BONER CANDIDATE#1: WELL OF COURSE HE WAS FIRED…HE SAID THE NAME OF HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED
A former U.S. diplomat says he was fired from his job as the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in London just for mentioning Barack Obama in a speech. Lewis Lukens spent three decades in the U.S. foreign service, including stints as the U.S. ambassador to Senegal and Guinea-Bissau and the acting ambassador to the United Kingdom in 2017. However, GQ magazine reports that Lukens was fired in October 2018, after his boss learned he had included an Obama anecdote in a speech to university students in England. At the time of the speech, President Donald Trump had recently attacked British leaders like former Prime Minister Theresa May and London Mayor Sadiq Khan. But in his talk to students, Lukens emphasized that allies can disagree in a positive manner. To that end, Lukens related an anecdote from Obama’s 2013 visit to Senegal, when a reporter asked the president if he had discussed LGBTQ rights with the Senegalese leader. The topic could have been dicey, considering the African country criminalizes same-sex relationships as “unnatural.” But Lukens explained that Obama was able to deftly answer the reporter’s question without causing an international incident. However, a week after the speech, Lukens’ boss, U.S. Ambassador Woody Johnson, a Trump political appointee, fired Lukens. It was just seven months ahead of when Lukens was scheduled to leave for a new assignment. Read More
BONER CANDIDATE #2: GEORGE IS NOT DONE YET
Neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who was acquitted of the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, is suing the teen’s parents, family attorney, the attorney’s book publisher and prosecutors who tried his case, claiming he was defamed when they allowed a witness to give false testimony in an attempt to incriminate him. Zimmerman’s lawsuit, filed Wednesday, said a trial witness pretended to be the last person to talk to Martin by phone before he was killed when the witness was actually the half-sister of the caller. According to the lawsuit, Brittany Diamond Eugene didn’t want to testify that she had been talking to Martin before he was killed. So her half-sister, Rachel Jeantel, pretended that she was talking to the teen before he was fatally shot. Jeantel ended up testifying at Zimmerman’s 2013 trial in Sanford, Florida. Martin was killed during a struggle with Zimmerman, who was a Neighborhood Watch volunteer. Martin was black. Zimmerman’s father is white and his mother is Hispanic. Zimmerman’s trial raised questions about race and Florida’s “stand your ground” self-defense law which allows people to use force without retreating if they feel threatened. In a statement on Wednesday, Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump called the allegations “unfounded and reckless.” Read More
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