North Carolina prosecutors have filed a relatively rare incest prosecution. According to WNCN-TV, Steven Pladl, 42, of Knightdale, and Katie Pladl, 20, were arrested last week for an incestuous relationship that produced a child. It is truly disturbing and disgusting account, which includes the knowledge of two younger children.
Category: Society
According to Stanford University students, one of these flyers is a public service and one is hate speech. There is a controversy at Stanford University reported by College Fix over the distribution of the flyer on the right — a satirical jab at posters encouraging students and faculty to report any ICE activity. It is clearly satirical and political, but some Stanford students declared it to be hate speech and filed complaints with the university that they now felt unsafe and threatened on campus. The flyers were removed by residential staff.
There is a controversy at a Staten Island elementary school over the cancellation of the annual father-daughter dance because it was viewed violative of the new Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Student Guidelines that went into effect in March 2017. Jared Fox, the DOE’s LGBT community liaison, is quoted as saying “Father-daughter dances inherently leave people out. Not just because of transgender status, just life in general.”
It wasn’t the Russian interference in the election or the presidential election itself. It was not the tax cuts or Hurricanes Maria or Harvey. However, with today’s Super Bowl fans appear united in rooting against the New England Patriots. A combination of past scandals and, let’s face it, dominion in the league, most fans appear to be tuning in to root against the Patriots as opposed to for the Eagles. For my part, I am in it for the good football despite the terrible omission of the greatest football legacy on Earth . . . the Chicago Bears. The good thing is that I can watch Alshon Jeffery catch balls and cheer for the appearance of at least on Bear in the Super Bowl this year.
Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the controversy over the four-page memo continues to simmer in Washington. The memo will not change the course of the Mueller investigation. It may lead however to new investigations. Indeed, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has referred the matter to internal investigators while members have called for a new special counsel. There remains considerable questions over representations on both sides in the dispute. For example, various Democrats have publicly stated that Deputy Director Andrew McCabe did not say that, absent the dossier, the FBI would probably not have received approval of its FISA application. What is clear is that someone is lying to the American people. Indeed, as the column below discusses, the public was already misled on the classified content of the memo.Here is the column:
We recently discussed the arrest of a Northwestern professor and Oxford official in a murder in Chicago. Now a prominent Oxford professor of contemporary Islamic studies has been arrested in France after two women accused him of brutal sexual assaults. Tariq Ramadan, 55, is a Swiss academic who is also the grandson of Hassan al-Banna (founder of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood movement). He denies the charges stemming from alleged rapes in two separate hotel rooms. One of the rapes is charged as a sexual assault on a vulnerable person because the woman was disabled. Both rapes allegedly occurred during academic conferences.
Continue reading “Oxford Professor Charged With Two Rapes In France”
Reed College has reached an agreement to revise a mandatory freshman humanities course focused on the Western Canon after protests that the course was . . . . well . . . to Western. Students denounced the curriculum as “Caucasoid” and “Eurocentric.” The decision of Reed College comes after the respected academic journal, American Historical Review announced that it was going to “decolonize” the publication. In a new column, Alex Lichtenstein, professor of history at Indiana University at Bloomington and editor of American Historical Review declared “I have come to believe that the AHR should take the risk of confronting its own potential complicity in the inability of the profession to divest itself fully of its past lack of openness to scholars and scholarship due to race, color, creed, gender, sexuality, nationality and a host of other assigned characteristics.”
I will be discussing the memo today in a column in the Hill as well as in the segment with Tucker Carlson. I fail to see the “grave” classified information that would put the national security at risk. Indeed, my column addresses the disconnect between the objections made by the FBI and Democratic members and the actual memo. The use of classification laws to prevent disclosure of embarrassing information is itself an abuse of federal law and standards.
The Republicans may have undermined their case by building up this memo as a smoking gun document. Portrayals seems to make this memo the virtual combination of the Pentagon Papers and the Zimmerman telegram. After all of the build up, anything short of a depiction of Hillary Clinton forcing a judge to sign a secret warrant at gunpoint would disappoint most readers. However, there is plenty in this memo that should deeply concern people.
Civil libertarians have complained for years about the tactical use of classification authority by the federal agencies. This seems a rare and important example of that problem. As to the specific factual representations, they raise clearly troubling questions that need to be addressed on the failure to disclosure information to the FISA court and the alleged heavy reliance on this dossier.
Below is the full memo:
Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the move by the House Intelligence Committee to release the four-page memo on alleged FBI abuse. The FBI has objected that “omissions” have made the memo “inaccurate.” However, that does not sound like a classification defense. Indeed, a long-standing objection is that the intelligence agencies classify material that is embarrassing or damaging to the agency politically. Since the memo reportedly deals with the use of the dossier for a FISA warrant, it would seem possible to draft a memo that did not compromise methods and sources. We will soon likely know, according to reports that President Donald Trump has reviewed the document and decided to release it. He is ultimately the final word on classification status in the Executive Branch.
Here is the column:
We recently discussed the striking down of one of the state laws barring contractors who support the boycotting of Israel. In New Zealand, however, a similar law is in effect and a pro-Israel group is suing two people for simply encouraging pop singer Lorde not to hold a planned concert in Israel. The lawsuit demonstrates the danger to free speech in these laws, which seeks to punish people for their political views, association, and speech. As many on this blog know, I generally oppose any laws that curtail free speech and view the solution to bad speech to be better speech — not criminalized speech. This has nothing to do the merits of the boycotts; only the means used to oppose such views. I have not problem with fans or promoters suing Lorde over a cancelled concert if they lost money. This goes to the right of people to boycott a country due to their personal or political views.
We previously discussed the controversial decisions to drop the “Fighting Sioux” and “Chief Illini” and the Pioneers and the Aztecs. I have been critical of some of these moves in cases where the schools honored the history of different groups. Indeed, schools like Illinois had a student work for a couple years in understanding Chief Illini and the history before their name. While I was more sympathetic to objections to the name of the team, I also opposed the effort of the government to strip the Redskins of trademark protections. Despite the opposition, I supported the decision of the Cleveland Indians to drop the Chief Wahoo logo, though I do not support demands that they change their team name. Now, however, some have called for the dropping of the famous Blackhawk logo — perhaps the most recognizable and legendary symbol in hockey. Since I am an unabashed Blackhawks fans, this will likely be dismissed as the bias of a Chicago native but I fail to see the compelling rationale for such a change.
The plot thickened last night over the anticipated release of a four-page memo from the House Intelligence Committee. California Rep. Adam Schiff (D) publicly accused House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) of giving President Trump a “secretly altered” version of the memo to review for possible release. The Schiff allegation raises an interesting issue under the House that could theoretically warrant judicial review (though the outcome is far from certain). The Committee staff is arguing that the changes were minor edits, including grammatical changes.
There is another disturbing report alleging that, despite all of the damage caused by President Donald Trump allegedly asking former FBI Director for a pledge of loyalty, he asked Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein whether he was “on my team” before Rosenstein testified before Congress. Notably, in the hearing, Rosenstein was asked “Is it ever appropriate for a president of the United States to demand a Department of Justice official or FBI director to take a loyalty pledge?” He replied “I don’t have any opinion about that. Nobody has asked me to take a loyalty pledge other than the oath of office.”
A District Court judge in Kansas has handed down a major free speech victory this week in striking down the state law requiring all state contractors “to certify that they are not engaged in a boycott of Israel.” We have previously discussed these laws and my view that they impinge upon the first amendment. The laws include making victims of natural disasters attest that they do not support a boycott of Israel as well as similar bans on student groups. Now the Kansas law has been struck down as a denial of free speech by District Court Judge Daniel Crabtree. It is the Koontz case that we previously discussed.
Continue reading “Federal Court Strikes Down Kansas Law Against Israeli Boycotters”
Many of us have noticed a sharp increase in the number of animals on planes. These “comfort” or emotional support animals used to be small dogs but now people are bringing on not just large dogs but a wide variety of animals including small ponies, turkeys, pigs, and snakes. When airlines have balked at some of the animals, they have been threatened with disability lawsuits. United Airlines however drew the line recently when a woman showed up with this large peacock as her therapy animal at Newark Liberty International Airport.