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Posted by Amy Miller on March 25, 2015 9 Comments
All year, U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) uses his "#PorkChop" series to highlight new and exciting ways that the federal government finds to send taxpayer dollars straight down the toilet. Today, in honor of March Madness, Flake has opened up voting in his annual "Egregious 8" tournament, which pits wasteful government programs against one another until only one travesty is left standing. The slice of pork that generates the most votes will advance to the next round---and competition is pretty tight. Take a look at the first matchup: #1 USDA CashCrops vs. #4 NEA Hunk-a-Bully. Which do you think is worse? Screen Shot 2015-03-25 at 6.40.50 PM or...

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Posted by Amy Miller on March 25, 2015 21 Comments
Last year, the United States released 5 high-profile al Qaeda commandos from the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities in exchange for the release Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Bergdahl was captured by militants after he allegedly deserted his base in Paktika province in eastern Afghanistan. The exchange embroiled the Obama Administration in scandal---why did we trade dangerous prisoners for the freedom of a deserter?---and the public quickly began to demand answers about what consequences should and would rain down on Bergdahl's head. Today, finally, the Army announced that Bergdahl has been charged with one count each of desertion and "misbehavior before the enemy." If convicted, he could face life in prison. More from CNN:
The Army concluded its investigation into the circumstances of Bergdahl's capture in December. Until now, it has been in the hands of Gen. Mark Milley, head of U.S. Army Forces Command, who made the decision to charge Bergdahl. Several U.S. military officials CNN has spoken with suggested privately that the process took longer than expected. Ahead of Wednesday's announcement, officials said Milley only had a few choices. Though the sense had been that Bergdahl must be held accountable for his actions, there had been little appetite for a lengthy term in military confinement given the five years Bergdahl was held by the Taliban. Bergdahl, who's now 28, was taken by the Haqqani terrorist network. But the circumstances of Bergdahl's departure from his base and how willingly he left have not been clear. King said he couldn't offer those details on Wednesday, and that they're being treated as evidence for the upcoming proceedings against Bergdahl. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Arizona, called the charges an "important step" on Wednesday.
Of course, it wouldn't be politics if we didn't leave the charges to the lawyers and dive into the electoral consequences of one of the Administration's most controversial decisions.

Posted by Andrew Branca on March 25, 2015 21 Comments
Much like the South once used local and state laws to undermine the civil rights victories of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, those seeking to undermine recent 2nd Amendment civil rights victories often do so by creating a web of complex and often unlawful regulations and limitations upon the exercise of those rights. One common ruse in many states is to illegally post signs prohibiting the lawful carry of concealed firearms into a particular location. Texas, for example, allows for the lawful posting of constraints on concealed carry rights through the use of what are referred to as "30.06 signs," but the lawful use of these signs is highly limited. Texas 30.06 sign Sadly, it has become all too common for 30.06 signs to be posted where it is unlawful to do so. Someone who lawfully carries in violation of such an unlawful posting commits no criminal offense, but the posting naturally has a chilling effect on the lawful exercise of 2nd Amendment rights.  Some of the worst of these unlawful posters have been government entities. Unfortunately, to date there has been no effective means of punishing those who unlawfully post such civil rights restrictions.  Government entities have been particularly out of reach, given their presumed sovereign immunity from legal action. It is pleasing, therefore, to see Texas move towards ending such unlawful signage, as reported at the Guns.com blog, and in a manner that gives 2nd Amendment rights real teeth and punishes violators--even governmental violators--in their wallets.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 25, 2015 60 Comments
James O'Keefe has released a sting video of an Assistant Dean of Students at Cornell University indicating to a purported potential foreign student that the school was amenable to pro-ISIS and pro-Hamas student clubs, and even training of "Freedom Fighters." I don't know the Assistant Dean and never heard of him before this, as he's not at the law school and we tend to be somewhat isolated from the rest of the University. I became aware of the video late last night when my wife saw it on The NY Post website (emphasis added):
This guy is either the dumbest Ivy League bigwig ever or politically correct to a fault — for welcoming offers to bring ISIS and Hamas to Cornell University. A video sting operation shows Cornell’s assistant dean for students, Joseph Scaffido, agreeing to everything suggested by an undercover muckraker posing as a Moroccan student. Scaffido casually endorses inviting an ISIS “freedom fighter’’ to conduct a “training camp” for students at the upstate Ithaca campus — bizarrely likening the activity to a sports camp. Is it OK to bring a humanitarian pro-“Islamic State Iraq and Syria” group on campus, the undercover for conservative activist James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas asks. Sure, Scaffido says in the recorded March 16 meeting. Scaffido doesn’t even blink an eye when the undercover asks about providing material support for terrorists — “care packages, whether it be food, water, electronics.” How about supporting Hamas? No problem at all, Scaffido said.
My first two impressions were:

Posted by Mike LaChance on March 25, 2015 10 Comments
As you can probably imagine, Ted Cruz's announcement about his plans to run for president in 2016 brought out a whole new level of crazy from liberals in media and most of it was very ugly. The fine folks at Newsbusters have done a tremendous job chronicling the MSM reaction in words and video. Here are a few choice examples. From Jeffrey Meyer:
Donny Deutsch Attacks ‘Scary…Dangerous…Slimy’ Ted Cruz Appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Monday, Donny Deutsch viciously attacked Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) following his announcement that he will be running for president, calling the Tea Party favorite “scary” and “dangerous.” After co-host Mika Brzezinski asked Erica Grieder of Texas Monthly about Cruz’s presidential prospects, Deutsch tore into the Republican senator and declared him “completely unelectable, obviously an interesting character and obviously he’ll have a place at the table but unelectable for a host of reasons.”
Here's the video: But wait, there's more....

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 25, 2015 26 Comments
It has been a while since we have reported on Microaggression mania on college campuses: What is a microaggression? One of the inventors of the terminology and theory describes it this way:
Microaggressions are the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership. In many cases, these hidden messages may invalidate the group identity or experiential reality of target persons, demean them on a personal or group level, communicate they are lesser human beings, suggest they do not belong with the majority group, threaten and intimidate, or relegate them to inferior status and treatment.
As our prior reporting reflects, microaggression theory and practice are passive-aggressive control mechanisms meant to empower those who can claim protected group identity (it's a lot more than about race or gender) over those who cannot.

Posted by Amy Miller on March 25, 2015 12 Comments
Civil forfeiture is a huge problem in America. How could it not be? Any policy written to allow law enforcement agencies to hold property responsible for a crime that may or may not have been committed by its owner is eventually doomed. Police have used civil forfeiture procedures to seize millions of dollars worth of cash and property in places like Philadelphia and Michigan, and citizens have been largely powerless to stop it. Federal and cross-country reform efforts have been slow-going, but the New Mexico legislature has passed groundbreaking legislation that will dramatically cut down on the problem of "policing for profit." Cato explains how the bill---if signed by Republican Governor Susana Martinez---will make the law more fair towards property owners:
Among other things, the New Mexico bill requires a criminal conviction for forfeiture actions, bolsters the “innocent owner” defense by requiring that the owner know that his/her property was being used illegally, requires that all forfeiture proceeds be deposited into the general fund rather than into the seizing agencies, and limits the ability of state and local law enforcement agencies to circumvent state law by utilizing the federal equitable sharing program.
This is huge.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on March 25, 2015 29 Comments
The man who garnered national attention by making himself Obamacare's arch nemesis is enrolling in the dastardly program one day into his presidential campaign. Previously covered by his wife's cadillac Goldman Sach's healthcare plan, Heidi Cruz's departure from the investment behemoth means the Cruz's will be looking to the exchange for their health insurance needs. Evidently, this is a story. "Man who hates Obamacare to enroll in Obamacare!!!!" "Hahahaha, it's sooooo ironic Cruz is like, enrolling in Obamacare!" "Cruz is enrolling in Obamacare?! What a hypocrite!" Who knew abiding by the the law was such a novel accomplishment that it warranted ink from every major news outlet? But that's what happened. Screen Shot 2015-03-25 at 2.56.49 AM  

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on March 24, 2015 33 Comments
Today will go down in history as the day feminists officially stepped beyond the bounds of self-parody. UK based outfit, the National Union of Students is hosting a conference for women. The multi-day conference for union delegates began today. Motions up for consideration at the conference include designating the abolishment of prisons as a feminist issue, free education and living grants, supporting the decriminalization of sex work, ending Transphobia, Biphobia, and Islamophobia on campus, and supporting the right to justice and education for Palestine. This afternoon (our time, anyway), a group in attendance made the following request: To which the NUS Women's Campaign responded, saying:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 24, 2015 28 Comments
With news that Israel spied on the Iran nuke negotiations, there is high dudgeon in some quarters. Extending the administration's Bibi-bashing news cycle apparently was the intent of the U.S. officials who leaked the information to The Wall Street Journal. While Israel denies spying on U.S. officials, as opposed to targeting the Iranians with whom U.S. officials had communications, the incident is being exploited. But there needs to be a reality check. Friendly governments spy on friendly government. That's how friends make sure who are their real friends. The way the U.S. allegedly found out Israel was spying on the nuke negotiations was because the U.S. was spying on Israel. The U.S. spying on Israel created a small media storm on December 2013, when a batch of Snowden documents were released, as The Guardian reported:

Posted by Amy Miller on March 24, 2015 5 Comments
And down goes another campaign pledge! Today President Obama held a joint press conference with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to announce that the United States will maintain its 9800 troop count in Afghanistan through the end of the year. The President had previously promised to reduce that troop count to 5500. Watch: Troop levels for 2016 will be decided later this year. We're changing the game again, but we're not quite sure about the details. Sounds about right---but I'm not sure it's unwarranted. In Afghanistan, Ghani is looking at the beginning of what is known as the "spring fighting season," wherein extremists look to Afghanistan for the purposes of recruitment. This may be another broken promise on Obama's part, but this isn't "tweak" in existing plans; the entire drawdown was scrapped, ostensibly because Ghani asked for help. No small deal.

Posted by Amy Miller on March 24, 2015 9 Comments
The Secret Service has problems---and today, director Joseph Clancy talked to Congress about his plans to turn things around. The subject of today's hearing centered around an incident that occurred earlier this month at the White House, where two likely-intoxicated Secret Service agents hit a security barrier after driving through an active bomb threat investigation.
Chaffetz showed surveillance footage provided by the Washington, D.C., police department. The time-lapse video showed a woman dropped off a package outside the White House on the night of March 4. She apparently claimed this was a bomb. The video, toward the end, also showed the two agents in question arriving on the scene and bumping into a security barrier. But Chaffetz, before playing the video, said after agents were initially unable to apprehend the suspect, the package sat "unattended as traffic drove by for a long period of time." He said it took 11 minutes for the agency to call the Metropolitan Police Department bomb squad. And for 17 minutes, he said, traffic continued to drive by and "several pedestrians walked within feet of the potential bomb." "I don't understand how that happens," Chaffetz said. Chaffetz also said that an agent initially followed the suspect's car but was "mistakenly called off the pursuit when the Secret Service identified the wrong car as the suspect's." It took 30 minutes after she fled for the Service to issue a "lookout" for the vehicle. After an hour and 20 minutes, the scene was cleared. The "bomb" turned out to be a book. The suspect was apprehended three days later.
Here's video of the incident:

Posted by Mike LaChance on March 24, 2015 38 Comments
Indiana business owner Scott Womack knows firsthand how Obamacare affects the economy and jobs. He just sold 16 of his IHOP restaurants because of the rules imposed by the law. We recently reported that some restaurants in Seattle are having trouble with a new minimum wage policy. Progressives seem to believe that any issue they care about can be solved through legislation and there's no greater example of that than the Affordable Care Act. Rob Bluey of The Daily Signal reported:
This Longtime IHOP Owner Sold His 16 Restaurants Because of Obamacare It was a brisk March morning, nearly a year after President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, and I had trekked to the Midwest with a camera crew to meet Scott Womack, owner of about a dozen IHOP restaurants in Indiana and Ohio. Womack’s testimony before Congress earlier in 2011 caught my attention and I wanted to visit him at one of his restaurants to see firsthand how Washington’s policymaking had impacted his work. The IHOP in Terre Haute is located on South 3rd Street, just a few minutes from the Interstate 70 interchange and a short drive from the Holiday Inn where we had stayed the night before. As we sat in the back of the bustling restaurant waiting for Womack to arrive, we ordered french toast, omelettes and other IHOP specialities. At the time, Womack employed about 1,000 people at his 12 restaurants. When the Affordable Care Act became law on March 23, 2010, he had big plans for his franchise. He had purchased a development agreement in 2006 that would expand the company to 14 new IHOP locations in Ohio... Four Years Later Facing the prospect of Obamacare’s employer mandate on Jan. 1, 2015, Womack opted to sell his 16 IHOP restaurants last year to Romulus Restaurant Group.

Posted by Amy Miller on March 24, 2015 4 Comments
Yesterday, the first two lawsuits dealing with the new "Net Neutrality" rules were filed in federal court. The United States Telecom Association, a trade org representing the nation's largest telecom companies, and Alamo Broadband, a small Texas-based broadband company, are both suing over the FCC's choice to use Title II of the Communications Act to regulate the way comms companies grant access to different types of online content. Via Cnet:
"As we have said throughout this debate, our member companies conduct their business in conformance with the open Internet principles, and support their enactment into law," USTelecom President Walter McCormick said in a statement. "We do not believe the Federal Communications Commission's move to utility-style regulation invoking Title II authority is legally sustainable." USTelecom said it filed its five-page protective petition for review out of concern that a 10-day period to challenge the rules was triggered when the agency published the new rules on March 12. However, the FCC said the window for legal challenges is 60 days after the rules are published in the Federal Register, which is expected to occur in the coming days. An FCC spokesperson called the petitions for review "premature and subject to dismissal."
Techdirt has the two filings embedded here.

Posted by Jay Caruso on March 24, 2015 35 Comments
Texas Senator Ted Cruz became the first "official" contender to announce he is running for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. One of the more bizarre narratives to quickly form after Cruz made his announcement, has been the comparison between him and President Barack Obama. While there are some similarities --- both first term Senators, both graduates of Harvard, both are prone to more grandiose type speeches and both lacked executive experience, that's where the comparison really ends. However, there are some who arguing Ted Cruz being a first term Senator leads to him being a bad President, were he to win the nomination and ultimately the election in 2016. This accusation is not just being thrown around by random people on social media. It's appearing in Commentary Magazine. After listing a handful of points of comparison between Cruz and Obama the post concludes:
In short, Ted Cruz is not, except for his highly distinguished academic career and legal clerkships, dissimilar to the present incumbent of the White House. It seems to me that the last thing this country needs come January 20th, 2017, is a right-wing Barack Obama.
Charles Krauthammer made a similar point on Fox News during Special Report saying, "We already tried a first term Senator." 

Posted by Miriam Elman on March 24, 2015 5 Comments
Between July 17 and August 5 of2014, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) destroyed 32 tunnels in Gaza — 100 kilometers of concrete-lined and accessorized passageways dug deep beneath the earth’s surface with openings near Israeli homes and kindergartens. Hamas murdered dozens of the nearly 900 diggers in its employ, fearing that they might reveal the tunnel locations to the advancing Israeli army. This vast tunnel project, estimated to have cost some $90 million, was designed to dispatch an invasion force of thousands. In one of the tunnels the IDF found half a dozen motorcycles which would’ve been used to ferry terrorists into Israel, and bring Israeli hostages out. Hamas Gaza Tunnel NYT video These lesser known facts, and hundreds more, are compiled into a new report on the 2014 Gaza War, released last week by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), an Israel-based think tank headed by Dore Gold, Israel’s former ambassador to the UN who also served as an advisor to PM Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term in the 1990s. A must-read document, written by the JCPA’s team of legal, military, media, and diplomatic experts, it details what really happened in this war that Israel never wanted, and the disaster that it miraculously averted. Warning: the document is long and dense; it’s not something you can cover in an hour, or even a day. But it’s well worth taking the time to read. The document includes hundreds of hyperlinks to relevant sources and video clips. There’s one of Hamas calling for Israel’s destruction, and another of terrorists infiltrating Israel.
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