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Posted by Mary Chastain on May 22, 2017 29 Comments
*We will update this post through the night* (UPDATES BELOW) An explosion occurred at an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. Police confirmed 19 dead and 50 injured, but have not confirmed exactly what caused the explosion or who caused it. Police have told Sky News that they decided to treat the incident as a "possible terrorist incident" until the officials know otherwise.

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 22, 2017 17 Comments
Lou Reed passed away in 2013. At least he's not here to witness one of his best songs become the newest thing campus snowflakes have deemed problematic. Students at the University of Guelph in Canada played "Walk on the Wild Side" at a campus event and were ultimately forced to apologize. Dave Huber reports at The College Fix:
Student group issues apology after playing Lou Reed’s ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ This is where we are: A student group at the University of Guelph in Canada has apologized for including the Lou Reed song “Walk on the Wild Side” on a playlist at a campus event. Because, don’t you know, the tune contains “transphobic lyrics.”

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 21, 2017 13 Comments
Jean-Michel Basquiat passed away in 1988 at the age of 27 but enjoyed a fast rise to prominence in the New York art world at an early age. He started out as a graffiti artist but his work matured rapidly as he met the right people to nurture his talent. One of his paintings sold at auction this week for $110.5 million dollars, a record for an American artist.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 20, 2017 23 Comments
The NAACP has determined that its current path is too tame and that the group needs to be far more activist in its resistance to the President. To that end, it is firing its president and working on a “systemwide refresh," inspired apparently by the Black Lives Movement. The New York Times reports:

Mr. Sessions’s order to federal prosecutors to pursue the toughest charges and sentences against drug crime suspects crystallized the decision to press for change at the N.A.A.C.P. The order reversed efforts by the Obama administration to ease penalties for some nonviolent drug offenses and was a 180-degree pivot even for the Republican Party, which had warmed to changes in the criminal justice system.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on May 20, 2017 26 Comments
On Joy Reid's show this morning, MSNBC terrorism analyst Malcolm Nance said that if the United States "were some third-world nation right now, we'd be watching the army to see if the tanks are getting ready to move for a coup. Or if a guy jumps on a plane and flies to Monaco with all the money from the state." Sounds like a "helpful" suggestion/wishful thinking from MSNBC. Nance, by the way, is the person who nominated a Trump property for an ISIS suicide attack. To date, there's no evidence online that he has apologized or been disciplined by MSNBC.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on May 17, 2017 12 Comments
The Arab world's most-watched TV network, MBC 1, will air a prime-time TV drama depicting life under ISIS. The 30-part series will debut during Ramadan. “Black Crows", "paints a picture of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, as a brutal criminal organization run by corrupt and hypocritical leaders. But recruits are depicted as victims, and women who challenge the militants’ control are heroes," reports the New York Times.

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 17, 2017 10 Comments
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has accused Anheuser-Busch InBev of handing out incentives to retailers and bars in the state to push Budweiser beer over other brands. The Wall Street Journal reported:
The state’s Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission has issued a report detailing investigators’ findings and set a June hearing in Boston on the matter. The report alleges a subsidiary of AB InBev gave out bar equipment as incentives to hundreds of Massachusetts businesses in violation of a state law meant to keep beer companies from squeezing out competitors.

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 15, 2017 30 Comments
Police across the country have developed different techniques to catch people who text while driving. The Wall Street Journal reported that authorities have a hard time going after people for texting while driving because it is hard to prove "and citations can be contested in court." Some officers have disguised themselves as construction workers while others pose as panhandlers in order to catch those who text and drive.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on May 15, 2017 41 Comments
The height of selfish, self-involved society is upon us. Forget marriage, children, and the growth these relationships bring, 'sologamists' are marrying themselves. Sologamy, or marrying one's self, isn't illegal, but it's also not recognized as a legal union in any state. Sologamists like Erika Anderson of Brooklyn describes her decision to marry herself as "women saying yes to themselves.”

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 15, 2017 25 Comments
Oh boy. Another controversy over conservative comments at Miss USA. Remember in 2009 when Miss California Carrie Prejean said she believes that marriage is between a man and a woman? The left tore her apart over her answer. Now they have a new target. Last night, Miss District of Columbia Kara McCullough, a scientist, told the audience and judges that she rejects modern day feminism and believes health care is a privilege, not a right.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 13, 2017 11 Comments
The last time Legal Insurrection visited the Land of the Nile, Pope Francis was refusing to use an armored car during his visit to Egypt. Fortunately, one was not needed, and the Holy Father must have made quite an impression, especially after meeting with Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt's President and proponent of an Islamic Reformation. To start with, a noted Egyptian Islamic "scholar" has been canned from his television show and faces a trial after calling Christians "infidels".
Salem Abdel-Galeel, television show host and a former deputy minister at the Ministry of Religious Endowments, is set to face trial for contempt of religion after describing Christians as non-believers.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 12, 2017 24 Comments
Earlier this month, DNC chair Tom Perez famously declared that every Democrat should be pro-abortion, and apparently a garbled version of this memo seeped down to one Fresno State professor as "every person should be pro-abortion . . . or be silenced." Assistant professor of public health Gregory Thatcher directed his class to erase pro-life messages that Students for Life had written in chalk on the sidewalks at Fresno State, a public university. The interaction between Thatcher and the student reporter resulted in a jaw-dropping exchange in which Thatcher condescendingly explains that such messages are only appropriate in "free speech areas." He further notes, "College campuses are not free speech areas."

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 08, 2017 29 Comments
Earlier this year, MTV decided to remove sex-specific categories from its award shows and remain neutral. The network held its annual MTV Movie & TV Awards show this weekend, which gave outspoken feminist Emma Watson the first "genderless" Best Actor in a Movie award. From CNN:
"MTV's move to create a genderless award for acting will mean something different to everyone," Watson, who played Belle in the film, said of the network's decision. "But to me it indicates that acting is about the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes and that doesn't need to be separated into two different categories."

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 07, 2017 13 Comments
It appears as if the proprietors of one Mexican hotel are about to experience a legal case for trademark infringement.
It's not located on a dark desert highway, and guests are presumably allowed to leave, but the Eagles still feel that a real-life Hotel California is ripping off their biggest hit. The band filed a lawsuit against the Mexican hotel this week, accusing the owners of encouraging guests to believe that it's associated with the band, Reuters reports.
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