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Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 09, 2015 25 Comments
In 2011, the DOJ ordered the Dayton Police Department and the Fire Department of New York to lower the required test scores of minorities after too many failed to pass the existing exams, and in 2013, the Marines changed their fitness requirement for women after the majority of female recruits were unable to perform the required three pull-ups. This week we learn that the FDNY is allowing a woman to become a fire fighter despite failing a crucial fitness exam.  According to The New York Post:
The FDNY for the first time in its history will allow someone who failed its crucial physical fitness test to join the Bravest, The Post has learned. Rebecca Wax, 33, is set to graduate Tuesday from the Fire Academy without passing the Functional Skills Training test, a grueling obstacle course of job-related tasks performed in full gear with a limited air supply, an insider has revealed. “They’re going to allow the first person to graduate without passing because this administration has lowered the standard,” said the insider, who is familiar with the training. Upon graduation, Wax would be assigned to a firehouse and tasked with the full duties of a firefighter.
As you might imagine, not everyone is thrilled with this development.  An FDNY member tells The Post, "We’re being asked to go into a fire with someone who isn’t 100 percent qualified.  Our job is a team effort. If there’s a weak link in the chain, either civilians or our members can die.” This is particularly problematic because Wax is the only female firefighter who has failed the fitness exam and still made the cut.  The female firefighters who passed the fitness and other exams are livid; the Post reports:

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 09, 2015 4 Comments
It seems that every week there are one or more news stories about anti-Israel violence in Europe, frequently tied to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, as with attacks in Paris. Here is the latest episode, in which four Copenhagen buses were torched, and another painted with "Boycott Israel - Free Gaza," in what is believed to be retaliation for the bus company removing BDS advertisements The Local Denmark English-language website reports, Copenhagen bus fire may be tied to Israel ads:
Four public buses were burned in the early morning hours of Friday in what may have been a reaction to a controversy surrounding an advertising campaing urging people to boycott products from Israeli settlements. Copenhagen Police suspect that there is a political motive behind the burning of four Copenhagen city buses early on Friday. “In paint was written ‘Boycott Israel - Free Gaza’ on at least one of the buses,” police spokesman Las Vestervig told tabloid BT. No one was injured in the fire, which was set in the bus company Arriva’s parking garage in the Copenhagen district of Østerbro. The fire came amidst a controversy over the bus company Movia's decision to remove advertisements from 35 buses in the capital region that urged people to boycott products from Israeli settlements.

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 09, 2015 7 Comments
Bill Clinton spoke on behalf of the Clinton Foundation at an event in Morocco this week and made a rather revealing comment about the standards applied to people in politics compared to average Americans. Transcript via Real Clear Politics:
MOROCCAN BILLIONAIRE MO IBRAHIM: I opened the newspaper and I was shocked to see these attacks on the foundation... I didn't see anybody from the foundation standing up and really having a go at that... Because you should have stand up and really take issue. What is this money for? What have you done with it? And that's what people should ask.... BILL CLINTON: I just work there, I don't know... You do, look, there is one set of rules for politics, and another set for real life, you just have to learn to deal with it...
Watch the exchange below: The Clintons certainly seem to enjoy living by rules not afforded to other people.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 09, 2015 13 Comments
Last year marked the twenty-year anniversary of Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" that is often credited with helping usher in the 1994 Republican Revolution.  The Gingrich "Contract with America" was a simple, straightforward list of major reforms Republicans promised to introduce and bring up for a vote should they take control of Congress:
  • A balanced budget amendment and line item veto;
  • A crime bill that funds police and prisons over social programs;
  • Real welfare reform;
  • Family reinforcement measures that strengthen parental rights in education and child support enforcement;
  • Family tax cuts;
  • Stronger national defense;
  • A rise in the Social Security earnings limit to stop penalizing working seniors;
  • Job creation and regulatory reform policies;
  • Common sense legal reforms to stop frivolous lawsuits; and
  • A first-ever vote on term limits for members of Congress.
Within the first 100 days, the first Republican majority in both Houses of Congress in 40 years, passed bills tackling almost every item (the notable exception: term limits for Congress). That was then.

Posted by Andrew Branca on May 09, 2015 74 Comments
One week ago yesterday Maryland State Prosecutor Marilyn Mosby brought a plethora of charges--including second-degree depraved-heart murder, manslaughter, and assault--against six Baltimore police officers accused in the death of Freddie Gray. Yesterday, one week to the day after the charges were brought, the defense lawyers collectively filed a motion to dismiss these charges and/or force the recusal of Mosby and her entire office from the case.  We addressed the motion as a news item briefly last night, Freddie Gray case: Defense files motion to remove prosecutor. Now we dig deeper into the motion. The motion, consisting of just over 20 substantive pages and about 80 pages of exhibits, is embedded at the bottom of this post. The substantive pages are well worth reading in their entirety.  Here we'll highlight some of the key points and arguments made, relying as much as possible on selected quotes from the motion itself. Caveat: This is, of course, a defense motion, and thus should be expected to possess all the biases that would naturally be found in such a document from that source. Nevertheless, unless many of the claims are simply factually incorrect, the motion is a devastating critique of Mosby's legal ethics in this case in particular and the practices of her office generally.

Mosby's Public Reading of Charges, and her "Message" to the World

The motion begins by recalling Mosby's public reading of the charges against the officers on May 1, 2015.  Unusually, Mosby didn't simply make a generalized statement to the gathered media, but read the Statement of Probable Cause aloud, word-for-word.

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Posted by New Neo on May 09, 2015 37 Comments
The Pamela Geller incident, and the reaction to it amongst pundits and the press, has demonstrated some disturbing yet important truths. Mainly, it has highlighted how many people are willing to offer what Salman Rushdie called (in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo murders) the "Yes, but..." defense of free speech, which he rejects as no defense at all. Free speech means freedom for speech with which you disagree, by people you don't much care for. The incident also brought out the virulence of the verbal attacks against Geller by her critics in this country. Both those who defend Geller's right to free speech and those who shy away from it don't necessarily break down neatly into the left vs. right camps. There are certain liberals like Jonathan Zimmerman, for example, who absolutely loathe Geller, and yet pause in the midst of their vilification* to heartily and strongly defend her right to speak. His article is even titled "Je Suis Pamela Geller;" at the same time, though, he's also calling her an "appalling bigot" and "hateful" in it. And yet some on the right (or who are often regarded as being on the right) and who might actually agree with some of her premises have said she should have kept quiet and not offended Muslims' sensibilities.

Posted by Amy Miller on May 09, 2015 10 Comments
If activists want to stop the rollout of the new net neutrality rules, they're going to have to use the courts to do it. Since the FCC first announced that it had approved a new set of regulations governing internet providers, those providers have been trying to find a way to block the rollout, which is set to happen on June 12. They're attacking both the FCC's intent to classify the internet as a utility, and provisions that would prevent providers from self-regulating internet traffic. Yesterday, the FCC denied petitions from eight of these providers asking the Commission to hold off on implementing the rules until the court battles settle themselves. The denial comes as a shock to absolutely no one, and ushers in a new round of court challenges in addition to ones already brought by AT&T and other providers. More via The Hill:

Posted by Andrew Branca on May 08, 2015 53 Comments
CNN reports that attorneys for the six Baltimore police officers charged by Prosecutor Marilyn Mosby in the death of Freddie Gray have filed a lengthy motion in Baltimore City District Court to have Mosby removed from the case--either by her recusal or by court order. The motion--which I have not yet seen, but hope to soon--purportedly sets out at least five conflicts of interest as the basis for recusal, including:
  • Both Mosby and her husband, a Baltimore City Council member, are positioned for personal financial and political gain from the case.
  • Mosby has existing personal relationships with potential witnesses.
  • Mosby's office took the unusual step of establishing it's own investigation run parallel with that of the Baltimore Police Department, and lead by a former officer with a considerably checkered past.
  • The existence of a pending civil suit against Mosby's office (the relevance of this is unclear to me).
  • The Gray family attorney William (Bill) Murphy (in featured image, above), is a close friend, supporter, and indeed a lawyer for Marilyn Mosby; in particular, he has contributed at least $5,000 to Mosby's political campaigns.
More here, from CNN:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 08, 2015 4 Comments
Readers are aware that Bowdoin College in Maine recently held a student body referendum for a full academic and cultural boycott of Israel. It failed miserably. I have a post at National Review looking back on the referendum, and how the SJP boycotters are doubling-down on their absolutist view of the conflict, Brainwashed at Bowdoin: Anti-Israel Boycotters Miss a Teachable Moment: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418119/brainwashed-bowdoin-anti-israel-boycotters-miss-teachable-moment-william-jacobson Here is an excerpt, but head over to National Review for the whole thing. And share it widely on Facebook and Twitter, or email to friends, using the links at National Review. This is a story that needs to be told:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 08, 2015 28 Comments
Hey, remember when I wrote in February 2011 how state employees accused Scott Walker of being Hitler because he wanted to scale back state employee unions? First They Came For The Right To Retire After 30 Years On Full Salary With COLAs. Welcome to Illinois, where in 2011 the legislature made a similar "Hitlerian" move to protect the State from fiscal oblivion by scaling back annual compounding of retiree Cost of Living Adjustments and other retiree perks as part of a reform package. Those perks, not available in the private sector, were crushing the state budget.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on May 08, 2015 11 Comments
Today marks the 70th anniversary of VE Day (Victory in Europe Day), when the Nazi's surrendered to allied forces and Russia, ending World War II's European front. The battle for the Pacific would not be won until later that year, on August 14. The world celebrated the end to the bitter, bloody fight against Nazi fascism: ny times ve day

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on May 08, 2015 23 Comments
Not even basketball is immune from feelings these days. There's an entire discussion to be had about the wussification of sports, but we'll save that for another time. According to CNN, the following video was played during a time out at Wednesday's game against the Chicago Bulls. A poorly produced spoof of "Dirty Dancing," the video certainly elicited a reaction. Though probably not the one producers were going for. Remember this scene? dirty dancing cleveland caveliers Right before attempting the iconic "Dirty Dancing" lift, the gal in the video removes her apron revealing a Chicago Bulls t-shirt. Rather than catching and lifting his girlfriend, the guy tosses her to the side and says, "Bulls fan?! I didn't know you were a Bulls fan!" Take a look:

Posted by Amy Miller on May 08, 2015 5 Comments
Earlier this month we took a look back at the 2013 sarin gas attacks in Syria. No one has ever been held accountable for those attacks, and now new allegations have surfaced of chemical weapons use against civilians in Syria. At least one diplomat stationed in Syria is saying that the situation there has become "unacceptable," and that he (or she---the diplomat spoke under conditions of anonymity) has seen evidence of chlorine gas attacks. Fox News explains in detail:
Civilians, including children, allegedly have been injured and killed in the latest attacks. In a letter sent this week to the U.N. Security Council from the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, the group cited reports of chlorine gas attacks in the Idlib and Hama areas and urged the creation of a no-fly zone to protect the Syrian people. "In the past two weeks alone, witnesses and medics on the ground in Idlib and Hama governorates reported at least nine separate instances of toxic chemical attacks -- several of them deadly," the group wrote. "... in each instance, barrel bombs loaded with poisonous chemical substances were deployed from Syrian regime helicopters."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 08, 2015 26 Comments
The British Conservative Party had a big win yesterday in the British elections:
Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservatives won a resounding victory in the British general election, with nearly complete results on Friday showing that the party had secured an overall majority in Parliament.... The result defied pre-election opinion polls that suggested a tight race between the Conservatives and Labour. It returns Mr. Cameron to 10 Downing Street for a second term, with enough seats in the House of Commons to act on his agenda without having to rely on support from smaller parties. He went to Buckingham Palace on Friday to be invited by the queen to form a new government.
That's the big picture. Within that big picture are some huge specific wins. Specifically, the losses by anti-Israel maniacs George Galloway, David Ward and Natalie Bennett. George Galloway is the poster child for anti-Israel hate, an obsessed creep who spews anti-Israel conspiracy theories, regularly appears on Iranian Press TV, attacks critics of the Mullah regime, and Jew-baits under the guise of anti-Zionism, British MP George Galloway storms out of debate when finds out opponent is Israeli:

Posted by David Gerstman on May 08, 2015 12 Comments
Iran released the Maersk Tigris, the cargo ship it seized at sea last week. The New York Times reports:
The Maersk Line, the Danish shipping giant, confirmed in a statement that the vessel and its 24-member crew, forced to anchor near Iran’s southern port of Bandar Abbas since its seizure on April 28, were now free and en route to the port of Jebel Ali in the United Arab Emirates. ... The Maersk Tigris is registered in the Marshall Islands. It is managed and staffed by Rickmers Shipmanagement, a subsidiary of Germany’s Rickmers Group, a maritime services company, which reported that the crew was in good condition. ... The apparent stand-down reflected what political analysts called a wish by both Iran and the United States to avert an escalation of tensions that could sabotage the nuclear talks between Iran and a group of six powers that includes the United States.
From the language of the report it appears that Maersk agreed to a settlement of the claim an Iranian company had against it. CBS offered the judgment of one of its security analysts.
The Iranian decision to board the vessel was "a reflection of the fact that tensions are running very high, and these tensions don't really have borders," explained CBS News senior national security analyst Juan Zarate. "These are conflicts that are happening on the ground, they're happening in the shipping lanes, and there are places and points of vulnerability that could... serve as flashpoints for conflict."

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 08, 2015 32 Comments
By now, you've no doubt heard that Pamela Gellar hosted a free speech event in Texas which focused on cartoon images of Mohammed and that an Islamist terror plot to kill attendees was foiled. Many in media - and not just liberals -have gone out of their way to blame the victim, Geller and those attending the event, and have even gone so far as questioning the limits of free speech in America. A writer at the Washington Post wondered why Geller didn't apologize. CNN's Chris Cuomo argued that 'hate speech' isn't protected by the First Amendment which was so dumb he was even called out by the far left site Salon. Geller appeared on the Sean Hannity show Wednesday night and confronted the British Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary, who openly called for her death on national television. If you watch the Hannity show, you're probably familiar with Choudary. Allahpundit of Hot Air jokes that Choudary has probably appeared on the show more times than Alan Colmes. The exchange is over 10 minutes long but you should watch the whole thing: Despite threats Geller has received, she said federal security agencies haven't contacted her.
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