Tag: ruling
E. Jean Carroll

Judge Tosses Trump's Defamation Suit Againt Carroll -- Because He 'Raped' Her

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan dealt another blow to Donald Trump’s attempts to cloudy up the $5 million liability ruling against him in the sexual assault and defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll. Kaplan entered a new opinion, dismissing Trump’s counterclaim against Carroll that she defamed him during a 2023 CNN interview after the ruling.

This decision comes after Kaplan denied Trump’s request for a new trial and a reexamination of the $5 million compensatory and punitive decision awarded Carroll. In that judgment, Kaplan wrote that while Trump had not “raped” Carroll by the “narrow, technical meaning of a particular section of the New York Penal Law,” the jury’s decision and the damages awarded Carroll proved that Trump’s had indeed “raped” her by what most “people commonly understand” the word to mean.

Monday’s decision relied heavily on Kaplan’s previous decision explaining that Trump’s actions, proven in court, showed that Carroll’s assertions that the disgraced former president raped her were “substantially true.

The decision comes as Carroll is bringing her second defamation lawsuit against Trump, where she is asking for $10 million in damages. Kaplan’s latest decision is in line with the previous one:

Ms. Carroll’s claim that Mr. Trump defamed her in his 2019 statements never has hinged on the precise manner in which she claimed he raped her, “rape” being a term of various meanings. It instead has been centered on whether Mr. Trump defamed her by asserting that she made up an entirely fictitious account of a forcible sexual assault by Mr. Trump in order to increase sales of her book and/or carry out a political agenda, among other things. While Ms. Carroll has used the word “rape,” the controversy between the parties has always centered on whether Trump attacked Ms. Carroll sexually, thus rendering his 2019 statements false and defamatory, not about the specific anatomical details of the assault.

Trump’s team of winner lawyers has tried to launch their defense based on the idea that because New York Penal law defines “rape” as having one’s vagina penetrated by a penis, Carroll was defaming the scumbag Trump because he was found guilty of forcibly penetrating her with his fingers.

“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was 'raped' within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump 'raped' her as many people commonly understand the word 'rape.' Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

Let that sink in. This guy is going to be the Republican nominee for president.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

U.S. Appeals Court Rejects Challenge To Obama Net Neutrality Rules

U.S. Appeals Court Rejects Challenge To Obama Net Neutrality Rules

A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday upheld the Federal Communications Commission’s landmark net neutrality rules, a big boost to the Obama administration and a blow to internet service providers in a ruling that could determine how consumers access content on the Internet.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled for the Obama administration on a 2-1 vote. The decision came in the latest battle over administration rules requiring broadband providers to treat all data equally, rather than giving or selling access to a so-called Web fast lane.

The ruling handed a major victory to the Obama administration, which had urged the FCC to approve sweeping rules in 2015, and boosts the FCC in its bid to complete action on several major rules before the end of the year.

So-called net neutrality is a major issue for broadband providers like Verizon Communications Inc and Comcast Corp , which fear the rules may make it harder to manage Internet traffic and make investment to provide additional capacity less likely. It is also a big concern for content providers like Netflix Inc and Yelp Inc worried that access to customers could be limited without net neutrality.

An internet cable is seen at a server room in this picture illustration taken in Warsaw January 24, 2012. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

Bin Laden Son-In-Law Sentenced To Life In U.S. Prison

Bin Laden Son-In-Law Sentenced To Life In U.S. Prison

New York (AFP) — A U.S. court sentenced Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law and former Al-Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith to life in prison on Tuesday.

The 48-year-old Kuwaiti, who has defended the September 11, 2001 attacks, was found guilty on March 26 of plotting to kill Americans and providing material support to terrorists.

Before the sentence was handed down in a U.S. federal courtroom, Abu Ghaith spoke in Arabic through a translator to say the only judgement he would accept was that of God.

“Today when you are shackling my hands, and intend to bury me alive, you are unleashing the hands of thousands of Muslims and they will join the rally of free men,” he said.

Judge Lewis Kaplan said Abu Ghaith failed to show remorse for the September 11 attacks and told the courtroom he remained a menace.

“You continue to threaten,” Kaplan said. “What you have done warrants the maximum sentence.”

Abu Ghaith is the highest ranking Al-Qaeda leader ever held in a prison on U.S. soil.

In a September 12, 2001 video he is seen sitting alongside bin Laden and current Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri justifying the September 11 attacks and promising more bloodshed.

In a video from October 2001 he repeated his threat, vowing “the storm of the planes would continue” in a video message.

His lawyers asked for a lighter 15-year sentence, arguing that he served 11 years in detention in Iran after leaving Afghanistan in 2002.

Senate Intelligence Committee chief Dianne Feinstein praised the ruling and said the case proved that “those who seek to harm Americans cannot hide and will be held to account.”

“This sentencing reminds the world that the United States will continue to capture and punish our enemies,” she added.

The World Trade Center Twin Towers collapsed during the September 11, 2001 attacks by al-Qaeda militants who flew hijacked airliners into the twin towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

Almost 3,000 people were killed in the attacks, the deadliest on U.S. soil in the country’s history.

Dozens of people jumped to their deaths from the World Trade Center to escape the flames.

The alleged mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Shiekh Mohammed, is currently in U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay alongside four suspected co-conspirators.

They could face the death penalty if convicted.

AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski

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Utah Attorney General Asks Supreme Court To Rule On Same-Sex Marriage

Utah Attorney General Asks Supreme Court To Rule On Same-Sex Marriage

By James Queally, Los Angeles Times

Utah’s attorney general petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to hear an appeal of a decision overturning the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.

A federal appeals court found the state’s ban unconstitutional in a 2-1 decision on June 25, marking the first time a federal court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage since the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government had to grant benefits to legally married same-sex couples in June of 2013.

Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes announced his intention to appeal a short time later and did so Tuesday.

“My responsibility is to defend the state constitution and its amendments as Utah citizens have enacted them,” Reyes said in a brief statement.

Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have legalized same-sex marriage, and this summer has seen a slew of lower-court decisions striking down bans around the country.

Shortly after the Utah decision, a federal appeals court overturned Oklahoma’s ban in a similar case. The attorneys general of Colorado and Indiana are challenging lower-court rulings against bans in those states, and three different judges in Florida have ruled that state’s marriage ban unconstitutional.

Marc Solomon, national campaign director for the advocacy group Freedom To Marry, said Reyes’ appeal could set the stage for the U.S. Supreme Court to make a definitive ruling on same-sex marriage.

“Today’s filing in the Utah case paves the way for the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a marriage case later this year and bring national resolution on marriage once and for all,” he said in a statement. “Every day, hundreds of thousands of same-sex couples and their children are suffering the tangible harms of not being free to marry. The sting of discrimination and the crazy quilt of marriage laws are not just wrong but unconstitutional.”

Photo: sigmaration via Flickr

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