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Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 23, 2014 10 Comments
If it turns out that the campaign of Chris McDaniel was involved in the taping of Thad Cochran's wife in a nursing home, then it really doesn't matter who knew what when. The damage would be, and should be, a game changer. As of this writing, though, the proof either is not there or has not been made public. At most there is a cloud of suspicion because the alleged perpetrators were supporters and/or volunteers and/or prior acquaintances of McDaniel or the campaign. But if it turns out either that we don't get the answer until after the June 3 primary, or that the McDaniel campaign was not involved, then the fact that the story broke so close to the election is important. We know one of the reasons the story broke so late -- the Cochran campaign has admitted waiting at least two weeks to inform authorities. We don't know exactly how many weeks beyond two weeks. That pushed the story closer to the election which means we may not know the answer by June 3, which makes the seeming presumption of guilt based on the unknown potentially decisive. Erick Erickson suggested early on that there might have been collusion between the Cochran campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. I don't if that's true or not. One way to find out would be to find out when the NRSC, its staffers and strategists, found out about the taping. If there was collusion to delay the story until closer to the election, we should know that. If there was no collusion to delay the story, should know that too. And we should know it prior to the election. But as of this writing, I have not been able to get an answer to that question.

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 23, 2014 14 Comments
Thomas Piketty is the new wonder-boy of redistributionists. The Financial Times reports, however, that his numbers are off, skewing his findings, Piketty findings undercut by errors (h/t Sean Davis):
Thomas Piketty’s book, ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’, has been the publishing sensation of the year. Its thesis of rising inequality tapped into the zeitgeist and electrified the post-financial crisis public policy debate. But, according to a Financial Times investigation, the rock-star French economist appears to have got his sums wrong. The data underpinning Professor Piketty’s 577-page tome, which has dominated best-seller lists in recent weeks, contain a series of errors that skew his findings. The FT found mistakes and unexplained entries in his spreadsheets, similar to those which last year undermined the work on public debt and growth of Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff. The central theme of Prof Piketty’s work is that wealth inequalities are heading back up to levels last seen before the first world war. The investigation undercuts this claim, indicating there is little evidence in Prof Piketty’s original sources to bear out the thesis that an increasing share of total wealth is held by the richest few. Prof Piketty, 43, provides detailed sourcing for his estimates of wealth inequality in Europe and the US over the past 200 years. In his spreadsheets, however, there are transcription errors from the original sources and incorrect formulas. It also appears that some of the data are cherry-picked or constructed without an original source.
I think Rick Perry had a reaction once similar to what Piketty worshippers should be having:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 23, 2014 8 Comments
Professor Jacobson just reported that a ponderous tome explaining why black Americans are entitled to reparations has just been published. In other news, hundreds of Chinese families are suing Japan for compensation related to World War II enforced labor.
As relations between China and Japan plumb a new low, the descendants of hundreds of of Chinese men forced to work in wartime Japan are taking big, modern-day Japanese corporates to court. They are seeking millions in compensation. ...In possibly the biggest class-action suit in Chinese legal history, about 700 plaintiffs lodged a case against two Japanese firms at a courthouse in eastern Shandong province in April, said Fu Qiang, a lawyer representing the families. Among the plaintiffs are several forced labourers, now in their 80s and 90s, and this might be their last chance to seek redress. The suit was filed against Mitsubishi Corp (Qingdao) Ltd, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corp, and Yantai Misubishi Cement Co, a joint venture between Mitsubishi Corp and construction firm Mitsubishi Materials Corp, Fu said. The plaintiffs are each seeking 1 million yuan ($160,100) in compensation, a public apology in several prominent Chinese and Japanese newspapers, as well as the erection of a memorial and monument in remembrance of the forced labourers, Fu said, adding that they also want the companies to fund their legal expenses.
Perhaps they would settle for control of a certain set of islands called the Senkakus in Japanese (and the Diaoyu in Chinese) that both countries have been vying to control and which have become a source or regional tension?

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 22, 2014 7 Comments
If you know any student at DePaul -- undergraduate or graduate -- you need to get them to vote against the anti-Israel divestment referendum. Unlike other divestment resolutions, this is put to a full student body vote, not just the student government. The vote is expected to be close. Every vote counts. You can help make a difference. Voting ends FRIDAY, May 23, 2014. Here's the link for students to log in and vote. Share it. STUDENT VOTING LOGIN As always happens on campuses, I'm hearing there is a pretty consistent campaign of intimidation and a university which only enforces the rules against on campus filming and campaigning against the pro-Israel students. (Videos via Paul Miller - YouTube and Twitter) Here's one of the pro-divestment students in an area of the student center taken over by pro-divestment students, who doesn't like his public conduct being videotaped:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 22, 2014 106 Comments
The 15,000+ word essay by Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic, The Case for Reparations, is getting completely predictable reactions. It's looooong, which gives it a perceived weight which just is not there.   In fact, there's not much new there, except for historical anecdotes shedding detail but not light on what we already knew to be the history of slavery, segregation and discrimination:
... the crime with which reparations activists charge the country implicates more than just a few towns or corporations. The crime indicts the American people themselves, at every level, and in nearly every configuration. A crime that implicates the entire American people deserves its hearing in the legislative body that represents them. .... No one can know what would come out of such a debate. Perhaps no number can fully capture the multi-century plunder of black people in America. Perhaps the number is so large that it can’t be imagined, let alone calculated and dispensed. But I believe that wrestling publicly with these questions matters as much as—if not more than—the specific answers that might be produced. An America that asks what it owes its most vulnerable citizens is improved and humane. An America that looks away is ignoring not just the sins of the past but the sins of the present and the certain sins of the future. More important than any single check cut to any African American, the payment of reparations would represent America’s maturation out of the childhood myth of its innocence into a wisdom worthy of its founders.
Coates never gives the answer as to who gets what and how. And that's ultimately the problem with reparations arguments that are not based upon the people causing the harm paying the people directly harmed by specific conduct soon after the conduct is remedied.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 22, 2014 10 Comments
Supporters of Thad Cochran, including the National Republican Senatorial Committee, have all but convicted the campaign of Chris McDaniel in the possibly illegal -- but definitely disgusting -- photographing of Cochran's wife in a nursing home. While more evidence may, and likely will, come out, as of this writing there is no evidence made public that McDaniel's campaign itself was involved. If the facts are not known by the June 3 primary, the political presumption of guilt may be enough to sink the McDaniel campaign. What we know is that the guy who did the taping was a pro-Cochran blogger, but his lawyer denies it was part of a campaign effort. Based on tweets today from a court hearing by a local reporter, it appears that the blogger did it to make a name for himself. He succeeded in that, although perhaps not in the way he intended. Tweets Cochran wife taping hearing 5-22-2014 The big news today were three new arrests. A volunteer who contributed $500 to the McDaniel campaign, and is a leader of a local Tea Party group, was arrested for "conspiracy" with regard to the photographing.  He reportedly is a long-time Cochran opponent.  Two other people (for a total of three today) also were charged, one person for destroying evidence the other person for reasons not known as of this writing.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 22, 2014 23 Comments
I am experiencing de ja vu all over again with the latest  "Tea Party is dead" discussion. The numerous political class "debates" on Wednesday focused on the result of Tuesday's elections in several states, as reported in the following Politico article:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell defeated his GOP challenger in Kentucky by 25 percentage points, a high-profile but low-suspense race on a critical primary day when voters cast ballots in six states. In Georgia, a Senate Republican primary headed to a runoff with the two candidates favored by GOP establishment leaders. And in Oregon, pediatric neurosurgeon Monica Wehby fended off a more conservative challenger in her Republican primary. ...After a year of threats from conservative outside groups, no GOP incumbents lost Tuesday. Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson beat back a tea partier supported by groups such as Club for Growth, with help from the business lobby and Mitt Romney. National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Greg Walden, targeted in Oregon by a national campaign called Primary My Congressman, received triple the support of his opponent with more than half the votes in. And House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster prevailed over his challenger in Pennsylvania by 18 points.Republican leaders have maneuvered to nominate candidates who they hope can avoid the kinds of foot-in-mouth mistakes that cost them winnable races last cycle in red states like Missouri and Indiana.
How quickly the Beltway opiners forget a couple of recent wins (hat-tip, Instapundit)! Tea Party Alex Mooney wins Virgina GOP House Primary:
Former Maryland GOP Chairman Alex Mooney has won the Republican primary for West Virginia’s second congressional district, according to the Associated Press, beating pharmacist Ken Reed and former U.S. International Trade Commissioner and state legislator Charlotte Lane. ...Tea party groups quickly congratulated Mooney. The Senate Conservatives Fund, a group that works to elect conservative candidates, even trying to oust incumbents in several races, put in $95,000 supporting Mooney. “Alex Mooney started out as the underdog, but won this race because he ran on conservative principles,” SCF Executive Director Matt Hoskins said in a statement.
And this chestnut: Tea-party-backed Ben Sasse wins Nebraska primary for U.S. Senate:

Posted by A.F. Branco on May 22, 2014 5 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 CampusClimatologist on May 22, 2014 3 Comments
We have covered extensively the attempt by the UCLA branch of Students for Justice in Palestine to keep pro-Israel students off the student council by claiming that taking sponsored trips to Israel (and only Israel) creates a conflict of interest, UCLA testing ground for next generation of anti-Israel campus tactics. The hypocrisy was dripping, as theSJP-backed UCLA Student President-elect took sponsored trip to Israel, yet won by 31 votes slamming such trips. After a trial conducted by students, the Judicial Board of UCLA's student government found  by a 4-0-2 vote that former council members Sunny Singh and Lauren Rogers did not violate conflict of interest bylaws by accepting subsidized trips to Israel from the Anti-Defamation League and Project Interchange, and that their votes against BDS were "valid and legitimate." The decision is at the bottom of this post. While this is was a show trial in which no remedy was available, this sets an important precedent:  pro-Israel students at UCLA who associate with pro-Israel organizations need not fear being legally barred from holding office or voting on Israel-related issues.

Posted by Mandy Nagy on May 21, 2014 18 Comments
The White House said Wednesday that the United States has deployed approximately 80 Armed Forces personnel to Chad “as part of the U.S. efforts to locate and support the safe return of over 200 schoolgirls who are reported to have been kidnapped in Nigeria,” according to a letter sent to lawmakers. From CNN:
The United States deployed 80 members of its armed forces to Chad to help in the search for the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls, the White House said Wednesday. "These personnel will support the operation of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft for missions over northern Nigeria and the surrounding area," it said in a letter. "The force will remain in Chad until its support in resolving the kidnapping situation is no longer required." President Barack Obama informed the House speaker and the president of the Senate of the move. The forces will be involved in maintaining aircraft and analyzing data, but because they are armed, the President is required by law to inform the speaker of the House, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said. "These are not combat infantry troops that we put into Chad," Kirby told CNN's "The Lead with Jake Tapper" on Wednesday. "These are folks that are there to support the reconnaissance mission."
(View the letter from the White House to Congress here)

Posted by New Neo on May 21, 2014 4 Comments

The recent news about commencement speakers being scared away or disinvited or staying the course despite adversity or giving students a tongue-lashing might make you want to return to a commencement address from an earlier time. That time was 1956, nearly a full sixty years ago....

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