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Author: William A. Jacobson

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William A. Jacobson

William A. Jacobson is a Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Securities Law Clinic at Cornell Law School.

He is a 1981 graduate of Hamilton College and a 1984 graduate of Harvard Law School. At Harvard he was Senior Editor of the Harvard International Law Journal and Director of Litigation for the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project.

Prior to joining the Cornell law faculty in 2007, Professor Jacobson had a highly successful civil litigation and arbitration practice in Providence, Rhode Island, concentrating in investment, employment, and business disputes in the securities industry, including many high profile cases reported in leading newspapers and magazines.

Professor Jacobson has argued cases in numerous federal and state courts, including the Courts of Appeal for the First, Fifth and Sixth Circuits, and the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

Professor Jacobson has a national reputation as a leading practitioner in securities arbitration. He was Treasurer, and is a former member of the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association, a professional organization of attorneys dedicated to protecting public investors. He frequently is quoted in national media on issues related to investment fraud and investor protection, and in the past has served as one of a small number of private practice attorneys who trained new arbitrators for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

Professor Jacobson is co-author of the Securities Arbitration Desk Reference (Thomson-Reuters), updated annually.

Professor Jacobson is frequently quoted in the media on political and legal topics, has authored many Op-Eds in major publications, and appears on television and radio to discuss politics and the law.

A more complete listing of Professor Jacobson's professional background is available at the Cornell Law School website. The views expressed here are his own and not those of any employer or organization,

The best way to reach Prof. Jacobson is by e-mail here.

We previously reported on the profanity-laced shout-down of Professor Alan Johnson at National University of Ireland at Galway by anti-Israel activist Joseph Loughnane. If you haven't seen the video yet, watch it. It's a microcosm of the culture of anti-Israel intimidation on many campuses, fostered by anti-Israel faculty propagandists pushing their policial agenda at places such as conferences run by NYU and the American Studies Assocation. (Language Warning) ) Professor Johnson, the subject of this abuse, has written a blog post about the incident and what he believes was behind it, BDS bullies at Galway University:
Third, ‘Israel’ and ‘Palestine’ have become tied up with the performance of political identity in the West in a most dangerous way. ‘The Palestinians’ are a stage on which the BDS activists act out their identity. To make that possible, ‘The Palestinians’ must be reduced to pure victims of the evil Nazi-Israelis. For only those kind of Palestinians can enable feelings of moral superiority, purity, quest, meaning, even transcendence of sorts. Palestinians being starved by Assad hold no interest. Palestinians being thrown from rooftops by Hamas members hold no interest. When Salam Fayyad is building up the Palestinian Nation the BDS activists just yawn, or denounce him as a collaborator. Only as agency-less pure victims can the Palestinians play their allotted role as a screen onto which the individual projects his or her identity of the righteous activist. It is the Palestinians misfortune that they have become this.
[caption id="attachment_80976" align="alignnone" width="488"](Professor Alan Johnson being shouted down at NUIG-Galway) (Professor Alan Johnson being shouted down at NUIG-Galway)[/caption] As I previously reported, NUIG-Galway has promised an investigation and condemned the conduct. In my follow-up, however, NUIG-Galway declined to provide details or even to commit to making the result public, although it did clarify its prior statement by adding that the investigation will include violations of the student code, as follows (in part):

Last night we covered Republican David Jolly's surprise win over Democrat Alex Sink. Sink supposedly had it all -- no contentious primary, more money, an unpopular Republican Governor and national Democratic support. But even the best of Democratic candidates went down under the weight of Obamacare and big government.  Jolly hit those themes throughout his campaign. ) Why do I call it an Earthquake? Because that's what I called Scott Brown's unexpected victory in Massachusetts in January 2010. Brown caught lightning in a bottle, and that lightning was opposition to Obamacare in an off-year special election. It portended huge Republican and Tea Party gains the following November. Adam Smith, Tampa Bay Times, David Jolly's victory spells trouble for Democrats nationwide:
If I'm a Democratic House member in any competitive district in America or a Democratic incumbent senator up for re-election this year in a moderate-to-conservative state like North Carolina, Arkansas, Colorado, Alaska or Louisiana, I'm waking up more than a little anxious about what happened in Pinellas County on Tuesday. In Alex Sink, Democrats had a better-funded, well-known nominee who ran a strong campaign against a little-known, second- or third-tier Republican who ran an often wobbly race in a district Barack Obama won twice. Outside Republican groups — much more so than the under-funded Jolly campaign — hung the Affordable Care Act and President Obama on Sink. It worked.
Josh Kraushaar, National Journal, Why a Republican Wave in 2014 is Looking More Likely Now:

From Philip Klein at The Washington Examiner, Obamacare signups slow down in February, youth enrollment well below target:
The pace of Americans signing up for privately administered insurance through President Obama's health care law slowed down in February, according to a new report from the Department of Health and Human Services, and youth enrollment is well below target levels set before the program's launch. Weeks before the health care law's exchanges launched Oct. 1, an HHS memo projected that 5.7 million individuals would enroll in a plan through one of Obamacare's exchanges by the end of February. In reality, HHS said Tuesday, just 4.2 million Americans had signed up in the first five months. HHS still hasn’t disclosed how many Americans who have signed up for a plan through the website have consistently paid their premiums, which is how enrollment is typically measured. Thus, HHS figures could overstate enrollment by around 20 percent to 25 percent.
WaPo notes the disappointing numbers:
About 4.2 million people have signed up for health plans on Obamacare exchanges through the end of February, making it unlikely that the Obama administration will hit the estimate of 6 million enrollees by a key deadline at the end of March. Whatever momentum appeared to be building in January dropped off in February, as the number of sign ups fell below the administration's expectations.
The report is here. How many paid? Don't know. Reactions are coming in fast and furiously:

The announcement recently by Mahmoud Abbas that the Palestinians never, ever would recognize a Jewish state garnered plenty of headlines. It quickly was followed up by a similar announcement from the Arab League and Fatah party. Watch this speech by Abbas, which led to the headlines, and read the text. It appears that the peace negotiations were a farce from the get-go. Abbas is in favor of the 1 1/2 state solution -- one for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and another half a Palestinian state within Israel itself through the unfettered and unrestricted "return" of 1948 refugess in the war started by the Arab plus their descendents. It is clear that any peace deal only is a first step. Abbas, the supposedly most moderate Palestinian leader Israel is likely to see (according to Obama-Kerry), does not accept a Jewish national entity. That's the bottom line. Transcript via MEMRI:
Mahmoud Abbas: "Our position is that the settlements – from start to finish – are illegal. They talk about settlement blocs, or about settlements here and there, but we say that every house and every stone that were placed in the West Bank since 1967 and to this day are illegal and we do not recognize them." […] "No resolution that we agree upon with the others will be passed unless it is confirmed by popular referendum of all the Palestinians worldwide." Applause […]

Legal Insurrection's first Operation Counterweight 2014 Senate candidate....

Alan Grayson will not be charged with wife-beating after an incident in which his wife Lolita claimed he hit her. When first reported, I cautioned that Grayson was entitled to the same presumption of innocence as George Zimmeran. And like George Zimmerman, both in the shooting of Trayvon Martin and Zimmerman's alleged domestic violence against his ex-wife and girlfriend, the evidence supported that presumption of innocence. The video of the incident did not support her story and neither did the 911 call: First Coast News reports:
"Investigators have interviewed Lolita Carson-Grayson, Alan Grayson, and others and reviewed the evidence. In this instance probable cause does not exist to effect an arrest on Alan Grayson," said a release from the Orange County Sheriff's Office. The Graysons, who were married 24 years, are divorcing and are living apart. Grayson's staffer Juan Lopez said the congressman went home to pick up his mail, his medication and see his children when he had a confrontation with his wife. The incident was captured on video and witnessed by several people. Grayson's attorney Mark NeJame says she video shows Lolita as the aggressor. Deputies released a 911 call from after incident. "Please come down and arrest him. He's disturbing my peace and he's threatening me," Carson-Grayson said. Carson-Grayson told the dispatcher during the call that Grayson did not hit her. "I pushed him because he's been coming to the house and he's been disturbing my peace. Now he's leaving," she said. Carson-Grayson then told the dispatcher that she didn't need assistance, but on Sunday, she showed up at the Dr. Phillips Hospital Emergency Room saying her husband pushed her up against a door and she had bruises.
In other news, Grayson is still a loudmouth jerk. Update: Unlike Zimmerman, the public will accept Grayson's innocence. But it's worth revisiting the Zimmerman case evidence, just because:

We have written many times about the Shirley Sherrod case against Andrew Breitbart (now his wife is substituted as defendant) and Larry O'Connor over an "edited" video which Sherrod alleges unfairly depicted her as racist leading to her firing by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Sherrod's claim, repeated mindlessly by the media, is that the full video showed that Sherrod was not racist, but merely relating a story about how her initial ill-will towards a white farmer decades ago was overcome by the realization that race should not be a factor. I have analyzed the video frame by frame, and in fact Sherrod's alleged revelation that she overcame those racial feelings was in the "edited" video, as this screen capture shows: http://youtu.be/t_xCeItxbQY Sherrod was fired precipitously by the USDA, despite her telling USDA that she felt the "edited" video was misleading. In emails produced in the case, USDA pretty much took the position that it didn't care, the political blowback was too strong not to fire her.  (These emails were obtained from the public court docket via PACER.) Shirley Sherrod Email July 15 2010 1143 am re full video Sherrod Case - Email Chris Mather July 19 2010 re video at Hot Air

Ezra Klein's new venture has a name. Vox.com. And a slick promo video about how Ezra and, ahem, Matthew Yglesias, have reinvented journalism. Has there ever been a more vapid promo video in the history of humankind? Vox 9 Questions Highlighted Explanation To show how new and edgy they are, the damn video fills up the entire screen when viewed on the website. Because large and filling up the entire page shows that one is edgy. I had to adjust the 892x1585px embed code size manually so it didn't screw up my page. And they use an embed code that disappears when viewed in html version on WordPress, which is annoying. Tech gurus, the bunch. Sponsored by General Electric. Just like in the old days, when GE had a spokesman we could be proud of:

This video of an anti-Israel Boycottt Divest and Sanction activist at National University of Ireland - Galway, shouting profanities at Professor Alan Johnson of the Fathom journal, is beginning to get attention after our post about it on Friday. Johnson supports a two-state solution and is against BDS. The video, obtained by the Irish for Israel, features NUI Galway student Joseph Loughnane shouting as a row of students behind him banged on the tables in support and themselves shouted (off camera, as video panned towards speaker):
“You’re f-ing Zionist, f-ing pricks, get the f–k off our campus”
Language warning ) We reached out to the President of NUI Galway for comment, and received an email back from NUI Galway press and information officer Tomás Ó Síocháin, with the following statement on behalf of the university:
NUI Galway has over 110 societies and 50 clubs on campus, reflecting the diverse interests of students and staff. The University has a pluralist ethos and all societies have the freedom to both express and communicate those views to students and staff. They must, however, act within the law and in accordance with the University’s code of conduct. The behaviour portrayed is unacceptable and has no place at any forum of discussion or debate. This matter will be investigated immediately. NUI Galway has a long and proud tradition of welcoming visitors and guests to the University’s campus, to both engage in and observe robust debate. The University will take steps to ensure that this remains the case and that all speakers are given the dignity and respect they deserve.
The investigation presumably will not be limited to Loughnane, but also the students behind him banging and shouting in support as he ordered Prof. Johnson to "get the f-k off our campus".

From J spotted in Charlottesville, VA. Looks like someone didn't get the memo, that dissent is no longer patriotic, and that anyone who speaks out against Dear Leader must be dealt with in ways that He would never consider dealing with tyrannical foreign leaders (cough, cough,...

From Rosalie: Spotted this at a red light while vacationing in Venice, Florida. I thought it was a good one and certainly true. Keep up the good work!...

I am pleased to announce that I received the award for Blogger of the Year from the National Bloggers Club last night at the Blog Bash 2014 event held near the CPAC conference. Legal Insurrection was well represented at the event -- from left to right --...

From Joe: This sicker is on a minivan outside of Houston. The H sticker next to it is about Henry Rifles. He got it....