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August 2016

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on August 08, 2016 76 Comments
Mike Murphy — who ran Jeb's Super PAC — says that "if it came down to just my vote and I had to decide, I'd probably vote for Hillary and then jump in a lake out of massive depression." Appearing on With All Due Respect, Murphy added that he hopes Trump doesn't win because he's "a demagogue and a neo-racist." Murphy gave Trump a 10% black-swan shot of winning. Murphy says he can't vote for Trump because "I love my country."

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 08, 2016 6 Comments
You can always count on progressives to hate on wives and motherhood, and to find any excuse to demean the family unit. A post published at Salon took issue with using the descriptors of "wife" and "mother" to describe women Olympians. Yes, really.
Did you hear that women’s trap shooter Corey Cogdell-Unrein won her second career Olympic medal for the U.S. team in Rio this weekend? Did you cheer for Hungarian swimmer Katinka Hosszú, who won the gold and broke a world record in 400-meter individual medley? Or were you too distracted by the media commentary about their husbands?
Yes. And no. The fact that they're wives didn't cause a blip on my radar.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 08, 2016 37 Comments
Oh, New Jersey. Shortly after I moved to New York I had to drive to Atlantic City for work. I'd missed the memo that private citizens are forbidden from pumping their own gas because that's a union job in New Jersey. Needless to say, after a very heated discussion with the gas-pumper, I got back into my car wondering why New Jersey functioned like a developing country. Because not being able to pump your own gas isn't ridiculous enough, the Garden State is considering a bill that could fine drivers for drinking coffee on their morning commute.

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 08, 2016 6 Comments
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced at a rally that he would approve the death penalty if parliament votes to bring it back:
“If the parliament accepts the reintroduction of death penalty, I will accept it,” he told the crowd, adding that the death penalty exists in the U.S., Japan and “many other countries.” “If the people want death penalty, I think the political parties will also accept it,” he also said, as he noted that the death penalty existed until 1984 in Turkey.

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 08, 2016 3 Comments
The Belgium government has opened a terrorism investigation into the machete attack on Saturday that injured two female cops in Charleroi. A third cop shot and killed the attacker. The attacker, a 33-year-old Algerian, yelled "Allahu Akbar!" when he attacked the females. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the man.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 08, 2016 111 Comments
Earlier this morning, Mark blogged about rumors of yet another Republican-backed Trump challenger. Multiple outlets are reporting an obscure former CIA officer will launch an independent run against Republican nominee, Donald Trump.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on August 08, 2016 42 Comments
On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough said that "I had multiple sources last night telling me that an independent with the backing of a lot of Republican money is going to launch today." None of the other panelists, including the well-connected Mark Halperin, had heard that. Scarborough continued: "several good sources told me that people, Republicans from, let's just say #NeverTrump land found somebody and they're going to put good money behind him." Scarborough said it would be someone "French-like," i.e., like National Review author David French whose name was floated not long ago before withdrawing.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 07, 2016 15 Comments
I'm back in the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations again. Not just for the weekend, but "for good." We are back to splitting the year between Ithaca and RI. When I left in 2013, I lamented all that would be missed:
My home State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations has provided much material for Legal Insurrection over the years, including the dispute as to the name itself. Splitting the year between Ithaca and Rhode Island provided me with the distinction of having Patrick Kennedy and Maurice Hinchey as Congressmen for several years. I’m reminded of the Seinfeld episode about the dentist who converted to Judaism for the jokes. Sometimes I felt that I lived in Rhode Island for the same reason. But alas, it is no more....

Posted by Miriam Elman on August 07, 2016 1 Comment
On Sunday, July 31, 2016, I drove down to Ithaca, NY to give a talk titled “Hate Speech and the New Antisemitism: Why Anti-Zionist Extremism is on the Rise and What We Can Do to Stop It”. The lecture was sponsored by the Ithaca Area United Jewish Community (IAUJC). The Ithaca Coalition for Unity and Cooperation in the Middle East (ICUCME), a local grassroots anti-racism organization, assisted with the event logistics and publicity. A video of my 60 minute lecture is now available on You Tube (full embed lower in the post). Below I highlight its main themes, breaking the hour-long lecture into segments so that readers can click on to those portions of the talk that are of most interest.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on August 07, 2016 30 Comments
The Iranian government hanged Shahram Amiri, a nuclear scientist, for giving "vital information to the enemy."  The enemy being, despite Obama's desperate groveling, the United States:  "This person who had access to the country's secret and classified information had been linked to our hostile and No. 1 enemy, America, the Great Satan" a spokesman for the Iranian judiciary said. NPR reports:
Iran has executed a nuclear scientist who allegedly provided U.S. officials with information about the country's nuclear program. In 2010, Shahram Amiri returned from the US. to Iran, where he was eventually arrested, as NPR's Peter Kenyon told our Newscast unit. "The spokesman for Iran's judiciary tells the official IRNA news agency that Shahram Amiri was executed following his conviction on treason charges," Peter reported. That spokesman, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, said in a news conference that Amiri "had access to top secret information about the Islamic Republic of Iran," which he provided to the United States, according to IRNA.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on August 07, 2016 19 Comments
Hillary Clinton's relationship with law enforcement, like her involvement with any issue, has evolved over time. Sometimes over night. There are reports that Hillary, as First Lady, had little respect for—and was even verbally abusive toward—the Secret Service agents assigned to protect her . . . with their lives if necessary.  Apparently, she also gave these men the impression that her dislike extended beyond the Secret Service to "law enforcement and the military." After receiving harsh criticism from the left when she made the "mistake" of declaring that "all lives matter,"  Hillary started courting the Black Lives Matter movement, attempting to ingratiate herself and secure their support for her campaign. Against this backdrop and when faced with the decision of whether or not to seek the endorsement of the National Fraternal Order of Police, she declined to submit to the process.  A move seen as a snub by the police union.

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 07, 2016 15 Comments
During the presidency of George W. Bush, a left wing theater group called "Billionaires for Bush" would show up at political events dressed in tuxedos and top hats while chomping cigars. The whole point was to make it look like wealthy people in America supported Bush and by extension, all Republican policies because after all, only rich people support Republicans, right?

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on August 07, 2016 17 Comments
Yesterday in Rio, 19-year-old Ginny Thrasher won the USA's first gold medal in the 2016 Olympics; she won the women’s 10-meter air rifle finals to the excitement and pride of every American.  Well, almost every American, the backlash from the left runs the gambit from droll to downright nasty and mean-spirited. Ginny is a college student from Virginia who first shot a rifle while hunting with her grandfather, joined her high school rifle team, and was subsequently inspired by the 2012 Olympic shooting events to go for the gold herself.  Ginny's performance on Saturday morning was nothing short of outstanding and is being called an "upset" in that she out-shot a two-time Olympic gold medal winner. The Washington Post reports:
Thrasher . . . was one of eight competitors to emerge from the 50-woman qualification round Saturday morning.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 06, 2016 10 Comments
A war has been declared on Israel on campus by faculty and students supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. The rallying cry is to blacklist those acting on behalf of Israeli academic institutions or participating in "normalization" events, such as musical and cultural events. On the faculty academic front, we have seen groups such as the American Studies Association and some smaller groups blacklist Israeli academics representing their institutions, as part of a formal academic boycott. That boycott has been declared by the American Association of University Professors to be a violation of academic freedom. There also are many reports from Israeli academics of a silent boycott, in which individual U.S. professors refuse to interact with individual Israeli scholars and students, resulting in denied access to journals for publication and peer reviews. The claim by many pro-BDS faculty members that BDS does not target individuals is an outright lie.
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