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Posted by Mandy Nagy on January 29, 2014 0 Comments

For those of you who actively research news stories and other information online, you’ll find Twitter’s latest search enhancements to be a useful development. The social media platform tweeted this afternoon that it is adding filters to its search functionality that provide the ability to sort...

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Posted by Andrew Branca on January 29, 2014 23 Comments
Just when we thought the discovery evidence kerfuffle in Florida's "loud music" murder trial couldn't get any crazier, Circuit Judge Russell Healey has introduced another twist that denies the media access to Michael Dunn's jailhouse phone recordings. Dunn is charged with first degree murder in the shooting death of Jordan Davis, and is claiming he acted in lawful self-defense. For more background on the case, see “Loud Music” Murder Trial: Discovery Held Hostage, or Media Being Stingy? It seemed yesterday that the only remaining impasse to the media accessing the 185 hours of phone recordings was their conceding to pay the State ~$6,300 to cover the costs of redacting them, a process the State expects to take as long as 10 weeks. Dunn's trial, however, is scheduled to begin on February 3, only two working days from today. The mathematics of the dilemma was, of course, already known. Yesterday, however, Judge Healey threw another wrench into the works.  (Dunn's legal counsel has repeatedly asked for delays in the start of the trial, and in fact the trial had originally been scheduled to take place last September.) The new issue? Judge Healey essentially shrugged off responsibility for ruling on the issue at all. Instead, he said, whether the recordings should be released was really an administrative matter that ought to be decided by a civil judge. [caption id="attachment_77154" align="alignnone" width="450"]Circuit Judge Russell Healey, presiding over Florida "loud music" murder trial Circuit Judge Russell Healey, presiding over Florida "loud music" murder trial[/caption] The media intervenors, represented by Attorney Jennifer Mansfield, argued that the various orders of the 1st District Court of Appeals, which oversees Healey's court, compelled him to order the release of the recordings. Healey disagreed, arguing that a careful reading of the DCA's orders required merely that he vacate his own previous orders suppressing the recordings, not that he himself order their release. The precise language of the DCA order is worth considering:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 29, 2014 26 Comments
Wendy Davis' core political narrative was one of overcoming victimhood -- an abandoned single teenage mom  who struggled to raise her family in a trailer park and overcame the odds to work her way through college and Harvard Law School, and on to a successful law career, through grit and determination. Only problem was, the narrative was misleading, at best. Davis was a single mom of a single child for only a short time (from ages 21-23), had family to help, only lived in a trailer park for a short transition period, and quickly married a wealthy older man who paid her way way through college and law school and brought her into his business after she graduated. She had another child with that man, Jeff Davis, and he was the primary custodial parent, so much so that when they divorced he was awarded custody of their minor child, and even Wendy's first child from her prior marriage, then in college, chose to live with her step-father.  Jeff Davis was quoted, as to Wendy Davis leaving her 9th grade daughter in his custody:
“She did the right thing,” he said. “She said, ‘I think you’re right; you’ll make a good, nurturing father. While I’ve been a good mother, it’s not a good time for me right now.’”
Wendy moved out the day after Jeff paid her last student loan bill. The firestorm of controversy has set Davis back on her heels.

Posted by David Gerstman on January 29, 2014 10 Comments
On American TV, a show called "Lovers' Tales," would likely be a romantic comedy. On Ma'an, the independent Palestinian television network, it is a weekly show interviewing freed prisoners. This week Palestinian Media Watch reports on the interview of one Issa Abd Rabbo.
Until his release, Issa Abd Rabbo was serving two life sentences for killing two Israeli university students, Ron Levi and Revital Seri, who were hiking south of Jerusalem on Oct. 22, 1984. At gun point he tied them up, put bags over their heads and then shot and murdered both. Abbas' "hero" has now given an interview to the independent Palestinian news agency Ma'an on its weekly TV program Lovers' Tales, which interviews released prisoners. There he calmly describes how he initiated the killing, spotted the two hiking university students and waited until they sat down to rest under a tree. He then recounts how he tied them up and murdered them in cold blood.
Here's the clip. Note how he betrays absolutely no remorse.

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 29, 2014 3 Comments
We previously have mentioned that the Speaker of the NY State Assembly, Sheldon Silver, is backing an Assembly bill barring use of state funds to support participation in organizations -- such as the American Studies Association -- that conduct academic boycotts, and cutting off state funding for higher education institutions that violate the prohibition. Silver's backing virtually guarantees it will pass the Assembly. Now the NY State Senate has passed a similar, but not identical, bill, as reported by Capitol Confidential:
The state Senate by an overwhelming majority voted for a bill introduced by Sen. Jeff Klein that would prohibit any public or private college or university from using state funds to support through funding any academic entity “if that academic entity has undertaken an official action boycotting certain countries or their higher education institutions.” The bill is in reaction to the American Studies Association’s controversial boycott of Israel over that nation’s treatment of Palestinians. While almost entirely symbolic, the ASA’s action is viewed by Israel’s supporters as a potential camel’s nose under the tent (if you can say that about a controversy involving the Middle East) for broader divestment efforts. Klein amended his original bill, which would have used the bazooka-vs.-fly approach of denying all state funds to any school that supported such an organization. The revised bill includes several carveouts:

Posted by Mandy Nagy on January 28, 2014 7 Comments
The prime minister of Ukraine resigned on Tuesday in an attempt to help ease tensions after two months of protests and recent violent clashes there. From CNN:
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and his government Tuesday, amid a political crisis fired by violent protests on the country's streets. Azarov and his Cabinet will continue in their roles until a new government is formed, a notice on the presidential website said. Yanukovych's announcement comes only hours after Azarov submitted his resignation and as the national parliament meets in a special session aimed at ending the crisis.
With the resignation of the prime minister also means the resignation of his entire cabinet, in accordance with the Ukrainian Constitution, reported UPI.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 28, 2014 20 Comments
As have many people, Bristol Palin weighed in on the Wendy Davis narrative, and took issue with what she called the "Made-for-TV-Movie-Type-Tale." When Davis was asked about it, she took the bait (video at bottom of post), generating headlines that must make seasoned political types and progressive Davis supporters in the media cringe, such as: NBC Wendy Davis Bristol Palin Palin was less harsh towards Davis than many have been.  But really, why is Davis responding to any individual's criticism? Those who hate the Palins already are voting for Davis. Bristol Palin is not Wendy Davis' problem, Wendy Davis' narrative is Wendy Davis' problem. Here's the video:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 28, 2014 11 Comments
Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino is suing Gawker Media and related entities based on Gawker allegedly assisting in the distribution of a stolen film script:
Director Quentin Tarantino has filed a lawsuit against Gawker Media for copyright infringement. A week after declaring he would no longer make his next film "The Hateful Eight" because someone in his small circle had leaked the screenplay, director Quentin Tarantino has taken legal action against Gawker Media alleging copyright infringement for disseminating the script Tarantino's lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Monday, alleges that the web site Gawker disseminated "unauthorized downloadable copies of the leaked unreleased complete screenplay" and "expressly refused to remove their directions to and URL links to get the infringing materials." The director is demanding actual and statutory damages as well as Gawker's profits in the amount of at least $1 million. "Gawker Media has made a business of predatory journalism, violating people’s rights to make a buck," the complaint states. "This time, they went too far. Rather than merely publishing a news story reporting that Plaintiff’s screenplay may have been circulating in Hollywood without his permission, Gawker Media crossed the journalistic line by promoting itself to the public as the first source to read the entire screenplay illegally."
Not being a fan either of Tarantino's films, or of Gawker, I consider myself neutral. I read the Complaint. All Gawker did was promote the fact that it had links to others on the internet who had the script. That seems like a tough claim of copyright liability, but hey, presumably the plaintiffs' lawyers did the reasearch and think they have a legal claim. But still, just linking to others creates a copyright liability? Yikes, if that's true. Gawker is promising a fight:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 28, 2014 11 Comments
On Saturday, January 24, I appeared on the syndicated radio show of our friend Pete "Da Tech Guy" Ingemi. I had a chance to talk about the backround and nature of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement, most specifically the American Studies Association academic boycott of Israel. See our BDS and ASA tags for background. I discussed how the pushback against the academic boycott has been overwhelming, with over 200 university presidents, the major academic organizations, and 134 Congressmen denouncing the boycott. This fast rejection of the boycott by American civil and political society has made a pariah of the ASA and the supporters of academic boycotts. That is a significant achievement. But it's not enough. I also had a chance to announce the next phase of the opposition to the academic boycott movement (at 9:30)(full audio embedded at bottom of post):
"We're going to continue to push back, and you'll be hearing about those in coming months, we're not stopping now.... [T]he boycott is discrimination on the basis of national origin. While they don't boycott all Israeli academics, they only boycott Israeli academics, and that's national origin discrimination. And we're going to be, you know it hasn't really been publicly announced 'till now, but we're going to be going around the country, and wherever they meet, we're going to insist that universities and that municipalities apply their local anti-discrimination laws to these events. That if they're going to hold an event that's going to discriminate on the basis of national origin, we want the laws enforced as to them just as they would be to any other group. So it's going to be an active year, like I mentioned Legal Insurrection tends to take a fairly active approach to issues, we don't just write about them, we actually pursue them, and we're going to be pursuing them for the coming months and maybe the coming years."
This will be a joint project with Anne Sorock's Capitol City Project. At Legal Insurrection we are chronically short of time, manpower and resources, so CCP's help is greatly appreciated.

Posted by Mandy Nagy on January 27, 2014 8 Comments

On Friday, January 24th, the federal court system's public website became unavailable for several hours, as did access to the PACER system, uscourts.gov, and many other federal court websites across the country.  The outage impeded the ability of attorneys and litigants to file or retrieve...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 27, 2014 18 Comments
Much like insurance, Hillary Clinton isn't bought, she's sold. And it's always been a hard sale. She has name recognition, and is the default candidate for a significant percentage of the electorate, but there's always been something missing. It's why Obama could appear out of nowhere to take her down, and it's why Elizabeth Warren could do the same thing if only she would run. That's why there is the Ready for Hillary shadow campaign apparatus -- we must want Hillary. The selling of Hillary by the Ready for Hillary PAC is playing out in the earliest stages of the Iowa caucuses, as Ruby Cramer at Buzzfeed reports, Clinton Supporters Want Iowa To Want Her:
After the meetings, the exhausted team declared the day a success. Attendees had been excited; had pinned “Iowans Ready for Hillary” buttons to their lapels; had smiled wide watching video clips from Clinton speeches; had even, at one point, broke into spontaneous applause and cheering at her mention. “If we build it, she will come,” said one of the meeting’s organizers, Bonnie Campbell, a former Iowa attorney general and Clinton administration appointee.... Another frustration emerged during meetings. In spending time and resources on a candidate who isn’t even in the race yet, some said, Ready for Hillary stages a “total inversion” of the traditional primary, as state Rep. Jo Oldson put it. Iowa, Oldson said, likes its candidates to beg voters — not the other way around. “This is just a different twist on how Iowans view getting into presidential campaigns,” she said. “It’s Iowa asking her to run, rather than the candidate asking Iowa to elect her.”
All this We Want You To Want Hillary stuff could backfire, as Michael Warren at The Weekly Standard points out, Hillary Supporters in Iowa: She Can't Be Seen As 'Ordained':

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 27, 2014 18 Comments
Melissa Harris-Perry hosted a panel on the question: "Are attacks against Wendy Davis sexist or standard political fare?" Harris-Perry gave a pretty good intro, pointing out that narrative failures are political problems for women and for men. And she did highlight that Wendy Davis' narrative is not quite as portrayed in her campaign. But were the attacks "gendered" if not outright "sexist." Watch the video below. Does it strike you, as it did me, that the panelists could not generate any visible indignation over the supposedly sexist treatment of Davis? They mouthed the words, but seemed a bit shy about it after listening to Harris-Perry's intro about the discrepancies in Davis' narrative. Davis' parenting and maternal commitment were an express part of her narrative -- when that narrative failed, it was not gendered or sexist, it just was what it was. There was no dissent among the panelists. Jonathan Capehart particularly dropped the ball by suggesting that Newt Gingrich is an example of a man leaving his first wife and kids behind who did not pay a price. But in fact, Newt has been excoriated for it and it was a damaging blow to his presidential ambitions, as I explained to Kirsten Powers. This should have been a panel that breathed "sexism" fire. That all they could muster were a few glowing embers of "sexism" tells you something right there. There doesn't appear to be any fire in the belly even at MSNBC to defend Wendy Davis' failed personal narrative. Here's the video, in two parts:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 27, 2014 30 Comments
Dinesh D'Souza allegedly violated campaign finance laws through a relatively small scheme to have friends donate $20,000 to Republican Senate candidate Wendy Long, who had little chance of defeating Kirsten Gillibrand in 2012. The alleged illegality was that D'Souza would reimburse them, thereby allowing him to exceed the individual campaing donation limits. It he did it, it's hard to excuse. He must have known about the campaign limits. But such small-scale violations of campaign finance law often are treated as civil matters, with fines. When the Obama campaign turned off credit card security features that would prevent foreign donations, it didn't even get a slap on the wrist. When the Obama campaign was caught hiding over $1 million in excess donations, it merely was fined:
Barack Obama's presidential campaign has been fined $375,000 by the Federal Election Commission for violating federal disclosure laws, Politico reports. An FEC audit of Obama for America's 2008 records found the committee failed to disclose millions of dollars in contributions and dragged its feet in refunding millions more in excess contributions.
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