We have followed the actions of various universities and colleges to bar conservative speech either by declaring their positions as hate speech or claiming a campus security risk. One of the targets of this content-based censorship has been conservative British commentator Milo Yiannopoulos. Now, Yiannopoulos, 32, has been barred from speaking at his own former grammar school in the United Kingdom: Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys in Canterbury.
A woman went to Facebook and made a claim that led to an intensive police investigation in Washington: She claimed to have been raped but that the Kirkland Police Department refused to even file a report. People were outraged and the police launched in investigation only to locate the woman who admitted that she made the whole thing up. Her defense? She was “distraught over the recent election.” Police have not filed any charges and have withheld the identity of the woman. Some may find it curious that, while she had no hesitation in defaming police officers and their department with a false allegation, her own identity will be protected.
Continue reading “Woman Falsely Claims That She Was Raped And Police Refused To File Crime Report”
There was an interesting recent interview of President Barack Obama by the German media giant Der Spiegel. In the interview, President Obama insisted that he could not pardon Edward Snowden as a matter of constitutional law. He is manifestly wrong. While the President may not want to pardon someone who deeply embarrassed him and his Administration, he is entirely capable of pardoning Snowden who is widely viewed as a whistleblower.
Continue reading “Pardon Me? Obama Wrongly States That He Cannot Pardon Edward Snowdon”
Kirk Nurmi, the attorney for Arizona murderer Jodi Arias, has avoided disbarment by voluntarily accepting a suspension for four years after writing a tell-all book about his infamous client. Nurmi allegedly sought to cash in on his representation by revealing confidential information in his self-published book, “Trapped with Ms. Arias.” It wasn’t Arias but ethics that trapped Nurmi.
Continue reading “Publish and Perish: Court-Appointed Lawyer For Arias Suspended For Tell-All Book”
We have seen the erosion of civil liberties with the rise of the Islamic parties in Turkey under the autocratic rule of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Like many Muslim countries, Turkey has a long and troubling history of child brides and arranged marriages. Recently, the Turkish Constitutional Court annulled a provision that punishes all sexual acts against children under the age of 15 as “sexual abuse.” Now, a bill which would allow men accused of raping underage girls to be cleared if they marry the girl has been preliminarily backed by Turkish MPs. Notably, the bill would pardon men only if they had sex without “force or threat” and if they married the victim. However, that would legitimate child marriage.
We have previously discussed how some European countries limit the names that can be given to chidren, including some with approved lists of names. We have seen such controversies arise in this country with children, for example, named after Adolph Hitler. However, this generally remains a protected right of parents in the United States. The latest case comes out of France where a court will decide whether a Muslim family can use the name of Mohamed Merah, an Islamic radical who killed seven people in 2012.
Continue reading “French Parents Fight To Give Infant The Name of Notorious Terrorist”
An accident out of Clarksville, Tennessee sounds as if it were written for a torts exam. Around 5 pm, a car hit a deer in downtown Clarksville and sent the deer flying. The deer then landed on a pedestrian who had to go to a hospital for broken bones.
Continue reading “Tennessee Pedestrian Struck Down By Flying Deer”
Vice 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.
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.
We 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.
There 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.
We 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.
Continue reading “Clinton Aide: Hillary Lost Because Women Suffer From “Internalized Misogyny””
We 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.
Continue reading “Two Indian Police Officers Suspended For Faking Picture Climbing Mount Everest”
This is one that you might actually get, but it involves the curious response of Robert Scott, 78, to a 29-year-old woman who rejected his advances in Louisiana.
Continue reading “Can You Guess What This Person Was Charged With?”
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.
Continue reading “Bats Over Ballots: Anti-Trump Rhetoric Takes Violent Turn”