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Federal Appeals Judge Alex Kozinski Accused Of Sexual Harassment
NPR ^ | December 8, 2017 | Ina Jaffe

Posted on 12/09/2017 2:36:58 PM PST by nickcarraway

Six women have accused a federal appeals court judge of sexual misconduct, according to The Washington Post. Alex Kozinski serves on the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and was formerly that court's chief judge.

Heidi Bond, who clerked for Kozinski in 2006 and 2007, said he called her into his office and showed her pornography on his computer. He asked her if she thought the images were "photoshopped." He asked her if they turned her on.

Bond, who now authors romance novels under the name Courtney Milan, wrote on her website that such incidents happened at least three times. She wrote that he also showed her a chart he made in college showing all the women he had had sex with and telling her not to tell any of the other clerks about it. She wrote about the incidents: "When this happened, I felt like a prey animal—as if I had to make myself small. If I did, if I never admitted to having any emotions at all, I would get through it."

A woman named Emily Murphy, who clerked for a different judge on the 9th circuit, told The Washington Post of an incident when she was having a conversation about exercise with some other clerks. Kozinski interrupted to say that she should work out naked. According to Murphy and two others who were present, she tried to switch the subject without success.

Murphy told the Post, "It wasn't just clear that he was imagining me naked, he was trying to invite other people — my professional colleagues — to do so as well."

In a statement to the Post, Kozinski said, "I have been a judge for 35 years and during that time have had over 500 employees in my chambers. I treat all of my employees as family and workvery closely with most of them. I would never intentionally do anything to offend anyone and it is regrettable that a handful have been offended by something I may have said or done."

In 2008, the Los Angeles Times reported that Kozinski had an email list that he used to distribute rude jokes, some of which were sexually explicit. The paper also reported that he had a publicly accessible website that contained pornography.

A judicial investigation determined that he had not intended for the public to be able to access that website and that Kozinski's "conduct exhibiting poor judgement with respect to this material created a public controversy that can reasonably be seen as having resulted in embarrassment to the federal judiciary."

Kozinski, 67, has previously dealt with the issue of sexual harassment in his role as a judge. In 1991, he joined an opinion that said cases should be decided from the point of view of the victim, using the "reasonable woman" standard. The Post quotes Kozinski's writings about sexual harassment in 1992 in which he said that men "must be aware of the boundaries of propriety and learn to stay well within them." Women, he wrote, "must be vigilant of their rights, but must also have some forgiveness for human foibles: misplaced humor, misunderstanding or just plain stupidity."


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: 9thcircuit; harassment; judiciary; kozinski; sexscandals
Judge Kozinski admonished for explicit items on Web site
1 posted on 12/09/2017 2:36:58 PM PST by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

Kozinski is one of the most conservative judges on the 9th Circuit.

He should stay put and demand due process.


2 posted on 12/09/2017 2:41:43 PM PST by marktwain (President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries.)
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To: marktwain

WIKI——Judge Kozinski was born to a Jewish family[2] in Bucharest, Romania, in July 1950. In 1962, when he was 12, his parents, both Holocaust survivors, brought him to the United States. The family settled in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, where his father, Moses, ran a small grocery store. Kozinski, who had grown up as a committed communist in Bucharest, became what he described as “an instant capitalist” when he took his first trip outside of the Iron Curtain, to Vienna, where he partook of such luxuries as chewing gum and bananas.

Education and career
He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from University of California, Los Angeles in 1972. He received a Juris Doctor from UCLA School of Law in 1975. He was a law clerk for Judge Anthony Kennedy of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 1975 to 1976. He was a Law clerk for Chief Justice Warren Burger of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1976 to 1977. He was in private practice of law in Los Angeles, California from 1977 to 1979. He was in private practice of law in Washington, D.C. from 1979 to 1981. He was a deputy legal counsel of the Office of the President-Elect in Washington, D.C. from 1980 to 1981. He was an assistant counsel for the Office of Counsel to the President in Washington, D.C. in 1981. He was a special counsel for the Merit Systems Protection Board in Washington, D.C. from 1981 to 1982.[4]

Kozinski appeared on TV’s The Dating Game, where he gave a surprise kiss to the woman who selected him.

Office of Special Counsel incident[edit]
While in the Office of Special Counsel, despite staff recommendations against termination, Kozinski overruled his staff and then repeatedly tutored Interior Secretary James G. Watt’s legal staff in how to rewrite the proposed termination of a mining safety whistle blower, James Spadaro, so as to pass legal muster. When the incident came to light years later during confirmation hearings for Kozinski’s Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals nomination, the scandal drew 43 Senate opposition votes and reportedly subsequently prevented Kozinski’s planned upgrade to the Supreme Court.[6]


3 posted on 12/09/2017 2:44:12 PM PST by Liz (One side in this conflict has 8 Trillion bullets; the other side doesnt know which bathroom to use.)
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To: marktwain
Kozinski is one of the most conservative judges on the 9th Circuit

Kozinski is a highly regarded conservative judge whose opinions are well written, well respected and influential.

Fortunately, a federal judge can only be removed through impeachment.

4 posted on 12/09/2017 2:46:06 PM PST by AndyJackson
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To: nickcarraway

Sexual Harassment the new tool in the lefts arsenal against the right


5 posted on 12/09/2017 2:48:18 PM PST by butlerweave
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To: AndyJackson
Suddenly all these charges! While I'm sure many are genuine, I have doubts about some. Accusations against Moore have already been proven faked.

Makes me wonder who will be next? The late Martin Luther King, with demands to remove his name from streets? Probably not even though there were many quite serious allegations levied against him a long time ago.

6 posted on 12/09/2017 2:51:13 PM PST by apocalypto
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To: nickcarraway

gov‘t employee watching porn on work computer during work hours

typical


7 posted on 12/09/2017 2:51:29 PM PST by vooch (America First Drain the Swamp)
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To: butlerweave

They are running with rules four through ten here.

Very predictable

Saul Alinsky’s Rules from Rules for Radicals

Saul Alinsky describes 24 rules in Rules for Radicals. Of those 24 rules, 13 are rules of “power tactics”:

1. “Power is not only what you have but what the enemy
thinks you have.”

2. “Never go outside the experience of your people.”

3. “Wherever possible go outside of the experience of the
enemy.”

4. “Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.”

5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”

6. “A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.”

7. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”

8. “Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and
actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.”

9. “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing
itself.”

10. “The major premise for tactics is the development of
operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.”

11. “If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will
break through into its counterside.”

12. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive
alternative.”

13. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

The remaining 11 rules Alinsky describes are concerned with “the ethics of means and ends”:

1. “One’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s personal interest in the issue … Accompanying this rule is the parallel one that one’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s distance from the scene of conflict.”

2. “The judgment of the ethics of means is dependent upon the political position of those sitting in judgment.”

3. “In war the end justifies almost any means.”

4. “Judgment must be made in the context of the times in which the action occurred and not from any other chronological vantage point.”

5. “Concern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa.”

6. “The less important the end to be desired, the more one can afford to engage in ethical evaluations of means.”

7. “Generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics.”

8. “The morality of a means depends upon whether the means is being employed at a time of imminent defeat or imminent victory.”

9. “Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.”

10. “You do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments.”

11. “Goals must be phrased in general terms like ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,’ ‘Of the Common Welfare,’ ‘Pursuit of Happiness,’ or ‘Bread and Peace.


8 posted on 12/09/2017 2:54:59 PM PST by Chickensoup (Leftists today are speaking as if they plan to commence to commit genocide against conservatives.)
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To: marktwain

Agree 100%. He is a Reagan appointee. The leftists are now going after conservative judges. This is Justice Thomas redux.


9 posted on 12/09/2017 2:55:36 PM PST by Steelfish
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To: apocalypto

Kozinski has sent distasteful emails before.


10 posted on 12/09/2017 2:55:59 PM PST by nickcarraway
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To: apocalypto
The charges against Kozinski are that his bawdy conduct is offensive.

I don't think he has denied that he tells off-color jokes, etc. and to some snowflakes it likely is offensive.

No one has ever accused him of having a rape button under his desk or anything like that.

11 posted on 12/09/2017 2:56:43 PM PST by AndyJackson
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To: vooch

“gov‘t employee watching porn on work computer during work hours”

I walked into the IT offices at the General Dynamics facility where I worked. The entire staff, including the IT manager, were gathered around a monitor watching hard core porn. They were monitoring what an employee, who sat near my desk, was watching, in real time. Apparently, the IT people know what you are doing as to websites, even if they aren’t actually watching, probably due to how websites are classified. The IT people had a full time guy, who was a real pervert, monitoring who was doing what online. As far as I know, they took no actions against offenders. (Other than bookmarking the good sites, I’d guess.)


12 posted on 12/09/2017 3:01:22 PM PST by Gen.Blather
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To: nickcarraway
The Post quotes Kozinski's writings about sexual harassment in 1992 in which he said that men "must be aware of the boundaries of propriety and learn to stay well within them." Women, he wrote, "must be vigilant of their rights, but must also have some forgiveness for human foibles: misplaced humor, misunderstanding or just plain stupidity."

Sounds like a reasonable attitude to me.

13 posted on 12/09/2017 3:23:22 PM PST by 6ppc (It's torch and pitchfork time)
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To: Gen.Blather

yup - IT knows all


14 posted on 12/09/2017 3:24:08 PM PST by vooch (America First Drain the Swamp)
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To: nickcarraway
YouTube: Kozinski on the Dating Game (and Squiggy, too!)
15 posted on 12/09/2017 5:21:53 PM PST by Brown Deer (America First!)
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To: Liz
Kozinski appeared on TV’s The Dating Game, where he gave a surprise kiss to the woman who selected him.

He beat Squiggy!

You Tube: Kozinski on the Dating Game
16 posted on 12/09/2017 5:30:00 PM PST by Brown Deer (America First!)
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