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August 2016

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 10, 2016 36 Comments
The American Bar Association (ABA) has amended their ethics code that bans lawyers from using sexist remarks towards women after female lawyers have complained of others calling them "honey" or "darling." The new rule says:
"It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to engage in conduct that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know is harassment or discrimination" on the basis of race, sex, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and other factors, the new guidance reads. "Harassment includes sexual harassment and derogatory or demeaning verbal or physical conduct."

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 10, 2016 6 Comments
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has proposed a ban on burqas due to the numerous terrorist attacks along with pushing officials "to speed up deportations of rejected asylum applicants and loosen privacy protections." The proposal also states that doctors "would have to inform the authorities if they become suspicious that a patient was planning to harm other people."

Posted by New Neo on August 10, 2016 9 Comments
Alzheimer's disease is a scourge that's so common that most of us know at least one person who has had it, and often considerably more than one. It's a tragedy and an ordeal both for the afflicted and for those who love them and care for them. I probably don't have to describe the details of the terrible and progressive dementia it causes in many elderly people and a few not-so-elderly; you all almost certainly know quite a bit about it from bitter personal experience, or from reading articles or watching documentaries and movies. That's why this is very heartening news. There have been reports of effective treatments before that haven't panned out, but this one seems a bit more promising:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on August 10, 2016 10 Comments
#Brexit, the British vote to leave the European Union, continues to inspire citizen activism. In the US, there has been calls for #Calexit to remove the state of California. The Democrats are experiencing the travails of #Demexit after the disclosure that the DNC intentionally hurt the Bernie Sanders campaign to promote Hillary Clinton. Now, an international organization has formed with the goal of preventing the ratification of the costly and dangerous Paris global warming treaty that is being promoted by the elites within the EU and US.

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 10, 2016 12 Comments
The latest batch of Hillary Clinton emails show that right after she became Secretary of State, top donors asked the State Department for favors for unidentified associates. In April 2009, Clinton Foundation official Doug Band sent an email to Clinton's top aides Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin about a favor. He reminded them it is important to take care of [Redacted]." Officials blacked out the name, but Abedin said "Personel has been sending him options." This is not the only one, though.

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 10, 2016 61 Comments
Ahmed Mohamed, the White House's favorite builder of clocks, has returned to the United States and he's suing his old Texas town of Irving over the bomb mix-up. NBC News reports:
'Clock Boy' Ahmed Mohamed Sues Texas City for Accusing Him of Making Bomb The young tinkerer from Texas who was arrested last year for bringing a homemade alarm clock to school — and was later invited to the White House and Google's world headquarters — has filed a federal lawsuit against his former hometown, accusing it of violating his civil rights as part of a wider pattern of discrimination against African-American students.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on August 10, 2016 29 Comments
The opening segment of today's Morning Joe was one long fusillade against Donald Trump in light of his remark yesterday that there is nothing people could do to stop a President Hillary from abolishing the Second Amendment, "although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don't know." The single harshest criticism came from Joe Scarborough, who suggested that Trump had "crossed the Rubicon" into fascism. Scarborough said that in the past he had rejected use of the words "fascist" or "fascism" in reference to Trump because he had never made "a call to violence." Scarborough asserted that Trump's comments yesterday were a suggestion that "Second Amendment people" kill Hillary Clinton or judges. Concluded Scarborough: "he crossed a lot of Rubicons yesterday."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 09, 2016 14 Comments
On August 9, 2014, Ferguson, MO, Police Officer Darren Wilson shot dead Michael Brown. Our first post about it was on August 11, 2014, as rioting broke out. We kept the coverage non-evaluative. We learned from prior cases, such as Trayvon Martin, not to accept at face value racial and other narratives being spun. We also learned from events such as the Boston Marathon and Newtown shootings that initial facts reported by the media often are wrong. We embedded this news reports of the looting: Within days, various supposed eyewitnesses would claim Brown was a passive victim -- an account we now know to be untrue -- as summarized in this MSNBC report we posted on August 13, 2014:

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on August 09, 2016 45 Comments
Late in the 2008 primary season, Hillary Clinton justified her refusal to drop out when it appeared impossible for her to win the nomination by saying "we all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California” during the 1968 primary. On today's With All Due Respect, host Mark Halperin asked Hillary surrogate Neera Tanden whether there was a parallel between Hillary's remark and that of Donald Trump today, who said "Second Amendment people" maybe could do something about a President Hillary trying to abolish the Second Amendment. Predictably, Tanden said there was "absolutely no parallel." Why? Because Hillary was "talking about a person she had deep respect for." Right, but on whose possible assassination she was hanging her nomination hopes.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 09, 2016 16 Comments
Kathy Shelton was twelve years old when she was raped by a drifter in 1975. Thomas Alfred Taylor, her attacker, served less than a year in prison thanks to his defense attorney, Hillary Clinton. Watching Hillary paint herself as a candidate that advocates on behalf of women and children was too much for Shelton who broke her decades-long silence to speak to The Daily Mail.

Posted by Miriam Elman on August 09, 2016 4 Comments
On this day 15 years ago, a Hamas terror gang based in the West Bank executed a bombing attack on a busy restaurant in the center of Jerusalem.  In the horrific act of savagery 15 people were killed, including 7 children. Two U.S. citizens were among those murdered. Four additional Americans were wounded — one severely. In total, some 130 were injured with varying degrees of severity by the “human bomb” and his team of accomplices. The mastermind was Ahlam Tamimi, relative of Bassem Tamimi, and a hero to this day in her home village of Nabi Saleh where international activists still protest the security barrier constructed in response to the Sbarro and dozens of other suicide bombings. Tamimi MEMRI revised 2012 In this post, I revisit the 2001 Sbarro suicide bombing.

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 09, 2016 5 Comments
German authorities have detained an alleged high-ranking member of the Islamic State in Mutterstadt in Rhineland Palatinate state, located near the French border. https://twitter.com/SarahHarman53/status/763035694025609216

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on August 09, 2016 2 Comments
Today, around a million women work in India's Information Technology (IT) sector, with their strength expected to double in next couple of years. Engineering and technology sectors, previously regarded as male bastions, too have undergone change with 20-30 percent of engineering graduate now being women -- a rise from 2-8 percent back in the 80s. Despite such promising trends, women are still underrepresented among start up founders, tech entrepreneurs and corporate leaders in India. In IT sector alone, where women now make up 45 percent of all the new intakes, only 20 percent of the managerial positions are held by women. With series of initiatives in recent years, Israel is playing the role of a catalyst in fostering Indian women entrepreneurs and startup founders.

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 09, 2016 86 Comments
It's hard to argue with Rudy Giuliani on this point. Democrats have embraced the Black Lives Matter movement which has an open dislike of police officers. He also points out that Hillary Clinton snubbed the largest police officer union in the country. The FOX News Insider has the details:
Giuliani: 'The Democratic Party Has Become an Anti-Law Enforcement Party' Rudy Giuliani joined the "Fox and Friends Weekend" co-hosts today to react to the revelation that Hillary Clinton has "snubbed" the largest police union in the country. Giuliani said the fact that Clinton isn't seeking the endorsement of the National Fraternal Order of Police is indicative of a shift among Democrats.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on August 09, 2016 51 Comments
Was New York Times columnist Frank Bruni suggesting there could be civil unrest if Donald Trump loses big and bitterly? That seemed a likely implication of his comments on today's Morning Joe. Bruni said his "fear" is: "what if he goes down big and goes down bitterly? I really worry about the aftermath. I worry about November 9th and forward in terms of what's been stirred up." Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson tried to soothe poor Frank's fears: "We survived Bush-Gore 2000, we made it through that just fine and I think we'll make it through post-Trump just fine, too."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 09, 2016 6 Comments
Rasmea Odeh is the Palestinian terrorist group member convicted of the 1969 supermarket bombing in Jerusalem that killed two Hebrew University students, Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner. Rasmea was released in a prisoner exchange in 1979 for an Israeli soldier captured in Lebanon. Rasmea eventually made her way to the U.S., where she lied on both her visa and naturalization applications, by falsely stating that she never was convicted of a crime or served time in prison. She told other lies as well, such as not disclosing the time she spent in Lebanon after release from Israeli prison, or that she was a military member of the terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Rasmea became a U.S. citizen in 2004 on the basis of those lies.
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