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June 2015

Posted by Amy Miller on June 08, 2015 22 Comments
Last week, the internet broke down and polished off an entire bottle of wine after former sports star and sex symbol Bruce Jenner graced the cover of Vanity Fair dressed in the trappings of his new identity---Caitlyn. 65 year-old Jenner came out last week as "Caitlyn," confirming longstanding rumors teased at by Kris Jenner and others in the Hollywood realm that Bruce's true identity wasn't necessarily as masculine as he had portrayed himself since his rise to sports fame in the '70s. As "he" flipped to "she," political pundits on both sides of the aisle took to the airwaves to give their opinion on sexual identity, traditional vs. evolving gender roles, and how issues involving transgender people relate to the battle of ideologies currently raging over the legalization of same sex marriage. During an interview on CNN's State of the Union, presidential candidate and US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) surprised everyone by taking a stand on the issue of Jenner's admittedly Republican political leanings. By "took a stand," I mean he welcomed her into the party. Hat tip to the New York Post:
"If Caitlyn Jenner wants to be safe, and have a prosperous economy, vote for me. I'm into addition. I haven't walked in her shoes; I don't have all the answers to the mysteries of life. I can only imagine the torment that Bruce Jenner went through. I hope he---I hope she---has found peace. I'm a pro-life, traditional marriage kind of guy, but I'm running to be President of the United States. If Caitlyn Jenner wants to be a Republican, she is welcome in my party."
Watch, via MSNBC:

Posted by David Gerstman on June 08, 2015 25 Comments
The New York Times yesterday featured an article on Hillary Clinton's electoral strategy for 2016. In short, she apparently is mimicking President Barack Obama's strategy for his second term.
Instead, she is poised to retrace Barack Obama’s far narrower path to the presidency: a campaign focused more on mobilizing supporters in the Great Lakes states and in parts of the West and South than on persuading undecided voters. Mrs. Clinton’s aides say it is the only way to win in an era of heightened polarization, when a declining pool of voters is truly up for grabs. Her liberal policy positions, they say, will fire up Democrats, a less difficult task than trying to win over independents in more hostile territory — even though a broader strategy could help lift the party with her.
There's a phrase in those two paragraphs, "era of heightened polarization," that's worth reflecting on. I know how all right thinking people lament the growing partisanship in politics, but there's a pretty clear cause and effect implicit here, though the Times won't admit it: Obama in his quest for reelection, pursuing a narrow strategy, has increased the polarization in politics. Clinton plans to follow suit. I question if this is a wise strategy for Clinton to pursue. I'm not alone.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 08, 2015 20 Comments
On the rare occasion Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame wanders into quasi-political discourse, he shares a perspective severely lacking in this overly-politicized world -- common sense observation. Usually, these observations are served up via Rowe's mail bag. Sunday afternoon, Rowe responded to a message from Craig P. Craig wrote:
Your constant harping on “work ethic” is growing tiresome. Just because someone’s poor doesn’t mean they’re lazy. The unemployed want to work! And many of those who can’t find work today, didn’t have the benefit of growing up with parents like yours. How can you expect someone with no role model to qualify for one of your scholarships or sign your silly “Sweat Pledge?” Rather than accusing people of not having a work-ethic, why not drop the right-wing propaganda and help them develop one?
Mr. P. makes several good points, namely -- despite the oft interneted mantra, just because someone's poor certainly doesn't mean they're lazy. In response to Mr. P., Rowe pointed out what's probably the single most productive observation I've seen on the matter (emphasis added):
Hi Craig, and Happy Sunday! I’m afraid you’ve overestimated the reach of my foundation, as well as my ability to motivate people I’ve never met. For the record, I don’t believe all poor people are lazy, any more than I believe all rich people are greedy. But I can understand why so many do.

Posted by Amy Miller on June 08, 2015 6 Comments
The 2016 presidential race has been cranking for months now, but news out of Florida's east* coast is set to kick off the perpetual spin cycle that is the 2016 congressional campaign season. Retired US Army bomb tech Brian Mast announced today the launch of his campaign to retake Florida's 18th congressional district for Republicans:
“While I recovered from my injuries, I told my wife that the example I set for our children would not end with that blast in Afghanistan—but that I would continue to offer everything I have to make sure the world they inherit is safer and more prosperous than the one we have today.” “Our nation is at a crossroads and our democracy is desperate for both leadership and decisive action on a wide range of issues that drive our economic future and national security,” said Mast. “The American people deserve better than they have gotten from our federal government— once in Congress, I plan to lead the way to increase educational opportunities for our young people and economic prosperity for all Americans.”
The seat is currently held by Democrat Patrick Murphy, who recently announced his run for the US Senate. Murphy beat out then-Congressman Allen West in 2012, and GOP nominee Carl Domino in the 2014 midterms. The political media has been buzzing about a potential Mast run for the past few weeks, honing in on Mast's service in Afghanistan, and the injuries he sustained after stepping on an IED. Mast lost both of his legs (to just above the knee,) and his left index finger, and has limited use of his left pinky as well as damage to his left forearm. Since his return from Afghanistan Mast has traveled the country, speaking without pay, motivating some to label him "an American hero." Check out Mast's campaign launch video:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 07, 2015 7 Comments
I was against Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan before it was cool to be against Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. My first post warning of his anti-democratic, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic tendancies was on January 31, 2009, barely four months after the launch of Legal Insurrection in mid-October 2008. We continued to follow Erdogan's progression over the years, as he became more and more authoritarian and Islamist, undermining secular institutions such as the judiciary and military, repressing the press, and cracking down on social media. Erdogan was an obsessive Israel hater long before the deaths on board the Gaza Flotilla Erdogan's party helped organize in 2010. Those 2010 deaths, when Israeli soldiers boarding the main ship were attacked, turned Erdogan's anti-Israeli obsession wild. But more than anything, Erdogan turned to Jew-baiting to whip his supporters into frenzies. Erdogan became a paranoid bully who saw Jewish conspiracies behind opposition to his policies. On the eve of parliamentary elections held today, Erdogan lashed out at "Jewish" media:

Posted by Amy Miller on June 07, 2015 9 Comments
This weekend, President Obama traveled to Germany to talk trade, Russia, and the growing threat of Islamic extremists with the leaders of the other G-7 nations. Topping the list of topics up for discussion is the continuing threat of Russian aggression in Ukraine and other parts of Eastern Europe. The White House didn't put withdrawal from Crimea as a condition of restored relations between Russia and the west, but did push for the continuation of sanctions until Putin upholds his end of the so-called Minsk agreements, which were updated last year after Russia annexed the peninsula. According to reporters covering the meeting, Obama spent a great deal of time meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, leading some to believe that the relationship once tarnished by covert surveillance has repaired itself:
Obama and Merkel met privately afterward at the nearby Schloss Elmau resort to coordinate their summit agenda before joining the leaders of Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Japan. Russian President Vladimir Putin was ousted from the group last year over his annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, although the crisis remains as fighting with pro-Moscow separatists spiked in the past week despite a ceasefire agreement negotiated four months ago in Belarus.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on June 07, 2015 18 Comments
I have the pleasure of working with Dr. Roger Cohen, RWC Fellow American Physical Society, to publicize a better understanding of climate science and the flaws associated with the models that are being pushed to generated bad policy. The claim that there is "consensus" among scientists that there is significant, man-made environmental impact on a global scale is based largely on the suppression of dissenting voices, especially in the American media. Recently, Cohen and his colleague Dr. William Happer (Cyrus Fogg Professor of Physics, Emeritus Princeton University) wrote an open letter to the American Physical Society (APS) that gives the public a much needed window into the workings of a normally reputable organization's response to politicized science. For example, here is how the original APS statement supporting "global warming" came about:

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 07, 2015 19 Comments
Do you like the idea of tax dollars being used for research to support gun control? Two Democrats introduced legislation last week for that very purpose. The NRA's Institute for Legislative Action reported:
Legislation Proposes $60 Million for Anti-Gun Research On Monday, NRA F-rated Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) introduced legislation to authorize the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to give $60 million of the taxpayers' money to anti-gun activists over the next six years, to conduct "research" promoting gun control. The two longtime anti-gun legislators say that their bill is necessary for two reasons, both of which are hokum: First, they say, Congress in 1996 "almost halted entirely" all funding of gun control research, the operative word being "almost." In 1996, Congress did stop the CDC from funneling millions of the taxpayers' dollars to anti-gunners to conduct "research"--pitiful by academic standards--designed from the get-go to promote a political agenda against a constitutionally-protected right. However, it didn't shut off the spigot through which millions of dollars flow to the same anti-gunners from leftwing philanthropic foundations. For example, the Joyce Foundation alone has given several million dollars to a variety of anti-gun groups and individuals every year since 1996.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on June 07, 2015 31 Comments
Ron Fournier at National Journal has written an extraordinary article, "Republicans Are Wrong About Obama's American Exceptionalism," defending Obama's vision of America as "modern and honest," as "Reagan-plus." We, of course, are neither modern nor honest; indeed, we're frightened because the country is "becoming browner and more accepting of gays and lesbians":
That is a scary thought for some people. I get it: Life is changing so quickly and the future is so uncertain that the past is a pacifier—and so politicians cling to the founding myths of the nation. And yet, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, and other GOP presidential candidates critical of Obama's formulation are making a mistake with their retro pitch to a populace that has always looked to the future.
Setting aside his disdain for and condescension at our (bitter?) clinging, Mr. Fournier misses the fact that we don't ignore our nation's past nor do we cringe in fear at the thought of a diverse demographic make up or of some scary future (unless it's the one Obama has planned for us).  Indeed, as Americans who believe in American exceptionalism (not Obama's vision of it), we embrace these things as part of the very fabric of our great nation. I wrote the following (with revisions) back in 2010, but the basic premise remains just as true today as it was then. What do you think of when you think of America?

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on June 07, 2015 20 Comments
As conservatives, we've long claimed that Democrat policies disproportionately harm black communities and families.  And we've long been ridiculed for making such claims.  Now, however, a black pastor from Chicago's South Side is inviting Republican, as well as Democrat, presidential candidates to talk to his congregation because he feels that Democrats have not been as loyal to African Americans as they have been to Democrats. The Daily Beast reports:
[Pastor Corey] Brooks isn’t the only person to believe a great change must occur for inner cities across the country to be able to break free from the poverty and crime that envelope them. But the pastor is looking to a different source than others for that change, one that doesn’t usually count O Block among its campaign stops: Republicans. Look around the neighborhood that contains O Block—Woodlawn—and you’ll see why, Brooks said. “We have a large, disproportionate number of people who are impoverished. We have a disproportionate number of people who are incarcerated, we have a disproportionate number of people who are unemployed, the educational system has totally failed, and all of this primarily has been under Democratic regimes in our neighborhoods,” Brooks said from the office of New Beginnings Church of Chicago, his own, Wednesday morning. “So, the question for me becomes, how can our neighborhoods be doing so awful and so bad when we’re so loyal to this party who is in power? It’s a matter of them taking complete advantage of our vote.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 07, 2015 6 Comments
My wife and I are back, after an intense two weeks in Israel. From the Lebanese to Gaza borders, from the Mediterranean Sea to Judea and Samaria, from the cool evenings of Jerusalem to the heat of the Negev Desert, from an apartment in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem to Bedouin villages in the north and south, from university campuses to military bases, from faculty to students, from Jews to Muslims ... I can't say we saw it all, but we saw a lot. I've documented most of our big events in daily posts, with the exception of our emotional meetings with the families of Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner, students killed in the 1969 Supersol supermarket bombing by Rasmea Odeh; that post is coming, but I still have new photos, documents and information I have to work through. Here are my 5 Big Takeaways from the trip:

1. Our Revenge Is That "We Are Still Here"

Near the start of our trip, we visited Moshav Avivim on the Lebanese border, where we met Shimon Biton, a survivor of the 1970 bazooka attack on a school bus by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Biton, who was six and one-half years old, lost his father in the attack, and himself was shot point blank range by the terrorists when they realized he survived the bazooka attack.  Ten days before we met Biton, he was reunited for the first time in 45 years with the nurse who helped save him.  (Featured Image)

Posted by Leslie Eastman on June 06, 2015 11 Comments
Aleister's grim update on Vermont's Obamacare struggles prompted me to double check the status of Covered California, the supposed poster child of successful state exchanges. As I suspected, the prognosis is not good.
Covered California has lost bragging rights for highest health-insurance exchange enrollment to Florida, new federal figures show. A total 1.36 million Californians were signed up for coverage, had picked a plan and paid premiums due by the end of March, federal health officials announced Tuesday. Almost 1.42 million Floridians had done so by the same date. Texas came in third, with enrollment over 966,400.
Part of the problem stems from the fact that the growth in Cover California enrollment was . . . less than robust. In fact, it was at 1 percent!

Posted by Amy Miller on June 06, 2015 12 Comments
In September of 2014, President Obama addressed the nation and described the counterterrorism strategy that he claimed would be used to "degrade and ultimately destroy" ISIS in the Middle East. Since then, the fight to destroy the Islamic State has encountered setbacks that have caused both seasoned military analysts and casual observers to question whether or not the Administration's policy mandating the prevention of civilian casualties is an effective tactic to destroy an enemy whose strategy depends on the use of civilian infrastructure as a shield. High-profile critics like Senator John McCain (R-AZ) have put Administration officials on defense, and yesterday, US Central Command air force leader Air Force Lt. Gen. John W. Hesterman III did his best to get out in front of the debate:
In a news conference he said was called to counter misconceptions about the use of air power in an unconventional war, Air Force Lt. Gen. John W. Hesterman III asserted Friday that pilots are killing more than 1,000 militants a month while avoiding civilian casualties and Iraqi government forces. As the Islamic State has made territorial gains in Anbar province, including the capital Ramadi, critics have accused U.S. commanders of being too cautious, missing opportunities to kill the militants and disrupt their supply lines.

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 06, 2015 7 Comments
It wasn't supposed to be this way. The Affordable Care Act was going to bring about the golden age of single payer healthcare in the Green Mountain State. Instead, it went there to die. Activists protested during the new governor's inauguration, but it made no difference. Now, things are getting worse. Abby Goodnough of the New York Times:
In Vermont, Frustrations Mount Over Affordable Care Act BURLINGTON, Vt. — Just a few years ago, lawmakers in this left-leaning state viewed President Obama’s Affordable Care Act as little more than a pit stop on the road to a far more ambitious goal: single-payer, universal health care for all residents. Then things unraveled. The online insurance marketplace that Vermont built to enroll people in private coverage under the law had extensive technical failures. The problems soured public and legislative enthusiasm for sweeping health care changes just as Gov. Peter Shumlin needed to build support for his complex single-payer plan. Finally, Mr. Shumlin, a Democrat, shelved the plan in December, citing the high cost to taxpayers. He called the decision “the greatest disappointment of my political life.”...

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 06, 2015 6 Comments
Many people have written about our media which, with few exceptions, has become an arm of the Democratic Party. The other casualty of this era is the world of comedy. Last year, I wrote about it in a piece titled Cowardly Comedy in the Age of Obama. Little has changed since then. Most American comedians seem to have no problem speaking truth to power when Republicans are in charge but have found themselves unable to do so for the last seven years. It's obvious that many of these same comics are hoping to carry their sad act into the age of Hillary as well. David Rutz of the Washington Free Beacon put together the informative reel below which shows the lopsided treatment the left gets from America's court jesters. Of course, there are consequences for all of this.
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