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Posted by New Neo on February 23, 2014 22 Comments
The title of this post may seem somewhat of an oxymoron, but let's look at the numbers:
A clear majority of Americans, 59%, still view Hillary Clinton favorably a year after she left her post as secretary of state. Clinton's current rating is noticeably lower than the 64% she averaged while serving in President Barack Obama's cabinet. The last time she had a higher unfavorable than favorable rating in the U.S. was in February 2008, when she was running for the Democratic presidential nomination against Obama. The latest findings come from a Gallup poll conducted Feb. 6-9.
At the time Clinton signed on as Secretary of State under Obama, it was hard to understand. Those of us who thought it was a bad decision (in the political sense) on her part seem to have been wrong. She is a very smart political animal, and apparently she rightly ascertained that it was only her temporary opposition to the Great Obama that had made her look bad, and that if she joined him it would burnish her image. And so it has, no matter what she actually did while in his Cabinet, because what she did was every bit as awful as what Obama did, and she did it as his underling. Somehow, though, that seems to have helped her in the minds of the American public. Her favorability rating is a great deal higher than his right now. Here's her favorability chart over time:

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Posted by Mandy Nagy on February 23, 2014 7 Comments

After voting Saturday to remove President Viktor Yanukovich from office, Ukraine’s Parliament on Sunday named its speaker to serve as acting President. From Reuters: The speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, the closest confidante of freed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, was temporarily handed the role of president on...

Posted by Bryan Jacoutot on February 23, 2014 8 Comments
A relative political newcomer has made her way onto the scene in Texas, promising to bring national attention to the 32nd Congressional district Republican primary. 17-year incumbent, Pete Sessions, has recently drawn fire from a number of conservatives and Tea Party leaders who believe Sessions has become out of touch with the desires of the many conservatives he represents. The Tea Party movement may have found its alternative to Sessions in Katrina Pierson.  Amy Kremer, Chairwoman of Tea Party Express, recently spotlighted Pierson in a piece over at Rare.
[I]t is Katrina’s incredible story that should make her so valuable and inspiring to a Republican Party seeking to reach more Americans. Born into poverty, Pierson’s mother was only 15-years-old and her upbringing was certainly less than ideal. When she got into trouble as a young adult after a friend encouraged her to shoplift, she was caught and didn’t have much hope. But instead of giving in, she saw a fork in the road. She had a choice of taking the easy flat road or climbing the hill, taking a more winding and challenging road. She could have taken the flat road that led to the cyclical dependency on government, but instead she gave it her all. She wanted to give her child a life better than what she had. She put herself through college and earned a degree in biology. Most recently, she worked as a healthcare administrator at a level I trauma hospital. Soon, she will be sending her son, who is now 17 years old, off to college. Katrina did what we would all hope to do when faced with adversity. She overcame.
Pierson has already received some high profile endorsements from the Tea Party movement, including Sarah Palin, who called Pierson a “feisty fighter for freedom.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 23, 2014 14 Comments
The ancient "blood libel" that Jews use the blood of non-Jewish children to make Matzah has its modern incarnation in Israel Apartheid Week, which starts this week on campuses. Not surprisingly, the incoming President of the American Studies Association, Lisa Duggan of NYU, is leading an anti-Israel effort that coincides with Israel Apartheid week, but doesn't want people to know about it (via Elder of Ziyon): duggan The Apartheid accusation is false at every level, and was a deliberate propaganda strategy devised at the anti-Semitic Durban NGO conference in 2001. Here's what the late Congressman Tom Lantos observed at that Durban conference (emphasis added):
Another ring in the Durban circus was the NGO forum, taking place just outside the conference center. Although the NGO proceedings were intended to provide a platform for the wide range of civil society groups interested in the conference’s conciliatory mission, the forum quickly became stacked with Palestinian and fundamentalist Arab groups. Each day, these groups organized anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic rallies around the meetings, attracting thousands. One flyer which was widely distributed showed a photograph of Hitler and the question “What if I had won?” The answer: “There would be NO Israel…” At a press conference held by Jewish NGO’s to discuss their concerns with the direction the conference was taking, an accredited NGO, the Arab Lawyers Union, distributed a booklet filled with anti-Semitic caricatures frighteningly like those seen in the Nazi hate literature printed in the 1930s. Jewish leaders and I who were in Durban were shocked at this blatant display of anti-Semitism. For me, having experienced the horrors of the Holocaust first hand, this was the most sickening and unabashed display of hate for Jews I had seen since the Nazi period. Sadly, but perhaps not surprisingly, the official NGO document that was later adopted by a majority of the 3,000 NGOs in the forum branded Israel a “racist apartheid state” guilty of “genocide” and called for an end to its “racist crimes” against Palestinians….
"Israel Apartheid Week" as part of the BDS movement is the direct by-product of the Durban anti-Jewish hatred -- a history few of its participants probably realize. In reality, Israel is nothing like South Africa under Apartheid.

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 22, 2014 13 Comments
I haven't paid much attention to Richard Silverstein.  I did once describe him as an "apologist for anti-Israel extremism," in my post Most pathological #BostonMarathon Tweet. Nothing I've seen since leads me to think that description was wrong.  Others are less charitable, and he is a frequent target of mockery from pro-Israel bloggers, including when he recently accused his local synagogue in San Francisco of outing the date of his child's Bat Mitzvah for some nefarious purpose; turns out Silverstein himself had tweeted out the date. Silverstein insists he is not anti-Zionist. He just appears to act like one. Silverstein sent out a tweet yesterday that is quite astounding in its viciousness. The tweet was directed at Chloé Simone Valdary, a pro-Israel American Christian who is black. You may remember her from this video we featured in the post BDS is just the same old, same old hate:

Posted by Mandy Nagy on February 22, 2014 3 Comments
Both opponents and supporters of President Nicolas Maduro took to the streets in Venezuela on Saturday to participate in competing rallies, after days of unrest. From the Associated Press via ABC News:
Venezuelans on both sides of the nation's political divide took to the streets on Saturday after nearly two weeks of mass protests that have President Nicolas Maduro scrambling to reassert his leadership of this economically stricken country.

In Caracas, tens of thousands of opponents of President Nicolas Maduro filled several city blocks in their biggest rally to date against Maduro's 10-month-old government. Across town, a mostly female crowd of government backers gathered in T-shirts and baseball caps, forming a sea of red — the color of Maduro's Socialist party.

The dueling protests capped a violent week in which a government crackdown jailed hard-line opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez and dozens of other activists. The violence also left at least nine people dead on both sides and injured at least 100 others.

Venezuelans woke up Saturday to smoldering barricades of trash and other debris in the streets of some major cities, but there were no reports of major violence. Protesters have called on Maduro to either resolve problems such as rising crime and galloping inflation or step aside.

Maduro meanwhile has been highly critical of the United States and media organizations over the course of the crisis. From AFP via Yahoo News:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 22, 2014 11 Comments
Update 2:35 p.m. Eastern -- Julia Tymoshenko addresses crowd in Kiev: Julia Tymoshenko addresses crowd 2-22-2014 The President of Ukraine has fled Kiev but it is unclear if he has resigned. (UPDATE: Refuses to resign, calls protests a facsist coup d'etat.) Kiev is in the hands of the opposition, and government security forces have vowed to stay neutral, reports Reuters:
Ukraine security chiefs signal allegiance to protesters The heads of four Ukrainian security bodies, including the police's Berkut anti-riot units, appeared in parliament on Saturday and declared they would not take part in any conflict with the people. They represented the paratroop unit of the military, the Berkut anti-riot police, Alfa special operations unit and military intelligence. The Interior Ministry had already signalled its allegiance to anti-government protests under a new minister from the ranks of the opposition.
The former Prime Minister and key opposition leader (background here) is to be freed from prison, via Sky News:
Jailed Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko is set for release as part of political decisions taken at an emergency session of parliament in Kiev. Initial reports claimed she had already been freed, but these were later clarified by aide Natasha Lysova who said the parliamentary decision meant she must be freed immediately. AFP news agency, quoting opposition MP Mykola Katerynchuk, reported President Viktor Yanukovich had promised to resign over the conflict.
In an ominous sign, reflecting that there are anti-Semitic elements in the opposition (as we previously noted), the Chief Rabbi of Ukraine has urged Jews to flee, as reported by Haaretz:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 21, 2014 26 Comments
A whole lot of money is chasing the new cool kids, the newly name-branded "journalists" like Ezra Klein and Glenn Greenwald, who bring their friends along with them to the bottomless internet money pits. Eric Wemple at WaPo describes the superlative feeding frenzy growing the bubble in the trading of journalists, American journalism, brimming with once-in-a-generation talent:
Earlier this week First Look Media, the startup general news venture bankrolled by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, announced the hiring of longtime Wall Street critic and Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi. Such situations demand the use of the superlative, and First Look Media Executive Editor Eric Bates spilled forth, “Matt is one of the most influential journalists of our time.” First Look Media is driven by the compulsion to spurn the conventions of the mainstream media, and in announcing Taibbi’s accession, it succeeded. By a hair. Traditional news outlets have settled on a fairly standard mode of implausibly praising colleagues and soon-to-be colleagues.

Posted by Andrew Branca on February 21, 2014 51 Comments
E.J. Dionne, Jr., in his Washington Post piece entitled "Repeal stand-your-ground laws," presents us with yet another example of the utter inability of too many journalists to grasp the relatively simple and straightforward legal concept commonly referred to as "Stand-Your-Ground." Humorously, the first paragraph of his piece had me utterly convinced that Dionne must certainly be writing about Obamacare, despite the headline:
The law is supposed to solve problems, not create them. Laws should provide as much clarity as possible, not expand the realms of ambiguity and subjectivity. Laws ought to bring about the practical results their promoters claim they'll achieve.
With a lead-in like that, surely he's about to call for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, right? Just kidding--it is, after all, the Washington Post. Instead, Dionne has decided to call for the repeal of another law about which he patently knows nothing: "Stand-Your-Ground."

Dionne's Imagined Relevance of Stand-Your-Ground to Dunn Trial

How can we identify his ignorance of the law he argues should be repealed, as well as its application (or, more accurately, its lack of application) in the Zimmerman and Dunn trials. Why, he's kind enough to show us, in his own words. First, Dionne writes of the Dunn trial:
Supporters of the law say it was technically not at issue in the case, but this overlooks the obvious role it played in the trial.
And where do we find this "obvious role" for SYG in the Dunn trial? It was mentioned in a single passing sentence--that would be ONE sentence--with no particular emphasis by defense counsel Cory Strolla in his closing argument. One mention over the course of two weeks of jury voir dire opening statements, day after day of trial, and closing arguments. One. Mention.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 21, 2014 19 Comments
As reported by the Beckley, West Virginia Register-Herald, Joe Manchin said he would vote to repeal Obamacare. That quote (below) has received a lot of attention, but in context it's not at all clear that Manchin was doing anything other than playing both sides of the fence because he also said he supports fixing Obamacare (emphasis added):
Although Sen. Joe Manchin had planned to discuss the Charleston-area chemical spill and his recent piece of legislation the Chemical Safety and Drinking Water Protection Act of 2014, he instead turned his focus on a hodgepodge of topics, including minimum wage, balancing the nation’s budget and health-care issues.... He asked for all the listeners to let him and other lawmakers know their thoughts on the variety of topics, including the Affordable Care Act. “We spend more on health care than any state, but we rank 43rd on wellness and longevity.” Both parties agree on many aspects of the ACA, such as pre-existing conditions not being excluded from coverage and no lifetime caps, but there are still many kinks that need to be fixed, Manchin said. “I will vote tomorrow to repeal (the ACA), but I want to fix the problems in it.” He said the ACA is essentially a product and the government needs to find a way to “sell it” and make their customers want to buy it.
As Ed Morrissey points out, there isn't even a Senate bill coming to vote "tomorrow" (i.e., today), so it's not clear about what Manchin is talking. Manchin has warned before about a "complete meltdown" of Obamacare:
The West Virginia Democratic senator said Sunday that the federal health-care law could be headed for a "complete meltdown" if costs rise too fast and individuals are not happy with their coverage.
From this vague and unclear statement, it appears Manchin is doing nothing more than criticizing Obamacare in order to save it. Here's video from August 2013 in which Manchin argues to save Obamacare through changes:
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