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Posted by Amy Miller on December 24, 2014 4 Comments
ISIS has gained another hostage. The Jordanian military has confirmed that one of its pilots, 26 year-old First Lieutenant Muadh al-Kasasbeh, was shot down over Raqqa, Syria, and has been taken hostage. Al-Kasasbeh was flying missions in the region as part of the US-led coalition force against ISIS. After he was taken prisoner, ISIS militants posted his name and picture on Twitter, along with shots of his military ID and a description of his survival pack, which was found near the crash site. From The Guardian:
The F-16 was the first warplane lost since the US-led coalition began air strikes against Isis in Syria three months ago. The group said it had shot down the fighter jet with a heat-seeking missile. It was not immediately clear whether it had indeed been shot down or suffered a technical failure. Another image on social media showing the plane’s intact cockpit canopy suggested that the pilot might have ejected. The Jordanian military issued a statement confirming the capture by Isis and saying it “holds the group and its supporters responsible for the safety of the pilot and his life”. It did not name him. “During a mission on Wednesday morning conducted by several Jordanian air force planes against hideouts of the IS terrorist organisation in the Raqqa region, one of the planes went down and the pilot was taken hostage,”, the Petra news agency quoted a source from the military’s general staff as saying. The Jordanian government went into emergency session to discuss its response.
This development is both horrific and problematic for the tiny country of Jordan, which shares borders with both Iraq and Syria and has been heavily criticized for its enthusiastic participation in the coalition force. Fortunately, King Abdullah recognizes the dangers of Islamic extremism, and is willing to get his military involved, even if he can't publicize it.

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Posted by David Gerstman on December 24, 2014 1 Comment
In his column yesterday, anti-Israel columnist Roger Cohen of The New York Times talked to Tzipi Livni, candidate for prime minister and Israel's peace negotiator, about why the John Kerry-sponsored peace talks failed earlier this year. Livni tells of the three ways the Palestinians destroyed the peace talks. The administration in March had presented a framework for both sides.
Livni considered it a fair framework, and Netanyahu had indicated willingness to proceed on the basis of it while saying he had reservations. But Abbas declined to give an answer in what his senior negotiator, Saeb Erekat, later described as a “difficult” meeting with Obama. Abbas remained evasive on the framework, which was never made public.
One part of the framework was to accept the 1967 lines (really the 1948 armistice lines) as the basis of negotiations. In other words, Netanyahu made a major concession here and Abbas still refused to play ball. Still at the behest of the administration talks continued and a few weeks later, the Palestinians were at it again.
Then, Livni said, she looked up at a television as she awaited a cabinet meeting and saw Abbas signing letters as part of a process to join 15 international agencies — something he had said he would not do before the deadline.
Abbas offered the excuse that Israel was stalling. Still, this was a unilateral action outside the framework of negotiations and a broken promise. Finally, there was this:

Posted by Mike LaChance on December 24, 2014 26 Comments
The first questions one must ask are, When did Florida begin allowing Satanic holiday displays in their capitol at Christmas, and why would Satanists feel the need to celebrate the birth of Christ? While I don't know the answer to the first question, I'll take a guess at the second. Modern Satanists, who desperately want attention, are taking advantage of our politically correct culture. Anyone who has children knows that moment when a child says something like "But you let (insert other child's name here) have one!" Following this logic means that if Christians are allowed to erect a Christmas display in the capitol, then Satanists should also be allowed to do so, even if the core of their belief system is the direct antithesis of everything represented by the Christmas holiday. Like everyone else in America, Satanists are entitled to freedom of speech under the First Amendment; but don't tell me their display was meant to be anything other than a thumb in the eye to Christians. Joel Landau of the New York Daily News describes the display:
The organization set up the holiday display, which featured an angel falling into a pit of fire, as a protest for the state allowing a Nativity scene in the government building.
An unidentified woman has been arrested for the damage.

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Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 23, 2014 2 Comments
Tis the season for giving. Retailer JC Penny has an ad campaign this season called #JustGotJingled. To kick off the event, they asked shoppers whether it was better to give or receive. Not only are the responses heart warming, they're a great reminder of what this season is all about.

Posted by Amy Miller on December 23, 2014 7 Comments
And the penny drops: Of course. From Bloomberg:
“We have never given up on releasing ‘The Interview’ and we’re excited our movie will be in a number of theaters on Christmas Day,” Michael Lynton, chief executive officer of Sony Entertainment, said in a statement today. “We are continuing our efforts to secure more platforms and more theaters so that this movie reaches the largest possible audience.” The studio scrapped the Dec. 25 debut after the four biggest U.S. theater chains took the movie off their schedule, a response to threats from hackers linked to North Korea. President Barack Obama said last week the studio’s capitulation to terrorists would hinder freedom of expression. “As the President made clear, we are a country that believes in free speech, and the right of artistic expression,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said today in a statement. “The decision made by Sony and participating theaters allows people to make their own choices about the film, and we welcome that outcome.”
Of course, everything Sony is saying here is complete garbage. I don't believe for a second that it was Sony's intention to get creative with its release strategy; I give credit for this not to the execs involved but to the owners and operators of independent theatres like the Alamo Drafthouse, who took matters into their own hands, offered to screen the film, and when that didn't work out, attempted to screen something just as subversive and rude as "The Interview."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 23, 2014 10 Comments
I have had a Times of Israel column bookmarked since last June. It's a column that spoke to the phenomenon of "progressive" Jews obsessed with proving how much they hate Israel, so much so that hating Israel becomes their every reason for being and their identity. We see that type around campuses, sometimes faculty, sometimes students, sometimes community.  They are the Jews who cannot sleep at night knowing that Sabra hummus -- made in Virginia but partially owned by Pepsi and an Israeli company -- is served in the student dining hall or local supermarket. There is more to it than hummus. It's not about the hummus. Or even the conflict. Now back to that Times of Israel column, Meet the Finklers:
In his acclaimed, Man Booker Prize-winning novel, The Finkler Question, British writer Howard Jacobson named a phenomenon which has become familiar to all of us engaged against the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment movement. It is the phenomenon of select Jews speaking out against Israel as “ASHamed Jews,” who seek to distance themselves from Israeli actions against Palestinians and to imagine through their heartfelt public displays that they are participating in the creation of a better, more peaceful, post-occupation world These progressive Jews, in the United States mostly aligned with Jewish Voice for Peace, openly lend themselves to the passage of campus motions to boycott Israel and to efforts in the liberal Protestant churches to enact divestment from companies supplying Israel.... What is the gambit in pressing for boycott and divestment? What do such progressives truly seek? Jacobson wrote knowingly how, for some Jews, Israel is a figure of speech, a pretext for setting loose emotions that may originate somewhere else....

Posted by Amy Miller on December 23, 2014 8 Comments
Bloomington City Attorney Sandra Johnson is making moves to hold accountable the organizers of this past Saturday's "Black Lives Matter" protest at the Mall of America. Officers were present on-site, and once the chanting started, moved to close almost 100 stores and several entrances to the mall. I say "moved to" as opposed to "were forced to" because the shutdown occurred as soon as the protests began, and there were no reports of some sort of violent instigating event; but perhaps it's a good thing the officers moved so quickly, based on how mall employees describe what happened next: From CBS Minnesota:
Nate Bash works at one store near the rotunda, which he didn’t want us to name. “You had people yelling and screaming inside the mall that wanted out and you had people yelling and screaming outside the mall that wanted in,” he said. “I would say the mall was less than half as busy as it should have been considering what day it was.” “This was a powder keg just waiting for a match,” said Johnson.
Police officers are busy using social media in an attempt to single out the organizers (arresting every single protester would be chaos, and not worth the trouble;) their goal is to target the organizers and participants who encouraged others to come to the mall even after officials made moves to emphasize that the Mall of America is privately owned, and those disrutping business would be asked to leave. Officials don't yet know how much money was lost during the shutdown, but they're throwing around words like "staggering," so I'm willing to assume that losses were well worth the effort to track these people down and file a lawsuit.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 23, 2014 8 Comments
The faculty Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure (CAFT) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has issued a Report and recommendations on the refusal of the Board of Trustees to grant tenure to former Virginia Tech Professor Steven Salaita. The Report is being spun by Salaita supporters as a victory, but the details actually should disappoint them and hearten the University Trustees. A full copy of the Report is embedded at the bottom of this post. For one thing, the Committee did not demand "restoration" of Salaita's position, as some of his faculty supporters had expected.  Rather, the Committee, while criticizing the University's conduct, merely recommended formation of another committee of "academic experts" to review the situation. The failure to call for restoration of position was based, in part, on the Committee finding "legitimate concerns questions" [see update] about whether Salaita's anti-Israel (and some say anti-Semitic) tweets reflected on Salaita's professional fitness, competence and care since his scholarship is "almost indistinguishable from a political purpose." That political purpose, of course, is the destruction of Israel. The Committee thus recognizes a reality I have pointed out repeatedly when I discuss academic BDS: The prime movers behind academic BDS have completely blurred any distinction between political advocacy and their professional work; their scholarship and classroom conduct are their political advocacy, and vice versa. What this means, and as the Committee found, notions of academic freedom also have blurred for people like Salaita, who literally wrote the handbook about how faculty should spread academic BDS throughout universities. The result is that anti-Israel, pro-BDS faculty who merge their political advocacy and academic work may not be able to hide behind traditional notions of "academic freedom" to excuse their biased, unprofessional, incompetent and politicized scholarship and conduct. This approach has major implications far beyond the Salaita case. BDS, which itself is anti-academic freedom, may destroy academia before it destroys Israel.

Posted by Mike LaChance on December 23, 2014 7 Comments
President Obama has never enjoyed a very high approval rating from members of America's armed forces, but the end of 2014 finds him at a remarkable new low. Charlie Spiering of Breitbart reported:
President Obama's Approval Ratings Crater With Active Duty Military Active duty members of the United States military are not happy with their commander-in-chief. According to a Military Times survey, President Obama’s popularity rating has cratered to just 15 percent in 2014. That is a new low for the President, falling from an already low approval rating of 35 percent in 2009. The poll of nearly 2,300 active duty members also shows that Obama’s disapproval ratings have increased to 55 percent. The particularly low rating comes as Obama has launched air strikes in response to Islamic State terrorists taking territory and resources in both Iraq and Syria, vowing to keep combat ground troops out of the conflict. He has also deployed members of the military to combat the Ebola threat in Africa.
The Military Times survey cited by Spiering is very frank. Stephen Losey writes:
Obama’s mark on the military Obama is an unpopular president in the eyes of the men and women in uniform. Yet his two-term administration is etching a deep imprint on the culture inside the armed forces. As commander in chief, he will leave behind a legacy that will shape the Pentagon's personnel policies and the social customs of rank-and-file troops for decades to come.
Speaking of the Pentagon, can you guess who's sending more troops back to Iraq?

Posted by Casey Breznick on December 23, 2014 27 Comments
Last week, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said he wants the Department of Justice and the Department of Transportation to investigate why airfares are not decreasing along with falling oil prices. On the surface, Schumer’s observation makes sense. Crude oil and jet fuel prices are strongly correlated, and on average jet fuel comprises a third of airlines’ operating expenses. As such, the declining cost of oil, and therefore jet fuel, should reduce airlines’ expenses, thereby giving them the opportunity to charge lower airfares to consumers. [caption id="attachment_110349" align="aligncenter" width="473"]Chart from U.S. Energy Information Administration. Blue is WTI crude oil, orange is jet fuel. Chart from U.S. Energy Information Administration. Blue is WTI crude oil, orange is jet fuel.[/caption] The key word here is “opportunity.” Even though Schumer says “it’s safe to say that the airlines can afford to pass at least some of these savings onto the consumer,” reality is far from this populist idealism. The airlines’ first obligation is to their shareholders and employees, who have legitimate claims to these savings in the forms of higher dividends and wages. Then there is the issue of the government telling private businesses how they should set their prices—as if Washington bureaucrats know the first thing about airline pricing strategy, arguably the most complex in existence.

Posted by Amy Miller on December 23, 2014 15 Comments
Two months ago, Pei Xia Chen was a happy newlywed. Now, she's living a nightmare as the widow of executed NYPD officer Wenjian Liu, and the focus of a media frenzy. She offered a statement to the press late yesterday evening:
The devastated widow of slain police Officer Wenjian Liu spoke Monday about her husband’s choice to lead a life of service as a shaken city continued to mourn him and Officer Rafael Ramos — two heroes executed by a madman. “His dreams were of providing for his current and growing family,” Pei Xia Chen said tearfully of the man she had just married in September. “He was an asset to the police department, using his Chinese language skills whenever and wherever it was needed,” she said in a statement.
Watch:

Posted by Mike LaChance on December 23, 2014 45 Comments
Remember when Vice President Joe Biden stupidly told people to fend off intruders by firing a shotgun into the air? This is worse. I'm not a lawyer or a gun owner but as I watched this for the first time, I couldn't help but wonder how many laws the boy in the video was breaking. Yehuda Remer of Truth Revolt names a few:
New Anti-Gun PSA Advocates Breaking The Law A new PSA created by director Rejina Sincic shows her irrational fear of firearms in a disturbing new video. The video shows a boy stealing his mother’s handgun from her dresser, places it in a backpack, brings it to school, and at the end of class gives it to his teacher saying, “Can you take this away? I don’t feel safe with a gun in my house.” Bearing Arms writes that the video is “advocating that teens commits multiple felonies—several of which could lead to injury or death through negligent discharge of the weapon.” What Sincic fails to point out as she advocates for this kind of behavior is the multiple felonies that the boy breaks. “[S]uch an act would result in the boy facing numerous felony charges (exact charges depend on state laws) possibly including weapons theft, unlawful possession of a weapon by a minor, illegal concealed carry of a weapon, carrying a weapon onto school property, assault, and brandishing,” writes Bearing Arms.
Watch it below: It's obvious that the people behind this video have no understanding of gun laws or safety protocols.

Posted by Amy Miller on December 22, 2014 9 Comments
Remember the time when North Korea threw a cyberterror party---and EVERYBODY showed up with bottles of wine and things in hopes that they would stop? Well, not everybody, but everybody actually involved bent the knee to the World's Worst Country and brought shame upon the heads of freedom-lovers everywhere. Fortunately for the future of the Western world, the rest of us got together and took a stand against psychological cyberwarfare and for the principles of free speech, free expression, and the freedom to watch Seth Rogen bumble around on screen. Oh, and the freedom to troll the hell out of North Korea.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 22, 2014 10 Comments
I'm an avid online shopper, particularly during this time of year. I also think Amazon Prime is one of God's greatest modern gifts to mankind. A few weeks ago I was perusing through the endless Amazon offerings when I stumbled upon an option to view the best selling items by category. Both horrifying and delightful, I've compiled a list of what are some of the most, shall we say "interesting", Amazon best sellers.

Home and Kitchen

While a nice little wine bottle vacuum sealer is Amazon's top seller in this department, enough people are buying Obama toilet paper for the item to be listed as the 17th best seller in the entirety of home and kitchen wares. Interestingly enough, this same item is the 13th best seller in the Bedding and Bath department. In sum, people like Obama toilet paper. Obama Toilet Paper
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