Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

February 2016

Posted by AACONS on February 19, 2016 0 Comments
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, and editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review." Dan Bongino served in the Secret Service during the administrations of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. He is also a former candidate for both the House and the Senate, and currently hosts a radio show on WMAL, and ConservativeReview.com. His first book, Life Inside the Bubble, was a New York Timesbestseller. And his latest book is titled “The Fight: A Secret Service Agent's Inside Account of Security Failings and the Political Machine.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 18, 2016 39 Comments
Between the anti-Israel activity on campus that has generated enormous media attention, and the protest against a feminist Professor who allegedly used improper transgender pronouns, there is plenty of turmoil on the Vassar College campus. Now there is another point of conflict, a demand by students that all bathrooms be converted to "all-gender." Vassar College already has undertaken a Gender Neutral Bathroom Initiative:
The Gender Neutral Bathrooms Initiative is a project to address the lack of gender neutral bathrooms in Vassar’s academic and administrative buildings. In order to ensure that all students have a place where they feel safe using the bathroom, we want to make sure that there is at least one accessible gender neutral bathroom in each academic and administrative building. Currently, there are 13 buildings on campus have no gender neutral bathroom option. The goal is not to turn every bathroom gender neutral, but make sure that everybody has a choice in each building.
This effort, however, is inadequate to a student group identifying as the Vassar Queer Health Initiative, which has opened a drive to compel that all bathrooms on campus be "all-gender." The effort was announced in Boilerplate magazine, Taking Vassar's “LGBT Friendliness” To Task: The Case for All Gender Bathrooms:

Posted by Taryn O'Neill on February 18, 2016 6 Comments
China has deployed an advanced anti-aircraft missile system to a contested island in the South China Sea, Pentagon officials confirmed on Tuesday. The news came as President Obama concluded a two-day conference at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Sunnylands, California. Satellite images from February 14 show several HQ-9 missile launchers lined along the beach of Woody Island of the Paracel Island chain. The HQ-9 is a medium to long-range surface-to-air missile system with advanced radar homing capabilities. It can shoot down missiles as well as aircraft up to 125 miles away. That the missiles were discovered at the same time President Obama met with ten other ASEAN world leaders is likely no coincidence. Obama said the leaders convened to "discuss the need for tangible steps in the South China Sea to lower tensions, including a halt to further reclamation, new construction, and militarization of disputed areas."

Posted by Katy Grimes on February 18, 2016 12 Comments
California truck and business owners initiated a lawsuit against the California Air Resources Board because of exploding trucks and roadside fires, due to the CARB’s mandatory, faulty diesel particulate filters, they say. Ironically, the filters even fail at cleaning the air. The Alliance for California Business, a voluntary group whose purpose is to protect and promote business interests throughout California, says Diesel Particulate Filters have started more than 31 fires in the last two years, including several in areas of the state parched by the drought. The Diesel Particulate Filters are the result of environmental regulations created by the California Air Resources Board, and were based on a deeply flawed study led by a researcher accused of faking his Ph.D. credential. The CARB was aware of employee Hien Tran and his phony Ph.D. credentials and flawed research, yet instead, rushed head-on to meet its self-imposed schedule in creating the diesel regulations on truckers.

Trucking Companies Devastated

Bud Caldwell, Alliance for California Business president and owner of 11 trucks, says the truck fires are started below the truck’s engine compartment. The primary issue is whether properly maintained Diesel Particulate Filters can become clogged when the filter system fails to regenerate and burn larger diesel particulates into ultrafine particulate ash, Caldwell says.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 18, 2016 106 Comments
Asked about Donald Trump Thursday, Pope Francis responded to a reporter saying, "“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.” Pope Francis' full remarks are here: pope francis full remarks The news reached Trump shortly before a press conference. He responded by calling Pope Francis, "disgraceful."

Posted by Sarah Rumpf on February 18, 2016 42 Comments
A legal fight between Apple and the FBI is highlighting some critically important issues in the debate between privacy and security. After the San Bernardino attacks, an iPhone 5C belonging to one of the two shooters, Syed Rizwan Farook, was among the evidence gathered by the FBI. The FBI obtained a warrant to search the contents of the iPhone, but Farook's iPhone, like most people's, is protected by a passcode that encrypts the data on the phone and prevents anyone without the code from accessing it. Apple's security systems are designed to prevent hacking attempts like "brute-force attacks" by requiring delays after wrong passcode guesses and an auto-delete function that is activated after ten incorrect attempts. The FBI went to court to obtain an order to get Apple to help them get around these security features and access the data on Farook's phone. Court orders Apple to help the FBI; Apple refuses to comply

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 18, 2016 104 Comments
At the South Carolina Debate, Donald Trump accused George W. Bush of lying us into the Iraq War by knowningly claiming there were WMD in Iraq when he knew there were none. While Trump has backed away from that statement slightly saying it might have just been a mistake, though not admitting he has backed away, his debate accusations were clear: Trump further has claimed that he was against the Iraq War before it started, though no one has been able to find any record of Trump saying so prior to the War starting.

Posted by New Neo on February 18, 2016 13 Comments
This is potentially disturbing and seems to be part of a trend in Western Europe:
Following a report of a series of alleged offensive online posts relating to Syrian refugees living in Rothesay on Bute, Police Scotland confirmed on Tuesday that a 40-year-old man, understood to be from the Inverclyde area, had been arrested under the Communications Act... Following the arrest, Insp Ewan Wilson from Dunoon police office said: “I hope that the arrest of this individual sends a clear message that Police Scotland will not tolerate any form of activity which could incite hatred and provoke offensive comments on social media.”
In the United States, the only way this sort of arrest might be justified would be if the social media postings were used to specifically call for an imminent act of violence against refugees. That would be tantamount to enforcing our own very limited "incitement to riot" exceptions to our free speech policies.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on February 18, 2016 7 Comments
With each passing day, it gets more and more difficult to ignore the monumental disaster that Obama’s foreign policy actually is. Nowhere is its utter failure more glaringly evident than in the Syrian Civil War. But first, let us not underestimate the pathologies of the Middle East that have led to the present disaster in Syria, but Obama administration’s policies have created perils that we would be dealing with, in decades to come. The geopolitical vacuum created by President Obama’s push to shrink America’s footprint in the Middle East has quickly been filled by Comrade Putin’s soviet-style jackboots. And President Obama-backed Nuclear Deal has single-handedly contributed billions of dollars to Islamic Republic of Iran’s war chest geared at funding global terrorism and regional adventures.

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 18, 2016 28 Comments
Just four years ago, the Democrats were calling the GOP the party of old white people. Today, Democrats are running two old white people while the Republican candidates have been extremely diverse. Despite this new reality, Hillary Clinton is clinging to accusations of racism against Republicans, in this case because there is opposition to letting Obama choose Justice Scalia's successor. The Washington Post reports:
Clinton: ‘Racial language,’ ‘bigotry’ part of Republican Supreme Court delay Days after Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly in Texas, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has fused two of the most controversial issues of the 2016 campaign — the debate over who should choose Scalia’s successor, and race.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 17, 2016 12 Comments
For the past two years we have been reporting on extreme anti-Israelism veering into anti-Semitism at Vassar College, in Poughkeepsie, NY. We have relentlessly documented a series of shocking events. Among other things, in 2014 Jewish students who stood up at a campus-wide forumwere mocked and jeered by a raucous crowd of students and faculty, a class was picketed and a professor forced to cross a picket line of ululating students because the course involved a trip to Israel (and the West Bank), Students for Justice in Palestine posted a Nazi cartoon on social media, and pro-Israel displays were vandalized. Just recently, a Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolution campaign kick-off by SJP and Jewish Voice for Peace, followed by a faculty-sponsored event at which Israel was accused of engaging in an experiment to “stunt” Palestinian bodies, led to anti-Semitic messages on campus Yik-Yak. Just recently, SJP sold t-shirts honoring Palestinian airplane hijacker Leila Khalid. https://www.facebook.com/SJPatVC/photos/a.569972329734862.1073741828.569630543102374/1026058340792923/?type=3 The reaction from the Vassar President to alumni complaints and concerns was to blame the messenger, accusing "online publications" and "social media" of mischaracterizing the campus atmosphere.

Posted by Jonathan Levin on February 17, 2016 5 Comments
French banking giant BNP Paribas is shutting down a major financing source for the Boycott, Divest and Sanction ("BDS") campaign in Germany.  This is the latest in an anti-BDS trend in Germany and, potentially, the first step in cutting of BDS funding in Europe. Benjamin Weinthall, a Fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies wrote in The Jerusalem Post:
The Munich-based DAB Bank is slated to discontinue the account of one of the top BDS campaign websites in Germany, the Jerusalem Post has learned. The BDS-Kampagne [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Campaign] group’s website lists DAB Bank Munich as the financial institution for electronic money transfers. The Post uncovered the DAB bank account for the BDS campaign website targeting Israel.
This is good news in-and-of-itself, but actually understates the implications.  First, it is part of a broader anti-BDS trend in Germany.  According to JPost:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 17, 2016 13 Comments
Maybe this is why Hillary is coughing so much, and barking like a dog. You remember the January 29, 2016, Friday night Hillary Email Dump – minus the 22 Top Secret ones. No one knew what was in those 22 Top Secret emails, because they were Top Secret:
It’s Friday night. So the State Department just released a new batch of Hillary emails. Because weekend. There are 22 emails, however that will not be released:
The State Department has concluded there is “top secret” material in Hillary Clinton’s email correspondence from the time she was secretary of state, indicating that some of her emails will never be released, even in heavily redacted form, because they are too sensitive for the public to view. State Department spokesman John Kirby said the material crosses seven email chains, amounting to 37 pages worth of material.
Now we are getting some insight. Catherine Herridge from Fox News reports, Clinton email chain discussed Afghan national's CIA ties, official says:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 17, 2016 25 Comments
In this edition of Today in Political Attack Ads, no one is handling the mudslinging too well.

Cruz campaign asks stations to stop airing anti-Cruz attack ad

Oh, boo hoo. Politics is a blood sport. Time for everyone to put their big boy pants on and stop whining about attack ads. Politico reports:
Ted Cruz's campaign sent a letter to TV stations across South Carolina and Georgia on Tuesday, demanding that they stop airing what it calls "a false attack ad" from the conservative super PAC American Future Fund that goes after the Texas senator on national security. "The ad falsely claims 'Cruz proposed mass legalization of illegal immigrants.' Ted Cruz has never introduced, outlined, or supported any policy that would give legal status to illegal immigrants," wrote Eric Brown, general counsel to the campaign, in the letter shared with the media. "Indeed, quite the opposite, Ted Cruz led the fight in Congress against legislation written by Senator Rubio, among others, that created legal permanent status for millions of people in the country unlawfully. At least two fact-checks have evaluated this claim and determined it to be false, and others found no evidence to support it.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 17, 2016 4 Comments
I don't normally watch Stephen Colbert on the Late Show. Somehow, it turned up on my TV last night. I'm not even sure I could replicate the error. When I heard him turn to the topic of Antonin Scalia I thought, oh boy, here we go. But I was so pleasantly surprised. Colbert told of his one personal interaction with Scalia, and it was both funny and moving, as Salon.com reported:
“Whether or not you agreed with him–or made a lot of jokes about him, like I did–one thing you’ve got to admit is that he had a great sense of humor,” Colbert began. “People have actually broken down the transcripts of oral arguments, and he told more jokes and got more laughs than any of the other justices.” “I was lucky enough to have one conversation with Antonin Scalia that explained his appeal to me,” Colbert continued, describing his speech at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner. “Not many people laughed in the front row,” where the “important people” sit.
MORE POSTS
Accessibility by WAH