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October 2016

While tensions related to the fatal shooting of a a black man by El Cajon police have subsided, it appears the Los Angeles Police Department has also became a center of #BlackLivesMatters demonstrations. The triggering incidents seem similar to the one in the San Diego, in which Alfred Olango took a shooting stance with an e-cigarette. However, both of these situations involved either a gun or an object that more closely resembled an actual weapons.
The Los Angeles police chief on Monday defended the use of deadly force against two men in separate fatal shootings over the weekend, saying one turned toward officers with a gun and the other pointed what looked like a real gun at police.

Sheriff David Clarke is an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump and critic of the Black Lives Matter movement. This summer, the University of New Haven in Connecticut invited him to speak this fall, but the invitation was recently rescinded. Clarke wrote about the situation at Patheos:
The University of New Haven Disinvited Me to Speak on FORENSICS, because of #BlackLivesMatter The cult-like demands of #BlackLivesMatter have extended all the way into the Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences. This program, established by Dr. Henry C. Lee of University of New Haven, is one of the foremost academic forensic programs in the world. (He’s worked on the JonBenét Ramsey case, the O.J. Simpson and Laci Peterson cases, the post-9/11 investigations, and has reinvestigated the assassination of John F. Kennedy.) I was honored to have been invited to speak this month at their 25 th Annual Markle Symposium October 24 and 25 2016.

CBS News reports that criminals make an estimated 10,000 IRS scam phone calls each week and that the scammers are ruthless in preying on Americans' fear of the IRS's unique and expansive power. Not only is the IRS the "the most feared federal agency in the country," but it's also deemed by the majority of Americans as "frequently" abusing its power, an abuse with which Tea Party groups and conservatives are well aware. Happily, Indian police have busted a large IRS phone "scam center" located in three buildings on the outskirts of Mumbai.

Right, Donny. Because who could ever come up with an argument against Hillary Clinton, possibly the most corrupt, scandal-ridden, jaded candidate in the history of presidential politics? On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough, to his credit, fulminated against anti-Trump MSM reporters who are supposed to write stories down the middle but are instead "openly cheering for Hillary Clinton." That's when Donny Deutsch defended media bias, saying that reporters have a "conscience" and that "sometimes there's no other side to an argument."

With German Chancellor Angela Merkel doubling down yet again on her Open Borders Policy and lashing out at European countries like Hungary for blocking the steady flow of migrants into European heartland, a new wave of mass migration is hitting the continent. On Tuesday, Italy rescued nearly 5,000 migrants from the Mediterranean Sea, taking the number of rescued migrants at the high seas by Italian coastguard to over 10,000 within the span of just two days. Chancellor Merkel’s open offer of a better life for anyone who can cross over by any means into Europe has created a stampede of continental proportions as every week tens of thousands from North Africa and Middle East set off to Europe taking the land route or the high seas. Since the beginning of this year more than 3,000 people have died while attempting to cross the Mediterranean.

October 6, 1973, was Yom Kippur (in the Hebrew calendar). As most Israeli Jews were attending services or otherwise observing the most holy day in Judaism, there was a surprise attack by Egyptian and Syrian armed forces. As I related in an earlier post:
There are certain events when you just remember exactly where you were when you heard the news. I was on stage for a third-grade practice of a school play when a teacher walked into the room (the gym, which also was the school theater and lunch room) and told everyone that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been killed. We were sent home early. I was at my desk using AOL to access the internet (!) when early reports came in of a “small plane” hitting the World Trade Center. And you know the rest.

The United States District Court in Baltimore has charged a Maryland government contractor with the removal of classified documents and theft of government property for allegedly possessing paper and digital classified materials, including "highly classified computer code developed to hack into the networks of foreign governments." The Washington Post reports:
A federal contractor suspected of leaking powerful National Security Agency hacking tools has been arrested and charged with stealing classified information from the U.S. government, according to court records and a law enforcement official familiar with the case. Harold Thomas Martin III, 51, who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, was charged with theft of government property and unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials, authorities said. He was arrested in August after investigators searched his home in Glen Burnie, Md., and found documents and digital information stored on various devices that contained highly classified information, authorities said.
Martin is a "decorated former Naval officer and reservist with a broad interest in cyber issues".

We'll admit it up front: there's not much redeeming social value in the story we're about to present you. Let's just call this political entertainment of the pugilistic sort between two people who clearly have little use for each other. Over the course of a longish segment on today's With All Due Respect, Trump surrogate Boris Epshteyn and Gary Johnson backer Liz Mair engaged in a running battle. The barbs came fast and furious, with, among other things: Mair—playing the sexism card—ripping Epshteyn for interrupting her; Boris noting Mair's fascination with the word "butt" and taunting her over not having a job this election cycle; and Mair suggesting that Boris had trouble keeping up with the news. At the end, when John Heilemann facetiously observed that it had been a real "lovefest," Mair retorted "I don't do the loving, I do the hating."

The purge of Turkish academia has been extensive, as we documented in several posts since the July 15, 2016 failed coup. That purge met with some letters of criticism from American academic groups, but no calls for boycotts of Turkish academia of the sort that are pushed aggressively against Israel. We noted that hypocrisy previously: If you thought that Erdogan was done with the purge, you would be wrong. It continued this week, Turkey detains another 15 academics over use of ‘suspected’ mobile app:

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is a non-Jewish organization that provides cover to the anti-Israel boycott movement (BDS) by legitimizing and mainstreaming its assault on Jewish identity. As we’ve noted in prior posts (see here and here), JVP activists operate in multiple arenas to exploit Jewish culture and traditions, putting them into service for a vehemently anti-Israel and anti-Zionist propaganda campaign. Various Jewish celebrations and commemorative life-cycle events are constantly being manipulated for Israel-bashing and pro-boycott messaging. Last April, this identity theft of Jewish heritage was particularly visible during Passover, when JVP promoted BDS in a newly released Haggadah and staged ‘liberation seders’, appropriating the holiday’s rituals and texts for an anti-Israel narrative. Now, JVP is usurping the Jewish High Holidays.