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Posted by Andrew Branca on March 14, 2014 16 Comments
At Michael Dunn's recent "loud music" murder trial the jury found him guilty of three counts of attempted murder and one count of hurling missiles at an occupied vehicle--convictions sufficient for up to 75 years in prison. (Hat-tip to ‏@TCinOP for pointing out the News4Jax piece on this story.) The jury hung, however, on the charge of first degree murder (or any of its lesser included offenses, such as second degree murder and manslaughter) in the shooting death of Jordan Davis, apparently because at least three jurors they felt that the State prosecutors had failed to disprove self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt (the legal standard for a legal defense of self-defense in all American states except for Ohio). Florida State Prosecutor Angela Corey, who led the first Dunn prosecution, had consistently stated that she intends to re-try Dunn on the hung murder charge--and now a date for that re-trial has been set.  And it's not far off:  May 5. Simultaneously with setting the re-trial date, the judge also ruled that Dunn's sentencing his existing convictions will be deferred until after a verdict has been reached on the murder charge.  Given the complexity of sentencing generally--typically a pre-sentencing report taking several weeks to prepare is required--and the probable likelihood that a verdict on the murder charges will be in hand in less than 8 weeks, it makes sense to simply have one sentencing process after the second trial. In addition, there is some uncertainty under Florida law whether convictions involving the state's "10-20-Life" statute must be run consecutively or whether they may be run concurrently.  The difference for Dunn on even just his existing convictions would be between a sentence of as long as 75 years if run consecutively (effectively a life sentence) and as "few" as 20 years if run concurrently.  

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 14, 2014 4 Comments
Democrat Martha Robertson, the Emily's List-backed, "Red to Blue" challenger in NY-23 just can't seem to escape local news coverage of her apparently false fundraising claim that GOP operatives were "caught" trying to take down her website during a critical fundraising period.

Martha Robertson fundraising email partial

Legal Insurrection broke the story in early October 2013, and we have followed the details since then: The latest bad publicity for Robertson regards her response to a complaint filed with the NY State Board of Elections, as reported by WETM:
The controversy over an e-mail sent by Martha Roberton’s campaign to supporters last September continues. Now, the National Republican Congressional Committee is getting involved. The NRCC is asking the Martha Robertson campaign to release all correspondence related to the e-mail her campaign sent to supporters on September 30th, 2013. The NRCC is looking for correspondence that is not protected by attorney-client privilege. In that September e-mail, the Robertson campaign claimed that “GOP ops” had hacked their website right before the end of the third quarter fundraising deadline. The Robertson campaign provided proof of their hacking claims in October of 2013, but decided not to hire an outside firm to investigate, despite previously saying they would.
In a letter sent by the Robertson campaign to the NY State Board of Elections, Robertson repeats her claim that there were attacks on the website but no longer claims that it has any proof whatsoever that the GOP was involved, much less that GOP operatives were "caught" (emphasis added):

Posted by Bryan Jacoutot on March 14, 2014 20 Comments
The former Director of the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), David Wright, recently resigned in powerful fashion, penning a scathing letter to his boss in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) about the “remarkably dysfunctional HHS bureaucracy.” The letter, written on February 25th and recently published at sciencemag.org, details the “intensely political environment” that is HHS, the department charged with crafting and implementing Obamacare policy and regulations. Apart from being famous for drafting 20,000 pages of onerous regulations inspired by the nearly 2,000 page Obamacare statute, HHS also made headlines for it’s spectacularly disastrous rollout of healthcare.gov, the website responsible for ensuring the American people are actually able to comply with the new healthcare law. In the wake of the rollout controversy, the American people were livid, many calling for the Secretary of HHS, Kathleen Sebellius, to resign. At minimum, the public wanted someone to be held accountable for the incredibly expensive, taxpayer funded, disaster. In the end, no one ever was. According to Wright’s letter of resignation, unaccountability is the name of the game at HHS [Emphasis Added].

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 13, 2014 4 Comments
We previously wrote about the lawfare against Ezra Levant, We Stand With Ezra. The case now is in trial, and Ezra has an update: You can donate to Ezra's defense fund here. After you donate, sit back and enjoy Ezra’s Opening Statement in the 2008 Human Rights Commission case brought against him over the publication of the Mohammed cartoon:

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Posted by Mandy Nagy on March 13, 2014 9 Comments
A handful of hecklers disrupted Chris Christie's town hall meeting in Mount Laurel, NJ on Thursday, prompting the NJ Governor to fire back at their interruptions. From CNN:
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's town hall Thursday was repeatedly interrupted by what appeared to be a coordinated effort by hecklers, four of whom took turns shouting at the governor when other audience members tried to ask questions. The first protester stood up about 35 minutes into the event and hollered at the governor from across the room about Superstorm Sandy relief aid. After about half a minute, a fed-up Christie turned to the young man and tried to shut him down. "Either sit down or keep quiet, or get out," the Republican governor said. "Either one. We're done with you."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 13, 2014 22 Comments
Martha Robertson is the Emily's List-backed, "Red to Blue" designated challenger to Republican Tom Reed in my home NY-23 District. She is a Democratic star candidate, and money is pouring into the somewhat competitive District at a furious pace. But is Robertson just another Alex Sink? Someone destined to break Democrats' hearts because, in Robertson's case, she is just too left-wing for the centrist, Republican-leaning district? We have covered the race extensively, including Robertson's misleading (if not outright false) fundraising claim that GOP operatives tried to take down her website, her strong support for Obamacare as a stepping stone to single payer, and questionable history with regard to rejecting the unpopular NY SAFE Act. In a region starving for jobs and losing our young people, Robertson has staked her candidacy on preventing the fracking job boom which has added over a quarter million jobs in Pennsylvania, which borders the NY-23 District. Heaven forbid the struggling Southern Tier of NY State should get to participate in that. The Reed campaign recently posted a video that sums up the Robertson agenda:
"In my heart of hearts, the very most important issue is climate change."
) If so, Robertson is almost alone in that sentiment. This Pew Research chart lists the priorities of the electorate as of late January 2014 -- be sure to scroll really, really far down so you can find "Dealing with Global Warming":
"The American public routinely ranks dealing with global warming low on its list of priorities for the president and Congress. This year, it ranked second to last among 20 issues tested."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 13, 2014 11 Comments

That's what Ted Cruz tweeted about this Branco cartoon that ran at Legal Insurrection in October, Branco Cartoon – Delay and Conquer. How far we've come...

Posted by A.F. Branco on March 13, 2014 3 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 Andrew Branca on March 12, 2014 29 Comments
Robert Zimmerman Sr. and Gladys Zimmerman have filed suit against comedienne Roseanne Barr, nearly two years after Barr published their home address on Twitter in the aftermath of their son George Zimmerman Jr.'s killing of Trayvon Martin in self-defense.   (Zimmerman successfully argued at trial that he shot Martin in necessary self-defense,  and he was acquitted by a unanimous jury.) The Orlando Sentinel reports that the suit, filed in a Florida circuit court, accuses Barr of attempting to incite "a lynch mob to descend" on their home and carry out "vigilante justice." Zimmerman's parents say that Barr's tweet of their home address compelled them to flee their home in the middle of the night, and they remain unable to return and in hiding for fear of violence. They also point out that their son George did not live with them, and they had nothing whatever to do with his shooting of Trayvon Martin in self-defense.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 12, 2014 49 Comments
Yeah, me too. Donald Trump. But I don't think that's what the Ban Bossy campaign is about. The #BanBossy movement pretends to protect little girls from the humiliation of being called "bossy," and thereby will empower a generation of strong, powerful female leaders (so long as you don't call them bossy, because that would crush them). The movement is backed by "Lean In" Sheryl Sandberg and The Girl Scouts, for whom every girl is a potential victim. (Put aside all the objective evidence that girls are outperforming boys in almost every measure.) A slew of major corporations and celebrities have lined up behind the banning of bossy. ) There nothing wrong, and much good, at encouraging young girls to lead. But this campaign has a strong victimization narrative. This teaches young girls that they are victims and need the emotional protections that little boys don't. At best that is a mixed message. And why now? Why have the word police suddenly descended on us to shape our speech? Can't boys and men be bossy too? Has there been some epidemic of bossy such that now is the time to act. A follower on Twitter made the connection to prepping the battlefield for Hillary:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 12, 2014 16 Comments
Reports began circulating last night about a hidden individual mandate delay buried in some recent regulations:
ObamaCare's implementers continue to roam the battlefield and shoot their own wounded, and the latest casualty is the core of the Affordable Care Act—the individual mandate. To wit, last week the Administration quietly excused millions of people from the requirement to purchase health insurance or else pay a tax penalty. This latest political reconstruction has received zero media notice, and the Health and Human Services Department didn't think the details were worth discussing in a conference call, press materials or fact sheet. Instead, the mandate suspension was buried in an unrelated rule that was meant to preserve some health plans that don't comply with ObamaCare benefit and redistribution mandates. Our sources only noticed the change this week. That seven-page technical bulletin includes a paragraph and footnote that casually mention that a rule in a separate December 2013 bulletin would be extended for two more years, until 2016. Lo and behold, it turns out this second rule, which was supposed to last for only a year, allows Americans whose coverage was cancelled to opt out of the mandate altogether.
In testimony today, Kathleen Sebelius said it ain't so, as reported by The Hill:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 12, 2014 5 Comments
We previously reported on the profanity-laced shout-down of Professor Alan Johnson at National University of Ireland at Galway by anti-Israel activist Joseph Loughnane. If you haven't seen the video yet, watch it. It's a microcosm of the culture of anti-Israel intimidation on many campuses, fostered by anti-Israel faculty propagandists pushing their policial agenda at places such as conferences run by NYU and the American Studies Assocation. (Language Warning) ) Professor Johnson, the subject of this abuse, has written a blog post about the incident and what he believes was behind it, BDS bullies at Galway University:
Third, ‘Israel’ and ‘Palestine’ have become tied up with the performance of political identity in the West in a most dangerous way. ‘The Palestinians’ are a stage on which the BDS activists act out their identity. To make that possible, ‘The Palestinians’ must be reduced to pure victims of the evil Nazi-Israelis. For only those kind of Palestinians can enable feelings of moral superiority, purity, quest, meaning, even transcendence of sorts. Palestinians being starved by Assad hold no interest. Palestinians being thrown from rooftops by Hamas members hold no interest. When Salam Fayyad is building up the Palestinian Nation the BDS activists just yawn, or denounce him as a collaborator. Only as agency-less pure victims can the Palestinians play their allotted role as a screen onto which the individual projects his or her identity of the righteous activist. It is the Palestinians misfortune that they have become this.
[caption id="attachment_80976" align="alignnone" width="488"](Professor Alan Johnson being shouted down at NUIG-Galway) (Professor Alan Johnson being shouted down at NUIG-Galway)[/caption] As I previously reported, NUIG-Galway has promised an investigation and condemned the conduct. In my follow-up, however, NUIG-Galway declined to provide details or even to commit to making the result public, although it did clarify its prior statement by adding that the investigation will include violations of the student code, as follows (in part):

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 12, 2014 18 Comments
Last night we covered Republican David Jolly's surprise win over Democrat Alex Sink. Sink supposedly had it all -- no contentious primary, more money, an unpopular Republican Governor and national Democratic support. But even the best of Democratic candidates went down under the weight of Obamacare and big government.  Jolly hit those themes throughout his campaign. ) Why do I call it an Earthquake? Because that's what I called Scott Brown's unexpected victory in Massachusetts in January 2010. Brown caught lightning in a bottle, and that lightning was opposition to Obamacare in an off-year special election. It portended huge Republican and Tea Party gains the following November. Adam Smith, Tampa Bay Times, David Jolly's victory spells trouble for Democrats nationwide:
If I'm a Democratic House member in any competitive district in America or a Democratic incumbent senator up for re-election this year in a moderate-to-conservative state like North Carolina, Arkansas, Colorado, Alaska or Louisiana, I'm waking up more than a little anxious about what happened in Pinellas County on Tuesday. In Alex Sink, Democrats had a better-funded, well-known nominee who ran a strong campaign against a little-known, second- or third-tier Republican who ran an often wobbly race in a district Barack Obama won twice. Outside Republican groups — much more so than the under-funded Jolly campaign — hung the Affordable Care Act and President Obama on Sink. It worked.
Josh Kraushaar, National Journal, Why a Republican Wave in 2014 is Looking More Likely Now:
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