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June 2016

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 15, 2016 8 Comments
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) has released a video called "Orlando Attack" that celebrates Omar Mateen and the murder of 49 people at Pulse in Orlando, FL. Mateen called 911 and pledged allegiance to the terrorist group before he opened fire at the popular gay club. ISIS praised the terrorist:
"One of Islamic State's lions, set out to restore the glory of the Ummah and avenge the death of Muslims. He shook the head of kufr America, terrorized it and shed its blood. He is Omar Mateen."

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 15, 2016 100 Comments
In what would be a shocking turn of events in any trial other than one brought by Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, state prosecutors have for the first time introduced into court evidence that medical examiner Carol Allan had at one point believed Gray's death was an accident, reports the Baltimore Sun. This disclosure was made on the fifth day of the "Freddie Gray" trial of van driver Officer Caesar Goodson, who is charged with depraved-heart murder among other charges in Freddie Gray's death, and only after the lengthy previous "Freddie Gray" trials of Officer William Porter and Officer Edward Nero.  Porter's jury trial ended in a hung jury, and he is scheduled to be re-tried. Nero's bench trial ended in an acquittal. In her own testimony earlier this week Dr. Allan told the court that "The word 'accident' never crossed my lips to anyone, other than to say, 'This is not an accident.'"  Allan has claimed that she always believed Gray's injury and death to have been a homicide, not an accident.  Allan gave similar testimony in the prior Freddie Gray trials of Officers William Porter and Edward Nero. Today, however, prosecutors introduced new evidence, for the first time, indicating that during a meeting with police investigators last year Allan had suggested that Gray's death was an accident.

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 15, 2016 5 Comments
Sources have told NBC News that Omar Mateen's wife may face charges because she knew he wanted to carry out a terrorist attack and never told authorities. Noor Zahi Salman told the FBI that Mateen "assured her he was simply going to see friends, although she believed he was actually planning to unleash terror at the Pulse nightclub." She once drove him to the club, a one to two hour drive from their home in St. Lucie, "to scope it out." She also went with him to buy "ammunition and a holster." But now, though, officials have no evidence that she "ever called police to warn them that she believed Mateen was planning an attack."

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 15, 2016 13 Comments
The White House held a State of Women Summit this week and for some reason, chose Vice President Joe Biden to represent the Obama administration at the event. Joe Biden isn't guilty of any crimes against women but he does have a demonstrable habit of being a little too intimate with ladies. Wired has a report on the summit:
VP Biden: Changing Rape Culture Will Take All of Us Biden, speaking today at the White House State of Women Summit, made two things abundantly clear: violence against women is an epidemic, and the country is a long, long way from eradicating it.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 15, 2016 5 Comments
On June 10, 2016, I reported on how Someone wants to suppress this video of vile BDS shoutdown of Professor. The video in question showed Irish anti-Israel activist Joseph Loughnane verbally abusing and threatening Professor Alan Johnson, who runs the Fathom Journal and was giving a lecture against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. His speech was titled, Solidarity not Boycotts: the progressive case against boycotting Israel:
Thank you for inviting me to Galway University. I am the editor of Fathom journal, and Senior Research Fellow at BICOM. I speak as a friend of Israel, a friend of Palestine and friend of peace. I am not Jewish. I am a democratic socialist, an editor of Dissent magazine and a former editor of Historical Materialism. I am a Professor of Politics – my inaugural lecture was on the thought of the Auschwitz survivor, Primo Levi.

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 15, 2016 63 Comments
The fourth day of the "Freddie Gray" trial of van driver Officer Caesar Goodson is most notable for the implosion of the state's "rough ride" theory of the case for lack of evidence. Prosecutors were compelled to throw this theory into the mix for the first time on the first day of Goodson's trial after it appeared the foundation had been pulled out from under their preferred "failure to provide timely medical care" theory of the case. Goodson is charged with depraved-heart murder,manslaughter, second-degree assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment in the death of Freddie Gray. The state has presented three different theories of the case in their prosecution of Freddie Gray, which we've covered at length in prior posts, including:

Freddie Gray: Trial of Van Driver Caesar Goodson, Day #3

Freddie Gray: The Relevance of Donte Allen’s Changing Eyewitness Testimony

Theory #1: Murder by Failure to Seatbelt, and Theory #2: Murder by Failure to Provide Medical Care now seem to be out of reach for the prosecution, leaving them desperately clinging to their final theory for why Caesar Goodson should be sentenced to prison for 30 years, Theory #3: Murder by Rough Ride.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on June 15, 2016 28 Comments
June is normally a time of joyous celebration, especially since many young people are graduating from high school or college and beginning the next phase of their lives. However, our country is in deepest mourning, for it has lost 49 of these promising, beautiful young men and women to terror. The youngest, Akyra Murray (18), was celebrating her high school graduation with her cousin and a friend Saturday night when ISIS-inspired gunman Omar Mateen struck. LI #56 b Akyra Murray
Murray's mother, Natalie Murray, said she received a text message from her daughter around 2am, saying she had been shot and to come pick her up.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 14, 2016 45 Comments
When the Newtown school shooting took place, I was making the long car trek from Ithaca to Rhode Island. And so it was as reports came out on Sunday about the Orlando Pulse gay night club terror attack. As with the Newtown shooting, for the first several hours I had to rely on AM radio coverage -- when it was available. Since then, because I've been attending to family health matters, I have not had a lot of time to focus on the developments or write about it. Thanks to other Legal Insurrection authors for staying on top of the news reports and analysis. Most of what I've learned has been from headlines and Twitter, which are basically the same thing. So I don't want to jump to conclusions, or presume anything. If I have any of the facts wrong, please let me know. I want to get this right. Here's what happened, from what I can tell:

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 14, 2016 8 Comments
Qatar has released a Dutch woman after holding her for three months because she had the nerve to be raped and report it. Blunt, but true. This is life for women who live under Sharia law. The woman only known as Laura reported her rape to officials, but they in turn arrested her for adultery because she had sex outside of marriage:
The woman, on a vacation with a friend, went out for drinks at a hotel bar in the Qatari capital in mid-March, lawyer Brian Lokollo previously told The Associated Press. While at the bar, she believes someone “messed with her drink” and her memory became hazy, Lokollo said. She later awoke alone, her clothes torn and the victim of a rape, he said. She was immediately detained after reporting the attack, Lokollo said. She previously appeared three times in court, he said.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 14, 2016 82 Comments
How do we know AR-15s are the single most lethal weapon on the planet? Because they're SO LOUD. LOUD, YOU HEAR ME?! LOUD!!!! This is one of those things that must be read to be believed, and no, this was not found in The Onion, amazingly. New York Daily News reporter Gersh Kuntzman set out to test shoot an AR-15. "It feels like a bazooka — and sounds like a cannon," he writes. A cannon. And Bazooka? The same bazooka also known as a "recoilless rifle"?

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 14, 2016 7 Comments
Equality Florida's GoFundMe campaign has raised more than $3 million to help the victims and families from the pulse gay club massacre. Over 69,000 people have contributed, including a $100,000 donation from the company:
"We are beyond moved by the support from all corners of the world and all walks of life," Equality Florida wrote. "We do not know the total costs for the victims of this horrific hate crime, therefore are working to raise as much as possible and disperse the funds as fast as possible."

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 14, 2016 26 Comments
Russian government hackers have attacked the Democrat National Committee (DNC) and stole their research on presumptive GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump. The attack went on for over a year. DNC officials and security experts said the hackers read emails and chat traffic. They believe they did not gain access to donor's private information, leading them to call it "traditional espionage" and not "criminal hackers." From The Washington Post:
“It’s the job of every foreign intelligence service to collect intelligence against their adversaries,” said Shawn Henry, president of CrowdStrike, the cyber firm called in to handle the DNC breach and a former head of the FBI’s cyber division. He noted that it is extremely difficult for a civilian organization to protect itself from a skilled and determined state such as Russia. “We’re perceived as an adversary of Russia,” he said. “Their job when they wake up every day is to gather intelligence against the policies, practices and strategies of the U.S. government. There are a variety of ways. [Hacking] is one of the more valuable because it gives you a treasure trove of information.”

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 14, 2016 17 Comments
A few American birthdays today -- the U.S. Army (1775) and Old Glory (1777). In 1777, the American flag was adopted by our Second Continental Congress. In 1916, President Wilson issues a proclamation officially requesting June 14 be a day celebrating, "emblem of the Union." He wrote:
I therefore suggest and request that throughout the nation and if possible in every community the fourteenth day of June be observed as FLAG DAY with special patriotic exercises, at which means shall be taken to give significant expression to our thoughtful love of America, our comprehension of the great mission of liberty and justice to which we have devoted ourselves as a people, our pride in the history and our enthusiasm for the political programme of the nation, our determination to make it greater and purer with each generation, and our resolution to demonstrate to all the world its, vital union in sentiment and purpose, accepting only those as true compatriots who feel as we do the compulsion of this supreme allegiance. Let us on that day rededicate ourselves to the nation, "one and inseparable" from which every thought that is not worthy of our fathers' first vows in independence, liberty, and right shall be excluded and in which we shall stand with united hearts, for an America which no man can corrupt, no influence draw away from its ideals, no force divide against itself,-a nation signally distinguished among all the nations of mankind for its clear, individual conception alike of its duties and its privileges, its obligations and its rights.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on June 14, 2016 2 Comments
While the U.S. mainstream media is still busy churning out stories pondering on the motives of the shooter who killed 50 people in a Gay Club on Orlando, making it the worst terrorist attack since 9/11, the people in Israel are bracing up for another wave of intensified terror. The Gaza-based Islamic terrorist group Hamas has declared a “Month of Jihad” against Israel during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The Hamas call for a month-long "Jihad-athon" came just a day before two armed Arab terrorists opened fire inside a Tel Aviv restaurant, killing four Israelis and wounding at least 16 others on Wednesday, June 8. Following the deadly attack, Hamas issued a statement saying the two terrorists were members of its group. On its official Twitter account the Islamist group praised the shooting of Israeli civilians as “heroic” and warned of more attacks to follow during the Muslim month of 'prayer and fasting'.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on June 14, 2016 34 Comments
For a guy who regularly decries the debasement of the political culture, Joe Scarborough sure has a funny way of elevating the dialogue . . . On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough said that Donald Trump reminded him of "scumbags" who said that President George W. Bush had something to do with 9-11. Scarborough was steamed over Trump's comments yesterday on the campaign trail that when it comes to Islamic terrorism, President Obama either is not tough enough, or "has something else in mind . . . there's something going on." Asked later to clarify his statements, Trump said he would let people "figure out" their meaning for themselves. Scarborough sidekick Mike Barnicle was only too happy to jump on Joe's bandwagon, claiming that Trump's statements were a "disqualifier" for his presidential aspirations.

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 14, 2016 5 Comments
The newest video offering from Prager University features talk host Larry Elder talking about fathers and fatherhood just in time for Father's Day. Elder looks at how government programs intended to end poverty have affected the black community and encouraged men to abandon their moral and financial obligations as fathers. Using real statistics and evidence, Elder makes a compelling case for the importance of fathers and the role they play in the lives of boys and young men.
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