A Hearing

Posted on 24 December 2018 by eehines

Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D, IL) refused to participate in one last Thursday—the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing for the purpose of questioning DHS Secretary Kirsten Nielsen about the Trump administration’s (illegal) immigration policy. Never mind that Gutierrez is a member of that committee. He was present long enough to chew her out for six minutes, concluding his tirade with

Shame on us for wearing our badge of Christianity during Christmas and allowing the secretary to come here and lie.

Nielsen responded, in part:

This is a preview of A Hearing. Read the full post (407 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

Faith in the PRC

Posted on 14 December 2018 by eehines

The People’s Republic of China is broadening the reach of its religion.

Officials have threatened to close the Early Rain Covenant Church in the central city of Chengdu by the end of the year in keeping with new religious-management regulations, according to several congregants who said they had been waiting for the net to fall. In coordinated raids starting Sunday night, police detained Pastor Wang Yi and more than 100 of the church’s 500 members, said Li Yingqiang, a church leader.

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Pay the Vig

Posted on 13 December 2018 by eehines

…or else. The truth will out, at least for a significant fraction of the “caravan.”

One group of a hundred, under the alleged leadership of Honduran Alfonso Guerreo Ulloa, has gone to the US Consulate in Tijuana with an extortion demand: give us $50,000—per each, which works out to $5 million in all, if my third grade arithmetic doesn’t fail me—to go home and start a small business (we promise), or we’ll storm your border and break in forcibly.

Wait—I thought one of the major reasons these folks left Honduras was to escape the gangs’ extortion of small business owners/operators. So now they want 50 large to go back and…pay off those gangs?

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A Stiff Sentence

Posted on 7 December 2018 by eehines

Recall that Jean-Claude Arnault was convicted in a Swedish court for rape in a case that also so implicated the Nobel Prize facility that it chose not to award a Literature prize that year. For the crime, Arnault was sentenced to jail for an interminable two years.

Now a Swedish court has convicted Arnault of a second rape. It sentenced him, for that crime, to an additional…six months.

Sweden surely takes a dim view of rape.

Sure.

This is a preview of A Stiff Sentence. Read the full post (208 words, estimated 50 secs reading time)

Rewarding Thuggery

Posted on 5 December 2018 by eehines

Recall the rioting, looting, and graffiti-spraying—on l’Arc de Triomphe, yet—in France over the Macron government’s decision to raise fuel taxes and utility rates. Now the government has abjectly surrendered to the rioters: it will not implement the new tax and utility rates at all (Deutsche Welle has reported that the tax is suspended for six months rather than canceled altogether).

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PC Police-ism

Posted on 4 December 2018 by eehines

In re the matter of Professor Richard Ned Lebow, of King’s College London, and Professor Simona Sharoni, of Merrimack College and a member of the International Studies Association, the ISA’s Executive Committee has spoken.

I demur from the ISA’s politically correct (if ever there were an oxymoron, here is one) position, in particular their Item 7.

7) … Although you explained that your comment was intended as a joking reference to an old, cultural trope, your email was not apologetic and PRR (and eventually ExComm) found that it was marginalizing and trivializing Prof. Sharoni’s reaction to your comment and that it was an attempt to intimidate her….

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A Judge’s Ruling on Female Genital Mutilation

Posted on 26 November 2018 by eehines

Charges related to female genital mutilation were dismissed last week against Detroit doctor Jumana Nagarwala, who has a history of performing such “surgeries.” Federal District Judge Bernard Friedman, of the Eastern District of Michigan, ruled that Congress had overstepped its authority in passing a law banning this FGM.

Sadly, the judge was right. That law, passed in 1996, was done under our Constitution’s Commerce Clause, which authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce (along with trade with foreign nations and with the Indian Tribes).

However, Friedman wrote,

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A Necessary Start

Posted on 23 November 2018 by eehines

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is on the verge of issuing actual rules (not “guidance” letters) directing the way in which colleges and universities must handle accusations of sexual assault. These rules will include

the right of every survivor to be taken seriously and the right of every person accused to know that guilt is not predetermined
both the alleged victim and the accused would be able to inspect and review all evidence
All Title IX hearings would include cross-examination, which could occur in-person or by live stream, with campus adjudicators allowed to observe the demeanor of witnesses as they assess credibility

This is a preview of A Necessary Start. Read the full post (397 words, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)

Bullying

Posted on 23 November 2018 by eehines

You can’t wear the clothes you can afford to buy, that are good quality, and that look nice without being ostentatious (you can’t wear your ostentatious rags, either, come to that). That’s bullying, don’t you know.

That’s the attitude of the Church of England’s Woodchurch High School in northwestern England (it’s across the Mersey from Liverpool—yes, that Mersey). They’re pretending to “poverty proof” their school, so they sent a letter to their students’ significant overseers (the institution actually refered to “parents/carers”:

As you are all aware from an email that was sent out yesterday, pupils will not be permitted to bring in Canadian (sic) Goose and Monclair (sic) coats after the Christmas break.

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Schism?

Posted on 21 November 2018 by eehines

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops met last week to consider, among other things, two important mutual accountability proposals that would begin to address the Catholic Church’s history of child molestation by members of the Catholic priesthood—some of whom have gone on to rise in the ranks of Church hierarchy. The proposals also were simple enough: one simply applied a zero-tolerance policy for sex abuse, and the other would have created an independent review board to investigate claims against bishops and refer credible cases directly to the Vatican. (I’ll elide the latter’s being a matter of having the weasel rule on alleged violations of the hen house.)

This is a preview of Schism?. Read the full post (331 words, estimated 1:19 mins reading time)

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