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December 2015

Posted by New Neo on December 20, 2015 23 Comments
Why indeed? After all, 9/11 was far, far worse in terms of loss of life. The attacks themselves during 9/11 were far more high-tech and fiendishly clever, as well. There have been many, many terrorist attacks since, and they have all caused outrage and consternation. But something about the Friday the 13th attacks in Paris and the recent one in San Bernardino seems to have affected people more deeply than any other attacks except 9/11. 9/11 was so spectacular, so creative in a near-diabolical way, that it seemed almost otherworldly or like science fiction. The targets were major national symbols. Paris and San Bernardino were relatively pedestrian, as evil inspiration goes. They were fairly low-tech, and involved the sort of places we go to every day: random cafes and restaurants, a stadium, a concert hall, a business meeting and holiday party. Places to relax and enjoy, the sort of places nearly all urban people go to on a regular basis, or at least on occasion. That's why it took very little imagination to put ourselves in the place of the unlucky (and mostly young) people who lost their lives there.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 20, 2015 17 Comments
An Air France flight was diverted to an emergency landing after a bomb-like device was found in a bathroom. It was a fake, made of cardboard with a crude timer on it, as would have been obvious to anyone handling it. But the pilots took no chances. CBS News reports:
Kenyan authorities are questioning several suspects who were on an Air France flight from Mauritius to Paris that was forced to land early Sunday in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa after a device suspected to be a bomb was found in a lavatory. The CEO of Air France said hours after the plane had been grounded that the device discovered in the bathroom was a fake bomb. The Boeing 777 was heading to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris from Mauritius when its pilots requested an emergency landing at early Sunday in the Kenyan city of Mombasa. Frederic Gagey, the head of the airline, said the device was made of cardboard, paper and a household timer, and had been found in a little cupboard that is behind a mirror.
Here are images being widely reported as the fake bomb [See also Featured Image]:

Posted by Mike LaChance on December 20, 2015 55 Comments
Despite acting a bit more aggressive in the last Republican debate, Jeb Bush has been unable to move his poll numbers up and break away from the pack. Dana Blanton reports at FOX News:
Fox News Poll: Trump jumps, Cruz climbs, Carson sinks in GOP race Donald Trump, a candidate even Republicans once considered a side show, increases his lead yet again in the nomination race, according to the latest Fox News national poll. The poll also finds Ted Cruz ticking up, Marco Rubio slipping, and Ben Carson dropping. Trump hits a high of 39 percent among Republican primary voters, up from 28 percent a month ago. The increase comes mainly from men, white evangelical Christians, and voters without a college degree -- and at the expense of Carson...

Posted by Mike LaChance on December 20, 2015 1 Comment
It's that time of the week again. Let's look back at the last seven days in blogging. Of course, there was plenty of political news. The media became the story a couple of times.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 20, 2015 5 Comments
It was my pleasure to interview Legal Insurrection's cartoonist extraordinaire, Antonio F. Branco, for Canto Talk this week. Antonio shares his journey from proprietor of a graphics art business to Tea Party participant to one of America's leading cartoon panel pundit: "I was a late-comer...I went to a few rallies," said Antonio, describing his entry into political activism. "I just fumed and vented, then I started to draw cartoons." We featured work from Antonio's new book, comically incorrect. Antonio gives us a behind-the-scene view of some of his favorite panels, including one featuring two lobsters and a mention of Glenn Beck.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 20, 2015 9 Comments
Samir Kuntar was among the most notorious and vicious terrorists. A Druze, he was part of a group that landed in Israel in 1979, took a family hostage, and smashed a 4-year old child's head against a rock with his rifle butt:
On April 22, 1979, Quntar, commanding a small unit of four armed men, piloted a small dinghy from Lebanon to the northern Israeli town of Nahariya. Undetected by the Israeli Navy, the terrorists struck at midnight and wasted little time: spotting a police car, they opened fire and killed one officer, Eliyahu Shahar. Then, they proceeded into the town, forcing their way into the nearby home of the Haran family. Danny Haran, 31, and his daughter Einat, 4, were taken hostage. Smadar, Danny’s wife, managed to grab her infant daughter Yael, 2, and hide in the apartment’s narrow attic. Terrified, and anxious to keep the child from crying, Smadar accidentally choked her baby to death. Quntar and his men, meanwhile, took Danny and Einat to the beach, where they were met by Israeli soldiers and police officers. A short firefight ensued, but Quntar had other targets in mind. He shot Danny in the back at close range, murdering him in front of his small daughter. Then, he took Einat and smashed her skull against a rock with the butt of his rifle.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 19, 2015 13 Comments
Three Democratic presidential candidates are about to try their luck at the third Democratic debate of the 2016 election season at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, making this the midway debate stop for Democratic candidates. Only six Democratic presidential primary debates are currently scheduled for the 2016 season. Sponsored by ABC News, the New Hampshire Union Leader has joined the network as a co-sponsor for tonight's debate. Compared to Republican presidential debates, the Democratic field is tiny. Only three candidates will debate one another tonight: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley. But the spotlight is largely on two: former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. CBS News reported:
ABC News has said questions will focus on national security issues and foreign policy, following the deadly terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino. Heading into the debate, Hillary Clinton is leading the pack by wide margins, with Sanders trailing the former secretary of state by 31 points in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll.
With data breaches, law suits, and allegations of DNC favoritism towards Mrs. Clinton, this should be quite the show. Livestream available here:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 19, 2015 19 Comments
Marco Rubio missed Friday's vote on the Omnibus bill. It was a bill he stated he opposed and might even try to delay. But he didn't show up for the vote. 98 other Senators did. Including Ted Cruz, who returned from the campaign trail to be able to just say No. Omnibus Bill 12-18-2015 Senate vote In the run up to the vote, Rubio excoriated the process used to draft the bill as well as provisions funding Syrian refugees. He suggested an effort to slow things down:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on December 19, 2015 44 Comments
Having just won reelection to his Senate seat for a sixth term in 2014, Mitch McConnell is back to making comments such as the one he made last year about his plans for "crushing" the TEA Party. This time, McConnell is announcing that he will ensure that no GOP candidate who "can't win" will be allowed to run for the U. S. Senate. The Hill reports:

“The way you have a good election year is to nominate people who can win,” he told reporters during his final Capitol Hill press conference of 2015.

He urged Republican primary voters to avoid the mistakes of the past, mentioning several Tea Party candidates who went down in flames in recent Senate elections.

“What we did in 2014 was we didn’t have more Christine O’Donnell’s, Sharron Angles, Richard Mourdocks or Todd Akins. The people that were nominated [last year] were electable,” he said of the last midterm cycle.

“That will happen again in 2016. We will not nominate anybody for the United States Senate on the Republican side who’s not appealing to a general-election audience,” he added.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on December 19, 2015 9 Comments
One of the many things I like about Ted Cruz is his sense of humor, and his campaign's latest ad, set to air tonight in Iowa during Saturday Night Live, exemplifies this beautifully. The Blaze reports:
The ad, which features the Texas senator read Christmas classics like “Rudolph the Underemployed Reindeer” and “The Grinch Who Lost Her Emails,” will air in key Iowa markets Saturday night, campaign spokeswoman Catherine Frazier told the Independent Journal. “In the spirit of the upcoming holiday, we are excited to bring a Cruz family Christmas into the homes of SNL viewers in Iowa,” she told the website. “Ted is a long time fan of SNL, so the chance to film his own SNL-style commercial was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up!”
Watch:

Posted by Mike LaChance on December 19, 2015 10 Comments
At a recent town hall event in Iowa City, Hillary Clinton was asked a question about how the Affordable Care Act is affecting jobs. Her response was somewhat shocking. Alyssa Canobbio of the Washington Free Beacon:
Hillary Clinton: Obamacare is Forcing Americans Into Part-Time Work At a town hall meeting in Iowa City, Iowa Hillary Clinton was asked by a supporter about companies moving to a mostly part-time workforce and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Clinton said that companies are going to a mostly part-time workforce because of restrictions in Obamacare. “Well that’s why they’re going to part-time. That and the Affordable Care Act. You know, we’ve got to change that because we have built in some unfortunate incentives that discourage full-time employment,” Clinton said...

Posted by Mike LaChance on December 19, 2015 17 Comments
In case you missed it yesterday, Obama gave his last press conference of the year. We've compiled some clips to give you an idea of how it went. Obama clearly stated that the U.S. is going to defeat ISIS. NBC News reported:
Obama: 'We're Going to Defeat ISIS' President Obama dispelled any notion Friday that he intends to be a lame duck president and pledged that in 2016 "I'm going to leave it all out on the field." "We still have some unfinished business," an upbeat Obama said at what's likely to be his last press conference of the year before flying off to Hawaii for a family Christmas vacation.

Posted by Anne Segal on December 19, 2015 19 Comments
Three weeks ago the Huffington Post published an article detailing the distress of transgendered parents who breastfeed, "The Troubling Erasure of Trans Parents Who Breastfeed." The article describes the way gendered pronouns and attitudes are excluding men who nurse, and the legalities associated with challenging the heretofore female-centric endeavor of breastfeeding. In particular, women who have had chest surgery and now identify as men, described how they are made to feel unwelcome in breastfeeding circles. Here is one example from Canada:

Posted by Andrew Branca on December 19, 2015 12 Comments
A reader alerted Professor Jacobson that Legal Insurrection and I got a mention on the Mark Levin Show.  Naturally we tracked down the mention in order to crow about it and share it with you loyal readers (but mostly to crow about it). In fairness, it's probably more accurate to say that Andrew McCarthy mentioned us in his (as always) very good blog post over at National Review about the Freddie Gray prosecutions, The Travesty in Baltimore.  Levin essentially reads McCarthy's post on the air and so includes that mention. Levin does, however, also throw in a bit of a kudos of his own into the mix, interjecting "Legal Insurrection, another great web site." Here's that audio clip.  First there's just the short bit in which we're actually mentioned, then a pause, and then the clip starts playing the entirety of the ~6 1/2 minute segment in which Levin reads McCarthy's post (starting with "I want to address this.").  Enjoy:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on December 18, 2015 12 Comments
New Mexico governor Susana Martinez—once hailed as a possible VP pick for Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, and/or Jeb Bush—is at the center of a bit of controversy concerning a noise complaint at a hotel room at which she was attending a holiday staff party. The Santa Fe New Mexican reports:
Santa Fe police were dispatched to Gov. Susana Martinez’s hotel room at the Eldorado Hotel & Spa about 1:30 a.m. Sunday after a caller complained of loud noises emanating from the room and someone throwing bottles off the balcony.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 18, 2015 9 Comments
There is not enough popcorn in the world for this one. This is going to be one heckuva show. Politico reported this evening:
Bernie Sanders' campaign on Friday sued the Democratic National Committee for suspending its access to the national voter database, saying the move threatens to undermine the Vermont senator's presidential run. Even as the campaign admitted its staffers had inappropriately reviewed and saved Hillary Clinton campaign data made available as a result of a software error, it emphatically accused the DNC of sabotage and of blatantly favoring Clinton.
This afternoon, Sanders' campaign threatened to sue. Shortly thereafter, they made good on that threat:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 18, 2015 12 Comments
Staff salary cuts, negligible fundraising, and crummy polling are usually good indicators a campaign is on its last leg. Thursday, Politico reported former Arkansas Governor and Republican presidential hopeful, Mike Huckabee, cut his senior staffer's salaries to reallocate resources to the Iowa battlefield.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign, struggling with its low standing in the polls and underwhelming fundraising, slashed the salaries of senior staffers amid the departure of its top communications aide. The salary reductions took place over the past few weeks, according to multiple Republican sources familiar with the Huckabee campaign's operations. The reductions were limited to senior staff, according to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the candidate's daughter and campaign manager.
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