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May 2014

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 20, 2014 2 Comments
With a little help from cooler temperatures, atmospheric moisture, and robust emergency response, San Diego's recent wildfires are well contained and a return to normal life is resuming for San Diego Residents...almost.
As we reported earlier, evacuations have been lifted for residents of Camp Pendleton military base in San Diego, though some marines have been relocated to barracks away from the fires. Lt. Ryan Finnegan told KPCC that outlook is "trending positive," with all three fires on base over 50 percent contained. "I wouldn't say it's quite back to normal," Finnegan said. "We definitely still have some road closures and power outages here on base, but all the families are back in their housing. The people who are displaced right now are the single marines who live in the barracks." Those marines have been moved further south to temporary housing.
Last week, I mentioned there were serious speculation that arson may be the cause for several of these blazes. An arrest was made in connection to one of those fires.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 20, 2014 15 Comments
I haven't focused much on the Mississippi Republican Senate primary, in which Chris McDaniel is challenging Thad Cohran, except to have previously noted that NRSC race card play against challenger hurts us all. But the latest intrigue makes what came before look like child's play.  Ed Morrissey and Allahpundit at Hot Air have background, but the story is fairly simple:  A pro-McDaniel blogger was caught sneaking into a nursing home where Cochran's wife was resident due to Alzheimers or some other form of dementia, and photographed her.  Very ugly stuff. Then things got even more strange when the Cochran campaign and NRSC suggested that McDaniel somehow might be involved, and that inconsistent statements as to how and when the McDaniel campaign found out about it were incriminating. Then, it turned out that the Cochran campaign itself knew about the break in but sat on it for two weeks before notifying authorities. The NRSC communications director who was tweeting with wild speculation about the McDaniel timeline has not, as of this writing, responded to my request as to when the NRSC found out about it. Erick Erickson thinks there's collusion between the Cochran campaign and NRSC to pin the blame, at least by innuendo, on McDaniels. The latest development is that the blogger's wife suggests in an interview that McDaniels, at least indirectly, was in on it:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 20, 2014 25 Comments
We previously covered Dinesh D'Souza's indictment on campaign finance fraud based on reimbursing others for campaign donations. The case stunk of selective prosecution, but selective prosecution is not a legal defense except in the most extreme circumstances. If you are caught speeding, it's not a defense that others were speeding too. Today D'Souza pleaded guilty, as reported at Townhall:
Author and conservative filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza plead guilty this morning to one count on federal charges detailed in an indictment accusing him of violating campaign finance laws and making false statements. D'Souza admitted in front of the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, that he did in fact ask two people to make contributions in their name and later reimbursed them, knowing it was not proper under the law. D'Souza submitted a plea deal on May 19. Judge Richard Berman accepted his guilty plea today and set a sentencing date for September 23, 2014. The government argued attorneys would be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the defendant, D'Souza, is guilty. There will be no trial by jury in this case. "Guilty your honor," D'Souza said, adding that he deeply regrets his actions. "The plea is now accepted and Mr. D'Souza is now guilty under the indictment," Berman replied. By entering a guilty plea, D'Souza waived his right to appeal and his right to sentence modification or reduction. He faces a maximum of two years in prison, three years supervised release and a $250,000 fine. There is no parole in the federal system. His right to vote, right to hold public office, right to possess a firearm and right to sit on a jury have been revoked.
There are at least two lessons here:

Posted by New Neo on May 20, 2014 23 Comments
Why would any conservative believe anything Valerie Jarrett says about what John Boehner promised to do? Conservatives have good reason to neither like nor trust Boehner. In addition, conservatives have been betrayed by the GOP before, so often that they've come to expect it. But seriously, what reason would Valerie Jarrett have to be telling the truth when she says this?:
President Barack Obama's top adviser and confidant [sic] told a group of global elites on Thursday in Las Vegas, Nevada that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has made a commitment to the White House to try to pass amnesty legislation this year...Valerie Jarrett, Obama's senior advisor, told attendees at the yearly invitation-only SkyBridge Alternatives Conference that Boehner would help the White House make a push [to] get immigration reform enacted in the next three months.
I can't think of a reason to trust her. I can, however, think of a reason or two why she would lie. The first would be to get people on the left pumped and enthusiastic about amnesty's chances. The second would be to cause the right to start railing at Bohener and calling him a traitor. There's no real downside to inciting a civil war among your opposition. That said, we have no idea what Boehner will actually do on immigration, and there's no good reason to trust him. But I wouldn't trust Jarrett as far as I could throw her to report accurately on Boehner's true intentions or even on what Boehner told her his true intentions were, or to report on her own true intentions. Boehner has denied making any such promises to Democrats, by the way. And Jarrett herself has backtracked and offered the following clarification:
Boehner has made [a] commitment to trying, not that he has made [a] commitment to us or time frame.
Everything clear now?

Posted by Mandy Nagy on May 19, 2014 15 Comments
The Justice Department today announced the indictment of several Chinese military officers over accusations of economic cyber espionage against American companies and organizations. From the Washington Post:
A federal grand jury in Pittsburgh has found that five Chinese People's Liberation Army members hacked into the computers of a number of businesses and organizations in western Pennsylvania -- including U.S. Steel, Westinghouse Electric, and United Steel Workers. According to an indictment unsealed Monday, the Chinese men -- Wang Dong, Sun Kailiang, Wen Xinyu, Huang Zhenyu and Gu Chunhui --  have been collectively charged with 31 crimes. This is the first criminal indictment against state-sponsored hackers who allegedly engaged in cyberespionage for economic purposes, according to the Justice Department. And the FBI said it's just the beginning of a larger crackdown. The government said the accused were members of  PLA Unit 61398, a military group based in Shanghai. Last year in a widely reported investigation, the cybersecurity firm Mandiant identified this group as a source of economic cyberspying. At a press conference Monday morning, government officials alleged the defendants hacked into the computer networks of companies as they engaged in trade disputes or competed against Chinese companies for major contracts -- stealing both technical trade secrets and strategic information. In some cases, the U.S. government alleges, the stolen information was used to benefit Chinese state-sponsored companies.
While many suspect it’s unlikely the accused will ever be brought to justice, U.S. authorities emphasized that they were specifically “exposing the faces and names behind the keyboards in Shanghai used to steal from American businesses.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 19, 2014 27 Comments
Columbia University has been the focus of heated arguments over the university's handling of sexual assault complaints. In recent days, the names of alleged "rapists" have been scrawled on bathroom walls and in flyers, as reported at The Columbia Spectator, The NY Daily News, and The Columbia Lion, and Jezebel, which provided this redacted image: http://jezebel.com/rapist-list-mysteriously-appearing-in-columbia-universi-1575660992/1575819470/+morninggloria Also this week, a former Columbia student went public with her story of an alleged rape: Against this backdrop of claims that sexual assaults are not addressed adequately by administrators, there has been substantial pushback at many campuses that the definitions of sexual assault and consent used on campuses are overly broad and that males are not given sufficient due process protection: Earlier today in federal court in New York a Complaint was filed by a former Columbia student alleging that he was unfairly found to have committed a sexual assault based upon allegedly flimsy and inconsistent evidence, without due process protections. The Complaint is embedded at the bottom of this post. The heart of the Complaint is that the sex was consensual, as evidenced by the lack of contemporaneous complaint and a delay of 5 months in complaining:

Posted by Bryan Jacoutot on May 19, 2014 3 Comments
I graduated from the Georgia State University College of Law on Friday and, as tends to happen at occasions like this, I found myself reflecting on the years I spent there. As I thought about the many specific instances of triumphs and shortcomings I experienced while in law school, I continually circled to a broader theme that I believe will ultimately have a far more profound impact on my legal career: the respect for intellectual diversity. It may seem like a simple concept, but it is one that has been under attack of late in the very place where it ought to be most protected: American higher education. For example, just in the last few weeks we've highlighted the protest of Condoleezza Rice’s commencement speech at Rutgers University, which ultimately led to her withdrawal, and the anti-Israel Boycott Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement led by the American Studies Association. Invariably, these attacks on intellectual diversity, and others like them, share at least two things in common. They, 1) take place in institutions of higher education and; 2) have the shared goal of shutting down dialogue from what is perceived to be “the opposition.” Receiving my law degree from Georgia State University ensured that I experienced very few of the mind-crippling effects of this kind of nefarious censorship. I can’t be certain whether it's a product of the university itself, or something as simple as its geographic location in the heart of downtown Atlanta. Perhaps it's some combination of the two. Regardless, I am certain there existed a very real sense of diversity of thought at the institution. Like many law schools, the student body population was predominantly left leaning. That said, its southern location meant there were no shortages of conservatives or libertarians on campus, either. This student body make-up was crucial to achieving intellectual diversity, but the ultimate gatekeepers to the concept were the professors. After all, how important is diversity of thought if you can’t make it known in the place where you and your peers are actually doing the learning? While many professors wore their political and philosophical beliefs on their sleeves, the vast majority of professors also offered a classroom environment that welcomed all points of view. In my opinion, as long as you are sure to incorporate the latter, the former is perfectly acceptable.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 19, 2014 10 Comments
I don't know much about Indian politics, so I haven't written about the election sweep which threw out the long-dominant Congress Party. I do know that successive Indian governments have had at times contradictory relations with with Israel; not as crazed anti-Israel as many, but not solidly on Israel's side either. Indian-born writer Vijeta Uniyal believes that the election signals a sea change both politically and economically, with India looking to Israel for technology and investment to jump start the moribund Indian economy, India’s PM-elect Narendra Modi: a friend of Israel:
Narendra Modi is the next Prime Minister of India. Modi’s NDA-Alliance won 336 out of 543 seats in the Indian parliament. He has routed the ruling Congress Party led by Rahul Gandhi, the 4th generation member of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty Modi is arguably one of the most capable administrators in India. As Chief Minister of Gujarat State (2002-14) he turned around the economy, created infrastructure and improved public services. With a population of 60 million, Gujarat’s per-capita GDP today is much higher than India’s average. A lot of ink has been spilled in the international press over this relatively unknown man now at the helm in New Delhi. However there is one story readers in Israel need to hear: Modi is a friend of Israel, the like of whom India has not seen before. This fact can be stated without any exaggeration or wishful thinking. All one needs to do is to look at Modi’s track record. Modi is the first Indian leader to have actually visited Israel. He has often expressed admiration for Israel’s achievements in research, technology and innovation; espacially in the field of agriculture and water resources. Every year more than 2000 farmers from Gujarat visit Israel to get trained in advance farming techniques – at their own expense. He welcomed Israeli Companies to enter water management and recycling sector in 50 cities of Gujarat; and invited Israel to be the guest country at Gujarat state’s flagship Agricultural Fair (Vibrant Gujarat Agro Tech Global Fair 2014).

Posted by A.F. Branco on May 19, 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 CampusClimatologist on May 18, 2014 6 Comments
On Thursday night, UCLA's student government judicial board heard Students for Justice in Palestine v. Singh and Students for Justice in Palestine v. Rogers, both alleging that members of UCLA's  student government (USAC) who are against the Boycott Sanction and Divest (BDS) movement  took inappropriate gifts from pro-Israel organizations and should have recused themselves from the anti-Israel Divestment vote, which lost 7-5. While on its face, this hearing concerned ethics rules, this case is the start of a national movement to make support for Israel costly or prohibited on college campuses, UCLA testing ground for next generation of anti-Israel campus tactics. Jared Sichel, a reporter for the Jewish Journal, Los Angeles' local Jewish newspaper, comments (as both Professor Jacobson and I have also noted in the past) that however the board rules, SJP has succeeded in  "making it costly to be pro-Israel at UCLA." Screenshot 2014-05-18 13.33.58 Now, everyone seeking office who goes on a trip to Israel or is associated with a pro-Israel organization may be accused of having a conflict of interest boxing them out of key positions that vote on divestment matters. SJP is building a chilling effect, showing that those who stand in their way will be subject to long hours of debate, protest, and even "legal" hearings.  Some may not agree with SJP, but consider it not worth the trouble to stand in their way.

Posted by Mandy Nagy on May 18, 2014 3 Comments
Tensions between China and Vietnam have recently escalated after more than two weeks of conflict over a territorial dispute in the South China Sea. From CNN:
China has evacuated more than 3,000 of its citizens from Vietnam and is sending ships to retrieve more of them after deadly anti-Chinese violence erupted last week over a territorial dispute between the two countries. Five Chinese ships will travel to Vietnam to help with the evacuation, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported Sunday, citing the Ministry of Transport. One of the ships has already set off from the southern island province of Hainan, the ministry said. Sixteen critically injured Chinese citizens were flown out of Vietnam on Sunday morning on a chartered medical plane organized by Chinese authorities, Xinhua said. Two Chinese citizens were killed and more than 100 others were injured in the violence that hit parts of Vietnam last week, according to the news agency. Some of the worst violence appeared to have taken place in the central coastal province of Ha Tinh. Foreign factories, particularly those run by companies from China and Taiwan, were burned and looted by rioters outraged over Beijing's decision to send an oil rig into waters of the South China Sea that both countries claim as sovereign territory.
Protests are usually not permitted in Vietnam, but were initially allowed until violence erupted and the situation grew out of control, according to CNN.  Authorities there are now trying to stop the protests.  Reuters reports that police in a few areas of Vietnam on Sunday were directing those gathering for rallies to disperse. The conflict began earlier this month when China first parked the aforementioned oil rig in the disputed waters, triggering back and forth demands from both sides to retreat. From the Associated Press via Yahoo News:

Posted by David Gerstman on May 18, 2014 2 Comments
In 1994 terrorists struck the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. 85 people were killed. In 2003, an Argentine judge issued arrest warrants for four Iranian officials (but denied warrants for twelve others) for their involvement in the terror attack. In 2007 INTERPOL, an international police organization, issued warrants for five Iranians and one Lebanese for the involvement in the AMIA bombing. Early last year Argentina's government reached an agreement with Iran to form a "truth commission" to investigate those who were responsible. The agreement was immediately controversy because, in the words of former Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, it was "inviting the murderer to participate in the murder investigation.” Last week, an Argentine federal court struck down last year's "truth commission" agreement with Iran to investigate the AMIA bombing. Several senior Iranian officials and Hezbollah have been implicated in the attack that killed 85 people in that Jewish community center.
Thursday's ruling declared the agreement unconstitutional and ordered Argentina not to go ahead with it. The deal had been delayed anyway by Iranian reluctance to move forward in implementing it. ... Israel and world Jewish groups had denounced the "truth commission" deal with Iran, calling it a diplomatic win for Tehran that offered no benefit to Argentina. The deal would have let Iran review Argentina's investigation into the bombing.
Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor who took over investigation of the case, established responsibility to the highest level of Iran's government. Among those implicated were then President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Iran's previous defense minister Ahmed Vahidi. Vahidi and intelligence officer Moshen Rabbani were among five Iranians who were flagged by INTERPOL for arrest in the case. (Video from March 2013) While current Iranian President was a member of the group that ordered the attack, Nisman told David Horovitz of the Times of Israel last year that Rouhani was not present at the meeting where the attack was planned. An English version Nisman's indictment is here (PDF). An op-ed in the New York Times at the time of the Argentine-Iranian agreement accused Argentina's government of doing "an about-face on terror."
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