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February 2016

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 07, 2016 41 Comments
It's pretty clear what the most talked-about segment of the GOP New Hampshire debate was. When Chris Christie treated Marco Rubio like an accused murderer on the witness stand, alternatively badgering and mocking the witness's alibi for where he was the night of the crime. The witness, though, would not be shaken from his story. It's his story, and he's sticking to it. Needless to say, Chris Christie is trying to portray this as a game changer in the trial known as the Republican primaries:

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 07, 2016 7 Comments
At the last Democrat debate, Hillary Clinton claimed she can't be an establishment candidate simply because she's a woman, running to be the first woman president. That didn't sit well with some young female voters. Jenna Lifhits of the Washington Free Beacon:
Young Women in NH ‘Offended’ Clinton Using Gender as Political Tool Young women in New Hampshire were offended by the way Hillary Clinton uses her gender to garner support, an MSNBC survey revealed Friday. When MSNBC anchor Tamron Hall asked young female voters about Hillary Clinton’s claim on Wednesday that she is not an establishment candidate because she is a woman, they responded negatively.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on February 07, 2016 8 Comments
Last year, Professor Jacobson posted about a Texas school posting a sign that the staff is armed, and now, one Oklahoma school district is following suit and allowing teachers and staff to carry and to use whatever force is necessary to thwart potential attacks. The Muskogee Phoenix reports:
New signs posted on the grounds of Okay Public Schools announce an "Armed School Employees" policy in place. The Okay Public Schools Board of Education passed an “Armed School Employees” policy in August. On Monday, the district publicized that policy with signage in front of the school. “The signs are more or less a deterrent,” Superintendent Charles McMahan said. “We don't want to be a soft target.” McMahan said his administration looks for ways to keep students safe and secure, particularly since the Okay Police Department was disbanded in December 2014. Although Wagoner County sheriff's deputies are available, McMahan said it is “seconds, not minutes, that matter.”
Gun-free zones are soft targets; indeed, one former sheriff describes them as a "helpless victim zones." This move in the Okay school district is very likely to serve as a deterrent.  So far, however, there is only one Okay employee currently approved to carry in Oklahoma and now at school.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on February 07, 2016 20 Comments
Obama's first year in office was a busy one as he worked tirelessly to hinder the government's ability to identify, locate, track, or make common sense connections between Islamists and terrorism. In April of 2009, the DHS released a now-infamous report entitled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment" and in which conservatives were labeled potential terrorists not because they are radical militants but because they are pro-life, support the Tenth Amendment, or are veterans. Michelle Malkin wrote at that time:
It is no coincidence that this report echoes Tea Party-bashing left-wing blogs (check this one out comparing the Tea Party movement to the Weather Underground!) and demonizes the very Americans who will be protesting in the thousands on Wednesday for the nationwide Tax Day Tea Party. From the report, p.2: Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.

Posted by Jonathan Levin on February 07, 2016 5 Comments
The Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC") added five more Russians to the Specially Designated Nationals List pursuant to the Magnitsky Act on February 1. In a press statement, a senior State Department official noted that one of the officials had nothing to do with the murder of the eponymous Sergei Magnitsky, but rather was involved in Russia's brutal war in Chechnya.

Sergei Magnitsky and the Magnitsky Act

The Magnitsky Act is named for Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian attorney arrested on trumped-up charges arising in retaliation for his exposing official Russian corruption in the course of representing of American investor Bill Browder.  Magnitsky died after being beaten by Russian police while in police custody and denied medical treatment despite his injuries and preexisting illness.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on February 07, 2016 20 Comments
There is an old adage that bad things come in threes. Today, there are three omens showing that Hillary Clinton's campaign may be floundering worse than previously imagined. We have covered two of those signs already: Donors wanting to Draft Vice President Joe Biden for the party's nomination and Gloria Steinem indicating women who vote for Senator Bernie Sanders are actually after men. Unexpectedly, that last bit is not playing too terribly well among progressive women.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 06, 2016 82 Comments
Welcome to our live debate coverage. The debate begins at 8:00 PM ET on ABC from St. Anselm's College Institute of Politics, Manchester, New Hampshire. You can watch the live stream here. Who's participating in the debate? Everyone but Jim Gilmore and Carly Fiorina. Your comprehensive list here:
  • Jeb Bush
  • Ben Carson
  • Chris Christie
  • Ted Cruz
  • John Kasich
  • Marco Rubio
  • Donald Trump.
https://twitter.com/FreeBeacon/status/696143040138842113

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 06, 2016 3 Comments
Consider this a follow-up to our prior reporting on the Regressive Left: https://twitter.com/LegInsurrection/status/690402640929411073 The concept of masochists defending sadists came from this article, The Masochists Who Defend Sadists: The Regressive Left in Theory and Practice:
I think they hated the idea of the West and of Empire, so they made a practical and intellectual alliance with people who shared their hatred. It must be remembered, too, that the resistance and its fighters and ideas served as the forerunner of the Islamic State. The Western Left’s solidarity with Islamism and fascism is, I would argue, the Western Left’s greatest shame, at least in my lifetime….

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on February 06, 2016 7 Comments
We've been covering the refugee crisis in Europe and the insistence by Angela Merkel and other EU leaders that the "migrant" crisis is not a factor in the crimes committed by migrants. Such denials have stoked anger in Europe, which has seen horrible crimes like the mass rape and sexual abuse on New Year's Eve. In reaction, a wave of anti-Islamification rallies and protests took place this weekend in Germany, the UK, Denmark, France, and numerous other countries, even in Australia. The Daily Mail reports:

Nationalist groups in Europe have been galvanized by the unprecedented influx of refugees from Africa, Asia and the Middle East last year. Today similar, smaller PEGIDA-style protests were planned in France, Britain, Poland, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands.

In the Czech capital of Prague, thousands rallied against the influx of refugees and others in support of them and opposing protesters clashed and had to be separated by police.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on February 06, 2016 7 Comments
Although she appears to be supporting Hillary this election cycle as she did in 2008, Gloria Steinem endorsed Bernie Sanders in 1996, calling him an "honorary woman."  This is a common, if bizarre, tactic used by progressives to include whites, particularly white males, in their isolated, divisive little groupings of human beings (remember Toni Morrison calling Bill Clinton the "first black president"?).  This works in reverse, too, as we see with attacks on black, female, Hispanic, etc. conservatives:  they aren't "authentic" black people, women, Hispanics, etc. In an interview with Bill Maher, Steinem—a purported feminist and icon among some on the feminist left—has found a new and exciting way to diminish women who don't think as she does:  she explains that the support of young women for Bernie is actually rooted in their desire to attract boys. She argues that Bernie's female supporters are boy crazy and appears to be doing so as a means of demeaning these women.  They're just silly little girls who aren't clever enough to understand politics and are only interested in his candidacy because "that's where the boys are."  Clearly, if they had more sense, they'd support Hillary as she does. Watch:

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 06, 2016 19 Comments
As the child of two very public figures, Chelsea Clinton has enjoyed a certain amount of respect from the political media but now she's acting as a surrogate for her mother's campaign. That changes things, as Professor Jacobson noted in a recent post. A new column from Jack Shafer of Politico echoes that sentiment:
Time for Chelsea Clinton's Easy Ride to End When precisely did Chelsea Clinton complete her transition from a White House kid whom journalists agreed to treat as off-limits to a public figure deserving of the full scrutiny of the press corps?

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 06, 2016 12 Comments
Now that Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton split the vote in Iowa and are essentially tied in some polls, nervous Democrats are starting to think another old, white person might be able to save the day. Reuters reports:
Democratic donor contacts Biden allies about possible run A prominent Democratic donor worried about the party's chances of winning the presidency emailed dozens of fans of Vice President Joe Biden on Friday, urging them to remain prepared to donate if Biden jumps into the race. The donor, Bill Bartmann, cited new polling showing Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont nearly tied with the Hillary Clinton, eroding the 30-point lead the former secretary of state held at the end of last year. Bartmann and other party insiders are concerned that Sanders, a self-proclaimed Democratic socialist, is too far to the left to win against a Republican in the Nov. 8 presidential election.

Posted by New Neo on February 06, 2016 16 Comments
Iowa and New Hampshire could hardly be more different in the composition of their Republican voting population. For example, evangelicals make up a huge percentage of the Iowa GOP voters---well over half. Although there are some evangelicals in New Hampshire, it's a lot smaller group than in Iowa:
Four years ago, just 22% of the state’s primary voters described themselves as evangelicals, well below the 57% in Iowa and the lowest rate among swing states. A 2013 Gallup poll ranked New Hampshire as the second least religious state in the country, behind Vermont, based on churchgoing and the importance of religion in daily life. “Candidates definitely tone things down regarding social issues when they come to the state,” said Stephen Scaer, a 52-year-old special-education teacher who helps run a prayer vigil outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Manchester, N.H., and favors Republican Carly Fiorina. But, he said, “that’s simply pragmatic. If candidates want to win, they have to.”
The common wisdom on New Hampshire is that it's fiscally conservative and socially liberal; there are a lot of libertarians there, too ("Live Free or Die" is still alive in New Hampshire).

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 05, 2016 19 Comments
Am I being trolled? Because I feel like I'm being trolled. Favored intellectual journal of American feminists, Cosmo (the same rag that started the tampon tax nonsense) bemoaned increased birth rates in their latest exposé. They argue that restricted funding to Texas-based Planned Parenthoods "effectively defunded" the abortion mill. As a result, few claims for contraceptive measure have been filed and more babies have been born in locals where Planned Parenthood is no more. MORE BABIES?! THE HORROR!

Posted by Andrew Branca on February 05, 2016 37 Comments
This week saw a flurry of motions from both the State prosecutors and defense counsel in preparation for the upcoming "Freddie Gray" trial of Baltimore Police Office Edward Nero, scheduled to begin February 22.  These were primarily in limine motions, which are motions asking the court to exclude particular evidence from the trial, often because the evidence is arguably irrelevant or prejudicial. One of these motions by Nero's defense counsel, Marc Zayon, asks the court to prohibit the State from presenting arguments and evidence about on the issue of the legality of the spring-assisted knife the arresting officers found in Freddie Gray's pocket.  (This motion is embedded at the bottom of this post.) The defense noted that the State had identified an expert witness on knives, presumably for the purpose of testifying on the legality, or lack thereof of Gray's knife.  Their motion seeks to prevent such evidence and argument on this issue at trial. You may recall that in initially bringing charges against the police officers involved in Freddie Gray's arrest and transport, State prosecutors initially argued that the claimed probable cause for that arrest--Gray's possession of a purportedly unlawful "spring-assisted knife" -- did not in fact exist because the knife in Gray's possession was not illegal as a matter of law.
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