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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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Posted by A.F. Branco on July 31, 2014 6 Comments

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Posted by Andrew Branca on July 30, 2014 7 Comments
So we find ourselves at the end-of-day wrap-up for day 5 of the murder trial of Theodor Wafer for the shooting death of Renisha McBride on his Detroit front porch in the early morning hours of November 2, 2013.  This afternoon the State would rest with its final witness, Medical Examiner Dr. Kila Kesha, the defense would have its motion for a directed verdict summarily dismissed, and proceed to begin its case with its own expert witness Medical Examiner, Dr. Werner Spitz (pictured above). Highlights of the afternoon included some continued questionable conduct around the magically appearing-disappearing-appearing $100 bill. Defense counsel Cheryl Carpenter is still obviously unhappy with the tenuous explanations offered for this--particularly as it followed that while the Prosecution, their LEO witnesses, and McBride's mother have all claimed that she was delivered the $100 by ME Kesha, he himself testified that he'd never seen the $100, according to observers present at the court house. More substantive, however, was the direct expert witness testimony--to be continued tomorrow--of defense witness Dr. Spitz. The key vulnerability of Wafer's self-defense claim is on the issue of reasonableness, or lack thereof. The law does not, however, require that the person acting in self-defense be perfect in their reasonableness. To the contrary their conduct is judged on the basis of whether it was that of a reasonable and prudent person, under the same or similar circumstances, possessing the same or similar capabilities, the same or similar specialized knowledge, and under the same degree of stress. As the Supreme Court noted almost 100 years ago:

Posted by Bruce Carroll on July 30, 2014 14 Comments
Shocking new emails released today by U.S. Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee shows Ms. Lerner's mistreatment of conservative groups was driven by her 'personal hostility toward conservatives.'
The November 9, 2012 email exchange with an unnamed colleague – the person's name was redacted in the copy Camp's staff released publicly – took place while Lerner was in the United Kingdom. 'Overheard some ladies talking about American[s] today,' Lerner wrote. 'According to them we've bankrupted ourselves and a[re] through. We'll never be able to pay off our debt and are going down the tubes.' Turning sarcastic, Lerner pounced on her British acquaintances. The conversation turned ugly when Lerner's writing companion let loose first on conservatives. 'Well, you should hear the whacko wing of the GOP,' the person replied. 'The US is through; too many foreigners sucking the teat; time to hunker down, buy ammo and food, and prepare for the end.' 'The right wing radio shows are scary to listen to.' 'Great,' Lerner wrote back. 'Maybe we are through if there are that many a**holes.' 'And I'm talking about the hosts of the shows,' came the reply. 'The callers are rabid.' In the final message of the exchange, Lerner wrote that 'we don't need to worry about [illegal] alien terrorists. It's our own crazies that will take us down.'
Camp says this latest information further warrants his call for Attorney General Eric Holder to name a special counsel to investigate the IRS targeting scandal.

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Posted by New Neo on July 30, 2014 27 Comments
Congress been mulling over some sort of amnesty plan for illegal immigrants for a very long time, whether it's been called "amnesty" or whether euphemisms are used to substitute for the word. But there's a reason Congress hasn't done much about it, and that's because the American people don't want it and Congress is at least somewhat responsive to the people, despite the fact that many politicians and those who give them money are more interested in amnesty than the general public is. Past presidents have understand that, too, and have also understood that it's Congress that needs to deal with this for the most part. Until now. Now we have a president who has the novel idea of completely ignoring the public during his lame duck years. Most presidents are hampered in their power during lame duck time, and they don't want to do anything to hurt their party's standing with the public and therefore their party's election chances. Obama, again, has the novel idea to ignore the public and hurt his party in the short run for enormous gains in the longer run: a demographic that will be reliably Democratic and will insure the party's hegemony (not to mention his "legacy" as a transformative president) . At least, that's the calculation. All the Democratic impeachment chatter ("watch out, the evil Republicans are planning to impeach me, aren't they mean and aren't they silly?") is both an attempt to head outrage off at the pass and to pre-characterize it as inappropriate and hateful, and a simultaneous tacit acknowledgement of the tyrannical nature of what Obama is contemplating. I'm with Patterico on this:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on July 30, 2014 4 Comments
The Morning Insurrection newsletter reminded me that today would be a great day to take a look at the state of the congressional race in my district (CA-52), which is pitting Democratic incumbent Scott Peters against a former city council-member and veteran GOP campaigner Carl DeMaio. We have covered this race before:  #CA52: Flip opportunity against 1st term Dem in evenly split district As of today, the district remains a very distinct "flip opportunity" for Republicans to gain a seat in the House.  According to Roll Call, Peters holds an exceedingly slight lead over DeMaio.
Peters leads DeMaio, 48 percent to 43 percent — slightly outside the survey’s 4.9 point margin of error. The poll was conducted by GBA Strategies and surveyed 400 likely voters via live telephone between July 20-22. This race in California’s 52nd District, located in and around San Diego, is a top Republican target in November. The National Republican Congressional Committee has touted DeMaio as a top recruit in the district that President Barack Obama won with 52 percent last cycle.
DeMaio must be upsetting all the right (wrong?) people, as his campaign offices were just vandalized: That the Peters campaign is now attempting to gin-up his base with "Tea Party" charges against DeMaio is good evidence that his real poll position is less than stable. Here an example of the tactic from Peters' campaign website:

Posted by Andrew Branca on July 30, 2014 23 Comments
We're back for day 5 of the second degree murder trial of Theodore Wafer in the shooting death of Renisha McBride on his front porch in the early morning hours of November 2, 2013. As has been the case since mid-day of day 1, Judge Hathaway still refuses the trial to be live-streamed.
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Posted by Amy Miller on July 30, 2014 24 Comments
Labor unions have struggled over the past few years to gain a hold on the fast food industry, but a recent advisory opinion by the NLRB may have cracked the door for union organizers trying to breach the corporate-franchisee relationship. On Tuesday, the NLRB's General Counsel declared that McDonald's as a corporate entity is a "joint employer" of employees at all of its restaurants--including those employed at its nearly 3000 franchisees. The problem with this ruling is that it flies in the face of the established law governing business associations: franchise contracts explicitly state that franchisees are independent and have complete authority over their own employees, and state and federal regulatory authorities generally respect these contracts as definitive in labor disputes. McDonald's Corporation isn't taking the ruling lying down, though. Via the Washington Examiner:
"As the federal governments determination shows, McDonald’s clearly uses its vast powers to control franchisees in just about every way possible," said Kendall Fells, organizing director of Fast Food Forward, president of the Fast Food Workers committee and a former SEIU organizer. "It's time the company put those same powers to work to do something about the fact that its workers are living in poverty." A McDonald's Corporation spokeswoman confirmed the ruling and said the company will continue to legally fight it "in the appropriate forum." "McDonald's does not direct or co-determine the hiring, termination, wages, hours, or any other essential terms and conditions of employment of our franchisees' employees – which are the well-established criteria governing the definition of a 'joint employer,'" said Heather Smedstad, McDonald's senior vice president for human resources.

Posted by Amy Miller on July 30, 2014 47 Comments
A long legal battle ended Tuesday as federal jury awarded former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura over a million dollars in damages in his defamation lawsuit against the widow of "American Sniper" Chris Kyle. Ventura sued widow Tara Kyle over her husband Chris Kyle's depiction of Ventura's participation in a 2006 bar fight. From the AP:
A federal jury sided with Ventura in his lawsuit against "American Sniper" author Chris Kyle, who was killed last year in Texas. Though Ventura honed a tough-guy reputation as a pro wrestler and action movie actor, he maintained the legal battle was about clearing his name among his beloved fellow Navy SEALs, not about losing a supposed fight. Kyle — reputed to be the deadliest sniper in U.S. military history — said in his memoir that he punched Ventura in California in 2006 after Ventura said the SEALs "deserved to lose a few" in Iraq. Ventura disputed that the confrontation, including the punch, ever happened.
An 8-2 jury awarded Ventura $500,000 for defamation and $1.3 million under the theory of unjust enrichment, saying that a portion of Kyle's profits from his book were gained at the expense of Ventura's reputation. After threats of a hung jury plagued the courtroom, lawyers on both sides agreed to accept a verdict if 8 of the jurors agreed as to the result. Although it's likely that the unjust enrichment portion of the damages will be paid by publisher HarperCollins' insurance policy, Ventura's attorneys are expected to go one step further by demanding HarperCollins remove the disputed section from Kyle's book.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 30, 2014 21 Comments
Yesterday, Speaker John Boehner indicated the House Republicans will push back against any attempt to hijack their border bill. The bill would allocate $659 million to border authorities, far less than the almost $4 billion President Obama requested. Boehner released the following statement (emphasis added):
“Senator Reid, embarrassed that he cannot strong-arm the Senate into passing the blank check President Obama demanded, is making a deceitful and cynical attempt to derail the House’s common-sense solution. So let me be as clear as I can be with Senator Reid: the House of Representatives will not take up the Senate immigration reform bill or accept it back from the Senate in any fashion. Nor will we accept any attempt to add any other comprehensive immigration reform bill or anything like it, including the DREAM Act, to the House’s targeted legislation, which is meant to fix the actual problems causing the border crisis. Such measures have no place in the effort to solve this crisis, and any attempt to exploit this crisis by adding such measures will run into a brick wall in the People’s House.

“While the White House has abandoned all pretense of governing and the Senate is doing almost nothing to address our struggling economy, Republicans remain committed to addressing the American people’s priorities, and that includes passing a responsible bill this week to help secure our border and return these children safely to their home countries.” 
Boehner's statement was in direct response to Senator Reid's statement indicating the the GOP's border bill could be used as an opportunity to push the ever-ambiguous "immigration reform." The Hill reports:

Posted by Andrew Branca on July 29, 2014 22 Comments
Well, things finally got engaging in the second degree murder trial of Theodor Wafer, charged with unlawfully killing 19-year-old Renisha McBride on his Detroit front porch in the early morning hours of November 2, 2013. Of key importance was the playing in court--but outside the hearing of the jury--of audio recovered from police recording units at the scene, apparently from personally-worn recording devices of the officers present. Numerous witnesses have testified over the course of the trial that a mere $56 dollars had been recovered from Renisha's body. On the audio recording, however, police officers can be heard noting that a $100 bill had been found on her person, leading to one officer responding "No kidding?" This in turn led to a discussion on the officers' part as to whether McBride had been working as a prostitute and had been seeking to collect money owed. Later in the trial Detective Gurka testified at length about how he had early on began looking for any signs that there may have been a get together at Wager's house, such as a pair of drinking glasses or a pizza box, suggesting that he may have been thinking along the lines of the other officers. There was also audio recorded of at least one officer mentioning that he'd "stepped in some," presumably blood or brain tissue evidence at the scene. All of this occurred near the end of the court day, and gave the Judge by her own admission plenty to think about. I imagine the Prosecution, as well, and I'd expect some healthy debate when court opens again in the morning, before the jury is brought back in. With that said, I'll merely note that other than Detective Gurka's testimony the only other witness was the cross examination of forensics firearms officer Kolonich in the early part of the afternoon. And now to our chronological tweets:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 29, 2014 24 Comments
Yesterday one of the stories thrust into the mainstream media was nearly simultaneous explosions in a Palestinian neighborhood and at al-Shifa hospital. The media immediately took the Hamas line that it was Israeli missiles. Later, the IDF stated that it had not fired on those locations, and that the explosions were misfired Hamas or Islamic Jihad missiles. The media played it as he said, he said. But an Italian journalist has just left Gaza and is telling the truth about what happened now that he needs not fear Hamas retaliation -- Israel was right (h/t Israelly Cool): How many more of the civilian casualties have been cause by Hamas and Islamic rockets that fell short or misfired? Like Israel says happened at a U.N. school and shelter. We likely never will know because Hamas is so fast to cover up the scene and intimidates reporters:
The Times of Israel confirmed several incidents in which journalists were questioned and threatened. These included cases involving photographers who had taken pictures of Hamas operatives in compromising circumstances — gunmen preparing to shoot rockets from within civilian structures, and/or fighting in civilian clothing — and who were then approached by Hamas men, bullied and had their equipment taken away.
CAMERA discovered a Wall Street Journal reporter coming to the same conclusion as the Italian reporters, but then deleting the tweet:

Posted by Amy Miller on July 29, 2014 6 Comments
Illegal immigrant activists in America would like you to know that they're not terribly concerned about being arrested and deported. In fact, they're so unconcerned that they decided to stand in front of the White House this Monday and demand that the Administration offer a reprieve for parents who have illegally entered the U.S. with their children. This isn't the first protest of its kind, and it certainly won't be the last. The Obama Administration has defined its participation in immigration enforcement by the deliberate dismantling of existing enforcement mechanisms via Executive Order. Starting in 2009, President Obama began bypassing Congress to create the environment that makes today's protests possible. Via Fox News:
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official indicated that even if the protesters end up getting arrested by D.C. police, they’d have to be serious criminals for ICE to get involved. “Unless the individuals meet ICE’s enforcement priorities, it’s unlikely that the agency would get involved in the case,” the official told FoxNews.com. Under a policy that’s been in effect for several years, ICE focuses deportation mostly on serious criminals and – in some cases -- those caught in the act of crossing the border. The agency prioritizes deportation for felons, repeat offenders, gang members and others with a serious criminal record. But the agency largely gives a pass to other undocumented residents.
The problem with this philosophy of non-enforcement is that it breeds optimism in the thousands of people who illegally cross our border. James Carafano at the Heritage Foundation recently articulated what Republican legislators, foreign leaders, and even residents of border states have been saying for months: our illegal immigration problem is Barack Obama's problem:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 29, 2014 18 Comments
Controversy is sure to follow George Zimmerman, even though he has not been convicted of anything and the evidence suggesting he acted in justifiable self-defense in the shooting and killing Trayvon Martin was overwhelming. He also beat multiple accusations of assault brought by his ex-wife and ex-girlfriend when the evidence did not support the accusations. George apparently is hanging out at a gun shop keeping an eye on things, and that's big news, although it's not clear whether he is on "patrol" as some of the headlines suggest.
News6 Orlando headlines the story as George Zimmerman 'patrolling' Central Florida shop after gun theft: Although he's not a hired security officer, George Zimmerman has been "patrolling" outside a Volusia County gun shop after it was recently robbed, according to the store owner. Pat Johnson told Local 6 that Zimmerman is not an employee of his DeLand store Pompano Pat's, which sells firearms, ammunition and motorcycles. Johnson said that Zimmerman, on his own accord, has been spotted outside the store since the robbery earlier this month. The thieves stole rifles worth up to $5,000 and two mini-bikes, according to Johnson. Johnson added that although he knows Zimmerman, he has not hired him as a security officer.
video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player News13 has a less negative spin on it, George Zimmerman now working security for DeLand motorcycle, gun shop:
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