The Hamilton musical implies that Washington sent Hamilton home over the John Laurens — Charles Lee duel, but the real incident was far, far more ridiculous.

On February 15th, 1781, Washington and his men were hunkered down in a farmhouse in New Windsor. His group of aide-de-camps were busy, working until midnight on papers and letters for a meeting with the French.

Then Washington met Hamilton on the way up the stairs and asked the young Lt. Colonel to see him.

Hamilton assumed that the general would wait in his office, and so he proceeded downstairs, delivered a letter to another aide-de-camp, talked with Lafayette for little while, and then went upstairs to meet with the general. …

I have been viciously and unfairly meme-ed, and I don’t know if I’ll ever fully recover.

I didn’t know the police were racist.

No, I’m not talking about the Floyd Georgie thing or whatever. I’m talking about how the police refuse to arrest the meme-ers who made my name into a prejudiced slur against well-meaning white women who happen to be very similar to me.

I thought I lived in a free country. I didn’t know that asking to see the manager was “entitled.”

I’m sorry, but when I order a caramel apple spice latte at Starbucks, I demand a certain amount of spice, not an eye roll and an attitude. …

Senator Tim Scott described ending “qualified immunity” for police officers as a poison pill. It’s the first sign that a bipartisan police reform bill will be more about placating protests than holding racist cops accountable.

Tim Scott, the Republican Senator from South Carolina, went on CBS’s Face the Nation, to lay out the Republican Senate police reform bill, which has three planks:

• Data: Forcing local governments to report to the DOJ on incidents of bodily harm and death (currently only 40 percent of departments do this according to Scott).
• Training: Teaching more de-escalation tactics.
• “Drill into Police Misconduct”: Which currently means very little. …

Democrats are in a lot more trouble than they realize.

On New Year’s Eve, Biden was ahead of Trump by 6 points. Then:

• A pandemic shut down the economy leading to tens of millions of employed people.
• Over 100,000 Americans have died.
• A police officer was caught on camera killing an unarmed black man, horrifying the nation and inspiring protests coast-to-coast.

Now, Biden is ahead by 7 points…

If you live deep enough in the blue silo of information, it might come as a surprise that widespread death and unrest did not do more to help Biden’s poll numbers.

Truth is, from this point forward, Biden, and Democrats in general, will be faced with serious challenges. …

Things that seemed impossible just two weeks ago are now inevitable.

Black Lives Matters in L.A. scheduled a townhall on May 19th to organize against the city budget. Los Angeles expected to take a big hit to their budget because of COVID-19 and there were cuts across the board — except with the LAPD, which was going to get a raise.

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That’s nothing new. The police are politically powerful, so powerful that mayors and city councils who fight police interests risk career suicide. Few people pay attention to local elections.

One group that does are the cops. …

If your foot-long sandwich is not actually 12-inches long, you can sue. On the other hand, if you’re tortured by public officials, you’ll be hard-pressed to find real legal recourse. That might end soon.

Nothing is more American than suing people. Our frivolous lawsuits are the stuff of legend, so why can police officers abuse citizens without facing both criminal and civil consequences?

It’s a legal doctrine called qualified immunity, and it has protected public officials from consequences even in cases of severe civil rights violations.

It’s time for the doctrine to end, and thanks to hundreds of protests over George Floyd’s death, there’s more hope for reform than ever before. …

You may have seen some articles detailing the habits of successful people. Those articles don’t just write themselves.

People have been stalking the rich and successful for centuries, just to make lists of their habits. Those people are dedicated, resourceful and obsessive, and you can be just like them.

I know, because I’ve been obsessively monitoring the habits of people obsessed with the habits of successful people, and I’ve got a few nuggets of advice.

That’s assuming you want to be a creepy sycophant who lives in a bush outside Jeff Bezos’ house.

I mean, who wouldn’t, right?

Stalkers of successful people practice patience. …

COVID-19 made the terms China’s “Phase One” trade deal with the U.S. ridiculous. And China’s COVID-19 coverup and Hong Kong crackdown laws makes renegotiations difficult.

The result will likely be a new trade war that will hurt the recovery effort and could give Trump another four years in the White House.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Beijing’s new national security law a “death knell” to Hong Kong’s autonomy. Hong Kong residents seem to agree, and they’ve flooded the streets again.

The law will ban “secession, subversion and terrorist activities” similar to laws present in mainland China and have been used to imprison political activists like Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo. If the law passes, the White House says it will pursue sanctions at a time when they would have been discussing another step toward removing the trade war tariffs. …