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Author: Kemberlee Kaye

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Kemberlee Kaye

Kemberlee Kaye is the Senior Contributing Editor of Legal Insurrection, where she has worked since 2014 and is the Director of Operations and Editorial Development for the Legal Insurrection Foundation. She also serves as the Managing Editor for CriticalRace.org, a research project of the Legal Insurrection Foundation.

She has a background working in immigration law, and as a grassroots organizer, digital media strategist, campaign lackey, and muckraker. Over the years Kemberlee has worked with FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, James O'Keefe's Project Veritas, and US Senate re-election campaigns, among others. 

Kemberlee, her daughter, and her son live a lovely taco-filled life in their native Texas.

You can reach her anytime via email at kk @ legalinsurrection.com.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 25, 2015 47 Comments
Nazis. Nazis are now part of the presidential discussion and John Kasich is to blame. A new web ad released by Ohio Governor Kasich Wednesday attacks Donald Trump's "dangerous rhetoric." The ad goes:
“You might not care if Donald Trump says Muslims should register with their government, because you’re not one. And you might not care if Donald Trump says he’s going to round up all the Hispanic immigrants, because you’re not one. And you might not care if Donald Trump says it’s okay to rough up black protesters, because you’re not one. And you might not care if Donald Trump wants to suppress journalists, because you’re not one. But think about this: If he keeps going, and he actually becomes president, he might just get around to you. And you better hope there’s someone left to help you.”
Sound familiar? As National Review's Jim Geraghty pointed out, the ad dialogue is modeled after Pastor Martin Niemoller’s famous poem:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 24, 2015 28 Comments
Earlier today, Turkey shot down a Russian fighter plane after repeated warnings.
According to the Turkish military, officials warned “an unidentified aircraft” ten times over the course of five minutes that its path would violate Turkish airspace over the border town of Yayladagi, in Hatay province. A spokesman for U.S. officials leading the coalition from Baghdad confirmed that his team heard Turkish officials give those warnings over “open channels.” NATO called an emergency meeting today to address rapidly escalating tensions between Turkey and Russia, where Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stood in solidarity with Turkey.
According to The Telegraph, Obama spoke with the Turkish president who's said they're working to avoid any repeats of todays events:
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, has spoken to Barack Obama by telephone. The Turkish presidency said: "They were in accord on the importance of de-escalating tensions and making arrangements to prevent a repeat of such incidents." They also expressed their commitment to a bringing about a transitional political process for peace in Syria and joint determination to continue the fight against Isil, the statement added.
Shortly after news of the skirmish broke, Senator Rubio joined Fox News and was asked how the U.S. should respond. Rubio explained that if Turkey finds itself threatened by Russia, the U.S. must respond and defend the Turks.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 24, 2015 17 Comments
The Obama's Administration's whitewashing of language might have played well with the social justice warrior brigade, but voters aren't buying it. A survey released by Rasmussen found 60% of likely voters believe America is at war with Radical Islam. Rasmussen reported:
President Obama, Hillary Clinton and other senior Democrats refuse to say America is at war with “radical Islamic terrorism” for fear of insulting all Muslims, but voters beg to disagree. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 60% of Likely U.S. Voters believe the United States is at war with radical Islamic terrorism. Just 24% share the president’s position and disagree. Sixteen percent (16%) are undecided.
Pouring salt in the social justice wound, a whopping 56% of self-identifying Democrats also believe radical Islamist terrorists are our foe compared to 70% of those identifying as Republican. And the data just gets more interesting:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 24, 2015 38 Comments
A post by Ed Lasky over at the American Thinker is making its way around the internet. Lasky suggests a little known bill introduced by Senator Rubio may have killed Obamacare. Naturally, we had to dig in. Rubio first introduced similar legislation in 2013. Lumped into the 2014 Omnibus bill, the act passed. Because it was globbed into an appropriations bill, it has an expiration date. The Obamacare Taxpayer Bailout Prevention Act was re-introduced by Rubio in January, the first piece of legislation he introduced in 2015, with companion legislation introduced by Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland. The current version would eliminate tax-payer funded bailouts completely. The Obamacare Taxpayer Bailout Prevention Act's premise is simple -- amend the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by striking out section 1342. Sen. Rubio's office explained in January:
The bill would repeal section 1342 of ObamaCare, which establishes a risk corridor program to distribute money from exchange plans that earned profits to exchange plans that suffered losses. However, the risk corridor program was not designed to be budget neutral, and section 1342 of ObamaCare puts the American taxpayer at risk of a taxpayer bailout if insurers systematically lose money on exchange plans. By repealing Section 1342, the legislation would force the administration to come back to Congress to request appropriations to cover any losses in the program. ...“Under December’s omnibus spending bill, taxpayers are protected from bailing out insurance companies until September 30, but now Congress has the opportunity to take the possibility of a bailout off the table for good,” added Rubio. “By passing this bill, Congress will ensure that no bailout will occur, in 2016 or ever.”

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 23, 2015 26 Comments
I suppose this is one way to look at things, but it's certainly not the slightest bit accurate. Sunday, President Obama accused Republicans of helping ISIS (though he always uses 'ISIL') by attacking Syrian refugees. Unsurprisingly, not one Republican has attacked any Syrian refugee. What Republicans have done is vocalize the same concerns articulated by U.S. intelligence agencies on the refugee vetting process. Namely, that because our intelligence ground game in Syria has been so weak, we have no data with which to vet an influx of refugee status seekers properly, at least not for the time being. However, that little factoid didn't stop President Obama from continuing his verbal assault on Republicans and a bevy of Democrats who've vowed to halt the president's refugee plan. Politico reported:
ISIL’s still not the varsity team, President Barack Obama said Sunday, but if Republicans running for president and in Congress continue to respond to attacks by playing off fears, they’re doing the terrorists’ work for them.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 22, 2015 12 Comments
Polling released by Pew late last week reiterates a disturbing trend among the millennial crowd -- the desire to censor free speech. Pew looked specifically at statements offensive to minorities.
We asked whether people believe that citizens should be able to make public statements that are offensive to minority groups, or whether the government should be able to prevent people from saying these things. Four-in-ten Millennials say the government should be able to prevent people publicly making statements that are offensive to minority groups, while 58% said such speech is OK. Even though a larger share of Millennials favor allowing offensive speech against minorities, the 40% who oppose it is striking given that only around a quarter of Gen Xers (27%) and Boomers (24%) and roughly one-in-ten Silents (12%) say the government should be able to prevent such speech.
The findings also show women are more likely to want government censorship of offensive speech than men and that the belief in limited free speech increases as level of education decreases.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 21, 2015 3 Comments
Hillary Clinton's widely publicized public hearing before the House Select Committee on Benghazi did not signify the end of the committee's investigation. Earlier this week, the House Select Committee interviewed an unnamed witness from the State Department. Sarah Westwood of the Washington Examiner has that story:
Members of the House Select Committee on Benghazi interviewed an unnamed State Department witness Wednesday in a closed-door, transcribed session. The witness, who worked on Libya policy at the agency, was the third interviewed by the committee since its highly-publicized hearing with Hillary Clinton on Oct. 22.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 20, 2015 11 Comments
Wednesday, I argued that debate over the Syrian refugee crisis detracts from the heart of the issue -- President Obama’s incompetency combatting radical Muslim terrorist cells. Had this administration some semblance of strategy or will to win, the contentious and overly politicized refugee debate would be nonexistent. There would be no need for for the masses to flee heinously violent Islamist terrorists.
The better discussion here is not refugees that will take at least 18 months to vet, but how an absence of overall strategy has resulted in an emboldened ISIS. Speaking from Turkey earlier this week, President Obama renewed his commitment to stay the course with the current strategy to fight ISIS (whatever that is) and admitted he has no interest in, “pursuing some notion of American leadership or America winning,” an attitude that become more obvious by the day.
Prior to Thursday's House vote to halt President Obama's Syrian refugee proposal, Rep. Trey Gowdy also argued that, "the people in charge of our foreign policy seem more interested in treating the symptoms," rather than addressing why thousands are fleeing their homeland.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 18, 2015 12 Comments
Wednesday, Bloomberg released a poll that captured national attitudes on America's commitment to take in 10,000 Syrian refugees. In the wake of Friday's Paris attacks, 53% of Americans polled opposed continuation of plans to assist in the resettling of Syrian nationals seeking refugee status. According to Bloomberg, "Just 28 percent would keep the program with the screening process as it now exists, while 11 percent said they would favor a limited program to accept only Syrian Christians while excluding Muslims, a proposal Obama has dismissed as “shameful” and un-American." Mirroring the sentiments found in the Bloomberg poll, a bevy of Republican governors also indicated unwillingness to accept a portion of Syrian refugees. As we discussed earlier this week, while Governors do not have legal authority to determine what individuals gain entrance into the United States, they can complicate the resettlement process by refusing to cooperate with federal authorities. Also at question is the vetting process. As with all visa or immigrant petitions issued by the federal government, the vetting process takes awhile. Applicants are run through FBI background checks, health screens, interviews, and other scrutiny before receiving an opportunity to request entry to the United States. For those seeking refugee status, the wait time clocks in at about 18 months. Caps are set on the number of refugees to be admitted by region. Similar caps apply to other visa types. According to the Department of State, 70,000 individuals were admitted under refugee status in 2013, only 36 of which were Syrian nationals. In 2012, only 31 of 76,000 refugees were Syrian. So why all the fuss now?

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 18, 2015 18 Comments
As it turns out, the Affordable Care Act is not exactly affordable after all. With the third Obamacare open enrollment in full swing, consumers nationwide are reeling from health insurance premium sticker shock. Which explains why healthcare costs and access to healthcare remain the single most important issue to Americans. A few weeks ago, we discussedthe issue of some health insurance markets suffering disproportionately under Obamacare. In the fourth largest city in the country, Houstonians will have the option of a grand total of zero independent Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) plans to choose from. Why? Providers say they can no longer offer independent plans for an affordable price. Yet another Texas market faces the downside of Obamacare fallout. According to a new study, Dallas is the recipient of the nation's largest premium rate hikes. Consumers not wanting to pay higher premiums for the same or less coverage are being encouraged to enroll in another health care plan. The Dallas Morning News reported:
Dallas County is the country’s major metropolitan area with the largest potential premium increase next year for people currently enrolled in the most popular health insurance plan on the Affordable Care Act marketplace, a new report shows. Collin County residents who also are enrolled in the popular, lowest-cost silver plan through Healthcare.gov face an identical predicament as their counterparts in Dallas County, according to a Dallas Morning News review of the underlying data in the Kaiser Family Foundation report. In both counties, a 40 year old adult who doesn’t qualify for subsidies and purchased a Blue Cross and Blue Shield “Blue Advantage Silver HMO” policy for 2015 will have to pay $1,116 more next year if he or she doesn’t shop around in the state exchange — and switch.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 17, 2015 18 Comments
Ah yes, Caitlyn Jenner. Hero of transdom or betrayer of feminism? Lately, consensus sides with the latter. Formerly Bruce, now Caitlyn Jenner has the self-professed feminist community up in arms. Named one of Glamour's Women of the Year, Jenner's remarks aren't quite the homer he (she?) may have hoped. According to Glamour's Los Angeles LGBT Editor, Jenner was awarded Woman of the Year because, "ehe made the decision to transition publicly—so that in the future kids don't have to wait until they're 65 years old to discover who they are." At the time awards were announced, Glamour wrote:
A year ago Caitlyn Jenner did not have a name. The Olympic hero turned reality-star patriarch was still living a phantom existence, her changing appearance igniting a tabloid frenzy around the rumor she'd run from for most of her 66 years: that she was transgender. She was confined to her house in Malibu, California, where she'd been forced to build a wall to shield herself from paparazzi cameras. "There I was, in this beautiful beach house, all by my little lonesome, right back where I started, dealing with the same issues I had when I was 10 years old," she remembers. Her breaking point came when photographers showed up outside her doctor's office, spying on what she'd hoped could be a private medical procedure to reduce the size of her Adam's apple. That night she couldn't stop thinking about a gun she kept in her home. "Go in there, no more pain," she recalls saying to herself. But in the light of morning, she had a revelation. "I thought, 'OK, you transition, big deal! You are still alive. You have to make your life interesting.' "

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 17, 2015 13 Comments
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal announced Tuesday afternoon he was ending his presidential campaign. Jindal is the third Republican candidate to suspend his campaign, and also the third Governor. Governor Jindal made his announcement during Bret Baier's Special Report on Fox News.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 16, 2015 10 Comments
Still reeling from that heinous terrorist attacks that shook Paris Friday night, here's the latest. Mincing no words, France remains devout to plans to, "destroy terrorism."

"France is at war."

Speaking to a joint session of Parliament Monday, French President Hollande declared, "France is at War." He encouraged Members of Parliament to extend the country's state of emergency for another three months. Calling the Paris attacks, "acts of war," Hollande the murderous acts represented an attack of aggression, "against our country, against its values, against its youth, and against its way of life." Hollande's speech is here (in English) and is worth a listen:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 16, 2015 13 Comments
Speaking from the G20 Summit in Turkey Monday morning, President Obama addressed the terrorist attacks that shook Paris late Friday night. "Much of our attention has focused on the heinous attacks that took place in Paris... We're working closely with out French partners as they pursue their investigations and track down suspects. France is already a strong counter-terrorism partner and today we're announcing a new agreement. We're streamlining the process which we share operational and military intelligence with France," said President Obama. Has the President changed his tune on ISIS, at least when it comes to the type of threat the wannabe caliphate poses? The reader may remember the oft-tossed around reference the president once made about ISIS, calling them a "JV" team. Last year, during an interview with New Yorker Magazine, President Obama said of al Qaeda groups, "the analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee teams puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn't make them Kobe Bryant."

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 13, 2015 104 Comments
Tonight, a group of armed extremists executed a series of coordinated attacks against civilians in Paris, France. As many as 158 people (as being reported by Fox News at 8:30 pm EST) have been killed, with many more injured. At least 5 attackers have been killed; authorities suspect that as many as one dozen people were involved in six separate attacks that occurred all across the city. Each of those six attacks have been confirmed by French authorities. As of the writing of this wrap-up, no group had officially claimed responsibility. There are reports from survivors that the terrorists chanted about Allah and Syria. At around 8:50 pm EST (2:50 am Paris time) French authorities released a bulletin to the media saying that "an unknown number of terrorists are still on the run." Fox News reported via The Guardian (at 9:50 pm EST, 3:47 am Paris time) that French law enforcement officials believe that all of the attackers are dead. The attacks began just before 10 pm Paris time, when terrorists fired into a crowded cafe, leaving "piles" of dead bodies in their wake.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 13, 2015 6 Comments
The Supreme Court agreed to consider the constitutionality of a 2013 Texas law (HB 2) that resulted in the closure of half the state's abortion clinics, according to SCOTUS blog. The earliest Whole Women's Health vs. Cole would be heard is February. The issue:
Whether, when applying the “undue burden” standard of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a court errs by refusing to consider whether and to what extent laws that restrict abortion for the stated purpose of promoting health actually serve the government’s interest in promoting health; and (2) whether the Fifth Circuit erred in concluding that this standard permits Texas to enforce, in nearly all circumstances, laws that would cause a significant reduction in the availability of abortion services while failing to advance the State’s interest in promoting health - or any other valid interest.
According to the pro-life advocacy group, Texas Right to Life, "until SCOTUS completes a review of the constitutionality of HB 2, the law’s safety standards are delayed from taking effect in Texas."

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 13, 2015 73 Comments
The Donald posted a new ad to his Instagram account Friday morning and like everything else Trump, it's pretty, shall we say "bold"? Posted with the caption, "Happy Friday the 13th," and set to what sounds like a rip-off of the theme music from the popular slasher series, Halloween, Trump's ad wonders whether fellow Republican presidential candidate, Ben Carson, is a violent criminal or pathological liar.

Happy Friday the 13th

A video posted by Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) on

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 12, 2015 28 Comments
No rimshot here. Not only is this a thing that happened, it's pulled straight from a motion filed with the Ninth Circuit this earlier week. The bizarre monkey selfie case outdid itself this week. According to PetaPixel:
In September, the animal rights group PETA filed a lawsuit against photographer David Slater, arguing that the monkey who took a series of viral selfies with Slater’s camera in 2011 should be the rightful copyright owner. If you thought that was strange, get this: the legal battle has now evolved into a dispute over the pictured monkey’s identity and gender.
But it gets better. The defense counsel then submitted a motion to dismiss the complaint. The motion began:
A monkey, an animal-rights organization and a primatologist walk into federal court to sue for infringement of the monkey’s claimed copyright. What seems like the setup for a punchline is really happening. It should not be happening…. [D]ismissal of this action is required for lack of standing and failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Monkey see, monkey sue is not good law – at least not in the Ninth Circuit.
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