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October 2016

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 08, 2016 2 Comments
WAJ Intro: The post below is by Prof. Cary Nelson, a leading scholar and expert on issues of academic freedom and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. He was co-Editor of The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel (2014)(from the cover of which the Featured Image was taken) and was Editor of Dreams Deferred: A Concise Guide to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the Movement to Boycott Israel (2016). Prof. Nelson's very important research report addresses the lack of academic freedom at Palestinian universities. That subject has been of interest to me for some time, but has not been well documented. There are few if any investigative groups who can operate and write freely in areas controlled by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, including universities. Reporting critical of the regimes is suppressed violently.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 08, 2016 121 Comments
By any conventional wisdom, Donald Trump's polling numbers should crater as a result of the release of a 2005 video in which he disparages women and boasts of hitting on married and other women in a manner that suggests non-consensual sexual contact. But so much of what seems logical to me has been wrong when it comes to Trump's ability to weather political storms. Put aside the rank hypocrisy of the politicians and media who to this day defend Bill Clinton, who is alleged by numerous women to have done far worse. Precisely because the media would want any Republican to lose, no moral equivalence will be drawn much yet used as an excuse. After all, the media painted Mitt Romney as a virtual sexual deviant because of the "binders of women" comment during a debate, so yes, the mainstream media is disgusting and dishonest.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on October 08, 2016 8 Comments
The leaked Podesta emails are providing a lot of insight into Hillary and her team, including tidbits that support suspicions long-held on the right and now seemingly confirmed. The latest example may implicate the Hillary campaign in illegal activity (yet again).  The emails in question appear to show the Hillary campaign engaged in illegal coordination with George Soros. The Daily Caller reports:
Leaked emails from Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s personal email account published by WikiLeaks reveal the Clinton campaign’s coordination with George Soros’s Open Society Foundations on the subject of police reform.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 08, 2016 8 Comments
Is there anything that won't cause climate change? A new report indicates that a boom in legalized marijuana farming could come with a high carbon cost.
It turns out that every little joint and edible adds up. A new report finds that marijuana cultivation accounts for as much as 1 percent of energy use in states such as Colorado and Washington. The electricity needed to illuminate, dehumidify, and air-condition large growing operations may soon rival the expenditures from big data centers, which themselves emit an estimated 100 million metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year. The marijuana industry’s energy use “is immense,” said the report’s author, Kelly Crandall, an analyst for EQ Research, a clean energy policy research institute. Her report found that a large grow operation can have energy expenditures of 2,000 watts per square meter because of its constant need for lighting and ventilation.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 08, 2016 0 Comments

Orwell: “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”...

Posted by Mike LaChance on October 08, 2016 5 Comments
Despite feminists tearing down posters for the event last week, Christina Hoff Sommers finally spoke at California State University, Los Angeles. She was invited to speak by the Young Americans for Freedom chapter at the school and much to the chagrin of leftists, drew a sizable audience. Of course, like all non-progressives who attempt to make their voices heard on American college campuses today, her event required heavy security.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on October 08, 2016 46 Comments
Yesterday, WikiLeaks released excerpts of speeches given by Hillary Clinton that were part of a batch of what it says were 2,060 emails hacked from an account belonging to Podesta. The speech excerpts appear to have been gathered and emailed to a select group of people, including Podesta, in response to a request for "flags" in Hillary's paid speeches compiled by Clinton campaign research director Tony Carrk. https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927 Carrk highlights each section with the reason for its "flag"; you can tell what he wrote because it is either in all caps as a heading or has *asterisks* to denote it's not from one of Hillary's speeches. Regarding the speeches themselves:  they contain some rather interesting revelations.  For example, she speaks openly about her desire to see open borders in the near future, about how Wall Street needs to fix Wall Street, about her positive view of the Keystone pipeline and trade, about her goal of instituting a Canadian-style "universal health care system," and about her need to have "both a public and a private position" on policy issues.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 08, 2016 5 Comments
The media is all consumed with fat-shaming and Trump's 2005 comments. In the meantime, the Obama administration further proved that the Iranian nuclear deal was misrepresented to the public and that it was about empowering Iran as a regional power. The AP reports, US further eases Iran sanctions after nuclear deal (h/t Jonathan Schanzer Twitter):
The Obama administration is further easing sanctions on Iran, making it easier for foreign firms to do business with the country following last year's nuclear deal.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on October 08, 2016 178 Comments
Two days ago, we reported Donny Deutsch predicting that stories damaging to Donald Trump involving women would be emerging. We wondered out loud: "was this pure speculation on Donny’s part, or did a little birdie inside the Clinton campaign tell him something?" And sure enough—just one day later—broke the hot mic story of Trump making crude and lewd comments about one woman in particular and women in general. So sure looks like Donny did know something. In any case, appearing on today's With All Due Respect, Donny declared: "let the record show, at 4:01pm on October 7th, this election ended—when this Washington Post story broke."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 07, 2016 5 Comments
You may remember Lane Pittman, the Jacksonville-area rocker whose July 4, 2015 guitar riff of the Star Spangled Banner got him in hot water with the cops, Florida man arrested for playing Star Spangled Banner on 4th of July rejects plea deal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuEGn8Cn6ms The video of the performance received over 320,000 views on YouTube. Things turned out okay for Lane, as the charges were dropped and he became something of a legend, as I recounted in my post over a year later, Update: Remember Florida rocker charged for playing national anthem on July 4?

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on October 07, 2016 31 Comments
America's police are facing unprecedented scrutiny amid relentless criticism; it has become so intense that the Wall Street Journal calls it a "crisis" and calls are made to "overhaul" our law enforcement system.  One solution, offered by the abhorrent Al Sharpton, is to nationalize America's police forces and to place them under the purview of the Justice Department. Enter the United States Department of Justice.  The DOJ released a report on "Advancing Diversity in Law Enforcement" (embedded below), and it includes some rather . . . interesting proposals. Among them, suggestions that criminal background checks are inherently racist and allowances should be made to convicted criminals wishing to join a police department in certain circumstances.
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