The Weather Channel is not where one would expect a media scrum but the venerable channel went after conservative site Breitbart with a haymaker of a video after Breitbart used one of its reporters, Kait Parker, for a story suggesting that the Earth is actually getting colder. The video is below.
Continue reading “Weather Channel Gives Glacial Response To Breitbart’s Climate Change Denial”
For the first time, Israel has denied entry to a prominent traveler due to her part advocacy of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. African theologian and academic Isabel Phiri is an assistant general secretary with the World Council of Churches in Geneva. She was refused entry at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Monday afternoon. The decision has raised a long-standing concern over people being barred from Israel for their political views and protected speech. The decision this week raises the concern that millions of people supporting the BDS movement could be barred from entry on the basis of their political support for the movement.
Continue reading “Israel Bars Entry To Boycott Advocate In Major Free Speech Controversy”
This is former San Antonio police officer Matthew Luckhurst, who was fired for an extremely poor sense of humor and an even worse sense of humanity.
Continue reading “Can You Guess What This Person Was Charged With?”
There is an interesting lawsuit out of Texas where a white Austin lawyer has sued to strike down a law that imposes a race and gender quote for the governing board of the State Bar. The law requires that four of the positions be filled by women and racial or ethnic minorities. Family law attorney, Greg Gegenheimer, 38, has challenged the law under the U.S. Constitution and federal anti-discrimination laws. The Project on Fair Representation provided the lawyers assisting Gegenheimer. The Project was involved in Fisher case challenging the admission policies at the University of Texas before the Supreme Court.
We have yet another example of Islamic Sharia “law” after an Iranian court eight female modes and four male models to jail for simply modeling clothes. Declaring such standard pictures as unIslamic and “vice,” the models were sentenced to periods ranging from one year to six years.
Continue reading “Iran Jails 12 Models For “Vice” After Merely Modeling Clothes”
We recently discussed how Democrats seeking the removal of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi were called “sexist” for merely seeking change after the disastrous 2016 election. 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. However, democratic members overwhelmingly elected Pelosi again as minority leader in what was seen as a slap in the face of those who want to see serious change in the party. Within a couple days of her reelection, Pelosi went on the air to declare that everyone is wrong and people really do not want a new direction. They want the same leadership like her to pursue the very same course that has led to historic losses under her leadership in the House. It was the same dismissive logic applied by the Democratic National Committee and Democratic leadership (including Pelosi) in engineering the nomination of Hillary Clinton, the ultimate establishment figure when polls showed an overriding preference for an outsider and record low favorability numbers for Clinton (particularly on issues of honesty). The question is whether the obvious anger inside and outside the party will galvanize into continued opposition. The establishment seems to be betting on people forgetting about serious reforms or wanting other options than the current duopoly of power held by the Republicans and Democrats. Retaining the very same leadership in both parties may be just what reformers had hoped: a clear signal that any changes in Washington will require the continuation of the popular movement seen in the last election.
Continue reading “Pelosi: “I Don’t Think People Want A New Direction””
In 2010, I (and others) criticized the Democratic leadership (including then Majority Leader Harry Reid and many of the continuing Democratic senators) for their use of the “nuclear option” in curtailing the power of the filibuster. I was equally critical of Republican leaders who previously suggested such a course of action. It was remarkably short-sighted and, like so many moves during this period, impulsive. The Democrats acted with little concern that they might ever be in the minority and need this critical power. They muscled through the Affordable Care Act on a marginal vote that cost various members their seats and passed a highly flawed bill that was plagued by problems of bad drafting and poor planning. Moreover, they secured relatively few confirmations to federal office. Now, however, the bill will come due for the Democrats as they long for the minority rights that they so blithely threw away. The first such cost will likely occur in the waiver that will be given to Gen. James N. Mattis who has not satisfied the requisite seven years to pass since retirement in order to become Secretary of Defense.
Continue reading “A Bill Comes Due For Democrats: The Use of the “Nuclear Option” Will Now Curtail The Powers Of The Democrats In The Senate”
We have previously discussed the banning of masterpieces due to contemporary objections to language or content. It is an assault on classic works that threaten the foundation for education in our country. A recent decision from a Virginia school to temporarily remove “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain and “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee is a tragic case in point. The school reportedly pulled the books after a parent said her high school-age son was negatively affected by the inclusion of racial slurs in the books, which deal with racism in those periods.
Hampshire College in Massachusetts caused a national outrage when the Administration ordered the placing of the American flag at half staff after Election Day. It then ordered the the removal of all flags after the flag was found burned on the ground. The flag has now been returned and College President Jonathan Lash is insisting that it was all a positive exercise of free speech. I disagree.
Continue reading “Hampshire College Raises American Flag After Weeks of Controversy”
As I mentioned yesterday, I am visiting Orlando to give a keynote speech at the Federal Bar Association on the Supreme Court. I have brought my youngest with me for the trip. Madie and I have had a ball visiting the Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom on the first two days. The Association was generous enough to put us at the Waldorf-Astoria near the parks, which I will describe later for those interested in Orlando hotels.
Continue reading “Orlando: The Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom”
We recently discussed the courageous stand of the University of Chicago in favor of free speech (a position followed by schools like Purdue). We can now add the Cardiff University in Wales as a school standing with free speech principles over demands for censorship and “safe zones”. Conversely, student leaders at Tufts University unanimously voted against a measure protecting free speech by addressing the vague and fluid terms used to curtail free speech.
Continue reading “Cardiff and Tufts Universities: Two Divergent Paths On Free Speech”
Donald Trump has set off a new controversy with a signature early morning tweet. Trump lashed out at those who burn American flags and said that they should be punished for their actions. The problem is that this question was already answered by the Supreme Court, which found that such acts (while despicable) are constitutionally protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Continue reading “Trump Calls For Punishing Those Who Burn The American Flag”
There is an interesting case out of Denver where Heidi Hemmat at KDVR Fox 31 has resigned after death threats tied to her investigation of a local business. The threat however was not made to her directly but reported by the psychiatrist treating the owner. It appears to be a direct application of the ruling in Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California, 17 Cal. 3d 425, 551 P.2d 334, 131 Cal. Rptr. 14 (Cal. 1976), requiring doctors to disclose threats made by patients to their potential victims.
Continue reading “Reporter Resigns After Receiving Threats Over Investigative Story”
George Washington (where I teach at the law school) has become the focus of national attention due to a letter sent out by a collection of student groups that declared the security supplied by campus police to be an “act of violence” because police are viewed as supporting President-elect Donald Trump. It is an absurd and insulting position — part of a tirade by the groups calling for everything from providing sanctuary to undocumented immigrants to breaking down patriarchy, Islamophobia, and a myriad of other social ills. The deep sense of community and societal concerns reflected in the letter is a good thing and something that this university has always fostered. However, the gratuitous slap at our campus police is neither productive nor warranted.
Continue reading “GW Student Groups Denounce Campus Security Protection As “Act of Violence””
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.
