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November 2014

Posted by Amy Miller on November 16, 2014 14 Comments
Religious organizations challenging the PPACA's contraception mandate have lost their latest battle against the Act's "religious accommodation." Last week the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia threw out a series of lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the accommodation on multiple grounds. These organizations have argued that the accommodation does not provide adequate protections to religious freedom because an organization's request actually "triggers" a provision that activates substitute coverage:
The contraceptive coverage opt-out mechanism substantially burdens Plaintiffs’ religious exercise, Plaintiffs contend, by failing to extricate them from providing, paying for, or facilitating access to contraception. In particular, they assert that the notice they submit in requesting accommodation is a “trigger” that activates substitute coverage, and that the government will “hijack” their health plans and use them as “conduits” for providing contraceptive coverage to their employees and students. Plaintiffs dispute that the government has any compelling interest in obliging them to give notice of their wish to take advantage of the accommodation. And they argue that the government has failed to show that the notice requirement is the least restrictive means of serving any such interest.
The Court, however, was not convinced:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 16, 2014 4 Comments

From the "totally unofficial" Harvard Parody website, "Eve of Destruction: Ron Klain, Ebola Czar": Adding to Harvard Law School's already considerable reputation for producing "elite" lawyers who fill high-level government positions for which they are totally incompetent (in terms of the real-world practical skills and ethical...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 15, 2014 9 Comments
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is the hyper-aggressive group which designates almost anyone critical even of radical Islam as "Islamophobic." CAIR has done more than any group, except perhaps the Southern Poverty Law Center, at chilling speech on topics of national and international concern. CAIR also is a key component of the Democratic Party coalition, using its media savvy to demonize opponents. I wonder how CAIR is going to wiggle out of being designated by the United Arab Emirates as a terrorist group? Is the UAE "Islamophobic"? Rosie Gray at Buzzfeed Reports:
The United Arab Emirates has listed two American Muslim organizations on its list of designated terrorist groups, according to an announcement released on state media on Saturday. The UAE has classified the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim American Society as terrorist groups, according to a story on the website of WAM, the official news agency. Also reportedly designated as terror groups were the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim Association of Britain, and the charity Islamic Relief. The list also covers groups widely thought of as terrorist groups, like ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Taliban.

Posted by Amy Miller on November 15, 2014 4 Comments
Reports have surfaced that "Jihadi John," the masked Brit responsible for the beheadings of four western hostages, was injured last Saturday's airstrikes near the Iraqi-Syrian border. Via the Daily Mail:
‘We are aware of reports that this individual [Jihadi John] has been injured, and we are looking into them,’ a Foreign Office spokesman told The Mail on Sunday. This newspaper has received an independent account of how Jihadi John was injured and rushed to hospital after a devastating air strike in Al Qaim, in Anbar Province, Western Iraq. The Foreign Office spokesman added: ‘We have a number of sources of information coming in. ‘The incident occurred last weekend, and so we have received the reports in the last few days. We don’t have any representation inside Syria, and so it is difficult to confirm these reports.’ The Foreign Office also issued an official statement saying: ‘We are aware of reports. We cannot confirm these reports.’ A spokesman for US Central Command said they were unable to confirm the details for security reasons. The joint US-Iraqi mission left at least ten IS commanders dead, and around 40 injured. Those reportedly hurt included IS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.
The Mail provides a great infographic detailing the fractured timeline as we have it so far: 1416081735658_wps_43_BANNER_jpg

Posted by Amy Miller on November 15, 2014 5 Comments
America's latest mission in Iraq has been marred from the start by mixed messages, disagreement in Congress, and a slow, steady increase in troop count. In the battle to manage expectations regarding mission time and troop commitment, Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey has remained at odds with the Obama administration over pledges to keep American soldiers out of combat, and has tried to emphasize how volatile the situation in Iraq and Syria has become. Dempsey followed up his announcement that the U.S. would consider sending a small number of ground troops to help Iraqi fighters engage insurgents by making a surprise visit to Iraq to assess the situation on the ground. Reports show that the General was pleased with the progress Iraqi troops had made, but managed expectations by saying that continuing to roll back the influence of ISIS will require deeper involvement in more complex operations. From Fox News:
"I'm not predicting at this point that I would recommend that those forces in Mosul and along the border would need to be accompanied by U.S. forces, but we're certainly considering it," he told the U.S. House Armed Services Committee. He added that the U.S. has a modest force in Iraq now, and "any expansion of that, I think, would be equally modest. I just don't foresee a circumstance when it would be in our interest to take this fight on ourselves with a large military contingent." Dempsey's visit comes just one day after Iraqi forces drove Islamic State militants out of a strategic oil refinery town north of Baghdad, scoring their biggest battlefield victory yet.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 15, 2014 21 Comments
Charles Krauthammer appeared on Megyn Kelly's show this week to discuss Obama's plans for amnesty by executive order. Kelly, who is a lawyer, pointed out that we're entering "uncharted waters" and that even Reagan's famous amnesty was done with congress. Krauthammer concurred and pointed out that it's an impeachable offense. Transcript and video by the Washington Free Beacon:
Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer said President Obama’s plan to grant amnesty to 4.5 million illegal immigrants was “an impeachable offense.” Krauthammer said that prosecutorial discretion, which Obama is invoking to justify his executive action, is only meant for extreme cases in which one or two individuals are prevented from being deported. “I believe it is an impeachable offense,” Krauthammer told Fox News host Megyn Kelly on Thursday.
“This idea of prosecutorial discretion is really a travesty. It is intended for extreme cases. for a case where you want to show mercy for individual or two where it’s unusual incident unusual circumstances and you say, okay, we’re going to give this person a pass. it was never intended to abolish a whole class of people subject to a law and to essentially abolish whole sections of a law.”
Krauthammer said Obama’s executive action threat resembles a South American dictator more than an American president.
“That’s the way the system is in Venezuela. If the the caudillo isn’t able to get stuff done through congress, he issues a decree and that’s it, and he’ll arrest anybody who gets in the way,” Krauthammer said. “The whole American system is designed that it has to be a collaboration between the Congress and the president. Congress has to pass it, he has to sign it. That’s the way the damn thing works.”
Watch the exchange: Senator Ted Cruz has also been outspoken about Obama's plan.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 15, 2014 26 Comments
In the wake of the 4th, 5th and 6th new Jonathan Gruber videos, the Republican National Committee has created a new video called #Grubering. GOP Chairman Reince Priebus explained why in a press release yesterday:
RNC Releases New “#Grubering” Video WASHINGTON – Today, the Republican National Committee (RNC) released a new web video entitled “#Grubering,” highlighting clips of ObamaCare comments made by Jonathan Gruber and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. “Gruber’s comments reveal how President Obama and Democrats like Nancy Pelosi took advantage of Americans and violated the trust of voters. Like Gruber, they clearly think Americans are too ‘stupid’ to figure out what’s in our own best interest,” said Chairman Priebus. “In 2009, Nancy Pelosi encouraged Americans to read Gruber’s ObamaCare analysis, and now she is claiming she doesn’t know who Gruber is. The lack of transparency from the White House and Democrat leaders is appalling.”
Here's the spot: Gruber's insulting remarks have gone viral and even CNN is reporting the story now.

Posted by Amy Miller on November 15, 2014 28 Comments
Brace yourselves...executive action on immigration policy is coming. Next week, President Obama is scheduled to reveal a 10-point, comprehensive immigration reform plan through executive action. The plan's most controversial provisions would expand deferred action and halt deportations for millions of illegal immigrants. Although Republicans have repeatedly warned Obama against going over the heads of the House and Senate on the issue of immigration, the President has vowed "not to wait" for Congress to act. Republican warnings don't seem to have as much persuasive power as donor dollars, and Obama has those flowing in by the bucket. Immigration reform has become a pet project of the left, and over the last decade left wing organizations and NGOs have pumped millions into groups backing radical immigration reform---and now those groups are expecting Obama to keep his promise to stop deportations.
The calls started shortly after President Obama’s news conference on the day after the midterm elections. He had said he would go ahead with action on immigration before year’s end, in spite of warnings from Republicans that he could wreck relations with the new Congress they will control. White House officials were calling immigrant advocates to talk strategy and shore up their support. The officials wanted to reassure them, several activists said, that the president, after delaying twice this year, was ready to take the kind of broad measures they had demanded to shield immigrants here illegally from deportation. The White House calls — and the president’s decision itself — reflected the clout the immigrant movement has built up in recent years, as it grew from a cluster of scattered Washington lobbying groups into a national force. A vital part of that expansion has involved money: major donations from some of the nation’s wealthiest liberal foundations, including the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Open Society Foundations of the financier George Soros, and the Atlantic Philanthropies. Over the last decade those donors have invested more than $300 million in immigrant organizations, including many fighting for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 14, 2014 64 Comments
Yesterday, mankind achieved something seriously amazing: we landed a space probe on a comet millions of miles away from Earth. Unfortunately for the scientists involved in this momentous accomplishment, modern day "feminists" exist. One of the scientists was wearing a shirt covered in sketches of of scantily clad women. Not actual photos of women, but sketched images of pin ups in skivvies. So this chick from The Atlantic does what "feminists" do when encountering the inane: she lost her damn mind. Naturally, this scientist's wardrobe selection means women are not welcome to participate in scientific oriented fields... What should've been the happiest day of this man's life for doing something no human being has ever in the history of our entire species done, turned into a tearful apology because of his choice of SHIRT. I kid you not:

Posted by Andrew Branca on November 14, 2014 23 Comments
The New York Times reports today that the Ferguson Grand Jury sitting to determine whether to indict police officer Darren Wilson over the shooting death of Mike Brown heard testimony from Dr. Michael Baden, the pathologist hired by the Brown family to examine the body. Dr. Baden gave a lengthy press interview immediately after conducting his "unofficial" autopsy a week or so after Brown was killed, as shown in the press meeting below.  I've set the video to skip the preliminary 12 minute-long introductory comments of Brown family attorney Benjamin Crump, but feel free to "rewind" if you're into that sort of thing: One of the more remarkable aspects of the events surrounding the shooting of Mike Brown by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson Missouri this past August is that Brown was subject to three-count 'em, THREE--autopsies. One was the official autopsy, which we posted about here: Michael Brown Autopsy A Further Blow To #Ferguson Racial Narrative. (A copy of the official autopsy can be found at that post.)

Posted by Amy Miller on November 14, 2014 7 Comments
The reality of campaign politics is that there is no standard for rhetoric. You punch low, you punch high, and you start punching before you have specific people you're tasked with punching. Some progressives, however, are jockeying for early bids to lead Hillary Clinton's 2016 Presidential campaign, and are using fellow Democrats' low blows against Republicans---and each other---to improve their chances. ABC News has received copies of e-mails from the "Mook Mafia," a list serv run by 34 year old Democrat operative Robby Mook, who many believe could be slated to lead Hillary's campaign team. via ABC News:
Copies of a cache of the emails obtained by ABC News, and revealed publicly for the first time, show Mook and Marshall demonstrating an aggressive tone in rallying their friends behind political causes, in exchanges that are often self-mocking and sometimes border on being profane. They include rallying cries to, in Mook’s words, “smite Republicans mafia-style,” and, to quote Marshall, “punish those voters.” Mook sometimes calls himself “Deacon” in the emails, while Marshall, now a senior White House aide, refers to himself as “Reverend” in many of the exchanges. ... The private emails were provided to ABC News by a Democrat on the listserv who has worked alongside Mook and Marshall on previous campaigns. The person who provided the emails is, like the vast majority of those on the listserv, supportive of Hillary Clinton, but does not support the idea of Mook or Marshall holding leadership roles in a second presidential bid. They were provided on the condition of anonymity. That the emails are emerging publicly reflects the ferocious intra-battle to populate the top positions of an expected Clinton campaign.

Posted by CampusClimatologist on November 14, 2014 4 Comments
Last year, UCLA’s Jewish community and its allies mustered campus support to defeat a BDS resolution and to retain an anti-BDS plurality in student government. I have chronicled the maneuvering of the anti-Israel groups at UCLA since then: But this summer and fall, a series of resignations, defections, and a special election cost the party allied with the Jewish community its student government plurality. Next Tuesday, in a meeting closed to the press and alumni, BDS is likely to pass in the face of muted opposition. As SJP and their allies fought on, the pro-Israel community, as we feared and warned, were unable to keep up.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 14, 2014 12 Comments
On Monday, November 10, a jury rendered a verdict of guilty against Rasmieh (Rasmea) Odeh on charges that she unlawfully failed to disclose her conviction in Israel of involvement in the 1969 bombing of a supermarket and related offenses, and service of 10 years in Israeli prison (before being released in a prisoner exchange for an Israeli soldier held in Lebanon). Judge Gerschwin Drain ordered Odeh's bond revoked, and she was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs and taken into custody pending the March 15, 2015 sentencing. Odeh now has filed a motion for reconsideration of that decision. The motion and supporting exhibits, as well as an Affidavit, are embedded in full at the bottom of this post. The gist of the motion is that Odeh has strong ties to the Chicago area and limited (if any) ability to flee:
6. Among the findings made by the Court was that the Defendant did not have sufficient ties to the community, that her attempted escape from an Israeli prison in 1975 evidenced a lack of respect for authority, and that, now that she was convicted and facing possible prison time, she had no incentive to return to Court for sentencing.
The motion then goes on to list varies offers of proof rebutting the court's findings, including:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 14, 2014 7 Comments
David Sheen is a name you probably haven't heard before, at least not the David Sheen who is a leading anti-Israel propagandist. Sheen, along with Max Blumenthal, travels the globe presenting a gross negative caricature of Israel worthy of 1930's cartoons. Sheen and Blumenthal were to present their anti-Israel campaign in the German Bundestag (parliament) until a left-wing German lawmaker, Gregor Gysi, objected (allegedly) on the grounds that the two were anti-Semitic. That objection reportedly almost got Sheen and Blumenthal disinvited, although they did end up giving their presentation. Sheen and Blumenthal then chased the lawmaker down the hallway. Both men got in Gysi's face, and Sheen tried to push his way into a bathroom as the lawmaker tried to shut the door. Sheen, writing at the anti-Israel, anti-Zionist Mondoweiss website, explained how it developed:
At the end of our presentations, Max called upon those assembled to join us and confront Gregor Gysi, and this call was applauded by many in the audience. A group of us then walked to his office, prepared to talk to him politely and explain the consequences of his cavalier political ploy. However, he refused to come out of his office and meet with us, even for a minute. When he finally emerged, he strode right past us at a brisk pace, and – well, you probably saw the rest – I followed him and demanded that he acknowledge responsibility for the repercussions that I would have to face as a result of his actions.
Sheen shot this video: Someone else filmed from a different angle, starting with an initial confrontation (which appears to be outside Gysi's office):

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 14, 2014 37 Comments
Now that Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber has been exposed for the liberal pseudo-mastermind that he is, people are beginning to ask Democratic Party leaders how much they knew about him. Nancy Pelosi denied knowing him yesterday, but she's been caught in a lie. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post reported:
Nancy Pelosi says she doesn’t know who Jonathan Gruber is. She touted his work in 2009. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that, not only did Jonathan Gruber not play a significant role in drafting Obamacare, but that she doesn't even "know who he is." Many have pointed out since then that Pelosi's office has cited Gruber's work in the past. That's notable, but it's very unlikely Pelosi herself wrote those press releases herself or even participated in their drafting. But then there's this: Pelosi herself has also mentioned Gruber and his work -- back in November 2009, at the height of the Obamacare debate.
Here's the video. Who do you believe--Ms. Pelosi, or your lying eyes?

Posted by Amy Miller on November 14, 2014 14 Comments
This week, the United States and China shocked the world with a joint announcement pledging to address greenhouse gas emissions. The plan has been touted as "historic" by Administration leaders, but critics say that the end game of this plan is less about controlling climate change, and more about creating a favorable political environment. From CBS News:
Mr. Obama announced that the U.S. would move much faster in cutting pollution, with a goal to reduce emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent by 2025, compared with 2005 levels. Earlier in his presidency, he set a goal to cut emissions by 17 percent by 2020. Xi, whose country's emissions are still growing as it builds new coal plants, didn't commit to cut emissions by a specific amount. Rather, he set a target for China's emissions to peak by 2030, or earlier if possible. He also pledged to increase the share of energy that China will derive from sources other than fossil fuels. Together, the U.S. and China create more than one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
Anyone who has paid attention to China's economic model over the past decade (and beyond,) or the political climate in the U.S. going into the lame duck session, knows that a plan that has the potential to impact economic growth is beyond unrealistic. Republican leadership in the Senate is not impressed:
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