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Judge Who Beat Daughter Issues Statement Offering Blame But No Apology

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Judge William Adams, the Texas family court judge who beat his cerebral palsy-disabled 16-year old daughter with a belt — and saw the whipping go viral on YouTube — has issued a statement calling his daughter’s actions “misguided and misleading.” Adams’ statement blames his daughter, Hillary, for releasing the video, suggesting his daughter did it in retaliation for his reduction of financial support to her. No where in the statement did Judge Adams offer an apology, though he has said earlier, “It happened years ago… I apologized. It’s not as bad as it looks on tape.”

WATCH: Texas Judge Beat 16-Year Old Disabled Daughter Repeatedly With Belt

“Hillary warned her father if he reduced her financial support, and took away her Mercedes automobile, which her father had provided, he would live to regret it,” the statement reads. “The post was then uploaded. The public may wonder if this is the tyranny of which Hillary Adams speaks as her reason to disseminate the video seven years after it was recorded, and five years into adulthood? Is this the reason she “hoarded” the video for seven years?”

No one should take the affliction of cerebral palsy lightly. Hillary’s parents did not. Hillary’s condition was monitored as a child and her medical needs met. However, neither should a perfectly capable adult try to use an affliction as a device for media sympathy. It should now be apparent to the world that “disabled” was mislabeled.

In response to the internet post, the media has appropriately attempted to understand why Hillary Adams chose the present time to disseminate the video. To many, her answers to those questions have been confusing and hollow. As she has said by recent interview, she “hoarded” the secret tape for future use, but has not explained, even now, for what purpose. Very few people find palatable her claim that it was to “help” her father.

Perhaps Hillary Adams should explain, if she felt she was raised by a tyrannical father, a claim shared with no one until five years after adulthood, why she insisted on living with her father and not her mother from the time of her parent’s divorce, until she moved out on her own. Hillary Adams has been living on her own for some time, and has been an adult for almost six years, so why post the video in late 2011?

The Daily Mail reported:

Hallie Adams appeared with her daughter Hillary in a TV interview in which they described years of abuse in their ‘dysfunctional’ family and Hillary revealed her father dared her to post the video online.

Hillary Adams also told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that she uploaded the video to make it clear her father was in ‘some denial about the way you are treating me and my mother’.

‘I thought he was a monster,’ she added. ‘I thought that I was a witch. I really don’t know what the solution for him is. Except that I really want him to seek some kind of help.’

Judge Adams will face no federal criminal charges, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office, despite a call for charges from a former child abuse prosecutor. Local authorities, due to statute of limitations restrictions, have also declined to prosecute the Aransas County Republican, who has three years left to serve in his elected office.

The complete statement, via KRIS-TV, below:

My name is William A. Dudley. The statement which follows has been reviewed and approved for circulation by Judge William Adams.

The seven year old video presently circulating the internet and now made the basis of international media attention, showing two parents disciplining their 16 year old daughter, who had been caught, by her own televised and internet reported admissions, engaged in repeated criminal activity, was posted for reasons other than as professed by the publisher.

It is regrettable that Hillary Adams, a bright and gifted person, would include in her post that she is or was a disabled or a special needs child. As multiple media appearances clearly demonstrate, Hillary Adams is articulate, possesses a superior IQ, and is capable of functioning as a productive adult in today’s complex society. No one should take the affliction of cerebral palsy lightly. Hillary’s parents did not. Hillary’s condition was monitored as a child and her medical needs met. However, neither should a perfectly capable adult try to use an affliction as a device for media sympathy. It should now be apparent to the world that “disabled” was mislabeled.

In response to the internet post, the media has appropriately attempted to understand why Hillary Adams chose the present time to disseminate the video. To many, her answers to those questions have been confusing and hollow. As she has said by recent interview, she “hoarded” the secret tape for future use, but has not explained, even now, for what purpose. Very few people find palatable her claim that it was to “help” her father.

Perhaps Hillary Adams should explain, if she felt she was raised by a tyrannical father, a claim shared with no one until five years after adulthood, why she insisted on living with her father and not her mother from the time of her parent’s divorce, until she moved out on her own. Hillary Adams has been living on her own for some time, and has been an adult for almost six years, so why post the video in late 2011?

William Adams is of the opinion that Hillary Adams is an extremely bright, highly functional, adult. The media has described her as a piano prodigy, who has competed at

Carnegie Hall on multiple occasions. As one of Hillary’s long term teachers noted in the press, Hillary, so close to accomplishment, has of recent “inexplicably dropped out, just two classes shy of completing her [college] studies.” The video in question was recorded well before Hillary graduated high school. If the public must know, just prior to the You Tube upload, a concerned father shared with his 23 year old daughter that he was unwilling to continue to work hard and be her primary source of financial support, if she was going to simply “drop out”, and strive to achieve no more in life than to work part time at a video game store. Hillary warned her father if he reduced her financial support, and took away her Mercedes automobile, which her father had provided, he would live to regret it. The post was then uploaded. The public may wonder if this is the tyranny of which Hillary Adams speaks as her reason to disseminate the video seven years after it was recorded, and five years into adulthood? Is this the reason she “hoarded” the video for seven years?

William Adams regrets the interruption and inconvenience his daughter’s post has caused to the Aransas County, Texas community. Judge Adams is confident that when the dust settles and international media attention has passed, and the work ahead, whether civil, criminal, or administrative has taken it’s full course and has been fully developed, with an opportunity for all sides to ask and answer relevant questions, it will be concluded that Hillary Adam’s actions in 2011 were misguided and misleading.

Judge Adams regrets, if true, that his daughter believes he is in need of healing from the family divorce. Divorce is certainly traumatic, and takes a significant toll on all, especially children. Judge Adams is of the opinion that Hillary’s gesture is little more than a much needed but hard to believe explanation of why she chose to post the video. If this entire event was a plea for help and healing, the methodology is certainly unorthodox. Judge Adams, who among other reasons, still has a minor daughter to consider, chooses to involve the media as little as possible whilst personal family matters are sorted through. The public may ponder what consideration Hillary Adams gave her little sister before subjecting the entire family to world-wide microscopic scrutiny, and permanent consequences.

It is Judge Adams’ civic responsibility to respond to whatever investigations may result from a revelation of the disciplinary actions resorted to by his former wife and him on the viral video. Those investigations will require answers to many questions raised by the media and public and for which no appropriate forum has been chosen to date. He is confident the process will be managed in accordance with the law. For the sake of his family, co-workers, and Aransas County officials who must endure the additional work and expense, he wishes that the process not be played out daily on a national stage.

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OPINION

President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

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President Joe Biden gave an nearly-unannounced, last-minute, live exclusive interview Friday morning to Howard Stern, the SiriusXM radio host who for decades, from the mid-1990s to about 2015, was a top Trump friend, fan, and aficionado. But the impetus behind the President’s move appears to be a rare and unsigned statement from the The New York Times Company, defending the “paper of record” after months of anger from the public over what some say is its biased negative coverage of the Biden presidency and, especially, a Thursday report by Politico claiming Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger is furious the President has refused to give the “Grey Lady” an in-person  interview.

“The Times’ desire for a sit-down interview with Biden by the newspaper’s White House team is no secret around the West Wing or within the D.C. bureau,” Politico reported. “Getting the president on the record with the paper of record is a top priority for publisher A.G. Sulzberger. So much so that last May, when Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the newspaper’s midtown headquarters for an off-the-record meeting with around 40 Times journalists, Sulzberger devoted several minutes to asking her why Biden was still refusing to grant the paper — or any major newspaper — an interview.”

“In Sulzberger’s view,” Politico explained, “only an interview with a paper like the Times can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency.”

But it was this statement that made Politico’s scoop go viral.

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“’All these Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or whatever reporter they’re mad at that day,’ one Times journalist said. ‘It’s A.G. He’s the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn’t done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age.'”

Popular Information founder Judd Legum in March documented The New York Times’ (and other top papers’) obsession with Biden’s age after the Hur Report.

Thursday evening the Times put out a “scorching” statement, as Politico later reported, not on the newspaper’s website but on the company’s corporate website, not addressing the Politico piece directly but calling it “troubling” that President Biden “has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term.”

Media watchers and critics pushed back on the Times’ statement.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“NYT issues an unprecedented statement slamming Biden for ‘actively and effectively avoid[ing] questions from independent journalists during his term’ and claiming it’s their ‘independence’ that Biden dislikes, when it’s actually that they’re dying to trip him up,” wrote media critic Dan Froomkin, editor of Press Watch.

Froomkin also pointed to a 2017 report from Poynter, a top journalism site published by The Poynter Institute, that pointed out the poor job the Times did of interviewing then-President Trump.

Others, including former Biden Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon, debunked the Times’ claim President Biden hasn’t given interviews to independent journalists by pointing to Biden’s interviews with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and a 20-minute sit-down interview with veteran journalist John Harwood for ProPublica.

Former Chicago Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob, now a media critic who publishes Stop the Presses, offered a more colorful take of Biden’s decision to go on Howard Stern.

The Times itself just last month reported on a “wide-ranging interview” President Biden gave to The New Yorker.

Watch the video and read the social media posts above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

 

 

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CNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial

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Donald Trump’s Friday morning claim Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building is “heavily guarded” so his supporters cannot attend his trial was torched by a top CNN anchor. The ex-president, facing 34 felony charges in New York, had been urging his followers to show up and protest on the courthouse steps, but few have.

“I’m at the heavily guarded Courthouse. Security is that of Fort Knox, all so that MAGA will not be able to attend this trial, presided over by a highly conflicted pawn of the Democrat Party. It is a sight to behold! Getting ready to do my Courthouse presser. Two minutes!” Trump wrote Friday morning on his Truth Social account.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins supplied a different view.

“Again, the courthouse is open the public. The park outside, where a handful of his supporters have gathered on trials days, is easily accessible,” she wrote minutes after his post.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

Trump has tried to rile up his followers to come out and make a strong showing.

On Monday Trump urged his supporters to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country, while complaining that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”

On Wednesday Trump claimed, “The Courthouse area in Lower Manhattan is in a COMPLETE LOCKDOWN mode, not for reasons of safety, but because they don’t want any of the thousands of MAGA supporters to be present. If they did the same thing at Columbia, and other locations, there would be no problem with the protesters!”

After detailing several of his false claims about security measures prohibiting his followers from being able to show their support and protest, CNN published a fact-check on Wednesday:

“Trump’s claims are all false. The police have not turned away ‘thousands of people’ from the courthouse during his trial; only a handful of Trump supporters have shown up to demonstrate near the building,” CNN reported.

“And while there are various security measures in place in the area, including some street closures enforced by police officers and barricades, it’s not true that ‘for blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.’ In reality, the designated protest zone for the trial is at a park directly across the street from the courthouse – and, in addition, people are permitted to drive right up to the front of the courthouse and walk into the building, which remains open to the public. If people show up early enough in the morning, they can even get into the trial courtroom itself or the overflow room that shows near-live video of the proceedings.”

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

 

 

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‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

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Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is responding to Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was a U.S. president, and she delivered a strong warning in response.

Trump’s attorney argued before the nation’s highest court that the ex-president could have ordered the assassination of a political rival and not face criminal prosecution unless he was first impeached by the House of Representatives and then convicted by the Senate.

But even then, Trump attorney John Sauer argued, if assassinating his political rival were done as an “official act,” he would be automatically immune from all prosecution.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, presenting the hypothetical, expressed, “there are some things that are so fundamentally evil that they have to be protected against.”

RELATED: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military, or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?” she asked.

“It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act,” Trump attorney Sauer quickly replied.

Sauer later claimed that if a president ordered the U.S. military to wage a coup, he could also be immune from prosecution, again, if it were an “official act.”

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and an expert on Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security affairs, was quick to poke a large hole in that hypothetical.

“If the president suspends the Senate, you can’t prosecute him because it’s not an official act until the Senate impeaches …. Uh oh,” he declared.

RELATED: Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted the Trump team.

“The assassination of political rivals as an official act,” the New York Democrat wrote.

“Understand what the Trump team is arguing for here. Take it seriously and at face value,” she said, issuing a warning: “This is not a game.”

Marc Elias, who has been an attorney to top Democrats and the Democratic National Committee, remarked, “I am in shock that a lawyer stood in the U.S Supreme Court and said that a president could assassinate his political opponent and it would be immune as ‘an official act.’ I am in despair that several Justices seemed to think this answer made perfect sense.”

CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen, a former U.S. Ambassador and White House Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform under President Barack Obama, boiled it down: “Trump is seeking dictatorial powers.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘They Will Have Thugs?’: Lara Trump’s Claim RNC Will ‘Physically Handle the Ballots’ Stuns

 

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