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December 2014

Posted by Amy Miller on December 23, 2014 8 Comments
Bloomington City Attorney Sandra Johnson is making moves to hold accountable the organizers of this past Saturday's "Black Lives Matter" protest at the Mall of America. Officers were present on-site, and once the chanting started, moved to close almost 100 stores and several entrances to the mall. I say "moved to" as opposed to "were forced to" because the shutdown occurred as soon as the protests began, and there were no reports of some sort of violent instigating event; but perhaps it's a good thing the officers moved so quickly, based on how mall employees describe what happened next: From CBS Minnesota:
Nate Bash works at one store near the rotunda, which he didn’t want us to name. “You had people yelling and screaming inside the mall that wanted out and you had people yelling and screaming outside the mall that wanted in,” he said. “I would say the mall was less than half as busy as it should have been considering what day it was.” “This was a powder keg just waiting for a match,” said Johnson.
Police officers are busy using social media in an attempt to single out the organizers (arresting every single protester would be chaos, and not worth the trouble;) their goal is to target the organizers and participants who encouraged others to come to the mall even after officials made moves to emphasize that the Mall of America is privately owned, and those disrutping business would be asked to leave. Officials don't yet know how much money was lost during the shutdown, but they're throwing around words like "staggering," so I'm willing to assume that losses were well worth the effort to track these people down and file a lawsuit.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 23, 2014 8 Comments
The faculty Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure (CAFT) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has issued a Report and recommendations on the refusal of the Board of Trustees to grant tenure to former Virginia Tech Professor Steven Salaita. The Report is being spun by Salaita supporters as a victory, but the details actually should disappoint them and hearten the University Trustees. A full copy of the Report is embedded at the bottom of this post. For one thing, the Committee did not demand "restoration" of Salaita's position, as some of his faculty supporters had expected.  Rather, the Committee, while criticizing the University's conduct, merely recommended formation of another committee of "academic experts" to review the situation. The failure to call for restoration of position was based, in part, on the Committee finding "legitimate concerns questions" [see update] about whether Salaita's anti-Israel (and some say anti-Semitic) tweets reflected on Salaita's professional fitness, competence and care since his scholarship is "almost indistinguishable from a political purpose." That political purpose, of course, is the destruction of Israel. The Committee thus recognizes a reality I have pointed out repeatedly when I discuss academic BDS: The prime movers behind academic BDS have completely blurred any distinction between political advocacy and their professional work; their scholarship and classroom conduct are their political advocacy, and vice versa. What this means, and as the Committee found, notions of academic freedom also have blurred for people like Salaita, who literally wrote the handbook about how faculty should spread academic BDS throughout universities. The result is that anti-Israel, pro-BDS faculty who merge their political advocacy and academic work may not be able to hide behind traditional notions of "academic freedom" to excuse their biased, unprofessional, incompetent and politicized scholarship and conduct. This approach has major implications far beyond the Salaita case. BDS, which itself is anti-academic freedom, may destroy academia before it destroys Israel.

Posted by Mike LaChance on December 23, 2014 7 Comments
President Obama has never enjoyed a very high approval rating from members of America's armed forces, but the end of 2014 finds him at a remarkable new low. Charlie Spiering of Breitbart reported:
President Obama's Approval Ratings Crater With Active Duty Military Active duty members of the United States military are not happy with their commander-in-chief. According to a Military Times survey, President Obama’s popularity rating has cratered to just 15 percent in 2014. That is a new low for the President, falling from an already low approval rating of 35 percent in 2009. The poll of nearly 2,300 active duty members also shows that Obama’s disapproval ratings have increased to 55 percent. The particularly low rating comes as Obama has launched air strikes in response to Islamic State terrorists taking territory and resources in both Iraq and Syria, vowing to keep combat ground troops out of the conflict. He has also deployed members of the military to combat the Ebola threat in Africa.
The Military Times survey cited by Spiering is very frank. Stephen Losey writes:
Obama’s mark on the military Obama is an unpopular president in the eyes of the men and women in uniform. Yet his two-term administration is etching a deep imprint on the culture inside the armed forces. As commander in chief, he will leave behind a legacy that will shape the Pentagon's personnel policies and the social customs of rank-and-file troops for decades to come.
Speaking of the Pentagon, can you guess who's sending more troops back to Iraq?

Posted by Casey Breznick on December 23, 2014 27 Comments
Last week, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said he wants the Department of Justice and the Department of Transportation to investigate why airfares are not decreasing along with falling oil prices. On the surface, Schumer’s observation makes sense. Crude oil and jet fuel prices are strongly correlated, and on average jet fuel comprises a third of airlines’ operating expenses. As such, the declining cost of oil, and therefore jet fuel, should reduce airlines’ expenses, thereby giving them the opportunity to charge lower airfares to consumers. [caption id="attachment_110349" align="aligncenter" width="473"]Chart from U.S. Energy Information Administration. Blue is WTI crude oil, orange is jet fuel. Chart from U.S. Energy Information Administration. Blue is WTI crude oil, orange is jet fuel.[/caption] The key word here is “opportunity.” Even though Schumer says “it’s safe to say that the airlines can afford to pass at least some of these savings onto the consumer,” reality is far from this populist idealism. The airlines’ first obligation is to their shareholders and employees, who have legitimate claims to these savings in the forms of higher dividends and wages. Then there is the issue of the government telling private businesses how they should set their prices—as if Washington bureaucrats know the first thing about airline pricing strategy, arguably the most complex in existence.

Posted by Amy Miller on December 23, 2014 15 Comments
Two months ago, Pei Xia Chen was a happy newlywed. Now, she's living a nightmare as the widow of executed NYPD officer Wenjian Liu, and the focus of a media frenzy. She offered a statement to the press late yesterday evening:
The devastated widow of slain police Officer Wenjian Liu spoke Monday about her husband’s choice to lead a life of service as a shaken city continued to mourn him and Officer Rafael Ramos — two heroes executed by a madman. “His dreams were of providing for his current and growing family,” Pei Xia Chen said tearfully of the man she had just married in September. “He was an asset to the police department, using his Chinese language skills whenever and wherever it was needed,” she said in a statement.
Watch:

Posted by Mike LaChance on December 23, 2014 45 Comments
Remember when Vice President Joe Biden stupidly told people to fend off intruders by firing a shotgun into the air? This is worse. I'm not a lawyer or a gun owner but as I watched this for the first time, I couldn't help but wonder how many laws the boy in the video was breaking. Yehuda Remer of Truth Revolt names a few:
New Anti-Gun PSA Advocates Breaking The Law A new PSA created by director Rejina Sincic shows her irrational fear of firearms in a disturbing new video. The video shows a boy stealing his mother’s handgun from her dresser, places it in a backpack, brings it to school, and at the end of class gives it to his teacher saying, “Can you take this away? I don’t feel safe with a gun in my house.” Bearing Arms writes that the video is “advocating that teens commits multiple felonies—several of which could lead to injury or death through negligent discharge of the weapon.” What Sincic fails to point out as she advocates for this kind of behavior is the multiple felonies that the boy breaks. “[S]uch an act would result in the boy facing numerous felony charges (exact charges depend on state laws) possibly including weapons theft, unlawful possession of a weapon by a minor, illegal concealed carry of a weapon, carrying a weapon onto school property, assault, and brandishing,” writes Bearing Arms.
Watch it below: It's obvious that the people behind this video have no understanding of gun laws or safety protocols.

Posted by Amy Miller on December 22, 2014 9 Comments
Remember the time when North Korea threw a cyberterror party---and EVERYBODY showed up with bottles of wine and things in hopes that they would stop? Well, not everybody, but everybody actually involved bent the knee to the World's Worst Country and brought shame upon the heads of freedom-lovers everywhere. Fortunately for the future of the Western world, the rest of us got together and took a stand against psychological cyberwarfare and for the principles of free speech, free expression, and the freedom to watch Seth Rogen bumble around on screen. Oh, and the freedom to troll the hell out of North Korea.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 22, 2014 10 Comments
I'm an avid online shopper, particularly during this time of year. I also think Amazon Prime is one of God's greatest modern gifts to mankind. A few weeks ago I was perusing through the endless Amazon offerings when I stumbled upon an option to view the best selling items by category. Both horrifying and delightful, I've compiled a list of what are some of the most, shall we say "interesting", Amazon best sellers.

Home and Kitchen

While a nice little wine bottle vacuum sealer is Amazon's top seller in this department, enough people are buying Obama toilet paper for the item to be listed as the 17th best seller in the entirety of home and kitchen wares. Interestingly enough, this same item is the 13th best seller in the Bedding and Bath department. In sum, people like Obama toilet paper. Obama Toilet Paper

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 22, 2014 3 Comments
By now most of our readers should be familiar with the anti-Israel Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement. Scroll through our BDS and American Studies Association tags for a horrifying history of the perversion of academia by obsessive-compulsive Israel (and in some cases, Jew) haters. Recently a UAW affiliate representing graduate student instructors passed a BDS resolution. A paltry 20% of the membership bothered to vote, but as often is the case in these things, the anti-Israel students were more motivated, and the resolution passed. The vote at Berkeley was outsize in favor of BDS (no shock there) and made much of the vote margin. That resolution committed the membership to agitating against Israel in the classrooms, something that violated the U. California rules on classroom conduct. University officials confirmed that position. U California Regents Policy Letter September 8 2014 Dozens of faculty signed a petition in favor of the grad student BDS resolution. A coalition of pro-Israel groups wrote to U.C. officials demanding to know whether the conduct rules also would apply to faculty.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 22, 2014 10 Comments
He died today. The BBC reports:
Singer Joe Cocker, best known for his cover of the Beatles' With A Little Help From My Friends, has died aged 70, his agent has confirmed. The Sheffield born singer-songwriter had a career lasting more than 40 years with hits including You Are So Beautiful and Up Where We Belong. His agent Barrie Marshall said Cocker, who died after battling lung cancer, was "simply unique". Sir Paul McCartney said he was a lovely guy who "brought so much to the world". Cocker's friend Rick Wakeman, keyboard player for the rock band Yes, called his rendering of With a Little Help From My Friends "sensational" and said: "He had a voice that was just unique."
He'll always be most remembered for his rendition at Woodstock of With A Little Help From My Friends: It was more than a rendition. It became something of a cultural icon:

Posted by Amy Miller on December 22, 2014 20 Comments
Could it be that the United States has finally hit back against North Korea's cyberaggression? All 1,024 of North Korea's Internet protocol addresses have gone dark, and internet monitors are calling the outage one of the worst network failures in years. From the Washington Post:
The connectivity problems are coming just days after President Obama warned of a "proportional response" to North Korea, which is suspected of breaking into Sony's network in a major cyber hack. It's not yet known whether the United States is responsible for the downtime. But according to Dyn Research — which earlier this year bought the respected network analysis firm Renesys — North Korea's Internet is currently showing unusual amounts of instability. ... Is this an attack? The chances aren't zero, considering that the few North Koreans who can actually get online tend to be government and military officials. Even if the outages are the result of somebody's deliberate act, proving that the United States did it would be difficult.
According to the New York Times, if this was us (and it had better be us, even if we'll never admit it) it would mean that US intelligence is trying something completely different. Normally, American cyberwarfare (that we know about) goes the "espionage" route and focuses on data grabs.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 22, 2014 5 Comments
The saga of Stanley Cohen took an unexpected twist recently. For background, see our Stanley Cohen Tag. Short version: Cohen is a virulently anti-Israel, pro-Hamas lawyer who has defended many high-profile terrorists in court. Cohen pleaded guilty to obstructing the IRS and failing to file income tax returns for several years. He admitted in open court that the government could prove its allegations of multi-year effort by Cohen to conceal cash transactions and to fail to report income. Cohen was sentenced to 18 months in prison on November 21, 2014, and must report to prison on January 6, 2015. There were multiple delays in his plea appearance, which struck me as odd at the time, particularly since the court record reflected that he was traveling abroad in the Middle East Gulf states. Not exactly the place you would expect to allow a person to go on the eve of a guilty plea. Cohen did return, however; he appeared in court, and then came the explanation about his trip to the Gulf states: Cohen apparently was engaged in an ultimately futile effort to obtain the release of ISIS hostage Peter Kassig, who later would be beheaded. The Guardian has the story, The race to save Peter Kassig:

Posted by Amy Miller on December 22, 2014 8 Comments
The #BringBackOurGirls hashtivism trend may not have saved the almost 300 young women who were kidnapped in Nigeria earlier this year, but it did force the world to focus its attention on Boko Haram, the Islamic extremist group responsible for the kidnappings. It's time to bring that attention back. Most of the media's coverage of Boko Haram has focused either on the kidnappings, or on the scrappy, regional nature of the group's quest for self-determination as a nation of Islam. The problem with this is that while the west has been busy forgetting to pay attention to the almost 200 girls who are still missing, Boko Haram has been growing. From the Associated Press:
In Niger, the government has declared a "humanitarian crisis" and appealed for international aid to help tens of thousands of Nigerian refugees driven from their homes by the insurgency. These recent events show how neighboring countries are increasingly being drawn into Nigeria's Islamic uprising. Thousands of people have been killed in Nigeria's 5-year insurgency and some 1.6 million people driven from their homes. "We are concerned about the increasing regionalization of Boko Haram," said Comfort Ero, Africa director for the International Crisis Group. On Sunday, Cameroon's army announced it had broken up a Boko Haram training camp in the Mayo-Danay district in the country's Far North region. The army was looking for other hideouts in the area, said Jean-Pierre Mbida, a soldier with the Rapid Intervention Battalion tasked with fighting the insurgents. "We will continue monitoring the area in the hope of uncovering any other Boko Haram hideouts and training grounds," he added.
Boko Haram is pulling fighters from Niger, Chad, and Cameroon into Nigeria, and has also managed to gain control of previously free areas in Niger. The general territory Boko Haram runs in is poor, and largely ignored by the government, making it easy for them to implement their alternative-authority structure over an even less-than-willing population.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 22, 2014 16 Comments
Although the media has recently been less focused on Ebola, the disease is still impacting Africa and the death count now tops 7000. Meanwhile, a new epidemic of a disease that was once thought well-contained by vaccinations may be occurring in my home state of California. The number of cases of whooping cough (pertussis) has skyrocketed this year.
Nearly 10,000 cases have been reported in the state so far this year, and babies are especially prone to hospitalization or even death. ...Whooping cough is cyclical in nature and tends to peak every three to five years. The last outbreak of the disease in California was in 2010. But doctors are discovering that immunity from the current vaccine may be wearing off on a similar timeline. Medical recommendations suggest booster shots after eight years, but doctors are seeing kids who received a booster three years ago getting sick. Public health officials are considering an update to the recommendations to account for the dip in immunity seen after three years. Plus, many kids in some areas aren't getting vaccinated at all. The highest rates of whooping cough are found in the Bay Area counties of Sonoma, Napa and Marin, which also have some of the highest rates of parents who opt out of vaccinating their children. Doctors believe these kids are the root of the current and recent epidemics.
Whooping cough feels like a cold at first, but an intense cough that develops later can produce a "whooping" sound. The disease is caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis. It can be treated with antibiotics, but the drugs may not be effective when the illness is in the severe coughing stages. Whooping cough can last for weeks and is especially dangerous to infants under 1 year. California isn't the only state seeing jumps in pertussis infections.

Posted by New Neo on December 22, 2014 18 Comments
When I read the news of the murder of NYPD Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu by shooter Ismaaiyl Brinsley as they sat in their police car, it had an air of sickening familiarity. If you're as old as I am, and especially if you're from New York, you remember. You remember that in the early 70s a war against police began, a war in which police were gunned down by cold-blooded killers with a racial/political agenda and a convict past. The assailants were members of various black militant groups, mostly offshoots of the Black Panthers, such as the Black Liberation Army (BLA), which specialized in racially-motivated cop killings. It was almost inevitable that the furor against police officers that's been whipped up over the Brown and Garner deaths would end in some person or persons deciding that killing a cop would be just the thing. Whether Brinsley was crazy or not---and he may have been---and a lone wolf or not, even crazy people can be sparked to violence by an atmosphere of orchestrated hatred. There is also some evidence that Brinsley was not a lone wolf, however, but instead may have been a member of a group known as the Black Guerrilla Family. The Family shares similar antecedents with the BLA, including a prison genesis and a stated leftist/socialist/Marxist philosophy. Probably the most famous police officer ambush case was that of partners and Vietnam vets Gregory Foster and Rocco Laurie, which occurred in January of 1972. Witnesses and an investigation indicated that they were shot in the back by BLA members as the officers walked down the street on their beat, and then shot again multiple times with their own service revolvers as they lay dying. The murders of Foster and Laurie caused a furor because they were part of a war on police, but also because both were well-liked, young, handsome, and because they were good friends and an interracial team (Foster was black and Laurie white). There was a 1974 book and a 1975 movie about the heinous crime, and although there were suspects (some of whom have died or been killed in the ensuing years), no one has ever been tried for their murders.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 21, 2014 4 Comments
Cary Nelson, Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, is the Editor of a recent book, The Case Against the Academic Boycotts of Israel. The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel cover He also was interviewed on Israeli television recently. He makes some good points, similar to those I have made in many of my speeches and appearances. The faculty Propagandists with Ph.D's are the main problem, they use their leverage over students in the Humanities and Social Sciences to intimidate and control the agenda. Academic BDS is a movement led by evil people, and followed by many more uninformed, misinformed and misguided dupes. Evil can never be ignored. BDS is a pox on academia, and should be treated as such. http://youtu.be/jQOs_lE-YFQ?t=1m1s (Added) I'll use this as a chance to promote my interview with Mark Levin on the topic, in case you missed it:
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