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Posted by Mandy Nagy on March 10, 2014 19 Comments
Sharyl Attkisson, investigative correspondent for CBS News, has resigned from the network.

From Politico (emphasis added):
CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson has reached an agreement to resign from CBS News ahead of contract, bringing an end to months of hard-fought negotiations, sources familiar with her departure told POLITICO on Monday. Attkisson, who has been with CBS News for two decades, had grown frustrated with what she saw as the network's liberal bias, an outsized influence by the network's corporate partners and a lack of dedication to investigative reporting, several sources said. She increasingly felt like her work was no longer supported and that it was a struggle to get her reporting on air. At the same time, Attkisson's own reporting on the Obama administration, which some staffers characterized as agenda-driven, had led network executives to doubt the impartiality of her reporting. She is currently at work on a book -- tentatively titled "Stonewalled: One Reporter's Fight for Truth in Obama's Washington" -- which addresses the challenges of reporting critically on the Obama administration. Feeling increasingly stymied and marginalized at the network, Attkisson began talking to CBS News President David Rhodes as early as last April about getting out of her contract. Those negotiations intensified in recent weeks, and her request was finally honored on Monday.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 10, 2014 12 Comments
Alan Grayson will not be charged with wife-beating after an incident in which his wife Lolita claimed he hit her. When first reported, I cautioned that Grayson was entitled to the same presumption of innocence as George Zimmeran. And like George Zimmerman, both in the shooting of Trayvon Martin and Zimmerman's alleged domestic violence against his ex-wife and girlfriend, the evidence supported that presumption of innocence. The video of the incident did not support her story and neither did the 911 call: First Coast News reports:
"Investigators have interviewed Lolita Carson-Grayson, Alan Grayson, and others and reviewed the evidence. In this instance probable cause does not exist to effect an arrest on Alan Grayson," said a release from the Orange County Sheriff's Office. The Graysons, who were married 24 years, are divorcing and are living apart. Grayson's staffer Juan Lopez said the congressman went home to pick up his mail, his medication and see his children when he had a confrontation with his wife. The incident was captured on video and witnessed by several people. Grayson's attorney Mark NeJame says she video shows Lolita as the aggressor. Deputies released a 911 call from after incident. "Please come down and arrest him. He's disturbing my peace and he's threatening me," Carson-Grayson said. Carson-Grayson told the dispatcher during the call that Grayson did not hit her. "I pushed him because he's been coming to the house and he's been disturbing my peace. Now he's leaving," she said. Carson-Grayson then told the dispatcher that she didn't need assistance, but on Sunday, she showed up at the Dr. Phillips Hospital Emergency Room saying her husband pushed her up against a door and she had bruises.
In other news, Grayson is still a loudmouth jerk. Update: Unlike Zimmerman, the public will accept Grayson's innocence. But it's worth revisiting the Zimmerman case evidence, just because:

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 10, 2014 34 Comments
We have written many times about the Shirley Sherrod case against Andrew Breitbart (now his wife is substituted as defendant) and Larry O'Connor over an "edited" video which Sherrod alleges unfairly depicted her as racist leading to her firing by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Sherrod's claim, repeated mindlessly by the media, is that the full video showed that Sherrod was not racist, but merely relating a story about how her initial ill-will towards a white farmer decades ago was overcome by the realization that race should not be a factor. I have analyzed the video frame by frame, and in fact Sherrod's alleged revelation that she overcame those racial feelings was in the "edited" video, as this screen capture shows: http://youtu.be/t_xCeItxbQY Sherrod was fired precipitously by the USDA, despite her telling USDA that she felt the "edited" video was misleading. In emails produced in the case, USDA pretty much took the position that it didn't care, the political blowback was too strong not to fire her.  (These emails were obtained from the public court docket via PACER.) Shirley Sherrod Email July 15 2010 1143 am re full video Sherrod Case - Email Chris Mather July 19 2010 re video at Hot Air

Posted by Hans Bader on March 10, 2014 51 Comments
How does classifying most consensual sex as rape help rape victims? As a lawyer who has handled rape and sexual harassment cases, I can't imagine how. But this radical result is what some want to happen in California. In endorsing a bill in the California legislature that would require "affirmative consent" before sex can occur on campus, the editorial boards of the Sacramento and Fresno Bee and the Daily Californian advocated that sex be treated as "sexual assault" unless the participants discuss it "out loud" before sex, and “demonstrate they obtained verbal 'affirmative consent' before engaging in sexual activity." Never mind that consent to most sex is non-verbal, and that rape has historically been understood to be an act against someone's will, rather than simply a non-violent act that they did not consent to in advance. Perhaps in response to the bill, the University of California, on February 25, adopted a policy requiring affirmative consent not just to sex, but to every form of "physical sexual activity" engaged in. The affirmative-consent bill, Senate Bill 967, does not expressly require verbal permission to demonstrate consent, although it warns that "relying solely on nonverbal communication can lead to misunderstanding." But supporters of the bill are very clear about their desire to require verbal discussion or haggling prior to sex. The Fresno Bee praised the bill because “it adopts in campus disciplinary cases the 'affirmative consent standard,' which means that 'yes' only means 'yes' if it is said out loud." The Daily Californian declared that “the proposal’s requirement that defendants in a sexual assault case demonstrate they obtained verbal 'affirmative consent' before engaging in sexual activity makes SB 967 a step in the right direction."

Posted by A.F. Branco on March 10, 2014 4 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 William A. Jacobson on March 09, 2014 25 Comments
Ezra Klein's new venture has a name. Vox.com. And a slick promo video about how Ezra and, ahem, Matthew Yglesias, have reinvented journalism. Has there ever been a more vapid promo video in the history of humankind? Vox 9 Questions Highlighted Explanation To show how new and edgy they are, the damn video fills up the entire screen when viewed on the website. Because large and filling up the entire page shows that one is edgy. I had to adjust the 892x1585px embed code size manually so it didn't screw up my page. And they use an embed code that disappears when viewed in html version on WordPress, which is annoying. Tech gurus, the bunch. Sponsored by General Electric. Just like in the old days, when GE had a spokesman we could be proud of:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 09, 2014 12 Comments
This video of an anti-Israel Boycottt Divest and Sanction activist at National University of Ireland - Galway, shouting profanities at Professor Alan Johnson of the Fathom journal, is beginning to get attention after our post about it on Friday. Johnson supports a two-state solution and is against BDS. The video, obtained by the Irish for Israel, features NUI Galway student Joseph Loughnane shouting as a row of students behind him banged on the tables in support and themselves shouted (off camera, as video panned towards speaker):
“You’re f-ing Zionist, f-ing pricks, get the f–k off our campus”
Language warning ) We reached out to the President of NUI Galway for comment, and received an email back from NUI Galway press and information officer Tomás Ó Síocháin, with the following statement on behalf of the university:
NUI Galway has over 110 societies and 50 clubs on campus, reflecting the diverse interests of students and staff. The University has a pluralist ethos and all societies have the freedom to both express and communicate those views to students and staff. They must, however, act within the law and in accordance with the University’s code of conduct. The behaviour portrayed is unacceptable and has no place at any forum of discussion or debate. This matter will be investigated immediately. NUI Galway has a long and proud tradition of welcoming visitors and guests to the University’s campus, to both engage in and observe robust debate. The University will take steps to ensure that this remains the case and that all speakers are given the dignity and respect they deserve.
The investigation presumably will not be limited to Loughnane, but also the students behind him banging and shouting in support as he ordered Prof. Johnson to "get the f-k off our campus".

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 09, 2014 2 Comments

From J spotted in Charlottesville, VA. Looks like someone didn't get the memo, that dissent is no longer patriotic, and that anyone who speaks out against Dear Leader must be dealt with in ways that He would never consider dealing with tyrannical foreign leaders (cough, cough,...

Posted by Andrew Branca on March 08, 2014 101 Comments
The upcoming trial of Joseph Walker involves an off-duty New Jersey police officer traveling through Maryland with his wife and small children in a Kia minivan, and Joseph Dean Harvey, Jr., traveling the same roads with his friend, Adam Pidel in a Honda Accord. A road rage incident ensues, a confrontation occurs, and Walker shoots Harvey dead on the side of the road. Walker, charged with first degree murder and several firearms enhancements, claims that he shot and killed Harvey in necessary self-defense, and defense of his wife and children. The key difficulty with the defense narrative is that Maryland is a duty-to-retreat state, under the law, and Harvey was unarmed and on foot and Walker had immediate access to a motor vehicle, under the facts. In such jurisdictions under such scenarios the courts almost always require that the defender make use of his operable vehicle to safely retreat from the confrontation before that defender is permitted to lawfully resort to deadly force in self-defense. An odd wrinkle of Maryland self-defense law appears to be that although a duty to retreat is imposed upon a defender acting in defense of himself, the duty to retreat does not apply if the defender is acting in defense of others. It has yet to be seen how this will play out in court. Nevertheless, a number of witness statements to police are being released and shedding light and providing context to the sharp and fatal confrontation between Harvey and Walker. In this post we share the testimony to police of a redacted (as to identity) witness who was the passenger in a vehicle who observed a portion of the conflict, beginning after whatever event initiated the conflict and ending before the actual shots were fired. Nevertheless, this witnesses’ testimony would appear to be of a nature that would be both compelling to the jury and favorable to Walker.
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