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November 2015

Posted by Amy Miller on November 14, 2015 10 Comments
Earlier this week, fellow LI contributor Kemberlee Kaye remarked, "[o]nly a terrible party would hold a debate on a Saturday night." Too true. Tonight, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley will come together for a two hour debate at 9 pm EST---ensuring that almost no one will bear immediate witness to whatever insanity and moral inversion flows from the mouths of the three most high-profile Democrats in America. "Face the Nation" anchor John Dickerson will act as moderator for the CBS News-sponsored debate alongside CBS News Congressional Correspondent Nancy Cordes, KCCI anchor Kevin Cooney and the Des Moines Register's political columnist, Kathie Obradovich. Dickerson has a reputation for asking tough questions, but don't worry---he met privately with each campaign this week for a pre-debate "informational" huddle. Authenticity! You can watch the debate live here:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 14, 2015 22 Comments
There's something about Paris. The City of Light. And Art. And Cafes. And Love. https://youtu.be/93WuCPokDr0?t=33s In many ways, the epitome of western civilization in the form of a city. Which is why it's so hard to see it fall in the past decades into something very different. And which is why it's a target of those who oppose western civilization. I went into our Media Library and searched for the images of "Paris" we've used at Legal Insurrection. It's not pretty.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 14, 2015 18 Comments
Of all the attacks in Paris yesterday, the attack on the Bataclan Theater was the most devastating.
French authorities said more than 80 people died in the club where California-based band Eagles of Death Metal had been playing for about an hour. When the shooting started after four gunmen entered the front of the 1,500-seat theater, dozens struggled to flee out the back alleyway as shots were being fired. Gunmen who had entered, dressed all in black and armed with AK-47 rifles, calmly opened fire randomly at patrons who dived for cover on the floor, according to radio reporter Julien Pearce, who was near the stage when the shooting started. "The terrorists were very calm, very determined, and they reloaded three or four times," Pearce said. "I saw 20 to 25 bodies lying on the floor."
But why the Bataclan, of all the theaters and gathering places in Paris? The answer may lie in the fact that it is Jewish-owned, and has been a target for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions BDS movement and terrorist threats for years. This history was first publicized yesterday by the French Le Point magazine (via Google Translate):

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 14, 2015 16 Comments
Esteemed Harvard law professor and author Alan Dershowitz addressed the controversy unfolding on college campuses like Yale and Mizzou in an appearance on the Kelly File Thursday night and called it what it is. Zachary Leshin of CNS News provides a partial transcript:
Dershowitz: ‘The Fog of Fascism Is Descending Quickly Over Many American Universities’ “These are the same people who claim they are seeking diversity. The last thing many of these students want is real diversity, diversity of ideas. They may want superficial diversity, diversity of gender, diversity of color, but they don’t want diversity of ideas.” “We are seeing a curtain of McCarthyism descend over many college campuses,” said Dershowitz. “I don't want to make analogies to the 1930s, but we have to remember it was the college students who first started burning books during the Nazi regime. And these students are book burners. They don’t want to hear diverse views on college campuses.”

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 14, 2015 19 Comments
The Democratic Party is in big trouble and people are starting to notice. The last two mid term elections have flipped control to Republicans on a massive scale and the Democrats have no back bench. Just look at their leading candidates for president. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders aren't up and comers, they're senior citizens and there are no Marco Rubios waiting in the wings. Ashe Schow writes at the Observer:
Obama Has Decimated His Own Party Unlike Any Other Modern President Last week concluded the final election of President Obama’s tenure that didn’t involve replacing him. After seven years in office and as many elections, the Democratic Party has taken a beating worse than the Republican Party took under George W. Bush.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 14, 2015 24 Comments
Only a few short days ago, Secretary of State John Kerry reasserted the administration's position that climate change was an increasing national security risk.
Speaking at the Ted Constant Convocation Center at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Kerry said he's made addressing climate change a priority of U.S. foreign policy. "The reason I made climate change a priority," Kerry said, "is not simply because climate change is bad for the environment. It's because by fueling extreme weather events undermining our military readiness, exacerbating conflicts around the world, climate change is a threat to the security of the United States and, indeed, to the security and civility of countries everywhere."
Furthermore, the Secretary of the Army offered "developing effective energy solutions" as a key priority. In the wake of the Paris terror attacks, these attitudes must now be deemed completely ludicrous.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on November 14, 2015 36 Comments
As France and the world begins to get a clearer picture of yesterday's coordinated set of terrorist attacks in Paris, ISIS has claimed responsibility, and French president Francois Hollande has iterated his statement that ISIS is indeed responsible and has made clear that he wants to lead a swift and "merciless" response. USA Today reports on President Hollande's statement:
Speaking after the security meeting, Hollande said Friday's attacks were "committed by a terrorist army, the Islamic State group, a jihadist army, against France, against the values that we defend everywhere in the world, against what we are: A free country that means something to the whole planet.”
CNN reports on the ISIS statement issued today:

ISIS claimed responsibility for gunfire and blasts that targeted six sites Friday night in Paris, killing 128 people in one of Europe's deadliest massacres in recent years.

In an online statement distributed by supporters Saturday, the terror group said eight militants wearing explosive belts and armed with machine guns attacked precisely selected areas in the French capital.

In addition to the people killed, 180 others were injured, according to the Paris Police Prefecture. More than half of them are in critical condition.

Among those wounded are an as yet unconfirmed number of Americans.  Also from CNN:

Posted by Casey Breznick on November 14, 2015 13 Comments
We've all seen the news coverage,the videos, the photos, the quotes, the hashtags. Students across the country have erupted in protest and campus takeovers in response to perceived institutional and interpersonal racism on their campuses, most notably at the University of Missouri and Yale, but also at Ithaca College, Amherst College, and Claremont McKenna College. At the same time, weak-kneed administrators have for the most part appeased the student mobs, with the president of U. Missouri and the dean of Claremont McKenna ultimately resigning. Make no mistake: the conflagration witnessed all week did not spring up out of nowhere. Just take a peak at College Insurrection to see what has been going on the past few years, but understand that the degradation of higher education in this country began decades ago. Since the 1960s, college administrators and faculty have  inculcated a culture of appeasement and entitlement among their students, and whenever that was not enough---such as when black and Hispanic students at Cornell partook in an armed takeover of a building on campus---they doubled down on their efforts to serve students whatever they wished.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 13, 2015 104 Comments
Tonight, a group of armed extremists executed a series of coordinated attacks against civilians in Paris, France. As many as 158 people (as being reported by Fox News at 8:30 pm EST) have been killed, with many more injured. At least 5 attackers have been killed; authorities suspect that as many as one dozen people were involved in six separate attacks that occurred all across the city. Each of those six attacks have been confirmed by French authorities. As of the writing of this wrap-up, no group had officially claimed responsibility. There are reports from survivors that the terrorists chanted about Allah and Syria. At around 8:50 pm EST (2:50 am Paris time) French authorities released a bulletin to the media saying that "an unknown number of terrorists are still on the run." Fox News reported via The Guardian (at 9:50 pm EST, 3:47 am Paris time) that French law enforcement officials believe that all of the attackers are dead. The attacks began just before 10 pm Paris time, when terrorists fired into a crowded cafe, leaving "piles" of dead bodies in their wake.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 13, 2015 6 Comments
The Supreme Court agreed to consider the constitutionality of a 2013 Texas law (HB 2) that resulted in the closure of half the state's abortion clinics, according to SCOTUS blog. The earliest Whole Women's Health vs. Cole would be heard is February. The issue:
Whether, when applying the “undue burden” standard of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a court errs by refusing to consider whether and to what extent laws that restrict abortion for the stated purpose of promoting health actually serve the government’s interest in promoting health; and (2) whether the Fifth Circuit erred in concluding that this standard permits Texas to enforce, in nearly all circumstances, laws that would cause a significant reduction in the availability of abortion services while failing to advance the State’s interest in promoting health - or any other valid interest.
According to the pro-life advocacy group, Texas Right to Life, "until SCOTUS completes a review of the constitutionality of HB 2, the law’s safety standards are delayed from taking effect in Texas."

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 13, 2015 73 Comments
The Donald posted a new ad to his Instagram account Friday morning and like everything else Trump, it's pretty, shall we say "bold"? Posted with the caption, "Happy Friday the 13th," and set to what sounds like a rip-off of the theme music from the popular slasher series, Halloween, Trump's ad wonders whether fellow Republican presidential candidate, Ben Carson, is a violent criminal or pathological liar.

Happy Friday the 13th

A video posted by Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) on

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 13, 2015 10 Comments
Students for Justice in Palestine is a national organization with dozens of campus chapters, and growing. SJP has been the subject of numerous posts here because of its highly aggressive, sometimes blatantly anti-Semitic, antics, such as when Vassar SJP spread a Nazi cartoon and UC-Davis SJP taunted Jewish students with chants of "Allahu Akbar." We also have noted how SJP groups are at the forefront of attempting to hijack Black Lives Matter groups and to inject anti-Zionism into the Black Lives Matters movement by co-opting protests, such as in Ferguson, Baltimore, and New York City. Those two elements -- hijacking protest movements and trying to redirect them against Israel -- came together this week when a coalition of New York City area SJP groups taunted the administration of the City University of New York with claims that tuition increases were tied to the "Zionist administration" of CUNY and investment in Israel. The Tower and Tablet Magazine have extensive reports. The call was issued on a Facebook page for the anti-Zionist protest in the name of and endorsed by: NYC Students for Justice in Palestine Students for Justice in Palestine at Hunter College Students for Justice in Palestine at Brooklyn College Students for Justice in Palestine- St. Joseph's College Students for Justice in Palestine at College of Staten Island Students for Justice in Palestine at John Jay College CUNY School of Law Students for Justice in Palestine Students for Justice in Palestine at Pace University - Pleasantville NYU Students for Justice in Palestine Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine Here is the page:

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 13, 2015 20 Comments
At a political breakfast event in New Hampshire this week, Hillary Clinton enthralled the guests at her table with a story about the time she tried to join the Marine Corps. Glenn Kessler reports at the Washington Post:
Hillary Clinton’s claim that she tried to join the Marines “He looks at me and goes, ‘Um, how old are you. And I said, ‘Well I am 26, I will be 27.’ And he goes, ‘Well, that is kind of old for us.’ And then he says to me, and this is what gets me, ‘Maybe the dogs will take you,’ meaning the Army.” One Clinton story that has often been greeted with skepticism is her claim, first made in 1994, that she once tried to join the Marines in 1975. On the campaign trail, she brought up the story again. Can this story be confirmed?

Posted by Anne Segal on November 13, 2015 14 Comments
It's sobering to see such staggering ignorance about free speech and freedom in general on display on American campuses this week. The special snowflakes of the Snowflake Protests (Yale, Mizzou, etc.) are providing a window into the results of the progressive takeover of our education system -- from pre-school all the way on up to college and beyond. (Common Core will just streamline the process a little more.) Alarming, but in keeping with findings about Americans' demand for freedom, or lack thereof, detailed in The Frontier Lab's recent study, "Freedom Buzz." Ask Americans about freedom, as we did in this study, and you get what seem like familiar responses: freedom is the American Dream, the ability to worship and speak freely, or to choose your own path in life. Pretty standard. Nearly 100 hours of research interviews, and a national survey to test the findings, revealed two trends in how many Americans perceive the value of freedom.

Posted by Amy Miller on November 13, 2015 3 Comments
Late yesterday the Pentagon announced that it launched a drone strike against Islamic State terrorist Mohammed Emwazi, the man who served as the "face" of the group's gruesome and infamous beheading videos. Emwazi, also known as "Jihadi John," was wounded a year ago during airstrikes in Anbar Province that killed 10 terrorists and wounded at least 40 others. Emwazi had joined tribal leaders from around the region in a bunker near the Iraqi-Syrian border to pledge their allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. Intelligence following the strikes was muddied, but officials believed that Emwazi was taken to a local hospital before being returned to ISIS headquarters. Over the past year, western officials have conducted extensive surveillance in an effort to determine Emwazi's whereabouts---and if reports are correct, they finally found him. Yesterday's strike hit outside of the de facto ISIS capital of Raqqa in northern Syria. Officials have yet to confirm whether or not Emwazi died in the attack; Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said, "We are assessing the results of tonight’s operation and will provide additional information as and where appropriate.” A U.S. senior official told CNN that authorities are confident that the strike was successful; a second source said that authorities positively identified Emwazi before they launched the drone at the vehicle Emwazi was riding in.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 12, 2015 28 Comments
No rimshot here. Not only is this a thing that happened, it's pulled straight from a motion filed with the Ninth Circuit this earlier week. The bizarre monkey selfie case outdid itself this week. According to PetaPixel:
In September, the animal rights group PETA filed a lawsuit against photographer David Slater, arguing that the monkey who took a series of viral selfies with Slater’s camera in 2011 should be the rightful copyright owner. If you thought that was strange, get this: the legal battle has now evolved into a dispute over the pictured monkey’s identity and gender.
But it gets better. The defense counsel then submitted a motion to dismiss the complaint. The motion began:
A monkey, an animal-rights organization and a primatologist walk into federal court to sue for infringement of the monkey’s claimed copyright. What seems like the setup for a punchline is really happening. It should not be happening…. [D]ismissal of this action is required for lack of standing and failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Monkey see, monkey sue is not good law – at least not in the Ninth Circuit.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 12, 2015 52 Comments
"The movement, the Million Student March, is a movement for a more equitable and fair system of education as opposed to the really corporate model that we have right now," said Keely Mullen, Million Student March Organizer, on Neil Cavuto's show Thursday. Their "three core demands," (yes, demands) are simple: free public college, cancellation of student debt, and $15 an hour minimum wage for campus workers. All was well and good until Mullen was asked the obvious -- how exactly will those three demands be paid for? [Blank stare] "Great question. Uh, I mean, you know, so, I'm not sure if you're talking on like a national level or at particular schools, I can sort of touch on both," said Mullen. And it actually got worse from there:
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