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For Wed. Nov. 1, 2017
~All Gave Some~Some Gave
All~God Bless America
A Warning To Alabama GOP, Breitbart, Steve Bannon, S. Gorka, and Crew…
by sundance
Stop me when you see the parallels:
The time was November and December 2009, right about this time of year in the larger political calendar of things…. One party was completely locked out from influence in Washington DC, as the opposing party held the White House, and majorities in both houses of congress…The 2009 political opposition groups didn’t like what was happening. There was very large and significant legislation being debated. Frustrated common sense citizens stopped looking to ineffective congressional representatives to stop the daily usurpation.
Loosely connected but engaged grassroots political types were looking for routes to stop the White House and congress.
There was also a Senate seat up for grabs, and a necessary special election. The former seat-holder was considered a stalwart by the party in power; and the seat was considered a “gimme” by the state party apparatus. No-one was contemplating the possibility of the majority party in power ever losing that seat….. EVER.
The candidate appointed to hold the seat for the party in power was arrogant, condescending, and generally didn’t feel they needed to work for the seat. After all, the seat was held by one party for decades and generally no-one could fathom losing it.
The election outcome was considered so much a forgone conclusion no-one was even polling the state throughout November or December 2009. It was also because of that herd mindset the next-in-line candidate just spent time on the cocktail circuit meeting with donors, taking their requests and then a few trips to DC for parties, drape-measuring, and generally snobbing around with the upper-minded ‘betters’.
About a month prior to the actual voting the election outcome was so widely anticipated to be a lopsided victory for the party in power the candidate actually took three weeks off, and jetted away to the caribbean for a Christmas/New Year holiday vacation.
However, under the radar, and entirely missed by everyone -including media- small bands of grassroots political peeps discovered the other parties strength was also their weakness. There was an invisible path to victory, and, more importantly, a hard working candidate who had quietly put in a stunning amount of groundwork.
Around the same time the overly confident political types were obliviously comparing Christmas decor…. tens, then dozens, then hundreds, eventually thousands of very focused volunteers began to assemble when everyone else was busy with the holiday and not paying attention.
Many, including many I got to know personally, gave up their 2009 holidays to drive half-way across the country and help the quiet assembly. [“Meet at the Old Mill, we ride at midnight”…]
By the time the party in power woke up from their New Years celebrations and looked to the formality of the upcoming election/coronation, well, it was too late.
The rebel alliance had positioned in every town, village, street corner, venue and simultaneously began overwhelming a completely unprepared political apparatus by drawing attention to their goal: Take the seat from the hands of power, and give it back to the people….
Our strategic advantage was their collective arrogance.
Because they fully expected to win the election, they didn’t even have signs, bumper stickers, advertising contracts, or operational infrastructure or volunteers planned for a campaign. They were completely caught off-guard.
We had thousands of people with home-made signs in the streets daily. The momentum was on our side and the candidate messaging so focused that by the time the DC apparatus woke up mid-January it was far too late. The election day was January 19th 2010.
Yes, in Dec. 2009/Jan 2010 the grassroots movement in Massachusetts to elect Scott Brown caught the Democrats completely off-guard. Martha Coakley lost, Scott Brown won, the political world was stunned; and yes, Democrats lost the Kennedy seat.
Why does this matter now?
Alabama Republicans, and the group planning to help Roy Moore win the Alabama primary, would be wise to pay attention to that historic reminder because republican candidate Roy Moore is acting just like democrat candidate Martha Coakley in November and December 2009.
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One party in power.
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A special election in a deeply one-sided state everyone takes for granted.
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A seat formerly held by a stalwart of the party in power. (Kennedy / Sessions)
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A disgruntled opposition party whose grassroots strategy is under the radar.
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No-one in the media paying attention. (A strategy that benefits from stealth)
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A generally ‘unlikable candidate‘, who spent more time in DC than campaigning in the state where it mattered. (see below)
See the parallels?
2017: No Democrat can ever win a senate seat in Alabama they say….
2009: No Republican can ever win a senate seat in Massachusetts they said…
Any questions?
So, Alabama GOP, please don’t take anything for granted. Roy Moore is a good guy. Please stay with him and get your friends to show up on election day.
Historic World Series Home Run Rate may be Result of Slicker Baseballs
Both Fall Classic teams agree: The series' special baseballs feel a whole lot different than those from the regular season.
By Tom Verducci
HOUSTON – Pitchers and coaches from both the Dodgers and Astros complained Saturday night about the World Series baseballs—and this time the controversy is not just about liveliness. They say there is a new problem: the baseballs used in the World Series are slicker than the ones used in the regular season because of a difference in the grain of the leather. The slicker World Series balls particularly make it hard to throw a good slider, they claim.
“We had a well-pitched game tonight from both sides,” Astros pitching coach Brent Strom said after Los Angeles won Game 4, 6-2. “I’m not taking anything away from the players. I just want to know why? Why in the world would the baseballs in the World Series be different? Because you can see the difference. You can feel it. I don’t understand it at all.”
Said Dodgers pitching coach Rick Honeycutt, referring to his Game 3 starter, Yu Darvish, “Yu noticed the difference. He told me the balls were slicker and he had trouble throwing the slider because of how slick they were. He wasn’t able to throw his slider the same way.”
Peter Woodfork, senior vice president, baseball operations, of Major League Baseball, said World Series balls are tested at the time of manufacturing and are made from the same materials and to the same standards as regular season baseballs. “The only difference is the gold stamping on the baseballs,” he said, a switch from the blue ink used during the regular season.
Major league baseballs are manufactured in Costa Rica, using cowhide for the cover. An MLB source speculated that how the baseballs were treated with the pregame rubbing mud before Game 4 could have led to a perceived problem.
Strom showed SI two baseballs side by side: a baseball used in World Series Game 4 and a regular season baseball. The regular season ball had not been prepared for a game with the specialty mud that umpires or their attendants rub into baseballs to reduce the shine and slickness. Even accounting for that difference, the leather grain of the World Series ball looked and felt noticeably different. It was slicker to the touch.
“We had a well-pitched game tonight from both sides,” Astros pitching coach Brent Strom said after Los Angeles won Game 4, 6-2. “I’m not taking anything away from the players. I just want to know why? Why in the world would the baseballs in the World Series be different? Because you can see the difference. You can feel it. I don’t understand it at all.”
Said Dodgers pitching coach Rick Honeycutt, referring to his Game 3 starter, Yu Darvish, “Yu noticed the difference. He told me the balls were slicker and he had trouble throwing the slider because of how slick they were. He wasn’t able to throw his slider the same way.”
Peter Woodfork, senior vice president, baseball operations, of Major League Baseball, said World Series balls are tested at the time of manufacturing and are made from the same materials and to the same standards as regular season baseballs. “The only difference is the gold stamping on the baseballs,” he said, a switch from the blue ink used during the regular season.
Major league baseballs are manufactured in Costa Rica, using cowhide for the cover. An MLB source speculated that how the baseballs were treated with the pregame rubbing mud before Game 4 could have led to a perceived problem.
Strom showed SI two baseballs side by side: a baseball used in World Series Game 4 and a regular season baseball. The regular season ball had not been prepared for a game with the specialty mud that umpires or their attendants rub into baseballs to reduce the shine and slickness. Even accounting for that difference, the leather grain of the World Series ball looked and felt noticeably different. It was slicker to the touch.
Houston pitching coach Brent Strom holds a 2017 regular season baseball (left) and a 2017 World Series ball.
During the ALDS, I heard from Cleveland Indians staff members that the postseason ball felt different from the regular season ball. Like the World Series ball, the postseason ball used in the LDS and LCS is stamped with different ink and logos than the regular season baseball.
Which player was the better Texas Rangers starting pitcher?SOURCE: SPORTRADAR
“It’s obvious,” Strom said about the World Series ball being slicker. “You can see it and you can feel it. It’s not the same. Someone’s got to explain to me why.”
“Lance McCullers took the blindfold test in the bullpen,” said Charlie Morton, Houston’s Game 4 starter, referring to another Astros pitcher. “He could tell which ball was which with his eyes closed. It’s that different.”
Said Houston pitcher Justin Verlander, “The World Series ball is slicker. No doubt. I’m telling you, we’re in here signing [World Series] balls before the game, and it’s hard to get the ink on the ball sometimes. You know when you sign a receipt at Starbucks, and if you don’t hold the paper down with your hand, the pen just slides across the paper and the ink doesn’t stick to it? That’s what it’s like sometimes trying to sign these balls. That’s how slick the leather is.
“It’s different. I noticed it especially throwing a slider. It didn’t feel the same. The home run I gave up to [Joc] Pederson was a slider.”
Verlander threw 17 sliders in Game 2 and obtained only one swing and miss on the pitch. It equaled the fewest swings and misses on his slider for any of his 36 starts this year of more than two innings.
Said Darvish, “I had trouble with the ball throwing a slider. It was slicker.”
Darvish lasted only 1 2/3 innings in Game 3, especially because his slider, his signature pitch, was so bad. Darvish threw 14 sliders and did not get a single swing and miss on the pitch. It was the first time in 34 starts this year that Darvish did not get a swing and miss on his slider.
Batters had hit just .109 against Darvish’s slider since he joined the Dodgers. It is considered one of the best sliders in the game. But the metrics on the pitch showed it was noticeably worse in Game 3 than it had been during the regular season, such as a horizontal break of 8.42 inches, down from 9.12 during the season.
In Game 4, Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen gave up a home run on a slider to Alex Bregman. It was the first time all year Jansen gave up a home run on a slider, covering 96 sliders.
No pitcher is having a worse time with his slider lately than Houston closer Ken Giles. During the regular season, Giles threw his slider 47 percent of the time and held hitters to a .133 batting average with it. But the pitch has been so unreliable in the postseason that Giles threw only two sliders among his eight pitches in Game 4 – both of them balls. Entering a 1-1 game to start the ninth inning, Giles faced three batters and retired none of them. He was charged with three runs and the loss.
During the regular season Giles threw his slider out of the strike zone 51 percent of the time. In the postseason he has missed with that pitch a whopping 74 percent of the time, including 75 percent in the World Series (9 of 12). Able to eliminate the slider, Dodgers hitters are sitting on his fastball and teeing off on it. They are hitting .800 against his fastball (4-for-5), with all of those hits coming on hitters’ counts or first pitches (2-1, 3-1, 1-0 and 0-0).
Game 4 actually was a 1-0 pitchers’ duel through six innings between Morton and Alex Wood. Neither pitcher throws a slider. The seven relievers that followed them combined to throw only 12 sliders–and obtained no swings and misses on those sliders. Though he doesn’t throw a slider, Morton said the slicker baseball did influence his pitch selection.
“It affects running my two-seamer into right handers,” said Morton, who hit 97 mph with his two-seam fastball. “When the ball is slick you can’t throw in with the same aggressiveness. If you don’t have control of the baseball, you might end somebody’s career. That’s a very bad thought to have in your head.
“Tonight, it’s the World Series. So you do everything you can to block out everything. You’ve got to focus with every pitch. But I don’t know, maybe it’s the placebo effect, but if that’s what you’re thinking about it does affect your conviction on certain pitches.”
Said Honeycutt, “I know guys have been talking about the ball. I also know that MLB has been talking for a while about maybe a ball that’s more like the ball in Japan, where the leather is tackier so that you can use it right out of the wrapper. I think something has to be done.”
After a record-setting regular season with the most home runs all time, 6,105, the rate of home runs has shot up 35 percent in the World Series, from one every 27.1 at-bats in the regular season to one every 17.5 at-bats in the World Series.
There have been 15 home runs hit in this World Series already. Only eight of the previous 112 World Series had more.
Gowdy: The People Charged With Investigating and Executing the Law Violated the Law
By Jack Davis
Rep. Trey Gowdy ripped into special counsel Robert Mueller on Sunday for leaking a supposedly sealed grand jury indictment to the media.
Beginning Friday night, media speculation flowed regarding who would face charges after multiple outlets began reporting that an indictment was handed up Friday. News accounts based on leaks said that charges would be revealed Monday, along with the names of those being charge.
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates, who were partners in Manafort’s consulting business before working on the Trump campaign, surrendered to the FBI on Monday to face charges.
Gowdy said he was irritated with the media circus because he had warned Mueller not to let it happen.
“In the only conversation I’ve had with Robert Mueller, I stressed to him the importance of cutting out the leaks,” Gowdy, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told “Fox News Sunday.”
“It’s kind of ironic that the people charged with investigating the law and the violations of the law would violate the law,” he said.
“Make no mistake, disclosing grand jury material is a violation of the law. Somebody violated their oath of secrecy,” said the South Carolina Republican, who served as a federal prosecutor before being elected to Congress.
Gowdy said partisan attacks on Mueller should abate until after everyone gets to see the results of the investigation.
“I would encourage my Republican friends, give the guy a chance to do his job. The result will be known by the facts, by what he uncovers,” Gowdy said.
In the wake of recent revelations about Hillary Clinton and her role in approving a 2010 uranium deal that gave a Russian company access to a slice of America’s uranium, some of Mueller’s critics have said Mueller should investigate that connection to Russia instead of any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
“The personalities involved are much less important to me than the underlying facts,” Gowdy added. “So, I would say give the guy a chance to do his job.”
Gowdy said that fears that the investigation will become political should be offset by the fact that Mueller has a solid record.
“I think Bob Mueller has a really distinguished career of service to our country,” he said. “I don’t think any of your viewers can think of a single thing he did as the FBI director that calls them to have a lack of confidence in him.”
“I think most of your viewers have to be reminded that he actually was the FBI director or that he actually was a U.S. attorney, because he’s a pretty apolitical guy.”
During a Saturday appearance on Fox News, former Department of Justice official Robert Driscoll reminded viewers that just because Mueller began with investigating collusion between the campaign and Russia does not mean the investigation will only focus on that.
“Robert Mueller is free to look at taxes, is free to look at lobbying filings, foreign agent filings. Things like that could all be involved that wouldn’t necessarily touch on the issue of Russia collusion that everyone seems focused on politically,” he said.
Disclosures Raise Questions About Whether DNC and Clinton Cash Paid Russian Agents Cited in Anti-Trump Dossier
by AARON KLEIN
AP/Jacquelyn MartiNew York, NY — There are legitimate questions about whether money from the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) found its way into the hands of former and possibly current members of the Russian government as well as the Kremlin’s intelligence services cited as “sources” in the infamous, largely discredited 35-page dossier on President Donald Trump.
The questions follow the disclosure that the DNC and Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign funded research utilized in the anti-Trump dossier.
It also follows a previous disclosure from former acting CIA Director Michael Morell, who currently works at the Hillary Clinton-tied Beacon Global Strategies LLC, who revealed that he “learned” dossier author Christopher Steele paid some of the purported sources cited in the dossier.
The Washington Post last Tuesday reported that in April 2016, attorney Marc E. Elias and his law firm, Perkins Coie, retained Fusion GPS to conduct the questionable research on behalf of both the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Through Perkins Coie, Clinton’s campaign and the DNC continued to fund Fusion GPS until October 2016, days before Election Day, the Post reported.
Fusion GPS went on to hire Steele, a former intelligence agent, to do the purported research. Steele later conceded in court documents that part of his work still needed to be verified.
While it is not clear how much the Clinton campaign or the DNC paid Fusion GPS, the UK Independent, citing campaign finance records, reported that the Clinton campaign doled out $5.6 million to Perkins Coie from June 2015 to December 2016. Records show that since November 2015, the DNC paid the law firm $3.6 million in “legal and compliance consulting.”
Morell previously disclosed that he “learned” Steele paid some of the “sources” quoted in the dossier.
Morell serves as senior counselor at Beacon Strategies. Beacon was founded by Phillippe Reines, who served as Communications Adviser to Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state. From 2009-2013, Reines also served in Clinton’s State Department as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Strategic Communications. Reines is the managing director of Beacon.
NBC News previously reported on comments made by Morell at an event last march sponsored by the Cipher Brief intelligence website. Those comments take on renewed significance in light of the disclosures about the origins of Fusion GPS’s funding of the controversial dossier.
“I had two questions when I first read it,” Morell stated of Steele’s dossier for Fusion GPS. “One was, How did Chris talk to these sources? I have subsequently learned that he used intermediaries.”
Morell then made the comments about Steele allegedly paying his purported sources.
Morell stated: “And then I asked myself, why did these guys provide this information, what was their motivation? And I subsequently learned that he paid them. That the intermediaries paid the sources and the intermediaries got the money from Chris.
“And that kind of worries me a little bit because if you’re paying somebody, particularly former FSB [Russian intelligence] officers, they are going to tell you truth and innuendo and rumor, and they’re going to call you up and say, ‘hey, let’s have another meeting, I have more information for you,’ because they want to get paid some more.
“I think you’ve got to take all that into consideration when you consider the dossier.”
One “source” cited in the Fusion GPS document is a “senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure” – meaning an individual who served in the Russian Foreign Ministry at the time the dossier was produced. If the source is not entirely fabricated, he or she may still be serving in the Russian government.
Another quoted “source” was “a former top-level intelligence officer still active inside the Kremlin.”
Now it has been revealed that the Clinton campaign and the DNC funded the research, there are questions about whether that money was used by Steele to pay any of his “sources.” If so, that could mean the DNC and Clinton campaign cash made its way to those Russian “sources.”
Besides Morell’s comments, Vanity Fair last March published an extensive article on the origins of the dossier that reported Steele had a history of paying sources.
And so, as Steele threw himself into his new mission, he could count on an army of sources whose loyalty and information he had bought and paid for over the years. There was no safe way he could return to Russia to do the actual digging; the vengeful F.S.B. would be watching him closely. But no doubt he had a working relationship with knowledgeable contacts in London and elsewhere in the West, from angry émigrés to wheeling-and-dealing oligarchs always eager to curry favor with a man with ties to the Secret Service, to political dissidents with well-honed axes to grind.
It is also worth noting that according to an April report in the New York Times, James Comey’s F.B.I. was originally willing to pay Steele $50,000 to corroborate the information in the dossier. The F.B.I. ultimately did not pay Steele, according to two people familiar with the matter speaking to the Times.
Meanwhile, CNN reported that in private interviews with Congressional investigators prior to the Post’s report revealing Perkins Coie’s reported payment to Fusion GPS, former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and former DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz both denied that they were aware of any arrangement to fund Fusion GPS’s opposition research. CNN reported that Elias was seated next to Podesta during the private interview.
That report prompted former CIA Director Leon Panetta to advocate for the Senate Intelligence Committee to investigate both the Clinton campaign and the DNC about whether they had any knowledge of the payment to Fusion GPS to produce the dossier.
“Well, it certainly makes the situation very awkward,” Panetta said of Elias’s alleged involvement. “If you’re testifying and saying you have no knowledge, and the attorney sitting next to you is one of those that knew what was involved here, I think it does raise an issue that the committee is going to have to look at and determine just exactly who knew what.”
The dossier contains wild and unproven claims that the Russians had information regarding Trump and sordid sexual acts, including the widely mocked claim that Trump hired prostitutes and had them urinate on a hotel room bed. It also claimed there was an exchange of information between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government.
Those allegations remain unsubstantiated following numerous public hearings. Indeed, former CIA Director John Brennan made clear in testimony last May that after viewing all of the evidence that was available to him on the Russia probe he is not aware of any collusion between Russia and members of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
According to the BBC, the dossier served as a “roadmap” for the FBI’s investigation into claims of coordination between Moscow and members of Trump’s presidential campaign during the Obama administration.
In April, CNN reported that the dossier served as part of the FBI’s justification for seeking the FISA court’s reported approval to clandestinely monitor the communications of Carter Page, the American oil industry investor who was tangentially and briefly associated with Trump’s presidential campaign.
Senior Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have reportedly requested that the FBI and Department of Justice turn over applications for any warrants to monitor the communications of U.S. citizens associated with the investigation into alleged Russia interference in the 2016 presidential election.
In June testimony to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Comey admitted he pushed back against a request from President Donald Trump to possibly investigate the origins of “salacious material” that the agency possessed in the course of its investigation into alleged Russian interference.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
This article was written with research by Joshua Klein.
Empty Seats Aplenty at Kickoff for the Start of Week 8
20134
In what has become one of the more predictable stories in all of sports, the NFL’s early games for featured plenty of empty seats.
Finding Waldo, or anyone else, wouldn’t be much of a challenge in Cincinnati:
#NFL #INDvsCIN RT @Dan_Zachary: Oh Cincinnati. You have Halloween figured out with all the fans dressed as empty seats. http://pic.twitter.com/v5NzGlvsHU
1:19 PM - Oct 29, 2017
The fans in Tampa were not overly inspired either, despite hosting the rival Panthers in an important divisional matchup:
The Jets and Falcons had plenty of room for late arriving fans. The only problem, they didn’t have many fans of the early or late arriving variety:
Follow
Empty Seats Galore @EmptySeatsPics Jets beat man #NFL #ATLvsNYJ RT @calvinwatkins: Empty seats. It’s raining
The picture speaks louder than the words in the caption. However, as loud as the picture speaks, there’s still no indication the NFL is listening. Fans have clearly decided they have better things to do on a Sunday afternoon, then watch bad football and activist players.
How many empty stadiums will it take before they listen?
JUST IN: Mueller’s Nasty Secret Revealed, He Must Be Stopped
Frank Spear
The controversy surrounding the Trump-Russia collusion scandal has done a complete 180-degree turn. Now, it seems that the real collision took place between the Democrats, Clinton’s State Department under former President Obama, and the FBI.
The FBI, which at the time of the alleged collusion, was led by none other than Robert Mueller. Knowing what is now known, it seems odd that Robert Mueller would be assigned to the hefty role of Special Counsel. There is a severe conflict of interest considering his mostly Democrat-lined team, and the fact that he was around when Clinton was working on a deal to give Russia 20 percent of America’s strategic uranium supply, according to The Washington Post.
The liberal media has been touting theories of Russian influence and collusion for the entire year. It seems odd that now, of all times, they would suddenly fall silent and stop demanding examinations of the evidence of collusion between President Donald Trump and Russia.
If they were as fair as they claim, they should want to see this investigation completed as much as anyone else. Especially considering this is not just an evidenceless witch hunt the way that it was with President Trump.
Instead, this seems like something much more sinister and based in reality. Rosatom, a company backed by the Russian government bought Uranium One, a Canadian mining firm with the license to mine American uranium deposits located in Kazakhstan.
The sale started in 2009 and was finalized in 2013, resulting in the uranium, about 20 percent of US uranium nationwide, to be transferred to Russia. Everyone who signed off on this deal was likely aware of the circumstances and knew it was happening. This was no secret.
Robert Mueller knew full well that it was occurring. He also must have known that when Clinton, then Secretary of State, and the then Attorney General Eric Holder signed off on the deal that it was coming to fruition — regardless of the poor deal and conflicts of interest.
If Mueller knew that the deal was occurring, one would think he would’ve set on the task of finding out whether there was any evidence of Russia collusion struck by this deal. Shouldn’t he have said, “Wait a minute, wasn’t there a 5-year long deal with a company based in Russia known for bribery and extortion under Obama’s administration?”
Did he simply forget that this the Uranium One deal ever happened? No, the answer is it is not likely that this just slipped his mind.
If he never brought it up but knew it happened, then this is already a clear conflict of interest. There is a chance that he was told to “look the other way,” so to speak.
Did he simply forget that this the Uranium One deal ever happened? No, the answer is it is not likely that this just slipped his mind.
If he never brought it up but knew it happened, then this is already a clear conflict of interest. There is a chance that he was told to “look the other way,” so to speak.
Oddly, he announced that the first charges for the collusion case were filed Friday. The public won’t know who is being charged or involved until Monday. While it is best to be hopeful, the odds of Mueller going after Clinton and company is slim to none.
At the same time, there is an investigation into Mueller taking place through members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. What they are able to uncover might be the missing piece to this entire investigation.
Trump Taps Campus Anti-Semitism Combatant to Head Education Department Civil Rights Office
by DR. SUSAN BERRY
Louis D. Brandeis Center
President Donald Trump has nominated the founder of a group that defends Jewish students against anti-Semitism to the post of assistant secretary for the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the U.S. Education Department.
As president and general counsel of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, Kenneth L. Marcus opened investigations under Title VI of the civil rights act concerning harassment of Jewish students on college campuses.
Mr. Marcus is currently President and General Counsel of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. He previously served as Staff Director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and was delegated the authority of Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights under President George W. Bush. He also previously served as the Lillie and Nathan Ackerman Chair in Equality and Justice in America at the City University of New York’s Baruch College School of Public Affairs. Mr. Marcus is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law and Williams College.
The Brandeis Center – which is unaffiliated with Brandeis University in the Boston area – says its mission is “to advance the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and promote justice for all.” In addition, it “conducts research, education, and advocacy to combat the resurgence of anti-Semitism on college and university campuses.”
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reports Marcus wrote in 2010, “On college campuses — and especially in protests brought by the anti-Israel boycotts, divestment and sanctions movement — it is now widely understood that attacking ‘Jews’ by name is impolitic, but one can smear ‘Zionists’ with impunity.”
JTA also notes the nominee criticized the education department’s OCR for what he believed was a failure to confront “anti-Semitic incidents that masquerade as anti-Israelism.”
In September 2004 – while serving in the George W. Bush administration – Marcus penned a Dear Colleague letter in which he noted the upcoming celebration of Constitution Day is one on which to “address the right of all students, including students of faith, to be free from discrimination in our schools and colleges under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI) and Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 (Title IX).”
Marcus further wrote:
Although OCR’s jurisdiction does not extend to religious discrimination, OCR does aggressively enforce Title VI, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race or national origin, and Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. In OCR’s experience, some cases of religious discrimination may also involve racial, ethnic or sex discrimination.
The nominee noted at the time that, since the September 11 terrorist attacks, OCR had received “complaints of race and national origin harassment commingled with aspects of religious discrimination against Arab Muslim, Sikh, and Jewish students.”
Additionally, he wrote OCR had also dealt with “allegations of racial and sex discrimination commingled with allegations of religious discrimination against Christian students.”
“OCR does not tolerate either of these forms of harassment, which are prohibited by Title VI and Title IX,” Marcus wrote, explaining:
No OCR policy should be construed to permit, much less to require, any form of religious discrimination or any encroachment upon the free exercise of religion. While OCR lacks jurisdiction to prohibit discrimination against students based on religion per se, OCR will aggressively prosecute harassment of religious students who are targeted on the basis of race or gender, as well as racial or gender harassment of students who are targeted on the basis of religion.
“We certainly have seen an increase in hate and bias activities since the election,” he said, according to Politico, adding they are found “not just in the alt-right but also on the far left … Not just from Trump supporters but from Trump detractors.”
“When anti-Israel groups are active on college campuses the environment for Jewish students often gets worse,” Marcus reportedly said, pointing to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. “If there is a student government resolution to boycott Israel … there’s a much higher likelihood that Jewish students will be called ‘dirty Jew’ or … [other] derogatory terms.”
Politico also notes a New York Times December 2015 letter to the editor written by Marcus that addressed a Times front page article reporting Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) as having a “disposition” that “has rarely been described warmly.”
“That was never my experience of Ted Cruz,” Marcus wrote, and continued:
We worked together as law firm associates during the 1990s, and I relished Ted’s company, as did our mutual colleagues. Your reporter might have been too quick to accept Ted’s self-deprecating remark that “if you want someone to grab a beer with, I may not be that guy.”
Back in the day, I had a few drinks with the man who is now the junior senator from Texas, and I highly recommend it. Just make sure you brush up on your constitutional law first. The conversation will be fascinating, but it will not be light.
Marcus is the author of Jewish Identity, Civil Rights in America, and The Definition of Anti-Semitism.
If confirmed by the Senate, Marcus will serve under federal education secretary Betsy DeVos. Currently, Candice Jackson serves as the acting OCR chief.
Paul Manafort judges: Who are Deborah A. Robinson and Amy Berman Jackson?
Fox News
An artist's rendering shows Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson, left, and U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson. (AP)The veteran judge former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates will appear in front of Monday afternoon has presided over a list of big-name defendants and has experienced the criminal justice system firsthand -- when her son was convicted of dealing heroin.
The case will then be handed over to an Obama-appointed judge who donated $1,000 to former President Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign.
U.S. District Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson, the preliminary judge, has overseen cases involving former Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry and NBA player Allen Iverson, according to Tickle the Wire, a law news website.
She was sworn in as a Magistrate Judge in 1988 and is a graduate of Morgan State University and the Emory University School of Law.
In 2014, she watched her son, Philip Robinson Winkfield, get led away in handcuffs after he was sentenced to five years in federal prison for possession of heroin and intent to distribute, Tickle the Wire reported.
Robinson also boosted a fine from $10,000 to $50,000 for a former national security adviser to President Bill Clinton who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information, the New York Sun reported.
Sandy Berger, who was reviewing Clinton-era documents connected with the work of the September 11 commission, had told a court he cut three documents up and put them in the trash, according to the newspaper. Prosecutors and defense lawyers had settled on a $10,000 fine before Robinson upped the amount.
Tickle the Wire also reported Robinson presided in the trial of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, an ex-White House aide who was convicted of lying to authorities and obstructing the probe of a 2003 leak of a CIA operative's identity.
Libby was sentenced to two and a half years in prison but had his sentence commuted by President George W. Bush.
After the preliminary phase, the case will be handed over to U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who joined the court in 2011 after being appointed by former President Barack Obama.
Earlier this year, Jackson -- a Harvard Law School graduate -- dismissed a lawsuit brought against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by relatives of victims of the 2012 Benghazi attack.
Jackson ruled that Clinton neither enabled the attack by communicating through her private email server, nor did she defame the victims families in the aftermath, the Washington Times reported.
“Her actions – communicating with other State Department personnel and advisers about the official business of the department – fall squarely within the scope of her duty to run the Department and conduct the foreign affairs of the nation as Secretary of State,” Jackson wrote in a ruling.
Jackson also contributed $1,000 to Clinton's 1992 Democratic presidential campaign and while previously working at a law firm, represented former Democratic congressman William J. Jefferson in a corruption trial, the Washington Post reported.
The former Louisiana congressman was sentenced in 2009 to 13 years in prison on bribery charges after being caught hiding $90,000 in cash in his freezer. As of early October, he was ordered to be released pending a new sentencing hearing, The Associated Press reported.
Last week, Jackson upheld a bid from the Trump administration to withhold two emails from Clinton's private account that it says contain classified info about the Benghazi attack, according to Politico.
G’ day…Ciao…Helen and Moe Lauzier
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