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June 2015

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 10, 2015 47 Comments
Once again information emerges that Prosecutor Marilyn Mosby is an integral actor in the circumstances surrounding Freddie Gray's arrest and death, rather than an objective prosecutor simply addressing a criminal case. Roughly three weeks before Baltimore police officers arrested Gray for possession of an illegal knife Mosby herself was strongly advocating for substantially increased policing in the very neighborhood where Gray would be taken into custody, according to a report by the Baltimore Sun. Lt. Kenneth Butler, a shift commander for more than a decade, and a representative for an advocacy group for women and minority officers, is quoted in the Sun report as saying that he had never before seen such orders come from the state's attorney's office.  Further, he expressed no uncertainty about what the consequences would be: "Once you're given an order, you have to carry it out. It's just that simple."  And in terms of the tactics that would necessarily be involved?
They want increased productivity, whether it be car stops, field interviews, arrests — that's what they mean by measurables. You have to use whatever tools you have — whether it be bike officers, cameras, foot officers, whatever you have — to abate that problem. So you're going to have to be aggressive. (emphasis added)

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 10, 2015 7 Comments
On a windswept hillside terrace in the massive Har HaMenuchot Cemetery on the western edge of Jerusalem, 1969 terror victims Edward Joffe and Leon ("Arie") Kanner are buried together, next to Edward's parents Roslyn and Hyman Joffe. The cemetery itself reflects the history of the conflict. Har HaMenuchot was opened in 1951, after Jordanian troops seized "East" Jerusalem after Israel declared Independence in 1948. Jordan's conquest included not only the Jewish Quarter of the Old City but also the Mount of Olives Cemetery, the traditional Jewish burial ground. The Jewish Quarter was ethnically cleansed of Jews and its Jewish landmarks, while Mount of Olives Cemetery was ransacked, its tombstones used for building projects and many of its graves paved over for roads. Har HaMenuchot was built in response. [caption id="attachment_130311" align="alignnone" width="600"]Har HaMenuchot Cemetery Jerusalem [Har HaMenuchot Cemetery, Jerusalem][/caption]  My wife and I visited the Joffe and Kanner graves at Har HaMenuchot on June 1, 2015. [Featured Image] The cemetery is so huge, so seemingly discombobulated, so logistically impenetrable even when armed with plot and section numbers, that it took us almost an hour to find the graves.  We were accompanied by a local Rabbi who helped us say prayers. We placed small stones on the graves, in the Jewish tradition. And we were overcome with emotion. The inscriptions on the graves are simple, and nearly identical. Edward's brother Harold provided the translation: [caption id="attachment_130324" align="alignnone" width="600"][Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner Headstones] [Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner Headstones][/caption]

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 10, 2015 7 Comments
I was a guest Tuesday morning on The Tony Katz Show on WICB Indianapolis. The topic was the Zivotofsky case discussed earlier this week, Supreme Court Overturns Congress on Jerusalem Passport Law. I made the point that while the majority decision purported to make the decision very narrow, it's likely that the decision would be used to try to limit Congressional legislation more broadly as relates to foreign policy: Professor Eugene Kontorovich expresses a similar view, writing at ScotusBlog (via Volokh Conspiracy):

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 10, 2015 8 Comments
You might think that the fact that four Americans died in the 2012 attack on our embassy in Libya (on Hillary Clinton's watch) was bad enough, but you'd be wrong. Stephen Collinson of CNN:
Hillary Clinton's real Libya problem Hillary Clinton has another Libya problem. She's already grappling with the political headaches from deleted emails and from the terror attack that left four Americans dead in Benghazi. But she'll face a broader challenge in what's become of the North African country since, as secretary of state in 2011, she was the public face of the U.S. intervention to push out its longtime strongman, Moammar Gadhafi. Libya's lapse into the chaos of failed statehood has provided a breeding ground for terror and a haven for groups such as ISIS. Its plight is also creating an opening for Republican presidential candidates to question Clinton's strategic acumen and to undermine her diplomatic credentials, which will be at the center of her pitch that only she has the global experience needed to be president in a turbulent time.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 09, 2015 25 Comments
I must've missed the "everyone make stuff up" memo circulating through media channels this week. Thankfully, I'm just a blogger. Tuesday, the Huffington Post published a post with the headline, Jeb Bush In 1995: Unwed Mothers Should Be Publicly Shamed. There's just one problem though -- that's not what Jeb Bush said. Not in 1995 or otherwise. The post focuses on a book Bush wrote called Profiles in Character. The book was published in 1995. Gawker, Wonkette, Raw Story and others then reblogged using the same, incorrect headline. No, Jeb Bush did not say unwed mothers should be publicly shamed

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 09, 2015 135 Comments
Not many details on this yet but it appears that McKinney police officer Eric Casebolt has resigned from the police department, as reported by ABC news and others sources.
Casebolt's resignation was confirmed Tuesday by attorney Jane Bishkin, who told WFAA that the decision was made after a meeting with the department's internal affairs unit to review possible charges he could face.
Officer Casebolt came to public attention, of course, through his efforts to lawfully control a violent mob that invaded the quiet Texas community of McKinney this past Friday.  While controlling a non-compliant suspect Casebolt was charged by two males, at which point he drew his service pistol.  His assaulters fled upon seeing the drawn weapon and no shots were fired. For a detailed analysis of those events, see "Video Analysis: McKinney Brawl Another Rush to Misjudgment?" The same ABC news source also reports that:
Casebolt has not made any public statements since Friday's incident. His lawyer said he has been in hiding with his wife and family at an undisclosed location after they allegedly received death threats. (emphasis added)

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 09, 2015 45 Comments
Last week, the New York Times dropped the lamest "hit" piece in the history of hit pieces. Pretending a few traffic tickets from the 90s made Sen. Rubio and his wife unfit for public service, the NYT ended up the butt of the joke. On social media, #rubiocrimespree trending nationally for hours with submissions like, "drank milk after it expired," and "Didn't read Apple End User Licence [sic] Agreement but still clicked "I Agree"." Rubio's campaign got in on the fun, and celebrities publicly declared the NYT story dumb. Apparently that wasn't enough embarrassment for the NYT. Tuesday, the NYT released yet another 'scoop' on the good Senator from Florida. This time, the NYT suggested that Rubio had financial problems which have tainted his career. Those "financial problems"? "Student debt, mortgages and an extra loan against the value of his home totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Posted by Amy Miller on June 09, 2015 10 Comments
Last week, an Inspector General report revealed that the TSA failed to flag over 70 airport workers with ties to terrorism. Auditors found that, although the TSA employs procedures to check employees for potential red flags, the agency was not using the complete terror watch list in its screenings. Another study revealed last week showed that screeners missed a staggering 95% of fake bombs and other banned items that undercover federal agents attempted to smuggle through security. Today, a Senate committee played host to TSA whistleblowers who offered testimony that should make any traveler's skin crawl:
Earlier, Rebecca Roering, an assistant TSA federal security director at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that the agency suffers from low morale. She said this is in part the result of agency leadership, composed of too many former commercial airline executives “placing more emphasis on customer service and passenger wait times than on security and detection rates.”

Posted by Amy Miller on June 09, 2015 27 Comments
Somewhere in America, Jon Stewart's brain is dribbling out of his ears. Today, fast food chain McDonald's announced that former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs will be joining the company as its global chief communications officer. He'll be managing the department that manages government and public affairs. More from the official press release:
In his new role, Gibbs will lead McDonald's corporate relations group, which manages internal and external communications and government and public affairs. He will lead McDonald's in communicating clear, coordinated messages to internal and external constituencies, enhancing the brand and supporting corporate strategies. Gibbs joins McDonald's from The Incite Agency, a strategic communications advisory firm he co-founded in 2013. Prior to that he held several senior advisory roles in the White House, serving as President Barack Obama's press secretary during his first term, then as senior campaign advisor during his re-election campaign. He will replace Bridget Coffing who announced her retirement earlier this year after 30 years with the company.
There's something delicious about this, no?

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 09, 2015 72 Comments
Once again, Prosecutor Marilyn Mosby seems to be having difficulty grasping fundamentals of the practice of law. Indeed, she's now reduced to making exactly the same errors she only recently accused opposing counsel of making. In this most current instance, Mosby's motion for a gag order on the Freddie Gray case has been rejected, reports the Baltimore Sun (h/t Conservative Treehouse). The reason?  She filed her motion in Circuit Court on May 14, but while the matter was still jurisdictionally in the lower District Court.  The matter was not moved into Circuit Court until May 21, a week later. Ironically, in Mosby's motion opposing defense counsel's efforts to have her recuse herself from the case the Prosecutor argued that it was improper of the defense to make that argument in District Court, where the matter then rested, knowing as they did that the case would end up in District Circuit Court.

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 09, 2015 14 Comments
Hillary Clinton's made-to-order nomination for 2016 may not be as safe as she thought. Once again, many people in the far left base of the Democratic Party, i.e. primary voters, are rejecting Mrs. Clinton for a progressive upstart from the senate. Jonathan Topaz of Politico:
Wisconsin straw poll surprise: A narrow Clinton win Hillary Clinton is crushing the rest of the Democratic presidential field in national polls, but over the weekend, in a Wisconsin straw poll, there was reason to give the Clinton camp pause and the Bernie Sanders camp hope — Sanders scored a strong second-place finish with 41 percent of the vote, to Clinton’s 49 percent. The Vermont senator, a self-described democratic socialist and a long shot for the White House, received 208 of 511 delegate votes at the Wisconsin Democratic Party convention in Milwaukee on Saturday, while Clinton won votes from 252 of the delegates, leaving her just short of a majority. Vice President Joe Biden and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who announced his candidacy late last month, each received 3 percent of the vote. Former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, who is considering a bid, won 2 percent, while former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, who announced his long-shot candidacy last week, received 1 percent.
Professor Jacobson noted this story yesterday on Twitter:

Posted by Amy Miller on June 09, 2015 19 Comments
Yesterday, President Obama stood in front of an international press pool and admitted that "we don't yet have a complete strategy" to defeat ISIS. It was a great moment for American foreign relations. After that disastrous press conference, officials from the Administration slid into a slow meltdown, walking back Obama's painfully telling comments with explanations of what he really meant. From last night, via Mediaite:
State Department spokesman John Kirby was on CNN earlier tonight, speaking with Wolf Blitzer. Blitzer brought up the remark and asked, “What’s taking so long?” This was Kirby’s response:
“What the president was referring to was that the training and equipment strategy that we have been executing isn’t complete yet because there still have to be commitments from the Iraqi side. You need trainees, you need more trainees, and we’re working with them on that.”
But he pointed out the U.S. has already been training and equipped plenty of Iraqi forces already.
You can watch the segment here.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 09, 2015 4 Comments

After all socialism has done for you, this....

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 08, 2015 123 Comments
If you hadn't already heard the internet roar, there is outrage brewing at the use-of-force by police in McKinney, Texas. The biggest driver of outrage appears to be a ~13 minute cell phone video. Here's that video in its entirety, but I call out specific relevant portions below if you don't want to sit through the whole thing: I watched the video expectantly for the claimed police misconduct. One would think from Twitter comments regarding McKinney that the police dropped uninvited onto a placid pool party of little children to wreak havoc on the festivities. Is that what really happened?  Is that even vaguely credible? Nah. So what DID happen?

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 08, 2015 28 Comments
You probably remember Emma Sulkowicz, who carried her mattress around Columbia University to protest her alleged rapists presence on campus. Sulkowicz's "Carry the Weight" project was an act of "performance art" (her term, not ours) that resulted in college credit. Her alleged rapist, Paul Nungesser, was later cleared by Columbia and has since filed suit against the university. Sulkowicz graduated with her mattress in tow. Wasting no time, Sulkowicz released her latest piece of performance art -- a sex tape. "Ceci N'est Pas Un Viol" or "This is Not a Rape" is Sulkowicz's latest endeavor. Titled to imitate Rene Magritte’s “Ceci N’est Pas Une Pipe,” Sulkowicz's project begins with a trigger warning, and includes a critical thinking guide.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 08, 2015 15 Comments
The Supreme Court decided the much-anticipated Zivotofsky case, involving a congressional law which permitted American citizens born in Jerusalem to choose to list "Israel" as their place of birth, rather than just "Jerusalem," as the State Department mandated.  (Full Opinion here.) Needless to say, the case had enormous political implications, even if the legal issue itself was not particularly political.  The Executive Branch refuses to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, or even though Israel has declared Jerusalem to be its capital both when it was divided prior to 1967, and after it was reunited in 1967.  Worse still, for passport purposes it does not even recognize Jerusalem as part of Israel at all. The political gloss is that the Executive Branch claims the issue should be subject to negotiations, but the reality is that the State Department fears backlash from the Palestinians and Israel-hating nations (i.e., most of the United Nations) should it side with Israel's claim to Jerusalem as its capital. Congress, on the other hand, is in sync with American domestic public opinion, which is overwhelmingly pro-Israel, so in 2002 Congress passed a law to force the State Department's hand on the issue.

Posted by Amy Miller on June 08, 2015 21 Comments
Unless you've been living under a rock for the past year, you already know that the Obama Administration is and has been under fire over what critics cite as a lack of commitment to defeating ISIS in the Middle East. Last September, Obama laid out a bare bones plan that he believed would help defense officials "degrade and ultimately defeat" ISIS; but since then, the effort to destroy the insurgency has met with setback after setback, causing analysts and critics to label American efforts in the region as "timid" and doomed to fail. Today during his closing remarks to the G-7 conference in Germany, President Obama hedged once again against questions about what, if any, plan the US has to help Iraqi forces defeat ISIS:
President Barack Obama said on Monday his top national security advisers were still working to solidify training plans for Iraqi defense forces battling ISIS in their own country. "We don't yet have a complete strategy because it requires commitments on the part of the Iraqis," Obama said during concluding remarks at the G7 conference in Germany, citing recruitment as a key stumbling block facing the central government in Iraq. Critics of the administration's strategy in Iraq seized upon the president's comments Monday, claiming they indicated a policy failure and referencing similar comments Obama made in August.
Watch:

Posted by Mirabelle Ward on June 08, 2015 7 Comments
Last week President Obama finally stated openly what everyone, including the Iranians, has known all along – that he is simply not willing to use military force to stop Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon. Those of us with common sense and reason also know that his negotiations with Iran might delay, but will not stop, that country from attaining a nuclear weapon. We know this both because Obama himself told us so in an interview with NPR, and because once a military option is clearly off the table, Iran has no incentive to make concessions in a negotiation and no reason to comply with a negotiated agreement. With no US-sponsored military solution, at least for the remainder of Obama’s term, and no diplomatic solution, there are still two things left that the US can do. First, we can refrain from criminalizing the actions of other states for whom military action against Iran would be considered both reasonable and necessary. Second, we can, at the very, very, least, refrain from funding Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear bomb ourselves.
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