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Author: Mandy Nagy

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Mandy Nagy

Mandy Nagy (aka "Liberty Chick") was an investigative writer and researcher. She primarily covered the institutional left, protest movements, hacking and cybercrime, and technology. After suffering a serious stroke in September 2014, Mandy no longer was able to work at Legal Insurrection, but she's always on our minds and in our hearts. For more information, see here.

Kicking off this morning’s roster of speakers at CPAC 2014 was Texas senator Ted Cruz. In introducing Cruz, the president and publisher of Regnery Publishing said this: “If you’ve attended CPAC in the past, you know that the speakers you’ll hear from will shock, delight, amaze, inform,...

Today marks the opening of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an annual event organized by the American Conservative Union. The conference - already underway - features a variety of panel discussions and speeches from notable lawmakers and influencers.  The current schedule includes, among others, Sen....

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton on Tuesday drew parallels between the aggressive actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Ukraine and those of Adolf Hitler in the 1930's. She made the comments while speaking at a private event, according to the Press-Telegram of Long Beach, California.
Putin’s desire to protect minority Russians in Ukraine is reminiscent of Hitler’s actions to protect ethnic Germans outside Germany, she [Clinton] said. Putin has been on a campaign to give Russian passports to anyone who has Russian connections, Clinton said. The Russian leader has recently done so in the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, which, Clinton said, is similar to what happened in Nazi Germany in the late 1930s. Hitler resettled tens of thousands of ethnic Germans who were living in parts of Europe to Nazi Germany. Clinton made her comments at a private event benefiting the Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach. “Now if this sounds familiar, it’s what Hitler did back in the 30s,” she said. “All the Germans that were ... the ethnic Germans, the Germans by ancestry who were in places like Czechoslovakia and Romania and other places, Hitler kept saying they’re not being treated right. I must go and protect my people and that’s what’s gotten everybody so nervous.”

A United Nations special envoy to Ukraine abruptly ended his mission Wednesday after a group of unidentified armed men reportedly threatened him. From the NY Times: A senior United Nations diplomat who was sent to the Crimea region of southern Ukraine to assess the Russian military takeover...

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has scheduled a hearing on IRS targeting for 9:30am ET today. Former IRS official Lois Lerner has been recalled to testify before the committee; she is expected to appear, but after much confusion over the last few days, it's unclear whether or not Lerner will answer any questions. Update:  Hearing over, Lerner pleaded the 5th to all questions: [caption id="attachment_80340" align="alignnone" width="510"](Lois Lerner Pleads 5th House Hearing 3-5-2014) (Lois Lerner Pleads 5th House Hearing 3-5-2014)[/caption] Issa showed an email from Lerner in 2011 demonstrating hostility to the Tea Party and asked her about it, but she refused to answer questions about it: [caption id="attachment_80338" align="alignnone" width="575"](Lois Lerner Exhibit House Hearing 3-5-2014) (Lois Lerner Exhibit House Hearing 3-5-2014)[/caption] Lerner left the hearing without answering a single quesion:

President Obama has been meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today. From the Washington Post:
Seeking to salvage an elusive Middle East peace plan, President Barack Obama pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Monday to make the “tough decisions” needed to move forward on talks with the Palestinians.But facing a U.S.-imposed April deadline, the Israeli leader declared pessimistically that, “Israel has been doing its part and, I regret to say, the Palestinians have not.” Obama and Netanyahu spoke before an Oval Office meeting on a snowy Monday in Washington. The meeting marked a more direct foray by Obama into the peace negotiations, which he has so far largely ceded to Secretary of State John Kerry.
Barak Ravid, a correspondent with Haaretz Newspaper, posted tweets from the event - a handful are included below.  (Video added -- Transcript here)

An attorney for Lois Lerner says the former Internal Revenue Service official still intends to continue to assert her Fifth Amendment rights before the House Oversight committee, despite earlier claims from a top GOP lawmaker Sunday that she would testify this week. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.),...

At least 29 people were killed Saturday after assailants wielding knives stormed a train station in southwestern China, in what has been described as "an organized, premeditated violent terrorist attack." From the Associated Press via ABC News:

More than 10 assailants slashed scores of people with knives at a train station in southern China in what state media said Sunday was a terrorist assault by ethnic separatists from the far west. Twenty-nine slash victims and four attackers were killed and 143 people wounded.

Police fatally shot four of the assailants, captured one and were searching for the others following the attack late Saturday at the Kunming train station in Yunnan province, the official Xinhua News Agency said. State broadcaster CCTV said two of the attackers were women — one of the slain and the one who was captured and later brought to a hospital for treatment.

Witnesses described assailants dressed in black storming the train station and slashing people indiscriminately with large knives and machetes.

Student Qiao Yunao, 16, was waiting to catch a train at the station when people starting crying out and running, and then saw a man cut another man's neck, drawing blood.

"I was freaking out, and ran to a fast food store, and many people were running in there to take refuge," she told The Associated Press via Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblog. "I saw two attackers, both men, one with a watermelon knife and the other with a fruit knife. They were running and chopping whoever they could."

"It was an organized, premeditated violent terrorist attack, according to the authorities," reported China's official Xinhua news agency.  The identities of the attackers reportedly killed had not yet been confirmed.   Additional reports described the scene at the time of the attack, based on witness accounts.

Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, testified Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee on the topic of “Enforcing the President’s Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws.” Turley expressed concern that “We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis with sweeping implications...

There have been some developments in Ukraine since late yesterday. In Crimea, armed gunmen seized the regional government headquarters and parliament buildings and raised the Russian flag, according to Reuters.
Armed men seized the regional government headquarters and parliament in Ukraine's Crimea on Thursday and raised the Russian flag, alarming Kiev's new rulers, who urged Moscow not to abuse its navy base rights on the peninsula by moving troops around. "I am appealing to the military leadership of the Russian Black Sea fleet," said Olexander Turchinov, acting president since the removal of Viktor Yanukovich last week. "Any military movements, the more so if they are with weapons, beyond the boundaries of this territory (the base) will be seen by us as military aggression
    Ousted President Viktor Yanukovich is said to have been "granted" protection inside Russia.

Amid ongoing tension in Ukraine, Russia's president ordered a military drill Wednesday, scheduled to continue until March 3rd. From the NY Times:
President Vladimir V. Putin ordered a surprise exercise of ground and air forces on Ukraine’s doorstep Wednesday, intending to demonstrate his country’s military preparedness at a time of heightened tensions with Europe and the United States over the turmoil gripping Russia’s western neighbor. The Obama administration said any Russian military intervention in Ukraine would be a costly and “grave mistake.”

Russia’s military put tens of thousands of troops in western Russia on alert at 2 p.m. for an exercise scheduled to last until March 3. The minister of defense, Sergei K. Shoigu, also announced unspecified measures to tighten security at the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet on Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.

The NY Times noted however that “senior defense and government officials later said the exercise was not related to the events in Ukraine.”  A Reuters article, Putin puts troops in western Russia on alert in drill, also reports that officials in Russia said the drills were previously planned. Buzzfeed also reports that Russia gave U.S. military leaders advance warning about the military exercise. Regardless of any advance notice, observers and U.S. officials of course remain concerned. Speaking on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” on Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry indicated that he hopes Russia will respect the sovereignty of Ukraine.

The Ukrainian parliament delayed a Tuesday deadline to form a new government, postponing those efforts until Thursday. From FOX News: Ukraine's interim leaders pushed back their self-imposed deadline to form a unity government Tuesday, while the whereabouts of the country's fugitive president, Viktor Yanukovych, remained unknown. Members of...

After voting Saturday to remove President Viktor Yanukovich from office, Ukraine’s Parliament on Sunday named its speaker to serve as acting President. From Reuters: The speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, the closest confidante of freed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, was temporarily handed the role of president on...

Both opponents and supporters of President Nicolas Maduro took to the streets in Venezuela on Saturday to participate in competing rallies, after days of unrest. From the Associated Press via ABC News:
Venezuelans on both sides of the nation's political divide took to the streets on Saturday after nearly two weeks of mass protests that have President Nicolas Maduro scrambling to reassert his leadership of this economically stricken country.

In Caracas, tens of thousands of opponents of President Nicolas Maduro filled several city blocks in their biggest rally to date against Maduro's 10-month-old government. Across town, a mostly female crowd of government backers gathered in T-shirts and baseball caps, forming a sea of red — the color of Maduro's Socialist party.

The dueling protests capped a violent week in which a government crackdown jailed hard-line opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez and dozens of other activists. The violence also left at least nine people dead on both sides and injured at least 100 others.

Venezuelans woke up Saturday to smoldering barricades of trash and other debris in the streets of some major cities, but there were no reports of major violence. Protesters have called on Maduro to either resolve problems such as rising crime and galloping inflation or step aside.

Maduro meanwhile has been highly critical of the United States and media organizations over the course of the crisis. From AFP via Yahoo News: