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 New Neo on July 20, 2015 33 Comments
Obama's Iran deal has generated enormous anger, and some of that ire has been directed at the Republicans in Congress. One of the main accusations against them is that they have made Obama's task easier by passing Corker-Menendez, a bill that allows them to stop the president from lifting the Iranian sanctions unilaterally, but only with a super-majority because Obama could (and indeed would) veto the bill. Then Congress would end up needing a 2/3 majority of both houses to stop him. Why do it that way, critics ask, instead of the simple route of exercising the Senate's treaty power (under Article II Section 2 Clause 2 of the Constitution) to advise and consent? That would require a two-thirds vote before the treaty is approved rather than requiring a two-thirds vote to stop it. But what a great many critics fail to appreciate is how watered-down the Senate's treaty power has already become ever since FDR, and how much the de facto power of the executive to make international agreements without Congress' say-so has expanded. It's well worth your time to listen to an interview on the subject with Elizabeth Chryst, who is a former elected officer of the U.S. Senate and an expert on how Congress works in terms of rules and procedures. In this recording, she speaks on the subject of the Corker-Menendez bill and why conservatives are dreaming if they think there was ever any chance of blocking the Iran deal as a treaty. That's not a reality that Chryst likes, and she knows that her fellow conservatives are very unhappy to hear it; but she thinks it's a reality they need to face.

LATEST NEWS

Posted by Amy Miller on July 19, 2015 32 Comments
Today, the State Department sent the Obama Administration's now-infamous Iran nuclear deal to Congress for review. This means that starting now, Congress has 60 days to fully read, analyze, and pass judgment on the bill of goods Obama and Kerry are selling. Will any of that work matter, though? Maybe not. The other parties to the agreement with Iran are putting enormous pressure on the Obama Administration to push this deal through the UN before our Congress has the opportunity to either accept or reject its contents. The Administration, in turn, appears to have decided to take away all of the legitimacy of Congressional review by acquiescing to the demands of the international community---and Congress is not happy about it. Via The Hill:
The battle is uniting Republicans, from conservative firebrand and presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to GOP leadership and Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, urged the administration to hold off on the U.N. Security Council vote.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 19, 2015 28 Comments
The Republican presidential debate situation is a mess. With far too much talent, and about ten too many contenders, the early presidential debate process continue its devolution into chaos. The first official debate was scheduled to take place August 6. Or at least it was until C-SPAN decided to throw their party first. Unlike Fox New's debate stage which would only hold the top 10 GOP candidates according to national polling, C-SPAN invited all 17 contenders to their "Voters First Forum" to be held August 3. The Hill reports:
Publishers at the New Hampshire Union Leader, The Post and Courier of South Carolina, and Iowa's The Gazette say the forum was prompted in part by Fox's controversial decision to cap the number of candidates in its Aug. 6 debate at 10. “Fox says only the ‘top’ 10 candidates, as judged solely by national polling, will be allowed on its stage,” the publishers said in a joint statement. “That may be understandable later, but the first votes are half a year away and there are a lot more than 10 viable candidates.”

Posted by Mike LaChance on July 19, 2015 6 Comments
Despite being shot multiple times, Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford survived the 2009 attack at Fort Hood. He was recently interviewed by Charles Payne of the FOX Business Network and offered some sober commentary on the shooting in Tennessee. Tom Tillison of BizPac Review has more:
‘War is here on US soil': Ft. Hood victim says Obama WH needs to get head out of a** The White House has its head where it doesn’t belong. Saying the “war is here on U.S. soil,” a victim of the 2009 Fort Hood attack by Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan described the killing of four U.S. Marines in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Thursday as “an act of terror.” He said the threat won’t go away until it is eliminated... “They need to get their heads out of the fourth point of contact and call it what it is,” Lunsford said of the Obama administration. The “fourth point of contact” is Airborne military jargon for the derriere, which is a somewhat more polite way of telling Obama to get his head out of his **s.
Watch the video below:

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 19, 2015 26 Comments
After the recent Supreme Court ruling on "disparate impact" in housing, Amy predicted that social justice activists and lawyers had been given powerful precedent to use racial and ethnic data mining against developers who did not intentionally discriminate:
When the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Texas Department of Housing v. Inclusive Communities Project last week, social justice activists claimed a major victory in the battle against segregated housing. The decision endorsed a “disparate impact” analysis as applied to a Texas program that plaintiffs claimed distributes federal low income housing credits disproportionately, awarding too many credits to inner-city, predominately black neighborhoods and too few to suburban, predominately white neighborhoods.... Kennedy and the majority endorsed a form of social engineering just as pernicious as those that disparate impact analyses aim to correct. Instead of creating “more equality,” these methods do nothing but invent controversies for social justice groups and the courts to work out, and, as Clarence Thomas says, presume that defendants are “guilty of discrimination until proved innocent.”
In the NY Post, Paul Sperry of the Hoover Institution, highlights how massive data mining by numerous branches of the Obama administration is set to light a fire nationwide even where there is no government-sponsored, or intentional private discrimination in order to recreate communities and businesses, Obama collecting personal data for a secret race database:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on July 19, 2015 25 Comments
Just when you thought the Democrat presidential primary couldn't get any more entertaining, the folks over at Salon are trying to kick off a "draft Al Gore" campaign. Seriously. From Salon's article It's time to draft Al Gore, with the subheading, "Hillary's flailing. Biden's grieving. Bernie's a longshot. Gore bridges the party's establishment, progressives":
Sure, the GOP field is studded with unserious candidates, but they still have a relatively deep bench of big-state governors and prominent senators. To win, therefore, the Democrats need a nationally viable candidate. Enter Al Gore: the one person on the left, apart from Clinton and Biden, with the cachet to bridge the establishment and progressive wings of the party. Here are 10 reasons why a Gore candidacy makes sense, both for the Democratic Party and the country.
Let's look at these ten reasons:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on July 19, 2015 14 Comments
The Family Leadership Summit in Iowa on Saturday was a veritable who's who of 2016 GOP presidential candidates including Dr. Ben Carson, Senator Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Governor Mike Huckabee, Governor Bobby Jindal, Senator Marco Rubio, Governor Rick Perry, Senator Rick Santorum, Donald Trump, and Governor Scott Walker. I like the one-on-one sit down interview format, and I think Frank Luntz does a great job both interacting with the audience and asking key questions.  According to Luntz, the candidates were "unable to rely on a Teleprompter or note cards" and as such "the presidential hopefuls display their impromptu speaking skills."  Not only did Luntz ask questions of the candidates, but the audience did, as well. Donald Trump's comments about John McCain have taken center stage, but there were many great moments throughout the day.  You can catch all ten full interviews of the attending presidential candidates here.

Posted by David Gerstman on July 19, 2015 27 Comments
In his combative press conference last week to defend the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran, President Barack Obama issued the following challenge:
So to go back to Congress, I challenge those who are objecting to this agreement, number one, to read the agreement before they comment on it; number two, to explain specifically where it is that they think this agreement does not prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and why they’re right and people like Ernie Moniz, who is an MIT nuclear physicist and an expert in these issues, is wrong, why the rest of the world is wrong, and then present an alternative.
First off it's worth noting that Energy Secretary and MIT nuclear physicist Ernest Moniz said back in April that to be effective the deal would have to include "anytime, anywhere," inspections, so Obama's explanation about why 24 days notice is now good enough fails to convince me. I want Moniz to explain why he changed his position on this AND why 24 days is now acceptable. I would like Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes to explain why he walked back his comments on requiring "anytime, anywhere" inspections. And I want a more convincing explanation than negotiator Wendy Sherman's excuse that the term was just a "rhetorical flourish." (If that was a rhetorical flourish, I'm curious how many other administration comments about the nuclear deal were rhetorical flourishes.)

Posted by Mike LaChance on July 18, 2015 13 Comments
Yesterday in Iowa, the Hillary Clinton campaign told their young supporters they couldn't speak to the press. This clumsy and seemingly paranoid move earned Hillary Clinton mockery even on MSNBC. Daniel Halper of the Weekly Standard has the details:
"Here's what struck me," said Susan Page of USA Today, "when I read the coverage in the Des Moines Register this morning. Jennifer Jacobs, who's been on your show, was covering this last night. Big demonstrations outside of young people for O'Malley and Hillary Clinton. She went up to the Clinton supporters -- these are protesters for Clinton -- and they were told they were not allowed to [speak to] a reporter." Page continued, "Now, why in the world would the campaign tell their own supporters who came out to campaign in favor Hillary Clinton ... these are the young people, college kids, for Hillary, and they've been told they can't talk to reporters. Why in the world would you do that?
Enjoy the video:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 18, 2015 28 Comments
One of the big secrets of the Democratic Party is the deep racial tension between the mostly white elite progressive leaders and activists "of color." We examined this in detail in 2011, Dem Base Fractures Into Twitter War And Charges Of Racism Against Professional Left. In that post, we documented the Twitter war between black activists and Joan Walsh of Salon.com and Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake:
What is clear is that there is a growing fissure in the Democratic “base” over criticism by the (mostly White) Professional Left, as reflected in this Twitter exchange:
Those tensions have simmered for the past several years, and grown in the past year as the #BlackLivesMatters movement insisted that its voice was not being heard even within progressive circles.

Posted by Mike LaChance on July 18, 2015 15 Comments
Governor Scott Walker appeared on the Kelly File Thursday night and commented on the shooting in Chattanooga. His response was starkly different than Obama's. Transcript via Mike Miller of IJ Review:
Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker joined the growing chorus of those calling on President Obama to acknowledge that America is at war with radical Islam on Thursday, saying we need to call it what it is.
We need to acknowledge that we’re at war and radical Islamic terrorism is our enemy. It’s not enough just to have containment anymore. When you talked about the policies that prohibited our military personnel from being armed at an establishment like this; those are outdated. [W]e’re facing an enemy in radical Islamic terrorism that’s willing to take the fight to us. We need to make sure that our men and women in uniform not only have the resources to protect us and keep our country safe, [but] they need to have the resources to keep themselves safe.”

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on July 18, 2015 23 Comments
Following the Chattanooga terror attack, the media seems confused about what had happened or at least why it had happened. Ted Cruz, however, experiences no such confusion and issued a powerful statement.
“In the wake of this vicious attack on our nation we need to rid ourselves of two dangerous delusions, first and foremost that a ‘lone gunman’–as President Obama described the shooter–is somehow isolated from the larger threat of radical Islamic terrorism. In the modern world, no one acts in isolation. Through social media ISIS, al Qaida, and other groups are infiltrating our nation with impunity while our government will not even admit that radical Islamic terrorism is a problem. “The second delusion is that this attack is somehow isolated from previous episodes, notably those in Little Rock, Arkansas and Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009—both of which were attacks on American military facilities. The Obama administration was woefully reluctant to call either an act of radical Islamic terrorism, instead suggesting ‘workplace violence’ as a justification for the killings. Finally, after years of effort, the victims of Fort Hood were properly recognized as victims of attacks by foreign terrorists when they received Purple Hearts on April 15, 2015. Likewise, the victim of the Little Rock attack received a Purple Heart on July 1, 2015.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 18, 2015 126 Comments
When it came to Donald Trump's comments on violence from illegal immigrants, I argued that it was possible to differentiate between the man (Trump) and the issue. Whether or not you liked the man, he raised a legitimate issue. Trump in an interview today made a comment about John McCain that is reverberating around the internet:
“He’s a war hero ’cause he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”
https://youtu.be/qJ7JlUc82nA?t=1m40s Now there is no daylight between the man and the issue. It's ludicrous to argue that McCain is not worthy of hero status for his service just because he was captured. It's not like he was Bowe Bergdahl and deserted. McCain was shot down, and famously endured torture in North Vietnamese prison. He also refused release when the North Vietnamese learned he was the son of an Admiral, and sought to score political points. There were plenty of people just waiting to find an issue to go after Trump. Illegal immigrant violence wasn't the issue. This may be it. Is this the end, or at least the beginning of the end of Trump's rise? Will this be remembered as the moment the rise of Trump's campaign began to slow and the Republican Party began to heal? https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/622446366657265664

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on July 18, 2015 14 Comments
With news this morning of a fifth victim of the Chattanooga terror attack, we mourn four fallen Marines and one fallen Sailor: Lance Cpl. Squire "Skip" K. Wells, Gunnery Sgt. Thomas J. Sullivan, Staff Sgt. David A. Wyatt, Sgt. Carson A. Homquist, and Petty Officer 2nd Class Randall Smith. While we mourn, the media is puzzling over what the motive might possibly be for Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, a Muslim from Kuwait who became a naturalized American citizen and has recently made trips to the Middle East from which he came back "changed," to attack a military recruitment center. If this type of thing hadn't happened before, we might be more willing to think this a mystery.  But as Streiff points out, this type of thing has happened before:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 18, 2015 8 Comments
Periodically throughout this summer, we are taking a look back at our coverage of the 2014 Gaza conflict. It's important to do this because a relentless propaganda campaign portrays the conflict as initiated and continued by Israel in retaliation for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens by a Hamas-affiliated cell in the West Bank. In fact, the conflict started as a result of relentless Hamas rocket fire into Israel, a topic we recently revisited in Gaza July 8, 2014 – Hamas Rockets Ignite War. On July 10, 2014, CNN reported on the Hamas rocket fire: In this post, we revisit how the ground war started only after Hamas rejected an Egyptian ceasefire proposal, which Israel had accepted. Had the conflict stopped at that point, only a small fraction of the deaths and destruction which eventually were visited on Gaza to try to stop the rocket fire would have happened. Hamas, and it supporters in the West including leading pro-BDS websites which justified and encouraged "the resistance," bear responsibility for what befell Gaza. On July 15, 2014, Hamas formally rejected the Egyptian ceasefire proposal and continued rocket fire into Israel.
MORE POSTS
Accessibility by WAH