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September 2016

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 25, 2016 11 Comments
A prominent Jordanian writer named Nahed Hattar was facing charges in Amman for sharing a cartoon on Facebook which was deemed offensive to Islam. He was killed outside the courthouse this weekend. Al Jazeera reports:
Jordan: Nahed Hattar shot dead ahead of cartoon trial A gunman has shot dead prominent Jordanian writer Nahed Hattar outside a court where he was facing charges for sharing a cartoon deemed offensive to Islam.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 25, 2016 18 Comments
In July, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey issued a statement in which she announced her unilateral ban on "assault weapons," including "copycat assault weapons." On Thursday, the Washington Free Beacon reports, "the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the largest trade association in the firearms industry, in conjunction with four Massachusetts gun dealers filed the suit against Attorney General Maura Healey (D.) in response to her attempt to redefine the state’s assault weapons ban." The Washington Free Beacon continues:
Healey announced on July 20 that she was officially reinterpreting the language of the state’s decades-old ban. She said she would be vastly expanding what constitutes a so-called “copycat” of guns that are explicitly banned under the statute and accused the gun industry of skirting the law for years. “The gun industry has openly defied our laws here in Massachusetts for nearly two decades,” Healey said in her announcement. “That ends today. We have a moral and legal responsibility to ensure that combat-style weapons are off our streets and out of the hands of those who would use them to kill innocent people.”

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 25, 2016 25 Comments
Here at LI, we've covered quite extensively Arizona's controversial immigration law.  Erroneously deemed "racist," the law resulted in wide-spread backlash from the left.  From boycotts that had potential to harm Arizona's economy to silly boycotts that made no sense to a range of legal action, Arizona found itself in the national spotlight. Obama's remarks at the time include his telling his administration to "monitor the situation":

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 25, 2016 11 Comments
You know that feeling when during an interview or a debate your guy is hit with a question, and you sit there just praying that he will give a certain answer? Wish fulfilled for this Insurrectionist during Joy Reid's MSNBC show today. Reid asked conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt whether he doesn't "worry" about how a President Donald Trump would make a life-or-death decision given his "comportment and demeanor." Shot back the nimble Hewitt: "No. I am much more worried about Secretary Clinton fleeing the State Department at 1:00 A.M in the morning on the night of Benghazi." Zing!

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 25, 2016 21 Comments
I recently noted that President Obama's recent order is forcing our military to focus on climate change in its strategic planning. This is a latest in a long-string of policies that are clearly full of holes, as shown by the fact that the U.S. Navy's much-heralded, futuristic stealth destroyer sprung a leak on its maiden voyage. Navy officials state that this situation is completely normal for new ships:
Crew members have detected a leak on the Zumwalt, the new destroyer built at Bath Iron Works, but the Navy and defense experts say such errors are typical for a first-in-class ship. The destroyer is docked at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia, and local news organizations reported it was scheduled for training at sea. The Zumwalt instead will be delayed in Norfolk for repairs, which are expected to take 10 days to two weeks.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 25, 2016 42 Comments
Yesterday, we covered the Seattle-area mall shooting, including a personal response from LI's A. F. Branco.  At that time, law enforcement was looking for the suspect. The Seattle Times reports:
The suspect, identified as Arcan Cetin, was arrested Saturday evening as he walked along a street in Oak Harbor. Cetin will be turned over to the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office, according to Island County authorities.
 Cetin was identified as a suspect from tips and after police examined surveillance video from the Burlington mall and saw a car connected to him, Mount Vernon Police Department Lt. Chris Cammock said during a news conference late Saturday night. Skagit County authorities alerted the Island County Sheriff’s Office, which arrested Cetin around 6:30 p.m., he said.
Cammock said Cetin has not been charged. He will be booked into the Skagit County Jail, he said.
He is expected to appear in Skagit County District Court on Monday.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 25, 2016 40 Comments
The Charlotte Police have released body and dashboard cam videos. While the video does not show enough of what happened to show a gun in hand, police say that Keith Lamont Scott had a gun when police shot him, and the video shows police yelling to "drop the gun" as he turned towards them and was shot. While the video in itself does not resolve the legal issue of whether the shooting was lawful, it completely contradicts the initial narrative that Scott was holding or pointing a book. WSOC-TV reports on the scenario presented by the police upon the release of the evidence:
Two plain clothes officers were sitting inside of their unmarked police vehicle preparing to serve an arrest warrant in the parking lot of The Village at College Downs when a white SUV pulled in and parked beside them. The officers saw the driver, later identified as Keith Lamont Scott, rolling what they believed to be a marijuana “blunt.” Officers did not consider Scott’s drug activity to be a priority at the time and they resumed the warrant operation. A short time later, Officer Vinson saw Scott hold a gun up.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 24, 2016 6 Comments
We have written dozens of times about Jewish Voice for Peace, which is a leader of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. As Prof. Miriam Elman has thoroughly documented, JVP uses the "Jewish" in its name (even thought it's not a Jewish group) to lend cover to all manner of anti-Israel groups, Jewish Voice for Peace – “Jew Washing” the anti-Israel movement. Local branches of JVP, such as the NYC branch that disrupted a City Council commemoration of the Liberation of Auschwitz and the Ithaca (NY) branch that conducted an anti-Israel event for public school third graders, often are even more radical than the national JVP. Because BDS is a Settler Colonial Ideology which seeks alliances and to co-opt other movements through the concept of intersectionality, BDS of necessity singles out the Jewish Israeli as uniquely evil and the source of problems in the world. The distinction between Israelis and Jews quickly evaporates, as we witness in Europe where anti-Israel protests frequently use blatantly anti-Semitic rhetoric and where Jews are attacked on the street in the name of anti-Zionism. So, it is no surprise that while groups like JVP disavow anti-Semitism, BDS attracts both open Jew haters and those who traffic in negative Jewish stereotypes in the anti-Zionist cause.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 24, 2016 15 Comments
While the Republican presidential candidate talks about eliminating the death tax altogether, the Democrat presidential candidate promises to raise it even further than her initial suggestion.  This seems to be Hillary's latest leftward lunge as she attempts to appeal to Bernie voters who appear to believe that once you die, your money belongs to them the state. The IRS calls the estate tax (aka death tax) "a tax on your right to transfer property at your death." Hillary wants the death tax to be higher, all the better to manage your right to transfer your property at your death. Investopedia reports:
In a nod to potentially disaffected supporters of her primary opponent Bernie Sanders, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Thursday proposed raising the top estate tax rate to 65%. This policy stands in stark contrast to that of her Republican opponent Donald Trump, who would repeal the "death tax," as his website refers to it, but tax capital gains held until death.
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