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Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 02, 2014 6 Comments
Martha Robertson is the Emily's List-backed, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) "Red to Blue" Democratic challenger in NY-23, my home district. The "red-to-blue" designation means she's considered at the top tier of Democratic candidates who might flip a current Republican seat. So she will be showered with national money. We have been following the race closely, and have exposed a number of issues that have helped frame the narrative of the race, including Robertson's false fundraising claim that GOP operatives hacked her website during a critical fundraising period, her support for Obamacare as a pathway to single payer, and her misunderstanding of the Veteran's administrative crisis. In an attempt to gain some momentum, Robertson held a press conference today to announce her challenge to Reed on several issues revolving around congressional perks. This was her statement at the press conference, as reported by the Elmira Star-Gazette:

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Posted by Bruce Carroll on July 02, 2014 54 Comments
Who would have thought that the Mississippi GOP Senate Primary race would be more exciting and last longer than the World Cup soccer tournament? Well, it's happening. You may recall that allegations surfaced that incumbent U.S. Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS) supporters engaged in flagrant race-baiting tactics against Cochran's June 24 runoff opponent -- State Sen. Chris McDaniel. These vicious racial attacks were used by a third party SuperPAC to bash McDaniel's conservative supporters in order to gin up support by traditional Democratic African-American voters and have them vote for Cochran in the runoff.
Crushing the Tea Party was the goal of the Republican Party, even if it came at a “staggering price.” Crushing supporters of expanding government and a system of pork barrel politics, not such a priority. So remind me again, why am I a Republican? Because it beats being a Democrat? When the Republican Party establishment needs Democratic voters looking for more government and more pork to win Republican primaries, that’s not a good enough excuse anymore.
These first round of allegations about race-baiting campaign ads were bad enough. But the news just seems to get worse each day for the Cochran camp and his supporters. The latest blockbuster allegation: Cochran's campaign allegedly gave cash to an African-American preacher so he could literally buy votes for the Senator in the runoff.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 02, 2014 28 Comments
Overnight the body of a Palestinian teenager from Jerusalem was found in a forest in the city. It appears to be confirmed that his name is Mohammed Abu Khdeir. The featured image is from Twitter. Immediately, there was speculation in the media and social media that it was a revenge killing for the murder of three Israeli teens who had been kidnapped and whose bodies were located just a few days ago. On social media in particular, the speculation was not really speculation -- it was announced by the usual suspects to be definitively a revenge kidnapping and murder by "settlers." There have been riots in an Arab section of Jerusalem, including the destruction of the Light Rail system, based on the rumors. Forest fires also are being set. The truth is that as of this writing, we don't really know who did it, and why. The allegation that it was a revenge killing is unconfirmed as of this writing. Israeli police are following three paths of investigation: (1) it was a revenge killing, (2) it was an honor killing related to the teen's sexuality, and (3) it was part of a non-political murder as part of an ongoing feud between families. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (and the family of one of the murdered Israeli teens) issued a swift condemnation and promise to find out who and why the teen was killed:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 02, 2014 8 Comments
It's been a while since we checked in on Democratic challenger Sean Eldridge, running in NY-19 against incumbent Republican Chris Gibson, Facebook, I mean Sean Eldridge, trying to buy NY-19 congressional district:
The congressional race in NY-19 has been off my radar this cycle, even though the district is just over the Catskill mountains from Ithaca. Republican incumbent Chris Gibson was on our 2012 Operation Counterweight list. Off my radar until I saw an article at Politico about how Democratic challenger Sean Eldridge is trying to buy the District by handing out money to local businesses and then touting how many jobs he has created in the District. It’s the venture capital equivalent of walking around money.
That was back in early April. How are things going for Eldridge? Not well, according to left-wing Down With Tyranny blog, Bagels And Cream Cheese And A Million Of His Own Dollars Won't Win Sean Eldridge A Seat In Congress (emphasis added):

Posted by Mandy Nagy on July 02, 2014 6 Comments
The New York Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled that a local law intended to protect children from cyberbullying violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment because it was too broad. From the Wall Street Journal:
New York's top court struck down a law that made cyberbullying a crime, in what had been viewed as a test case of recent state and local statutes that target online speech. The New York Court of Appeals, in a 5-2 ruling, held on Tuesday that the 2010 Albany County law prohibited a vast swath of speech "far beyond the cyberbullying of children," in violation of the First Amendment. The court's ruling could stand as a guidepost for other state high courts hearing challenges to such laws, as well as for states and localities considering criminal penalties for cyberbullying, legal experts said. Besides Albany, four other New York counties and more than a dozen states, including Louisiana and North Carolina, have similar laws.
The 2010 law defined cyberbullying against “any minor or person” to mean “any act of communicating or causing a communication to be sent by mechanical or electronic means, including posting statements on the internet or through a computer or email network, disseminating embarrassing or sexually explicit photographs; disseminating private, personal, false or sexual information, or sending hate mail, with no legitimate private, personal, or public purpose, with the intent to harass, annoy, threaten, abuse, taunt, intimidate, torment, humiliate, or otherwise inflict significant emotional harm on another person.” Writing for the majority, Judge Victoria Graffeo said, in part, “…it appears that the provision would criminalize a broad spectrum of speech outside the popular understanding of cyberbullying, including, for example: an email disclosing private information about a corporation or a telephone conversation meant to annoy an adult.”

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Posted by Amy Miller on July 02, 2014 8 Comments
*Graphic courtesy of the Media Research Center
This past April, a whistleblower at the VA Medical Center in Phoenix revealed to the world that agency officials were falsifying their wait lists in exchange for bigger bonuses and the appearance of efficiency. The scandal gave birth to a flurry of media activity, and journalists, politicians, and the public joined together in their demand for answers--how could this have happened to the people who risk everything to protect us? That outcry was short lived. According to a report by the Media Research Center, the mainstream media has drastically cut back on how much screen time they're devoting to the ongoing crisis at the VA:
The coverage of this scandal, involving at least 40 veterans who died while awaiting care, has been problematic from the start. The story broke on April 23, but the networks didn't get around to it until 13 days later, May 6. But the 180 minutes of coverage in May faded substantially in June.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on July 02, 2014 27 Comments
Thousands of unaccompanied minors have flooded across our border, overwhelming border agents leading to immigration officials opening processing centers around the country. In the San Diego area, protesters force buses carrying undocumented immigrants to leave Murrieta, the local border patrol processing site designated to handle these arrivals.
Protesters gathered in Murrieta on Tuesday where around 140 undocumented immigrants, including lone children, were brought to be processed at a Border Patrol office. And when the buses arrived carrying the immigrants, the drivers ended up turning around and leaving when the protesters refused to let them pass. The buses instead headed for another border patrol station. The immigrants had arrived in San Diego earlier in the afternoon at Lindbergh Field.
The Desert Sun has additional details with a timeline (and a video at the link):
3:21 p.m.: Union representative Ron Zermeno tells The Desert Sun that the Murrieta Border Patrol station will not resume normal operations but instead send its entire staff to the San Diego area to help with the processing of the re-routed immigrant families. "It's just a matter of time," he said. 3:09 p.m.: With the protest too much in Murrieta, Border Patrol union representatives confirm the buses are heading to a San Diego County processing center. 2:55 p.m.: The crowd of protesters in Murrieta blocked buses from entering the Border Patrol station. Officials did not immediately say where they were going to be detoured.
The Desert Sun report also noted that 3 more flights of immigrants were slated to follow. Between the gross violation of law and risk of infectious diseases, Californians aren't the only ones unhappy with the crisis. For example, fellow blue staters in New York are also complaining.

Posted by RedDawn on July 01, 2014 40 Comments
Special Immigrant Juvenile Status. If you haven't heard of it before now, you probably will as tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors flood across the border, having been "abandoned" by their parents in Central America. A Legal Insurrection reader tipped us off to what could be a coming legal onslaught to give these children a right to stay in the U.S. permanently:
"Special Immigrant Juvenile Status is something that we attorneys on the border have been getting CLE training in for a while, but largely it has not been well known outside of CPS attorney work. With the invasion now taking place, it is going to explode.  No parents means that any immigrant child under 18 can apply for a Green Card as soon as they are deemed "abandoned" by their parents for 6 months by the court system.  There are some other minor rules, but that is the big one.... The bill renewal was the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008.  It modified and exempted application of certain rules which would normally result in inadmissibility....  Also, it set up an "expedited" review schedule that USCIS is REQUIRED to adjudicate SIJ petitions within 180 days of filing, and that interviews may be WAIVED for SIJ petitioners under 14 years of age or when it is determined that an interview is unnecessary. Further, per the Violence Against Women Act of 2005, a SIJ petitioner may not be required to contact an individual who allegedly abused, abandoned or neglected the Juvenile. What nobody is talking about (or maybe nobody has realized yet) is that this is going to flood the child welfare courts FIRST, before they get to the USCIS (certain findings of fact which can only be made by the state are prerequisites to SIJS applications) with a sudden influx of "abandoned" children, and put a strain on the CPS system like nothing that has ever been seen."
SIJS regulations are part of 8 CFR 204.11 Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) allows for children to obtain federal legal status in the U.S. if a state court deems they cannot be reunited with the parents and have suffered either abuse, abandonment, neglect or other similar offenses under state law. Children must also be unmarried, and it must be determined that it's not in the child's best interest to return to their country. SIJS is not the same as refugee or asylum status, which both bear very different legal tests.

Posted by Casey Breznick on July 01, 2014 32 Comments
During the past two weeks Argentina’s soccer team has rolled over its competition to advance to the World Cup Quarterfinals. Meanwhile, the team’s country has, yet again, collapsed into default. For 12 years, Argentina has been engaged in a financial and legal row with private creditors in the US over payments on its government bonds—either long overdue or unwarranted, depending on which side you ask. The country failed to make court-ordered payments yesterday to holders of its restructured and original—or “holdout”—debt. It is now in technical default, having missed the payment, and has a 30-day grace period to negotiate with creditors before entering true default. Argentina’s path to financial insolvency began in the last week of 2001 when Argentina announced it was defaulting on $132 billion of its debt, which was then one-seventh of all the money borrowed by the Third World. The announcement came in the midst of the 1998-2002 Argentine depression, itself a result of poor government policy and external economic crises. Despite the default, some US investors scooped up these seemingly worthless bonds at enormous discounts in hopes of some future payment. In 2005 and in 2010 Argentina restructured its debts and offered these bondholders swaps to replace their original bonds for new ones at downgraded terms, and 93% of investors did take up the offer. The country also passed a law forbidding payment on the original bonds. However, a small contingent of investors opted out and insisted on payment on the original bonds. The Argentine government and many elements in the international press have since called these investors “vultures.”

Posted by David Gerstman on July 01, 2014 8 Comments
In the wake of yesterday's awful discovery that Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Shaar and Naftali Frankel had been murdered by the abductors, it's now clearer what happened. The Times of Israel reported What happened on the night of the kidnapping:
The prevailing assessment within the defense establishment is that the kidnappers, at least at first, only saw one of the hitchhikers, perhaps Yifrach, who did not know Shaar and Fraenkel. Only once the kidnappers’ Hyundai i35 came to a stop did the kidnappers realize that they would be outnumbered by their hostages within the small confines of the car. This may be what changed the nature of the crime from kidnapping to murder, security sources suggested. ... Recognizing, too late, that the car was not an innocent Israeli vehicle, one of the teens called the police at 10:25 p.m. and whispered, “We’ve been kidnapped.” The call was transferred immediately to a senior officer, who continued to ask questions but received no reply. The call lasted for 2:09 minutes and was then cut off. The officer called the number eight more times, but received three busy signals and reached voicemail five times.
It is likely that shortly afterward the three boys were murdered and taken to the field where they were found buried. The reactions to the abductions have highlighted certain fault lines between Israeli and Palestinian societies.

Posted by Bruce Carroll on July 01, 2014 5 Comments
This seems like a broken record, but the last 24 hours have turned the standoff in Eastern Ukraine from a "ceasefire" to a hot war that doesn't appear to be cooling down soon. On Friday, June 20, Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko announced a unilateral one-week cease-fire by his government as a way to deescalate the crisis with pro-Russian rebels in Eastern Ukraine. Poroshenko announced to ceasefire with an ultimatum for the rebels: disarm or leave Ukraine.
Poroshenko called the 7-day cease-fire, which was to begin later on Friday, a first-step in a larger agreement, not only giving separatists a chance to disarm, but also for pro-Russia rebels to leave the country, the Kiev Post reports. He called on separatists to lay down their weapons, or else be "destroyed," the President said. "The forces of the anti-terrorist operation will halt military action starting today and through June 27," Poroshenko was cited as saying by the Interior Ministry on its website.
Probably to no one's surprise, the ceasefire was violated several times in the last 10 days mainly by the pro-Russian forces. So as July dawned in Ukraine, the ceasefire was over and heavy fighting broke out in the separatist eastern regions.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 01, 2014 4 Comments
Martha Robertson is the Emily's List-backed, DCCC "Red to Blue" Democratic challenger in NY-23, my home district. We have been following the race closely, and have exposed a number of issues that have helped frame the narrative of the race, including Robertson's false fundraising claim that GOP operatives hacked her website during a critical fundraising period, her support for Obamacare as a pathway to single payer, and her misunderstanding of the Veteran's administrative crisis. Last night I saw an ad run by Congressman Tom Reed attacking Robertson as "out of this world" -- focusing on her being an Ithaca liberal, with the subtext that she's out of touch with the Republican-leaning, mostly rural district. I have not been able to get the video of the ad itself (if I do I'll post it), but a local television fact check contains excerpts. (Update - here is the ad - Featured Image updated) The fact check terms the ad overall to be "mostly true." I agree with that, except that I believe some of the individual items that are rated "half-true" should have received a higher rating. Here's the fact check video:

Posted by Mandy Nagy on July 01, 2014 15 Comments
By now you've seen Monday's Supreme Court decisions here and here, which - quite predictably - set off a nuclear reaction on Twitter. Some of that outrage was misguidedly directed at SCOTUSblog by angry tweeters who thought they were surely tweeting the actual Supreme Court Justices. But as many of us know, and others have also pointed out, SCOTUSblog Is Not the Supreme Court. I never realized that the serious minds at SCOTUSblog had such a sense of humor, which was on full display in how they handled the barrage of hate wrongly dumped into their timeline. You must go visit SCOTUSblog's Twitter timeline to see all of their responses, but a handful of them are featured below. Well played SCOTUSblog, well played. scotusblog-tweet6 scotusblog-tweet5

Posted by Bruce Carroll on June 30, 2014 85 Comments
The vitriol from the political left didn't take too long to manifest following the 5-4 Supreme Court decision this morning in the Hobby Lobby case. Many eyes were on the reaction of Sandra Fluke -- free contraception's PR maven - following the SCOTUS ruling.
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