Archive for the ‘Fifth Amendment’ Category

Ex-Disney executive Kevin Mayer quits TikTok after three months – Quartz

When he started on June 1 as the new CEO of TikTok, former Disney executive Kevin Mayer said he was thrilled to join the company and vowed to further lead the apps global expansion. Less than three months later, Mayer is out.

In a letter sent to employees explaining his resignation yesterday, Mayer said he chose to join TikTok because ByteDance, the Chinese parent of TikTok, is utterly unique and changing the global internet landscape, according to CNBC, which published the internal memo. Mayer was also the COO of ByteDance.

He continued: In recent weeks, as the political environment has sharply changed, I have done significant reflection on what the corporate structural changes will require, and what it means for the global role I signed up forI understand that the role that I signed up forincluding running TikTok globallywill look very different as a result of the US Administrations action to push for a sell off of the US business. Vanessa Pappas, general manager of TikTok in North America, will be the interim global head of the company.

In a statement, a TikTok spokesperson said the company appreciates that the political dynamics of the last few months have significantly changed what the scope of Mayers role would be going forward.

Indeed, Mayer faced an uphill battle as soon as he joined TikTok, which ostensibly hired him in a bid to distance itself from the companys Chinese roots as it faced rising scrutiny from US lawmakers and users. Among his first challenges were addressing concerns that the app was suppressing videos linked to police brutality protests in the US, and also that it censored content deemed unsuitable by the Chinese government. Amid the worsening US-China relationship, however, even Mayer probably couldnt have predicted that US president Donald Trump would take the drastic step of declaring TikTok a threat to national security, and sign an executive order banning unspecified transactions with ByteDance unless the app can find a US buyer for its American business. The order takes effect on Sep. 21.

The resignation of Mayer is a major setback for TikTok, which has become one of the focal points of the US-China relationship. Mayers departure will not only hurt TikToks efforts to prove that it is a global rather than Chinese company, but will also add uncertainty to the potential sale of the apps US business. Trump has given Nov. 12 as the new deadline for the app to find a US buyer or be shut down, over Washingtons concerns that users could be exposed to spying by Beijing, a claim that TikTok rejects.

TikTok has challenged the US government, and this week filed a lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of violating the fifth amendment by issuing the executive order banning the service in the US without obeying due process.

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Ex-Disney executive Kevin Mayer quits TikTok after three months - Quartz

The ACLU filed a lawsuit over excessive force by federal agents in clashes at Portland protests – Insider – INSIDER

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on Wednesday that alleges federal agents used excessive force and illegal detentions after they were deployed by President Donald Trump's administration to protect a federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon.

The plaintiffs in the suit include three military veterans and other protestors who asserted that the federal officers in Portland used overly aggressive tactics that denied demonstrators their freedom of speech and assembly.

Protests against police brutality took place for at least 90 days in Portland after the death of George Floyd on May 25. In July, federal law-enforcement agents were deployed in Portland to deal with the protests. Videos and images of the protests showed federal agents using military tactics and putting protestors into unmarked vans.

The lawsuit, which is the third filed by ACLU in Portland, alleges that federal law-enforcement agents "heavily armed and clad in military-type camouflage or dark uniforms," violated protesters' First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights with their use of excessive force and illegal detentions of protestors.

"Our clients are individuals and organizations that gathered peacefully in downtown Portland to support Black Lives Matter after the killing of George Floyd and so many others at the hands of the police," ACLU attorney Jeremy Sacks said in a statement on the suit to the Associated Press. "But they were met by violence from the federal police forces intent on squelching the protesters message and their Constitutional rights all in aid of the president's political agenda."

Several of the plaintiffs claimed that they incurred physical injuries from police actions, including getting hit by tear gas cans, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and other chemicals, the lawsuit said. One man alleged that he was snatched off the streets by unidentified federal agents while protesting.

"I still haven't fully come to terms with what it means that I was kidnapped by my government," Mark Pettibone, a 29-year-old demonstrator involved in the Portland protests, said in a statement reported by the AP. "People need to know what happened to me and the government needs to be held accountable so that what happened to me doesn't happen to someone else."

In the lawsuit, the ACLU also alleges that Chad Wolf, the acting director of the US Department of Homeland Security, did not have the authority to send more than 100 agents to Portland.

The Department of Homeland Security, Wolf, and President Trump were all reportedly named in the lawsuit. The DHS did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

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The ACLU filed a lawsuit over excessive force by federal agents in clashes at Portland protests - Insider - INSIDER

Beachwood Councilwoman: I will not be a rubber stamp – Cleveland Jewish News

It is important that I give you my perspective on recent incidents involving our city of Beachwood Police Department, more specifically the release of the video dated June 27, 2019.

The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States proclaims that no one shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, uses the same exact words, called the Due Process Clause, to describe a legal obligation of all states. The standard of due process applies not only to criminal law, but has become an essential part of civil actions and even administrative proceedings regarding employee, student or membership disputes. However, with the advent of social media, this vital Constitutional right is being violated by both sides of the political spectrum.

Recently, here in the city of Beachwood, for the first time in our citys history, Mayor Martin S. Horwitz made the decision to release the unredacted meaning the raw version of the videotape of a police incident, despite the fact that the incident is still under investigation. While this may be the mayors prerogative for our city, I, as chairperson of the Ohio Casino Control Commission, similarly have oversight of a law enforcement agency whose officers are also routinely recorded, albeit mostly via private surveillance systems, rather than agency-issued dash or body cameras.

These recordings often prove instrumental in the prosecution of criminal, civil and administrative matters. Our agency has consistently found these recordings are one piece of evidence in a much larger investigative process. That is, without the full context of an investigation, a particular recording may unjustly prejudice one or more parties involved, including officers and civilians. Accordingly, I believe that releasing evidence before an investigation is complete poses a substantial risk to the fundamental fairness of the adjudication process, including potentially tainting any reviewing body, such as grand juries, petit juries and the public.

City council does not have authority over the administrative policies of the police department, including the use of body cams, hiring and firing, the release of footage, paid administrative leave, etc. The police department is unionized and functions as a department within the city of Beachwood. The mayor is also the safety director. Therefore, the chief of police reports directly to the mayor. This structure is common in many cities in Ohio. In order for council to encourage or influence policy, the process dictates that council should financially support the policy. Ultimately, there are layers council, mayor, the police department and an umbrella of laws, civil service rules and collective bargaining laws all in place so that no entity can interfere or insert themselves into areas that are not their responsibility.

For this reason, police reform and any desired structural changes are very challenging to pursue or alter in a short amount of time. This is not to say that there should not be a movement toward change, my point is that the existing structure makes change very hard and slow to occur.

The system is not nimble and malleable. The investigation of the June 27, 2019, incident is under criminal review with the Special Prosecutions Section of the Ohio Attorney Generals Office and there is no time limit on investigations. It is in our best interest to wait for a complete and thorough investigation. It is not best to rush an investigation. It is essential that we let it go the distance to cover all bases.

In spite of these inherent challenges, please remember that we all want fairness. Members of the law enforcement community are first and foremost citizens of this nation and deserve the same rights, such as due process, reserved for all Americans.

We are living in unprecedented times. As a result, everyone is operating in a new zone, and we see the results of this stress ranging in higher suicide rates, increased food and alcohol consumption, as well as the need for mental health counseling and financial distress assistance.

By this commentary, I am in no way endorsing the use of unreasonable force. I believe that most of the officers serving Beachwood do so with respect, pride and courage on behalf of the community. I am, however, unwilling to rush to justice without giving that officer or any other citizen of the community their rights as Americans, including the important right of due process.

I am here to serve the community at large, which includes both our citizens and our employees; I am not and will not serve as a rubber stamp for one faction or another.

June E. Taylor is chair of the Ohio Casino Control Commission having been appointed by former Gov. John Kasich in 2011, and reappointed by Gov. Mike DeWine in 2018. She served on the city of Beachwood charter review committee in 2016 and was appointed to the Beachwood City Council in January 2018. She was elected to serve on Beachwood City Council in November 2019. She is the first African-American to serve on Beachwood City Council. She and her family have resided in Beachwood for more than 20 years and are members of Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple in Beachwood.

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Beachwood Councilwoman: I will not be a rubber stamp - Cleveland Jewish News

EHT man with gun on Atlantic City Boardwalk ordered held – breakingac.com

An Egg Harbor Township man arrested on the Atlantic City Boardwalk with a gun and drugs while on parole will be held pending trial.Curtis Drinks, 24, was just released from prison in March. Since then, he has been arrested twice, Assistant Prosecutor Aaron Witherspoon told the judge at a detention hearing Wednesday.Drinks who is listed as Curtis Drakes by the state Department of Corrections was released from prison March 30, records show.He was then one of eight people arrested by Atlantic City police in July on drug charges.The latest arrest happened Friday, after Drinks was allegedly seen rolling a marijuana cigarette on the Boardwalk around South Carolina Avenue.An officer then found a gun, ammunition and drugs in his backpack, according to the charges.Drinks was cooperative with police by telling them about the gun, defense attorney Yvonne Maher noted to the judge, adding that the gun was not loaded.But there was ammunition in a sock, Judge John Rauh said.In arguing for release, Maher said her client has lifelong ties to Atlantic City and, while he had a gun, there is no indication he would use it for violence.Was he going target shooting? Rauh asked. Is it safe to say the gun was to protect him or protect his (drugs)?Drinks tried to briefly address the court, saying that his father died of COVID-19 about a month and a half after he got out of prison. I understand Im probably going to prison, he began before Rauh stopped him, noting he has a Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself.Candidly, I dont think youre helping at this particular point, the judge told him.While Rauh said he doesnt think Drinks is a risk not to appear, he does believe the defendant is a danger to the community.He appears to be a gentleman, but he cant get out of his own way, Rauh said. I let him go again, theres going to be a gun and somebodys going to get shot.

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EHT man with gun on Atlantic City Boardwalk ordered held - breakingac.com

Last call for the 25th Amendment? Trump’s Cabinet won’t depose him but they should – Salon

The president of the United States is relentlessly threatening the right of citizens to exercise their right to vote. He is also saying that he might not leave office if he loses the election, and that the election is "rigged" unless he wins. He also spends most of his days watching television, raging, fulminating, lying, demanding loyalty of those around him, demeaning his political opponentsand trading in conspiracy theories, while creating chaos instead of a plan to addressa pandemic that could take300,000 American lives by the end of the year.

Is such a person fit for this office?Anyoffice?

As has been the caseevery single dayfrom the beginning of this horrific tweet-fest mockery of a presidency: It's 25th Amendment time.

No, of course it won't happen not with the loyalist, anti-democratic ideologues the president has methodically surrounded himself with in his cabinet, likely to this very purpose. But by any objective (i.e., non-cultist) view it should happen before the upcoming election is furtherthrown into chaos to frighten off voters.

It won't happen. But wewould fail our duty to this country if we did not pause to note this fearful moment in time, did not look again at the purpose of this critical amendment, and did not call out the Trump administration's cabinet members who failed to take this step to protect an election and save this democratic republic.

In "The Twenty-Fifth Amendment: Its Complete History and Earliest Applications," by John D. Feerick, the author notes that the framers of the Constitution did not spend much time at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 onthe subject of presidential succession:

They seem to have thought they handled the matter adequately by providing for the office of Vice President and by inserting in the Constitution the following clause on presidential succession:

"In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Office shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected."

Thisvague language in the Constitution was unworkable in practice and hampered decisions in terms of both presidential inability and vice presidential vacancies. Feerick notes: "For the first 52 years of the existence of the presidency, our nation was remarkably fortunate. No President died in office, although three vacancies did occur in the vice presidency."

As to what constituted "incapacity" of a president, no one could really say. Andin an American tradition, this became a can that would be kicked down the road time and again after each crisis.

Questions on this score arose numerous times. There wasJames Madison, who in the summer of 1813 was "indisposed by illness" for weeks; James Garfield, who survived, incapacitated, for an excruciating 80 days after being shot; Chester Arthur, who was diagnosed with Bright's disease and suffered from "spasmodic nausea, mental depression, and indolence" and who, as a result, developed a very casual approach to his presidency, often not beginning work until noon or one o'clock (which sounds like someone we know); Grover Cleveland, who in the summer of 1893 took a cruise on a yacht and secretly underwent an operation to remove a cancerous growth on the roof of his mouth, which entailed removing a large portion of his upper jaw; William McKinley, who survived an assassin's bullet for about a week; Woodrow Wilson, who fell ill while on a speaking tour in late September 1919 and then, after returning to the capital, suffered a stroke that paralyzed the left side of his body; Franklin D. Roosevelt, who entered his fourth term in 1945 gravely ill and not able to function to his previous level, dying soon after; and Dwight Eisenhower, who had a heart attackin 1955, and then a strokein 1957.

Presidents will, due to ego or a sense of duty, often do anything to hide their incapacities from the public, and even their own cabinet members. Cleveland essentially disappeared for an entiresummer, undergoing two procedures and being fitted with an artificial jaw. (When a letter was published in thePhiladelphia Pressdetailing the operations, it was called a "hoax.") According to Feerick, the first operation took place "while Cleveland was unconscious and strapped to a chair propped up against the yacht's mast." Wilson's condition was hidden from the public, from Congressand from members of his cabinet. Feerick points out thatfrom that time "until the inauguration of Warren G. Harding on March 4, 1921, the country was without the services of an able President." Before running for his fourth term, FDR is said to have made his own new deal with his physician to simply not tell him any bad news.

The need for more clarity as to presidential succession was ultimately prompted by the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the need for a protocol for naming a new vice president once the current vice president had assumed the White Hous. Feerick writes: "Despite vacancies totaling more than thirty-seven years, no serious effort was made to devise a means for filling a vice presidential vacancy until after the assassination of President Kennedy."

The 25th Amendment, written and adopted in 1965 to address this issue, was ratified by the necessary 37 states in February 1967. But the question about what constitutes "inability" remained it was purposely not defined, allowing for interpretation of how a president could become unable to carry out his duties, including due to mental illness.

Sections 1 and 2 deal with succession of the vice president; sections 3 and 4, with the question of inability to carry out the duties of the office.

Section 3 allows for a president who is cognizant of his own impairment to personally inform Congress in writing that he is unable to carry out his duties. Perhaps one might stretch the interpretation of his writing to Congress. Mightthat include writingto the worldendless missives in ALL CAPS rife with misspellings, bad punctuationand excessive use of exclamation points, all of which pointto a level of derangementfar beyond the grammatical?

Seriously, we have a person in the office of the presidency who ismentally and temperamentally unfit for serving the office, as attested to by a petition that wassigned by 350 psychiatrists and mental health experts, and delivered to members of Congress in December 2019.

Yale Medical School professor Dr. Bandy Lee, one of the three authors of the petition (and a frequent interview subject at Salon), described Trump'scontinued embrace of conspiracy theories as actually a public health issue because of his ability to draw members of the public into a "shared psychosis at the national level."

Speaking of mental health experts, Mary Trump, who is the president's niece and a clinical psychologist, and who recently published the bestseller "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man," has said in recent interviews that the best thing anyone could do for Donald Trumpwould be to remove him from office.

And it's not just mental health experts who are worried. National security experts are as well. Just hours before Joe Biden gave his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention, 73 senior national security officials, nearly all of them Republican, attested to the unfitness of the current occupant of the White House.

In the infamous "Anonymous"2017 op-edpublished inThe New York Times, a senior Trump official wrote: "From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief's comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims."

But in the spinning wheel of the Trump administration, many of those officials are gone now,and it is not enough(norwas it ever) to try to shield the country from his worst impulses, which have both deepened and darkened. White supremacists and QAnon followers are just fine folks to him and he openly appeals to them. He and members of his campaign staff worked, sometimes gleefully, with Russian agents to win the last election. It didn't take a three-year bipartisan investigation to tell us that; any moderately intelligent child would have come to this conclusion from the moment candidate Trump said during a press conference, "Russia, if you're listening " (No, he wasn't joking.) He has continued to make such appeals to foreign leaders to interfere in our election.

Finding himself behind in the polls, Trump'sauthoritarian impulses are running hot, and he repeatedly broadcasts his threats to bring down our democracy. He speaks privately with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who no doubt is providing guidance to an eager disciple on the dismal arts of demagoguery and authoritarian rule.

Trump not only threatens mail-in voting, he is now threatening in-person voting, saying he will be sending thugs of one sort or another to oversee matters.

There's not time enough before the election for another impeachment, and, really, what would be the point?

Like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, I was a bartender in New York City (in my few years trying to be an actor), and I still know when the time has come for a last call. Section 4 of the amendment provides for the vice president and a majority of principal officers of the executive departments to make a formal declaration to Congress of a president's inability to serve. It gets complicated from that point. Essentially the president can counter, and the vice president and amajority of the cabinet must then re-counter. And then two-thirds of both houses of Congress have to agree.

So, to you, Vice President Pence, secretaries Pompeo, Mnuchin, Esper, Barr, Bernhardt, Perdue, Ross, Scalia, Azar, Carson, Chao, Brouillette, DeVos andWilke:

Last call for the 25th Amendment. Do your duty. Give up on this election for the sake of having future elections in the country you profess to love, before all is lost.

We well understand that you won't. But that's not to say that it should not be done. Because it should. We cannot wait for the election, because the president himself has put the electionin peril. Thiswould give Congress one last chance to do its duty, too though at an evenhigher standard thanimpeachment, which only requires a majority in the House.

When Benjamin Franklin was asked by Elizabeth Willing Powel of Philadelphia a "lady remarkable for her understanding and wit," according to a contemporary what kind of government he had helped to found, he told her: "A republic,ifyou can keep it." Now the question must be asked again: Can we?

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Last call for the 25th Amendment? Trump's Cabinet won't depose him but they should - Salon