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Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 08, 2014 23 Comments
When I saw this segment on The O'Reilly Factor about student grievances at Dartmouth, I thought is was just more of the same. Then I read the List (h/t The Other McCain). Wow. Read it for yourself at the bottom of this post. The students behind the list took over the President's office to demand specific responses to each item on the list. The takeover, and the list, have generated articles in The Wall Street Journal, The Dartmouth Review, and elsewhere. (As an aside, one of the grievances is to force The Review to stop using the name Dartmouth unless it stops using the term "Indian" in the publication.) The list contains 72 (by the WSJ's count) bulleted demands most which seek race-, sexuality- and ethnicity-based treatment of students, staff and faculty. There actualy were a handful of grievances with which I agree, including this one:
Eradicate internal judicial processes for students that break laws, those crimes will be reported directly to police.
There was a lot missing from the list, like a focus on raising academic standards. But college increasingly is not about academics, anyway, it's about "social justice" retribution and entitlement entrenchment. But the one glaring demand missing from the list was this:
That "[students] live [on a campus] where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
In fact, almost everything on the grievance list is designed to insure that that dream never comes true.

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Posted by New Neo on April 08, 2014 9 Comments
Stop the presses: the percentage of people without health insurance has dropped in the first quarter of 2014. But if a decline in the uninsured rate hadn't occurred when Obamacare began, now that would have been a shock. After all, if you give Medicaid to a whole new group of people, offer subsidies to a huge number of other lower-income people, and stick everyone else with penalties for not getting insurance, it could be expected that the rate of those without health insurance would go down. And I don't recall (although I could be missing something) that anyone on the right was suggesting that the total rate of the medically uninsured would fail to go down as a result of Obamacare. The real questions were and are (a) how much of a dent it would actually make in the uninsured (a figure that was probably somewhat elusive to begin with); (b) at what cost, both in money and disruption; (c) what quality of insurance would be the result; (d) what the effect on our health care system would be over time; and (e) the effect on our liberty. But anyway, here are the stats are from Gallup. Unfortunately, I can't find a link to the actual study, and I always prefer to look at the more complete picture, but let's look at the chart from the summary version:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 08, 2014 9 Comments

Might apply to more than one of these bumper stickers. From Deb: I took this pic in a parking lot in Walpole MA. The irony in the inclusion of the Ben Franklin quote leaves me speechless.  This is someone completely unclear on the concept of freedom and security! The...

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Posted by Mandy Nagy on April 07, 2014 10 Comments
Tensions continued to escalate in eastern Ukraine Monday on the heels of protests over the weekend in which pro-Russia protesters seized government buildings in several cities. From CNN:
Ukraine's acting president accused Russia on Monday of trying to "dismember" his country, warning that uprisings in three cities echoed the events leading to the Russian annexation of Crimea three weeks ago. Pro-Moscow protesters seized government buildings, raised Russian flags and declared new governments in the cities of Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkov on Sunday. In a televised message, acting President Oleksandr Turchynov said the revolts were led by "separatist groups coordinated by Russian special services." "Enemies of Ukraine are trying to play out the Crimean scenario, but we will not let this happen," Turchynov said. And Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said the goal of the protesters is "to destabilize" the country, allowing "foreign troops to cross the border and seize the territory of the country." "We will not allow it," Yatsenyuk said.
In some of these incidents, protesters demanded a referendum like the one recently seen in Crimea, according to the Washington Post.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 07, 2014 22 Comments
Santa Monica High School wrestling coach and science teacher Mark Black is seeing an outpouring of community support after a (alleged) drug dealing student picked a fight with Black, and lost. Coach Black pinned the student to the ground while help arrived. The incident was caught on cell phone video: The We Support Coach Black of Samohi Facebook Page has over 10,500 "Likes" so far -- come on, we can do better than that -- go "Like" the page and spread the link. Coach Mark Black Santa Monica Support Page A change.org petition for Coach Black's reinstatement has over 4000 signatures.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 07, 2014 16 Comments
Opposing the anti-Israel Boycott Divest and Sanction movement is serious business, so it's natural that we tend to be serious about it. But I also think we need to be happy in the fight as well. Contrary to boycott mythology, Israel is thriving economically, with investment and new trade deals being announced almost daily. Israel is a sea of happiness in a region filled with horrors inflicted by Arabs upon Arabs. The anger of the BDS movement doesn't need to be replicated by us -- at least not to the exclusion of humor and happiness.  (Happy Tel Aviv - Yafo here) It's one of the reasons I start my lectures opposing the academic boycott at colleges with statistics showing how Israel has a higher favorability rating in the U.S. than kittens. It always gets a laugh, but a laugh which keeps things in perspective. There is a template for being happy warriors against BDS, the Sussex (England) Friends of Israel (SFI).  We previously featured SFI's video of the Brighton Israeli Apartheid Week March that attracted only a few people, #BDSfail – 8 people show up for Sussex “Israeli Apartheid Week” march. The SFI brings mockery and good humor to the humorless Israel haters, with miraculous results:

Posted by A.F. Branco on April 07, 2014 10 Comments

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 David Gerstman on April 07, 2014 7 Comments
Last month, Jeffrey Goldberg published an interview with President Barack Obama, ahead of Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu's trip to the United States to attend the AIPAC conference. The President wasn't at all friendly in the interview, warning (in Goldberg's words) that "time is running out." Roughly four weeks later, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority refused to continue negotiations with Israel. Is there a connection between the two? Put a different way, in the words of Neo-Neocon Did Obama Sabotage Kerry on Peace Talks? The answer is "yes," and here's how. There are two points that Obama made in his interview worth recalling. Answering a question from Goldberg about Abbas, President Obama said:
We don’t know exactly what would happen. What we know is that it gets harder by the day. What we also know is that Israel has become more isolated internationally. We had to stand up in the Security Council in ways that 20 years ago would have involved far more European support, far more support from other parts of the world when it comes to Israel’s position. And that’s a reflection of a genuine sense on the part of a lot of countries out there that this issue continues to fester, is not getting resolved, and that nobody is willing to take the leap to bring it to closure.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 07, 2014 7 Comments

The classic rephrased by Jeb Bush: "Robbing from Committing Acts of Love on the rich and giving to the poor" Spotted in Ithaca, at the mall parking lot. (Yeah, you can feel sorry for me.)...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 07, 2014 10 Comments
We previously covered the UCLA anti-Israel divestment resolution, which was voted down 7-7 by the student council after an intense and contentious all-night session. One of the co-sponsors and a strong supporter of the resolution was Community Service Commissioner Omar Arce, as reported by The Daily Bruin (emphasis added):
Facilities Commissioner Armen Hadjimanoukian of the Bruins United slate, Community Service Commissioner Omar Arce, an independent councilmember, and General Representative Lizzy Naameh of the LET’S ACT! slate sponsored the resolution.... In a second straw vote later in the meeting, no councilmembers changed their vote. Student Wellness Commissioner Savannah Badalich, Naameh, External Vice President Maryssa Hall, Cultural Affairs Commissioner Jessica Trumble and Arce still said they would support the resolution.
Arce not only sponsored the resolution, he also endorsed a letter claiming "Islamophobic commentary" in opposition to the divestment resolution necessitated a "Diversity Requirement." The Daily Bruin reports that Arce has been arrested on charges of false imprisonment related to alleged sexual batteries:
An undergraduate student council member was arrested by university police Wednesday on a charge of false imprisonment. On Wednesday, a female student reported a series of sexual batteries between October and March. The report led to 21-year-old Omar Arce’s arrest, according to a police report released Thursday afternoon. UCPD arrested Arce, the Undergraduate Students Association Council Community service commissioner and a fourth-year international development studies student, at 10:47 a.m. Wednesday and transported him to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in West Hollywood. Arce was booked about 11:30 a.m. on $50,000 bail. He is currently being held at the Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles.
The local Fox affiliate further reports on the arrest:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 06, 2014 48 Comments
Jeb Bush (emphasis added):
"A great country ought to know where those folks are and politely ask them to leave," he said, adding later that properly targeting people who overstay visas "would restore people's confidence" in the nation's immigration system. "There are means by which we can control our border better than we have. And there should be penalties for breaking the law," he added. "But the way I look at this -- and I'm going to say this, and it'll be on tape and so be it. The way I look at this is someone who comes to our country because they couldn’t come legally, they come to our country because their families -- the dad who loved their children -- was worried that their children didn’t have food on the table. And they wanted to make sure their family was intact, and they crossed the border because they had no other means to work to be able to provide for their family. Yes, they broke the law, but it’s not a felony. It’s an act of love. It’s an act of commitment to your family. I honestly think that that is a different kind of crime that there should be a price paid, but it shouldn’t rile people up that people are actually coming to this country to provide for their families."
Mickey Kaus calls it a "cunning strategy":
Jeb’s Jejune Swoon: Why did Jeb Bush say those provocative, seemingly jejune things about illegal border crossing being “not a felony” but ” an act of love? Obviously it’s what he actually thinks. But, again, why did he say it? Two theories: 1) He’s running in 2016 and thinks he can compensate for giving amnesty to all the illegal border crossers (mainly from Mexico) by cracking down and even deporting visa-overstayers (who aren’t so  much from Latin America).  It’s a weak attempt to appease immigration hawks–but it’s also a double-pander to many Latinos, who (rightly) resent politicians who talk about building a Southern fence while ignoring the visa-overstay problem. Clever!  I don’t think the immigration hawks will be fooled, though, since Bush also endorsed the Gang of 8 bill, which legalizes instantly while postponing enforcement until later. Or …

Posted by Mandy Nagy on April 06, 2014 13 Comments
Pro-Russia protesters stormed government buildings in several eastern Ukrainian cities Sunday, further inflaming tensions there. From CNN:
Demonstrators stormed a provincial administration building in eastern Ukraine on Sunday and raised the Russian flag atop it, demanding the release of riot police accused of killing protesters in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, in February. Police were negotiating with the demonstrators, who have called for supporters to rally around the Regional Security Administration building in Donetsk, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) from the Russian border. Video of the negotiations was being streamed live online by local news outlets. The protest is the latest challenge to Ukraine's embattled new government, which took power after a revolt that toppled pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in February. There was no immediate response to the seizure from top officials in Kiev, where the jailed police are accused of killing protesters during the uprising against Yanukovych.
Similar incidents were also reported in Kharkiv and Luhansk, according to the BBC. Reuters reports that Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov accused Russian President Vladimir Putin and ousted Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovich of agitating the actions.
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