Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

September 2014

Posted by Amy Miller on September 11, 2014 17 Comments
Barack Obama's address to the nation regarding the threat of ISIS was met with both cautious optimism and unbridled mockery from pundits on both sides of the aisle. No one was more optimistic than CNN's latest hire, former Obama Administration press secretary Jay Carney. Unfortunately for Carney, however, CNN had also invited Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who was more than a little irritated at the media's willingness to overlook the fact that Obama chose to ignore the possibility of the current crisis when he decided to pull the occupying force out of Iraq.
Facts are stubborn things, Mr. Carney. His entire national security team, including his Secretary of State, said we want to arm and train and equip these people and he made the unilateral decision to turn them down. And the fact he didn’t leave a residual force in Iraq, overruling all of his military advisers, is the reason we’re facing ISIS today. So the facts are stubborn things in history, and people ought to know them. And now the president is saying basically that we are going to take certain actions, which I would favor. But to say that America is safer, and that the situation is very much like Yemen and Somalia shows me that the President really doesn’t have a grasp for how serious the threat of ISIS is.
Carney eventually managed to respond, in true Carney fashion:
It is a mis – basically a whitewash of history to suggest that there weren’t periods of enormous chaos and fighting and bloodshed in Iraq when there were tens of thousands of Americans troops on the ground. That is a fact. And that was true in 2004, it was true in 2007. And it was true even when we had the highest number of U.S. troops on the ground. We cannot – the United States of America – ask our military to be a permanent occupying force in a country like Iraq.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 11, 2014 11 Comments

Memory...

Posted by Amy Miller on September 10, 2014 47 Comments
You can watch the full address here. President Obama addressed the nation tonight in response to growing concerns regarding the ability of the Islamic State ("ISIS") to threaten American interests. President Obama came out of the gate on defense: Then attempted to draw a difference between the Islamic State and...Islam?

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 10, 2014 33 Comments
[Featured Image credit: Kaitlin Owens video] [Note: The title of this post and Featured Image were changed once I obtained the video which demonstrated that the student leader arrested was reading a Legal Insurrection blog post when arrested.] We previously covered how Meghan Marzec, the President of the Ohio University student Senate, hijacked the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge to bash Israel with a Blood Bucket Challenge. It reflects the nature of the anti-Israel movement on campus that they would politicize a charity fundraiser for an incurable disease. What kind of people do such things? Anti-Israel campus activists, that's the type of people. At a Student Senate Meeting tonight, pro-Israel students protested this abuse and, according to reports, several of the pro-Israel students were escorted out and arrested by campus police, via the student newspaper, The Post, Four students arrested at Wednesday's Student Senate Meeting:
Ohio University Police Department Chief Andrew Powers told The Post that four students were arrested at Wednesday night's Student Senate meeting in Walter Hall. OUPD officers escorted Bobcats for Israel President Becky Sebo out of the Student Senate meeting Wednesday night. Rabbi Danielle LeShaw, who went with the arrested students to OUPD's station, told The Post they were charged with a fourth degree misdemeanor for disturbing a lawful meeting.

Posted by Prudence Paine on September 10, 2014 18 Comments
Yesterday, the Mexican judicial system held its third hearing in the case of Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi. The federal prosecutor and Tahmooressi's defense attorney, Fernando Benitez, presented selected clips of surveillance footage taken from 18 security cameras showing Tahmooressi's entry into Mexico and arrest on March 31. The Marine reservist was not permitted to attend, nor were any reporters allowed in the courtroom during the eight-hour proceeding. As Legal Insurrection has previously reported, Tahmooressi claims that he did not intend to drive into Mexico, but there was no exit accessible to him before arriving at the border patrol station in San Ysidro. He says that he then tried to alert the customs officials that he had legal firearms in his vehicle and wished to turn around to return to the US. In an interview with Fox News, Benitez gave his perspective on the hearing: "We are happy with the results because we can conclusively state that our client told the truth all along." He added:
"You can clearly see that my client’s demeanor from the beginning is calm, he is cooperative," Benitez told Fox Wednesday. "He is clearly motioning ... that he wants to go back and motions that the guns are hidden in a certain place and he cooperates with his captors."

Posted by Amy Miller on September 10, 2014 7 Comments
Defense attorneys have filed a motion to quash and dismiss the indictment of Rick Perry, once again bringing into focus the divisive nature of the charges filed against the Texas Governor. According to the motion, Perry's lawyers are banking on the illegal nature of the indictment itself, saying that “[c]ontinued prosecution of Governor Perry on the current indictment is unprecedented, insupportable and simply impermissible. This attempt to criminalize the political process should not be tolerated by this Court or any Texas court. Otherwise, overzealous prosecutors will be given free reign to use the grand jury process to chill political decisions by Texas’ Governors.” This is the second of two separate sets of motions aimed at getting the case thrown out. The first, a writ of habeas corpus, was filed in late August. The concern here isn't that the outcome itself of the trial will affect Perry's chances at the presidency, but that the legal process will overlap with prime campaign time.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 10, 2014 10 Comments
We have seen this picture before in the Wisconsin's union-induced long strange trip during the 2012 Recall Election:
Police insurrections.  Palace guards.  Catch a Senator contests.  Doctors behaving badly.  Massive national solidarity protests which weren't.  Identity theft as political theater.  Shark jumping.  Legislators who run away to other states.  Bus bang bangs.  Protesters locking their heads to metal railings and pretending to walk like Egyptians.  Beer attacks.  Canoe flotillas.  (alleged) Judicial chokeholds.  Tears falling on Che Guevara t-shirts at midnight.  Endless recalls.  And recounts.  Communications Directors making threats.   Judges who think they are legislators  (well, I'll grant you that one is common).  V-K Day.  Hole-y warriors.  Cities named Speculation and Conjecture.  And the funniest blog headline so far:
First They Came For The Right To Retire After 30 Years On Full Salary With COLAs
The collective bargaining law that precipitated the insanity recently was upheld in its entirely by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Now the unions are doubling (or is it tripling, at this point?) down on the get Walker meme, via WaPo:

Posted by Prudence Paine on September 10, 2014 21 Comments
Last week, Planned Parenthood announced its opposition to Republican proposals to make contraceptives available as over-the-counter (OTC) drugs. Let me paraphrase Planned Parenthood's three points of opposition:

1) The expanded access to birth control is being offered by Republicans. Republicans hate women. Ergo, vote for Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO).

Planned Parenthood claims that GOP efforts to expand birth control access is "an empty gesture," because (get ready for non sequiturs) Republicans want to repeal Obamacare and support the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom. The Washington Examiner notes that "A number of Republican Senate candidates have backed over-the-counter birth control in races this year, including Cory Gardner in Colorado, Thom Tillis in North Carolina, Ed Gillespie in Virginia, Mike McFadden in Minnesota." What the leading abortion provider's press release does not mention is that OTC contraceptives would free many women from having to go to (and pay) its offices to get a prescription for the drugs. If birth control pills were easy to get over-the-counter, Planned Parenthood would lose a tremendous revenue stream. It benefits when the government forces women to go to its prescription-writing centers. It benefits by restricting a woman's access to birth control. By Planned Parenthood's own 2012 statistics, 34 percent of its revenue comes from "contraception" services, 37.9 percent of which are "oral" contraceptives. That's 13 percent of its annual take that could vanish if birth control pills were sold next to aspirin and antacids. Its 2013 annual report shows Planned Parenthood took in $1.2 billion dollars, so it stands to lose $156 million a year if GOP proposals gain ground.

Posted by Amy Miller on September 10, 2014 22 Comments
Yesterday was another heated day on the floor of the Senate, as Republicans took to the podium to lambaste SJR 19, Democrats' latest effort to control the content and flow of political speech in America. As we discussed Monday, SJR 19 proposes a Constitutional amendment that would give Congress the right to set limits on how much money can be raised for and spent in federal political campaigns, and would drastically limit the First Amendment rights to both free speech and free association. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), have spent the past two days defending the resolution as our last chance to preserve the integrity of the vote---and proposing some dangerous policy in the process. Tuesday brought both junior and senior Senators to the floor in opposition to the proposed amendment, putting Democrats on defense and causing waves on social media. One of the main concerns raised in Tuesday's floor speeches was the potential for government control over political speech to spiral, and cut off the flow of information entirely. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) got creative with his presentation, targeting Senator Al Franken (D-MN) and others who embrace parody and humor as part of their political commentary:

Posted by Prudence Paine on September 09, 2014 12 Comments
When it comes to red-meat quotes on immigration and calls for President Obama to use Executive Orders to bypass Congress and grant amnesty to millions, news networks know there is one go-to guy: Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL). Just last year, he urged caution and bipartisanship. Not anymore. Yesterday, Gutierrez expanded his political enemies list and went after all "conservatives," of any party. Transcript:
Luis Gutierrez: So the problem here, it seems to me, is that we keep negotiating with conservative Democrats which led us not to do anything when we were in the majority in 2006 and 2008 and had a majority in the Senate. We let conservative Democrats lead the way. And we can't let conservative Democrats and--and Republicans--dictate the pace of justice that we're gonna take for our immigrant [CROSSTALK] make a mistake in doing that and we confuse the public.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 09, 2014 23 Comments
We have covered the onslaught unleashed by Democratic District Attorney John Chisholm on Governor Scott Walker and conservatives in Wisconsin many, many times. We note the obsessive nature of the investigation, and how it seemed that Chisholm found the man -- Scott Walker -- and was searching for the crime. In a blockbuster revelation, Stuart Taylor at Legal Newsline reports that Chisholm's wife, who is a union operative, may be the motivating force, District attorney’s wife drove case against Wis. Gov. Walker, insider says:
.... Walker became a national figure in 2011, when his “Budget Repair” bill cut state spending and sharply curbed public employee unions — perhaps the biggest reversal of public union power in U.S. history. Conservatives were delighted and liberals alarmed. Now a longtime Chisholm subordinate reveals for the first time in this article that the district attorney may have had personal motivations for his investigation. Chisholm told him and others that Chisholm’s wife, Colleen, a teacher’s union shop steward at St. Francis high school, a public school near Milwaukee, had been repeatedly moved to tears by Walker’s anti-union policies in 2011, according to the former staff prosecutor in Chisholm’s office. Chisholm said in the presence of the former prosecutor that his wife “frequently cried when discussing the topic of the union disbanding and the effect it would have on the people involved … She took it personally.” Citing fear of retaliation, the former prosecutor declined to be identified and has not previously talked to reporters.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 09, 2014 7 Comments
With all the crises we report on daily, it is easy to lose track of one....so, I thought it would be wise to review the situation related to Ebola, which was the American press panic flavor-of-the-month in August. It looks like another American is heading toward the Emory University medical facilities for treatment:
A fourth American who contracted Ebola in West Africa was expected to arrive in the U.S. for care Tuesday and will be treated at an Atlanta hospital where two other aid workers successfully recovered from the disease, the hospital said Monday.
The other three patients appear to be recovering from their infections at this point. I suspect the quality of medical care here is still higher than in in West Africa (even in the wake of Obamacare). Koby Sebastian Spio-Garbrah, Global Managing Director at DaMina Advisors, indicates that the doctor-patient ratios may be key in predicting the spread of the disease:
An analysis of a basic global healthcare metric - doctor-patient-ratios - may be the key in helping identify the next most vulnerable West African states to the ongoing Ebola outbreak. Unsurprisingly, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which have remained the epicenters of the pandemic, have the worst doctor-patient ratios in West Africa, at over 86,000 patients-per-1-doctor in Liberia, and 45,000 patients-per-1-doctor in Sierra Leone. Nigeria, which has lately received a lot of media attention ironically has the best doctor-patient ration of any West African state and is probably the least vulnerable during this outbreak. Due to climatic factors connected to the epidemiology of Ebola, the northern arid West African states of Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad or Mauritania are unlikely to see any major outbreaks. However the tropical coastal states, whose porous land borders adjoin Liberia and Sierra Leone, remain very vulnerable.
A good video review of the situation comes from Paper News TV:
MORE POSTS
Accessibility by WAH