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May 2014

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 29, 2014 9 Comments
While the IRS assault on Tea Party groups is well known, another equally disturbing development is taking shape at the beleaguered agency. Alana Goodman of The Washington Free Beacon reported...
Lawsuit Alleging IRS Discrimination Against Pro-Israel Groups Moves Forward A lawsuit alleging that the IRS discriminates against pro-Israel groups will be allowed to move forward, a federal judge ruled this week in Washington, D.C. The IRS has been fighting to quash the lawsuit filed in 2009 by pro-Israel group Z Street, claiming the court does not have jurisdiction to hear the matter. However, Judge Ketanje Brown Jackson rejected the agency’s request to dismiss the case on Wednesday and ordered the IRS to respond to Z Street’s complaint within the next 30 days. Z Street says its constitutional rights were violated by an IRS policy that allegedly singles pro-Israel groups out for stricter scrutiny when they apply for tax-exempt status. According to the lawsuit, an IRS official told Z Street’s lawyer in 2009 that the group’s application for tax-exempt status would be “sent to a special unit in the D.C. office to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the administration’s public policies.”
Eugene Volokh provides more insight at The Washington Post...

Posted by A.F. Branco on May 29, 2014 3 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 Leslie Eastman on May 29, 2014 37 Comments
In the annals of news I have personally covered, I have rarely been so embarrassed by some members of my own sex as I have been this week, in the wake of the spree killing that took the lives of six young students attending the University of California - Santa Barbara. Among the most egregious examples of inanity offered as sophisticated opinion on this tragedy: These pundits would like to ignore several salient points in their mad scramble to promote their toxic worldviews.  However, they seem to ignore the fact that four talented young men, guiltless of any race or gender sin these women decry, are dead. I would like to take a moment to remember them. Christopher Ross Michaels-Martinez [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="384"] [From Facebook][/caption]
Michaels-Martinez was a 20-year-old sophomore at UC Santa Barbara. His parents told the LA Times that he was planning on becoming a lawyer and would soon be going abroad to London. As well as an avid reader, Michaels-Martinez is also remembered as an impressive athlete who played soccer, football, basketball.

Posted by New Neo on May 28, 2014 21 Comments
Mariam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag, under sentence of death for apostasy, has given birth in a Sudanese prison to a daughter. In reaction to her imprisonment and death sentence, the US Embassy in Sudan has released a statement protesting her incarceration, and a few US Senators have also supported her. Others, including Kelly Ayotte of NH (Ibrahim's wheelchair-bound husband, who suffers from muscular dystrophy, is from Sudan but is a US citizen and a resident of New Hampshire), have gone further and written a letter:
...asking John Kerry, U.S. Secretary of State, to offer political asylum to Ibrahim. "We also urge you and President Obama to reappoint an Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, whose primary purpose is to monitor, prevent, and respond to this exact type of incident," the letter stated.
Some groups such as Amnesty International are on the case as well. And what of President Barack Obama? The guy who spoke up readily in the Henry Louis Gates arrest and the Zimmerman case? The answer appears to be silence---at least so far---as well as silence from Secretary of State John Kerry. Obama is in the same position vis a vis Islam as Mariam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag herself, by the way, although of course he's not in prison for apostasy. Here are the facts of her life as reported:

Posted by Nathaniel on May 28, 2014 7 Comments
Three Republican Candidates face Democrat incumbent Ami Bera in the race for the CA-7 congressional seat: Doug Ose, Igor Birman, and Elizabeth Emken. The Cook PVI ranks this district as EVEN, or perfectly divided between Republicans and Democrats, and Election Projection says the district has a weak Democrat hold. According to the DCCC's internal poll, Bera is the current frontrunner as the June 3rd California primaries approach, polling at 47%. Ose and Birman follow with 22% and 17% respectively, and Emken trails at 7%. The remaining 7% are undecided. Due to the nature of California's primaries, only the two candidates with the most votes, regardless of party affiliation, will move on to the November elections. With Bera's huge lead in the polls, this leaves one spot open for the three Republican candidates to fight over, and so the party infighting is currently heated. Despite trailing both Emken and Ose in funding (until recently), Birman has managed to hold a strong second place in in the Republican primary polls. And now, he's bringing the fight to Ose, accusing him (rightfully, I'd say) of being too liberal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C87Dsv7ZQzQ&w=640&h=450&rel=0 Birman, who as a child emigrated to the US from the Soviet Union, is a staunch conservative: he has been endorsed by both Senator Rand Paul and Congressman Tom McClintock, and his campaign website states:
My first and only allegiance will be to the Constitution that every Member of Congress swears an oath to preserve and protect. Congress has ignored too many Constitutional principles. Having risked so much for a chance to live in freedom as an American, I will never forget them.
The primary race boils down to this: Will voters go for a moderate on the assumption that will make a victory more likely? Hasn't that been tried before?

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 28, 2014 25 Comments

Today is a travel and meeting day for me. So imagine my consternation to read the comment in the Tip Line from commenter Ragspierre, linking to a National Review post, about Obama's West Point speech today: Have we reached peak strawman…??? I have been an Obama straw man...

Posted by Mandy Nagy on May 28, 2014 16 Comments
In his first interview with a U.S. television news station since leaking information about NSA surveillance programs, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden sits down with NBC News’ Brian Williams for a one hour primetime special.  The interview, which was conducted last week, will air this Wednesday and NBC News has released some early clips in advance. From NBC News:
Edward Snowden, in an exclusive interview with "Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams, is fighting back against critics who dismissed him as a low-level hacker — saying he was “trained as a spy” and offered technical expertise to high levels of government. Snowden defended his expertise in portions of the interview that aired at 6:30 p.m. ET on Nightly News. The extended, wide-ranging interview with Williams, his first with a U.S. television network, airs Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET on NBC. “I was trained as a spy in sort of the traditional sense of the word, in that I lived and worked undercover overseas — pretending to work in a job that I’m not — and even being assigned a name that was not mine,” Snowden said in the interview. Snowden described himself as a technical expert who has worked for the United States at high levels, including as a lecturer in a counterintelligence academy for the Defense Intelligence Agency and undercover work for the CIA and National Security Agency. “But I am a technical specialist. I am a technical expert,” he said. “I don’t work with people. I don’t recruit agents. What I do is I put systems to work for the United States. And I’ve done that at all levels from — from the bottom on the ground all the way to the top.”
Williams’ interview with Snowden comes after months of negotiation between NBC News and intermediaries for the former NSA contractor, according to the New York Times.  The interview was conducted in Russia, where Snowden has been living since being granted asylum there last year. That location alone apparently presented its own challenges for the interview.

Posted by David Gerstman on May 28, 2014 11 Comments
For years many the feeling was that Europe had unquestioned leverage with Israel and therefore could take sides without losing its clout. But trade and tech have taken their toll on this assumption. Israel is building alliances in Asia, and European leverage is sure to suffer. Former Israeli foreign and defense minister, Moshe Arens, explains in Ha'aretz Why Israel is shifting eastward.
On reflection this is not totally unexpected. For many years the economic development of the countries in East Asia has been outpacing the economic development of Europe. Japan made giant strides in the years after World War II. South Korea followed suit. China has become the economic wonder of the twenty-first century. There are, as well, indications of accelerated economic development in India, the world’s largest democracy. It is natural that Israel’s economic relationship with these countries would begin to rival its relationships with the countries of Europe, a Europe which seems to be in permanent economic crisis and lagging behind the Asian tigers. ... Despite the centuries of anti-Semitism that marked most European nations and the guilt borne by them for their actions during the Holocaust, Europe, in recent years through the machinery of the European Union, has waged a constant campaign of criticism and condemnation of the policies pursued by Israeli governments, going so far as to impose economic sanction against Israel.
The second point was made in an op-ed in late February by Clemens Wergin in the New York Times, Why Israel no longer trusts Europe.
To Europe, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the root of all problems facing the region — a view in no way altered by the Arab Human Development Reports published by the United Nations since 2002, which showed that Arab autocracies and cultural backwardness were the root of the region’s woes.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 27, 2014 29 Comments
We have been following the Wisconsin "John Doe" anti-conservative witch hunt for a long time. The short story is that Wisconsin investigators using secret "John Doe" state processes have been targeting conservatives in Wisconsin under the factually and legally frivolous theory that they illegally coordinated with Scott Walker's campaign. After certain of the targets sued in federal court alleging a violation of their constitutional rights, a federal judge sided with the targets and issued an injunction barring further investigation and ordering return of evidence seized.  The investigators are in a judicial head lock. The civil suit against the investigators -- who are local prosecutors by day -- continues into the discovery phase. Money damages and other relief are in play, and the hunters have become the hunted. Here are some prior posts: Now comes a disturbing report in The Wall Street Journal that Scott Walker might cut a deal letting the investigators out, Scott Walker's Friends:
Wisconsin prosecutors have suffered a series of stunning legal defeats in recent months as they pursue a secret investigation of the conservative groups that helped Governor Scott Walker get elected. Those cases are shaping up as a major policy victory for free speech and political debate—unless a last-minute settlement rescues the prosecutors. We've learned that Steven Biskupic, who represents Friends of Scott Walker, has been negotiating with Wisconsin special prosecutor Francis Schmitz to settle the state's investigation. The understandable concern among the direct targets of the John Doe is that Mr. Biskupic will cut a deal that would exonerate Mr. Walker while wresting concessions from some of Mr. Walker's allies....
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