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Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 21, 2015 28 Comments
Perhaps Mrs. Clinton should read the newspapers like the current White House occupant, then she might find her self a bit more informed about the goings on in the country she hopes to rule run. Speaking in Keene, New Hampshire yesterday, Hillary said: "From my perspective, I want to be sure that we get small businesses starting and growing in America again. We have stalled out. I was very surprised to see that when I began to dig into it. Because people were telling me this as I travelled around the country the last two years, but I didn't know what they were saying and it turns out, we're not producing as many small businesses as we used to, and a recent world study said that we are forty-sixth in the world in the difficulty to start a small business. And we'll get into some of those."

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Posted by Amy Miller on April 21, 2015 7 Comments
It seems incomprehensible that in 2015, I would have to write a headline hinting at begrudging support on the part of Democrats for modern day slaves. And yet here I sit, after watching more than a month's debate over the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, finally able to report that the Democrats have finally relented in their all-out war against the JVTA, and we should see a vote soon. We finally have a deal. In a battle that mostly came down to optics, Democrats have finally agreed to a fee structure benefiting victims of trafficking that would flow through the appropriations process. This system will still invoke the Hyde Amendment's abortion funding prohibitions, but avoid the spectre of a Hyde "expansion" that Democrats used to block the bill's passage. This means that, once the JVTA is taken care of, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will allow a vote on the nomination of Loretta Lynch as the next attorney general. The bizarre and infuriating part about all this is that Reid recently played games with an idea very similar to the one currently on the table---a fact that JVTA sponsor John Cornyn highlighted in a speech pushing for final passage:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 21, 2015 49 Comments
You've seen the maps delineating the largely regional usage of words like "y'all" versus "you guys." But what about the more subtle differences in English usage? Yale's Grammatical Diversity Project produced some rather fascinated results. The study "examines syntactic differences among local varieties spoken by considerably smaller numbers of people." Digging far deeper into the grammar usage among regions within the same state, the study documents, "minimal differences among varieties of English spoken in North America." According to one of the researchers, the goal was not to look for grammatical inaccuracies or judge language usage, but to catalogue regional variations. For example, in many parts of New England, people will say "so don't I" to mean "so do I," he explained. The study also explores generational differences in the usage of words like, "so." Among younger people, and particularly in New York and California, "so" is used to convey drama. For example, "I was so tired last night, I couldn't keep my eyes open."

Posted by Mike LaChance on April 21, 2015 10 Comments
Megyn Kelly interviewed governor Scott Walker on her show last night and covered a wide variety of topics. The first subject was Hillary Clinton, who Walker suggested is out of touch with the American people. Other topics included Walker's strategy for winning independent voters in Wisconsin, the GOP's prospects for 2016 and immigration. Here's the video: Scott Walker's name was in the news yesterday for another reason.

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Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 20, 2015 40 Comments
As Aleister wrote previously, Christina Hoff Summers received an... interesting response when she spoke at Georgetown Thursday night. Ms. Sommers is the Factual Feminist at the American Enterprise Institute. In the Oberlin Review radical feminists responded to Sommers' upcoming speech with an OpEd, "A Love Letter to Themselves." In this love letter, they accuse Sommers of being a "rape denialist" and proceeded to list her "offenses" to feminism. The letter concluded:
So let’s engage in some radical, beautiful community care, support and love. Let’s make space for everyone to engage at whichever level they want/need. Let’s come through for each other, both now and in the future. Trauma is an experience that threatens a person’s bodily, spiritual and emotional integrity. The psychological, emotional and somatic impacts extend beyond the experience of trauma. Healing is a process that looks different for each person. Let’s make space to care for all experiences of trauma and to respect those we care for. Let’s focus our energy on taking care of each other and ourselves. Let’s make her talk irrelevant in the face of our love, passion and power.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 20, 2015 9 Comments
I love stories about armed citizens stepping up to secure the safety of the general public, so naturally this one struck my fancy. An Uber driver shot and injured a gunman who open fired into a crowd over the weekend.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 20, 2015 25 Comments
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin are refusing to meet with former President Jimmy Carter during Carter's trip to Israel. The Israeli presidency is a mostly ceremonial post in the parliamentary system, so the feelings must be strong for the President of Israel to refuse to meet Carter. The Times of Israel reports:
Both the president and prime minister declined the invitations after consulting with the Foreign Ministry and the National Security Council. A senior diplomatic official told Channel 10, which broke the news, that Carter is “a disaster for Israel,” and that all Israeli leaders should refrain from meeting the former president, due to his “anti-Israel positions.” The official was also quoted as saying that while Netanyahu and Rivlin refused to meet with him, Israel had approved Carter’s request to visit the Gaza Strip....

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 20, 2015 14 Comments
Earlier today, Colorado's chapter of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, or NARAL, tweeted a disturbing admission in response to a bill currently rattling around in the state house. I read this over and and over again, hoping NARAL Colorado wasn't advocating against penalties for those who end a pregnancy against a mother's wishes. But there's simply no way around it -- NARAL is anti-personhood. They went on to say: And then kept digging:

Posted by Amy Miller on April 20, 2015 11 Comments
Earlier today, I wrote about how tensions escalated in Yemen after a Saudi airstrike allegedly hit targets close to the Iranian embassy in Sana'a, causing damage to the embassy itself, but no casualties. Houthi-controlled (read: Iranian-controlled) news outlets peddled the line that the airstrike had missed its intended target---a Sana'a arms depot---but photos and reports from the area have largely refuted that claim. Moral of the story? Things are tense in the Arabian Peninsula today---and it's about to get much worse, to the tune of an increased U.S. naval presence in the region.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 20, 2015 31 Comments
We have been covering the "John Doe" investigations of Scott Walker and Wisconsin conservatives since January 2014, when it came on our radar after a state court judge quashed certain subpoenas. Since then, we've had over 25 posts, detailing the depths to which Democratic prosecutors sank in the effort to get Walker and his supporters, as well as related litigation. John Doe No. 1 targeted Walker's time as Milwaukee County Executive. That probe failed to find any misconduct by Walker. John Doe No. 2 targeted alleged illegal coordination during the Recall Election between Walker's campaign and conservative groups. A state court judge already has ruled that even if there was such coordination, it was not illegal; that ruling is on appeal in the state courts. A federal District Court ruled the same way, but was reversed by the federal appeals court primarily on procedural grounds as to whether a federal court should interfere in a state investigation; a request is pending for the U.S. Supreme Court to take that case. In a second federal case, the same District Judge ordered Wisconsin not to enforce its coordination law as relates to issue advocacy. We’ll see if that holds up on appeal. While the legal proceedings are interesting, it is the physical and emotional abuse visited up innocent conservative activists by John Doe investigators that is particularly outrageous. We've focused on the home raids before, including this description by George Will, The nastiest political tactic this year:

Posted by Amy Miller on April 20, 2015 4 Comments
Over the past four weeks, Saudi Arabia has led a series of airstrikes aimed at quashing the spread and rise to power of Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen. Backed by the Iranian government, the Houthi have risen from obscurity to prominence. Once a regional threat, the group began late last year to branch out on more aggressive missions aimed at securing strategically important sites around the country. They moved into the capital city of Sana'a, and earlier this year managed to stage a violent and successful coup against the western-backed Hadi government. Iran's involvement---which they deny, of course---has been the subject of contention for coalition partners in the region, who argue that the Iranians are using the Houthi rebels as a proxy occupation force and means to greater control over the increasingly volatile Arabian Peninsula. Similarly, Saudi's airstrikes against Houthi advancement have been painted not as strategic, but as an unnecessary attack on civilians caught in the crossfire. Today, Iran released a statement alleging that one Saudi Airstrike hit too close to the Iranian embassy in Sana'a, shattering windows and causing damage but fortunately not injuring anyone inside.

Posted by Amy Miller on April 20, 2015 17 Comments
Two years ago, over 1,000 people died in Syria after sarin gas was unleashed on civilian neighborhoods in Damascus. No one has ever been held accountable for ordering the attack, but among those who have followed the violence in Syria there is little doubt that all the evidence points to President Bashar al-Assad. 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley's "A Crime Against Humanity" aired on 60 Minutes yesterday evening alongside never-before-seen footage of the 2013 sarin gas massacre. The segment throws into full relief what words like "extermination" really mean in a modern context. Pelley spoke to a man named Kassem Eid, who was in Damascus when the rockets hit the ground:
Nobody knew what was going on. People were just praying for God to have mercy on them. Sir, I've seen things you only would dream about in your worst nightmares. ... I felt like my chest was set on fire. My eyes were burning like hell. I wasn't able even to scream, or to do anything, so I started to beat my chest really hard...trying to take a breath, just to be able to take a single breath. It was so painful. It felt like someone was tearing up my chest with a knife made of fire.
Watch:

Posted by Amy Miller on April 20, 2015 29 Comments
The book is called Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich---and it could be the undoing of a woman much of the country assumed would one day hold the presidency. Peter Schweizer's latest work won't officially hit stores until May 5, but the buzz generated by the release of advance copies already has Team Clinton on defense, and Republican heavy-hitters running offense against the financial history of the Clinton Foundation. The basic premise of the book is that during the time Clinton served as secretary of state, the Department would grant favors to foreign entities in exchange for high-dollar speaking fees paid directly to the Clinton Foundation.
“We will see a pattern of financial transactions involving the Clintons that occurred contemporaneous with favorable U.S. policy decisions benefiting those providing the funds,” Mr. Schweizer writes.

Posted by Mike LaChance on April 19, 2015 11 Comments
Debbie Wasserman Schultz has done such a tremendous job of defining the Democratic Party's central beliefs lately, especially in her response to Rand Paul's challenges on abortion. We're so impressed that we think Wasserman Schultz has become a possible, um, Plan B for Democrats should Hillary faulter. As evidence for our argument, here are some of Debbie's greatest hits. Here she is asserting that Obama hardly does his job at all:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 19, 2015 44 Comments
Breitbart News caused a stink when it reported on presidential candidate Marco Rubio's alleged comments on Obama's unilateral executive immigration programs. The headline inaccurately suggested that Rubio supported President Obama's executive immigration overreach. As we will discuss, this was only one of numerous mistranslations. Screen Shot 2015-04-19 at 5.55.35 PM The latest offense involves Senator Rubio's recent interview about immigration policy with Univision. Senator Rubio reiterated his well documented position on the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programs. Rubio clearly says the programs will have to end. Interestingly enough, Sen. Cruz shares Sen. Rubio's opinions on DAPA and DACA.
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