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Posted by Mandy Nagy on February 01, 2014 10 Comments

Last summer, we posted about the Guardian’s revelation that authorities with the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) weeks earlier had entered the outlet’s building and overseen the destruction of hard drives containing documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. In a new video released Friday...

Posted by Andrew Branca on February 01, 2014 11 Comments
The ongoing drama in the Michael Dunn “loud music” murder trial over whether jailhouse phone recordings should be released to the media has taken yet another turn. Yesterday the 1st District Court of Appeals once again felt compelled to step in--now for the third time--to reverse the Healey’s Wednesday ruling tossing the matter to civil court, and to demand an emergency hearing of all parties. (I haven’t yet seen yesterday’s 1st DCA ruling, so I don’t know if it literally says, “Get in our courtroom, NOW!” but I wouldn’t be the least surprised.) In addition, they’ve ordered that Healey’s immediate superior, Chief Judge Donald Mora, appoint yet another judge to hold an evidentiary hearing on whether the State’s estimated cost (~$6,300) for redaction of the recordings is reasonable, taking the matter out of Healey’s hands. (A kind interpretation of this last would be that they recognize Healey will be busy with jury selection for the start of the Dunn trial on Monday.) Some brief history of this discovery drama may provide useful context. Keep in mind, the existence of the phone recordings was known to all parties as long ago as October 2013, and the media has been demanding access to them since that time. [caption id="attachment_77430" align="alignnone" width="450"]Michael Dunn interviewed by police following "loud music" shooting of Jordan Davis Michael Dunn interviewed by police following "loud music" shooting of Jordan Davis[/caption] As we noted in our blog January 8 post on the case:

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 01, 2014 21 Comments
She stood up to the BDS bullies. She likely will come under increasing attack and boycotts directed at her. She deserves our support. Someone started a Facebook support page called I support Scarlett Johannson against the haters.  It would be good to increase the number of "Likes" and for people to share the page. Brendan O'Neill at The Telegraph has a brilliant take on the situation, Three cheers for Scarlett Johansson's stand against the ugly, illiberal Boycott Israel movement:
Ever since she was signed up as the face of SodaStream, Ms Johansson has had a tsunami of flak from campaigners who think that buying Israeli stuff, working with Israeli academics or attending Israeli theatre performances is the very worst thing a human being could ever do. You know the kind: they stand outside Marks & Spencer’s on Oxford Street warning all whom enter that this evil shop sells blood-stained products (ie, stuff made in Israel), and they screech and wail, these philistines for Palestine, when an Israeli violinist starts playing at the Proms. I mean, can you imagine it – a musician from Israel inside the Royal Albert Hall? *Shudder*. .... And then, brilliantly, totally stealing Oxfam’s puffed-up thunder, Ms Johansson’s people issued a statement saying: “Scarlett Johansson has respectfully decided to end her ambassador role with Oxfam after eight years.” Sassy Actress 1, Self-Important Moaners About Israel 0....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 31, 2014 10 Comments
NY-23, my home district, is a focus for both parties for 2014 because it is one of only a few competitive districts. The district is geographically enormous, a mostly rural area running along the Southern Tier of upstate New York. Once you leave Ithaca, it's a whole other country. Which is why incumbent Republican Tom Reed should be okay by a few percentage points. 2nd Amendment rights, and opposition to the NY SAFE Act, are big issues. Tompkins County, which includes Ithaca, is the exception. Tompkins County is one of only two upstate counties which has not passed a Resolution opposing the SAFE Act. County Opposition to SAFE Act ao January 2014 Guess who was the Democratic Chair of the Tompkins County legislature: Martha Robertson, the Emily's List-backed challenger to Reed. The SAFE Act is in play in the race because of Robertson's confusing voting record, where she appears to have both voted for and against the SAFE Act. WETM 18 reports:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 31, 2014 29 Comments
That's pretty much the evidence presented in this article by a former TSA employee, Dear America, I Saw You Naked: And yes, we were laughing. It starts with the absurd:
I hated it from the beginning. It was a job that had me patting down the crotches of children, the elderly and even infants as part of the post-9/11 airport security show. I confiscated jars of homemade apple butter on the pretense that they could pose threats to national security. I was even required to confiscate nail clippers from airline pilots—the implied logic being that pilots could use the nail clippers to hijack the very planes they were flying. Once, in 2008, I had to confiscate a bottle of alcohol from a group of Marines coming home from Afghanistan. It was celebration champagne intended for one of the men in the group—a young, decorated soldier. He was in a wheelchair, both legs lost to an I.E.D., and it fell to me to tell this kid who would never walk again that his homecoming champagne had to be taken away in the name of national security.... I quickly discovered I was working for an agency whose morale was among the lowest in the U.S. government. In private, most TSA officers I talked to told me they felt the agency’s day-to-day operations represented an abuse of public trust and funds.
.... and goes on to the disgusting:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 31, 2014 44 Comments
When Elizabeth Warren's fake Cherokee status broke in late April 2012, Warren's campaign went into panic for several days, issuing statements about Warren's ancestry that proved troublesome when compared to the facts. The entire issue was portrayed as a Scott Brown campaign dirty trick, and the Boston Herald -- the city's not-completely-liberal paper -- was attacked. Warren even entertained questions herself initially, reciting tales of her Aunt Bee and high cheekbones which both were laughable and questionable. Not that long after the Cherokee narrative broke, and endangered her campaign, Warren's campaign found a theme -- don't attack my family, I'm not backing away from my parents -- and stuck to it relentlessly. With a mostly sympathetic press in tow, Warren somewhat successfully reframed the issue away from her demeaning usurpation of Native American identity for employment purposes to why people were attacking her family. Warren also went into media shutdown, refusing to answer any questions except when confronted in unavoidable situations. Even then, Warren robotically stuck to the stript of defending her family. Warren avoided one-on-one interviews with anyone other than sycophants until the day before the Massachusetts Democratic state convention, when the Cherokee narrative threatened to derail Warren's attempt to keep her only Democratic rival, Marisa DeFranco, off the ballot. The convention-eve interviews, where Warren of course stuck to script, were enough to quiet party concerns, and DeFranco was kept off the ballot. I don't know if Warren's false narrative ever would have doomed her campaign, considering it was Massachusetts, but the script and press control worked for electoral purposes. Fast forward to Wendy Davis.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 31, 2014 7 Comments
A Resolution passed yesterday by the Philadelphia City Council is a good reflection of how deeply the pushback against the American Studies Association academic boycott of Israel has reached in American civil and political society.  (Full Resolution embedded at bottom of post.)
Condemning the American Studies Association’s academic boycott against Israeli academic institutions and urging the Department of Education, the State System of Higher Education and all colleges and universities in Pennsylvania to reject the academic boycott.

* * *

WHEREAS, The academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions, including colleges and universities, serves to restrict academic freedom and hinders the collaboration and free flow of information between academics all over the world; and WHEREAS, Academic freedom, the free flow of information and ideas and international academic collaboration are crucial factors in promoting progress in all areas of study from the hard sciences and technology to the humanities; and .... WHEREAS, Academic freedom is an indispensable component of a free and democratic society and should be guarded vigilantly; and WHEREAS, The American Studies Association’s call for an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions threatens academic freedom and should therefore be rejected; now, therefore, be it RESOLVED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, That the City Council condemns the American Studies Association’s academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions and urges the Department of Education, the State System of Higher Education and all colleges and universities in Pennsylvania to reject the academic boycott.
The Philadelphis Resolution was proposed by Councilman Kenyatta Johnson, who made the announcement on his Facebook and Twitter pages. https://www.facebook.com/CouncilmanKenyattaJohnson#!/CouncilmanKenyattaJohnson/posts/574424249299048?stream_ref=10

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 31, 2014 26 Comments
Kevin Drum at Mother Jones has noticed the obvious -- The NY Times is devoting enormous resources to going after Chris Christie. The Times has found its mark, and now just needs actual news and actual wrongdoing to take him out. As Drum describes it, No Smoking Guns Yet, But the Noose Is Tightening Around Chris Christie:
The New York Times is pretty clearly expending a lot of resources on the various Chris Christie scandals. So far they haven't produced any smoking guns, but they're sure digging up some stuff that doesn't look good for Team Christie. First up is a look at the Christie political team, which was apparently obsessed with winning votes in Democratic-leaning towns. This wasn't because the votes themselves were all that critical to Christie's 2012 reelection campaign, but because winning in these places "would validate the governor’s argument that he would be the most broadly appealing Republican choice for president in 2016" ....
After describing a couple of Times pieces that show no direct evidence of wrongdoing, just a tough politician, Drum concludes:

Posted by Mandy Nagy on January 31, 2014 5 Comments
The press office of Viktor Yanukovych announced Thursday that the President of Ukraine would take a sick leave for an indefinite period of time, prompting uncertainty amid continuing tensions in Ukraine. From the Wall Street Journal:
Ukraine's president and his opponents accused one another of sabotaging efforts to end the political crisis Thursday, as an unexpected presidential sick leave further damped hopes for compromise. President Viktor Yanukovych's absence was quickly denounced by his opponents as a case of executive malingering in a country where politicians have in the past delayed one another in parliament by throwing eggs, padlocking the doors and body-blocking the rostrum. The Ukrainian president's office issued a statement saying Mr. Yanukovych, 63, is taking time off from work because of a fever and respiratory illness. The statement did not indicate when he would return to work.
Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and his government resigned on Tuesday, in an attempt to appease protesters.  Parliament also voted to repeal or modify many of the anti-protest laws that had been passed in mid-January and sparked escalating violence. But Yanukovych must sign the repeal from Parliament and it is not known whether or not that would occur while he is on sick leave, according to the Associated Press. Just after the announcement of his sick leave, the president of Ukraine defended his handling of the ongoing crisis there. From CNN:

Posted by Andrew Branca on January 30, 2014 20 Comments
Florida news outlets -- including First Coast News -- are reporting  today that Marissa Alexander has had her re-trial delayed until July 28. The re-trial had been scheduled to being in March.  The delay was the result of a motion by the defense. Given that it seems most unlikely any new evidence or legal arguments will develop in that additional time, the four month delay suggests the defense may attempting to buy time to negotiate a plea agreement.  Should Alexander be retried on the same evidence as was presented at her first trial, a re-conviction seems all but unavoidable. In 2012 Alexander was convicted of three counts of aggravated assault for firing a bullet past the head of her estranged husband and his two minor children.  Under Florida's "10-20-Life" law requiring mandatory minimum sentences for the use of a gun in a crime, she was sentenced to 20 years in prison. An error in the jury instructions on self-defense at her trial won her the re-trial now delayed until July. The case of Marissa Alexander has been covered extensively here at Legal Insurrection, including in these prior posts: Sheriff’s Office Takes the Heat for Marissa Alexander Bail Kerfuffle Marissa Alexander Remains on Bail, Under Tightened Conditions

Posted by Andrew Branca on January 30, 2014 7 Comments

Judge Russell Healey, presiding over the murder trial of Michael Dunn in the shooting death of Jordan Davis, promised the parties a decision Wednesday on releasing to the media the jail house telephone recordings of Dunn. Oddly, this was a decision all sides had thought he'd...

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