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July 2016

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 20, 2016 264 Comments
This is now one of my top five favorite moments in convention speeches. Senator Cruz was given a prime time slot in Wednesday's Republican National Convention lineup. Cruz didn't encourage convention goers and watchers to vote Trump, rather to vote their conscience. When delegates realized he wasn't going to explicitly endorse Donald Trump, they began booing and jeering. Then, Donald Trump made an entrance before Cruz had finished his speech. That moment in all its glorious awkwardness:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 20, 2016 7 Comments
It was one of the most notorious statements of the academic boycott movement against Israel. Shortly after the American Studies Association adopted the academic boycott of Israel in December 2013, and a firestorm of condemnation by University Presidents and associations erupted, then ASA President Curtis Marez justified singling out Israel because "one has to start somewhere":
The American Studies Association has never before called for an academic boycott of any nation’s universities, said Curtis Marez, the group’s president and an associate professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, San Diego. He did not dispute that many nations, including many of Israel’s neighbors, are generally judged to have human rights records that are worse than Israel’s, or comparable, but he said, “one has to start somewhere.”
In that single phrase, "one has to start somewhere," was the hypocrisy and essential anti-Semitism of the BDS academic boycott movement laid bare.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 20, 2016 64 Comments
Welcome to our live coverage of the third night of this year's Republican National Convention! Primetime speeches kick off at 7:30 EST. Watch speakers live and see real time commentary from political media and LI authors. I'll be updating throughout the evening as the situation warrants. Full speeches can be found beneath the Twitter feeds as they're available.

The lineup:

Posted by Mary Chastain on July 20, 2016 5 Comments
Prominent journalist Pavel Sheremet died in a car bombing in Kiev, Ukraine, today. The Belarusian journalist went to Ukraine from Russia after the Kremlin clamped down on the media and his cameraman was murdered. The authorities do not have any suspects. However, the car belonged to Sheremet's partner Olena Prytula, the founding editor of their publication Ukrainska Pravda, a well respected outlet. Sheremet's colleagues believe the perpetrators targeted Prytula.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 20, 2016 14 Comments
When Kim Corban was a 20-year-old college student, a predator broke into her student housing and assaulted her in the middle of the night. Years later, Corban is now a mother of two and she has a message for any would-be predators who count on unarmed, defenseless victims like 20-year-old Corban.

Posted by Mary Chastain on July 20, 2016 9 Comments
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has reached out to President Barack Obama about extraditing Fethullah Gülen, who he blames for the failed coup on Friday. The White House said:
“The president made clear to President Erdogan that the United States doesn’t support terrorists and doesn’t support individuals who conspired to overthrow a democratically elected government,” according to White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on July 20, 2016 9 Comments
With terrorists associated to the Islamic State striking one European city after another, Secretary John Kerry went on CNN saying, the ISIS was “on the run.” The blood wasn’t yet washed off the pavements of Nice, France where an Islamist mowed down 84 people to death, an Afghan ‘refugee’ went on a stabbing spree in the southern Germany city of Würzburg. As German decision makers go deeper in denial and continue to plead helplessness in face of Islamist attacks, terrorism is fast becoming the 'new normal' for Europe. Just hours after the terrorist attack in Würzburg, Germany’s Refugee-Czar Peter Altmaier reassured the country that “refugees posed no increase security threat.”

Posted by Leslie Eastman on July 20, 2016 23 Comments
One of the new pieces of good news coming from Europe last week was from Great Britain. In the wake of the #Brexit vote, U.K.'s new Prime Minister felt empowered to shut an entire government department.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has been facing criticism during her first few days in office over her decision to close the U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change. The closure was reported on Thursday, May's first full day in office after the departure of David Cameron.
The unit will actually be folded into an expanded Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy under Greg Clark.
It comes at a time when campaigners are urging the government to ratify the Paris climate change deal.

Posted by Mike LaChance on July 20, 2016 19 Comments
The media has decided that the alleged Melania Trump plagiarism story is the greatest thing that's ever happened in American politics. So as long as we're on the subject, let's look back at the last time plagiarism was alleged in a presidential election. It was 2008, and a young Senator from Illinois was fighting Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination. Obama had been caught lifting lines from his ideological twin, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Clinton called him out for it during a debate.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on July 20, 2016 27 Comments
Where does Rachel Maddow's feminist solidarity end? When a woman has the audacity to support a Republican . . . On MSNBC, commenting on tonight's RNC, Maddow twice mocked speaker Natalie Gulbis, a professional golfer, for her current modest world ranking of about 500. In doing so, Maddow ignored the fact that Gulbis is a former #6 on the LPGA money list, has won four professional tournaments and at one point placed in the top 10 in four consecutive major championships. If Tiger Woods spoke for Trump, I suppose Maddow would dismiss him as "the 628th golfer in the world" [his current ranking.]

Posted by Leslie Eastman on July 19, 2016 10 Comments
Last week, my beloved husband took me on a much needed birthday vacation in Maine. Despite the fact that I was trying to ignore the 2016 election insanity for a brief time, I couldn't entirely escape it. When we hit a tourist shop in Kennebunkport, Maine, we were astonished by the amount of 2016 election paraphernalia already on sale. For example, despite the array of opinion on the GOP nominee in the Legal Insurrection comments, I think we can all agree on this:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 19, 2016 49 Comments
Welcome to our live coverage of the the second night of this year's Republican National Convention! Primetime speeches kick off at 8:00 EST. Watch speakers live and see real time commentary from political media and LI authors. I'll be updating throughout the evening as the situation warrants.

The lineup:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 19, 2016 12 Comments
Julian Castro is unqualified for national office, despite extensive grooming by Democrats. He is the former Mayor of San Antonio, but as I noted in May 2014, Mayor Julian Castro of San Antonio had less responsibility than Mayor Sarah Palin of Wasilla:
Sarah Palin, who also was Governor of Alaska at the time of her nomination for Veep, was excoriated by the mainstream media for her stint as Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, with the argument being that her job only involved overseeing a few departments.  It was less than worthless experience, the meme went. So Julian Castro, Mayor of San Antonio, is being groomed for a potential Veep slot in 2016 through a cabinet appointment, as discussed yesterday, Mayor of San Antonio one heartbeat away from the presidency?

Posted by Mary Chastain on July 19, 2016 18 Comments
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan continues to purge those allegedly involved in the failed coup on Friday. Today, the Education Ministry sacked 15,200 teachers, canceled 21,000 licenses at private schools, and asked deans at universities to leave:
“Our ministry is carrying out extensive efforts aimed at public personnel in central and rural districts who have connections to FETÖ. As of today, 15,200 public officials have been suspended and investigations were launched into them,” the statement released from the ministry’s Twitter account read.

Posted by Mary Chastain on July 19, 2016 7 Comments
Russia prides itself in sports, but the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) recommended agencies ban the country due to a massive doping scandal that reaches the government. They found:
1. The Moscow laboratory operated, for the protection of doped Russian athletes, within a State-dictated failsafe system, described in the Report as the Disappearing Positive Methodology.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on July 19, 2016 4 Comments
My colleague Mary Chastain reported that Black Lives Matter activists in Wichita, KS, joined their local police department for the First Steps Cookout to bring together their community. San Diego took a different, though similar approach. City officials, area clergy, and our police representatives came together by our famous Balboa Park fountain in a display of civic unity.
"There is no doubt that our nation is hurting," San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer told the crowd. "The recent string of unjustifiable deaths cuts all of us deeply. From Dallas to Baton Rouge and (other cities), this loss of innocent lives has left all of us raw."
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