Mike LaChance has been covering higher education and politics for Legal Insurrection since 2012. He has also written for American Lookout, Townhall, and Twitchy.
Since 2008 he has contributed work to the Daily Caller, Breitbart, Gateway Pundit, the Center for Security Policy, the Washington Free Beacon, and Ricochet.
Mike is a Generation X, New England lifer who describes his political views as conservative and libertarian.
You can find him on Twitter @MikeLaChance33
Your weekly dispatch from the world of higher education....
Donny Deutsch Attacks ‘Scary…Dangerous…Slimy’ Ted Cruz Appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Monday, Donny Deutsch viciously attacked Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) following his announcement that he will be running for president, calling the Tea Party favorite “scary” and “dangerous.” After co-host Mika Brzezinski asked Erica Grieder of Texas Monthly about Cruz’s presidential prospects, Deutsch tore into the Republican senator and declared him “completely unelectable, obviously an interesting character and obviously he’ll have a place at the table but unelectable for a host of reasons.”Here's the video: But wait, there's more....
This Longtime IHOP Owner Sold His 16 Restaurants Because of Obamacare It was a brisk March morning, nearly a year after President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, and I had trekked to the Midwest with a camera crew to meet Scott Womack, owner of about a dozen IHOP restaurants in Indiana and Ohio. Womack’s testimony before Congress earlier in 2011 caught my attention and I wanted to visit him at one of his restaurants to see firsthand how Washington’s policymaking had impacted his work. The IHOP in Terre Haute is located on South 3rd Street, just a few minutes from the Interstate 70 interchange and a short drive from the Holiday Inn where we had stayed the night before. As we sat in the back of the bustling restaurant waiting for Womack to arrive, we ordered french toast, omelettes and other IHOP specialities. At the time, Womack employed about 1,000 people at his 12 restaurants. When the Affordable Care Act became law on March 23, 2010, he had big plans for his franchise. He had purchased a development agreement in 2006 that would expand the company to 14 new IHOP locations in Ohio... Four Years Later Facing the prospect of Obamacare’s employer mandate on Jan. 1, 2015, Womack opted to sell his 16 IHOP restaurants last year to Romulus Restaurant Group.
Homeland Security Chair: ISIS Terrorists Are ‘Here In The United States’ ISIS terrorists are “here in the United States,” according to House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul (R., Texas), who believes it “would not be so difficult” for them to stage an attack. “Well, we have the foreign fighters. There are about 30,000 of them, 5,000 with Western passports according to the DNI, Clapper, 180 have returned or gone to the region. And we have a — a number that I can’t disclose publicly,” McCaul said on ABC. “They’re here in the United States,” he continued.Watch the exchange:
A drunken mob of more than 20 thugs shouted "kill the Jews" as they stormed into a north London synagogue while young worshippers celebrated the end of the sabbath. The anti-Semitic abuse was hurled by the group of men and women as they first beat up a young man outside before chasing him inside, breaking windows and attacking others.The Times of Israel reports:
Six men were arrested in London early Sunday morning after a large crowd of party revelers attacked a synagogue, breaking windows and trying to forcing their way inside According to The Mirror tabloid, trouble started after an intoxicated gang of around 20 young men and women, who had been at a party in a nearby house, tried to enter the synagogue on Craven Park Road in the heart of London’s Stamford Hill area, home to Europe’s largest ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. One Jewish man suffered light injuries to his face as he tried to prevent the gang from entering the premises. He was taken to a hospital for treatment.
Hillary Rodham Clinton decided to conduct, for four years, the office of Secretary of State using her own private email server. Because these emails were not transacted and recorded through the official State Department servers, Mrs. Clinton “willfully concealed and removed” these critical documents from the records and archives of the United States Government. You can further argue that by electing to not have these records placed onto government servers – which are secure, routinely backed up, and most importantly subject to Freedom Of Information Act requests, that she has, by any reasonable interpretation, “mutilated, obliterated and destroyed” these essential records, which belong not to Hillary Rodham Clinton but rather to the Secretary of State of the United States of America, and her employers, the people of that nation. The penalty for this is a fine or up to three years imprisonment, or both. That’s paragraph (a) of the law.Watch it all below:
Your weekly report from the world of higher education....
Rubio Delivers Blistering Speech on Obama’s Assault on Israel It has taken two days for Obama to call Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and congratulate him on his reelection. Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have taken part in very sensitive talks with Iran about its nuclear program. Rubio began speaking on how Obama has always been among the first to call controversial leaders and congratulate them on winning their elections but has remained silent when it came to congratulating on the United States’ biggest ally in the Middle East. Rubio continued, making multiple points that the Obama administration has not stood with Israel.Rubio cites a litany of examples of the unfair treatment of Israel by the Obama administration and its regional enemies such as Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. This video is 15 minutes long and well worth your time.
Krauthammer’s Take: ‘It’s Clear that Obama Loathes Netanyahu More than Any Other World Leader’ “This was an election between Bibi and Obama — that was on the ballot,” he said on Wednesday’s Special Report. “He did everything he could to unseat him, but he failed.” Krauthammer criticized “the pettiness and the petulance” from the Obama administration regarding Netanyahu’s victory, which included a backhanded congratulatory statement and a delayed phone call from secretary of state John Kerry rather than President Obama. “I think the reaction of the administration is now reaching levels where it’s become unseemingly,” he said... “It’s clear that Obama loathes Netanyahu more than any other world leader, meaning more than the ayatollah in Iran or Putin in Russia.”Watch the video:
Playboy Interview: Dick Cheney Dick Cheney likes lattes. Seated in his favorite brown-leather chair in the sunlit study of his home in McLean, Virginia, the former vice president of the United States can toss back two of the warm java blasts in an hour... At different points, President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have suggested that racism is a factor in criticism of them. Is there any truth in that? I think they’re playing the race card, in my view. Certainly we haven’t given up—nor should we give up—the right to criticize an administration and public officials. To say that we criticize, or that I criticize, Barack Obama or Eric Holder because of race, I just think it’s obviously not true. My view of it is the criticism is merited because of performance—or lack of performance, because of incompetence. It hasn’t got anything to do with race. Do you feel Obama, either intentionally or inadvertently, has undone your and President Bush’s work? Oh absolutely. Where do you start? I think with respect to the situation in Iraq, his precipitous withdrawal and refusal to leave any stay-behind forces, to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqis, was a huge mistake; we are paying a price for it now. He’s having to go back in now, and the guy who campaigned on the basis of bring the boys home and get out of Iraq is now redeploying forces to Iraq. I think his apology tour, when he went to Cairo in the summer of 2009 and said the U.S. overreacted to the events of 9/11, was a huge mistake. I don’t think he ever bought into the notion that we’re at war, in terms of a war on terrorism; I think he always wanted to treat it as a law-enforcement problem.Read it all. For someone who's been out of office for six years, Cheney has stayed remarkably relevant.
Watchdog Calls on NASCAR to End Funding to Al Sharpton A government watchdog group is calling on NASCAR to cut ties with Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network in response to the cable news host’s comments about police in the wake of the shooting of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and the questionable financial activities at his nonprofit groups. The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) asked NASCAR to “end its financial support of Al Sharpton and his organization” in a letter to CEO Brian France on Monday. NASCAR has previously been a sponsor of NAN’s annual conference, a key fundraising event for Sharpton’s group, according to the NLPC. “The cold-blooded murder of two New York City police officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, followed weeks of Sharpton’s vilification of law enforcement personnel. Now two police officers have been gunned down in Ferguson, Missouri,” wrote NLPC president Peter Flaherty in the letter. “Mr. France, police lives matter. You can demonstrate your support for law enforcement by ending your support for Sharpton without delay.”Sharpton has been a regular presence in Ferguson. He even held a press conference after the grand jury decision in November.
CBS Panel Is Ready to Blame GOP Sen. Tom Cotton If Obama’s Foreign Policy Toward Iran Fails The panel on CBS’ Face the Nation appears ready to blame Arkansas senator Tom Cotton if the Obama administration’s negotiations with Iran fall through. Cotton, along with 46 other Senators, penned a letter warning the Iranian regime not to rely on any agreement with President Obama that did not have the approval of Congress. “Yes, Cotton is well intentioned in doing this, but it’s backfiring,” said Dana Milbank of the Washington Post. “If the Ayatollah is going to give out the Ayatollah’s Medal of Honor this year, I think Cotton’s going to be a finalist because it gives them an excuse if they pull away from the agreement now.”Watch the exchange below:
Carville: I 'Suspect' Hillary Used Private Email to Avoid Congressional Oversight "What this is, is the latest in a continuation, and if you take it all and put it together, and you subtract 3.1415 from pi, you're left with not very much. And that's -- at the end of the day, so the Republicans can't pass a budget, alright, we got another investigation, just like we had the Whitewater, just like you go through the filegate, you go through travelgate, you go through seven or eight different congressional committees. And you wonder why the public is not following this? Because they know what it is. "It was something she did. It was legal. I suspect she didn't want [Republican congressman] Louie Gohmert rifling through her emails, which seems to me to be a kind of reasonable position for someone to take. It amounts to -- just like everything else before it, it amounts to nothing but a bunch of people flapping their jaws about nothing." The comment about Gohmert going through emails suggests Carville thinks Hillary Clinton set up the private email server to avoid congressional oversight.Here's the video:
More Seattle restaurants close doors as $15 minimum wage approaches Seattle’s $15 minimum wage law goes into effect on April 1, 2015. As that date approaches, restaurants across the city are making the financial decision to close shop. The Washington Policy Center writes that “closings have occurred across the city, from Grub in the upscale Queen Anne Hill neighborhood, to Little Uncle in gritty Pioneer Square, to the Boat Street Cafe on Western Avenue near the waterfront.” Of course, restaurants close for a variety of reasons. But, according to Seattle Magazine, the “impending minimum wage hike to $15 per hour” is playing a “major factor.” That’s not surprising, considering “about 36% of restaurant earnings go to paying labor costs.” Seattle Magazine, “Washington Restaurant Association’s Anthony Anton puts it this way: “It’s not a political problem; it’s a math problem.”
MSNBC Is Overplaying Its Hand It didn’t take long for MSNBC to unveil one of its favorite talking points in response to Hillary Clinton’s email scandal at the State Department. Wednesday, the day after a grisly press conference where Clinton tried to answer for deleting thousands of emails and why she had a personal server in the first place, host Alex Wagner posed a question the network loves when Democrats are in tight spots. “To the Trey Gowdy part of the equation, there is a danger here for Republicans which is a frequent danger, that of overplaying their hand,” she said. “The fact that Trey Gowdy has said before Secretary Clinton’s testimony has even begun that he may need to talk to her twice, is he at risk of overstepping here?”Here's the video:
Your weekly dispatch from the world of higher education....
