Many if not most first-degree murder charges are based on statutory carve-outs. What you’re describing is often called felony murder: if you commit a violent felony (like robbery) and someone dies in the event, you can be charged with 1st-degree even if you never meant to kill anybody (including such cases as where a…

I can’t get past him think Swedish people are “swarthy.”

Miller still thinks life is a high school forensics tournament. Which is bad enough when you’re actually in high school forensics, but as a grown-ass man, oy. So very pathetic.

Nah, he offered to do it for free, thereby undercutting the hardworking Americans doing the job now.

Nonimmigrant visas, to be far too fair.

I am convinced Miller got beat up a lot as a kid.

Reese Brands kindly reminds its customers that trailer hitches are not designed or rated for rectal insertion.

Eh, there’s some ambiguity as to whether or not people born overseas to American parents are “natural-born” citizens or not. Congress explicitly said John McCain’s situation (born in the Panama Canal Zone i.e. U.S. territory to parents abroad on official assignment) qualified, and they conspicuously did NOT do the…

Malls are doing juuuust fine in China, believe you me. You can get your dinner and/or groceries and/or liquor with an app, but pretty much any significant household purchase requires an in-person appearance or a dice roll on one of several Chinese versions of eBay.

Hot taek: I can’t frickin’ stand anyone involved in this.

Just start with the fact that one of the world’s leading refs is a gay Welsh standup comedian and bard, and go from there.

As noted elsewhere, it was very likely port. There are true dessert wines carried in true first class cabins by some airlines, but Delta doesn’t have true first class cabins. [harrumphs, adjusts monocle.]

I suspect the ambiguity was intentional. Give the kid options without having to change his/her/their/its actual name.

Darn. It’s Tom Shannon (under secretary for political affairs since last year, pretty much every other slightly-less-senior position before that, former ambassador to Brazil). Good guy. Low profile. And his low-profileness might be why he still has his job (thank God), as Trump dismissed every other under secretary…

Eh. It’s not a question of competence at that level, and one can have a decent foreign policy run from the White House (see Obama, Barack). It’s just that career diplomats tend to be pretty low-profile people and SecState is a high-profile job. Case in point: the seniormost career guy was acting secretary for a couple…

Literally nothing in this comment accurately reflects visa policy or practice. In this particular case, the outcome is sad but very likely correct under the law (which has been around in more or less its present state for over 60 years): you cannot have a nonimmigrant visa unless you can demostrate abundantly that you…

Sigh. Look, nobody likes these stories, but dollars to donuts this decision has nothing to do with Trump, terrorism, religion, national security, or anything else that makes headlines. Very likely, the visa officers took one look at the group, decided they were not idiots, and therefore refused the visas, because you…

If we’re being REALLY fair, there’s only ever been one career diplomat who served as appointed Secretary of State (Lawrence Eagleburger, who had the job for all of a month in the lame-duck portion of the GHW Bush admin). Clinton likely wouldn’t have selected one, either, though there was a department legend on her…

I restate my motion that we resolve the ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State/Daesh whatdowecallem game by naming this outfit “Assholes Amalgamated.” Because really, it’s hard to find any movement in history as committed to nothing but evil for evil’s sake. They always give some excuse, sure, but really there’s no evidence of any…

Also, the term “natural-born citizen” is really poorly defined in law. The Immigration and Nationality Act and the certificates issued overseas to confirm citizenship (Consular Recprds of Birth Abroad) both use the language “acquired citizenship at birth.” John McCain was physically born in Panama and Congress had to…