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Author: Mike LaChance

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Mike LaChance

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

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 24, 2015 14 Comments
The three Americans who stopped a terror attack on a train in France over the weekend were given the Legion of Honor award by French President François Hollande. CNN reports:
France honors 3 Americans, Briton for stopping train attack Three days after they pounced on and subdued a gunman Friday aboard a packed train headed to Paris, American childhood friends Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlatos received the Legion of Honor -- France's highest recognition. The Americans, who reportedly met in middle school in California, planned on spending the summer sightseeing together. It was Sadler's first trip to Europe, and National Guardsman Skarlatos was on a monthlong break after serving in Afghanistan. Stone is an Air Force serviceman. They will return to the United States celebrated for their courage and quick action, and for exemplifying teamwork and friendship... "By their courage, they saved lives," President François Hollande said. "They gave us an example of what is possible to do in these kinds of situations."

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 23, 2015 18 Comments
Following the riots of this spring, Baltimore has found itself a city on the edge. In fact, Baltimore has now surpassed New York City in homicides for the year. Justin Fenton of the Baltimore Sun:
Baltimore has surpassed New York City in homicides Baltimore has surpassed New York City for homicides this year. A New York Police spokeswoman said the city had seen 208 homicides as of Wednesday. Baltimore recorded its 213th homicide Wednesday night. It's a seemingly impossible milestone -- New York has more than 8.4 million people, Baltimore just 620,000. New York peaked with 2,245 homicides in 1990, but that number has been tumbling and hit a historic low in 2014, with 328. Baltimore saw a peak of 353 killings in1993, and recorded 211 homicides in 2014. Baltimore surpasses the number of murders for all of last year, with more than four months to go. The dubious distinction comes as the mayor faces growing public criticism. Mike Hellgren reports. Adjusted for population, Baltimore's murder rate through Aug. 19 is 34 per 100,000 people, while New York's is so far this year 2.5 per 100,000. If New York had Baltimore's murder rate, it would have seen 2,874 killings already this year.

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 23, 2015 9 Comments
As we recently reported, Rand Paul has been dealing with the unique issue of running for president and his senate seat at the same time. Yesterday, his plans were approved. Dave Weigel of the Washington Post:
Rand Paul sells Kentucky GOP on presidential caucus Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) avoided a major headache Saturday after Kentucky Republican Party approved a rule change that would allow him to run for president while seeking reelection to his Senate seat. "I applaud the Republican Party of Kentucky on their decision to hold a caucus in the upcoming Republican presidential cycle," Paul said in a statement. "The people of Kentucky deserve a voice as the GOP chooses their next nominee, and holding a caucus will ensure that Kentucky is relevant and participates early in the process." The party's central committee approved Kentucky's first-ever presidential caucus for March 5, 2016. The vote was 111 to 36, a stronger showing than expected, after a drama that took most of the day -- ending just 20 minutes before the meeting had to end. Two-third of the central committee were needed to approve the caucus.

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 22, 2015 19 Comments
A member of the Air Force, a national guardsman and a college student, (all Americans) stopped a terror attack on a French train Friday night. This report from France 24 has the basic timeline of the incident:
Holidaying US servicemen foil French train attack Anthony Sadler, a student studying physical therapy at Sacramento State University, was travelling on a French train with two childhood friends ̶ Air Force serviceman Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlatos, a National Guardsman ̶ when the three heard a gunshot and breaking glass. "We heard a gunshot and we heard glass breaking behind us, and saw a train employee sprint past us down the aisle," Sadler said from France, describing the incident. They then saw the gunman entering their train car. "I didn't realise what was happening until I saw a guard run past. I looked back and saw a guy enter with a Kalashnikov. My friends and I got down and then I said, 'Let's get him'," said Skarlatos, 22, who returned from service in Afghanistan in July.

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 22, 2015 5 Comments
It looks like Bernie Sanders learned something from his recent run-in with #BlackLivesMatter in Seattle because he's now taking great pains to reach out to black voters. Vanessa Williams of the Washington Post:
Bernie Sanders looks to broaden his appeal in South Carolina Bernie Sanders fired up a lively crowd of supporters Friday as he began a campaign swing through this early primary state that seven years ago helped to boost the candidacy of another senator who many thought couldn’t beat the odds of winning the presidency. Sanders even made reference to President Obama’s historic election in 2008 as evidence that the country “has in fact made real progress of overcoming our legacy of historical racism … But the bad news is racism still remains a much too real part of American life.”

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 21, 2015 7 Comments
Dr. Ben Carson gave a speech Tuesday night to a crowd of 12,000 people at the Phoenix Convention Center. Carson was scheduled to speak at a smaller venue but the event was moved due to high demand. The Right Scoop notes that Carson drew a larger crowd than Donald Trump had at a recent event in the same city. The full speech is at the bottom of this post. It's forty minutes long and you should watch the whole thing but if you're pressed for time, here's a short report from FOX News in Phoenix: Carson touches on all the major issues of domestic and foreign policy but gets his biggest applause breaks when he talks about shrinking the size of government, fair taxation, immigration, healthcare, reducing America's debt, improving national security, and his faith in God. He takes the political fight to Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and boy does he sock it to the media. In fact, if you watch nothing else, skip to the 15 minute mark and listen to Carson explain why the media isn't supposed to take sides in American politics.

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 20, 2015 15 Comments
Rand Paul is dealing with some tricky rules as he tries to run for president and hold on to his senate seat at the same time. Chris Moody of CNN reports:
Rand Paul's tough choice Rand Paul has a choice: Spend nearly half a million dollars to keep his increasingly longshot presidential ambitions alive in his home state or leave the Senate. For now, he's choosing to pony up. Paul's political future rests partially in the hands of nearly 350 Republican officials in Kentucky, who will decide Saturday whether to approve a costly plan that would allow him to run in Kentucky for president and the U.S. Senate simultaneously—and possibly salvage his chances of staying in electoral politics after 2016. The proposal, which acts as a work-around of a state law that forbids candidates in Kentucky from running for two federal offices at the same time, would establish a presidential caucus in early March in addition to the state primary scheduled two months later.

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 19, 2015 31 Comments
In the race for the 2016 Republican nomination, John Kasich is being taken seriously because he's been a popular governor for Ohio, and because...well...Ohio. As you may recall, his biggest applause lines in the first GOP debate were for his stance on caring for the mentally ill and for citing God's unconditional love on the question of gay marriage. Kasich seems to be running on compassionate conservatism 2.0, but don't take my word for it. NBC News reports:
John Kasich Pitches Compassion at Iowa State Fair Ohio Gov. John Kasich sought to portray himself as compassionate conservative and touted his gains in the polls in New Hampshire when he visited the Iowa State Fair on Tuesday. His soapbox speech, which had to be moved indoors because of rain, contained little of the red meat typically doled out when Republican presidential candidates address Iowa crowds. Instead, his speech hit on topics ranging from aid to Africa, treating Alzheimer's disease and expanding Medicaid in Ohio.

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 18, 2015 11 Comments
Bob Woodward and his Washington Post colleague Carl Bernstein broke the Watergate story over forty years ago but everything old has become new again. Yesterday on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Woodward made a direct comparison between Hillary Clinton's emails and Nixon's tapes. Jesse Byrnes of The Hill:
Bob Woodward compares Clinton emails to Nixon tapes Veteran Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward on Monday compared Hillary Clinton’s private email account to the Nixon tapes. “Follow the trail here,” Woodward said on MSNBC's “Morning Joe,” noting that emails erased from Clinton’s private server when she led the State Department were either sent or received by someone else, too. “You've got a massive amount of data. It, in a way, reminds me of the Nixon tapes: thousands of hours of secretly recorded conversations that Nixon thought were exclusively his,” Woodward said...

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 16, 2015 23 Comments
In the newest edition of Afterburner, Bill Whittle examines the dumbing-down of American society with an eye to the causes, effects and possible solutions. Whittle opens by noting that conspiracy theories about the moon landing and 9/11 have become mainstream. He goes on to explain the difference between ignorance and a lack of education. One of the points Whittle makes, truly jumps out. He talks about a photo of Steven Spielberg on the set of Jurassic Park next to a dinosaur which went viral after the Cecil the Lion story. Some people actually believed Steven Spielberg killed a Triceratops.

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 16, 2015 10 Comments
Since the beginning of fiscal year 2015, the federal government has taken in a staggering $2.6 trillion in tax revenue. Despite this record breaking haul, the United States is still operating in the red. Terence P. Jeffrey of CNS News reports:
$2,672,414,000,000: Federal Taxes Set Record Through July; $17,955 Per Worker--Feds Still Run $465.5B Deficit The federal government raked in a record of approximately $2,672,414,000,000 in tax revenues through the first ten months of fiscal 2015 (Oct. 1, 2014 through the end of July), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today. That equaled approximately $17,955 for every person in the country who had either a full-time or part-time job in July. It is also up about $183,397,970,000 in constant 2015 dollars from the $2,489,016,030,000 in revenue (in inflation-adjusted 2015 dollars) that the Treasury raked in during the first ten months of fiscal 2014. Despite the record tax revenues of $2,672,414,000,000 in the first ten months of this fiscal year, the government spent $3,137,953,000,000 in those ten months, and, thus, ran up a deficit of $465,539,000,000 during the period.
FOX News put the issue in perspective:

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 15, 2015 10 Comments
Plenty of people in political media are taking note of the large crowds Bernie Sanders is drawing at his events, but at the end of the day, it still might not be enough for Sanders to trounce Clinton. Philip Bump of the Washington Post recently took a hard look at the numbers:
100,000 people have attended Bernie Sanders events this month. That doesn’t mean much. Some 28,000 people attended Bernie Sanders's rally in Portland, Ore., on Sunday -- both in the venue and watching outside. The Fix's Chris Cillizza marveled at the turnout. "28,000 people! In August! Of an off year!" Cillizza wrote. "I mean, that is a lot. A LOT." It's an amount that exceeds one out of every 10 people who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 in Multnomah County, in fact. And then, the next day, Sanders pulled the same number in Los Angeles -- meaning that in seven events since July 1, Sanders spoke before 100,000 people. So what does this mean? I hate to say it -- and I hate to rain on Sanders' well-attended parade -- but: It doesn't mean a whole lot.

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 15, 2015 16 Comments
Dr. Ben Carson appeared on Your World with Neil Cavuto this week and spoke about Planned Parenthood, calling abortion the number one killer of black people. Later in the week, he was asked about his comments on the O'Reilly Factor by guest host Eric Bolling and stood by his statement. Ken Meyer of Mediaite has more:
As Bolling asked him about abortion rates in black communities, Carson responded by saying it was a matter of deciding whether those black lives matter as much. “The number one cause of death for black people is abortion, and I wonder if maybe some people might at some point become concerned about that and ask, why is that happening,” Carson said. He went on to continue his point about Sanger’s alleged eugenics leanings, saying that if Parenthood employees learned about her, they’d be less keen to defend their practices:
I encourage people to go and read about Margaret Sanger and go and read about the beginnings of this organization so that you know what you’re dealing with. One of the ways that they’re able to perpetrate the deceit is because people are not informed. The more people are informed, the less likely these kinds of things happen.
Watch the full exchange below:

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 14, 2015 20 Comments
The U.S. reopened its embassy in Cuba yesterday, which also happened to be Fidel Castro's 89th birthday. Castro used the occasion to insist that the United States owes Cuba millions of dollars over the trade embargo. Yahoo News reported:
Fidel Castro to US: You owe us millions Fidel Castro marked his 89th birthday Thursday by insisting the United States owes Cuba "many millions of dollars" because of the half-century-old American trade embargo. Castro spoke out in an essay published in local media a day before US Secretary of State John Kerry makes a historic visit to Cuba to reopen the US embassy as part of the countries' restoration of diplomatic relations. The trade embargo that the United States slapped on communist Cuba in 1962, three years after Castro seized power by ousting a US-backed regime, remains in effect despite the thaw. President Barack Obama wants Congress to lift it, although US officials say this will take time and is not an automatic part of the restoration of ties, as it requires congressional action. Many Republicans, who control both chambers of the legislature, oppose the idea, insisting Cuba has to improve its human rights record and make other democratic reforms.

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 14, 2015 25 Comments
Lois Lerner is back in the news. According to a new report, emails Lerner sent to a friend reveal that the called Republicans evil and dishonest. She also criticized the Citizens United ruling as one of the worst things to happen in the United States. Andrew Kugle of the Washington Free Beacon:
Lois Lerner: GOP is ‘Evil and Dishonest’ Former IRS official Lois Lerner said that Republicans are “evil and dishonest,” in a email dated March 26, according to Fox News reporter James Rosen. In the email, Lois Lerner described the time when she was called back to testify about the IRS targeting of conservatives before Congress. “They called me back to testify, on IRS ‘scandal,” Lerner wrote. “I took the fifth again and they had been so evil and dishonest in my lawyer’s dealings with them.”
Here's the video report with James Rosen of FOX News:

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 13, 2015 18 Comments
Carly Fiorina appeared on CNN this week with Jake Tapper who asked her how she could oppose Obamacare as a cancer survivor. Tapper respectfully pointed out that she's a survivor of breast cancer and asked about the provision which requires coverage of pre-existing conditions. Fiorina responded by saying that while she supports coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, Obamacare isn't helping many of those people. Transcript via Frank Camp of the IJ Review:
Fiorina: “I absolutely endorse that goal–I did at the time. But guess what? None of that has worked. Demonstrably, if you look at the results of Obamacare… health insurance premiums are up almost 40% now. That isn’t helping anyone with cancer, I can assure you that–” Tapper: “But the expansion of the pool allows the insurance companies to pay for the people with pre-existing conditions.” Fiorina: “…Who helped write Obamacare? The health insurance companies, and the drug companies. And guess what’s happening? Those companies are consolidating. That’s called crony capitalism.”
Watch the full exchange below:
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