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February 2017

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 06, 2017 31 Comments
UK House of Commons Speaker John Bercow has announced he does not want President Donald Trump to speak at Parliament during a state visit. Bercow does not want any Members of Parliament (MP) to face backlash over the president's speech. So if Trump does make a speech, he may have to give it at the Royal Gallery instead of Westminster Hall, which was built in the 11th century. The Royal Gallery came into completion "800 years later and currently covered in scaffolding." British Prime Minister Theresa May invited Trump when she met with him last week at the White House.

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 06, 2017 4 Comments
Back in 2011, flight attendant Sheila Frederick saved a teen girl from human trafficking on her Alaska Airlines flight after she noticed something just was not right. Frederick said the teenager "looked like she had been through pure hell" and had greasy blonde hair. She also noticed the teen had "a well-dressed older man" as a travel companion. When she tried to converse with the two, the man became defensive. Frederick knew she had to do something. Human trafficking took over the news cycle over the weekend due to the Super Bowl. Studies have shown that human trafficking tends to rise on busy travel days. For years, though, flight attendants have gone through training to spot human trafficking much like Frederick's case.

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 06, 2017 8 Comments
Self avowed socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) inspired many people during his presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton. Somehow, though, I don't think he expected himself to inspire styles during Paris's fashion week.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on February 06, 2017 45 Comments
On CNN this morning, David Gregory, speaking of President Trump's tweeting—and specifically, those from this weekend criticizing the judge who blocked his executive order on immigration—said: "he sounds like an old man sitting on his porch yelling at somebody to get off his lawn." Added Gregory: "you've had in the first 18 days, successive weekends where he has completely derailed what his administration is trying to do with a kind of personal indulgence by attacking people personally, launching an attack on the separation of powers. But what it really comes down to is this obsession with himself, and I think that's going to start to wear thin."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 06, 2017 25 Comments
Late last night the State of Washington filed its opposition to the government's Emergency Motion for a Stay pending appeal from the District Court Temporary Restraining Order halting Trump's Immigration Executive Order. The government's motion was extremely strong, correctly pegging the court order as an improper usurpation by the District Court Judge of national security decisions reserved to the President. The 9th Circuit denied the stay request Saturday night until the opponents had a chance to submit papers, setting a briefing schedule to have the motion fully submitted by 3 p.m. Pacific time today. I am not going to have time to fully analyze the legal papers filed in opposition, as I have to hit the road for a long drive shortly.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 05, 2017 11 Comments
You may recall how, on January 12, 2017, I was taken completely by surprise when Legal Insurrection's YouTube account was removed without notice based on copyright claims, YouTube has removed Legal Insurrection’s Channel:
YouTube took down Legal Insurrection’s Channel without any prior notice based on “multiple third-party claims of copyright infringement,” but we never received any claims of infringement.

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 05, 2017 12 Comments
So the left lost its mind because President Donald Trump said America isn't so innocent after Fox News's Bill O'Reilly stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a killer. I don't blame them. Putin is a killer. He's a schemer that will do anything to grab what he wants. But where was this outrage in 2008 when then-presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama wanted to start over with Russia? Where was this outrage when then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton handed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a reset button?

Posted by Leslie Eastman on February 05, 2017 15 Comments
The UK Daily Mail just published startling evidence that the world’s leading source of climate data rushed to release a widely-cited paper that exaggerated global warming and was timed to influence the Paris Agreement on climate change.
A high-level whistleblower has told this newspaper that America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) breached its own rules on scientific integrity when it published the sensational but flawed report, aimed at making the maximum possible impact on world leaders including Barack Obama and David Cameron at the UN climate conference in Paris in 2015.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 05, 2017 57 Comments
Muhammad Walid al-Quqa, the explosives chief of Hamas, reportedly blew himself up in what commonly is referred to as a "work accident." The Palestinian Ma'an News Agency reports:
A Hamas fighter succumbed on Sunday to wounds he sustained a day earlier in an “accidental explosion” in the northern Gaza Strip, the Ministry of Health said.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on February 05, 2017 45 Comments
On Al Sharpton's MSNBC show today, Rep. Barbara Lee of California, a member of the congressional Black and Progressive caucuses, called for the removal of Steve Bannon from his position on the National Security Council, and more generally from his White House on President Trump's staff. Lee mentioned that the Black, Progressive, Hispanic and Asian Pacific caucuses had written a letter to President Trump asking for Bannon's removal from the NSC. But Lee went further, twice stating that they were looking into a "legal mechanism" for the removal of Bannon.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on February 05, 2017 16 Comments
Milo Yiannopoulos isn't the only conservative who needed a security escort from a public event in California this week. So did one of our state's Congressmen:
Congressman Tom McClintock, a Republican from California, on Saturday faced a rowdy crowd at a packed town hall meeting in Northern California, and had to be escorted by police as protesters followed him shouting "Shame on you!"
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