Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

/var/www/vhosts/legalinsurrection.com/httpdocs/wp-content/themes/bridge-child/readFeeds.incFALSE

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 16, 2014 13 Comments
@Salondotcom was a brilliant parody account mocking Salon.com (@Salon), run by a couple of libertarian guys. The parodies were pitch perfect, making it difficult to tell if it was the real thing, or not. Apparently the parody account upset someone, because it has been kicked off Twitter. I just pulled some recent tweets from the real @Salon account linking to stories at Salon.com. Seriously, has anything changed?

LATEST NEWS

Posted by Bruce Carroll on July 16, 2014 23 Comments
First it was Vice President Joe Biden who said paying higher taxes was "patriotic." Now, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has resurrected the taxes-as-patriotism meme for the Obama White House. Secretary Lew used the phrase "economic patriotism" this morning on his interview on CNBC to discuss the Administration's new plans to regulate the corporate marketplace.
"Congress should enact legislation immediately," Lew told a business conference in New York hosted by cable television channel CNBC. "We should have some economic patriotism here." Lew's remarks came amid a wave of corporate deals known as inversions, in which a U.S. company shifts its tax home base to a lower-tax country by combining with a company based in that country. Popular destinations are Ireland, Britain, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The deals are still rare, but a flurry of them in recent months has prompted concern in Washington. Medical technology group Medtronic Inc plans to buy Dublin-based rival Covidien Plc and shift its tax home base to Ireland. Drugstore chain Walgreen Co is weighing a possible inversion. Drugmaker Pfizer Inc's bid in April to buy UK rival AstraZeneca Plc was structured as an inversion. That deal fell through, but it drew attention to inversions.
According to the letter Secretary Lew sent to Congress today, he urged them to pass legislation to "prevent companies from effectively renouncing their citizenship to get out of paying taxes."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 16, 2014 10 Comments
If you followed our coverage of the Boycott Divest and Sanction movement on campuses this past academic year, you would know that the BDS movement on campus was on the verge of violence. From confrontations with professors, to dorm storming, to vandalism, to publication of a Nazi cartoon, to disruptions of speeches and demands for Zionists to get off campus, to takeovers of student government offices, to demands for a new Intifada, to intimidation of Jewish students, to defacing pro-Israel posters, to seeking disqualification of pro-Israel students from student government, to threats from faculty at one college to boycott me, and so on. The tactic was to completely dehumanize Israeli Jews, and BDS gets support from some influential faculty in such endeavors. The campus BDS movement came unhinged this past academic year in part because of failures on campus, leading to calls for "direct action." And that was before the July 2014 Gaza conflict. Now we are witnessing a worldwide upsurge of open anti-Semitism in which BDS is part of the message, accompanied by threats and in some cases violence, including in the United States.  We already have seen  in the reaction The threatening face of anti-Israel boycotters in America. (language warning) Haaretz reports, Anti-Israel protests go viral - and violent - in U.S. and Europe:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 16, 2014 13 Comments
Recent fundraising filings show that Democrat challenger Martha Robertson has raised a fair amount of money in her challenge to incumbent Tom Reed in my home district NY-23. Robertson is a DCCC "red to blue" designee, so it's not surprising that money is flowing to her. But Robertson is not spending much -- which is consistent with what I've noticed, that she's all but non-existent in the media and the campaign trail. And she's still ducking the media, as noted by the host in the local radio interview I did the other day:
"We cannot get Martha Robertson to come on any, I want to underline that, any of our programs or to react to any charges made against her."
http://youtu.be/klXHl7MmndI?t=18m34s This is consistent with a pattern we have seen before, Martha Robertson’s hiding act becomes campaign issue in #NY23. When I tried to ask her questions at a public forum at Cornell, she was evasive and her handlers tried to shut me down. Laying low may not be helping Robertson. The Buffalo News reports that Robertson's campaign fundraising strength may not reflect actual competitiveness:

Posted by Andrew Branca on July 16, 2014 48 Comments
It is axiomatic that the freedom of speech provisions of the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution are specifically intended to protect unpopular and/or offensive speech. After all, speech that is neither unpopular nor offensive is, obviously, not in need of any particular protections.  It is equally indisputable that of all the various forms of speech possible, it is political and religious speech that lies at the heart of 1st Amendment protections.

Meet Todd Kincannon, that &$(#*&%! Lawyer from South Carolina

In the context of the Conservative polito-sphere one of the greatest founts of offensive conservative political and religious speech is South Carolina lawyer (and former head of the SC Republican Party) Todd Kincannon, particularly through the vehicle of his Twitter account, @Todd__Kincannon (note that there are two underscores). Despite Todd’s in-your-face, abrasive political and religious speech—or, as seems more likely, precisely because of it—the @Todd__Kincannon Twitter account has acquired in excess of 50,000 followers. To put this figure in some context, this very highly successful and well-respected legal blog on which I am writing this post has just over 14,000 followers of its @LegInsurrection Twitter account. My own @LawSelfDefense Twitter account has only about 4,000 followers.

Kincannon Reports SC Officials Are Threatening His Law License Over Speech

Todd is now reporting that the South Carolina governmental authorities responsible for governing the professional conduct and ethics of attorneys have decided that Todd’s conservative political and religious advocacy on Twitter, and elsewhere, is too offensive to be permitted, and needs to be gagged. Specifically, Todd has written that the South Carolina Commission on Lawyer Conduct and the South Carolina Office of Disciplinary Counsel have informed him that his political and religious commentary is “unethical” to a degree sufficient to warrant legal sanction to the point of disbarment. (The South Carolina Judicial Department definitions of lawyer misconduct can be found here: Rule 8.4: Misconduct.) More specifically, Todd writes that these governmental agencies have threatened him with disbarment should he proceed with his planned publication of a book advocating conservative political and religious beliefs. This past June they also informed Todd that following a two-year investigation based on a small number of complaints—none alleging anything other than offensive political and religious speech—they were electing to continue rather than cease the investigation because of comments Todd had made on his @Todd__Kincannon Twitter account regarding a left-wing political activist. As a result, Todd felt compelled to cease his Twitter communications effective June 22, and he has been silent in that forum since then. In short, these South Carolina government officials are purportedly seeking to strip Todd of his professional license to practice law based solely upon his Constitutionally protected exercise of his right to freedom of political and religious speech.

Kincannon Breaks Silence With Email to Purchasers of His Book

Todd revealed this current state of affairs in an email released to persons who had pre-ordered copies of his book, in explanation for why they would not be receiving their ordered books in as timely a manner as they had expected.

LEGAL INSURRECTION QUICK TAKES

Duke University Employees Donated $1.6 Million to Democrats

Opposition to Epic Fury on Twitter/X Being Led by Non-American Accounts

Student Govt. at U. Maryland-College Park Pledges Solidarity With Islamic Republic of Iran

Research Finds College Student Loneliness Tied to Heavy Social Media Usage

Regents Order U. Iowa to Discipline Employee Who Bragged About Getting Around DEI Ban

UC-Riverside Prof Wants to Get Rid of Terms Like 'Gay' and 'Lesbian' Because They Harm Trans People

SEE MORE

Posted by Mandy Nagy on July 16, 2014 2 Comments
The Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee is scheduled to hold a confirmation hearing next Tuesday for Obama’s nomination for Veterans’ Affairs Secretary. From Politico:
The Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs will hold a nomination hearing next week for Robert McDonald, the White House’s choice to lead the embattled Department of Veterans Affairs. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.,) the committee chairman, said his panel will hold a confirmation hearing on July 22 for McDonald. “At a time when we have unacceptably long waiting times for VA health care and when some 500,000 veterans have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury, it is absolutely imperative that the VA move to provide quality care in a timely manner to all of our veterans,” Sanders said.
McDonald was identified late last month as Obama’s pick to run the troubled agency. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. in the top two percent of his class and served in the Army for five years, according to the Washington Post. McDonald was also a former CEO for Procter and Gamble, where he faced some challenges of his own. But many seem to be hoping that McDonald’s combination of military service and corporate experience will be the right mix to help fix some of the issues facing the VA. And those issues are plenty, as recent audits have revealed the secretive waiting lists in VA facilities that were intended to conceal actual waiting times, and reports have detailed the numerous veterans waiting months for their first appointments or not getting appointments at all.

Posted by New Neo on July 16, 2014 16 Comments
Obama is often criticized for refusing to enforce laws. But this time he's being criticized for enforcing the 2008 Act of Congress that requires that unaccompanied minors from countries other than Mexico and Canada be given special treatment. However, the bill in question---the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008---dealt with a very different set of circumstances and was never envisioned as applying to what's happening now. As its name suggests, it was aimed at stopping human trafficking, and only a small part of the law dealt with unaccompanied minors from other countries, and even that portion was written in the context of the children being presumed human trafficking victims. Back when the law was passed, there were no hordes of unaccompanied minors coming here from Central America in an attempt to gain entry on rumored promises of amnesty. Obama is also very inconsistent about his enforcement. He ignores the laws he doesn't like, or changes them, but with those that suit his purpose he falls back on the idea that he simply must obey the law. It's his intentionally selective enforcement that's the problem. In particular, if Obama enforced the laws on border security, Wilberforce wouldn't have become such a problem in the first place. Concerning Wilberforce, Charles Lane invokes the law of unintended consequences, legislative version:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 16, 2014 12 Comments

From Mary: I made these bumper "stickers" today so that I can change the message around when it suits me. I based them on those silly refrigerator magnets that were so popular years ago. The magnetic material is available at most sign shops for a nominal fee....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 15, 2014 26 Comments
I know, you thought I'd been trolling you these past few months with all my writing about how Elizabeth Warren might actually run for President, and how she would crush Hillary if she did (and they both know it). But I wasn't trolling. Warren's surge in the Wisconsin delegate straw poll was noticed mostly only by us, but was a sign that there could be a groundswell of support. Despite all her present tense denials, there is no doubt in my mind that Warren is seriously considering running but waiting until Democrats demand it. Warren is a unique political talent, in ways we have been documenting since early 2012. There is no one on the political scene today who plays upon and preys upon a sense of victimization and envy as well as Warren. So it doesn't surprise me that Ready for Warren has formed, as reported at HuffPo:
An enthusiastic band of activists has launched a campaign to slow the momentum of Hillary Clinton and convince Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that she should run for president in 2016. "I think there's an opportunity for us to convince her if we're really able to make the case as to why we think she's the right person," said Erica Sagrans, who has signed on as the Ready For Warren campaign manager. The group already has a Facebook page, Twitter account and a new website with a petition encouraging Warren to run. Sagrans, who worked on President Barack Obama's re-election campaign, will be joined by political activist Billy Wimsatt, who previously founded the League of Young Voters and is going to be a senior adviser to the new group. Reached for comment, Lacey Rose, Warren's press secretary, told HuffPost, "No, Senator Warren does not support this effort."
They are not intimidated by the well-monied Ready for Hillary:

Posted by Bruce Carroll on July 15, 2014 7 Comments
One of the most vocal critics of President Barack Obama's lackluster response to the exploding southern border crisis is one of the few Southern Democrats left in Congress: U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX). Cuellar was among the only lawmaker in his party to smack down the President last week during the "will he or won't he visit the border" phase of the crisis. From Politico last week:
“He’ll be 500 miles from Dallas and, in fact, he’ll be 242 miles from Austin, Texas, at the other fundraising he’ll be having,” Cuellar told Andrea Mitchell on MSNBCS, referring to Obama’s destinations during his two-day trip to Texas beginning Wednesday. “So, he’s so close to the border. And let me say this. When I saw — and I hate to use the word ‘bizarre,’ but under the circumstances — when he is shown playing pool in Colorado, drinking a beer, and he can’t even go 242 miles to the Texas border?” “If he had time, with all due respect, to have a beer and play pool like he did in Colorado last night, then I think after the fundraisers he should make time to go down there,” he said.
Here's how The White House treated Cuellar's criticism. They told him to shut up. But Cuellar isn't backing down.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 15, 2014 53 Comments
An argument which is being used against Israel and which is quite nonsensical is that the low Israeli casualty rate from over a thousand Hamas rockets somehow makes the higher Palestinian casualty rate a war crime or otherwise indefensible. It's true that the casualty rate is lopsided, but that has nothing to do with breach of law or intent to kill. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others in Gaza fire rockets from civilian areas, and conceal their weapons and leadership in and under civilian buildings. The only way for Israel to defend itself is to target the source of the rocket fire and to seek out command and control structures located in civilian areas. Israel goes to extraordinary and unprecedented lengths not to kill civilians. From warnings via text message and telephone, to public announcements and leaflets, to roof tapping (use of inert warheads to shake a building as warning to get out, usually 15 minutes in advance), to calling off airstrikes. If any other military in the history of humankind has gone to such lengths, please tell me. As in every single military campaign in the history of modern warfare, sometimes mistakes are made. But to deny Israel's efforts is to deny reality. Hamas and the others have no such concerns. Their rockets are fired almost exclusively into heavily populated civilian areas, the one exception being targeting of the Dimona nuclear reactor. So when not trying to kill civilians directly, Hamas tries to create a nuclear leak to kill civilians indirectly. The low Israeli casualty rate is due to the extraordinary efforts of the Israeli government to protect its civilians -- including extensive bomb shelters and safe structures on streets. And of course, the Iron Dome system that shoots down rockets heading for populated areas. So on the one side we have homicidal Hamas maniacs targeting civilians and using civilians as human shields, and on the other side we have Israel trying to avoid killing Palestinian civilians and protecting its Israeli civilians. The result is an imbalance in civilian casualties in Israel's favor. But that imbalance is not proof of anything other than which side values civilian life. Israel's good behavior, however, does not go unpunished. Islamists and leftists accuse the party trying to avoid civilians casualties (Israel) of being the equivalent of Hitler, as they spew their Jew hatred openly around the world. But it's not just street mobs who play this perverse game. Some Western commentators use Israel's protection of its civilians as evidence that Israel is acting unjustly or even in violation of international law. Here are three examples:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 15, 2014 31 Comments
How expansive is electronic espionage? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly does not have a computer in his office, does not use email and does not have a private phone. I read a while ago that he even uses hand signals in some situations, although I can't find the link now. There's every reason to believe many major national intelligence agencies have similar capabilities, they just don't have Edward Snowdens willing or able to walk off with the proof. You know, imprisoned or dead families could be the consequence elsewhere. So frustrated with U.S. snooping is Germany that it is considering going to old school typewriters, via The Guardian, Germany 'may revert to typewriters' to counter hi-tech espionage:
German politicians are considering a return to using manual typewriters for sensitive documents in the wake of the US surveillance scandal. The head of the Bundestag's parliamentary inquiry into NSA activity in Germany said in an interview with the Morgenmagazin TV programme that he and his colleagues were seriously thinking of ditching email completely. Asked "Are you considering typewriters" by the interviewer on Monday night, the Christian Democrat politican Patrick Sensburg said: "As a matter of fact, we have – and not electronic models either". "Really?", the surprised interviewer checked. "Yes, no joke", Sensburg responded.
While typewriters might be harder to spy on, they hardly are foolproof, as the U.S. Embassy in Moscow discovered back in the day (1986): Soviets Bug Typewriters in U.S. Embassy * * * Soviets Bug Typewriters in U.S. Embassy sounds More on the typewriter espionage here:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 15, 2014 12 Comments
This week we have seen a rise in open anti-Semitism throughout the world as protests against Israel spread in reaction to the Gaza conflict. It is expected in places like Pakistan and some Arab countries, where hatred and demonization of Jews always is in the open. But what is remarkable is that it is in the open in Europe and to a lesser extent in the United States.  And the heart of the hate is a coalition of leftists and Islamists -- a coalition we have written about for years regarding places such as Malmö, Sweden, and British universities. Anti-Israeli protesters carrying Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) banners and messages attacked a Synagogue in Paris while it was packed with worshipppers. In Boston, an anti-Israel protester not only attacked a pro-Israel student, she shouted that there would be no place for Jews once Israel was defeated -- only for Christian and Muslims: "We'll claim back Jerusalem, Christians and Muslims." The protest was organized by leftist and anti-Israel "Jewish Voice for Peace" -- which is anything but. Throughout the U.S. comparisons of Israelis to Nazis were predominant at demonstrations, including anti-Semitic smears. In Frankfurt, Islamist and leftists were joined by neo-Nazis, as reported by The Jerusalem Post:
A demonstration in Frankfurt against Operation Protective Edge erupted into violence, with protesters tossing stones at the police. According to the Frankfurter Rundschau paper, about 2,500 protesters appeared in downtown Frankfurt, screaming “God is great,” and slogans such as “freedom for Palestine” and “children-murderer Israel.” Eight police officers were injured. One sign at the rally was titled, “You Jews are Beasts.” German media reported that after the protests, groups sought to locate Jewish institutions. The Frankfurt police said Jewish institutions would be protected. It is unclear if the goal was to attack said institutions
The JPost did not run the photo, but I believe this is the sign "The Jews are Beasts" to which they were referring (see Featured Image also):

Posted by Mandy Nagy on July 15, 2014 4 Comments
Testimony from the VA Office of Inspector General released ahead of a House committee hearing on Monday indicates that the agency is still facing challenges in reducing a backlog of disability claims. From The Hill:
Despite claims by the Veterans Affairs Department that it has made significant progress in reducing its enormous disability claims backlog, the agency’s internal watchdog says the handling of such requests remains troubled. The VA Office of Inspector General found that thousands of cases were subtracted from the VA case log even though people were still working on them, according to testimony that will be provided to the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee at a hearing on Monday night. Investigators also discovered that the VA did not follow up with veterans who were granted temporary 100 percent disability payments. The VA was supposed to follow up to see if their health had improved. Because it didn’t, the VA has overpaid veterans about $85 million since 2012, and could potentially over-pay another $370 million in the next five years. The agency’s Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), the office responsible for providing various kinds of monetary compensation to those who served in uniform, “continues to face challenges to ensure veterans receive timely and accurately [sic] benefits and services,” Linda Halliday, an assistant inspector general at the department, will say in testimony to the panel.
This comes of course as the VA is already under fire after a recent audit revealed long wait times for many veterans’ first appointments with a VA facility, while even more veterans who enrolled never received appointments at all. And a previous review found that the practice of secret waiting lists to hide actual wait times was a problem that was systemic across the VA network of facilities.

Posted by David Gerstman on July 15, 2014 12 Comments
Prof. Jacobson posted yesterday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted an Egyptian ceasefire proposal. This morning Israel's security cabinet accepted the Egyptian proposal. The New York Times reports:
Israel has accepted Egypt’s proposal for a cessation of hostilities with Hamas and other militant Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip, the prime minister’s office announced at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, the appointed hour for the start of the cease-fire in the proposal made by Cairo on Monday night. “In accordance with the government directives, the I.D.F. now holds fire,” Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman, said in a statement nearly two hours later, using the abbreviation for the Israel Defense Forces. “We remain alert and preserve high preparedness levels, both defensive and offensive. If the Hamas terror organization will fire at Israel, we shall respond.”
Hamas, as The Washington Post reported, rejected the Egyptian proposal.
A senior Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, called the proposal “unacceptable” and complained that Egyptians have not spoken with the Gaza leadership. The group’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigade, wrote on its Web site that the initiative was “not worth the ink it was written with” and “the resistance will continue until all the demands of our people are met.”
Arutz-7 reports that according to the IDF approximately 35 rockets have been fired into Israel since the ceasefire. One hit a house in Ashdod but there were no injuries:
MORE POSTS
Accessibility by WAH