Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

/var/www/vhosts/legalinsurrection.com/httpdocs/wp-content/themes/bridge-child/readFeeds.incFALSE

LATEST NEWS

Posted by Mike LaChance on October 23, 2016 5 Comments
Anyone who enjoyed stand-up comedy in the 80's and 90's will certainly remember Kevin Meaney whose routine usually revolved around his parents protesting his jokes by saying "that's not right" and warning him "we'll lose the house." Meaney passed away Saturday at the age of 60. At the time of this writing, the cause of death hasn't been determined. The Hollywood Reporter has the story:
Kevin Meaney, Veteran Stand-Up Comic, Dies at 60 Kevin Meaney, a veteran stand-up comedian and actor, has died. He was 60. Meaney's agent confirmed that he was found in his home in Forestburgh, N.Y., and that an autopsy is pending.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 22, 2016 21 Comments
While the polls mostly look grim for Trump as of today, two weeks can be a lifetime in politics. At some point do down-ballot Republicans all but concede that Hillary will win, and argue that a vote for the Republican House or Senate candidate is needed as a check and balance on future President Hillary? That's what Republican are accused of already doing in the Missouri Senate race, which by many accounts may determine who controls the Senate. The current polling shows Republican Roy Blunt very slightly ahead, but it's now considered a toss-up. The AP reports, GOP Senate Ad Acknowledges Clinton Likely to Win:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 22, 2016 44 Comments
The internet moves from object of hate, to object of hate. Perhaps a prime example was Justine Sacco, who after tweeting an ambiguous, clearly satirical message about AIDS that some people interpreted as racist, found herself the subject of an internet hunt -- all while she was on an airplane to Africa. By the time she landed, she had been fired from her job, and people tracked her airplane and confronted her at the airport when she landed. The writer for Gawker who started the whole thing apologized years later. Certainly there have been many other such examples, but the Sacco incident stands out. I don't know if it will reach Sacco proportions, but there is an internet "outrage" gaining momentum against a guy in Barrington, RI, who wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper complaining about older women who wear yoga pants:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on October 22, 2016 49 Comments
I thought Trump did a good job in the third and final presidential debate, but as the prof noted, Trump just can't seem to help himself from saying that one thing that will dominate headlines for the next however long and effectively obscuring the important, valid, and meaningful things he has to say. A quick internet search of Trump's first 100 days speech pulls articles entitled "Trump threatens to sue accusers while laying out plan for first 100 days" from NBC News and from CNN, "Trump makes 'closing argument,' again attacks accusers. I'll spare you the scathing headlines from those outside the "unbiased, straight news" outlets  reported by purported "journalists" at NBC and CNN.  Yes, Trump did attack his accusers and threaten to sue them during his first 100 days in office, so it's not all that remarkable that it's making headlines . . . and driving the narrative against Trump.  Yet another completely avoidable self-inflicted wound. But let's move on.

LEGAL INSURRECTION QUICK TAKES

Gender Studies Institute at Stanford Hosting Far-Left Journalist to Discuss Conservative ‘Bigotry’

Study Claims SAT Reading Section is ‘Less Demanding’ Than in Past Decades

Connecticut Teacher Escorted Out of School for Refusing to Remove Crucifix From Classroom

TPUSA Members: UT Tyler Attack Reflects Growing Campus Hostility Toward Conservatives

UT Austin Funds Graduate Student Research on ‘Reproductive Justice’

Texas Tech Regents Eliminate Several Race, Gender Studies Courses

SEE MORE

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on October 22, 2016 5 Comments
On Friday, New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law NY State Senate bill S6340, making it illegal in the state of New York to advertise "for the use of dwelling units in a class A multiple dwelling."  This law is aimed at Airbnb, a San Francisco-based homestay network that coordinates the rental of private properties by the homeowners. Not unlike Uber, a transportation network, Airbnb eliminates the often union-driven marketplace for a given service; with Uber it's taxis and with Airbnb, it's hotels.  And as with Uber, unions are not happy with the explosion of Airbnb and lobbied in New York state for the passage of this law that establishes a minimum of at least 30 days for peer-to-peer rental of private property and provides for fines up to $7,500 for those in violation. The Hill reports:

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo banned short-term rentals on Airbnb after he signed a bill on Friday making it illegal to list unoccupied apartments on the service for stays under 30 stays.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 22, 2016 16 Comments
A Legal Insurrection reader who I know to be involved in internet security issues sent me the following explanation of yesterday's attacks that slowed down many major websites. That person asked to keep his name private because of his work position. Here is his explanation sent to clients of the firm he works at: Our entire senior technical team and I have read through the intelligence on the DDOS attack today against DYN. It resulted in massive internet outages on the east coast and eventually the west coast. This was actually several separate escalating attacks.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 22, 2016 28 Comments
This should surprise no one. These are probably the same people who in college demanded intellectual safe spaces and trigger warnings. We have seen it at Twitter, where conservative accounts seem to be targeted, and also at Facebook, where there were allegations of the same. The Wall Street Journal reports, Facebook Employees Pushed to Remove Trump’s Posts as Hate Speech:

Posted by Mike LaChance on October 22, 2016 10 Comments
Obamacare architect Dr. Ezekiel 'Death Panel' Emanuel is back. This guy has an amazing ability to blame all the problems of Obamacare on everyone but the party which passed it and the president it's named for. He also agrees with some of Bill Clinton's recent remarks on the law. The Washington Free Beacon reports:
Obamacare Architect on Bill Clinton’s Criticisms: ‘I Think He Has a Point’

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 21, 2016 26 Comments
I noticed the problem accessing Twitter. Tweets not loading fully, the site timing out. That wouldn't be the first time Twitter has had a hiccup, but it lasted a long time. Here's why, via Gizmodo, Today's Brutal DDoS Attack Is the Beginning of a Bleak Future:
This morning a ton of websites and services, including Spotify and Twitter, were unreachable because of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Dyn, a major DNS provider. Details of how the attack happened remain vague, but one thing seems certain. Our internet is frightfully fragile in the face of increasingly sophisticated hacks. Some think the attack was a political conspiracy, like an attempt to take down the internet so that people wouldn’t be able to read the leaked Clinton emails on Wikileaks. Others think it’s the usual Russian assault. No matter who did it, we should expect incidents like this to get worse in the future. While DDoS attacks used to be a pretty weak threat, we’re entering a new era....

Posted by Mary Chastain on October 21, 2016 6 Comments
The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) chapter in Florida has sued Broward County Supervisor of Elections Dr. Brenda Snipes after citizens said their mail in ballots did not include Amendment 2 to legalize medical marijuana:
It asked a county court judge to require that the elections office distribute new ballots to all voters who have received vote-by-mail ballots and to include information that explains that Amendment 2 had not been included on previous ballots.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 21, 2016 3 Comments
One of the foundational myths of the anti-Israel movement, including the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, is that Muslim Arabs are the indigenous people of all of what now is Israel and Judea/Samaria (the "West Bank"). From that foundational myth comes such vile absurdities as UNESCO -- at the instigation of the Palestinian Authority -- excising the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, which predates Islam itself as well as the Arab conquest of the region. That foundational myth also allows BDS activists misleadingly to claim solidarity with truly indigenous people, such as native peoples in North America, and to hijack indigenous movements and repurpose them for the fight to deny Jews a homeland in the homeland of the Jewish people. An article recently in the Middle East Quarterly examined historical first hand accounts of Arab immigration and migration, Were the Arabs Indigenous to Mandatory Palestine?

Posted by Mary Chastain on October 21, 2016 12 Comments
Russian officials asked three states if they could attend polling stations during the Nov. 8 election while Kremlin propaganda sites like Russia Today reported that Russia's Central Elections Commission even asked the State Department for permission to watch the polls. The State denied a request even came through:
"Any suggestion that we rejected Russia's proposal to observe our elections is false," Toner said, noting that allowing foreign observers is up to individual states. Russian officials could have participated in an observer delegation through the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Toner added, but declined to do so, making their new complaints "nothing more than a PR stunt."

Posted by Mary Chastain on October 21, 2016 3 Comments
Wikileaks has dumped a few emails with President Barack Obama's personal email address that he used in 2008 when it published more emails from Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta. At the time of these emails, Podesta served as co-chair of Obama's transition team. https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/789188917736071169 Obama used the email address [email protected] when he had a Blackberry.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 21, 2016 31 Comments
After the third debate, much ado was being made about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton being seated close to each other at the Alfred E. Smith dinner, separated only by a holy man and a gulf of political differences. It seems that the the seating arrangement may have been a good idea.

Posted by Mary Chastain on October 21, 2016 13 Comments
Earlier this month, the United States District Court in Baltimore charged ex-NSA contractor Harold Thomas Martin III with removal of classified documents and theft of government property. Officials have revealed that Martin took over 500 million pages of records and secrets over two decades. The Justice Department will probably charge Martin with other crimes, "including violating the Espionage Act." The latest DOJ document does not say if Martin shared this information, but made it known he had the ability to do so.
MORE POSTS
Accessibility by WAH