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Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 21, 2014 4 Comments
We have long followed the saga of Stanley Cohen, an attorney best known for his representation of and allegiance to Hamas. Stanley Cohen Twitter Support Hamas October 20 2014 Cohen pleaded guilty to tax charges relating to his elaborate use of cash transactions to conceal income and his failure to file income tax returns for several years. The evidence was overwhelming, to put it mildly. When Cohen entered his plea last April, he admitted that the government could prove its case. Today, Cohen was sentenced in federal court in Syracuse, NY, to 18-months in prison as set forth in his plea deal. Here is the entry in the court docket late this afternoon:

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 21, 2014 24 Comments
We have long tracked the increasing aggressiveness of anti-Israel groups on campus. See my post this summer, Expecting anti-Israel violence on campuses this fall, for a partial catalog of such instances. One component of these protests is non-student activists inflaming the situation. For example, on April 10, 2014, after the Cornell student assembly tabled an anti-Israel divestment resolution, a non-student Ithaca activist (kat yang-stevens) confronted me and falsely accused me of putting my camera in her face. In fact, the video clearly shows (language warning) she made it up in order to create an incident. On November 19, 2014, Cornell Students for Justice in Palestine organized a mock Israeli checkpoint at Ho Plaza, a central student gathering point on campus between the Cornell Bookstore and Willard Straight Hall, where many student activities are centered. [caption id="attachment_106917" align="alignnone" width="600"]Cornell SJP - Mock Checkpoint Ho Plaza 11-19-2014 (Image via Casey Breznick)[/caption] Casey Breznick, Editor in Chief of the Cornell Review and an author at Legal Insurrection, has the story at the Cornell Review Blog of a confrontation that took place when a group of pro-Israel students counter-protested holding Israeli flags and signs calling for peace. Here is video we put together based on footage provided to us by multiple student sources, showing yang-stevens pulling the same ploy she pulled on me last April, claiming that the student had his camera in her face (which he denies both in the video and also in communications with me), as yang-stevens taunted the pro-Israel student to hit her. As another person shouted out "Fuck you Zionist scums": (Language Warning) In addition to his Review report, Casey told me:

Posted by Amy Miller on November 21, 2014 13 Comments
Last night, the President did more than bring illegal immigrants "out of the shadows" with his executive order. With the stroke of a pen, he made it harder for law enforcement officials to protect Americans from illegals who stick their heads out of the shadows to commit violent crimes. As part of his executive order, President Obama suspended the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Secure Communities program. Secure Communities required the FBI to automatically send the fingerprints of anyone arrested by state or local police to DHS for a cross check; DHS could then screen the arrestee to see if the person was either a criminal alien, or someone who fell under civil immigration enforcement priorities. The program was responsible for identifying and deporting hundreds of thousands of dangerous criminals who are here illegally and already in custody is no more. Amazingly, Democrats in Texas are celebrating the move:
“The existing misnamed ‘Secure Communities’ program is being terminated and replaced,” [U.S. Representative Lloyd] Doggett said in a statement to the American-Statesman. “With (the Department of Homeland Security) focusing on threats to national security and public safety, some immigration employees will likely be reassigned to higher priority duties. Future DHS requests to local law enforcement for release notification will likely focus on those who have committed a serious felony.” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement currently asks that local law enforcement agencies keep people in custody for an extra 48 hours after they have posted bail or otherwise been cleared for release if they’re suspected of being in the country illegally. The program has drawn criticism from activists who argue it leads to the deportation of nonviolent undocumented immigrants, and the Austin City Council in June passed a resolution in opposition to Travis County’s participation in the program.
Having lived in Texas (and I will say I didn't truly understand the immigration crisis until I saw it firsthand,) I don't understand how Texas Democrats can possibly condone a policy that makes it more difficult for the police to control violence in border states. It's indefensible.

Posted by Andrew Branca on November 21, 2014 42 Comments
CNN's Anderson Cooper is reporting that police officer Darren Wilson, who shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson MO on August 9, is purportedly in the final stages of preparing his resignation from the Ferguson police department. Wilson, who has been in hiding for months following threats of violence against himself and his immediate family, has apparently been negotiating terms of resignation with the police department. One key factor reportedly delaying his resignation prior to this point is that he preferred to wait to resign until after the Grand Jury had completed its deliberations, fearing that his resignation would make him appear guilty in their eyes. Wilson had six years of unblemished service on the Ferguson Police Department before, the evidence overwhelmingly suggests, being viciously attacked by Michael Brown and Brown's accomplice Dorian Johnson. After Brown received a contact gun shot wound to the hand while trying to take Wilson's service pistol, Brown fled a short distance before turning to attack the officer again.  It was during this renewed attack that Wilson was compelled to re-engage Brown with gun fire, ending the attack with a fatal gun shot wound to the head. Officer Wilson has maintained throughout the investigation and Grand Jury proceedings that he has done nothing wrong.  Notably, Wilson voluntarily appeared before the Grand Jury and provided over four hours of personal testimony of the events of his fatal encounter with Brown, without legal counsel present.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 21, 2014 10 Comments
The House of Representatives filed suit this morning over Obama administration unilateral changes to Obamacare. A complete copy of the Complaint is embedded at the bottom of this post. This is expected to be the template for suit over immigration changes announced last night. The NY Times describes the claims in the lawsuit:
The lawsuit — filed against the secretaries of the Health and Human Services and Treasury Departments — focuses on two crucial aspects of the way the administration has put the Affordable Care Act into effect. The suit accuses the Obama administration of unlawfully postponing a requirement that larger employers offer health coverage to their full-time employees or pay penalties. (Larger companies are defined as those with 50 or more employees.) In July 2013, the administration deferred that requirement until 2015. Seven months later, the administration announced a further delay, until 2016, for employers with 50 to 99 employees. The suit also challenges what it says is President Obama’s unlawful giveaway of roughly $175 billion to insurance companies under the law. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the administration will pay that amount to the companies over the next 10 years, though the funds have not been appropriated by Congress. The lawsuit argues that it is an unlawful transfer of funds.

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Posted by Mike LaChance on November 21, 2014 26 Comments
You know who's really excited about Obama's new immigration plan? Future illegal immigrants. Paul Bedard of the Washington Examiner reported:
ICE readies 2,400 beds for new spring surge of illegal immigrants through Texas The Obama administration is bracing for another surge of illegal immigrants next spring, bringing online a family detention center that will have 2,400 beds. “We must be prepared for traditional, seasonal increases in illegal migration. The Dilley facility will provide invaluable surge capacity should apprehensions of adults with children once again surge this spring,” said Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Thomas S. Winkowski. In advance of the president’s new pro-immigrant announcement set for Thursday night, ICE is readying its strategy for next year when over 100,000 illegals are expected to flood over the U.S.-Mexico border. The agency said in a statement that it hopes illegal immigrants look at what they are doing in building holding facilities like the 2,400 bed center in Dilley, Texas, and will decide the trip isn’t worth it.
Uh huh. Good luck with that. Charles Kruathammer recently nailed the issue with a prediction.

Posted by Amy Miller on November 20, 2014 65 Comments
You can watch the announcement here at Legal Insurrection, or on the White House website. We're a little less than 30 minutes away from Obama's big announcement on his plan to overhaul immigration, and Twitter is already buzzing: UPDATE: Here we go

Posted by Amy Miller on November 20, 2014 8 Comments
Most adult humans in American understand the difference between comprehensive health insurance, and separate dental plans. Apparently, HHS staffers are neither adult humans, nor aware of the ability of a congressional committee to sniff out fraud connected to a controversial cluster of a health care bill. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee started digging into the truth behind the Administration's Obamacare enrollment numbers after officials offered testimony to the committee claiming that there were 7.3 million “Americans enrolled in Health Insurance Marketplace coverage” under Obamacare. This is what they found:
Committee staff discovered that nearly 400,000 of the 7.3 million enrollments reported by CMS are stand-alone dental plans, rather than health insurance. Committee staff identified nearly 300 plans that averaged monthly premiums of $60 or less, with many premiums averaging less than $10 a month. After matching the Plan IDs for these “outlier plans” against CMS’ own public database, investigators were able to determine that these plans are stand-alone dental coverage. Although the Committee identified nearly 400,000 dental plan enrollments, the figure could certainly be higher due to high-cost dental plans with premiums above the Committee’s $60 outlier threshold. The Committee was able to identify at least two such dental plans with monthly premiums above the $60 dollar threshold.
By doing this, HHS was able to hid the fact that actual enrollments via the exchanges fell short by more than a million enrollees.

Posted by New Neo on November 20, 2014 22 Comments
For months Obama has been saying, "I'm gonna do it, I'm really gonna do it---unless of course you give me what I want." He even told us the timing; it would be after the election. In doing so, he will be keeping a promise to his radical base (Hispanic and otherwise), issuing a threat to the Republicans in Congress, and thumbing his nose at the American voters who expressed disapproval of him on November 4. You don't get a trifecta like that every day from a president. I just wrote that what Obama is about to do constitutes a threat to Republicans in Congress. But actually, it's a threat to Congress itself. Democrats should be just as disturbed as Republicans by it, because it's not the ends that are as important here as the very dangerous means. But if you've listened to a great many Democrats talk about it, you'd think ends are all they care about---and you might just be correct for most of them. Obama has the strong support of leading Democrats, who seem only too happy to cede the power of Congress to the president to get something they think will benefit the Party. Of course, they don't state that it's a dangerous executive power overreach; they say this is just like what other presidents have done when they used their executive discretion to tweak immigration laws. Surely they must be aware of the differences. But being aware has nothing to do with it; ideologues of the left have no trouble telling themselves that 2 + 2 = 5, and that what Reagan and Bush did was just the same as what Obama is poised to do now, even though only political junkies have even heard of the former actions before because they were relatively non-controversial. Frum summarizes the differences here, and they are substantial:

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 20, 2014 8 Comments
Shushannah Walshe of ABC News notes that Republican governors are being hostile to Obama's immigration power grab:
GOP Governors Mostly Hostile on Obama Immigration Executive Action Potential 2016 GOP presidential candidates at the Republican Governors Association annual conference gave very different responses to the president’s decision to announce major executive action on immigration reform Thursday. At the gathering at the posh Boca Raton Resort and Club, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie dodged, Texas Gov. Rick Perry threatened, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal accused the president of throwing a “temper tantrum” and Ohio Gov. John Kasich sounded a more moderate tone. Christie, the RGA’s outgoing chairman, refused to weigh in saying, “We will have to wait and see what he says and what he does and what the legal implications are.”
Is that a story? You know who else used to be hostile to that power grab?

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 20, 2014 21 Comments
Mike Nichols has died at age 83. His accomplishments were many, and are reviewed in the ABC News video at the end of this post. But for me, his great accomplishment was directing The Graduate. There are few movies that had as much of an impact on me growing up as The Graduate. He was married to Diane Sawyer.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 20, 2014 7 Comments
Rasmieh (Rasmea) Odeh was found guilty earlier this month in federal court in Detroit of unlawfully obtaining citizenship by lying on her 1994 visa and 2004 naturalization applications. In those documents, Rasmea falsely answered "No" to questions, among others, as to whether she "ever" had been convicted of a crime or been imprisoned. In fact, Rasmea was convicted in Israeli in 1970 of participation in the bombing of the Jerusalem SuperSol supermarket in which two Hebrew University students were killed, an attempted bombing of the British consulate, and other security offenses. Rasmea was sentenced to life in prison, but was released in 1979 in a prisoner exchange. Needless to say, the jury only took two hours to convict Rasmea on the immigration fraud charge. For a lengthy account of the evidence demonstrating Rasmea's guilt both in Israel and Detroit, see our post yesterday, Rasmea Odeh rightly convicted of Israeli supermarket bombing and U.S. immigration fraud. After the conviction in Detroit, Rasmea's bond was revoked by the Judge, and she was taken into custody pending sentencing in March 2015. Rasmea moved for reconsideration, and the prosecution responded late yesterday afternoon. The prosecution's response (embedded in full at the bottom of this post) revealed information never before public about the underlying Israeli conviction and Rasmea's conduct since then. This information, while not relevant to or admissible in Rasmea's trial, was relevant and could be considered by the court in connection with post-conviction bond proceedings. Here is an excerpt, but by all means, read the whole thing.
The government thus offers the following discussion simply to demonstrate that Defendant has been serially untruthful for decades, and thus cannot demonstrate eligibility for release on bond. See 18 U.S.C. § 3142(g)(3) (in considering whether to grant bond, the court shall consider “the history and characteristics of the person.”).

Posted by Amy Miller on November 20, 2014 36 Comments
I may have been born and raised in America, but I have an immigration story, too. My grandma fled post-World War II Denmark with her family after the Nazis finally turned tail in May of 1945. After 3 tense years of uneasy collaboration and 2 of direct resistance against occupation, Denmark was exhausted, and so was my family. So, they came here; because my grandma was a minor at the time, her processing was pretty simple. She received papers, a social security number, and became a citizen of the United States just like thousands of others did during the post-war era. Fast forward 45 or so years, and there's a problem with my grandma's social security paperwork; not just a little problem, but a major problem that took two years, hours of travel time, and thousands of dollars to solve. Somewhere along the line, some bureaucrat in a cube in Chicago had dotted an "i" instead of crossing a "t," and now it was my grandma's responsibility to prove that her social security number was valid, and that she was indeed a citizen. The moral of the story is, our immigration system needs an overhaul. It does not, however, need the overhaul that Obama is planning. Tonight, President Obama will sit himself down in front of a camera and lay out a 10 point plan he insists will "fix our broken immigration system." It will do no such thing, but amnesty advocates around the country are preparing their flocks for what they believe will be a lifechanging announcement. From the Washington Times:
At Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, which makes immigration a special ministry, Pastor Emma Lozano said she’ll he sitting alongside people who are currently facing deportation as they hear what the president lays out. “We’re going to be watching this very closely, people in my church. We’re going to have the TV on in both languages and really praying and hoping we get what we deserve,” she told The Washington Times. Casa, a major immigrant-rights group based in Maryland and Virginia, plans three screening parties, while the New York Immigration Coalition announced three parties around the Big Apple. “The president will detail his plans to take executive action to provide administrative relief to millions of immigrants,” the New York group said. “We expect such relief to be a program that offers a temporary solution for millions of families and workers around the country, offering protection from deportation and work authorization.”
Maybe Emma shouldn't pray too hard about what those facing deportation may or may not deserve, all things considered.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 19, 2014 49 Comments
As part of my continuing effort to gain exposure to new audiences, I have a post at Fox News regarding how Scott Walker's ability to survive the Democratic, union and prosecutorial (John Doe) onslaughts has turned Walker into an emerging star. Congratulations, Democrats you made Scott Walker a rising 2016 star:
Republican victories in the midterm elections widely are viewed as a rejection of President Obama’s failed policies. But are the elections a harbinger of things to come in 2016? For Scott Walker, the answer is yes.... In reelecting Walker, Wisconsin struck a blow against the politics of personal destruction. That is a message Walker now is uniquely capable of delivering to an electoral sick of politics as usual.... Instead, Democrats gave Walker a national electoral credibility they may regret in 2016.
For the rest of the story, go over to the link. Walker is parlaying his victory into greater notoriety, as this appearance from Sunday shows:
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