Suppose Islam Had a Holocaust and No One Noticed

At Sultan Knish:

While Western newspapers were debating whether or not to reprint the Mohammed cartoons, in Nigeria as many as 2,000 people were massacred by the Islamic State in Nigeria, also known as Boko Haram, in what is being called the deadliest attack by the Muslim group to date.

Survivors described the Islamic State setting up efficient killing teams and massacring everyone while shouting “Allahu Akbar”. "For five kilometers (three miles), I kept stepping on dead bodies until I reached Malam Karanti village, which was also deserted and burnt," one survivor said.

There’s a word for that. It’s genocide.

The Islamic State in Nigeria had reportedly managed to kill 2,000 people last year. This year they did it in one week. But we don’t pay much attention to what happens in Nigeria unless there’s a hashtag. No one has yet thought up a clever hashtag for the murder of 2,000 people. #Bringbackourdead doesn’t really work.

The Islamic State’s next target is Maiduguri, the largest city in Borno with a population of over a million. Known as the “Home of Peace”, if Maiduguri falls, the death toll will be horrific.

The Catholic Archbishop, Ignatius Kaigama, warned that the killing wouldn’t stop in Nigeria. “It's going to expand. It will get to Europe and elsewhere.”

Of course it already has, but not on the same scale.

“We will conquer Europe one day. It is not a question of (if) we will conquer Europe, just a matter of when that will happen,” an Islamic State spokesman had warned. “The Europeans need to know that when we come, it will not be in a nice way. It will be with our weapons.”

“Those who do not convert to Islam or pay the Islamic tax will be killed.”

Imagine that the burning towns and villages aren’t in Nigeria or Syria. Imagine them in France or Sweden. It’s not that great of a leap from armed cells carrying out attacks to a militia capturing entire towns and villages. They’re different phases in the same conflict.

Al Qaeda in Iraq went from a terror group carrying out suicide bombings to running a state in a decade. So did Hamas in Israel. There are already zones in Europe under the control of unofficial Sharia police. France has fewer Muslims than Nigeria and a more stable government with professional police and military forces. These two factors are the only ones keeping Islamic genocide at bay.

The massacres in France were carried out by the same types of men and movements responsible for the killings in Nigeria and Iraq. They just aren’t organized enough and still lack the numbers to conduct the same large scale genocide that they are already carrying out in Nigeria, Syria and Iraq.

Two Islamic States, one in Nigeria and another in Iraq/Syria, are engaged in genocide. Obama delayed responding to ISIS until it was already engaged in genocide and was moving on Baghdad. His people have done everything possible to avoid responding to the Boko Haram genocide in Nigeria.

The usual excuses are there...

More.

Also at the Guardian UK, "Boko Haram: satellite images reveal devastation of massacre in Nigeria."

Physician-Assisted Suicide is Receiving Fresh Support, But Remains as Open to Abuse as Ever

It's a terrible, terrible policy.

European countries put old people to death simply for being lonely, while calling it "compassionate."

And now Brittany Maynard's case is being used to advertise "death with dignity."

I can't think of anything as ghastly.

From Paul McHugh, at the Wall Street Journal, "Dr. Death Makes a Comeback":

‘I guess Jack’s won,” a pal of mine said, alluding to Jack Kevorkian , whose views on physician-assisted suicide are lately back in vogue. With backing from liberal financier George Soros —a longtime supporter of “right to die” legislation—proponents are intent on expanding beyond Oregon, Vermont and Washington the roster of states where the practice is legal. Legislation to allow assisted suicide is moving through New Jersey’s statehouse, last month a New York legislator vowed to introduce a similar bill, and in California state Sens. Bill Monning and Lois Wolk are working to legalize the practice.

My pal may have a point, but he perhaps has forgotten how often in fights for good ideas, the bad ones—even when crushingly defeated, as when Michigan sent Kevorkian to prison in 1999—sidle back into the ring and you have to thrash them again.

Since ancient Greece physicians have been tempted to help desperate patients kill themselves, and many of those Greek doctors must have done so. But even then the best rejected such actions as unworthy and, as the Hippocratic Oath insists, contrary to the physician’s purpose of “benefiting the sick.” For reasons not too different, doctors traditionally refuse to participate in capital punishment; and, when they are inducted into military service, do not bear arms.

lso, as Ian Dowbiggin showed in “A Merciful End: The Euthanasia Movement in Modern America” (2003), physician-assisted suicide was periodically championed in the 20th century yet rejected time after time by American voters when its practical harms were comprehended. As recently as 2012, Massachusetts voters defeated an initiative to legalize assisted suicide.

There are two essential harms from the practice. First: Once doctors agree to assist a person’s suicide, ultimately they find it difficult to reject anyone who seeks their services. The killing of patients by doctors spreads to encompass many treatable but mentally troubled individuals, as seen today in the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland.

Second: When a “right to die” becomes settled law, soon the right translates into a duty. That was the message sent by Oregon, which legalized assisted suicide in 1994, when the state-sponsored health plan in 2008 denied recommended but costly cancer treatments and offered instead to pay for less-expensive suicide drugs.

These intractable, recurrent drawbacks are but one side of the problematic transaction involved with assisted suicide. The other, more telling side is the way assisting in patients’ suicides hollows out the heart of the medical profession.

The fundamental premise of medicine is the vocational commitment of doctors to care for all people without doubting whether any individual is worth the effort. That means doctors will not hold back their ingenuity and energies in treating anyone, rich or poor, young or old, prominent or socially insignificant—or curable or incurable.

This is the heart and soul of medical practice. The confidence with which patients turn to their physicians depends on it, and it is what spurs doctors to find innovative ways of helping the sick.

So why do the arguments for physician-assisted suicide regularly recur? Primarily because of compelling stories about patients who despair when medical futility, burdensome treatments and an unavoidable, painful fate seem to combine. Such patients have never been rare.

A recent high-profile case was that of Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman diagnosed last year with a malignant brain tumor. She chose to publicize how, given her fears over what doctors were predicting, she would move from California to Oregon where a physician could—and did—prescribe medications for her to kill herself before many of the symptoms she feared had developed...

Keep reading.

Katherine Zimmerman on CNN's 'The Situation Room'

At AEI, "ISIS is now active inside Yemen (VIDEO)."

Lady Gaga Steps Out Wearing Blue Gown as She Heads to Studio for Rehearsal in New York City

She's still got it.

At Egotastic!, "Lady Gaga Steps Out in Blue Gown in NYC."

15-Foot Surf Expected from Sonoma County to Big Sur This Weekend

Beautiful weather and big waves up north.

At CBS News San Francisco: "High Surf Advisory In Effect for Bay Area Coast Through Sunday Morning, 15 Foot Waves Possible."

Obama's Legacy Will Be His Failed Policies

From Michael Barone, at the Washington Examiner, "Obama's Attempt to Turn the Page Undermined by Policy Failures":

It’s not in the printed text, but the most revealing words in President Obama’s seventh State of the Union address came near the end. After the scripted line, “I have no more campaigns to run,” elicited Republican applause, Obama ad libbed, “I know, because I won both of them.”

Thus the last quarter of Obama’s presidency resembles the first quarter, when he shut off discussion with House Republicans by saying, “I won.” But his second winning percentage was lower than his first — the only American president of which that can be said — and the House now has a record and the Senate a near-record Republican majority.

The first half of Obama’s speech was a deft attempt to, as he said, “turn the page.” The year 2014, he said, was “a breakthrough year for America,” the economy was finally growing at a respectable rate and U.S. troop deployments in war zones are nearly down to zero.

He was playing on the uptick — a “small” but real uptick, as FiveThirtyEight put it — in his polling numbers and in positive assessments of the economy. To give it voice, he quoted, twice, a woman (a former Democratic staffer, it seems) in the gallery.

In contrast to previous Obama speeches, he took some care to cite accurate statistics. No mention of the discredited claim that one in five college women will be raped or the misleading claim that women’s earnings are only 77 percent of men’s.

He cheered America for being number one in oil and gas production — something his administration has tried to prevent. He boasted that wages are rising — though not by much. His brief allusions to Obamacare sparked applause from Democrats — but the law remains highly unpopular.

Obama’s policy proposals were small stuff. More tax cuts for child care — but discrimination against stay-at-home moms and taxes on 529 college savings accounts. Paid sick leave. Equal pay for women — on the books already for 52 years. A minimum wage increase. He’s all for infrastructure but, in deference to rich donors, will veto the Keystone XL pipeline.

Free community college — even though it’s already free to those in lower-income households, and despite the evidence from student loan programs that colleges and universities sop up all the federal dollars with little gain to students.

Democrats, after applauding loudly in the first half of the speech, stayed mostly mum during much of the rest. There was silence when he called for trade promotion authority and free trade agreements. There was little noise when he called for tax reform — not surprisingly, given that he has ignored plans Republicans have put forward.

There was silence as well when he turned to foreign policy. Obama received better ratings on foreign than domestic policy in his first term; it’s the other way around now...

More.

Miranda Kerr Strips Down to Lingerie for Latest Wonderbra Campaign

At London's Daily Mail, "Bra-vo! Miranda Kerr puts her stunning curves on display as she strips down to lingerie for latest Wonderbra campaign."

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah 'Could Not Stand President Obama'

Heh.

And that's after six years of kowtowing to the Islamic nations of the world. Our Muslim president is surely overrated.

From NBC's Richard Engel:



PREVIOUSLY: "Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah Dead at 90."

Supreme Court Will Review Use of Lethal Injections

At USA Today:

WASHINGTON -- In a case that could have broad implications for hundreds of death row inmates, the Supreme Court will consider whether a drug protocol used in recent lethal injections violates the Constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

The justices agreed Friday to consider a case originally brought by four death-row inmates in Oklahoma -- one of whom was put to death last week, after the court refused to block his execution with a combination of three drugs that has caused some prisoners to writhe in pain.

Because the court's four liberal justices dissented from the decision to let that execution go forward, it presumably was their votes in private conference Friday that will give the issue a full hearing in open court. Only four votes are needed from the nine-member court to accept a case. It will be heard in late April and decided by late June.

Lawyers for Charles Warner and three other convicts set for execution in Oklahoma over the next six weeks sought the Supreme Court's intervention after two lower federal courts refused their pleas. While the court's conservatives refused to stop Warner's execution, the request for a full court hearing had been held for further consideration.

The lawyers claim that the sedative midazolam, the first drug used in the three-drug protocol, is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a general anesthetic and is being used in state executions virtually on an experimental basis. They say Inmates may not be rendered unconscious and could suffer painfully as the other drugs in the protocol are administered.

That, they claim, was a factor in Oklahoma's botched execution last April of Clayton Lockett, who struggled, groaned and writhed in pain for 43 minutes before dying. A state investigation later blamed Lockett's ordeal on a failure by prison staff to realize that drugs had not been administered directly into his veins. The state has since changed its procedures and increased the dose of midazolam used.

"The time is right for the court to take a careful look at this important issue, particularly given the bungled executions that have occurred since states started using these novel and experimental drugs protocols," said Dale Baich, one of the lawyers representing the death-row inmates...

This could be the case that abolishes the death penalty, or at least that's what the progs will be looking for.

More.

'Beneath the Dignity of the Office'

Here's Mediaite, via Memeorandum, "Fox’s Kurtz: Obama YouTube Interview Was ‘Beneath the Dignity of the Office’."

And watch it here.

Look, it's not that he's doing sit-downs with "some of these YouTubers." It's Obama himself. He's beneath the dignity of the office. He's not very presidential. He's a lousy executive. And he's one of the worst Commanders-in-Chief in U.S. history.

Frankly, eating cereal out of the bathtub is right in O's wheelhouse.

Aggressive ECB Stimulus Ushers In New Era for Europe

At WSJ, "European Central Bank to Purchase €60 Billion in Assets Each Month Starting in March":

FRANKFURT—The European Central Bank ushered in a new era by launching an aggressive bond-buying program Thursday, shifting pressure to Europe’s political leaders to restore prosperity in one of the global economy’s biggest trouble spots.

Investors cheered the ECB’s commitment to flood the eurozone with more than €1 trillion ($1.16 trillion) in newly created money, sparking a rally in stock and bond markets and sending the euro plunging.

But in light of Europe’s underlying problems of stagnant growth, high debt and rigid labor markets, ECB President Mario Draghi suggested the central bank’s largess alone won’t be enough to right its economy.

“What monetary policy can do is create the basis for growth,” he said. “But for growth to pick up, you need investment; for investment, you need confidence; and for confidence, you need structural reform.”

The reactions to the central bank’s move rippled widely through the world’s trading floors, corporate boardrooms and European capitals. “It’s one piece of getting Europe back to growth, and we should see an impact,” Joe Jimenez, chief executive of drug giant Novartis said in an interview in Davos, Switzerland, where the political and economic elite are gathered for meetings of the World Economic Forum.

The effects also reverberated beyond the borders of the 19-member eurozone: Denmark on Thursday cut its main interest rate for the second time in a week, seeking to damp investor interest in its currency as investors sold the euro.

Mr. Draghi said the ECB will buy a total of €60 billion a month in assets including government bonds, debt securities issued by European institutions and private-sector bonds. The purchases of government bonds and those issued by European institutions such as the European Investment Bank will start in March and are intended to run through to September 2016. Mr. Draghi signaled the purchases could extend further if the ECB isn’t meeting its inflation target of just below 2%. In December, consumer prices fell 0.2% in December on an annual basis in the eurozone, the first drop in over five years.

The ECB’s new stimulus “should strengthen demand, increase capacity utilization and support money and credit growth,” Mr. Draghi said...

More.

The League Won't Deflate the Patriots

From Bill Plaschke, at LAT, "New England Patriots might go unscathed — and that's deflating":

Bill Belichick played the rumpled dunce, wrinkled sweatshirt, rolled-up sleeves, the world's most detailed football coach shrugging and sighing and professing to have no idea about footballs.

"I had no knowledge of the various steps involved in the game balls," he said.

Tom Brady played the smiling fool, nifty ski cap, form-fitting sweats, slick and genial, one of the world's greatest passers claiming he wasn't always sure about the football he was passing.

"I'm not squeezing the balls, that's not part of my process," he said.

The two central figures in the New England Patriots football deflation scandal took two different approaches in separate news conferences Thursday, but the perception was the same.

They both came across like street-corner cheats.

Belichick was the old guy sitting at the card table with the shells. Brady was the young guy leaning against the wall with the dice. Their obliviousness was obviously orchestrated, yet they spun it in the cocksure manner of those who have done this before and know they will never get caught.

And, of course, they're right. The worst thing about the news that the Patriots allegedly deflated 11 of 12 footballs by two pounds per square inch during their AFC championship game against the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday — a clear violation of NFL rules — is that the league will let them get away with it.

You really think a league that has shrugged off domestic violence will actually care about pigskin poisoning? Oh sure, the Patriots might be fined a few bucks after the Super Bowl and, yeah, an equipment guy will probably eventually take the fall as with the USC deflation scandal, but the almighty duo of Belichick and Brady will remain untouched.

From the rule-breaking videotaping of opponents' signals to unethical last-second substitution deceptions, the Patriots have created such a culture of subterfuge that before games, some opposing coaches put locks on their locker room doors. Yet with owner Robert Kraft protecting them by serving as a mentor to Commissioner Roger Goodell — why do you think Goodell amazingly destroyed the "Spygate" tapes? — Belichick and Brady will proudly march to Arizona next week to stare down Seattle and attempt to win their fourth Super Bowl championship together, equaling records for both coach and quarterback.

Go, Seahawks...

More.

Yemen: The New Afghanistan

From Robin Wright, at WSJ:

When I first went to Yemen, two decades ago, it struck me as the one place on earth closest to understanding life on another planet. Everything seemed so different, from the architecture to the rough unsettled terrain. It was as culturally beguiling as it was politically troubled.

The outside world often views Yemen from the vantage of terrorism. It has been the unwilling base for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula since Saudi Arabia’s crackdown forced it out of the kingdom a decade ago. AQAP has become the biggest and boldest al Qaeda franchise since Osama bin Laden’s death. It was invoked by the Kouachi brothers during the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris two weeks ago.

A lot of bad boys have ties to Yemen. The bin Laden family was of Yemeni descent. Among those who still live there is Saudi-born Ibrahim al Asiri, a master bomb-maker linked to the plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. Yemen was the home of American-born Anwar al Awlaki, the AQAP ideologue, until a U.S. drone strike killed him in 2011.

The U.S. has launched more than 115 drone strikes against extremists in Yemen since 2002. Many have been killed. Many more still exploit Yemen’s chaos.

But Yemen, which is four times the size of Alabama, is important for other reasons that should be just as important to the outside world. It shouldn’t be written off or seen through a single prism.

Yemen was one of four countries where peaceful demonstrations ousted autocratic leaders in 2011 and 2012. Although the media focuses on the infamous in Yemen, its uprising also produced Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakol Karman, a young dissident, blogger and mother of three, and hundreds of thousands of others who braved danger and death in their strike at the University Square protest camp.

They had plenty of political grievances. Surrounded by oil-rich sheikhdoms, Yemenis have always also had the hardest economic slog. They live in the poorest of the 22 Arab countries–and don’t have massive oil exports to exploit. Per capita income is less than $200 a month. At least 45% of the 26 million people live below the poverty line.

Life is particularly tough for the young generation that led the uprising. The median age is 18–and unemployment among youth is as high at 40%. Yemenis also have the lowest literacy rate.

Like Libya, Yemen has imploded politically since the uprising against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the strongman who ruled for 23 years. (He also led North Yemen for another dozen years before the two halves of the country united in 1990).

His successor, President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, has been unable to enforce the consensus on a new power-sharing formula that emerged from the U.N.-backed National Dialogue in 2013-14. It calls for Yemen to create a federal system with six regions. But Mr. Hadi’s power has eroded since Houthi rebels of Asarallah, or “Partisans of God,” seized part of the capital, San’a, last September.

Yemen is now riven by many fissures: The old north-south divide still defines politics, with a secessionist movement growing ever louder. Strife among diverse tribes, clans and sects have destabilized large chunks of the country. Mr. Saleh’s loyalists and allies in the Republican Guards have maneuvered on behalf of the former president, perhaps hoping for a comeback of sorts.

On Tuesday, less than a day after negotiations between the government and Houthis over a ceasefire and power-sharing deal broke down, Houthi rebels took over the presidential palace and the headquarters of the country’s presidential guard.

Yemen remains in peril. The government is too fragile to be viable, despite support from the U.S. and Gulf monarchies. Key countries began evaluating Monday whether to withdraw diplomats and their nationals in Yemen...

Satellite Images Reveal New Long-Range Iranian Missile and Launcher

At Algemeiner.

Google's Eric Schmidt Claims the 'Internet Will Disappear'

Well, we're almost constantly connected to the net as it is. Conceptually, it's just a matter of rejiggering our understanding of things.

In any case, at London's Daily Mail, "Google's Eric Schmidt claims the 'internet will disappear' as everything in our life gets connected."

Trevor Carlson Wild Card Submission

Wicked.

I found this dude on Facebook.

Tom Steyer Won't Run for U.S. Senate

This idiot Steyer f-king bugs me. Seriously. I don't like him, at all.

I suspect when Kamala Harris threw her hat in the ring he figured he didn't stand a chance of winning the nomination, and now he's out. I can't stand Harris either, but at least I don't have to listen to the paranoid ramblings of this environmental justice retard.

At the Sacramento Bee, "Steyer won’t run for U.S. Senate; attention turns to Villaraigosa."

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah Dead at 90

At the Los Angeles Times, "Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah dies at 90."

And from Yochi Dreazen, at Foreign Policy, "King Abdullah Dies, Disrupting Saudi Arabia at a Sensitive Time":

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud died Thursday, roiling a key U.S. ally just as Washington increases its reliance on Riyadh on issues ranging from the faltering fight against the Islamic State to the on-again, off-again push to oust Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad.

Abdullah, 90, technically ruled the kingdom since August 2005, but had largely been overseeing its domestic agenda, internal security efforts, and foreign policy since his half-brother King Fahd suffered a stroke in 1996. Saudi Arabian state television reported that Abdullah would be succeeded by his brother, Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz, 79.

The king’s death comes at a delicate time for the oil-rich kingdom, which is struggling with the impact of plunging oil prices domestically, the rise of the Islamic State, and an Iran’s whose influence is growing across the Mideast as its proxies take on increasingly powerful roles in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. Abdullah’s successor will also face an intensifying crisis in Yemen, whose Saudi-backed government has been effectively overthrown by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. A Saudi official said in a recent interview that Riyadh sees the future of Yemen as “an existential threat.”

Saudi-U.S. relations have been strained in recent years because of Riyadh’s anger at the Obama administration over the ongoing nuclear talks with Tehran. Saudi Arabia and Iran have been waging a shadow war for years, and Abdullah and his aides believe that the President Barack Obama has been willing to concede too much to Tehran as part of his quest for a nuclear deal.

In a strange-bedfellows alliance, Abdullah’s fears are shared by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will be coming to Washington soon to address a joint session of Congress to effectively lobby against a legislative effort to impose new sanctions on Iran if the talks fail. Obama has threatened to veto the bill, which has the quiet support of many Saudi and Gulf diplomats, and issued a public rebuke to Netanyahu by announcing that he wouldn’t meet with the visiting Israeli leader.

In the near term, no issue may prove more complicated for the next Saudi ruler, however, than the sustained and significant drop in world oil prices. Crude has plunged to roughly $50 a barrel, dealing a massive blow to the Saudi government, which is almost entirely dependent on oil revenues. The decine will push Saudi Arabia into a budget deficit in 2015 for the first time in years.

Falling oil prices will present a pair of challenges to Salman. First, the kingdom has for decades effectively bought itself internal stability by putting in place a highly generous social welfare system that offers citizens free health care, education, and other perks. That will be more difficult to maintain with oil trading at its lowest price in decades.

Second, Saudi Arabia has used its oil to build one of the Middle East’s most powerful militaries by buying reams of advanced American weaponry and hiring thousands of American and Western troops to train its own forces. The kingdom has in recent years also massively ramped up its financial commitments to the rebels working to unseat Assad and to the new Egyptian government, which it sees as a bulwark against a return of the Islamists who controlled the country during the short reign of former President Mohamed Morsi.

For the moment, many Saudi Arabians will wonder about the future about the reform efforts Abdullah launched but was unable to fully see through...

More.

Yemen President, Cabinet Resign Amid Rebel Standoff

The Middle East is practically going up in smoke.

At WSJ, "Government Disbands to Protest Militants’ Occupation of the Capital":

SAN’A, Yemen—Yemen’s president and his cabinet resigned Thursday night to protest the occupation of the capital by militants seeking to leverage their demands for greater political power.

The resignation of the cabinet comes a day after the Houthi militants—which represent the country’s Zaidi minority sect—occupied the residence of former President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Since September, the militants have exerted pressure on Mr. Hadi and forced the resignation of his cabinet that month after occupying the capital and clashing with government forces, protesting Yemen’s slow pace of overhauls, including the drafting of a new constitution.

The move dismantles a tenuous deal, signed between Mr. Hadi and the Houthis on Wednesday, that would give the militants a greater representation in government and say over the constitution in exchange for their withdrawal from government installations, including the former president’s residence. But, on Thursday morning, the militants still encircled Mr. Hadi’s home.

Prime Minister Khaled Bahah said, in a resignation letter submitted to Mr. Hadi, the decision comes because the country is moving in the wrong direction. “We resign as a refusal to be dragged into political differences that are outside the law.”

Government spokesperson Rajeh Badi said “the Prime Minister and cabinet’s resignation is a final decision and will not change.”

The resignation of Mr. Hadi and his cabinet leaves the U.S. counterterrorism program in the country—a cornerstone of its regional antiterror strategy—in a tenuous situation. Whether the U.S. can continue its program in Yemen without the government is unclear...

Iran, Obama, Boehner and Netanyahu

From Caroline Glick:

Iran has apparently produced an intercontinental ballistic missile whose range far exceeds the distance between Iran and Israel, and between Iran and Europe.

On Wednesday night, Channel 2 showed satellite imagery taken by Israel’s Eros-B satellite that was launched last April. The imagery showed new missile-related sites that Iran recently constructed just outside Tehran. One facility is a missile launch site, capable of sending a rocket into space or of firing an ICBM.

On the launch pad was a new 27-meter long missile, never seen before.

The missile and the launch pad indicate that Iran’s ballistic missile program, which is an integral part of its nuclear weapons program, is moving forward at full throttle. The expanded range of Iran’s ballistic missile program as indicated by the satellite imagery makes clear that its nuclear weapons program is not merely a threat to Israel, or to Israel and Europe. It is a direct threat to the United States as well.

Also on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was invited to address a joint session of Congress by House Speaker John Boehner.

Boehner has asked Netanyahu to address US lawmakers on February 11 regarding Iran’s nuclear program and the threat to international security posed by radical Islam.

Opposition leaders were quick to accuse Boehner and the Republican Party of interfering in Israel’s upcoming election by providing Netanyahu with such a prestigious stage just five weeks before Israelis go to the polls.

Labor MK Nachman Shai told The Jerusalem Post that for the sake of fairness, Boehner should extend the same invitation to opposition leader Isaac Herzog.

But in protesting as they have, opposition members have missed the point. Boehner didn’t invite Netanyahu because he cares about Israel’s election. He invited Netanyahu because he cares about US national security. He believes that by having Netanyahu speak on the issues of Iran’s nuclear program and radical Islam, he will advance America’s national security.

Boehner’s chief concern, and that of the majority of his colleagues from the Democratic and Republican parties alike, is that President Barack Obama’s policy in regard to Iran’s nuclear weapons program imperils the US. Just as the invitation to Netanyahu was a bipartisan invitation, so concerns about Obama’s policy toward Iran’s nuclear program are bipartisan concerns.

Over the past week in particular, Obama has adopted a position on Iran that puts him far beyond the mainstream of US politics. This radical position has placed the president on a collision course with Congress best expressed on Wednesday by Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez. During a hearing at the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee where Menendez serves as ranking Democratic member, he said, “The more I hear from the administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran.”

Menendez was referring to threats that Obama has made three times over the past week, most prominently at his State of the Union address on Tuesday, to veto any sanctions legislation against Iran brought to his desk for signature.

He has cast proponents of sanctions – and Menendez is the co-sponsor of a pending sanctions bill – as enemies of a diplomatic strategy of dealing with Iran, and by implication, as warmongers.

Indeed, in remarks to the Democratic members of the Senate last week, Obama impugned the motivations of lawmakers who support further sanctions legislation. He indirectly alleged that they were being forced to take their positions due to pressure from their donors and others.

The problem for American lawmakers is that the diplomatic course that Obama has chosen makes it impossible for the US to use the tools of diplomacy to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. That course of diplomatic action is anchored in the Joint Plan of Action that the US and its partners Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia (the P5+1) signed with Tehran in November 2013...

Keep reading.

Instagram Controversy as Photo-Sharing Site Censors Image Showing Models' Pubic Hair

Oh brother.

I guess shaving down that way isn't the rage these days after all?

In any case, at Instapundit, "IT’S COME TO THIS: Models’ Pubic Hair Triggers Instagram Brouhaha."

'I like my balls a certain way...'

Heh.

At London's Daily Mail, "Tom Brady breaks his silence on Deflategate - but DENIES tampering with footballs and downplays the scandal by saying 'this isn't ISIS'."

Video: "I don't want anyone rubbing my balls."

And at PuffHo, "Tom Brady's 'Deflategate' Press Conference Was Pretty Hilarious."

Return of 'Page 3' Exposes Sad Day for Feminism

A video commentary from Claire Cohen, at the Telegraph UK: "Page 3 is back: a 'patronising stunt' by The Sun":

The Sun newspaper has seemingly done a U-turn and decided to continue publishing picture of topless women in its page 3. Claire Cohen explains that its stunt has exposed a sad day for feminism.

 PREVIOUSLY: ICYMI, at Instapundit, "HEH: Sun News Trolls Feminist Campaigners, Brings Back ‘Page 3’."

Olivia Munn

At the Superficial, "Olivia Munn at 'Mortdecai' Premiere."

BONUS: "Gwyneth Paltrow Wins the ‘Mortdecai’ Premiere."

The March for Life Reminds Us That We're Not Doomed

From Robert Stacy McCain, "The #MarchForLife2015 Thread":

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The lobby and corridors of this hotel were crowded with Catholic school kids when we checked in yesterday. St. Vincent de Paul of Perryville, Missouri, was the most visible contingent — dozens of kids wearing blue-and-gold letterman’s jackets — but the annual March for Life brings groups from all around the country, not all of them Catholic. On my way down to the lobby to go out for a smoke this morning, I noticed one of the kids was wearing a nametag with the familiar Episcopalian (or Anglican) symbol: Red cross on a white field with the St. Andrew’s cross in blue. “Episcoplian?” I asked.

“Yes, sir,” the boy said.

“Wow, I didn’t realize there were still pro-life Episcopalians.”

Out on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, the boy joined a group of about a dozen kids, and I spoke to one of the adult leaders, who told me they are from St. Michael’s Christian Academy of San Clemente, California.

Seeing so many fine young Christians who support the cause of life is very encouraging to me. I’ve spent the past several months of researching radical feminism and being immersed in such evil can be psychologically disorienting. “Has the whole world gone crazy?” I find myself asking, knowing how many millions of taxpayer dollars are spent to propagate this weird ideology in colleges and universities. “Is our civilization utterly doomed?”

The March for Life reminds me that there is still hope. There are still people who have not been deceived and corrupted. Unfortunately, however, there is the problem of Congress.

Pro-life conservatives were livid this morning after the House GOP leadership demonstrated its incompetence yesterday...

More.

And yes, talk about a Republican own-goal. See the outstanding Mollie Hemingway, at the Federalist, "Why Everyone Should Be Terrified By The GOP’s Abortion Bill Debacle" (via Memeorandum).

Orange County Officials Remove Dozens of Unvaccinated Students from Schools; Adults Urged to Get Shots

This is getting to be a major outbreak.

Over two dozen kids were sent home from Huntington Beach High School this week, and officials warn of more student removals. Also, adults are being urged to get shots.

From yesterday's Los Angeles Times, "O.C. students may have been exposed to measles, kept out of school."

And at today's O.C. Register, "Adults urged to get measles shot as outbreak spreads."

BONUS: At the New York Times, via Memeorandum, "Measles Cases Linked to Disneyland Rise, and Debate Over Vaccinations Intensifies."

Left-Wing Racists Endorse Deranged White Loser Assaulting Law-Abiding Black Armed Shopper (with Concealed-Carry Permit)

Talk about the first law of holes.

The racism in this is just utterly mind-boggling. An armed black man, minding his own business and legally carrying, is attacked by a white loser looking to be some kind of anti-gun hero.

At Say Uncle, "Why are anti-gun activists so violent?":

Did you see that? A law-abiding black man minding his own business when suddenly an obviously racist white guy batters him. I wonder when Al Sharpton will organize a march to protest this injustice!

And the racist left-wing response, right on cue: At Balloon Juice, "What Could Possibly Go Wrong," and the idiot Mahablog, "Please Be Careful Out There."

(Note for the racist left the "bad guy" is not the one assaulting the law-abiding citizen minding his own business. With leftists evil is good and good is evil, but you knew that.)

BONUS: At Twitchy, "Gun-grabber Shannon Watts fires off what may be her dumbest tweet ever."

Obama's SOTU in Denial

From Byron York, at the Washington Examiner, "Obama's disconnected, out of touch, in denial State of the Union":

Perhaps the most striking thing about the 2015 State of the Union address was not the president at the podium but the audience in the seats. The joint session of Congress listening to President Obama Tuesday night included 83 fewer Democrats than the group that heard Obama's first address in 2009 — 69 fewer Democrats in the House and 14 fewer in the Senate. The scene in the House Chamber was a graphic reminder of the terrible toll the Obama years have taken on Capitol Hill Democrats.

Not that the president would ever acknowledge that. Indeed, in more than an hour of speaking, Obama never once acknowledged that there was a big election in November and that the leadership of the Senate has changed. Obama's silence on that political reality stood in stark contrast to George W. Bush's 2007 State of the Union address, in which he graciously and at some length acknowledged the Democrats' victory in the 2006 midterms. Bush said it was an honor to address Nancy Pelosi as "Madam Speaker." He spoke of the pride Pelosi's late father would have felt to see his daughter lead the House. "I congratulate the new Democrat majority," Bush said. "Congress has changed, but not our responsibilities."

If one cannot imagine Obama saying such a thing — well, he didn't.

Just as remarkable, against the backdrop of the Democratic electoral carnage of his years in office, was that the president's most memorable line of the night was a bit of ad-lib bragging about his own election victories. When Obama said, "I have no more campaigns to run," some Republicans snarkily began to applaud, whereupon the president shot back, "I know, because I won both of them." Some Democrats dutifully cheered Obama's comeback line, even though his victories ended up costing them a lot.

Beyond failing to acknowledge the new reality on Capitol Hill, Obama at times seemed equally out of touch with reality both in the nation and the world.

"In Iraq and Syria, American leadership — including our military power — is stopping ISIL's advance," Obama said, referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The claim left some foreign policy observers aghast, since there is a general consensus that the Islamic State is making progress in the face of limited American air attacks. "That just isn't the case, according to military officials I've been speaking to," NBC foreign correspondent Richard Engel said of Obama's statement. "[The Islamic State] are taking new territory." Of Obama's description of a world in which the Islamic State is retreating, Afghanistan is on the road to peace, and terrorists are on the run from South Asia to North Africa, Engel concluded, "It sounded like the president was outlining a world that he wishes we were all living in."

Obama sounded equally disconnected from reality on some domestic issues. For example, when discussing the nation's veterans, he said, "Already, we've made strides towards ensuring that every veteran has access to the highest quality care." A listener wouldn't know it from Obama's speech, but there has been a huge VA scandal since Obama's last State of the Union; his secretary of Veterans Affairs had to resign because of it. Veterans died waiting for treatment. All Obama said Wednesday night was, "We're slashing the backlog that had too many veterans waiting years to get the benefits they need." By "benefits," the president apparently meant "life-saving medical care."

At another point, Obama claimed credit for a "re-energized space program." The remark surely led to some jaws dropping among laid-off National Aeronautics and Space Administration engineers who believe Obama has nearly killed the place.

The president's final disconnect was perhaps the biggest. After a "vicious recession … tonight, we turn the page," Obama said. "With a growing economy, shrinking deficits, bustling industry, booming energy production, we have risen from recession." For some Americans, that is the case, although even for them, "bustling" might be a bit much. For other Americans, the news is still pretty bad. When a recent Fox News poll asked, "For you and your family, does it feel like the recession is over, or does it feel like the country is still in a recession?" 64 percent of respondents said it feels like there is still a recession. Indeed, it's widely conceded that part of the reason the unemployment rate has fallen is because a core of discouraged workers dropped out of the job search altogether. So for many listeners, Obama's "turn the page" declaration will seem as out of touch as his claim that Islamic State's advance has been stopped...

Two more years of nihilist partisanship and narcissistic mendacity. It's a countdown mode for American politics, two more years to go. Then we can start fresh.

More.

'Britain First' Launches 'Christian Patrols'

Looks like some kind of EDL group, and they're taking the cultural war to the no-go zones in Britain.

Here's the groups Facebook page, "Britain First: Fighting Islamization."

And at CBS Evening News, "U.K. civilian patrols monitor neighborhoods for Muslim extremists."

More at Newsweek, "Far-Right Group Distributes Anti-Muslim Leaflets in East London."

Obama's 'Not American, not African-American, not any-American, he embodies nothing that places him in the historic stream of people who have defined this country...'

From Roger Cohen, in the comments at Daniel Henninger's commentary at WSJ, "Obama's American Sniper":

There is no American impulse of any kind in this person. Not American, not African-American, not any-American, he embodies nothing that places him in the historic stream of people who have defined this country. An utter alien, he has wasted opportunities at home and abroad, confused our friends, encouraged our potential adversaries, and squandered the investment that many had made in his vacuous slogans and promises.

And that's precisely why he's worshiped by the America-hating left.

Lots more excellent comments at the thread.

Oh, and don't miss Henninger's outstanding column.

Victoria's Secret Angels Take on the Superbowl

At Fashionista, "Now you have a legitimate excuse to just watch for the commercials."

The Global War on Modernity

From Garry Kasparov, at WSJ:

The recent terror attacks in Paris at the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, and at a kosher supermarket, leaving 17 people dead, represented the latest offensive in a struggle that most people, even many of its casualties, are unaware is even taking place.

Globalization has effectively compressed the world in size, increasing the mobility of goods, capital and labor. Simultaneously this has led to globalization across time, as the 21st century collides with cultures and regimes intent on existing as in centuries past. It is less the famous clash of civilizations than an attempt by these “time travelers” to hold on to their waning authority by stopping the advance of the ideas essential to an open society.

Radical Islamists, from the Taliban and al Qaeda to Boko Haram and Islamic State, set the time machine to the Dark Ages and encourage the murder of all who oppose them, often supported by fatwas and funds from terror sponsors like Iran. The religious monarchies in the Middle East are guilty by association, creating favorable conditions for extremism by clamping down on any stirring of freedom.

Vladimir Putin wants Russia to exist in the Great Power era of czars and monarchs, dominating its neighbors by force and undisturbed by elections and rights complaints. The post-Communist autocracies, led by Mr. Putin’s closest dictator allies in Belarus and Kazakhstan, exploit ideology only as a means of hanging on to power at any cost.

In the East, Kim Jong Un ’s North Korea attempts to freeze time in a Stalinist prison-camp bubble. In the West, Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and the Castros in Cuba use anachronistic socialist propaganda to resist increasing pressure for human rights.

What unites the time travelers is their rejection of modernity—or what we should instead call modern values, to replace the obsolete and condescending term “Western values.” With violence and with violent rhetoric, the time travelers’ natural target is often the traditional champion of the rights that threaten them: the United States. The guaranteed freedoms represented by the First Amendment frighten the radical mullahs and dictators more than any drone strike or economic sanction.

In addition to bringing these relics into contact and competition with the modern world that threatens their power, globalization provides the time travelers with markets for their natural resources and with the technology they use for murder and repression. Thus they cannot disengage from the modern world entirely. Since the time travelers cannot fight head-to-head with the ideas and prosperity of the Free World, they fall back on their arsenal of ideology, violence and disregard for human life. They combat the lure of free speech and free markets with irrationality: radical religion and nationalism, cults of personality and dogma, hatred and fear.

Many politicians and pundits in the Free World seem to think that refusing to acknowledge you are in a fight means you can avoid losing it. But ignoring the reality of the conflict puts more innocents like the Paris victims—instead of trained soldiers and law enforcement—on the front lines. There are no easy ways to deter homegrown terrorists or nuclear-armed dictators, but this culture of denial must end before true progress can be made...

More.

Sun News Trolls Feminist Campaigners, Brings Back 'Page 3'

Hey, this is great!

On Twitter.

And at Telegraph UK, "The Sun brings back page 3":

The tabloid prints a picture of a topless model on page three under the headline 'clarifications and corrections'.

The Sun has printed a topless model on Page 3, ending days of speculation that the feature was dead.

The newspaper has tweeted out a picture of Thursday’s Page 3 which features a topless woman, with a notice underneath saying: “Further to recent reports in all other media outlets, we would like to clarify that this is Page 3 and this is a picture of Nicole, 22, from Bournemouth.

“We would like to apologise on behalf of the print and broadcast journalists who have spent the last two days talking and writing about us.”

The campaign group No More Page 3, which began in 2012 and attracted 217,000 signatures to a petition calling for a ban, acknowledged that "the fight might be back on".

Topless women have been a fixture on Page 3 of the Sun for more than four decades.

However it was understood that executives at the tabloid had decided to quietly shelve the tradition after a growing army of critics branded it sexist.

Rather than bare breasts, it was thought that the pictures would now show scantily-clad women wearing bras and pants.

Over the past three days, there have been no topless models on Page 3, fuelling speculation the feature was on its way out. This appeared to be confirmed by a report in The Times, a fellow News UK paper, on Tusday.

In Monday's issue of The Sun, the model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley was shown wearing Marks & Spencer underwear.

Tuesday’s first edition had a photograph of two bikini-wearing actresses running on a beach, which was later replaced by four pages on Anne Kirkbride, the Coronation Street actress who had died the previous evening.

Pages 2 and 3 of Wednesday's paper were taken up by a Sainsbury’s advert, but Page 5 ran a comparison of cosmetic surgery undertaken by two Celebrity Big Brother contestants, featuring Katie Price and Alicia Douvall wearing garments which left little to the imagination.

Topless models were first introduced by the Sun in 1970, less than a year after Rupert Murdoch bought the title.

In recent years, the paper has faced growing criticism from campaigners who said the feature was out of date in the modern world.

Note that it's not just topless women.

The "no on page 3" campaign wants to ban all women from appearing in the paper. They're freakin' totalitarians!

UPDATE: Linked at Instapundit! Thanks!

VIDEO: Palestinian Man Stabs Israelis in Tel Aviv Attack (GRAPHIC)

Elise Labott has the report at CNN below. At the clip, the attacker sinks his knife into a woman quite deep. He has to yank on it to get it to pull back out. Sickening.

And see the New York Times, via Memeorandum, "Palestinian Man Stabs Israelis on Bus in Tel Aviv, Police Say."

And see the Times of Israel, "Hamas leaders praise Tel Aviv stabbing as ‘heroic’":

Cartoon depicting bloodied knife colored as the Palestinian flag zooms around the Internet.

Hamas leaders on Wednesday took to social media to praise a stabbing attack in Tel Aviv that morning, expressing hopes that similar attacks will follow.

Three weeks after an instructional video on stabbing attributed to Hamas emerged online, movement members gleefully extolled the bus assault, heralding it as a sign of things to come.

“A morning of resistance, a morning for the nation,” wrote Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum on his Facebook page, above a photo of a black-handled combat knife lying on the pavement encircled by police tape.

Gaza-based Hamas official Husam Badran praised the act on Facebook as “extraordinary” and called for more “acts of resistance” either by individuals or groups.

Izzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau based in Qatar, called the attack “heroic and brave,” adding that it is “the natural response to the crimes of the occupation and its terror against our people.”

Spoken like true "peace partners."

Also, "Tel Aviv stabber wanted to ‘reach paradise’." Of course. It's was a jihad martyrdom attack.

Plus, bloody video of the jihadist, "Tel Aviv Terrorist After his Arrest."

We Don't Need to Pay More Gas Taxes

From the editors, at the O.C. Register:

Some members of Congress – apparently intent on ensuring that no positive development in American life goes unpunished – have had a surprising reaction to the steep decline in gas prices that has taken place in recent months: It’s time to make fueling your car more expensive.

That’s the message coming from many Democrats and a handful of Senate Republicans – foremost amongst them Tennessee’s Bob Corker, who joined with Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy to propose increasing the levy by 12 cents over two years and indexing it to inflation. Other members of the GOP – Sen. John Thune of South Dakota and Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, for instance – have refused to rule out such a proposal.

We’re not unsympathetic to the underlying concern in this case. The federal gas tax – currently 18.4 cents per gallon – hasn’t been raised since 1993. That’s salient because the revenue from the tax goes to finance the Highway Trust Fund, the mechanism by which the feds fund transportation infrastructure projects. Without a doubt, these kinds of expenditures represent a legitimate use of public money.

Equally unquestionable is that there are serious problems besetting the fund. Current estimates have it facing a shortfall of $160 billion over the next decade. Moreover, much of the country’s infrastructure is in dire need of a facelift.

However, this is more than a question of simple economics. It’s a question as to how best to organize public finance. We believe that federal money ought only to be spent for truly federal purposes. On that front, the Highway Trust Fund falls short.

Originally organized to finance the Interstate Highway System – a genuinely federal project if ever there was one – the fund now suffers from severe mission creep. About a quarter of its revenues aren’t even spent on highway projects, going, instead, to decidedly local concerns like mass transit or bicycle paths. According to congressional testimony from the Cato Institute’s Chris Edwards, that spending adds up to about $9 billion a year.

As John Marshall observed, “the power to tax is the power to destroy.” That’s why we regard any proposal for higher levies with caution. We believe that tax increases are only ever justified when the federal government can prove three things: 1) That it is only spending public money on legitimate public purposes; 2) that it is not spending public money on tasks better left to state and local governments; and 3) that it is spending public money efficiently. The Highway Trust Fund fails on all three counts...

Raising gas taxes precisely as Americans get a break is particularly sleazy as well.

Still more.

Santa Barbara News-Press Won't Back Down on 'Illegals'

Good.

At LAT, "Amid outcry, News-Press is adamant on provocative term for immigrants":

A few decades ago, it wasn't unusual for American newspapers to refer to people living in the United States without legal permission as "illegal aliens," or even "illegals."

Those terms were criticized as offensive and eventually gave way to "illegal immigrant," a label that itself was jettisoned by most outlets two years ago, when the Associated Press banned the term from its stylebook in favor of language that more precisely describes a person's immigration status.

That approach — adopted by The Times in 2013 — seemed to have taken root and defused the criticism in most places. But the local newspaper's decision to call such immigrants "illegals" has turned idyllic Santa Barbara into an unlikely flashpoint in the nation's immigration battles.

The News-Press ran the headline "Illegals Line Up for Driver's Licenses" on Jan. 3, prompting protests and a message painted in red on the wall of the newspaper's offices. The paper used the term again last Friday in another front page story: "Driving Legal Opens Door to Illegals' Past."

News-Press officials have stuck by their choice of language, saying that describing someone living in the country illegally as an "illegal" is accurate, and compared the vandalism on their offices to the deadly attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris.

"We will not give in to the thugs who are attempting to use political correctness as a tool of censorship and a weapon to shut down this newspaper," News-Press co-publisher Arthur von Wiesenberger wrote on the website of the Minuteman Project, which opposes illegal immigration.

But community groups have denounced the newspaper, calling for an advertising boycott.

"They have a racist perspective and they don't seem very apologetic about it," said Savanah Maya, a Santa Barbara City College student and member of People Organizing for the Defense and Equal Rights of Santa Barbara Youth.

The dispute erupted anew Monday, when protesters for and against the newspaper staged dueling rallies in a downtown plaza.

Using the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday as a backdrop for their positions framed as human rights and freedom of speech issues, one side argued that the headline was racist and the other argued that it was an accurate description of immigrants applying for driver's licenses without having to prove citizenship. The licenses became available under a state law that took effect Jan. 1.

The two sides had limited interaction during the peaceful rallies, which attracted several hundred people. Police put up a temporary fence to separate the groups.

"I respect their right to free speech," said City Councilwoman Cathy Murillo, who attended the pro-immigrant rally, "but they don't have to be hateful. It's like the 'N-word' for blacks."

The rally in support of the News-Press was staged by We the People Rising, a Claremont-based group that favors tough enforcement of laws against illegal immigration.

"They should be allowed to decide the type of language they want to use," said Robin Hvidston, executive director of We the People Rising. "They have a right to use that word. Where do you stop?"

The News-Press, which began in 1855, has experienced diminished goodwill in the community since 2006, when reporters and editors began departing en masse, citing editorial meddling from billionaire owner and publisher Wendy McCaw.

Don Katich, director of news operations for the News-Press, said Monday that the newspaper has used the word "illegals" for a decade to describe immigrants in the United States without permission, and does not plan on changing its policy despite criticism or financial pressure.

He said that the federal government uses the word online and on official documents, and that a vast majority of people agree that it's an appropriate term.

"It accurately describes the 800-pound gorilla in this whole story," Katich said. "People are in this country illegally.… I think that's why this has tapped a national nerve."...

More.

Video here: "Santa Barbara News-Press Protested by Open Border Extremists."

BONUS: At Michelle Malkin's, "Attack of the Open-Borders Mau-Mau-ers":

News-Press publisher Wendy McCaw told me this week that the free speech-stifling thugs “have threatened to return on January 19 to deliver a petition and stage another protest against us if we do not offer a retraction by 3 p.m. that day.” McCaw vows she will not bend to the ultimatum or any other — and she has a track record to prove her toughness.

McCaw has defied the progressive forces of political correctness for years in previous First Amendment battles over whom she should hire and how she should run her newspaper. Radical elements in her community and industry have long held a grudge against her and her paper for resisting union pressure and refusing to conform to left-wing orthodoxy.
And boy, do these people know how to hold grudges.

In addition to the paint bombs, unhinged mau-mau-ers spray-painted a radical Reconquista slogan on the News-Press building: “The border is illegal, not the people who cross it.”

Yes, they’re still trying to re-fight the Mexican-American War of 1848 and re-litigate the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. No surprise. Santa Barbara has been a longstanding hotbed of tribal grievance politics. In the late 1960s, liberal Latinos at the University of California at Santa Barbara unveiled El Plan de Aztlan, which states:

“We do not recognize capricious frontiers on the bronze continent. Brotherhood unites us, and love for our brothers makes us a people whose time has come and who struggles against the foreigner ‘gabacho’ who exploits our riches and destroys our culture. With our heart in our hands and our hands in the soil, we declare the independence of our mestizo nation. We are a bronze people with a bronze culture.”

The Aztlan plan birthed Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA) — an identity politics indoctrination machine on publicly subsidized college and high school campuses nationwide whose members have rioted in Los Angeles and editorialized that federal immigration “pigs should be killed, every single one” in San Diego.

As I’ve reported previously, the MEChA Constitution calls on members to “promote Chicanismo within the community, politicizing our Raza (race) with an emphasis on indigenous consciousness to continue the struggle for the self-determination of the Chicano people for the purpose of liberating Aztlan.” “Aztlan” is the group’s term for the vast southwestern U.S. expanse, from parts of Washington and Oregon down to California and Arizona and over to Texas, which MEChA claims to be a mythical homeland and seeks to reconquer for Mexico.

MEChA’s symbol is an eagle clutching a dynamite stick and a machete-like weapon in its claws; its motto is “Por La Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada.” Translation: For the Race, everything. For those outside the Race, nothing.”

Tell me who the racists are again.

PREVIOUSLY: "Leftist Open-Borders Vigilantes Attack Santa-Barbara News-Press for Accurately Identifying Illegal Aliens."

Joni Ernst's Camouflage Pumps

From Jennifer Jacobs, on Twitter: "Check out the shoes Iowa U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst is wearing tonight for her State of the Union rebuttal."

Plus, "Reaction on Joni Ernst's camo heels is mixed."

Packing Time for France's Jews

From Bret Stephens, at WSJ:

Should French Jews move out? Does it make sense for a community that, in this century, has lost roughly 10 people to jihad in France, to pack up and go to Israel—where jihadis have claimed more than 1,000 Jewish lives? Haven’t the leaders of the Fifth Republic demonstrated in word and deed that they are committed to the protection of Jewish property and life?

The answer to that last question is yes, they have. The problem isn’t the Fifth Republic, in which French Jews have, on the whole, thrived. The problem is the arrival, sooner or later, of the Sixth. Which is why French Jews need to leave sooner rather than later, despite the disruption and risk, while the exits are not blocked and the way is still open.

Perhaps inadvertently, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls made the basic point last week when he told his Parliament that “history has taught us that the awakening of anti-Semitism is a symptom of a crisis for democracy and of a crisis for the Republic.” Very true, but if anti-Semitism is the symptom of the crisis, then ringing Jewish schools, synagogues, groceries and neighborhoods with gendarmes is not its cure. Necessity is proof of insufficiency.

So what is the crisis of France’s democracy and Republic?

Partly it’s political: Every Fifth Republic presidency (with the arguable exception of François Mitterrand’s) has ended in failure. Partly it’s economic: Since 1978, French economic growth has clocked in at an average rate of 0.45%; unemployment hasn’t fallen below 7% in over 30 years. Partly it’s ideological: Égalité begat egalitarianism, and egalitarianism is what animates the politics of envy. Partly it’s cultural: Too many French Muslims don’t want to conform to the norms of modern society, and too many French don’t want to conform to the realities of a globalized world. When National Front leader Marine Le Pen says “the multinational interests that impose their own ways are not good for France,” she is attempting to stuff the French body politic into an economic burqa.

Above all, it’s cumulative. Similar-size countries like Germany or Britain have had their highs and lows in recent decades, periods of growth or recession, feelings of confidence or malaise. French decline has been constant, unrelieved, embittering. “In one of my finance seminars, every single French student intends to go abroad,” Sorbonne economics Prof. Jacques Régniez told the Daily Telegraph in 2013. It isn’t just the Jews who want out.

But it’s especially the Jews who need out.

They need out because they are threatened from too many corners. A current French best seller, “Le Suicide Français,” by journalist Éric Zemmour, makes the case that the collaborationist Vichy regime gets a bad rap. France’s most notorious comedian, Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, took to Facebook after last week’s solidarity marches to say “I feel like Charlie Coulibaly, ” conflating “Je Suis Charlie” with Amedy Coulibaly, the kosher-supermarket killer. The French Parliament reacted to Hamas’s summer war on Israel by voting last month to recognize, albeit symbolically, a Palestinian state.

“Anti-Semitism still crops up in casual conversation in a way that would be rare in England or America,” observes Jonathan Fenby in the updated edition of his 1999 book, “France on the Brink.” One example Mr. Fenby offers is especially notable.

“In 2013 a comedian introduced a Jewish actor on a popular television show with the words ‘You never plunged into [Jewish] communitarianism. . . . You could have posted yourself in the street selling jeans and diamonds from the back of a minivan saying, “Israel is always right, f— Palestinians.” You show it is possible to be of the Jewish faith without being completely disgusting.’ ” This was supposed to be a compliment.

All this takes place while the Fifth Republic remains essentially intact. Some comparisons have been made between this month’s attacks in Paris and the attacks of 9/11, but that’s wildly overblown. The Eiffel Tower did not fall. Seventeen dead is not 3,000.

But what happens when the real crisis hits—not necessarily in the form of a mass-casualty attack on a Jewish target, but perhaps an election that brings Ms. Le Pen to power, or a systemic banking crisis that discovers a Jewish villain, or an economic crisis that inspires a more confiscatory tax policy? French history is a tale of stagnation punctured by crisis: 1789, 1830, 1848, 1871, 1940, 1958, 1968. Another crisis is overdue.

What such a crisis might bring in its wake is anyone’s guess, but French Jews should not stick around to find out. In the 20th century, Jewish fate was split between those who got out in time and those who didn’t. There’s no reason why that won’t be the case in this century as well...

Stephens is hardly the only one making this argument, that the Jews should get out. He is the only one arguing the French Fifth Republic is doomed. And there I expect he's onto something, big time.

Keep reading.

Obama Declares End to Economic Crisis — #SOTU

O phoned it in. Yawn.

At WSJ, "In State of the Union, Obama Makes Middle-Class Pitch: President Lays Out Steps to Aid Moderate-Income Americans to a Skeptical Congress":

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama on Tuesday night declared an end to the U.S. economic crisis as he made the case to Americans, and a skeptical Congress, that now is time to shift focus to resolving the most stubborn impediment to a full-fledged recovery: lagging progress among the middle class.

In his annual State of the Union address, Mr. Obama outlined a broad vision for his remaining two years in office, emphasizing what he described as “middle-class economics” and making a personal plea for lawmakers of both parties to “commit ourselves to an economy that generates rising incomes and chances for everyone who makes the effort.”

“The shadow of crisis has passed,” Mr. Obama said. “At this moment—with a growing economy, shrinking deficits, bustling industry, and booming energy production—we have risen from recession freer to write our own future than any other nation on Earth.”

The president’s vision, however, faced a deeply uncertain path in a Congress that for the first time in his presidency is fully controlled by Republicans, as it hinges on raising taxes on high-income Americans to fund initiatives to benefit those at lower income levels.

Mr. Obama also declared that U.S. leadership and military intervention “is stopping” the advance of Islamic State militants and call on Congress to pass a resolution authorizing force against the group. And Mr. Obama called on Congress to pass legislation to toughen cybersecurity.

Republicans and Democrats alike cite a stagnant middle class as the most vexing economic problem facing the country, but GOP lawmakers have long opposed Mr. Obama’s call for tax increases on wealthier Americans to fund programs that benefit those further down the income scale. Still, the two parties’ shared interest in speaking more directly to economic anxiety and wage stagnation has the potential to push them to find common ground. Mr. Obama’s plan also extends the discussion beyond corporate taxation to include individual taxes, as Republicans want.

New Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said Mr. Obama’s expected proposal to raise taxes on high-income Americans—$320 billion over 10 years—damped hopes for making progress on an overhaul of the tax code. But underscoring the prospects for deal-making, remote as they may be, Mr. McConnell didn’t rule out an eventual compromise on taxes. He also cited trade pacts and cybersecurity legislation as potential areas of agreement with the president.

“The American people aren’t demanding talking-point proposals designed to excite the base but not designed to pass” in Congress, Mr. McConnell said. “What they said they’re hungry for is substance and accomplishment. They want Washington to get back to work and focus on a serious jobs and reform agenda.”

The coming months will tell how far Mr. Obama and GOP leaders might go in pushing their parties’ core supporters to compromise for the sake of agreement on taxes and other matters. Mr. Obama has primarily shown interest in pushing his party only on one issue recently—to allow easier passage of trade deals that he and most Republicans support.

Only a handful of Democrats have come forward to support the renewal of legislation for trade-promotion authority, known as fast track, which would ease the passage of a trade pact with Japan and 10 other Pacific nations, as well as a trade deal with the European Union...

More.

And at USA Today, "Analysis: A better economy, a more hostile Congress."

#MSNBC Hosts Lead Chorus of Vile Misogynist Tweets Against Republican Joni Ernst

Predictable.

At Sooper Mexican.

Argentine Prosecutor Alberto Nisman Found Dead

I had this story linked at the sidebar News Item Finder, "Argentine Prosecutor Found Dead Just Before Releasing Report on Cover Up of 1994 Bombing."

I'm pulling this over to the front page because it's so interesting.

See David Horovitz, at the Times of Israel, "Alberto Nisman committed suicide? Let’s kill that lie":

When I sat down Monday to write about the appalling death of the courageous Buenos Aires prosecutor who exposed the Iranian and Hezbollah orchestration of the 1994 AMIA bombing, I didn’t even mention the Argentinian authorities’ initial contention that Alberto Nisman had committed suicide, so insulting and ridiculous was the notion.

A day later, however, and the preposterous idea that Nisman took his own life has become the Argentinian authorities’ dominant assertion. Let’s kill that lie stone dead. Alberto Nisman was no suicide.

(That he was forced to put a gun to his own head, a possibility left open by the Argentinian investigating prosecutor, is quite plausible, however. But that’s not suicide; that’s murder.)

I’ve just come back from a conversation with the Argentinian-born Israeli author Gustavo Perednik, who wrote a book last year about the AMIA case — “To Kill Without A Trace” — and was a good friend of Nisman’s. “It’s rubbish. It’s lies,” Perednik says briskly of the despicable suicide claim.

Perednik, who was in constant contact with Nisman and last met with him in Buenos Aires a month ago, notes that both Nisman’s personality and the timing of his death render the suicide notion beyond risible.

Nisman the man was a tennis-playing optimist who loved and enjoyed life, who spoke of his separation from his long-term partner a year ago as a “liberation,” and who was utterly dedicated to his work, notes Perednik. He was a man who firmly shrugged off death threats, was balanced, and focused, and decent, and fine.

As for the timing, Perednik despairs at the naivete of anyone prepared to countenance that a prosecutor who has spent a decade heading a 30-strong team investigating the worst terror attack ever committed in Argentina; who has identified the Iranian leaders who ordered it and had them placed on Interpol watch lists; who has traced and named the Hezbollah terrorists who carried out the bombing; who has exposed Iran’s still-active terror networks in South America; and who was about to detail the alleged efforts of Argentinian President Cristina Fernández and Foreign Minister Hector Timerman to whitewash Iran’s role — that this man would choose to take his own life just a few hours before giving his testimony to a Congressional hearing.

But Nisman was found dead by “self-inflicted” bullet wound in a locked apartment with no sign of forced entry, the Argentinian authorities say? Perednik is succinct and withering about both motivation and capability: Does anyone doubt that a government capable of whitewashing Iran is capable of producing a dead prosecutor in a locked apartment? he asks. “In our last conversation, Nisman told me that his evidence would either force [those top Argentinian leaders] to flee or send them to jail. He told me, ‘I’m going to put them in jail.'” Sunday was their last chance to stop him...

Keep reading.

Also, "Who will obtain justice for Alberto Nisman?"

'This is a man who wants to punish the rich regardless of its effect on the economy...'

From the inimitable Charles Krauthammer:



Hat Tip: Legal Insurrection.

'Page 3' Models Lead Backlash Against 'Comfy Shoe-Wearing, No Bra-Wearing, Man-Haters...'

And Ms. Rhian Sugden is leading the "Page 3" models. I RT'd her early this morning.

At Telegraph UK:

It's only a matter of time before everything we do will be dictated by comfy shoe wearing... No bra wearing... man haters #page3

— Rhian Sugden (@Rhianmarie) January 20, 2015

Page 3 girls have led the backlash against The Sun's decision to end its topless tradition, claiming the move has been "dictated by comfy shoe-wearing, no bra-wearing, man-haters".

Model Rhian Sugden, 28, criticised at the move, suggesting it was "only a matter of time" before everything they did was dictated by such people.

Former glamour model Jodie Marsh insisted that "telling girls they shouldn't do Page 3 is not being a feminist".
She said she "loved" posing for Page 3 and that it made her feel powerful and earned her good money.
"Women should empower and encourage other women," she wrote on Twitter. "For that is the only way to truly be 'equal' and have rights..."

She said campaigners should focus on more important issues that affect women, such as female genital mutilation.

Former glamour model Nicola McLean said she did not think Page 3 was a "sexual equality" issue.

She told ITV's Good Morning Britain: "It has been going for many years, which is one of the reasons I feel so sad that it has seemingly come to an end.

"I don't think it is outdated. I think the girls still look fantastic on the page, they still clearly enjoy what they are doing, people still want to see it.

"Everybody still wants Page 3, apart from the feminists who are fighting an argument I just don't agree with.

"If you meet any Page 3 girl who has gone on to pose for the Sun, we are all very strong-minded women that have made our own choice and feel very happy with what we are doing.

"We certainly don't feel like we have been victimised."

More.

Plus, from yesterday, "Britain's Sun News Cancels 'Page 3' Topless Girls."

No Myth: The Urgent Reality of Dangerous French 'No-Go Zones' (VIDEO)

Seems to me that left and right could come together on the problem of the French "no-go zones."

Frankly, the fact that French Arab and North African Muslims often reside in dangerous ethnic enclaves would challenge treasured leftist ideals of assimilation and upward mobility. And it's not like the problem of Muslim segregation in France is anything new. Anyone remotely familiar with French politics would have long recognized the banlieues as distinct demographic areas notorious for crime and unrest. Indeed, the day after the Paris attacks, Donald Morrison commented on the banlieues as "no-go zones" at the left-wing New Republic:

Visitors to Paris—and there are plenty in this, the world’s most beautiful city (I’m biased; I’ve lived here a decade)—sometimes stumble across the neighborhood where Charlie Hebdo’s offices are located. It’s an agreeable part of town, not far from the Place de la Bastille, with a Brooklyn-y mix of workers and hipsters, traditional shops and trendy bistros. Like the rest of central Paris, it is mostly white and prosperous.

It's also vastly unlike what you might call the real Paris, the tourist-free area where 80 percent of Parisians live: that doughnut of banlieues, on the other side of the Périphérique ring road. The word banlieue ("suburb") now connotes a no-go zone of high-rise slums, drug-fueled crime, failing schools and poor, largely Muslim immigrants and their angry offspring. The banlieues erupted in 1981 and in 2005, when rioters burned hundreds of cars and President Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to clean out the area with a high-pressure hose. He did not mention that the vast majority of its residents are French citizens, speak perfect French and, unlike his father, were born in France.

It is there, and in the banlieues that blight other French cities, that attention is likely to focus once the shock of this week’s attack subsides. Early reports have pointed to two men as suspects-at-large: brothers Chérif Kouachi, 32, and Said Kouachi, 34. That they were born in Paris will spare them no scorn. The incident comes as France is tearing itself apart over questions of immigration and identity. The United States and much of Europe are having similar debates; in France, the fight is intensified by a toxic mix of politics and history, idealism and ideology...

Keep reading, but you get the picture.

Shoot, the French government established official "sensitive urban zones" as distinct demographic zones in 1996. These are discussed in official French sources, for example, at the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, "Sensitive urban zone / ZUS." And at the SIG du Secrétariat Général du Comité Interministériel, "Atlas des Zones urbaines sensibles (Zus)."

And see the Christian Broadcasting Network report from almost a year ago, "Native French Under Attack in Muslim Areas":

PARIS -- Violent crime can happen anywhere and to anyone and for many reasons, but in Muslim-controlled parts of France, it has become especially dangerous to be white.

Surveillance camera video shows white French being beaten up by predominantly Muslim immigrant gangs in the Metro and on the street.

Islamic immigrants consider it their territory and whites enter at their own risk. The French call them "sensitive urban zones" -- no-go zones where the police don't enter or don't enforce the law.

Some call them little Muslim caliphates inside the borders of France.

"And it's like that because these parts of the country are in the hands of drug traffickers, gangs and imams [Islamic leaders]," French commentator Guy Milliere explained.

A French report says almost 1 in 5 French have been victims of racist insults or worse. A few cases have even gone to trial.

"Some of those who launch racist attacks on whites use Islam as the reason they do it. They may not even speak Arabic, but they still use Islam as a 'flag,'" Tarik Yildiz, a French sociologist, said.

Yildiz, author of the book, Anti-White Racism, is not native French but is the son of Turkish immigrants.

"My book is viewed as politically incorrect and breaks a taboo: the idea that immigrants could oppress whites," Yildez said.

And still more, from Soren Kern, at the Gatestone Institute, "European 'No-Go' Zones: Fact or Fiction? Part 1: France."

But of course none of this will suffice for the radical, terror-enabling leftists now demonizing Fox News for speaking the truth to the no-go zones. It turns out French television mocked Fox, and now the Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo says she will sue the network for defamation. See Politico, "City of Paris to sue Fox News," and CNN, via Memeorandum, "Paris mayor: We intend to sue Fox News."

Where you stand on this depends on where you sit ideologically. Leftists don't believe in hard factual reality. Anything that exposes their socialist shibboleths has to be destroyed, and hence Fox News is demonized and the reality of violent hardscrabble Muslim enclaves must be flushed in a postmodern avalanche of lies. Robert Spencer comments, "Paris Mayor says she will sue Fox News over No-Go Zones coverage":

Anne Hidalgo sounds here very much like the Islamic supremacists who regularly barbecue cars on Paris streets: Paris has been insulted. Its honor has been impugned. Therefore she wants to take Fox News to court. That would be a very interesting lawsuit: in its defense, Fox could call David Ignatius, who wrote in the New York Times in April 2002: “Arab gangs regularly vandalize synagogues here, the North African suburbs have become no-go zones at night, and the French continue to shrug their shoulders.” Fox could also call Newsweek, which reported in November 2005 that “according to research conducted by the government’s domestic intelligence network, the Renseignements Generaux, French police would not venture without major reinforcements into some 150 ‘no-go zones’ around the country–and that was before the recent wave of riots began on Oct. 27.” The New Republic could also testify in support of Fox, as it wrote just last week: “The word banlieue (‘suburb’) now connotes a no-go zone of high-rise slums, drug-fueled crime, failing schools and poor, largely Muslim immigrants and their angry offspring.”

But now the mainstream media, and Anne Hidalgo, have decided that Fox made up the whole idea of No-Go Zones in France, and Fox is going to have to take the fall. That Fox already took the fall, with its ill-considered apology, makes this legal threat even more absurd. But if the suit does go forward, Fox should request a change of venue — to a banlieue, and invite Mayor Hidalgo to take a walk through it with hair uncovered, at night.

More.

Islamic State Demands $200 Million Ransom for Japanese Hostages

Holly Williams reports, for CBS This Morning: