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Posted by Andrew Branca on May 23, 2015 34 Comments
In a case that somehow had not come on my radar screen, minutes ago Cleveland Police Officer Michael Brelo (who is white) was found not guilty by Judge John. P. O'Connell of all criminal charges resulting from his shooting of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams (who were both black). Brelo had been charged with two counts of voluntary manslaughter and two lesser included charges of felonious assault. This case was notable in that Russell and William had been reported as firing a shot at officers in front of a criminal justice center, then led numerous responding patrol cars on a high-speed (>100 miles per hour) 22-mile pursuit through the city of Cleveland. The pursuit ended in an adjacent city's school parking lot, at which point Russell began ramming the police vehicles with his car.  At that point the 13 officers at scene began firing at Russel and Williams. This firing lasted approximately 20 seconds, and during the last 8 of those seconds Officer Brelo would stand on the suspects' vehicle and fire a final 15 rounds through the windshield into their bodies.  In total the 13 officers fired 135 shots in this final altercation.

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Posted by Andrew Branca on May 23, 2015 33 Comments
This past Thursday Prosecutor Mosby announced that the Grand Jury had formally returned indictments against the six Baltimore officers charged in the death of Freddy Gray. In our post that afternoon (Freddie Gray Case: Baltimore Grand Jury Issues Indictments, published 5:50PM), we noted that there were some subtle differences between the charges returned by the Grand Jury and the charges originally publicly announced by Mosby on May 1. In particular, we made the two following observations (in bold-italic, emphasis added here):
Mosby’s May 1 charges had also included “False imprisonment (8th Amendment)”, and that has been dropped.  I see this as an implicit concession that Gray’s arrest was lawful, for the reasons we’ve previously espoused here Freddie Gray Case: Prosecutor Doubles Down On Wrong Law and here Confirmed – Freddie Gray’s Knife WAS Illegal and here Freddie Gray’s Knife – Why is Prosecutor Claiming Unlawful Arrest? Similarly, every one of the officers who was charged with “False imprisonment” by Mosby on May 1–meaning Rice, Nero, and Miller, the three arresting officers–has had that charge dropped by the Grand Jury. In its place has been added “Reckless endangerment (5 years), which I interpret as Mosby’s new “safe charge”–that is, the charge on which she hopes to get a conviction even after her case otherwise implodes for lack of evidence. It is notable that this “Reckless endangerment (5 years) has been added as a charge against each and every one of the six officers, none of whom were previously charged with this offense.

Posted by David Gerstman on May 22, 2015 8 Comments
When in 1993 Israel and the PLO agreed to make peace, PLO chief Yasser Arafat committed to forswear violence and engage in bilateral negotiations. The thousands of Israelis killed, especially during the so-called Aqsa intifada - really a terror campaign orchestrated by Arafat - show that the Palestinians didn't keep to the first commitment. The ongoing lawfare campaigns against Israel in the United Nations and other international organizations show that they haven't kept the second either. The latest manifestation of this lawfare against Israel to make the news is the effort by Jibril Rajoub, head of the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) to suspend Israel from FIFA, the governing body of international soccer. Sepp Blatter, the controversial president of FIFA is trying to defuse the situation. He is also running for reelection. At FIFA's Congress later this month Rajoub wants to bring his motion to a vote. To suspend Israel would require a three fourths vote against Israel. The problem is that Israel has not violated any of FIFA's bylaws. But that doesn't mean that Rajoub won't try.

Posted by Amy Miller on May 22, 2015 38 Comments
Do you own the software, or just a license to own the software? That's the question currently being posted to the U.S. Copyright office by manufacturers and lobbyists who are fighting to prevent innovators from changing the way a vehicle's computer works. Hard-hitter companies John Deere and GM are leading the charge in a series of hearings before the U.S. Copyright Office, claiming that people who buy cars and other vehicles controlled by sophisticated computers own them subject to an "implied license," meaning that because the vehicles can't run without the software that controls the computers, consumers can't own the software outright. From the Consumerist:
GM’s claim is all about copyright and software code, and it’s the same claim John Deere is making about their tractors. The TL;DR version of the argument goes something like this:

LEGAL INSURRECTION QUICK TAKES

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Faculty Senate at Northwestern Calls for Restrictions on ICE Access to Campus

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Posted by Andrew Branca on May 22, 2015 20 Comments
I've long assumed that just about anything written by a journalist has only the most tenuous relationship to reality (see Michael Crichton's "Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect"). Few news agencies are as skilled at the AP, however, at crafting headlines--often the only part of a story a casual reader notes--that communicate a narrative that's precisely the opposite of the underlying facts. As one example, here's a prevaricating AP headline from October 22, 2014: AP Isreali man shoots Palestinian In that case the actual facts turned out to be that the man shot was engaged in a terrorist attack on a bus stop, and had already managed to kill a 3-year-old before being engaged and stopped by Israeli police.  Replace the word"man" with "terrorist" and the headline would have accurately narrated the events.  Instead, the headline falsely implies an act of unjustified violence by Israeli authorities.  (In that case the AP withdrew the headline an hour in the face of considerable outrage.)

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on May 22, 2015 18 Comments
The Department of State released 296 emails from Hillary Clinton’s private email account early this afternoon. We're sifting through the emails one at a time, but this is what we've found thus far: Based on this chunk of emails, the majority of Mrs. Clinton's communications with her staff involved abreviated printing directive, "Pls print." "Heavily redacted" is a generous description of this Friday document dump. Hillary Clinton email redactions Benghazi scandal president 2016 Two days after the Benghazi attacks, a Clinton aid sent an email summarizing the President's phone conversations with Libyan and Egyptian presidents. But we'll never know what those conversations entailed because, well...

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 22, 2015 7 Comments
A ruptured pipe sent 21,000 gallons of oil streaming along the coast of Santa Barbara, and workers are valiantly working to contain and control the strong-smelling release that is marring nine miles of prime California real estate.
State and federal officials on Wednesday investigated what caused a 2-foot-diameter underground pipeline to leak thousands of gallons of crude oil that polluted several miles of wildlife-rich beach and ocean along the scenic Santa Barbara coast. Houston-based Plains All American Pipeline said that in a "worst-case scenario," up to 105,000 gallons of oil spilled Tuesday from its ruptured onshore pipeline and that an estimated 21,000 gallons swept down a storm drain that empties into the Pacific. The company said a control room operator noticed "abnormalities" and shut down the pipeline around 11:30 a.m. PT (2:30 p.m. ET). Around the same time, Santa Barbara County firefighters responded to a report of a strong gasoline smell at Refugio State Beach and found oil pouring into the ocean.
At this point, the response crews appear to have the situation controlled. This is a real blessing, because there will no replay of the BP oil spill drama that impacted the Gulf Coast and allowed an opportunity for Obama to grandstand. A News Today video summarizes the situation:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 22, 2015 5 Comments
Is this officially a series now? We've done Paris, Britain, Copenhagen and Malmö, where people walking the street dressed in attire indicating they are religious Jews face street harassment, mostly by Muslim young men. We also did Montevideo, where the reaction was positive. Here's Cairo, as the Jerusalem Post reports:
An Egyptian journalist conducted an experiment in which he dressed up as a Jew and asked passersby on the streets of Cairo for directions to a nearby synagogue - with nearly serious consequences for his physical safety. The Cairo-based Internet news site DOTMSR sent the journalist to the streets of Cairo dressed in overtly Hassidic garb - sidecurls, skullcap, beard, and a hat. The “Jewish” journalist was then subjected to threats of violence, epithets, slurs, and shoving from hostile locals.... DOTMSR is an Arab-language Internet news site “that broadcasts high-quality news items in Arabic.” It describes itself as a news outlet that “believes in openness, innovation, and an obligation to accepting those who are different.”

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 22, 2015 29 Comments
As Professor Jacobson pointed out yesterday, Hillary's email problems keep getting worse. But what would happen to Hillary if she wasn't a powerful and connected politician? What if she was an average citizen or more importantly, a member of our armed forces? An American soldier named Chad Longell recently made that point at IJ Review:
I Am A Soldier. Here’s What Would Happen If I Used Email Like Hillary Clinton Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s personal emails are in the news again, and members of the U.S. military and intelligence community sense that there’s a dangerous double standard developing regarding the handling of classified information. I know this because I currently serve. The New York Times revealed Monday that Clinton regularly discussed and circulated emails from close family associate Sidney Blumenthal as a source for Libyan intelligence prior to the Benghazi attacks on September 11, 2012.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 22, 2015 14 Comments
The Clinton Foundation is in the process preemptively coming clean on problems before it gets caught. Will even mainstream media reporters smelling scandals in the murky world of payments to the Clintons and influence peddling, Hillary's handlers are not waiting for the skeletons to be found. At least not the one buried near the surface. The latest Clinton Foundation scandal, as reported by The Washington Post, is that the Clinton Foundation reveals up to $26 million in additional payments:
The Clinton Foundation reported Thursday that it has received as much as $26.4 million in previously undisclosed payments from major corporations, universities, foreign sources and other groups. The disclosure came as the foundation faced questions over whether it fully complied with a 2008 ethics agreement to reveal its donors and whether any of its funding sources present conflicts of interest for Hillary Rodham Clinton as she begins her presidential campaign.

Posted by Andrew Branca on May 22, 2015 77 Comments
It doesn't look like I'm going to run out of "white cop shoots unarmed black man" stories to write about any time soon---except this time it was two black men. As always, please note the caveat that this shooting event is still developing, and all the "facts" in my possession are sourced from "journalists" and thus may have only a tenuous relationship to the truth. The reporting comes from The Olympian newspaper out of Washington.  It seems that an officer with the Olympia police department, 35-year-old Ryan Donald, scored multiple hits on two robbery suspects who decided they'd rather attack the officer than comply with lawful orders. Indeed, the two men---reportedly brothers---were apparently so determined to tangle with Officer Donald that even after he'd shot one of them and they'd both managed to successfully flee, they came back.  The second man was "shot multiple times in the torso." The police department reports that Donald immediately set about providing first aid and called for emergency medical response.

Posted by Amy Miller on May 21, 2015 7 Comments
Today, a procedural vote in the Senate put the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) legislation one step closer to passage. 13 Democrats and 49 Republicans voted to back the legislation, putting the chamber well over the 60 vote threshold to take the next steps toward sending the bill on to the House. Still, the TPA and its backers aren't out of the woods yet, and members of Congress still opposed to the deal are ready and waiting with amendments and tweaks that could halt progress on the bill's passage.
But the path is not clear yet. Amendments could include controversial sanctions on trading partners that manipulate their currencies, a move opposed by the partners. The White House has said it will veto the bill if lawmakers insist on penalties. It instead prefers a diplomatic approach to dissuade countries from deliberately weakening their currencies to make exports cheaper.

Posted by Andrew Branca on May 21, 2015 92 Comments
UPDATE: We have additional information on the specific charges specified in the Grand Jury indictments, and how they differ from the charges announced by Prosecutor Mosby on May 1. Here's video of Mosby's press statement on the charges, at which she took  no questions: Clarification on changes to "false imprisonment" charges: Below we note that the "False imprisonment (8th Amendment)" charges are not present on a written list of the Grand Jury's charges (embedded below), and we speculate that this may be an implicit concession that the arrest of Gray was lawful. Shortly thereafter I were provided with the video of Mosby reading the charges, above. In the video the "False imprisonment" charges she specified in her May 1 allegations against the officers are also gone. It seems however, based on her verbal reading, that she has replaced that "False imprisonment (8th Amendment)" charge with a "Misconduct in office for illegal arrest (8th Amendment)". It's unclear if this represents a substantive alteration in the charges. For purposes of transparency I'll leave my earlier speculation intact below, but flag it with reference to this clarification. The officers are now scheduled to be arraigned on July 2, according to Mosby's read press statement.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on May 21, 2015 10 Comments
Obama's executive amnesty fiasco seems to get messier by the week. In early May, the DOJ filed a document disclosing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, (USCIS) had "erroneously" issued 2,000 work permits were issued despite the temporary injunction prohibiting their dispersal. "The government sincerely regrets these circumstances and is taking prompt corrective steps, while gathering additional information about these issues, including how these errors occurred," wrote the DOJ. Yesterday, Texas accused the Justice Department of running interference for the Department of Homeland Security who flubbed Obama's executive amnesty edict. Lead by Texas' Attorney General Ken Paxton, Texas requested proof that executive amnesty has in fact, halted. "In today’s filing with the federal district court, the states argued for increased oversight of the administration's compliance with the court's injunction, and for the opportunity to look into whether the defendants should be sanctioned for their misrepresentations to the court," said a statement from Paxton's office. According to Paxton, “the newly-revealed admission that even more expanded work permits were granted to 2,000 illegal immigrants raises serious questions about the Obama Administration’s reliability moving forward. Increased oversight is needed to hold the federal government accountable for its apparent inability to report accurate information to the court.”

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 21, 2015 7 Comments
The ancient Egyptians worshipped divine bulls...and now it seems to be paying off! The country's stock market has gone bullish after it halted capital gains taxes.
Egypt suspended a capital gains tax on Monday, sending shares soaring after a months-long downturn in which investors had complained of a lack of clarity about the new taxes, with some even taking the government to court. Immediately after the announcement, Egypt's EGX 30 index rose 3.3 percent to 8562.07, according to Egypt's official news agency. By late afternoon, shares were up 6.5 percent. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi approved a law nearly a year ago which placed a 10 percent tax on capital gains, fueling a sell-off by investors in an economy already battered by years of political unrest since the 2011 uprising. The law had been part of a broader government effort to broaden the tax base as it pushed through a host of tough measures, including slashing fuel subsidies, amending the property tax law, imposing a 10 percent tax on stock dividends and allowing the Egyptian pound to devalue somewhat against the dollar.
Contrast that with President Obama, who used America's moms as an excuse to propose capital gains tax increases.
In a wide-ranging interview with Vox, Obama discusses his proposal to raise capital gains taxes on couples making more than $500,000 a year to help pay for middle-class tax breaks. The rate would go from 23.8% to 28%. Obama tells Vox’s Ezra Klein the capital-gains proposal “would make a big difference in our capacity to give a tax break to working moms for child care.” And, says Obama: “There’s no evidence that would hurt the incentives of folks at Google or Microsoft or Uber not to invent what they invent or not to provide services they provide.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 21, 2015 5 Comments
We recently reported on legislation in Illinois barring state pension funds from investing in companies that boycott Israel. The legislation passed both chambers unanimously, a stunning bi-partison rejection of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Gov. Bruce Rauner has promised to sign the legislation. The BDS movement is screaming about the legislation because while boycotting Israelis is cool with them, bocotting the boycotters is the worst violation of human rights ever. That's not much of an exaggeration as to their response -- it is full blown hissy-fit which mischaracterizes the legislation as suppressing speech. The reaction from BDS not only has been a hissy fit, it has been bizarre and revealing. Jewish Voice for Peace, one of the most aggressive BDS organizations, is demanding the State Department change its long-standing definition of anti-Semitism. I've long argued that the anti-Israel boycotters, particularly in academia, were forfeiting their standing to complain when the boycotts boomeranged and were turned on them. I'd rather that BDS never started this fight, but it did and now BDS supporters are realizing they are swimming in the ocean of a pro-Israel American population. The campus and faculty lounge anti-Israel bubbles are exceptions, not the rule. And that strong and increasing public support of Israel is being expressed through elected representatives. The Illinois legislation came at a time of two pending federal bills targeting the international boycott of Israel. But states may be where the action will be, as NY legislators plan to introduced a bill similar to the one passed in Illinois:
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