Free Republic

The Democratic superlawyer who resigned in disgrace from the #MeToo organization Time's Up after helping former New York governor Andrew Cuomo (D.) discredit his accusers is now defending Columbia University against a lawsuit alleging that it fosters a pervasive culture of anti-Semitism. Roberta Kaplan filed notice last month to represent Columbia and its sister college, Barnard, against lawsuits that accuse school leaders of enabling an "antisemitic hostile educational environment" in the wake of Hamas's terrorist attack on Israel. Students Against Antisemitism and a group of five Columbia students allege that school leaders have turned a blind eye as anti-Semitic activists...

When asked who they would vote for if the presidential election were to be held today, former President Donald Trump bests President Joe Biden by a 10% margin with respondents favoring Trump 46.

Trump must pay $ 83.3 MILLION to E. Jean Carroll for defamation, a federal jury has ruled

Former President Donald Trump turned up in Manhattan federal court Wednesday for a second day in a row, as a jury is set to decide how much he must pay in damages to E. Jean Carroll, after he was found liable last year of both defaming the magazine writer in 2022, and sexually abusing her in the ’90s. *** The “Ask E. Jean” columnist is asking for more than $10 million in damages. That’s on top of $5 million that jurors last spring ordered Trump to cough up. *** Donald Trump threw his hands in the air and said he'd...

Can we please call a moving van and a fumigator to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and – when the poison clears – can we have the house cleaned by a religious team? Rabbi, priest, imam – whoever and whatever it takes to get a ritual cleansing for the ages done of the White House, and remove the scum that has to be clinging to the walls with every breath Joe Biden takes in that hallowed place.You knew it was real, and I knew it was real. But in your heart of hearts, the things written in what was purported to be...

Conservative businessman Vivek Ramaswamy has caught up to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a first national poll, a surprising tie as both are preparing to join in 2024’s first primary debate next month. In the survey of likely Republican primary voters, Ramaswamy and DeSantis are tied at 12%, with former President Donald Trump continuing to dominate at 48%. “Ramaswamy outperformed six other hopefuls by more than double, marking a significant surprise in this poll,” said pollster Doug Kaplan.

A judge on Tuesday said E. Jean Carroll, the New York writer who won a $5 million jury verdict against Donald Trump last month, can pursue a separate $10 million defamation lawsuit against the former U.S. president. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan ruled in favor of the former Elle magazine columnist, after Trump had argued that the defamation case must be dismissed because jurors had concluded he never raped her. A spokeswoman for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba was in Miami, where Trump pleaded not guilty in a separate...

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump raged on social media early Wednesday against both his accuser and the judge who ruled against him in a sexual abuse and defamation civil case, just hours after he was found liable for a 1996 incident. “The partisan Judge & Jury on the just concluded Witch Hunt Trial should be absolutely ashamed of themselves for allowing such a travesty of Justice to take place,” Trump, 76, posted to Truth Social at 1 a.m. Wednesday. The 45th president went on to claim that US District Judge Lewis Kaplan should have allowed more evidence to be...

The federal judge presiding over E. Jean Carroll's civil rape and defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump ruled Thursday he'll use an anonymous jury in the case, noting Trump's inflammatory rhetoric about the justice system. "It bears mention that Mr. Trump repeatedly has attacked courts, judges, various law enforcement officials and other public officials, and even individual jurors in other matters,” U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan of New York said in his decision. He also said he'll refuse to allow jurors' names to become public, adding, "If jurors’ identities were disclosed, there would be a strong likelihood of unwanted...

The fraud and money laundering case against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was reassigned to a new judge after the formerly appointed judge recused herself over a possible conflict of interest. Judge Ronnie Abrams of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York removed herself from the case last week because her husband is a law partner in a firm that worked with FTX previously. In Abrams' place comes Judge Lewis Kaplan, who has presided over a number of high-profile cases in recent years, including a defamation lawsuit brought against former President Donald Trump by E. Jean Carroll....

You can tell by the look on my face that he just pointed out something HUGE about what went down at Mar-a-Lago this week.

The parents of two transgender children have told how they supported them unconditionally, after they both decided to transition to the opposite sex from an early age. Ben Faryna and Sara Kaplan, from Berkeley, California, welcomed a biological daughter and then a biological son, to their family. But at the age of eight, James Kaplan, now 11, who was born a biological girl, realised he had to transition from female to male. And just a few years later Olivia Kaplan, now 7, who was biologically born a boy, realised at 4 that she wanted to transition from male to female....

The onetime girlfriend of Mark Judge, who is alleged by Christine Blasey Ford to have been present while Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in the 1980s, has emerged as a pivotal if hidden figure in this whole affair — and now she’s prepared to speak to the FBI and the Judiciary Committee about what she knows, according to a letter from her lawyer that I’ve obtained. Judge’s college girlfriend, Elizabeth Rasor, is represented by lawyer Roberta Kaplan, who sent a letter to the Judiciary Committee today. The letter, which was provided to me by a senior Senate Democratic aide on...

Saddam's Ambassador to al-QaedaBy Jonathan SchanzerWeekly Standard | February 23, 2004 A RECENTLY INTERCEPTED MESSAGE from Iraq-based terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi asking the al Qaeda leadership for reinforcements reignited the debate over al-Qaeda ties with Saddam Hussein's fallen Baath regime. William Safire of the New York Times called the message a "smoking gun," while the University of Michigan's Juan Cole says that Safire "offers not even one document to prove" the Saddam/al-Qaeda nexus. What you are about to read bears directly on that debate. It is based on a recent interview with Abdul Rahman al-Shamari, who served in...

The higher education industry is overdue for a shakeout. For decades, it has pushed up tuition at three times the rate of inflation and increasingly relied on students indenturing their futures with huge debts that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. Meanwhile, technological change in the form of online education has flourished as a low-cost alternative, and for-profit universities, free from the archaic practices of traditional higher education (including tenure) have grown luxuriantly under what amounts to a price umbrella maintained by traditional universities. Able to focus on career preparation and free from the academic fashions that inject political correctness into...

The U.S. Department of Education’s latest rule, the “gainful employment” or GE rule, mandates that for-profit colleges cannot saddle students with debt at an arbitrary rate. However, it affects only for-profit colleges such as Kaplan, DeVry and University of Phoenix, representatives of Kaplan claimed during a Washington, D.C. briefing recently. At the meeting organized by the Independent Women’s Forum, former Dallas mayor Thomas Leppert, now the CEO of Kaplan, explained how the rule itself is not fair to for-profit colleges. “A regulation should apply to any institution,” said Leppert, who noted “it only applies and targets the for-profit sector.” He...

The U.S. Department of Education’s latest rule, which mandates that for-profit colleges cannot saddle students with debt at an arbitrary rate, affects only for-profit colleges such as Kaplan, DeVry and University of Phoenix, representatives of Kaplan claimed during a Washington, D.C. briefing recently. kaplan university Former Dallas mayor Thomas Leppert, now the CEO of Kaplan, explained how the rule itself is not fair to for-profit colleges. Non-profit and state colleges and universities have similar debt problems for their students and yet are exempt from this rule. “A regulation should apply to any institution,” said Leppert, and noted “it only applies...

http://www.lp.org/candidates/liberty-candidates-13/ken-kaplan Ken Kaplan for Governor of New Jersey

Journalists responded with shock, awe and a predictable amount of snark to the news that Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos had bought The Washington Post. The news was announced Monday afternoon. Bezos himself, rather than his company, bought the Washington newspaper for roughly $250 million. The sale includes just the Post and not other publications owned by The Washington Post Company. Esquire's Chris Jones joked about Bezos's decision not to buy the contrarian Slate.com, which The Washington Post Company owned for the last few years.....

The University of Phoenix, the nation’s largest for-profit university, is closing 115 of its brick-and-mortar locations, including 25 main campuses and 90 smaller satellite learning centers. The closings will affect some 13,000 students, about 4 percent of its student body of 328,000. [Snip] Enrollments at the University of Phoenix and in the for-profit sector over all have been declining in the last two years, partly because of growing competition from other online providers, including nonprofit and public universities, and a steady drumroll of negative publicity about the sector’s recruiting abuses, low graduation rates and high default rates. Late last month,...