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Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

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It’s been five years since I last posted in LI. As some of you may remember, I was the first non-Prof contributor back in 2010. I mostly covered the coveted late afternoon slot while Prof was teaching and I usually linked to articles that covered my funky amalgam of technology and free-market fetishisms. A few days ago, Prof Jacobson reached out to me to share a bit of an update on myself.

LATEST NEWS

Radical Latino advocacy group (so they claim), National Council of La Raza recently announced a name change. No longer will the group be represented as a National Council of Race (literal translation), instead, they'll call themselves something a bit more palatable -- UnidosUS, or "UnitedUS". Like most corporate overhauls, the rebranding effort appears to be in the best interest of fundraising.

Sen. Bernie Sanders's wife Jane has taken a page out of failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's book by screaming 'sexism' at Brady Toensing, the man who filed a complaint alleging Mrs. Sanders committed bank fraud while president for the now defunct Burlington College. From The Boston Globe:
“I find it incredibly sexist that basically he’s going after my husband by destroying my reputation, and that’s not OK,” she said in her first interview about the man responsible for an FBI probe that centers on her leadership at Burlington College, a small liberal arts school on Lake Champlain that she led from 2004 to 2011. The college closed last year as it struggled to pay its creditors and lost its accreditation.

First they came for the Jews wearing the Star of David or Kippah on the streets of Berlin, as was the case with the 67 year-old Jewish man brutally assaulted in the broad day light in 2014, or the 53 year-old Berlin Rabbi and his young daughter, who were attacked and threatened with death, two years earlier. In both of these cases and many others to follow, the attackers were migrant Muslim men.

CNN hosted a panel this morning of Trump voters describing what CNN described as "life after their vote." Three of the voters described very nasty reactions they've received from liberals:
  • A woman spoke of receiving "a lot of hatred from people I loved and respected," including being asked if she was "crazy" and wondering "how could you do this to us?"
  • A female impersonator recounted being immediately blackballed from his work when he came out as a Trump supporter, and having received death threats. He noted the irony of coming from a community that prides itself on inclusiveness.
  • A man spoke of receiving a tweet saying "your parents should have aborted you at birth."

The Catholic nuns of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ in West Hempfield, PA, have built an open air chapel on their land as a last effort to stop a company from building a natural gas pipeline on their property. From Philly.com:
A federal judge agreed this month that the pipeline’s parent company, Williams Partners, can condemn a portion of the order’s property for an easement. A hearing in U.S. District Court of the Eastern District in Reading is scheduled for Monday morning.

Celebrated and loved actor Martin Landau passed away on Sunday at the age of 89, only a few hours after we received the devastating news that George Romero died. Landau proved through the course of his career that he could perform any role handed to him. His talents didn't end there. He handed off his brilliance to up and coming actors like Jack Nicholson.

McKenzie Kyger is a white Evergreen State College student who made news when she appeared at a public legislative hearing about the problems at Evergreen related to Prof. Bret Weinstein. Kyger told the legislators about her experience with pervasive anti-white racism being taught as part of the integral model of social justice learning currently foregrounded in American universities. We covered her testimony in the post Evergreen Student: ‘I’ve been told I’m not allowed to speak because I’m white’. Here is the moving video of her appearance:

Sometime last month Legal Insurrection received its 100 millionth page view since we went live on October 12, 2008. We're also just a couple of thousand shy of our 500,000th comment. I realize that's not Yuge by Yuge media standards, but we're not Yuge media. Just a group of people who do the best we can with what we got, a ragtag band of merry makers and pontificators trying to scrape by on our hardscrabble piece of the internet.

A few days ago, Kemberlee provided an overview of what is new in the GOP's revamped health care bill.  One thing that has turned out to be absent from the new version is the Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) "Freedom Option" touted by conservatives and a lynchpin in scoring skittish conservative Senators' votes. On July 14th, the America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and Blue Cross sent a letter to Senate leadership urging them to drop the Freedom Option.
As the U.S. Senate considers the Better Care Reconciliation Act, AHIP and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association urge the Senate to strike the “Consumer Freedom Option” from the bill. It is simply unworkable in any form and would undermine protections for those with pre-existing medical conditions, increase premiums and lead to widespread terminations of coverage for people currently enrolled in the individual market.
It appears that this advice was followed because the Freedom Option no longer appears in the Senate bill.

Two years ago, former President Barack Obama agreed to the Iran Nuclear Deal and told The New York Times that "Iran will be and should be a regional power." He also said that Iran has "that ability now to take some decisive steps to move toward a more constructive relationship with the world community." Obama encouraged Iranian leaders "to seize that opportunity." Well, Obama, you got your wish. Iran seized that opportunity and has taken over Iraq. Goods from Iran fill up the Iraqi markets. Not to mention that Iranian militias had a hand in dispelling ISIS from Mosul and other areas.

There is an increasing recognition that most of the anti-Zionist movement, including Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), is the new format for centuries-old anti-Semitism. The reason anti-Zionists, with few exceptions, seek the destruction of Israel and deny the Jews the right to a homeland in their historic homeland, is because of Israel's Jewish identity. As we have posted before, historian Benny Morris documents how the Arab war against Israel's independence was viewed in the Arab world as a religious holy Jihad:

Italy is being overwhelmed by migrants from northern Africa due to its geographic location. As we previously reported, the situation has become so bad that Italy has threatened to close its ports. In order to get the rest of the EU to help, Italy is now threatening to just give these migrants, mostly from Libya, visas which would allow them to live anywhere in Europe. This is threat to flood the rest of Europe with hundreds of thousands of Libyan migrants is being termed the "nuclear option."

The American press obsession with Russia is leaving vital news on the cutting room floor. For example, Judicial Watch is reporting that the state auditor of Mississippi is demanding that Virginia Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe’s former company, GreenTech, repay millions in public money because the electric vehicle company shut down and failed to deliver on its promises to create new jobs.