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June 2015

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 21, 2015 20 Comments
The progressive United Church of Christ is no stranger to controversy when it comes to Israel. UCC has had close ties (see pp. 44-46 of linked pdf.) to Friends of Sabeel - North America, the U.S. branch of Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, a Jerusalem-based non-governmental organization that leads efforts to alienate Christians from supporting Israel. (See Recent NGO Monitor Report (pdf.)).  We will have more on Sabeel in a later post. Those ties included a UCC Church in Boston hosting a Sabeel conference in 2007 on finding new paradigms to fit Israel under the definition of Apartheid. But UCC may be about to elevate its controversial status dramatically, with the 30th General Synod commencing June 24 26 having placed before it three resolutions regarding the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, among a total of 16 resolutions. All three of the resolutions carry the following explanation: "The Board of Directors recommends this resolution be sent to a Committee of the General Synod." Anti-Israel activists are treating all three as up for consideration, but whether it goes to a general vote is unclear as of this writing. UCC's promotional material also suggests all three resolutions will come to a vote:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 21, 2015 27 Comments
As our readers know, Andrew Branca is THE expert on self-defense and Stand Your Ground law. He also has a great deal of knowledge about 2nd Amendment and gun control issues. What you might not recall, is that Andrew originally was a commenter at Legal Insurrection. In the run up to the George Zimmerman Trial in June 2013, Andrew's comments were so outstanding that I asked him to cover the trial. Andrew's daily, live trial coverage was outstanding, and he has been covering self-defense and 2nd Amendment issues for us since. Andrew Branca German TV Stand Your Ground John Ekdahl, who writes at Ace of Spades HQ, tweeted about a video he just saw of Andrew being interviewed on German TV on February 28, 2014. We have posted the video before, but here it is again. A brilliant discussion of what Stand Your Ground is and is not, the Dunn and Zimmerman cases, and questionable statistics used to delegitimize SYG.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on June 21, 2015 49 Comments
The question of whether or not the Charleston shooting was an act of terrorism is an intriguing one.  Typically, we think of terrorism as it relates to clear terrorist attacks perpetrated by known terrorist groups like al Qaeda:  9/11, the Boston bombing, and the Fort Hood terrorist attack.  Or we think of it as it relates to nationalist groups who have engaged in violent acts against civilians such as the IRA, PLO, or FALN. When mass violent acts occur on our own soil by our own citizens—those unaffiliated with accepted terrorist groups, we don't tend to label them terrorism.  I'm thinking here of school shootings, abortion bombings, movie theater shootings, and the like.  Only when homegrown terrorists engage in acts against the government do most of us agree that it's terrorism (I'm thinking here of Timothy McVeigh and the Weather Underground). So why are we now considering whether or not the Charleston shooter was a terrorist?  If we don't think of the Sandy Hook shooter as a terrorist, why would we think of this shooter as a terrorist?  Does it become terrorism because of the race of the shooter and his victims?  That seems to be the argument.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on June 21, 2015 28 Comments
There are moments when I read the American press that my eyes roll so far back into my head, I can see my brains. Take, for example, the gleeful report in the Washington Post chortling over Pope Francis' eco-encyclical. The article happily derides the efforts of those who challenge its premises as a epic defeat:
...Yet the battle lost over climate change also suggests how hard it may be for critics to blunt the power of a man who has become something of a juggernaut in an institution where change tends to unfold over decades, even centuries. More than anything, to those who doubt the human impact of global warming, the position staked out by Francis in his papal document, known as an encyclical, means a major defeat. “This was their Waterloo,” said Kert Davies, executive director of the Climate Investigations Center, who has been tracking ­climate-change deniers for years. “They wanted the encyclical not to happen. And it happened.”
I find the term "climate-change denier" a classic example of intentional media mislabeling. Not one of my fellow climate-expert skeptics deny climate change occurs. We deny the accuracy of the models and assertions that humanity causes environmental impacts on a global scale.

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 21, 2015 18 Comments
The new left-wing leaders in Greece have done little to stem the country's growing financial crisis and even members of the Obama administration are now urging them to act. NBC News reports:
Greece Debt Crisis: U.S. Warns Athens to Reach Deal or Face 'Decline' ATHENS, Greece — The United States turned up the heat on the Greek government over its debt crisis Saturday, urging it to reach a deal with creditors as wearied citizens braced for a national default. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said in an interview that the government in Athens should make tough fiscal decisions or risk devastating both the country's economy and people. "I think we're at a moment now where the burden is on Greece to come back with a response that's the basis for reaching an agreement as quickly as possible," he said in an episode of CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" program that will air on Sunday, according to a transcript provided to Reuters. "It's clear that within Greece, the consequence of a failure here would mean a terrible, terrible decline in their economic performance," he said. "It will hurt the Greek people. They will bear the first brunt of a failure here."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 21, 2015 18 Comments
Israel has a military blockade on the Gaza strip due to Hamas control which has turned the 40-mile long strip of land into an Iranian rocket base. There are other radical groups there, such as Islamic Jihad and now ISIS-related groups, who also have rockets. Iran could ship vastly larger and more sophisticated quantities of rockets and missiles if it could use ships rather than smuggling tunnels, and it has tried multiple times. This video shows the Karin A vessel seized in 2009, ferrying arms to Gaza through Egypt. Imagine if such ships could dock directly in Gaza, or offload to smaller ships just off the coast. In March 2014, another ship was seized.

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 21, 2015 23 Comments
Gun control has never been a winning issue for Democrats but that hasn't stopped them from trying. In the wake of the Charleston shootings, Obama is pursuing the issue with renewed vigor. Edward-Isaac Dovere of Politico reports:
Obama: I'm not giving up on guns SAN FRANCISCO—Wrapping together his frustrations with the country’s continuing problems with racism and his own inability to make progress on gun control in the wake of the South Carolina church shooting, President Barack Obama stood before a bipartisan gathering of mayors here Friday and declared, “It is not good enough simply to show sympathy.” “The apparent motivations of the shooter remind us that racism remains a blight that we have to combat together. We have made great progress but we have to be vigilant because it still lingers,” Obama said. There must be a popular outcry for gun control, Obama said, to change the minds of a Congress that he said he knows right now won’t touch the issue. “I refuse to act as if this is the new normal or to pretend that it’s simply sufficient to grieve and that any mention of us doing something to stop it is somehow politicizing the problem,” he said.
FOX News pointed out Obama's political conundrum on Friday night:

Posted by Amy Miller on June 21, 2015 0 Comments
After the evil, inhumane week we've had, I think we could all use a little humanity. Since I can remember, coverage of American involvement in conflict overseas has focused 99% on the strategy, violence, and collateral damage. Almost no attention is given to the after-effects of war and to what happens to soldiers when they come home from the battlefield. It took a nationwide scandal---and more than one veteran death---for the country to recognize the fact that coming home from war means coming home to battle a bureaucracy that has failed the very people it was created to protect. Chief Warrant Officer-3 Romulo "Romy" Camargo knows what it feels like to come home from the battlefield a changed man. In September of 2008, Camargo was left paralyzed from the neck down after a bullet hit him in the back of the neck during an ambush in Zabul province, Afghanistan. Doctors weren't optimistic about a full recovery, but Romy began to push through. He got off the ventilator, began to recuperate, and after 18 months, was discharged from the hospital. More from WaPo:
Being 18 months in an in-patient hospital, some people get institutionalized and they don’t want to leave. So when I left, the first day I came to the house I was like, ‘Whoa.’ And then I realized, it’s a new day. Let’s get up and do something.”

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 21, 2015 7 Comments
Think tanks, policy wonks, legislative staffers, and politijunkies are eagerly awaiting the Supreme Court's ruling on King v. Burwell. As for the rest of the country, most have clue why this case is so crucial. John David Danielson of The Federalist addressed this issue Thursday:
According to a new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 7 in 10 Americans have heard little or nothing about King v. Burwell, the U.S. Supreme Court case that will, any day now, decide the fate of Obamacare’s health insurance subsidies for millions of Americans. Yet 63 percent of those surveyed also say that if the court rules against the government, Congress should act to keep those subsidies in place. Got that? The vast majority of Americans know almost nothing about this case, but 63 percent have an opinion about what Congress should do in response to a ruling that carries certain policy implications.
Thanks for nothing, Media. But what about those enrolled in Obamacare? The Foundation for Government Accountability surveyed voters enrolled in a federal exchange heath care plan. Obamacare customers do think Congress should act to change the law, but not for the same reasons as the general respondents surveyed in the Kaiser Family Foundation poll.

Posted by New Neo on June 20, 2015 19 Comments
While thinking about Obama's comparison of mass murders in the US to the same phenomenon in Europe, it occurred to me that part of what Obama has done during his presidency is to capitalize on an already-existent attitude among many liberals that everything European is better than everything American. That's one of the reasons that Obama can get away with erroneously stating that mass murder by gun is practically nonexistent in Europe and linking it to enhanced gun control. Not too many liberals in this country are going to question that because of the pre-existing idea that Europe has gotten its act together in so many respects while we falter far behind, alone among developed (or, as Obama said, "advanced") countries in bitterly clinging to our troglodyte ways, our guns and our religion. Other things we cling to, and of which Obama would dearly like to free us, include our American exceptionalism, our nationalism rather than internationalism, our rugged individualism, our income inequality, and our idea that "we built that." Things he's already greatly improved about America (i.e. Europeanized, at least to the extent we have allowed him, which is not to the extent he would like) are health insurance and our relations with the Muslim world and with Israel.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 20, 2015 12 Comments
As with most Ann Coulter books, her new volume Adios, America! has liberals in a twist. Here's the book's self-description:
Ann Coulter is back, more fearless than ever. In Adios, America she touches the third rail in American politics, attacking the immigration issue head-on and flying in the face of La Raza, the Democrats, a media determined to cover up immigrants' crimes, churches that get paid by the government for their "charity," and greedy Republican businessmen and campaign consultants—all of whom are profiting handsomely from mass immigration that's tearing the country apart. Applying her trademark biting humor to the disaster that is U.S. immigration policy, Coulter proves that immigration is the most important issue facing America today.
Adios America Cover Media Matters quickly developed the meme for attacking the book:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on June 20, 2015 19 Comments
Earlier this year, Rasmussen released a poll showing that only 31% of Americans trust the IRS to enforce tax laws fairly.  Given the targeting of conservatives, reports of refunds going to illegals who didn't pay taxes, and the sharing of confidential tax payer information with the White House, it's surprising the percentage is that high. It seems clear that there is growing dissatisfaction with the IRS and with the nation's ridiculously complex tax laws.  At 74,608 pages, the U. S. tax code is both ponderous and confusing. With all of the new taxes buried in ObamaCare alone, the tax code has grown by nearly 3,000 pages since 2010. In response to all of this, Americans are more ready than ever for substantial tax reform, and hearing the call, Rand Paul released a new video outlining his new tax plan that appears to be a hybrid of the fair tax and the flat tax. Here's the statement from his website:
I stand with Rand in his fight to defeat the Washington Machine and drive a stake through the heart of the IRS by: Ending the workers tax: This plan will end the FICA payroll tax, the largest tax for many working Americans. It goes to zero. Eliminating the headaches and complications in filing federal taxes by allowing every taxpayer to file a simple, one-page return with a low and fair tax rate of 14.5%, saving American families over $2 TRILLION in the first 10 years;

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 20, 2015 61 Comments
As the families of victims in the Charleston shootings show amazing strength and faith, some people on the left are already exploiting the incident for political gain. Meanwhile, South Carolina governor Nikki Haley is calling for the harshest punishment for the shooter. Nick Gass of Politico:
Nikki Haley: Charleston shooter deserves death penalty A little more than a day after the shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, the state’s political figures are still coming to grips with an attack that killed nine people. Accused Charleston shooter Dylann Roof should get the death penalty, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said Friday. “We will absolutely want him to have the death penalty,” Haley told NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie on “Today,” adding that there is only one person to blame for the shooting at Emanuel AME Church on Wednesday night. “A person filled with hate,” she added.
Here's the related video report:

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 20, 2015 8 Comments
The Democratic Party has made it clear that income inequality will be one of their main issues for 2016. The fact that the Clintons are multi-millionaires is conveniently overlooked, as are the party's ties to incredibly rich donors. Dave Boyer of the Washington Times provides this interesting new report:
Obama, Pelosi mend fences at fundraiser hosted by billionaire activist There’s nothing like a big-money fundraiser for House Democrats to bring President Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi closer together. Mr. Obama and Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, made a show of mending fences Friday night at a fundraiser at the home of billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer overlooking the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco. Friday was their first meeting since Mrs. Pelosi turned against the president last week by leading the opposition that temporarily derailed crucial trade legislation Mr. Obama is seeking. Despite those tensions, Mr. Obama told more than 50 wealthy Democratic donors, who paid up to $33,400 each to help Democrats win in 2016, that Mrs. Pelosi has been instrumental to his achievements in office.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on June 20, 2015 24 Comments
There has been a lot of speculation, including by me, about what the Republican-controlled Congress will do should the Supreme Court rule against Obama in King v. Burwell.  Should the Court strike down federal subsidies, Republicans will need to have a plan in place to address this decision as it impacts those who are currently receiving subsidies for ObamaCare from the federal exchange because their state did not set up a state exchange. Republicans are still talking about a "fix" but are now stressing that it is to be "transitional" rather than permanent.  According to Bloomberg:
[Representative Dennis Ross of Florida] added, “There’s a strong consensus in that room” that the subsidies must be continued in some form “until Republicans can substantively change the law.” Participants at Wednesday’s closed-door meeting said key aspects of a transition plan were presented to lawmakers by Ryan, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price of Georgia and Education and Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline of Minnesota. Along with immediate repeal of the law’s individual and employer mandates, the plan would give states the option to build their own insurance exchanges and offer subsidies, using federal money. Alternatively, people in states affected by the ruling would receive a subsidy to purchase an insurance plan either from healthcare.gov or on the open market.

Posted by Amy Miller on June 20, 2015 31 Comments
This week's attack on a historical black church in Charleston has sent the liberal political and media classes into a political feeding frenzy. The families of the dead, by contrast, has defied the odds embraced love and forgiveness. Here are five examples how some people sought to exploit the murders for political gain:

1. When in doubt, blame Fox News

The left has always had an abusive relationship with the journalists at Fox News, and never waits long before trying to tie the latest domestic tragedy to the "hate filled rhetoric" "spewing" from the conservative network. South Carolina Democratic Representative Todd Rutherford all but blamed the Charleston massacre on "things like Fox News," and when confronted by Bill O'Reilly, doubled down. Watch: Newsbusters has the breakdown:
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