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Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 15, 2016 140 Comments
Last night, for reasons unrelated to this post, I was looking back at the posts from when former Cornell undergrad Kathleen McCaffrey joined (November 2010) and then departed (May 2012) Legal Insurrection. What I immediately noticed is how many of the commenters back then still are commenters now. That sense of continuity and community is one of the things I think sets Legal Insurrection apart. But it wasn't something I was going to write about. Over the years I've struggled with how to handle the comment section. I've had to make repeated appeals to commenters to tone things down, and on occasion have had to ban people when they crossed that "you know it when you see it" line. Those appeals have met with limited success, and it troubles me that in the past couple of months I have received numerous communications from long-term readers -- some who have been with us almost since the beginning -- that the comment section is out of control and they don't like reading it anymore. They are not wrong, and things seem to be getting worse this election season. But, that said, I want our comment section to be vibrant and active.  I think it would be worse if we opened it up to third-party software like Disqus or Facebook. We would lose the sense of community, and would open ourselves up to more drive-by commenters throwing hand grenades into the comment section then moving on.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 17, 2016 11 Comments

Even though we're not in Kansas anymore....

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 01, 2016 4 Comments
When Professor Jacobson suggested I put together a "Top 5" post, I thought it would be easy peasy. I was wrong. 2015 was a wild year and I wrote a lot of things. Picking a few favorites our of 40-some-odd pages of posts though? That was no easy task. And what posts should be included in the list? Posts I enjoyed writing? Subjects I found compelling? Stories I just liked? Posts y'all liked? Featured images I found humorous? So.many.questions. Questions that became a bit more difficult to answer after a few mimosas. I settled on a few that I liked for any number of the above-listed reasons. I'm sure I could've included a few more, but I reiterate -- mimosas. And maybe a bloody mary or three. Without further ado, My Top 5 Posts of 2015 in no particular order:

1. That time President Obama forgot all about that whole Barbary Corsairs War thing

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 31, 2015 10 Comments
Barring big breaking news, which unfortunately is a possibility tonight, this will be my and our last post of 2015. This is the time each year I get a little weepy-eyed and reflective. When I look back on the past year, there were some tough times. I think of Mandy often, and wish her and her family a better 2016. I'm also thankful for the many authors who have contributed so much over the past year. I don't want to name anyone for fear of leaving someone out, but Amy and Kemberlee and Aleister and Leslie and Andrew and Antonio and Fuzzy and David and Neo and AACONS, and new authors Vijeta, Miriam and (very recently) Jonathan, and old author Anne recently returned. They have allowed us to keep the content and quality flowing as my fight against anti-Semitism in the form of the anti-Israel boycott movement consumes so much of my time. And to the readers who keep returning despite all the other choices.

Posted by New Neo on December 24, 2015 1 Comment
This small poetic effort of mine has become somewhat of a holiday tradition. Merry Christmas Eve to you all! 'TWAS THE BLOGGER'S NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS 'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the ‘sphere Bloggers were glad to see Christmas draw near. Their laptops were turned off and all put away The bloggers were swearing to take off the day. Their children were nestled all snug in their beds While visions of extra time danced in their heads With a father or mom not distracted by writing No posts to compose, and no links to be citing.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 27, 2015 0 Comments

Use the links at Legal Insurrection....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 17, 2015 28 Comments
I can't believe I missed Legal Insurrection's 7th anniversary on October 12, 2015. I even had the date on my calendar, but I've been so distracted lately I didn't pay attention. The lights were turned on here on October 12, 2008. The first post was Obama is Door No. 2:
As in Let’s Make a Deal, choosing Door No. 2 carries great risks. So does choosing Obama. Obama may be a post-racial healer, or he may be someone who carefully uses race and false accusations of racism to advance his political career. Obama may not have known about Jeremiah Wright’s political race-baiting, or he may have known but not cared. Obama may be someone who views this country as inherently good, or he may secretly share the views of his political enabler, William Ayers, that this country is inherently bad. We may know Obama better than Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers know Obama, or we may not know Obama at all.
And the fourth post was “Race” As Political Weapon:
We are on the verge of electing a president who built his political career on the backs of race-baiters and anti-american zealots, and we can’t talk about it out of fear of being called “racist.”

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 25, 2015 5 Comments
Islamists in Bangladesh have published a hit list of bloggers and writers which includes people in Europe and America. The image above is of people in Bangladesh protesting the murder of a blogger earlier this year. Jethro Mullen of CNN reports:
Extremists in Bangladesh publish global hit list of bloggers and writers Islamic extremists in Bangladesh appear to be taking their war on secular writers and bloggers beyond the South Asian country's borders. A hit list purporting to be from the militant group Ansarullah Bangla Team has been sent out threatening people in Europe and North America. "Let Bangladesh revoke the citizenship of these enemies of Islam," a statement accompanying the list says. "If not, we will hunt them down in whatever part of God's world we find them and kill them right there." The list contains nine people in the United Kingdom, eight in Germany, two in the United States, one in Canada and one in Sweden. CNN isn't reporting any of the names on the list.

Posted by Jason Boisvert on September 14, 2015 20 Comments
[WAJ Note: Given the vigorous reader discussion about Ad Blockers, I asked Jason Boisvert, who has contacted me via Twitter in the past about auto-play issues, if we could repost his original blog post, and he agreed.] ------------------ Many websites today have autoplay video/audio ads, even when they aren't supposed too. This postat the webcomic Erfworld lays out the basics as to why. In short, advertising networks are paid for ads from producers and host them on their networks. The networks appear on many sites, and those sites receive a portion of the revenue from the networks. It turns out that the best-paying networks "accidentally" let a larger portion of "malicious" (that is, with unauthorized function) ads through. These ads play audio when the websites running them have demanded no-autoplay, crash websites with long scripts, lock the page so the ad is on-screen, making it impossible to scroll and even redirect mobile devices to the purchase page of whatever they are advertising. Somehow, the networks that pay less don't have the problem of "malicious" ads "sneaking through" and "accidentally" breaking webpages or blasting noise and music. At the moment, these ad companies are protected. The obnoxiousness of the ads is often related to the uselessness of the product, so annoying or even destructive ads enhance revenue - the terrible reputation of the company is not a factor for someone selling a cell-phone game no one has heard of. Most people won't quit a website for playing an audio ad sometimes, so the ads still get plenty of viewers.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 15, 2015 9 Comments
Comcast subsidiary NBC Universal recently purchased large shares of Buzzfeed and Vox Media. NBC Universal, "owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment television networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group, world-renowned theme parks, and a suite of leading Internet-based businesses." With NBCU sinking about $200 million into each respective media conglomeration, both Vox Media and Buzzfeed are reportedly valued at over $1 billion each. Though Buzzfeed is valued around $1.5 billion. Re/code reports:
...in addition to the NBCUniversal investment, the two companies now have a commercial partnership. That means, among other things, that they will collaborate on digital advertising, will work together on video advertising and video programming, and that you will likely see Vox Media employees more frequently on NBCU-owned networks like CNBC. (Re/code already had and continues to have a news partnership with CNBC).
Does this mean proliferation of Voxsplaining and cat gifs? Will the internet overtake television?! Is the future NOW?!

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 11, 2015 111 Comments
Free content isn't free to produce. It costs money to produce. Even at a "blog" without layers of bureaucracy. I understand the urge to adblock. There are many big conservative websites I just won't visit anymore because I'm bombarded with pop-ups, pop-overs, pop-unders, and click pop-ups. And then there are auto-run video ads, in a whole league of horrible all their own. Half the time, my computer freezes. Adblockers are both a response and a cause of the problem. When fewer people view ads, the need to bombard the people who don't use adblockers to make up the revenue increases. It's a vicious cycle. One way to avoid it is to put up a paywall and hope to drive revenue through a subscription model. Both of those models are of limited success, unless you are a unique media property like The Wall Street Journal. We don't use any of the above, and we suffer financially for that decision. We're not part of a media conglomerate with investors and venture capital. A large percentage of our revenue comes from our relatively non-intrusive advertising. We (I) would just like not to lose money. When you block our ads, it has a greater impact on us. This is a serious industry problem, as AFP reports, Online ad blocking costs sites nearly $22 billion:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 03, 2015 28 Comments
When I was drafting my post about the attack on two French Jews by a boycott movement gang, I saw on the Dashboard that we had reached our 15,000th published post.  That would be Aleister's post, Clinton War Room Targets “Cash” Author. Why do we do it? We do it for the Honor and the Glory. For the Honor of things like having a student get arrested for reading a Legal Insurrection blog post out loud during a protest. (The charges later were dropped, because this is still America, F-yeah!) Seriously, how many other blogs, magazines or newspapers can say that someone was arrested for reading their writing out loud? https://youtu.be/YnYel6Ro5F0?t=41s There have been many other honors, mostly meeting or interacting with the readers, authors, bloggers and others I have met along the way. More than once I've crossed the cyber-real world divide, and will again when I meet the families of Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner during my upcoming trip to Israel.  (My wife thinks we should organize a Legal Insurrection trip to Israel next year - what do you think?)

Posted by Pat Austin on April 23, 2015 48 Comments
SHREVEPORT --About six years ago, in May 2009, I received an outraged email from Stacy McCain. He had just learned that the NRSC (National Republican Senatorial Committee) had endorsed Charlie Crist in the 2010 Florida Senate race fifteen months before the primary. As you may recall, Mel Martinez was retiring and so this was an open seat which as it happens had an up-and-coming, very promising conservative Marco Rubio vying for the seat against Crist.  Rubio was just out of his former position as Speaker of the House in Florida. A host of other conservatives, such as Michelle Malkin, Erick Erickson and John Hawkins, also were furious that the NRSC would attempt to trump the voters in a state race and endorse Crist who had by that time already shown some allegiance to Barack Obama by supporting the stimulus plan. The NRSC endorsement ignited a grassroots campaign for the charismatic and conservative Rubio, and the Not One Red Cent blog was born.  Within two weeks the blog had already hit thousands of readers. I was one of the writers on that blog in those early days. I’d like to believe that our writing helped propel Rubio’s campaign as he gained momentum and eventually dominated Crist in that election.  The blog was born on May 15, 2009 with Stacy McCain doing the first thirteen posts.  My first post was number 14 on May 16, 2009. Within the week, Carol’s Closet was on board, as was No Sheeples Here and Doug Hagin.  We picked up a few others along the way.  In May 2009, we put up fifty-seven posts on Not One Red Cent; by the end of 2009 we had posted 146 times, but by the end of the year Rubio had picked up significant steam and was crushing Crist in the polls.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 30, 2015 16 Comments
"Blogger Burnout" is a frequent joke around here. But it's true. Andrew Sullivan quit blogging in late January 2015, as we reported at the time Breaking – Big Blogger Burns Out. Sullivan's announcement focused mostly on a desire to change paths:
Why? Two reasons. The first is one I hope anyone can understand: although it has been the most rewarding experience in my writing career, I’ve now been blogging daily for fifteen years straight (well kinda straight). …. The second is that I am saturated in digital life and I want to return to the actual world again…. I want to have an idea and let it slowly take shape, rather than be instantly blogged. I want to write long essays that can answer more deeply and subtly the many questions that the Dish years have presented to me. I want to write a book…. When I write again, it will be for you, I hope – just in a different form. I need to decompress and get healthy for a while; but I won’t disappear as a writer. But this much I know: nothing will ever be like this again, which is why it has been so precious; and why it will always be a part of me, wherever I go; and why it is so hard to finish this sentence and publish this post.
Sullivan now is the focus of a report at CNN, Andrew Sullivan: Blogging nearly killed me:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 25, 2015 39 Comments
We did it, we really did it. After years of reader requests, nay demands, for a mobile phone template we did it.  It is NOT AN APP. Don't ask me how you get the App.  You don't need to download anything. Apps are so three years ago. It's a full blown mobile tempate. Like building a whole spankin' new blog. Just smaller. And simpler. And hopefully able to load and navigate on your phone more easily. Since over 25% of our traffic comes via phones, it's the least we could do for you.  Isn't that mighty nice of us? (Applause) (added) You can always choose to use the full desktop template on your phone (see image at bottom of post). Much thanks to Andy LoCascio and his team at Sound Strategies. The featured image has the narrow banner you will see, with the top post below it. There is a navigation drop-down menu that looks like this:
Accessibility by WAH