We have been following the controversy surrounding the outrageous conduct of University of Missouri Mass communications professor Melissa Click attacking the media covering a “Black Lives Matter” protest.” She has now been charged with third-degree assault — an offense that is criminal but likely to result in only a fine.
Continue reading “University of Missouri Communications Professor To Be Charged With Assault”
We have been reporting on the protests occurring on college campuses and the troubling demands sometimes made by the “Black Lives Matter” movement in terms of academic components and programs, including college newspapers. Oberlin College President Marvin Krislov finally had enough after receiving a list of rambling demands from black students — demands declared to be nonnegotiable for the Administration. Krislov correctly refused to concede core control over the academic mission and yield to such demands which included things like the firing of certain employees and enrolling recently released prisoners.
Continue reading “Oberlin President Rejects List of Rambling Demands From Black Students”
New York city has reportedly agreed to pay two Occupy Wall Street protesters $52,000 for their arrest in 2013 after flipping off two New York City police officers on a Queens subway train. The arrests of Nicholas Thommen, 21, and Channing Creage, 26, clearly violated the first amendment and lacked probable cause of any crime. The question is not the settlement but, again, the absence of any indication of discipline of these officers for knowingly violating the constitutional rights of citizens.
Continue reading “New York Settles Case Of The Arrest Of Two Protesters For Insulting Police”
Even in our crime infested world, there is occasionally a crime that takes your breath away. In Sweden, this guy took that distinction when he combined the pickpocketing of an elderly woman and an assault on another woman with children who tried to help her. He punched the mother in front of her children and spat on her.
By: Cara L. Gallagher, weekend contributor
On its face, the freedom to express support for a political candidate seems exactly like the kind of speech the First Amendment was intended to protect. But such expressions are limited for individuals who work in the public sector. Police, fire department workers, and public school teachers – because tax dollars pay their salaries, city officials can suspend or terminate such employees for certain forms of political expression. That’s not to say they can muzzle all political speech. Public employees are voters with opinions who are just as entitled to engage in political discourse as private employees. In the town of Paterson, New Jersey, however, “overt involvement in a political election” is one example of a regulation that public employees can be penalized for violating. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard a case about whether or not a police officer’s actions of picking up a political sign for a local election count as overt involvement in a political election or is protected under the First Amendment. Continue reading “In the SCOTUS: Public employees, political speech, & errands for Mom”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
The weather here was cool and sunny. As an act of mercy for youse guys in the Northeast I thought I would help warm your spirits and stomachs with a recipe. I made this for dinner tonight. Of course, your stores are depleted from the pandemonium inherent with some folks facing two or three days of snow. But if you can scrape a few things together, you might enjoy some Salmon & Sweet Potato Soup.
Continue reading “Snow Soup For You! Something for the DC Shut-ins”
We are all hunkered down in our house with two feet of snow outside with drifts of around five feet. My Chicago upbringing however is hardwired. I cannot stay inside the house with a snow covered driveway. I just can’t. So I have cleared my driveway and can now drive to the wall of about three feet of snow on the street. In Virginia, they call snow removal “Spring.” However, I can drive up and down my driveway in a personal triumph against winter.
Continue reading “Man v. Snow: The Eternal Struggle Continues . . .”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
An open letter to Vladimir Putin, President of Russia
President Putin,
As you are certainly aware, a great controversy is roiling here in the United States where a former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, maintained, diverted, and in some cases destroyed official email correspondence associated with her duties. She hosted these records on a personal home-brew email server maintained under her control. We are encountering difficulty obtaining these records and we ask for your assistance.
Continue reading “Mr. Putin, Please Release Hillary Clinton’s Email”
There is another surprising report out today on the Clinton email scandal. Fox News Reporter Catherine Herridge is reporting that at least one of the emails on Hillary Clinton’s private server contained extremely sensitive information identified as “HCS-O,” the code used for reporting on human intelligence sources in ongoing operations. We previously discussed the disclosure that emails had been identified with Special Access Program information that even the Inspector General could not review without added clearances. In the meantime, some in the Clinton camp may be singing “Let It Snow, Let It Snow.” The State Department is citing the winter storm for yet another delay in releasing the remaining emails — possibly pushing their release past the first primary contests. Any break would likely be welcomed, particularly after a growing number of people including Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates have said that Clinton’s decision to use an unsecure private email system probably resulted in the emails being hacked by various hostile powers.
Continue reading “Report: Clinton Emails Contained Human Intelligence Classified At Highest Levels”
Former LSU Education Professor Teresa Buchanan has filed an interesting federal civil rights lawsuit against the President of Louisiana State University and other school officials, claiming that the school’s sexual harassment rules (modeled on the rules crafted by the Department of Education) violated free speech and due process. I have been a critic of actions taken by the Administration against universities in forcing schools to strip students and faculty of due process rights. We previously discussed the controversy HERE.
We have previously discussed the wacky views of Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh like declaring that Twitter is “the source of all evil and devastation.” Now the grand mufti has ruled that chess is forbidden in Islam even though Arabs helped spread chess around the world after conquering Persia in the Seventh Century. Yet, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s supreme Shia religious authority, has previously issued rulings forbidding chess. Likewise, after the 1979 revolution in Iran, chess was declared haram, or forbidden.
Continue reading “Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Declares Chess UnIslamic”
I often like to combine my business trips with a travel blog, particularly in discussing different hotels for our readers who travel on business or pleasure. Unfortunately, what I have hoped to be a couple days in Denver (one of my favorite cities) turned into a one day affair due to the approaching snow storm in Washington. Right after my argument in the Sister Wives case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, I dashed to the Denver airport to beat the storm. However, I was not without something to report. Whenever I go to Denver, I stay at the Oxford Hotel — a hotel that I have used for two decades. I have never however done a travel blog on the Oxford, which is strange because it is in many ways my ideal of a hotel.
I am in Denver this morning about to argue the Sister Wives case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. There will be a delay in posting today as a result.
Continue reading “Sisters Wives Case Goes To The Tenth Circuit [Updated]”
Fox News and NBC are reporting that Congress has been informed that Hillary Clinton’s unsecure home server contained information classified at levels higher than previously known, including classified Top Secret/Special Access. That would represent some of the most sensitive information to U.S. intelligence. I have held a TSSCI clearance since the Reagan Administration and I am again astonished by the remarkably bad judgment in the use of this server. In dealing with this type of information, it is generally restricted to SCIF and other highly restrictive access rules. Indeed, the limitations impose restrictions that have many of us grumbling constantly about the time and travel needed to deal with such documents in a safe and secure manner. CNN is reporting that “several dozen” new emails have been identified at the high classification level.
In a major victory for Congress, U.S. District Judge Amy Jackson Berman rejected the executive privilege claims of the Obama Administration in withholding documents from a House Committee looking into the Fast and Furious “gun-walking” scandal. I have long maintained that the refusal of the Administration to turn over material to this and other committees is denial of congressional authority protected under Article I. The case is Comm. on Oversight & Gov’t Reform v. Lynch, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5713.