CNN has become the leading target of conservatives objecting to a bias in the media in both attacking Donald Trump and giving Hillary Clinton a pass on her own controversies. Now Headline News has blurred the name “Trump” on the tee-shirt of a hero former police officer being interviewed for saving a baby. It appears that someone viewed his shirt as unacceptable to be shown as if it were profanity. This followed a controversy at CNN where a Trump tweet was edited to remove the word “Crooked” in front of Hillary Clinton’s name.
Continue reading “CNN Blurs Out Trump Tee-Shirt In Interview With Hero Former Police Officer”
Category: Politics
Saudi Arabia has long been an exporter of extremist Islamic values as part of its Wahhabi sect. Despite our close alliance with the Kingdom, it imposes radical Islamic Sharia principles and denies basic rights to women, non-Muslims, and dissidents. In the latest outrage from Saudi Arabia, a court has sentenced a man to ten years in prison and 2,000 lashes for merely expressing his atheism on Twitter. It appears that the Saudi and Sharia courts are terrified that people could actually inform other Saudis of alternatives to Islam or different values. The fear and anger only appeared to grow when the Kingdom could not coerce the 28-year-old who refused to repent and stood by his human right to express his faith. We previously discussed this case, but Saudi Arabia is proceeding with the whippings as this man remains defiant.
Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland is in the unenviable position of having everyone in Washington saying nice things about him. There are two occasions when that is common: a judicial nomination going no where and eulogy. For Garland, it may be both. The Senate Republicans have already said that Garland will not receive a hearing, let alone a vote, before the inauguration of the next president. For attorney Steven Michel, that is too long. Michel has filed an action in federal court demanding a judicial order to force the Senate to take up the Garland nomination. Despite my agreement that Garland should receive a vote, the lawsuit is meritless in my view. The Senate clearly has the authority to withhold consent by refusing a hearing or a vote to a nominee.
Continue reading “New Mexico Attorney Sues Senate To Force Garland Vote”
Moulay Omar Benhammad, 63, and Fatima Nejjar, 62, have long been figures in the Islamic community calling for chastity and advocating Islamic justice. The two Islamic politicians are now under fire after being found allegedly having sex on a Moroccan beach.
I recently discussed the implications of Associated Press story on access given to donors to the Clinton Foundation. However, what is not getting much attention is that the Obama Administration delayed these journalist investigators for THREE YEARS in seeking this information from the State Department. Three years and the AP had to go to court to secure what is clearly public information. The Obama Administration is not unique in its resistance to disclosures, even in what President Obama once pledged would be the “most transparent” government in history. FOIA has long been reduced to a farce by bureaucrats who force public interest, journalistic, and legal groups to go to court to secure information. The lack of outrage over what the AP was put through is ample proof that the government has won in harassing efforts to use FOIA. Only the most organized groups tend to persist in such efforts.
For years, European Union advocates denied allegations that they were trying to erase national borders and create a single country with a shared military. Then recently proposals for a single military emerged — just before Britain left the EU. One of the most effective criticisms made against the EU before Brexit was to challenge voters to actually name the people in charge of the EU and policies affecting their lives. Now, the head of the EU has gone out of his way to confirm the worst suspicions of critics. The much-maligned EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker has publicly denounced the very concept of national borders as the “worst invention ever.”
There is an interesting twist in the Clinton email scandal. One of the most surprising elements of Hillary Clinton’s statements to the FBI was her insistence that it was former Secretary of State Colin Powell who convinced her to use a private email server. Clinton told investigators that Powell not only advised her to use a private email system but made it his one piece of advice when prompted by a third former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright. Now, Powell has come out with a seemingly angry denial of the account and has said that Clinton’s “people have been trying to pin it on me.”
Continue reading “Powell Accuses Clinton Of Trying To “Pin” Email Scandal On Him”
Ismail Berdiyev, a leading mufti from Russia’s North Caucasus region, has called for the universal use of clitoridectomy, or female genital mutilation, for “all women to reduce lechery” and “sexuality.” The shocking and disgusting proclamation by Berdiyev is magnified by the the supportive public statement by a senior priest in the Russian Orthodox Church, Vsevolod Chaplin, who wrote on Facebook: “My sympathies for the mufti. I hope he doesn’t retreat from his position because of the howls and hysterics which will start now.”
I have previously written that I believe that Trump supporters have a legitimate complaint about some of the coverage on the mainstream media. I say “some” because Trump has clearly generated the majority of bad press on his own and the media has merely covered the controversies. However, there has been some valid objections to how media has jumped on Trump statements, even positions that mirror those once held by the Clintons or currently held by significant numbers of Americans. Critics insist that media is unrelenting on Trump coverage and interviews while far less aggressive with Clinton or her controversies in coverage or interviews.
CNN has taken the brunt of much of the criticism from Trump supporters who commonly dismiss the network as the “Clinton News Network.” That is unfair in my view but a recent article on CNN.com has raised this issue again. Entitled “Trump wants GOP to court black voters — then slams voting rights for felons,” the column suggests that Trump was somehow hypocritical for making a pitch for African-American votes while opposing voting for felons. Moreover, the assumption that felons are somehow synonymous with blacks went by without any apparent objection or question. Had Trump made such an association, I am fairly certain he would have pilloried. Moreover, the highly negative coverage given his pitch to the black community raises valid questions of the balance in reporting analogous pitches from the Clinton campaign.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor.
In a preposterous example of small minded, small town thinking, a chief of police fired a twenty-five year veteran officer for responding to an active shooter call in which three teenagers were murdered and other responding units were calling for help.
The affluent town of Brier, Washington seldom receives more than one call per night but apparently Chief Mike Catlett and Mayor Bob Colinas believe that leaving the city “unprotected” is a greater priority than others who might have been killed by the active shooter and sacked Officer Dan Anderson. Despite what many would call a commendable act to help save lives at great personal risk, Dan Anderson is without a job for doing what every rightful police officer would do without hesitation.
Below is my column in the Washington Post on Donald Trump’s proposal of “extreme vetting” for immigrants to the United States. While some have suggested that the proposal would violate the Constitution, I do not agree. There are ample concerns or objections that can be raised as a matter of policy. However, such vetting is neither unconstitutional nor unprecedented. Particularly if implemented with congressional approval, I believe that such a heightened level of scrutiny would pass constitutional muster. Conversely, this is clearly something that Congress could prevent legislatively.
Continue reading “Trump’s Extreme Vetting: More Of A Political Than A Constitutional Question”
Kellyanne Elizabeth Conway has been reportedly selected as the new campaign manager for the Trump campaign. Kellyanne is one of my former students at GW Law where she also served as an adjunct professor. It is a huge responsibility and Trump supporters should be highly encouraged by her selection. She is smart, resourceful, and very disciplined. Just what the Trump campaign needs at this critical time. She also now have the distinction of being the first female to head a GOP campaign for president.
Continue reading “GW Law Grad Selected As New Trump Campaign Manager”
Fox News and conservative media has been reporting that black protesters have been hunting white citizens in retaliation for the recent police shooting, including a reporter who said in a YouTube statement that he had to leave the area in fear of being killed. The question is, if these reports are true, why there has been no hate crime reporting or Justice Department investigation. There is also a sharp conflict raised over CNN’s reporting of the statements of Sylville Smith’s sister. The sharp contrast in coverage suggests either exaggeration from one side or avoidance from another. There of course should only be one side in the reporting of news, but this is the latest example of the reason why so many mistrust the media.
A father was most likely spared a rape conviction by a lawyer’s crash reading of the best-selling sadomasochistic sex novel Fifty Shades of Grey. The accuser was his daughter who admitted that she made the allegation to get back at her father. As we have previously discussed, such false rape case often do not result in charges for the false victim. In this case, there is no reference for such charges.
Like many Muslim countries, Turkey has a long and troubling history of child brides and arranged marriages. Some Islamic clerics have maintained that there can be no age limitation on child brides. They often note that Muhammad married Aisha when she was seven and consummated the marriage at nine years old.Just as Pakistan recently struck down its protection for girls from such abuse, the Turkish Constitutional Court annulled a provision that punishes all sexual acts against children under the age of 15 as “sexual abuse.” It is a major set back for girls and women in Turkey and another example of how the Islamic fundamentalists have taken over this once secular country under the authoritarian rule of our ally Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.