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Posted by Mandy Nagy on November 11, 2013 6 Comments
Typhoon Haiyan struck the central Philippines late last week, leaving behind immense destruction, many dead, and thousands displaced as they wait for help. From the Wall Street Journal:
As food and water became scarce in areas hit by supertyphoon Haiyan, the Philippines government dramatically raised the death toll to 1,744, greatly exceeding earlier counts from one of the most powerful storms ever to strike the country. Even that was seen as a low number, with the toll expected to rise significantly. Thousands remained missing and reports from stricken areas outline mass graves holding hundreds, with bodies also strewn in the streets. In the city of Tacloban, four days after Haiyan devastated it, the road to the airport was jammed with people trying to get out. The road into town was also snarled with motorbikes and cars trying to fight their way in, even as humanitarian workers warned food and water was rapidly running out.
The scenes of devastation are unbelievable, and while relief is arriving in some areas, it’s complicated by choked roads and other logistical troubles. As is often the case in the immediate aftermath of such disasters, reports of death tolls vary greatly, as many are still missing and workers are trying to retrieve bodies.  But officials fear that the death toll could rise significantly, while many outlets are reporting that more than 600,000 have been displaced. From the Chicago Tribune:

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 11, 2013 28 Comments
We reported over the weekend that Two Gonzaga students alive but facing expulsion because ignored gun-free policy. The students just found out that they will not be suspended.  Via KREM.com, Gonzaga Univ. students allowed to stay following gun incident
Gonzaga University will not expel two students for using a gun to defend themselves in an off-campus and Gonzaga owned apartment. They will be placed on probation for the rest of their time at the university. Students Erik Fagan and Dan McIntosh were originally threatened with expulsion after they flashed a gun at a man with outstanding felony warrants who came to their door asking for money. That man was later arrested. Fagan and McIntosh were told by campus security that they violated school policy by having a firearm on Gonzaga University property. Gonzaga said the building is part of university property even though it is off campus. The Gonzaga President sent an open email to students on Saturday acknowledging calls to reevaluate the school’s rules on guns.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 11, 2013 15 Comments
The Ithaca Journal has an investigative article on the rollout of Common Core in the upstate Southern Tier region of New York State, Common Core fix for schools has broken parts. The article is in depth and frank in the assessments from school administrators and teachers. Here's the summary at the beginning,
The newest fix to public education known as Common Core is arriving with incomplete plans in schools and at a rapid pace that leaves some students behind. While the controversial educational standards have been blessed by hundreds of educators and adopted by 45 states, including New York, cracks are opening in the Common Core foundation that are raising concerns for teachers, parents and school administrators. “The reality is implementation at the state level is just a disaster,” said Tom Phillips, of Hector, and Watkins Glen school district superintendent. While Phillips said he agrees public education needs reform, his major beef with Common Core is the complex program is being rolled out too quickly.
The problems ranged from the one-size fits all curriculum, to chasing the funding money. In a situation eerily similar to subsidies for state health care exchanges that may dry up, there are concerns about Common Core funding drying up:

Posted by A.F. Branco on November 11, 2013 11 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 David Gerstman on November 11, 2013 2 Comments
Over the past few days the reporting from Geneva changed from anticipation of an imminent deal to a final "no deal." Or "no deal" for now. The New York Times reported Talks With Iran Fail to Produce a Nuclear Agreement. As almost all reporting on the P5+1 talks with Iran go it gives the credit to (or places the blame on) France for the failure of the two sides to reach an agreement.
The proposal under consideration in Geneva was to have been the first stage of a multipart agreement. It called for Iran to freeze its nuclear program for up to six months to allow negotiations on a long-term agreement without the worry that Iran was racing ahead to build a bomb. In exchange, the West was to have provided some easing of the international sanctions that have battered Iran’s economy. After years of off-again, on-again talks, the deal would have been the first to brake Iran’s nuclear program.Despite the diplomats’ insistence on progress, the failure to clinch an agreement raised questions about the future of the nuclear talks, given the fierce criticism that the mere prospect of a deal whipped up in Israel and among Republicans and some Democrats in Congress.
Unfortunately, this frames the scuttling of the talks in terms of those looking for a compromise versus pro-Israel ideologues. Subsequent reporting in the article is more specific about some, but not all, of the real issues involved.

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 11, 2013 24 Comments

Time Magazine recently ran a cover with a silhouette of Chris Christie with the headline, The Elephant in the Room. It was, of course, a play on Christie's weight without coming right out and saying it. There's also an elephant in Elizabeth Warren's room, but you can't weigh...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 11, 2013 5 Comments

From commenter Henry Hawkins: Attached are photos of bumper stickers seen Tuesday, 11/05/13 on a van in Nashville, NC. Keep up the very fine work! ...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 10, 2013 21 Comments
Just a collection of links, for now. Carl at Israel Matzav has gathered the explanation as to what went wrong in Obama's Iran deal strategy. Here's one of the tweets in a series of 9, go to the link for the rest: https://twitter.com/Doranimated/statuses/399501983528124417 Netanyahu was on TV this morning, explaining his point of view: There's a Buzzfeed v. Max Blumenthal war brewing. Stacy McCain has details. It all relates to this Buzzfeed post about Blumenthal's anti-Israel book (details in our prior post). I'm taking sides:

Posted by Laurel Conrad on November 10, 2013 9 Comments
In October, Brown University protesters prevented New York City Police Chief Ray Kelly from speaking. During Kelly's talk, titled “Proactive Policing in America’s Biggest City,” protesters loudly chanted slogans and read prepared text, drowning out Kelly. A university administrator tried to reason with the protesters, but to no avail. As a result, after a failed half-hour attempt at regaining control of the room, the lecture was cancelled. As covered extensively at Legal Insurrection, the protesters have received support from several professors, two of whom also are active in the anti-Israel movement. Leftist and anti-Israel shout downs are just about the only shout downs on campus these days. But don't think it's just Brown. There is a long history of liberals and anti-Israeli groups shouting down speakers with whom they disagree. Here are five examples other than Brown:

1. Congressman Tancredo at UNC

In 2009, students at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, brought Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo's talk about illegal immigration to a halt by shouting him down. When Tancredo asked ironically, "This is the free speech crowd, right?" a student responded, "not for hate speech!" The students continued to chant, "No dialogue with hate!" as Tancredo struggled to get across a single word.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 10, 2013 25 Comments
Thanks to reader Michael for the heads up about this story. Gonzaga Students Face Possible Expulsion After Pulling Gun On Home Intruder:
Two Gonzaga students are facing possible expulsion from the University after they pulled a weapon in self defense as a six time felon attempted to get into their on campus apartment. According to the student handbook, students may not possess handguns on campus or university owned property. On Friday a university discipline board decided to move forward with sanctions, including possible expulsion, for using the weapons. The students will learn in the near future about their future with the school. It all happened late in the night on October 24th when roommates Erik Fagan and Dan McIntosh were hanging out in their university owned apartment. At 10:15 Fagan answered the door and was greeted by John Taylor. Taylor is a felon with an extensive criminal history and when he arrived Fagan said Taylor showed him what appeared to be an ankle bracelet as he tried to intimidate him. Fagan said Taylor then demanded money and was frustrated when he was turned down.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 10, 2013 8 Comments

NGO Monitor keeps watch on anti-Israeli non-governmental organizations, and provides valuable research contesting many of the outlandish claims made by these mostly left-wing groups financed by European governments. The NGOs, some of which are staffed by Israeli leftists, subject Israel to a microscope no society could...

Posted by New Neo on November 10, 2013 36 Comments
NBC's Chuck Todd was the interviewer who elicited Obama's weak non-apology last Thursday. But Todd got the distinct impression that Obama "does not believe he lied" when he made those promises about keeping your plan and keeping your doctor, period. Todd adds:
I thought what was revealing in that answer, when I asked him that direct question about this, was this a political lie that you started to believe it, was he talked about well, you know, it turns out we had trouble in crafting the law.
John Nolte at Breitbart finds that "bordering on pathological," in light of the almost overwhelming evidence that Obama knew very well that what he said would turn out to be untrue:
Obama's brazen and reckless lying is bad enough. But if Todd is correct (and I think he is) that Obama doesn't believe or understand that he lied, that means it can and will happen again.
It's not difficult to predict that it will happen again, because this is hardly the first time it has happened. But in order to understand what's going on here, it helps to understand that Obama is a man of the left, and that he is demonstrating the tried-and-true leftist practice known as doublethink, as described by George Orwell in his masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell wrote that “doublethink” requires:
To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies...to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 09, 2013 38 Comments
With a fevered and frantic breathless pace, Obama via John Kerry has been pushing to sign a sell-out deal with Iran that would ease sanctions without shutting down Iran's nuke program. Benjamin Netanyahu was furious when he found out that Kerry had misrepresented what the proposed agreement would be, not to mention Kerry running at the mouth to bash Israel on the talks with the Palestinians. Netanyahu was not alone.  France was uncomfortable with the deal Kerry wanted to sign, even as Kerry huddled with the Iranians trying to get 'er done. Thank you France for at least buying us some time to prevent the historic sell out of Israel that was in the offing as recently as early today. Via NY Times, Talks with Iran Fail to Produce a Nuclear Pact:
In the end, though, it was not only divisions between Iran and the major powers that prevented a deal, but fissures within the negotiating group. Earlier in the day, France objected strenuously that a proposed deal would do too little to curb Iran’s uranium enrichment or to stop the development of a nuclear reactor capable of producing plutonium.

“The Geneva meeting allowed us to advance, but we were not able to conclude because there are still some questions to be addressed,” the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, told reporters.

The Times of Israel reports:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 09, 2013 17 Comments
We have written many times before about the "white privilege" industry, a collection of self-perpetuating activists and academics who, not being able to demonstrate racism to justify their salaries and conferences, invent it. The lack of ability to prove racism becomes the best proof of racism.  It's everywhere, unspoken, unseen, lurking behind everything and every person with white skin (whatever that is). It is .... White Privilege. White privilege is adopted wholesale as Salon.com and elsewhere in the left blogosphere as well because it can't be disproven.  It is a prime example of Kafkatrapping -- the denial is the proof. Particularly when combined with maleness and Christianity, white privilege becomes the Swiss Army Knife of race cards. Or maybe the Energizer Bunny is a better reference, because it just keeps going, and going, and going. It's easy to laugh, except when you consider how deeply these theories have has permeated into society. So much so that the Pentagon is preaching the evils of "white privilege" and a male club, as part of its training materials for Equal Opportunity officers. Pentagon training manual: white males have unfair advantages:
A controversial 600-plus page manual used by the military to train its Equal Opportunity officers teaches that "healthy, white, heterosexual, Christian" men hold an unfair advantage over other races, and warns in great detail about a so-called "White Male Club." “Simply put, a healthy, white, heterosexual, Christian male receives many unearned advantages of social privilege, whereas a black, homosexual, atheist female in poor health receives many unearned disadvantages of social privilege,” reads a statement in the manual created by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI). The manual, which was obtained by Fox News, also instructs troops to “support the leadership of people of color. Do this consistently, but not uncritically,” the manual states.

Posted by Mandy Nagy on November 09, 2013 1 Comment
(Above image was the message earlier displayed by SEA) The Syrian Electronic Army claims it hacked the website of Vice.com in retaliation for an article published in August, in which the identity of one of SEA’s leaders was alleged. From Softpedia:
The Syrian Electronic Army has hacked Vice.com and deleted the article titled “Is This the Leader of the Syrian Electronic Army?” They’ve also altered the website so that visitors of vice.com/en_us would be redirected to sea.sy, the hacktivists’ website. “Your website was hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army. This time we just deleted the article that you claimed in it that you exposed “Th3Pro” identity. But you didn’t. You published names of innocent people instead,” the hackers wrote in an article published on Vice.com. The hackers threatened Vice in late August 2013. They claim to have gained access to Vice’s systems two days after the article about the identities of alleged members had been published. However, they say they’ve postponed the attack until now because at the time, Vice was aware of the fact that they might be targeted.
The hacker group posted a screen shot of the administration panel of Vice’s presumed content management system (CMS) to its Twitter account.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 09, 2013 32 Comments
What do you call 8-9 million people losing health care coverage they like in a nation of 300 million? A rounding error? Actually, probably more like 15 million at the low end, several tens of millions at the high end. But I'm not going to quibble over a few million people here or there. You know who else didn't quibble over a few million people here or there? Via MaggotAtBroadAndWall in the Tip Line
The first minute of his clip needs to be embedded on every blog, facebook page, etc. to ensure that everyone knows with unequivocal certainty that Obama deliberately and repeatedly lied to facilitate passing Obamacare under fraudulent conditions. Everybody in his administration was complicit in the fraud. As was much of academia.
Transcript via John Nolte who also has a longer video clip:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 09, 2013 4 Comments

From Kurt Schlichter, "thanks, suckers": Young Obama Supporters Get Straight Talk from Conservative California Lawyer Tin Soldiers coming: Kent State Says “Aloha” to $17,000 for Hawaiian Sex Week Hey Tin Soldiers, don't lean forward: Gay Sex Pundit’s $24K Lecture on Fisting and Fetishes [Pro tip: The two links above are what...

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