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January 2016

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 11, 2016 47 Comments
Bad news for Hillary Clinton as Fox News reported Monday that the FBI has expanded its investigation. What began as an investigation into Hillary's use of a personal email account during her tenure as Secretary of State due to classified information found on their home-brewed server has expanded to include examination of business conducted the The Clinton Foundation. Fox News reported:
"The agents are investigating the possible intersection of Clinton Foundation donations, the dispensation of State Department contracts and whether regular processes were followed," one source said. The development follows press reports over the past year about the potential overlap of State Department and Clinton Foundation work, and questions over whether donors benefited from their contacts inside the administration. The Clinton Foundation is a public charity, known as a 501(c)(3). It had grants and contributions in excess of $144 million in 2013, the most current available data.

Posted by Andrew Branca on January 11, 2016 30 Comments
Maryland's Court of Special Appeals (the state's intermediate appellate court) has issued a last minute order (embedded at the bottom of this post) staying the trial of van driver Officer Caesar Goodson, for which jury selection was to begin today, reports the Baltimore Sun.  The purpose of this stay is to allow first for the resolution of a separate matter:  whether Police Officer William Porter could be compelled to testify in Goodson's despite the fact that Porter is awaiting his own re-trial. For further details see last Friday's Freddie Gray Case: Appellate Court Puts Hold On Officer’s Compelled Testimony, which has embedded a number of the relevant motions and orders. This morning's last minute stay was issued by Chief Judge Peter Krauser, who last Friday also issued an order halting trial Judge Barry Williams’ order that Porter be compelled to testify in Goodson's trial.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on January 11, 2016 99 Comments
Back in November, Donald Trump asserted that if elected president he would have a "humane deportation force" to round up all illegal immigrants and deport them.  This statement is now being used in interviews with other presidential candidates who are opposed to amnesty and want to close the border and enforce existing immigration law. For example, in a Sunday interview, CNN's Jake Tapper harangued Ted Cruz on Trump's concept of a "deportation force." Watch:

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 11, 2016 17 Comments
In what would be a dream ticket for some and a nightmare to others, Bernie Sanders has been dropping some not-so-subtle hints that he would select Elizabeth Warren as his running mate. This would be a smart move on Bernie's part. He has been functioning as a stand-in for Warren and derives support from her wing of the Democratic Party. The left would be electrified. The rest of the country would be horrified as these two Neo-Marxists traveled the land promising to take wealth from some and give to others. Mohit Priyadarshi reports at The Inquistr:
Feel the Bern? Bernie Sanders Leads Hillary Clinton in New Poll, Tips Elizabeth Warren for Vice President Bernie Sanders’ supporters may finally have something to cheer about. The Vermont senator seems to be establishing a significant lead against fellow Democratic Party presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, with Fox News January polls tipping Sanders to be ahead of Clinton by a 50-37 percent margin among New Hampshire Democratic primary voters.

Posted by Jonathan Levin on January 11, 2016 29 Comments
The Supreme Court's 2016 schedule begins this morning with oral arguments in a dispute over public union dues.  In Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association the Court is asked to strike down two rules that that artificially prop-up public sector unions. First, the Plaintiff challenges a California statute imposing “agency shop agreements” under which non-union members must nevertheless pay the union for its collective bargaining services. Second, Plaintiffs seek to reverse California law that requires all employees to pay the union for non-bargaining activities unless they opt out each year, asking that the burden be reversed to require annual opt-ins for those who wish to contribute. Both challenges are brought under the 1st Amendment’s implied freedom of association, as incorporated to the states through the 14th Amendment.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 10, 2016 11 Comments
You probably never heard of Madaya. It's a town in Syria near the Lebanese border that has been under rebel control, and now is under seige by Hezbollah and the Syrian regime. And the people are starving to death. That mass starvation has received very little media coverage in the U.S. until the past couple of days. ABC News (Australian Broadcast Company) reports:
Doctors inside the besieged Syrian town of Madaya say five more people died of starvation on Sunday, including a nine-year-old boy. The town of up to 40,000 people, near the capital Damascus, has been under siege by government forces and Hezbollah militants since July.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on January 10, 2016 9 Comments
After years of claiming to be pro-Second Amendment, Hillary Clinton has changed her tune and is now attacking Bernie Sanders on his one weakness with progressives / socialists: guns. ABCNews reports:
Following a week in which the president outlined his planned gun control actions, Hillary Clinton is hitting her rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, on his record -- and Sanders and his campaign are responding in full force, portraying the former Secretary of State as a flip-flopper. “When it really mattered, Senator Sanders voted with the gun lobby and I voted against the gun lobby,” Clinton told Chris Matthews on “Hardball” tonight.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on January 10, 2016 22 Comments
As we watch the 2016 Republican primaries unfold in often-surprising ways, it is clear that there is a strong desire among Republican primary voters for change within the party.  Sick of what Ted Cruz calls "the Washington Cartel" and of the "election conservatives" who managed for so long to convince voters they uphold conservative values and principles, Republican primary voters are taking a stand. It began before Obama was elected, while President Bush was still in office, and has since only gained in strength and resolve, and the GOP establishment has been slow to notice or grasp what is happening. They saw glimpses of it in the TEA Party in 2009 and '10 and worked side-by-side with Democrats to diminish its influence, they may have noticed something was changing in the 2010 and 2014 mid-terms, they probably got a more clear picture when Eric Cantor (then House GOP whip) was booted out of office, and they started to pay attention when Speaker Boehner was also forced out.  They thought they could handle it, though, so they plowed ahead . . . pushing Jeb Bush as the next in line for the presidency, and that's when things started to go so terribly wrong for the GOP establishment that they are finally sitting up and taking notice.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 10, 2016 4 Comments
Forget Twitter, ISIS and other al-Qaeda offshoots are flocking to Telegram. The popular messaging app has become an ISIS favorite for its encryption and sharing capabilities. Writing for Voice of America, Jamie Dettmer explained:
Telegram’s Channels Service, which was launched last September, allows messages to be transmitted to an unlimited number of subscribers and for users to break off into highly encrypted private and group chats. In the last few weeks IS militants and other jihadis have resorted again — but in even larger numbers — to the Telegram app to recruit, spread propaganda and, intelligence officials fear, possibly organize and plot attacks in chats that are invisible and can’t be monitored or decoded.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 10, 2016 21 Comments
We are in the midst of a campaign to strip Bill Cosby's name from buildings and other forms of public recognition because of allegations he sexually abused multiple women decades ago. Cosby has not been convicted of a single one of those charges. But that has not stopped action against Cosby in the public sphere. For example, Buzzfeed reported in September 2015, Bill Cosby’s Name Removed From Historically Black University In Ohio:
Central State University, a historically black college in Wilberforce, Ohio, announced Friday it is permanently removing Bill Cosby’s name from a building following the multiple allegations of sexual assault made against the comedian. According to the Associated Press, the school put a temporary cover over the name of the Camille O. & William H. Cosby Communications Center building in July, but in the coming weeks the letters will be removed entirely and replaced with “SCU Communications Center.” The building was named after the comedian when his family donated over $2 million to the school.
Time magazine has compiled a list:

Posted by New Neo on January 10, 2016 25 Comments
I realize that at this point polls don't matter too much, if at all. But they still interest me, because they're the best evidence we've got about public opinion. They can also tell us something about trends, and the trend for Hillary right now appears to be down. The newest national poll is from Fox, based on phone interviews that were conducted from Jan 4-7 and featuring 1006 registered voters, the vast majority of whom said they intend to vote. For Republican respondents the margin of error was 5%, which is rather large. For the entire survey, the margin of error was 3%, which is more typical but still worthy of note when the figures are close. It's very interesting to see what's happening with the projected head-to-head battles of some of the Republican leaders against Hillary Clinton. Mostly the results seem to preserve the patterns each candidate has already established for quite some time, with Rubio doing the best of all (a +9 lead, more than he's had before). Cruz is next with a +7 lead (also bigger than he had before), and Trump has a +3 lead.

Posted by Jonathan Levin on January 10, 2016 27 Comments
Bill Kristol, Founder and Editor of that mainstay of the Republican Establishment, The Weekly Standard, has finally come to recognize Donald Trump's contribution to the Republican candidates as a group. Kristol is not a Trump supporter and has predicted his fall for months.  After Trump derided John McCain's heroism for merely being a POW for five-plus years, Kristol said, "he's dead to me."  In the same interview he opined, "I don't think he'll stay up in the polls, incidentally. Republican primary voters are pro-respect the military. And he showed disrespect for the military." In September, Kristol said on CNN, “I doubt I’d support Donald. I doubt I’d support the Democrat.” Instead, “I think I’d support getting someone good on the ballot as a third party candidate.”  In reporting Kristol's comments, Salon referred to him as a "notorious neocon" and a "neocon prince."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 09, 2016 11 Comments
This story is almost too unbelievable to be true, but it is true. Ezra Nawi is not just another Israeli leftist activist. He was one of the most prominent Israeli activists engaged in direct action to interfere with Israeli military activities in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank"). Nawi's actions brought him accolades abroad. He was featured in a favorable NY Times article in 2009:
For his activist colleagues, Mr. Nawi’s instinctual connection to the Palestinians is valuable. Ezra Nawi was in his element. Behind the wheel of his well-worn jeep one recent Saturday morning, working two cellphones in Arabic as he bounded through the terraced hills and hardscrabble villages near Hebron, he was greeted warmly by Palestinians near and far.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 09, 2016 10 Comments
I really had expected the worst regarding the anti-Israel resolution being voted on at the Business Meeting taking place at the American Historical Association's Annual Meeting in Atlanta. For full background and details, see our prior post, American Historical Association to Consider Anti-Israel Resolution. The Times of Israel also had an extensive write-up today, in which I was extensively quoted. If the Resolution had passed the Business Meeting, it likely would have gone to a full membership vote. I thought the Resolution had a chance because, as I was quoted in The Times of Israel:
“The way these business meetings go is most people don’t show up,” Jacobson said. “Most don’t even go to the annual meeting, and most who do go to the annual meeting don’t go to the business meeting. It comes on the last day, late in the afternoon, when a lot of people have already left town. So if you have an organized group of a couple of hundred people, they may be able to get this through the business meeting because they are the ones most motivated to show up.”
The vote just took place, and the Resolution was soundly defeated, 51 for, 111 against.

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 09, 2016 8 Comments
A new survey shows that Donald Trump has bipartisan appeal and that some Democratic voters would abandon Hillary to vote for him in a general election match-up. If you enjoy imagining nightmare scenarios for Democrats, you'll love this. James Warren of U.S. News and World Report has the story:
Trump Could Win It All So if Donald Trump proved the political universe wrong and won the Republican presidential nomination, he would be creamed by Hillary Clinton, correct? A new survey of likely voters might at least raise momentary dyspepsia for Democrats since it suggests why it wouldn't be a cakewalk. The survey by Washington-based Mercury Analytics is a combination online questionnaire and "dial-test" of Trump's first big campaign ad among 916 self-proclaimed "likely voters" (this video shows the ad and the dial test results). It took place primarily Wednesday and Thursday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on January 09, 2016 23 Comments
Reading the accounts from Cologne about the throngs of Arab men sexually assaulting women in Cologne on New Year's Eve, my first thought went to Lara Logan who suffered a similar fate in Egypt during the "Arab Spring." Lara is continuing to suffer from the unspeakable abuse she endured and was again hospitalized early in 2015.  My second thought went to the Second Amendment. As the evil that was perpetrated on over a hundred women (in Cologne alone) sinks in, the governments in Germany and throughout the western world—reports of similar attacks in Finland are emerging—are feeling more pressure than ever to address the refugee crisis and their own policies. Der Spiegel has published a lengthy and thoughtful article entitled "Chaos and Violence: How New Year's Eve in Cologne Changed Germany."
For some, the events finally bring to light what they have always been saying: that too many foreigners in the country bring too many problems along with them. For the others, that which happened is what they have been afraid of from the very beginning: that ugly images of ugly behavior by migrants would endanger what has been a generally positive mood in Germany with respect to the refugees.
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