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August 2014

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 23, 2014 6 Comments
Nothing, really. Ignorance. Hate. Demonization. You name it. You'll find it in London, Chicago, and just about anywhere you find anti-Israel street protests. From London, via Harry's Place, which has even more videos: From Chicago, where a pro-Israel fundraiser hosted by Mayor Rahm Emanual and former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren was distrupted with shouting by "Jewish Voice for Peace" activists:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 23, 2014 18 Comments
I need to calendar this so I remember each year. This year, I would have forgotten the date if I had not seen Marathon Pundit's post On this day in 1989: Two million hold hands in peaceful anti-Soviet Baltic Way. We wrote about the Baltic Way last year:
A history not taught in school and our children will never know On this day in 1989, the Baltic Way took place. People in the Baltic Republics of the Soviet Union (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) formed a human chain stretching for hundreds of miles:
… on 23 August 1989, the three nations living by the Baltic Sea surprised the world by taking hold of each other’s hands and jointly demanding recognition of the secret clauses in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and the re-establishment of the independence of the Baltic States. More than a million people joined hands to create a 600 km long human chain from the foot of Toompea in Tallinn to the foot of the Gediminas Tower in Vilnius, crossing Riga and the River Daugava on its way, creating a synergy in the drive for freedom that united the three countries.
Now you know why the Baltic states, looking at Russian domination of eastern Ukraine and annexation of the Crimea, are worried. Last year the hat tip went to Gabriella Hoffman, the daughter of Lituanian immirgants and a tireless conservative activist, who again this year is tweeting out remembrance of the event:

Posted by Amy Miller on August 22, 2014 17 Comments
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey went into detail Thursday about the threat ISIL ("ISIS") poses not only to minorities in the Middle East, but also to American interests both at home and abroad. Via Fox News:
"Jim Foley's murder was another tragic demonstration of the ruthless, barbaric ideology of ISIL. ISIL militants continue to massacre and enslave innocent people, and persecute Iraq's...minority populations. ... Given the nature of this threat, at President Obama's direction, and at request of Iraqi government, the United States military has provided assistance to Iraqi security forces in order to protect U.S. personnel and facilities, and support Iraq's efforts to counter ISIL in addition to providing humanitarian assistance."
Secretary Hagel said that he anticipates that more international forces will join the already-international efforts in the coming weeks. He also lauded the recent peaceful transition of power in Iraq, and promised assistance in exchange for political progress. He did not, however, downplay the risk that ISIL still poses:
We are pursuing a long term strategy against ISIL, because ISIL clearly poses a long term threat. We should expect ISIL to regroup, and stage new offenses, and the US military's involvement is not over. ... Our objectives remain clear and limited: to protect American citizens and facilities, to provide assistance to Iraqi forces as they confront ISIL, and to join with international partners to address the humanitarian crisis.

Posted by Amy Miller on August 22, 2014 17 Comments
The Obama Administration announced today that they're once again changing the rules governing health care plans provided by religiously-oriented nonprofit organizations. Via The Hill:
Under the rule, the government would step in and cover the law’s contraception requirements in instances where employers announce their religious objections in writing. The organizations would not have to play any direct role in providing for contraceptive coverage to which they object, according to sources familiar with the rule. The rule had not formally been issued as of Friday afternoon. The fix is in line with a suggestion put forth by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in the high court ruling against the mandate in the case known as Hobby Lobby v. Burwell.
The new rule is posted in detail on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services website:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 22, 2014 11 Comments
Prior to a few minutes ago, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign had not commented publicly about the reasoning behind the decision not to complete the hiring process for Professor Steven Salaita. There was a lot of protest, including a petition and academic boycotts, meant to pressure the university into changing its mind.  That does not appear to be happening, from the latest news report. That, of course, does not preclude some sort of financial settlement, which might take into account that Salaita resigned his prior tenured position at Virginia Tech before learning his contingent offer from UI-UC would not be approved. The Urbana-Champaign News-Gazette now reports that Chancellor Phyllis Wise has sent a campus-wide email:
In her first public statement about Professor Steven Salaita, University of Illinois Chancellor Phyllis Wise said her decision to not forward his appointment to trustees for formal approval was not influenced by his criticism of Israel. The university, she said, cannot tolerate “personal and disrespectful words or actions that demean and abuse either viewpoints themselves or those who express them.” “We have a particular duty to our students to ensure that they live in a community of scholarship that challenges their assumptions about the world but that also respects their rights as individuals. A Jewish student, a Palestinian student, or any student of any faith or background must feel confident that personal views can be expressed and that philosophical disagreements with a faculty member can be debated in a civil, thoughtful and mutually respectful manner. Most important, every student must know that every instructor recognizes and values that student as a human being. If we have lost that, we have lost much more than our standing as a world-class institution of higher education,” Wise sent in a mass e-mail to the campus community Friday afternoon.
(Update) In addition, later in the afternoon, the Board of Trustees, the Chancellors of the Chicago and Springfield campuses, numerous university senior officials, and the President of the Faculty Senates, issues a statement supporting the decision. The full Chancellor email, as reprinted by the News-Gazette, is as follows (added -- original email here):

Posted by David Gerstman on August 22, 2014 3 Comments
At his Muckraker column at Forbes, The Media Intifada: Bad Math, Ugly Truths About New York Times In Israel-Hamas War, investigative journalist Richard Behar exposes many of the problems - really scandals - with the MSM reporting on Gaza. Though he focuses a lot on The New York Times, he focuses on other news outlets too and how, through a combination of credulousness, bias and laziness, they have become in the words of his friend, and fellow investigative journalist, Gary Weiss, "part of the Hamas war machine.” In the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal The New York Times led the journalistic pack by hiring a "public editor" to handle complaints in the hopes of averting another similar scandal. But the problem with public editors or ombudsmen, as they are also called, is that they don't challenge the assumptions of the editors and reporters. Rather they seem to be explaining why the readers don't understand the high minded principles that professional journalists adhere to. What's important about Behar's takedown of the reporting is that he challenges the assumptions that news organizations accept. Behar looked at the media in general and specifically at The New York Times "because it is, without question, the most important media outlet in the world, in terms of setting the table each day for other outlets.". I can't cover the whole scope of Behar's critique as it is sweeping and comprehensive, but I'd like to focus on a few of his specific criticisms and then on a few of his observations. Richard Behar Media Intifada Behar's first critique of the Times is for its Gaza based reporter Fares Akram, and what he discovered when he visited Akram's Facebook page.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 22, 2014 1 Comment
We previously featured the Yarmulke (Kippah) March in Copenhagen, after a series of attacks on Jews wearing Jewish symbols or dress: At the end of my last post I predicted:
While it’s great that the march was held, it’s a shame that it needed to be held in the first place. It will, of course, change nothing, as the interruptions and heckling showed.
And so it comes true just days later, via The Copenhagen Post, Copenhagen Jewish school vandalised:
When students and teachers arrived this morning at Carolineskolen, a private Jewish school in Copenhagen’s Østerbro neighbourhood, they were greeted by shattered windows and anti-Semitic graffiti on the walls of the school. The school, which is home to 200 students, had apparently been vandalised sometime on Thursday night. The vandals cut through a fence to gain access to the property, according to TV2 News.
http://cphpost.dk/news/copenhagen-jewish-school-vandalised.10582.html Additional reports detail the graffiti:

Posted by Andrew Branca on August 22, 2014 109 Comments
At The New Republic, author Yishai Schwartz argues that "Convicting Darren Wilson Will Be Basically Impossible" because of the presumption of innocence mixed with race and Missouri self-defense law :
We may never know what actually happened during the violent encounter between teenager Michael Brown and policeman Darren Wilson. But legal judgments rarely happen with perfect knowledge and absolute certainty. In their place, we rely on presumptions and standards that guide our thinking and discipline our judgments. In general, we presume innocence. But when we know that a killing has occurred and can definitively identify who committed the act, traditional common law demanded that our presumptions shift. We are supposed to presume guilt, and it is the shooter who must prove that his actions were justified. Unless the shooter is a policeman. And unless the victim is a black male. And unless the shooting happens in a state with self-defense laws like Missouri.
So, let's take a look, shall we?
In general, we presume innocence.
Indeed, in criminal prosecutions we presume innocence.  This is entirely consistent with the liberal tradition that it is “Better that 10 guilty killers go free than one person who killed in proper self-defense go to prison for a long time (or be executed)," to quote Eugene Volokh's column linked in the embedded quote above. Certainly, it is possible to imagine a criminal justice system in which one is presumed guilty. I expect that most people--particularly those who are the victims of systematic social injustice--would find such a system not to their liking. We'll get back to that later.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 22, 2014 30 Comments
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made headlines at a recent press conference by specifically comparing Hamas to ISIS. As if to prove Netanyahu right, Hamas conducted the execution without trial of several alleged collaborators on Thursday, followed up by a reported 18 today. This is on top of dozens previously executed. Many if not all of these were conducted in public. Hamas has been known to drag bodies through the streets, although it's unclear if that happened this time. CNN reports:
Hamas executed 18 suspected informants for Israel in Gaza on Friday, the Hamas-run Al Aqsa TV reported. This comes one day after an Israeli strike in the Gaza city of Rafah killed three senior leaders of the Qassam Brigades, the Hamas military wing.
The Times of Israel adds:
The witness said masked gunmen lined up the seven men in a side street and opened fire on them. He spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing for his own safety. Other witnesses told AFP that six of them were grabbed from among hundreds of worshipers leaving the city’s largest mosque, by men in the uniform of Hamas’s military wing. They were pushed to the ground. One of the masked men shouted: “This is the final moment of the Zionist enemy collaborators,” then the gunmen sprayed them with bullets.

Posted by Amy Miller on August 22, 2014 6 Comments
Last month, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down as unconstitutional Virginia's same sex marriage ban. This week, however, the Supreme Court put a hold on that ruling, meaning that for the time being gay marriages are blocked in Virginia:
While nearly all federal and state courts have ruled in favor of same-sex marriage since the high court issued two landmark decisions in June 2013, judges have blocked nearly all such marriages while the cases are appealed. The justices had stepped in once before, in Utah, to do just that. If the court declines to hear the Virginia appeal, the stay would be lifted and couples could begin getting married. Otherwise, those marriages would have to wait until the case is ultimately decided. "The Supreme Court is making clear, as it already did in the Utah marriage case, that it believes a dignified process is better than disorder," said Byron Babione, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents the Virginia court clerk opposed to same-sex marriage.
Virginia Attorney General Mike Herring, who has decided not to support the new ban, actually asked the Supreme Court to issue a stay on the Fourth Circuit's ruling, citing concerns over the impact an eventual negative ruling could have on families and businesses.

Posted by Amy Miller on August 21, 2014 15 Comments
Texas democrats may be keeping busy wallowing in the shallow victory of the recent indictment of Governor Rick Perry, Rick Perry himself is doing what he does best---his job. Today, Governor Perry gave a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C. detailing the dangers inherent in Barack Obama's tacit open borders immigration policy. The apparent beheading of U.S journalist James Foley by ISIS terrorists in Syria has energized the debate over whether or not Islamic terrorists could use America's porous southern border as an an easy access point. Via the New York Times:
While Mr. Perry said that there was “no clear evidence” recruits from terrorist organizations had entered the United States illegally, he pointed to the number of violent crimes committed in recent years by illegal immigrants. “I think there is the obvious, great concern that — because of the condition of the border from the standpoint of not being secure and us not knowing who is penetrating across — that individuals from ISIS or other terrorist states could be,” he said during a speech at the Heritage Foundation.
According to CNN, Perry didn't spend much time addressing his legal problems, and instead focused solely on the crisis down at the border:
Even during his brief remarks in Washington, Perry seemed to be focused mainly on the idea of one day serving as commander-in-chief: following a brief mention of the case against him in his home state, the Governor focused his attention on the crisis at the border, calling it a threat to national security. Perry said there should be no conversation about immigration reform, “until the border is secure.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 21, 2014 34 Comments
Now this is interesting. The General Accounting Office has just issued a report concluding that the Department of Defense broke the law in the Bergdahl-Taliban swap (h/t @JakeTapper). It has to do with the requirement of congressional notification prior to transferring a detainee at Gitmo. Bowe Bergdahl was swapped for 5 high level Taliban Gitmo detainees with no notice to Congress. Here's the Summary of the GAO report:
The Department of Defense (DOD) violated section 8111 of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2014 when it transferred five individuals detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the nation of Qatar without providing at least 30 days notice to certain congressional committees. Section 8111 prohibits DOD from using appropriated funds to transfer any individuals detained at Guantanamo Bay unless the Secretary of Defense notifies certain congressional committees at least 30 days before the transfer. As a consequence of using its appropriations in a manner specifically prohibited by law, DOD also violated the Antideficiency Act.
The full report is here, and concludes as follows:
Our opinion in this matter rests upon the Secretary of Defense’s responsibility to comply with a notification condition on the availability of appropriations to transfer individuals from Guantanamo Bay. This opinion does not address the Secretary’s decision to transfer the five individuals in this case as part of DOD’s efforts to secure the release of an American soldier. However, when DOD failed to notify specified congressional committees at least 30 days in advance of its transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees to Qatar, DOD used appropriated funds in violation of section 8111. As a consequence of using its appropriations in a manner specifically prohibited by law, DOD violated the Antideficiency Act. See 31 U.S.C. § 1341(a). DOD should report its Antideficiency Act violation as required by law.
So what? Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch says the penalties are pretty significant:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 21, 2014 89 Comments
The latest developments, a growing list, feel free to add more in the comments: NY Times, Missouri National Guard to Withdraw From Ferguson as Tensions Ease:
As tensions on the streets here seemed to ease on Thursday, Gov. Jay Nixon ordered the Missouri National Guard to begin withdrawing from the city. “I greatly appreciate the men and women of the Missouri National Guard for successfully carrying out the specific, limited mission of protecting the Unified Command Center so that law enforcement officers could focus on the important work of increasing communication within the community, restoring trust, and protecting the people and property of Ferguson,” Mr. Nixon said in a statement. He said that order in the city had been largely restored and that the presence of the National Guard was no longer needed.
Is the Trayvon case really the prototype to use? Well, maybe, if you want a prototype of a rush to judgment based on inflammatory racial accusations that had no basis in evidence: Even WaPo now is reporting on the alleged eye socket fracture to the police officer:
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