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Posted by Andrew Branca on July 27, 2014 72 Comments
I just came across some brief TV news coverage with additional details on the case of 80-year-old CA native Tom Greer pursuing and shooting in the back 28-year-old Andrea Miller. We covered the case the other day, Pro-Tip: Shooting Fleeing Women in the Back is NOT Self-Defense. Miller and 26-year-old Gus Adams had invaded Greer's home and began to ransack the residence. When confronted by Greer, they attacked him, breaking his collar bone. Long Beach Police Chief Jim McDonnell reports in a television interview (video embedded after break) that at that point Adams went to try to break into Greer's safe, while Miller continued to assault Greer. They both Miller and Adams believed Greer to no longer be a threat and left him alone to continue to ransack his home.

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 26, 2014 28 Comments
When I heard parts of John Kerry's news conference today, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. He was talking as if he's trying to create a way to bolster Hamas when the fighting is over. Sure enough, Barak Ravid, a well-regarded reporter for the left-wing Israeli Haaretz newspaper presents a chilling tale of John Kerry's complete incompetence in the Gaza ceasefire negotiations, Kerry's latest cease-fire plan: What was he thinking?
The draft Kerry passed to Israel on Friday shocked the cabinet ministers not only because it was the opposite of what Kerry told them less than 24 hours earlier, but mostly because it might as well have been penned by Khaled Meshal [the political head of Hamas who lives in Qatar]. It was everything Hamas could have hoped for. The document recognized Hamas' position in the Gaza Strip, promised the organization billions in donation funds and demanded no dismantling of rockets, tunnels or other heavy weaponry at Hamas' disposal. The document placed Israel and Hamas on the same level, as if the first is not a primary U.S. ally and as if the second isn't a terror group which overtook part of the Palestinian Authority in a military coup and fired thousands of rockets at Israel.
It gets worse, as I suspected Kerry is seeking to make Hamas a post-war power, Ravid reports:

Posted by Bruce Carroll on July 26, 2014 13 Comments
The news comes as no surprise to the citizens of America. "Dad" is out golfing again today. This got me thinking. If the First Family is akin to America's Mom and Dad, then Dad has become an absent father. When he's not golfing, he is out partying to raise political donations. Mom stays at home raising the girls and -- to her credit -- staying focused on her passion to help the rest of us eat more healthy. But Dad, oh Dad, where have you gone? Dad? Dad? The Telegraph in Britain has picked up on our nation's absent father as well.

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 26, 2014 9 Comments
We've documented many times the open anti-Semitism that infuses many "pro-Palestinian" anti-Israel rallies around the world, including the United States. In Paris, scene of vicious anti-Jewish protests, another protest today Thousands protest Gaza operation in Paris, some with Nazi-like 'quenelle' salute:
Several thousand gathered in Place de la République in Paris, France to protest the Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, defying a state ban on the demonstration. Protesters chanted "Israel is an assassin, Holland is an accomplice" and "we are all Palestinians," and some were seen gesturing the quenelle, a reverse Nazi-salute, AFP reported. Tension mounted as hundreds of protesters, some masked, began throwing stones and projectiles at police who responded with tear gas. "This event is illegal, but for us it is more than legitimate. This is to show our solidarity with people who are now being massacred," Hugo, a New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) activist, told AFP. The NPA decided to defy the ban and hold the protest as planned in an assertion of the party's "solidarity with the Palestinian people," NPA leader Olivier Besancenot said. Earlier, France's interior minister called on the protest's organizers to observe the order, fearing anti-Semitic violence.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.607300?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter In The Hague, Netherlands, meanwhile, Dutch News reports, The Hague mayor urged to get tough after anti-Jewish chanting at rally(via Jihad Watch):

Posted by Andrew Branca on July 26, 2014 18 Comments
[Clarification (7/26/14): I've just been informed by a knowledgeable person on the Zimmerman side of this case that what was submitted to the 5th DCA this past Friday is the official notice of appeal.  The actual appeal has not yet been submitted.] As anticipated by, well, everybody, George Zimmerman's civil lawyer, James Beasley Jr., has filed an appeal with Florida's Fifth District Court of Appeals (5th DCA) of the dismissal by June Debra Nelson of Zimmerman's defamation suit against NBC broadcasting.  This is per reports by Orlando's WKMG and the Orlando Sentinel. We previously covered Judge Nelson's dismissal of the suit here at Legal Insurrection, Zimmerman Libel Suit Against NBC Thrown Out, including the full text of her order. [caption id="attachment_93224" align="alignnone" width="450"]Judge Debra Nelson Judge Debra Nelson[/caption]

Posted by Mandy Nagy on July 25, 2014 6 Comments

Joan Rivers defends Israel, Hillary Clinton comments on Vladimir Putin, states push back on federal regulations on bake sales, and more....

Posted by New Neo on July 25, 2014 15 Comments
How do you fight an enemy that is willing---nay, eager---to force you to kill its children even if you don't want to? That's the situation Israel faces against Hamas. It's the situation we face against Islamist terrorists, too, because they use such techniques as one of their primary tools, and the liberal west and the MSM all too often play into their hands by demonizing Israel and the US rather than the perpetrators. This is not new. It began when the west decided that all-out war was something it could no longer in good conscience wage. Civilian casualties in the first half of the 20th Century had reached such huge numbers that we turned in revulsion against them, and the increasing accuracy of weaponry enabled us to entertain the idea---for a short while, anyway---that wars could be fought with "surgical precision." That would be true, if the enemy cooperated. But it doesn't. The Islamist terrorists didn't invent the technique. In order for it to come to full fruition, the enemy needed a west with a guilty conscience about itself and a desire to excuse that enemy's barbarism, and an MSM fully on board with the program. This was already beginning to be the case during the War in Vietnam:

Posted by Andrew Branca on July 25, 2014 201 Comments
One of the conditions of using deadly force in self-defense is that one be facing an imminent threat of death or grave bodily harm. That definition of imminence is well captured by Black’s Law Dictionary:
Immediate danger, such as must be instantly met, such as cannot be guarded against by calling for the assistance of others or the protection of the law . . . Such an appearance of threatened and impending injury as would put a reasonable and prudent person to his instant defense.
In other words, the threat is about to happen right now.

Posted by Bruce Carroll on July 25, 2014 3 Comments
Every morning for most of 2014, it seems we wake up in dreaded anticipation of what horrible news has happened overnight and around the world. There are so many things going on -- Israel/Hamas, Ukraine/Russia, passenger jets falling from the sky (or vanishing), the U.S. border crisis -- that it is sometimes hard to fathom. Let's not forget the battle for Iraq is still in the mix. We covered the eradication of the Christian population in the territory held by the Islamic State on Monday. But the news of Iraq's overall situation seems to have faded from the American news media's short attention span the past couple of weeks. Quick update: things aren't getting better. There is a bit of good news on the political reconciliation front in Baghdad. The Iraqi Parliament elected a new President for the nation yesterday.
Iraqi MPs have elected Kurdish politician Fouad Massoum as president, succeeding Jalal Talabani. Mr Massoum, 76, is a founding member of Mr Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party. Since 2003 Iraq's president has always been a Kurd, while the prime minister is a Shia and the parliamentary speaker drawn from the Sunni Arab bloc. Iraq is facing a radical Sunni insurgency and is struggling to agree on a new coalition government. The presidency is the second major government post to be filled, after Salim al-Jabouri was elected as parliament speaker last week.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 25, 2014 27 Comments
John Kerry has proposed a seven-day truce, during which time there would be negotiations over a longer-term ceasefire. Hamas reportedly is going to accept the proposal, but that's far from official. The Israeli cabinet is discussing the proposal as we speak. Concerns are that Hamas, having rejected a ceasefire early on and finally beginning to crumble, will simply use the truce to redeploy and recover. We will update when more is known, but you can follow the events in the live video and Twitter feeds at the bottom of the post. A ceasefire that allows Hamas to rearm and reload likely will be unacceptable to Israel in light of the discovery that Hamas had planned a massive Rosh Hashonah attack through the tunnels that are being destroyed:
Israel’s Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu revealed on Thursday that Hamas was intending to attack Israel from dozens of tunnels in a coordinated simultaneous attack. At the beginning of Thursday’s special cabinet meeting the prime minister said, “These tunnels enable the enemy to open a multi-pronged offensive and carry out a massive terror attack inside Israel.” According to security officials cited by Israeli daily Ma’ariv, the political echelon needs to give the military more time to eliminate the tunnels since “we are now not even halfway through.” The attack Hamas was planning, the officials say, “would have made Israel drop to its knees.” They added that even the tunnels destroyed until now takes away from Hamas a strategic asset the terror group has been working on for years..
IDF officers estimate that the job of destroying all the tunnel infrastructure will take another ten days to two weeks to complete:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 24, 2014 8 Comments
The IRS-Lois Lerner email and hard drive destruction has received a lot of attention. Less so another possible scandal at the EPA, regarding the alleged destruction of documents requested by the Landmark Legal Foundation, with which Mark Levin is affiliated.. Fox News covered it in late June, but most of the mainstream media is absent, More missing emails, crashed hard drives, this time at EPA:
The Internal Revenue Service isn’t the only government agency dealing with missing emails or faulty hard drives. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy on Wednesday cited a similar cyber snafu during a House Oversight Committee hearing. “Another missing hard drive?” Rep. Mark Meadows, R-NC, asked McCarthy. She responded, “We are having trouble acquiring the data.”
It's not just a problem of Congressional oversight. The Landmark Legal Foundation served a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on the EPA regarding attempts to influence the 2012 election by delaying damaging environmental regulations until after the election. We reported on that delay in 2013, which concerned not just environmental regulations but Obamacare also. Landmark alleges that it has met stonewalling and missing documents, and now it's seeking sanctions, as described in a press release today, Landmark is seeking sanctions:

Posted by Andrew Branca on July 24, 2014 14 Comments
This afternoon saw testimony from two additional Dearborn Heights law enforcement officers,  Tim Zawacki and Mark Parrinello. Highlights of this afternoon's events included a request by the Prosecution for sanctions against the defense for a mention earlier this morning of general crime in the Wafer neighborhood.  A pretrial ruling excludes such generalized mention of neighborhood crime unless a foundation can be established of Wafer's personal knowledge of specific crime events (e.g., the defense's proposed "neighborhood crime map" that was excluded by the Judge Hathaway). Also important was the testimony by Officer Parrinello that the peephole in the front door was functional.  A key difficulty for the defense is the question of why Wafer opened the front door.  It was this act that made him vulnerable to potential attack, which is presumably his reason for having discharged the shotgun.  Had he simply stayed behind his locked door, no deadly force would have been required.  One possible explanation would have been that the peephole in his front door was disabled, and therefore he could ascertain the situation outside his front door only by opening it.  That argument's power is now greatly diminished if not eliminated.
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