“Hamilton” Performance Interrupted By Boos Directed At Pence Followed By Statement From The Cast

playbill_from_the_original_broadway_production_of_hamiltonVice 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.

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“Your Extraordinary Story”: British Woman Reports Gang Rape . . . Dubai Police Arrest Victim For Extra Marital Sex

Dubai has been promoting its country as a vacation spot to the world — a rather implausible destination for most. Attracting Western tourists to a country that follows Muslim rules is a hard sell. That was driven home by the latest outrage from an Islamic legal system after Zara-Jayne Moisey, 25, reported her gang rape and gave the names of her attackers (two British men). Dubai police responded by allowing the alleged rapists to leave the country and then arrested Moisey for criminal extra-marital sex. Welcome to Dubai, the desert paradise.

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Welcome To The Ghost Hotel: Kabul Hyatt Still Not Completed After 10 Years And $85 Million In Taxpayer Money

694940094001_5214588198001_kabul-ghost-hotel-shows-troubling-lack-of-oversightWe 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.

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Rutgers University Lecturer Arrested and Forced Into Psychiatric Evaluation After Violent Tweet

cbvr3hqi_400x400There 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.

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Clinton Aide: Hillary Lost Because Women Suffer From “Internalized Misogyny”

220px-annie_kenney_and_christabel_pankhurst-1We 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.

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Two Indian Police Officers Suspended For Faking Picture Climbing Mount Everest

280px-Everest_kalapatthar_cropWe have been discussing the trend of firings and discipline for public employees who say or do controversial things in their private lives. We have previously seen teachers, students and other public employees fired for their private speech or conduct, including school employees fired for posing in magazines, appearing on television shows in bikinis, or having a career in the adult entertainment industry. Now there is an interesting twist on this trend out of India where two police officers — Dinesh Rathod and Tarkeshwari Rathod — have been suspended after police determined that they had lied. No, not about a crime scene or investigation. They lied that they had scaled Mount Everest.

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Bats Over Ballots: Anti-Trump Rhetoric Takes Violent Turn

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.

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Shaky Case: Florida Lawyer Sues Friend For Negligent Handshake

imgresFlorida lawyer George Vallario Jr., 76, has taken a case before a jury that could be a first of its kind.  Vallario has alleged that his former friend and fellow lawyer Peter Lindley, 59, is guilty of a negligent handshake that left him seriously injured.  Lindley apparently shook his friend’s hand at a child’s birthday party, but Vallario insists that the shake was “unexpected, unprovoked, uninvited, unauthorized, uncalled for, and most certainly negligent.”

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Virginia Faculty Denounce The University President’s Quotation of Thomas Jefferson In Post-Election Email

official_presidential_portrait_of_thomas_jefferson_by_rembrandt_peale_1800university_of_virginia_seal-svgWe have previously discussed how students and faculty are stripping away the names and quotations of Founding Fathers and presidents from schools because they were slave owners or due to proven prejudices or biases. I have been critical of the trend at schools like Princeton where the faculty and students have discussed the removal of the name and images of former U.S. President Woodrow Wilson from buildings and school programs under a deal signed with protesters who objected to Wilson’s support of segregation, which was legal at the time. The move adjacent Wilson who is credited as one of Princeton’s most important figures and past presidents was shocking to many academics. Now, the University of Virginia is experiencing the same debate with its founder, Thomas Jefferson. University President Teresa Sullivan is under fire for simply quoting Jefferson in an email to students and faculty on the presidential election. Faculty have written her a letter denouncing any use of any quotation by Jefferson due to his ownership of slaves.

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Michigan Officer Suspended For Being Seen Driving With Confederate Flag on this Truck

12072716_1667424273500592_762894970367373832_nThere 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.

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Clinton: It Wasn’t Me, It Was Comey

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Photo: Tim Pierce / CC-BY

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.

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