The beating of women in Islamic countries remains a serious concern, particularly after Islamic clerics advised men how to beat their spouses in Islamically correct ways (here and here and here). With the rise of Islamic parties in Morocco, women are particularly concerned. This concern was magnified recently with the airing of a state television program on how women can use makeup to cover bruises left by domestic violence.
Category: Media
Longtime Cuban leader Fidel Castro is dead at age 90. While many around the world spoke highly of Castro’s success in greatly reducing illiteracy and proving basic services like health care, I have long been critical of his reign and his enablers in the West. Whatever success he achieved, he did so through a brutal dictatorship that denied freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and other basic civil liberties. For those of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s, he was a defining character of our generation. The menace across the border. When we were being taught to shelter under our desks in any nuclear attack, it was his image with that of the Soviet premier that would be flashed across the screen. It was a time of utter madness and mania — on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Continue reading “DEATH OF A DICTATOR: FIDEL CASTRO DEAD AT AGE 90”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel long ago established herself as a menace to free speech, particularly in her decision to first apologize to authoritarian Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for a satirical poem and then approve the prosecution of the comedian is a shocking and chilling disgrace. Now, she is throwing her support behind a crackdown on “hate speech” on social media like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube — radically expanding the already broad scope of government regulation of speech.
Continue reading “Merkel Backs Crackdown on Free Speech On Social Media Sites”
We have previously discussed how Democrats have rallied around their leaders despite the failure to secure the White House or the Senate. Democratic leaders engineered the primary selection of Hillary Clinton despite polls showing that voters did not want an establishment figure and had deep seated misgivings about Clinton’s honestly and integrity. One of those leaders who has been most criticized over the years has been Nancy Pelosi. Nevertheless, many Democratic members have rallied to her side while younger members are calling for new leadership. Rep. Tim Ryan stepped forward to challenge Pelosi but he is now being denounced as sexist for even daring to challenge Pelosi after years of Democratic losses.
We have followed the actions of various universities and colleges to bar conservative speech either by declaring their positions as hate speech or claiming a campus security risk. One of the targets of this content-based censorship has been conservative British commentator Milo Yiannopoulos. Now, Yiannopoulos, 32, has been barred from speaking at his own former grammar school in the United Kingdom: Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys in Canterbury.
There was an interesting recent interview of President Barack Obama by the German media giant Der Spiegel. In the interview, President Obama insisted that he could not pardon Edward Snowden as a matter of constitutional law. He is manifestly wrong. While the President may not want to pardon someone who deeply embarrassed him and his Administration, he is entirely capable of pardoning Snowden who is widely viewed as a whistleblower.
Continue reading “Pardon Me? Obama Wrongly States That He Cannot Pardon Edward Snowdon”
Kirk Nurmi, the attorney for Arizona murderer Jodi Arias, has avoided disbarment by voluntarily accepting a suspension for four years after writing a tell-all book about his infamous client. Nurmi allegedly sought to cash in on his representation by revealing confidential information in his self-published book, “Trapped with Ms. Arias.” It wasn’t Arias but ethics that trapped Nurmi.
Continue reading “Publish and Perish: Court-Appointed Lawyer For Arias Suspended For Tell-All Book”
Vice President Mike Pence decided to take a break from the work on the transition to attend the award-winning musical “Hamilton.” In a remarkably classless and rude demonstration, audience members booed the Vice President-elect both upon his arrival and then at various points in the performance. The cast then read a statement to Pence about fears over the expected policies of the Trump Administration.
There is an interesting controversy out of New York where Rutgers University lecturer Kevin Allred who was arrested and sent to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation for what he and his supporters say were political speech about the Second Amendment. In a tweet, Allred wrote “Will the 2nd amendment be as cool when i buy a gun and start shooting at random white people or no…?” The answer appears to be no.
We recently discussed how, within minutes of the loss on election night, Clinton aides began to spin the loss and entirely the fault of FBI Director James Comey — a spin picked up by Clinton herself the next day. Many of us have questioned that spin in light of Clinton’s long-standing low polls on truthfulness and her ranking as (with Trump) the most unpopular nominee of a major party for the presidency. Now, former Clinton campaign communications director Jess McIntosh has come up with a new culprit. Of course, it is not the Democratic establishment that engineered the nomination despite ample warning signs in the polls. It was not the campaign that preferred spin to honesty at every turn. And it was not the candidate herself. No, it was the self-loathing and inherent sexism of women.
Continue reading “Clinton Aide: Hillary Lost Because Women Suffer From “Internalized Misogyny””
For days leading up to the election, President-elect Donald Trump was pummelled (not without reason) for suggesting that he might not accept the results of the election. Now, many of the same people who were outraged, are protesting the results of the election. Some however have gone further and taken the rhetoric to violent levels. For example, Actress Lea DeLaria, right, (Big Boo on “Orange Is the New Black“) wrote on Instagram that she wanted to “take out” Republicans and Independents with a baseball bat. Likewise, Matt Harrigan, CEO of the network security firm PacketSled went on Facebook to say that he would kill Trump.They are only two of a chorus of liberals who have discarded any measure of restraint or principle in lashing out at the results of an election because it did not turn out the way that they wanted.
Continue reading “Bats Over Ballots: Anti-Trump Rhetoric Takes Violent Turn”
As I discussed over the weekend, the Democratic leadership appears to be spinning its snatching of defeat from the jaws of victory this electoral season. Various Democratic leaders have been blaming the results not on their engineering Hillary Clinton’s victory over Bernie Sanders but FBI director James Comey. Now Clinton herself is advancing that same spin despite every objective measure to the contrary. It is precisely why Clinton was never able to seriously improve the overwhelming view of being less than honest. Her campaign would continually spin events and scandals rather than deal directly with obvious problems. In the meantime, Clinton’s controversial friend and close advisor Sidney Blumenthal is raising yet another vast conservative conspiracy theory — that it was not the candidate but a cabal of secret agents directed by Rudy Giuliani that caused the defeat.
Shacara McLaurin, 23, from Brooklyn, New York, is described as the “anti-bullying ambassador” but that designation is in doubt after, according to police, she was arrested on Thursday night for pushing an elderly Trump supporter to the ground in a fight outside Trump Tower in Manhattan. The 74-year-old man, James Durkan, required medical attention after hitting his head on the concrete.
Continue reading “Anti-Bullying Advocate Charged With Assaulting Elderly Trump Supporter”
For even the armchair political commentator, the results of this election were not surprising. The voters made two things clear from the outset of the election: they wanted a change from the establishment and they did not like Hillary Clinton. The Democratic leadership responded by engineering the selection of perhaps the greatest establishment figure in politics and someone with a record level of unpopularity with voters. On election day, voters followed through on every poll: they voted against Clinton and the establishment. Only the mainstream media and democratic insiders seemed bowled over by the news — shocked that the voters would reject their sage advice and lopsided coverage. Indeed, as someone who contributed to the coverage that night, I was shocked how shocked everyone was. While the odds favored Clinton, her low popularity with independent voters and high polling figures on dishonesty made the election uncertain at best. As we began to discuss years ago, the “remaking” of Clinton seemed disconnected from voters who continued to view her and the Clinton family as the personification of the establishment. It showed how entirely out of touch the core Democratic leadership (and media) has become. Now, that thick cloak of denial appears firmly in place as Democrats blame FBI Director Comey for the loss despite the fact that Hillary was declining in the polls before his late disclosure to Congress and the fact that Hillary set records on dishonesty in poll after poll. Two stories this week have brought this home. One was the rallying behind Donna Brazile by DNC staff last week with the notable exception of one man who confronted both Brazile and his colleagues. The second is the report that Democratic leaders immediately turned form Hillary Clinton’s historic defeat to start grooming Chelsea Clinton for political office. The problem it seems was that the public was not given enough Clintons. Faced with a populist uprising, the Democratic leadership seems to be offering more of the same like an actor who cannot move beyond one script and one role.
We have previously discussed the extraordinary prospect of a President-elect Donald Trump being called as a witness between his election and his inauguration. That prospect is still quite real, even though U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel pushed both sides to settle the case involving Trump University. He also rejected a motion to bar campaign statements by Trump at trial, an interesting ruling that seems in part due to the failure to specify the statements that the defense wanted to exclude from trial.
Continue reading “Court Rejects Trump Motion To Bar Campaign Statements From Fraud Trial”