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May 2014

White privilege is the political Swiss Army Knife of the progressive movement. There is literally nothing that happens in the country for which white privilege does not serve as a tool. If you are white, you have white privilege. If you are not, you suffer from lack of white privilege. The insane White Privilege Conference exposed recently is just one example, but certainly liberal websites partake as well. But what to make of our increasingly multi-racial society? How do you squeeze white privilege into the actions of multi-racial perps? We know that with George Zimmerman, the problem of half-whiteness was solved by labeling him just plain old white, or at most, a white Hispanic. Never was Zimmerman just Hispanic. What to make of the UCSB mass murderer who was half white and half Asian? Salon.com is a long-time purveyor of all manner of white privilege political arguments.  Joan Walsh has twisted into an intellectual knot to justify bringing white privilege to bear while also acknowledging the half-whiteness. The answer? Half-White Privilege. Elliot Rodger’s half-white male privilege:
Not that I have a lot of sympathy for Rodger, but it twists his already twisted story to label him simply white.... Why is it so hard to recognize Rodger as of mixed racial descent? It certainly doesn’t negate the role white entitlement and privilege played in his “syndrome.” Rodger is at least partly a victim of the ideology of white supremacy, as well as its violent enforcer....

You would think a state with such dire financial problems couldn't even consider spending such a large sum of tax dollars on something that's usually built with private money. Luckily, the Illinois House has backed off the idea for the moment. USA Today reported...
Illinois shelving $100M gift to Obama library A plan to offer $100 million in tax dollars to lure Barack Obama's presidential library to Illinois is on the shelf, with lawmakers prepared to wrap up their spring session without advancing the idea. Democrats in the president's home state pushed the proposal to compete against rival bids from Hawaii and New York. But it faced opposition from Republicans wary of an expensive and precedent-setting gift — with no immediately identified funding source — for a mostly private endeavor when the state faces serious financial difficulties. Not all Democrats were on board either, and the Illinois House adjourned Friday without calling for any final votes on the measure.

In the wake of Tea Party's initial phases of success and media attention in 2009, progressive counterparts astroturfed their own version: The Coffee Party. For me, the most troubling aspect of development is that the organizers usurped the beverage that powers my Tea Party activities. But, I digress. Recently, many elite pundits were gleefully pronouncing that the "Tea Party is dead", once again. For example, the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin points to various Senate primaries where Tea Party candidates couldn’t raise money and couldn’t win. Nice to see such concern, Jennifer! Especially touching, as the Texas Tea Party just arranged a replacement for a 34-year-incumbent during the Republican primary runoff. As an analysis of the Tea Party's defeat of Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst pointed out: The GOP, once dominated by business interests and Beltway insiders, is now driven more by local activists far from Washington watching their members like hawks. This got me to thinking: What ever happened to "The Coffee Party?" The last time I checked in on them (in 2011), the progressive version of the Tea Party had a schism so bad, that one group split up into two different booths at an event. Legal Insurrection's archives contain a few old grinds, too: Here is the latest statement from "Coffee Party USA". Frankly, I don't see much life left:

Some links for your Friday evening reading and viewing. Politico reviews an early release of the chapter from Hillary Clinton's book "Hard Choices"...

Note: You may reprint this cartoon provided you link back to this source.  To see more Legal Insurrection Branco cartoons, click here. Branco’s page is Cartoonist A.F.Branco...

Via WaPo: President Obama said Friday he accepted the resignation of embattled Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki.
He made the announcement shortly after Shinseki apologized publicly Friday for what he called an “indefensible” lack of integrity among some senior leaders of the VA health-care system and announced several remedial steps, including a process to remove top officials at the troubled VA medical center in Phoenix.
Here's Shinseki's speech outlining changes:

UPDATES: Scott Walker: No way I’m throwing fellow conservatives under bus in “John Doe” probe. Also, late this afternoon a Judge practically laughed at the investigators' request for "clarification" of the injunction:
“The order of this Court and that of the Seventh Circuit offers clear guidance as to the parameters of the injunction,” the federal judge said. “In the absence of any further information regarding the content and import of ‘discussions’ that may violate the Court’s clear directives, it is impossible for the Court to offer further clarification at this time.” A legal expert close to the John Doe proceedings said Randa is saying that Schmitz knows precisely what he can and cannot do. “Judge Randa is saying, ‘Look, guy, you know what this means and if you’re skulking around trying to do something you know you are not supposed to be doing you are risking contempt,’” said the source, who did not want to be identified due to his proximity to the John Doe proceedings. “And contempt is really a serious thing, especially against a prosecutor.”
------------------- The last time we wrote about the abusive "John Doe" investigation of conservative activists in Wisconsin, we were wondering whether Gov. Scott Walker would try to cut a prejudicial side deal with the investigators to have the probe dropped in exchange for some concessions including shutting out some key political activists, Dear Scott Walker: Don’t sell out conservative victims of “John Doe” abuses. Two developments directly related to the settlement. First, Walker issued what the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel termed a "carefully worded" statement on the settlement controversy:
The statement by Friends of Scott Walker was attributed simply to the campaign and not to any individual and appeared to deal only with the federal lawsuit, not the state investigation in which both the Club for Growth and Walker's campaign are targets. "Neither Governor Walker nor his campaign committee are parties to the federal lawsuit. This means they have no legal standing to reach a settlement or deal in their lawsuit," the statement reads in full. A spokeswoman for Walker did not respond to questions clarifying the statement.
That is technically true, but doesn't address whether a deal was being cut between Walker and the investigators on the probe itself. The issue, according to the lawyer for the plaintiff in the federal lawsuit, was that through the settlement, the investigators were trying to coerce a punishment forbidden by the court's preliminary injunction, as reported by The Wisconsin State Journal:
Thursday’s filing by David Rivkin, the attorney for O’Keefe and the group, was the latest twist in a complex legal battle over the investigation into Walker and conservative groups. In the filing, Rivkin said it appeared Schmitz was trying to “use the coercive power of the state to cut side-deals” that would violate his clients’ rights.
(added) The motion by the investigators to clarify the injunction and the response by plaintiffs are embedded at the bottom of this post.  There is a fascinating exchange of letters between the lawyers, in which the plaintiff's lawyers allege the investigators are in violation of the preliminary injunction, to which the motion was directed. The plaintiffs' counsel responded in the court filing:

The National Security Agency on Thursday released an April 2013 email exchange between former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and the NSA Office of General Counsel, saying it was the only correspondence it had from Snowden and that the email "did not raise allegations or concerns about wrongdoing or abuse." From Reuters:
An email exchange released on Thursday shows Edward Snowden questioned the U.S. National Security Agency's legal training programs, but provides no evidence the former contractor complained internally about vast NSA surveillance programs that he later leaked to the media. Snowden responded in an email to the Washington Post that the release by U.S. officials "is incomplete." The release of the April 2013 emails between Snowden and the NSA's legal office is the latest round in a battle between Snowden, who casts himself as a crusading whistleblower, and U.S. security officials, who say he failed to report his concerns to superiors before acting.
The release of Snowden’s 2013 email exchange with NSA's legal office came a day after the former NSA contractor’s televised interview Wednesday evening with NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams.  In that interview, Snowden told Williams that he tried to go through the proper channels inside the NSA before leaking documents to members of the press. From NBC News: