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January 2014

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 21, 2014 35 Comments
In the earliest days of the internet, an Instapundit reader suggested the term "take the Boeing" to describe when bloggers join big media outlets. Today, Volokh Conspiracy took the Washington Post's Boeing:
We’re now trying what might be the most ambitious experiment yet: a joint venture with the Washington Post. The Post will host our blog, and pass along its content to Post readers (for instance, by occasionally linking to our stories from the online front page). We will continue to write the blog, and Volokh.com will still take you here. We will also retain full editorial control over what we write. And this full editorial control will be made easy by the facts that we have (1) day jobs, (2) continued ownership of our trademark and the volokh.com domain, and (3) plenty of happy experience blogging on our own, should the need arise to return to that. The main difference will be that the blog, like the other Washingtonpost.com material, will be placed behind the Post’s rather permeable paywall. We realize that this may cause some inconvenience for some existing readers — we are sorry about that, and we tried to negotiate around it, but that’s the Post’s current approach.
I wish them well.  They are the premier group of law professor and lawyer bloggers who actually blog about the law.  Not to leave others out, but the work Eugene Kontorovich has done on The Legal Case for Israel is decisive. As for me, I don't know if I am hirable by major newspapers.  Certainly not The New York Times, for at least 10 reasons. When big media gobbles up what's left of the smaller blogosphere, I tend to throw a pity party and look for a song that fits my mood.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 21, 2014 10 Comments
The Washington Post reports, Former Va. Gov. McDonnell and wife charged in gifts case:
Former Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell and his wife Maureen were charged in federal court Tuesday with illegally accepting gifts, luxury vacations and large loans from a wealthy Richmond-area businessman who sought special treatment from state government. The two were charged in connection with their relationship with dietary supplement executive Jonnie R. Williams Sr. Authorities alleged McDonnell and his wife received gifts from Williams again and again, lodging near constant requests for money, clothes, trips, golf accessories and private plane rides. In exchange, they alleged the McDonnells worked in concert to lend the prestige of the governorship to Williams’s struggling company, a small former cigarette manufacturer that now sells dietary supplements.
Update:  Here is the Indictment (full embed at bottom of post):

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 21, 2014 29 Comments
I've known him from the blogosphere, where he ran The Wolf Files. Now he's running for Senate in Kansas. This radio ad, in which mention is made of him being "The Next Ted Cruz" is sure to get attention, as it has at The Hill:
Milton Wolf is quickly claiming the Ted Cruz mantle in his primary against Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.). The Senate hopeful and second cousin to President Obama, Wolf is launching his first radio ad ahead of the August primary featuring former Kansas Rep. Jim Ryun (R) touting Wolf as “the next Ted Cruz.” Ryun is chairman of the conservative group the Madison Project, which has endorsed Wolf. Senate Conservatives Fund has also backed Wolf. “You see, Milton Wolf is a doctor, not a politician, and they’re already calling him the next Ted Cruz [R-Texas],” Ryun says in the ad, a reference to an article in The Week examining whether he's trying to follow in Cruz's footsteps. He goes on to praise Wolf’s conservative credentials and his proclaimed goal of repealing and replacing ObamaCare. “You wanna drive President Obama crazy? Send Dr. Milton Wolf to the U.S. Senate,” Ryun says at the end of the ad.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 21, 2014 20 Comments
On November 9, 2008, The Fort Worth Star Telegram ran a profile of Wendy Davis after her election to the State Senate, A confident fighter, Wendy Davis enters a new chapter in her political life: state senator. The full article is not available online, but I found it in a database. The article was a fairly pedestrian account of Davis' political history, but included two interesting parts (emphasis added):
She transferred to Texas Christian University , where she met her second husband, Jeff Davis , who had served on the Fort Worth City Council in the 1970s. Jeff Davis was on the board of Stage West, where Wendy Davis' father worked. After graduating first in her class at TCU, Wendy Davis went to Harvard Law School . She and Jeff Davis divorced in 2003. During law school, Davis worked summers at Kelly Hart & Hallman, and, after graduating, she landed a prestigious job as a law clerk for a federal judge in Dallas. But she was turned down for a full-time job at Kelly Hart . Davis said early in her first campaign that she thought it was because of her outspoken opposition to the zoo's parking plan. Her implication was that the firm was trying to silence one of the zoo's critics rather than debate the issue. In a recent interview, Davis said she brought up the issue with the firm in 1996 to make a point that the city needed more "process," her watchword for getting input from neighborhoods on big decisions. "I would articulate it a little more carefully today," she said.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 21, 2014 17 Comments

Why didn't Bill Clinton run for President in 1988? I never really thought about it. Larry Sabato, as part of a post explaining why Hillary is not a "slam dunk" (h/t Hot Air), explains: After all, with just one exception, a Clinton has always tried for public office...

Posted by David Gerstman on January 21, 2014 7 Comments
According to numerous press reports, the Palestinians have refused any meaningful concessions in the John Kerry-led peace talks.  No compromise on recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, on refugees, on borders, on security arrangements, on anything meaningful.  Instead, they are planning a diplomatic intifada to try to isolate Israel when the talks break down. But, the Palestinians are happy to pocket the dozens of convicted killers released as part of the inducement to get them the negotiating table. More important, they make their uncompromising positions as the baseline for future negotiations. This tactic of pocketing concessions while conceding nothing has a recent history. In May 2011, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave Barack Obama a now famous talking-to in front of the cameras about the Middle East and the peace process: Columnist Jeffrey Goldberg would describe the incident like this:
It was an extraordinary scene: President Barack Obama, sitting impassively in the Oval Office in May as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lectured him, at considerable length and at times condescendingly, on Jewish history, Arab perfidy and the existential challenges facing his country.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 20, 2014 31 Comments
From Micky Kaus, a prediction as to what will be in the House proposals we will receive as soon as next week, The Coming GOP Amnesty Sellout Push
Lobbyists, on the march! The coming weeks will see the formal start of the GOP House leadership’s attempt to sneak an immigration amnesty through the Republican caucus and into law. We don’t know the exact details of the proposals, but we know enough: 1) There will be some form of legalization (conditional amnesty) for the 11 million illegal immigrants already here. It won’t give them a “special” path to citizenship, but they will likely be able to pursue citizenship through regular old channels. Either way, the message sent to potential future immigrants will be, “If you come here illegally, you’ll get to stay legally.” Plus, once the bill has passed the Democratic campaign to paint the GOP as racist for not granting general citizenship to the whole group will begin. 2) There will be an attempt to describe Speaker Boehner’s “piecemeal” collection of immigration bills as an “enforcement first” arrangement that will prevent another, future illegal wave despite the incentive created by what will be two successive amnesties.... That means a convoluted debate over “triggers,” the traditional playground for legislative legerdemain.*** Legalizers will try to make the prequisites look tough when they aren’t — certainly nothing that can’t be easily dismantled once the undocumented get their documents. Do not count on the press to correct this misimpression. They’re in the “fool the rubes” camp too.
An important part of all this will be Democrats pretending to fall on their swords just to get something passed. That's just a guess. Oh wait!

Posted by A.F. Branco on January 20, 2014 5 Comments

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...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 20, 2014 10 Comments
I did not know who Richard Sherman was until last night. When Twitter exploded with Twit-rage over something Sherman said, I didn't know what everyone was talking about because I didn't watch the end of the San Francisco-Seattle football game. So I searched Sherman's name and then clicked on his Wikipedia page, and saw this (highlighting added): Richard Sherman Wikipedia Page Piece Human Garbage Close Up Highlighted Well, that certainly caught my interest, and it wasn't too hard to find out what happened. By the time I clicked back on Wikipedia, the "human garbage" entry was gone, replaced by a more neutral analysis. Looking back at the Edit History of the page, it's easy to see that the moment after the interview, there were numerous attempts to "vandalize" the page (times are expressed in GMT):

Posted by Mandy Nagy on January 19, 2014 1 Comment
Demonstrations in Kiev, Ukraine erupted into violent clashes between protesters and police on Sunday. From Reuters:
Protesters clashed with riot police in the Ukrainian capital on Sunday after tough anti-protest legislation, which the political opposition says paves the way for a police state, was rushed through parliament last week. A group of young masked demonstrators attacked a cordon of police with sticks and tried to overturn a bus blocking their way to the parliament building after opposition politicians called on people to disregard the new legislation. Despite appeals from opposition leaders not to resort to violence, and a personal intervention from boxer-turned-politician Vitaly Klitschko, protesters continued to throw smoke bombs and hurl fireworks and other objects at police. The police appeared to show restraint during that fracas. The interior ministry said 30 police were hurt, including more than 10 admitted to hospital and four in serious condition.
Police reportedly later tried to disperse the protesters using water cannon and tear gas, according to AFP. Protests have continued in Ukraine over the last two months, though have not always stayed in the news headlines. As mentioned above, sparking the most recent tensions are a series of new laws that were recently passed there and place restrictions on certain protest activity.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 19, 2014 47 Comments
How did Edward Snowden so carefully thread the needle to download a massive trove of highly secret documents from across the NSA and intelligence networks without detection? How did he know exactly which job to go after in Hawaii to give him that access, and how was his escape so neatly orchestrated that he ends up first in Chinese controlled Hong Kong with its difficult extradition rules, and then on to Vladimir Putin's arms? Those are questions which have troubled me since the start of this drama, when I asked whether this all was just a Snowden job? Was exposing issues about our privacy the goal, or the cover story for foreign espionage? How better to cause havoc in our intelligence services than to steal the crown jewels and create political turmoil because the U.S. does what every other major nation does -- only better. I still have my doubts as to what this all is really about:
As events have unfolded, I’ve been hesitant to focus on motivations and agenda, because undoubtedly there is some good coming out. We’re more conscious of the totality of information gathered by government, the weak oversight, and the potential for abuse. As a small government type, these disclosures are useful as to the threat posed by unaccountable big government. Among other things, the Snowden affair is a stark warning as to the danger the gathering of private medical information under Obamacare poses not just from the government itself, but from leakers. Imagine some HHS employee pulling a Snowden with your medical information. Nonetheless, I’ve been uncomfortable how this has gone down. We shouldn’t be kowtowed into silence just because some of the consequences of this espionage and theft are good from a privacy perspective....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 19, 2014 63 Comments
Wendy Davis rose to national prominence when she conducted a filibuster to block a Texas bill restricting non-medically necessary abortions after 20-weeks. For that position, which is wildly unpopular, Davis became the next Elizabeth Warren -- the Great White Hope in pink sneakers. Erick Erickson dubbed her "Abortion Barbie," which led to howls of sexism. But as I explained in Why is “Abortion Barbie” off limits for Wendy Davis?, Barbie and Ken analogies in politics are quite common. Erickson's remark was directed not at Davis' gender, but her self-professed ignorance of the Kermit Gosnell House of Abortion Horrors. That someone running on a pro-late term abortion platform didn't know about the biggest abortion story of the year made her look, well, like a plastic impression. Like Elizabeth Warren, whose life story does not hold up to scrutiny, Davis appears to have narrative problems, as detailed today by The Dallas Morning News, As Wendy Davis touts life story in race for governor, key facts blurred:
Wendy Davis has made her personal story of struggle and success a centerpiece of her campaign to become the first Democrat elected governor of Texas in almost a quarter-century. While her state Senate filibuster last year captured national attention, it is her biography — a divorced teenage mother living in a trailer who earned her way to Harvard and political achievement — that her team is using to attract voters and boost fundraising.

Posted by New Neo on January 19, 2014 33 Comments
On a recent Hot Air thread about whether it's desirable to impeach Obama I saw this comment:
Impeachment would be like a child throwing a temper tantrum — lots of sound and fury signifying extreme frustration. But in the end Obama would still be there.
Impeachment is not an absolute impossibility before Obama's second term is through. But impeachment would be a very bad idea at this point, even though the GOP controls the House, and even though there's plenty of fodder for impeachment. Just for the sake of argument, let's say that the Republicans in the House have not only the votes but the guts to do it. But the effort would go nowhere in the Senate; they would not get the requisite two-thirds for conviction. The failed process would only anger the public, the great majority of whom would find it to be vindictive overkill (as well as something that gets in the way of whatever it is that they think Congress is supposed to be doing instead). Such an action would increase Obama's approval rating, and perhaps even lead to the Democrats holding the Senate in 2014 or even making advances in both bodies of Congress.
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