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September 2016

I reported the other day how Israeli anti-Israel activist and BDS supporter Miko Peled was disinvited by a pro-Palestinian group at Princeton and denounced by Jewish Voice for Peace after a tweet characterizing Jews as having a "reputation 4being sleazy thieves," Jewish Voice for Peace disavows BDS activist Miko Peled: “No place 4 antisemitism in our movement”. https://twitter.com/mikopeled/status/776147480299835392

An actor named Isaiah Washington has proposed a national day of boycott which is what inspired the walkout and march at Reed College. KATU News reports:
Students hold demonstration on Reed College campus for 'National Day of Boycott' PORTLAND, Ore. — Hundreds of students and staff walked out of class and marched across Reed College Monday for the National Day of Boycott, carrying signs and raising a chant as they streamed across the quad. Organizers said the boycott is to “stand in solidarity of the black and brown students” at the college.

I wrote just this past weekend about a "lurking clown" being arrested in Kentucky. Here's yet another "clown" arrest, but this time in Tennessee.  It doesn't appear that this clown was dressed as a clown or wearing a clown mask at the time of his arrest, but it is curious given all the other clown sightings across the South. WKRN reports:
A 64-year-old man claiming to be a clown threatening children in Coffee County has been arrested by Coffee County deputies. Coffee County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Lucky Knott told News 2 a man called the Coffee County Communications Center’s non-emergency line and identified himself as “the clown who has been threatening children.”

The Swiss lower parliament has approved a bill to ban women from wearing a burqa in public by a vote of 88 to 87 with 10 abstentions. The commission of representatives will receive the bill, but the members will likely vote against it since the member already "ruled out such a proposal at the beginning of 2016." The Ticino region inspired this bill when the local government banned the burqa. Due to the popularity, people organized a committee to collect signatures "to expand the ban across" Switzerland.

The Ithaca Journal has an article today about my court victory against the Ithaca City School District (ICSD) seeking records under the NY Freedom of Information Law regarding the anti-Israel 3rd Grade event. The Ithaca Journal article, discussed below, reveals that ICSD spent over $20,000 in its fight to avoid having to disclose video and documents regarding the event. I laid out the history and the court ruling in my post, Another Legal Insurrection victory: Ct orders video released of anti-Israel 3rd Grade event. The short version is that for the second time, the court granted virtually all my requests, including forcing ICSD to release a video of the event. Before the litigation began I suggested the video be redacted by ICSD to protect student privacy, but ICSD refused to release ANY portion of the video or audio, even the portions that didn't contain student images or voices.  Instead, ICSD produced a partial transcript with obvious gaps.

The University of Tennessee  at Knoxville apparently doesn't want to take on the leader of the Army of Davids. We reported the other day that UTK was "investigating" Prof. Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit over the tweet suggesting that drivers surrounded by the violent racist mobs of rioters on Charlotee highways "run them down," Twitter suspends Instapundit for suggesting people not become victims of racist thug rioters (Update): Instapundit Tweet Charlotte Riots Any reasonable person would have understood that tweet to mean that if threatened with deadly force by the rioters, you could escape by driving through the mob. That tweet and advice was consistent with the law of self-defense.

The fight over the short-term spending bill continues to grow as Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) warned that his party will vote against the GOP bill if it doesn't include funding for Flint, MI. He said:
"Democrats have been clear that Congress should not leave Flint and other lead-tainted communities out of any (stopgap spending) negotiation that includes emergency disaster funding," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and other top Democrats in a Tuesday morning letter to McConnell. "Our request is simple: include both bipartisan disaster relief packages for consideration in the CR. We urge you to include bipartisan Flint legislation in the CR."

We've been covering the Charlotte protests here at LI, and the lasted development is quite a doozy.  They've released a list of demands that boggles the mind and steps perilously close to the federal definition of terrorism. Mediaite reports:
Protestors in Charlotte have made quite a few demands over when they’ll end their rallies, not the least of which are the “demilitarization” and “defunding” of the city’s police department. The death of Keith Lamont Scott sparked major unrest over the past few days, which created enough pressure on Charlotte police that they released their body cam footage of the fatal encounter. Even so, protest participants of are circulating an online set of terms for when they’ll call it quits completely, and…it’s a pretty sizable assortment.

As Mary noted earlier this month, Obama's veto of the bill to allow 9/11 families to sue Saudi Arabia for its involvement is likely to be overridden by Congress.  The votes will occur this week:  in the Senate on Wednesday and in the House on Friday. ABC News reports:
For the first time in President Obama’s tenure, the Senate is set to override his veto of a bill that would allow the families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia in U.S. courts. The president vetoed the bill Friday, citing concerns that it could open the U.S. government to similar lawsuits.