Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

/var/www/vhosts/legalinsurrection.com/httpdocs/wp-content/themes/bridge-child/readFeeds.incFALSE

Posted by Amy Miller on July 27, 2015 13 Comments
Late last month, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner (R-eal Life Republican) made headlines after he allowed his government to go into a partial shutdown rather than succumb to Democrats' demands for a tax-and-spend budget. Now, almost a month later, democrats are still pushing for more taxes and more entitlement spending---but Rauner isn't backing down. At the forefront of the assault against Rauner's efforts to curb Illinois' $6 billion dollar deficit (the largest in the nation) are the state's infamous unions. AFSCME's (the state, local, and municipal workers' union) contract ran out with the State of Illinois on June 30, and officials are warning Rauner that if he refuses to deal, union members will go on strike. Back in May, Illinois' Democrat-controlled legislature passed a bill that would bring in an arbitrator if either the State or the union declares an impasse in contract talks; Rauner, however, is expected to veto that bill, which means that a union strike could be in the cards. For their part, Rauner's administration seems to be preparing for much worse than a slowdown. According to a report by the State Journal-Register, staffers have been contacting retired state employees and floating the idea of short-term contract work in the event that the union decides to strike.

LATEST NEWS

Posted by Jay Caruso on July 27, 2015 14 Comments
Not long after the news broke that Hillary Clinton was using a private email server during her time as the Secretary of State and not a government email address, she held a press conference to assure people that nothing had been sent with classified information. According to the Inspector General, Clinton's claims are not to have been true:
The inspector general for the intelligence community has informed members of Congress that some material Hillary Clinton emailed from her private server contained classified information, but it was not identified that way. Because it was not identified, it is unclear whether Clinton realized she was potentially compromising classified information. The IG reviewed a "limited sampling" of her emails and among those 40 reviewed found that "four contained classified [intelligence community] information," wrote the IG Charles McCullough in a letter to Congress. McCullough noted that "none of the emails we reviewed had classification or dissemination markings" but that some "should have been handled as classified, appropriately marked, and transmitted via a secure network." The four emails in question "were classified when they were sent and are classified now," spokeswoman Andrea Williams told CNN.
4 out of 40 is 10%. Which means of the 30,000 emails Hillary sent, there is a chance at last 3,000 of them contained classified information. Hillary is relying on the defense that what she sent at the time was not classified and that it was not classified until later:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 27, 2015 30 Comments
With pressure to defund tax-payer supported Planned Parenthood mounting daily, the organization's president is riding the interview circuit. Filmed by a small organization called Citizens for Medical Progress (CMP), two separate undercover videos show a Planned Parenthood Doctor and a Planned Parenthood official casually chatting about the harvesting and sale of baby parts. CMP has said they have thousands of hours of footage, and is promising ten to twelve more videos yet to be released. In an alarmingly fair interview with former Clinton aid and Clinton Foundation donor, George Stephanopoulos, Planned Parenthood President Cecil Richards discussed she believed were the worst parts of undercover videos.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on July 27, 2015 9 Comments
Before the ink could barely dry on the Iran Deal, Germany's Economy Minister Sigmar Garbiel flew to Tehran, making him the first leading Western figure to do so after the nuclear agreement was reached Vienna earlier this month. Gabriel who is also Germany's Vice-Chancellor met with Iran's President Hassan Rouhani and other top Iranian leaders described the moods of the visit as "being with old friends." Germany's leading newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote [translation by me]:
Germans many not have been at the center of the talks, but as go-betweens for Iran, they were considerably important. Amongst all parties working to bring about a negotiated deal, Germans enjoyed [Tehran’s] special trust.
Germany had tremendous economic interest in ending sanction on Iran and it is not making any secrets of it. In June, just as the Iran deal was nearing its final phases, the Bavarian Chamber of Commerce (BIHK) noted in its newsletter[translation by me]:
The German media landscape agrees on one point: lucrative deals worth billions are waiting to be made in Iran. As soon as the sanction are lifted, the run on the markets begins.
Last week, at a press conference in Berlin, Minister Gabriel brushed aside human rights concerns in Iran, saying that the lifting of sanctions were only coupled to Iranian nuclear program and "not related to other matters." He further explained that his task as Economy Minister is to "help the German economy", pointing out that his French and Italian counterparts now heading to Tehran are doing just the same.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 27, 2015 4 Comments
Earlier this month we reported on an outrageous decision by the International Criminal Court requesting that the ICC prosecutor reconsider her decision to close the investigation into the Israeli raid on a Gaza Flotilla boat, the Mavi Marmara. In that raid, Turkish Islamists and activists attacked Israeli soldiers, resulting in 9 deaths of the attackers. Confirmed: International Criminal Court biased against Israel:
The key to the outrage was that the ICC demanded that international political considerations be taken into account by the prosecutor, something that normally would be outside the consideration of a prosecutor, and a consideration that taints any ruling directed at Israel. The ICC compounded that error by specifically requiring consideration of the views of the anti-Israel UN Human Rights Council.
The prosecutor has just appealed the request, as reported by multiple sources. (Update - Appeal here, and embedded at bottom of post.) The appeal is in the form of a request to dismiss the application of the Comoros Islands, which had given rise to the ICC judges' ruling:

LEGAL INSURRECTION QUICK TAKES

TPUSA Members: UT Tyler Attack Reflects Growing Campus Hostility Toward Conservatives

UT Austin Funds Graduate Student Research on ‘Reproductive Justice’

Texas Tech Regents Eliminate Several Race, Gender Studies Courses

Ransomware Gang Claims Credit for Vanderbilt Cyberattack

Occidental College Hosts Transgender Event That Mocks Trump

Franklin & Marshall College Drops Plan to Adopt 'Gender Neutral' Mascot

SEE MORE

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 27, 2015 48 Comments
We previously have featured the story of Michael Lutz, the Wisconsin whistleblower and former prosecutor who alleged that the union-operative wife of "John Doe" prosecutor John Chislhom was behind the targeting of conservative activists that recently was thrown out by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Was Prosecutor’s union-operative wife behind “John Doe” investigation of Scott Walker? (quote via Stuart Taylor):
Now a longtime Chisholm subordinate reveals for the first time in this article that the district attorney may have had personal motivations for his investigation. Chisholm told him and others that Chisholm’s wife, Colleen, a teacher’s union shop steward at St. Francis high school, a public school near Milwaukee, had been repeatedly moved to tears by Walker’s anti-union policies in 2011, according to the former staff prosecutor in Chisholm’s office. Chisholm said in the presence of the former prosecutor that his wife “frequently cried when discussing the topic of the union disbanding and the effect it would have on the people involved … She took it personally.” Citing fear of retaliation, the former prosecutor declined to be identified and has not previously talked to reporters. Chisholm added, according to that prosecutor, that “he felt that it was his personal duty to stop Walker from treating people like this.”
Lutz stuck to his story even after furious pushback, as reflected in this interview with Charlie Sykes:

Posted by Amy Miller on July 27, 2015 14 Comments
Score one for the good guys---an appeals court in Texas has dropped one of two felony charges currently pending against former governor and presidential candidate Rick Perry. Last August, a grand jury indicted Perry on two separate counts of abuse of power and coercion of a public servant after it was revealed that Perry used his veto power to address corruption in the Travis County District Attorney's office. Perry's political opponents cried intimidation, and managed push forward with the case. Earlier this year, Perry's team suffered a setback when an attempt to get the entire indictment dismissed proved futile; but last week, Perry scored a win on appeal, and overcame count 2---the coercion charge. The court cited the First Amendment right to free speech in their opinion, saying that “[t]he statute on which the ‘coercion of a public servant’ is based, as written, and as we are bound to construe it, violates the First Amendment and, accordingly, cannot be enforced.” More via Politico:

Posted by Miriam Elman on July 27, 2015 12 Comments
Yesterday July 26, 2015, Jews worldwide marked Tisha B’Av, an annual fast and day of mourning that commemorates the destruction of the first and second Temples. The 37-acre Temple Mount compound (roughly about the size of 15 football stadiums) in Jerusalem’s walled Old City, where the Temples once stood, is Judaism’s most holiest site. The Jewish Temple, replica Jerusalem The Temple Mount (Har HaBayit) has been the focus of Jewish longing for millennia. According to Jewish tradition, it’s the location in which God’s “shekhina” (presence) is thought to reside. The area is also considered sacred to Muslims who call it the Haram al-Sharif or Noble Sanctuary, and see it as the third holiest site in Islam. It is commonly considered the “furthermost sanctuary”—the site from which the Prophet Muhammad made his Night Journey to the Throne of God. Today it houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. [caption id="attachment_136002" align="alignnone" width="600"]The Dome of the Rock The Dome of the Rock[/caption] Tisha B’Av is the saddest day on the Jewish calendar.

Posted by Michael Stopa on July 26, 2015 30 Comments
Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute, has made a career of painstakingly going into the police departments and town meetings and impacted urban neighborhoods to research the facts on the ground about how police practices actually affect lives. On July 21, 2015, MacDonald appeard on the Harvard Lunch Club Political podcast, hosted by radio talk show host Todd Feinberg and me.  The full 35-minute podcast segment is at the bottom of this post. MacDonald spoke out against the crippling influence that the "Black Lives Matter" movement is having on the quality of life in the very neighborhoods where the protests are taking place:
I think this is an even more extreme example of the way this country deals with race and policing, which is to talk fanatically about police in order not to talk about the far more difficult problem of black crime.
Proactive policing practices have been the target of protests against "police racism." Speaking about this so-called "broken windows" method of policing, where police detain perpetrators for minor, quality of life violations like turnstile jumping or loitering and smoking weed, MacDonald notes:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 26, 2015 1 Comment
This is the third in our series revisiting our coverage of the 2014 Gaza conflict. In the first post, we reported how the war did not start the way the anti-Israel propagandists content, with an Israeli attack in retaliation for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens by a Hamas-affiliated cell in the West Bank. To the contrary, the kidnapping resulted in an Israeli crackdown in the West Bank, but it was relentless Hamas rocket fire from Gaza into Israel that precipitated Israeli air attacks on Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Gaza July 8, 2014 – Hamas Rockets Ignite War. Having debunked (again) the myth that Israel started the Gaza conflict, we debunked another myth, that the thousands of deaths and injuries were the result of Israel's desire to assault Gaza. In fact, after the first week of air attacks and Hamas rocket fire and infiltrations, Egypt proposed a ceasefire. Had both sides accepted that ceasefire, there would have been no Israeli ground invasion, and the deaths and casualties a small fraction of the ultimate total. Israel accepted the ceasefire, Hamas rejected it. The result was more Hamas rocket fire, and an Israeli ground invasion. Gaza July 18, 2014 – Ground War After Hamas Rejects Ceasefire. Now another myth busted -- that protests in Europe and elsewhere were merely anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic, and in any event, isolated. In fact, virtually everywhere there was a major "pro-Palestinian" rally, there was blatant anti-Semitism accompanied by threats and violence. And not just overseas. In Miami, Boston and San Francisco as well. Here are the events we covered. It's not an exhaustive list, by any means.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on July 26, 2015 17 Comments
The insensitive, extremist Westboro Baptist Church has threatened to picket the funerals of the two victims of the Lafayette movie theater shooting.  In response, Governor Jindal has ordered police to “take swift and immediate action” against them. The Hill Reports:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is issuing a warning to the Westboro Baptist Church, which has threatened to picket the funerals of two victims from the Lafayette, La., movie theater shooting this week.

Jindal on Saturday told state police to “take swift and immediate action” against anyone who tries to disrupt the funerals of 21-year-old Mayci Breaux or 33-year-old Jillian Johnson.

“In times of grief and mourning, the rule of law is especially important to protect the rights of citizens when they are most vulnerable, and any effort to disrupt or interfere with a family’s ability to grieve following the loss of a loved one is a reprehensible act,” Jindal wrote in an executive order announced late Saturday morning.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on July 26, 2015 13 Comments
Obama's first trip to Kenya since becoming president has highlighted the disappointment that many Africans feel in his presidency.  While President Bush earns high praise and achieved a great deal in Africa, particularly with regard to his efforts fighting AIDS, Obama . . . not so much. In his article entitled, "Africa's Disappointment with Obama," Edward-Isaac Dovere writes:

Beneath the ecstatic welcome President Barack Obama will receive when he arrives in his father’s homeland of Kenya on Friday is a lingering sense of disappointment.

More than the first black president, he’s the first African-American U.S. president, and that’s accentuated a frustration among many Africans — and some Americans — who see his record on the continent over the last six-and-a-half years as modest at best and falling short of the successes of his predecessor,George W. Bush.

“There’s been a feeling that up to now, maybe he hasn’t really achieved all the expectations,” said Witney Schneidman, who’s done extensive governmental, non-profit and corporate work in Africa and co-chaired the Africa Experts Group for Obama’s 2008 campaign.

Part of the disappointment is exemplified in the following quote in Dovere's piece:

Posted by Mike LaChance on July 26, 2015 19 Comments
Vermont's "independent" "Socialist" Senator Bernie Sanders may have a lock on the left-wing vote but Hillary Clinton is doing everything she can to stop his rise. In so doing, the ultimate crony capitalist is demonstrating, once again, that she has no core set of beliefs other than in obtaining power. Hillary is adopting Sanders' platform attacking capitalism not because she believes it, but because she hears Bernie's footsteps gaining on her in the polls. In a recent speech at NYU, Hillary Clinton claimed that capitalism needs a reset and proposed changes to capital gains taxes. Tory Newmyer of Fortune reports:
Hillary Clinton: Capitalism is out of balance, needs a reset Hillary Clinton wants to hike capital gains taxes as part of her plan to discourage short-term thinking among corporate executives and investors. The Democratic presidential front-runner laid out her plan to retool the tax treatment of investment earnings on Friday as part of an ongoing series of speeches fleshing out her economic program. She proposed extending from one to two years the period that top earners would need to hang on to an investment before seeing the 39.6% tax rate applied to it start to fall. And she would lower the rate slowly, over a six year period, down to the 24% rate for longer-term investments — a tweak that she said would help refigure a system that’s bent itself out of shape over the last few decades. Capitalism itself, she said, “needs to be reinvented, it needs to be put back into balance.”

Posted by Leslie Eastman on July 26, 2015 20 Comments
Despite the fact that poll numbers are tanking so badly for Hillary Clinton that there is a new movement to draft Joe Biden, it turns out she has some competition for biggest drop in favorability! New numbers from Gallop for Pope Francis show a significant drop in support for the pontiff. The favorability rating is now at 59%, down from 76% in early 2014.
...The drop in the pope's favorable rating is driven by a decline among Catholics and political conservatives, two groups that have been ardent supporters of the modern papacy. Seventy-one percent of Catholics say they have a favorable image of Francis, down from 89% last year. Pope Francis' drop in favorability is even starker among Americans who identify as conservative -- 45% of whom view him favorably, down sharply from 72% last year. This decline may be attributable to the pope's denouncing of "the idolatry of money" and linking climate change partially to human activity, along with his passionate focus on income inequality -- all issues that are at odds with many conservatives' beliefs.
Why the plunge? As an independent conservative who is also Catholic, I must admit I am none too thrilled at the attacks on capitalism as a "structurally perverse" global economic system. I assert that these remarks that are too political and secular for a man who should be focused on more spiritual matters.

Posted by Mike LaChance on July 26, 2015 41 Comments
When it comes to the 2016 Republican nomination, one man is currently sucking all the media oxygen out of the room. Erick Erickson of RedState blames Donald Trump's rise on a failure of leadership in the Republican Party. Matthew Continetti of the Washington Free Beacon has a similar take. When it comes to assessing Trump's politics however, one of the right's happiest and most dearly missed warriors once told us everything we need to know. Matt Vespa of Townhall takes us on a trip down memory lane:
Flashback: When Andrew Breitbart Said Trump Is Definitely Not A Conservative In 2011, Juan Williams was filling in for Bill O’Reilly and there was an area where liberal talk show host Leslie Marshall and the late Andrew Breitbart found agreement: a Trump candidacy isn’t a good thing for America. Moreover, the late conservative blogger said the business magnate is certainly not a conservative:
“…Of course, he’s not a conservative. He was for Nancy Pelosi, before he was against Nancy Pelosi…celebrity is everything in this country if these guys don’t learn how to play the media the way Barack Obama played the media last election cycle and the way that Donald Trump is playing the election cycle–we’re going to probably get a celebrity candidate.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 26, 2015 4 Comments
Amidst the Confederate battle flag hoopla, the KKK and the New Black Panther Party held dueling protests at South Carolina's capitol. From the chaos, a hero emerged. A hero bearing a sousaphone. Following KKK members to their rally, this might be the best example of real life trolling on the Internet:
MORE POSTS
Accessibility by WAH