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June 2014

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 09, 2014 14 Comments
We covered the "tranny" controversy at the University of Chicago in the Saturday Night Card Game, When everyone shuts up, we will have reached the “safe space”. The short story is that the student speech police attacked liberal gay activist Dan Savage for using the word "tranny" in discussing at a forum why he no longer uses the word "tranny."  More than that, they demanded that the word be banned from use at U. Chicago's Institute of Politics, where the event took place. Savage responded to the controversy (h/t Instapundit), by noting that the activists who attacked him refer to "trans" people as "it" -- a characterization Savage says is particularly offensive to the "trans" community.  I don't know if that's right or wrong, but it's a point. Andrew Sullivan writes, surveying this all this:
Yes, this occurred at the University of Chicago! Now, I’m not interested in defending Dan, because he can defend himself. And John Aravosis is right that there’s a potent and destructive strain in the LGBT world that aims more hate at someone like Dan Savage than at Rick Santorum (tell me about it). What I am interested is condemning this pathetic excuse for a student. This plea in a university to be free of hearing things that might hurt, offend, traumatize or upset you is an attack on the very idea of education itself. And don’t get me started about “trigger warnings.” So many things worth thinking about, grappling with, and chewing over can be offensive at first or second blush. That’s what a real education is about: offending your pre-existing feelings and prejudices with reason and argument and sometimes provocation. Education is not and never should be about making you more comfortable and more safe within your current worldview. It should not be about accusing someone with whom you might disagree of a hate crime.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 09, 2014 39 Comments
Hillary Clinton's interview with Diane Sawyer is getting a lot of attention because Hillary explained the $100 million plus she and Bill have made giving speeches as necessitated by their near poverty upon leaving office:
SAWYER: You've made five million making speeches? The president's made more than a hundred million dollars? CLINTON: Well, you have no reason to remember, but we came out of the White House not only dead broke but in debt. We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to piece together the resources for mortgages for houses, for Chelsea's education. You know, it was not easy. Bill has worked really hard and it's been amazing to me. He's worked very hard. First of all, we had to pay off all our debts. You know, you had to make double the money because of, obviously, taxes, and then pay off the debts and get us houses and take care of family members.
The problem is not that the Clintons made a fortune. This is America, after all. People are entitled to make a fortune so long as they do so lawfully, and we've not yet reached the point where the law dictates when people have made enough. The problem is that Hillary is not being straight with the public.

Posted by Mandy Nagy on June 08, 2014 6 Comments

Updates on Bergdahl story, Obama to issue executive order on student loans, parents outraged over photos shown in sex-ed class...

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 08, 2014 9 Comments
Do you remember David Chalian? He was a reporter for Yahoo! back in 2012 and while covering the Republican National Convention he was caught on tape smearing the Romneys and implying that they were racists as to blacks suffering from Hurricane Isaac:
"They're not concerned at all. They're happy to have a party with black people drowning..."
CNN just hired him as their new political director. Geoffrey Dickens of News Busters has the details:
CNN's New Political Director in 2012: Romneys Would Be 'Happy to Have a Party with Black People Drowning' On Friday, CNN announced that David Chalian would be named as their new political director. Chalian is most famous for making an obnoxious remark about Mitt and Ann Romney during the 2012 Republican National Convention. On August 29, 2012, in live video inadvertently distributed by ABCNews.com, the-then Yahoo! News Washington bureau chief claimed the Romneys didn’t care about New Orleans residents being hit by Hurricane Isaac as he blurted: “They aren’t concerned at all. They are happy to have a party with black people drowning.”
Here's the clip. Nick Massella of Media Bistro broke the story on Friday:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 08, 2014 8 Comments
In the ever bizarre Mississippi Republican Senate Primary, three people were locked into the Courthouse where the primary ballots had been counted after hours. The three claimed they had entered through an open side door. The ballots themselves were locked in an inaccessible vault, and never in danger. The incident dominated the news cycle for about 48 hours because one of the three was a coalition coordinator for the campaign of Chris McDaniel. The Sheriff's department investigated, and determined that no crime was committed, as we wrote in Chris McDaniel courthouse break-in “scandal” is a nothingburger, quoting an MSNBC report:
“Based on our findings and subsequent conclusion, there is no reason to believe that the three individuals engaged in any criminal activity nor do we believe any laws were broken,” a statement by the Hinds County Sheriff’s office read on Thursday. According to the sheriff’s office, the three McDaniel supporters gained access to the courthouse through an employees-only side door that was not meant to be open. Once it closed behind them, they found themselves trapped and searched the building in hopes of finding an employee who could help them leave. They never had access to any ballot boxes, which were in a secure locked area, the sheriff’s office said.
Okay, case investigated and closed, right? No. Then a county supervisor asked the Hinds County District Attorney to investigate anyway, and the DA agreed, as reported in the Clarion-Ledger:

Posted by David Gerstman on June 08, 2014 8 Comments
When Mahmoud Abbas's "moderate" Fatah movement first reached out to make an agreement with the terrorist Hamas movement, the response in the United State was "mostly nonchalant." Now that the two sides have announced the creating of a unity government, the response has continued to be muted. Certainly not outraged. Last week, of course, the administration didn't wait a day before endorsing the blatant violation of the American sponsored peace process. This was disappointing but hardly surprising given Barry Rubin's observation last September that the United States had gone to "backing the 'bad guys.'” In major American newspapers there was little initial editorial comment. However later in the week, the Washington Post endorsed the American response as did the New York Times. Though, surprisingly, the Times actually qualified their endorsement warning that "the United States has to be careful to somehow distinguish between its support for the new government and an endorsement of Hamas and its violent, hateful behavior," without actually offering a practical suggestion how distinguish that support. There are three main reasons why the administration was wrong to support the unity accord. 1) It is unpopular in the United States In the middle of May, The Israel Project conducted a poll of likely voters and their views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One question dealt with the formation of the Fatah-Hamas unity government. When those originally saying they were undecided offered an opinion, the poll showed a massive rejection of the Palestinian reason for the cooperation.

Posted by Mandy Nagy on June 07, 2014 5 Comments
The Office of Special Counsel, a federal agency that "[protects] federal employees from reprisal and other prohibited personnel practices" and provides "a safe and secure channel for federal employees to disclose government misconduct," said it is investigating allegations of retaliation against dozens of whistleblowers in the Department of Veterans Affairs. From CBS DC News:
A federal investigative agency is looking into claims that Veterans Affairs supervisors retaliated against 37 employees who filed whistleblower complaints, including some who complained about improper scheduling practices at the heart of a growing health care scandal. The independent Office of Special Counsel says it has blocked disciplinary actions against three VA employees who reported wrongdoing, including one who was suspended for seven days after complaining to the VA’s inspector general about improper scheduling. The agency also blocked a 30-day suspension without pay for another VA employee who reported inappropriate use of patient restraints and blocked demotion of a third employee who reported mishandling of patient care funds, a spokesman said Friday.
The full press release from the Office of Special Counsel can be read here.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 07, 2014 16 Comments
We wrote about how Australia just made an enormous contribution to the Middle East peace process by refusing to refer to East Jerusalem as "occupied" territory. Australia is historically and legally correct.  "East" Jerusalem was illegally seized and occupied by Jordan during Israel's War of Independence, and the Jewish residents ethnically cleansed.  Its recapture by Israel was simply returning the territory to its rightful owner. The reason that Australia's announcement was important, I wrote, was:
Because the history of Middle East peace negotiations is the refusal to speak the truth to the Palestinians, and instead, to cower at false claims of illegal occupation and Apartheid. Such diplomatic cowering, evidenced by John Kerry’s futile shuttle diplomacy, simply encourages even more unreasonable and unrealistic Palestinian demands. If peace ever is to be achieved, it will be when the Palestinians accept that they can get no more from international boycotts and pressure than they can get through direct negotiations and meaningful concessions. The Australian announcement brought that moment a little closer.
True to form, Palestinian Authority through one of its most senior leaders and negotiators is calling for the Muslim world to reevaluate ties to Australia, as reported by The Times of Israel, PA to seek wider Arab reprisal against Australia:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 07, 2014 10 Comments
Hans von Spakovsky, writing at the Heritage Foundation's newly launched Daily Signal, writes about the biggest hardly told story coming out of the Mississippi primary last Tuesday, The Biggest Non-Story in Tuesday’s Elections? Mississippi Voter ID Implemented With No Problems:
It wasn’t the biggest story following Tuesday’s elections in various states, but it was the biggest and most-ignored non-story. Mississippi’s new voter ID law got its first run in the June 3 primary, and the sky did not fall. Despite the tiresome and disproven claims by opponents that such laws cause wholesale voter disenfranchisement and are intended to suppress votes, Mississippi “sailed through” its first test of the new ID requirements, according to The Clarion Ledger, the newspaper of Jackson, Miss. Aside from being able to use any form of government-issued photo ID, like every other state with ID requirements, Mississippi provides a free ID for anyone who does not already have a government-issued photo ID.  Contrary to the claims of those who say large numbers of Americans don’t have an ID, Mississippi estimated that only 0.8 percent of Mississippians lacked an ID.  In fact, even that may have been an overestimate since the state had to issue only about 1,000 voter ID cards. All those who forgot their ID on Tuesday also could vote by an affidavit as long as they returned and showed an ID within five days.

Posted by Adam Kissel on June 07, 2014 12 Comments
Earlier this year the University College London student government, the UCL Union, banned the Nietzsche Club and resolved to prevent it from organizing on campus because the Union deemed Nietzsche, Heidegger, and other philosophers too “fascist” to tolerate. Yesterday morning here at Legal Insurrection, I called out the UCLU for claiming the study of Nietzsche is a direct threat to safety. (Here is an audio version of the post on YouTube.) Well, in a new statement last night, the UCLU Trustees responded. They have vowed to keep suppressing Nietzsche and “fascism” wherever they might find it. The Trustees are legally and morally bound by their promises to uphold such fundamental freedoms as free speech and freedom of assembly. Yet in their new statement, they stay on the attack:
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