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Posted by A.F. Branco on March 24, 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 Mandy Nagy on March 23, 2014 51 Comments
On CBS’ Face the Nation Sunday morning, host Bob Schieffer spoke with guest Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor and 2012 Republican presidential nominee, about the situation in Ukraine and President Obama’s response to it.  Romney was highly critical of Obama's handling of Russia's actions in particular, noting “the president's naiveté with regards to Russia, as well as the president’s “faulty judgment about Russia's intentions and objectives.” Schieffer began the interview by reminding Romney of his previous comments about Russia, which came up during one of the presidential debates in 2012. “During the campaign, and I want to start with this, you took a lot of heat for saying that Russia was our greatest geopolitical foe. In the third debate, the president came down pretty hard on you about that,” Schieffer began. After playing a video clip of that portion of the aforementioned debate, Schieffer asked Romney his thoughts on the situation today. “I'm sure, Governor, you're tempted this morning to say, "I told you so." But do you really believe that what happened in Ukraine had anything to do with what President Obama has or hasn't done?” Schieffer asked. Romney’s response was critical of Obama’s handling of the situation in Ukraine, and more specifically, the president's assessment of Russia's intentions.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 23, 2014 9 Comments
This has been a mixed, but mostly bad, year for the BDS student movement on campuses in the United States. While a BDS motion did pass at Loyola Chicago because it was brought up with little or no notice, major BDS pushes were rejected at UCLA (down vote), U. Michigan (vote to table) and Arizona State (vote to table). For the most part, when pro-Israel students have time to organize, they win. At Northeastern University, the administration suspended Students for Justice in Palestine after a long series of incidents culminating in service of mock eviction notices in dormatories, in violation of school policy. Expected mass protests did not materialize -- instead Northeastern SJP and its allies could muster only 150-200 marchers, many if not most of whom were not even students. The tension is boiling among student BDS supporters who claim that they are being denied a chance to speak. That, of course, is nonsense. They hold their defamatory "Israeli Apartheid" weeks (in which interest is waning) and otherwise can advocate their cause. What they can't do is things like invading personal dorm rooms to leaflet.  You may have a right to speak, but not in my living room on my couch. When they lose a motion to table a resolution, they claim it's a denial of their free speech rights -- but no one stops them from speaking; a motion to table a resolution is a legitimate procedural device (just ask Democrats in the Senate). Nonetheless, these pro-BDS students now are taking "direct action." Anti-Israel students at U. Michigan have taken over the student government offices, renaming it the Edward Said Lounge. A leader of Northeastern SJP, Max Geller (see more about him here) writes in The Nation to expect more "direct action":

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Posted by Bryan Jacoutot on March 23, 2014 14 Comments
Remember Melissa Harris-Perry’s proclamation that your kids aren’t really your kids, but “these are our children?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3qtpdSQox0 At first glance, a recent article by Dana Goldstein in The Atlantic smacked of all the same overtones the Harris-Perry commercial had. Namely, it seemed to convey that parents should surrender their children to the state, and they will be better prepared to succeed in life.
Do you review your daughter’s homework every night? Robinson and Harris’s data, published in The Broken Compass: Parental Involvement With Children’s Education, show that this won’t help her score higher on standardized tests. Once kids enter middle school, parental help with homework can actually bring test scores down, an effect Robinson says could be caused by the fact that many parents may have forgotten, or never truly understood, the material their children learn in school. Similarly, students whose parents frequently meet with teachers and principals don’t seem to improve faster than academically comparable peers whose parents are less present at school. Other essentially useless parenting interventions: observing a kid’s class; helping a teenager choose high-school courses; and, especially, disciplinary measures such as punishing kids for getting bad grades or instituting strict rules about when and how homework gets done. This kind of meddling could leave children more anxious than enthusiastic about school, Robinson speculates. “Ask them ‘Do you want to see me volunteering more? Going to school social functions? Is it helpful if I help you with homework?’ ” he told me. “We think about informing parents and schools what they need to do, but too often we leave the child out of the conversation.
Perhaps Goldstein was looking to echo Harris-Perry's sentiments, but I did not reach that conclusion after reading her article. Depending on the lens you use to view this data, it can be looked at one of two ways.

Posted by Mandy Nagy on March 23, 2014 1 Comment

Here's a small selection of links for those of you who may be catching up on posts this weekend. After the passing of the head of Westboro Baptist Church, Fred Phelps, earlier this week, counter-protesters showed up at one of the group's protests with a message...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 23, 2014 3 Comments

March 14, 2014 was the fourth anniversary of the death of Cpl. Jonathan Daniel Porto in Afghanistan, as noted here before: Cpl Jonathan Daniel Porto Promises a Marine Widow Cannot Bear to Hear Cpl Jonathan Daniel Porto, Remembered Cpl Jonathan Daniel Porto, March 14, 2010 Three years ago today — Cpl...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 22, 2014 32 Comments
The most powerful politician in my former home State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations is not the Governor. It's the Speaker of the House. And Mr. Speaker, Gordon Fox, is stepping down as Speaker after the feds and state police raided his office and home yesterday. Projo reports:
On the day after state and federal investigators raided his State House office and home, House Speaker Gordon D. Fox has announced his intention to resign as speaker. He issued this statement:
“The Rhode Island House of Representatives is an institution that I deeply respect and serving my constituents has been a major part of my life for the past 22 years. I will not let yesterday’s events distract my colleagues from addressing the challenges facing Rhode Island.” “Because of the respect I have for all members of the House of Representatives, I am resigning as Speaker. The process of governing must continue and the transition of leadership must be conducted in an orderly manner.”

Posted by Leslie Eastman on March 22, 2014 2 Comments
One of the memes hitting the blogosphere recently has been that the US just "gave up control of the internet". This week on Canto Talk, Legal Insurrection's Mandy Nagy explained why that wasn't the case. (Skip ahead to 14:50 for Mandy's appearance; she also gives us her regular Obamacare update).
Popular Politics Internet Radio with Silvio Canto Jr on BlogTalkRadio
As Mandy explained it, the US has been responsible for coordinating the Internet’s domain names (e.g. "legalinsurrection.com") and with the number-based IP address that computers use to bring order to the different devices and destinations on the Internet. The government has subcontracted this function out for years (probably why it works as well as it does). It essentially has done nothing more than send the work to another subcontractor. A Fox News piece provides further details:

Posted by Bryan Jacoutot on March 22, 2014 18 Comments
Recently released commercial satellite images have revealed the Iranians are attempting to reconstruct a replica of one of the United States’ largest and most powerful warships, the USS Nimitz.
Construction on the crude model appears to be in full swing at a shipyard near Bandar Abbas, as shown in newly released commercial satellite images. 'They got this barge and threw some wood on top of it to make it look like the USS Nimitz. That's all we know for sure,' a U.S. defense official told AFP... The wooden, non-operational aircraft carrier made to look like a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered American vessel was first spotted on the Persian Gulf last summer, the New York Times reported. Besides having the shape of the 1,100-foot-long carriers, such as USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Carl Vinson, the shipbuilders also replicated the distinctive white markings on bow. A satellite flying over Gachin shipyard also photographed a fake plane parked on the deck of the equally fake carrier.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 22, 2014 41 Comments
Last month racist writing on a dormitory door shook Grand Valley State University near Detroit in Michigan. Here's a photo of the student's dorm door: Grand Valley State Dorm Door Racist Writing Much like the notorious Oberlin College racism hoax, the incident caused much turmoil on campus, as reported by MLive:
Students who live in the residence hall said they were surprised by the incident, saying signs of racial tension haven’t been present in the past. One resident, Andrew Seawood, a freshman from Stevensville, said the slurs were upsetting because the residents of Copeland typically get along with one another. “It was a little surprising when they did say something was written,” he said. “Everybody gets along with everybody.” Others were angry.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on March 22, 2014 4 Comments

I have been very grateful for the media experience gained by being a contributor at Legal Insurrection and the Executive Producer for Canto Talk. Professor Jacobson has been a big inspiration behind a project I have been working on and which is now ready to launch: ...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 21, 2014 32 Comments
Roger Waters, formerly of Pink Floyd, endorsed the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement in 2011. Since then, his rhetoric has gotten more and more extreme, including comparing Israelis to Nazis. He uses a giant balloon of a pig at his concerts, featuring a Jewish Star of David on its side. Waters has lashed out at Scarlott Johansson, among others, and actively seeks to lobby other musicians and artists not to visit Israel. On March 17, 2014, Waters wrote an "exlusive" column for Salon.com, Why I must speak out on Israel, Palestine and BDS.

Roger Waters Salon.com BDS

In the Salon.com "exclusive," Waters details the routine justifications, but then pulls out a supposed quote from Mahatma Gandhi to prove that Waters is on the right side of history (emphasis added):
In the furor that exists in the U.S. today about BDS and the right and wrong of a cultural boycott of Israel, a quote from one of my heroes, Mahatma Gandhi, has been on my mind. He prophetically said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” The BDS movement is fulfilling its promise and fits Gandhi’s description. Once dismissed by many as a futile strategy that would “never work,” BDS has gained much ground in recent weeks, bringing with it the expected backlash. ....  I think it’s safe to say BDS is in the “then they fight you” stage.
This is a common quote used by the BDS movement. The anti-Israel Mondoweiss website used it, as has a Northeastern Students for Justice in Palestine Facebook commenter and a commenter at the anti-Israel Electronic Intifada. This student at the recent Northeastern University anti-Israel protest used it to fire up the crowd: The only problem is that it's a fake quote. All available evidence is that Gandhi never said it, as The Christian Science Monitor noted in 2011, Political misquotes: The 10 most famous things never actually said:
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