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Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 25, 2015 3 Comments
The disruption of an event hosted by UT-Austin Israel Studies Professor Ami Pedahzur by anti-Israel students from the UT-Austin Palestine Solidarity Committee continues to reverberate. The disruption was followed up by a slick media campaign targeting Prof. Pedahzur, including a video edited to make the perpetrators (the anti-Israel protesters) look like the victims.  Part of that smear campaign was a "civil rights" complaint filed by the students with the University. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46W4S3lr9HU For those of you new to this story, here are links to our prior posts:

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 25, 2015 2 Comments
The first time we wrote about Johnny Micheal "Mike" Spann was in early May 2011, in the aftermath of the killing of Osama bin Laden:
Hearing the news of Osama bin Laden’s death brought forward many emotions and memories. One of those memories for me was the story of Johnny “Mike” Spann, from Winfield, Alabama, the first American killed in the Afghanistan war, on November 25, 2001.[*] Spann was a CIA operative, one of a small number of Americans who landed in Afghanistan, helped coordinate local forces hostile to the Taliban, and directed bombing and other military action. The story of this small band of men has been told, but not told enough. Spann was killed during the Battle of Qala-i-Jangi when Taliban prisoners gained access to weapons and attacked. Spann was killed during that uprising (see video).  One of the prisoners was the so-called American Taliban, John Walker Lyndh, who Spann interrogated shortly before Spann’s death.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 25, 2015 20 Comments
When it comes to destroying ISIS, how serious is the Obama Administration? So serious that the White House avoids destroying the source of ISIS funding because of environmental concerns. Yes, environmental concerns. Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell joined Charlie Rose to discuss ISIS and the Obama Administration's aversion to destroying ISIS held oil wells.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 25, 2015 10 Comments
Flanked by members of the national security team Wednesday, President Obama briefly addressed the current state of homeland security. The President assured the American people that, "no specific and credible," intelligence indicated a looming, "attack on the homeland” for the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend. For the first time in weeks, Republicans and their alleged terrorist abetting were not central to the President's public comments.

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Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 25, 2015 47 Comments
Nazis. Nazis are now part of the presidential discussion and John Kasich is to blame. A new web ad released by Ohio Governor Kasich Wednesday attacks Donald Trump's "dangerous rhetoric." The ad goes:
“You might not care if Donald Trump says Muslims should register with their government, because you’re not one. And you might not care if Donald Trump says he’s going to round up all the Hispanic immigrants, because you’re not one. And you might not care if Donald Trump says it’s okay to rough up black protesters, because you’re not one. And you might not care if Donald Trump wants to suppress journalists, because you’re not one. But think about this: If he keeps going, and he actually becomes president, he might just get around to you. And you better hope there’s someone left to help you.”
Sound familiar? As National Review's Jim Geraghty pointed out, the ad dialogue is modeled after Pastor Martin Niemoller’s famous poem:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 25, 2015 24 Comments
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul feels the nation is less safe today than ever before in recent memory. His concerns were validated by the most recent vapid statements from our Commander-in-Chief.  Speaking alongside French President François Hollande at a joint news conference, President Obama stated that next week’s climate change summit in Paris would be a “powerful rebuke” to terrorists.
“Next week, I will be joining President Hollande and world leaders in Paris for the global climate conference,” Obama said during his prepared remarks, which focused mostly on the efforts to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). “What a powerful rebuke to the terrorists it will be, when the world stands as one and shows that we will not be deterred from building a better future for our children,” he added.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 25, 2015 34 Comments
There's a big spat over Donald Trump's comments that he remembers seeing video of Muslims in Jersey City or other towns near NYC cheering the attack on the World Trade Center. The argument is over whether it happened, whether there is video and so on. Trump is sticking to his memory, and the media is swarming to prove him wrong. CNN in particular is going all out on the effort. There's no purity of purpose there. What's most interesting to me is that there is an emerging consensus among those who are hammering Trump on this that Trump is not "lying," but likely is thinking of celebrations elsewhere. Since the aspersions that Trump is a "racist" or "Islamophobic" are predicated on a bad intent, whether he is lying as opposed to honestly mistaken seems relevant. The concept of false or suggested memory is something I've often explored both in private practice and in the course I teach. There just are some people who absolutely believe and will swear on a stack of Bibles to something that objectively did not happen -- and they always seem to be on the other side of the case from me! They are not liars, but they are wrong. Proving it is the challenge. Robert Mackey of The New York Times argues that Trump probably is confusing videos of Palestinians cheering with some memory of it taking place in northern New Jersey, The Video of Celebrations That Was Broadcast on 9/11:

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 25, 2015 9 Comments
Every year at the holidays, the left inevitably urges you to discuss politics with your Republican uncle and this year is no exception. The Democratic Party even sent out the tweet below, via Twitchy:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 24, 2015 28 Comments
Earlier today, Turkey shot down a Russian fighter plane after repeated warnings.
According to the Turkish military, officials warned “an unidentified aircraft” ten times over the course of five minutes that its path would violate Turkish airspace over the border town of Yayladagi, in Hatay province. A spokesman for U.S. officials leading the coalition from Baghdad confirmed that his team heard Turkish officials give those warnings over “open channels.” NATO called an emergency meeting today to address rapidly escalating tensions between Turkey and Russia, where Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stood in solidarity with Turkey.
According to The Telegraph, Obama spoke with the Turkish president who's said they're working to avoid any repeats of todays events:
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, has spoken to Barack Obama by telephone. The Turkish presidency said: "They were in accord on the importance of de-escalating tensions and making arrangements to prevent a repeat of such incidents." They also expressed their commitment to a bringing about a transitional political process for peace in Syria and joint determination to continue the fight against Isil, the statement added.
Shortly after news of the skirmish broke, Senator Rubio joined Fox News and was asked how the U.S. should respond. Rubio explained that if Turkey finds itself threatened by Russia, the U.S. must respond and defend the Turks.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 24, 2015 17 Comments
The Obama's Administration's whitewashing of language might have played well with the social justice warrior brigade, but voters aren't buying it. A survey released by Rasmussen found 60% of likely voters believe America is at war with Radical Islam. Rasmussen reported:
President Obama, Hillary Clinton and other senior Democrats refuse to say America is at war with “radical Islamic terrorism” for fear of insulting all Muslims, but voters beg to disagree. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 60% of Likely U.S. Voters believe the United States is at war with radical Islamic terrorism. Just 24% share the president’s position and disagree. Sixteen percent (16%) are undecided.
Pouring salt in the social justice wound, a whopping 56% of self-identifying Democrats also believe radical Islamist terrorists are our foe compared to 70% of those identifying as Republican. And the data just gets more interesting:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 24, 2015 3 Comments
Mohammed Nabulsi is the UT-Austin law student who led the disruption of an Israel Studies event hosted by Prof. Ami Pedahzur. Both Pedahzur and the invited speaker from Stanford University are Israeli. Nabulsi was part of a group of almost a dozen members of UT-Austin Palestine Solidarity Committee who participated in the disruption. Nabulsi is on video yelling over people, shouting that he has no intention of listening to them and that they have no right to speak as former Israeli soldiers, and demanding the right to perform an "intervention" at the event. Despite repeated requests to leave or to participate, Nabulsi and the others then chanted "Free Free Palestine" and "Long Live the Intifada" to drown out others. The chant for an Intifada, directed at Israelis at a time when the Knife Intifada has claimed dozens of Israeli lives, was particularly troubling. Nabulsi appears to have used the name of a known terrorist ("Georges Abdallah) as an online alias and also has written of the need for the anti-Israel boycott movement to support Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other “resistance” groups. In the following video, taken from down the hallway, you can hear how loud the chanting was in the room where the event was being held. It is loud even from dozens of yards down the hallway.

Posted by Amy Miller on November 24, 2015 37 Comments
Today U.S. officials confirmed that the Turkish military fired upon a Russian jet when it repeatedly violated Turkish airspace near the Turkey-Syria border. The jet crash landed in the Jabal Turkmen area of the coastal Syrian province of Latakia, and it is now believed that both pilots have died under fire from rebel Turkmen forces. More via Fox News:
U.S. defense official said that two Turkish F-16s fired heat-seeking air-to-air missiles at the Russian aircraft. “This will get complicated,” the official said. Tuesday's incident is the first time since the 1950s that a Russian or Soviet military aircraft has been publicly acknowledged to have been shot down by a NATO country, according to Reuters. Russia's main stock index dropped more than 2 percent after the incident, while Turkish stocks fell 1.3 percent amid fears of an escalation between the two countries. Russia said the Su-24 was downed by artillery fire, but Turkey claimed that its F-16s fired on the Russian plane after it ignored the warnings.
Fox has posted amateur video claiming to show the crash:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 24, 2015 38 Comments
A post by Ed Lasky over at the American Thinker is making its way around the internet. Lasky suggests a little known bill introduced by Senator Rubio may have killed Obamacare. Naturally, we had to dig in. Rubio first introduced similar legislation in 2013. Lumped into the 2014 Omnibus bill, the act passed. Because it was globbed into an appropriations bill, it has an expiration date. The Obamacare Taxpayer Bailout Prevention Act was re-introduced by Rubio in January, the first piece of legislation he introduced in 2015, with companion legislation introduced by Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland. The current version would eliminate tax-payer funded bailouts completely. The Obamacare Taxpayer Bailout Prevention Act's premise is simple -- amend the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by striking out section 1342. Sen. Rubio's office explained in January:
The bill would repeal section 1342 of ObamaCare, which establishes a risk corridor program to distribute money from exchange plans that earned profits to exchange plans that suffered losses. However, the risk corridor program was not designed to be budget neutral, and section 1342 of ObamaCare puts the American taxpayer at risk of a taxpayer bailout if insurers systematically lose money on exchange plans. By repealing Section 1342, the legislation would force the administration to come back to Congress to request appropriations to cover any losses in the program. ...“Under December’s omnibus spending bill, taxpayers are protected from bailing out insurance companies until September 30, but now Congress has the opportunity to take the possibility of a bailout off the table for good,” added Rubio. “By passing this bill, Congress will ensure that no bailout will occur, in 2016 or ever.”

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 24, 2015 3 Comments
The Bernie Sanders campaign has launched a pointless attack on Hillary Clinton by calling her tax plans Republican Lite. This brings two thoughts to mind. First, the Sanders camp should have thought of this before he surrendered the nomination to Hillary by saying no one cares about her damn emails. Second, if you're so far left that Bernie Sanders seems reasonable, everyone is going to look like a Republican to you. John Wagner reported at the Washington Post:
Sanders camp calls Clinton tax proposals ‘Republican lite’ SAVANNAH, Ga. — A senior aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday characterized Hillary Clinton’s latest tax plans as “tentative half-steps that sound Republican-lite,” escalating the sparring between the Democratic presidential campaigns over their respective commitments to helping the middle class.
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