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Posted by Mandy Nagy on June 20, 2014 47 Comments
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen is expected to testify in a hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday morning at 9:00am EST. According to a statement from the committee, the hearing will focus on the IRS’s recent statement about the production of emails of former IRS official Lois Lerner. You should be able to view the livestream of the hearing at the committee’s UStream channel. [Hearing in Recess -- here are some videos]

LATEST NEWS

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 19, 2014 8 Comments
Last Sunday night we called attention to the flood of PAC advertising on behalf of incumbent Republican Richard Hanna in the safe-Republican NY-22 district. The Republican primary is June 24. There is no Democratic candidate, because the district was considered so safe Republican. The PAC ads are "false flags" because they present Hanna as the most conservative candidate, when in fact challenger Claudia Tenney is the most conservative. WBNG 12 reports:
Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney held a press conference to call out Hanna, who she said is partnering with liberal companies in Washington and is sending out false information to voters. She said Hanna is putting out flyers that are simply not true. "He's putting out flyer after flyer describing himself as 'Your Conservative Voice, Your Conservative Choice.' There's a reason he keeps using the word conservative because that's who votes in Republican primaries," Tenney said. Tenney is the top-rated conservative in the state legislature and Hanna is the third most liberal of the Republican caucus.
Pro-Hannal liberal PACs have spent several hundred thousand dollars or more on these ads in a relatively small market where the advertising rates must be much lower than in large markets. I would not be surprised if $700,000 of ads in NY-22 is the equivalent of millions in big city markets. The ads are non-stop. This evening the ads were on TV during Special Report with Bret Baier:

Posted by New Neo on June 19, 2014 39 Comments
The federal government of the United States has jurisdiction over the border problem but is doing nothing to stop it and might in fact be encouraging it. So the state of Texas announces that it will take action:
Texas’ top three leaders, Governor Rick Perry, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, and House Speaker Joe Straus directed the Department of Public Safety to immediately begin law enforcement surge operations along the Texas-Mexico border... The surge operations will cost $1.3 million each week, and DPS is authorized to continue the operations for the rest of the year... In a statement, Governor Perry said, “Texas can’t afford to wait for Washington to act on this crisis and we will not sit idly by while the safety and security of our citizens are threatened.” State officials worry that while the federal government scrambles to house thousands of unaccompanied children crossing the border, there are fewer federal agents to keep up with criminals and gangs trying to get into the U.S. The state says last year, when DPS conducted Operation Strong Safety, crime rates related to drug cartels, gangs, and other illegal border activity dropped sharply.
Note what's being said here. My understanding is that the state can use the increased patrols only to help prevent entry or to apprehend illegal immigrants and turn them over to the feds; they can't actually deport people if the Obama administration refuses to do so.

LEGAL INSURRECTION QUICK TAKES

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Students Object After NYU Cancels Identity-Based Graduation Ceremonies

Police Investigate After ‘Kill All Jews’ is Found Written in Bathroom at San Jose State U.

SEE MORE

Posted by Bruce Carroll on June 19, 2014 29 Comments
The plot seems to thicken every day now on the infamous "missing emails" from IRS manager Lois Lerner. So only did Lerner's emails disappear in an alleged "computer crash," but so did six other IRS officials at the center of the IRS targeting scandal. Now comes news that the IRS actually disposed of Lerner's hard drive making any data retrieval that more difficult.
Ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s crashed hard drive has been recycled, making it likely the lost emails of the lightning rod in the tea party targeting controversy will never be found, according to multiple sources. “We’ve been informed that the hard drive has been thrown away,” Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, said in a brief hallway interview.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa issued a terse statement following the POLITICO report Wednesday night:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 19, 2014 21 Comments
The big breaking news in the "John Doe" anti-Conservative Wisconsin investigation is that the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals released previously sealed court exhibits detailing accusations made at the time the Wisconsin prosecutors commenced the proceeding. So you get screaming headlines such as these: Headlines Scott Walker Accused of criminal scheme What is not being reported, is that multiple judges have found that the alleged criminal conduct was not in fact criminal even if the factual allegations were true. Here is part of Federal Judge Renda's opinion, which remains in effect halting the John Doe investigation, in a case brought by two of the targets:
The standard to apply in these cases was recently made clear by the Supreme Court in McCutcheon. Any campaign finance regulation, and any criminal prosecution resulting from the violation thereof, must target activity that results in or has the potential to result in quid pro quo corruption…. It is undisputed that O‘Keefe and the Club engage in issue advocacy, not express advocacy or its functional equivalent. Since § 11.01(16)‘s definition of political purposes must be confined to express advocacy, the plaintiffs cannot be and are not subject to Wisconsin‘s campaign finance laws by virtue of their expenditures on issue advocacy….

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 19, 2014 17 Comments
In a press conference today, President Obama announced that the U.S. was relocating some personnel out of Iraq, and sending reinforcements for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Obama also stated that there would be increased monitoring and surveillance of ISIL insurgents, and increased military support for Iraq, including joint operations centers in Baghdad. Additional equipment also would be sent, in addition to a "small number of American military advisors, up to 300." But, he emphasized, "American forces will not be returning to combat in Iraq" The U.S. is prepared, though, to take "precise" military action if circumstances warranted, but not to support "one sect" against another. As to failure to leave residual forces, Obama said "that was a decision made by the Iraqi government."

Posted by Casey Breznick on June 19, 2014 1 Comment
A poll released this week suggests that a majority of Cuban-Americans living in Miami favor ending the Cuban trade embargo. A finer reading calls those results into question. The poll, conducted by Florida International University (FIU) professors Guillermo J. Grenier and Hugh Gladwin for the Cuban Research Initiative, finds that 52% of all Cuban-Americans and 51% of Cuban-Americans registered to vote favor ending the 54-year long embargo that restricts all imports of Cuban goods and most exports to the communist island. 2014 FIU Cuba Polll Favor Embargo section Though, since the study has a margin of error of 3.12 points, a 52-to-48 spread is a virtual tie. Professors Grenier and Gladwin have conducted the FIU Cuba Poll every year since 1991. Its respondents are 1,000 randomly selected Cuban-Americans above age 18 living throughout Miami-Dade County.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 19, 2014 20 Comments
Some privileges are permissible topics for discussion on campus and in the media. For example, White Privilege is the obsession of some faculty and students. George Will pointed out that there is another privilege on campuses -- false or contrived claims of victim status.  Will did not argue that real victims, be it of actual racism or sexual assault, share some special privilege, but rather, that there are people who contrive or encourage others to falsely create victimhood where none exists. We see it in theories such as microaggression, where in the absence of proof of actual racism, critical race theorists find racism in routine everyday interactions where the participants do not even realize they are being "racist," much less have any racist intent. We see it in repeated instances of fake, self-inflicted "hate crimes" in which the victim is, in fact, the perpetrator. We also see it in the lowering of the standards of proof and definitions of what constitutes sexual assault. I think everyone agrees that sexual assault as used in the criminal law deserves condemnation and punishment. But colleges, under pressure from the Justice Department and supposedly feminist groups, have started using definitions of sexual assault that can reach absurd results.

Posted by A.F. Branco on June 19, 2014 1 Comment

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...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 19, 2014 10 Comments

what this window sticker means. Spotted it in the parking garage at Syracuse Airport on my return yesterday from Los Angeles....

Posted by Mandy Nagy on June 18, 2014 12 Comments
Hillary Clinton joined FOX News' Bret Baier and Greta Van Susteren Tuesday evening for a much anticipated interview, where the former Secretary of State answered questions on a number of topics - Benghazi, the controversial swap of Sgt. Bergdahl for the Taliban five, the IRS scandal, and a wide range of other issues. Clinton is out with a new book, "Hard Choices," and she indicated on numerous occasions as she answered some of the questions, "I write about this in my book." That said, I'm not sure there was much to come out of the FOX interview that couldn't be found in the pages of Clinton's book. As is often the case with most interviews with any subject, there seemed to be a few missed opportunities for further pressing on some of her answers, as several noted in comments on Twitter. There were a couple instances however where Bair or Van Susteren tried to politely prod Clinton to expand upon an answer. Here was one exchange between Van Susteren and Clinton on the topic of the Bergdahl swap.

GRETA: Afghanistan. Would you have made that swap for Sgt. Bergdahl? Five Taliban for Sgt. Bergdahl? CLINTON: Well, as I write in the book, and at the time, I was trying to put together a bigger deal, a deal that would create a negotiation between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban to try to move the Taliban to renounce violence, renounce al Qaeda, and agree to support the constitution and the laws. GRETA: Isn't that part of their ideology though, violence? I mean look at the violence towards women. Aren't we abandoning the women to the Taliban?
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