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Posted by Andrew Branca on May 10, 2015 120 Comments
One of the interesting facets of the charges brought in the Freddie Gray case is that even at the earliest stages it appears that Prosecutor Marilyn Mosby was running an independent investigation in parallel with that of the Baltimore Police Department. Naturally, any investigation has a lead, and so it seems worthwhile to ask who Mosby assigned to that sensitive and responsibility-burdened position for her own investigative team. This is, after all, the man who generated the evidence presumably used by Mosby in bringing her 26 charges--including second-degree depraved-heart murder and manslaughter--against six Baltimore officers associated with the death of street-level drug dealer Freddie Gray. Legal Insurrection, I introduce you to Avon Mackel. Let's roll the video tape from Anderson Cooper on CNN:

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Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 10, 2015 16 Comments
Lindsey Graham is soon to join the GOP primary field that so far (officially) consists of Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, and Mike Huckabee.  According to Fox News,
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham plans to announce his presidential campaign on June 1, GOP sources tell Fox News. Graham, a three-term senator from South Carolina, is known as a foreign policy hawk in Congress. Though he is considered a long shot -- and ranks near the bottom in recent polls of declared and potential Republican presidential candidates -- Graham could help drive the debate on national security among a GOP field that includes candidates who sharply question policies ranging from drone strikes to NSA surveillance.
While it's true that Graham's views on national security are more palatable to the conservative base than (say) Rand Paul's, there are areas that may not be reconcilable.  Graham is trying to establish himself not as the squishy "RINO" (Republican in Name Only) but as the "realist" in the field who will work in bipartisan fashion to accomplish his agenda.  It seems reasonable, in that case, to recall some of his bipartisan efforts in recent years: Remember the "Year of Immigration Reform"?  That was 2013, in case you missed it.  The Gang of Eight is often evoked in discussion of Marco Rubio's amnesty flip-flop, but it's worth remembering that Rubio was not the only Republican member.  Lindsey Graham was right there, effectively leading the GOP side:   "We're going to be aggressive in marketing the bill. This is an all hands on deck approach."

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 10, 2015 22 Comments
The newest edition of Afterburner with Bill Whittle is titled I Support Free Speech, But... In the video, Whittle examines the controversy surrounding Pamela Geller and the limits so many of her critics are willing to impose on free speech. Whittle offers numerous examples of provocative free speech from progressives which didn't result in murder attempts and turns the left's arguments against Geller upside-down in the process. Watch the whole thing: Bill Whittle isn't the only person who has noticed the big 'but' some people want to place on free speech.

Posted by David Gerstman on May 10, 2015 3 Comments
Late Friday afternoon Reuters had a huge scoop. Inspectors found traces of prohibited chemical weapons at a previously undeclared site in Syria.
Samples taken by experts from the Organisation for the Prohibition and Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in December and January tested positive for chemical precursors needed to make the toxic agents, the sources told Reuters on the condition of anonymity because the information is confidential. "This is a pretty strong indication they have been lying about what they did with sarin," one diplomatic source said. "They have so far been unable to give a satisfactory explanation about this finding." ... The diplomatic sources said the sarin and VX nerve samples were taken from the Scientific Studies and Research Centre, a government agency where Western intelligence agencies say Syria developed biological and chemical weapons.
After it was established that Syria had used chemical weapons against civilians in a Damascus suburb, President Barack Obama said that he would seek Congressional authorization to use force. But in the end chose the path of diplomacy to deal with Syria's breach of international conventions by using chemical weapons. The deal, agreed to with Russia, a patron of Syria, called for Syria to declare all of its chemical weapons sites, destroy their chemical stores and destroy their means for making them. At the very least, Friday's news means that Syria did not fully comply with its obligations under the deal. At the worst it suggests that despite the hoopla about Syria destroying thousands of tons of chemical agents, Syria has an active chemical weapons program still remaining. (This is in addition to Syria's use of chlorine, which is prohibited for use as a weapon, even if chlorine is not prohibited to possess.) This wouldn't be the first time Syria has been caught cheating. In October of last year Syria admitted to having four chemical weapons facilities that it had not previously declared. Worse than that, The New York Times reported in January that the administration had informed Assad that the United States will train rebels to fight ISIS, not Syria.

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 10, 2015 9 Comments
Are you looking for a special place to visit on your summer vacation? You're in luck. ISIS has opened a luxury hotel in Iraq. Heather Saul of the Independent:
Isis opens 262-room luxury hotel in Mosul Isis has purportedly opened its own luxury hotel in Iraq's second city Mosul for members of the extremist group to stay in while visiting. Pictures circulated by Isis-affiliated social media accounts show members tending to a well-maintained garden, polishing floors and cleaning windows, expansive swimming pools and two black Isis flags flying at the front of the multi-storey building. The hotel is believed to be the Ninawa International Hotel, which received a number of positive reviews on TripAdvisor before being overtaken by militants and stripped of its branding. It has 262 rooms, two restaurants, two ballrooms and a gymnasium, among other facilities.
Paul Detrick of Reason TV produced this promotional video for the hotel:

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 10, 2015 6 Comments
We previously reported on how Oberlin Radical Feminists Freak Out at Christina Hoff Sommers:
In the Oberlin Review radical feminists responded to Sommers’ upcoming speech with an OpEd, “A Love Letter to Themselves.” In this love letter, they accuse Sommers of being a “rape denialist” and proceeded to list her “offenses” to feminism. The letter concluded:
So let’s engage in some radical, beautiful community care, support and love. Let’s make space for everyone to engage at whichever level they want/need. Let’s come through for each other, both now and in the future. Trauma is an experience that threatens a person’s bodily, spiritual and emotional integrity. The psychological, emotional and somatic impacts extend beyond the experience of trauma. Healing is a process that looks different for each person. Let’s make space to care for all experiences of trauma and to respect those we care for. Let’s focus our energy on taking care of each other and ourselves. Let’s make her talk irrelevant in the face of our love, passion and power.
Hoff Sommers was greeted with "Trigger Warning" signs and of course, the obligatory "Jazz Hands." Some enterprising person has put the controversy to music, including on-screen lyrics as the names of the people signing the Oberlin Review letter passed by in the background: Oberlin College Video Feelz before Reelz Choir Christina Hoff Sommers screenshot keep me from the real world

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 10, 2015 24 Comments
Jeb Bush's super PAC expects to raise $100 million by the end of this month.  According to Politico:
Jeb Bush is putting in motion an ambitious plan to develop a super PAC that would be unprecedented in its size and scope — a blueprint growing in scale and intensity as he nears the formal launch of his presidential campaign. The group, called Right to Rise, is said to be on track for raising an historic $100 million by the end of May, and its budget is expected to dwarf that of Bush’s official campaign many times over. In interviews, more than half a dozen sources familiar with the Right to Rise plans described a juggernaut that was rapidly taking shape — from its likely headquarters in Los Angeles, 2,700 miles from the Miami office where Bush was basing his campaign, to a new fundraising push aimed at expanding its ballooning coffers.
It turns out that his delay in announcing his candidacy is likely tied to campaign finance laws:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 10, 2015 13 Comments
As I was preparing for my Mother's Day vacation getaway, this tweet came across my screen: LI #04b Salon Mother's Day Tweet A worthy question, as I thought progressives would be positively joyful at this point in the "Hope and Change" presidency. However, they seem to be clinging to their bitterness. Following the social media trail, it turns out that in a piece on Salon.com, author Anne Lamott transforms a happy holiday into a scourge:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 09, 2015 27 Comments
David Cameron's Conservative Party surprisingly won an absolute majority in the British parliament. Best of all, George Galloway and his merry band of Jew-baiters and anti-Israel maniacs were voted out. With a Conservative Party majority, welfare and other fiscal reforms should pass. That has the sore election losers unhappy. Needless to say, not all of the tweets and text below are safe for work: Nothing says sore loser like defacing a Women's WWII Monument, Anti-Tory protesters deface war monument on Whitehall:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 09, 2015 25 Comments
In 2011, the DOJ ordered the Dayton Police Department and the Fire Department of New York to lower the required test scores of minorities after too many failed to pass the existing exams, and in 2013, the Marines changed their fitness requirement for women after the majority of female recruits were unable to perform the required three pull-ups. This week we learn that the FDNY is allowing a woman to become a fire fighter despite failing a crucial fitness exam.  According to The New York Post:
The FDNY for the first time in its history will allow someone who failed its crucial physical fitness test to join the Bravest, The Post has learned. Rebecca Wax, 33, is set to graduate Tuesday from the Fire Academy without passing the Functional Skills Training test, a grueling obstacle course of job-related tasks performed in full gear with a limited air supply, an insider has revealed. “They’re going to allow the first person to graduate without passing because this administration has lowered the standard,” said the insider, who is familiar with the training. Upon graduation, Wax would be assigned to a firehouse and tasked with the full duties of a firefighter.
As you might imagine, not everyone is thrilled with this development.  An FDNY member tells The Post, "We’re being asked to go into a fire with someone who isn’t 100 percent qualified.  Our job is a team effort. If there’s a weak link in the chain, either civilians or our members can die.” This is particularly problematic because Wax is the only female firefighter who has failed the fitness exam and still made the cut.  The female firefighters who passed the fitness and other exams are livid; the Post reports:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 09, 2015 4 Comments
It seems that every week there are one or more news stories about anti-Israel violence in Europe, frequently tied to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, as with attacks in Paris. Here is the latest episode, in which four Copenhagen buses were torched, and another painted with "Boycott Israel - Free Gaza," in what is believed to be retaliation for the bus company removing BDS advertisements The Local Denmark English-language website reports, Copenhagen bus fire may be tied to Israel ads:
Four public buses were burned in the early morning hours of Friday in what may have been a reaction to a controversy surrounding an advertising campaing urging people to boycott products from Israeli settlements. Copenhagen Police suspect that there is a political motive behind the burning of four Copenhagen city buses early on Friday. “In paint was written ‘Boycott Israel - Free Gaza’ on at least one of the buses,” police spokesman Las Vestervig told tabloid BT. No one was injured in the fire, which was set in the bus company Arriva’s parking garage in the Copenhagen district of Østerbro. The fire came amidst a controversy over the bus company Movia's decision to remove advertisements from 35 buses in the capital region that urged people to boycott products from Israeli settlements.

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 09, 2015 7 Comments
Bill Clinton spoke on behalf of the Clinton Foundation at an event in Morocco this week and made a rather revealing comment about the standards applied to people in politics compared to average Americans. Transcript via Real Clear Politics:
MOROCCAN BILLIONAIRE MO IBRAHIM: I opened the newspaper and I was shocked to see these attacks on the foundation... I didn't see anybody from the foundation standing up and really having a go at that... Because you should have stand up and really take issue. What is this money for? What have you done with it? And that's what people should ask.... BILL CLINTON: I just work there, I don't know... You do, look, there is one set of rules for politics, and another set for real life, you just have to learn to deal with it...
Watch the exchange below: The Clintons certainly seem to enjoy living by rules not afforded to other people.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 09, 2015 13 Comments
Last year marked the twenty-year anniversary of Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" that is often credited with helping usher in the 1994 Republican Revolution.  The Gingrich "Contract with America" was a simple, straightforward list of major reforms Republicans promised to introduce and bring up for a vote should they take control of Congress:
  • A balanced budget amendment and line item veto;
  • A crime bill that funds police and prisons over social programs;
  • Real welfare reform;
  • Family reinforcement measures that strengthen parental rights in education and child support enforcement;
  • Family tax cuts;
  • Stronger national defense;
  • A rise in the Social Security earnings limit to stop penalizing working seniors;
  • Job creation and regulatory reform policies;
  • Common sense legal reforms to stop frivolous lawsuits; and
  • A first-ever vote on term limits for members of Congress.
Within the first 100 days, the first Republican majority in both Houses of Congress in 40 years, passed bills tackling almost every item (the notable exception: term limits for Congress). That was then.

Posted by Andrew Branca on May 09, 2015 74 Comments
One week ago yesterday Maryland State Prosecutor Marilyn Mosby brought a plethora of charges--including second-degree depraved-heart murder, manslaughter, and assault--against six Baltimore police officers accused in the death of Freddie Gray. Yesterday, one week to the day after the charges were brought, the defense lawyers collectively filed a motion to dismiss these charges and/or force the recusal of Mosby and her entire office from the case.  We addressed the motion as a news item briefly last night, Freddie Gray case: Defense files motion to remove prosecutor. Now we dig deeper into the motion. The motion, consisting of just over 20 substantive pages and about 80 pages of exhibits, is embedded at the bottom of this post. The substantive pages are well worth reading in their entirety.  Here we'll highlight some of the key points and arguments made, relying as much as possible on selected quotes from the motion itself. Caveat: This is, of course, a defense motion, and thus should be expected to possess all the biases that would naturally be found in such a document from that source. Nevertheless, unless many of the claims are simply factually incorrect, the motion is a devastating critique of Mosby's legal ethics in this case in particular and the practices of her office generally.

Mosby's Public Reading of Charges, and her "Message" to the World

The motion begins by recalling Mosby's public reading of the charges against the officers on May 1, 2015.  Unusually, Mosby didn't simply make a generalized statement to the gathered media, but read the Statement of Probable Cause aloud, word-for-word.

Posted by New Neo on May 09, 2015 37 Comments
The Pamela Geller incident, and the reaction to it amongst pundits and the press, has demonstrated some disturbing yet important truths. Mainly, it has highlighted how many people are willing to offer what Salman Rushdie called (in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo murders) the "Yes, but..." defense of free speech, which he rejects as no defense at all. Free speech means freedom for speech with which you disagree, by people you don't much care for. The incident also brought out the virulence of the verbal attacks against Geller by her critics in this country. Both those who defend Geller's right to free speech and those who shy away from it don't necessarily break down neatly into the left vs. right camps. There are certain liberals like Jonathan Zimmerman, for example, who absolutely loathe Geller, and yet pause in the midst of their vilification* to heartily and strongly defend her right to speak. His article is even titled "Je Suis Pamela Geller;" at the same time, though, he's also calling her an "appalling bigot" and "hateful" in it. And yet some on the right (or who are often regarded as being on the right) and who might actually agree with some of her premises have said she should have kept quiet and not offended Muslims' sensibilities.

Posted by Amy Miller on May 09, 2015 10 Comments
If activists want to stop the rollout of the new net neutrality rules, they're going to have to use the courts to do it. Since the FCC first announced that it had approved a new set of regulations governing internet providers, those providers have been trying to find a way to block the rollout, which is set to happen on June 12. They're attacking both the FCC's intent to classify the internet as a utility, and provisions that would prevent providers from self-regulating internet traffic. Yesterday, the FCC denied petitions from eight of these providers asking the Commission to hold off on implementing the rules until the court battles settle themselves. The denial comes as a shock to absolutely no one, and ushers in a new round of court challenges in addition to ones already brought by AT&T and other providers. More via The Hill:
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