconstitutional eyewitness identification evidence, it is doubtful there would have been sufficient evidence to sustain a conviction.” In the order, Koch also wrote that “there was no physical evidence linking [Haynes] to the crime scene.”


The Hennepin County attorney at the time? You guessed it: Amy Klobuchar. 


Sure, Klobee is going to win her Senate reelection in a walk next year. But look for Black Lives Matter and similar activist organizations to disrupt any public campaign events she puts on over the next 11 months.


------------------------------------------------

No comments: