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August 2016

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 27, 2016 17 Comments
We cover so many stories and events that it's hard to follow up on a lot. I have over 10,000 posts myself, and as a website we have almost 20,000 posts. Usually it's some external reminder (a Facebook Memories notice, a Tweet, or something similar) that triggers an update post. And that's what happened this time, I received a Facebook Memories reminder of my August 27, 2015 post, that on one year ago charges were dropped against Lane Pittman. Do you remember Pittman? Doesn't ring a bell? Pittman was the Florida rocker who was charged with disrupting the peace for playing the Star Spangled banner on July 4th in Neptune Beach, near Jacksonville, Florida man arrested for playing Star Spangled Banner on 4th of July rejects plea deal:
On July 4, 2015, 22 year-old Lane Pittman decided to take his electric guitar and play the Star Spangled Banner on the street outside his friend’s house in Neptune Beach, near Jacksonville. Pittman says that after a police officer asked him to stop, he asked if it was okay to play on the sidewalk, and was told that was okay. And play he did:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on August 27, 2016 10 Comments
When Obama took office, our national debt was $10.6 trillion; as of today, it stands at over $19 trillion.  The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has issued a report that states our national debt will reach $28.2 trillion over the next ten years. The Washington Free Beacon reports:
Outstanding federal debt is projected to hit $28.2 trillion over the next decade, according to a report from the Congressional Budget Office. At the end of this year, outstanding federal debt is expected to climb to $19.4 trillion and to rise by $8.8 trillion in the next ten years. The federal government’s budget deficit, which is the difference between how much money the government spends and how much money it takes in through tax collection, will be $590 billion by the end of 2016, $152 billion more than the previous year. Government spending is projected to increase by 5 percent, or $178 billion, while government revenue is projected to increase by less than 1 percent, or $26 billion.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on August 27, 2016 7 Comments
My last report on California mentioned that Governor Jerry Brown was planning to introduce a ballot measure to extend AB-32, the state's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. Despite the fact that the bottom has fallen out of the Cap & Trade permit market, the Assembly granted the rules an extension beyond the initial 2020 end date.
The Assembly approved sweeping climate-change legislation Tuesday that extends the state’s targets for reducing greenhouse gases from 2020 to 2030 in a controversial bill that saw White House officials and Gov. Jerry Brown privately urging lawmakers for support. Under SB32, the state would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. The bill would piggyback on AB32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which calls for California to reduce greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on August 27, 2016 16 Comments
On Joy Reid's MSNBC show today, conservative Latino Alfonso Aguilar cited Hillary Clinton's praise of the eugenicist Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. Hillary has said that she "admire[s] Margaret Sanger enormously." Reid responded by saying Sanger was not a legitimate issue because she is a "dead person." Even worse, when Aguilar tried to make that point that a majority of abortions performed by Planned Parenthood are on minority women, Reid shut Aguilar down, calling his statement "incredibly offensive. I think that smear of Planned Parenthood cannot go forward and we're not going to continue with that line of questioning." Reid abruptly returned to another Trump-bashing topic.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on August 27, 2016 8 Comments
Despite concerns that Prime Minister Theresa May will not uphold the June 23rd Brexit vote, it doesn't look like she is willing to let a three-ring circus develop in which protesters tout bogus climate change links to Brexit or equally bogus claims of economic doom. The Telegraph is reporting that she will invoke Article 50—the mechanism outlined in the Lisbon Treaty for leaving the European Union—without a vote in the Commons, thus denying the "Remain" supporters the opportunity to block or delay Brexit. The Telegraph reports:
Theresa May will not hold a parliamentary vote on Brexit before opening negotiations to formally trigger Britain's withdrawal from the European Union, The Telegraph has learned. Opponents of Brexit claim that because the EU referendum result is advisory it must be approved by a vote in the Commons before Article 50 - the formal mechanism to leave the EU - is triggered. However, in a move which will cheer Eurosceptics, The Telegraph has learned that Mrs May will invoke Article 50 without a vote in Parliament

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 27, 2016 23 Comments
The British Brexit leader Nigel Farage recently spoke at a Donald Trump rally and offered some words of encouragement for attendees. Real Clear Politics reported:
Former leader of the UK Independent Party Nigel Farage, credited for Brexit, addressed the audience at a Trump campaign rally in Jackson, Mississippi on Wednesday night. Farage left the UKIP after the United Kingdom voted to 'leave' the European Union.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on August 27, 2016 19 Comments
In a move that is being hailed as cementing his conservation legacy, Obama has, with the stroke of his pen, expanded a national marine monument off the coast of Hawaii to over 582,578 square miles.  This move will, however, destroy commercial fishing and potential drilling and mineral collection in a vast expanse of our waters. The Hill reports:
President Obama on Friday morning created a massive national monument off the coast of his native Hawaii, the world’s largest protected area. The declaration expands more than threefold the size of the Papahānaumokuāke Marine National Monument, surrounding the outlying northwestern Hawaiian islands. The move in Obama’s final months further cements his legacy of using unilateral executive authority to protect far more land and water as national monuments than any other president.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 26, 2016 27 Comments
Single-payer healthcare is the Democrats' holy grail, because it put the government completely in charge of one-fifth of the economy and every single person's healthcare. It's total control, but at least as of 2008, it wasn't a platform on which Obama could run. But as this early video shows, single-payer was always the goal. Similarly, failed 2014 NY-23 Democratic challenger Martha Robertson was a big single-payer supporter. But in NY-23, a Republican +4 district that has a hardcore liberal Ithaca-area contingent from which Robertson hailed, single payer won't fly. So Robertson didn't run on single payer, she ran on Obamacare. But in moments of candor uncovered by Legal Insurrection, Robertson admitted that Obamacare was just the stepping stone to single payer.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 26, 2016 98 Comments
Thursday, Hillary Clinton's campaign unveiled a nasty new ad. The ad shows various white nationalists and members of the alt-right voicing support for Trump, who they believe represents their values. Also featured is Breitbart News' Steve Bannon, who recently joined Trump's presidential campaign.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 26, 2016 10 Comments
Earlier this month we brought news about Marine Pfc. George Traver, who was killed during the battle of the Tarawa Atoll in 1943. His body was only recently identified, and preparations made for his return to the U.S. and funeral near Albany, NY. I've learned since that original post that the return of those, like Pfc. Traver, who have been unidentified for several decades, is a project of the History Flight:
History Flight is a true non-profit charity in which 96% of donations go directly to pay for program costs to find and recover the 84,000 missing service members from America's wars of the 20th Century. History Flight is a non-governmental organization dedicated to finding, recovering and repatriating America's war dead to American soil. Over the last ten years History Flight has sent over 100 search and recovery teams all over the world to locate loss sites of missing servicemen and to recover them. History Flight deployed cutting-edge, multi-disciplinary remote-sensing methodologies to find MIA loss sites where more than 500 American Servicemen are still missing.
Through the efforts of History Flight, another fallen hero has returned, Dale Geddes of Grand Island, Nebraska. The Omaha World-Herald reported,  ‘Our boy is coming home:’ After 72 years, World War II Marine Dale Geddes will be buried in Grand Island:
The remains of U.S. Marine Corps Pvt. Dale Robert Geddes of Grand Island, who was killed 72 years ago during the World War II Battle of Tarawa, have been positively identified through DNA comparisons and dental records.

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 26, 2016 17 Comments
Advocacy group Student Matters filed a federal lawsuit in Connecticut to make education a constitutional right due to the state's restriction on magnet, charter schools, and school choice programs. It alleges the state's limited school choice for parents force "thousands of low-income and minority students to attend low-performing schools." The group insists now is the time for the federal courts to recognize education as a fundamental right:
“The fundamental principles of equality in our country demand that every child have a chance to get an education, to learn and to have that platform to succeed,” said Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., an attorney for the plaintiffs.
The Washington Post reported:
An advocacy group best known for using the courts to challenge California’s teacher tenure laws has now taken its legal strategy to Connecticut, where it has sued state officials over “anti-opportunity” laws that restrict the growth of magnet and charter schools and that limit inner-city students’ ability to transfer to more affluent suburban school districts.

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 26, 2016 22 Comments
A federal judge in Florida ordered the State Department turn over any emails between Hillary Clinton and the White House that were sent or received during the week of the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack by September 13, only three days after a federal judge in DC gave officials a September 23 deadline. Judicial Watch has been investigating Clinton's emails for months, discovering that she did not use a secure private email server and that Clinton Foundation donors asked her for special favors when she served as Secretary of State.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on August 26, 2016 1 Comment
A few days ago, we covered how in early August 2016 the Student Council at Leipzig University in Germany passed a resolution taking a strong stand against calls to boycott Israel, declaring them to be anti-Semitic, READ: German university student council resolution declaring BDS anti-Semitic:
The Student Council condemns anti-Semitic boycott campaigns such as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions [BDS] and stands against the execution, participation in, and promotion of such campaigns and events at the University of Leipzig. Therefore, the Student Council will not support BDS Campaign or settings (events, exhibitions, demonstrations etc.) in which BDS Movement is involved. We consider international cooperation vital for the Academics. As a Student Council we stand against anti-Semitic measures such as disinviting of Israeli academicians from conferences in the context of the boycott campaign, and [council will] publicise whenever it happens — thereby contributing to the clarification of the matter and preventing such an occurrence.
The student council has produced a chronicle of its rejection of BDS (pdf.) which includes a citation to my translation of the resolution:

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 26, 2016 11 Comments
SUNY Binghamton recently offered a training session for Resident Assistants that had a clearly racist slant. The session, titled "Stop White People" was supposed to "help others take the next step in understanding diversity, privilege and the society we function within." The Binghamton Review reported:
“#StopWhitePeople2K16” Is An Official Part Of Residential Assistant Training Racism seems to continually weigh upon both the faculty and students of Binghamton University. As a response to the apparent presence of bigotry and hatred on campus, university faculty and student groups, such as Students for Change, have worked to create a more diverse and inclusive environment on campus.

Posted by Miriam Elman on August 26, 2016 3 Comments
Early Tuesday morning, roughly 60 ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews tried to make an unauthorized visit to Joseph’s Tomb, located inside the Palestinian city of Nablus near the biblical city of Shechem. According to multiple media reports (see here and here), the group had to be extricated by Israeli troops after their convoy came under attack by Palestinian rioters in the vicinity. [caption id="attachment_170045" align="alignnone" width="600"]Joseph's Tomb | 2011 | credit: YouTube screenshot Joseph's Tomb | 2011 | credit: YouTube screenshot[/caption]

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 25, 2016 44 Comments
As the ongoing saga of Hillary's email scandal trudges along, Trey Gowdy, House Oversight Committee member, claims Hillary used a special tool to wipe clean her home-brewed email server. No, it wasn't a very special cloth. (I know, I figured that's what she used, too). According to Gowdy, Hillary used BleachBit, a program that deep cleans files, cookies, and servers. From the BleachBit website:
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