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Posted by Amy Miller on September 13, 2015 22 Comments
This past week proved contentious for Republicans in Congress. Allies returned to the dark side, Democrats sided with a mortal enemy, and a split in the caucus over how to best handle the disastrous Iran nuclear deal boiled over into a very public battle. Amid the power struggle, the Republicans in the House came out ahead---at least as far as Obamacare is concerned. On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that House Republicans have standing to sue the Obama Administration over the Administration's handling of the Obamacare rollout. The House sued Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell and Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew of both spending unappropriated money to implement the new policies, and effectively amending the employer mandate without the approval of Congress. The court ruled that the House has standing to pursue its claims relating to appropriations, but not those related to Lew's implementation of the statute. More via Reuters:
Collyer did not rule on the merits of the claims, only on the administration's motion to dismiss the lawsuit on the issue of standing, a requirement in U.S. law whereby plaintiffs have to show they have been directly harmed.

Posted by Miriam Elman on September 13, 2015 6 Comments
Yesterday we posted on Israel’s decision to outlaw as “unlawful organizations” two Islamic Movement-funded groups which for years have been harassing and intimidating non-Muslim visitors to Jerusalem’s revered Temple Mount, Israel Finally Outlaws “Temple Mount Screamers”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpNROFwrzAI As we noted, while the new policy comes as a welcome move for many devout Jews and Christians, merely banning some abusive hecklers from the sacred site does nothing to change the more pernicious problem: the flagrant disregard for religious pluralism and tolerance exhibited in the rhetoric and policies of the site’s Muslim authorities. Our post went live on Saturday evening (EST). Since it wasn’t yet being reported in the MSM, we were unaware that at that very moment Israel’s police and security forces were executing an operation in east Jerusalem in an attempt to avert a planned attack on Jewish worshippers ahead of the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year, which begins tonight). According to media reports released this morning (EST) and throughout the day, Israel’s security forces were searching for explosive devices that were believed to be hidden in east Jerusalem on Saturday night.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 13, 2015 39 Comments
The military is gearing up to meet the 2012 directive of then-Defense Secretary Panetta that women be integrated into infantry forces by January, 2016 unless exemptions are obtained by the end of this month. Women, however, are not doing particularly well in the training programs: of the 29 who attempted the Marine Corps' Infantry Officer Course, none were successful; only 34% of women who signed up for infantry training in the Marine Corp finished successfully; and only 12 women have passed the Army's prerequisite Ranger Training and Assessment Course, two of whom went on to become Army Rangers in August of this year. The Navy SEALS announced that it, too, will be open to women, though none so far are reported to have applied.  Watch:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 13, 2015 16 Comments
In a surprise move today, Germany has announced that it is reversing current policy with regard to refugees entering the country from Austria.  While Germany continues to accept refugees, the border controls are designed to instill some order to the process.  Adam Withnall, writing for The Independent, reports:
Germany has reintroduced border controls with Austria, its interior minister has confirmed, halting all trains and deploying 2,100 riot police to help carry out checks. Speaking at a press conference called at short notice, Thomas de Maizière said the controls were being applied with immediate effect "to bring some order to the entry of refugees". . . . . A spokesperson for an Austrian rail company said German officials had begun halting all trains trying to cross the border into Bavaria from 5pm local time (4pm BST), while the situation involving traffic going the other way remained unclear. Reporting on the unexpected move earlier and citing unnamed officials, German daily Bild said the closing of the border represented "a dramatic shift in refugee policy". Der Spiegel reported that only those with "valid travel documents" would be allowed to enter the country from Austria "until further notice".

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Posted by Mike LaChance on September 13, 2015 17 Comments
It's not every day that you hear people on MSNBC talking about Sarah Palin in a positive way and that's what makes this so much fun. Melissa Harris-Perry and her guests not only agree that Hillary doesn't come across as authentic, they suggest that Sarah Palin does. Jack Coleman of NewsBusters reported:
Gasp! MSNBC Panelist Says Hillary Should Emulate Palin's Authenticity It took nearly seven years, but at long last it's finally been heard -- praise for Sarah Palin on MSNBC. Even better, one of the people praising Palin -- and there were three, count 'em, three libs on the Lean Leftward cable network today doing so -- suggested that flailing Democrat Hillary Clinton could do worse than to look toward Palin as a political model to emulate. The gratifying twofer came on MSNBC's usually cringe-inducing Melissa Harris-Perry show during a panel discussion of authenticity or the lack thereof among politicians.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 13, 2015 39 Comments
As the migrant crisis spirals out of control in Europe and though Saudi Arabia refuses to take in any Syrian refugees, they have offered to build 200 new mosques in Germany. The Times of India reports:
Syria's richer Gulf neighbours have been accused of not doing their fair share in the humanitarian crisis, with Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and the UAE also keeping their doors firmly shut to asylum-seekers. According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which quoted a report in the Lebanese newspaper Al Diyar, Saudi Arabia would build one mosque for every 100 refugees who entered Germany in extraordinary numbers last weekend.
Angela Merkel, who last week announced that Germany would "no longer follow the Dublin accord which stipulated refugees and asylum seekers had to be processed in the first EU member state they arrived in," is reportedly hopeful that the Syrian refugees will assimilate into German language and culture.
Back in Germany, Angela Merkel welcomed two refugee families at a home for asylum-seekers in the Berlin suburb of Spandau on Thursday.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 12, 2015 4 Comments
Anyone who knows anything about internet polls and surveys knows that they are not scientific. And they can be the most democratic (small "d") of votes -- he who gets out the vote wins. Kind of like the Iowa Caucuses. B'Tselem is a left-wing Israeli "human rights" Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) that receives foreign funding to expose Israeli problems. It is typical of dozens of such NGOs, but to an extreme, as documented in depth by NGO Monitor and it's principal Prof. Gerald Steinberg. We have cited NGO Monitor's studies many times here, because the research is so in depth. Check out NGO Monitor's page on B'Tselem and the many reports linked there. So, needless to say, B'Tselem and NGO Monitor have issues with each other. B'Tselem recently entered to collect the 100,000 Euro prize in the Human Rights Tulip contest funded by the Dutch government. It's public voting, but the rules seem murky and open to allowing the contest "jury" to decide contrary to the public vote.

Posted by Miriam Elman on September 12, 2015 16 Comments
This week Israel’s Defense Minister, Moshe Ya’alon, signed an order banning male Murabitun and female Murabatat Islamist groups from Jerusalem’s sacred Temple Mount (Har HaBayit). In an earlier LI post we highlighted how these groups have been maintaining a permanent presence on the site, and intimidating and harassing non-Muslim visitors on a daily basis. The Murabitun/Murabatat are self-identified “guardians of Al-Aqsa” who consider it a duty to protect the integrity of the Muslim Noble Sanctuary from devout Jews and Christians who just want to pray there. In fact, they’re a bunch of hecklers who’ve been allowed to act with impunity for far too long. Now they’re being shut down. It’s a move that comes as welcome news to the many devout Jews and Christians who’ve been trying for years to raise public awareness about the situation. But the fight for religious freedom and interfaith respect on the Temple Mount isn’t over yet.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 12, 2015 22 Comments
Nothing is ever simple in Clinton World. Words have multiple meanings or no meaning. So now we're arguing over what the definition of "wiped" means. The Washington Post reports, Tech company: No indication that Clinton’s e-mail server was ‘wiped’:
The company that managed Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private e-mail server said it has “no knowledge of the server being wiped,” the strongest indication to date that tens of thousands of e-mails that Clinton has said were deleted could be recovered. Clinton and her advisers have said for months that she deleted her personal correspondence from her time as secretary of state, creating the impression that 31,000 e-mails were gone forever.... To make the information go away permanently, a server must be wiped — a process that includes overwriting the underlying data with gibberish, possibly several times. That process, according to Platte River Networks, the Denver-based firm that has managed the system since 2013, apparently did not happen.

Posted by Amy Miller on September 12, 2015 40 Comments
On Friday night, Donald Trump joined the "Tonight Show's" Jimmy Fallon for a little late night...reflecting...on what it means to be The Donald. Literally. Reflecting. Trump interviewed a "mirror image" of himself as played by Jimmy Fallon---who did a decent job at the impersonation. Watch:

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 12, 2015 10 Comments
Baltimore's Democrat mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has decided not to seek another term. Donna Owens of Reuters reports:
Baltimore mayor says will not seek re-election Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, whose city was rocked by riots earlier this year over a black man's death in police custody, will not seek re-election when her term ends next year, she said on Friday. Rawlings-Blake, who became something of a flashpoint in the troubled city, was criticized by the public for her handling of the April riots that followed the death of Freddie Gray, which saw dozens of cars and buildings burned. In a hastily arranged City Hall press conference, the Democrat, who is black, said her decision was not directly related to the Gray case but acknowledged the past six months have been a "tough time" for Baltimore. "While certainly I would not have chosen (the unrest), you don't choose ... you play the cards you're dealt," said Rawlings-Blake, 45, who spent 12 years on city council before becoming mayor in 2010. "I have chosen to govern for the next 15 months rather than campaigning."

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 12, 2015 11 Comments
Marco Rubio is not a fan of the Iran deal and had plenty of criticism for Democrats and his own party in a recent interview on FOX News. Al Weaver of the Washington Examiner reported:
Rubio pans Dems for 'walking the plank' on Iran deal Sen. Marco Rubio lit into Democrats supporting the Iran nuclear deal Friday after 42 of them blocked a resolution that rejected the deal on Thursday. During an interview with Fox News' Martha MacCallum, the 2016 hopeful called out Democrats for "walking the plank" by supporting the deal after seeing how Sen. Charles Schumer was treated by the administration after he came out against the agreement in August. Rubio also argued that Democrats who backed the agreement have "become captive to a radical element in their party." "They know it's a bad deal. The Democrats know it's a bad deal," Rubio said. "That's why they all couched their terms in the sense of 'I don't think it's perfect, I don't think it's ideal.'"

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 12, 2015 17 Comments
As expected, Jeremy Corbyn was just elected Leader of the British Labour Party. To describe him as "far left" would be unfair ... to the far left. He's basically an economic and political lunatic. Even The NY Times described Corbyn in stark terms, With Jeremy Corbyn Elected as New Leader, Britain’s Labour Party Takes a Hard Left Turn:
Britain’s opposition Labour Party on Saturday took a remarkable leftward turn, electing as its leader Jeremy Corbyn, a longtime socialist committed to nationalizing key industries, scrapping Britain’s nuclear missile system and reversing the centrist policies of previous leaders such as Tony Blair. The result of the contest, announced on Saturday morning in London, gave stewardship of the Labour party to the hard left for the first time in more than three decades, a development seen here as one of the most surprising upsets in modern British politics.
This neat video from Sky News lists Corbyn's economic goals:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 12, 2015 6 Comments
Two pieces of green-energy legislation have been derailed by the California legislature, much to Governor Jerry Brown's consternation. Senate Bill 350, which would have given one of the most draconian state agencies in the nation epic powers to cut fuel consumption, and a gas tax supposedly for road repair, have gone down to defeat...at least temporarily.
In a major setback for Gov. Jerry Brown’s climate agenda, the governor and legislative leaders on Wednesday abandoned an effort to require a 50 percent reduction in petroleum use in motor vehicles by 2030. The announcement followed weeks of lobbying by oil companies and resistance not only from Republicans, but moderate Democrats in the Assembly.
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