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 report from the world of higher education....
Dem state senator's husband busted while stealing GOP lawn signs The Democrats have become the win-by-cheating party, so much so that the President of the United States jokes about vote fraud to a party rally, just as he joked about using the IRS to punish his political opponents. Just as a fish rots from the head down, so too does a political party that depends on the votes of ineligible aliens and that fights tooth-and-nail against the sort of voter identification measures common in other advanced (and not-so-advanced) democracies. The ethos, one that predates Obama by a century or more, has filtered down to the local level, for instance a contest for the Delaware State Senate (hat tip: The Blaze). In the town of Middletown, GOP lawn signs bearing the slogan “Fix the Economy! Vote Republican” had been disappearing, so GOP volunteers set up a surveillance operation and caught the miscreant, who happened to be the husband of an incumbent state senator, one Sen. Bethany Hall-Long.The sting was caught on video and here it is:
Kay Hagan Won’t Say She Regrets Falsely Telling People They Could Keep Their Health Plans Senator Kay Hagan (D., N.C.) refused to answer whether she regrets repeating President Obama’s famous lie that “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” Hagan talked about failed legislative proposals to help North Carolinians keep their health care plans instead of expressing regret over her endorsement of President Obama’s statement in a TV interview Tuesday night. “But if you knew then what you know now, do you think you would have said it that many times?” the anchor asked.Here's the video: The North Carolina senate race took an especially nasty turn recently when Harry Reid's super PAC tried to blame Hagan's Republican challenger Thom Tillis for the death of Trayvon Martin.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) gave an impassioned endorsement of senator Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.) on Tuesday’s The View. The only problem was that she forgot which state Shaheen is from. Warren touted Shaheen’s historical significance, but made a crucial slip-up when trying to sell her case to Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O’Donnell (as if they needed convincing): “The only woman in the history of the United States who has been both a governor and a Senator,” Warren said. “Independent, out there working for the people of Vermont.” Unfortunately, Shaheen is running for re-election in New Hampshire.Here's the moment on video: You can watch the extended version here. You'll notice Warren doesn't correct herself and neither does anyone else. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post is seeing a pattern:
UC-Berkeley students try to derail Bill Maher from speaking at graduation Comedian, pundit and HBO host Bill Maher is scheduled to speak at the University of California-Berkeley’s December graduation, and students are already lining up to get him disinvited, citing his controversial remarks on Islam, the Daily Californian reports:Here's an example of what's gotten Maher into trouble with Berkeley students. (language warning – NSFW) If you watched the video, you may have noticed that Maher mentioned Ayaan Hirsi Ali.The Change.org petition was authored by ASUC Senator Marium Navid, who is backed by the Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian Coalition, or MEMSA, and Khwaja Ahmed, an active MEMSA member. The petition, which urges students to boycott the decision and asks the campus to stop him from speaking, has already gathered more than 1,400 signatures as of Sunday. … “It’s not an issue of freedom of speech, it’s a matter of campus climate,” Navid said. “The First Amendment gives him the right to speak his mind, but it doesn’t give him the right to speak at such an elevated platform as the commencement. That’s a privilege his racist and bigoted remarks don’t give him.” … “(Jon) Stewart and (Stephen) Colbert are critical of religion, too, but Bill Maher has, on several occasions, said to rise up against religious people and religious institutions and take action,” Ahmed said.
Dems on FEC move to regulate Internet campaigns, blogs, Drudge In a surprise move late Friday, a key Democrat on the Federal Election Commission called for burdensome new rules on Internet-based campaigning, prompting the Republican chairman to warn that Democrats want to regulate online political sites and even news media like the Drudge Report. Democratic FEC Vice Chair Ann M. Ravel announced plans to begin the process to win regulations on Internet-based campaigns and videos, currently free from most of the FEC’s rules. “A reexamination of the commission’s approach to the internet and other emerging technologies is long over due,” she said. The power play followed a deadlocked 3-3 vote on whether an Ohio anti-President Obama Internet campaign featuring two videos violated FEC rules when it did not report its finances or offer a disclosure on the ads. The ads were placed for free on YouTube and were not paid advertising.This is all about the accumulation and retention of power. As John Hinderaker of Powerline recently noted, that's just how the left rolls:
Could non-citizens decide the November election? In a forthcoming article in the journal Electoral Studies, we bring real data from big social science survey datasets to bear on the question of whether, to what extent, and for whom non-citizens vote in U.S. elections. Most non-citizens do not register, let alone vote. But enough do that their participation can change the outcome of close races... Because non-citizens tended to favor Democrats (Obama won more than 80 percent of the votes of non-citizens in the 2008 CCES sample), we find that this participation was large enough to plausibly account for Democratic victories in a few close elections. Non-citizen votes could have given Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters in order to pass health-care reform and other Obama administration priorities in the 111th Congress. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) won election in 2008 with a victory margin of 312 votes. Votes cast by just 0.65 percent of Minnesota non-citizens could account for this margin. It is also possible that non-citizen votes were responsible for Obama’s 2008 victory in North Carolina. Obama won the state by 14,177 votes, so a turnout by 5.1 percent of North Carolina’s adult non-citizens would have provided this victory margin.That's kind of a big deal, isn't it? Oh, and then there's this:
Who says Obamacare isn't major factor in midterms? Some Democrats and their advocates in the press believe Obamacare, a year into implementation, is no longer much of a factor in the midterm elections. But no one has told Republican candidates, who are still pounding away at the Affordable Care Act on the stump. And no one has told voters, especially those in states with closely contested Senate races, who regularly place it among the top issues of the campaign. In Arkansas, Republican challenger Tom Cotton is pulling ahead of incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor partly on the strength of a relentless focus on Obamacare. Cotton's newest ad attacks Pryor over the law, as did two of Cotton's four previous ads. "In our polling, [Obamacare] continues to be just as hot as it's been all year long," says a source in the Cotton campaign. "If you look at a word cloud of voters' biggest hesitation in voting for Mark Pryor, the two biggest words are 'Obama' and 'Obamacare.' Everything after that is almost an afterthought."Voters have every reason to be suspicious. It turns out there are some things we won't be told until after the election. Valerie Richardson of the Washington Times has the story:
Hillary Clinton: Corporations and Businesses Don’t Create Jobs At a Democratic rally in Massachusetts, Hillary Clinton’s attempt to attack “trickle-down economics,” resulted in a spectacularly odd statement. Clinton defended raising the minimum wage saying “Don’t let anybody tell you that raising the minimum wage will kill jobs, they always say that.” She went on to state that businesses and corporations are not the job creators of America. “Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs,” the former Secretary of State said.Here's the video: On a related note, do you know who's a big fan of trickle down economics?
And now, another report from the wacky world of higher education....
CNN: Iowa Early Vote Data Shows Unprecedented Republican Numbers Elated Republicans are celebrating the unprecedented success of U.S. Senate candidate Joni Ernst (R) in Iowa’s early voting. Iowa Republicans banked a surge of early voters this week, a practice usually dominated by Democrats in the state. Ernst’s unprecedented success is also the result of her opponent, Rep. Bruce Braley’s, failure to mobilize Iowa Democrats despite receiving support from high-profile figures including the Clintons and the seat’s current holder, Sen. Tom Harkin (D., Iowa). “Braley hasn’t run a great campaign,” said CNN reporter Peter Hamby. “Look at the early vote numbers in that state. Democrats in the last two or three cycles have really done well by running up the early vote number.” Hamby elaborated that Republicans are at a “parity” with Democrats after assessing this week’s early Republican votes. This “has never happened before,” Hamby said. “Braley wants that number to be higher.”Here's the video segment: This surge may explain why liberal news sites are attacking Joni Ernst for expressing her completely Constitutional views on the Second Amendment.
Senate Democratic Officials Start Lashing Out at White House The relationship between the White House and Senate Democrats hit a new low Tuesday evening after the administration's press office released a transcript of first lady Michelle Obama's appearance in Iowa on behalf of Democratic Senate candidate Bruce Braley. The problem: The subject line of the e-mail referred to Braley as the "Democratic candidate for governor." The botch came after the first lady repeatedly referred to the Democratic Senate nominee as "Bruce Bailey" in a campaign appearance earlier this month—and it took an attendee in the crowd to correct her mistake... Indicating the sensitivity of the mistake, top Senate Democratic officials wasted no time lashing out at the Obama administration's political team in response, suggesting it was acting like a junior varsity operation two weeks before the midterms. The slipup comes one day after President Obama told Rev. Al Sharpton on his radio show that Senate Democrats keeping their distance from him are still "folks who vote with me. They have supported my agenda in Congress." That alarmed Senate Democrats up for reelection this November, most of whom are working hard to distance themselves from an unpopular president. "The ineptitude of the White House political operation has sunk from annoying to embarrassing," one senior Senate Democratic aide told National Journal. Another Senate official told the Washington Post that Obama's comments were "not devised with any input from Senate leadership."The problem for Democrats is Obama's ego. He just can't stand not being part of the story.
Jeanne Shaheen Admits To Voting WIth Obama 99% Of Time Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D., NH) admitted Tuesday night that she has voted with President Barack Obama 99% of the time. At her second debate against Republican senate candidate Scott Brown, Shaheen conceded the fact after being pressed by a debate moderator. After reminding Shaheen of her voting record the moderator questioned Shaheen, “How does your voting record sort of jive with serving the citizens of New Hampshire?” Faced with the facts, Shaheen admitted to the number and tried to pivot. “Scott Brown talks a lot about one survey and 99% of the time I voted with the president,” Shaheen replied, “but the numbers I’m proudest of are the 259 people now working at the Berlin prison because I was able to get the prison open after it sat empty for two years.”Here's the video:
Where have we seen “reconciliation” used to pass laws before?...
Frank Luntz: Crisis of confidence in government and media...
Rick Perry's Ebola test AUSTIN, Texas — Ebola came to Texas. And Rick Perry went to Europe. Now the Republican governor, a likely presidential contender, is back in Austin and scrambling to avoid a damaging perception problem like the “oops” moment that doomed his first shot at the White House. At first, Perry seemed to have everything under control. When a man in Dallas was diagnosed with the deadly virus, Perry held an Oct. 1 news conference, assuring the public that “there are few places in the world better equipped to meet the challenges posed by this case.” When more people were quarantined, he launched a task force and told Texans to “rest assured our system is working as it should.” But then he left Sunday for a long-planned 7-day trip designed to burnish his foreign policy credentials. During his absence, two more cases of Ebola were confirmed, both of them involving Texas nurses who had dealt with the first patient. The governor cut his trip short and rushed home on Thursday, only to encounter criticism for leaving in the first place; Democrats charged that he was more focused on looking presidential overseas than on fixing a big problem at home.See? It's all Rick Perry's fault, not Obama's.
“I don’t think it’s going to make any difference one way or the other. . . . It gives the appearance of motion; this is what Obama specializes in. If you have a VA scandal, an IRS scandal, a Secret Service scandal, you fire the guy at the top so you have the appearance of motion; here you’re putting a guy in who’s supposedly going to coordinate.” On Friday’s Special Report, Krauthammer derided Klain’s own assessment of his duties: “There’s a quote in the New York Times about what Klain would do, and he said his job is ‘messaging.’ So we have a virus on the loose that turns your organs into liquid, and the answer is to appoint a guy to do the messaging. . . .Here's something you probably haven't heard about Ron Klain.
U.S. Senate Candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes continues to refuse to say who she voted for in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. On Friday, Grimes sat down with WYMT’s Steve Hensley for a taping of an episode of “Issues & Answers: The Mountain Edition.” Here is an excerpt from the interview: Steve Hensley: “You've also said in the past that you voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 presidential primary so what's the difference?” Secretary Grimes: “In 2008 I was not Secretary of State and what happened at that convention is all on record so nothing that wasn't already fully disclosed was offered up. It's a matter of principle as I told Bill Goodman, I'm the chief elections official. It is a constitutional right provided in Kentucky's constitution for all Kentuckians to cast their ballot in privacy.” Hensley: “If President Obama offered to campaign for you in Kentucky, would you accept?” Grimes: “Well, I've said I speak for myself, Senator McConnell doesn't understand that. He and his henchmen have spent about 50 million dollars trying to put Barack Obama on the ballot this year. He's not, I am.”
