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April 2016

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 05, 2016 28 Comments
Dave Bry is the author of Public Apology: In Which a Man Grapples With a Lifetime of Regret, One Incident at a Time. I suspect he is going to have one more regret to add to his list: Writing a column in The Guardian asking if its immoral to have children... because "Climate Change."
...For while the world is a wonderful place, one we humans have made nicer for ourselves with wonderful inventions like books and record players, penicillin and pizza, it’s also a really awful place, one we’ve ravaged with deforestation and smog, nuclear weapons and mountains of pizza delivery boxes and other garbage. The awfulness seems to be getting worse, especially now that climate change has sped up – sea level rise that was supposed to take centuries has recently been projected as taking just decades. This complicates the already difficult decision of whether to have a kid.... Was I complicit in the damage? I remember every extra paper towel I’ve ever unspooled from the roll, and think about a tree falling in the Amazon, and then think about my son growing up in a gray, dying world – walking towards Kansas on potholed highways. Maybe while trying to protect his own son, like the father in The Road. Will he decide to have a kid? I have foisted upon him a decision even more difficult than my own. It’s all very depressing.

Posted by Occam's Razor on April 05, 2016 4 Comments
We wrote earlier about the upcoming academic Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) vote at the New York University graduate student union. In that context we mentioned similar efforts underway at the City University of New York (CUNY) and Columbia. Well, it didn’t take long! The Doctoral Students Council at the CUNY Graduate Center has just announced that a vote on a resolution calling for the boycott of Israeli academic institutions will take place at their meeting on April 15th. CUNY Graduate_Center_Flags_460px_306px

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 05, 2016 17 Comments
To those of us of a certain generation, who grew up in the NY City area, the name Kitty Genovese brings chills to the spine. One of my first memories, when I must have been about 5 (I can place the age mostly because of where we were living at the time) was hearing of some woman strangled. I don't recall the name of the women, and probably was not told by my parents, but given the timeline, that woman likely was Kitty Genovese. This March 27, 1964 NY Times report tells the story, 37 Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police:
For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law‐abiding cit­izens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 05, 2016 98 Comments
All eyes are on Wisconsin. Before I get to today's primary, let's take a look back at one of my favorite political periods in the history of the world - the defeat of the Recall against Governor Scott Walker after over a year of protests against the public sector union collective bargaining reform bill. It was what I called Wisconsin's Long, Strange Trip, linking to our exhaustive coverage of all the crazy:
Police insurrections.  Palace guards.  Catch a Senator contests.  Doctors behaving badly.  Massive national solidarity protests which weren’t.  Identity theft as political theater.  Shark jumping.  Legislators who run away to other states.  Busbang bangs.  Protesters locking their heads to metal railings and pretending to walk like Egyptians.  Beer attacks.  Canoe flotillas.  (alleged) Judicial chokeholds.  Tears falling on Che Guevara t-shirts at midnight.  Endless recalls.  And recounts.  Communications Directors making threats.   Judges who think they are legislators (well, I’ll grant you that one is common).  V-K Day.  Hole-y warriors.  Cities namedSpeculation and Conjecture.  And the funniest blog headline so far:
First They Came For The Right To Retire After 30 Years On Full Salary With COLAs
When Walker defeated the Recall late in the evening of June 5, 2012, it was Oh what a night. That was a time when the Legal Insurrection community was more united and cohesive, and thousands of us celebrated the win with the inaugural launch of website fireworks and John Phillip Sousa music:

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on April 05, 2016 7 Comments
More than 70 years after the fall of Nazi regime the government in Germany is tightening the noose on free speech. In a latest incident, Germany’s state-run television has removed a satirical clip critical of Turkish President Recep Erdogan. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called up the Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to apologise for the “deliberately abusive text.” This was an about-turn from Germany’s prior stance on the issue. Only last week, Germany’s top diplomat Markus Ederer had told his Turkish counterpart that freedom of press in Germany was “not negotiable.” However, with over 3 million Turkish immigrants now living in Germany and Europe’s growing dependency on Turkey to regulate migration on its outer borders, has placed Turkey’s President Erdogan in a very strong bargaining position. On Monday, the Program Director of Germany’s largest broadcaster ZDF, Norbert Himmler announced channel's decision to delete the two-minute clip ridiculing Turkey’s Islamist leader’s lavish lifestyle and crackdown on democracy. Himmler told the media that were “limits to irony and satire” and “in this case, [limits] were clearly exceeded.”

Posted by New Neo on April 05, 2016 5 Comments
Some of the Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram have been freed, but their vale of tears has not ended with their liberation. There are tragedies so deep, suffering so vast, that it's hard to know what to say in the face of them. Certainly it's hard to know what to do, even for those who try to help. These are young women and in many cases young girls who were initially subjected to the trauma of kidnapping. Then they were raped over and over again, sometimes by different men or sometimes by a particular man who maintained he was that girl's husband. They were kept prisoner, harangued, indoctrinated, and often became pregnant and bore the children of their captors. For them, even the process of being freed was devastating, violent, and sometimes resulted in the death of some of the captives during the melee. And now that they are free, they are further restricted---to special camps run by the Nigerian army---and ostracized from society.

Posted by Mike LaChance on April 05, 2016 1 Comment
Hillary Clinton has finally agreed to another debate with Bernie Sanders after days of taunting between the two campaigns. The debate will happen in Brooklyn on April 14th. Brooklyn is an interesting choice because Clinton's campaign headquarters is there and it's also hipster central and therefore, a hotbed of support for Sanders. ABC News has the details:
Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders Agree to Debate in Brooklyn The Democratic candidates' debate over debates has been resolved —- at least for now.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 04, 2016 151 Comments
If Donald Trump gets 1237 delegates prior to the Republican convention, it's lights out. But that is looking less and less likely unless Trump scores a major upset in Wisconsin on Tuesday, at the Colorado convention on April 9 (where the delegates technically are unbound but the sides are fighting to get their people selected as in North Dakota), and wins big in New York on April 19. Cruz has little chance himself of getting to 1237 prior to the convention, so his strategy is focused on the second ballot. That strategy, as it is playing out in real time, has two components: Make sure only Trump and Cruz are the choices facing the convention, and make sure there are large defections on the second ballot of delegates pledged to Trump on the first ballot.

Strategy, Part 1: Keep it Trump or Cruz

When it comes to keeping it to two, Trump and Cruz are on the same page. They are planning to fight to keep Kasich from being put in nomination, much less someone not currently in the race. The NY Times reports:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 04, 2016 7 Comments
Corporal Daniel A. Miller will be headed to Washington, D.C. on an Honor Flight next week. He served in the Pacific theatre during World War II as a TEC 5. Three of his now-late brothers also fought in World War II, though Corporal Miller is the last of his thirteen siblings still with us. Honor Flight is an incredible program. It's "non-profit organization created solely to honor America’s veterans for all their sacrifices. We transport our heroes to Washington, D.C. to visit and reflect at their memorials." More than 20,000 veterans were flown in to their memorials last year alone. His great-grandson, Joshua Perry, is asking anyone who feels compelled to do so send Corporal Miller a short note, which he'll receive on his honor flight, April 16.

Posted by Sarah Rumpf on April 04, 2016 12 Comments
On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a unanimous ruling in Evenwel v. Abbott, a voting rights case that dealt with how districts are drawn. The opinion was written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito concurring. With the unanimous ruling, Justice Antonin Scalia's death was not a direct factor in this decision, but since the Court left a major issue still open, the critical question of who will fill Scalia's seat still looms.

When drawing district lines, who should be counted?

The case originated when two Texas residents, Sue Evenwel and Edward Pfenninger, challenged the state's legislative redistricting, which currently includes the total population of the area, as is commonly done across the country. The plaintiffs argued in favor of counting only those residents who were actual voters to draw the districts.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 04, 2016 30 Comments
There's a very slim chance any remaining Republican candidate will secure the Republican nomination prior to the convention. The possibility of an open convention has wrought all kinds of conspiracy theories, doomsday scenarios, and wish casting. Which is probably why the RNC decided to make this little explainer video:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 04, 2016 91 Comments
Ted Cruz has been the subject of a story by The National Enquirer alleging he had 5 mistresses. Trump supporters on social media singled out, based on barely pixelated images in the Enquirer, Amanda Carpenter for particular viciousness. She denied the story as did another woman, Trump's spokesperson Katrina Pierson. Cruz called the story garbage, but never directly committed as to whether he EVER had an affair. Cruz was interviewed by Megyn Kelly in a town hall to air tonight. The following clip was just posted as a tease for the show tonight:

Posted by Andrew Branca on April 04, 2016 56 Comments
Having succeeded in getting court permission to compel Officer Edward Porter to testify, under limited immunity, against other officers in the "Freddie Gray" trials, Baltimore prosecutors have now filed a motion to similarly compel Officer Garrett Miller [Featured Image, left] to testify in next month's trial of Officer Edward Nero [Featured Image, right], reports the Baltimore Sun. The prosecution's motion is embedded below. Porter was the first of the officers involved in Gray's arrest and transport to stand trial, with a hung jury as the result. Porter is scheduled to be retried later this year in state court, and may also be subject to Federal prosecution. Despite this, Maryland's highest court has ordered that Porter can be compelled to testify against other officers under the protection of limited immunity, and that doing so does not violate Porter's 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 04, 2016 18 Comments
Monday morning, the Associated Press reported that despite his segregationist views, President Woodrow Wilson's name would stay on the public policy school building at Princeton University.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 04, 2016 8 Comments
This is rich. Republicans understandably have an issue with George Stephanopoulos after the debacle of the 2012 Republican presidential debate, when he prepped the landscape for the Obama "War on Women" campaign theme: After Stephanopoulos failed to disclose his contributions to the Clinton Foundation while he was excoriating the author of Clinton Cash, Stephanopoulos was removed by ABC News from its list of Republican debate moderators.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 04, 2016 4 Comments
The last time we checked on Flint, we learned that the regional Environmental Protection Agency team indicated the city was "not worth going out on a limb for." Perhaps not, but the city now is facing over 50 lawsuits because the EPA decided it didn't need to take any action upon learning about the elevated lead levels in the municipal water supply.
More than 50 lawsuits have been filed since January, accusing the city of being complicit in the water crisis for not doing enough during the 18 months in which Flint was getting its drinking water from the polluted Flint River. That move was a decision made by the state, and it turned out to be a terrible one. The river's highly corrosive water wasn't treated properly by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, and the water corroded lead service lines, which then caused lead to seep into the drinking water and poison families.
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