GOP Senators Issue Warning on Iran Nuclear Deal

At WSJ, "GOP Senators Warn Iran’s Leaders on Nuclear Deal":

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama on Monday sharply criticized an open letter by 47 Senate Republicans warning Iran’s leaders that any agreement between the White House and Tehran on nuclear weapons could be quickly nullified or changed once Mr. Obama leaves office.

The lawmakers were effectively aligning themselves with Iranian hardliners who oppose an international nuclear deal, Mr. Obama said.

The letter, which was signed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) and a number of top committee chairmen, came as a major new complication in a debate over international nuclear talks that face a March 31 deadline.

Senators said that, unless approved by Congress, any agreement between world powers and Iran would be seen by GOP lawmakers as an executive agreement between Mr. Obama and Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei and could lapse when a future administration takes over, or undergo modifications by lawmakers.

The senators noted that Mr. Obama will leave office in January 2017, while “most of us will remain in office well beyond then—perhaps decades.

“The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time,” said the letter.

Mr. Obama criticized the Republican outreach.

“I think it’s somewhat ironic to see some members of Congress wanting to make common cause with the hardliners in Iran,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office. “It’s an unusual coalition.”

Mr. Obama said his focus was on getting to an agreement with Iran that would allow the country to develop a nuclear energy program while ensuring that it could not be weaponized.

“I think what we’re going to focus on right now is actually seeing whether we can get a deal or not,” he said. “Once we do—if we do—we’ll be able to make the case to the American people.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said that world relations are based on international obligations and commitments, “not based on the domestic U.S. laws.”

Any future annulment of U.S. commitments would be “an obvious violation of international laws, particularly if these commitments lie within the framework of a U.N. Security Council resolution and are the result of negotiations and agreement with five other countries which are permanent members of the Security Council,” Mr. Zarif said.

Those signing the letter included Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R., Ariz.), as well as 2016 GOP presidential hopefuls Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas.

Notably absent from the signatories was Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who has been in the middle of discussions with the White House about the direction of negotiations...

More.

Far-Left Randi Weingarten's Charter School Closes After Years of Failure

At WSJ, "A Union Charter Flunks Out":

‘Our schools will show real, quantifiable student achievement and with those results finally dispel the misguided and simplistic notion that the union contract is an impediment to success.” So declared teachers union chief Randi Weingarten in 2005 upon launching the United Federation of Teachers charter school in Brooklyn, New York.

The UFT quietly let slip last week that this showcase K-8 charter school is closing after a legacy of failure. Ms. Weingarten’s experiment in education of the union, by the union and for the union is a case study in the problems with the status quo of union dominance over American public education.

In 2005 the UFT Charter School opened with a $1 million gift from the Broad Foundation and plans to reduce class sizes, increase collaboration among teachers with monthly “townhall meetings” and daily “community gatherings,” and replace principals with less adversarial “school leaders.” Instructional coaches were supposed to support teachers but not evaluate their performance.

All of this implemented the long-time union agenda for school reform and was meant to show that there was no great secret to such New York charter successes as KIPP Academy and Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy. You almost had to admire the union nerve because it showed their leaders believed their own advertising.

The school’s board of trustees consisted of union leaders, school staff and “community representatives” such as Acorn CEO Bertha Lewis. The union provided funds to cover deficits in addition to the Broad Foundation grant, which Ms. Weingarten promised would ensure that union dues wouldn’t pay for operating costs. Notably, the school shared space at no cost with a district public school. Recall that last year New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio tried to ban such co-locations and charge rent to non-union charters that have private donors.

From the start the UFT charter suffered from high staff turnover, operational chaos and budget deficits. Student test scores lagged neighboring district and other charter schools. The school repeatedly failed to meet the performance benchmarks established by its charter authorizer, the State University of New York (SUNY).

In 2013 SUNY reported mixed results at the elementary school and that the middle school met only one of 15 Accountability Plan measures in math and none in English. Student test scores appeared to decline the longer students were enrolled. Half of fifth graders opted not to continue. Declining enrollment in the middle school exacerbated the school’s fiscal duress, which SUNY attributed to poor bookkeeping. The union bailed out the school with interest-free bridge loans.

SUNY also highlighted “chronic shortages of textbooks and unrepaired equipment,” missing standardized test booklets that were not returned to the publisher for scoring, violations of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and “limited instructional coaching.” SUNY reviewers saw students listening to music and chatting with friends. In one geography lesson, “rather than making use of technological resources to present the critical economic and political importance of the Nile, the teacher had students color in blank maps of the river.”

SUNY nonetheless granted the union a two-year conditional renewal with orders to shape up. The school then placed students on a heavy testing regimen—despite the union’s opposition to “high-stakes” testing everywhere else—yet teachers weren’t graded on student performance. The union even rejected President Obama ’s Race to the Top funds because it required that teacher evaluations be linked to student performance.

The school’s results speak for themselves: In 2014, 11% of students were rated proficient in English and 18% in math compared to 28% and 36% in schools with similar demographics, and 59% and 92% at the Harlem Success Academy, which enrolls more kids with disabilities. The union charter performed worse than 96% of its peers on subjective standards like “instructional core” and “systems for improvement” measured from parents, teacher and student surveys. On almost all counts the district middle school next door did better.

Threatened with non-renewal this year, the union decided to close the school...

More.

It's obvious to everyone but the Democrat Party faithful: Leftist regressivism destroys anything and everything it gets its hands on.

Fighter Pilot Passes Floating Snickers Bar

Heh, this is trippy.

Here: "How to Pass Snacks to the Rear Seat of a Fighter Jet."

Via ABC-7 Los Angeles, "VIDEO: How fighter pilots pass snacks to each other."

The 'Islamophobia' Scam Returns

See Robert Spencer, at FrontPage Magazine:

It wasn’t accidental that Hitler’s Reich had an entire Ministry of Propaganda: lying to the public is a major job, as the cleverest of propaganda constructs is always threatened by the simple facts. CAP is trying to compel non-Muslims to disregard what they see every day — Muslims committing violence against non-Muslims and justifying it by referring to Islamic texts — and instead embrace a fictional construct: Islam is the religion of peace and tolerance. This takes a relentless barrage of propaganda, and “Fear, Inc. 2.0” is just the latest in a steady stream from CAP and its allies, which are exponentially wealthier and better-funded than the groups CAP vilifies in this report.

“Fear, Inc. 2.0” is filled with assertions that white is black, and that your lying eyes are deceiving you. We’re told that I myself am “the primary driver in promoting the myth that peaceful Islam is nonexistent and that violent extremism is inherent within traditional Islam.” CAP doesn’t offer any evidence for this being a “myth” – it doesn’t have to, as its Leftist constituency takes that as self-evident.

Read the whole thing.

The new CAP report is here, FWIW.

Leftists are screaming "Islamophobia" today like they've been screaming "McCarthyism" since the 1950s. Of course, Joseph McCarthy was right about Communist infiltration in the U.S. government, despite his regretful turn to demagogy and, ultimately, self-destruction.

The folks at CAP and their regressive fellow travelers are literally working to bring down the United States in the current era. The battle's been raging for decades but with the election of Barack Hussein in 2008 far-left traitors gained a foothold in the White House. 2016 is about taking the country back once and for all.

U.S. and China Show Contrasting Shift in Global Economy

At WSJ, "Signals From U.S., China Show How Much Global Economy Has Shifted Since Crisis":

Developments in just the past week underscored a remarkable turnabout in the global economy since the financial crisis.

Six years ago, the U.S. was in financial panic, Europe was seen largely as an innocent bystander and China as an engine for a return to global growth.

Now the U.S. economy is charging ahead—producing jobs at the fastest pace since the late 1990s—while Chinese authorities are struggling to manage a gathering slowdown and Europe is still getting back on its feet.

Emblematic of the shifts are differing monetary signals: Strong U.S. jobs data Friday increased the likelihood the Federal Reserve will raise short-term interest rates this year, while the People’s Bank of China added to a rate-cutting campaign early this month.

The mismatch in growth outlooks and policy responses portends financial-market aftershocks, including the potential for further gains in the U.S. dollar, which has appreciated 11% against a broad basket of other currencies in the past year and 2% against China’s yuan.

This backdrop also raises a big question: Can the U.S. economy—stronger but still weakened by crisis—power the global economy the way it did in decades past?

Because China accounts for a bigger share of global growth than it did before, its slowdown will surely have bigger global consequences than it might have in the past. But an improving U.S. and stabilizing Europe would help the rest of the world manage to weather China’s problems.

Central to the outlook: the changing patterns of financial stress across the globe.

Fed officials said Thursday that 31 large banks had passed its annual “stress tests” of their financial resilience, meaning they had capital buffers large enough to withstand a return to recession. It was the first time since the Fed launched the tests during the panic of 2009 that all banks had the capital needed to weather the Fed’s test of their financial health.

With U.S. financial institutions on surer footing, credit growth is accelerating. Commercial and industrial loan portfolios among banks in the U.S. were up 12% in mid-February from a year earlier, at the same time as real-estate and consumer loan portfolios are rising and growth of cash holdings slowing.

“It has been a painful path and somewhat disappointing, but we got to this point with a process of fairly gradual but significant adjustments in private sector [debt], a grinding healing in the financial sector and a Federal Reserve which has been consistently trying to offset [drags on growth],” said Bruce Kasman, chief economist at J.P. Morgan .

Chinese authorities, on the other hand, reduced their growth target for 2015. At 7%, the world’s second-largest economy is still expected to expand faster than almost any other in the world, but the momentum has clearly downshifted.

Growth last year was 7.4%, the slowest pace in nearly a quarter-century. The International Monetary Fund has forecast 6.8% growth for 2015.

Moreover, China’s woes are reflected in the fortunes of other emerging economies oriented toward exporting commodities—Russia and Brazil are both in or near recession...

More.

And remember, the growing performance of the U.S. economy is in spite of the Obama administration, which has shackled U.S. growth and wages with its humongous regulatory and tax burden placed on business. We're still struggling to overcome weak wage growth this long after the crash. American workers are bearing the brunt of this disastrous Democrat "social justice" redistributionist regime.

Santa Barbara Fresh Market Closes: Will Shutter All Its Remaining Stores in California

Hmm...

And the state's economy is supposed to be picking up. Must be the disastrous regulatory environment, and in particular California's confiscatory tax regime.

There's a store in Laguna Hills as well. The company wanted to emphasize its growth strategy, and obviuosly the anti-business once-golden state wasn't going to fit with the plan.

At KEYT News Santa Barbara:

High-Ranking Federal Officials' History of Using Personal Email for Government Business

Hmm...

What do we have here?

From Sharyl Attkisson, at the Daily Signal. (Via Instapundit.)

Email Scandal Disqualifies Hillary Clinton for POTUS

At IBD, "Emailgate Disqualifies Hillary Clinton for POTUS":

The former secretary of state's use of a personal account to exclusively conduct government business and to protect her political future in violation of the law ought to disqualify her from the presidency.

'Witch hunts" sometimes find a witch, and those who dismissed the establishment of the House Benghazi Select Committee, chaired by Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., as just another witch hunt are eating their words.

The existence of a personal account that Hillary Clinton used to conduct government business as secretary of state was discovered by the committee and reported by the New York Times.

Clinton's use of this personal account explains why investigations of the Benghazi terrorist attack — and her culpability in our diplomatic mission's vulnerability there, the failure to heed warnings and the cover-up afterward — failed to find much email evidence of her direct involvement.

According to the Times, Clinton never used her official government email account at all. What's more, she used exclusively one set up on the day of her Senate confirmation as secretary of state. This indicates premeditation in an attempt to deceive the American people by someone determined to fulfill her ambition to be the first woman to sit in the Oval Office.

The Times said that Clinton's aides made no attempt to systematically preserve her emails on government servers as required by the Federal Records Act. Team Hillary is now trying to use the excuse that they thought their government recipients would archive the emails and that was thought to be good enough.

Instead, Clinton's aides carefully culled the emails to find which ones contained no information damaging to her political future, and only these would be turned over to the State Department to be archived.

Jason Baron, a former director of litigation at the National Archives, told the Times that it was "very difficult to conceive of a scenario — short of nuclear winter — where an agency would be justified in allowing its cabinet-level head officer to solely use a private email communications channel for the conduct of government business."

Actually, we can conceive of such a scenario — a presidential wannabe determined not to leave a potentially campaign-ending paper trail.

Though Benghazi occurred after the account was set up, the account fulfilled its predefined purpose and served to hide a paper trail documenting her malfeasance in office and deadly incompetence.

We know from others that warnings of the Benghazi terrorist attack came to her office along with warnings of the Benghazi mission's lack of security as it told of a surrounding sea of terrorist training camps...

Keep reading.

Kate Hudson in Tank Top and Daisy Dukes in Sunny Los Angeles

She's a sweetie.

At London's Daily Mail, "How to lure a guy in 10 seconds! Kate Hudson dons cleavage-baring tank top and Daisy Dukes for sunny LA outing."

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."



Also at Reaganite Republican, "Reaganite's SUNDAY FUNNIES."

More at Theo Spark's, "Cartoon Roundup...", and "What If Obama Were President in 1941?"

Cartoon Credit: Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – Bomb Threat."

Mark Halperin Destroys Hillary Clinton Over Corrupt Emails and 'Transparency' Hypocrisy

This guy's a prognosticator and he's arguing that the email scandal has blown Hillary's chances for the presidency.

There's a leftist idiot thread at Memeorandum.

What she is doing here in terms of lack of response, lack of a sense of what people think of her and combined with what I thought was an extraordinary weak performance at her Emily's List speech the other day, her husband can get through these things because he's a politician of a lifetime. She cannot. If this is the way she's going to run her operation, if this is the mindset she's going to have, I don't think she's going to be president.

Rep. Trey Gowdy: 'Huge Gaps' in Hillary Clinton Emails Turned Over to House Select Committee on Benghazi

At Politico, "Trey Gowdy sees months-long gaps in Clinton emails."

A great discussion:

Suspect in Boris Nemtsov Death Is Said to Kill Himself

Now this is interesting.

At the New York Times, "Suspect in Russian Politician’s Killing Blows Himself Up, Report Says."

Some First Amendment Freedoms Have Been Lost Since Selma

A phenomenal commentary, from Ronald Krotoszynski Jr., at the Los Angeles Times, "Could a Selma-like protest happen today? Probably not."

Leftist Enviromental Backlash Against Keurig, Maker of Single Serving 'Coffee Pods'

The dude who invented them, John Sylvan, says "he regrets creating the disposable coffee pod system because of the negative environmental effects."

Bleeding idiots, the lot of them.

At Macleans, "Coffee pods: The new eco-villain: The K-Cup backlash has prompted the disposable coffee system’s inventor to change his tune."

And the k-pods are more popular in Canada than the U.S., the freakin' enviro-hypocrites. Sheesh.

Michigan Couple Sentenced to Life in Prison for Raping Baby: 'To a person, this is the worst, one of the worst [child sex cases] they’ve had to work...'

Progressive values.

At the Other McCain, "Life Sentences for Michigan Couple Who Raped 1-Year-Old Girl on Video":

Human life is cheapened [in] a nation that accepts more than 1 million abortions a year as “a woman’s right to choose.”

If it is not wrong to kill an unborn baby, is anything wrong?

Leftist Hatred at Selma: 'MLK Lieutenant' Attacks George W. Bush, Refused to Join Hands on Edmund Pettus Bridge to Commemorate Racial Progress

Hateful, hateful ideologues.

President George W. Bush joined hands with other loving Americans to cross the bridge yesterday. He was not joined by some hateful, hateful Democrat Party ideologues.

At Gateway Pundit, "Bush Derangement Syndrome: Civil Rights Leader Refused to Cross Bridge with ex-President in Selma (VIDEO)."

And here's the clip of the hateful "MLK lieutenant": "TV One NewsOneNow Exclusive! MLK Lieutenant Diane Nash on #Selma50."

Mind-Boggling Gou Miyagi Skateboarding

This dude will blow your mind.

Debate Over Rachel Beyda's Jewish Background

This article was the most viewed last night at the New York Times, "Readers Drawn Into Debate Over U.C.L.A. Student’s Jewish Background."



PREVIOUSLY: "Rachel Beyda Fights Leftist Anti-Semitism at UCLA."

Lure of the Caliphate

An outstanding piece from Malise Ruthven, at the New York Review of Books.

Once again, ISIS is Islamic. Very Islamic.

Uncovered Lily Aldridge

Lovely.

For Sports Illustrated swimsuit:

The Sinking of the Lusitania

One hundred years ago today.

There's a new book out from Erik Larson on the mystery, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania.

And see Hampton Sides, at NYT, "Erik Larson’s ‘Dead Wake,’ About the Lusitania."

Ferguson Report Puts Dishonest Leftist Slogan 'Hands Up' to Reality Test

This whole idiotic business about a "new civil rights" movement has of course been based on a vicious lie.

Michael Brown never had his "hands up." No matter though to the evil forces of the totalitarian left. It's all about the propaganda narrative.

At the New York Times, "Ferguson Report Puts ‘Hands Up’ to Reality Test."

Boston Bombing Trial: Victims Stare Down Tsarnaev in Emotional Court Day

Watch, at ABC News.

And see the letter to the "coward" Tsarnaev from Rebekah Gregory, "‘Dear Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’: A survivor’s letter to accused Boston bomber."

SeaWorld Shutting Down Sea Lion and Otter Show So Trainers Can Help Rescue Effort

At the San Diego Union-Tribune, "SeaWorld pauses sea lion shows."

Also at ABC-10 News San Diego, "SeaWorld Temporarily Shuts Down Popular Show."

19-Year-Old Black Man Shot Dead by Police in Wisconsin

Hmm... A dead black man shot by police and the obligatory "black lives matter" protest --- the kind of protests that never erupt whenever there's black on black killing.

At WaPo, "Police: Black man, 19, dies after shot by officer."

Minister Johnathan Gentry Slams Obama Claim That Ferguson 'Not an Isolated Incident...'

Man, this dude gets fired up, on Cavuto's show:

Bridgit Mendler Talks About Going to the Same College as Her Mom

This is funny.

My son used to watch Ms. Mendler on the Disney Channel's Good Luck Charlie.

She's kind of an airhead, heh.

Watch: "Bridgit Mendler Goes to USC with Her Mom."

Sluggish Productivity Hampers Wage Gains

Remember, the economy still remains a potent issue for Republicans. Despite modest GDP growth in recent years, workers continue to suffer from weak earnings gains. As I always say, with a savvy and articulate Republican nominee, the Democrats will be crushed in 2016.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Tepid Growth Restrains Worker Pay, Despite Added Jobs":

Based on the jobs data alone, the American economy is doing fabulously.

Monthly payroll growth this year, averaging 267,000, already is ahead of last year’s impressive tally, which in turn handily beat the prior year. The unemployment rate, at 5.5%, is now in the range some economists consider “full employment.”

But overall economic growth has been less impressive. That’s because productivity—the amount of goods and services each worker produces—is growing at a tepid rate.

Since the economic expansion began in 2009, annual productivity growth has averaged just 1.3%, if the farm and government sectors are excluded. That is the weakest growth of any expansion since the 1970s. On Thursday, the day before the encouraging February jobs data were released, the Labor Department reported that productivity in last year’s fourth quarter didn’t grow at all from the year-earlier period.

On Friday, several economists lowered their estimates of GDP growth for the first quarter, some to as low at 1.5%, annualized, citing weak trade and car sales and the effects of snowstorms. Even if the weather effect proves temporary, economic growth shows few signs of breaking out of the 2% to 2.5% range where it has been since the expansion began.

Productivity matters because it is the ultimate source of a rising standard of living. The more a worker produces, the more the employer can afford to pay. Over time, real wages—those adjusted for inflation—are determined by productivity.

Hourly wages have grown by an annual average of just 2% since the expansion began. In February, they rose just 0.1% from January, and 2% from a year earlier.

Real wage growth has generally lagged behind productivity growth during the expansion. That has confounded economists and Federal Reserve officials. Most blame slack in the labor market that isn’t captured in the unemployment rate, such as the many people working part time who would like to work full time.

Still, even if real wages do catch up with productivity, the scope for significant gains will be limited if productivity itself doesn’t pick up...

More.

Planet Fitness Boots Gym Member After Complaining About Creepy Trans 'Woman' in Women's Locker

Ben Howe was cracking me up on Twitter with this story.

At MLive, "Planet Fitness cancels woman's membership after her complaints of transgender woman in locker room."

And at Fox 8 Cleveland, "No judging allowed: Planet Fitness drops member after gender identity complaint."

Notice the apology to the transgender community for any prior references to this "woman" as a man. Hey, it's hard out there folks.

Associated Students at UC Irvine Vote to Ban the American flag as 'Hate Speech'

So fucking stupid it's actually hilarious.

At CBS News Los Angeles, "UC Irvine Student Leadership Panel Votes To Remove American Flag from Campus Lobby":

IRVINE (CBSLA.com) — Students at UC Irvine have voted for a more “inclusive space” by banning the American flag on part of the campus.

Under resolution R50-70 passed Thursday, the Associated Students of UCI voted to remove all flags, including Old Glory, from a student government work room on campus, according to the Associated Students website.

A portion of the resolution reads: “(F)lags construct paradigms of conformity and sets homogenized standards for others to obtain which in this country typically are idolized as freedom, equality and democracy.”

Authored by student Matthew Guevara, the resolution goes on to state that since “the American flag has been flown in instances of colonialism and imperialism,” its display “does not express only selective aspects of its symbolism but the entire spectrum of its interpretation.”

After citing freedom of speech as a “valued right that ASUCI supports,” the resolution states that “freedom of speech, in a space that aims to be as inclusive as possible can be interpreted as hate speech.”

Also at Campus Reform, "U. California students remove offensive American flag from 'inclusive' space." (Via Memeorandum.)

ADDED: At the Other McCain, "The United Hates of America."

The Joshua Strange Story

Watch the mind-boggling video from Joshua Strange, who was expelled from Auburn University after false allegations of rape, and his mother Allison: "Rape Hoax."

Hat tip: Instapundit.

And see the FIRE, "‘Wall Street Journal’ Highlights Inadequate Due Process Protections at Auburn University." (You'll want to click the WSJ piece and then Google it to read it in full, since it's behind the paywall.)

Leftism: destroying lives is what it's all about. Destroying lives and raping freedom.

WARNING: DISTURBING PHOTOS — Why Do Meth Users Age Faster? Before and After Photos

This is the best "just say no" PSA you could think of, at ABC-7 Los Angeles, "SCIENTISTS DISCOVER HOW CRYSTAL METH CAUSES CELLS TO AGE RAPIDLY AND DIE."

A couple of the folks look like they're already dead. Man, what a devastating drug.

Weekend Weather with Jackie Johnson

At CBS News Los Angeles.

It's going to be hot tomorrow.

Watch: "Jackie Johnson's Weather Forecast (March 6)."

Ezra Levant and Noam Chomsky Clash on Freedom of Speech

Poor Chomsky.

The dude's got no chance against the epic patriot Ezra Levant.

Via Blazing Cat Fur, "Noam Chomsky vs. Ezra Levant on Free Speech (Part 1)."

America's Terror Recruits

At WSJ, "U.S. Authorities Struggle to Find a Pattern Among Aspiring Islamic State Members":

Federal authorities investigating suspected Islamic State supporters in all 50 states have found no clear pattern to the type of American inspired to try to join the militant group, complicating efforts to thwart terror recruiting.

Some common threads exist, such as the fact that would-be recruits are often in their teens or early 20s and use social media to express support for Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. But overall, the group is broad, covering people who were raised Muslim and those who converted, married and single people, male and female, rich and poor, U.S.-born citizens and recent immigrants.

An estimated 180 Americans have traveled or attempted to travel to the civil war in Syria, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said this week. Not all of those, however, are believed to have joined extremist groups.

“An interesting fact on some of the individuals that we investigate for support to ISIL is the lack of a singular profile,” Michael Steinbach, head of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, said at a congressional hearing last week. “We find citizens, legal permanent resident aliens, some folks that are overstaying their visa. There’s actually quite a diversity of those individuals who for one reason or another state an intent to harm the United States.”

The three Brooklyn men arrested last week for allegedly plotting to support Islamic State were just the latest in a recent string of arrests. Federal authorities have prosecuted almost 30 people in Islamic State-related cases in the past 18 months, according to the Justice Department. The criminal complaints span from California to North Carolina, and the FBI said last week that Islamic State investigations have now been opened in all 50 states.

The motivations for joining Islamic State can vary widely, said Matthew Levitt, director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute, a think tank.

“All kinds of different people are being radicalized,” Mr. Levitt said. “Some are loners seeking more of the belonging and adventure. Some have ethnic-identity issues. Some are drawn to the radical ideology.”

One trait that links some of the cases: Defendants are often teenagers trying to hide their travel plans from their parents.

The mother of 19-year-old Akhror Saidakhmetov, one of the Brooklyn defendants, took his passport away because she was afraid he would travel to Syria to wage jihad, according to a criminal complaint unveiled in Brooklyn federal court last week. After Mr. Saidakhmetov called his mother and repeatedly asked for his passport so that he could join Islamic State, she hung up the phone, the complaint said. An attorney for Mr. Saidakhmetov said his client was awaiting an indictment...

More.

'Prom-unism' — Albuquerque High School Seniors Vote for Communism-Themed Prom

And these students were allegedly very "academically focused" as part of the International Baccalaureate program, which has long been attacked as a Marxist-based indoctrination regime.

No doubt some of the instructors in the high school's program had been teaching their classes using cult hagiography as pedagogy.

At Weasel Zippers, "Seniors at Albuquerque High School Vote for Communism-Themed Prom…"



And lo and behold, Gawker's far-left Natasha Vargas-Cooper (remember her?) is all down with it, here, here, here and here. She gets dissed here. And she writes here: I support "socio-political collective movements..."

Yeah, well, "Progressives Are Communists (If You Didn't Know)."

The Leader of the Free World

From Bill Whittle:

What's a Feminist?

A flashback, to November 8, 1975, at the New York Times, "A Feminist? Definition Varies With the Woman."

The piece is at the Times' "wayback machine," which looks like some gimmick to get you to subscribe. No need though, at least for this piece. Just magnify and read it at the link.

And for the real lowdown on feminism, get Robert Stacy McCain's book, Sex Trouble: Essays on Radical Feminism and the War Against Human Nature.

Rachel Beyda Fights Leftist Anti-Semitism at UCLA

Just wow.

At the New York Times, "In U.C.L.A. Debate Over Jewish Student, Echoes on Campus of Old Biases":

LOS ANGELES — It seemed like routine business for the student council at the University of California, Los Angeles: confirming the nomination of Rachel Beyda, a second-year economics major who wants to be a lawyer someday, to the council’s Judicial Board.

Until it came time for questions.

“Given that you are a Jewish student and very active in the Jewish community,” Fabienne Roth, a member of the Undergraduate Students Association Council, began, looking at Ms. Beyda at the other end of the room, “how do you see yourself being able to maintain an unbiased view?”

For the next 40 minutes, after Ms. Beyda was dispatched from the room, the council tangled in a debate about whether her faith and affiliation with Jewish organizations, including her sorority and Hillel, a popular student group, meant she would be biased in dealing with sensitive governance questions that come before the board, which is the campus equivalent of the Supreme Court.

The discussion, recorded in written minutes and captured on video, seemed to echo the kind of questions, prejudices and tropes — particularly about divided loyalties — that have plagued Jews across the globe for centuries, students and Jewish leaders said.

The council, in a meeting that took place on Feb. 10, voted first to reject Ms. Beyda’s nomination, with four members against her. Then, at the prodding of a faculty adviser there who pointed out that belonging to Jewish organizations was not a conflict of interest, the students revisited the question and unanimously put her on the board.

But in the weeks since, that uncomfortable debate has upended this campus of 29,600 students that has long been central to the identity of Los Angeles. It has set off an anguished discussion of how Jews are treated, particularly in comparison with other groups that are more typically viewed as victims of discrimination, such as African-Americans and gays and lesbians.

The session — a complete recording of which has been removed from YouTube — has served to spotlight what appears to be a surge of hostile sentiment directed against Jews at many campuses in the country, often a byproduct of animosity toward the policies of Israel. This is one of many campuses where the student council passed, on a second try and after fierce debate, a resolution supporting the Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions movement aimed at pressuring Israel.

“We don’t like to wave the flag of anti-Semitism, but this is different,” Rabbi Aaron Lerner, the incoming executive director of the Hillel chapter at U.C.L.A., said of the vote against Ms. Beyda. “This is bigotry. This is discriminating against someone because of their identity.”

Reports of anti-Israeli or anti-Jewish sentiment have been on the rise across the country in recent years, especially directed at younger Jews, researchers said. Barry A. Kosmin, a Trinity College researcher and a co-author of a study issued last month that found extensive examples of anti-Semitism directed at college students, said he had not come across anything as striking as what happened at U.C.L.A.

“It’s egregious and startling,” Mr. Kosmin said. “If they had used this with any other group — sexual, racial, any kind of identity group — they would have realized it was illegal.”

Ms. Beyda, 20, who is from Cupertino and is president-elect of the Jewish sorority Sigma Alpha Epsilon Pi, said she did not want to comment on her confirmation hearing because of her role on the Judicial Board, whose duties include hearing challenges to the constitutionality of actions of the council.

“As a member of the Judicial Board, I do not feel it is appropriate for me to comment on the actions of U.C.L.A.’s elected student government,” she said by email...

More.

Jimmy Fallon Roasts Democrats Who Boycotted Benjamin Netanyahu (VIDEO)

More evil escapades from the party of hate.

At Israel Matzav, "Jimmy Fallon roasts Dems who boycotted Netanyahu."

L.A. Times: Communist Bernie Sanders Seen as 'Credible Alternative to Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2016'

The man's a hardline Marxist-Leninist who throughout his career developed intimate ties with all manner of communists, including agents directly tied to the Moscow-backed Community Party of the U.S.A.

But in today's post-American Obama-Democrat world, the man's considered a credible alternative to Hillary Clinton for the Democrat Party nomination.

At the Los Angeles Times, "A BERNIE SANDERS PRESIDENTIAL BID WOULD TAKE ON THE BILLIONAIRES":

Bernie Sanders has no patience.

No time for small talk, glad-handing, saying how great it is to be back in Iowa. The middle class is circling the drain, oligarchs are taking over the government, and people — wake up, people! — are obsessing about football and baseball and what Kim Kardashian is wearing if, he says, she's wearing anything at all.

He is angry, righteous, waving his arms, hollering and contemplating a run for president, which is why 150 Iowans have turned out on a numbingly cold evening to hear Vermont's independent U.S. senator vent.

Sanders strides from between shelves at the Prairie Lights bookstore, muttering "hello, hello" by way of introduction, then launches into a 45-minute attack, aimed mainly at the billionaire Koch brothers and their conservative allies.

"What they are very clear about … is doing away with every single piece of legislation passed since the 1930s designed to protect the elderly, the children, the sick, the poor, the working families of this country," Sanders thunders. "And they do this under the guise of" — he adds a sarcastic lilt — "freedom."

"It's freedom for me to be able to do anything I want in my factory and put all the crap that I produce in our rivers and our lakes and into the air," he scoffs. "That's freeeedom!"

His jeremiad is delivered below and to the right of a sign reading "Science Fiction and Fantasy," an unfortunate, if fitting, bit of imagery. Sanders is an exceedingly long shot to win the Democratic nomination for president in 2016 — not to mention the White House — should he run.

But he speaks to a distinct strain of Democratic discontent, to liberals who view Hillary Rodham Clinton as too moderate, populists who see her as too wedded to Wall Street, doves who consider her too hawkish and Iowans who fret their state, which kicks off the presidential nominating process, will be ignored by the party's overwhelming front-runner.

Many hoped Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the scourge of the financial industry, would challenge Clinton. But since she won't, some on the left have turned to Sanders, 73, a slouch-shouldered, self-described Democratic socialist who speaks with the vibrancy of an electric current and exhibits all the personal warmth of a snow bank.

He will decide in a few weeks whether to run but won't seek, he insists, to undermine Clinton or split Democrats and elect a Republican president, the way independent Ralph Nader helped put George W. Bush in the White House.

"I will not play the role of spoiler," Sanders says.

Nor would he wage a negative campaign, he says, suggesting he wouldn't even run against Clinton, per se: "I run on the most important issues facing America."

But Sanders has always been blunt, which wouldn't change just because some Democrats would prefer a bloodless coronation.

More than once Sanders has questioned Clinton's commitment to the middle class and those struggling to reach it. "I don't think that is the politics of Sen. Clinton or the Democratic establishment," he told a college newspaper in Vermont. Hearing his words read back, Sanders cracks a rare smile.

"You can quote it," he says....

*****

After a year at Brooklyn College, Sanders attended the University of Chicago, where he was, by his own account, a middling student. He preferred his own course of study, reading Marx and Freud and helping organize sit-ins to protest the segregated campus housing.

More.

Just another nice, sweet socialist who read Marx while in college, right? No, not at all.

Sanders is smart. He's known all along that for his radicalism to be politically viable he's had to candy-coat it with tolerant, nurturing deceptions designed to mask the fundamentally revolutionary aims of his leftist ideological agenda. He's not been quite as careful as President Barack Hussein, however. For example, he's long been proud to proclaim himself as as "democratic socialist," something Hussein would never do despite all the evidence of his Marxist-Leninist connections since childhood. Sanders, in a recent interview at the Nation, however, spills the beans about his ideological agenda as a presidential candidate in 2016. He says we need a "political revolution":

So when I talk about a political revolution, what I am referring to is the need to do more than just win the next election. It’s about creating a situation where we are involving millions of people in the process who are not now involved, and changing the nature of media so they are talking about issues that reflect the needs and the pains that so many of our people are currently feeling.

Essentially, what a political revolution means is that we organize and educate and create grassroots movements, which we certainly do not have right now.

See, it's "more than just win the next election." It's about changing the "political consciousness" of "85 to 90 percent" of the people, who represent the Marxist proletariat and lumpenproletariat sectors of the capitalist exploitation system. It's about overthrowing the obscene free market hegemony in the U.S., and eradicating the power of the "billionaires" who're directing the "extreme right-wing" power blocs in the Marxist superstructure of the criminal American regime.

Check the link to the interview. Sanders knows that "boring from within" takes an extremely long time, and there's no guarantee that radical revolutionary change will be achieved. At least he's much more transparent than the Democrat Party establishment, which has been taken over by the "progressive" (communist) faction in recent years, but is still operating on the basis of ideological subterfuge.

Still, it's an amazing thing for Sanders to be touted so highly as a credible alternative to Clinton for the Democrat nomination. It's a testament to the success of the left in bastardizing far-left revolutionary politics into something with milquetoast respectability.

Eye for an Eye: Man Has Eye Gouged Out in First Known Case of Retribution in Iran

Ceaseless barbarity.

Islamic barbarity, defended by leftist moral relativists.

At the Times of Israel, "Iran blinds acid attacker in ‘eye for an eye’ punishment."

#ObamaCare Words Mean What They Say

I'm gobsmacked when letters like this one get past the commissars at the L.A. Times' editorial gatekeepers:

To the editor:

To The Times' editorial board, words don't mean what they say. The Affordable Care Act is clear: Subsidies would flow through state exchanges. ("Obamacare challengers' ridiculous claims head to the Supreme Court," editorial, March 4)

Our country is ruled by laws, not men, and we can correct a poorly written bill by going back to Congress, passing a revision and having the president sign it. But Affordable Care Act advocates would rather rewrite the bill at the executive level and bypass the Constitution.

A case based on an accurate reading of the law isn't phony; rather, it reflects reality — an uncomfortable reality to the true believers who support Obamacare and torture history and logic to achieve their ends. Sometimes, you have to dance with the wording you brought to the ball.

Patrick Henry,
Torrance

PREVIOUSLY: "Mendacious Asshat Scott Lemieux is the Biggest 'ACA Troofer' on the Far-Left Obamabot Deep-Bench."

How America Was Misled on al Qaeda's Demise

From Stephen Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn, at WSJ, "The White House portrait of a crumbling terror group is contradicted by documents seized in the bin Laden raid":

In the early-morning hours of May 2, 2011, a small team of American military and intelligence professionals landed inside the high white walls of a mysterious compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The team’s mission, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, had two primary objectives: capture or kill Osama bin Laden and gather as much intelligence as possible about the al Qaeda leader and his network. A bullet to bin Laden’s head accomplished the first; the quick work of the Sensitive Site Exploitation team accomplished the second.

It was quite a haul: 10 hard drives, nearly 100 thumb drives and a dozen cellphones. There were DVDs, audio and video tapes, data cards, reams of handwritten materials, newspapers and magazines. At a Pentagon briefing days after the raid, a senior military intelligence official described it as “the single largest collection of senior terrorist materials ever.”

The United States had gotten its hands on al Qaeda’s playbook—its recent history, its current operations, its future plans. An interagency team led by the Central Intelligence Agency got the first look at the cache. They performed a hasty scrub—a “triage”—on a small sliver of the document collection, looking for actionable intelligence. According to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, the team produced more than 400 separate reports based on information in the documents.

But it is what happened next that is truly stunning: nothing. The analysis of the materials—the “document exploitation,” in the parlance of intelligence professionals—came to an abrupt stop. According to five senior U.S. intelligence officials, the documents sat largely untouched for months—perhaps as long as a year.

In spring 2012, a year after the raid that killed bin Laden and six months before the 2012 presidential election, the Obama administration launched a concerted campaign to persuade the American people that the long war with al Qaeda was ending. In a speech commemorating the anniversary of the raid, John Brennan , Mr. Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser and later his CIA director, predicted the imminent demise of al Qaeda. The next day, on May 1, 2012, Mr. Obama made a bold claim: “The goal that I set—to defeat al Qaeda and deny it a chance to rebuild—is now within our reach.”

The White House provided 17 handpicked documents to the Combatting Terror Center at the West Point military academy, where a team of analysts reached the conclusion the Obama administration wanted. Bin Laden, they found, had been isolated and relatively powerless, a sad and lonely man sitting atop a crumbling terror network.

It was a reassuring portrayal. It was also wrong. And those responsible for winning the war—as opposed to an election—couldn’t afford to engage in such dangerous self-delusion.

“The leadership down at Central Command wanted to know what were we learning from these documents,” says Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the transcript of an interview with Fox News anchor Bret Baier for a coming Fox News Reporting special. “We were still facing a growing al Qaeda threat. And it was not just Pakistan and Afghanistan and Iraq. But we saw it growing in Yemen. We clearly saw it growing still in East Africa.” The threat “wasn’t going away,” he adds, “and we wanted to know: What can we learn from these documents?”

After a pitched bureaucratic battle, a small team of analysts from the Defense Intelligence Agency and Centcom was given time-limited, read-only access to the documents. The DIA team began producing analyses reflecting what they were seeing in the documents.

At precisely the time Mr. Obama was campaigning on the imminent death of al Qaeda, those with access to the bin Laden documents were seeing, in bin Laden’s own words, that the opposite was true. Says Lt. Gen. Flynn: “By that time, they probably had grown by about—I’d say close to doubling by that time. And we knew that.”

This wasn’t what the Obama White House wanted to hear. So the administration cut off DIA access to the documents and instructed DIA officials to stop producing analyses based on them.

Even this limited glimpse into the broader set of documents revealed the problems with the administration’s claims about al Qaeda. Bin Laden had clear control of al Qaeda and was intimately involved in day-to-day management. More important, given the dramatic growth of the terror threat in the years since, the documents showed that bin Laden had expansion plans. Lt. Gen. Flynn says bin Laden was giving direction to “members of the wider al Qaeda leadership team, if you will, that went all the way to places like West Africa where we see a problem today with Boko Haram and [al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb], all the way back into the things that were going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” Bin Laden advised them on everything from specific operations in Europe to the types of crops his minions should plant in East Africa.

To date, the public has seen only two dozen of the 1.5 million documents captured in Abbottabad. “It’s a thimble-full,” says Derek Harvey, a senior intelligence official who helped lead the DIA analysis of the bin Laden collection.

And while it is impossible to paint a complete picture of al Qaeda based on the small set of documents available to the public, documents we are able to read, including those released last week in a Brooklyn terror trial, reveal stunning new details.

More.

And at the Weekly Standard, "New Docs Reveal Osama bin Laden's Secret Ties With Iran."

Charles Krauthammer: Hillary Can't Hold Press Conference Because 'She's a Clinton and the Clintons Never Clear the Air...'

All kinds of developments on this story at Memeorandum.

And from the inimitable Dr. Krauthammer:

Margot Robbie Harper's Bazaar April Cover

At Harper's, "MARGOT ROBBIE IS BAZAAR’S APRIL COVER STAR."

And at Egotastic!, "Margot Robbie Sextastic Blonde Bombshell in Harper’s."

The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder

Here's Bret Stephens' new book, America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder.

I'll have more blogging tonight.

Supreme Court Divided on #ObamaCare Subsidies

At LAT, "Supreme Court appears split in challenge to Affordable Care Act":

President Obama’s healthcare law once again stands in legal peril after Supreme Court justices appeared sharply split along ideological lines during oral arguments Wednesday in a case that threatens to end insurance subsidies for more than 7 million Americans.

The four liberals among the court’s nine justices seemed ready to side with the Obama administration in rejecting the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act. But it was unclear whether they would get a fifth vote from the conservative side.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who helped rescue the law three years ago, gave no hint about how he might rule this time.

And Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, another possible swing vote, voiced some reservations about the challenge, but also said he was troubled by how the Obama administration had implemented the law.

The lawsuit — brought by a group of conservative and libertarian activists — argues that a strict reading of the statute makes health insurance subsidies available only in a handful states (including California) that established their own insurance marketplaces, also known as exchanges.

But 37 states elected instead to have the federal government fully or partially operate their marketplaces using the HealthCare.gov website.

In 2012, the Internal Revenue Service issued regulations making subsidies available for both state and federally run exchanges. Critics challenged the rule as illegal, citing a provision in the law that limits subsidies to an “exchange established by the state.”

Obama administration attorneys accused opponents of taking the provision out of context and argued that the overall law clearly intends to make the subsidies available nationwide.

In a worrisome sign for the administration, Kennedy questioned whether the IRS could make that decision on its own.

“It seems to me a drastic step for us to say that the Department of Internal Revenue Service and its director can make this call one way or the other when there are … billions of dollars of subsidies involved here,” he told U.S. Solicitor Gen. Donald Verrilli Jr., who was defending the law on behalf of the Obama administration.

“It has to be very, very clear,” Kennedy continued. “It seems to me a little odd” that the IRS went ahead on its own.

At the same time, Kennedy offered some hope to Obama’s lawyers. Twice, he said he agreed with states’ rights advocates who complained they had not been warned that opting for a federal exchange could cause many thousands of their residents to possibly lose their subsidized health insurance.

“There’s a serious constitutional problem if we adopt your argument,” Kennedy told Michael Carvin, the lawyer representing the challengers...

Keep reading.

And check SCOTUS Blog, "Argument analysis: Setting up the private debate on the ACA."

150th Anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

See John Steele Gordon, at Commentary, "Lincoln’s Second Inaugural."

From the speech:

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. . . . Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Hillary Clinton Emails Catch Democrats Off Guard

Folks were talking about his piece this morning on Twitter. I'm just now getting online after a long day with work and family.

At the New York Times, "Caught Off Guard by Disclosure of Emails, Democrats Rally to Clinton’s Defense":

WASHINGTON — The revelation that Hillary Rodham Clinton conducted government business entirely on a private email account as secretary of state has blindsided the Democratic establishment.

It was a bracing reminder of the risks entailed in the party’s all-but-all-in bet on Mrs. Clinton so early in the presidential nominating process. And it left Democrats contemplating the prospect of yet another long cycle of dramatic Clinton flare-ups — the type that President Obama obliquely campaigned against in 2008.

The report on Mrs. Clinton’s emails, published by The New York Times late Monday night, left many Democrats privately expressing wonder as late as Wednesday morning that Mrs. Clinton and her aides had not anticipated the political problems this could create.

In a testament to Mrs. Clinton’s political strength — and underscoring the scarcity of other potential White House hopefuls — senior Democrats spoke in her defense without fully explaining why she had avoided using a government account during her four-year tenure in the Obama administration.

“I don’t think there’s any ill intent in this,” Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said Tuesday. “I just don’t know how the State Department functions with regard to this.”

An array of leading Democrats echoed Ms. Feinstein’s view, defending Mrs. Clinton broadly while sidestepping questions about transparency and ethics. Some even went to great lengths to dismiss the report.

“People have different ways of communicating,” said Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrat of Maryland. “I have a granddaughter who does nothing but text. You’ll never find a letter written with her. So everybody’s different.”

The chorus of confident, if less than fully briefed, supporters was perhaps the most vivid illustration yet that, unlike when Mrs. Clinton ran in 2008, Democratic officials are overwhelmingly supportive of her, invested in her success and unwilling to offer even mild public criticism.

Indeed, even from the safety of anonymity, Democrats quickly shifted from the basic facts about Mrs. Clinton’s email practices to grousing over the initial lack of an aggressive response by her advisers and her allies.

That seemingly flat-footed reaction, several Democratic strategists said, illustrated how Mrs. Clinton’s decision to delay a formal start to her campaign had left her vulnerable. She has waited until recent weeks to begin hiring staff and creating the sort of sprawling infrastructure a presidential bid demands. She also only recently hired researchers to start reviewing her paper trail from the State Department, the Clinton Foundation and the past two years as a private citizen, to identify potential trouble spots that might need to be addressed later in the campaign.

The allied groups that are devoted to defending her, meanwhile, are mostly constrained to following her lead. Mrs. Clinton’s aides did not alert officials with the Democratic National Committee or outside liberal groups such as American Bridge that the Times article was coming, according to Democrats briefed on the matter, leaving her would-be defenders scrambling and hastily searching for similar transgressions by Republicans that could at least muddy the issue.

Mrs. Clinton’s aides provided no new information on Wednesday to explain her use of only a personal email account, even as it was revealed that the email server she used had been registered at her home address in Chappaqua, N.Y., and established by a longtime political aide.

The episode also crystallized the difficulty Democrats are experiencing at a time when Mr. Obama is still the head of the party, but Mrs. Clinton, an undeclared candidate with no campaign apparatus, is the one being scrutinized by the news media and attacked by Republicans.

“Our nominee is not going to be named Barack Obama, and we better get prepared for that and do it fast,” said Bill Carrick, a veteran Democratic strategist. Part of the problem, Mr. Carrick noted, is that Mr. Obama created a parallel political infrastructure outside the Democratic National Committee.

“That’s fine when you have a president in the White House to respond to things on daily basis,” he said. “But that’s not going to work in terms of the campaign coming up. And it has started — there’s no way of getting around that. The Republicans are out there trash-talking her.”

Keep reading.

Mendacious Asshat Scott Lemieux is the Biggest 'ACA Troofer' on the Far-Left Obamabot Deep-Bench

The idiot far-left nutjob Scott Lemieux has been on a deranged jihad against the plaintiffs and supporters of the lawsuit challenging the ObamaCare subsidies that's before the Supreme Court today. He's been libeling them as "troofers" since the case made the docket. Obviously, the stupid name-calling smears are an attempt to turn reality into fiction, but that's the MO of LWNJ totalitarians.

For a timely corrective, see the Wall Street Journal, "The Plain Text of ObamaCare":

The Obama Administration’s abuse of executive power—dispensing with its duty to faithfully execute statutes to become a law maker unto itself—has become the most consequential dispute across the three branches of government. The Supreme Court rejoins this debate on Wednesday with oral arguments in the challenge to the White House’s illegal Affordable Care Act subsidies.

Unlike the 2012 ObamaCare cases, King v. Burwell is not a challenge to the constitutionality of the health law. To the contrary, the plaintiffs are asking the Justices to vindicate the law’s plain text and uphold the statute that Congress passed in 2010, rather than the version the Administration rewrote.

***
The Affordable Care Act authorized insurance subsidies though “an Exchange established by the State,” and only through those exchanges. King will answer whether the Administration can also disburse such subsidies through the exchanges run by the federal government in two-thirds of the country in order to solve a self-created problem.

The law’s Democratic drafters wanted the states to participate and assumed all of them eventually would, much as with Medicaid and many other familiar programs under cooperative federalism. Conditioning subsidies on state action was meant to give Governors and legislatures an irresistible incentive to contribute to ObamaCare’s implementation and lend political legitimacy. In return, their constituents were eligible for benefits.

This routine legislative arrangement turned out to be an epic political miscalculation. The opposition to ObamaCare failed to ebb as liberals expected, and 36 states refused the invitation to create exchanges. In those states, the law provides for a federal exchange fallback—without subsidies.

Then in 2012 the Internal Revenue Service simply declared that subsidies would be available in both the state-run and federal exchanges. In its rule-making the IRS noted that “commentators disagreed on whether the language . . . limits the availability of the premium tax credit only to taxpayers who enroll in qualified health plans on State Exchanges,” conceding the controversy but offering no legal justification for nationwide subsidies.

In King, the High Court will scrutinize this IRS decree using the traditional canons of statutory construction. The English language is clear: Congress wrote that subsidies would be available on state exchanges only, so Washington cannot deputize itself as the 51st state—especially when the black-letter law is as consistent, tightly worded and cross-referenced as the Affordable Care Act...

Still more.

#ObamaCare Opponents Face Death Threats In the New York Times

It's true.

At Instapundit, who links to Althouse, "Chilling comment on Adam Liptak's NYT piece on the South Carolina employment benefits lawyer who focused attention the statutory text that might wreck Obamacare."

So chilling Althouse calls the comment "evil" twice at the post. To which I respond:

Althouse: I noticed how you emphatically used the word "evil" twice. It's not just the comment that's evil, however. The whole program is evil, in its deceit. Its coercion. Its utter incompetence. The ACA's a standard of political evil, emblematic of this administration's collectivist malevolence.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Address to Joint Session of Congress — March 3, 2015

ICYMI, a phenomenal speech.

See Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "Bibi’s Triumph Puts Obama on the Defensive."

Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi 'Near Tears' at 'Insult' of Benjamin Netanyahu Speech

Democrat tantrums of hate and racism. So pathetic.

At the Hill, "Pelosi ‘near tears’ at Bibi ‘insult’."

And here's the statement, "Pelosi Statement on Prime Minister Netanyahu's Address to Congress" (at Memeorandum).

DEMOS GIVE REPLY to #BIBI's SPEECH - loaded w/ PANIC & FAULTY THINKING: #TCOT #CONSERVATIVES #ISRAEL #CCOT #2A #VETS pic.twitter.com/hN9PBeirLE

— DANIEL HEMSLEY (@danoroadblade) March 3, 2015

Isla Vista Victims' Families Sue Sheriff's Dept., Apartments Where Killer Lived

I guess someone's gotta pay, right? I mean, he was literally psycho, but somehow he fell through the cracks. And someone's gotta pay.

Sad. A lawsuit won't bring back loved ones.

At LAT, "Families of Elliot Rodger's slain roommates sue sheriff's, apartment."

How the World Turned Against Israel

I'll be teaching all day, so in light of Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech tonight, here's a repost of Joshua Muravchik's, Making David into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel.

More later...

Israel and the Democrats

From Bret Stephens, at WSJ, "The Democratic Party is on the cusp of abandoning the state of Israel. That’s a shame, though less for Israel than it is for the Democrats":

The Democrats’ historic support for the Jewish state has always been what’s best about the party. The understanding not only that Jews are entitled to a state, but also that a liberal democracy is entitled to defend itself—robustly and sometimes pre-emptively—against illiberal enemies, is why the party of Harry Truman, Scoop Jackson and Daniel Patrick Moynihan commands historic respect.

But that party is evaporating. A 2014 Pew survey found that just 39% of liberal Democrats are more sympathetic to Israel than they are to the Palestinians. That compares with 77% of conservative Republicans. During last summer’s war in Gaza, Pew found liberals about as likely to blame Israel as they were to blame Hamas for the violence.

That means the GOP is now the engine, the Democrats at best a wheel, in U.S. support for Israel. The Obama administration is the kill switch. Over the weekend, a defensive White House put out a statement noting the various ways it has supported Israel. It highlighted the 1985 U.S.-Israel free-trade agreement and a military assistance package concluded in 2007. When Barack Obama must cite the accomplishments of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush as evidence of his pro-Israel bona fides, you know there is a problem.

True, there is also the administration’s financial support for the Iron Dome missile-defense system, along with votes at the U.N.’s General Assembly opposing the usual anti-Israel resolutions. The administration and its congressional lemmings are nothing if not heroic when it comes to easy votes.

But this week Democrats don’t have the luxury of an easy vote. Will they boycott the Israeli prime minister’s speech? Will they insist the administration put any deal it reaches with Iran to a vote in Congress? Will they support a fresh round of sanctions, vehemently opposed by the president, if no deal is reached?

The administration is now trying to dodge all this by waging an unprecedented campaign of personal vilification against Benjamin Netanyahu (of a sort they would never dream of waging against, say, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan ), accusing him of seeking political gain for himself in the U.S. at Mr. Obama’s expense.

Yet the calendar chiefly dictating the timing of Mr. Netanyahu’s speech was set by John Kerry , not John Boehner , when the secretary of state decided that the U.S. and Iran would have to conclude a framework deal by the end of this month. Mr. Netanyahu is only guilty of wanting to speak to Congress before it is handed a diplomatic fait accompli that amounts to a serial betrayal of every promise Mr. Obama ever made to Israel.

Among those betrayals...

Keep reading.

Cartoon Credit: William Warren.

Barack Obama and the War Against the Jews

From David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin, at FrontPage Magazine.

And read the pamphlet here, in pdf.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Speech to American Israel Public Affairs Committee — March 2, 2015

Here's the prime minister's speech from yesterday:

Andrea Tantaros: 'Is This White House Anti-Semitic?'

Watch: "Fox’s Andrea Tantaros Doubles Down on Charge that Obama Is ‘Anti-Semitic’" (via FAM Blog).

Tensions Mount Ahead of Netanyahu Speech

At WSJ, "Before Key Speech, Netanyahu Hails U.S. Ties":

WASHINGTON—American and Israeli leaders publicly traded words of admiration Monday, but tensions surrounding U.S. talks with Iran over its nuclear program mounted on the eve of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ’s speech to Congress, where he will urge lawmakers to thwart President Barack Obama ’s top foreign-policy initiative.

As both sides searched for conciliatory language, Mr. Netanyahu described the U.S. as “family,” and Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, emphasized America’s “bedrock commitments” to the state of Israel.

But the rhetorical embraces, in speeches before 16,000 members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, came as Mr. Netanyahu prepared to make his biggest attempt to scuttle a potential deal with Iran. The Israeli leader, who opposes any Iranian nuclear-enrichment capability, laid bare his distrust of the Obama administration’s effort. He said the issue was a matter of U.S. “security,” but of Israeli “survival.”

He added that “Israel and the United States agree that Iran should not have nuclear weapons, but we disagree on the best way to prevent Iran from developing those weapons.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Obama said Monday there remains “substantial disagreement” between his administration and Mr. Netanyahu. As world powers resumed talks with Iran in Geneva in hopes of meeting an end-of-March deadline, Mr. Obama also said the U.S. wants a final agreement requiring a partial freeze of Iran’s nuclear program for at least 10 years...

More.

Netanyahu's Speech and the Lessons of Culture

From Roger Kimball, at Pajamas, "The Lessons of Culture, Benjamin Netanyahu Edition":

Here we are, on the eve of Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to both houses of the United States Congress. The Obama administration is acting like a petulant twelve year old  — how dare the prime minister of Israel come to the United States and speak before Congress when he wasn’t invited by us? — and the rancid Pelosi-Reid contingent of the Democratic Party has promised to take their marbles and go home: they won’t even listen to what he has to say.

The ostensible issue is Iran, with which the Obama administration is currently capitula– er, negotiating. The presence of a Jew, and a Jew from Israel, in the nation’s capital (and Capitol) is sure to offend the mullahs in Tehran, and it might just upset the delicate diplomacy by which Obama privately assures that Iran gets nuclear weapons while publicly pretending to prevent that eventuality.

Back in 2001, when Barack Obama was in the Illinois state Senate and still battening on the wisdom of the “Reverend” Jeremiah (“God-Damn America”) Wright, Netanyahu was more forthright, and more percipient, than most politicians about the Islamic terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Those attacks, he said, were part of “a war to reverse the triumph of the West.”

Netanyahu was right then, and he is still right. For the prime minister of Israel, it is an existential — a life-or-death — issue. (Actually, it is an existential issue for the entire world, as Ilan Berman shows in his forthcoming book Iran’s Deadly Ambition.) The tiny, dynamic country of Israel is surrounded by Islamic states of varying degrees of radicalism, monstrousness, and doctrinal identity; nearly all are united in hating Israel and plotting for its destruction.

“A war to reverse the triumph of the West.” For Netanyahu, and for you, I hope, Dear Reader, that is a bad thing.

For Barack Obama?

I cannot answer the latter question with any confidence. But as I contemplate the long war to “reverse the triumph of the West,” I find it sobering indeed to contemplate the deeds of the Obama administration around the world. Its naivete, fueled by its arrogance, poisonous racialism, and allegiance to “progressive” ideology make it a powerfully corrosive instrument of cultural dissolution and political instability.

Behind Netanyahu’s comment about the “triumph of the West” was a recognition of how long in coming, and how painfully won, that triumph had been. There was also, I fancy, an appreciation of how disastrous the alternatives are.

Anyone looking for an illustration doesn’t have far to seek.

If your stomach is too delicate to watch the many snuff videos flooding the internet of people being beheaded, pushed off tall buildings, stoned, flogged, or incinerated, take a look at this depiction of Islamic State legates reading from the Koran and smashing priceless 3000-year-old sculptures in aMosul museum.

A few years ago, in an essay on “The Lessons of Culture” in Future Tense: The Lessons of Culture in an Age of Upheaval, I had occasion to quote Netanyahu on the war “to reverse the triumph of the West.” Since that war has been proceeding apace, I thought it might interest some readers to revisit an edited version of that essay as the world prepares for the prime minister’s address to Congress. I begin with these hors d’oeuvres...

Keep reading.

Are We Really Surprised Democrats Who Booed Jerusalem Will Boycott Netanyahu's Speech?

Nope, not surprised at all.

See Katie Pavlich, at Town Hall:

During the 2012 DNC convention in Charlotte, Democrats in attendance loudly booed after God and Jerusalem were placed back into the Party platform after being deliberately left out. I remember because I was there.

Just two weeks ago, President Obama referred to Jews murdered in Paris by an Islamic terrorist as some "folks in a deli."

Are we really surprised Democrats are boycotting Netanyahu's speech because Obama didn't approve it? Hardly. After all, they're part of the Party that booed God and Jerusalem as Israel's capitol city.

The party of hate. The video's at the link.

Emergency Committee for Israel: 'Where's Hillary?'

Via Mary Katharine Ham, at Hot Air, "Video: First TV ad against Hillary asks her the question the press won’t."

Genevieve Morton Body Paint

Via Theo Spark.

'Centrist' Democrats Ready to Strike Against 'Elizabeth Warren Wing' of the Party

They're all a bunch of commie bastards, IMO.

But this is interesting in illustrated how the idiot Dems are freakin' over their ideological extremism heading into 2016.

At the Hill, "Centrist Dems ready strike against Warren wing":

Centrist Democrats are gathering their forces to fight back against the “Elizabeth Warren wing” of their party, fearing a sharp turn to the left could prove disastrous in the 2016 elections.

For months, moderate Democrats have kept silent, as Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) barbed attacks against Wall Street, income inequality and the “rigged economy” thrilled the base and stirred desire for a more populist approach.

But with the race for the White House set to begin, centrists are moving to seize back the agenda.

The New Democrat Coalition (NDC), a caucus of moderate Democrats in the House, plans to unveil an economic policy platform as soon as this week in an attempt to chart a different course.

"I have great respect for Sen. Warren — she's a tremendous leader,” said Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), one of the members working on the policy proposal. “My own preference is to create a message without bashing businesses or workers, [the latter of which] happens on the other side."

Peters said that, if Democrats are going to win back the House and Senate, "it's going to be through the work of the New Democrat Coalition."

"To the extent that Republicans beat up on workers and Democrats beat up on employers — I'm not sure that offers voters much of a vision," Peters said.

Warren’s rapid ascent has highlighted growing tensions in the Democratic Party about its identity in the post-Obama era.

Caught in the crossfire is the party’s likely nominee in 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose husband took the party in a decisively centrist direction during his eight years in office.

Former President Bill Clinton’s rise within the party had been aided by groups such as the Democratic Leadership Council, which believed that previous presidential nominees including Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis had run on platforms that were too far to the left, resulting in crushing defeats.

But the tensions from those long-ago fights are now tangible again. Progressives distrust Hillary Clinton and are pushing Warren to challenge her from the left in the presidential election, though Warren has repeatedly rebuffed their pleas.

Warren spokeswoman Lacey Rose said in a statement to The Hill that “Warren is a relentless fighter for priorities that will help level the playing field for middle-class families.”

Publicly, Democratic lawmakers are hesitant to discuss a growing rift...

Via Hot Air and Memeorandum.