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Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 10, 2014 31 Comments
Joan Biskupic writing for Reuters reports on the fear in the legal community that has caused large law firms to refuse to take on clients who support keeping the "one man, one woman" definition of marriage, U.S. law firms flock to gay-marriage proponents, shun other side (h/t @AdamLiptak):
As U.S. lawsuits seeking gay-marriage rights move toward a likely showdown at the Supreme Court next year, major law firms are rushing to get involved — but only on the side of the proponents. A Reuters review of more than 100 court filings during the past year shows that at least 30 of the country's largest firms are representing challengers to state laws banning same-sex marriage. Not a single member of the Am Law 200, a commonly used ranking of the largest U.S. firms by revenue, is defending gay marriage prohibitions. These numbers and interviews with lawyers on both sides suggest that the legal industry has reached its Mozilla moment. The software company's CEO, Brendan Eich, resigned in April after being denounced by gay marriage supporters for a donation he had made in support of California's since-overturned gay marriage ban. Now in a similar vein, attorneys at major law firms are getting the message that if they want to litigate against gay marriage they should do so elsewhere.
None of this will come as a surprise to Legal Insurrection readers. We wrote in April 2011, how the large law firm of King & Spalding withdrew its representation of the House of Representatives on the DOMA litigation after the Human Rights Campaign started contacting King & Spalding clients unrelated to the litigation,  and threats were made to hold protests at clients' offices.  King & Spalding did not, however, simultaneously drop its representation of radical Islamic Gitmo detainees who promote societies that treat women and gays as subhuman. I wrote at the time that there was A Hostile Environment For Pro-Traditional Marriage Views At King & Spalding, such that the expression of any contrary view was a potential career ender.  We now know how true that can be, as the Brendan Eich case demonstrated.

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 10, 2014 29 Comments
The polling is pretty consistent that the public is not buying Obama's spin on the trade of 5 senior Taliban Gitmo detainees for alleged deserter Bowe Bergdahl. CBS News reports:
Just over a week after U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was freed by the Taliban, a CBS News Poll shows 45 percent of Americans disapprove of the deal that saw him released in exchange for five Taliban militants, while 37 percent approve of it. About one in five do not have an opinion. Views differ by political party: most Republicans disapprove of the deal, while just over half of Democrats approve. Among those who have served in the military, 55 percent disapprove of the prisoner swap. Most Americans -- 56 percent -- say the U.S. paid too high a price to secure Bergdahl's release. Among veterans, that figure rises to 65 percent. Republicans and independents say the deal cost the U.S. too much, while Democrats are more divided: 42 percent think the terms of the agreement were reasonable, but almost as many -- 39 percent -- say the U.S. paid too high a price.
Pew Research further finds:

Posted by Bruce Carroll on June 10, 2014 12 Comments
After a lot of speculation and angst by conservative voters in South Carolina, today is Judgment Day for Lindsey Graham. Over the past year, SC grassroots activists have attempted to organize with the goal of defeating Graham in his re-election bid.  The problem always came back to the lack of a serious challenger to the incumbent Senator. Graham was first elected to Congress in the Republican Wave of 1994.  But the voters who watched O.J. Simpson huddled in the back of his white Bronco 20 years ago are not the demographic force of the electorate today.  South Carolina has a very eclectic mix of Republican voters:  Establishment/old school, Tea Party patriot grassroots groups, Christian conservatives and a libertarian streak that gave Ron Paul some hope in the 2012 South Carolina primary. Unlike the McDaniel/Cochran Senate race in Mississippi, none of these odd fellows in S.C. were able to coalesce behind a single candidate to go up against Graham. However, South Carolina is very interesting as it is one of the few states left that requires a 50%-plus-one vote in order to avoid a runoff election.  Most runoff states have a lower threshold of 40%. The main competitors to Graham are S.C. State Senator Lee Bright from the Greenville-Spartanburg area of Upstate South Carolina.  Bright was well-postioned in the crowded field as the only elected official with some statewide name recognition to challenge Lindsey Graham.  Bright also brought together a number of the numerous Tea Party and patriot grassroots groups throughout the state.  However, he never seemed to be able to gain momentum statewide or make a compelling case as to why he was a good alternative to Graham.  Bright struggled with fundraising throughout the contest, but recent polls suggest he may finish in second place to Graham in voting today.

Posted by A.F. Branco on June 10, 2014 3 Comments

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Posted by Mandy Nagy on June 09, 2014 9 Comments
An audit released by the Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday indicated that more than 57,000 veterans have been waiting three months or longer for their first appointment with a VA facility. From the Associated Press:
More than 57,000 U.S. military veterans have been waiting 90 days or more for their first VA medical appointments, and an additional 64,000 appear to have fallen through the cracks, never getting appointments after enrolling and requesting them, the Veterans Affairs Department said Monday. It's not just a backlog problem, the wide-ranging review indicated. Thirteen percent of schedulers in the facility-by-facility report on 731 hospitals and outpatient clinics reported being told by supervisors to falsify appointment schedules to make patient waits appear shorter. The audit is the first nationwide look at the VA network in the uproar that began with reports two months ago of patients dying while awaiting appointments and of cover-ups at the Phoenix VA center. A preliminary review last month found that long patient waits and falsified records were "systemic" throughout the VA medical network, the nation's largest single health care provider serving nearly 9 million veterans.
The report indicated that as part of its actions to address the problems identified, the VA would “critically review its performance management, education and communication systems to determine how performance goals were conveyed across the chain of command such that some front-line, middle and senior managers felt compelled to manipulate VA’s scheduling processes.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 09, 2014 4 Comments
The Wisconsin anti-conservative investigation by local prosecutors targeting numerous conservative activists and groups has resulted in numerous legal cases. The investigation is a round-about attack on Gov. Scott Walker, seeking to damage him politically and freeze his supporters out of the political process. Most prominently, in a federal lawsuit two of the targets obtained a preliminary injunction shutting down the investigation as a violation of their constitutional rights. There also are claims for damages individually against the investigators. A separate lawsuit was filed in state court against the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board for its role. The investigation has become the poster child for government abuse of process against conservative activists, as George Will wrote:
Last Tuesday, [Federal Judge] Randa halted the corruption being committed by people pretending to administer campaign regulations — regulations ostensibly enacted to prevent corruption or the appearance thereof. The prosecutors’ cynical manipulation of Wisconsin’s campaign laws is more than the mere appearance of corruption.
There were two important developments this afternoon. In the first and most important development, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld, pending appeal, the preliminary injunction halting the investigation (full order embedded at bottom of post):

Posted by New Neo on June 09, 2014 35 Comments
The illegal immigration situation in this country seems to have gone from dreadful to utter chaos, with no end in sight. This is absolutely disturbing on so many levels it's hard to process. Also, as a side issue, are Jan Brewer and Arizona being punished by the Obama administration?:
Hundreds of migrants nabbed by the border patrol after illegally crossing the US-Mexico border through Texas have been flown to Arizona and left at Greyhound Bus stations in Tucson and Phoenix during the past month...Critics charge that released border-crossers will vanish into the woodwork. Immigrant advocates accuse the federal government of releasing migrants without providing enough basic necessities such as food and water on days that hover around 100 degrees F. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) calls it "another disturbing example of a deliberate failure to enforce border security policies and repair a broken immigration system" in a letter to President Obama.
Yeah, a letter! That'll do it. Although to be honest, I don't know what the remedy would be. Even impeachment wouldn't do it at this point, because fixing this would require that both parties be dedicated to tightening both border security and lessening the cornucopia of services available to illegal immigrants, which would require some harsh and extremely difficult decisions that I don't think our politicians are up to. The CS Monitor offers more background here on why the number of illegal child immigrants has been increasing during the last two years:

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 09, 2014 2 Comments
Jacksonville news broadcaster news4jax is reporting that a September re-trial date has been set for Michael Dunn, with jury selection to begin September 22. This past February Dunn was convicted of three counts of attempted murder for shooting at an SUV carrying Jordan Davis and three companions, all black teens.  Dunn himself is a middle-aged white male. The three convictions were for firing shots at the three surviving teens as they fled.  Davis was killed by the first three rounds fired, but the jury hung on the associated charge of first degree murder. Immediately upon the jury returning this finding Florida Attorney General Angela Corey announced that she should would be re-trying Dunn on the murder charge.  The date for that re-trial was initially set for early May, but as mentioned above has now been moved to late September.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 09, 2014 14 Comments
We covered the "tranny" controversy at the University of Chicago in the Saturday Night Card Game, When everyone shuts up, we will have reached the “safe space”. The short story is that the student speech police attacked liberal gay activist Dan Savage for using the word "tranny" in discussing at a forum why he no longer uses the word "tranny."  More than that, they demanded that the word be banned from use at U. Chicago's Institute of Politics, where the event took place. Savage responded to the controversy (h/t Instapundit), by noting that the activists who attacked him refer to "trans" people as "it" -- a characterization Savage says is particularly offensive to the "trans" community.  I don't know if that's right or wrong, but it's a point. Andrew Sullivan writes, surveying this all this:
Yes, this occurred at the University of Chicago! Now, I’m not interested in defending Dan, because he can defend himself. And John Aravosis is right that there’s a potent and destructive strain in the LGBT world that aims more hate at someone like Dan Savage than at Rick Santorum (tell me about it). What I am interested is condemning this pathetic excuse for a student. This plea in a university to be free of hearing things that might hurt, offend, traumatize or upset you is an attack on the very idea of education itself. And don’t get me started about “trigger warnings.” So many things worth thinking about, grappling with, and chewing over can be offensive at first or second blush. That’s what a real education is about: offending your pre-existing feelings and prejudices with reason and argument and sometimes provocation. Education is not and never should be about making you more comfortable and more safe within your current worldview. It should not be about accusing someone with whom you might disagree of a hate crime.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 09, 2014 39 Comments
Hillary Clinton's interview with Diane Sawyer is getting a lot of attention because Hillary explained the $100 million plus she and Bill have made giving speeches as necessitated by their near poverty upon leaving office:
SAWYER: You've made five million making speeches? The president's made more than a hundred million dollars? CLINTON: Well, you have no reason to remember, but we came out of the White House not only dead broke but in debt. We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to piece together the resources for mortgages for houses, for Chelsea's education. You know, it was not easy. Bill has worked really hard and it's been amazing to me. He's worked very hard. First of all, we had to pay off all our debts. You know, you had to make double the money because of, obviously, taxes, and then pay off the debts and get us houses and take care of family members.
The problem is not that the Clintons made a fortune. This is America, after all. People are entitled to make a fortune so long as they do so lawfully, and we've not yet reached the point where the law dictates when people have made enough. The problem is that Hillary is not being straight with the public.

Posted by Mandy Nagy on June 08, 2014 6 Comments

Updates on Bergdahl story, Obama to issue executive order on student loans, parents outraged over photos shown in sex-ed class...

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 08, 2014 9 Comments
Do you remember David Chalian? He was a reporter for Yahoo! back in 2012 and while covering the Republican National Convention he was caught on tape smearing the Romneys and implying that they were racists as to blacks suffering from Hurricane Isaac:
"They're not concerned at all. They're happy to have a party with black people drowning..."
CNN just hired him as their new political director. Geoffrey Dickens of News Busters has the details:
CNN's New Political Director in 2012: Romneys Would Be 'Happy to Have a Party with Black People Drowning' On Friday, CNN announced that David Chalian would be named as their new political director. Chalian is most famous for making an obnoxious remark about Mitt and Ann Romney during the 2012 Republican National Convention. On August 29, 2012, in live video inadvertently distributed by ABCNews.com, the-then Yahoo! News Washington bureau chief claimed the Romneys didn’t care about New Orleans residents being hit by Hurricane Isaac as he blurted: “They aren’t concerned at all. They are happy to have a party with black people drowning.”
Here's the clip. Nick Massella of Media Bistro broke the story on Friday:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 08, 2014 8 Comments
In the ever bizarre Mississippi Republican Senate Primary, three people were locked into the Courthouse where the primary ballots had been counted after hours. The three claimed they had entered through an open side door. The ballots themselves were locked in an inaccessible vault, and never in danger. The incident dominated the news cycle for about 48 hours because one of the three was a coalition coordinator for the campaign of Chris McDaniel. The Sheriff's department investigated, and determined that no crime was committed, as we wrote in Chris McDaniel courthouse break-in “scandal” is a nothingburger, quoting an MSNBC report:
“Based on our findings and subsequent conclusion, there is no reason to believe that the three individuals engaged in any criminal activity nor do we believe any laws were broken,” a statement by the Hinds County Sheriff’s office read on Thursday. According to the sheriff’s office, the three McDaniel supporters gained access to the courthouse through an employees-only side door that was not meant to be open. Once it closed behind them, they found themselves trapped and searched the building in hopes of finding an employee who could help them leave. They never had access to any ballot boxes, which were in a secure locked area, the sheriff’s office said.
Okay, case investigated and closed, right? No. Then a county supervisor asked the Hinds County District Attorney to investigate anyway, and the DA agreed, as reported in the Clarion-Ledger:
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