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July 2014

Posted by Mandy Nagy on July 09, 2014 18 Comments
The case against Justin Ross Harris, the Georgia dad who stands accused of leaving his 22-month old son to die in a hot car, has captured the attention of the media and the public since more details were revealed in a probable cause hearing late last week. New documents released on Monday provide additional insight into where the investigation may be focused. From USA Today:
A new series of search warrants in the case of a 22-month-old Georgia boy who died while in a hot car last month show a focus on the electronic trail leading up to his death. The warrants made public by the Magistrate Court of Cobb County on Monday morning show Cobb County Police investigators looking into electronic devices found inside Justin Ross Harris' 2011 Hyundai Tuscan. A thumb drive, an external hard drive, a SD card, and a DVD-R were all taken into police custody. According to the warrants, all of the items will be searched for "information pertaining to finances, credit card debt, business information, life insurance, emails/communication regarding child, wife, and family issues, photos/videos of the child to show development, information about car seat searches, searches regarding car deaths, communications with other people on the days leading up to and the incident date, information on life insurance policies."
What initially seemed to be a case in which many could conceivably believe it was a tragic accident took a different turn last week and has expanded into a digital expedition of online searches, videos and tawdry text messages. It was during the probable cause hearing last Thursday that the public learned 33-year old Ross Harris was allegedly sexting with other women - including one who was underage at the time, as his son sat in a sweltering hot car, according to the testimony of Cobb County, Georgia, police Detective Phil Stoddard.

Posted by Bruce Carroll on July 09, 2014 3 Comments
As is typical with our mainstream media these days, the sexy story of the day fades as the next sexy story of the day comes along. Back in the real world, however, the United States and its citizens paid a high price to liberate Afghanistan from the Taliban and end the al-Qaeda sanctuary in that country. So one would hope that Americans would want to know that things in Afghanistan have gone from bad to worse since their presidential elections.
Driven by increased ground combat between insurgents and government forces, civilian casualties in Afghanistan surged 24 percent through the first half of the year, reaching their highest levels since 2009, according to the United Nations. The findings were released just as a Taliban attack unfolded in the densely populated center of Kandahar, the main city in southern Afghanistan. At least nine people were killed in the Kandahar assault and the ensuing gun battle, including four civilians, Afghan officials said, violently illustrating how ground fighting, as opposed to improvised explosive devices, has emerged as the deadliest facet of the war. The United Nations report said that the death toll this year was especially high for women and children.
The Afghan runoff election results are highly questionable due to allegations of serious fraud committed by the outgoing Hamad Karzai regime and ballot stuffing by the apparent winner, Ashraf Ghani. Ghani's vice presidential candidate is former Afghan warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum. Seen as more moderate than Ghani, Presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah claimed victory on Tuesday in Afghanistan's disputed election, blaming fraud for putting him behind in preliminary results as fears rise of instability, ethnic unrest and Taliban military successes:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 09, 2014 11 Comments
At a House hearing last night, several Veterans Administration whistleblowers revealed the disfunctionality of the agency, and the retaliation they suffered when they raised concerns. MSNBC reports:
Transfers, harassment, altered personnel records, mysterious breaks between paychecks. Those are just some of the forms of retaliation described by four whistleblowers from four different regional VA systems, who testified Tuesday night before the House Veterans Affairs Committee.... Dr. Katherine Mitchell, who served as the Medical Director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Post-Deployment Center in the Phoenix VA Health Care System, testified on Tuesday that as head of the emergency department, she saw many serious errors due to understaffing, but that her concerns went unaddressed. ”It is a bitter irony to me that I as a physician could not guarantee [patients’] safety in the middle of cosmopolitan Phoenix,” she said. Mitchell said she was placed on involuntary administrative leave and investigated for including some patient information in confidential Inspector General complaints. Another witness, Dr. Christian Head who worked at the Los Angeles VA, spoke of attending a holiday party after testifying in a fraud case and seeing a Powerpoint slide mocking him, a photo of him giving the camera a middle finger with a VA IG phone number included. “I was labeled a rat,” he said, nearly choking up. Scott Davis, a worker at the Atlanta Health Eligibility Center, which processes applications to join the VA health system, also described facing harassment after contacting Deputy White House Chief of Staff Rob Nabors, who completed a comprehensive review of VA policies in June. Davis insisted that there be greater accountability for managers who have the power to punish employees who report possible wrongdoing.
AP further reports on the growing number of whistleblower complaints:

Posted by David Gerstman on July 09, 2014 5 Comments
The New York Times, in the past week, has twice drawn a false moral equivalence between Israeli society and Palestinian society. Last week after the killing of Mohammad Abu Khdair, Isabel Kershner of the New York Times wrote:
The two events exposed the extent to which parts of each side have dehumanized the other. After the kidnapping of the three Israeli teenagers last month, messages posted on social networks by Palestinians celebrated the capture of “three Shalits,” in reference to Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held captive by Hamas militants in Gaza, who was eventually released in exchange for 1,027 prisoners. A 17-year-old created the Facebook group calling for revenge for the kidnapping of the three Israelis, and an Israeli blogger, Ami Kaufman, pointed to a photograph submitted to the Facebook group by two smiling girls who held a sign reading, “Hating Arabs is not racism, it’s values!”
This was a sentiment repeated in an editorial in today's New York Times, Four Horrific Killings:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 08, 2014 14 Comments
We have featured them before. The screamers, and disrupters, and threateners. They say they want another Intifada -- the bloody Palestinian suicide bombing and murder campaign that killed thousands starting in 2001, causing Israel to build the security barrier. Now they complain about the security barrier, and call it the "Apartheid Wall." Oh boy, do they love to flash the bird. BDS female protester San Francisco July 2014 Coming to a campus near you this fall. Here is the latest, via Truth Revolt:
The footage was captured by Sam Levine, Executive Director of Zionist Organization of America West, who noted that the protestors were simply calling for terrorism:
The protesters chanted, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which calls for the complete destruction of the Jewish State. They also called for another intifada, which means they wish to see massive terrorist attacks perpetrated against innocent Israeli civilians. I have no doubt these lunatics would have assaulted us if it wasn’t for the large police presence and barricades that were eventually placed between us. There is no compromise with people like this.
(language warning, of course) Here are two original Legal Insurrection videos, so you can see some more of these charming youth:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 08, 2014 44 Comments
Rockets fired from Gaza were shot down today over several major Israeli cities, including Tel Aviv -- and landed in the Jerusalem vicinity. Hamas landed 5 "naval commandos" by sea. They were taken out by an IDF helicopter gunship. (added) Another video from the Israeli Navy of the same incident: Elsewhere, Palestinians at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem cheered the rockets landing in Israel (via Truth Revolt):

Posted by Bruce Carroll on July 08, 2014 93 Comments
Yesterday, Mitch Tyner -- the attorney for the Chris McDaniel for U.S. Senate campaign -- briefly updated reporters on the status of their challenge in the Mississippi GOP runoff election. Tyner responded to a question about the 6,700 vote margin between McDaniel and incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran and was confident of there would be a new election based on MS state law.
 (ineligible voters). However, I would be surprised if we don't find 6,700. It's very easy to see the Mississippi law holds that if there's the difference between the Cochran camp and our camp -- that vote difference -- if there's that many ineligible voters, then there's automatically a new election.
Catherine Englebrecht, from True the Vote, also seems to be positive that McDaniel will prevail. But is the state's voting law on McDaniel's side in such a cut and dried manner as his attorney states? Not so fast says a Mississippi law professor who spoke to the Washington Post.
We spoke with Matt Steffey, professor of law at the Mississippi College School of Law, to see if he agreed with Tyner's assessment of what will happen next and, in case we didn't already give it away, he didn't. "He uses the word automatically, and I think that's a very optimistic and self-serving reading of the law," Steffey told us by phone. "I don't think the cases can be fairly interpreted to say that if they come up with 6,700 illegal votes and can demonstrate that they're illegal -- it's an overstatement of the law to say that it automatically demands a recount."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 08, 2014 27 Comments
Hillary didn't have to defend the child rapist. Once she took the case, she had to do everything ethical to provide the defense. But she didn't have to take the case. Hillary could have just said no. And she didn't have to cackle about getting the guy off easy. There's nothing funny about it. Nothing. It's Mitt's dog, haircut, and secret tape cubed. If the media wants it to be. It also goes to a core political issue, Hillary’s sisterhood questioned again as rape victim speaks out. This will be a big f-ing deal if and when Hillary runs. It already is. (video via Free Beacon) Added:  Some background on the MSNBC segment, noting Hillary's explanations are inconsistent with past statements and correcting errors, from the Free Beacon:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 07, 2014 5 Comments
I added Legal Insurrection's name to the list of pro-Israel blogs and bloggers supporting Elder of Ziyon's open and unequivocal condemnation of the murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir. In a follow up post today, Elder makes points I made this morning in Israeli reaction to murder of teen a sign of Israel’s moral strength. Elder notes:
I had no idea how many would agree when I wrote it. Within 12 hours, over a hundred people, including some very prominent writers and bloggers, had added their names to the letter. It was shared hundreds of times on Facebook. Many people wrote to say how appreciative they were that I put into words what they were thinking. Zionist bloggers weren't alone in their condemnation. Major US Jewish and Zionist organizations roundly condemned the murder and expressed horror at the fact that the suspects are Israeli Jews. As I've noted in the past, the anti-Israel crowd suffers from psychological projection. They assume, reflexively, that the hate they have for Israel is mirrored by Israelis and Zionists towards Arabs.
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