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January 2014

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 13, 2014 88 Comments
We have written before about the deer sterilization program in Cayuga Heights, which borders the Cornell campus (most people think of it as Ithaca, but it's actually a separate municipality). Because Reproductive Health Care Is A Cervine Right:
I have written before about the moral angst sweeping the upscale Village of Cayuga Heights, bordering the Cornell campus and home to a large number of professors and staff, over how to control the out-of-control deer population. After years of debate, which tore the community apart, Cayuga Heights has come up with a solution:
The board of trustees passed a resolution Monday night to begin implementation of the phased options approach to deer management. The village will begin with the surgical sterilization of 20-60 does within a two-year period, followed by the culling of the remainder of the herd.
The cost per sterilization? Don’t ask:
The first phase of sterilization is estimated to take two years at an average cost of $1,200 per doe, according to the statement.
If they do for our health care system what they’ve done for the deer of Cayuga Heights, we’re sunk.
How did it work out? The Ithaca Journal reports, Cayuga Heights spends $35K to sterilize 12 does:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 13, 2014 27 Comments
The other day I tried to make the distinction between dislike of Chris Christie, and joining the media mob which eventually will turn on Republican candidates you like. I told you not to feed that beast. To defend Chris Christie:
This is not about Chris Christie. It’s about any number of other Republican candidates who will be met with the same faux-outrage and media-led obsession a year from now as the 2016 field begins to define itself. Don’t feed the beast.
It's getting worse, as the feds are piling on. Within days of Bridgegate, Eric Holder and the U.S. Attorney's Office were on the case.  Funny how quickly the feds move against a potential Republican contender. Now the feds are piling on some more by leaking that they are investigating this ad paid for with Sandy relief funds.  That ad, Jim Geraghty points out, was Approved by Obama Administration: Featuring a sitting Governor in tourism ads is completely routine. It gives a personal touch to the tourism campaign. Here are other examples (via Louise Mensch):

Posted by A.F. Branco on January 13, 2014 13 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 Mandy Nagy on January 13, 2014 10 Comments
A memorial ceremony and funeral for Israel's former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who passed away Saturday at age 85, will take place on Monday. From CNN:
A state memorial ceremony for Sharon is planned for Monday. World leaders, including U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, will attend the memorial, which will be followed by a funeral procession. The procession will include a stop in Latrun for a special meeting of the Israel Defense Forces and will end with a military funeral at Sharon's Shikmim Ranch.
In addition to Biden, other members of the U.S. delegation as announced are U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro; Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y.; Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.; and Daniel Kurtzer, former ambassador to Israel, according to FOX News. A live Twitter feed is embedded at the bottom of this post. Live video coverage from Israeli television is below:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 12, 2014 13 Comments
Who really cares about those much-maligned kulak individual health insurance market policy holders? Hell, depending upon how you count them, they could number 15 million, or maybe as low as 6 million. You know who else didn't care about ... oh, never mind. Just because you are not one of the much-maligned, don't think you can run from Obamacare, which stalks each of us like the Grim ... oh, never mind. Second wave of health-insurance disruption affects small businesses (h/t Charles Cooke):
When millions of health-insurance plans were canceled last fall, the Obama administration tried to be reassuring, saying the terminations affected only the small minority of Americans who bought individual policies. But according to industry analysts, insurers and state regulators, the disruption will be far greater, potentially affecting millions of people who receive insurance through small employers by the end of 2014. While some cancellation notices already have gone out, insurers say the bulk of the letters will be sent in October, shortly before the next open-enrollment period begins. The timing — right before the midterm elections — could be difficult for Democrats who are already fending off Republican attacks about the Affordable Care Act and its troubled rollout. Some of the small-business cancellations are occurring because the policies don’t meet the law’s basic coverage requirements. But many are related only indirectly to the law; insurers are trying to move customers to new plans designed to offset the financial and administrative risks associated with the health-care overhaul. As part of that, they are consolidating their plan offerings to maximize profits and streamline how they manage them....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 12, 2014 12 Comments

Cascadilla Creek, not far from my home in Ithaca, carries water from one of the main gorges that cuts through campus high above to Cayuga Lake. But to get there, it travels through my neighborhood. Normally flooding is not a problem. Except when the creek freezes over and...

Posted by David Gerstman on January 12, 2014 16 Comments

Exhibit A:

In June, 1999, shortly after Ehud Barak had defeated Benjamin Netanyahu to become Israel's new prime minister, Charles Krauthammer wrote a column title, Clinton Should Have Targeted Arafat Instead. Krauthammer noted that Arafat was going around the world to lobby support for accepting UN General Assembly resolution 181 as a basis for any peace deal.
What is that? An obsolete, defunct resolution passed by the General Assembly (unlike 242 and 338, not by the Security Council, and thus not even binding) . . . in 1947! It partitioned British Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. At the time, every single Arab state and the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee totally rejected 181. In fact, they invaded the area given to the Jews with the express purpose of wiping it off the map. They failed. And now 50 years later, the Palestinians are converts to 181. What's wrong with that?

Posted by New Neo on January 12, 2014 33 Comments
Ever wonder how it is that so many self-proclaimed liberals and "progressives" don't seem to care about preserving liberty? Especially in the last decade or so, as the liberal wing of the Democratic Party has moved ever leftward and the assaults on liberty have cascaded, liberals seem more and more to divide into two camps: those who retain some love of liberty and those who do not. The relative size of these two groups is unclear; my perception is that the first group is far smaller than the second. But the two groups exist, and what seems to differentiate them are (a) the person's need to control others and/or society; and (b) the degree to which the person thinks government can do so effectively and get the desired results. Many liberals state that their motives are "good"---that is, to do good. They say they want people to be happier, healthier, and in general just better. Some actually seem sincere in this, as well as being motivated by a self-serving need to feel that they are good people for wanting to do good. But some liberals and many many leftists, especially activist leftists, have a different motivation: anger, and the desire for power and control. Back when Mayor Bloomberg of New York was heavily engaged in banning Big Gulps, a few liberals I know were offended by what Bloomberg had done, although many others were in favor. That was one of the strongest demonstrations of the sometimes-invisible dividing line between those liberals who still value liberty and those who do not, the latter being the outright and flagrant statists (don't forget, too, that there are Republican statists as well, although far fewer). You may recall Sarah Conly, author of Against Autonomy, an excellent demonstration of the statist impulse and the supposedly do-good one combining to create a vile synergy. And who better to explain it all than Ms. Conly herself:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 11, 2014 3 Comments
The Modern Language Association House Delegates voted on two anti-Israel Resolutions today. (The Resolutions are at the bottom of this post.) The main resolution, asking for the State Department to contest Israeli denials of entry visas to traveling academics: "Be it resolved that the MLA urges the US Dept of State to contest Israel's denials of entry to the West Bank by US academics...." The language was amended at the last minute to take out the word "arbitrarily" and to delete reference to Gaza. A House of Delegates vote is NOT a binding resolution that commits the organization to action. A resolution, if it passes the House of Delegates, then goes to the Executive Committee, which can reject the resolution for a variety of reasons, including that the resolution would jeopardize tax-exempt status). I would be surprised if the Executive Committee rejected it, since the operative language is so weak. We will have a post later from someone who was in the room. For now, I will post some of the Tweets from those in the room. Notice that there was significant pushback, and that the supporters of the resolution basically said take our word for it, when challenged as to the proof. That apparently was enough. The actual operative language of the resolution is not particularly damaging, and was watered down. But the "wherefore" clauses were highly anti-Israel and pretty-much propaganda. Those "wherefore" clauses will be the main victory for the anti-Israel group. The second resolution was an "Emergency" Resolution asking the MLA to denounce supposed attacks on the supporters of the American Studies Association boycott resolution. That Emergency Motion, which actually was explicitly pro-boycott, was rejected. 

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 11, 2014 18 Comments
Melissa Harris-Perry of MSNBC presided over an appalling segment in which panelists mocked Mitt Romney's family because of his adopted black grandchild.  She later apologized profusely. Yet for unknown reasons, Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic rushed to Perry's defense not by defending her conduct, but by attacking her critics as racist.
The Smartest Nerd in the Room: Why Melissa Harris-Perry is America's foremost public intellectual, and what she means On Saturday, Melissa Harris-Perry apologized on air for segment that made light of the Romney clan's adoption of a young black boy. On Sunday, Mitt Romney accepted Harris-Perry's "heartfelt" apology, noting, "I've made plenty of mistakes myself." I've watched the offending segment several times now. I can see how a white parent who'd adopted a black child (or vice versa) would find the segment flip and offensive. It would not have surprised me if those concerned about adoption, equality, and racism voiced some protest about the segment. Instead what we got was week of invective driven mostly by a conservative movement with less lofty concerns.

Posted by Andrew Branca on January 11, 2014 13 Comments

Based on reporting from the Florida Times-Union, it appears that Circuit Court Judge James Daniel has determined that it was the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office that is responsible for this past week's kerfuffle over the  relaxed enforcement of Marissa Alexander's home detention. In a column updated today journalist...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 11, 2014 10 Comments
Ariel Sharon has died, after almost 8 years in a coma. He led a life that was complicated, and defined by the insatiable Arab desire to destroy Israel. [caption id="attachment_75543" align="alignnone" width="539"](1953 - Commando Unit 101 - Ariel Sharon Second from Left, Second Row)(source: (1953 - Commando Unit 101 - Ariel Sharon Second from Left, Second Row)(source: YouTube [/caption] Sharon, among many others, didn't let it happen, and in the course of defending Israel made some errors of judgment that are easy for historians and politicians to criticize with the benefit of hindsight. Sharon's crossing of the Suez canal during the 1973 War to trap the Egyptian Third Army is legendary. [caption id="attachment_74807" align="alignnone" width="448"]Ariel Sharon Moshe Dayan 1973 Sinai (Ariel Sharon and Moshe Dayan, Sinai 1973)[/caption]

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 10, 2014 14 Comments
We previously wrote in detail about the "John Doe" investigation in Wisconsin targeting a wide range of conservative groups and Scott Walker supporters relating to the failed Democratic attempt to recall Walker.[*]  See Secret probe of conservatives makes Wisconsin ground zero in First Amendment war for the details. Good news.  The subpoenas issued in the secret probe have been quashed in a secret court ruling uncovered by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Secret ruling deals major setback to John Doe probe into recall elections:
Prosecutors in the John Doe investigation into spending and fundraising during the raucous Wisconsin recall elections were dealt a major procedural blow Friday, according to sources. The five-county investigation remains open, but subpoenas issued in the probe to conservative political groups supporting Gov. Scott Walker were quashed, sources familiar with the development said. The ruling — which is sealed — raises First Amendment concerns about the subpoenas. The Journal Sentinel has not turned up any Democratic candidates or liberal interest groups involved in the recall elections that have been contacted by John Doe prosecutors. "The John Doe is still open," said one individual familiar with the case. But other sources said Friday's ruling seriously undercuts the well-publicized probe, launched in the summer of 2012. Those familiar with the case said the decision was handed down by retired Appeals Court Judge Gregory A. Peterson, the presiding judge in the investigation who took over the case in November.
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