Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

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.... until sometime before Monday.  Keep checking back, you'll know the transition has taken place when you automatically get redirected to http://www.legalinsurrection.com/.

NO COMMENTS will be put through, so DON"T COMMENT anymore on the ".blogspot.com" site because the comments will not be put through and will not be carried over to the new website.

It you want more detail on what is happening, check out the post earlier today.

See you on the other side.  I hope.

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I think it's fitting that the last video (really) ever posted at legalinsurrection.blogspot.com is of another person who could shake up the Republican field (that makes three today) if he chooses to enter the race.

I'm changing sometime after midnight tonight.  I think we all need a change in the field of candidates.  Not that I wouldn't or couldn't support one of the current candidates, I'd just like to look at someone else, too.

(Does he say "Tweeter"?)



(via HotAir)

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At the NetRoots Conference White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer stated that although Barack Obama signed a document in 1996 saying he supported gay marriage, Obama did not fill out the document.

So he signed it but his signature apparently doesn't mean anything because he didn't fill it out.  Is that like not reading the bill before you sign it?

This is pure comedy gold (via Americablog):



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at legalinsurrection.blogspot.com? It's possible, but the day is not over.

The most amazing thing to me is not that Christie tells the voter that it's none of her business where he sends his kids to school, but that he pays $38,000 per year in property taxes.  Ouch.



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Sarah Palin passed on the opportunity to make the kind of insulting comments about Michele Bachmann made by Bachmann's campaign adviser Ed Rollins about Palin.

When asked (@4:35) whether Bachmann was qualified to be President, Palin answered "she is."

She is classy, and understands that the way to defeat Obama -- regardless of who does it -- is not by insulting and demeaning other Republican candidates.

All in all, an excellent interview.



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I've told the story of how Legal Insurrection got started before, but I'll give it a little more flavor.

Prior to starting this blog, I was completely non-political.  I may have donated small amounts of money to a handful of candidates, but I was not politically active.  Like most people, I was more concerned with other aspects of life. 

As 2008 progressed, I became increasingly frustrated with and concerned about the mass delusion of Obamamania sweeping the nation, and the blatant media bias.

Yet I still did not become political until very late in the game, and by happenstance.

In early October 2008 I was at the home of a friend and former client, someone I had represented quite successfully in a case before I left private practice.  Despite having spent hundreds of hours together, we never had discussed politics. 

At the dinner table with our wives, he asked me for whom I was voting.  I mentioned that I was voting for McCain, and we got into a big argument, since he was an ardent Obama supporter and suffered from severe PDS. 

After we argued back and forth for a while, he said that he never had heard anyone make the points as clearly as I had, and suggested that I should start a blog.

That's it.  No grand plan, just an argument and a dare.

I didn't really know what a blog was.  I didn't follow the blogosphere much, if at all.  So I picked Google Blogger because it was free, easy to use, and free.  I was so ignorant of blogging that it never dawned on me to blog under a pseudonym.

My first post, Obama is Door No. 2, still is one of my favorites.  Proudly, I was against Obamamania before it was cool to be against Obamamania.

The subsequent two and one-half years would prove to be a roller coaster of emotions and blogging ups and downs.  But mostly ups. 

And while I often joke about the "obligatory thanks to the wife," she really does deserve a lot of thanks for putting up with this.  It's not easy being a blog widow.

I've met some really great people along the way, and some miserable wretches.  The great people keep me motivated; the miserable wretches keep me agitated.

Two and one-half years later, after almost 8 million visits and 10 million page views, I'm moving away from Blogger.  I made the decision even before the Big Blogger Blackout of 2011, but that event confirmed my view that I no longer was comfortable relying on the goodwill of Google.

It's a somewhat frightening process because for all its faults, Blogger was easy to use and free.  It's also free.

Instead, now I'm dealing with issues such as "load" and bandwidth.  For those who care, I'll be using a Virtual Private Server with Media Temple.  I think we've sized things to maintain very fast page loading, but since I've always been on Google's servers, we really don't know what the "load" will be until we get there.  If you find that the new blog loads slowly, please let me know, I want to hear from you.

I have no illusions that the new website will be problem free, but at least now I'll have someone to call and will have the ability to make changes.

Late tonight I'll stop putting through comments and stop making any new posts here.  After that the final data will be downloaded, and then uploaded to a custom designed blog, including over 3,500 posts and 32,000 comments.  As you can surmise, I'm not doing this myself and had the good sense to hire professional help.

This "blogspot.com" address then will be redirected to the new location (http://www.legalinsurrection.com/); all links should work so that if you click on a prior blog post link, it should direct you to the same post at the new blog.  If you subscribe to the RSS feed or via Google Friend Connect or Facebook, there should be no change; let me know if you encounter any problems.

Phase 1, which will take place on Saturday and Sunday, will result in what hopefully will be an even more user-friendly blog.  Comments will use the Wordpress system; registration will be required but open.  It's not yet clear whether we'll be able to use the Open I.D. usernames.  Comments will continue to be moderated.  I've opted not to use vendors such as Disqus at this time because I'll have enough to do becoming familiar with Wordpress, I don't need any more complications.

Phase 2 will take place sometime over the summer, hopefully sooner rather than later.  Phase 2 will include the creation of a format off the home page for registered users in which we can focus on specific political races, topics, or candidates independent of any particular blog post.  This will be in keeping with my goal of focusing the blog on a relatively small number of races which are flying under the radar in which we may be able to make a difference for conservative candidates, similar to what I tried to accomplish in the 2010 elections.

So there will be a lot taking place here over the next couple of months, and even more so as we gear up for the most important election since the Great Depression.

But first I have to get through the weekend.

Wish me luck.

Updates:  Since I'll likely lose "authority" after the switchover, I'll note for the record that as of today Legal Insurrection is ranked #14 in Politics and #72 Overall by Technorati, and #2 in Law and #44 in Politics by Wikio.

Also, since I'm unable to post comments (yes, really!) I'll respond to reader questions and comments here:

@Shaun - blogroll links will redirect, but next week once the new site is live, please use the new url.

@Aucturian - thanks, but we've now put up a blank page so no more sneak peeks!

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Two protesters in the Madison, Wisconsin Capitol building strapped "U" shaped ultra-secure bicycle locks around her necks and locked themselves to a metal railing.

As reported by JSOnline (h/t reader Leonard):

Authorities removed two protesters who locked themselves to the railing of the Senate gallery Thursday.

The action took place at a little after 12:20 p.m.

Just after 11 a.m., the protesters, one man and one woman, used U-shaped bike locks to lock their necks to the railing as part of a demonstration against Gov. Scott Walker's budget. Along with the two who locked themselves to the railing, a group of a dozen protesters loudly chanted "Kill the bill."

Senate President Mike Ellis (R-Neenah) gaveled the the legislative body into recess as a dozen State Patrol officers congregated in the gallery to address the situation.

To cut the locks off the two protesters -- Chris French, 20, and Bridgette O'Brien, 23 -- Capitol Police called on the University of Wisconsin Police Department to bring in a special cutting device.

Locking one's head to a metal railing without a key is a pretty accurate metaphor for what the public employee unions want to do to the taxpayers and union members.

There was an easier solution to the problem: 

 Turn out the lights, lock the doors, and go home.  And leave them there.

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Related Posts:
"your comments about spiking footballs seem distinctly un-professorial"
V-K Day - Kloppenburg Surrenders In Wisconsin

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That was my wife's comment.

The Weiner resignation press conference was amazing.  He was barely apologetic, focused on his own "healing" and gave a campaign speech about how he always wanted to serve the people of New York.

There were hecklers there, shouting things like "goodbye pervert" and "are you more than 7 inches?" and other things I could not hear.  I can't wait for the video.

Alan Colmes commentary "let's just pile on the poor guy."

Easiest prediction of the day:  He'll be back.

Update - By the way, he held the press conference as a senior citizens center.  Here's the video:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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....

Your thoughts?

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This photo of an Israeli soldier standing on a young Palestinian girl is making the rounds on the internet and evoking enormous anti-Israel vitriol:


As Israel Matzav points out, however, the photo is not what it seems:

There's one small problem - the photo is a fake.

The uniform is not an IDF uniform, the boots aren't IDF boots and the weapon is a Russian issue AK-47 - the IDF uses American-made M-16's.

But why let facts get in the way?

Indeed.  For more on Pallywood, the decades-long Palestinian effort to fake anti-Israeli images and news which then become accepted as fact, see my prior posts:

• Pallywood meets the Gaza blockade
• Abid Katib - Palestinian Shoe Fauxtographer?
• What If Palestinians Were Settlers?

Expect Pallywood to move into high production as we approach the September U.N. General Assembly session.

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Thanks to reader Barbara for sending photos of this SUV spotted in the parents parking lot at the AI DuPont Hospital for Children in Delaware:





Bonus question:  What is the bumper sticker covered over in the bottom image?

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Bumper Stickers - The Series

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I appeared on Nightside with Dan Rea on WBZ 1030 Boston on June 6.

If you are from elsewhere in the country you may not know that WBZ is a mega news station; it's on my preset dial in Rhode Island and covers all of New England and reaches far into New York State.

The topic of my segment was Sarah Palin's comments about Paul Revere. Listen carefully, and you'll hear why I never could run for President; I messed up the "one if by land, two if by sea" part of the Longfellow poem.

Listen to the whole thing, and you'll find that the next guest, the curator of the Concord (MA) Museum, was not particularly critical of Palin, but was critical of the accuracy of the Longfellow poem.



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Following up on the story earlier about predictions of a looming mini-Ice Age due to changes in solar sun spot activity, reader Billy sent me a link to this Time magazine article from 1974, Another Ice Age?

I'll excerpt the article here, but you really have to read the whole thing.  Substitute "warming" for "cooling" and you pretty much have the current scientific "consensus" as to which no legitimate questions may be raised, lest one be deemed a Global Warming Denier (or is it Climate Change Denier)?

It's spooky to read this, but here goes (emphasis mine):

... As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age....

The changing weather is apparently connected with differences in the amount of energy that the earth's surface receives from the sun. Changes in the earth's tilt and distance from the sun could, for instance, significantly increase or decrease the amount of solar radiation falling on either hemisphere—thereby altering the earth's climate. Some observers have tried to connect the eleven-year sunspot cycle with climate patterns, but have so far been unable to provide a satisfactory explanation of how the cycle might be involved.

Man, too, may be somewhat responsible for the cooling trend. The University of Wisconsin's Reid A. Bryson and other climatologists suggest that dust and other particles released into the atmosphere as a result of farming and fuel burning may be blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the surface of the earth.

The article ended with this ominous warning:

University of Toronto Climatologist Kenneth Hare, a former president of the Royal Meteorological Society, believes that the continuing drought and the recent failure of the Russian harvest gave the world a grim premonition of what might happen. Warns Hare: "I don't believe that the world's present population is sustainable if there are more than three years like 1972 in a row."

Which sounds ominously familiar to the current food warnings (this time, substitute "cooling" for "warming"):

It is now clear that global warming is a major cause of rising food prices that hurt all Americans in their pocketbooks, every day. This will be a very big issue and revive national enthusiasm for action to combat global warming. I am in close touch with one very senior national Democrat who will soon launch a campaign appealing to voters to lower food costs by combating global warming.

Makes one wonder how the scientific consensus could have been so wrong in 1974, and if 35 years from now people will wonder how the scientific consensus could have been so wrong in 2011. 

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(by Matthew Knee)

As the mainstream media strained its resources and even brought on amateurs to power through Sarah Palin's old emails for the scandal that wasn't there, a slow-motion constitutional crisis has been unfolding.

The War Powers Resolution clearly states that president can authorize military action for 60 days without seeking congressional approval. In the absence of congressional approval, the war in question must be wrapped up by the 90 day mark. For the war in Libya, that deadline is Friday.

The Obama administration claims that the war in Libya is too small to count as a war, and that it is not an US action but a NATO action. Congress disagrees. Speaker Boehner informed Obama yesterday of the upcoming deadline, and today 10 congressmen announced their intention to file a lawsuit.

That there is so little coverage of the fact that the president quite likely ignoring both the law and Congress to fight a war of choice is a testament to how far professional journalism has fallen. That the so much of the left is suddenly not that interested in the legality of wars or checking out-of-control presidential power is a testament to the hollowness of their ideals.

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I would gladly suffer through a mini-Ice Age if it proved them all wrong:

What may be the science story of the century is breaking this evening, as heavyweight US solar physicists announce that the Sun appears to be headed into a lengthy spell of low activity, which could mean that the Earth – far from facing a global warming problem – is actually headed into a mini Ice Age.

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And they complain that Sarah Palin is "stupid" and unfit to be President? 

Obama recently expressed a view of the economy in which technological innovation is viewed as a threat to jobs:

President Obama explained to NBC News that the reason companies aren't hiring is not because of his policies, it's because the economy is so automated. ... "There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don't go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you're using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate."

This is a perfectly static view, which would have protected jobs in the buggy whip industry by preventing the creation and expansion of the auto industry; would have protected jobs at glass tube manufacturers against the advent of flat screen televisions; would have barred the creation of the cell phone industry because of all the jobs lost in the land line business, and so on and so on.

This is your modern union mentality at work, in which the preservation of the economic status quo takes priority over innovation and creation.  Job losses in old industries make for good 30-second political ads, while the creation of new and more vibrant industries which create more jobs takes too long to explain on television.

He really, truly doesn't understand.  It's frightening. 

The reason employers are not hiring is due in large part to fear of Obama's economic policies which raise the cost of hiring. 

Anyone who ever owned a business (I did both with others and alone for 20 years) understands how government employment mandates make hiring the last choice.  You don't have to pay unemployment insurance and workers comp on a computer, and when you fire the computer you are not going to get sued.

(P.S., someone tell him there were ATMs and kiosks at airports long before he became President, so he can't blame those innovations for the lack of job growth on his watch)



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In my post yesterday about the Wisconsin Supreme Court overturning Judge Sumi, I opined:

This is a sweeping victory for Republicans and Gov. Scott Walker. (And for my prior legal anaylsis, but that's another matter. I'll be spiking the football, for sure.)

....

Okay, analysis done, now I spike the football by referencing my prior posts...

In response, I received this email (emphasis mine):

Dear Professor Jacobson:

Do you hail from Wisconsin (as I do)? I'm perplexed by your interest in Wisconsin constitutional and administrative law. Surely everybody else at Cornell could not care less.

My views upon your espoused opinions aside, your comments about spiking footballs seem distinctly un-professorial, but I suppose matters of style are not for me to judge.

Curiously yours, Professor _______

Adjunct Professor
U.C. Hastings College of the Law

Reaction?

Here's mine:

Ya see, this is what blogging does to the mind. It's not my fault. I'm a victim.

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I saw this interview of Rick Perry yesterday afternoon, and I was impressed. 



I'm not willing to commit yet, because the field is not complete and I don't know enough about him, but I'm intrigued by Rick Perry.  (Thanks for all your prior comments, give me more.)

We cannot rest with those who were on the stage for the New Hampshire debate.

I like Tim Pawlenty the most of those on the stage, but he needs to break out of his shell. I could like Michele Bachmann, but not as long as she has an Andrew Sullivan as her campaign adviser; its a non-starter for me. Mitt Romney is the guy I want to like, a decent chap, but I'm not sure he shares my view that better big government is not the goal, better smaller government is the goal.

Give me more. And as he says, faster please.

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