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November 2015

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 06, 2015 53 Comments
I first heard about this story in the car listening to Rush Limbaugh. It sounded bad. Politico was reporting that a supposedly central part of Dr. Ben Carson's personal narrative was fabricated, EXCLUSIVE: Ben Carson admits fabricating West Point Scholarship [link to Wayback Machine preserved version since edits made by Politico later on]. The issue was whether Carson had lied about applying for and being granted admission to West Point on a scholarship (emphasis added):
Ben Carson’s campaign on Friday admitted, in a response to an inquiry from POLITICO, that a central point in his inspirational personal story was fabricated: his application and acceptance into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
I don't know how central it was to his narrative - I had never heard about it, but then again, I don't follow Carson that closely. Here was the passage in question from Carson's autobiography:

Posted by Amy Miller on November 06, 2015 15 Comments
Earlier this week, the State Department rejected an industry request that they pause their review of the Keystone XL pipeline until the conclusion of negotiations between Nebraska policymakers and TransCanada officials. State rejected this request, and today, President Obama officially rejected TransCanada's request to build the Keystone XL pipeline. President Obama's approval was required for the project's completion, as construction would cross an international border. More from the WSJ:
“The State Department has decided that the Keystone XL Pipeline would not serve the national interest of the U.S.,” President Barack Obama said in brief remarks from the White House. “I agree with that decision.”

Posted by Amy Miller on November 06, 2015 24 Comments
Last Friday, the State Department revealed that investigators had found 268 more classified emails stored on Hillary Clinton's homebrew server. That discovery brought the grand total of sensitive messages stored where they never should have been stored to over 600. We've still got three more releases to go, and there's no indication that we shouldn't expect to find more classified content. This is a huge concern---and one that the mainstream media is still bent on covering up; but what should concern us even more is that Clinton exposed sensitive information in spite of her full knowledge of the consequences of those actions. When Clinton was appointed Secretary of State, she signed a "Sensitive Compartmented Information Nondisclosure Agreement." This means that she knew 1) what constitutes SCI, 2) how the release of SCI could harm the U.S., and 3) what criminal penalties she could face if caught even negligently handling SCI. The Washington Free Beacon got their hands on a copy of the NDA:
Clinton received at least two emails while secretary of state on her personal email server since marked “TS/SCI”—top secret/sensitive compartmented information—according to the U.S. intelligence community’s inspector general.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 06, 2015 63 Comments
Jeb Bush's campaign is in trouble, there's no doubt about that. His debate performances have been disastrous, he hasn't generated enthusiasm, and he's dropped to 5th place in the polling composites. No longer will Jeb be standing on the debate stage in the center three spots next to Trump. The symbolism of Jeb almost being in John Kasich territory is significant. But Jeb soldiers on, even as one of his big donors just called it quits over the negative tone the campaign has taken---specifically Team Jeb's seemingly spiteful desire to take down Marco Rubio at all costs:
There’s nothing inherently wrong with oppo-research dumps. That’s why oppo-research is done. And if there is a damaging skeleton in Rubio’s closet, let’s find out now.

Posted by Andrew Branca on November 06, 2015 48 Comments
I know I promised that my prior post would be my last on the thoroughly debunked "scientific" paper, "Race,law, and health: Examination of 'Stand Your Ground' and defendant convictions in Florida." The debunking took place in these posts: But then, well, THIS happened: Screen Shot 2015-11-05 at 4.33.05 PM Yep, I found two of the paper's authors in my Twitter timeline:  Melody S. Goodman and Cassandra Arroyo-Johnson, both of the Division of Public Health Sciences, Department of Surgery [!], Washington University School of Medicine.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 06, 2015 17 Comments
Substance abuse and addiction have always been an issue in America but these problems have never figured as largely in a Republican primary as they do now. According to a recent poll in New Hampshire, drug addiction was the number one concern of respondents, topping even jobs and the economy. Heather Haddon reports at the Wall Street Journal:
Drug Deaths Becoming a 2016 Presidential Election Issue New Hampshire poll participants put it above jobs and economy as something candidates should address Buddy Phaneuf, owner of New Hampshire’s largest funeral home network, has overseen burials and cremations in more than 50 heroin-related deaths this year. The average age of the decedent: 32. Christopher Stawasz, manager of an ambulance service in Nashua, said the city set a record of 28 overdoses in September, then topped it with 37 in October. “It’s surreal,” he said. “It’s just day after day.”

Posted by New Neo on November 06, 2015 12 Comments
Obama likes to mock the opposition:
"Have you noticed that everyone of these candidates say, 'Obama's weak. Putin's kicking sand in his face. When I talk to Putin, he's going to straighten out,'" Obama said, impersonating a refrain among Republican candidates that he's allowed Russian President Vladimir Putin too much leeway. "Then it turns out they can't handle a bunch of CNBC moderators at the debate. Let me tell you, if you can't handle those guys, then I don't think the Chinese and the Russians are going to be too worried about you," Obama said.
Of course, Obama has never had to handle anything even remotely like the questions at that CNBC debate, since the MSM is respectful to him to the point of obsequiousness, and debate moderators have gone so far as to carry his water when he seems about to falter. In 2007, he and Hillary Clinton boycotted a debate that had been scheduled to be co-hosted by Fox News; the other co-host was the Congressional Black Caucus, but apparently even that hosting balancing act wasn't quite friendly enough.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 05, 2015 14 Comments
Thursday night, Fox Business announced the lineup for upcoming Republican presidential debate sponsored by the Wall Street Journal. The debate will take place November 10. The undercard debate has a few new additions -- New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee. Christie and Huckabee will be joined by Rick Santorum and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Not making the cut at all are former New York Gov. George Pataki, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore. A minimum of 1% polling average was required for the entry to the undercard debate. The main stage debate will feature the 8 candidates with highest poll ratings.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 05, 2015 17 Comments
If you've been waiting for the first rap ad of the primary season, your wait is finally over. Republican presidential frontrunner Dr. Ben Carson's campaign released a rap ad that will run on stations in some of the country's largest markets. ABC News reports:
Dr. Carson is launching a new 60-second urban radio advertisement scheduled to air Friday in eight markets. His new $150,000 radio ad buy, called “Freedom,” will air for two weeks in Miami, Atlanta, Houston, Detroit, Birmingham, Alabama, Jackson, Mississippi, Memphis, Tennessee and Little Rock, Arkansas. The ad, specifically targeting young black voters, uses rapper Aspiring Mogul and is interspersed with portions of Carson’s stump speech throughout the 60-second ad.

Posted by Andrew Branca on November 05, 2015 9 Comments
This is my third (and hopefully final actually, one more coming!) post on a recently published social sciences paper: “Race, law, and health: Examination of ‘Stand Your Ground’ (SYG) and defendant convictions in Florida” (Social Science & Medicine, Volume 142, October 2015, pages 194-201; pay-walled ) The paper applied a Public Health Critical Theory Methodology to the question of whether Florida’s SYG law has a quantifiable racial bias. The key finding of the paper is that a“defendant is two times … more likely to be convicted in a case that involves White victims compared to those involving non-White victims” in the context of Florida’s SYG law. In my first post on “Race, law, and health” I debunked the paper’s key finding on the basis that the large majority of the criminal cases in their data set did not involve “Stand-Your-Ground, ” meaning the Florida statute that relieves one of a duty to retreat before acting in self-defense, and that allows a defender to “stand his or her ground.” This “Stand-Your-Ground” can be found at §776.012 and elsewhere in Florida statutes. See: “New ‘Scientific’ Stand-Your-Ground Study Is Ignorant of the Law” In my second post, I remarked on email correspondence I’d received from the journal, Social Science & Medicine, which had published the paper. They forwarded me communication from one of the paper’s authors in which they explain that:

Posted by Amy Miller on November 05, 2015 14 Comments
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has concluded that mustard gas was used during a late-August attack on the Syrian town of Marea. The chemical weapon was detected during a battle between Islamic State insurgents and rebel fighters just north of the ISIS stronghold in Aleppo. OPCW's confidential report (the media was given a peek at a summary) shows that at least two people were exposed to "sulfur mustard." What officials don't know is which side unleashed it. Via Reuters:
"It is very likely that the effects of sulfur mustard resulted in the death of a baby," it said. The findings provide the first official confirmation of use of sulfur mustard, commonly known as mustard gas, in Syria since it agreed to destroy its chemical weapons stockpile, which included sulfur mustard. The report did not mention Islamic State, as the fact-finding mission was not mandated to assign blame, but diplomatic sources said the chemical had been used in the clashes between Islamic State and another rebel group taking place in the town at the time.

Posted by Amy Miller on November 05, 2015 11 Comments
Last summer, a young woman named Kate Steinle was murdered by an illegal immigrant named Francisco Sanchez. Sanchez had been previously detained and then released by San Francisco authorities under the city's "sanctuary" laws. After Sanchez's act of brutality hit the headlines, activists and conservatives in Congress sprang into action, drafting "Kate's Law," which would block cities that refuse to abide by federal immigration policies from receiving federal law enforcement funding. Democrats blocked passage of the bill in the Senate, but the fight rages on, and for good reason. Pro-illegal immigration activists are terrified of it. The MSM and White House did an excellent job keeping the administration's inaction on the issue out of the press, but that hasn't stopped the good guys from fighting back. Media Research Center reporter Dan Joseph took his team to a pro-amnesty rally in Boulder, Colorado, and started asking attendees if they had heard of Kate, or her namesake law. You can see what happened in the video below. At about the 1:38 mark, MRC finally finds a rally attendee who has at least heard of Kate's Law and is willing to say that illegal immigrants who commit violent crimes should not be allowed to remain the country. (Never fear---ten seconds later two women come together to blame the human condition for brutal murders, as opposed to the people who commit them.)

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 05, 2015 8 Comments
Cornell University isn't paranoid, James O'Keefe really is out to get it. When Cornell Media Relations overreacted to Jesse Watters asking students questions on campus, I wrote that it made no sense on the surface, but might reflect paranoia about James O'Keefe, who previously did a sting video at Cornell:
What explains this overreaction? I suspect it was the Project Veritas video in which a Cornell assistant dean of students appeared to indicate a willingness to have ISIS train on campus. (As I made clear in my post about it, I don’t think the assistant dean understood the questions.) That created a firestorm of controversy to which university communications was very sensitive. But for Jesse Watters, these campus visits are out in the open and all in good fun. Cornell Media Relations should have left well enough alone. After all, it’s Watters, and everywhere is his world.
Fox News Cornell Watters World I should have known something was up when Project Veritas tweeted my comment about Cornell worrying about O'Keefe:

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on November 05, 2015 18 Comments
President Obama may have abandoned trusted allies and diminished US influence across the globe, leaving behind an inviting vacuum for tyrants and terrorists alike, but he is picking the right fights, and winning them too---at least the ones progressive liberals care about. That’s what Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants us to believe. Michael Bloomberg, who now carries the pompous title of United Nation's Special Envoy for ‘Climate Change’ wrote a triumphant editorial for CNN titled “We’re winning the war against coal.” He praised President Obama’s glorious record in the ‘War on Coal’, in which he forced 130 coal power plants out of business in the last 5 years and made it so an additional 70 plants will have to follow suit. According to Michael Bloomberg, the U.S. is well on its way to “phasing-out coal” as a source of energy. Former New York Mayor writes:
Here's some good news that many Americans may not realize: Domestically, we are winning the fight against the carbon pollution that drives climate change. And by doing so, we are giving President Obama a strong hand to play when world leaders gather at the U.N.'s climate summit in Paris in five weeks to negotiate a global agreement to limit carbon emissions.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 05, 2015 10 Comments
Bernie Sanders handed the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton on a silver platter when he said people were sick of hearing about her "damn" emails at the first Democratic Party debate. Hillary knew it then but Bernie is just figuring it out now. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published yesterday, Bernie got tough with Hillary Clinton, four weeks too late. Peter Nicholas reports:
Bernie Sanders Takes Gloves Off Against Hillary Clinton in Interview Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is drawing sharper distinctions with front-runner Hillary Clinton, casting her policy reversals over the years as a character issue that voters should take into account when they evaluate the Democratic field. Sen. Sanders of Vermont, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, also said the federal investigation of the security surrounding Mrs. Clinton’s private email account is appropriate.

Posted by Miriam Elman on November 05, 2015 31 Comments
As we’ve noted in a number of prior posts, for weeks Palestinian politicians and religious authorities have been invoking wild conspiracy theories in official print, TV and social media channels often centered on claims that Jews are putting Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque in danger. In reality no Jews are “violently invading” the Al-Aqsa mosque, much less praying there. But the campaign of lies is encouraging Palestinian young people to believe that their community is under attack, and that Islam’s honor and its holy sites need defending. So Palestinian leaders are a big part of the problem. But now a new study suggests that elites aren’t just instigating the terror — they’re also reacting to deep-seated attitudes popularly held among “ordinary” Palestinians.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 05, 2015 14 Comments
One chocolate enthusiast is waking up from her sugar coma to discover she is the country's latest social media villain. This Halloween, a San Diego resident and his friends set-up an experiment involving candy and a hidden camera.
On Halloween night, Nathan Brown and his roommates made an impromptu "social experiment" at their house in Serra Mesa.  They set up a table with three boxes of full-size candy bars for trick-or-treaters to come and take. They also wrote a note to the trick-or-treaters, "Help yourself, but please be considerate." "We thought we`ll leave some candy out...of course people are going to help themselves to a lot, but it'll be fun to see who takes what," Brown said. Brown and his roommates left home for about an hour.  They returned to empty boxes. So, they checked the security video to see which kids took the most.
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