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February 2016

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 01, 2016 130 Comments
The Iowa results are Cruz - Trump - Rubio, in that order, with Rubio surprisingly strong and (as of this writing) very close to taking second place. This is a big blow to Trump, and a big win for Cruz. Trump seemed unstoppable, with the most recent polls showing him up by 7 points. That is the big story of the night. At least in one state, Trumpmentum was stopped for a night. While Trump is far ahead in the polls in New Hampshire and nationally, this could burst the media narrative of inevitability. For Cruz, it's vindication. He has come under the sharpest attack in the past two weeks, and has been subjected to the sort of vetting and scrutiny that -- while uncomfortable -- was better coming now than later. Cruz Iowa Results 2

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 01, 2016 32 Comments
Welcome to our Iowa Caucus liveblog. We'll be updating periodically, so be sure to refresh your browser for the latest news. For the skinny on how this whole shindig works, see previous earlier post here.

Watch real time reaction:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 01, 2016 19 Comments
Judicial Watch obtained records that could implicate State Department officials in Hillary Clinton's ongoing email scandal. According to those records, State Department officials planned to provide Clinton with a non-DOS computer.
Judicial Watch announced today that it recently received records from the Department of State disclosing plans by senior State Department officials to set up a “stand-alone PC” so that Clinton could check her emails in an office “across the hall” through a separate, non-State Department computer network system. Referencing the special Clinton computer system, Under Secretary for Management Patrick F. Kennedy, writes Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, “The stand-alone separate network PC is a great idea.” The emails are from January 23-24, 2009, a few days after Clinton was sworn in as Secretary of State. The new emails were obtained by Judicial Watch in response a court order in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for State Department records about Hillary Clinton’s separate email system (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00689)).

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 01, 2016 39 Comments
Welcome to our Iowa Caucus open thread. We'll be updating periodically, so be sure to refresh your browser for the latest. Caucus results will posted in a separate thread beginning at 8:00 PM ET, when the Caucus begins.

How does the Iowa Caucus work?

First things first. The Iowa Caucus explained:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 01, 2016 7 Comments
The NY Times, as most of Western media, always is looking for a "reason" for the current Palestinian wave of terror that is unrelated to Palestinian responsibility. It's always a search for a way to excuse the terror, including the knifings by Palestinian teens of Israelis, particularly targeting Israeli women. A January 19, 2016, NYT article by Steven Erlinger typifies the genre, Anger in a Palestinian Town Feeds a Cycle of Violence
Raed Jaradat was 22, an accounting student from a well-to-do family here, already working part time with his father in his stone quarry and construction business. After Dania Ersheid, 17, was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers who said she had pulled a knife at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, a version disputed by Palestinians, Mr. Jaradat wrote an angry post on Facebook: “Imagine if this were your sister!”
Stephen Flatow takes apart both the Erlinger article and the genre, Let’s play the ‘blame Israel game’ with The New York Times:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 01, 2016 22 Comments
Privacy advocates are not going to like this one. Vigilant Solutions, a vehicle surveillance broker has offered access to its, "massive automated license plate reader databases," to Texas law enforcement agencies. The catch? Vigilant receives access to outstanding court fees and receives 25% of any delinquent fines. Wired has the story:
Vehicle surveillance broker Vigilant Solutions has offered Texas law enforcement agencies “free” access to its massive automated license plate reader databases and analytical tools— but only if the police give Vigilant access to all of their data on outstanding court fees and hand the company a 25 percent surcharge from money collected from drivers with outstanding court fines. Vigilant also gets to keep a copy of any license-plate data collected by the police, even after the contract ends, and can retain it indefinitely.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 01, 2016 63 Comments
Logically, Donald Trump should be the worst candidate against the Hillary machine. He has a colorful history that would be an oppo-researcher's dream.  Like taking candy from a baby. And his negatives are in the stratosphere. Gallup just released a survey showing that Trump's negatives not only are high, they are of a historic nature:
At this point (two-week average through Jan. 27), 33% of Americans view Trump favorably and 60% unfavorably. It's that 60% unfavorable figure that I can focus on here. Hillary Clinton currently has a 52% unfavorable rating among all Americans, while Jeb Bush is at 45%, Chris Christie 38%, Ted Cruz 37%, Marco Rubio 33%, Bernie Sanders 31% and Ben Carson 30%. Trump's 60% is clearly well above all of these. Putting his favorable and unfavorable ratings together yields a net favorable of -27 for Trump, far above the -10 for Clinton and for Bush, the next lowest among the major candidates.... Looking across all of these candidates' unfavorable ratings outside of election years yields this conclusion: Only one of them, George W. Bush, ever had an unfavorable rating of 60% or higher. For Bush, his unpopularity crested in his final lame-duck year in office, with an unfavorable rating that hit 66% in April 2008.
In the RCP average Trump trails Hillary by 2.7% in a head-to-head match up, while Rubio is up 2.5% and Cruz is up 1.3%. Yet, it seems that notwithstanding the Dem spin that they fear Rubio the most, the Clinton War Room is preparing for Trump, and is confounded. Politico reports, How Clinton is plotting to go after Trump:

Posted by David Gerstman on February 01, 2016 4 Comments
In the middle of January, I dissected Vox video purporting to distill the Arab-Israeli conflict into 10 minutes. But those ten  minutes were littered with countless errors and omissions. I wasn' t the only one weighing in, of course. Elder of Ziyon, one of the longest running pro-Israel bloggers has taken the criticism to a new level, in a video critique of the Vox video. This is no easy task - and I admire his patience and cool - as his critique of the first three minutes clocked in at 17 minutes. As Elder put it:
I'm not certain I will create parts 2 and 3, because I don't know who will want to spend maybe 45 minutes listening to a critique of a ten minute video. Literally every ten seconds I nI ceeded to stop to respond to another distortion or lie.
I certainly had that feeling reviewing the video:

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 01, 2016 12 Comments
Back at the first Democrat debate, Bernie famously said people were sick of hearing about Hillary's "damn emails" but now he's acknowledging that it's a serious issue. When CNN's Jake Tapper asked about it, Bernie also insisted that he's not politicizing the issue. David Rutz of the Washington Free Beacon:
Sanders on Clinton Emails: ‘I Think This Is a Very Serious Issue’ Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) said he considered Hillary Clinton’s private email server investigation to be “a very serious issue” Sunday on CNN, while also adding there was a legal process taking place that he did not want to politicize. At the conclusion of their interview, State of the Union host Jake Tapper reminded Sanders of his famous remarks at the first Democratic debate in October, when he told Clinton the American people were “sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.”
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