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December 2015

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 31, 2015 10 Comments
Barring big breaking news, which unfortunately is a possibility tonight, this will be my and our last post of 2015. This is the time each year I get a little weepy-eyed and reflective. When I look back on the past year, there were some tough times. I think of Mandy often, and wish her and her family a better 2016. I'm also thankful for the many authors who have contributed so much over the past year. I don't want to name anyone for fear of leaving someone out, but Amy and Kemberlee and Aleister and Leslie and Andrew and Antonio and Fuzzy and David and Neo and AACONS, and new authors Vijeta, Miriam and (very recently) Jonathan, and old author Anne recently returned. They have allowed us to keep the content and quality flowing as my fight against anti-Semitism in the form of the anti-Israel boycott movement consumes so much of my time. And to the readers who keep returning despite all the other choices.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 31, 2015 5 Comments
An ex-con who converted to Islam in prison has been arrested in New Year's Eve plot:
Federal officials in Rochester, New York, have arrested a man who was allegedly plotting a New Year’s Eve machete attack on diners at a local restaurant. According to NBC News, 25-year-old Emanuel Lutchman is an ex-con Muslim convert and supporter of ISIS. He was charged with attempting to provide material support to the terrorist group, federal prosecutors said. The criminal complaint alleges that Lutchman was in contact with ISIS in Syria, who urged him to kill non-Muslims on New Year’s Eve. On December 27th, Lutchman sent a confidential informant an audio recording of himself swearing allegiance to ISIS, according to NBC News. NBC says Lutchman allegedly discussed with the informants attacks using pressure cooker bombs, a machete, and knives, the complaint said.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 31, 2015 18 Comments
The Hill reports:
The State Department on Thursday afternoon released a batch of 5,500 pages of Hillary Clinton's emails online, in its second-to-last tranche of the former secretary of State's messages. Thursday's dump — coming the afternoon of New Year's Eve — is the seventh of eight court-ordered releases.... The emails released Thursday do not have "fully completed data fields on the FOIA website," the State Department said earlier in the day. This means they can't be easily sorted by subject, sender or recipient — which had been an option in previous email dumps.
In other words, not only did the State Department dump the documents on New Year's Eve, it dumped documents many of which are not accessible. The rush to get something online appears to be due to the State Department having failed to comply with court-ordered deadlines. And, via Politico, the number of "classified" emails has skyrocketed:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 31, 2015 6 Comments
Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson's campaign suffered a hefty loss Thursday -- both his campaign director and top communication's aide resigned, according to Politico.
Ben Carson's campaign manager and top communications aide resigned on Thursday, throwing the retired neurosurgeon's presidential run into chaos, with conflicting reports emerging about who will take over the struggling operation. Campaign manager Barry Bennett and communications director Doug Watts both resigned, effective immediately, after weeks of speculation about a shakeup. Carson last week indicated such a move, saying that "everything" was "on the table" as far as changes with his campaign, though he later walked that back and said, “I think the people that I have are spectacular.” Armstrong Williams, a close Carson confidant, told POLITICO he expects Bennett's replacement to be General Robert Dees, a top foreign policy adviser.

Posted by Jonathan Levin on December 31, 2015 3 Comments
This week's release of a trove of documents from the Vichy era are a reminder of anti-Semitism's long history in France, even as France's Jews increasingly flee to Israel. NPR reports:
The documents, which were previously only partially accessible to researchers, will make "information such as the activities of the special police, who hunted resistants, communists and Jews accessible to the public, as long as they have been cleared by defence and security chiefs," French radio station RFI reported. These archives also "show the extra-legal prosecution of members of the French Resistance, as well as proceedings against French Jews," says the Associated Press. "France has a painful relationship with this portion of its past, when the government helped the Nazis deport 76,000 Jews during the war," Agence France-Presse reports.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on December 31, 2015 2 Comments
India's Foreign Minister Shushma Swaraj is expected to visit Israel in the second half of January. Indian news channel NDTV reported that the much awaited trip would take place around January 16-19, three months after the historic visit by first ever Indian head of state to Israel, when President Pranab Mukherjee visited to the Jewish State in October 2015. Jerusalem Post reported that some logistical issues need to be worked out before Israel can officially announce the visit, quoting government sources in Jerusalem. The announcement came on the heels of the successfully trial of a missile defense system jointly developed India and Israel. On Wednesday, Long Range Surface to Air Missile 'Barak 8' was test fired in Indian Ocean aboard the Indian naval destroyer INS Kolkata. Foreign Minister Swaraj, a former Supreme Court lawyer, has a long-standing ties to the Jewish State. She considers Israeli stateswomen Golda Meir as her role model. She served as the chairwoman of the Indo-Israeli Parliamentary Friendship Group from 2006-09.

Posted by Mike LaChance on December 31, 2015 2 Comments
2015 was a big year in campus news and we covered pretty much all of it at College Insurrection, which makes it difficult to pick just 10 posts so I'm going to focus on stuff that made me laugh. Here goes: 10. Holyoke College Cancels the ‘Vagina Monologues’ for Not Being Feminist Enough 9. University of Michigan Students Were Questioned About Free Speech — With Alarming Results 8. Liberal Academia Needs The “Old Yeller Treatment” 7. Appalachian State University Publicly Shames ‘Privileged’ Students 6. Oberlin College Choir Creates Brilliant Musical Parody About ‘Triggered’ Students

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 31, 2015 18 Comments
As Americans begin counting down to the beginning of 2016, the Transportation Security Agency is beginning its own countdown for its enforcement of Real ID Act Rules. Starting January 10, Alaska, California, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Washington would be out of compliance with requirements for state-issued driver's licenses used as identification at airports. Despite the deep concerns about privacy and fears over potential misuse of the national database that is to be created from information collected during the license compliance process, the TSA is now going to strong-arm states to comply.
...The federal government cannot force states to adopt these identification standards, but it can gain compliance in other ways. In October, it began requiring that visitors to military bases, nuclear plants and federal facilities produce a driver’s license from a state that complies with the law, or show another form of government ID, like a passport.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 30, 2015 17 Comments
I've been ill the past couple of day with a bad stomach flu, so I had a chance to vegitate in front of the TV. At least on Fox News in Scottsdale, where I am now, it's been nearly non-stop Jeb attack ads on Trump. Not technically Jeb, but the SuperPAC supporting Jeb: This ad epitomizes the inability of Jeb or his supporters to deal with Trump. The overwhelming image in my mind from the ad is of Trump mocking Jeb. See the featured image.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 30, 2015 11 Comments
There are many ways to study war and conflict -- causes, effect, social constructs, literature of the era, resistance movements... the list goes on. This particular project by Neil Halloran is, "an animated data-driven documentary about war and peace, The Fallen of World War II looks at the human cost of the second World War and sizes up the numbers to other wars in history, including trends in recent conflicts." The result is staggering:

The Fallen of World War II from Neil Halloran on Vimeo.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 30, 2015 14 Comments
Ultra-feminist founder of Femen Brazil recently had a change of heart. Not only has she denounced the modern feminism movement, but she's now a pro-life advocate. What caused this sudden one-eighty? Giving birth. "Sara Winter" aborted her first child. Giving birth to her second caused the former topless protestor to reconsider her long-held feminist views. Lifesite News has the story:
Sara Fernanda Giromin first made herself known to Brazil and to the world under the alias “Sara Winter” in 2012, when she became the founding member of Femen Brazil, and led a trio of girls in a number of topless protests that garnered much media attention. However, only three years later, the young activist has done an about-face and has declared war on feminism and abortion, and is apologizing to Christians for her offensive behavior. She has also published a short book detailing the abuse and disappointment she suffered at the hands of fellow feminists.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 30, 2015 89 Comments
Donald Trump has a knack for finding the weakest spot in other candidates. Trump has eviscerated Jeb with the "low energy" line. It worked because it both fit Jeb's persona (if not reality) and also was something a lot of people were thinking but not saying. It was a weak spot for Jeb no one knew was coming. So too, Trump's zeroing in on Bill Clinton's serial abuse of women hits a weak spot for Hillary even more so than "low energy" hurt Jeb. Hillary is going all "War On Women" in her campaign. Yet her husband was the actual War on Women before Democrats reinvented the term. How do we know it's a sensitive spot for Hillary? Look at how the media is reacting. No one is saying Trump is wrong, but we get word games such as Clinton "allegedly" having an affair with Monica Lewinsky, a young intern under the control of the most powerful man in the United States:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 30, 2015 13 Comments
The goal of one of the most ponderous pieces of legislation ever to be generated in the Golden State, the Global Warming Solutions Act, was to substantially reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions. Any gains that could be claimed, albeit questionably, from enforcement of this economy-crushing rule have essentially been wiped out by a massive leak of methane. The steady, significant release from an underground gas pipe in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles began in October.
...Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has called the leak an "environmental disaster," and the Los Angeles Unified School District shuttered two area schools for the rest of the year. Politicians and environmentalists in California are particularly sensitive to the toll the leak may take on the environment, especially after Gov. Jerry Brown doubled down earlier this year on the state's efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Posted by Jonathan Levin on December 30, 2015 2 Comments
A recent article from Adrienne Yaron has an important kernel of truth surrounded by a myriad of analytical errors and false conclusions.  The central point that BDS is a cover for defamation of Israel and development of a critical mass of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred on false pretenses is sound.  The suggestions that BDS is incapable of having an economic impact and that BDS should therefore be mocked rather than substantively opposed is not. Yaron's core and accurate observation is that BDS's economic arguments are a vehicle for simple malice:
The real goal and purpose of BDS is to defame Israel, and attempt to discredit it in the eyes of foreign observers, in order to exert political pressure. BDS demonstrations are an opportunity for them to spew antisemitic vitriol and express their vicious hatred of the Jewish state. BDS’ [sic] only real power is in propagating its hateful ideology.
This is absolutely true, with ample evidence from BDS supporters' anti-Jewish and anti-Israel deceptions and violence, and the overlap between BDS and actual or implicit support for terrorism.

Posted by Mike LaChance on December 30, 2015 4 Comments
Democrat presidential candidate Martin O'Malley held a campaign event in Iowa Monday and one single person showed up. In O'Malley's defense, it was snowing in Iowa but still... one guy? Here's the worst part, the guy left uncommitted. Nick Gass reported at Politico:
One person shows up to O'Malley event in Iowa, remains uncommitted Amid a vicious winter storm on Monday that forced some presidential campaigns to cancel their scheduled stops in Iowa, only Martin O'Malley decided to press on. And one man at his last event, the only person to show up, in fact, "was glad to see me," the former Maryland governor said. But he still would not commit to caucus for O'Malley.
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