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Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 10, 2014 12 Comments
This year, we have two deserving Nobel Peace Prize winners, each of whom has an inspiring story of fighting against great odds for the humanity of others, and suffering great pain in the process. They are the people we imagine when we think of the Nobel Peace Prize in our mind's eye. Even if that mind's eye doesn't always meet reality. Amy Davidson in The New Yorker has brief backgrounds on this year's winners:
Malala Yousafzai, who is seventeen years old, and Kailash Satyarthi, who is sixty, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday morning—for, in the committee’s words, “their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.” Satyarthi, who is Indian, is a man who has fought for children for decades; Malala, who is Pakistani, is a child, and a fighter herself. There was some thought, ahead of the announcement, that Malala, as she is known, would be awarded the prize alone. She is more famous than Satyarthi. Two years ago, gunmen from the Taliban got on her school bus and shot her in the head, shattering her skull—an attack she answered by becoming one of the world’s clearest voices for girls’ education. Satyarthi has survived physical attacks, too, and has led raids on factories that hold small children as bonded laborers.... ccording to press reports, he has worked directly with more than eighty thousand children, and has fought to change the conditions and chances of hundreds of thousands more.
And then there's this:

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 10, 2014 25 Comments
This thing speaks for itself. Remember when Battleground Texas supporters of Wendy Davis laughed at Greg Abbott being in wheelchair? The line of attack by the Battleground Texas people was exactly the line of attack in Davis' current video -- that Abbott is in a wheelchair but has not sympathy for others, as if being a Judge means cases should be decided on sympathy:

Posted by Andrew Branca on October 10, 2014 18 Comments
It all started when an 8th grader decided to wear his mother's wig to school as a joke. What could go wrong? Apparently, a great deal. By the end of the day that awesome judgment call had cost the wig wearer an eye, within weeks leading to a juvenile hate crime conviction on the 7th grader responsible for the injury, and as of this week led the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York to reverse that conviction on self-defense grounds (PDF of the decision and order to reverse is embedded below). (Note: New York is one of a small number of states in which "Supreme Court" does NOT refer to the highest court in the state.  In New York that highest court is instead referred to as the Court of Appeals--a term that in most states refers to the court of intermediate jurisdiction.) On June 5, 2012, the (then) 8th grade complainant, as mentioned, decided to wear mom's wig to Junior High.  Shockingly, other students began to taunt him over this, among them a group of 7th graders that included Mondy E., the appellant.  Also shockingly, their taunts included anti-homosexual/transgender epithets, thus opening up the "hate crimes" can of worms. The complainant asked the taunters to stop, which had the efficacy one might expect under the circumstances.

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Posted by Amy Miller on October 10, 2014 166 Comments
A federal District Court judge has ruled that Texas' embattled voter ID law is unconstitutional. This news came just hours after the Supreme Court granted a request from civil rights activists to block similar requirements in Wisconsin. In a 147 page opinion, U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of Texas Nelva Gonzales Ramos held "that SB 14 creates an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote, has an impermissible discriminatory effect against Hispanics and African-Americans, and was imposed with an unconstitutional discriminatory purpose." Judge Ramos also held that SB 14 constitutes an unconstitutional poll tax. Although the Supreme Court last year freed Texas from onerous federal pre-clearance requirements, much of Ramos's opinion focuses on Texas' (admittedly) dark history of discrimination and racial tension. Additionally, the opinion appears to accept arguments made by Justice Department attorneys that voter fraud is "extraordinarily rare" and that SB 14 amounts to nothing more than “a solution in search of a problem.”
This history describes not only a penchant for discrimination in Texas with respect to voting, but it exhibits a recalcitrance that has persisted over generations despite the repeated intervention of the federal government and its courts on behalf of minority citizens. In each instance, the Texas Legislature relied on the justification that its discriminatory measures were necessary to combat voter fraud. In some instances, there were admissions that the legislature did not want minorities voting. In other instances, the laws that the courts deemed discriminatory appeared neutral on their face. There has been a clear and disturbing pattern of discrimination in the name of combatting voter fraud in Texas. In this case, the Texas Legislature’s primary justification for passing SB 14 was to combat voter fraud. The only voter fraud addressed by SB 14 is voter impersonation fraud, which the evidence demonstrates is very rare (discussed below). This history of discrimination has permeated all aspects of life in Texas...

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 09, 2014 13 Comments
While reporting on the San Diego area's extremely competitive congressional race in CA-52 between Democrat Scott Peters and Republican Carl DeMaio, my colleague Casey Breznick noted that "DeMaio recently took further steps to distance himself from the Tea Party by releasing a new campaign ad where he says:
“As a proud gay American, I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but a Tea Party extremist? Nothing could be farther from the truth."
I assert that the internal polls for Peters must be worse than those Casey officially reported, because the Democrat ads are referencing Tea Party so often that one could confuse DeMaio for the president of Lipton Tea Company. And, as I noted previously, DeMaio has never truly been "Tea Party". However, I am now concerned that the ad may have been too demeaning of the area's Tea Party groups, who are among the most active grassroots supporters of DeMaio. Dawn Wildman, co-founder of the SoCalTax Revolt Coalition and the organizer of the area's first Tea Party finds the approach disturbing. She says:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 09, 2014 59 Comments
Our reader poll turned up strong support for Jason Mattera confronting Lois Lerner in her neighborhood, including following her to a neighbor's door. Based on the comments to that post, I think the general reasoning in favor was that Lerner deserves to have to answer questions, they do it to us (60 Minutes ambush interviews anyone? SEIU?), and we lose when we don't fight back and hold them to their own standards. The general reasoning against was that we are not like the other side, we need to be better, and it was creepy to follow her onto a neighbors' lawn and to the front door. Asking her questions on the street might be one thing, but running after her is too much. Poll Results Lois Lerner Jason Mattera But Greg Gutfeld on The Fives was not impressed with Mattera's performance, viewing it as counterproductive. Bob Beckel went further (surprise!) and challenged Mattera to a fight. TPM reports:
Conservative author Jason Mattera's ambush of former IRS official Lois Lerner has earned plaudits from certain conservative circles, but it was too much for the gang on Fox News Channel's "The Five." Co-host Greg Gutfeld said Wednesday that the video — in which Mattera chased Lerner around a suburban Washington, D.C. neighborhood as she walked her dogs — pulled off the impossible. "Seriously, that even made me feel bad for Lerner, and I can't stand her," Gutfeld said.... In fact, Beckel was so incensed that he's apparently willing to throw down with Mattera.

Posted by Andrew Branca on October 09, 2014 59 Comments
[UPDATE: An image purporting to be a police report of this shooting event was linked in the comments. I have embedded that image below--thanks Ras.  I can not personally attest to its provenance, but it appears to be of a form I would expect of an actual police report for such an incident.] It's deja vu all over again. A St. Louis police officer working off duty for a private security company shot and killed a black man yesterday.  Protestors gathered quickly, raising concerns of more rioting, looting, and arson threats similar to those that erupted following the shooting of Mike Brown in Ferguson, MO. (h/t @nadraenzi) Fox news reports that while working private security the officer approached three men, who ran away. The officer chased one of them, and a physical struggle ensued.  Police officials report that the chased man then presented a pistol and fired three rounds at the officer before his handgun failed.  There are no reports that any of the shots struck the officer. The officer's handgun was made of more reliable stuff, and he fired 17 rounds at his attacker, mortally wounding him. The Fox article goes on to report:
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that people claiming to be relatives of the victim identified him as 18-year-old Vonderrit Myers, Jr. The teenager's mother, Syreeta Myers, told The Associated Press by phone Thursday that her son was holding a sandwich when the officer killed him Wednesday night. [ . . . ] Hours after the shooting, a crowd gathered at the scene. Some people shouted "Hands up, don't shoot" in reference to the fatal shooting in August of an unarmed black man, Michael Brown, by a white police officer. That shooting in Ferguson led to weeks of sometimes violent unrest in the St. Louis suburb. Officer Darren Wilson has not been charged in the shooting. Dotson said some in the crowd late Wednesday shouted obscenities toward officers and damaged police cars. Officers, however, "showed great restraint," he said.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 09, 2014 14 Comments
After the Oklahoma workplace beheading, I asked if the threat level had shifted From Going Postal to Going ISIS. Regardless of whether we see more actual beheadings in the U.S., it appears that threats of beheadings may be the latest iteration of threatening hoaxes based on news events. As ISIS beheadings are in the news, as well as the Oklahoma workplace beheading, someone who hopefully will be caught made a beheading threat directed at elementary schools in three towns in my formerly home State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. (h/t Infidel Bloggers Alliance) NBC News 10 reports:
Police had a very visible presence Wednesday at schools in Cranston, Johnston and Warwick. Officers will be present all day after a letter threatening beheadings at the elementary schools in the three communities was received by the Johnston Police Department on Tuesday. Police said the handwritten letter was one page, and it is being analyzed at the state crime lab at the University of Rhode Island. Police departments said they would cover every school in the three communities. "When these threats come in, we take them very serious. But at the same time, we don't want these threats to disrupt our daily life, including important work that they do here educating students," Cranston Police Col. Michael Winquist said. The police presence calmed the fears of some parents.

Posted by Mike LaChance on October 09, 2014 15 Comments
Plenty of conservatives have faulted President Obama for his handling of ISIS but now even President Jimmy Carter is jumping on board. Jonathan Topaz of Politico reported:
Jimmy Carter: President Obama blew it on ISIL Former President Jimmy Carter is criticizing President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy, saying he has shifting policies and waited too long to take action against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. In an interviewed published Tuesday in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the 39th president said the Obama administration, by not acting sooner, allowed ISIL to build up its strength. “[W]e waited too long. We let the Islamic State build up its money, capability and strength and weapons while it was still in Syria,” he said, using an alternate name for the terrorist group. “Then when [ISIL] moved into Iraq, the Sunni Muslims didn’t object to their being there and about a third of the territory in Iraq was abandoned.”
Politico is referencing this article by Jim Jones:
Carter unhappy with Obama’s policies in Middle East Former President Jimmy Carter put down his hammer at a Meadowbrook Habitat for Humanity project Tuesday for a wide-ranging interview that touched on subjects such as the Obama administration’s use of drones, women’s rights and faith.

Posted by Amy Miller on October 09, 2014 16 Comments
Today's "Worst Administration Ever" story is a throwback to the Great Secret Service Sex Scandal of 2012, in which almost two dozen Secret Service personnel were fired after allegations surfaced that several agents had engaged in misconduct involving Colombian prostitutes. Now, reports have surfaced refuting White House claims that no staff members had been involved in any wrongdoing. The Washington Post reports:
As nearly two dozen Secret Service agents and members of the military were punished or fired following a 2012 prostitution scandal in Colombia, Obama administration officials repeatedly denied that anyone from the White House was involved. But new details drawn from government documents and interviews show that senior White House aides were given information at the time suggesting that a prostitute was an overnight guest in the hotel room of a presidential advance-team member — yet that information was never thoroughly investigated or publicly acknowledged.... The Secret Service shared its findings twice in the weeks after the scandal with top White House officials, including then-White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler. Each time, she and other presidential aides conducted an interview with the advance-team member and concluded that he had done nothing wrong. Meanwhile, the new details also show that a separate set of investigators in the inspector general’s office of the Department of Homeland Security — tasked by a Senate committee with digging more deeply into misconduct on the trip — found additional evidence from records and eyewitnesses who had accompanied the team member in Colombia.
According to WaPo, the team member in question was Jonathan Dach, who now is a full time employee with the State Department's Office on Global Women’s Issues. Through a family attorney, Dach denies any "inappropriate conduct":

Posted by Casey Breznick on October 08, 2014 8 Comments
The openly gay “New Generation” Republican Carl DeMaio is now polling three points above incumbent Democrat Scott Peters in California’s evenly split 52nd district. A UT San Diego poll released Monday shows DeMaio polling at 48% and Peters at 45%. Since the difference falls within the poll’s margin of error, the race stands at a virtual tie. This is an improvement from September, when DeMaio dropped below Peters for the first time since polling began in June. [caption id="attachment_102134" align="alignnone" width="427"]From UT San Diego. From UT San Diego.[/caption] It has been a whirlwind campaign for Peters and especially for DeMaio, who launched his maverick campaign after losing the 2012 mayoral race in San Diego. While Peters has consistently struggled to even appeal to his liberal base—being ranked by liberal bloggers as one of the worst freshman Democrats—DeMaio’s vows to push forward his “Fix Congress First” legislation and his efforts to reach out to traditionally non-Republican are impressing San Diegans and Republicans across the country. You can read my past coverage of the CA52 race for further details: #CA52: Flip opportunity against 1st term Dem in evenly split district and #CA52 still looking like Republican flip opportunity. UT San Diego breaks down the polling data by specific categories. Here’s a quick summary:
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