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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

Remember when Scott Brown was chastised for questioning another type of Indian candidate? He was uniformly raked over the coals by the media. When the candidate is a Republican however, their ethnicity and race are considered worthy of attack. Case in point, Annie Gowen of the Washington Post:
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.

The White House released a memo for all Americans on Thursday. They want us to be sure to defend Obamacare from any disparaging family members. Sarah Ferris of The Hill:
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.

In the newest edition of Afterburner, Bill Whittle sets the historic record straight on the difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to racism. The Republican Party was founded to end slavery while Democrats sought secession to preserve the practice. The Confederate flag, which is a big problem all of a sudden, was created by Democrats. Walk up to any person in the street and ask them which of the two major parties created the KKK. The correct answer is the Democratic Party but sadly, I'd bet against the public answering that question correctly every time. Have you ever been told the progressive myth that the parties "switched" at some point? Whittle gets into all of this and walks you through history right up to the present day.

Remember all the fanfare over Hillary Clinton releasing her emails and claiming that there wasn't any classified information in any of them? Hillary absolutely denied ever sending classified material during her UN press conference:
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:

What was once considered unthinkable has now happened. Having missed the June 30th deadline for payment on its debt, the country of Greece has effectively defaulted. This is going to have a considerable effect on the economy of the European Union, which Greece might now leave. It's likely that this situation will get worse before it gets better. First, the basic facts. Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post:
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.

Charles Krauthammer appeared on the O'Reilly Factor last night and was asked by Bill O'Reilly to name three reasons for the recent rapid changes in America, with a focus on recent U.S. Supreme Court cases. Krauthammer cited culture as one of the reasons and he's absolutely right. Andrew Breitbart frequently voiced his belief that politics is downstream from culture. Watch the entire exchange below: Krauthammer recently called the SCOTUS ruling on gay marriage a loss for democracy.

The field of Republicans running for president is about to get a bit more crowded as New Jersey governor Chris Christie is expected to announce his bid to run on Tuesday. Bloomberg reports:
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.

A recent poll by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News found that a handful of Republican presidential candidates have seen an increase in support but one of the the biggest jumps went to Carly Fiorina:
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.

Greece and the Eurozone have been unable to reach an agreement ahead of a bailout deadline which quickly approaches on June 30th. If negotiations fail, Greece could leave the European Union and ultimately face economic collapse. The situation is already causing a dash for cash in the debt strapped country. Bloomberg reports:
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.

After the Charleston shootings, there was a renewed push by President Obama for restricting access for law-abiding citizens to guns. Scott Walker wasn't having any of it. He signed into law a loosening of waiting periods that have been on the books for decades. From FOX News:
Wisconsin Gov. Walker ends decades-old waiting period for handguns Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed two bills loosening his state's gun laws on Wednesday, including one ending the state's 48-hour waiting period for handgun purchases. The timing of the bill signing comes amid a renewed debate over gun control and race relations after the fatal shootings at a Charleston, S.C., black church on June 17; a white man faces multiple murder charges. But the measures on Walker's desk predated the massacre and passed earlier this month in the GOP-majority Legislature with bipartisan support. The second measure would allow off-duty, retired and out-of-state police officers to carry firearms on school grounds.
CNN covered the topic too, and to their credit, they were fair:

The senate passed the Trade Promotion Authority bill yesterday but it did so without Ted Cruz who supported an earlier version of the bill. Janet Hook of the Wall Street Journal:
Ted Cruz Flips on Trade Bill on Eve of Key Senate Vote Sen. Ted Cruz, a free-trade advocate who had supported legislation to expedite trade agreements, on Tuesday flipped his position and announced on the eve of a crucial Senate vote that he was prepared to vote against a new version of the bill, demanding that GOP leaders assure him that they had made no “secret deal” to keep the controversial Export-Import Bank alive. “As a general matter, I agree (as did Ronald Reagan) that free trade is good for America; when we open up foreign markets, it helps American farmers, ranchers, and manufacturers,” Mr. Cruz said, announcing his switch in an op-ed for Breitbart News, a conservative website that has been a vigorous critic of the Trade Protection Authority (TPA) bill known as “fast track.” “But TPA in this Congress has become enmeshed in corrupt Washington backroom deal-making, along with serious concerns that it would open up the potential for sweeping changes in our laws that trade agreements typically do not include.”
Cruz was a guest on Special Report with Bret Baier last night and although questions from the panel included a wide array of topics, Cruz's switch on TPA was the very first one.

Back in the fall of 2014, when the news of Grubergate broke, Obama claimed that Jonathan Gruber was just some advisor who never worked on his staff. You don't have to take my word for it. Here's a video of Obama responding to a direct question on the subject from Ed Henry of FOX News: You might be shocked to learn that our president wasn't being entirely truthful.

The new left-wing leaders in Greece have done little to stem the country's growing financial crisis and even members of the Obama administration are now urging them to act. NBC News reports:
Greece Debt Crisis: U.S. Warns Athens to Reach Deal or Face 'Decline' ATHENS, Greece — The United States turned up the heat on the Greek government over its debt crisis Saturday, urging it to reach a deal with creditors as wearied citizens braced for a national default. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said in an interview that the government in Athens should make tough fiscal decisions or risk devastating both the country's economy and people. "I think we're at a moment now where the burden is on Greece to come back with a response that's the basis for reaching an agreement as quickly as possible," he said in an episode of CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" program that will air on Sunday, according to a transcript provided to Reuters. "It's clear that within Greece, the consequence of a failure here would mean a terrible, terrible decline in their economic performance," he said. "It will hurt the Greek people. They will bear the first brunt of a failure here."

Gun control has never been a winning issue for Democrats but that hasn't stopped them from trying. In the wake of the Charleston shootings, Obama is pursuing the issue with renewed vigor. Edward-Isaac Dovere of Politico reports:
Obama: I'm not giving up on guns SAN FRANCISCO—Wrapping together his frustrations with the country’s continuing problems with racism and his own inability to make progress on gun control in the wake of the South Carolina church shooting, President Barack Obama stood before a bipartisan gathering of mayors here Friday and declared, “It is not good enough simply to show sympathy.” “The apparent motivations of the shooter remind us that racism remains a blight that we have to combat together. We have made great progress but we have to be vigilant because it still lingers,” Obama said. There must be a popular outcry for gun control, Obama said, to change the minds of a Congress that he said he knows right now won’t touch the issue. “I refuse to act as if this is the new normal or to pretend that it’s simply sufficient to grieve and that any mention of us doing something to stop it is somehow politicizing the problem,” he said.
FOX News pointed out Obama's political conundrum on Friday night:

As the families of victims in the Charleston shootings show amazing strength and faith, some people on the left are already exploiting the incident for political gain. Meanwhile, South Carolina governor Nikki Haley is calling for the harshest punishment for the shooter. Nick Gass of Politico:
Nikki Haley: Charleston shooter deserves death penalty A little more than a day after the shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, the state’s political figures are still coming to grips with an attack that killed nine people. Accused Charleston shooter Dylann Roof should get the death penalty, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said Friday. “We will absolutely want him to have the death penalty,” Haley told NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie on “Today,” adding that there is only one person to blame for the shooting at Emanuel AME Church on Wednesday night. “A person filled with hate,” she added.
Here's the related video report:

The Democratic Party has made it clear that income inequality will be one of their main issues for 2016. The fact that the Clintons are multi-millionaires is conveniently overlooked, as are the party's ties to incredibly rich donors. Dave Boyer of the Washington Times provides this interesting new report:
Obama, Pelosi mend fences at fundraiser hosted by billionaire activist There’s nothing like a big-money fundraiser for House Democrats to bring President Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi closer together. Mr. Obama and Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, made a show of mending fences Friday night at a fundraiser at the home of billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer overlooking the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco. Friday was their first meeting since Mrs. Pelosi turned against the president last week by leading the opposition that temporarily derailed crucial trade legislation Mr. Obama is seeking. Despite those tensions, Mr. Obama told more than 50 wealthy Democratic donors, who paid up to $33,400 each to help Democrats win in 2016, that Mrs. Pelosi has been instrumental to his achievements in office.