Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

March 2016

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 05, 2016 25 Comments
Marco Rubio spoke at CPAC this morning. Based on the video, it looked like a full house and enthusiastic crowd. The Washington Times reports:
Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida on Saturday told the conservative grassroots that the country’s young people won’t have a chance if Democrats keep control of the White House — or if the conservative movement is “hijacked” by someone who’s not a conservative. “Being a conservative can never be about simply an attitude. Being a conservative cannot simply be about how long you’re willing to scream, how angry you’re willing to be, or how many names you’re willing to call people,” Mr. Rubio said at the 2016 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), to sustained applause. “I think there’s a growing amount of confusion about what conservatism is,” he said. “And it is time for us to understand that conservatism is not built on personalities. Conservatism is not simply built on how angry you might seem from time to time.”

Posted by Taryn O'Neill on March 05, 2016 4 Comments
In his speech Thursday at CPAC, Rick Santorum spent much of his time describing to the crowd what he believes everyday, blue-collar Republican is feeling. While much of the party as a whole is frightened over the possibility of a Trump nomination, Santorum stressed to CPAC that the blue-collar conservative has been worried about not just the party, but the country for decades. "They're seeing the conservative movement, the Republican party potentially being torn up. They're nervous as all heck as to what they're going to do," Santorum said. "Well, now you know how the American public has been feeling over the past ten, twenty, thirty years. " Santorum centered his speech around two statistics, one being that 90% of Americans aged 25-65 are working and the other that almost 70% Americans aged 25-65 do not hold a college degree. Bringing back themes similar to his 2012 presidential campaign, Santorum stressed that conservatives among the above groups have significant worries about their jobs, families, and the trajectory of the country since. They have had these concerns since the end of the Reagan presidency afterglow.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 05, 2016 6 Comments
I had not thought in a long time about Richard Reid, who attempted the shoe bombing of a passenger jet on December 22, 2001. You can read the indictment here, and the government's sentencing memo here. I thought about him early this morning when I read an old post of mine from 2011, about his sentencing by Judge William Young of the U.S. District Court in Boston in January 2003. It brings tears to my eyes every time I read it.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 05, 2016 31 Comments
As mentioned the other day with regard to a surge in "Move to Canada" Google Searches, there will be a collective freak out in certain places if Trump wins. The freak out has already started. The Washington Post reports Psychologists and massage therapists are reporting ‘Trump anxiety’ among clients
If there is an unofficial capital of psychotherapy, it’s New York’s Upper West Side, where it’s easier to find a therapist than a parking space. Judith Schweiger Levy, a psychologist in the neighborhood, has noticed a recent uptick in Trump references among her patients, including a middle-aged businesswoman who blurted out this week that her sister is supporting the billionaire.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on March 04, 2016 50 Comments
Ted Cruz is an excellent public speaker, and today's CPAC speech was yet more evidence of this (and look, Obama, no teleprompter!). The crowd is clearly enthusiastic about Cruz, the raucous cheers almost drown out his introduction.  Of course he takes jabs at Trump for cancelling his scheduled CPAC appearance, saying that Trump must have heard that Megyn Kelly, conservatives, libertarians, or young people would be there.  The crowd went wild.  There were a few lone voices trying to chant "Trump, Trump, Trump," but they were quickly drowned out by the CPAC audience's booing. Cruz gives a wonderful speech about the principles that make America great in the first place, something he implies is not well-understood by Trump, and he talks about how to free the economy, secure our nation, and keep Americans free in the process:  jobs, security, and liberty were his themes.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 04, 2016 5 Comments
The Vassar College Student Association is in the midst of a highly contentious debate over whether to adopt an anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolution and bylaws amendment proposed by Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.  SJP takes the position that the BDS resolution includes an academic boycott, though there is no explicit language to that effect in the resolution. There also is a counter-resolution by Vassar J Street U which condemns Israel's occupation of the West Bank, but does not call for a boycott. The vote is Sunday night, March 6, 2016. The BDS vote will be anonymous, while the J Street U vote will be on the record. Scroll through our Vassar College Tag for numerous recent reports on the campus atmosphere and conflict created by the BDS resolution, as well as the history of BDS and anti-Semitism at Vassar. There was an important development today. In a mass email to all students, VSA's Executive Board indicated it had been informed by the administration that Student Activity Funds used to fund VSA may be taken out of the control of VSA should the BDS resolution be adopted. (Full email at bottom of post.)

Posted by Leslie Eastman on March 04, 2016 7 Comments
In the wake of Super Tuesday, the new hero to many Democrats is the lone voter in Massachusetts who swung a district into the Bernie Sanders column. I have seen this graphic heralded almost continuously over the past days in my social media feed:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on March 04, 2016 59 Comments
While Marco Rubio won his first state (Minnesota) and surged late in Virginia and Ted Cruz won his home state of Texas, Oklahoma, and Alaska for a total of four state wins, Donald Trump did very well in the Super Tuesday primaries.  So well, in fact, that conservatives are beginning to search in earnest for a means to win the GOP nomination with a conservative candidate. One such idea is being touted as the "Unity" ticket of Cruz and Rubio (or Rubio and Cruz, though this seems less likely). Writing at The Resurgent, Erick Erickson argues for this in stark terms: "Unite or Die."
To truly beat Trump and keep his supporters from completely fleeing, Trump must be beaten in the primaries, not on the floor of the convention. And it is still mathematically possible, but it requires Cruz to win Florida, not Rubio. All of this talk by Rubio voters about later states, closed primaries, and favorability ignores voter psychology and, frankly, ignores the fact that Marco Rubio’s Gang of Eight position has poisoned the well too much for too many Republican voters. It will, in fact, go down as one of the worse political miscalculations in the last quarter century. All of this talk by Rubio voters ignores that Rubio and Cruz together can win Florida and Ohio, but divided cannot and only increase the odds of either a Trump nomination or the delegitimization of the process by which the GOP will pick its nominee.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on March 04, 2016 26 Comments
In the annals of criminal trials, I cannot recall one as infamous as the O.J. Simpson criminal trial for the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. In a shocking new twist to this case, a knife that had been located by a construction worker at O.J. Simpon's estate four years after the slaughter is only now in the hands of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 04, 2016 180 Comments
One has to wonder if the increasing conservative attacks are the reason why Donald Trump dropped out of his CPAC appearance at the last minute. At least the Twitter chatter I've seen the past day from people at the conference was pretty hostile. And let's face it, Ted Cruz took him to the cleaners last night at the debate on conservative issues.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on March 04, 2016 13 Comments
New York City mayor, Bill De Blasio, has taken a peculiar stance in his defense of the increase of stabbings in NYC; he asserts that these stabbings are the (positive?) result of fewer guns on the streets. Fox5ny reports:
New York mayor Bill de Blasio is trying to put a positive spin on a recent rash of stabbings and slashings across the city.  He credits the NYPD taking guns off of the street. "I'm not a criminologist but I can safely say that guns are being taken off the street in an unprecedented way.  Some people, unfortunately, are turning to a different weapon," de Blasio says. New Yorkers have been on edge because of a series of highly-reported attacks, including several seemingly random attacks on the subways.  The city was averaging more than 10 stabbing attacks a day in the first six weeks of the year.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 04, 2016 4 Comments
The Vassar College Student Association  council is voting anonymously on March 6, 2016, on an anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions resolution proposed by Vassar Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Vassar Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). For details, see Vassar anti-Israel activists attempt stealth academic boycott Resolution. For years the BDS campaign on campus has been punctuated by crude and misleading accusations against Israel, and an implicit and sometimes explicit argument that Zionism is inherently racist. Overt anti-Semitism rears its head from time to time. In researching Vassar's history, I came upon an interesting historical contrast with the current situation. In November 1975, the U.N. General Assembly passed the notorious (and now rescinded) "Zionism is Racism" Resolution. Then U.S. UN Ambassador Daniel Moynihan spoke eloquently in rebuttal of spoke of the “infamous” Zionism is Racism act.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 04, 2016 1 Comment
Supporters of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) scored a big win many years ago when they managed to pass a boycott of Israeli products at the Olympia Food Coop in Olympia, Washington. It was the first such successful coop boycott, and I believe either the only one or one of only a very small number. A similar move was attempted in Ithaca at the GreenStar Food Coop. The GreenStar council rejected the boycott as possibly in violation of New York's anti-discrimination law, Huge BDS loss – GreenStar Food Coop rejects Israel boycott. After the Olympia BDS policy was adopted, numerous members sued. That suit originally was thrown out of court, but in May 2015 the Washington State Supreme Court reversed. We reported at the time, a Big Win for Washington anti-BDS Activists:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 04, 2016 5 Comments
The NRA has a very well-done video series, Freedom's Safest Place. The latest video is Venezuela:
I emigrated from Venezuela—one of the most dangerous countries in the world today. A few years ago, the government came for our guns. We were told we would be safer without them. Of course, the politicians, the rich and famous, their bodyguards and criminals—they still have their guns. Everyone else lives in fear. Mothers and fathers are powerless to defend their families. But the drug cartels and gangs—the colectivos—still have all the guns they want. And 90 percent of murders are never solved.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 03, 2016 73 Comments
This should be fun. As usual, we have live Twitter feeds below, and will post updates. This is now basically "Stop Trump" time for the others. But can it be done? Watch below and react in the comment section. If we can find a live video feed, we'll add that.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 03, 2016 9 Comments
In the midst of the political circus, I missed this important testimony by the U.S.Commander of NATO about how ISIS has thoroughly infiltrated refugees, and how Russia is using the refugee crisis to undermine Europe. The Guardian reports:
Refugees from the Middle East and north Africa are “masking the movement” of terrorists and criminals, Nato’s top commander told Congress on Tuesday, despite the protests of human rights groups who say that refugees overwhelmingly have no ulterior motive but escape. In testimony to the Senate armed services committee, US general Philip Breedlove said that the Islamic State terror group is “spreading like a cancer” among refugees. The group’s members are “taking advantage of paths of least resistance, threatening European nations and our own”, he added. Breedlove also blamed Russia’s bombing campaign in Syria, in support of autocratic leader Bashar al-Assad, for having “wildly exacerbated the problem”.
MORE POSTS
Accessibility by WAH