Google's Blue-Chip Insider Access to the Obama White House

Hypocrisy thy name is Democrat.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Google Makes Most of Close Ties to White House":

WASHINGTON—As the federal government was wrapping up its antitrust investigation of Google Inc., company executives had a flurry of meetings with top officials at the White House and Federal Trade Commission, the agency running the probe.

Google co-founder Larry Page met with FTC officials to discuss settlement talks, according to visitor logs and emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt met with Pete Rouse, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, in the White House.

The documents don’t show exactly what was discussed in late 2012. Soon afterward, the FTC closed its investigation after Google agreed to make voluntary changes to its business practices. (See the FTC document on Google).

Google’s access to high-ranking Obama administration officials during a critical phase of the antitrust probe is one sign of the Internet giant’s reach in Washington. Since Mr. Obama took office, employees of the Mountain View, Calif., company have visited the White House for meetings with senior officials about 230 times, or an average of roughly once a week, according to the visitor logs reviewed by the Journal.

One top lobbyist at Google, Johanna Shelton, has had more than 60 meetings at the White House. In comparison, employees of rival Comcast Corp., also known as a force in Washington, have visited the White House a total of about 20 times since Mr. Obama took office.

“We think it is important to have a strong voice in the debate and help policy makers understand our business and the work we do to keep the Internet open, to build great products, and to fuel economic growth,” says Google spokeswoman Niki Christoff.

Jennifer Friedman, a White House spokeswoman, said the FTC “is an independent agency and we respect their independent decision-making.”

She added: “White House officials meet with business executives on a range of issues on a regular basis. These meetings help keep the White House apprised of outside perspectives on important policy issues. Our staff is cognizant that it is inappropriate to discuss issues relating to regulatory enforcement.”

Justin Cole, an FTC spokesman, said: “The FTC is an independent law enforcement agency. Its enforcement decisions are driven by the applicable law and evidence in each case.”

Google’s knack for getting in the room with important government officials is gaining new relevance as scrutiny grows over how the company avoided being hit by the FTC with a potentially damaging antitrust lawsuit. Last week, the Journal reported that the FTC’s competition staff concluded that Google used anticompetitive tactics and abused its monopoly power in ways that harmed Internet users and rivals.

The staff recommended a lawsuit, which would have triggered one of the highest-profile antitrust cases since the Justice Department sued Microsoft Corp. in the 1990s. FTC commissioners voted unanimously to end the probe.

Visitor logs and internal emails reviewed by the Journal describe meetings involving Google, senior White House advisers and top FTC officials between the staff’s recommendation in August 2012 and the vote in January 2013.

On Nov. 6, 2012, the night of Mr. Obama’s re-election, Mr. Schmidt was personally overseeing a voter-turnout software system for Mr. Obama. A few weeks later, Ms. Shelton and a senior antitrust lawyer at Google went to the White House to meet with one of Mr. Obama’s technology advisers.

By the end of the month, the FTC had decided not to file an antitrust lawsuit against the company, according to the agency’s internal emails.

It is unusual for White House aides to talk with officials at a company or agency about law-enforcement matters involving the company or agency. Officials in the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division typically don’t meet with the White House during major investigations.

Google’s efforts in Washington also include a well-funded lobbying operation. Last year, Google spent $16.8 million on lobbyists, more than any other company except for Comcast, according to lobbying disclosures...

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Wind Turbines Bring Large-Scale Massacre of Birds at Altamont Pass

Gee thanks leftists.

You're destroying our natural wonders with your Utopian collectivist pursuit to eradicate carbons.

At CBS News San Francisco: "Environmentalists Worry About More Bird Deaths With Wind Turbines at Altamont Pass."

Signature Petition for 'Sodomite Suppression' Seeks 'Bullets to the Head' Measure for California Ballot (VIDEO)

That's a "bullet to the head" for homosexuals.

The "Sodomite Suppression Act." It's a serious thing.

At LAT, "Officials powerless to stop proposed anti-gay initiative":

Over the decades, California has chiseled out some of its most colorful laws at the ballot box.

There have been proposed initiatives seeking to allow public school children be able to sing Christmas carols, to require drug testing of state legislators, to outlaw divorce and to divide California into six states.

But the proposed initiative submitted by a Huntington Beach attorney that would authorize the killing of gays and lesbians by "bullets to the head" — or "any other convenient method" — is testing the limits of the state's normally liberal attitude on putting even the most extreme ideas on the ballot if enough signatures are collected.

The proposed initiative has been met by a firestorm of anger, yet there appears to be nothing that can stop it from being given a formal name and advancing to the signature gathering process.

For a fee of $200, Matthew McLaughlin submitted what he called the Sodomite Suppression Act to the state attorney general's office, which has little choice but to give it a ballot-worthy name, summarize its effects and set the clock running for gathering signatures.

"Mr. McLaughlin's immoral proposal is just the latest — and most egregious — example of the need to further reform the initiative process," Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell) said.

Some of California's most controversial laws have been given life through the initiative process, though some lived only briefly. A 1996 initiative legalized marijuana for medicinal use, a law that still stands. Two years earlier, voters approved the so-called Save Our State initiative, which denied a public education and other benefits to those in the country illegally — a law that was quickly declared to be illegal.

Two lawmakers said they were so revolted by McLaughlin's submitted initiative that they have proposed a bill that would increase the fee for filing a ballot measure from $200 to $8,000.

"We live in California, the cradle of direct democracy, but we also need a threshold for reasonableness," said Low, who co-authored the legislation with Assemblyman Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica).

But to get on the ballot, McLaughlin and any supporters he has would have to collect more than 365,000 signatures in 180 days, a high bar even for well-financed efforts.

"In California, this has the same chance as a snowball's chance in hell," said Jaime Regalado, professor emeritus of political science at Cal State L.A.

Kurt Oneto, a Sacramento attorney who specializes in the initiative process, said Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris does not have the ability to turn down McLaughlin's proposed ballot measure, regardless of how she might feel.

"The state gets serious initiatives that are submitted and we get silly ones, and every now and then we get ugly ones like this," Oneto said. "I would submit this is probably the ugliest one I remember."

More.

America Isn't Better With #ObamaCare

From Katie Pavlich, at the Hill:

It’s been five years since the Affordable Care Act, better known as ObamaCare, was passed and signed into law. This week, the White House is touting the legislation as a huge success and claiming the country is better off.

“FACT: We’ve seen the largest drop in the uninsured rate in decades since the ACA became law. #BetterWithObamacare,” the official White House Twitter feed sent out Sunday.

“More than 16 million Americans have gained health coverage thanks to the Affordable Care Act. #BetterWithObamacare,” another tweet said.

First, it’s important to analyze this White House white lie. While more Americans do in fact have health insurance in the wake of ObamaCare, the administration fails to point out that citizens are required by law to do so or pay a fine.
This wasn’t the case in decades past. Times — and the law — have changed. The government criminalized the decision not to purchase healthcare, and the IRS has been tapped with enforcing the requirement. More people have health insurance because they’ve been forced into the system, not because they want insurance or because they have easier access.

Second, let’s review how ObamaCare was passed in 2010. It happened in the middle of the night through a change in Senate rules and without a single Republican vote. Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is now infamous for saying, “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

She also wasn’t shy about the tactics used to get the legislation through Congress. “We will go through the gate and if the gate is closed, we will go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we will pole-vault in. If that doesn’t work, we will parachute in. But we are going to get healthcare reform passed for the American people for their own personal health and economic security and for the important role that it will play in reducing the deficit,” Pelosi said in January 2010.

Although ObamaCare is still highly controversial, as Pelosi once admitted, its negative impact is clearer.

For example, having health insurance is not the same thing as having access to medical care or affordable coverage. The costs of health insurance premiums and deductibles have significantly increased, leaving families in even more dire financial situations. According to research from the Manhattan Institute, health insurance premiums for people living in a number of states across the country have gone up by more than 100 percent.

Overall, costs to the taxpayer have been enormous, with $2 billion spent on HealthCare.gov, which didn’t work properly for a year, and an estimated $2 trillion in addition to enforce ObamaCare over the next 10 years. Data from a Government Accountability Office report released in 2013 has been cited showing ObamaCare adds $6.2 trillion to the long-term U.S. deficit, a far cry from liberal claims that deficits would be reduced as a result of the law.

Further, and most detrimental, is the mass retirement of doctors...

One of the great public policy abominations ever inflicted on the American people.

Keep reading.

The French Are 'Dismayed' by How Much Obama Has Given Up in Iran Talks

The irrepressible Dr. Krauthammer, on yesterday's All-Star Panel.

The Left Opens Fire on Ted Cruz!

At great talking points memo at Bill O'Reilly's, including commentary from Monica Crowley and Kirsten Powers.

Watch: "Ted Cruz For President - O'Reilly Talking Points."

Ted Cruz Tilts 2016 GOP to the Right

Hey, I can dig it, especially if he slows down the RINO momentum.

At LAT, "Ted Cruz's entry into 2016 race puts pressure on Republicans":

Sen. Ted Cruz jumped into the 2016 presidential race Monday in the same way he intends to run his campaign: upstaging rival Republicans with a splashy, impassioned speech that sought to drag the national conversation further to the right than many in his party want to go.

The Texas senator’s chances of winning the White House are narrow, polls suggest. And his aggressive tactics and brash style during two years in the Senate — including nudging the GOP toward the 2013 government shutdown — have alienated many of the Republican leaders whose support he probably needs to become the nominee.

But in addition to raising his political profile, Cruz’s candidacy is certain to play a role in the GOP primaries as he becomes a spoiler and potential kingmaker, forcing establishment favorites — such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker — to confront tea party preferences on immigration, same-sex marriage and social welfare programs.

Cruz's zeal for small government and a muscular national defense reflects the views of many Republicans. But GOP strategists acknowledge the divisive firebrand may drive the debate too far to the right for mainstream political tastes — just as many party leaders say he has done during his short time in Congress. He could force his 2016 opponents to embrace positions in the primary that they might regret when facing the Democratic nominee.

“He's going to raise important questions that other candidates are going to have to answer, especially on social issues,” said Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles. “Are you pro-life? Pro-marriage? Ted Cruz has been very bold and he sort of puts pressure on people like Jeb and Rand [Paul] to speak about the issues.”

But Aguilar warned that Cruz's stances, such as his opposition to President Obama's program to defer deportation for millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally, could alienate voters in the general election if embraced by other candidates.

Cruz, the son of a Cuban immigrant, makes no apologies for his goal to shake up the mainstream. He has said repeatedly that he wants to be seen as the “disruptive app” of GOP politics.

“It is the time for truth,” Cruz told an enthusiastic crowd of Liberty University students Monday. “It is the time for liberty. It is the time to reclaim the Constitution of the United States.”

It was no accident that he chose to launch his presidential bid at the religious campus founded by the late pastor Jerry Falwell. Not far from the historic Civil War site of Appomattox, Liberty University has been a popular destination for Republicans seeking to bolster their conservative credentials. It also boasts an alumni and donor network that extends far from the campus, nestled near the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains.

Cruz appeared onstage in a massive sports arena amid waving American flags and Christian rock music. He emphasized his family's personal struggles and Christian faith, calling on “courageous conservatives” to join him as he seeks to ignite the same grass-roots movement that propelled him to the Senate in 2012.

“The answer will not come from Washington,” he said. “It will come only from men and women across this country, the people of faith, the lovers of liberty.”

Still more at that top link

The Orwellian Obama Presidency

From Bret Stephens, at WSJ, "Under Mr. Obama, friends are enemies, denial is wisdom, capitulation is victory":

The humiliating denouement to America’s involvement in Yemen came over the weekend, when U.S. Special Forces were forced to evacuate a base from which they had operated against the local branch of al Qaeda. This is the same branch that claimed responsibility for the January attack on Charlie Hebdo and has long been considered to pose the most direct threat to Europe and the United States.

So who should Barack Obama be declaring war on in the Middle East other than the state of Israel?

There is an upside-down quality to this president’s world view. His administration is now on better terms with Iran—whose Houthi proxies, with the slogan “God is great, death to America, death to Israel, damn the Jews, power to Islam,” just deposed Yemen’s legitimate president—than it is with Israel. He claims we are winning the war against Islamic State even as the group continues to extend its reach into Libya, Yemen and Nigeria.

He treats Republicans in the Senate as an enemy when it comes to the Iranian nuclear negotiations, while treating the Russian foreign ministry as a diplomatic partner. He favors the moral legitimacy of the United Nations Security Council to that of the U.S. Congress. He is facilitating Bashar Assad’s war on his own people by targeting ISIS so the Syrian dictator can train his fire on our ostensible allies in the Free Syrian Army.

He was prepared to embrace a Muslim Brother as president of Egypt but maintains an arm’s-length relationship with his popular pro-American successor. He has no problem keeping company with Al Sharpton and tagging an American police department as comprehensively racist but is nothing if not adamant that the words “Islamic” and “terrorism” must on no account ever be conjoined. The deeper that Russian forces advance into Ukraine, the more they violate cease-fires, the weaker the Kiev government becomes, the more insistent he is that his response to Russia is working.

To adapt George Orwell’s motto for Oceania: Under Mr. Obama, friends are enemies, denial is wisdom, capitulation is victory...

Perfect. Devastating. Just too honest, my goodness!

Keep reading.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali — Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now

Ms. Hirsi Ali's book is out today, at Amazon.

Plus, Shop Amazon Sports & Outdoors - Up to 25% Off MSR, Therm-a-Rest, Platypus, SealLine, PackTowl and E-Case.

U.S. Marine Corps March Madness Recruiting (VIDEO)

At LAT, "Marines target March Madness in recruiting campaign."

The Yemen Meltdown

At WSJ, "The U.S. withdrawal is a victory for Iran and al Qaeda":

Another week, another victory for disorder in the Middle East. This time the meltdown is in Yemen, where this weekend the U.S. withdrew the remaining U.S. special forces from a base where they were waging a drone war against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

The withdrawal comes amid growing chaos in the country after Houthi militants deposed the government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who fled the capital, San’a, for Aden last month. The Houthis belong to the Zaidi offshoot of Shiite Islam and are receiving help from Iran. They are at war with Sunni jihadists, who struck back in bombings on Friday that killed 152 people in San’a and Saada province. An Islamic State affiliate claimed responsibility.

The U.S. retreat is a major loss in the fight against AQAP, which has been the al Qaeda branch most focused on hitting the U.S. mainland. The U.S. has a military base in Djibouti across the Gulf of Aden as well as naval assets in the region from which it can still strike targets in Yemen. But the loss of special forces on the ground is bound to hurt intelligence collection and thus the ability for accurate targeting. Chaos is a jihadist’s best friend.

As recently as September, President Obama hailed Yemen as an antiterror model. “This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years,” he said. That wishful thinking has now been exposed...

More.

Police Can't Corroborate Rape Allegations at University of Virginia

At CBS Evening News, "Police unable to corroborate U.Va rape allegations."

Also at CNN, "Police say investigators found no 'substantive basis' to support a University of Virginia female student's story that she was raped."

And from Ashe Schow, at the Washington Examiner, "Police investigating UVA rape story emphasize importance of police involvement."

Santa Barbara Woman Tests Negative for Ebola

At the Santa Barbara Independent, "Santa Barbara Health Officials Monitoring Possible Ebola Case: A Woman Who Recently Traveled to West Africa."

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Rookie of the Year 2015 — Kelly Rohrbach

Weekday hotness from Sports Illustrated:

Is Barbarity of Islamic State Pushing Public Opinion Toward Use of Ground Troops?

At Fox News, "Is the barbarity of ISIS changing U.S. public opinion?"

Referenced there is the child jihadi murdering the Israeli Arab, "Islamic State Video Shows Israeli Arab Murdered by Child Jihadi."

And at WaPo, "Support for using ground troops against the Islamic State is increasing."

Hillary Clinton Emails Shed Little Light

This is interesting, but will be entirely academic in the end.

I doubt much is going to come of the whole email thing, even though according this piece she lied about not using her private emails for public business.

At the New York Times, "In Clinton Emails on Benghazi, a Rare Glimpse at Her Concerns."

Taylor Swift Buys Domain Name TaylorSwift.porn

At Billboard:

Taylor Swift knew these domain names were trouble when they walked in.

The singer's team has purchased the web addresses TaylorSwift.porn and TaylorSwift.adult, prior to them becoming available to the public on June 1, according to CNN. It is unclear what she plans to do with them, if anything.

The move was prompted by nonprofit group Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers continuing to expand the number of generic top-level domains, beyond such popular ones as .com and .net.

A number of controversial domain names will be available in June, but public figures and companies are currently being given a window of time in which to register them before anyone else can.

Well, I can imagine what some less scrupulous types might have done with those domains.

USS Theodore Roosevelt Aircraft Carrier — By the Numbers

This is cool, via Telegraph UK:



And at London's Daily Mail, "Towering 20 stories above the waterline and more than 1,000ft long: Inside glimpse of the awesome naval power that is the USS Roosevelt."

Plus, at the U.S. Navy YouTube page, "Theodore Roosevelt Deploys for World Tour."

Ted Cruz Announces Presidential Bid: 'It's Time to Reclaim the Constitution' (VIDEO)

This man is the patriot's patriot.

I don't know if it was a great speech but there's no doubt he meant every word of it. He's a true believer in American exceptionalism.

And no teleprompter at that. Pretty impressive.

More at the Washington Post, "Cruz one of many courting GOP’s hard-right wing."

And watch: "Ted Cruz Presidential Announcement Full Speech (C-SPAN)."

ADDED: At Instapundit, "ANN ALTHOUSE ON TED CRUZ’S OPENING: 'This is a truly powerful speech. Just brilliant'."

Lindsey Pelas

At Egotastic!, "Lindsey Pelas Achieves Instagram Gold Funbag Status."

Could Leftist Disgust with Campus Brownshirts Be Reaching Critical Mass?

From Steven Hayward, at Power Line:

You know campus radicalism—the kind that openly oppresses in the name of ending oppression—is going too far when even The Nation magazine takes notice. Nation writer Michelle Goldberg reports about the case of Northwestern University feminist film professor Laura Kipnes, who wrote an essay last month in the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled “Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe.” It was a long and rambling piece that covered a lot of territory, but contained here and there several nuggets of good sense...

Continue.

You'll laugh. Via Memeorandum.

V.S. Naipaul: Islamic State Dedicated to Bringing About Another Holocaust

One of the very best essays I've read on the issue of how Islamic is Islamic State.

Again, ISIS is Islamic. Very Islamic.

Read Naipal at London's Daily Mail, "A grotesque love of propaganda. Unspeakable barbarity. The loathing of Jews - and a hunger for world domination. In this stunning intervention, literary colossus V.S. NAIPAUL says ISIS is now the Fourth Reich":

Are Isis and its followers heretics? The politicians of Europe and America, including David Cameron, Barack Obama and Francois Hollande, after every Islamicist outrage insist on describing them as a lunatic fringe. Their constant refrain is that these perpetrators of murder and terror have as much to do with Islam as the Ku Klux Klan has to do with Christianity or the testament of Jesus Christ. But does such political assurance bear scrutiny?

Of course the politicians, church leaders and others who say ‘these atrocities have nothing to do with Islam’ are not making a researched or considered theological statement. They are attempting, quite rightly, to prevent civil discord in a world in which there are considerable Muslim immigrant populations in most countries of Europe and in the US.

So what impels the tiny minority of young men and women from immigrant communities to volunteer themselves to ‘jihad’ and to almost certain self-destruction, or young women to abscond from their families and from European reality to become jihadi brides.

When I visited Pakistan, I discovered what I have characterised as the effects of an ideological nurture. The Pakistani or Bangladeshi Muslim is taught that he or she has no historical antecedents before the conquest of parts of India and its conversion to the faith.

The pressures of poverty and promise bring this Muslim to Britain. He and his family don’t speak English.

They are confined to work and live in an exclusively immigrant area of an inner city – say Bradford, Tower Hamlets or parts of Greater Manchester or Birmingham.

Their children are raised as Muslims, some strict some not so strict, and are sent to the normal city schools which soon become almost exclusively immigrant.

Some find that the values that traditionally inform them are at variance with those of the lives they see around them. This is true for even those Muslim young men and women who are being educated, through Britain’s by-and-large egalitarian system, to be surgeons or computer programmers.

Islamism is simpler. There are rules to obey, a jihad to fight against the civilisation you can’t comprehend, a heaven to go to when you martyr yourself and now a real fighting force in the world which you can join to simplify and solve your existence: no history to complicate your self-awareness, no art to distract you, no ambivalence and choices that ‘Western’ civilisation offers you, no doubt about the fruits of martyrdom, no allegiance to the country in which you were brought up and which gave you a free education and perhaps welfare benefits. A gun, a half-understood prayer and the simplicity that a simple and singular upbringing craves.

That is why they go. And volunteer for death, and die.

In the past three or four centuries since Descartes, Leibniz and Newton, Islam remained encrypted in the revelations of the Koran and the Hadith of a 6th Century life.

The expansion of the scientific enquiry coincided with or possibly caused the maritime expansion of European colonialism. Empirical science, the progress of liberal religion and the germination of modern democratic ideas coincided with European colonial dominion over Asia and Africa.

The process of decolonisation in the 20th Century gave rise to the idea that every advance in civilisation, scientific or democratic, was to be condemned as ‘colonial’. There may be no ideological answer to such bigotry.

The Islamic world does contain currents that are opposed to the interpretations that Isis gives to the Koran, the Hadith and to sharia. These are yet to declare themselves...

Remember, the people calling for a reformation are attacked as "Islamophobes."

There is no call among the left's terror enablers to reform the religion. Islam is not Islam!

More.

Fifty-Seven Percent of Americans Want Presidential Candidate Who'll 'Change Obama's Policies...'

Oh God yes.

At CNN, "Election 2016: The perfect candidate":

A new CNN/ORC poll finds most Americans say they would like a candidate who's a seasoned political leader, someone with an executive background, and someone who's willing to change Barack Obama's policies.

Rather than assessing the traits of individual candidates, the poll asked respondents to think about their perfect candidate and choose between two statements relating to several different traits often found in presidential candidates.

Would the perfect successor to Obama be someone with ideological purity or someone who had a great chance at winning? Someone who has had economic success or someone who's never been wealthy? Someone who relies on their religious views to guide policy or someone who believes religion should have no place in government?

Three statements generated wide-reaching support. Fifty-nine percent of Americans say they'd like a candidate who has been in the public eye as a political leader for many years over one who's new to the political scene. Further, 59% say they prefer a candidate with executive experience over one who's worked as a legislator, and 57% say their perfect Obama successor would change most of the policies enacted by Obama's administration.

A long history in the political limelight is appealing to a broad swath of Americans, with majorities across age, race and education lines saying they prefer someone who's been in the public eye as a political leader for many years.

There is a partisan tinge to the results of this question, however, with Democrats -- who will choose from a field whose leading contender has decades in the public eye -- more apt to prefer a seasoned leader (77%) than Republicans (51%). On the GOP side, 46% say they would rather see someone who is new to the political scene take the White House in 2016, and their party's field includes several contenders who fit that bill.

Overall, 57% say their perfect Obama successor would change most of the policies of the Obama administration, while 41% prefer that the next president continue most of his policies. Republicans are near unanimous in their search for a change in most of Obama's policies: 94% want that. Among Democrats, 22% are looking for changes while 77% would prefer Obama's policies to remain in place...

More.

That 22 percent of Democrats who want changes to Obama's policies are looking for an even more "fundamental transformation" than we've been seeing this last six years, hence the groundswell of support for an anti-capitalist Liz Warren candidacy. See, for example, Legal Insurrection, "Game Changer: Boston Globe urges Elizabeth Warren to challenge Hillary."

At Least 70 Bodies Found After Military Retakes Town Held by Boko Haram

At Euronews, "Nigeria: Dozens of corpses found in town re-taken from Boko Haram."

Starbucks Ends 'Race Together' Fiasco

I guess they're having a hard time letting go of this cluster nevertheless.

At WSJ, "Starbucks Ends Key Phase in ‘Race Together’ Campaign: CEO Howard Schultz says other aspects of campaign to continue."

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Every Day Muslims Kill in the Name of Islam

Ms. Hirsi Ali, at ABC's This Week, "Does Islam Have a Violent Extremism Problem?"

And the idiot Martha Raddatz kneecaps Ms. Hirsi Ali, accusing her of slandering Islam with a "broad brush." Well, we wouldn't want to make Islam look bad or anything, that's for sure.

Notice above all, Ms. Hirsi Ali is 100 percent classy, composed, and full of reason. Her new book is out tomorrow, Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now.

Venice Man Accused of Allowing His Dogs Kill Neighbor's Cat (VIDEO)

That's not very neighborly.

At CBS News Los Angeles, "Caught on Camera: Venice Man Accused of Allowing His Dogs to Kill Neighbor's Cat."

Democrat Tulsi Gabbard: Obama Needs Stronger Policy on Islamic State

Once again, the courageous congresswoman takes on the White House.

Watch, at CBS Face the Nation, "House Dem: Obama needs stronger ISIS strategy."

And flashback, from last month, "Democrat Tulsi Gabbard Says Obama is 'Misidentifying' the Enemy."

Obama's Role During the Israeli Elections Was Larger Than Reported

The level of corruption is so astounding it's ridiculous.

At the Hill, "Netanyahu pollster: Obama role in election larger than reported."

Texting Makes You Selfish

And less trusting.

All the screen-time is said to effectively rewire your cognitive and emotional processes, especially among the young.


At the Washington Post, "Texting has made us less trusting, more selfish":

Virtual distance is a game-changer when it comes to human relations. When technology is used as an agent for relationships, in some cases it can be beneficial. However when technology is used purposelessly as a default it doesn’t just squeeze out sophisticated interpersonal interactions, it changes the nature of what’s left.

Purposeful use of technology can support children’s learning but when technology becomes either a substitute or a proxy for relationships, language development in children can be held back. Communication becomes the transfer of impersonal information instead of the sharing of a passion. This can have an impact on language development for kids, but it can have affects on other aspects of our lives.

Taking a risk and having a go at that tricky math problem seems more difficult when a child is on their own than when with a friend. More so sticking with a difficult task (a real gym-buddy is more effective than an app).

These kinds of skills – self discipline, ethical understanding and interpersonal communication, as well as social ability, and critical thinking (among others) – are what UNESCO calls “transversal competencies.” And they can be impaired through virtual distance.

When the ripple effects of actions and inactions seem to go no further than the screen, empathy and collaborative skills can be difficult to develop. For example, children seem to have trouble looking into other people’s eyes and are less able to hold conversations.

As connectivity increases, connectedness can lose out...

More.

Candice Swanepoel at St. Barth's

Candice Swanepoel, for Maxim, "Candice Swanepoel Is the Best Thing About St. Barth's (VIDEO)."

Chaos! All U.S. Personnel Leave Yemen as Country Descends Into Bloody Anarchy

You know, because the "tide of war is receding," and all that.

At the Los Angeles Times, "U.S. forces leave Yemen amid concerns it is safe haven for terror groups":

All remaining U.S. government personnel withdrew from Yemen over the weekend as fighting erupted near the last safe haven for American special forces there and an Iran-backed militia took control of key locations in the country’s third-largest city.

About 100 American special operations troops evacuated Al Anad airbase in the southern part of Yemen on Saturday, as Al Qaeda militants fought house-to-house in a nearby town. The withdrawal comes a month after the U.S. embassy in the capital of Sana was vacated, after months of Shiite rebels clashing with government forces there.

“Due to the deteriorating security situation in Yemen, the U.S. government has temporarily relocated its remaining personnel out of Yemen,” State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said in a statement.

The U.S. departure from Yemen as it further descends into chaos is likely to hobble the American counterterrorism campaign against two potent extremist groups, the Islamic State and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The Islamic State militants who control large swaths of Iraq and Syria are extending their reach into both North Africa and Yemen, where intelligence officials are concerned they can take advantage of the lawlessness to expand their influence and recruit fighters, as they have elsewhere. And AQAP, the most resourceful and dogged of Al Qaeda's affiliates, has repeatedly used Yemen to plot and stage attacks against the West.

The U.S. plans to continue to fly armed drones over Yemen and strike at leaders of cells plotting to attack Western targets, officials said. But without Americans on the ground and no friendly local intelligence service to turn to for help, the U.S. will have much less information about the location of militant leaders.

More.

'If it weren't for Bibi...'

Heh.

This is totes awesome, at Twitchy, "In epic rant, Weekly Standard editor Lee Smith points out all that would’ve happened ‘if it weren’t for Bibi’."

Mob Launches Anti-Semitic Attack on Stamford Hill Synagogue: 'Kill the Jews!' (VIDEO)

About those no-go zones, this time in Britain.

Watch, at Legal Insurrection, "Mob shouting “Kill the Jews” attacks London Synagogue."

Funeral of Flatbush Tragedy Victims Begins (VIDEO)

At Arutz Sheva‎, "Funeral for Sassoon family begins in Brooklyn, New York. Bodies to be transported for burial in Jerusalem."

Also, "Dov Hikind Relates to Flatbush Tragedy."

And at CBS News New York, "FDNY: 7 Children Killed In Brooklyn House Fire Caused By Malfunctioning Hot Plate."

Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader, Calls for 'Death to America'

At the Times of Israel, "Khamenei calls ‘Death to America’ as Kerry hails progress on nuke deal."


Hat Tip: ChristiChat on Twitter.

Islamic State Beheads Three Kurdish Peshmerga Soldiers

Religion of peace.

Watch, at BNI, "Islamic State (ISIS) savages behead three Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers."

'Behead Them in Their Own Homes': Islamic State Publishes U.S. Military Kill List

Well, of course it's still foolish to pretend ISIS is a threat to the homeland.

Nah. That's racist.

At RWN, "ISIS publishes ‘kill list’ online of 100 US military members."



Image Credit: BNI, "Islamic State (ISIS) hackers call for jihad against individual American military personnel."

'Racist' Catalog Withdrawn at the University of North Georgia

Well, yes, that's racist.

Can't show white men outrunning a black man and a woman.

At Blazing Cat Fur, "University Withdraws Catalogue Showing White Men Outracing a Woman & Black Man."

And the race-baiting leftists are just eating this up! At the depraved far-left hate-site Raw Story, "Joyful white guys finish ahead of struggling woman and black man in this university’s catalog."

Rahm Emanuel Facing Tough Reelection

Yeah, he's facing a tough challenge from the left.

Gotta watch out for those Obamacrat corporate dollars, the f-king loser.

At LAT, "Jesus 'Chuy' Garcia, Chicago mayoral candidate, seeks California dollars":

“We are on the cusp of a major statement to be made to the rest of the country -- that we won’t tolerate the types of cronyism and corporate welfare that have come to exemplify the reign of Rahm Emanuel,” Garcia said.

Hostility toward Emanuel, a former congressman who was President Obama’s first chief of staff, drove much of the crowd’s enthusiasm.

“He just takes the money from the poor and gives it to the rich,” said Dorothy Reik, president of Progressive Democrats of the Santa Monica Mountains.

Video c/o Diogenes' Middle Finger, "Godfather or Tiny Dancer? Is Rahm Emanuel in Trouble in Chicago Mayoral Race? You Bet."

And at NYT, "Chicago Mayor's Race Is Cast as a Test of Liberalism."

Sunday Cartoons

At Reaganite Republican, "Reaganite's SUNDAY FUNNIES."



Also at Theo Spark's, "Cartoon Round Up..."

Cartoon Credit: Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – Wheeler Peace Dealer."

Netanyahu's Victory and Obama's Response

From Professor Michael Curtis, at American Thinker:

The main issue with which the U.S. administration is concerned is that of a Palestinian state. President Barack Obama appears to be more concerned with maintaining this stance than in offering congratulations to Prime Minister Netanyahu. Other political leaders, British Minister David Cameron, Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Francois Hollande, the prime ministers of Australia, Netherlands, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and India, and the foreign affairs head of the European Union, quickly made the customary polite remarks to the Israeli leader. Prime Minister Cameron had twittered that he looked forward to working with the government of Israel, one of Britain’s closest friends.

The White House appeared less enthusiastic and certainly less personally cordial. The formal cold statement issued after the belated phone conversation between the U.S. and Israeli leaders stated they agreed “to continue consultations on a range of regional issues, including the difficult path forward to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

However, much more pointed were the remarks of Obama and his spokespeople that the U.S. was reassessing its approach to Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts. One can imagine that reassessment will entail a number of factors, including UN resolutions on a Palestinian state, and the attempt of the Palestinian Authority to bring charges of war crimes against Israel to the International Criminal Court. One issue will certainly be that of the Israeli settlements, that, in the words of the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in spring 2010, were a “deeply moving signal” that harmed the bilateral relationship, and that Obama considers illegal.

The lack of warmth of the U.S. leader to his Israeli counterpart has long been evident, but it must be disregarded in the effort to achieve a lasting peace. Differences inevitably arise between allied nations, and the current issue of a nuclear Iran is a pressing and controversial one on which Obama and Netanyahu differ. But for 40 years, U.S. policy in the Middle East has been based on shaping an Israel-Arab peace agreement resulting from a process of negotiations between the two parties, not from unilateral actions. For Obama to support a UN Resolution calling for a Palestinian state would be to transform what has been a bipartisan U.S. policy into a one party point of view.

In the interests of peace as well as harmonious US-Israeli relations it is essential that Obama rethink his immediate response to Netanyahu’s victory. Obama had already injected himself into the Israeli electoral campaign if only indirectly as a result of the work of Democratic Party operatives. Netanyahu was perhaps excessive in his rhetoric that complained of the foreign-funded effort to topple his party. Yet he was correct that a group, led by a former national organizer for Obama, had set up the electoral V15 organization and boasted they were doing a job of getting out the anti-Netanyahu vote with over 15,000 volunteers throughout Israel.

More.

America Must Pummel Islamic State

From Colin Dueck and Roger Zakheim, at the National Interest, "Unleashed: America Must Pummel ISIS":

The rise of ISIS, together with its demonstrated brutality, have triggered a sea-change in American popular attitudes, at least on this particular issue. One Quinnipiac poll from March 4 found that 62 percent of all Americans now support the use of U.S. ground troops versus ISIS, as against only 30 percent who oppose. So a two-to-one majority of U.S. public opinion today supports not only the use of force, but the use of American ground troops against the Islamic State. The majorities supporting U.S. airstrikes are even more overwhelming.

One suspects that President Obama, his core supporters, and many of his inner circle find this fierce and unexpected response from the U.S. public toward ISIS rather terrifying. Isn't this the sort of characteristically American, "cowboy" foreign policy reaction Obama was elected to suppress?

Well, yes—and he's doing his best to suppress it. That's what the restrictions on the proposed use of force authorization are supposed to do.

Obama says that his goal is to "degrade, and ultimately destroy ISIS," because Americans insist that he say so. But as so often internationally, his actions have hardly matched his words. As former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made clear, the policy tools Obama has so far authorized against ISIS in no way match the goal of that group's destruction.

There has been a limited U.S. campaign against ISIS for several months now. It has helped to blunt the group's advance. But in terms of seriously rolling back or destroying ISIS, realistically there is no such prospect on the horizon given current U.S. policies. A key U.S. ally, Jordan, in particular is in grave danger.

Most congressional Republicans would like to see U.S. efforts against ISIS escalated, so that the terror state is rolled back rather than simply contained. And they are honest enough to admit this will require more U.S. troops on the ground.

Obama has actually already placed over 2,000 American troops on the ground since this crisis began last year, including Special Operations troops, to help train and advise Iraqi government forces in their fight against ISIS.

But judging by his actions, the fixed point in Obama's thinking is not so much the destruction of ISIS, as the avoidance of another American ground war in the region. And in fact he says as much. He wants to be given credit for believing in the long-term destruction of ISIS. He wants to avoid another ground war, and he wants credit for that too, especially with his political base. He wants congressional Republican approval for whatever language he puts forward. Yet, he simultaneously wants to be able to accuse those same Republicans of favoring the dreaded "boots on the ground”—even though there are already U.S. boots on the ground in Iraq by his own orders.

In other words the president's main objection to robust Republican criticism of his proposed use of force is, in effect, that such criticism is insufficiently disingenuous, as well as politically inconvenient for him.

Not exactly Abraham Lincoln.

But how should Republicans respond? What would an effective American strategy against ISIS look like?

Great piece. Keep reading.

California Won't Run Out of Water

No, but the left will exploit the drought, lie and distort the facts, in order to secure more power over the people of California.

From Tony Barboza, at LAT, "No, California won't run out of water in a year."

Video Shows Death of Mexican Wrestler Perro Aguayo Jr. (GRAPHIC)

Here's the story at the Los Angeles Times, "Pro wrestler Perro Aguayo Jr. dies during match with Rey Mysterio."

Seems like YouTube is not censoring these clips, although most of them don't show the moment when Aguayo had his lights knocked out. But clearly, he died instantaneously.

Watch: "MUERTE DEL PERRO AGUAYO JR (MOMENTO EXACTO)."

Another video is edited to begin a fraction of a second after Aguayo takes the hit, but you can tell how he's knocked completely unconscious on impact from the blow: "Décès de Perro Aguayo Jr, son dernier combat à Tijuana."

More at Deadspin, "Mexican Wrestling Star Perro Aguayo Jr. Dies After In-Ring Accident."

I dispute that he died from the whiplash from the ropes. He was knocked cold and fell into the ropes unconscious. I think media reports are making look like it was an after-accident involving the ropes. I don't think so.

Uninsured Choose to Pay ObamaCare Tax Penalty Rather Than Cave to Aggressive Democrat Sign-Up Push

At WSJ, "Many Uninsured Choose Penalty Over Enrollment Offer Under Health Law":

WASHINGTON—A special enrollment period to obtain health insurance for millions of uninsured people who owe a tax penalty under the Affordable Care Act is off to a slow start.

The health law requires most Americans to have insurance or pay a fine at tax time. The open enrollment period under the health law ended Feb. 15, but the Obama administration said it would allow people who discover they owe a fine to sign up for coverage through April, at the end of the tax season.

Major tax-preparation firms say many customers are paying the penalty and not getting health insurance. It is still early, since the special enrollment period launched Sunday, but research also suggests that many people who lack health insurance will pay the penalty and not get covered this year.

Only 12% of uninsured people would buy policies if informed of the penalty, according to a survey of 3,000 adults polled through Feb. 24 by McKinsey & Co.’s Center for U.S. Health System Reform.

At H&R Block Inc., “our analysis indicates that a significant percentage of taxpayers whose household members were not covered for at least a portion of 2014 are opting” to pay the penalty, said Mark Ciaramitaro, a vice president of health-care enrollment services at the tax-preparation firm.

Richard Gonzalez, 59 years old, of Navarre, Fla., found out he will pay a $250 penalty for going without insurance. The retired employee of United Parcel Service Inc. said he won’t take advantage of the special enrollment period because it is cheaper for him to pay out-of-pocket for health care than to buy insurance on the exchange. He said he shopped on the exchange but would have to pay $400 a month for a plan with a $6,000 deductible.

“I think it’s wrong I have to pay the penalty,” said Mr. Gonzalez. “But it beats paying more than $10,000 a year.”

Keep reading.

'Tide of War Receding' as Hundreds Slaughtered in Islamic State Suicide Bombings in Yemen

From Katie Pavlich, at Town Hall, "Yemen Disaster Gets Much Worse: Hundreds Slaughtered in Dual ISIS Suicide Bombings."

And at BNI, "YEMEN: “Heads, legs and arms of dead people were scattered all over the floor of the mosque, blood is running like a river” after multiple suicide bombings."

Muslim Madness: Obama's NCAA Brackets Completed – He Has Jihadists Winning

Via iOWNTHEWORLD Report.

Do the Democrats and Israel Have a Future Together?

Well, no, obviously.

According to the New York Times, racist, eliminationist groups like Student for Justice in Palestine are the future of the Democrat Party -- and this has longtime Jewish supporters of the Democrats extremely worried.

See, "Do the Democrats and Israel Have a Future Together?":

While a deepening polarization among American Jews about Netanyahu puts Obama’s potential successor, Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a politically uncomfortable position, it is the transformation of Israel into a partisan issue that fills Democratic Jewish officials with dread. Clinton’s advisers can always take solace knowing that the Democratic base will vote for a Democratic candidate no matter what. But Jewish Democrats worry about the prospect of keeping liberal support for Israel a viable long-term position for a party base that is overwhelmingly non-Jewish and increasingly critical of the country.

After all, many younger Americans know Israel only as a nuclear-armed force that is the dominant power in its region. On college campuses, pro-Palestinian groups like Students for Justice in Palestine have long framed the Israeli occupation as the civil rights issue of our time. A Pew Research Center poll over the summer showed that 29 percent of voters under the age of 30 blamed Israel more than Hamas for the war in Gaza, while only 21 percent blamed Hamas more. African-Americans and Hispanics were also more likely to blame Israel.

This trend has clearly frightened the Jewish establishment....

Rude Rosie Jones

Hey, more power to Zoo for keeping the Page 3 flame blazing in Britain.

The Holocaust of Left-Wing Anti-Semitism on America's Campuses

These are indeed dangerous times, and the spread of leftist hatred has the imprimatur of the Democrat Party and the Obama administration. It's not just shocking. It's truly frightening. It's already like France for American Jews. A matter of life and death.

Are America’s Liberal Colleges Breeding Anti-Semitism? http://t.co/FvwzDbUXnr pic.twitter.com/gVLBXvkMvh

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) March 19, 2015

At the Daily Beast, "Berkeley’s Swastika Problem: Are America’s Liberal Colleges Breeding Anti-Semitism?":

A majority of Jewish college students, 54 percent, reported being subjected to or witness to anti-Semitism on campus during a six-month period, according to a 2014 survey published by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Trinity College. Not only was this survey undertaken before the violent summer conflict in Gaza, which researchers Barry A. Kosmin and Ariela Keysar said led to a “worldwide flare-up in anti-Semitism,” but they also noted that the “data suggest there is an under-reporting of anti-Semitism through the normal campus channels.”

Even more disturbingly, students reported that they often felt universities did not take their concerns about anti-Semitism seriously. “The response of many university faculty and administrators to Jewish complaints and outrage often shows that their threshold for the definition of the existence of the crime of anti-Semitism is set ridiculously high,” write Kosmin and Keysar.

At schools where students strive to protect the rights of ethnic and racial minorities, stomp out sexual and gender discrimination, and regularly remind people to “check their privilege,” hate speech against the Jewish community has become a pernicious problem.

“We still find anti-Semitic slogans written on bathrooms. We see swastikas on doors still, but they’re kind of dismissed. They’re painted over because there are just so many things that happened,” says Ori Herschmann, a senior at UC Berkeley who serves in the student government. “A lot of students find swastikas and come to me. [They see it] on dorms, on bathroom stalls, just random places on campus.”

Herschmann said the during the conflict in Gaza this summer, he also came across sidewalk graffiti on campus that exhorted “Death to Israel” and “Kill all the Jews.” (Herschmann shared a photograph of the former remark painted on a sidewalk but did not have one of the latter).

Herschmann says the Jewish undergraduates who come to him are often scared. He believes that part of his responsibility as a student leader is to make the Berkeley campus safer. Herschmann sponsored a bill condemning anti-Semitism on Berkeley’s campus and calling for the creation of a committee to deal with anti-Semitism. “I take this extremely seriously. The more I let the anti-Semitic rhetoric get me down, the less I can do my job,” he says. The Berkeley measure passed on February 25.
After initially telling The Daily Beast that they had not heard any reports of anti-Semitic graffiti this academic year, a rep with UC Berkeley later investigated and confirmed that they had been made aware of reports of swastikas on campus, as well as the “Death to Israel” graffiti.

In the case of the “Death to Israel” graffiti, the rep, Dan Mogulof, assistant vice chancellor in the Office of Communications and Public Affairs, maintained the graffiti was technically off-campus, near a popular restaurant called Freehouse. “It looks to me like we can account for that graffiti on the sidewalk, but that was in a public area not on campus,” said Mogulof. “The restaurant was in the city, not on campus. It’s impossible to know if that was someone from the surrounding community, high school kids, or someone affiliated with the campus.”

Hershmann noted that the graffiti was “right across from campus. It's literally across the street…for the university to dodge the question and say it's not part of campus is disgraceful. Students live all over Berkeley. If anti-Semitic events occur all over Berkeley, they [the administration] should make students feel safe.” Freehouse also happens to be only 413 feet from the UC Berkeley Hillel house, according to Google Maps.

The Crisis in U.S.-Israel Relations

At Commentary, "A Statement on the Crisis in the U.S.—Israel Relationship":

The relationship between the United States and Israel is in jeopardy because, from the moment his administration began, Barack Obama has consciously, deliberately, and with malice aforethought sought to jeopardize it. He did so in part because he is committed to the idea that Israel must retreat to its 1967 borders, dismantle its settlements, and will a Palestinian state into existence. He views Israel’s inability or unwillingness to do these things as a moral stain.

But the depth of Obama’s anger toward Israel and Netanyahu suggests that there is far more to it than that. Israel stands in the way of what the president hopes might be his crowning foreign-policy achievement: a new order in the Middle East represented by a new entente with Iran. Netanyahu’s testimony on behalf of his country and his people is this: A nuclear Iran will possess the means to visit a second Holocaust on the Jews in a single day. His testimony on behalf of everyone else is this: A nuclear Iran will set off an arms race in the Middle East that will threaten world order, the world’s financial stability, and the lives of untold millions. Simply put, Obama finds the witness Israel is bearing to the threat posed by Iran unbearable.

Elliott Abrams has called the speech kerfuffle a “manufactured crisis.” He is right, and the assembly line has been rolling without letup for six years.

Read it all.

The editors point out that the Democrats have increasingly become anti-Israel, and it's apparent that the sources are both bottom-up and top-down. On the one hand, the virulent racist anti-Semitism on college campuses has seeped upward into the precincts of the Democrat Party establishment (at the presidential nominating conventions, for example), and on the other, the Israel-hatred at the Obama White House has tricked-down, providing über-legitimacy for the entire spectrum of Israel-hatred on the political left.

'If you're anti-Israel then you're anti-America...'

A message to scummy leftists reading this blog, from Howard Stern:

HOWARD STERN: "If you're anti-Israel then you are anti-America." #StandWithIsrael pic.twitter.com/jQ87Sr1ey7
— slone (@slone) March 20, 2015

'Obama Loathes Netanyahu More than Any Other World Leader'

Once again, the inimitable Dr. Krauthammer speaks truth to despicable leftist hatred:

Why Islam Needs a Reformation

From Ayaan Hirsi Ali, at WSJ, "To defeat the extremists for good, Muslims must reject those aspects of their tradition that prompt some believers to resort to oppression and holy war."

A freakin' outstanding piece, excerpted from her new book, Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now.

The 'Righthaven' Aftermath

From Steve Green, at the O.C. Register, "At Chapman forum, 'Righthaven' copyright outfit still controversial five years later."

It was through Mr. Green, who contacted me for comment, that I first found out about my Righthaven lawsuit. See "Beating Righthaven."

I'm pretty proud of myself that I fought back and defended myself against those fuckers.

The Rape Epidemic on Campus Does Not Exist

Of course it doesn't. It's being ginned up, to enormous effect, by terrible people.

At Minding the Campus.

Charlotte McKinney in Denim Buffalo

Lovely.

At Egotastic!, "Charlotte McKinney Is Big and Busty and Racktastic for Denim."

BONUS: "Charlotte McKinney Panties Flashing Robe Malfunction Outside DWTS."

"All he said was: 'The right-wing government is in danger. Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls. Left-wing organizations are busing them out. Get out to vote, bring your friends and family, vote Likud in order to close the gap between us and Labor'..."

Max Boot discusses the rift between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu, at the L.A. Times, "More 'daylight' between Netanyahu's Israel and the U.S. -- is that what Obama wants?"

"Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls."

Boy, that's really "racist." But with idiot leftists, that's all they've got.

Hateful. Leftists are nothing but hateful.

A Complete Timeline of Obama's Anti-Israel Hatred

An astonishing fit of hatred from this president.

From Ben Shapiro, at Breitbart.



More, "Barack Obama and the War Against the Jews."

The Army's Fort Hood Disgrace

The army's top brass is a disgrace, not the grunts terrorized by Nidal Hasan. And Barack Hussein bears ultimate responsibly. He's virtually a cancer of political correctness ravaging the country.

From Kathy Platoni, at WSJ, "No one who supervised the shooter has been held to account, but the victims are denied pay and benefits":

It was more than five years ago that the gunshots rang out, but those of us who survived can still hear their echoes. On Nov. 5, 2009, an Army psychiatrist named Nidal Hasan—an American radicalized by extremist Islamic beliefs—opened fire on his fellow soldiers in Fort Hood, Texas, killing 14 people, including an unborn child, and wounding 32.

I was there. A beloved friend, Capt. John Gaffaney, died at my knees. I was slated to become the shooter’s direct supervisor and later learned I was at the top of his hit list.

That day has faded from the minds of most Americans. But the survivors and the families of the deceased continually relive its horror. They also continue to face betrayal by the government they served...

A great piece. RTWT.

The Death of Free Speech on College Campuses

From A. Barton Hinkle, at Reason, "From trigger warnings to 'free speech zones', the First Amendment is in peril on campus":

Episodes such as these [at the link] – along with the increasing demand for “trigger warnings,” the campaigns to stamp out “microaggressions,” and so forth – neatly illustrate the snake-swallowing-its-own-tail nature of political correctness. Its support for diversity produces demands for conformity. Its insistence on inclusivity requires it to exclude those who, say, swell with pride at the sight of Old Glory. Its efforts to make the classroom a “safe space” have made classes unsafe for those whose views deviate from the campus norm. It deploys macro-aggression – coercion and compulsion – to punish such non-aggressive acts as the peaceful withholding of consent.

The campaign against hate speech – or merely offensive speech, or just any speech the listener disagrees with – rests on a couple of different rationales. The first is that hateful speech can lead to hateful acts: Racial epithets might lead to lynching, for example. But there is no real empirical evidence to support that claim. Indeed, on today’s campus any violence is more likely to be directed at the offending speaker, rather than at his intended target. (E.g, when an anti-abortion protester showed up a few days ago at the University of Oregon, he didn’t change any minds, but students did snatch his poster and tear it up. “This is not part of your First Amendment right,” they said.)

'Gwen Stefani proves that you can still look sexy when covered in her wax jeans and sky-high heels...'

Check out the slideshow.

ONLY Gwen Stefani could make jeans and a turtleneck look THIS sexy: http://t.co/vnWdstYgUp pic.twitter.com/k7SkJ1r8tR

— Harper's Bazaar (@harpersbazaarus) March 16, 2015

American Airlines Dad and Pilot Daughter Fly Together for the First Time

Feels good.

At ABC News, "American Airlines Dad and Pilot Daughter Duo Take Flight."

And London's Daily Mail, "Father and daughter co-pilot American Airlines flight together for first time - and mom came along for the ride."

The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror

Buy Jamie Glazov's book, United in Hate.

Plus, more specials at Amazon, Spring Cleaning - Shop Now.

Martese Johnson Arrest

Pretty soon you won't be able to arrest a black man in America. Political correctness will demand a universal pre-amnesty from the consequences of any and all forms of black thug behavior.

At BuzzFeed, "UVA Student Bloodied During Arrest By State Liquor Agents; Governor Orders Investigation."

Court records show Johnson was arrested on two misdemeanor charges of obstructing justice without force, and public swearing and intoxication. He is expected to appear in court next week.

And at the Daily Cavalier, "State, University, community responses to Martese Johnson's arrest." (Via Memeorandum.)

Amazing Video of Young Girl's Reaction at Seeing Train for the First Time

This is something else.

It certainly looks like she's seeing a train for the first time.

Watch: "A Sweet Little Girl Sees a Train for the First Time."

Dieudonné M'bala M'bala Convicted of Condoning Terrorism on Facebook

Not funny.

At NYT, "Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, French Comedian, Convicted of Condoning Terrorism."

Netanyahu Foils Obama's Plot to Depose Israel's Likud Government

Here's Ezra Levant:



And at the Los Angeles Times, "U.S. support for Israel at the U.N. is in jeopardy, White House says." Obama's a fucking sore loser. See the Guardian UK, "Obama snubs Netanyahu and criticises Israeli PM's 'divisive rhetoric'."

More from Noah Rothman, at Hot Air, "Sour grapes on the left over Netanyahu’s landslide victory."

San Francisco Saint Mary's Cathedral Drenches Homeless with Sprinklers to Keep Them Away

Now this is just cruel.

At CBS San Francisco, "Homeless At Saint Mary’s Cathedral Intentionally Drenched With Water While Sleeping."

And at Memeorandum, "Saint Mary's Cathedral Drenches Homeless With Water to Keep Them Away."

Plus, here's the statement from the archdiocese.

Why Students Voted to Remove American Flag

From Dennis Prager, at Town Hall.

The facts are presented first, and then the analysis:

Now to what I believe is the most important question regarding the resolution to ban the flag and the petition on behalf of the resolution: Why were they supported?

Here are three reasons:

1. Outside of the natural sciences, math, and a few other departments, our universities are essentially seminaries -- teaching what has been the most dynamic religion of the Western world over the past hundred years, leftism. Every -- frequently incoherent -- idea expressed by the resolution and the petition represents years of left-wing indoctrination. Respect for the American flag comes naturally; reasons to hold it in contempt have to be learned.

It is not surprising that the author of the resolution is a student at UC Irvine's School of Social Ecology. Visit its website and you will see leftism in one of its purest forms.

2. The students and the professors see themselves as citizens of the world. Leftism rejects nationalism, and the most nationalistic of the industrialized Western democracies is America. The left regards nationalism -- as symbolized by hanging or waving the American flag -- as primitive and ultimately fascistic.

3. Many professors and students are bored. Compared to the past anywhere and compared to the present almost anywhere, life in America is remarkably easy for the vast majority of college students and college professors.

This ease, however, presents them with another problem -- a lack of meaning in life. For nearly all people there has never been a problem with finding meaning. Even putting aside religion -- humanity's greatest supplier of meaning -- life's difficulties have always given people meaning: How will I feed myself and my family? How will I provide myself and my family with a home?

But these problems exist for almost no American college student and they do not exist for any American professor. And since so few professors, and increasingly few students, derive meaning from America's traditional Judeo-Christian religions, meaning must be sought and found elsewhere.

Thus the left generally and the universities in particular manufacture crises that give the secular middle and upper classes great meaning: fight American sexism, intolerance, xenophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia, racism, material inequality, capitalism and nationalism.

That America is in fact the most open, opportunity-giving and tolerant country in world history is irrelevant to these people. To acknowledge this would be to deprive themselves of the greatest human need after food -- meaning and purpose.

These are the reasons they want to ban the American flag. That hundreds of thousands of Americans died for what this flag represents -- the American trinity of liberty, In God We Trust and E Pluribus Unum -- means nothing to these students and professors. Thanks to leftism, when they see the American flag they see imperialism and bigotry.

Hateful leftists. Most people rejoice at our flag. Not leftists. They're blinded by hatred.

The Privilege of Checking White Privilege

From John McWhorter, at the Daily Beast, "When students are compelled to have “White Privilege 101” classes, we have every right to ask: Why, and for whose benefit?"

You can check it, but it this leftist meme ain't going away anytime soon (via Instapundit).

Kids React to Old-School VCRs and VHS Tapes

Absolutely wonderful. They're so hip and smart.

At ABC-7 Los Angeles, "KIDS HILARIOUSLY CONFUSED BY VCRS AND VHS TAPES."

Netanyahu Soundly Defeats Chief Rival in Israeli Elections

Good for him.

At NYT, "Stage Is Set for a Fourth Term for Israeli Leader":

TEL AVIV — After a bruising campaign focused on his failings, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel won a clear victory in Tuesday’s elections and seemed all but certain to form a new government and serve a fourth term, though he offended many voters and alienated allies in the process.

With 99.5 percent of the ballots counted, the YNet news site reported Wednesday morning that Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party had captured 29 or 30 of the 120 seats in Parliament, sweeping past his chief rival, the center-left Zionist Union alliance, which got 24 seats.

Mr. Netanyahu and his allies had seized on earlier exit polls that showed a slimmer Likud lead to create an aura of inevitability, and celebrated with singing and dancing. While his opponents vowed a fight, Israeli political analysts agreed even before most of the ballots were counted that he had the advantage, with more seats having gone to the right-leaning parties likely to support him.

It was a stunning turnabout from the last pre-election polls published Friday, which showed the Zionist Union, led by Isaac Herzog, with a four- or five-seat lead and building momentum, and the Likud polling close to 20 seats. To bridge the gap, Mr. Netanyahu embarked on a last-minute scorched-earth campaign, promising that no Palestinian state would be established as long as he remained in office and insulting Arab citizens.

Mr. Netanyahu, who served as prime minister for three years in the 1990s and returned to office in 2009, exulted in what he called “a huge victory” and said he had spoken to the heads of all the parties “in the national camp” and urged them to help him form a government “without any further ado.”

“I am proud of the Israeli people that, in the moment of truth, knew how to separate between what’s important or what’s not and to stand up for what’s important,” he told an exuberant crowd early Wednesday morning at Likud’s election party at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds. “For the most important thing for all of us, which is real security, social economy and strong leadership.”

But it remained to be seen how his divisive — some said racist — campaign tactics would affect his ability to govern a fractured Israel.

Mr. Herzog also called the election “an incredible achievement.” He said he had formed a negotiating team and still hoped to lead “a real social government in Israel” that “aspires to peace with our neighbors.”

“The public wants a change,” he said at an election-night party in Tel Aviv, before the Likud’s large margin of victory was revealed by the actual vote count. “We will do everything in our power, given the reality, to reach this. In any case, I can tell you that there will be no decisions tonight.”

Based on the results reported on YNet, Mr. Netanyahu could form a narrow coalition of nationalist and religious parties free of the ideological divisions that stymied his last government. That was what he intended when he called early elections in December. President Reuven Rivlin, who in coming days must charge Mr. Netanyahu or Mr. Herzog with trying to forge a coalition based on his poll of party leaders’ preferences , said shortly after the polls closed that he would suggest they join forces instead.

“I am convinced that only a unity government can prevent the rapid disintegration of Israel’s democracy and new elections in the near future,” he told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Both camps rejected that option publicly, saying the gaps between their world views were too large. Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Herzog started working the phones immediately after the polls closed, calling party heads to begin the horse-trading and deal-making in hopes of lining up a majority of lawmakers behind them.

The biggest prize may be Moshe Kahlon, a popular former Likud minister who broke away — in part out of frustration with Mr. Netanyahu — to form Kulanu, which focused on pocketbook issues. Mr. Kahlon leans to the right but has issues with the prime minister, and he said Tuesday night that he would not reveal his recommendation until the final results were tallied.

Kulanu — Hebrew for “All of Us” — won 10 seats , according to the tally YNet reported Wednesday based on 99.5 percent of ballots counted. That is enough to put either side’s basic ideological alliance over the magic number of 61 if they also win the backing of two ultra-Orthodox parties that won a total of 14 seats.

“The clearest political outcome is that Kahlon is going to be the kingmaker, and it really depends on how he is going to play his cards,” said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute. “It very much depends on Kahlon.”

Keep reading (via Memeorandum).

Obama Blames Bush for Islamic State

SMH, this is such a patently ridiculous claim. Seriously, Barack Hussein deserves all the rich mockery he's getting.

At Breitbart, "PRESIDENT OBAMA BLAMES BUSH FOR RISE OF ISIS."

At the second half of the clip, Laura Ingraham slams Hussein for acting like a child -- a tired, petulant, whiny child.

St. Patrick's Day Ladies' Silky Racerback Tank Top

At Amazon.

Plus, Deep Discounts on Open-Box Wearable Technology.

Have a great day!

Aging Baby Boomers Bring Drug Habits Into Middle Age

Great.

And to think, it's easier all the time now use gateway drugs, what with all the marijuana legalization going down across the country. Now we see baby boomers continuing to destroy their lives with drugs, and we've got whole generations of youth lining up behind them, throwing it all away.

At WSJ, "Older adults are abusing drugs, getting arrested for drug offenses and dying from drug overdoses at increasingly higher rates":

UPLAND, Calif.—From the time he was a young man coming of age in the 1970s, Mike Massey could have served as a poster child for his generation, the baby boomers. He grew his hair long to the dismay of his father, surfed, played in rock bands and says he regularly got high on marijuana and cocaine.

The wild times receded as he grew older. In his 30s, he stopped using drugs altogether, rose into executive positions with the plumbers and pipe fitters union, bought a house in this Los Angeles suburb and started a family. But at age 50, Mr. Massey injured his knee running. He took Vicodin for the pain but soon started using pills heavily, mixing the opioids with alcohol, he said.

“It reminded me of getting high and getting loaded,” said Mr. Massey, now 58 years old, who went into recovery and stopped using drugs and alcohol in 2013. “Your mind never forgets that.”

Today, the story of this balding, middle-aged executive continues to reflect that of his generation.

Older adults are abusing drugs, getting arrested for drug offenses and dying from drug overdoses at increasingly higher rates. These surges have come as the 76 million baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, reach late middle age. Facing the pains and losses connected to aging, boomers, who as youths used drugs at the highest rates of any generation, are once again—or still—turning to drugs.

The trend has U.S. health officials worried. The sharp increase in overdose deaths among older adults in particular is “very concerning,” said Wilson Compton, deputy director for the federal government’s National Institute on Drug Abuse.

The rate of death by accidental drug overdose for people aged 45 through 64 increased 11-fold between 1990, when no baby boomers were in the age group, and 2010, when the age group was filled with baby boomers, according to an analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention mortality data. That multiple of increase was greater than for any other age group in that time span.

The surge has pushed the accidental overdose rate for these late middle age adults higher than that of 25- to 44-year-olds for the first time. More than 12,000 boomers died of accidental drug overdoses in 2013, the most recent data available. That is more than the number that died that year from either car accidents or influenza and pneumonia, according to the CDC.

“Generally, we thought of older individuals of not having a risk for drug abuse and drug addiction,” Dr. Compton said. “As the baby boomers have aged and brought their habits with them into middle age, and now into older adult groups, we are seeing marked increases in overdose deaths.”

Experts say the drug problem among the elderly has been caused by the confluence of two key factors: a generation with a predilection for mind-altering substances growing older in an era of widespread opioid painkiller abuse. Pain pills follow marijuana as the most popular ways for aging boomers to get high, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which conducts an annual national survey on drug use. Opioid painkillers also are the drug most often involved in overdoses, followed by antianxiety drugs, cocaine and heroin.

Wall Street Journal interviews with dozens of older drug users and recovering addicts revealed an array of personal stories behind the trend. Some had used drugs their entire lives and never slowed down. Others had used drugs when they were younger, then returned to them later in life after a divorce, death in the family or job loss.

“If you have a trigger, and your youth is caught up in that Woodstock mentality, you’re going to revert back,” said Jamie Huysman, 60, clinical adviser to the senior program at Caron Treatment Centers, a residential drug treatment organization that plans to break ground this summer on a $10 million medical center in Pennsylvania catering to older adults. “We were pretty conditioned that we could be rebellious, that we could take drugs, and so this is how we respond today.”

Drug-rehabilitation programs are grappling with how to handle the boom in older patients. More than 5.7 million people over the age of 50 will need substance-abuse treatment by the year 2020, according to estimates from government researchers. Meanwhile, hospitals have seen a sharp increase in the number of older adults admitted for drug-related health problems, government statistics show.

“We’re still in the process of figuring out: How do we ensure we have a strong workforce that can address this, and the appropriate settings to address this?” said Peter Delany, director of the Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality at the Department of Health and Human Services...

More.

The Riot Ideology in Ferguson

At the Other McCain.

#Ferguson ;) pic.twitter.com/Z1up86izZn

— Anonymous (@occupythemob) March 17, 2015

Hillary Clinton Barface

Via iOWNTHEWORLD Report.

And at WaPo, "Hillary Clinton's image is worse than at any point since 2008."