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Posted by David Gerstman on January 23, 2014 11 Comments
It was reported yesterday that Israel's internal security agency, the Shin Bet broke up an al Qaeda cell operating in Jerusalem. According to the report, three men in Jerusalem were recruited by an al Qaeda operative in Gaza to carry out three attacks: targeting the Jerusalem-Maale Adumim bus line, the Jerusalem convention center and the American embassy in Tel Aviv. (Last year, in an apparently unrelated case, Israel arrested an Iranian national photographing the embassy.) The Jerusalem Post notes:
The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) said an al-Qaida operative in Gaza, named as Ariv al-Sham, recruited the men separately as three independent terrorist cells. Senior Shin Bet sources said they believed Sham received his orders directly from the head of al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Using Skype and Facebook, Sham was able to recruit Iyad Khalil Abu-Sara, 23, of Ras Hamis of east Jerusalem, who has an Israeli ID card. During questioning, Abu-Sara, who was arrested on December 25, admitted to volunteering to carry out a “sacrifice attack” on an Israeli bus traveling between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim. In the planned attack, terrorists would shoot out the bus’s tires, causing it to overturn, before gunning down passengers at close range and firing on emergency responders.
One of them was planning to arrange to bring foreign terrorists to Israel posing as Russian tourists to aid in the execution of his plans. The report in USA Today explained why this discovery is a big deal:

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Posted by Mandy Nagy on January 22, 2014 6 Comments
Several deaths have been reported after ongoing clashes between protesters and police continued in the capital of Ukraine.  The number of deaths seems to differ among various outlets and the circumstances around some of the deaths appear to remain under investigation. From CNN:
At least four people have been shot dead and hundreds injured as demonstrators clash with police over new laws limiting the right to protest in Ukraine, the head of the protest movement's volunteer medical service, Oleg Musiy, told CNN on Wednesday. Ukraine's Interior Ministry earlier said it was investigating a death, the circumstances of which are not clear. Local media reports suggest the man may have fallen from a statue or monument. In a statement Wednesday, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf condemned the growing violence, particularly against journalists and peaceful protesters. "Increased tensions in Ukraine are a direct consequence of the Ukrainian government's failure to engage in real dialogue and the passage of anti-democratic legislation on January 16," Harf said. "We urge the Government of Ukraine to take steps that represent a better way forward for Ukraine, including repeal of the anti-democratic legislation and beginning a national dialogue with the political opposition."
The scenes described on the streets of Kiev, Ukraine depict the continuing conflict as police tried to take back control of some of those streets. From the Wall Street Journal:
On the streets of Kiev, police fired rubber bullets and twice smashed through protesters' front lines, lashing out with batons as defenders scattered. Demonstrators fought back with fireworks and, after police retreated, set fire to piles of tires, sending plumes of black smoke into the air.

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 22, 2014 4 Comments
Everyone knows that Israel's Knesset is a particularly contentious place, where views are shouted out with great emotion.  I don't believe they have the floor brawls that take place elsewhere, but it's not a place where rhetoric is held back. But when foreign dignitaries visit, that's a different matter entirely. I noted the other day Stephen Harper's wonderful speech before the Knesset, the first ever by a Canadian Prime Minister, Canadian PM Harper: Academic boycott part of “mutation of the old disease of anti-Semitism”. Unfortunately, two Arab members of the Knesset heckled him and walked out when he addressed the academic Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement and the malicious propaganda line -- repeated endlessly on campuses and among some academics -- that Israel is an Apartheid state. I think it's relevant that the heckling and walkout erupted at that moment of the speech.  It shows how important the BDS movement, born as a tactic at the openly anti-Semitic 2001 Durban NGO conference, is to the anti-Israel movement internationally and at home. The Blaze has details:
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was heckled by an Arab Israeli member of parliament during a speech in which he slammed those who call Israel an “apartheid” state. Knesset member Ahmed Tibi later stomped out of the room as Harper was speaking.... He criticized those who support a boycott of Israel, equating it with historical anti-Semitism. On some campuses, intellectualized arguments against Israeli policies thinly mask the underlying realities, such as the shunning of Israeli academics and the harassment of Jewish students. Most disgracefully of all, some openly call Israel an apartheid state,” Harper said during his Monday evening address.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 22, 2014 44 Comments
I'm so old, I remember when feminists believed women didn't need a man to be happy or to raise a family, and liberals argued that the American Dream was not restricted to tony subdivisions of McMansions. And then we have the Wendy Davis campaign, which has captured the heart of progressive America by supporting unfettered access to late-term abortions. But along that road to ending viable life, the Wendy Davis campaign picked up on a campaign theme that treats single moms as hopelessly failed.  Davis said it in a tweet yesterday:
Mine is the story of single mothers who feel alone in the world, searching for their chance to become something more.
Single moms need a "chance to become something more"? I accept that being a single mom presents significant challenges personally.  And there are important societal implications of single-parent households. But does that leave single-moms "alone in the world" and lacking "something more"? What about their children, and family support? Davis' campaign theme is a pretty snobby look at single moms, even as it claims to fight for them. And what about the folks who live in trailer parks? Are their lives so glum that Wendy Davis having spent a few months in a trailer park (apparently with her parents) was the other defining moment in her life? She even blurred the timeline a bit by suggesting she became a single mom and was relogated to a trailer park life at age 19, when it really was 21, just a couple of years before she met the wealthy, much older Jeff Davis who would pay her way through school and raise her children for her.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 21, 2014 35 Comments
In the earliest days of the internet, an Instapundit reader suggested the term "take the Boeing" to describe when bloggers join big media outlets. Today, Volokh Conspiracy took the Washington Post's Boeing:
We’re now trying what might be the most ambitious experiment yet: a joint venture with the Washington Post. The Post will host our blog, and pass along its content to Post readers (for instance, by occasionally linking to our stories from the online front page). We will continue to write the blog, and Volokh.com will still take you here. We will also retain full editorial control over what we write. And this full editorial control will be made easy by the facts that we have (1) day jobs, (2) continued ownership of our trademark and the volokh.com domain, and (3) plenty of happy experience blogging on our own, should the need arise to return to that. The main difference will be that the blog, like the other Washingtonpost.com material, will be placed behind the Post’s rather permeable paywall. We realize that this may cause some inconvenience for some existing readers — we are sorry about that, and we tried to negotiate around it, but that’s the Post’s current approach.
I wish them well.  They are the premier group of law professor and lawyer bloggers who actually blog about the law.  Not to leave others out, but the work Eugene Kontorovich has done on The Legal Case for Israel is decisive. As for me, I don't know if I am hirable by major newspapers.  Certainly not The New York Times, for at least 10 reasons. When big media gobbles up what's left of the smaller blogosphere, I tend to throw a pity party and look for a song that fits my mood.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 21, 2014 10 Comments
The Washington Post reports, Former Va. Gov. McDonnell and wife charged in gifts case:
Former Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell and his wife Maureen were charged in federal court Tuesday with illegally accepting gifts, luxury vacations and large loans from a wealthy Richmond-area businessman who sought special treatment from state government. The two were charged in connection with their relationship with dietary supplement executive Jonnie R. Williams Sr. Authorities alleged McDonnell and his wife received gifts from Williams again and again, lodging near constant requests for money, clothes, trips, golf accessories and private plane rides. In exchange, they alleged the McDonnells worked in concert to lend the prestige of the governorship to Williams’s struggling company, a small former cigarette manufacturer that now sells dietary supplements.
Update:  Here is the Indictment (full embed at bottom of post):

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 21, 2014 29 Comments
I've known him from the blogosphere, where he ran The Wolf Files. Now he's running for Senate in Kansas. This radio ad, in which mention is made of him being "The Next Ted Cruz" is sure to get attention, as it has at The Hill:
Milton Wolf is quickly claiming the Ted Cruz mantle in his primary against Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.). The Senate hopeful and second cousin to President Obama, Wolf is launching his first radio ad ahead of the August primary featuring former Kansas Rep. Jim Ryun (R) touting Wolf as “the next Ted Cruz.” Ryun is chairman of the conservative group the Madison Project, which has endorsed Wolf. Senate Conservatives Fund has also backed Wolf. “You see, Milton Wolf is a doctor, not a politician, and they’re already calling him the next Ted Cruz [R-Texas],” Ryun says in the ad, a reference to an article in The Week examining whether he's trying to follow in Cruz's footsteps. He goes on to praise Wolf’s conservative credentials and his proclaimed goal of repealing and replacing ObamaCare. “You wanna drive President Obama crazy? Send Dr. Milton Wolf to the U.S. Senate,” Ryun says at the end of the ad.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 21, 2014 20 Comments
On November 9, 2008, The Fort Worth Star Telegram ran a profile of Wendy Davis after her election to the State Senate, A confident fighter, Wendy Davis enters a new chapter in her political life: state senator. The full article is not available online, but I found it in a database. The article was a fairly pedestrian account of Davis' political history, but included two interesting parts (emphasis added):
She transferred to Texas Christian University , where she met her second husband, Jeff Davis , who had served on the Fort Worth City Council in the 1970s. Jeff Davis was on the board of Stage West, where Wendy Davis' father worked. After graduating first in her class at TCU, Wendy Davis went to Harvard Law School . She and Jeff Davis divorced in 2003. During law school, Davis worked summers at Kelly Hart & Hallman, and, after graduating, she landed a prestigious job as a law clerk for a federal judge in Dallas. But she was turned down for a full-time job at Kelly Hart . Davis said early in her first campaign that she thought it was because of her outspoken opposition to the zoo's parking plan. Her implication was that the firm was trying to silence one of the zoo's critics rather than debate the issue. In a recent interview, Davis said she brought up the issue with the firm in 1996 to make a point that the city needed more "process," her watchword for getting input from neighborhoods on big decisions. "I would articulate it a little more carefully today," she said.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 21, 2014 17 Comments

Why didn't Bill Clinton run for President in 1988? I never really thought about it. Larry Sabato, as part of a post explaining why Hillary is not a "slam dunk" (h/t Hot Air), explains: After all, with just one exception, a Clinton has always tried for public office...

Posted by David Gerstman on January 21, 2014 7 Comments
According to numerous press reports, the Palestinians have refused any meaningful concessions in the John Kerry-led peace talks.  No compromise on recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, on refugees, on borders, on security arrangements, on anything meaningful.  Instead, they are planning a diplomatic intifada to try to isolate Israel when the talks break down. But, the Palestinians are happy to pocket the dozens of convicted killers released as part of the inducement to get them the negotiating table. More important, they make their uncompromising positions as the baseline for future negotiations. This tactic of pocketing concessions while conceding nothing has a recent history. In May 2011, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave Barack Obama a now famous talking-to in front of the cameras about the Middle East and the peace process: Columnist Jeffrey Goldberg would describe the incident like this:
It was an extraordinary scene: President Barack Obama, sitting impassively in the Oval Office in May as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lectured him, at considerable length and at times condescendingly, on Jewish history, Arab perfidy and the existential challenges facing his country.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 20, 2014 31 Comments
From Micky Kaus, a prediction as to what will be in the House proposals we will receive as soon as next week, The Coming GOP Amnesty Sellout Push
Lobbyists, on the march! The coming weeks will see the formal start of the GOP House leadership’s attempt to sneak an immigration amnesty through the Republican caucus and into law. We don’t know the exact details of the proposals, but we know enough: 1) There will be some form of legalization (conditional amnesty) for the 11 million illegal immigrants already here. It won’t give them a “special” path to citizenship, but they will likely be able to pursue citizenship through regular old channels. Either way, the message sent to potential future immigrants will be, “If you come here illegally, you’ll get to stay legally.” Plus, once the bill has passed the Democratic campaign to paint the GOP as racist for not granting general citizenship to the whole group will begin. 2) There will be an attempt to describe Speaker Boehner’s “piecemeal” collection of immigration bills as an “enforcement first” arrangement that will prevent another, future illegal wave despite the incentive created by what will be two successive amnesties.... That means a convoluted debate over “triggers,” the traditional playground for legislative legerdemain.*** Legalizers will try to make the prequisites look tough when they aren’t — certainly nothing that can’t be easily dismantled once the undocumented get their documents. Do not count on the press to correct this misimpression. They’re in the “fool the rubes” camp too.
An important part of all this will be Democrats pretending to fall on their swords just to get something passed. That's just a guess. Oh wait!
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