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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 September 06, 2014 71 Comments
This is a thing that's actually happening at Columbia University in New York City. Rather than taking her allegations of rape to local law enforcement, Emma Sulkowicz has decided to carry around her mattress as long as her alleged rapist remains on campus. Sulkowicz didn't report the rape immediately after it happened, but was convinced to report the alleged incident months later. The case was ultimately dismissed by university authorities. According to the Columbia Spectator:

As long as her alleged rapist goes to Columbia, Emma Sulkowicz, CC ’15, plans on carrying a navy blue, extra-long twin-sized mattress wherever she goes.

Entitled “Carry That Weight,” the mattress is both the visual art major’s senior thesis and a step in her journey to come to terms with her experience. Over the past year, Sulkowicz has become a prominent critic of the University’s sexual assault adjudication policies, retelling her story to various administrators and media organizations to raise awareness.

“The past year of my life has been really marked by telling people what happened in that most intimate and private space,” Sulkowicz said, referring to the dorm bed where she was allegedly raped on the second night of her sophomore year.

“I was raped in my own dorm bed and since then, that space has become fraught for me. I feel like I’ve carried the weight of what happened there since then,” she added.

Months after her alleged rape, Emma reported the incident to the school. Her case, one of three individual complaints filed against the same student, was closed, and her rapist found “not responsible.” She appealed, but it was denied and the decision was upheld.

Sulkowicz has turned what she says was a horrible tragedy into performance art.

Performance art that will suffice as her senior thesis. A fact I'll just leave there without commenting on further:

Sulkowicz plead her case to the university. But why didn't she go to the police?

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on September 05, 2014 12 Comments
Yesterday, we wrote about Senator Paul's apparent departure from isolationism.  Last night, the Kentucky Senator chatted with Sean Hannity about his foreign policy stance:
"I've been trying to say that for the last four years of public life that I'm I'm neither an isolationist nor an interventionist. I'm someone who believes in the Constitution and believes America should have a strong national defense and believes that we should defend ourselves. But when we do it, we should do it the way the Constitution intended. That's the President should come before Congress and make the case for war." "There's a big difference between that and between doing it unilaterally. And I think the example of Libya, with both Hillary's support and President Obama's support shows all the unintended consequences when they around the Constitution."
I don't disagree we should respect Constitutional channels, but objectively speaking, this is just political posturing and an attempt to define his position as diametrically opposed to that of both Mrs. Clinton and the administration. Which is smart. But his argument seems to hinge on the fact that we would not be in this nightmare of a foreign policy situation had President Obama gone to Congress. Perhaps he's right. He continued:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on September 03, 2014 12 Comments
Advocating for foreign intervention is not something you usually hear from libertarian poster children like Senator Paul. And yet, that seems to be what he's preaching. From WaPo:
"If I were president, I would call a joint session of Congress," Paul told the AP. "I would lay out the reasoning of why ISIS is a threat to our national security and seek congressional authorization to destroy ISIS militarily."
Good. Someone should have a plan to deal with those monsters. But as WaPo points out, Paul is supposed to be the only non-interventionist in the bunch of potential 2016 contenders. Compare Paul's statement to the rest of the pack of GOP potential candidates, as compiled by WaPo:
Chris Christie: ""The ISIS situation is one that deserves a really detailed answer, which I'm not going to give you while walking down the boardwalk and taking selfies." Marco Rubio: "If we do not act now to assist our Iraqi partners and moderate Syrians who oppose ISIL, as well as utilize our own forces to directly target ISIL’s leadership, the result will be more suffering and tragedy for our people.”

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on September 01, 2014 17 Comments
A few days ago, President Obama made what is probably one of his silliest remarks yet when he insinuated we're only now realizing the world is a "messy" place because of the advent of social media. Really? No one noticed the underbelly of humanity before Twitter? We beg to differ.

That time that jerk Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton.

Screen Shot 2014-09-01 at 11.58.26 AM  

Archduke Ferdinand gets capped and a little thing called "World War I" happens

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Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 31, 2014 13 Comments
At least they know how to have fun? According to the Washington Times:

Islamists who gained control of a U.S. Embassy residential compound in Libya last week posted a video online of the men throwing a spring break-like pool party at the property.

A commander for the umbrella Islamist militia group, the Dawn of Libya, told The Associated Press that his fighters had been in control of the compound since last week. The group granted access to the compound to an AP reporter, who said some windows had been broken, but most of the equipment there appeared to remain untouched. The journalist saw treadmills, food, televisions and computers still inside.

U.S. Ambassador to Libya Deborah Jones tweeted that the video appeared to have been shot in at the embassy’s residential annex, AP reported.

The video (which nauseatingly spins from side to side) shows a group men diving off a balcony into the pool below:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 28, 2014 35 Comments

Earlier this month, we wrote about McDonald's and what appears to be a technological experiment that would replace cashiers:

McDonald’s employees who picketed for a better living wage (whatever that means) may come to regret that decision. According to a Redditor, a McDonald’s in Illinois replaced their cashiers with machines.  The machines appear to be the cousins of the ones found in grocery stores, big box stores, and CVS that allow customers to complete transactions. How cost effective is replacing an organic employee with a mechanized one? According to an economic blog, and unsurprisingly, the machines likely come out on top in terms of pricing.
mcdonalds When labor costs increase, employers are required to offset those increases elsewhere in order to remain profitable while still providing a product the market will want. So when workers demand to be paid $15 an hour to push buttons on a cash register, they can and should be expected to be replaced with cheaper, more efficient labor. When an employer can only afford three employees for what they once paid for five, that's two jobs that have been eliminated. Undeterred by facts and economics, Eric Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles reportedly plans to raise the minimum wage to $13.25 an hour, what would be one of the highest minimum wages in the country.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 26, 2014 20 Comments
Could Scotland once again be an independent nation? They will if the Scottish National Party has their way. Just a few years ago, Scottish independence was a long shot, now, the argument appears to be in a dead heat. According to The Guardian:
Last October, the yes/no split was 37% to 63%, suggesting that the traditional two-to-one balance against independence was holding in the referendum context. But then the nationalists began to narrow the gap. In February, Westminster's three unionist parties made a heavy-handed intervention on the question of the currency, warning that an independent Scotland could not count on keeping the pound. This backfired, and by April, the poll of polls was running at 45%-55%. The race was looking increasingly competitive, before opinion congealed and then froze. Glasgow's Commonwealth Games and the first debate, which a Guardian/ICM poll established Alistair Darling had won for the no camp, came and went without materially affecting the picture.
The last debate between the Scottish National Party and the British Labour Party produced a strong win for the SNP. A Guardian/ICM poll taken immediately after the debate showed 71% of respondents handing victory to Alex Salmond, the SNP's pro-independence spokesman. Whether a debate win translates to actual votes is another issue though.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 25, 2014 16 Comments
A few months ago, social media was buzzing with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. Meant to raise awareness of the tragic situation in Nigeria where over 200 young girls were kidnapped by an Islamic extremist group, Boko Haram, #BringBackOurGirls garnered international attention. The New York Times reported in May:

That was April 15 in northern Nigeria. The girls were kidnapped by an extremist Muslim group called Boko Haram, whose name in the Hausa language means “Western education is a sin.”

These girls, ages 15 to 18 and Christians and Muslims alike, knew the risks of seeking an education, and schools in the area had closed in March for fear of terror attacks. But this school had reopened so that the girls — the stars of their families and villages — could take their final exams. They were expected to move on to become teachers, doctors, lawyers.

Instead, they reportedly are being auctioned off for $12 each to become “wives” of militants. About 50 girls escaped, but the police say that 276 are still missing — and the Nigerian government has done next to nothing to recover the girls.

People took to Twitter with the hashtag "#BringBackOurGirls, the first lady joined in and then nothing happened. Months later and still... nothing. This video report is from July 7:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 23, 2014 11 Comments
Wrapping up Saturday night on a lighter note, we present this amazing series of ads. Food Beast found this adorable alternative universe where the local Pizza Hut is run by cats. From Food Beast:

Part of the brand’s newest video campaign, Pizza Cat! is a completely fictional Pizza Hut location “run” entirely by cats. Run used only loosely of course, since the cat’s don’t ever really work. Instead, they sleep through alarms, stare at ringing telephones, claw at delivery bikes, and literally ride roombas all around the store.

Along with a video series highlighting the cats’ daily shenanigans, Pizza Cat! also got its own nifty website detailing the cats even further. There’s even a little disclaimer stating that if your pizza doesn’t arrive, it’s simply because the cats lost their motivation, please excuse them.

See, not so different from humans after all.

Enjoy:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 19, 2014 27 Comments
In today's bizarre news, at least six are dead in an airstrike that took out a small arms depot and other targets. The problem is, no one really knows who is responsible. The New York Times reports:
Unidentified warplanes on Monday bombed a small arms depot and other locations in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, that are controlled by Islamist-aligned militias, suggesting that a foreign state had intervened in the escalating battle for control of the city. At least six people were killed, The Associated Press reported. The origin of the planes remained a mystery. The airstrikes were beyond the capacity of the limited Libyan Air Force, and Libyan authorities said the planes had come from a foreign state. The United States, France, Italy and Egypt all denied responsibility. “The United States was not involved whatsoever in these events,” said Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman. But the targets indicated the intent of the strikes. Although the month-old conflict in Tripoli is largely a contest for power between rival coalitions of cities and tribes, one side is considered to be allied with the forces of political Islam, while the other portrays itself as fighting an Islamist takeover. The strikes on Monday all hit the Islamist side.
Some renegade Libyan general claims he was responsible for the airstrikes, but as the NYT pointed out, the strikes were, "beyond the capacity of the limited Libyan Air Force." It's also not uncommon for would-be bad guys to pop up and claim violent tragedies are part of their own criminal master-mind. Reuters explains:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 18, 2014 8 Comments
We've all been there. You read an outrageously mind-blowing headline before downing your mandatory morning cup of joe, you're not firing on all cylinders, share the article with an "incredible!" or "ZOMG!" or "this is an OUTRAGE" caption, only to receive the mockery you earned. Or maybe that's just me (don't judge). Whether is was The Onion when they hit a little too close to home or The Daily Currant, a particularly sneaky satirical news site, we've all been snookered by a satirical headline at least once. If you haven't, your time is coming. Evidently, Facebook wants to make sure users are never subjected to the horror of learning an article they thought was fact is actually complete fiction. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports:

First spotted by Ars Techinca, the tag clearly flags any Onion headline which shows up in your News Feed as "[Satire]," though the feature doesn't apply to every parody article just yet.

A Facebook rep confirmed the news to Ars Technica, saying "We received feedback that people wanted a clearer way to distinguish satirical articles from others in these units."

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 15, 2014 129 Comments
Almost a week later, it looks we finally know what happened in Ferguson, Missouri last Saturday. At a press conference this morning, police identified the Darren Wilson as the officer who fatally shot unarmed teen, Michael Brown: What police revealed today is different from the account given by Dorin Johnson who claimed he was present at the time Brown was shot. Johnson indicated he and Brown were minding their own business when Officer Wilson rolled up and began to harass them. Officer Wilson has no disciplinary record in the six years he's been on the force. According to St. Louis police, Brown and Johnson were suspects in a convenience store robbery that happened moments before Officer Wilson encountered the two. NBC News reports:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 14, 2014 96 Comments
What a nightmare Ferguson has become. Five days after the fatal shooting of unarmed teen, Michael Brown, and there's still no consensus as to what actually happened. If you're just jumping into this story, check out previous posts here and here.

Dorin Johnson's Attorney

Yesterday I mentioned that the St. Louis Police who are handling the Ferguson cluster, have not yet interviewed Dorin Johnson, who claims he was with Michael Brown when Brown was gunned down by law enforcement Saturday. Johnson appeared on MSNBC in an interview with Chris Hayes, accompanied by his lawyer, Freeman Bosley, Jr. Bosley is an interesting character himself. The former St. Louis mayer seems to have a checkered past, with "ethics violations" being a reoccurring theme. Last year, Bosley sent fundraising letters soliciting donations to cover his daughter's college tuition. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported, "Bosley said his daughter worked hard to finish in the top two percent of her graduating class at St. Elizabeth Academy. He said she deserves to go to a private school." When the odd fundraising request was brought to light, Bosley vowed to return any donations received. Earlier this year, the board governing Missouri lawyers moved to suspend Bosley's law license for two years. The list is a pretty great read. Misuse of client funds and malpractice make appearances more than once.

St. Louis Police Department Hacked by Anonymous 

Originally, the St. Louis Police Department planned to release the name of the law enforcement officer who shot and killed Brown. As violence escalated, SLPD opted not to release the identity of the officer in order to protect him. So Anonymous, the infamous hacking conglom got involved and called for a "Day of Rage," because that's helpful. According to CNN, Anonymous has the name of the officer, but CNN refused to announce the officer's name on air.

Should The Public be Privy to the Officer's Name?

Kevin Williamson at National Review has an interesting take on this question:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 13, 2014 155 Comments
The situation in Ferguson, Missouri has gone from bad to worse following the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teen Saturday afternoon. Protests and riots persist, cops dressed in full riot gear are working to curb the violence, community leaders are encouraging peaceful protests, and there's still no clear picture of what actually transpired Saturday when Michael Brown was shot and killed. There appear to be conflicting reports from law enforcement and supposed eye witnesses regarding what actually happened. Law enforcement claim Brown assaulted the cop that took his life. Dorin Johnson who claims he was with Brown at the time he was shot has a very different story. Johnson says he and Brown were minding their own business when a cop rolled up, told them to get on the sidewalk, then proceeded to assault Brown and eventually kill him. Johnson's story seems to corroborate with another supposed eye witness, Piaget Crenshaw. Even more curious is that Johnson claims he, by way of his attorney, has reached out to local law enforcement to provide his account of the story, and Ferguson police are refusing to interview him. Chris Hayes interviewed Johnson and has a great summation of the various accounts:
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