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Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 22, 2014 3 Comments
By now most of our readers should be familiar with the anti-Israel Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement. Scroll through our BDS and American Studies Association tags for a horrifying history of the perversion of academia by obsessive-compulsive Israel (and in some cases, Jew) haters. Recently a UAW affiliate representing graduate student instructors passed a BDS resolution. A paltry 20% of the membership bothered to vote, but as often is the case in these things, the anti-Israel students were more motivated, and the resolution passed. The vote at Berkeley was outsize in favor of BDS (no shock there) and made much of the vote margin. That resolution committed the membership to agitating against Israel in the classrooms, something that violated the U. California rules on classroom conduct. University officials confirmed that position. U California Regents Policy Letter September 8 2014 Dozens of faculty signed a petition in favor of the grad student BDS resolution. A coalition of pro-Israel groups wrote to U.C. officials demanding to know whether the conduct rules also would apply to faculty.

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 22, 2014 10 Comments
He died today. The BBC reports:
Singer Joe Cocker, best known for his cover of the Beatles' With A Little Help From My Friends, has died aged 70, his agent has confirmed. The Sheffield born singer-songwriter had a career lasting more than 40 years with hits including You Are So Beautiful and Up Where We Belong. His agent Barrie Marshall said Cocker, who died after battling lung cancer, was "simply unique". Sir Paul McCartney said he was a lovely guy who "brought so much to the world". Cocker's friend Rick Wakeman, keyboard player for the rock band Yes, called his rendering of With a Little Help From My Friends "sensational" and said: "He had a voice that was just unique."
He'll always be most remembered for his rendition at Woodstock of With A Little Help From My Friends: It was more than a rendition. It became something of a cultural icon:

Posted by Amy Miller on December 22, 2014 20 Comments
Could it be that the United States has finally hit back against North Korea's cyberaggression? All 1,024 of North Korea's Internet protocol addresses have gone dark, and internet monitors are calling the outage one of the worst network failures in years. From the Washington Post:
The connectivity problems are coming just days after President Obama warned of a "proportional response" to North Korea, which is suspected of breaking into Sony's network in a major cyber hack. It's not yet known whether the United States is responsible for the downtime. But according to Dyn Research — which earlier this year bought the respected network analysis firm Renesys — North Korea's Internet is currently showing unusual amounts of instability. ... Is this an attack? The chances aren't zero, considering that the few North Koreans who can actually get online tend to be government and military officials. Even if the outages are the result of somebody's deliberate act, proving that the United States did it would be difficult.
According to the New York Times, if this was us (and it had better be us, even if we'll never admit it) it would mean that US intelligence is trying something completely different. Normally, American cyberwarfare (that we know about) goes the "espionage" route and focuses on data grabs.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 22, 2014 5 Comments
The saga of Stanley Cohen took an unexpected twist recently. For background, see our Stanley Cohen Tag. Short version: Cohen is a virulently anti-Israel, pro-Hamas lawyer who has defended many high-profile terrorists in court. Cohen pleaded guilty to obstructing the IRS and failing to file income tax returns for several years. He admitted in open court that the government could prove its allegations of multi-year effort by Cohen to conceal cash transactions and to fail to report income. Cohen was sentenced to 18 months in prison on November 21, 2014, and must report to prison on January 6, 2015. There were multiple delays in his plea appearance, which struck me as odd at the time, particularly since the court record reflected that he was traveling abroad in the Middle East Gulf states. Not exactly the place you would expect to allow a person to go on the eve of a guilty plea. Cohen did return, however; he appeared in court, and then came the explanation about his trip to the Gulf states: Cohen apparently was engaged in an ultimately futile effort to obtain the release of ISIS hostage Peter Kassig, who later would be beheaded. The Guardian has the story, The race to save Peter Kassig:

Posted by Amy Miller on December 22, 2014 8 Comments
The #BringBackOurGirls hashtivism trend may not have saved the almost 300 young women who were kidnapped in Nigeria earlier this year, but it did force the world to focus its attention on Boko Haram, the Islamic extremist group responsible for the kidnappings. It's time to bring that attention back. Most of the media's coverage of Boko Haram has focused either on the kidnappings, or on the scrappy, regional nature of the group's quest for self-determination as a nation of Islam. The problem with this is that while the west has been busy forgetting to pay attention to the almost 200 girls who are still missing, Boko Haram has been growing. From the Associated Press:
In Niger, the government has declared a "humanitarian crisis" and appealed for international aid to help tens of thousands of Nigerian refugees driven from their homes by the insurgency. These recent events show how neighboring countries are increasingly being drawn into Nigeria's Islamic uprising. Thousands of people have been killed in Nigeria's 5-year insurgency and some 1.6 million people driven from their homes. "We are concerned about the increasing regionalization of Boko Haram," said Comfort Ero, Africa director for the International Crisis Group. On Sunday, Cameroon's army announced it had broken up a Boko Haram training camp in the Mayo-Danay district in the country's Far North region. The army was looking for other hideouts in the area, said Jean-Pierre Mbida, a soldier with the Rapid Intervention Battalion tasked with fighting the insurgents. "We will continue monitoring the area in the hope of uncovering any other Boko Haram hideouts and training grounds," he added.
Boko Haram is pulling fighters from Niger, Chad, and Cameroon into Nigeria, and has also managed to gain control of previously free areas in Niger. The general territory Boko Haram runs in is poor, and largely ignored by the government, making it easy for them to implement their alternative-authority structure over an even less-than-willing population.

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Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 22, 2014 16 Comments
Although the media has recently been less focused on Ebola, the disease is still impacting Africa and the death count now tops 7000. Meanwhile, a new epidemic of a disease that was once thought well-contained by vaccinations may be occurring in my home state of California. The number of cases of whooping cough (pertussis) has skyrocketed this year.
Nearly 10,000 cases have been reported in the state so far this year, and babies are especially prone to hospitalization or even death. ...Whooping cough is cyclical in nature and tends to peak every three to five years. The last outbreak of the disease in California was in 2010. But doctors are discovering that immunity from the current vaccine may be wearing off on a similar timeline. Medical recommendations suggest booster shots after eight years, but doctors are seeing kids who received a booster three years ago getting sick. Public health officials are considering an update to the recommendations to account for the dip in immunity seen after three years. Plus, many kids in some areas aren't getting vaccinated at all. The highest rates of whooping cough are found in the Bay Area counties of Sonoma, Napa and Marin, which also have some of the highest rates of parents who opt out of vaccinating their children. Doctors believe these kids are the root of the current and recent epidemics.
Whooping cough feels like a cold at first, but an intense cough that develops later can produce a "whooping" sound. The disease is caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis. It can be treated with antibiotics, but the drugs may not be effective when the illness is in the severe coughing stages. Whooping cough can last for weeks and is especially dangerous to infants under 1 year. California isn't the only state seeing jumps in pertussis infections.

Posted by New Neo on December 22, 2014 18 Comments
When I read the news of the murder of NYPD Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu by shooter Ismaaiyl Brinsley as they sat in their police car, it had an air of sickening familiarity. If you're as old as I am, and especially if you're from New York, you remember. You remember that in the early 70s a war against police began, a war in which police were gunned down by cold-blooded killers with a racial/political agenda and a convict past. The assailants were members of various black militant groups, mostly offshoots of the Black Panthers, such as the Black Liberation Army (BLA), which specialized in racially-motivated cop killings. It was almost inevitable that the furor against police officers that's been whipped up over the Brown and Garner deaths would end in some person or persons deciding that killing a cop would be just the thing. Whether Brinsley was crazy or not---and he may have been---and a lone wolf or not, even crazy people can be sparked to violence by an atmosphere of orchestrated hatred. There is also some evidence that Brinsley was not a lone wolf, however, but instead may have been a member of a group known as the Black Guerrilla Family. The Family shares similar antecedents with the BLA, including a prison genesis and a stated leftist/socialist/Marxist philosophy. Probably the most famous police officer ambush case was that of partners and Vietnam vets Gregory Foster and Rocco Laurie, which occurred in January of 1972. Witnesses and an investigation indicated that they were shot in the back by BLA members as the officers walked down the street on their beat, and then shot again multiple times with their own service revolvers as they lay dying. The murders of Foster and Laurie caused a furor because they were part of a war on police, but also because both were well-liked, young, handsome, and because they were good friends and an interracial team (Foster was black and Laurie white). There was a 1974 book and a 1975 movie about the heinous crime, and although there were suspects (some of whom have died or been killed in the ensuing years), no one has ever been tried for their murders.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 21, 2014 4 Comments
Cary Nelson, Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, is the Editor of a recent book, The Case Against the Academic Boycotts of Israel. The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel cover He also was interviewed on Israeli television recently. He makes some good points, similar to those I have made in many of my speeches and appearances. The faculty Propagandists with Ph.D's are the main problem, they use their leverage over students in the Humanities and Social Sciences to intimidate and control the agenda. Academic BDS is a movement led by evil people, and followed by many more uninformed, misinformed and misguided dupes. Evil can never be ignored. BDS is a pox on academia, and should be treated as such. http://youtu.be/jQOs_lE-YFQ?t=1m1s (Added) I'll use this as a chance to promote my interview with Mark Levin on the topic, in case you missed it:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 21, 2014 9 Comments
On October 25, 2014, I wrote about how anti-Israel activists attempted to co-opt and hijack the Ferguson protests and riots and turn the anger towards Israel, Intifada Missouri – Anti-Israel activists may push Ferguson over the edge. The activists gathered under the "Palestine2Ferguson" banner and Twitter hashtag. One of the key anti-Israel activists was Bassem Masri, a Palestinian-American who attempted to instigate confrontations between police and protesters, as he livestreamed the protests. [caption id="attachment_104112" align="alignnone" width="550"]Bassem Masri Ferguson Resistance is in our blood(Bassem Masri, on right)[/caption] Fast forward to the execution of two NYPD police officers, Wenjian Lu and Rafael Ramos, on December 20, by Ismaaiyl Brinsley. The killer wrote on Instagram in his final post:

Posted by Amy Miller on December 21, 2014 19 Comments
The NY Post has released a new video showing the aftermath of yesterday's brutal executions of NYPD police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. I don't think any further introduction is necessary: Gothamist has a good rundown of what we know so far about the executioners, and what witnesses saw:
A witness told the Daily News, "There were like 75 cops here and a bunch ran toward the subway after the guy. There was a huge police presence there. Even undercovers were coming out of nowhere." ... Witness Courtney Felix described to the Post, "The cops were struggling to get out of the vehicle. They were hanging onto their wounds... One was clutching at his neck and the other was holding onto his collarbone. One cop stumbled out of the driver’s side and he leaned over to fall down. He was trying to catch himself. He was mostly on the floor and he was fading out." ...

Posted by Amy Miller on December 21, 2014 11 Comments
Rand Paul may have drawn first blood in the War on the War on Obama's Cuba Policy©, but it's Marco Rubio who is set to finish this thing with his reputation intact. Today, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) appeared on ABC's This Week and nailed fellow Republican and Senate colleague Rand Paul (R-KY) to the wall over Paul's support for Obama's plan to open up relations with Cuba. From Mediaite:
“If he wants to become the chief cheerleader of Obama’s foreign policy, he certainly has a right to do that,” Rubio said on This Week. “I’ll continue to oppose the Obama foreign policy on Cuba because I know it won’t lead to freedom and liberty for the Cuban people, which is my sole interest here.” Paul and Rubio mixed it up this week after they came out on different sides of Obama’s surprise détente with Cuba. Rubio has been the most vocal opponent of Obama’s normalization of relations with the Castro-run island country, while Paul has suggested this was tantamount to isolationism. Host George Stephanopoulos asked Rubio he would support Paul if he became the GOP’s 2016 nominee. “I anticipate supporting whoever the Republican nominee is and I’m pretty confident that the Republican nominee for president will be someone who has a pretty forceful view of America’s role in the world as a defender of democracy and freedom,” Rubio replied.
Watch:

Posted by New Neo on December 21, 2014 21 Comments
Vermont appears to have given up on single-payer health insurance, having run out of other people's money before the program even began. If leftist Vermont can't make it work, does that mean the drive for single-payer has been abandoned? One might think so, but not so fast. Perhaps the time just isn't right:
“It is not the right time for Vermont” to pass a single-payer system, [Vermont Governor] Shumlin acknowledged in a public statement ending his signature initiative. He concluded the 11.5 percent payroll assessments on businesses and sliding premiums up to 9.5 percent of individuals’ income “might hurt our economy.”
Will there ever be a "right time"?:
“If cobalt blue Vermont couldn’t find a way to make single-payer happen, then it’s very unlikely that any other state will,” said Jack Mozloom, spokesman for the National Federation of Independent Business. “There will never be a good time for a massive tax increase on employers and consumers in Vermont, so they should abandon that silly idea now and get serious,” Mozloom added.
Mozloom aside, the left will never stop trying. Never:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 21, 2014 11 Comments
Hijacking someone's Twitter account and putting up stupid pictures or political statements might reasonably be called cyber-vandalism, and a criminal one at that. Like this: rothschild-hacked-old But the Sony hack allegedly by North Korea which led to terrorist threats against movie theaters and a national self-censorhip? Is that really all it was, "cyber-vandalism"? According to Obama, yes, Obama: North Korea hack ‘cyber-vandalism,’ not ‘act of war’:
President Obama said in an interview broadcast Sunday that he does not think a recent North Korean cyberattack against Sony Pictures Entertainment was "an act of war." "No, I don't think it was an act of war," Obama said on CNN's "State of the Union." "I think it was an act of cyber-vandalism that was very costly, very expensive. We take it very seriously. We will respond proportionately."

Posted by Amy Miller on December 21, 2014 22 Comments
In the first ruling of its kind since 2008's DC v. Heller, a three-judge panel of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the federal ban on gun ownership for anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution” violates the Second Amendment. Michigan resident Clifford Tyler sued in federal court after the 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(4) provision regarding firearm ownership by those adjudicated mentally ill prevented him from buying a gun. Bloomberg has the background on the case:
Tyler, 73, was committed to a Michigan mental institution in 1985 after suffering a breakdown tied to a contentious divorce, according to court filings. After a month he was released and went back to work and had no other instances of being committed, the filings show. When Tyler sought to get a gun permit in 2011, he was denied it on the basis that federal law excludes those with past history of mental illness from owning a weapon unless they fall into the statute’s exceptions. Other classes of people, including undocumented workers, convicted felons and drug offenders, are also barred from legally owning a weapon under the law, but they are supposed to have an opportunity to show they fall into exceptions to the statute.
Until 1992, Congress provided funding for gun application review, which gave applicants with a history of mental illness the opportunity to prove that they were statutorily fit to own a firearm. When that funding dried up, many states, including Michigan, discontinued the program, leaving people like Tyler in a no-win situation.

Posted by Amy Miller on December 21, 2014 16 Comments
During my time in academia, I rebuffed a lot of garbage petition solicitations, but I never saw anything as ridiculous as the statement George Washington University students enthusiastically supported this past week. Campus Reform headed to GWU's campus with a petition demanding President Obama address the illegal immigration crisis by initiating an "exchange program." As in, deport one citizen, let in one undocumented immigrant. Crazy, right? Not to this student body! From Campus Reform:
“Please sign our petition for President Obama to deport one American citizen, in exchange for one undocumented immigrant,” read the petition. “Everyone must be allowed a shot at the ‘American Dream.’ Americans should not be greedy. Let us right the wrongs of our past and make another’s dreams come true.” “It makes sense,” one student told Campus Reform. “Like, I’ve noticed that there is a lot of like hatred against undocumented immigrants and it’s not necessarily their fault.” “Everybody deserves a shot and we shouldn’t rule anybody out,” said another. After some consideration, a female student decided signing the petition was best in the name of social justice. “If somebody were to sign up for this program and they were going to go through all the effort to become this one undocumented immigrant than I think that’s enough will power and enough desire, they should be able to come in,” she said.
Two-thirds of the people Campus Reform talked to signed on to this nonsense. Watch:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 20, 2014 59 Comments
Ah, the comment section. Sometime later today into tomorrow, we will hit our 300,000th comment. In 6 years. That's not a lot compared to some websites, but it's a lot here. And the pace has picked up dramatically in the past couple of years. We seem to be running close to 10,000 comments a month (that's just a guesstimate). We "try" to keep things under control by not using third-party comment software such as Disqus -- which means you have to register here specifically. That cuts down on drive-by commenters and flame throwers, which helps keep the comment section relatively (by comparison to other websites) civil. But it also cuts down on the number of people who comment, and likely cuts down on our traffic. Having massive fights in the comment section is what drives some websites to have several hundred to several thousand comments for a single post. That's not to say sometimes things don't get rough, but we appreciate that our commenters generally don't go there. Policing the comment section is a drag, and with our volume and staff, difficult. In the end, though, I think it's worth keeping comments open. It creates a sense of community and shared purpose. We have shared election victories and losses, graduations, promotions, deaths and births. Some commenters have crossed the cyber/real world barrier, and communicated off site with each other, and with me. I count some of our commenters as real world friends now, and the comment secton was how I located one of our authors (Andrew Branca).
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