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July 2015

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 29, 2015 7 Comments
You might need the Kleenex for this one. An eight-year-old boy is the first pediatric recipient of a double hand transplant. When he was only two-years-old, a life threatening infection lead to the amputation of both hands and feet. He also received a kidney transplant from his mother.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 29, 2015 23 Comments
Somewhat overshadowed by the Center for Medical Progress' horrifying expose on Planned Parenthood's baby part harvesting operations are an important series of videos released by Live Action earlier this month. Live Action has long used undercover videos to expose Planned Parenthood. Beginning in early July, Live Action unfurled a four video series looking at Planned Parenthood's role in sex education. According to Life Site:
Planned Parenthood “counselors” teach minors in the name of “sex-ed”: sexual bondage and sadomasochism, and steering them to sex stores to “get educated.” In the latest video, a Colorado counselor told the Live Action investigator (posing as a minor) that “sexual exploration is normal” – and went so far as to suggest defecating and urinating on men as an option.

Posted by Andrew Branca on July 29, 2015 304 Comments
On July 19, just 10 days ago, UC police officer Ray Tensing shot and killed motorist Sam DuBose in the course of a traffic stop, according to reports by CNN and others. Today, prosecutor Joe Deters announced that Officer Tensing had been indicted for murder in the killing. The silver lining for bloggers everywhere is that much of the event was captured by Officer Tensing's body-cam. You can watch the full video here, but I have relevant portions reproduced in slow-motion and relevant screen captures below, as well. Officer Tensing claims that he shot DuBose because the driver began dragging the officer with his car. Certainly, dragging someone with your car is conduct likely to cause death or grave bodily harm, and thus warrants the use of deadly force in self-defense.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 29, 2015 6 Comments
The Security Subcommittee of The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a hearing on July 28, 2015, on The Impact of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement. According to the House Advisory, the purpose was
  •  To better understand the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, and review the economic impact of the Movement on American and Israeli businesses. 
  • To review how the goals of BDS may or may not be affected by International Trade Law, U.S. federal law, and state law. 
  • To seek to establish the formal position of the Administration with regard to BDS.
  • To review potential actions by the Department of State to maintain free and open trade among the U.S., Europe, and Israel.
The Tower has a write up on the full scope of the hearing. In a later post we will focus on the testimony of Northwestern Univ. Law Professor Eugene Kontorovich, whose lecture on The Legal Case for Israel is a must watch. Today we focus on the testimony of Daniel Birnbaum, CEO of SodaStream International.

Posted by Amy Miller on July 29, 2015 17 Comments
This week, the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released it's third video documenting Planned Parenthood's participation in baby part harvesting. If you watch the video (you must watch the video,) be warned---it's nauseating. I don't give these kinds of warnings lightly. When CMP first launched its campaign against Planned Parenthood, conservatives in the Senate came together to draft legislation defunding Planned Parenthood and its affiliates. The team, headed up by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), today introduced S.1881, which includes three main objectives:
  • Prohibiting federal funding for PPFA or any of its affiliate organizations
  • Protecting federal funding for health services for women (including diagnostic laboratory and radiology services, well-child care, prenatal and postnatal care, immunizations, cervical and breast cancer screenings and more)
  • Ensuring there is no reduction in overall federal funding available to support women’s health.
In a press conference announcing the bill, sponsor Joni Ernst spoke out against PPFA's harvesting-for-profit scheme, saying, “As a mother and grandmother, I find this footage of Planned Parenthood’s role in the harvesting of the organs of unborn babies morally reprehensible and vile... The American people are horrified by these videos as well. Simply put, this legislation ensures that funding for women’s health is protected and that taxpayer dollars will not go to Planned Parenthood.” You can watch that press conference here:

Posted by Amy Miller on July 29, 2015 11 Comments
Back in June, we reported on the bizarre New York prison break that led to a three-week manhunt for convicted murderers Richard Matt and David Sweat. Richard Matt was eventually shot and killed by police, and David Sweat shot multiple times and captured alive; but the most interesting---and bizarre---character in the frightening saga is the prison worker who helped the two men escape---at great risk to herself, her husband, and her family. Joyce Mitchell, 51, was was arrested on June 11 and charged with Promoting Prison Contraband in the 1st Degree and Criminal Facilitation in the 4th Degree; today, Mitchell pleaded guilty to those charges. She faces a prison sentence of 27 months to seven years and a $6,000 fine. Mitchell's descent into the madness that was Matt and Sweat's escape scheme started slowly, with small favors; as time passed, however, Mitchell fell victim to her own idiocy---and the apparent allure of weird sex with a convicted murderer. From the New York Times:

Posted by Amy Miller on July 29, 2015 11 Comments
Today the Afghan government announced that it is investigating new reports of the death of Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Intelligence sources, as well as the Afghan government, previously reported that Omar had probably died "two or three" years ago, but are working alongside other officials in the region to confirm the new reports. More from the BBC:
A spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said on Wednesday that the authorities were trying to verify the reports. "As soon as we get any more authentication... we're going to let the media and the people of Afghanistan know about that," Sayed Zafar Hashemi said. The Afghan government, elected last year, has embarked on a peace process with the Taliban.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 29, 2015 79 Comments

It's enough to be upset, without drawing comparisons....

Posted by David Gerstman on July 29, 2015 53 Comments
In an essay for August issue of The Tower Magazine, former longtime editor of The New Republic, Martin Peretz calls on Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer to save the Democratic Party by leading the fight against the nuclear deal with Iran otherwise known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Two of the most powerful members of the Democratic Party, former and current senators from New York, now hold the fate of the putative deal with Iran in their hands. Because they alone can overturn it, this means that presumptive presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and presumptive Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer carry a heavy burden that will deeply affect their personal reputations and, most probably, the trustworthiness of the Democrats in foreign policy for at least a generation.
Clinton, for her part, has expressed support of the deal. For Peretz, opposing the JCPOA is essential for the Democrats. Noting that Iran re-opened negotiations over the conventional and ballistic arms embargoes at the last minute, Peretz urges Schumer and Hillary to force the administration to go back and re-open the deal improving some of its terms.
Obama the star negotiator has told us that the only other alternative to this treaty is to resolve the Iranian issue “through force, through war.” But, of course, there are other alternatives to war than deficient deals that damage our interests. Fortunately, America is full of talented, responsible, creative negotiators who can improve on the woefully low bar set by Obama, Biden, and Kerry in this catastrophic bargaining process.

Posted by Mike LaChance on July 29, 2015 12 Comments
As Ed Morrissey comments at Hot Air, "Profiles in Courage this ain’t." At a campaign event in New Hampshire yesterday, an attendee asked Hillary if she would approve the Keystone XL Pipeline. Her answer, if you can call it one, was that she would answer the question if and when she becomes president. Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post wasn't impressed:
Hillary Clinton’s ridiculous hedge on Keystone XL "If it’s undecided when I become president, I will answer your question," Clinton said. "This is President Obama's decision. I'm not going to second-guess him." Er, what? Clinton went on to note that she was in a position unique among the 2016 field due to her time as secretary of state. "I'm in a different position than any other candidate," Clinton said. "I was there. I put this process together. I oversaw it for four years." (Because the pipeline would begin in Canada, its approval -- or not -- is in the hands of the State Department.) Uh huh.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 28, 2015 20 Comments
This could be a series. In fact, with this post, maybe it is a series. We have covered many times the faculty members who demand the boycott of Israeli academic institutions (BDS) -- which necessarily involves boycotting the individuals who work at those institutions -- and then complain when the boycotters become the boycotted. Controversial professor Steven Salaita had his contingent offer of employment to join the American Indian Studies Department at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign rejected by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees after Salaita went on a multi-month Twitter rant.  Salaita, a leader of the anti-Israel academic boycott, claims academic freedom for himself as he seeks to deny it to others. (Salaita's federal lawsuit is going through motion and discovery practice now.) As a result of the Salaita non-hiring, an academic boycott of UI-UC was organized, to the cheering of pro-Salaita pro-BDS UI-UC professors in the Humanities and Social Sciences. But something funny happened on the way the the boycott -- it turned out that the only people hurt by the boycott of UI-UC were the pro-Salaita folks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. As we reported in Academic boycotter doesn’t like being boycotted, UI-UC professor and anti-Israel academic boycott supporter Susan Koshy, an associate professor of English, Asian-American studies, and South Asian and Middle Eastern studies at UI-UC, complained:
For someone like me, who is inside the university and supports Salaita, the boycott [of UI-UC] represents an experiential impasse. I find myself in the impossible position of being the target of a boycott as a member of an institution whose actions I and many others here have challenged. Unlike faculty members outside Urbana-Champaign whose safe target is another university, our target is our own. The frequently repeated joke here—How do we boycott ourselves?—captures this problem. How do you oppose your own institution yet protect valuable parts of it at the same time?

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 28, 2015 24 Comments
You know what I always ask myself when considering my stance on any hot-button piece of legislation, particularly matters of national security? Gee, I wonder what Hollywood thinks. Except I don't do that because I have a brain. One that I enjoy using. But there must exist people who demand Hollywood's expertise on matters of national importance or videos like this one wouldn't exist. Utilizing one of the most annoying video formats in existence, various celebrities work together to complete a sentence. Like this one:
"I love playing frisbee with my sons. I love the sound of the waves on the Pacific at sunrise. I love curling up with a good book. I love to see my grandkids smile. But if Congress sabotages the nuclear deal with Iran, we could be denied the very moments that make our lives worth living."
minion-gifs-1

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 28, 2015 34 Comments
Following the release of the second Planned Parenthood undercover video last week, Presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina joined Jake Tapper on The Lead. Tapper asked Fiorina to define her position on Governor Walker’s recent bill that prohibits abortions after twenty weeks and makes no exclusions for instances of rape and incest. Rather than taking the let's connect Fiorina to what the left believes is an extremist pro-life position bait, Fiorina directed attention to a bill bouncing around the Senate floor, “let’s talk about the legislation that’s sitting on the Senate floor right now which does allow for those exceptions,” she responded.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on July 28, 2015 6 Comments
When all is said and done, one feature of Obama's presidency that will stand out is the sheer number of citizen protests against his policies. Such protests began in 2009, when regular Americans organized to protest federal fiscal policies, tax increases, and Obamacare. In fact, Professor Jacobson was recently treated to a taste of the zaniness our San Diego Tea Party groups often faced, in the form of progressive demonstrators protesting the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) event he was attending. However, showing that not all Californians are crazy, concerned citizens gathered in Balboa Park this weekend to protest the administration's latest pet project: the proposed nuclear agreement with Iran.
About 500 protesters came together Sunday in Balboa Park to speak out against the pending nuclear weapons agreement with Iran, a centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy. The Stop Iran Now event was organized by StandWithUs, an international nonprofit organization that is pro-Israel and headquartered in Los Angeles, the site of another rally also held Sunday. Both rallies were part of a larger initiative with the Jewish Rapid Response Coalition, the same group that organized a protest in New York City's Times Square last week that brought out thousands of protesters.

Posted by Amy Miller on July 28, 2015 56 Comments
Today US Secretary of State John Kerry sat alongside Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz for a brutal afternoon of questioning before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the nuclear agreement arranged between the P5+1 and Iran in Vienna earlier this month. Throughout the hearing, Kerry attempted to stand firm on his previous assertions that the deal Congress will be voting on in September is "all or nothing;" republican committee members, however, voiced skepticism about whether or not a "deal" with Iran was even possible. From the Houston Chronicle, via the AP:
"If Congress does not support the deal, we would see this deal die — with no other options," Kerry told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday as he testified for the second time in a week, part of the Obama administration's all-out campaign to sell the accord. ... "Iran has cheated on every agreement they've signed," said Rep. Ed Royce, the panel's chairman. With Kerry, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew waiting to testify, he asked if Tehran "has earned the right to be trusted" given its history.

Posted by Amy Miller on July 28, 2015 19 Comments
This is probably...not...groundbreaking news, but just in case you haven't heard: comedian and talking head Jon Stewart serves at the pleasure of the Obama White House. Perhaps that's overstating it. Stewart may not jump at the behest of 1600 Penn, but the influential celebrity certainly enjoyed a level of access to the President not often experienced by even the most established members of friendly mainstream media outlets. It was Politico's scoop:
Jon Stewart slipped unnoticed into the White House in the midst of the October 2011 budget fight, summoned to an Oval Office coffee with President Barack Obama that he jokingly told his escort felt like being called into the principal’s office. In February 2014, Obama again requested Stewart make the trip from Manhattan to the White House, this time for a mid-morning visit hours before the president would go before television cameras to warn Russia that “there will be costs” if it made any further military intervention in Ukraine.

Posted by Amy Miller on July 28, 2015 29 Comments
Yesterday, House Oversight committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) wrote a detailed letter to President Obama asking him to remove IRS chief John Koskinen from office. "Detailed" is an understatement. Chaffetz's 29-page request reasserts Congress' efforts to investigate the IRS's targeting of taxpayers on the basis of their political beliefs, and describes in detail how Koskinen's actions have obstructed that investigation. The letter accuses Koskinen of refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena, failing to testify truthfully, and failing to preserve and produce up to 24,000 e-mails the Oversight committee deemed relevant to its investigation. Via Fox News:
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