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.
Category: Politics
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”
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.
We have yet another example of how our government has thrown away billions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan without any discipline or repercussions for federal officials or contractors. The latest example is the “ghost hotel” of Kabul — a massive construction site for the Marriott Kabul that has never been completed but the taxpayer money has checked out without a trace. Just poof. It could be the perfect place for our ghost army to vacation at our ghost hotel.
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”
There is an interesting free speech case brewing in Traverse City, Michigan where officer Michael Peters was suspended Sunday with pay after he was seen off-duty driving a pickup truck bearing a Confederate flag. He was seen near a group protesting Donald Trump’s election as president. The case raises, again, the right of public employees to engage in protected speech in their personal time and private lives.
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.
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”
Michael Bloomberg is back with his Big Gulp obsession. Years ago, I wrote a series of columns contesting the legality and the logic of his ban on sugary drinks, which were later struck down by the courts. Now he has successfully targeted my home city of Chicago with a $1 million contribution to pass a heavy tax on sugary beverages in Cook County and it appears that it may pass. While I agree with the sentiment (and we try to keep sugary drinks away from our kids except on rare occasions), I view these laws as ineffective, regressive, and paternalistic. The tax passed yesterday by a close vote.
Continue reading “Cook County Passes High Tax Increase On Sugary Drinks”
The CEO and co-Founder of Grubhub Matt Maloney has added his voice to the rising anger over the election. The question is whether he went too far in a recent email to all of employees at the food delivery service that some interpreted as meaning that they should resign if they agree with Trump’s campaign statements or positions. He states “I absolutely reject the nationalist, anti-immigrant and hateful politics of Donald Trump and will work to shield our community from this movement as best as I can.” Maloney’s response is why so many Trump voters kept their views secret, including from pollsters. There is a palpable and rising backlash against tens of millions of citizens who exercised their votes in electing Trump. I heard today from a GW student who said that she has been treated as a pariah by other students who were once her friends. However, this backlash is far more serious when coming from the head of a large company in the imposition of what is effectively a political litmus test. The question is where is the outrage? Remember the hue and cry over the owners of the Chick-fil-A chain? That was triggered by a controversial interview given by Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy. Yet, when another company actually threatens to fire anyone who agrees with Trump, there is relatively little response.
There is a story out of my old stomping grounds of Lafayette, Louisiana (where I lived during my judicial clerkship on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit for Judge W. Eugene Davis). A female student at the University of Louisiana reported that she was attacked by a man in a white Donald Trump cap and another men. She said that the men hit her with a metal object, ripped off her hijab and took both her wallet and the traditional Muslim head-covering. The incident caused a national outrage but it now turns out that she made up the entire incident after police became suspicious of her accounts.
Continue reading “Lafayette College Student Arrested For Faking Attack By Trump Supporter”