Also on today’s menu:
Smith Calls Out Judge Cannon’s Attempt To Help Trump
NATO Takes On Greater Role In Support Of Ukraine
House Bill 1115, which has passed the New Hampshire House of Representatives, 194-180, would allow landlords to evict tenants with a 30-day notice at the end of their lease, without having to cite any specific reason. Currently, New Hampshire’s anti-discrimination statute protects a person from being evicted on the basis of age, sex, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, familial status, national origin, or physical or mental disability. Landlords also cannot evict a tenant in retaliation for reporting health and safety violations.
If the bill becomes law, tenants could have a difficult time proving discrimination, and housing advocates say it will allow landlords to remove tenants they simply do not like, potentially leaving them homeless. Kerstin Cornell, a staff attorney for New Hampshire Legal Assistance, said a landlord could evict a mother with a noisy child or who made neighbors uncomfortable. Even model tenants would not know whether they would be asked to leave and forced to find new housing every year.
Proponents say it restores a landlord’s right not to renew a lease without having to go through a lengthy and costly eviction process. Until 2005, when the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled that a national real estate company could not end a lease with a Nashua tenant without justifying the action, landlords had no obligation to renew a lease agreement.
Discussion: Landlord-tenant relationships are always tenuous, with many landlords failing to address maintenance needs and many tenants failing to take good care of their apartments or failing to make their rental payments on time. The bill does not address that, however, and addresses a problem that does not exist. A landlord already has the ability to increase the price of the rental upon renewal of the lease, which would provide a strong incentive to the tenant to seek another place to live. Total failure to renew a lease, however, could leave the tenant without a place to live. Tenants who follow all of the requirements should not have to face homelessness, and those who do not already can be removed for sufficient cause. HB 1115 makes a tenuous relationship even more fragile.
Smith Calls Out Judge Cannon’s Attempt To Help Trump
Federal Judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing the criminal case involving former president Donald Trump’s retention of classified documents, asked the lawyers on both sides to submit jury instructions under two scenarios under which Trump could invoke the Presidential Records Act as a defense. Special Counsel Jack Smith submitted a court filing, arguing that “Both scenarios rest on an unstated and fundamentally flawed legal premise — namely, that the Presidential Records Act … and in particular its distinction between “personal” and “Presidential” records … determines whether a former President is “authorized,” under the Espionage Act, … to possess highly classified documents and store them in an unsecure facility, despite contrary rules in Executive Order (“EO”) 13526, which governs the possession and storage of classified information. That legal premise is wrong, and a jury instruction for Section 793 that reflects that premise would distort the trial.”
Smith continued, “Moreover, it is vitally important that the Court promptly decide whether the unstated legal premise underlying the recent order does, in the Court’s view, represent “a correct formulation of the law.” … If the Court wrongly concludes that it does, and that it intends to include the PRA in the jury instructions regarding what is authorized under Section 793, it must inform the parties of that decision well in advance of trial. The Government must have the opportunity to consider appellate review well before jeopardy attaches.”
In other words, Smith would appeal that ruling to a higher court, implicitly calling for her removal from the case for attempting to lay the groundwork for a directed verdict of acquittal. Smith previously filed two mandamus writs against Cannon, resulting in stinging rebukes from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. This would be her third strike.
Discussion: Judge Cannon has been doing everything possible to prevent the defense secrets case against Trump from getting to trial, and by trying to base jury instructions on the flawed premise that he has a right to possess and withhold classified documents from the government, she would be able to tell the jury it must exonerate him from the charges. Smith wants the appeals court to set her straight on the law she wants to bend.
NATO Takes On Greater Role In Support Of Ukraine
NATO’s European leaders, worried about US congressional delays in providing aid to Ukraine and the organization’s future if former president Donald Trump regains his seat in the Oval Office in November, are indicating that they are ready to take the lead if the US continues to prove unreliable.
The alliance’s 32 member states agreed on Wednesday to start planning for a greater role in coordinating military aid to Ukraine to help it repel Russia’s aggression as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization observes its 75th anniversary. The treaty establishing the transatlantic political and military alliance was signed in Washington DC on April 4, 1949.
NATO began with 12 members from North America and Europe who agreed that an attack on one member would be considered an attack on all. At the time, the Soviet Union was its main concern. Today, after the Soviet Union’s collapse, NATO has 32 members. With President Joe Biden Jr.’s support, it has taken on support of a non-member after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and it now views Moscow as its major security threat. NATO’s two newest members, Finland and Sweden, joined in direct response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Discussion: The United States is now seen as an unreliable partner, which can have dire consequences if Russia conquers Ukraine and sets its sights on other targets. Much of the Cold War was based on the questionable “domino theory” that said any nation that embraced communism would lead to other countries following its lead and causing a collapse of capitalism. However, that fear helped to secure a level of peace that had not existed before NATO’s formation. Fear of Russian expansion is the new domino theory, but it cannot be ignored, considering the rush toward authoritarianism in several countries, possibly including the US if Donald Trump’s fascist movement succeeds.