Free Republic

Decision Desk HQ (Maine Results: Cruz 44%, Trump 34%, with 27% of precincts reporting)

Here’s Trump’s troubling answer at last night’s debate. KELLY: Mr. Trump, your campaign website to this day argues that more visas for highly skilled workers would, quote, “decimate American workers”. However, at the CNBC debate, you spoke enthusiastically in favor of these visas. So, which is it? TRUMP: I’m changing. I’m changing. We need highly skilled people in this country, and if we can’t do it, we’ll get them in. But, and we do need in Silicon Valley, we absolutely have to have. So, we do need highly skilled, and one of the biggest problems we have is people go...

With Obama’s executive amnesty imminent, anonymous White House aides are cockily dismissing John Boehner’s threatened lawsuit against it as a stunt. Even among opponents of executive amnesty — and I’m with them — there’s a tendency to pooh pooh the suit. It’s a loser, it will take forever to decide, it’s an attempt to ‘redirect Republican rage’ away from budgetary remedies like denying funding, etc. Not so fast. I’m all for giving defunding a try — also holding up appointments — but don’t sell the lawsuit short. I’ll even go so far as to lay down an Yglesias style marker:...

I just watched a replay of Fox News' "Special Report Online," and I think it was panelist Steve Hayes of The Weekly Standard who referenced this Control of Terrain in Iraq map - updated often, if not daily - produced by the "well respected" Institute for the Study of War, a think tank I hadn't heard of before. This looks like a pretty interesting resource, so I thought I'd share it. The number of "contested areas" so close to Baghdad is troubling.

I haven't subscribed to cable TV for many years, relying instead on several online streaming and downloading services for the entertainment and news programs I'm interested in. One of those services was C-Span's website, but earlier this summer C-Span restricted live-streaming for non-government programming to those with a cable TV subscription (which includes C-Span in its package). This post is for a limited audience, but I'd speculate that there's a few more people on FR who might be interested to know that the audio of the 7am - 10AM EST program Washington Journal still streams live on the Internet each...

One thing that increased the number of Jewish survivors during the Final Solution was armed Jewish resistance, as I detailed in my article Armed Resistance to the Holocaust. (19 Journal on Firearms & Public Policy 144 (2007).) (This annual journal is published by the Second Amendment Foundation; its 23 volumes are available on the web, as well as via HeinOnline. I was editor in chief of the Journal in 1994-2011.)

Victor Davis Hanson, the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, compares the behavior of Vladimir Putin in Crimea to Adolph Hitler in World War II Europe. Topics include comparing the Treaty of Versailles to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Germany’s blitzkrieg as a sign of weakness, and Japan and Germany declaring war on the United States.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA) presented the Americans for Prosperity Fundation’s New Hampshire Conservative of the Year Award to former Speaker of the New Hampshire House William O’Brien (R). After Representative O’Brien’s remarks, former Representative Gingrich made further remarks. Citizens United and Americans for Prosperity Foundation held the inaugural “Freedom Summit” at the Executive Court Banquet Facility in Manchester, N.H

Fun excerpt, from footnote 79: Given Congress’s plenary power over the District of Columbia, the contemnor could potentially be detained or jailed in a D.C. Metropolitan Police Department facility. See Art. I § 8 (“The Congress shall have Power…To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District…as may…become the Seat of the Government of the United States.”)

Legal scholars testified on the constitutionality of some of President Obama’s uses of executive branch powers. They focused on the administration’s one-year delay of the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate, the Justice Department’s decision to not prosecute some drug cases, and the president’s decision allowing work permits for some immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: An Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is a risky and militarily-complicated endeavor, but within reach. Israeli ingenuity and determination could lead to a great operational and political success. The international responses are likely to be bearable.

Americans told President Obama in 2012, "If you like your popularity, you can keep it." We lied. Well, at least we didn't tell him the whole truth. What we meant to say was that Obama could keep the support of a majority of Americans unless he broke our trust. Throughout his first term, even as his job-approval rating cycled up and down, one thing remained constant: Polls showed that most Americans trusted Obama. As they say in Washington, that is no longer operable.

Since September of this year, the DC Court of appeals has posted the audio of its oral arguments online. At the link, press CENTRAL + F and insert "HHS" to find the argument in Gilardi v. HHS. (I didn't want to link directly to the MP3.) One of the judges in the panel, Janice Rodgers Brown, is probably (along with Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit) the most prominent libertarian-leaning judge working on the federal circuit level today.

The Ku Klux Klan was formed as a social club by a group of Confederate Army veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee in the winter of 1865-66. The group adopted the name Ku Klux Klan from the Greek word "kyklos," meaning circle, and the English word clan. In the summer of 1867, the Klan became the "Invisible Empire of the South" at a convention in Nashville, Tennessee attended by delegates from former Confederate states. The group was presided over General Nathan Bedford Forrest, who is believed to have been the first Grand Wizard -- the title for the head of the organization.

In any negotiation, the key question is, what is the default status? That is, what happens if you don’t make a deal? If you are negotiating a business transaction (e.g., a merger), the default status is that the transaction doesn’t occur and the parties walk away. If you are trying to settle a lawsuit, the default status is that the case goes to trial and both parties take their chances. Where the default status is more favorable to one party than the other, that party has bargaining power.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) launched a lengthy speech in opposition to continued funding of the Affordable Care Act, saying he “would speak until I am no longer able to stand.” He and other senators sustained the speeches overnight until noon the next day.

The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation (popularly known as the Constitution Annotated) contains legal analysis and interpretation of the United States Constitution, based primarily on Supreme Court case law. This regularly updated resource is especially useful when researching the constitutional implications of a specific issue or topic. The Featured Topics and Cases page highlights recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that demonstrate pivotal interpretations of the Constitution's provisions.

American long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad was closing in on her long time quest to cross the Florida Straits on Monday, attempting to become the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage. Nyad was "really hurting" as she neared her destination of Key West some 48 hours after she set off from Havana, according to blog updates on her website.

Can't make any promises, as I'm just starting to watch now, so I'm hoping seeing Gingrich & Laffer outweighs the disgust of seeing Krugman speak. Debate proper begins, with Krugman, at around the 10:30 mark. (Prior to that, there's a promotional commercial, plus introductions, etc).

Rachel Jeantel was a train wreck as a witness. She did not help the state's case. She exposed the manipulations of Team Crump. She was impeached on a few significant matters (see below the fold.) And she admitted multiple lies. It was cringe-worthy but you couldn't take your eyes off it. Most strikingly, she made Trayvon Martin out to be the profiler of Zimmerman.