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Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 02, 2014 6 Comments
I know, don't count your chickens. But ... I've been following the moribund and hapless campaign of Martha Robertson in my home NY-23 District since last September, when I exposed a false fundraising solicitation that GOP operatives were caught trying to take down the Robertson website. In what would become a precursor to a bizarre hide-the-candidate strategy, the Robertson campaign had shifting explanations and made promises, such as hiring a forensic expert, it did not keep. The campaign could have put the issue to rest early by simply admitting it made a mistake and offering to return donations made in reliance on the false claim, but it didn't, so the issue has lingered. Robertson's inability to admit her own weaknesses set the tone early, as Robertson's campaign went into shut-down mode on issues such has her strong support for single payer -- yeah, we found that gem video too -- and the use of Obamacare as just the first step. Martha Robertson We Need Single Payer 2009 With the exception of the City of Ithaca, the mostly rural, Republican-leaning district is not keen on getting government more involved in our lives. So a liberal Democrat like Robertson was going to have an uphill battle, and would need a solid campaign to avoid being stigmatized as just another out-of-touch Ithaca liberal. How liberal is Ithaca? When I moved here in 2008, these could have been the directions I gave people to my house:
To live in Ithaca is to live in a city alive with anti-Bush, anti-war protest. I often joke that the directions to my house in Ithaca read as follows: Take a right at the fifth Obama sign, a left at the third "Impeach Bush" placard, bear right at the "Support Our Troops, End the War" poster, and we are the house just after the "There's a Village in Texas Missing its Idiot" banner.

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 01, 2014 5 Comments
There have been reports for years that Hamas uses the main hospital in Gaza, Al-Shifa, as a headquarters. It reportedly has bunkers underneath, and uses the hospital itself. There have been tidbits of media reporting on Hamas' use of Al-Shifa as a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices. But mostly it has been covered up by reporters in Gaza, as I detailed in Media cover-up of Hamas crimes starting to unravel. Tweets have been deleted and articles taken down by reporters for major publications. One Italian reporter who left Gaza blew the whistle on the fact that it was Hamas or Islamic Jihad misfired rockets that cause a large number of deaths in a refugee camps. The victims were transported to Al-Shifa, where another rocket had already hit. A Wall Street Journal reporter tweeted, then deleted, his observation that it was a Hamas rocket that hit the hospital. Once the evidence became clear that Israel was not responsible, the media moved on, as if it never happened. The media has a narrative it wants to tell, and that narrative does not include the deaths, injuries and damage Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and others are causing. Here is a good example of how the media played up an Israeli missile striking near Western reporters:

Posted by Amy Miller on August 01, 2014 20 Comments
Last year, a student at the University of Virginia was arrested by state agents after they mistook a package of bottled water in her car for beer. However, justice has been at least partially served for Elizabeth Daly, who was 20 years old at the time of her arrest. She has been awarded $210,000 in a settlement between herself and the state of Virginia:
Attorney General Mark R. Herring announced the settlement Wednesday night with Elizabeth Daly, who had filed a $40 million federal lawsuit against agents with the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. ... Herring said the settlement was not an admission of wrongdoing by any of the parties in the lawsuit. "My goal throughout this case has been to reach a resolution that is just and fair for all parties, including Ms. Daly, the ABC and its agents, and the Commonwealth and its taxpayers," Herring said. "After careful consideration of the potentially significant costs of taking this case to trial, I believe we have reached such an outcome."

Posted by Amy Miller on August 01, 2014 20 Comments
Yesterday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the state's voter ID laws in two separate opinions that could drastically affect the rules governing the polling place come November. Although a federal court previously ruled Wisconsin's laws to be unconstitutional, Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen told the press that yesterday's separate rulings by the Wisconsin Court could convince the federal court to put its ruling on hold and allow the laws to remain in place for the fall elections. Writing for the majority, Justice Crooks stated that the challengers to the law did not meet their burden of proof when arguing that the law violated the constitutional rights of Wisconsin voters:
We conclude that the legislature did not exceed its authority under Article III of the Wisconsin Constitution when it required electors to present Act 23-acceptable photo identification. Since 1859, we have held that "it is clearly within [the legislature's] province to require any person offering to vote[] to furnish such proof as it deems requisite that he is a qualified elector." Cothren v. Lean, 9 Wis. 254 (*279), 258 (*283-84) (1859). Requiring a potential voter to identify himself or herself as a qualified elector through the use of Act 23-acceptable photo identification does not impose an elector qualification in addition to those set out in Article III, Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution.

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Posted by Casey Breznick on August 01, 2014 10 Comments
For the second time in 13 years, Argentina has defaulted on its government debt payments after failing to reach a settlement with the so-called “holdout” bondholders Wednesday night. Midnight Wednesday was the deadline of a thirty-day negotiation period during which Argentina was already in technical default, having been barred by a US Court from making its scheduled coupon payments in late June to restructured debt holders. I covered the events leading up to the technical default in this article. Here’s a summary:
  • In late 2001 Argentina defaulted on $144 billion of its government debt. It was in the midst of the 1998-2002 Argentine depression, which was itself a result of poor government policy.
  • In 2005 and again in 2010, Argentina restructured its debts and offered bondholders swaps for new bonds at 30% of their original value in order to guarantee payment. Only 7% of investors opted out of the deal.
  • These opt-outs are today’s holdouts and the ones taking Argentina to court are the “vulture funds.” Led by Elliot Management and Aurelius Capital Management, they want full payment based on the original terms. They are demanding $1.5 billion.
  • During June of this year, US District Judge Thomas Griesa ruled that Argentina must pay all of its bondholders at the same time. Argentina claimed that it could not manage to do this. The country was dealt a huge blow when the US Supreme Court refused to take the case, thereby affirming Griesa’s ruling.
  • When Griesa ordered payments to the restructured debt holders be returned to the Argentina the country entered technical default with a thirty-day period to negotiate a settlement.
  • The issue is being hashed out in New York state courts because the capital markets associated with the bond transactions are located on Wall Street which is under New York’s jurisdiction. Former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner also transferred legal jurisdiction of the matter over to New York courts during the initial debt restructuring negotiations.
For missing the $539 million payments to the restructured debt holders once again, Argentina is now in a state of default. This was despite a last-ditch effort by private Argentine bankers to prevent default by offering to compensate the holdout hedge funds or to purchase their bonds at full value.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 01, 2014 81 Comments
[This post will be "sticky" most of the day] Live Video and Twitter feed at bottom of post. The U.N. and U.S. sponsored 72-hour ceasefire only lasted barely hours, as Hamas used the lull to launch an attack in which IDF soldiers were killed and one is missing and believed kidnapped. This has led to Israeli retaliation and renewed fightings.

Posted by Amy Miller on August 01, 2014 30 Comments
On July 30, 2014, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) helped introduce the "Campus Accountability and Safety Act," a bipartisan initiative aimed at forcing universities to address and curb the problem of sexual assault on college campuses. During a press conference Wednesday, the coalition pushing the Act emphasized problems with existing policies, saying that current federal law actually encourages universities to under report sexual assaults that occur on campus. In a summary distributed to the press and public, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) said that "[t]he bipartisan Campus Accountability and Safety Act will create incentives for schools to take proactive steps to protect their students and rid their campuses of sexual predators." The full breakdown of the Act states several key goals:
  1. Establish new campus resources and support services for student survivors
  2. Ensure minimum training standards for on-campus personnel
  3. Create new historic transparency requirements
  4. Increase campus accountability and coordination with law enforcement
  5. Establish enforceable Title IX penalties and stiffer penalties for Clery Act violations

Posted by Bruce Carroll on July 31, 2014 18 Comments
In extraordinary backtracking today, Central Intelligence Agency chief John Brennan apologized to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) because some CIA officers improperly accessed computers used by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. A declassified CIA inspector general's report released to the Senators on Thursday revealed that agency officers improperly accessed Senate computers, read emails of Senate committee staff, and tried to hide their actions from agency investigators. From the Los Angeles Times:
In a statement issued by the agency, a CIA spokesman said Director John Brennan had apologized to Senate Intelligence Committee chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and other committee leaders for the computer search. The spokesman said the agency’s inspector general had found evidence that CIA officers’ actions were “inconsistent with the common understanding” between the agency and committee. “The director is committed to correcting any shortcomings related to this matter,” CIA spokesman Dean Boyd said Thursday. The CIA has set up an accountability board, led by former Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, to review the inspector general’s findings and recommend disciplinary actions, if necessary, Boyd said.
Feinstein raised eyebrows in March when she made the original snooping allegations against the CIA during a speech on the Senate floor. It turns out she was right and Brennan had to eat crow today. The big question now is will Brennan remain as the head of the CIA. He has always been a controversial player in Washington, DC, and today's revelations may be the beginning of his end.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 31, 2014 8 Comments
UPDATE 8-1-2014: The ceasefire lasted just a few hours as Hamas used the lull to launch an attack in which Israeli soldiers were killed and one is believed kidnapped. More to follow in separate post. --------------- John Kerry and Ban Ki Moon just announced that all sides have agreed to a 72-hour "humanitarian truce" starting 8 a.m. tomorrow (Israel time, about 7 hours from the time this post goes live). CNN reports that Hamas and other terrorist groups have accepted. The negotiations apparently were held in Egypt, which had proposed a ceasefire two weeks ago that Israel accepted and Hamas rejected. It appears that all forces stay in place. It's unclear whether and to what extend Israel can continue to search out new tunnels or blow up ones already located. Here is the statement: Joint Statement of Gaza Ceasefire US State Department Details to follow below.

Posted by Andrew Branca on July 31, 2014 33 Comments
Well today continued to be a bad, bad day for the Prosecution in the Detroit trial of Theodore Wafer, charged with second degree murder for the shooting death of Renisha McBride on his front porch in the early morning hours of November 2, 2013.  The prosecution team seems to completely lose its footing when tasked with cross-examination, in part (I would suggest) due to the extraordinarily high quality of the defense's expert witnesses. I recounted in today's mid-day wrap-up how the wheels seemed to come entirely off of the prosecutorial train when they sought to engage with defense forensic pathology expert Dr. Werner Spitz (you can read all about that here:  Detroit Front Porch Shooting case: Day 6 Mid-Day Wrap-Up) and taking a lunch break didn't seem to help them pull things together.  I note, as an aside, that Dr. Spitz is 87-years-old, and yet it was the prosecution that came across as tired and inept. The prosecution's cross-examination of Dr. Spitz continued after lunch, and they sought to impeach his credibility via the mechanism of contradicting him with his own work product--to wit, his 9 pound textbook on forensic pathology.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 31, 2014 7 Comments

Milton Wolf is closing in the polls, although Pat Roberts still has a sizable double digit lead. But in a primary, particularly a closed primary, momentum and turnout can be everything, and that has Roberts supporters worried. The Kansas political machine remembers Mississippi, and how close that...

Posted by Andrew Branca on July 31, 2014 28 Comments
Welcome, all to the morning of the 6th day of the Michigan front porch shooting case, in which homeowner Theodore Wafer is up on second degree murder charges for the shooting death of an extraordinarily intoxicated and likely concussed Renisha McBride on his front porch ~4:00 AM on November 2, 2013.

Continued Direct Examination by Defense of Expert Witness Dr. Werner Spitz, Forensic Pathologist

The morning began with the continuation of the defense's first witness, forensic pathologist (and former medical examiner of the local county for 16 years) Dr. Werner Spitz.  The heart of this morning's direct focused on evidence of swelling of McBride's hands.  Such swelling would run consistent with the defense narrative that McBride did not merely knock politely on Wafer's door in those early morning hours, but was doing so with sufficient force to actually injure herself to the point of swelling and bleeding. The swelling and bleeding could not have come from McBride's early car crash, Spitz testified, because it would have subsided/clotted respectively in the intervening three and a half hours before her death on Wafer's porch.  Indeed, these characteristics of swelling and bleeding made it all but certain that the injuries occurred in the minutes immediately preceding her death--e.g., within proximity of Wafer's home.

Posted by Amy Miller on July 31, 2014 34 Comments
Today, the House initiated an effort to retaliate against President Obama for his failure to enforce the law. The Resolution, spearheaded by John Boehner (R-OH), would give the Speaker of the House the authority to bring legal action accusing the Administration of using Executive Orders as an end-run around Congress. Via the Washington Post:
The nearly party-line vote Wednesday, 225 Republicans voting yes and 201 Democratic nays, illustrated the increasingly polarized climate on Capitol Hill as both parties used the pending federal suit as a rallying cry to their voting bases ahead of the November elections. Halfway across the continent Obama basked in the House’s GOP move, almost gloating at the prospect of being sued for the actions he has taken in the face of a historically high level of congressional gridlock. “They’re going to sue me for taking executive actions to help people. So they’re mad I’m doing my job,” Obama said at an economics speech in Kansas City. “And by the way, I’ve told them I’d be happy to do with you. The only reason I’m doing it on my own is because you’re not doing anything.”
In a conference call with bloggers and the media on Wednesday, House Republican Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) emphasized the fact that this move by House Republicans has nothing to do with party affiliation, and everything to do with Obama's "willingness to sidestep Congress, [and] to create his own laws." "We're hopeful that the courts will see this as a constitutional crisis where we have the executive branch making decisions outside of their authority," said Representative Rodgers, emphasizing the importance of maintaining the Constitutional separation of powers.
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