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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 November 14, 2015 19 Comments
The Democratic Party is in big trouble and people are starting to notice. The last two mid term elections have flipped control to Republicans on a massive scale and the Democrats have no back bench. Just look at their leading candidates for president. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders aren't up and comers, they're senior citizens and there are no Marco Rubios waiting in the wings. Ashe Schow writes at the Observer:
Obama Has Decimated His Own Party Unlike Any Other Modern President Last week concluded the final election of President Obama’s tenure that didn’t involve replacing him. After seven years in office and as many elections, the Democratic Party has taken a beating worse than the Republican Party took under George W. Bush.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 13, 2015 20 Comments
At a political breakfast event in New Hampshire this week, Hillary Clinton enthralled the guests at her table with a story about the time she tried to join the Marine Corps. Glenn Kessler reports at the Washington Post:
Hillary Clinton’s claim that she tried to join the Marines “He looks at me and goes, ‘Um, how old are you. And I said, ‘Well I am 26, I will be 27.’ And he goes, ‘Well, that is kind of old for us.’ And then he says to me, and this is what gets me, ‘Maybe the dogs will take you,’ meaning the Army.” One Clinton story that has often been greeted with skepticism is her claim, first made in 1994, that she once tried to join the Marines in 1975. On the campaign trail, she brought up the story again. Can this story be confirmed?

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 12, 2015 7 Comments
Hillary Clinton has changed her mind on the trade deal and gay marriage, but she's not finished flip flopping. During her husband's presidency, Hillary Clinton was a big fan of charter schools. Now that she's seeking the presidency herself, things have changed. Kimberly Hefling reports at Politico:
Hillary Clinton rebukes charter schools Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sounded less like a decades-long supporter of charter schools over the weekend and more like a teachers union president when she argued that most of these schools “don’t take the hardest-to-teach kids, or, if they do, they don’t keep them.” Her comments in South Carolina came straight from charter school critics’ playbook and distanced her from the legacies of her husband, former President Bill Clinton — credited with creating a federal stream of money to launch charters around the country — and President Barack Obama, whose administration has dangled federal incentives to push states to become more charter friendly.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 11, 2015 22 Comments
John Kerry, in a recent speech at Old Dominion University, insisted that climate change is a threat to national security. Carol Morello of the Washington Post reports:
Kerry says climate change impacts armies as much as polar bears Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Tuesday he will integrate climate change analysis and its national security implications into all future foreign policy planning. In a speech delivered at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, home to the world’s largest naval base and already experiencing flooding linked to climate change, Kerry called climate change a threat to national security.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 10, 2015 11 Comments
At a time when a growing number of Americans are becoming more concerned about illegal immigration and border security, wouldn't it make perfect sense for the government to put a sanctuary city advocate in charge of our border? When we told them we we care about jobs and the economy, they gave us Obamacare. When we expressed concern about terrorism, they told us climate change was a bigger threat. Naturally, our concerns about immigration warrant a border chief who doesn't believe in enforcing immigration law. William La Jeunesse of FOX News provides this stunning report:
Sources: Vocal supporter of sanctuary cities on short list to be next head of Border Patrol A former San Francisco police chief and vocal supporter of a sanctuary cities policy is on a short list of candidates to become the new chief of the Border Patrol, according to sources.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 09, 2015 18 Comments
Yesterday on Meet the Press, Chuck Todd outlined the huge losses the Democratic Party has suffered under Obama's tenure. He even spoke to a Politico reporter who called the Obama machine a lie. David Rutz of the Washington Free Beacon:
Meet The Press host Chuck Todd and his Sunday panelists outlined the Democratic Party’s heavy losses under the Obama administration, with panelist Marc Caputo saying the idea of the “Obama political machine” was a “lie” that couldn’t win without him on a ballot. Under Obama, Democrats have lost 13 Senate seats and 69 House seats in Congress, and the results are even more staggering on a local level. Democrats have lost 12 governorships, including Kentucky last week with the election of Matt Bevin, 30 state legislative chambers and more than 900 state legislative seats. That’s the worst showing for an incumbent president’s party since the Richard Nixon years, due to the taint of Watergate...

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 08, 2015 17 Comments
I watched Saturday Night Live last night for the first time in years and so did a lot of other people. Entertainment Weekly reports that it was a ratings bonanza:
Donald Trump gives SNL its biggest ratings in years Trump is still bringing the bump. With Donald Trump hosting, Saturday Night Live jumped to its biggest overnight rating since 2012. According to NBC, SNL had a whopping 6.6 household rating on Saturday night, easily beating the season’s previous high: the 41st season premiere last month, hosted by Miley Cyrus and with a guest appearance by none other than … Hillary Clinton. In fact, Trump’s overnight rating was 47 percent higher than the Miley/Hillary episode.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 08, 2015 14 Comments
Obama has been trying to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay since being sworn in as president and now he's running out of time. Would it be surprising for him to just go around congress? The Wall Street Journal reports:
Obama’s Gitmo Workaround President Obama is about to send Congress a doomed plan to close the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay, so he can then shut down Gitmo the way he does nearly anything—by executive order. White House press secretary Josh Earnest repeated the familiar drill Wednesday. They “work with Congress where we can,” Mr. Earnest said. “But if Congress continues to refuse, I wouldn’t rule out the President using every element of his authority to make progress.”

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 07, 2015 28 Comments
A new report suggests the United States power grid is vulnerable to an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) attack and that should scare the hell out of you. When it comes to the cost of American lives, an attack like this would make 9/11 look small. If a large portion of the United States was deprived of electricity for a significant amount of time, millions would die of starvation, a lack of access to modern medical care and the collapse of law and order. Daniel Wiser reports at the Washington Free Beacon:
Report: United States Increasingly Vulnerable to Potentially Catastrophic EMP Attack The threat of a devastating electromagnetic pulse attack on the United States is increasing just as American infrastructure has become more vulnerable, according to a new report.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 06, 2015 17 Comments
Substance abuse and addiction have always been an issue in America but these problems have never figured as largely in a Republican primary as they do now. According to a recent poll in New Hampshire, drug addiction was the number one concern of respondents, topping even jobs and the economy. Heather Haddon reports at the Wall Street Journal:
Drug Deaths Becoming a 2016 Presidential Election Issue New Hampshire poll participants put it above jobs and economy as something candidates should address Buddy Phaneuf, owner of New Hampshire’s largest funeral home network, has overseen burials and cremations in more than 50 heroin-related deaths this year. The average age of the decedent: 32. Christopher Stawasz, manager of an ambulance service in Nashua, said the city set a record of 28 overdoses in September, then topped it with 37 in October. “It’s surreal,” he said. “It’s just day after day.”

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 05, 2015 10 Comments
Bernie Sanders handed the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton on a silver platter when he said people were sick of hearing about her "damn" emails at the first Democratic Party debate. Hillary knew it then but Bernie is just figuring it out now. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published yesterday, Bernie got tough with Hillary Clinton, four weeks too late. Peter Nicholas reports:
Bernie Sanders Takes Gloves Off Against Hillary Clinton in Interview Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is drawing sharper distinctions with front-runner Hillary Clinton, casting her policy reversals over the years as a character issue that voters should take into account when they evaluate the Democratic field. Sen. Sanders of Vermont, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, also said the federal investigation of the security surrounding Mrs. Clinton’s private email account is appropriate.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 04, 2015 82 Comments
Liberals have declared the death of the Tea Party countless times---but apparently, no one told Republican Matt Bevin, who won the gubernatorial election in Kentucky last night with strong support from the Tea Party. Bevin is a successful businessman who is pro-life and a veteran. News of his win is sending shockwaves through political media as the Democrat incumbent Conway was strongly favored to win, according to polls. The election was highly contested, as Kevin Robillard of Politico reports:
Republican Bevin wins Kentucky governor's race GOP businessman Matt Bevin easily won Kentucky’s governorship on Tuesday night and will become just the second Republican to inhabit the governor’s mansion in Frankfort in more than four decades.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 03, 2015 12 Comments
The CNBC debate has sparked a number of conversations on the very real issue of liberal bias in the media. As Professor Jacobson pointed out last night, this is an opportunity for Republicans. When the issue is being discussed seriously on MSNBC, you know we've reached a turning point. Yesterday on Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough challenged his panelists to answer a simple question. Mark Finkelstein of NewsBusters has the story:
Scarborough: No Republican Has Hosted Network Sunday Show or Newscast in 50 Years In the wake of the CNBC debate debacle, Joe Scarborough went on an epic rant on liberal media bias on today's Morning Joe. He summed things up this way, in challenging the panel: "you can't do it and nobody here can do it: name the single Republican that has hosted a Sunday show, that has been an anchor of a news network for the big three networks over the past 50 years: you can not do it."

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 02, 2015 46 Comments
Ever since it became clear that Paul Ryan would be the next Speaker of the House, there have been mixed feelings on the right about his ascension. Some worried that he isn't conservative enough; others worried that he'd be too much like Boehner. Now that he's in the role and talking about his plans, he sounds like he might be the perfect choice. This report from David Jackson of USA Today is encouraging:
With honeymoon over, Paul Ryan vows 'to go on offense' New House Speaker Paul Ryan figures his honeymoon is already over. It lasted "about 35 minutes," he said on Fox News Sunday in one of a string of interviews he gave following his election to succeed John Boehner as House speaker on Thursday. Not only will Ryan go up against congressional Democrats and the Obama administration, he faces suspicious conservative House members who question his commitment to their cause.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 01, 2015 30 Comments
The small German village of Sumte has approximately 100 local residents but is now slated to receive 750 refugees from Syria and other countries. How is this supposed to work? If you lived in a one bedroom apartment, would you volunteer to take in seven permanent house guests? Andrew Higgins reports at the New York Times:
German Village of 102 Braces for 750 Asylum Seekers SUMTE, Germany — This bucolic, one-street settlement of handsome redbrick farmhouses may for the moment have many more cows than people, but next week it will become one of the fastest growing places in Europe. Not that anyone in Sumte is very excited about it. In early October, the district government informed Sumte’s mayor, Christian Fabel, by email that his village of 102 people just over the border in what was once Communist East Germany would take in 1,000 asylum seekers.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 01, 2015 25 Comments
The city of St. Louis has been plagued by a string of fires at churches with black congregations. Some were quick to jump to the conclusion that the fires were racially motivated. David Graham at The Atlantic played that racial card:
The situation is not unlike the arsons that followed the massacre at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston this summer. As The Atlantic pointed out at the time, there’s a long history of terrorism against black churches in America, one that begins in the era of slavery and continues up through Reconstruction, the civil-rights era, and into the 1990s. But unlike those burnings—and despite the intense focus on the St. Louis area since the August 2014 death of Michael Brown in Ferguson—the recent arsons have been slow to get the same attention, either in the national media or even in the area.... Burnings of black churches has often been a tactic for white supremacist groups.
That narrative took a hit with the announcement that a suspect was arrested for two of the fires. The suspect is black. The Washington Post reports:
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