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Posted by David Gerstman on September 23, 2014 2 Comments
Yesterday a jury in a federal court in New  York found the Arab Bank - the largest lender in Jordan - liable for "knowingly supporting terrorism efforts connected to two dozen attacks in the Middle East." The New York Times reports:
Arab Bank, a major Middle Eastern bank with $46 billion in assets, was accused of knowingly supporting specific terrorist acts in and around Israel during the second Palestinian uprising of the early 2000s. The verdict is expected to have a strong impact on similar legal efforts to hold financial institutions responsible for wrongdoing by their clients, even if the institutions followed banking rules, and could be seen as a deterrent for banks that conduct business in violent areas. The plaintiffs in this case, about 300 victims of 24 terrorist attacks, said the acts had been carried out by Hamas, and accused Arab Bank of supporting the organization by handling transfers and payments for Hamas members.
The Times quotes Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies on the significance of the verdict.
“What this has done is it’s made the effects of American law felt in far-off places, and that is significant,” said Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former terrorism finance analyst for the Treasury Department. “I don’t think any country, any bank, would want to be cut off from the U.S. financial sector, and they’re going to start thinking very carefully about whether they accept financial transactions” even from people or groups who are not on designated terrorist lists.
The damages were not determined and will be decided at a future  trial.

LATEST NEWS

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 23, 2014 25 Comments
Prosecutors had sought up to 16 months jail for Dinesh D'Souza, who pleaded guilty to a campaign finance violation. But a federal judge today ruled that there would be no jail time. Via The Smoking Gun:
Conservative writer/filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza was spared prison time today when a federal judge sentenced him to five years probation for violating campaign finance laws. For the first eight months of his probation term, D’Souza will have to live in a "community confinement center" in San Diego, ordered Judge Richard Berman, who also fined D’Souza $30,000 and directed him to undergo “therapeutic counseling.” D’Souza will also have to perform one day per week of community service during his probation term. In remarks before announcing D’Souza’s sentence, Berman said that he did not believe the defendant had accepted responsibility for his crime. “I’m not sure, Mr. D’Souza, that you get it,” said Berman, who referred to D’Souza’s claim that he was a victim of selective prosecution.
Added: Here are the Judgment and Sentencing court documents:

Posted by Andrew Branca on September 23, 2014 15 Comments
More information about the criminal milieu of 29-year-old, 6' 7" Charles Smith continues to dribble out of Savannah, GA, in addition to what we previously covered here Handcuffed GA Man Killed by Police Had Extensive Criminal Record just three days ago. A brief report by WOTC news discloses that:

At the time of Smith's shooting on September 18 he was on active parole in effect since July 2013 for an aggravated assault conviction in which he had pleaded guilty to pistol whipping a man in 2009.

On September 1 of this year (so, less than 3 weeks prior to his death), Smith was behind the wheel of a stolen car equipped with fake license plates.

On September 5, four days later, Smith ran from police when they tried to pull him over in the stolen Lexus, during which Smith both ran red lights and engaged in speeding.

Translation: Smith was a man known to police to have a proven history of engaging in deadly force violence, as well as to be dangerously non-compliant when confronted by authority.  Such knowledge would certainly go the Officer David Jannot's reasonable perception of an imminent threat of death or grave bodily harm when confronted by the armed, resistant Smith.

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 23, 2014 30 Comments
Lois Lerner broke her silence in an interview at Politico, according to Politico: Exclusive: Lois Lerner breaks silence. More properly framed, Lerner repeated to Politico the same broad denials she made on the record in a House hearing just before pleading the 5th to avoid having those broad denials subjected to questioning. Here's her House statement, just before pleading the 5th for the first of two times: Here's an excerpt from Lerner's Politico interview: [___________]. That blank is there for a reason -- the Politico article was less an interview than a characterization of an interview. No transcript or even extensive quotation, other than some snippets, most of which concern Lerner's hurt feelings rather than the facts of what she did, what she knew, and when she knew it. Here's the conclusion to the Politico article:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 23, 2014 10 Comments
Remember when Katie Zavadski of NY Magazine, Sheera Frenkel of Buzzfeed and Jon Donnison of the BBC reported that Hamas was not behind the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens, Gil-ad Shaer, Naftali Fraenkel and Eyal Yifrach? That gave rise to the widespread false meme that Israeli invented the Hamas connection in order to start the Gaza war (never mind that the Gaza war actually was started and continued due to Hamas rocket fire on Israeli cities, not by Israeli reaction to the kidnapping). Since then, Hamas representatives repeatedly have admitted it was a Hamas operation. Indeed, they bragged about it, though Hamas denies that the most senior Hamas officials were involved. Israeli spokesmen not only identified the murderers, but also how they were funded and coordinated by Hamas operatives in Gaza and Turkey. Israel has been searching for the two murderers for several months. Israel finally found them last night in Hebron. After a firefight, the two were killed and Hamas, once again, admits they were Hamas operatives, as The Times of Israel reports:
Marwan Kawasme and Amer Abu Aysha were both killed during an early Tuesday arrest attempt in Hebron, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.... At around 3 a.m., the forces descended on the house where the suspects were believed to be hiding and began firing heavily on the home. Both were killed after refusing to surrender. “We opened fire, they returned fire and they were killed in the exchange,” IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told Reuters. “We have visual confirmation for one. The second one, we have no visual confirmation, but the assumption is he was killed.” Hamas confirmed in a statement the two were killed, Israeli media reported. “Two members of the Izz A-Din al-Qasam brigades, Marwan Kawasme and Amer Abu Aysha, were killed after a journey of sacrifice and giving,” Hamas spokesman Hussam Badran said in a statement. “This is the path of resistance and we walk it side by side.” An armed bulldozer was also used to destroy the home the two were in during the operation, Israel’s Channel 10 news reported.
The Jerusalem Post further reports:

Posted by Amy Miller on September 23, 2014 40 Comments
There's nothing more offensive to me than an article that leaps off the cliff in the first sentence by dropping the "as a woman, I..." bomb. It doesn't matter how the sentence ends; what matters is that the author, whoever she may be, believes that on some level her gender proves her point for her. We're meant to accept everything that follows because to dissent is to deny not only her opinion, but her equal footing in society. Fortunately, conservatives are doing the work to fight back this flawed idea that feminism consists entirely of the full acceptance of womanhood as victimhood:
Women in America are the freest in the world, yet many feminists tell us women are oppressed. They advocate this falsehood through victim mentality propaganda and misleading statistics, such as the gender wage gap myth. In five minutes, American Enterprise Institute's Christina Hoff Sommers tells you the truth about feminism.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on September 22, 2014 105 Comments
It's long been a rallying cry of the right: if you want to be on the public dole, you should be able to pass a drug test. You've seen the memes and the bumper stickers. Sounds good, right? Governor Walker of Wisconsin has proposed his plan that would require drug testing for those seeking food stamps and unemployment benefits. According to The Daily Signal:

But the most controversial points are the governor’s proposals to require drug testing for individuals filing for unemployment and for “able-bodied, working-age adults requesting food stamps” through the state’s FoodShare public assistance program.

The bottom line, Walker says, is the bottom line: Taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for public assistance programs for individuals who can’t pass a drug test.
Taxpayers should have a great say in where their tax dollars are spent, that's not a point I disagree with and is a principle I will always advocate. When it comes to mandatory drug testing as a contingency for public assistance though, I'm not convinced it's a good idea for two simple reasons: 1) requiring drug testing is an expansion of government 2) it doesn't address the problem of why people are seeking public assistance to begin with.

Posted by Amy Miller on September 22, 2014 15 Comments
The near-mythos surrounding the man who jumped the White House fence last week keeps getting weirder. Via Bloomberg Law:
The man accused of jumping the White House fence with a knife was free on bail at the time of the incident after his arrest on a separate weapons charge in Virginia, prosecutors said. Omar Gonzalez, who was accused of rushing the executive mansion on Sept. 19, made a court appearance today in Washington, where he was ordered held without bond. His next hearing is set for Oct. 1.
Although the media hasn't quite picked up on exactly what this "weapons charge" is, friends and family of Gonzalez have already begun pushing back on the idea that Gonzalez's history with weapons adds a new angle to the already bizarre story. According to CBS News, friends of Gonzalez believe that if he had jumped the fence with the intent to harm, he would have brought something more deadly than a three-inch knife.

Posted by David Gerstman on September 22, 2014 7 Comments
It is nearly a year since Iran's President Hassan Rouhani spoke before the United Nations General Assembly. Later this week he is scheduled to speak again before the General Assembly, but the enthusiasm expressed last year is nowhere to be seen. In the run up to his speech there was much excitement among the chattering classes. Take, for example, a couple of paragraphs from an editorial in The New York Times from September 22, 2013, a year ago today:
The next few weeks will be critical for capitalizing on a new sense of promise created by a recent flurry of remarkable gestures: Iran’s leadership has sent Rosh Hashana greetings to Jews worldwide via Twitter, released political prisoners, exchanged letters through the Swiss with President Obama, praised “flexibility” in negotiations and transferred responsibility for nuclear negotiations from conservatives in the military to the Foreign Ministry. Mr. Obama eased restraints on humanitarian and good-will activities, including athletic exchanges between the two countries. ... Mr. Rouhani has a sophisticated, Western-savvy team. His foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, received degrees from American universities and spent most of his adult life in the United States. Together they have raised expectations in a world eager to see Iran play a more constructive role, and the charm offensive is in full swing. Policy experts, journalists and business people are jockeying to attend a number of invitation-only breakfasts, dinners and meetings scheduled by Mr. Rouhani and Mr. Zarif while they are in New York. There’s a lot riding on their visit this week.
But the "remarkable gestures" that The New York Times cited were remarkable hollow.

Posted by Andrew Branca on September 22, 2014 22 Comments
Jury selection begins today for the re-trial of Michael Dunn on a murder charge for the shooting death of teenager Jordan Davis, reports Business Insider. At his prior criminal trial Dunn was convicted of three counts of attempted second-degree murder and one count of "throwing missiles" (firing a bullets) at a motor vehicle, but not on the charge of murder (on which the jury hung). We followed the Michael Dunn case closely here at Legal Insurrection, doing far too many posts to list individually:  those interested in viewing them can click here. A quick summary of the facts of the case are that Michael Dunn found himself parked beside an SUV containing Jordan Davis and three friends.  Dunn claimed that Davis threatened to kill him, pointed a shotgun-like object at him, and began to emerge from the SUV.  In response, Dunn claims, he retrieved his lawfully licensed pistol from the glove compartment of his car and began engaging the SUV with fire.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 22, 2014 5 Comments
You need no better proof of how the anti-Israel Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement poisons everything it touches than the story of how anti-Israel activists turned a once-respected medical journal, The Lancet, into a BDS platform. Just like Ohio University student senate president Megan Marzec hijacked the purpose of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge to bash Israel, so too a handful anti-Israel physicians, including the notorious Dr. Mads Gilbert, corrupted the purpose of Lancet by publishing an anti-Israel screed in the journal. That was bad enough, and caused substantial protest against the biased politicization of a medical journal . Then, NGO Monitor, a group that investigates the anti-Israel Non-Governmental Organization industry, uncovered that two of the physicians involved peddled anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and circulated a David Duke video. The Telegraph in Britain reports:

Posted by Amy Miller on September 22, 2014 1 Comment
After years of political opposition, conflict, and even comparisons to our infamous involvement in Vietnam and southeast Asia, lawmakers---especially those up for re-election this year---are hesitant to send another round of money and troops into Iraq. Last week, Congress approved the funding required to arm and train Syrian rebels opposed to ISIS as part of a continuing resolution to fund the government through mid-December. When the CR expires, so will the funding for Syria, and top leaders in Congress are questioning President Obama's long term strategy for the Middle East. Via the AP:
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., haven't said whether they'll take up a broader authorization. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who hopes to replace Reid as the Senate majority leader, also isn't committing to such a process; he was a major force in ensuring the training element of Obama's plan be kept on a short leash. "I lean toward giving the president more latitude, and some of my colleagues want to be more restrictive," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a leading proponent of even more forceful military action, said. "I don't know if we'll work out those differences or not." Still, McCain faulted the Obama administration for not explicitly asking for Congress' blessing on the larger war strategy. "This is going to be an extended conflict, and they're going to need an authorization," he said. "And they're being very short-sighted by not asking for it.
On the other end of the spectrum from Senator McCain is Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), who voted "no" on the funding for training and arms for Syrian rebels:
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