Mideast Media Sampler 11/08/2013 -- Yasser, that's a conspiracy theory....
We are on the cusp of the most historic sell-out of Israel by any United States administration. We told you all along that in his second term Obama would impose a settlement on Israel according to what he viewed as reasonable: Obama will force his vision of a...
But the report tells us more about what we've known for a year, and known in detail since the spring of 2013. Lara Logan's big coup is an interview with a British security officer who uses a psuedonym; her other on-camera sources, Andy Wood and Gregory Hicks, had testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.... This colors in some of the story, but it doesn't advance the scandal. The Stevens cables that warned State about what might happen were revealed almost a year ago, sparking off some minor head-rolling at State but not much else. What conservatives want to know—and when I go to conferences or political rallies, I hear this—is what Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were doing on the night of the attack, and whether they heard earlier warnings but ignored them.The scandal part of Benghazi now will be lost in the media narrative because it turns out that 60 Minutes star witness may not have been on the scene. His dramatic story of his own heroics that night appears to be false, or at least subject to serious doubt.
(Florida House Rep. Alan B. Williams)[/caption]
Not surprisingly, the proponents of HB-4003 consisted mostly of a couple of legislators citing bad statistics, isolated anecdotes, and misinformation; the parents of young black children killed in acts of violence, like Trayvon Martin; and a seemingly endless series of high school and college students who were presumably receiving course credit for appearing and pathetically mischaracterizing Stand-Your-Ground.
According to Obama, "What we said was you can keep (your plan) if it hasn’t changed since the law passed." But we found at least 37 times since Obama’s inauguration where he or a top administration official made a variation of the pledge that if you like your plan, you can keep it, and we never found an instance in which he offered the caveat that it only applies to plans that hadn’t changed after the law’s passage. And seven of those 37 cases came after the release of the HHS regulations that defined the "grandfathering" process, when the impact would be clear.... We rate his claim Pants on Fire.
President Obama said Thursday that he is "sorry" that some Americans are losing their current health insurance plans as a result of the Affordable Care Act, despite his promise that no one would have to give up a health plan they liked.
I am thrilled to have Legal Insurrection Editor Mandy Nagy as our Canto Talk guest this Thursday, Nov. 7th (7 pm PST/9 pm CT/10 pm EST; click HERE for live show or podcast link). The featured topic will be the fallout from the Obamacare implosion, including...
We frequently talk about the idea that politics is downstream from culture, and to some extent, that often includes activism as well. But this is something I hadn't quite yet imagined. Hacktivists depicted in a ballet. From CNET: Hacker collective Anonymous is going to the ballet. Take...
US Secretary of State John Kerry launched an unusually bitter public attack on Israeli policies in the West Bank Thursday, warning that if current peace talks fail, Israel could see a third intifada and growing international isolation, and that calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions would increase. Kerry made the comments during a joint interview with Israel’s Channel 2 and the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation.“The alternative to getting back to the talks is the potential of chaos,” Kerry said. “I mean does Israel want a third Intifada?” he asked. “Israel says, ‘Oh we feel safe today, we have the wall. We’re not in a day to day conflict’,” said Kerry. “I’ve got news for you. Today’s status quo will not be tomorrow’s…” Israel’s neighbors, he warned, will “begin to push in a different way.”
The secretary went on: “If we do not resolve the issues between Palestinians and Israelis, if we do not find a way to find peace, there will be an increasing isolation of Israel, there will be an increasing campaign of delegitimization of Israel that’s been taking place on an international basis.”
Turning to settlements and Israel’s presence in the West Bank, he added: “If we do not resolve the question of settlements, and the question of who lives where and how and what rights they have; if we don’t end the presence of Israeli soldiers perpetually within the West Bank, then there will be an increasing feeling that if we cannot get peace with a leadership that is committed to non-violence, you may wind up with leadership that is committed to violence.”
The highlighted words have a lot of meaning in the context of the dispute, particularly with regard to BDS and delegitimization.
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...
U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, the vocal proponent in Congress for a change in policy that would give undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as minors a chance to legalize their status, has cut off ties with two groups that have coordinated provocative protests in recent months. Gutierrez, a Democrat from Illinois, on Monday evening issued a press release announcing that he was no longer going to work with the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NIYA) and their affiliated advocates at DREAMActivist.org. The congressman said the final straw in a series of actions by the groups that he has found unsettling was the secret recording by a NIYA representative of what was to have been a confidential discussion last week between Gutierrez and parents of immigrants who are being held in an immigrant detention center in El Paso, Tex. "It just shows me how dangerous they are," Gutierrez said in an interview Tuesday with Fox News Latino....As to the racism part, you have enabled that too.
Hello?! I run this place. Quote me, me, me! Patrick Maines, President of The Media Institute, writing in USA Today, quotes Legal Insurrection commenter Moonstone716 regarding the Brown shout down of Ray Kelly, Political divide hurts college free speech: As one commenter poignantly observed in reply to coverage...
"You can quote those two lines. Those only."Shibusawa is the person featured in my post Tuesday night, Brown U. divestment committee faculty member signed 2009 letter calling Israel Apartheid state. The post started by referencing her support for the Brown shout-down of Ray Kelly expressed in her Letter to the Editor of the Brown Daily Herald:
"... I want to point out that every movement toward social justice in U.S. history has included “misbehavior.” “Misbehavior” is a tactic of the disempowered toward disrupting the status quo.... So unlike [Biology Prof. Ken Miller who denounced the shout-down], I applaud the student protesters for their moral courage in a righteous cause against racial profiling and brutal police tactics and for their resolution in the face of the harsh criticisms they have since endured. I am proud of you. You inspire me to try to be a better teacher, scholar and person.Shibusawa initially told me by phone “I don’t know what the purpose is [of my call] and what you want to do” and “I’ve checked out your blog.” She continued, that it “looks like you want to portray me as some sort of extremist” but “I believe in social justice.” Shibusawa then said, “You can describe me as extreme.” Fair enough. But then the follow up email, telling me what I was allowed to say about the conversation (emphasis added):
If an exchange plan's performance varies in either direction by more than 3 percent, it either collects a subsidy from federal taxpayers via the Department of Health and Human Services to recoup part (50 to 80 percent) of further losses, or it has to kick back a similar share of the excess profit. Ideally, the money kicked back by profitable health plans can cover the subsidies for plans that lose. But unlike with the other two R's, there is no legal requirement that the numbers balance or limit on what can be paid. So imagine that we do enter a “death spiral” situation in which a large number of exchange health plans lose big and very few turn sizable profits...taxpayers potentially face a multi-billion dollar bailout of health insurers for losses outside the corridor. Insurers are therefore safe. Politicians who back Obamacare may not be. If insurers' costs do rise to the level that they require a taxpayer bailout, they will also be announcing massive hikes to their insurance premiums for calendar 2015.This news may not get the widespread publicity it deserves unless the death spiral begins. But if it does, watch out.
A sobering day for those of us observing the GOP's messages in the wake of Virginia and New Jersey elections. The Wall Street Journal's editorial page provides all you need to know about how the establishment is posturing Christie for President, writing that he's 1) not...
