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....
Russia is top U.S. national security threat: Gen. Dunford Russia presents the greatest threat to U.S. national security and its behavior is "nothing short of alarming," Marine General Joseph Dunford told lawmakers on Thursday as they weighed his nomination to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Dunford also added his voice to those Pentagon officials who have supported providing lethal arms to Ukraine to help it defend itself from Russia-backed separatists, a step that President Barack Obama has so far resisted. "My assessment today, Senator, is that Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security," said Dunford, the Marine Corps commandant, who is expected to swiftly win Senate confirmation to become the top U.S. military officer.
The Media Thought Hillary’s CNN Interview Was Terrible Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s first wide-ranging, sit-down interview of the 2016 election cycle was a dud, according to mainstream media observers. MSNBC’s Morning Joe panelists thought she was evasive, fearful, and gave off an annoyed vibe. On immigration, she made untrue claims about her Republican opponents and CNN’s Jake Tapper warned her about overplaying her hand. CNN’s Alisyn Camerota called her out for blaming right-wing attacks for her sinking poll numbers, reminiscent of her accusations of a “vast right-wing conspiracy“ when she was first lady. Meet the Press‘s Chuck Todd, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, and BBC’s Katty Kay all said, separately, she looked “defensive” on questions about her private email server.
Can't believe it's been 3 years since @ScottWalker made history by winning the recall election! VIDEO: http://t.co/ruqOWAq403
— Tonette Walker (@TonetteWalker) July 7, 2015
Media Fail: 70% Believe News Reporting Intentionally Biased A new survey by USA Today and the First Amendment Center found that Americans' distrust of the news media has skyrocketed over the last year, the number of American adults believing news reporting is biased jumping up to 70 percent, while less than a quarter now say they trust the news media. The 2015 State of the First Amendment Survey released Friday found that only 24 percent of American adults believe that "overall, the news media tries to report the news without bias," a 17-point drop from last year and the lowest number since the poll began in 2004. More than two-thirds, 70 percent, disagreed with that statement, a 15-point increase since last year.One positive finding in the survey was an increase in support for the First Amendment.
Cruz presidential campaign says supporters donated $51 million Republican Senator Ted Cruz and the outside groups supporting his presidential bid have raised more than $51 million in the three months since he launched his campaign for president, according to a statement from his campaign on Sunday. Cruz, who announced his candidacy on March 23 in a speech at the conservative school Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, has raised far less in donations directly to his campaign than his supporters have collected for the four outside spending groups supporting him. The statement said there were 175,000 individual donations to the campaign with an average contribution of $81. About $10 million came in during the second quarter of the year.
Haley’s Charleston response, Confederate flag stand spark VP talk South Carolina GOP Gov. Nikki Haley’s response to the Charleston massacre, highlighted by her call to remove the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds, has thrust her back into the national spotlight and re-ignited talk about what role she might play in the 2016 race. Not only is Haley poised to be a powerful surrogate, there's already chatter that she could make a solid Republican vice presidential candidate. "She’d be on anybody’s list,” Mike Huckabee, one 14 GOP presidential candidates and a former Arkansas governor, told Fox News on Tuesday. “She’s done a terrific job in South Carolina.”
Will Joe Biden run for president? Drumbeat picks up. WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden has long harbored dreams of being president. He’s run twice before, clearly relishes political life, and has yet to rule out a third try – even as Hillary Clinton dominates in fundraising and in polls of Democrats. After the death on May 30 of Mr. Biden’s beloved elder son, Beau, such talk was put on hold. But in recent days, speculation has begun to soar. New York businessman Jon Cooper, a former Obama fundraising bundler now working on a draft effort to get Biden into the race, told the Monitor Thursday that he puts the probability of Biden running at 80 percent.
From Piyush to Bobby: How does Jindal feel about his family’s past? Jindal’s status as a conservative of color helped propel his meteoric rise in the Republican Party — from an early post in the George W. Bush administration to two terms in Congress and now a second term as Louisiana governor — and donors from Indian American groups fueled his first forays into politics. Yet many see him as a man who has spent a lifetime distancing himself from his Indian roots. As a child, he announced he wanted to go by the name Bobby, after a character in “The Brady Bunch.” He converted from Hinduism to Christianity as a teen and was later baptized a Catholic as a student at Brown University — making his devotion to Christianity a centerpiece of his public life. He and his wife were quick to say in a “60 Minutes” interview in 2009 that they do not observe many Indian traditions — although they had two wedding ceremonies, one Hindu and one Catholic. He said recently that he wants to be known simply as an American, not an Indian American. “There’s not much Indian left in Bobby Jindal,” said Pearson Cross, a political science professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette who is writing a book on the governor.
White House: Have you talked to your family about ObamaCare lately? The Obama administration wants you to bring a side of healthcare politics to your family picnic this weekend. After ObamaCare’s big win at the Supreme Court last week, federal health officials are serving up some tips about talking to family members who may be less-than-enthused that ObamaCare is here to stay. “You should be prepared when Aunt Janine says something like, ‘Obamacare hasn’t helped anyone!’” a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services wrote in a blog post on Thursday. For instance, if your Uncle Ted starts calling Obamacare a train wreck, you should calmly explain that he’s “gotten ahold of some old talking points," the spokesman recommends.
Your weekly dispatch from the world of higher education....
QUESTION: Were you ever -- were you ever specifically briefed on the security implications of using -- using your own email server and using your personal address to email with the president? CLINTON: I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material. So I'm certainly well-aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material.https://youtu.be/uNgsze5yjG0?t=6m0s At the time, Professor Jacobson expressed skepticism about Hillary's claims:
Greece fails to make key IMF debt payment Greece lost its financial lifelines Tuesday, as the country missed a crucial payment to the International Monetary Fund amid growing questions about whether it would be able to remain in the euro zone. Greek leaders had made a last-ditch attempt to come up with the necessary cash, asking European countries for a new bailout hours before its last ones were set to expire, but E.U. finance ministers rejected the request as unrealistic. The missed payment, confirmed by the IMF, was a landmark moment in Europe’s five-year battle to preserve its common currency. The E.U. finance chiefs were set to reconvene Wednesday as Greece’s cash dwindles and its banks remain closed. The ministers’ decision to hold firm was a sign that they believed they had successfully put in place the defenses against instability in Europe if a country left the euro zone. But as Greece became the first developed nation to miss a payment to the IMF, E.U. leaders were confronting the prospect of a European country plunging into intense financial misery as it was forced to abandon the currency.In the coming days, you're going to hear some quibbling about whether or not this was a default.
Chris Christie Said to Plan Tuesday Announcement of Presidential Run New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will join the crowded Republican 2016 field Tuesday, two people with knowledge of his plans said. Christie, 52, will cap months of speculation with an announcement in his hometown of Livingston, said the people, who asked for anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak before his speech. While Christie previously said he hadn’t made up his mind, he’s spent months making policy speeches and holding meetings in key primary states including New Hampshire and Iowa. He’s traveled as “honorary chairman” of Leadership Matters for America, his political action committee. Samantha Smith, a committee spokeswoman, didn’t immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.
GOP 2016 Hopefuls Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee Gain Ground in WSJ/NBC News Poll Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina all gained significant ground with Republican primary voters in the weeks since they announced their candidacy for the party’s presidential nomination, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul moved in the opposite direction over the same period, with the share of likely GOP primary voters who said they could see themselves backing him falling from 59% in late April to 49% in mid-June. The decline came as Mr. Paul battled fellow Republicans over his effort to end the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of phone records... The biggest movers in the new survey were Ms. Fiorina and Messrs. Carson and Huckabee. The share of Republican primary voters who said they were open to supporting Ms. Fiorina, a former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co., jumped from 17% in April to 31% in June, about even with the 29% who said they weren't open to supporting her.
Greeks Line Up at Banks and Drain ATMs as Tsipras Calls Vote Some Greek banks were beginning to limit cash transactions as hundreds of people lined up outside branches and drained cash machines after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called a referendum that could decide his country’s fate in the euro. Two senior Greek retail bank executives said as many as 500 of the country’s more than 7,000 ATMs had run out of cash as of Saturday morning, and that some lenders may not be able to open on Monday unless there was an emergency liquidity injection from the Bank of Greece. A central bank spokesman said it was making efforts to supply money to the system.
