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August 2014

Posted by Amy Miller on August 25, 2014 62 Comments
Judicial Watch revealed today that Lois Lerner's fabled "missing e-mails" may still exist on a government backup system. Via Judicial Watch:
Department of Justice attorneys for the Internal Revenue Service told Judicial Watch on Friday that Lois Lerner’s emails, indeed all government computer records, are backed up by the federal government in case of a government-wide catastrophe. The Obama administration attorneys said that this back-up system would be too onerous to search. The DOJ attorneys also acknowledged that the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) is investigating this back-up system. We obviously disagree that disclosing the emails as required would be onerous, and plan to raise this new development with Judge Sullivan. This is a jaw-dropping revelation. The Obama administration had been lying to the American people about Lois Lerner’s missing emails. There are no “missing” Lois Lerner emails – nor missing emails of any of the other top IRS or other government officials whose emails seem to be disappearing at increasingly alarming rate. All the focus on missing hard drives has been a diversion. The Obama administration has known all along where the email records could be – but dishonestly withheld this information. You can bet we are going to ask the court for immediate assistance in cutting through this massive obstruction of justice.
In an interview with Fox News, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton laid out his plan to make sure that the government is forced to reveal anything that is backed up via this system.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 25, 2014 16 Comments
A few months ago, social media was buzzing with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. Meant to raise awareness of the tragic situation in Nigeria where over 200 young girls were kidnapped by an Islamic extremist group, Boko Haram, #BringBackOurGirls garnered international attention. The New York Times reported in May:

That was April 15 in northern Nigeria. The girls were kidnapped by an extremist Muslim group called Boko Haram, whose name in the Hausa language means “Western education is a sin.”

These girls, ages 15 to 18 and Christians and Muslims alike, knew the risks of seeking an education, and schools in the area had closed in March for fear of terror attacks. But this school had reopened so that the girls — the stars of their families and villages — could take their final exams. They were expected to move on to become teachers, doctors, lawyers.

Instead, they reportedly are being auctioned off for $12 each to become “wives” of militants. About 50 girls escaped, but the police say that 276 are still missing — and the Nigerian government has done next to nothing to recover the girls.

People took to Twitter with the hashtag "#BringBackOurGirls, the first lady joined in and then nothing happened. Months later and still... nothing. This video report is from July 7:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 25, 2014 47 Comments
Texas Governor Rick Perry has filed for a writ of habeas corpus barring his prosecution for use of his veto power. The full filing is embedded at the bottom of this post. Via KENS5 News:
Attorneys for Gov. Rick Perry have filed a 60-page writ of habeas corpus to dismiss the charges filed against the governor. The writ claims the charges of abuse of power and coercion filed against Perry are unconstitutional and that Perry was simply exercising his constitutional veto powers when he vetoed funding for the Public Integrity Unit last summer. "By seeking to criminalize not merely the veto itself, but the Governor's explanation for it as well, this prosecution also violates the Governor's rights under Free Speech Clauses of the United States and Texas Constitution..." the writ says in part. The writ also says the indictment violates the constitutional separation of powers and the speech or debate clause in the Texas Constitution.
Here's part of the Introduction summarizing that the motion is based on claims of unconstitutionality, reserving the right to move later on to quash the indictments on the merits:

Posted by New Neo on August 25, 2014 46 Comments
On Saturday the WaPo featured a wordy piece devoted to Darren Wilson's dysfunctional family of origin, and the racial and other problems in the police force he used to work for, difficulties that seem to have had nothing whatsoever to do with him. As William A. Jacobson has written, it's an attempt at guilt by association. That effort seems even more biased when it is contrasted with a lengthy AP article published the very next day in the Sunday WaPo that tells us what a great guy Michael Brown was. From Saturday's article about Wilson, Darren Wilson’s first job was on a troubled police force disbanded by authorities:
...[E]veryone leaves a record, and Darren Dean Wilson is no exception. People who know him describe him as someone who grew up in a home marked by multiple divorces and tangles with the law... Wilson has had some recent personal turmoil: Last year, he petitioned the court seeking a divorce from his wife... His parents divorced in 1989, when he was 2 or 3 years old... In 2001, when Wilson was a freshman in high school, his mother pleaded guilty to forgery and stealing. She was sentenced to five years in prison, although records suggest the court agreed to let her serve her sentence on probation.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 25, 2014 8 Comments
Slowly, we have seen numerous accounts of how Hamas intimidated foreign journalists into not covering Hamas' use of facilities such as Shifa Hospital and firing of rockets close to hospitals, apartment buildings, religious compounds and U.N. facilities. But it has come slowly, and mostly after reporters had left Gaza. And only after reporters were caught deleting tweets and pulling down stories that exposed the truth. Even Hamas admits to intimidating and controlling journalists -- and brags about it. The Foreign Press Association also admitted to the intimidation, after the fact. Now another report, via Elder of Ziyon, from a Dutch journalist (emphasis added):
Since the war started, one population group in Gaza has disappeared from the streets: people in uniform. Army green uniforms, blue-grey uniforms, black uniforms, they were all over the place. From one day to the next they are gone, the men and the few women (of the women police unit) with a weapon or a truncheon in their hands.

Posted by Amy Miller on August 25, 2014 14 Comments
Officials in the U.K. are close to identifying the man who beheaded American Journalist James Foley. The Times of Israel reported Sunday that Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, a local London rapper, is the main suspect in the case. Intelligence officials believe that Bary left London for Syria with the goal of joining the Islamic State. Although officials would not confirm that Bary is indeed the man seen in the video of Foley's execution, they have not denied reports covering the possibility of suspects:
"We're not in a position to say exactly who this is," Sir Peter Westmacott said on NBC's "Meet the Press," but "I think we are close.” Westmacott said "sophisticated" voice recognition technology was being used to identify the man who appeared in the video, but he also stressed that the threat of British nationals in ISIS goes beyond one killer.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 24, 2014 39 Comments
We've covered the abusive anti-conservative Wisconsin "John Doe" proceedings many times before. The short story is that two separate proceedings were commenced under the auspices of Democratic District Attorneys in order to try to take down Scott Walker. John Doe No. 1 concerned Walker's time as County Executive and ended without finding any wrongdoing by Walker himself. John Doe No. 2 concerned Walker's time as Governor and recall election.   Both a state court judge and a federal judge found that even if everything the investigators claimed was true, it was not illegal.  This John Doe No. 2 resulted in a federal lawsuit by two of the targets alleging that the investigators violated the targets' constitutional rights. Some documents released Friday by the federal Court of Appeals reveal just how abusive this John Doe No. 2 was.   The investigators conducted a widespread fishing expedition through the otherwise private records of numerous conservative activists, as described by M.D. Kittle of Wisconsin Reporter, who has followed the case more closely than anyone (h/t Instapundit):

‘Retaliation’: Docs show state prosecutors’ launched mini-NSA probe of state conservatives

Conservative targets of a Democrat-launched John Doe investigation have described the secret probe as a witch hunt. That might not be a big enough descriptor, based on records released Friday by a federal appeals court as part of a  massive document dump.

Posted by Andrew Branca on August 24, 2014 71 Comments
The shooting in Ferguson MO of robbery suspect Mike Brown by Police Officer Darren Wilson has raised a myriad of social, racial, and legal issues.  In this post I'd like to address one of the latter, specifically whether under Missouri law Wilson was authorized to use deadly force to arrest a fleeing Brown in the absence of Brown representing imminent threat of death or grave bodily harm to an innocent. (The presence of such a threat would have justified Wilson's use of deadly force under self-defense and defense of others grounds, which are outside the scope of this post.) This issue was very well addressed by Robert VerBruggen in his August 16th Real Clear Policy post entitled "Missouri's Rule on Deadly Force by Cops,"  which was brought to my attention a few days after publication, and which I encourage you to read.  I offer here a more in-depth discussion of the same issues, and reach the same conclusion.

MRS §563.046: Law enforcement officer's use of force in making an arrest

In this context much has been made in the press by "journalists" who have stumbled across Missouri Revised Statute §563.046 is entitled "Law enforcement officer's use of force in making an arrest."  It provides, in relevant part, that:

3. A law enforcement officer in effecting an arrest or in preventing an escape from custody is justified in using deadly force only (emphasis added)

. . .

(2) When he reasonably believes that such use of deadly force is immediately necessary to effect the arrest and also reasonably believes that the person to be arrested

(a) Has committed or attempted to commit a felony (emphasis added); or

(b) Is attempting to escape by use of a deadly weapon; or

(c) May otherwise endanger life or inflict serious physical injury unless arrested without delay.

Posted by Amy Miller on August 24, 2014 8 Comments
On Friday, several abortion providers sued the state of Louisiana over new laws governing doctors who choose to perform the procedure. Louisiana's new law, signed by Governor Bobby Jindal in June, requires that doctors who perform abortions have active admitting privileges at a hospital that is located not further than thirty miles from the location at which the abortion is performed or induced and that provides obstetrical or gynecological health care services. Abortion providers are suing because they argue that the provisions in the statute may cause every clinic in the state to close. Bloomberg reports:
The Louisiana legislation, signed by Republican Governor Bobby Jindal in June, doesn’t allow enough time for compliance, the clinics argued in court papers. Hospitals typically need three to seven months to decide on a doctor’s application, they said. They were allowed only 81 days to comply with the law. “It is not at all clear that any doctor currently providing abortions at a clinic in Louisiana will be able to continue providing those services, thereby eliminating access to legal abortion in Louisiana” if the law takes effect as scheduled, attorneys for the clinics in Shreveport, Bossier City and Metairie wrote.
If this case ends up progressing through the court system, it will end up before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Although (as the article from Bloomberg points out) the government cannot "unduly" weigh down with regulations the right of a woman to seek an abortion (not "have an abortion," as is commonly misstated by abortion advocates,) the Fifth Circuit has previously ruled that “that driving distance alone to get to a clinic never constitutes a substantial obstacle. No matter how far." The story doesn't end there, however. A similar law in Texas has also come under fire in recent weeks over provisions governing abortion providers' facilities and admitting privileges, as are new laws in Mississippi. In Mississippi, however, the Fifth Circuit has ruled that Mississippi can't be allowed to "shift its burden" to neighboring states:

Posted by David Gerstman on August 24, 2014 3 Comments
Numerous news organizations are reporting today that Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) claims to have shot down an Israeli drone as the drone approached the Natanz nuclear enrichment site. Reuters reports:
The Revolutionary Guards said of the drone incursion: "This wily act further exposed the Zionist regime's adventurous temperament and added yet another black page to a record filled with crime and mischief." If confirmed, an aircraft built by Israel's state-owned Aerospace Industries known as the Heron, or the more powerful Heron TP, is likely to have been involved for such a long-range mission. Military commanders in Israel have described both as a possible means of monitoring Iran and other countries.
The Heron is also called "Eitan" in Israel and it appears to be the only Israeli drone capable of reaching Iran. The BBC reports:
Natanz is Iran's main uranium enrichment site, and contains more than 16,000 centrifuges. The statement from the Revolutionary Guards said the drone was on course to fly over the nuclear facility at Natanz.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 24, 2014 71 Comments
The Washington Post has convicted Police Officer Darren Wilson, who shot Michael Brown, of guilt by association with a former troubled police force in a different town in a prior job than the one he held in Ferguson, MO, and of having parents who were in trouble with the law. Seriously. There is nothing, zero, nada, in the WaPo story linked below that shows Darren Wilson ever did anything wrong himself. In fact, to the extent his own conduct is even mentioned, it's in the context of staying out of trouble. But that does not stop WaPo from trashing Wilson by association. WaPo Darren Wilson first job troubled police department Here's an excerpt on that prior police department from Darren Wilson’s first job was on a troubled police force disbanded by authorities:
The small city of Jennings, Mo., had a police department so troubled, and with so much tension between white officers and black residents, that the city council finally decided to disband it. Everyone in the Jennings police department was fired. New officers were brought in to create a credible department from scratch. That was three years ago. One of the officers who worked in that department, and lost his job along with everyone else, was a young man named Darren Wilson. Some of the Jennings officers reapplied for their jobs, but Wilson got a job in the police department in the nearby city of Ferguson.....

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 24, 2014 5 Comments
According to a new poll from WMUR in New Hampshire on the race for US senate, Republican Scott Brown has gained a tremendous amount of ground on incumbent Democrat Jeanne Shaheen. Joshua Miller of the Boston Globe recently reported:
Scott Brown, Jeanne Shaheen in dead heat The US Senate race in New Hampshire has narrowed, and Republican Scott Brown is now in a dead heat with incumbent Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, according to a new poll. The Granite State Poll, released Thursday evening, found Brown trailing Shaheen, 44 percent to 46 percent among likely voters, with 9 percent not knowing or undecided in a hypothetical general election matchup. The narrow gap between the two contenders was within the margin of error of the poll, which was sponsored by WMUR-TV and conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. A WMUR survey released early last month and reporting similar numbers to other polls during that period, found Shaheen leading Brown, 50 percent to 38 percent. Pollster Andrew E. Smith, a political science professor at UNH, said he thought the shift was a result of national trends and had little to do with the candidates’ campaigns. “I think it’s an Obama drag,” he said. The new WMUR poll found only 38 percent of New Hampshire adults approve of the way President Obama was handling his job, a 7 percentage point drop from about a month earlier, while 55 percent disapprove.
Guy Benson of Hot Air notes that other recent polls weren't as kind to Brown, so it's difficult to tell if this is a trend:

Posted by Amy Miller on August 24, 2014 10 Comments
If you were one of (I'm assuming) thousands who saw Texas Governor Rick Perry's mugshot and thought, "that oughta be on a t-shirt," then today is your lucky day. Perry's "RickPAC" has put that mugshot on a t-shirt, along with that of embattled Travis County DA Rosemary Lehmberg, whose mishandling of the state's Public Integrity Unit is the source of the current legal action against the Governor. Perry hasn't let the lawsuit slow his momentum, however, and since his booking has maintained his travel schedule, sending him to key events in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Iowa, and Washington D.C. Perry's approach to his legal troubles has done a good job highlighting the weakness of the special prosecutor's legal arguments against the Governor's decision to veto funding for Texas' Public Integrity Unit, and even liberals admit being shocked at the decision to indict. Governor Perry's masterful handling of his indictment has some analysts wondering whether or not this could help Perry's chances in a run for the Presidency:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 23, 2014 11 Comments
Wrapping up Saturday night on a lighter note, we present this amazing series of ads. Food Beast found this adorable alternative universe where the local Pizza Hut is run by cats. From Food Beast:

Part of the brand’s newest video campaign, Pizza Cat! is a completely fictional Pizza Hut location “run” entirely by cats. Run used only loosely of course, since the cat’s don’t ever really work. Instead, they sleep through alarms, stare at ringing telephones, claw at delivery bikes, and literally ride roombas all around the store.

Along with a video series highlighting the cats’ daily shenanigans, Pizza Cat! also got its own nifty website detailing the cats even further. There’s even a little disclaimer stating that if your pizza doesn’t arrive, it’s simply because the cats lost their motivation, please excuse them.

See, not so different from humans after all.

Enjoy:

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