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September 2015

Do Cops' lives matter? The answer wasn't so obvious to whoever murdered Abilene, Texas-based Officer Don Allen. Allen, 27, was found dead in his Abilene-area home Monday evening. Investigators found nothing to suggest that the killing was a random act of terror against police officers in general, but are treating the death as a suspicious homicide. More from Fox News:
At a news conference Tuesday, Abliene Police Chief Stan Standridge described Allen's death as "suspicious" and said the FBI, ATF, and the Texas Rangers were among the agencies investigating the case. Standridge did not specify exactly how Allen died, but said that multiple leads were being investigated and multiple motives were being considered. The Tarrant County medical examiner was due to conduct an autopsy on Allen's body.

A few years ago, liberals in politics and media insisted that rhetoric coming from the Tea Party was violent and that we needed a new tone in political discourse. Now that #BlackLivesMatter activists are openly advocating violence, those folks are nowhere to be found. Last night on FOX News, Megyn Kelly brought this double standard into focus. Josh Feldman of Mediaite has more:
Megyn Explodes: Liberals Rip Dangerous Tea Party Rhetoric But #BlackLivesMatter’s Is Fine?! Megyn Kelly really went off tonight on the hypocrisy of Democrats and liberal media figures who were quick to condemn dangerous tea party rhetoric for the 2011 Tucson shooting but are now keeping silent about dangerous rhetoric from #BlackLivesMatter protesters. After some protesters were filmed chanting “pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon,” Kelly was amazed that not only have Democrats avoided the issue, but they’ve been recently trying to establish a connection between them and the movement.

From Kate:
Harrisonburg, VA...northwest of Charlottesville, VA (looks like car owner from Charlottesville). Just took this picture in a retirement home 15 minute parking space...so probably owned by a baby-boomer who has a parent in the retirement community. :(
Bumper Stickers - Harrisonburg, VA - Obama Warren You know, I'm also from the Elizabeth Warren Wing of the Democratic Party.

Donald Trump thumped Jeb Bush the other day with an Instagram ad that has received a lot of attention, and a lot of free TV air time. It was Willie Horton Part 2: It was, of course, "unfair" in the sense that Bush's comment about Act of Love related to illegal immigration in general, not those crimes. But it was brilliant political theater. Trump has been relentless in going after, prodding, and yes, emasculating the person who he viewed as his lead competition. Allahpundit describes the approach:

In Project Veritas Action's undercover investigation into Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, James O'Keefe claims Hillary's top campaign advisors violated FEC laws. Filmed during Hillary's campaign kick-off event, the video captures two senior Clinton campaign staffers allowing a Canadian citizen pay for campaign swag by giving her money to an American citizen. To their credit, the staffers recognized receiving donations from anyone who is not an American citizen was in direct violation of FEC laws, and said as much. When PVA's undercover reporter asked if she could take the Canadian woman's money and use it to make the purchase herself, the senior staffers agreed.

Late Tuesday afternoon CNN announced an amendment to the rules for its debate scheduled for September 16. CNN's original rules included time-specific polling data that did not accurately mirror current GOP primary field standings. In particular, Carly Fiorina's rapid rise in the polls. Last week, a spokeswoman from CNN said the network would not yield to candidate complaints, saying:
“Our criteria are totally appropriate and we have been absolutely transparent about them throughout. If the Fiorina campaign had an issue with them they could have raised it when we published them in May. They did not,” the spokeswoman said. “Revising the criteria on the eve of the debate at the demand of and solely for the benefit of one particular candidate is not something we have done in the past, and we will not do it now.”
Mounting pressure from news outlets, public figures, and Carly Fiorina's campaign seems to have caused CNN to reconsider. The network explained that a lack of national polling data was to blame. With a significantly greater number of national polls taken during the same timeframe in previous election cycles, CNN claims they had no reason to believe this cycle would have rendered a polling deficiency. Rather than look to national polling averages in data collected from July to September, CNN has amended the debate qualification criteria so that rankings will be decided based on polling data released from August 7 to September 10.

Back in July, the conservative media shined its spotlight on the controversial issue of "sanctuary cities" following the shooting death of Kate Steinle in San Francisco. This happened because perennial criminal and five-time deportee Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, who had no business in this country, much less on the pier where Kate died, pointed a gun and pulled the trigger. He sought refuge underneath San Fran's "sanctuary" umbrella, and Kate Steinle paid the price. It was an inconvenient narrative for the Obama Administration, and an even more inconvenient scoop for reporters reluctant to address the issue of illegal immigration during an election cycle. Kate was laid to rest with little fanfare, but her family has taken up her cause, and is planning a lawsuit against San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and The Bureau of Land Management.
Since the death of their daughter, Jim Steinle and Liz Sullivan have become activists demanding justice for their daughter. "Everyone can’t keep saying this is the way it is — it isn’t the way it has to be. We have to stand up and say we’re mad as hell we’re not going to take it anymore,” Sullivan said.

During the first Republican presidential debate earlier this month, all hell broke loose after an exchange on the "war on women" between debate moderator Megyn Kelly and contender Donald Trump. The furor over Kelly's snark, and Trump's audacity, boiled over into a weeks-long debate between those convinced that Kelly had wrongfully attacked Trump, and those who felt like Kelly's question about Trump's tone toward women was fair. So, who won? I'm not ready to call this for either side yet (there's still plenty of time for either party to reload) but polling data suggests that as of right now, Donald Trump has come out on top over Fox News. From Public Policy Polling [emphasis mine]:
Trump is winning his fight with Megyn Kelly. When we last polled her in December of 2013 her favorability with Republicans nationally was 44/9. Her favorability is in a similar place now at 42% but her negatives have shot up to 20%, largely because she's at 20/43 with Trump's supporters.
Trumps supporters are angry about the way the debate exchange went down, and it shows.

The United Nations has declared a war on racism and slavery. Not on real slavery, as practiced by Saudi Arabia and Qatar with an immigrant labour force, but as practiced by the people of Netherlands during their Christmas festivities.  The U.N.’s self-proclaimed “Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination” told the Netherlands to end its "Black Pete" Christmas tradition, in which Dutch people wear blackfaces, calling it a “reminder of slavery.” The actor portraying “Zwarte Piet”, as the jovial companion of Santa Claus is called in Dutch, usually puts on blackface make-up along with a fancy hat and Renaissance attire. (As the Dutch folklore goes, Santa’s companion is a Moor from Spain.) But the crusaders against racial discrimination at U.N. are not having any of it. According to the New York Times:

Last week, in an August 24, 2015 Status Report, the Internal Revenue Service disclosed that Lois Lerner used a secret personal email account denominated as "Toby Miles." The filing was in a FOIA case filed by Judicial Watch. In a filing last night of an August 31, 2015 Status Report, the IRS revealed that  Lerner also used "a second personal email account" that, unlike the Toby Miles account, "does not appear to be associated with a denomination; only the email address itself appears." The IRS refuses to disclose the email address for either the Toby Miles or the newly discovered account. (added) Tom Fitton, President of Judicial Watch, commented on this latest disclosure:
“It is disturbing that the Obama administration’s explanations to a federal judge about Lois Lerner’s emails become inoperative after only one week. Last week, the court was told that that Lois Lerner had a second alias email account under the name “Toby Miles”. This week the court is told that the “Toby Miles” account isn’t a separate account but that that there still is a second Lerner account, address unrevealed, with IRS-related emails. This game of cat and mouse shows that both the Obama IRS and Justice Department continue with their contempt for Judge Sullivan’s orders that Ms. Lerner’s emails about this scandal be disclosed as the law requires.”
The August 31 status report reads, in part (full embed at bottom of post):

Today, the Center for Medical Progress released the ninth in a series of videos aimed at exposing collusion between Planned Parenthood and tissue procurement clinics for the sale of fetal tissue. This video features a new player. Until 2013, Dr. Katharine Sheehan was Planned Parenthood's Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest, and in the video, we see her describing Planned Parenthood's relationship with fetal procurement outlet ABR. We also see ABR Procurement Manager Perrin Larton getting into graphic detail about how her company manages to secure intact fetal specimens. Watch: From LifeNews:

You have to love the ingenuity of San Diegans, who are attempting to roll back the tide of liberalism that has has swept over the entire state of California. First, we organized one of the biggest and most effective tea party groups in the state. Now, a local businessman has organized one of the most creative protests I've ever seen, right on the steps of our capitol.

Professor Jacobson published the first College Insurrection post on August 22, 2012. Welcome to College Insurrection Since then, we've published over 8,000 posts about free speech, rape culture, due process, microaggressions, trigger warnings, white privilege, the BDS movement, wacky professors, speech zones, liberal bias, the higher ed bubble and dozens of other issues which affect campus life every day. I've been with the site since the beginning but I've had plenty of help from Leslie Eastman, Casey Breznick, Nathaniel Hunter, David Ticzon and Kemberlee Kaye as well as occasional guest authors Isaac Morrison and Hans Bader. As a writer who has been covering this beat for three years now, I think I should speak candidly. We have a serious problem happening on American college campuses.