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Posted by Mary Chastain on May 09, 2016 25 Comments
Former Facebook employees have told Gizmodo that the company regularly told them to stamp out conservative news even if it trended on the website. From Gizmodo:
Several former Facebook “news curators,” as they were known internally, also told Gizmodo that they were instructed to artificially “inject” selected stories into the trending news module, even if they weren’t popular enough to warrant inclusion—or in some cases weren’t trending at all. The former curators, all of whom worked as contractors, also said they were directed not to include news about Facebook itself in the trending module. In other words, Facebook’s news section operates like a traditional newsroom, reflecting the biases of its workers and the institutional imperatives of the corporation. Imposing human editorial values onto the lists of topics an algorithm spits out is by no means a bad thing—but it is in stark contrast to the company’s claims that the trending module simply lists “topics that have recently become popular on Facebook.”

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Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on May 09, 2016 25 Comments
I always found Jay Leno's "Jay Walking" segment depressing. He would wander around Los Angeles, conducting man on the street interviews with passers by, most of whom showed complete ignorance about very basic American history questions. I never found it humorous, I found it disheartening, but also context for why things are the way they are. This video is no different. Who fought in World War II? Who was Hitler? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 08, 2016 8 Comments
As you know if you have been reading Legal Insurrection for years, we regularly track Gallup and Pew surveys of attitudes among Americans of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. What we see is that support for Israel among the entire U.S. population remains at near historical highs. For example, the Gallup survey released in February 2016 demonstrated that Americans still overwhelmingly support Israel:
The survey shows that support for Israel versus the Palestinians remains near historical highs, slightly up from last year:
Americans’ views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remained steady over the past year, with 62% of Americans saying their sympathies lie more with the Israelis and 15% favoring the Palestinians. About one in four continue to be neutral, including 9% who sympathize with neither side, 3% who sympathize with both, and 11% expressing no opinion.

Posted by Miriam Elman on May 08, 2016 11 Comments
In the saturated market of U.S. anti-Israel activism, the political organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) plays a starring role. In many posts (see a partial list here), we’ve highlighted how JVP provides the façade of American Jewish support for pro-BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) organizations arrayed against the Jewish state. By presenting itself as the Jewish justification for BDS, the group gives “cover” to political and economic war on Israel, insulating BDS from allegations of anti-Semitism and providing it with a veneer of legitimacy. On its website, JVP boasts over 60 member-led chapters across the United States and more than 200,000 online supporters. These days it also has increased access to funding, which it uses to promote and publicize its “high profile” anti-Israel activism.

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Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 08, 2016 15 Comments
On Friday, Secretary of State John Kerry delivered the commencement address at Northeastern University.  During this address, he told the graduating class they are "about to graduate into a complex and borderless world." The Washington Examiner reports:
Kerry also seemed to dismiss the importance of national borders, and said technology has reshaped the world into one that the U.S. must engage at the risk of being left behind. He said Trump and others who want to look inward are making a mistake, even in the face of rising tension and violence in the world. "For some people, that is all they need simply to climb under the sheets, close their eyes and push the world away," Kerry said. "And shockingly, we even see this attitude from some who think they ought to be entrusted with the job of managing international affairs." "The future demands from us something more than a nostalgia for some rose-tinted version of the past that did not really exist in any case," he said. "You're about to graduate into a complex and borderless world."
Kerry's dismissal of national borders was part of his attack on GOP presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Posted by Andrew Branca on May 08, 2016 57 Comments
The second of the Freddie Gray trials is scheduled to being this Wednesday, May 11, this time of Police Officer Edward Nero, one of the three officers involved in Freddie Gray's initial stop and arrest.  Nero was charged with second-degree assault, two counts of misconduct in office, and reckless endangerment. Nero is being tried on charges of second-degree assault, two counts of misconduct in office and reckless endangerment. All the parties involved remain under a gag order imposed by trial Judge Barry Williams (transparency, much?). Nevertheless, news reports are indicating that the prosecution has essentially conceded that they're simply making up the legal theory under which they are bringing Nero's prosecution. The Baltimore Sun uses the phrase "novel legal theory" to describe the State Attorney Marilyn Mosby's prosecution of Nero, which is simply a more polite way of saying "they're making up the law as they go along."

Posted by New Neo on May 08, 2016 21 Comments
Just prior to the Indiana primary and Ted Cruz's and John Kasich's suspension of their campaigns, I was contemplating Trump's "play fair" and "don't rig the process to deny me" assertions about the process of choosing convention delegates. It became apparent that this was a case of Trump following Alinsky Rule 4 of Rules for Radicals: "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules." The "enemy," of course, being the conventional (in several senses of the word) Republican Party, the party whose standard bearer Trump is now poised to become. And then it occurred to me that there are a lot of Alinsky's rules that Trump follows, and has followed right along. In fact, when you refresh your memory on those rules, it's hard to escape the conviction that Trump is an advanced practitioner of the Alinskyite approach.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 08, 2016 24 Comments
Despite her continued insistence that her email and personal server scandal is a nothing burger, Hillary just can't seem to stop herself from telling untruths.  Despite wide-spread reports that the FBI was moving on to the next phase of their investigation, interviewing Hillary aides, Hillary claimed this week that neither she nor any of her representatives have been contacted by the FBI to set up interviews. The New York Post reports:
On Tuesday, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell asked her outright: “Have you been contacted — or your representatives contacted — by the FBI to set up an interview” over her e-mail mess? Clinton gave a flat “no.”
Watch the segment:

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 08, 2016 7 Comments
Last week we covered the story of three students at the University at Albany who were facing charges for staging a race hoax. The school has now expelled two of the students and suspended another. FOX News reports:
Two New York college students who claimed to be victims of racist attack expelled Two black female college students who claimed to be victims of an assault by a group of white men and women reportedly were expelled from the University at Albany. University at Albany President Robert J. Jones said in an email to The Albany Times Union Thursday that Ariel Agudio and Asha Burwell were dismissed from the college. A third student, Alexis Briggs, was suspended for two years.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 07, 2016 16 Comments
I doubt many people know the name Babi Yar, or what happened there. Unless you read Legal Insurrection. If I polled 10,000 college students, I'd be surprised if more than a handful ever heard of it. Babi Yar is a large ravine in Kiev, Ukraine. [caption id="attachment_170714" align="alignnone" width="600"]http://collections1.yadvashem.org/notebook.asp?lang=ENG&dlang=ENG&module=search&page=next_list&rsvr=7@7&param=%3Cdlang%3EENG%3C/%3E%3Cnob%3E28%3C/%3E%3Cstart_entry%3E91%3C/%3E%3Crsvr_id%3E7%3C/%3E%3Clang_id%3EENG%3C/%3E%3Cquantity%3E15%3C/%3E%3Cvalue%3Ebabi%20yar%20murder%20site%3C/%3E%3Cindex_name%3ECONPL%3C/%3E%3Ccollector%3E0%3C/%3E%3Clif%3ECONPL%3C/%3E%3Crsvr_ser%3E@@7%3C/%3E%3Cdispq%3Ez1zPlaces:%20z3zbabi%20yar%20murder%20site,%20Literal%20%20z1zDatabanks:%20z3zPhotos%20Archive%3C/%3E%3Cquery_name%3Ejaguar50_4504_451103%3C/%3E%3Cnum_of_items%3E0%3C/%3E%3Cquery_index%3E@CONPL%3C/%3E%3Cthumb%3E0%3C/%3E%3Csmode%3Edts%3C/%3E%3Cbook_id%3E6443%3C/%3E%3Cview%3Ealbum%3C/%3E%3Cmainimage%3E/arch_srika/4001-4500/4135-4303/4147_102.jpg%3C/%3E&param2=&site=sapir [Babi Yar ravine, image via Yad Vashem][/caption]In September 1941, after the Nazis conquered what at the time was the Ukrainian Socialist Republic, part of the Soviet Union, the roundup of Jews was ordered. Ukrainian collaborators gladly assisted in the round up, particularly of Jewish women.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 07, 2016 25 Comments
I still assert that Donald Trump will vanquish Hillary Clinton in the fall, especially when his likely opposition begins working for him! Via Fox News contributor and talk show host Tammy Bruce comes an ad being put out by the Clinton campaign. The video backfires, because it provides example after example of strong positions Trump offers that appeal to his record-number of primary voters.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 07, 2016 7 Comments
Finally, some good news from the Golden State! It looks like we have solved all our other problems, so Governor Jerry Brown was able to focus on the issue of paramount importance: Smoking!
Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday signed a package of bills that will regulate the manufacture and sale of e-cigarettes and increase the legal smoking age from 18 to 21. Other bills the governor signed will close loopholes in existing smoke-free workplace laws and require that all K-12 schools be tobacco-free.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 07, 2016 35 Comments
In December 2001, alert passengers on an American Airlines flight thwarted a terrorist attack by "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, and in the wake of the San Bernardino terrorist attack, we learned that neighbors had noted suspicious activity at the terrorists' home but had not reported it for fear of being accused of profiling or of being racist. This week, a passenger on an American Airlines flight was seated next to a man who was intently focused on "scribblings" she could not decipher, and after repeated attempts to engage him in conversation, she reported behavior she found to be suspicious. The Washington Post reports:
On Thursday evening, a 40-year-old man — with dark, curly hair, olive skin and an exotic foreign accent — boarded a plane. It was a regional jet making a short, uneventful hop from Philadelphia to nearby Syracuse. Or so dozens of unsuspecting passengers thought. The curly-haired man tried to keep to himself, intently if inscrutably scribbling on a notepad he’d brought aboard. His seatmate, a blond-haired, 30-something woman sporting flip-flops and a red tote bag, looked him over. He was wearing navy Diesel jeans and a red Lacoste sweater – a look he would later describe as “simple elegance” – but something about him didn’t seem right to her. She decided to try out some small talk.

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 07, 2016 7 Comments
FOX News lives rent free in the heads of liberals all over America. They just can't stand the fact that one news network dares to include conservative voices alongside liberal ones. Obama has been complaining about the network since taking office and now Bernie Sanders is singling out FOX and suggesting that liberals should have a similar network. Here's the best part - He made the comments to Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. The Hill reports:
Sanders calls for Democratic version of Fox News Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders called for a more liberal version of Fox News to help fix the problems he sees in corporate media.
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