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September 2015

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 30, 2015 10 Comments
This is really rich. The anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is extremely aggressive on campus, something we have documented hundreds of times. That aggressiveness is carried out on the streets and campus areas by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), whose aggressive actions are meant to and do intimidate other students. Here is how SJP acted at Cornell when pro-Israel students silently held pro-Israel signs:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on September 30, 2015 17 Comments
Republican Presidential candidates wanting a podium on the debate main stage will have to first qualify. CNBC set a 3% polling floor for the upcoming October 28th presidential debate. There will be an undercard debate, but that too has a polling floor. To qualify for the kiddie table, candidates must have received at least 1% in any one national poll -- no averages here.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on September 30, 2015 20 Comments
Wednesday afternoon, the State Department released a fifth installment of the embattled former Secretary's emails. This month's document drop (the DOS is releasing chunks of Clinton's emails monthly) contains more classified information than previous releases. According to the Washington Times, more than 5% of Clinton's emails in Wednesday's batch contained classified information, twice as much classified material of previous batches.
...there are at least 400 messages that contain information the government now deems classified, out of nearly 12,000 emails released so far. But 214 of those messages came in the latest batch of 3,869 messages, for a classification rate of 5.5 percent. None of the messages were marked classified at the time they were sent — usually in 2010 or 2011, for the latest batch — but the government has gone back and determined they contain information that shouldn’t be out in public.

Posted by Amy Miller on September 30, 2015 24 Comments
BREAKING: a politician said a stupid thing on TV last night. By now, you've probably seen breathless coverage of House Majority Leader and presumed future Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R-CA) comments propping up the Select Committee on Benghazi as an example of House Republicans' efforts to fight for conservative principles. He appeared in an interview with Sean Hannity last night, and after 4 minutes of back-and-forth, fumbled a damaging talking point:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 30, 2015 11 Comments
The closure of the largest of the nonprofit Obamacare cooperatives is another sign that the Affordable Care Act is the single best oxymoron ever created by politicians. I should be experiencing some amount of schadenfreude, as the fight against Obamacare was one of the major action items of my local Tea Party group in its original year. That it has been a galactic scale fiscal disaster comes as no surprise to any of us who took the time to review the law and think seriously about its implications. But there is no joy in the Golden State for me. As my husband, Ben, is now enjoying another round of FUNemployment under the "robust" Obama economy, we have been forced to find to new healthcare insurance. Covered California has been hailed as the most successful of the state exchanges. So, with great optimism, Ben completed the online application.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 30, 2015 16 Comments
Pope Francis' tour of the U.S. turned normal alignments upside down. Liberals -- who spare no effort to denigrate the Catholic Church -- all of the sudden found the Pope's progressive economic and immigration pronouncements to be just dreamy. At brunch on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and in Brooklyn, kind words were spoken in the same sentence as "Pope" and "Catholic." Eyes did not roll. We can now return to the prior alignment of the political universe. The Pope met secretly with Kim Davis, via NY Times:
Pope Francis met privately in Washington last week with Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky who defied a court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, a Vatican spokesman confirmed on Wednesday. Ms. Davis, the clerk in Rowan County, has been at the center of a nationwide controversy over whether government employees and private businesses have a legal right to refuse to serve same-sex couples. She spent five days in jail for disobeying a federal court order to issue the licenses. On Tuesday night, her lawyer, Mathew D. Staver, said in a telephone interview that Ms. Davis and her husband, Joe, were sneaked into the Vatican Embassy by car on Thursday afternoon. Francis gave her rosaries and told her to “stay strong,” the lawyer said. The couple met for about 15 minutes with the pope, who was accompanied by security guards, aides and photographers. Mr. Staver said he expected to receive photographs of the meeting from the Vatican soon. On Wednesday, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, confirmed that the meeting took place, but he declined to elaborate. “I do not deny that the meeting took place, but I have no other comments to add,” he said.

Posted by New Neo on September 30, 2015 22 Comments
I've noticed that we seem to get the popes that match our times---a harmonic resonance between popes and other public leaders of the day. That doesn't mean that popes are overtly political, although there’s really no way for a pope to retreat completely from politics, unless he speaks on ritual matters only and never ventures into more general statements. To paraphrase Madonna (not the Madonna, but Madonna Ciccone), we are living in a political world. No matter how hard a Pope tries to speak non-politically, politics enters the equation nearly every time he opens his mouth, unless he's talking Church business. Even then, what he says can have political repercussions. That said, I think that Pope Francis got somewhat political on his recent visit to the US. As the first pope ever to address an American Congress, what he's said about politics in the past seems relevant:

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 30, 2015 14 Comments
Matt Damon has a big new movie coming out but he's not winning any new fans from his fellow travelers on the left. Damon has long been a favorite on the left for his progressive politics but two recent high profile incidents have put him at odds with the social justice crowd. The Daily Beast's culture reporter Kevin Fallon took Damon to the woodshed yesterday:
Shut Up, Matt Damon: The Actor Argues Gay Actors Should Stay in the Closet In The Martian, Matt Damon plays an astronaut who is left behind on Mars. The entire world rallies around an effort to retrieve him and bring him safely back to Earth. Lately, we’d be just as happy to send Damon back. The Oscar-winning actor’s career-long charm offensive came to a screeching halt this past week with two incredibly tone-deaf and woefully retrograde mini-scandals surrounding comments he’s made that were ill-advised at best—and bigoted at worst. First was the ignorant dialogue about diversity in film on Project Greenlight. And now the most recent symptom of the most severe case of foot-in-mouth to plague an actor in years: an interview with The Guardian in which Damon posits that gay actors should stay in the closet if they want their careers to thrive. Shut up, Matt Damon.

Posted by Sarah Rumpf on September 30, 2015 15 Comments
A wedding is not just two people exchanging rings; it is an entanglement of their personal, legal, and business affairs. For better or for worse, marriage affects a broad and substantial list of rights involving inheritance, property, child custody, and more. Now that gay marriage is legal in all fifty states, both the people involved in gay relationships and the legislators drafting the laws that govern all these rights need to carefully analyze the issues presented. The issues involved are beyond whether one is in favor or opposed to gay marriage. When the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment to say that gay marriage was a constitutional right in the Obergefell v. Hodges case, many who were opposed to the decision worried about the possible consequences for religious liberty and states' rights. As it turns out, those who cheered the decision may have their own reasons to worry. The Law of Unintended Consequences plays no favorites, and the Obergefell decision may create headaches for gay couples, especially in common-law marriage states.

Background on common-law marriage

Common-law marriage functions to create the legal relationship of marriage even though the two spouses have not completed the formal procedures to register their marriage with the government.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 30, 2015 12 Comments
On Saturday, September 6, 2014, I emailed Mandy Nagy, who had been our part-time Author and Editor for almost 18 months, during which time she wrote over 500 posts. In that time period, I had come to trust Mandy completely, even though we never met. We thought alike, and had the same sense of "maybe we shouldn't actually do that." I was ready to hand the day-to-day operations over to her, so I could focus more on research and investigative posts, speeches, and media appearances. She was to take over the place on Monday, September 8, 2014. It was a Plan. My September 6 email was to set up a time to talk on Sunday about her full-time start on Monday, and what the week looked like. I didn't hear back from her, which was unusual. On Sunday morning I received an email from Mandy's mom, who said she didn't know if the blog "contact" email address went to me or to Mandy, but she hoped I received the email. She told me that Mandy had suffered a massive stroke the day before, and was in the hospital. We spoke immediately, and she gave me permission to alert people in a post that has served since then to provide updates on Mandy's condition, Pray for Mandy Nagy. That post also has extensive background on Mandy.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 29, 2015 29 Comments
When I saw this tweet earlier today (via @JWBritton), I was like WUT!? Spoof account? Nope, verified. True blue EPA: https://twitter.com/EPA/status/648969378852151297 The link in the tweet goes to a page that doesn't exist.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on September 29, 2015 12 Comments
Insider speculation pegged Paul as the next to drop out of the crowded Republican primary weeks ago. Today, one of three Paul-supporting SuperPACs has stopped raising money until they see, "the campaign correct its problems." Politico reports:
One of the three super PACs supporting Rand Paul’s presidential campaign has stopped raising money, dealing a damaging blow to an already cash-starved campaign. In a Tuesday telephone interview, Ed Crane, who oversees the group, PurplePAC, accused Paul of abandoning his libertarian views -- and suggested it was a primary reason the Kentucky senator had plummeted in the polls. “I have stopped raising money for him until I see the campaign correct its problems,” said Crane, who co-founded the Cato Institute think tank and serves as its president emeritus. “I wasn’t going to raise money to spend on a futile crusade.” “I don’t see the point in it right now,” he added. PurplePAC has been in existence for around two years, but over the summer Crane transformed it into a Paul-focused vehicle. It joined two other super PACs, America’s Liberty and Concerned American Voters, that were expressly designed to support Paul. In July, PurplePAC announced that it had raised around $1.2 million - the vast majority of it coming from Jeff Yass, a Philadelphia options trader. Crane said the organization currently had over $1 million cash on hand, but no longer wanted to ask for contributions. “I just don’t want to do that to my friends,” he said. The libertarian views that catapulted Paul to national prominence had “disappeared,” Crane said, leaving many of Paul's longtime backers miffed.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on September 29, 2015 39 Comments
Tuesday, Planned Parenthood President Cecil Richards testified before a Congress. During the five-hour-long hearing, Congresswoman Mia Love asked Richards how many mammogram machines Planned Parenthood has at their disposal. Contrary to the organization's long-standing claims, Richards admitted they have none.

Posted by Mirabelle Ward on September 29, 2015 7 Comments
Arutz Sheva, Israel National News, reports Christian community leaders in Bethlehem believe that Islamist extremists are responsible for a fire at St. Charbal Church this past Saturday:
In its sole statement, the [Palestinian Authority] said that the fire at the St. Charbal church in the city was caused by an “electrical malfunction” - a description that is at odds with an account by Israeli Christian Arab Father Gabriel Naddaf, who said that the church was burned down Saturday night by “Palestinian extremists." . . . According to Christian community leaders in Bethlehem, the fire was started by extremist Islamists who for months have been threatening community members with harm. As a result of the fire, several rooms on the church's second floor were completely destroyed. No one was killed or injured. Sources quoted by Naddaf said that the fire was just another in a long series of attacks by Muslims against Christians in Bethlehem.
While the culprits -- or whether it was some other cause -- are not yet known for sure, Father Naddaf has called out the PA and its President for failure to condemn the fire:

Posted by Amy Miller on September 29, 2015 31 Comments
The Democratic primary is a strange animal. Hillary Clinton is the obvious and expected front runner, but she's got a mad socialist chomping at her heels in key primary states; meanwhile, a respected former governor is waging an all-out war against the party apparatus over the party's apparent protectionist attitude towards Clinton---and actually getting headlines and activists behind his efforts. Wasn't this supposed to be Hillary's year? Isn't it her turn? You'd think she'd be more prepared for it. Last night NBC aired the second half of a "meet the candidates"-style conversation between Hillary Clinton and Chuck Todd. When Todd asked Clinton to differentiate herself from President Barack Obama, she demurred, arguing that she wasn't running for Obama's third term; when he pressed the issue, she completely and utterly failed to provide a single distinguishing trait of herself, her campaign, or her plans for the presidency. Watch the spiral:

Posted by Amy Miller on September 29, 2015 18 Comments
Earlier this month, Dana Loesch appeared in an NRA promo video asking women to take a second look at safe, legal handgun ownership as an effective form of self defense. It was awesome. Watch it if you haven't already: This video is the definition of speaking truth to power, and highlights an important difference between the conservative, pro-gun narrative, and what the left twists that narrative into. Anti-gun advocates feed off of the fear, sadness, and confusion that hits in the wake of mass or high profile shootings; they don't want you to know about the lives saved by guns---all they want is to convince Americans that their families would somehow be safer if only criminals had access to guns in a gun-free society.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on September 29, 2015 31 Comments
Governments across Europe are complying with European Union directives to accommodate tens of thousands of migrants arriving each day. Germany, which became the driving force behind the recent influx of migrants after it suspended Dublin convention, refuses to put any cap to the number of migrants it can absorb. The rules of law and property rights are the first casualties of the EU push for a more 'generous' migration policy. Countries like Germany and Sweden are considering revising existing property laws to confiscate homes to house arriving migrants. Austria has changed its constitution to force provinces to accept higher quotas of migrants. The existing law restricted the intake of refugees more than 1.5 percent of the population. The country is expecting to receive about 80,000 asylum claims by the end of 2015. The Austrian news website The Local reports:
The move, mirroring EU efforts to oblige member states to accept more migrants, is aimed at relieving Austria's overcrowded main refugee centre at Traiskirchen, and comes into effect on October 1. It was put forward by Chancellor Werner Faymann's Social Democrats and the centre-right People's Party, which form Austria's governing coalition, and votes from the Greens gave it the necessary two-thirds majority.  (...) In recent months Austria has become a major transit country for tens of thousands of migrants entering from Hungary -- having travelled up the western Balkans -- bound for northern Europe, in particular Germany.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 29, 2015 9 Comments
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is one of the key heads-of-state participating in the United Nations General Assembly's 70th meeting. President al-Sisi, an advocate of an Islamic "reformation" and one of the most engaged warriors in the war against terror, says the struggle he faces is "ferocious."
Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said in an interview that the Mideast region needs to cooperate to defeat a worsening terrorist threat that has led to a "ferocious war" in Egypt and created the danger of some countries "sliding into failure." In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press Saturday night, el-Sissi also said that Syria should not be divided after its civil war, that the Egyptian military needs to be "augmented" to defeat terrorists fighting in the Sinai and Western Desert, and that efforts should be renewed to solve the Palestinian issue and expand Egypt's nearly 40-year-peace with Israel to include more Arab countries.
Egypt's President also indicated that the last two years were a "real test of the endurance and strength" of the ties with this nation. It appears that al_Sisi has a bit more to endure, as he has been given another taste of the Obama Administration's SmartPower™.
While Mr. Obama insists on welcoming the Russian autocrat whom the West has sanctioned for invading his neighbors and repressing his own people, he has refused to meet the president of Egypt, the most populous Arab nation and a traditional American ally that is battling Islamic extremists on two fronts.
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