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Posted by Mike LaChance on June 15, 2014 14 Comments
Chicago long has been a center of Communist Party USA activity. This video from 2011 shows the CPUSA protesting in support of the Occupy movement in Chicago: Today in Chicago was the 95th Anniversary celebration, as Ron Grossman of the Chicago Tribune reports:
Communist Party USA gathers in Chicago "I finally realized, I didn't believe in the other side," said Gosman, a retired employee of the Los Angeles school system. The Chicago convention will feature three days of speeches, panel discussions and workshops. One session will be devoted to catching up with an online era. Communists, like other radicals, traditionally recruit by hawking the party's paper on street corners. But financial constraints have forced the People's World to abandon its print edition. So one question up for discussion is how can peoplesworld.org put the party in touch with low-paid workers, environmentalists and advocates for social justice?

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Posted by Bruce Carroll on June 15, 2014 24 Comments
Defeated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) hit the Sunday news programs this morning in a curt manner and seemed to lay some blame for his loss on radio talk show host Laura Ingraham cheapening the debate. Laura took it in stride. But is the Republican Party serious about finding answers following the Cantor defeat? Grassroots Republicans and conservatives still express doubt if the party has even learned the right lessons from its 2012 loss. Salena Zito tries to help the Republican Party establishment today with peeling back the onion on what is going on in America. Zito is correct -- there is a rise of populism and Dave Brat tapped into that vein during his campaign against Cantor:

Posted by Casey Breznick on June 15, 2014 4 Comments
What do the Everglades, Key West, and Homestead, Florida have in common? Nothing, except that they are all represented by freshman Democrat Joe Garcia in Florida’s newly created 26th congressional district. While the primaries are not until Aug. 26,  Republican Carlos Curbelo has all but secured the party nomination as the clear GOP front-runner to challenge Garcia in November. Curbelo currently serves on the Miami-Dade County School Board overseeing the nation’s fourth largest school district. Curbelo carries a slew of important Florida Republican endorsements, including those from FL27 Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, FL25 Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, and Speaker of Florida’s House of Representatives Will Weatherford. Curbelo has not had a lot of media exposure, so his positions on national issues are not as well defined to the public as those who have been on the national stage. He did say in a Fox Business interview that the economy is suffering due to “self-inflicted wounds” like the failed Obama stimulus and unreformed pensions. Garcia has taken up clearly leftist ideology in almost all respects. He does not support the repeal of Obamacare (though he voted for its delays and caveats), wants to grant DREAMers in-state tuition, wants to continue government funding of alternative energy, and is the main sponsor of immigration reform bill H.R. 15, which is highly controversial and allegedly a lead up to outright amnesty.

LEGAL INSURRECTION QUICK TAKES

Leftist Hero Cesar Chavez Erased From Colleges Across the Country

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Political Donations From Faculty at U. Idaho Favor Democrats by Margin of 419 to 1

Family of College Student Killed by Illegal Alien in Chicago Speaks Out at Vigil

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 14, 2014 6 Comments
It can be very hard to distinguish progressive political and social positions from parody. Remember the video “White Guys: We Suck and We’re Sorry”? Was it parody?  Not sure we ever got a definitive answer on that. What about Salon.com's white writers' obsession with Whiteness? Real. White privilege conferences? Real. There is a strange lack of connection of so many progressive manias to reality, that it's hard to know what is real or not.  Even for progressives. There was a major trolling of leftist feminists and Gender Studies types on Twitter, with the hastage "#EndFathersDay."  It was started at 4Chan, but feminists ran with it apparently believing it to be true.  Some of the tweets were hysterical -- but impossible to tell if part of the group trolling or the leftist feminists who thought it was real. Twitchy and Frontpage Mag collected some of the tweets of people who thought it was real. Some had been deleted after being highlighted as stupid, such as this one (screenshot saved by Weasel Zippers): http://weaselzippers.us/189670-tweet-of-the-day-feminist-loon-says-end-fathers-day-because-celebrating-patriarchy-and-male-dominance-is-rape-culture/ These people had a good laugh:

Posted by Bruce Carroll on June 14, 2014 37 Comments
The latest frontrunner talk among the Republican insiders and DC media types is none other than Mitt Romney. But are Americans ready for a third run for President by the 2012 GOP loser to Barack Obama? With the economy in virtual stagnation for six years, Russia annexing Ukranian territory and Islamic terrorists on the doorstep of Baghdad -- Mitt Romney (circa 2012) suddenly seems like a wise soothsayer:
“I’m saying in terms of a geopolitical opponent, the nation that lines up with the world’s worst actors, of course the greatest threat that the world faces is a nuclear Iran, and nuclear North Korea is already troubling enough, but when these terrible actors pursue their course in the world and we go to the United Nations looking for ways to stop them, when [Syrian President] Assad, for instance, is murdering his own people, we go to the United Nations and who is it that always stands up for the world’s worst actors? It is always Russia, typically with China alongside, and so in terms of a geopolitical foe, a nation that’s on the Security Council, that has the heft of the Security Council, and is of course a massive security power — Russia is the geopolitical foe.” - Mitt Romney, October 2012

Posted by Mandy Nagy on June 14, 2014 4 Comments
A Ukrainian military transport plane was shot down by separatists in eastern Ukraine Saturday, killing 49 service members in what has been reported as the highest death toll suffered by government forces in a single incident since the unrest began there months ago. From Reuters:
Pro-Russian separatists shot down an army transport plane in east Ukraine on Saturday, killing 49 servicemen and dealing a blow to a military campaign to defeat the rebels and hold the country together. President Petro Poroshenko promised an "adequate" response after the plane was hit by an anti-aircraft missile as it came in to land at the airport outside the city of Luhansk, a centre of the rebellion against central rule that began in April. "All those involved in cynical acts of terrorism of this magnitude must be punished," he said, declaring Sunday a day of mourning for the nine crew and 40 paratroopers killed. He later consulted with his security and defense chiefs but gave no details of how they would retaliate.
A statement from the Ministry of Defense indicated the plane had been carrying machinery, equipment and food.  Nine crew members and 40 paratroopers aboard the plane were killed, according to the military wing of the prosecutor general’s office, the NY Times reported. Ukraine’s military had in recent days stepped up efforts to reclaim control of parts of eastern Ukraine from pro-Russia rebel forces.  On Friday, Ukrainian troops drove rebels out of the southeastern port city of Mariupol after heavy fighting. The news of Saturday’s incident regarding the downing of the military plane comes after the U.S. State Department on Friday accused Russia of sending tanks and weapons to separatists in Ukraine.

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 14, 2014 9 Comments
It's just a given that Hillary Clinton will get the Democratic nomination if she runs in 2016 but last week must be giving some Democrats second thoughts. This editorial from Investor's Business Daily outlines the problem:
Dems Face Hard Choices After Hillary's Awful Book Tour Week If Hillary Clinton's much ballyhooed — and ultimately disastrous — national book tour is any indication, Democrats face some hard choices in the months ahead about whom they can run for president. You can't blame Clinton for scheduling her "Hillary Week" at a time when there was so much real news going on. But she certainly deserves blame for the fact that the only coverage she managed to get from her book tour was all bad.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 14, 2014 6 Comments
The other day we noted how the father of Johnny "Mike" Spann reacted with dismay to the Taliban-Bowe Bergdahl swap. Mike Spann, a CIA officer and former Marine, was the first American killed in the Afghanistan war, during an uprising of prisoners in Northern Afghanistan. We have covered the story many times over the years. It is one of heroism, of small groups of special forces and CIA officers who operated in conjunction with Northern Afghanistan ethnic warlords to rout the Taliban long before there was a sizable U.S. ground presence. One of those warlords was Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who wrote a memorial to Spann and erected a monument (featured image). General Dostum is back in the news as he's running for Vice President of Afghanistan [the runoff election is today], and as ethnic warlords once again are seen as the key to fighting the Taliban as the U.S. winds down. Oh, and General Dostum is on Twitter. The uprising that led to Spann's death included not only so-called American Taliban John Walker Lindh (now in prison in the U.S.), but also one of the 5 Taliban leaders exchanged for Bergdahl. We've previously featured Spann's daughter Alison, and all her great accomplishments. Alison was recently interviewed on Fox News (via Instapundit) and echoed her grandfather's dismay at the swap:

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 14, 2014 12 Comments
This inconvenient flashback is brought to you by the Washington Free Beacon:
Vice President Joe Biden predicted in 2010 that Iraq would be “one of the greatest achievements” of the Obama administration. Appearing on CNN’s Larry King Live, Biden told King “It [Iraq] could be one of the greatest achievements of this administration.” He continued, “You’re going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You’re going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government.”
Here's the video: Paul Waldman of the Washington Post has a rather unique take on what's happening in Iraq:

Posted by New Neo on June 14, 2014 13 Comments
To refresh your memory in light of recent events in Iraq, this is how it went down in there in 2011:
The U.S. had tried to extend the presence of our troops past Dec. 31 [2011]. Why did we fail? The popular explanation is that the Iraqis refused to provide legal immunity for U.S. troops if they are accused of breaking Iraq's laws... But Mr. Maliki and other Iraqi political figures expressed exactly the same reservations about immunity in 2008...Indeed those concerns were more acute at the time...So why was it possible for the Bush administration to reach a deal with the Iraqis but not for the Obama administration? Quite simply it was a matter of will: President Bush really wanted to get a deal done, whereas Mr. Obama did not. Mr. Bush spoke weekly with Mr. Maliki by video teleconference. Mr. Obama had not spoken with Mr. Maliki for months before calling him in late October to announce the end of negotiations. Mr. Obama and his senior aides did not even bother to meet with Iraqi officials at the United Nations General Assembly in September. The administration didn't even open talks on renewing the Status of Forces Agreement until...a few months before U.S. troops would have to start shuttering their remaining bases to pull out by Dec. 31. The previous agreement, in 2008, took a year to negotiate.

Posted by Bruce Carroll on June 13, 2014 24 Comments
Media and civilian reports throughout northern and central Iraq on Friday suggest that the situation on the ground has become increasingly violent and unstable to the point that the Iraqi government is crumbling:
Heavily armed Islamist militants flush with $450 million in stolen cash pushed toward Baghdad on Friday, sending thousands fleeing in fear from the Iraqi capital. Al Qaeda-linked insurgents who overran large parts of the north of the country earlier this week also seized about $450 million during a bank heist, Mosul Mayor Athier Nujaifi told NBC News. That makes the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) the world's richest terrorist group.
The ISIS troops are led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (or Abu Dua) was once held by the US in Camp Bucca Iraq. al-Baghdadi was captured by U.S. forces in Iraq, but released by the Obama Administration in 2009. On his way to a visit to North Dakota, President Barack Obama held a brief statement and exchange with reporters on The White House lawn. Unfortunately for the President, events are deteriorating so fast around Baghdad, it may be too late for the United States to do anything before the ISIS/Sunni insurgents take the Iraqi capital. Reporters didn't ask specific questions about the failure of Obama to leave U.S. combat troops in Iraq after 2011 or his failure to complete a Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government.

Posted by Mandy Nagy on June 13, 2014 78 Comments
The IRS is unable to produce some of the emails of former agency official Lois Lerner due to a computer crash, according to a statement from the House Ways and Means Committee.
Today, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) issued the following statement regarding the Internal Revenue Service informing the Committee that they have lost Lois Lerner emails from a period of January 2009 – April 2011.  Due to a supposed computer crash, the agency only has Lerner emails to and from other IRS employees during this time frame.  The IRS claims it cannot produce emails written only to or from Lerner and outside agencies or groups, such as the White House, Treasury, Department of Justice, FEC, or Democrat offices. “The fact that I am just learning about this, over a year into the investigation, is completely unacceptable and now calls into question the credibility of the IRS’s response to Congressional inquiries.  There needs to be an immediate investigation and forensic audit by Department of Justice as well as the Inspector General. “Just a short time ago, Commissioner Koskinen promised to produce all Lerner documents.  It appears now that was an empty promise.  Frankly, these are the critical years of the targeting of conservative groups that could explain who knew what when, and what, if any, coordination there was between agencies.  Instead, because of this loss of documents, we are conveniently left to believe that Lois Lerner acted alone.  This failure of the IRS requires the White House, which promised to get to the bottom of this, to do an Administration-wide search and production of any emails to or from Lois Lerner.  The Administration has repeatedly referred us back to the IRS for production of materials.  It is clear that is wholly insufficient when it comes to determining the full scope of the violation of taxpayer rights.”
Last month, the Ways and Means Committee indicated that the IRS had finally agreed to turn over all Lois Lerner emails to the Committee.  But according to Friday's statement, it appears there had not been any mention until now that some of the emails would not be able to be produced because of the supposed computer crash. Apparently, Lerner tried to have technicians reconstruct her hard drive at the time of the crash, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 13, 2014 7 Comments
The Wendy Davis ship has been sinking ever since her personal narrative was revealed to be, at best, inventive. The water level appears to have reached the deck, because her Campaign Manager has abandoned ship, as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported Wednesday:
State Sen. Wendy Davis’ campaign for governor abruptly switched gears Wednesday as it struggles to meet the high expectations that supporters have for the Fort Worth Democrat. As nationally known strategist Karin Johanson revealed that she is leaving the campaign, Davis announced that state Rep. Chris Turner — the No. 2 member of the House Democratic leadership — will lead her campaign in the final five months until Election Day. “Chris has spent nearly 20 years in Texas politics and has fought, and won, tough races in this state,” Davis said in a statement. “His commitment to the people of Texas is unparalleled and demonstrated in his service in the state Legislature.”
This follows on the heels of the Davis' Communications Director leaving in early May. Even more bad news today for those still hoping Davis can mount a comeback. A new poll shows Greg Abbott maintaining a double-digit lead:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 13, 2014 14 Comments
The Mississippi Republican Senate primary is just one bizarre event after another. The nursing home photo shoot, the late night courthouse lock-in, and now two really, really bizarre statements by Thad Cochran. First, he joked (or was it a joke?) about doing indecent acts to animals as a kid.  Mark Levin questioned whether Cochran was "all there": Second, Cochran was interviewed and was unaware that Eric Cantor lost. The interview was published today but apparently took place Thursday:
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