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November 2014

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 06, 2014 17 Comments
Rasmieh (Rasmea) Odeh is a convicted Palestinian terrorist on trial in Detroit for falsely stating on her 1994 visa application that she had not been arrested or convicted of a crime or served time in prison. (Indictment here.) Odeh became a naturalized citizen in 2004, and now faces up to 10 years in prison (she rejected a plea deal that likely would have kept her out of prison) and deportation. Odeh was convicted in Israel in the late 1960s of being a member of a terrorist organization and participating in the planting a bomb in a supermarket and at the British consulate. Odeh served 10 years in prison before being released in a prisoner exchange where 76 prisoners in Israeli jails were exchanged for an Israeli soldier captured in Lebanon. Odeh claims she was tortured into confessing to the crimes leading to her conviction, but there is substantial independent evidence that -- at a minimum -- she was one of the planners of the supermarket bombing. Needless to say, the Palestinian activist community, particularly in Chicago, has turned Odeh into a hero and victim of the long arm of Zionism.

Posted by Andrew Branca on November 05, 2014 18 Comments
The Orlando Sentinel newspaper is reporting that it appears as if no actual witnesses showed up for today's Federal Grand Jury convened to determine if civil rights charges should be brought against George Zimmerman for his self-defense shooting of Trayvon Martin. The DOJ had subpoenaed Frank Taaffe, a self-declared "friend" of Zimmerman's, to testify before the Grand Jury.  In the days following the shooting Taaffe told FBI investigators that based on phone discussions with Zimmerman he did not believe there was a racial motive for the shooting. Earlier this year, however, nearly two years later, Taaffe changed his story and said he now believed that Zimmerman did have a racial motive for shooting Martin.  We covered this change of story previously here:  Key Witness for Zimmerman Grand Jury Changes Story, and the Grand Jury convening here:  DOJ Convenes Grand Jury For Zimmerman Civil Rights Case. In that latter story we had speculated that the sudden announcement of this Grand Jury, just days before elections likely (and ultimately) to prove troublesome for Democrats was merely a political stratagem seeking to draw greater numbers of African Americans to the polls.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 05, 2014 9 Comments
As I discussed earlier this week, the local races would be vitally important in this election. I must admit, I despaired that California would completely miss-out on this "change election", and simply hoped that we might be able to elect Republican Carl DeMaio into CA-52's congressional seat -- though I did predict that there would be "historic election results on November 4th that would have been unimaginable until this August" elsewhere. Imagine my surprise to discover I was not optimistic enough! The election tsunami generated a rogue wave that hit California! The Democrats have lost their supermajority in the state senate, and their status in the Assembly is in doubt.
Two years after California Democrats swept to commanding two-thirds majorities in both houses of the state Legislature, they were unable to again claim the same margin in the Senate and the Assembly remained in doubt with key races too close to call. Republicans captured two closely contested Senate seats central to the supermajority hopes of Democrats. Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen defeated former Democratic Assemblyman Democrat Jose Solorio, while Republican Sen. Andy Vidak, R-Hanford, repelled a challenge from Democrat Luis Chavez to retain a spot in the Senate he first won in a tight special election last year.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 05, 2014 20 Comments

Posted by David Gerstman on November 05, 2014 10 Comments
Maryland hasn't gone purple. Yet. But we have a Republican Governor for just the third time in 48 years. (Spiro Agnew was elected in 1966 and served until 1969, when he went to White House as Richard Nixon's vice president. Bob Ehrlich was elected in 2002, but was defeated for re-election four years later by Martin O'Malley.) Republican Larry Hogan beat Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown in a race that Real Clear Politics called a tossup and Five Thirty Eight determined he had a 6% chance of winning by surprising 9% margin. (A late poll commissioned by Hogan - and ignored by Five Thirty Eight - had him up by 5.) Though I'm very happy with his victory, Hogan will be greatly limited as both houses of Maryland's legislature have veto proof majorities. The past eight years Martin O'Malley has used Maryland as the launching pad for his presidential aspirations, with tax increases and leftist legislation. Consequently Maryland has developed a reputation as having a bad business climate due to taxes and regulations. Brown claimed that he'd be better for business but nothing in his record suggested this would be true. Brown's major initiative was universal pre-K for four-year olds.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 05, 2014 18 Comments
Last night's Republican wave drew some strong and funny reactions. Here are some tweets we gathered, and some of our own in no particular order.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 04, 2014 28 Comments
We will be covering the main contested Senate elections (all poll closing times in Eastern time): By popular demand (WARNING -- Flashing lights) And Yes, for those of you late to the game, we did set off the Fireworks and Music: Fireworks November 2014 Election Night

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 04, 2014 22 Comments
We will be covering several key Governor races, listed below.  And the results are looking something like this: MRW I win playing board games

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 04, 2014 8 Comments
We will be covering several key House races, listed below. We also will update individual races as meaningful numbers and/or results are known.
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