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On July 26, we reported on anti-Semitic protests that had taken place in The Hague in which Death to Jews was shouted to the dismay of local officials. This video of ISIS supporters shouting Death to Jews was posted on June 24. It's not clear if it was the same protest, but it was the same chant, as reported by YNET News:
A protest in Holland, that was approved by the Dutch government and meant to be a peaceful demonstration against Israel's Gaza operation and against the arrest of an Islamist operative, turned into a terrifying rally of hundreds of ISIS supporters. The Dutch were shocked of the protest, and The Hague's mayor was called to resign after his staff were the ones to approve the protest without realizing the danger it poses. The Dutch were also shocked to see pictures posted by ISIS recently that show a Muslim Dutch national alongside severed heads of Syrian soldiers he murdered in cold blood. Analysts estimated that the extremist organization was using this protest rally to recruit youths to its religious war in European cities. Some 3,000 European youths of Muslim descent are believed to have joined ISIS for fighting in Syria and Iraq, some of which have already returned home after having trained with ISIS and murdered many.
Jonathan Hoenig has been photographing and filming an anti-Israel rally in Chicago today. He tweeted out a flyer that was handed out:

If Hillary Clinton runs for president in 2016, will she pull an Obama, and blame everything on her predecessor, the way Obama still blames Bush for everything? Even if it's a President from her own party?  And an administration she participated in? And a Foreign Policy she helped develop? From recent interviews, looks like Hillary has found her George Bush, and it's Obama. A new report from FOX News seems to indicate that when it comes to foreign policy, she she'll be running against Obama's legacy:
Clinton critical of Obama foreign policy, says 'failure' to act in Syria created vacuum for jihad Hillary Clinton, the front-runner among potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidates, is sharply distancing herself from President Obama's foreign policy, particularly in Syria, as Americans appear to continue losing confidence in his handling of key international affairs. Clinton, who as secretary of state was Obama’s top diplomat, suggested during an in-depth interview with The Atlantic magazine that the president’s foreign-policy mantra of “don’t do stupid stuff” lacked sufficient depth. “Great nations need organizing principles,” she said in the roughly 8,000-word interview released Sunday. “And ‘don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.” The interview comes as Americans’ opinion of how Obama is handling crises in Israel, Ukraine, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, continues to sink. A Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll released Tuesday, three days before Obama ordered airstrikes and humanitarian airdrops in Syria, showed a record-high disapproval rating. Sixty percent of those polled disapprove of Obama’s foreign policy efforts, compared to 36 percent who approved. The interview also could help or hurt the former first lady’s effort to burnish her own foreign policy credentials ahead of an official 2016 campaign.
The significance of Hillary's position wasn't lost on Maggie Haberman of Politico:

Wendy Davis's run for governor against Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is one of the most high profile top-ticket races in the country. The political class (if not yet voters at large) is keeping a close eye on the back-and-forth battle for control of the narrative, and the latest ad from the Wendy Davis campaign has ignited a firestorm of controversy. The ad, titled "A Texas Story," tells the story of a woman from Seguin, Texas who was raped in her home by a door-to-door Kirby vacuum cleaner salesman. The woman's attempt to sue Kirby for damages went all the way to the Texas Supreme Court, which eventually held that the victim did have a right to sue the corporation for the actions of the salesman. Then-Justice Greg Abbott, however, dissented. He said that the Kirby corporation had "no duty" to the victim because the salesman in question was hired by a distributor. (Two other justices agreed with him.) The controversy surrounding this ad obviously doesn't center on the issue of which Justices booked their 1L Torts exam; instead, it centers on the issue that has defined these campaigns from the beginning--gender. Also, emotions (because of course) and the shock of seeing a political ad about a brutal rape. (Some may say the shock of seeing a political ad that exploits rape to gain points with voters, but who's counting?)

Less than a week ago we wrote about how The anti-Semitic shame of Malmö, Sweden continues with attack on Rabbi. It's part of an outburst of open, unabashed anti-Semitism throughout Europe and the world, but particularly Europe, under the mask of opposition to Israel's Gaza war. This trend did not start with the Gaza war. We covered almost exactly a year ago how many parts of Europe were becoming unlivable for Jews due mostly to anti-Semitic violence from Muslim communities, tolerated and egged on by anti-Zionist leftists, Jews in Europe past their expiration date. Anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Zionism is so open now that even The Guardian in Britain issued an Editorial denouncing the practice. The Editors of The Guardian likely did not consider how their own biased anti-Israel coverage contributes to this atmosphere. Annika Hernroth-Rothstein, a Swedish Jewish writer and political commentator, writes in The Jerusalem Post about how Sweden has become unlivable for Jews, so she is leaving for Israel permanently, Hold on, I’m coming home:
My friend tells me that Sweden ever so quickly has gone from so-called anti-Zionism to open anti-Semitism, and that no one seems to care. “Don’t come back.” That’s what he said to me; “Don’t come back here, you have no idea how bad it has become since you left.” I went to Israel on July 23....

A Media Trackers open records request has revealed a secret Google group aimed at helping liberals influence public policy by driving the media narrative. "Gamechanger Salon" is a (now not-so-) secret Google group with a membership of over 1000 left wing influencers. Media Trackers discovered the group after filing an open records request concerning a professor and activist at the University of Wisconsin. Members include journalists from outlets like the Huffington Post, MSNBC, ThinkProgress, and Media Matters, and activists from groups like the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Change.org, Planned Parenthood, and the AFL-CIO. Screen Shot 2014-08-09 at 11.56.11 AM In 2010, Legal Insurrection reported on the first "Journolist," a similar group used to stack the deck against Republicans and conservatives:
For those of you who haven’t been here long, the JournoList was an email list serve organized prior to the 2008 election by Ezra Klein, now one of the lead writers at The Washington Post, in which various young bucks (uh oh, is that a dog whistle) and doe in the emerging melding of blogging and journalism traded various strategies.

If reports are true, Steven Salaita's horrific and bizarre Twitter feed cost him a job offer at U. Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. As of this moment, the reason behind the denial of a position is not known, but that hasn't stopped Salaita's supporters from portraying the denial as based on Salaita's anti-Israel views. As if there is some new blacklist against anti-Israel views, despite the fact that so many faculty members are anti-Israel and proud to express those views. One thing about Salaita's tweets -- he said how he feels. And how he feels is that Israel should be destroyed ("decolonized" in his lingo). That's what the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement really is all about -- it's struggle until Israel is gone. There are some naive dupes who actually believe that academic boycotts are about changing Israeli policies, but the leadership knows that it's about destroying Israel. The reaction to the denial of an offer to Salaita has been furious. One supporter of the academic boycott of Israel now wants a boycott of UI-Urbana-Champaign. Another professor is refusing to show his film there. The American Association of University Professors has weighed in against the denial, although it admits "a number of facts concerning this case remain unclear." There has been an attempt to portray Salaita as a world-reknowned scholar, but that's an exaggeration. Most of his work was simply devoted to bashing Israel in a now-typical melding of political activism and academics. Whether Salaita's initial selection was political to begin with is being questioned. Much of the organizing has been focused on a Petition for Corrective Action on Change.org posted by Rima Merriman: Salaita Change.org Petition Rima Merriman

Protesting the Iraq War under President Bush was a cottage industry for Democrats, even though they voted for it. But now that Obama's hand has been forced, Democrats are doing their best to lend cautious support. Kristina Wong of The Hill describes the liberal predicament:
Left frets over Iraq mission creep The president's expansion of the U.S. military mission in Iraq is conjuring up two dirty little words for anti-war Democrats: Mission creep. Just two months ago, when Obama announced he was going to send up to 300 American troops to Iraq, he emphasized that they would only have an advisory, non-combat role. On Friday, however, U.S. fighters bombed terrorist targets in northern Iraq. Hours before, the president had announced he was authorizing such strikes as well as the airdropping of aid to Iraqi refugees stranded on a mountaintop. The White House has stressed that the two missions — the airstrikes and the airdrops — are narrow and discrete. But neither has an end-date, prompting concern from some Democrats and liberal anti-war groups. “I oppose open-ended military commitments, which the president’s actions in Iraq could become,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I am deeply concerned that these actions could lead to prolonged direct military involvement, which I would strongly oppose,” he added. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), another senior Democrat on the committee, said he supported the president’s actions, but “as one of only 23 senators who opposed the war in Iraq, I do not believe this should be an extended campaign involving US ground troops.”
Even Elizabeth Warren has been forced to make a statement on the subject. Naturally, she supports Obama's decision.

McDonald's employees who picketed for a better living wage (whatever that means) may come to regret that decision. According to a Redditor, a McDonald's in Illinois replaced their cashiers with machines.  The machines appear to be the cousins of the ones found in grocery stores, big box stores, and CVS that allow customers to complete transactions. How cost effective is replacing an organic employee with a mechanized one? According to an economic blog, and unsurprisingly, the machines likely come out on top in terms of pricing:
  • For a location open 24 hours: The cost of human cashiers, not counting benefits, $15/hour * 24 hours * 365 days/year = $131,400
  • For a location open 6AM to Midnight:  $15/hour * 18 hours * 365 = $98,550.
  • For the machine to be cost effective, all it needs to do is cost less than $100,000 a year to buy and maintain.
Who could've possibly seen this coming? Forbes. They predicted this exact scenario last July.
A recent article at the Huffington Post makes the claim that if McDonald's MCD +0.26% doubled its employees salaries it would only cause the price of a Big Mac to go up by 68 cents. The implication here is that 68 cents isn’t much money, so they should do it. There’s a few things missing from this. One is that the article itself alleges that doubling wages would lead to a 17% increase in costs. And I guess this is obviously supposed to seem like a small amount? It doesn’t look that way to me. What do people expect will happen when prices go up 17%? If McDonald’s could raise its prices by that much without lowering demand they would. No, what would happen is people would shop at those stores less, there would be less profit and less McDonald’s stores to hire workers. Doubling of labor costs will simply increase a fast food restaurant’s incentives to adopt technology like this. And if fast food wages doubled everywhere it would spur the development of these technologies even faster.

President Obama gave a press conference this morning on Iraq before heading out for vacation: A particularly controversial portion was the assertion (starting at 7:50 of video) that it wasn't his decision to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq. The President is being pilloried by conservative experts and pundits after his remarks this morning. The progressives at VOX aren't buying it either.

From Tony at Redneck Republic in my former home State of Rhode Island and [do you know the rest of the State's name?]:
This is the Tailgate of a Chevy 4X4. I took the Pic just a few hours ago Riverside Rhode Island. Started jawin’ with the owner, another riled Redneck with plenty to say bout Government.
Bumper Stickers - Riverside RI - Gods Guns Guts

This has been a particularly troubling week for Democrats' bad behavior on display for the public. First, as Professor Jacobson reported yesterday, a plagiarizing national Democrat politician had to step aside (no, not Joe Biden). But Walsh is just the tip of the iceberg for Democrats this week. Probably the most shocking and disturbing behavior was from Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) who is the second most powerful Democrat in Congress.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer made an attempt at humor over his title Wednesday by telling an audience at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit that he does not “whip people.” “First of all, let me tell my friends from Africa, I do not whip people,” the Maryland Democrat told the crowd, receiving muffled laughs. “And if you watch ‘House of Cards,’ it is not accurate.” Wednesday’s event, titled “Dialogue with African CEOs,” was hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus, The Daily Caller reported. Mr. Hoyer’s speech covered initiatives meant to boost economic growth in Africa.
Imagine, if you will, if the House Republican Whip had made such a joke. MSNBC would be having a serious of aneurysms and Think Progress would have the torches and pitchforks out for the next six months. But the Hoyer "joke" hasn't made the mainstream media at all. Shocking, right?