TitleIX is ripe for reform

Here's an example of the landmines that make it increasingly expensive for people to attract lawyers to help with their cases & causes. This one's out of Sidney Powell's state of residence. Notice how the lawyer may not disclose the truth about his client? Proceeding accordingly can be called deceptive but it's compliant and required. I include the disturbing conclusion below the link: https://www.legalethicstexas.com/resources/opinions/opinion-504/ The lawyer may remain silent without violating Texas Disciplinary Rule 3.03, and therefore is prohibited under the Texas Disciplinary Rule 1.05 from disclosing confidential information about his client's prior convictions.

Even the (nonbinding) American Bar Association (ABA) recognizes that the attorney / client privilege requires silence on certain privileged matters, and coping accordingly in one's representations as an advocate. The end result can seem misleading, but it's required. That some would weaponize that to harm the attorneys doing their best to cope is a problem with which a growing quantity of lawyers nationwide is admirably wrestling in pursuit of limiting bullies' abilities to derail the necessary role of advocacy. That said, I'm neither defending nor criticizing Sidney Powell's filings in the Trump '20 election. For that matter, I need to get back to my chores now.

Morgan Freeman has stated that the name contributed to the box office malaise that Shawshank endured. The title isn't explanatory or descriptive enough for early rounds of movie goers to process. But as it gained name recognition...

Speaking of "grounded in fact", Sidney Powell has pleaded elsewhere that she's allowed to make assertions in lawsuits she files that are based on "information & belief" as opposed to certainty. Sometimes court filings are deadline-sensitive, as was the situation with the Trump elections in 2020. The debate is ongoing about how accurate pleadings need to be, but being insufficiently candid can lead to criticism, too. The area is not that defined by vague rules, and it seems unfair (if not illegal) to punish folks for operating within such vagueness to the benefit of your cases & causes. Not to do so could be malpractice, after all.

I worry about the "prison industrial complex's" influence on getting guilty pleas, and for extensive sentences. Might anyone know how much it donates to each of the major political parties? Is it more to one than the other? The Shawshank Redemption is a well done movie, but it gives me chills... I've only seen it once because I can't deal with the prison rape scenes. But excluding those, I've seen scenes on the internet especially regarding its ending. Well done, especially for a movie that performed so poorly at the box office.

I don't know that she's been criticized more than other 1st Ladies of the White House. It comes with the territory, I guess. But I have seen statistics about her allegedly lavish living at taxpayers' expense, including expensive wardrobes. Many qualified folks don't even pursue leadership roles because they don't want the grief. At least she stuck her neck out and chased her dreams.

I've seen assertions published by folks in the know regarding how criminal law punishes folks heavily for not taking plea deals. I'd like to see hard data on it, but I haven't researched it.

Might anyone here know what percentage of guilty pleas are merely the result of distrust in the system, rather than a sincere belief in one's guilt? I am unaware of such a statistic, but I imagine that plenty exist. In criminal court, folks can plead guilty and get much smaller sentences than what they risk getting at trial. And juries are unpredictable, with many members wishing they were someplace else. I know of someone who pleaded guilty and got 7 years, to avoid getting 80 if he lost at trial. It was a book-keeping dispute. Anyhow during his 7 years he conclusively disproved 6 of the 7 allegations for which he pled guilty. He was working on disproving the 7th when the door to freedom opened up. I don't know if he disproved that one, too, after leaving.

Here are official statistics substantiating the abrupt decline from nearly 100% of civil defendants in the USA having attorneys back around 1992 to 25% nowadays: https://www.ncsc.org/~/media/Files/PDF/Research/CivilJusticeReport-2015.ashx Everybody loses with the status quo. When people take the law into their own hands like they do in some countries, society loses. Fortunately folks throughout the USA are suing to try to bring about change, and with varying degrees of success.

Back in the day, state bars typically kept things very confidential, and sometimes agreed to seal records (as folks speculate happened with Michelle Obama. Such confidentiality is part of why during the early 1990s, nearly all civil defendants in the USA had lawyers assisting them. It's now around 25%, as the Bureau of Justice Statistics can confirm. Why the decline from nearly 100% to 25%? At least part of the answer lies in how it's just not worth it for attorneys to take on clients who might misbehave and try to blame it on the lawyers. It happens all too often and the internet exacerbates the problem by splattering client mud onto the attorneys (who are restricted to respect oaths of confidentiality). So what some folks might claim is the bars' protecting the public needs to be viewed through the prism of the abovementioned consequences for such "help". Folks get fileted in court by themselves and then wonder why lawyers are so expensive. The system's broken and litigation's underway all over the country to try and reduce state bars' sizes and narrow their focus merely to attorney discipline instead of other activities synonymous with bribery of officials at dues payers' expense. Most lawyers in the U.S. already don't have to deal with state bars that are oversized and overly self-serving but fights are underway where the problem's not yet sufficiently addressed. It takes heroes to stand up to authorities who hold such heroes' licenses in their hands but reformers persevere. For those who think the state bars are their friends instead of being primarily self-enrichers, wake up and smell the coffee. Here are various examples: https://www.calbarjournal.com/March2010/TopHeadlines/TH5.aspx & https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2013/05/21/former-state-bar-of-texas-employee-pleads-guilty-to-theft-after-500k-loss/ & https://ktla.com/news/local-news/california-state-bar-admits-mistakes-in-handling-years-of-complaints-against-l-a-lawyer-tom-girardi/ Etc.

Rep. Lauren Boebert feels the squeeze, including from GOP primary competitors: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/lauren-boebert-far-behind-leading-challenger-in-fundraising-feels-squeeze-from-both-sides-in-2024-election/

There are those who say a federal judge let her know during insurance fraud proceedings to either withdraw from practicing law or endure license forfeiture, which she did circa 1993 (long before residing in the White House). As for Rudy's hair dye, that's what it looked like to me. He's been disbarred but it's been said that it was a witch hunt for his being a conservative. It's also been said that state bar entities tend to be very politically biased as to whom they pursue. I guess Monica made it too inconvenient for state bar authorities not to pursue Bill.

"[R]eports" of what? You might wanna try online searches.

Like Kevin Spacey or not, though, the guy can act... Perhaps my favorite scene of his is from the movie KPax. I don't know that I've seen more than one other movie with him in it but here's the KPax scene that is really something else. And as a preface, he portrays a patient who recently arrived at a mental institution. His doctor, Jeff Bridges suspects there's something more to him than his admittedly far-fetched claims to be an extraterrestrial occupying a human's body. The movie's thought-provoking and entertaining.

I think the list could include another 5 (if not more). In no particular order, there's Jussie Smollett (the fake hate crimes guy who is reportedly still appealing multiple felony convictions). There's also Bill Clinton (impeached, disbarred and still stuck with a wife who reportedly made him sleep on a couch for months after learning about Monica...when she could have instead thanked Monica for helping out with the household chores). But he gets over $100K per speech so there's that. Michelle Obama was reportedly disbarred, too, but impressively enough she got almost as many fat women out exercising during her 8 years at the White House as Donald Trump did in a day when inspiring protests against him. That's quite an accomplishment. There's also Dan Masterson (of That 70s Show, which I've never once seen). He denies all allegations and an appeal's getting underway but his life's certainly taken a turn for the worse. His poor 6 year old daughter. As for Kevin Spacey, he remains free but continues to get accused of stuff that's too nauseating for me to want to mention or contemplate. If his luck runs out, he won't be a happy fellow. NJ Senator Menendez might be in a similar rut, but it remains to be seen.

We know wrestling moves that we nevertheless keep drilling year-after-year. Math seems analogous. Skipping out on first year coursework in college because one has AP coursework from elsewhere might not be as wise as drilling year after year before advancing. Some can do it though, as you've pointed out.

A friend of mine who used to live in NYC calls Rudy's demise "a fall from grace."

I don't think it's particularly prudent to skip such courses and land in advanced math & engineering coursework, instead, during one's first semester at a school like Stanford. I tend to think that it would be like going into a wrestling match without prior days' practices and pre match warm-ups. But if one really knows one's material, and studied it recently enough, I guess it can work.

Why would she hate former NYC mayor Giuliani?

I hope Coach Koll writes a book about coaching and program-building someday, too.

Wow... what an inspirational example that is. I've followed Coach Dresser since the 1980s, before he left the state of Iowa. Decades later, my head h.s. coach even attended a coaches' clinic at Va. Tech. and told me afterwards that the guy's technique is very good. I hope Coach Dresser writes a book after retirement (or even before it) so we can learn from it. I mean he took Christiansburg H.S. wrestling (near Va. Tech.) from being a zero to a hero. This after leaving Grundy H.S. behind. They were good before he arrived but great after he got going coaching there. Kevin Dresser did quite a bit for wrestling in the state of Virginia. I'm hopeful that Iowa State will continue improving because I think the Cy-Hawk dual is one of our sport's finest crown jewels, at least when it's suspenseful and down to the wire, outcome-wise.

That's news to me. The gripe about the gender quota into which Title IX has (legally impermissibly) morphed is mainly that if women don't want to wrestle then men can't. If only a few women want to wrestle, only a few men can, and so on... Meanwhile, men's football pays at least some of the bills for other sports but there's not a female equivalent. Men's wrestling therefore suffers. So J Robinson advocated restoring Title IX to its original legislative intent. An advantage to that approach for women's wrestling is that when men's wrestling exists or gets successfully established, it's less difficult to add a women's team a few years down the road. For more on the upcoming legal changes to Title IX's unfair and arguably illegal gender quota:

I'm a fan of women's wrestling, and have been for decades. I'm not sure what you mean by "bad example" though. Please elaborate.