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Posted by Amy Miller on July 07, 2014 15 Comments
The latest series of polling data suggests that support for school choice in America is on the rise. A 2013 Luntz Global Public Opinion Survey (via National School Choice Week) showed that a majority of Americans fully support having more flexibility and more choice in their child's education:
  • Public support for school choice is growing. 73 percent of Americans support school choice, compared with 67 percent in 2010.
  • Parents want more education options for their children. 64 percent of parents said that, “if given the financial opportunity” they would send one or all of their children to a different school.
  • Parents don’t feel they have enough options. 64 percent of parents agreed with the statement: “when it comes to the options to educate my children the way I want them educated, I have wanted more options for my children’s education.”
The Franklin Center recently released a new video touting their support of school choice and charter schools. Check it out here: If we want to address the problem with public schools in America, we need to get over the idea that there's a one-size fits-all solution to improving our education system.

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Posted by Mike LaChance on July 07, 2014 3 Comments
Tracy Oppenheimer of Reason TV recently interviewed Frank Buckley, an author and law professor at George Mason University. Buckley contends that the power of the presidency has strayed from what the framers intended:
Presidential Power and the Rise of American Monarchy: Q&A with Author Frank Buckley "America is dropping like a stone in rankings of freedom. As power accumulates in one person, expect that to continue," says Frank Buckley, George Mason University law professor and author of the new book, The Once and Future King: The Rise of Crown Government in America. Buckley sat down with Reason TV's Tracy Oppenheimer to discuss how the U.S. presidency has evolved into what he calls "something like an elective monarch." He says that this is not what the framers of the Constitution had intended, nor did they conceive of the modern version of the separation of powers. "A parliamentary regime was more or less what the framers wanted...as far as the separation of powers is concerned," says Buckley "instead of a device to constrain a president, it's one which immunizes him from criticism by Congress."
Here's the video: With all that in mind, John Daniel Davidson of The Federalist has a recommendation for you and your family this holiday weekend.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 07, 2014 12 Comments
Israel is undergoing intense soul searching, as a nation, for the actions of what are believed to be 6 Israeli Jews in murdering an Israeli Arab teen, Mohammed Abu Khedair, in retaliation for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens, Gil-ad Shaar, Eyal Yifrach and Naftali Fraenkel. Much of that criticism is internal. Members of Israel's Knesset unanimously condemned the murder, as has every prominent Israeli leader. The Editor in Chief of The Times of Israel writes that " the killing of Muhammed Abu Khdeir must rid us of the illusion that we enjoy a distinctive moral superiority over our neighbors." An Israeli Jewish group is organizing a visit to the family of the murdered teen. Israeli President Shimon Peres termed the murder a crisis of morality:
President Shimon Peres says Israel is in a deep crisis of morality following the arrest of six people in the killing of Palestinian teen Muhammed Abu Khdeir last week. “We did not believe that such a heinous crime could take place among our people. We mustn’t be such a people,” Peres says. “Today ‘out of Zion shall go forth the shame,’” he says, paraphrasing a famous Bible quote. “There is no justification for death and no crime is more acceptable than another,” the president adds. “My heart aches with the grieving Abu Khdeir family and with the grieving Shaar, Yifrach and Fraenkel families.”

Posted by A.F. Branco on July 07, 2014 3 Comments

Note: You may reprint this cartoon provided you link back to this source.  To see more Legal Insurrection Branco cartoons, click here. Branco’s page is Cartoonist A.F.Branco...

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Posted by Bruce Carroll on July 06, 2014 11 Comments
After an extraordinary four-month data-crunching investigation of material leaked by Edward Snowden, the Washington Post let off some fireworks this Fourth of July weekend. Their investigation proves that the National Security Agency (NSA) has monitored many more ordinary Americans' internet usage than non-American foreigners under suspicion of terrorist activities.
Nine of 10 account holders found in a large cache of intercepted conversations, which former NSA contractor Edward Snowden provided in full to The Post, were not the intended surveillance targets but were caught in a net the agency had cast for somebody else. Many of them were Americans. Nearly half of the surveillance files, a strikingly high proportion, contained names, e-mail addresses or other details that the NSA marked as belonging to U.S. citizens or residents. NSA analysts masked, or “minimized,” more than 65,000 such references to protect Americans’ privacy, but The Post found nearly 900 additional e-mail addresses, unmasked in the files, that could be strongly linked to U.S. citizens or U.S.residents. The surveillance files highlight a policy dilemma that has been aired only abstractly in public. There are discoveries of considerable intelligence value in the intercepted messages — and collateral harm to privacy on a scale that the Obama administration has not been willing to address.

Posted by Mike LaChance on July 06, 2014 7 Comments
Wendy Davis supporters are pretty excited about her campaign for governor of Texas but when pressed to name one of her legislative accomplishments, they're surprisingly silent. Yehuda Remer of Truth Revolt sees a pattern:
Just as Hillary Clinton supporters were unable to name a single accomplishment of the former Secretary of State, Wendy Davis’ supporters are in the same boat. A new video by Texans for Greg Abbott features an interviewer asking supporters of Davis at the 2014 Texas Democratic Convention what her greatest legislative achievements were.
Here's the video: Liberals are already preparing themselves for Wendy Davis to lose.

Posted by David Gerstman on July 06, 2014 10 Comments
While the media has been focused on the arrests of up to six Jews in the killing of Mohammed Abu Kheidr, Arab violence against Israel has been continuing. The Jerusalem Post reports:
The Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council area was battered with ten rockets from Gaza. Residents of the communities in the Sha'ar Hanegev area were instructed to remain in fortified shelters. Three rockets hit the Eshkol Regional Council area , one of which started a brush fire, and an additional two rockets landed in open territory in the Ashkelon Coast Council region.
In addition for the first time since 2012, a rocket hit Be'ersheva. 2014-07-06_094248_IDF_Tweet Elder of Ziyon notes a number of attacks in and near Jerusalem and elsewhere over the weekend; including the torching of Joseph's Tomb in Nablus (Shechem)...

Posted by Mandy Nagy on July 06, 2014 0 Comments

Research into social media's impact on relationships, Twitter drama, Open Carry Guitar rally and more....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 06, 2014 10 Comments
Reports this morning from Israel indicate that six Israeli Jews have been arrested in the murder of Mohammed Abu Kheidr, apparently as retaliation for the murder of three Israeli teens, Gil-ad Shaar, Eyal Yifrach and Naftali Fraenkel. The Times of Israel reports:
Six suspects have been arrested and interrogated in connection with the murder of 16-year-old Muhammed Abu Khdeir, whose burned body was found in the Jerusalem forest on Wednesday morning Police on Sunday said only that a “dramatic development” in the investigation has led them to believe that the act was most likely carried out by Jewish extremists in revenge for the killing of three Israeli teenagers earlier in June. “Apparently the people arrested in relation to the case belong to an extremist Jewish group,” an unnamed official was quoted by AFP as saying.... Police initially said they were investigating various avenues in the teen’s death, including criminal or personal motives, while Israeli social media abounded with rumors that he had been killed because he was gay or as part of an ongoing family feud. On Saturday, the Palestinian Authority attorney-general, Dr. Muhammed Abed al-Ghani al-Aweiwi, said that Abu Khdeir was burned alive, according to the preliminary findings of the autopsy.
We will update when additional details are released by the police. In the meantime, the murder needs to be condemned unconditionally, and not celebrated or excused the way many Palestinians and BDS supporters immediately excused the killing of the three Israeli teens as a reaction to supposed Israeli crimes. These sentiments below are true, but in no way excuse what happened to Khdeir: Kidnapped Israeli Teens (added) This case of an Israeli teenager, Shelly Dadon, on way to job interview who was stabbed to death has received almost no international media attention:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 06, 2014 3 Comments

Texas-sized...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 05, 2014 22 Comments
Please make it stop. First they came for Black List, Baa Baa Black Sheep,Rejigger, Providence Plantations, Black Friday, Gobbledygook, Illegal Immigrant, Undocumented Immigrant, Master Bedroom, Chink in the Armor, and even the use of white copy paper and brown bagging it to lunch. Politically correct speech has become an Albatross around our necks. Then they came for the paint, and there were few words left to defend it. Fired employee sues paint company over racist paint names:
A black man in New Jersey has filed a lawsuit against his former employer, Benjamin Moore Paints, which he says named one of its paint colors after him and then fired him when he complained.

Posted by Bruce Carroll on July 05, 2014 3 Comments
The self-proclaimed leader of the united Islamic State, or Caliphate, appeared for the first time in public on Saturday since his military organization took large parts of territory in northern Iraq. Before being named "caliph" Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (known as ISIS).
In a sign of [ISIS] confidence, the hitherto secretive Baghdadi made an unprecedented public appearance in the militant-held north Iraq city of Mosul, ordering Muslims to obey him, according to a video distributed online on Saturday.
Baghdadi addressed followers in a mosque in Mosul and delivered a Ramadan prayer and call to arms. According to @Francois_Gatete -- here are several excerpts of the video translated into English.

Posted by Mike LaChance on July 05, 2014 6 Comments
In his new column at the Washington Post, George Will examines the recent rulings of the Supreme Court on Hobby Lobby and unions. As usual, Will has the facts on his side:
The Supreme Court reins in government bullies

Two 5 to 4 decisions this week, on the final decision day of the Supreme Court’s term, dealt with issues that illustrate the legal consequences of political tactics by today’s progressives. One case demonstrated how progressivism’s achievement, the regulatory state, manufactures social strife and can do so in ways politically useful to progressives. The other case arose from government coercion used to conscript unwilling citizens into funding the progressives’ party.

Under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), any government action that substantially burdens religious practices will be subject to strict judicial scrutiny to determine if it, rather than some less intrusive measure, is necessary to achieve a compelling government interest. The Affordable Care Act, as supplemented by regulations, requires for-profit employers to provide health-care coverage that includes all 20 Food and Drug Administration-approved birth control methods.

These include four that prevent a fertilized egg from being implanted in the uterus. Some persons consider this tantamount to abortion and oppose these abortifacients for religious reasons. Why did Congress, having enacted RFRA, write this clearly incompatible birth control mandate? Congress didn’t.

Read the entire column here.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration is scrambling to find a way to work around the Hobby Lobby ruling.

Posted by Mike LaChance on July 05, 2014 3 Comments
The Obama administration has a habit of releasing new regulations at the beginning of holiday weekends and the 4th of July is no exception. While most Americans are planning outings with family and friends for picnics and fireworks, 1,300 pages of new Obamacare regulations were released. Larry O'Connor of Truth Revolt reported:
Holiday Document Dump: 1,300 Pages Of Obamacare Regs On July 4th Eve The Department of Health and Human Services released nearly 1,300 pages of new regulations related to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) at 4:15 Thursday, just as the nation was beginning their Independence Day holiday weekend. The regulations deal with payment rates to doctors and hospitals. How doctors get paid by HHS through the new, overreaching Obamacare guidelines has been an item of concern for the American Medical Association, a key supporter of the health care law.
Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner also noted the timing:
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