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Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 27, 2015 4 Comments
I was interviewed recently by Legal Insurrection reader Dr. Kenneth Friedman, for the Baltimore Jewish family magazine, Where What When:
The WHERE WHAT WHEN is a monthly family magazine of Jewish information, inspiration, and opinion. Established in 1985, it is Baltimore's liveliest Jewish magazine, approximate readership is 40,000. The Where What When is directed to the wide spectrum of Baltimore's Jewish population and has become a powerful voice in the community.
The topic was the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Here is the full interview, At the Forefront of the Fight against BDS: Eleven Questions for Prof. William A. Jacobson: KF: Talk a little bit about how you got involved as an activist and particularly as it pertains to the fight against BDS.

Posted by Andrew Branca on December 19, 2015 12 Comments
A reader alerted Professor Jacobson that Legal Insurrection and I got a mention on the Mark Levin Show.  Naturally we tracked down the mention in order to crow about it and share it with you loyal readers (but mostly to crow about it). In fairness, it's probably more accurate to say that Andrew McCarthy mentioned us in his (as always) very good blog post over at National Review about the Freddie Gray prosecutions, The Travesty in Baltimore.  Levin essentially reads McCarthy's post on the air and so includes that mention. Levin does, however, also throw in a bit of a kudos of his own into the mix, interjecting "Legal Insurrection, another great web site." Here's that audio clip.  First there's just the short bit in which we're actually mentioned, then a pause, and then the clip starts playing the entirety of the ~6 1/2 minute segment in which Levin reads McCarthy's post (starting with "I want to address this.").  Enjoy:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 21, 2015 7 Comments
I was a guest earlier today on The Craig Silverman Show on 710 KNUS in Denver. For almost 20 minutes we talked about the use or refusal to use the term "radical Islam," Obama's world view and foreign policy, Jesse Watters' visit to Cornell, and the vote at the American Anthropological Association last night to send an anti-Israel academic boycott resolution to a vote by the full membership in the spring. If you didn't hear about the vote, you can read about it at the Times of Israel. I previously wrote about how over the course of several years anti-Israel professors and graduate students put together misleading and dishonest seminars and publications which presented a completely one-sided view of the conflict. That was compounded by a study commissioned by the AAA in which the authors adopted a settler colonial approach to predetermine the outcome of the study by framing it as Israel being illegitimate, then finding facts to support the narrative while ignoring or diminishing contrary facts. This series of maps, displayed outside the voting session purporting to show Palestinian loss of land, reflects the type of propaganda used to pass the boycott on to the membership. It's the false and misleading series of maps that MSNBC apologized for using because it is wrong. Yet it was on full display at AAA.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 17, 2015 2 Comments
I was a guest last night on the Mark Levin Show, the 4th highest rated talk show in the country with over 7 million weekly listeners, regarding our post, ALERT: Faculty Association anti-Israel Boycott season has started. This is the second time I have discussed the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement on Mark's show. This time I discussed not just the problem, but a solution. First, the background:
WAJ: "A combination of left-wing and Islamist-type professors have done at the campus level something which really is unbelievable. They've singled out Israel in their faculty associations, and they are trying, slowly but surely, to get more and more faculty groups to endorse the boycott of Israel, the complete academic boycott of Israel.... This season they're really coming up to a big busy season. The National Women's Studies Association is voting, as we speak, for the next 10 days, the membership is voting on the full boycott of Israel. How insane is that, of all the problems with ISIS attacking in Paris, with all of the problems of women being abused in the Middle East, the Women's Studies Association is singling out Israel....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 22, 2015 5 Comments
A storm of controversy erupted when the Ithaca, NY, chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace brought Palestinian activist Bassem Tamimi to a third grade class. Tamimi is best known for the viral videos and photos he creates by sending children, including his own, to confront Israeli soldiers. Tamimi, who argues that it is the “duty” of children to engage in acts of resistance, was on a now-concluded U.S. national tour co-sponsored by JVP and the Chicago branch of Amnesty International. [caption id="attachment_146972" align="alignnone" width="600"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1qrE-MRBPs [Image capture Ithaca Week video][/caption]The Superintendent of the Ithaca school district, after an investigation, denounced the visit,finding that Tamimi was not invited by the school and the event was “not developmentally appropriate for third graders, nor aligned with the New York State standards. The statements were politically skewed, inflammatory, and not endorsed by the Ithaca City School District.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 05, 2015 26 Comments
My column at USA Today, Time to talk about gun free zones, is gaining a lot of attention, with over 6600 shares, plus over 11,000 shares at The Blaze which excerpted the column. I've enjoyed reading the comments, most of which are along the line of this comment at The Blaze:
Lets see.. Law professor at Cornell University, Comes out against gun free zones, Says the word “Evil” in his statement ….Yeah, welcome to the unemployment line…
AS OF THIS WRITING I'm still employed, so there. I was interviewed Monday night, October 5, 2015, on the Ron Arquette Show in Salt Lake City, Utah about my column. One issue that has arisen is whether Umpqua Community College was a "gun-free zone."

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 17, 2015 70 Comments
Yesterday a Texas teenager, who happens to be a Muslim, brought a homemade clock to school and was arrested because the clock was mistaken for a bomb. Some people are blaming racism but zero tolerance policies are the real problem. NBC News reports that he won't be charged:
No Charges For Ahmed Mohamed, Teen Arrested After Bringing Homemade Clock to School Police in Texas said Wednesday that charges will not be filed against a 14-year-old Muslim high school student who was arrested after he brought in a homemade clock that a teacher said looked like a bomb. The arrest drew an outcry on social media. Hundreds of thousands of people used the hashtag #IStandWithAhmed — and President Barack Obama invited the teen to the White House. Ahmed Mohamed, who is Sudanese-American, was arrested on Monday in the Dallas suburb of Irving after he took the clock to his high school. He told The Dallas Morning News that he had been in robotics club in middle school, and he wanted to show his new teacher what he could do.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 04, 2015 3 Comments
On Thursday night, September 3, 2015, I was a guest on the Todd Herman Show on KTTH 770 AM in Seattle. Todd is a frequent reader of Legal Insurrection, and I appreciated his many compliments. We talked Scott Walker, the John Doe investigations, and Walker's struggling presidential campaign.
"In this case, their entire theory of probable cause was legally invalid, and it was so held by the Wisconsin Supreme Court.... They were trying to find a crime.... [T]he chief of the KGB under Stalin had a very famous quote: Find me the man, and I will find you the crime. And that's what this was. They wanted to get Scott Walker, and they spent four years looking for a crime, and that's not what's supposed to happen in this country.... This was meant to get Scott Walker. They couldn't have cared less what some conservative activist was doing unless they could pin it on Walker."
* * *
"I'm a fan of his, because he just quietly went about his business and completely eviscerated the public sector union movement.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 25, 2015 4 Comments
Thursday evening I joined Red State's Leon Wolf and his panel of lovely gentlemen for the weekly vcast of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Friends. Over wine and cocktails, we discussed the Sandra Bland incident, Planned Parenthood's baby part harvesting, and 2016. We began by discussing Sandra Bland and the circumstances that ultimately lead to her death. Are the police responsible? Were there other mitigating factors? What kind of power have we given the police when an improper lane change leads to arrest? Should we be having a broader discussion about mental health? These are some of the questions we tackled. I maintain that equally as important as the police power angle, is the mental health discussion that seems to be getting far less attention.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 13, 2015 64 Comments
I have a column posted at National Review, Trump’s Lesson: Voters Are Furious about Illegal Immigration As I've told readers before, I write elsewhere from time to time in order to gain exposure to new audiences. For this post, I particularly wanted it at National Review because it would speak to an audience for whom the Republican primaries and illegal immigration matter. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421077/trumps-lesson-illegal%20immigration-makes-voters-furious Here is an excerpt:
But something happened on the way to the denunciations and purges [of Trump]. Kate Steinle was murdered in San Francisco, a sanctuary city. Steinle was killed in broad daylight on a popular pedestrian pier in a business and tourist district, by an illegal immigrant with a long criminal record who had been deported five times and recently was released from custody....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 06, 2015 16 Comments
Frank Luntz recently conducted polling of American "opinion elites" attitudes toward Israel. The results, but not the data, were published in an article by David Horvitz, Editor in Chief of The Times of Israel, Israel losing Democrats, ‘can’t claim bipartisan US support,’ top pollster warns:
Three quarters of highly educated, high income, publicly active US Democrats — the so-called “opinion elites” — believe Israel has too much influence on US foreign policy, almost half of them consider Israel to be a racist country, and fewer than half of them believe that Israel wants peace with its neighbors. These are among the findings of a new survey carried out by US political consultant Frank Luntz. Detailing the survey results to The Times of Israel on Sunday, Luntz called the findings “a disaster” for Israel. He summed them up by saying that the Democratic opinion elites are converting to the Palestinians, and “Israel can no longer claim to have the bipartisan support of America.” He said he “knew there was a shift” in attitudes to Israel among US Democrats “and I have been seeing it get worse” in his ongoing polls. But the new findings surprised and shocked him, nonetheless. “I didn’t expect it to become this blatant and this deep.”
Read the rest of Horvitz's article for more details. The article created huge concern in pro-Israel circles, and delusional euphoria among Israel haters. But is the sky really falling on Israel? I have written a response, published in The Times of Israel.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 03, 2015 21 Comments
On June 30, 2015, I appeared on the Joe Thomas Show on WCHV in Charlottesville, VA, to talk about the state of the Supreme Court, and the two recent blockbuster decisions in gay marriage and Obamacare. We touched on the rulings, the reaction, and proposals to put limits on the Court, such as judicial-retention elections suggested by Ted Cruz, and proposals for term limits. The article I reference during the interview is from Roll Call, Reagan Aides Foresaw Kennedy Gay-Rights Views That Conservatives Now Lament. Bottom line: We have reached the point of absurdity when the nation waits anxiously to find out how one person -- the swing vote on the court -- will vote on issues that decide the course of the nation.
"Think how absurd it is for a nation to be waiting by the radio, or the TV, or nowadays the internet, how is the Supreme Court going to decide an issue as fundamental as the issue of marriage, and everybody knew it would come down to one vote. So we're waiting on one person to decide the future of our country, and whether you like it or not, if you like the decision, what if it had gone the other way by one vote, how would you feel? So I think we really do have a situation where so many things are decided by a single vote in the Supreme Court that we really have to wonder if that's how we want to run our lives as a nation."
Society no longer is governed by "one person, one vote," but by one person's vote. This is no way to run a country. Here's the audio below:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 01, 2015 10 Comments
As part of my effort to reach new audiences, I have a post at IJ Review regarding my recent trip to Israel, I Spent Two Weeks Talking With Israelis. Here’s What They Had To Say About President Obama and Iran:
While anecdotal, our interactions were consistent with polling showing that Israelis don’t trust Obama on Iran and that Obama has low favorability. That polling has grown worse for Obama in recent weeks. Indeed, Americans have very low confidence that any Iran deal will prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. In other words, Israelis live in the real world, not the world of Obama’s delusional hope. And they don’t appreciate Obama taking risks with their lives.
You want more? You know the drill. Go over to the link, and share it on Facebook and Twitter. Here are the links to my Israel posts:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 20, 2015 20 Comments
In 2011, ABC News launched a major rebranding effort focused on the slogan "See the Whole Picture," featuring key news personalities including George Stephanopoulos:
Today ABC News launched a major re-branding initiative. The last time that ABC News spoke directly with its audience about what defines ABC News was over a decade ago with "More Americans Get Their News from ABC News than Any Other Source" - a statement that is still true today. ABC News President Ben Sherwood laid out the foundation of the new campaign to ABC News staff in an email on Monday morning: Starting today and over the course of 2012, you're going to see new on-air promos that feature images of an unprecedented gathering of ABC News anchors and correspondents and a call to action: When viewers turn to ABC News, they will "See the Whole Picture." Believe it or not, it's been more than a decade since ABC News consistently put forward a message or slogan. This new promise - "See the Whole Picture" - will help unify ABC News and differentiate our efforts from the competition.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 17, 2015 11 Comments
I appeared on Saturday, May 16, 2015, on The Craig Silverman Show on 710 KNUS in Aurora, Colorado. The conversation covered my background, what it means to be a conservative on campus, the anti-Israel boycott movement, the Pope on a Palestinian "state," the Pew Poll on Christians, and the fate of Christians in the Middle East. On Ted Cruz at Harvard Law School:
"When you're going to be political at a place like Harvard Law School, you have to be better than everybody else if you're a conservative. You have to be smarter, you have to be more well-read, you have to be better-prepared, because it's you against a lot of people. And certainly he wouldn't have been the only conservative at Harvard Law School, but he would have been in a severe minority. And when you're in that situation, you have to be better. And that's what I see with a lot of politically active conservative students on campus... [Cruz] had to sharpen his skills because he's basically arguing with everybody or almost everybody. Whereas if you're in a liberal position at a school most people agree with you, you don't need to sharpen your skills and you don't get tested the way you do if you're a conservative."
On the anti-Israel boycott movement:
"We're dealing with people who really are just outright liars. And I say that all the time because that's what they are. And they just make stuff up, they twist facts, they ignore facts."
On Israeli-Palestinian negotiations:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 08, 2015 4 Comments
Readers are aware that Bowdoin College in Maine recently held a student body referendum for a full academic and cultural boycott of Israel. It failed miserably. I have a post at National Review looking back on the referendum, and how the SJP boycotters are doubling-down on their absolutist view of the conflict, Brainwashed at Bowdoin: Anti-Israel Boycotters Miss a Teachable Moment: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418119/brainwashed-bowdoin-anti-israel-boycotters-miss-teachable-moment-william-jacobson Here is an excerpt, but head over to National Review for the whole thing. And share it widely on Facebook and Twitter, or email to friends, using the links at National Review. This is a story that needs to be told:
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