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Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 14, 2014 14 Comments
The new "moderate" President of Iran has declared victory and international surrender (featured image above). But what are the terms of our surrender? According to Iran, we don't really know; according to the State Deparment, we will find out. Via L.A. Times, New Iran agreement includes secret side deal, Tehran official says :
Key elements of a new nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers are contained in an informal, 30-page text not yet publicly acknowledged by Western officials, Iran’s chief negotiator said Monday.... A State Department spokeswoman, Marie Harf, denied later Monday that there was any secret agreement. "Any documentation associated with implementation tracks completely with what we've described," she said. "These are technical plans submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency," the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency. "We will make information available to Congress and the public as it becomes available," Harf said.
Remember last fall when the Obama administration insisted it had not consented to Iran's right to enrich uranium, even though Rouhani was claiming we had consented? Q&A: Is there a 'right' to enrich uranium? Iran says yes, U.S. no How's that looking now? Again from the L.A. Times article:

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Posted by Mandy Nagy on January 14, 2014 22 Comments
A Pew Research poll out Monday suggests that there has been little public interest so far in the recent coverage surrounding Chris Christie in the wake of the George Washington Bridge lane closures controversy. Views of Chris Christie Largely Unchanged in Recent Days From Pew Research Center for the People and the Press:
The public paid far more attention to last week’s cold snap than to the controversy swirling around New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. There also has been little short-term change in opinions about Christie: 60% say their opinion of Christie has not changed in recent days, while 16% now view him less favorably and 6% more favorably. The national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted Jan. 9-12 among 1,006 adults, finds that just 18% paid very close attention to Christie’s apology on Jan. 9 for the highway lane closures ordered by his aides. By contrast, 44% very closely followed news about the cold winter weather that gripped much of the U.S. and 28% tracked news about the economy.
That might seem surprising (or not) to some, given all the endless media coverage of the Bridgegate story, including additional investigations now being reported. There was also this finding from the same Pew Research report:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 14, 2014 10 Comments
I reported last Friday on the draft Bipartisan Congressional letter to denounce academic boycott of Israel. The letter reads, in part:
We write in strong opposition to the American Studies Association’s (ASA) recent decision to boycott Israeli universities and academic institutions. While ASA has every right to express its views on policies pursued by any nation or government, we believe that the decision to blacklist Israeli academic institutions for Israeli government policies with which ASA disagrees demonstrates a blatant disregard for academic freedom.... Even more concerning is the singular targeting of Israel for boycott. Like all democracies, Israel is not perfect. But to single out Israel, while leaving relationships with universities in autocratic and repressive countries intact, suggests thinly-veiled bigotry and bias against the Jewish State.
As of Friday, there were 36 signatories. As of yesterday, the number had risen to 57.  [Update - see list at bottom of post for most current numbers and signatories] The final signature list should be released later this week. American civil society has been heard loud and clear, with major academic organizations and 190 University Presidents (as of this writing) rejecting the academic boycott. Now it is the time for American political society to be heard against the anti-Israel academic boycotters, as well. Is your House Representative on the list of signatories? If not, now is the time to reach out to their offices and find out why not. You can find your Representative and office contact information here: Find Your Representative. Tell them the letter is being coordinated through the offices of Representatives Peter Roksam and Ted Deutch.  Give them the link to this post if you send an email. Pick up the phone or send an email right now.  (I emailed my Rep. last night.)

Posted by Mandy Nagy on January 13, 2014 25 Comments
Administration officials released demographic information Monday for those who have signed up for Obamacare.  While the overall signup numbers are increasing, it's largely been older customers signing up so far. From the Wall Street Journal:
More than half of those signing up for private health plans on new insurance exchanges are 45 or older, the Obama administration said Monday, a sign that the rough rollout of the exchanges may have skewed early enrollment. In all, nearly 2.2 million people across the country signed up for individual coverage through Dec. 28, with a significant uptick in December after anemic numbers in October and November as consumers battled through technical problems. With the worst of those problems largely resolved at the federal HealthCare.gov website, attention is now shifting to the demographics of the new enrollees, which is likely to determine the long-term impact of the law. At the heart of the health overhaul law is a change in the way insurance is priced. Consumers no longer pay premiums based on their health risks, and health plans are limited in how much they can vary prices based on age. To keep prices in check in the new market, carriers say they need strong enrollment from younger people who are likely to be healthier, to balance out the bills that could be racked up by sicker and older people. If that doesn't happen, prices will likely spike sharply in subsequent years, actuaries say.

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 13, 2014 88 Comments
We have written before about the deer sterilization program in Cayuga Heights, which borders the Cornell campus (most people think of it as Ithaca, but it's actually a separate municipality). Because Reproductive Health Care Is A Cervine Right:
I have written before about the moral angst sweeping the upscale Village of Cayuga Heights, bordering the Cornell campus and home to a large number of professors and staff, over how to control the out-of-control deer population. After years of debate, which tore the community apart, Cayuga Heights has come up with a solution:
The board of trustees passed a resolution Monday night to begin implementation of the phased options approach to deer management. The village will begin with the surgical sterilization of 20-60 does within a two-year period, followed by the culling of the remainder of the herd.
The cost per sterilization? Don’t ask:
The first phase of sterilization is estimated to take two years at an average cost of $1,200 per doe, according to the statement.
If they do for our health care system what they’ve done for the deer of Cayuga Heights, we’re sunk.
How did it work out? The Ithaca Journal reports, Cayuga Heights spends $35K to sterilize 12 does:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 13, 2014 27 Comments
The other day I tried to make the distinction between dislike of Chris Christie, and joining the media mob which eventually will turn on Republican candidates you like. I told you not to feed that beast. To defend Chris Christie:
This is not about Chris Christie. It’s about any number of other Republican candidates who will be met with the same faux-outrage and media-led obsession a year from now as the 2016 field begins to define itself. Don’t feed the beast.
It's getting worse, as the feds are piling on. Within days of Bridgegate, Eric Holder and the U.S. Attorney's Office were on the case.  Funny how quickly the feds move against a potential Republican contender. Now the feds are piling on some more by leaking that they are investigating this ad paid for with Sandy relief funds.  That ad, Jim Geraghty points out, was Approved by Obama Administration: Featuring a sitting Governor in tourism ads is completely routine. It gives a personal touch to the tourism campaign. Here are other examples (via Louise Mensch):

Posted by A.F. Branco on January 13, 2014 13 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 Mandy Nagy on January 13, 2014 10 Comments
A memorial ceremony and funeral for Israel's former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who passed away Saturday at age 85, will take place on Monday. From CNN:
A state memorial ceremony for Sharon is planned for Monday. World leaders, including U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, will attend the memorial, which will be followed by a funeral procession. The procession will include a stop in Latrun for a special meeting of the Israel Defense Forces and will end with a military funeral at Sharon's Shikmim Ranch.
In addition to Biden, other members of the U.S. delegation as announced are U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro; Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y.; Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.; and Daniel Kurtzer, former ambassador to Israel, according to FOX News. A live Twitter feed is embedded at the bottom of this post. Live video coverage from Israeli television is below:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 12, 2014 13 Comments
Who really cares about those much-maligned kulak individual health insurance market policy holders? Hell, depending upon how you count them, they could number 15 million, or maybe as low as 6 million. You know who else didn't care about ... oh, never mind. Just because you are not one of the much-maligned, don't think you can run from Obamacare, which stalks each of us like the Grim ... oh, never mind. Second wave of health-insurance disruption affects small businesses (h/t Charles Cooke):
When millions of health-insurance plans were canceled last fall, the Obama administration tried to be reassuring, saying the terminations affected only the small minority of Americans who bought individual policies. But according to industry analysts, insurers and state regulators, the disruption will be far greater, potentially affecting millions of people who receive insurance through small employers by the end of 2014. While some cancellation notices already have gone out, insurers say the bulk of the letters will be sent in October, shortly before the next open-enrollment period begins. The timing — right before the midterm elections — could be difficult for Democrats who are already fending off Republican attacks about the Affordable Care Act and its troubled rollout. Some of the small-business cancellations are occurring because the policies don’t meet the law’s basic coverage requirements. But many are related only indirectly to the law; insurers are trying to move customers to new plans designed to offset the financial and administrative risks associated with the health-care overhaul. As part of that, they are consolidating their plan offerings to maximize profits and streamline how they manage them....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 12, 2014 12 Comments

Cascadilla Creek, not far from my home in Ithaca, carries water from one of the main gorges that cuts through campus high above to Cayuga Lake. But to get there, it travels through my neighborhood. Normally flooding is not a problem. Except when the creek freezes over and...

Posted by David Gerstman on January 12, 2014 16 Comments

Exhibit A:

In June, 1999, shortly after Ehud Barak had defeated Benjamin Netanyahu to become Israel's new prime minister, Charles Krauthammer wrote a column title, Clinton Should Have Targeted Arafat Instead. Krauthammer noted that Arafat was going around the world to lobby support for accepting UN General Assembly resolution 181 as a basis for any peace deal.
What is that? An obsolete, defunct resolution passed by the General Assembly (unlike 242 and 338, not by the Security Council, and thus not even binding) . . . in 1947! It partitioned British Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. At the time, every single Arab state and the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee totally rejected 181. In fact, they invaded the area given to the Jews with the express purpose of wiping it off the map. They failed. And now 50 years later, the Palestinians are converts to 181. What's wrong with that?

Posted by New Neo on January 12, 2014 33 Comments
Ever wonder how it is that so many self-proclaimed liberals and "progressives" don't seem to care about preserving liberty? Especially in the last decade or so, as the liberal wing of the Democratic Party has moved ever leftward and the assaults on liberty have cascaded, liberals seem more and more to divide into two camps: those who retain some love of liberty and those who do not. The relative size of these two groups is unclear; my perception is that the first group is far smaller than the second. But the two groups exist, and what seems to differentiate them are (a) the person's need to control others and/or society; and (b) the degree to which the person thinks government can do so effectively and get the desired results. Many liberals state that their motives are "good"---that is, to do good. They say they want people to be happier, healthier, and in general just better. Some actually seem sincere in this, as well as being motivated by a self-serving need to feel that they are good people for wanting to do good. But some liberals and many many leftists, especially activist leftists, have a different motivation: anger, and the desire for power and control. Back when Mayor Bloomberg of New York was heavily engaged in banning Big Gulps, a few liberals I know were offended by what Bloomberg had done, although many others were in favor. That was one of the strongest demonstrations of the sometimes-invisible dividing line between those liberals who still value liberty and those who do not, the latter being the outright and flagrant statists (don't forget, too, that there are Republican statists as well, although far fewer). You may recall Sarah Conly, author of Against Autonomy, an excellent demonstration of the statist impulse and the supposedly do-good one combining to create a vile synergy. And who better to explain it all than Ms. Conly herself:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 11, 2014 3 Comments
The Modern Language Association House Delegates voted on two anti-Israel Resolutions today. (The Resolutions are at the bottom of this post.) The main resolution, asking for the State Department to contest Israeli denials of entry visas to traveling academics: "Be it resolved that the MLA urges the US Dept of State to contest Israel's denials of entry to the West Bank by US academics...." The language was amended at the last minute to take out the word "arbitrarily" and to delete reference to Gaza. A House of Delegates vote is NOT a binding resolution that commits the organization to action. A resolution, if it passes the House of Delegates, then goes to the Executive Committee, which can reject the resolution for a variety of reasons, including that the resolution would jeopardize tax-exempt status). I would be surprised if the Executive Committee rejected it, since the operative language is so weak. We will have a post later from someone who was in the room. For now, I will post some of the Tweets from those in the room. Notice that there was significant pushback, and that the supporters of the resolution basically said take our word for it, when challenged as to the proof. That apparently was enough. The actual operative language of the resolution is not particularly damaging, and was watered down. But the "wherefore" clauses were highly anti-Israel and pretty-much propaganda. Those "wherefore" clauses will be the main victory for the anti-Israel group. The second resolution was an "Emergency" Resolution asking the MLA to denounce supposed attacks on the supporters of the American Studies Association boycott resolution. That Emergency Motion, which actually was explicitly pro-boycott, was rejected. 
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