Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

KBJ Angry Dissent After Unable to Convert Any Other Justice To Her Side in Conversion Therapy Case

There is a "Popularized Conception of Birthright Citizenship, Which May Not be Accurate"

Ballroom Blitz: Judge Orders Halt to Construction, Trump Not Amused

Alan Dershowitz takes on anti-NSA narrative

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 07, 2013 17 Comments

Not someone you would expect to accuse others of crying wolf on privacy. Via Noah Rothman at Mediaite: Alan Dershowitz, professor of law at Harvard University, defended the Obama administration on Friday and excoriated those in the media who he says are disseminating a number of half-truths...

46 Years Ago Today – Western Wall liberated from illegal Jordanian occupation

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 07, 2013 8 Comments

46 years ago today using the Christian calendar. We celebrated the event on May 8 using the Hebrew calendar, 46 Hebrew calendar years ago Jerusalem was reunited: The abuse of Jewish historical and religious sites ended: “It felt like Messiah had come,” says Avigail Shlesinger, 81, of the...

From Warren Christopher to John Kerry — Slow learners about weak horses in the Middle East

Posted by David Gerstman on June 07, 2013 13 Comments

Seventeen years ago, Charles Lane wrote A Man of Good Intentions about then Secretary of State Warren Christopher being kept waiting by Hafez al-Assad, father of the current Syrian President: And Assad went out of his way to humiliate Christopher, the American messenger of land-for-peace, when he...

Banned in uniform — “Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 07, 2013 20 Comments

"Christians have been the ones who’ve had to go underground and in the closet"...

Zimmerman Case: Dr. Hirotaka Nakasone, FBI, and the low-quality 3-second audio file

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 07, 2013 27 Comments

Yesterday marked the start of the Zimmerman case Frye hearing. The purpose of this hearing is to determine whether expert testimony will be allowed at trial on the identity of the person screaming in the background of the Witness #11 911 call. The relevant portion of...

Tennessee School Board Member Censured for Calling a Student 'Hot'

NYU Forced to Scrap Live Commencement Speeches Because of Pro-Palestine Activism

Indiana's Public Universities Cut or Merge Nearly 600 Degrees

Florida International U. Profs Claim School Agreeing to Work With ICE Makes Students Feel Unsafe

Communist Group on Campus at UC-Berkeley Displays Poster Depicting Trump as Hitler

Steven Crowder Event Canceled at UPenn Due to Security Issues

Anonymous Leaks Not So Secret NSA Documents

Posted by Mandy Nagy on June 07, 2013 8 Comments

In the wake of the recent realization that the National Security Agency is creeping on all of us, Anonymous is now touting a trove of documents that the hacker collective says is proof that the NSA is spying on citizens of over 35 different countries. ...

How the IRS scandal may damage PRISM and other anti-terror data mining

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 07, 2013 41 Comments

That the government data mines isn't news. That the government has the ability to use secret judicial processes to obtain emails and phone records isn't news. The controversy over the latest revelations is a controversy about things which have been known -- at least in part -- for...

Do lesser

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 07, 2013 15 Comments

I don't get the mentality of this bumper sticker, spotted in Rhode Island. I never measured success by how much work I could avoid doing. ...

Zimmerman case: Out of the Frye-ing pan, into the spectagraph

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 06, 2013 23 Comments

[caption id="attachment_54347" align="alignnone" width="391"] [Zimmerman at Frye hearing 6-6-13][/caption] The Zimmerman court is engaged in a pretrial Frye hearing that will decide, in part, whether the prosecution’s expert witnesses can testify about their analysis of an audio recording of the 911 call made by Witness #11,...

Did PRISM watch me create this blog post?

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 06, 2013 36 Comments

The latest revelation about how deeply the government can watch every one of us. Allegedly. Executives of companies involved say they know nothing about the program. But if they did know, could they tell? Or would they be under some sort of gag order similar to...

Two countries, two droughts, two outcomes — how Israel wins

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 06, 2013 9 Comments

Conquering Mother Nature, not each other....

More evidence #StopRush has failed

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 06, 2013 15 Comments

I have covered the #StopRush and various affiliated boycott campaigns against Rush Limbaugh organized and run by Media Matters as extensively as anyone: Media Matters astroturfed the Limbaugh secondary boycott Independent Rush boycott group coordinated with Media Matters Evidence of Media Matters coordination disappears from “independent” anti-Rush group website #StopRush turns on...

Chris Christie Senate Announcement Live (Update – NJ Atty Gen Jeff Chiesa, will not run in election)

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 06, 2013 7 Comments

Chris Christie just announced that the NJ State Attorney General Jeff Chiesa will be appointed to the Senate pending the Special Election in October. Chiesa will not run in the primary or general election. Chiesa said in response to a question on immigration that need to secure...

“Truth comes out a little at a time”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 06, 2013 11 Comments

From The Wall Street Journal, IRS Staff Cite Washington Link: Two Internal Revenue Service employees in the agency's Cincinnati office told congressional investigators that IRS officials in Washington helped direct the probe of tea-party groups that began in 2010. Transcripts of the interviews, viewed Wednesday by The...

Protests Continue in Turkey as Dozens Arrested Over Social Media Postings

Posted by Mandy Nagy on June 06, 2013 3 Comments

As Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan returns to his country from a visit to north Africa, protesters will continue to demand his apology for the police crackdown that has responded to the week's raging protests. A police officer died Thursday after falling into an underpass...

WaPo reduced to asking readers to hit the Tip Jar

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 06, 2013 20 Comments

I haven't read The Times of London since it erected its massive paywall. The Gannett local papers, such as the Ithaca Journal, allow a certain number of visits, but the pop-up warnings pretty much have me not visiting. I rarely visit The Providence Journal since it's paywall...

GOP outrage over IRS targeting of Tea Party — genuine or kabuki theater?

Posted by Leslie Eastman on June 06, 2013 44 Comments

Following the unfolding scandal of the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of the Tea Party, I keep the following thought in mind: Neither party in Congress can be relied upon to satisfactorily resolve this issue. They created the IRS, fund the IRS, and oversee the IRS. All...