Pakistan continues to remind the West that it remains a country struggling with Islamic extremists — encouraged by the country’s lack of separation between mosque and state. The latest victim of such extremism is a college student named Mashal Khan who was accused of merely sharing a message on social media deemed blasphemous. The response of these self-professed godly men in the northern city of Mardan was to beat the victim to death in the name of Islamic morality. What is even more distressing is that the culprits appear to be fellow students. They no doubt learned this particular lesson from the government itself (and our ally) which still makes blasphemy a capital offense.
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Elevators were at the center to two ironic stories this week. The first, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson’s two-day visit to Miami to discuss the challenges for public housing. His most immediate challenge was getting out of the elevator at the Courtside Family Apartments in Overtown. In the meantime in England, Australian tourists Browyn and Graham Cowan went to Court after suing over an elevator mishap with the Tower Bridge. They then missed their court date because . . . you guessed it . . . the court elevator trapped them.
There is an interesting legal claim raised by Arturo Di Modica, the sculptor of Wall Street’s “Charging Bull” statue. The bull has long been the cherished symbol of Wall Street. However, recently a small sculpture of “Fearless Girl” was added to face the bull. The result is a striking image but a different image from the original art work. 
Below is my column on the unfolding future of the Supreme Court after the confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch and the elimination of filibusters in the selection of Supreme Court nominees. For years, commentators have been discussing the timing of the retirement of our older justices, including Justice Ginsburg. There was rising concern when Ginsburg decided to stay on the Court past the midterm mark of the second Obama term. Those concerns have now been magnified and realized with the Trump election and filibuster elimination. Of course, the same concerns are raised by the possible retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote on the current Court. 
Below is my recent column in The Hill Newspaper on the Rice controversy. Media spins for Rice continue including MSNBC “AM Joy” host Joy Reid describing the softball interview with Andrea Mitchell as a type of “Government for Dummies” lecture: “She was on with our own Andrea Mitchell yesterday trying to explain how government works, for those that don’t know.” Of course, unmasking political opponents (if the allegations are proven to be true), would not be how the government is supposed work. Nor is alleged lying about knowing nothing about the unmasking in prior interviews — a curious conflict with Reid’s take that Rice was trying to explain how government works. This was Rice’s second or third explanation.
We have been discussing the alarming rollback on free speech on United States campuses with the active or passive support of university and college administrators (with the 
We have been discussing how the Trump Administration seems to be moving aggressively in the opposite direction of much of the world: betting heavily on coal as an energy source as opposed to renewable energy. One group that does not appear onboard with the shift is the Kentucky Coal Mining Museum in Benham, KY. The
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