Teachers Sue to Join Union Without Paying for Political Activities

That sounds pretty awesome to me. Frankly, I wouldn't quit my union as it stands. The tenure guarantees and legal resources protect me against the crazed leftists who do not tolerate dissenting views. They hate me on campus, a fact that I relish every chance I get. I love to spout my conservatives views in their faces at every opportunity. Leftists can't stand fact-based analysis and genuine reality based thinking. Just smiling at these people while passing in the hallways, as they avoid my gaze, makes my day.

Leftist wear their ideological hatred on their sleeves. I wear my glee with a smile like a happy warrior in their faces.

In any case, we'll see where this goes, at LAT:

An advocacy group has filed a lawsuit seeking to stop teachers unions in California from using member dues for political purposes unless individual instructors provide their permission.

The effort, if successful, could weaken the influence of these unions by limiting their spending.

The lawsuit was filed Friday in federal court by StudentsFirst, a Sacramento-based organization that has opposed candidates and measures backed by teachers unions nationwide, while also working to pass laws that curtail union power.

In the suit, four teachers, including two from the Los Angeles Unified School District, assert that union rules and state laws violate their 1st Amendment rights to free speech because they cannot belong to the union unless they allow a portion of their dues to be spent on political activity. The teachers claim they should be able to join without subsidizing viewpoints they may oppose.

“As part of protecting the right to free speech,” the 1st Amendment does not permit forcing an individual “to subsidize speech by a third party that he or she does not wish to support,” the suit states.

The defendants are the two largest teachers unions in the country as well as the two largest in California. Also being sued are two union locals where three of the teachers work, including United Teachers Los Angeles. The suit also names the superintendents of L.A. Unified, West Contra Costa Unified and Arcadia Unified school districts.

Union leaders characterized the legal action as an attempt to limit what labor can accomplish against well-funded business interests and other opponents by cutting off funding.

“This lawsuit is attempting to use the 1st Amendment to stifle speech, not enhance it,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement...

Screw Randi Weingarten, the freakin' scuzzy bitch. What a joke of a "leader."

100-Year-Old Man in New Jersey Killed Wife with Ax Before Committing Suicide

Man, that's harsh.

At the New York Times, "New Jersey Centenarian Killed Wife With Ax Before Committing Suicide, Police Say."

Libertarians and Conservatives Stay Silent in Silicon Valley

Well, California's a one-party state at this point. Expressing contrary political views puts you in personal and professional danger.

At National Journal, "The Secret Republicans of Silicon Valley."

'No Justice! No Peace' — Leftists Protest Walter Scott Press Conference (VIDEO)

There's two video.

One from Telegraph UK, "Protesters interrupt Walter Scott shooting briefing."

And at CNN, "Protesters interrupt North Charleston mayor."

I don't see what's the big deal. Looks like it's going to be a slam dunk conviction, given the video. But see the Los Angeles Times, "South Carolina police shooting defense: What the video doesn't show."

Emily Ratajkowski for Jonathan Leder's Limited Edition Photobook

People Magazine should be naming Emily Ratajkowski the "Sexiest Woman Alive"?

My god this woman's a freakin' fantastic.

At C-Heads Magazine‎, "Emily Ratajkowski stars for Jonathan Leder's Limited Edition Photobook":

What happens when two super talents collaborate together? A wonderful photobook for your bookshelf. Jonathan Leder released an Artist Edition Limited Edition Photobook starring an original Polaroid Series of bombshell Emily Ratajkowski. She´s the girl of everyone´s dreams. And we are sure she knows it.

State Regulators to Urge Informants to 'Rat Out' Water Wasters in California's Democrat-Induced Drought (VIDEO)

The Democrats brought on this so-called drought, with their devastating environmental policies going back to the 1970s.

And now government bureaucrats are urging residents to become informants and "rat out" water-wasting scofflaws to the state's enforcement regime. We're quickly becoming a replica of the Soviet regime under Joseph Stalin, where every Soviet citizen had "the moral duty to inform the organs of power about all known instances of the theft of state and socialist property."

At CBS News San Francisco:



Here's the plan from the State Water Board, at the Los Angeles Times, "Some communities may have to cut water use by 35%, regulators say."

This is all about control, and those hardest hit will be minorities and the poor. Because regressive Democrat Party compassion!

Video: Mischa Barton Sues Her Mom for Stolen Earnings, Exploitation

It's not often folks sue their parents.

Watch, at ABC News, "Mischa Barton Sues Mother for Exploitation, Withholding Earnings."

Dick Cheney: Obama the 'Worst President We've Ever Had...'

The Obama administration is "one of the most radical regimes we've had in history," former Vice President Dick Cheney tells Hugh Hewitt.

Listen: "Dick Cheney: Obama 'The Worst President We Have Ever Had'."

HUGH HEWITT: Is he naïve, Mr. Vice President? Or does he have a far-reaching vision that only he entertains of a realigned Middle East that somehow it all works out in the end?

DICK CHENEY: I don’t know, Hugh. I vacillate between the various theories I’ve heard, but you know, if you had somebody as president who wanted to take America down, who wanted to fundamentally weaken our position in the world and reduce our capacity to influence events, turn our back on our allies and encourage our adversaries, it would look exactly like what Barack Obama’s doing. I think his actions are constituted in my mind those of the worst president we’ve ever had.

Russian Military Aircraft Near U.S. Shores Signals Moscow's Challenge to the West

Yeah, this definitely trips me out.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Intent of Russian military aircraft near U.S. shores remains unclear":

The air is frigid and the wind is howling as Air Force Col. Frank Flores lifts a pair of foot-long binoculars and studies a hazy dot about 50 miles west across the Bering Strait.

"That's the mainland there," he shouts above the gusts.

It's Siberia, part of Russia, on the Asian mainland.

Named for an old mining camp, Tin City is a tiny Air Force installation atop an ice-shrouded coastal mountain 50 miles below the Arctic Circle, far from any road or even trees. The Pentagon took over the remote site decades ago and built a long-range radar station to help detect a surprise attack from the Soviet Union.

At least from this frozen perch, America's closest point to Vladimir Putin's Russia, the Cold War is turning warm again.

U.S. F-22 fighter jets scrambled about 10 times last year — twice as often as in 2013 — to monitor and photograph Russian Tu-95 "Bear" bombers and MiG-31 fighter jets that flew over the Bering Sea without communicating with U.S. air controllers or turning on radio transponders, which emit identifying signals.

The Russian flights are in international airspace, and it's unclear whether they are testing U.S. defenses, patrolling the area or simply projecting a newly assertive Moscow's global power.

"They're obviously messaging us," said Flores, a former Olympic swimmer who is in charge of Tin City and 14 other radar stations scattered along the vast Alaskan coast. "We still don't know their intent."

U.S. officials view the bombers — which have been detected as far south as 50 miles off California's northern coast — as deliberately provocative. They are a sign of the deteriorating ties between Moscow and the West since Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region in March of last year and its military intervention to support separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Similar Russian flights in Europe have irked leaders in Britain, Ireland, Sweden, Norway and elsewhere. In January, British authorities were forced to reroute commercial aircraft after Russian bombers flew over the English Channel with their transponders off.

In all, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization says its jets scrambled to monitor Russian warplanes around Europe more than 100 times last year, about three times as many as in 2013. Russian air patrols outside its borders were at their highest level since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, NATO said.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in a statement in November, as tensions heightened over Ukraine, that Russia's strategic bombers would resume patrols in both the Atlantic and the Pacific.

"In the current situation we have to maintain military presence in the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific, as well as the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico," he said...

Also at the Hill, "Admiral: Putin's military 'far more capable' than what Soviet Union had."

The Iran Deal and Its Consequences

From those notorious (not) neocons, Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, at WSJ, "Mixing shrewd diplomacy with defiance of U.N. resolutions, Iran has turned the negotiation on its head":

The announced framework for an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program has the potential to generate a seminal national debate. Advocates exult over the nuclear constraints it would impose on Iran. Critics question the verifiability of these constraints and their longer-term impact on regional and world stability. The historic significance of the agreement and indeed its sustainability depend on whether these emotions, valid by themselves, can be reconciled.

Debate regarding technical details of the deal has thus far inhibited the soul-searching necessary regarding its deeper implications. For 20 years, three presidents of both major parties proclaimed that an Iranian nuclear weapon was contrary to American and global interests—and that they were prepared to use force to prevent it. Yet negotiations that began 12 years ago as an international effort to prevent an Iranian capability to develop a nuclear arsenal are ending with an agreement that concedes this very capability, albeit short of its full capacity in the first 10 years.

Mixing shrewd diplomacy with open defiance of U.N. resolutions, Iran has gradually turned the negotiation on its head. Iran’s centrifuges have multiplied from about 100 at the beginning of the negotiation to almost 20,000 today. The threat of war now constrains the West more than Iran. While Iran treated the mere fact of its willingness to negotiate as a concession, the West has felt compelled to break every deadlock with a new proposal. In the process, the Iranian program has reached a point officially described as being within two to three months of building a nuclear weapon. Under the proposed agreement, for 10 years Iran will never be further than one year from a nuclear weapon and, after a decade, will be significantly closer...

Oh joy.

And that's Obama's foreign policy legacy to boot. Making the U.S. and its allies less safe.

Who'd have thunk it?!!

Keep reading.

Biggest Storm in Nearly Two Months Hits San Francisco Bay Area

At ABC News 7 San Francisco, "SORELY NEEDED RAIN ROLLS THROUGH BAY AREA."

We also had a little bit of rain in Southern California. My son called out to me in the evening last night, "Dad, it's raining!"

They're Back: The Neocons and Iran

From Jacob Heilbrunn, at the Los Angeles Times, "The neocons: They're back, and on Iran, they're uncompromising as ever":

If nothing succeeds like failure, then the neoconservatives who championed democracy promotion and regime change against Saddam Hussein are very successful indeed. After the Iraq war went south, the reputations of leading neocons such as former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz came into disrepute. But as the Obama administration has worked toward its controversial nuclear deal with Iran, the neocons have once again become the dominant voice on foreign policy in the Republican Party.

Writing in National Review on the eve of the agreement, the historian Victor Davis Hanson declared, "Our dishonor in Lausanne, as with Munich, may avoid a confrontation in the present, but our shame will guarantee a war in the near future."

Over the last few decades, the neocons, who are mostly based at think tanks and magazines in Washington, have come to constitute a kind of military-intellectual complex. Their credo is as sweeping as it is simple: No compromise is ever possible with America's foreign enemies. Instead, they are championing a liberation doctrine that allows them to present bombing and invading other countries at will as an act of supreme moral virtue.

Exhibit A is Iran. Just as they argued that Saddam Hussein was on the verge of obtaining a nuclear bomb, so leading neocons are rehearsing the same arguments about Tehran. They say the U.S. has no choice but to go on the attack before Iran explodes a nuclear bomb and becomes a regional superpower with the ability to destroy Israel.

"The United States could do a thorough job of destruction, but Israel alone can do what's necessary," John Bolton, ambassador to the United Nations during the George W. Bush administration, recently wrote in the New York Times. "Such action should be combined with vigorous American support for Iran's opposition, aimed at regime change in Tehran."

Similarly, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who studied under Harvey Mansfield, a neoconservative government professor at Harvard University, is pushing the GOP toward a more hawkish stand. In March, Cotton circulated a letter designed to torpedo the Obama administration's negotiations with Iran and in a speech at the Heritage Foundation said Congress should be "offering to transfer advanced weapons like surplus B-52 bombers and 30,000-pound bunker-busting bombs to Israel."

If the neocons are well-represented in Congress, they also have the ear of some leading potential GOP presidential candidates...

It's like six degrees of separation for Heilbrunn. Sheesh. Most of the folks he mentions aren't even remotely considered "neocon." John Bolton, for example, repudiated the neocon label repeatedly in the years following the Iraq war, and especially around the time he served as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. And Tom Cotton's a neocon because he took a class with a neocon? Well, most young college students should be communists by that standard, given the far-left colonization of the academy by America's ideological enemies.

Keep reading, for what it's worth.

Seriously. Heilbrunn even goes so far as to smear über isolationist Rand Paul by the dreaded "n-word." The horrors!

South Carolina Policeman Charged With Murder in Shooting of Unarmed Black Man (VIDEO)

This is horrible.

At the New York Times, "South Carolina Officer Is Charged With Murder in Black Man's Death."



And here's the Charleston Post and Courier's clip, "Walter Scott shooting."

Also at Memeorandum.

Vicious Chris Matthews Rant Against the 'Piggish Money People' Behind the Neocons

Whoa.

That's going right up there to the line for the big MSNBC anchor. The network's Jew-hatred just cannot be contained!

At Twitchy, "Chris Matthews rants against ‘piggish money people’ who favor pro-Israel democracies."

And watch: "Matthews Blasts 'These God Damn Ads' Attacking Rand by Rotten Hawkish Right-Wing Front Groups."

Just another day of business from the party of racist hatred and anti-Semitism.

Scottish Leaders' Debate: SNP's Nicola Sturgeon Offers to Help Make Ed Miliband Prime Minister

Ms. Sturgeon, of the Scottish National Party, would form a coalition with Labor, elevating leader Ed Miliband to the premiere's office.

At Telegraph UK, "Scottish leaders debate - as it happened."



Also at the Belfast Telegraph, "SNP's Nicola Sturgeon calls for pact with Labour to oust Cameron."

America's Accelerating Decay

From Dennis Prager, at National Review, "The steepening decline is evident in the family, in education, in morality, in art":

As one who loves America — not only because I am American, but even more so because I know (not believe, know) that the American experiment in forming a decent society has been the most successful in history — I write the following words in sadness: With few exceptions, every aspect of American life is in decline.

“Decay” is the word.

The Decline of the Family: Nearly half (48 percent) of American children are born to a mother who is not married. Forty-three percent of American children live without a father in the home. About 50 percent of Americans over 18 are married, compared with 72 percent in 1960. Americans are having so few children that the fertility rate fell to a record low 62.9 births per 1,000 women in 2013. And in an increasing number of states, there are now more deaths than births.

The Decline of Education: Compared with nearly all of American history, the average American school teaches much less about important subjects such as American history, English grammar, literature, music, and art. Instead schools are teaching much more about “social justice,” environmentalism, and sex. Any of us who receive e-mail from large numbers of Americans can attest to the deteriorating education — including among those who attended college — in written English. In sophisticated commentary on websites as well as in e-mail, one encounters the most basic errors: “it’s” instead of “its”; “their” instead of “there”; “then” instead of “than”; etc.

Most universities have become secular seminaries for the dissemination of leftism. Moreover, aside from indoctrination, students usually learn little. One can earn a B.A. in English at UCLA, for example, without having read a single Shakespeare play. To the extent that American history is taught, beginning in high school and often earlier, American history is presented as the history of an immoral nation characterized by slavery, racism, colonialism, imperialism, economic exploitation, and militarism — not of a country that, more than any other, has been the beacon of freedom to mankind, and the country that has spent more treasure and spilled more blood to liberate other peoples than any other nation.

The End of Male and Female: Whatever one’s position on same-sex marriage, one must acknowledge that at the core of the argument for this redefinition of marriage is that gender doesn’t matter. Marriage is marriage and gender means nothing, the argument goes. So, too, whether children are raised by mother and father or two mothers or two fathers doesn’t matter. A father has nothing unique to offer a child that a mother can’t provide and vice versa.

Why? Because — for the first time in recorded history — gender is regarded as meaningless. Indeed, increasingly gender doesn’t even exist; it’s merely a social construct imposed on children by parents and society based on the biological happenstance of their genitalia. When signing up for Facebook, one is offered nearly 60 options under “gender.” In various high schools across the country, boys are elected homecoming queen. A woman was recently kicked out of Planet Fitness for objecting to a man in the women’s locker room. She was accused of intolerance because the man said he felt that he was a woman.

The End of Right and Wrong: At least two generations of American young people have been taught that moral categories are nothing more than personal (or societal) preferences. Recently, an incredulous professor of philosophy wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times titled “Why Our Children Don’t Think There Are Moral Facts.” In it he noted, “Without fail, every value claim is labeled an opinion” (italics in original). This extends to assessing the most glaring of evils. Since the Nazis thought killing Jews was right, there is no way to know for sure whether it was wrong; it’s the Nazis’ opinion against that of the Jews and anyone else who objects. I have heard this sentiment from American high-school students — including many Jewish ones — for 30 years.

The End of Religion: There are no moral truths because there is no longer a religious basis for morality. More than the Enlightenment, it was the Bible — especially the Hebrew Bible (which was one reason America’s Christians were different from most European Christians) that guided the Founders’ and other Americans’ values. Not any more. Instead of being guided by a code higher than themselves, Americans are taught to rely on their feelings to determine how to behave. Instead of being given moral guidance, children are asked, “How do you feel about it?”

The End of Beauty...

More.

Abigail Ratchford Washing the Mini Cooper

Via Theo Spark.

Lane Bryant Launches Plus Size 'No Angels' Campaign, Trolling Victoria's Secret

At USA Today, "Lane Bryant jabs Victoria's Secret with #ImNoAngel campaign."

And watch, at ABC News, "No 'Angels:' Lane Bryant Challenges Victoria's Secret in New Campaign."

Michelle Fields is a Sweet Bunny

She's so nice.

Happy happy Easter! pic.twitter.com/ao5f5ngaaP

— Michelle Fields (@MichelleFields) April 5, 2015

Russian Nuclear Sub Catches Fire

Watch: "Russian nuclear submarine ablaze at shipyard in Severodvinsk."

Also, "Russian nuclear submarine catches fire, but no weapons and reactor off."

I'm reminded of the Kursk, at NYT, "'None of Us Can Get Out' Kursk Sailor Wrote."

Obama Goes Off on 'Less Than Loving Christians' at Prayer Breakfast

He's such an asshole.

At Truth Revolt, "Obama Slams 'Less Than Loving' Christians At Easter Prayer Breakfast":

Says nothing about Kenya university attacks against Christians.

Watch: "Obama Does Not Mention Kenya Attacks, Instead Criticize Christians at Easter Prayer Breakfast."

Calling Obama's Bluff on Climate Change

From Steven Hayward, at WSJ, "The president is threatening to bypass Congress and sign an international treaty. Here’s how to box him in":

From immigration to Internet regulation, there is scarcely an issue on which President Obama has not pushed the limits of executive power to achieve his ideological goals. The Republican Congress has been able only to react to these usurpations, often floundering, as seen in the recent debacle over funding for the Department of Homeland Security. Is there a way the GOP Congress can get ahead of Mr. Obama?

This question is especially salient with respect to climate change, as Mr. Obama has indicated that he intends, at the next United Nations climate-change summit to be held this November in Paris, to bypass Congress once again and settle on a “politically binding” climate agreement that he would implement through executive action. This is very different from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which was regarded as a formal treaty that would have required Senate ratification to take effect. President Clinton never submitted Kyoto to the Senate for a vote: His own council of economic advisers told him it was an economic nonstarter.

This episode is relevant today. Before Vice President Al Gore embarked for Kyoto, the Senate voted 95-0 for a resolution warning the Clinton administration not to sign an asymmetrical deal that would disproportionately harm the U.S. economy. But that is exactly what Mr. Gore bought back from negotiations. Note that those voting for the resolution included climate-change true believers such as Barbara Boxer and John Kerry.

The basic international economics of greenhouse-gas reduction hasn’t changed in 20 years, and any new U.N. agreement is sure to be Kyoto revisited. Today’s Senate Democrats are so far gone into climate-change hysteria that they would never vote for the kind of resolution that passed in 1997. But GOP legislators might have other options to constrain Mr. Obama’s diplomacy...

More.

Turkey Lifts Twitter Block on Leftist Revolutionary People's Liberation Front

I blogged about this earlier, "Turkish Prosecutor Dies During Siege by Leftist Revolutionary People's Liberation Front."

Make no mistake, this is what the American left will do soon enough. Radical leftists will resort to revolutionary violence to achieve their ends. The hammer-and-sickle pictured is no different from those waved by Barack Obama supporters back in 2008. It's coming to America.

At London's Daily Mail, "Turkey lifts block on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube after the sites agree to remove images of prosecutor who died after being taken hostage."

And earlier at the Guardian UK, "Turkey bans Twitter in bid to block 'propaganda' pictures of kidnapping."

New Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support Religious Freedom

From Dana Loesch:

A new poll released by WPA Opinion Research on behalf of the Family Research Councill shows that the vast majority of Americans support religious liberty in the workplace. Last week saw Governor Mike Pence (R-IN) signing Indiana's "Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” infuriating liberals zealots whom alleged his legislation encouraged discrimination against gays. It's safe to assume these delusional liberal "activists" neglected to even read the bill before taking an extremist stance against it. Yes, these are very the same left wing activists whom accuse Republicans of intolerance.

Unsurprisingly the Obama administration, fueled by Democratic dissolution, is once again executing their big government agenda, stripping away freedoms -- the very same freedoms protected by the Constitution. Last week we witnessed a family restaurant in Indiana, Memories Pizza, threatened and forced into foreclosure after exercising their rights to freedom of religion. Memories Pizza, a family owned restaurant in Indiana, is just one example of several businesses publicly shamed for exercising their American rights. Accusing Memories Pizza employees as homophobic is as outrageous as it is inaccurate. Crystal O’Connor, owner of Memories Pizza attempted to clarify the misunderstanding of his business decisions:

“The news took it totally out of proportion. They lied about it. We said that we would serve anyone that walked in that door, even gays…”But we would not condone a wedding… That’s against our religious beliefs.”

The owners of Memories Pizza are not alone, other companies such as Hobby Lobby and Chick-Fil-A have been targeted by liberal media for discriminating against customers based on their sexual preference.

According to the latest research, these business owners don't stand alone. In a survey of 800 registered voters 81% "agree government should leave people free to follow their own beliefs about marriage as well as live their daily lives at work and the way they run their businesses." Furthermore, 80% of non-religious Americans strongly support freedom to practice one's beliefs.

More.

And see John Nolte, at Big Journalism, "Sorry, Media: Polls Show Majorities Side with Indiana's Christian Pizzeria."

Cited there is the Marist Poll, "Tolerance for Religious Rights."

Once again, here's the reviled Democrat left pushing unpopular mandates to crush the freedom and liberties of Americans in the mainstream. The left can only prevail with lies and coercion. That's it.

California's 'Man-Made' Environmental Disaster

A very perceptive, and detailed, analysis from Noah Rothman, at Hot Air.

Japanese Human Experiments on American POWs in World War II

This is just whoa.

All of the U.S. airmen died, and Japan's been covering up the whole thing since.

At the Telegraph UK, "American POWs used for live experiments in Japan, according to new museum: Eight crew of a US bomber shot down in May 1945 used in medical experiments in a case that Japan has tried to forget."

The Left Sticks to Narrative 'Journalism'

From Naomi Schaefer Riley, at the New York Post, "Facts matter: Left sticks to ‘narratives,’ evidence be damned":

The verdict’s in on Rolling Stone. According to no less an authority than the Columbia Journalism Review, the magazine’s last year story of a University of Virginia gang rape was a “journalistic failure [that] encompassed reporting, editing, editorial supervision and fact-checking.”

But as with many other stories that don’t fit into the right narrative, the media will continue to draw the wrong lessons.
As an AP article noted, “Despite its flaws, the article heightened scrutiny of campus sexual assaults amid a campaign by President Barack Obama.”

Despite its flaws? You mean despite the fact that as far as anyone can tell, the story was made up out of whole cloth?

Even once the police investigated the claims of the alleged victim, The New York Times reported: “Some saw a more complex picture, saying that the uproar over the story and the steps that the university had taken since in an effort to change its culture had, in the end, raised awareness and probably done the school, and the nation, some good.”

How has the university benefited from the fact that a fraternity has been falsely accused of a horrific crime? And how has the nation benefited from the false but now widespread belief that violent rape, even gang rape, is raging on US campuses?

Wouldn’t it have done more good for people to know that young women are statistically less likely to be attacked on a campus than off of one?

But who cares about the facts as long as awareness has been raised? Take the case of Ellen Pao, who filed suit against her former employer, venture-capital group Kleiner Perkins, for gender ­discrimination...

More.

Dana Loesch Destroys Cowardly Critics of #MemeoriesPizza

At Twitchy, "Yahoo! Tech columnist wants private info on Memories Pizza GoFundMe campaign, yet passes on interview with Dana Loesch."

And here's Dana on Fox Business yesterday:

Pensions Show Why British Voters Should Go Tory

At Telegraph UK, "Pensions revolution shows the Tory vision."

Scarlet Bouvier for Zoo

At Zoo Today, "Scarlet Bouvier strips in her stunning new shoot!"

No, California's Drought Does Not 'Test History of Endless Growth'

This is just a bunch of hogwash, at the New York Times, "California Drought Tests History of Endless Growth."

What the drought's testing is whether Democrats deserve to be in charge. It's leftist environmental policies that have brought about the Brown administration's draconian policies. Only regressive left-wing dolts refuse to see that.

Check my earlier entry for the straight dope on this so-called crisis: "California's Green Drought."

Entertainment Weekly Retracts Claim of 'Misogynistic, Racist' Hugo Awards Voting Campaign

Man, does anyone get journalism right anymore?

At Twitchy.

And see AoSHQ, "The Leftwing Media Tries Covering the 'Sad Puppies' Affair."

New Images of al-Shabaab Bloodbath at Kenya's Garissa University (VIDEO)

Via Reuters:



More, at the Los Angeles Times, "At Kenya college, Christian students foretold massacre."

Rolling Stone Can't Even Apologize Right

No, the magazine has pretty much botched everything about this clusterf-k of a story.

From Megan McArdle, at Bloomberg:

Rolling Stone got taken by a fabulist.

Sunday night, the Columbia Journalism Review released its exhaustive report on what went wrong with the magazine's blockbuster story about an alleged gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity that turned out to be substantially false. And we learned what Rolling Stone plans to do to prevent such mistakes in the future, which is to say basically nothing.

No one is getting fired. Jann Wenner, the magazine's owner, expects that Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the author of the article in question, will continue to write for them. Her apology, also released last night, says in part: "I allowed my concern for Jackie’s well-being, my fear of re-traumatizing her, and my confidence in her credibility to take the place of more questioning and more facts. These are mistakes I will not make again." So everyone is basically saying the same thing: Their compassion for rape victims allowed them to be taken by a liar. Big oops, won't do that again! Nothing to see here, so can we all move along?

It's not that this version is wrong -- I think at this point we can stop dancing around the fact that "Jackie" is a fabulist. The Rolling Stone report adds some detail to this, including the suggestion that the two additional alleged victims of gang rapes at Phi Kappa Psi were also creations of Jackie's imagination. But dealing with fabulists isn't some kind of rare hazard that journalists can't be expected to anticipate. People lie to journalists all the time, for fun and profit. They tell self-serving lies designed to get them out of trouble, or self-aggrandizing lies designed to puff themselves up. They tell lies of kindness to shield others from shame or worse, and lies designed to hurt people they hate. They also tell bizarre lies about things that bring them no benefit at all, for reasons that a psychologist might be able to explain but I cannot. And unfortunately, reporters get taken.

But while it is not wrong, it is also not enough. Usually, when a reporter gets taken, you will hear some combination of the following...

More.

California Considers Establishing State-Level Earned Income Tax Credit

Interesting.

At WSJ, "Working Poor Bank On Tax Break in Costly California":

LOS ANGELES—For 30 years, Modesto Alejandro Vasquez has supported his family of four by working as a janitor in a downtown office building here. In 2014, he made about $30,000.

Earning 25% above the federal poverty level in costly Southern California, Mr. Vasquez looks forward to this time of year, when a tax refund puts extra cash in his pocket. He said he used the money—$6,000 this year—to pay off debts and repair a computer for his daughter.

A large portion of the refund came via the federal Earned Income Tax Credit. The EITC is intended to aid the working poor by reducing the amount of taxes owed, or in many cases, like Mr. Vasquez’s, by providing a refund, based on a taxpayer’s income and number of dependents.

California lawmakers, responding to the state’s nation-leading poverty level, are considering the creation of a state EITC program. Already, half of the states and the District of Columbia offer such refunds and credits. Montana legislators are also considering a state EITC this year, and a several states are evaluating expansions of their state credits. Some of the state credits currently add as much as 50% to the federal benefit.

EITC programs aren’t popular in all quarters. Critics, including many fiscal conservatives, say the federal program is expensive, amounts to a handout to the poor and is subject to errors. They cite a report published last year by the Internal Revenue Service that found 24% of federal EITC payments made in fiscal 2013 were incorrect, including both overpayments and underpayments.

While California has a relatively high minimum wage, with the state’s level set to rise to $10 next year from $9 now, many families struggle. The state is among the five most expensive to live in, according to the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis. The U.S. Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure, which takes government-assistance programs into account in calculating poverty rates, places California at the top of the list among the 50 states and D.C., with a poverty rate of 23.4%.

In 2013, an estimated 9.8 million Californians—more than a quarter of the population—qualified for the federal EITC. California residents accounted for $7.3 billion of the more than $66 billion federal EITC claims in 2013.

Eight previous EITC proposals have been unsuccessful in California, but some legislative leaders say the state’s economic recovery and budget surplus could make the program more affordable this time around. “Politically, it seems more viable than it has in the last decade,” said Chris Hoene, executive director of the California Budget Project, a think tank focused on the state’s low- and middle-income residents...

More.

California's Green Drought

We're supposed to get a little rain in the Sierras over the next couple of days. But frankly, California's bigger problem is the Democrat Party and its idiotic "green" collectivist agenda.

At WSJ, "How bad policies are compounding the state’s water shortage":

The liberals who run California have long purported that their green policies are a free (organic) lunch, but the bills are coming due. Lo, Governor Jerry Brown has mandated a 25% statewide reduction in water use. Consider this rationing a surcharge for decades of environmental excess.

Weather is of course the chief source of California’s water woes. This is the fourth year of below-average precipitation, and January and March were the driest in over a century. The Sierra Nevada snowpack, which contains about a third of state water reserves, is 5% of the historical average compared to 25% last year. Reservoirs and aquifers are also low, and some could run dry this year.

While droughts occur intermittently across the globe, other societies have learned better how to cope with water shortages. For instance, Israel (60% desert) has built massive desalination plants powered by cheap natural gas that helped the country weather the driest winter on record in 2014 and a seven-year drought between 2004 and 2010.

***

Then there’s California, which has suffered four droughts in the last five decades with each seemingly more severe in its impact. Yet this is due more to resource misallocation than harsher conditions.

During normal years, the state should replenish reservoirs. However, environmental regulations require that about 4.4 million acre-feet of water—enough to sustain 4.4 million families and irrigate one million acres of farmland—be diverted to ecological purposes. Even in dry years, hundreds of thousands of acre feet of runoff are flushed into San Francisco Bay to protect fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

During the last two winters amid the drought, regulators let more than 2.6 million acre-feet out into the bay. The reason: California lacked storage capacity north of the delta, and environmental rules restrict water pumping to reservoirs south. After heavy rains doused northern California this February, the State Water Resources Control Board dissipated tens of thousands of more acre-feet. Every smelt matters.

Increased surface storage would give regulators more latitude to conserve water during heavy storm-flows and would have allowed the state to stockpile larger reserves during the 15 years that preceded the last drought. Yet no major water infrastructure project has been completed in California since the 1960s.

Money is not the obstacle. Since 2000 voters have approved five bonds authorizing $22 billion in spending for water improvements. Environmental projects have been the biggest winners. In 2008 the legislature established a “Strategic Growth Council” to steer some bond proceeds to affordable housing and “sustainable land use” (e.g., reduced carbon emissions and suburban sprawl).

Meantime, green groups won’t allow new storage regardless—and perhaps because—of the benefits. California’s Department of Water Resources calculates that the proposed Sites Reservoir, which has been in the planning stages since the 1980s, could provide enough additional water during droughts to sustain seven million Californians for a year. Given the regulatory climate, Gov. Brown’s bullet train will probably be built first.

Once beloved by greens, desalination has likewise become unfashionable. After six years of permitting and litigation, the company Poseidon this year will finally complete a $1 billion desalination facility that will augment San Diego County’s water supply by 7%. Most other desalination projects have been abandoned.

One problem is that California electricity rates are among the highest nationwide due to its renewable-energy mandate, and desalination consumes amp-loads of energy. Local and state regulators also impose expensive environmental requirements. Poseidon had to restore 66 acres of wetlands in return for its desalination permit.

The only remaining alternative to stretch scant water supplies is conservation...

More.

And from just over a year ago, "California's Drought Due to Democrat Politics, Not Global Warming."

Also, "California Won't Run Out of Water."

Kate Upton Beach Bunny Easter

She's not over the hill yet, by any means.

At Egotastic!, "Kate Upton Beach Bunny Bikini Compilation for Special Easter Delight."

Novak Djokovic Apologizes to Ball Boy for Scaring the Living Daylights Out of Him

He made a video, "Novak Djokovic Apologizes After Yelling At Ball Boy - Miami Open 2015."

And you can see the moment at Fox Sports, "Ball boy caught in crossfire: Novak Djokovic shamed for epic dummy spit at Miami Open."

UVA's Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity Will Slap Rolling Stone With 'all available legal action...'

Wholly unsurprising, although richly deserved retribution.

At Politico, "UVA fraternity to sue Rolling Stone."

And at LAT, "Columbia details Rolling Stone failure; fraternity vows legal action."

Obama's Legacy and the Verdict of History

From Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary:

Yesterday’s announcement of a framework for a nuclear deal with Iran is being sold by the administration as a historic foreign-policy triumph for President Obama. Most of his press cheering section seems to agree. The president has told us that he has begun a process that forecloses Iran’s path to a bomb. Just as importantly, he sees it as an achievement which, like his massive federal health-care initiative, will fulfill his boasts about changing the world that were so much a part of his initial campaign for the presidency. Though the Iran framework is filled with so many caveats and loopholes that may allow Iran to easily evade its strictures and will, in any event, grant it impunity to do as it likes in ten or 15 years, this seems a flimsy foundation for a legacy. Yet the president may be right about it being integral to his legacy. The only problem is that what could follow from this turning point may not burnish his reputation as a peacemaker as much as it will solidify his place in history as an appeaser that empowered a violent, hate-driven regime.

Of course that'll be his legacy. There's really no debate. Indeed, Iran is mocking the shit out of the Obama White House. The mullahs have taken Obama for a ride.

Keep reading.

'Mad Men' Recap

I watched it. I'm not some massive "Mad Men" fanatic. It's more like, after watching the show off and on over the last couple of years, I feel like I might as well tune in. I can always binge watch the whole series later.

At LAT, "'The life not lived'":

If Don's powers of seduction are still awe-inspiring to his dopey co-workers, we know there's an undercurrent of desperation to all the womanizing. Make that an "overcurrent." This becomes clear when Don reaches out to Rachel Katz -- nee Menken -- only to learn that she has died. He is ostensibly calling on behalf of Topaz pantyhose, but it's safe to assume that on some level he's also hoping to rekindle their decade-old romance.

For Don, Rachel is the proverbial One Who Got Away, a woman he could have been happy with had circumstances been different -- i.e. had he not married Betty first. I'd venture that most "Mad Men" fans -- the sane ones, anyway -- remember her in a similarly fond fashion. She was a woman smart and self-possessed enough to break up with Don once she sensed the despair and self-loathing that propelled his infidelity. And they shared a great deal in common: Both Rachel and Don lost their mothers in childbirth, and both understand the painful, self-abnegating process of assimilating into the American mainstream. The timing wasn't right before; maybe now was their chance?

Alas, no. Reeling from the news, Don stops by Rachel's shiva. "I guess I just wanted to find out what was happening in her life," Don tells Rachel's sister, though he sounds like he's trying to convince himself as much as anyone. "She lived the life she wanted to live," says Rachel's sister, fully aware of who Don is. "She had everything." Translation: She wasn't pining over you. Whatever Don went there for, he walks away with little other than the knowledge that Rachel died of leukemia. He isn't even able to mourn Rachel, at least not officially as part of the minyan.

Rachel's untimely death is a tough blow for Don, and he reacts in a time-honored way: by having sex with a stranger. In this case, the lucky lady is Di, the John Dos Passos-reading waitress from the diner, whom Roger mockingly refers to as "Mildred Pierce" then placates with an $89 tip on an $11 tab. While we've seen Don revert to this sort of reckless behavior many, many times before, there's something more mysterious to his interaction with Di. Just who -- or what -- does she remind him of?

More.

Kenyan Soldiers Took Seven Hours to Respond to University Massacre That Left Almost 150 Slaughtered

At London's Daily Mail.

Recall that security forces took at least an hour to respond to the Westgate Mall massacre in Nairobi, September 2013.

More at Bare Naked Islam, "KENYA: “Are you a Christian? You’re dead.” Muslim terrorists attack Garissa University, slaughtering Christians, letting Muslim students go."



Religion of peace, don't you know?

Heads Won't Roll in Rolling Stone's UVA Rape Hoax Article Retraction

Robert Stacy McCain had the heads up this morning, "Columbia Review of Rolling Stone’s UVA Rape Hoax Story to Be Released Tonight."

And here's the retraction, at Rolling Stone, "'A Rape on Campus' - What Went Wrong."

More, at the New York Times, "In Report on Rolling Stone, a Case Study in Failed Journalism," and "Rolling Stone Article on Rape at University of Virginia Failed All Basics, Report Says."

Plus, "Statement From Writer of Rolling Stone Rape Article, Sabrina Erdely."



From Ashe Schow as well, "Author of Rolling Stone rape article apologizes", and "16 things we learned from the review of the Rolling Stone gang-rape story."

See also the responses at Memeorandum.

And the most mind-boggling part, at FishbowlNY, "No Firings at Rolling Stone for Botched UVA Rape Story." And Twitchy, "After brutal report on multiple failures at Rolling Stone, absolutely no one gets fired over retracted UVA rape story."

Still more, "You will not freaking believe the one group that Rolling Stone writer Sabrina Erdely DID NOT apologize to."

California Drought: Wealthy Burgs Use Far More Water Per Capita Than Less-Wealthy Communities

The politics of drought is now hitting the once-Golden State, brought to you by the single-party hegemony of the left-coast Democrat Party. The freakin' hypocrites.

At the Los Angeles Times, "California's wealthy lagging in water conservation."

More here, "Brown orders California's first mandatory water restrictions: 'It's a different world'," and "Gov. Brown defends sparing agriculture in water restrictions."

It's a mucked up.

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."



More at Reaganite Republican, "Reaganite's SUNDAY FUNNIES." Also at Theo's, "Cartoon Round Up..."

Cartoon Credit: Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – Crack Up."

Leftist Intolerance, Round II

Just too much reason, at WSJ, "To stamp out cultural dissent, the left is willing to stomp on religious liberty":

The political delirium over Indiana’s law protecting minority religious beliefs doesn’t seem to be abating, and the irony is that it may be illustrating why such statutes are necessary. Much of the modern political left has abandoned the American tradition of pluralism in favor of an all-or-nothing social model that brooks no dissent.

On Thursday the Indiana legislature passed and Governor Mike Pence signed an amendment to the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act emphasizing that the law is not the license to discriminate that it never was. This concession is unlikely to temper the media portrait of Indianapolis as the new Selma, circa 1965, because this rumpus long ago kicked free of the legal merits or even the basic facts. The political goal behind the uproar is to intimidate or destroy people who think they are still allowed to articulate traditional moral convictions.

***

Take the family-owned pizza parlor in Walkerton, Indiana—population 2,144. A local TV reporter went door-to-door asking restaurants how they would respond if they were asked to cater a gay wedding. The innocents at Memories Pizza, who had never faced the question in daily business, said that they would prefer not to participate in a hypothetical same-sex pizza party ceremony. Cue the national deluge.

They were suddenly converted into the public face of antigay bigotry across cable news and the Internet, and became the target of a social-media mob, as if they somehow screened for sexual orientation at the register. The small business closed amid the torrent, although a crowd-funding counter-reaction supplied tens of thousands of dollars in recompense.

The episode is a discredit to U.S. civil society, which we used to think was strong and friendly enough to tolerate all people of whatever religious or sexual persuasion...

Pfft. Civil society? Intolerant leftists don't care about civil society. They care only about coerced conformity.

Keep reading.

Alix Bryan Scrubs Mention of Employer WTVR CBS 6 Richmond from Twitter Bio

She's definitely hatin' life.

See Ashe Schow, ".@alixbryan changed her Twitter profile. Someone got a TALKIN TO at work."



Yeah, karma's a bitch.

At Twitchy, "Can we get an amen? This tweeter’s response to whiny hack Alix Bryan is ‘the best’."

Also at Instapundit, "JOURNALISM: CBS employee who reported Memories Pizza fund for fraud ‘just in case’ shows how not to apologize."

Robert F. Kennedy, Statement on Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., April 4, 1968

No Democrat would make a speech like this today, attempting to ease the pain of blacks rather than to inflame racial hatred, as the Obama White House and its agents in the leftist media are doing.

And no Democrat would call on the words of faith in Jesus to ease the pain. Leftists hate religion. Any public affectation of religion is a lie promulgated for political consumption and opportunism. The left has driven God from the public realm and is now crucifying those who express faith-based opinions on public affairs.

At American Rhetoric, "Robert F. Kennedy: Remarks on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr."

And this was in Indianapolis, Indiana, where leftists today are on a jihad against Christians. My, how regressives fail to heed the lessons of the past.

We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization -- black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand, and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion, and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to fill with -- be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

But we have to make an effort in the United States. We have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond, or go beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poem, my -- my favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote:

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until, in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God.

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King -- yeah, it's true -- but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love -- a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.

More.

NYT's Frank Bruni: Christians Must Be Forced to Approve Homosexuality

See Rod Dreher, at the American Conservative, "Christians ‘Must Be Made’ to Bow."

And at Patheos, "Frank Bruni Commands Christians to Cave on Homosexuality":

If you’re a young evangelical who gets the cold sweats when the New York Times disagrees with you, Frank Bruni’s piece should wake you up. It should derail you from any mission to draw the approval of the culture-makers. Here’s the reality: if you hold to biblical sexuality, you have no approval. You have in the eyes of many only condemnation, judgment, a this-worldly sentence of damnation on your head. You don’t deserve the freedom of your convictions. You are a bigot. You must, to use Bruni’s very words, “bow” to the culture. It’s that stark.

If, however, you stay the course (like Chuck Colson and many, many others), and go with God, you must know that you will gain something so much greater than the approval of leading voices. You will honor God himself. You will stand with him on the last day. You will have the opportunity to avoid the hatred and judgmentalism and bullying of Bruni, and you will be freed to love fellow sinners just like him, and preach the gospel to him.

Frank Bruni wants evangelicals to cave. We will not do so. We will not give an inch. We will, however, refute his foolish thinking and bad arguments, laugh at his attempts to intimidate us, and love him. We worship a Savior, after all, who died for preaching his convictions, but who in dying asked even for the forgiveness of those who put him on that cross (Luke 23:34).

We will not cave. Not by a country mile. We will, however, love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us, and, as we remember this very Easter weekend, rise with Jesus in the age to come.

Hatred drives the agenda of the Democrat-homosexual left.

Hey Leftists, Attacking an Entire State for Homosexual Equality Might Not Be Such a Great Idea

Funny, but leftists are now losing the battle of public opinion on the Indiana religious freedom controversy.

Ann Friedman, at the Washington Post, nails it, "The progressive case against boycotting states like Indiana":

How can outsiders support lasting change? By donating to grass-roots campaigns such as Freedom Indiana and pro-gay-rights candidates for local political office, even when the state is out of the national spotlight. And if we’re going to be outraged now, we should also make a point of cheering for victories, such as the marriage-equality decision last year and several municipal-level human rights ordinances that have been passed throughout Indiana. Otherwise, we don’t come across as well-meaning outsiders who support love and equality. We just look like condescending jerks.

Oops! Thought crimes. Ann Friedman you are now considered an enemy of the state!

Leftist Heads Explode as Donations Top $840,000 for #MemoriesPizza

At Gateway Pundit.



Image Credit: IPayMyJizyaWith.357.

Ted Cruz Runs First Advertisement of 2016 Campaign

At the Washinton Post, "Ted Cruz’s first campaign ad invokes ‘the transformative love of Jesus Christ’."

Gia Genevieve for Playboy March 2015 (VIDEO)

At Playboy, "Gia Genevieve is a pin-up and glamour model from California who appears on the cover of the March 2015 issue..."

And Egotastic!, "Gia Genevieve Sultry Topless Perfection in Playboy."

Carly Fiorina: Tim Cook Opposition to Indiana Religious Freedom Law Totally Hypocritical

Typical leftist hypocrisy.

See Ms. Fiorina's interview at WSJ:

Once a Fortune 50 chief executive herself, Carly Fiorina is disgusted with how CEOs rushed to condemn Indiana’s new religious freedom law. Mrs. Fiorina, who is weighing a bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, called the week’s controversy over the Indiana statute the result of corporations bowing to “narrow special interests” rather than broad public anger.

CEOs like Apple Inc.’s Tim Cook, who publicly objected to the Indiana law, have engaged in “a level of hypocrisy here that really is unfortunate,” said Mrs. Fiorina, who was CEO of Hewlett-Packard from 1999 to 2005.

“When Tim Cook is upset about all the places that he does business because of the way they treat gays and women, he needs to withdraw from 90% of the markets that he’s in, including China and Saudi Arabia,” she said Thursday afternoon during an interview with Wall Street Journal reporters and editors. “But I don’t hear him being upset about that.”

More.

The Iraq War and Stubborn Myths

Interesting, although of course a true accounting of the rush to war is the last thing the left wants --- for good reason, since the Democrats were the original warmongers pushing regime change in Iraq all along.

From Judith Miller, at WSJ, "Officials didn’t lie, and I wasn’t fed a line, writes Judith Miller":

I took America to war in Iraq. It was all me.

OK, I had some help from a duplicitous vice president, Dick Cheney. Then there was George W. Bush, a gullible president who could barely locate Iraq on a map and who wanted to avenge his father and enrich his friends in the oil business. And don’t forget the neoconservatives in the White House and the Pentagon who fed cherry-picked intelligence about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, to reporters like me.

None of these assertions happens to be true, though all were published and continue to have believers. This is not how wars come about, and it is surely not how the war in Iraq occurred. Nor is it what I did as a reporter for the New York Times. These false narratives deserve, at last, to be retired.

There was no shortage of mistakes about Iraq, and I made my share of them. The newsworthy claims of some of my prewar WMD stories were wrong. But so is the enduring, pernicious accusation that the Bush administration fabricated WMD intelligence to take the country to war. Before the 2003 invasion, President Bush and other senior officials cited the intelligence community’s incorrect conclusions about Saddam’s WMD capabilities and, on occasion, went beyond them. But relying on the mistakes of others and errors of judgment are not the same as lying.

I have never met George W. Bush. I never discussed the war with Dick Cheney until the winter of 2012, years after he had left office and I had left the Times. I wish I could have interviewed senior officials before the war about the role that WMDs played in the decision to invade Iraq. The White House’s passion for secrecy and aversion to the media made that unlikely. Less senior officials were of help as sources, but they didn’t make the decisions.

No senior official spoon-fed me a line about WMD. That would have been so much easier than uncovering classified information that officials can be jailed for disclosing. My sources were the same counterterrorism, arms-control and Middle East analysts on whom I had relied for my stories about Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda’s growing threat to America—a series published eight months before 9/11 for which the Times staff, including me, won a Pulitzer.

In 1996, those same sources helped me to write a book about the dangers of militant Islam long before suicide bombers made the topic fashionable. Their expertise informed articles and another book I co-wrote in 2003 with Times colleagues about the danger of biological terrorism, published right before the deadly anthrax letter attacks.

Another enduring misconception is that intelligence analysts were “pressured” into altering their estimates to suit the policy makers’ push to war. Although a few former officials complained about such pressure, several thorough, bipartisan inquiries found no evidence of it.

The 2005 commission led by former Democratic Sen. Charles Robb and conservative Republican Judge Laurence Silberman called the estimates “dead wrong,” blaming what it called a “major” failure on the intelligence community’s “inability to collect good information…serious errors in analyzing what information it could gather, and a failure to make clear just how much of its analysis was based on assumptions.” A year earlier, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence denounced such failures as the product of “group think,” rooted in a fear of underestimating grave threats to national security in the wake of 9/11.

A two-year study by Charles Duelfer, the former deputy chief of the U.N. inspectors who led America’s hunt for WMD in Iraq, concluded that Saddam Hussein was playing a double game, trying (on the one hand) to get sanctions lifted and inspectors out of Iraq and (on the other) to persuade Iran and other foes that he had retained WMD. Not even the Iraqi dictator himself knew for sure what his stockpiles contained, Mr. Duelfer argued. Often forgotten is Mr. Duelfer’s well-documented warning that Saddam intended to restore his WMD programs once sanctions were lifted...

More.

The Rise of the Memories Pizza Truthers

It's the "megalothymiamanical" Memories Pizza Truthers, in fact.

From Ed Driscoll, at Pajamas:

California Taxpayers to Foot Bill for Convicted Murderer's Sex Change Operation

Regressive leftist Democrat Party values.

From Darleen Click, at Protein Wisdom, "California taxpayers ordered to pay for murderer’s sex change."

Also at Memeorandum.

Appalachian State University: Radical Leftist Dorm Bulletin Board Targets Christian, White 'Privileged' Students

More leftist totalitarianism from the ideology of hate.

At Campus Reform, "App State dorm bulletin board shames 'privileged' students."

And a Christian student at the university, Laurel Littler, was attacked on social media for posting the photo below. See Fox & Friends, "Shaming Students - Dorm Fliers Attack Christians & Males - Trouble With Schools."

Leftist Boycotters Petition at Change.org to Take Down O'Connor's GoFundMe Page — #MemoriesPizza

Leftists prove day in and day out that they're the most despicable people on the planet.

Via Dana Loesch, on Twitter.

Leftists Threaten Man Who Started GoFundMe for the O'Connors

At Twitchy, "These lib threats to man who launched GoFundMe for Memories Pizza will make your blood boil [screenshots]."

Kevin and Crystal O'Connor Interview with Dana Loesch

Well done.

And God bless Dana and all the supporters of the O'Connors.

"'Cause you can never really tell when somebody..."

The Sound L.A. recently launched "Mark in the Morning," which features Mark Thompson, formerly of "The Mark & Brian Show" on KLOS. It's a talk show. He doesn't play a lot of music. So I've been listening to CDs in my van. I've got some that have been sitting in the glove box for at least a decade. I don't use them that much. But I pulled out Bowie's greatest hits album "Best of Bowie," and looking for "Stay" on the B-side I was shocked to recall that it wasn't included. So I listened around for a few versions on YouTube. They're all good (the Dinah Shore show performance is a classic). But this clip below showcasing Earl Slick's phenomenal guitar work is simply spectacular.

I'm off for my long teaching Thursday. Enjoy. I'll be back to blogging tonight.



Also at Gibson's website, "Heroes: A History of David Bowie’s Amazing Guitarists."

Homosexuals Are the New Terrorists

At iOWNTHEWORLD Report, "Gays The New Terrorists."

There's Nothing the Left Won't Denounce as Bigotry

Including requiring algebra classes, says Kevin Williamson, in an awesome essay, at National Review, "In Indiana, in Arkansas, and in the boardroom."

Indiana's Memories Pizza Forced to Close Doors After Vicious Barrage of Leftist Death Threats

At Twitchy, "#MemoriesPizza closes due to threats from Tolerance Brigade; GoFundMe campaign takes off."

And Dana Loesch interviews the restaurant's owner, Crystal O'Connor, "Indiana Pizzeria Faces Backlash After Saying It Won’t Cater Gay Weddings (Go Fund Me)."

Also, "The Co-Owner of #MemoriesPizza, Crystal O'Connor, joined @DLoesch..."

Plus, all the rage at Memeorandum.

The Fascist Left and Same-Sex Marriage

From Ben Shapiro, at Truth Revolt:

Same-sex marriage, it turns out, was never designed to grant legal benefits to same-sex couples. That could have been done under a regime of civil unions. Same-sex marriage was always designed to allow the government to have the power to cram down punishment on anyone who disobeys the government's vision of the public good. One need not be an advocate of discrimination against gays to believe that government does not have the ability to enforce the prevailing social standards of the time in violation of individual rights. There are many situations in which advocates of freedom dislike particular exercises of that freedom but understand that government attacks on individual rights are far more threatening to the public good.

Remember, Shapiro wrote the book on this, Bullies: How the Left's Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans.

Lots more at Memeorandum.

7-Year-Old Lakewood Girl Gets New Hand Created by 3D Printer

Watch, at CBS News Los Angeles, "7-Year-Old Receives Robotic, 3D-Printed Hand."

So sweet.

Jewish Students Push Back Against Anti-Semitism (VIDEO)

Watch: "Video: The Jewish Voices on Campus."

Black Students at #USC Self-Segregate Under Guise of 'Cultural Space'

*SMH*

At the Los Angeles Times, "USC's Black House proposal raises questions about racial tensions."

There aren't any "racial tensions." But black leftists survive only by crying "RACISM" all the time.

Turkish Prosecutor Dies During Siege by Leftist Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front

Death, death, death.

It's the leftist way.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Hostage Dies Following Istanbul Courthouse Siege":

Turkish special forces stormed an Istanbul courthouse Tuesday night to free a prosecutor who had been taken hostage hours earlier by armed assailants. Two of the captors were killed, police said; the hostage was badly injured and later died.

The assailants claimed to belong to a branch of the outlawed left-wing group, the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front, or DHKP-C, and had threatened to kill the prosecutor, who was handling a high-profile, politically charged case.

The group, which is listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S., had attacked the U.S. embassy in Ankara two years ago with a suicide bomb, killing a guard.

Local news organizations broadcast dramatic footage of the storming of the courthouse, where the crackle of gunfire could be heard and plumes of smoke seen rising, along with an ambulance leaving the building.

“After patiently negotiating for six hours and keeping all channels open for dialogue, the police conducted the operation after hearing gunshots from inside the room, Istanbul Police Chief Selami Altinok said.

“The two terrorists were captured dead,” and the prosecutor, Mehmet Selim Kiraz, was rushed to a hospital, Mr. Altinok told reporters. Television news footage showed the wounded prosecutor being ferried into a hospital from the ambulance.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu later confirmed the prosecutor had died...

More.

America's Academies for Jihad

From Ayaan Hirsi Ali, at the Wall Street Journal, "A radical imam threatened me with death—and was later hired to preach in U.S. prisons. I was surprised, but I shouldn’t have been":

Less than a year after I moved to the United States in 2006, I was asked to speak at the University of Pittsburgh. Among those who objected to my appearance was a local imam, Fouad El Bayly, of the Johnstown Islamic Center. Mr. Bayly was born in Egypt but has lived in the U.S. since 1976. In his own words, I had “been identified as one who has defamed the faith.” As he explained at the time: “If you come into the faith, you must abide by the laws, and when you decide to defame it deliberately, the sentence is death.”

After a local newspaper reported Mr. Bayly’s comments, he was forced to resign from the Islamic Center. That was the last I would hear of him—or so I thought.

Imagine my surprise when I learned recently that the man who threatened me with death for apostasy is being paid by the U.S. Justice Department to teach Islam in American jails.

According to records on the federal site USASpending.gov and first reported by Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller, the Federal Bureau of Prisons awarded Mr. Bayly a $10,500 contract in February 2014 to provide “religious services, leadership and guidance” to inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Md. Ten months later he received another federal contract, worth $2,400, to provide “Muslim classes for inmates” at the same prison.

This isn’t a story about one problematic imam, or about the misguided administration of a solitary prison. Several U.S. prison chaplains have been exposed in recent years as sympathetic to radical Islam, including Warith Deen Umar, who helped run the New York State Department of Correctional Services’ Islamic prison program for two decades, until 2000, and who praised the 9/11 hijackers in a 2003 interview with this newspaper.

That same year, the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism held hearings on radical Islamic clerics in U.S. prisons. Committee members voiced serious concerns over the vetting of Muslim prison chaplains and the extent of radical Islamist influences. Harley Lappin, director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons at the time, said that “inmates are particularly vulnerable to recruitment by terrorists,” and that “we must guard against the spread of terrorism and extremist ideologies.”

Yet it is not clear what measures—if any—were taken in response to those concerns.

Testifying in 2011 before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Michael P. Downing, head of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Counterterrorism and Special Operations Bureau, said that in 2003 it was estimated that 17%-20% of the U.S. prison population, some 350,000 inmates, were Muslims, and that “80% of the prisoners who convert while in prison, convert to Islam.” He estimated that “35,000 inmates convert to Islam annually.”

Patrick Dunleavy, retired deputy inspector of the Criminal Intelligence Division at the New York State Department of Corrections, said in testimony that prison authorities often rely on groups such as the Islamic Leadership Council or the Islamic Society of North America for advice about Islamic chaplains. Yet those groups can and have referred individuals not suited to positions of influence over prisoners. As Mr. Dunleavy pointedly testified: “There is certainly no vetting of volunteers who provide religious instruction, and who, although not paid, wield considerable influence in the prison Muslim communities.”

The problem isn’t limited to radical clerics infiltrating prisons. Radical inmates proselytize and do their utmost to recruit others to their cause. Once released, they may seek to take their radicalization to the next level...

More.

Stanford Cheating Scandal

The "sharing culture" is the culprit, apparently.

At the San Jose Mercury News, "Stanford University looks into allegations of cheating by students."

And at CBS News San Francisco, "Stanford Students Caught In Cheating Scandal."

California Backlash Against 'Sodomite Suppression' Initiative Petition

I can't imagine this measure could possibly qualify for the ballot. It needs over 300,000 signatures. Never say never, though. California is the weirdest state.

At CBS This Morning:



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

The Left's Diversity Ideology Destroying Higher Education

Here's Heather Mac Donald, whose major case study is the University of California. The discussion of U.C. San Diego's diversity bureaucracy is particularly astounding.

Via Prager University:

Leftists Tell Arkansas to 'Burn in Hell with Indiana'

Stay classy progs.

At Twitchy, "‘BURN IN HELL WITH INDIANA': Arkansas legislature passes its own religious freedom bill; Walmart urges veto."

Via Michelle Malkin, "Next up: The tolerance mob targets Arkansas..."

Hollywood Mogul Harvey Weinstein Accused of Molesting Italian Model Ambra Battilana

Democrat values.

At London's Daily Mail, "Model who says Harvey Weinstein groped her in his NYC office also accused her wealthy 70-year-old former lover of rape in Italy four years ago."

Boston Marathon Bombing Trial: Grisly Testimony, Photos

At LAT, "Boston prosecutors rest case with focus on bombing's smallest victim":

Martin Richard, 8, was one of three spectators to die from the twin pressure-cooker bombs near the marathon finish line on April 15, 2013. He wanted to be a runner someday, like his father, but instead became the smallest victim of the worst terrorist attack in the U.S. since Sept. 11.

No other sound was heard in the courtroom as Nields and prosecutor Nadine Pellegrini went over the boy’s clothing and discussed his injuries and death.

When a series of autopsy photos was shown, some jurors wiped at tears. Others appeared angry; all looked shaken.

Nields began by describing Martin as 53 inches tall and 69 1/2 pounds.

Peering into a box marked Government’s Exhibit 1592, Nields pulled out Martin’s long-sleeve green T-shirt, bloodied and torn, with a gash on the left side. He took out a gray short-sleeved undershirt with the New England Patriots logo across the chest, also gashed on the left side.

He held up Martin’s black belt. Someone had used it as a tourniquet to try to stop the boy’s bleeding from his nearly severed left arm.

He held up Martin’s black jacket, again with the gash on the left. Finally, with two hands, Nields displayed the boy’s black-and-blue running shoes.

Martin had come to watch the marathon with his family, including his 6-year-old sister, Jane, who lost a leg. His mother, Denise, lost part of her vision. She and his father, Bill, were in the courtroom Monday.

Pellegrini questioned Nields in detail about the boy’s injuries.

There were four abrasions on his face, others behind his left ear and another on his neck. His upper chest and abdomen were nearly torn apart. Pieces of his small intestines were exposed. Two ribs were fractured, his left kidney torn and exposed, and his liver lacerated.


The boy’s spleen and pancreas were cut, and his abdominal aorta was lacerated. “Most of [the aorta] was cut in half,” the doctor told the jury. “But not completely.”

Martin’s right lung was damaged and his lower spine broken and torn. His legs, arms and hands were covered in cuts and bruises. So was his back. His buttocks were severely burned. Small nails, metal pellets and a piece of wood were recovered from his right chest cavity.

Was any part of his body unscathed? Pellegrini asked.

“All of the areas had injuries,” the doctor said.

Nields identified and sometimes opened small evidence envelopes containing shrapnel from the bombs: 6-inch-long nails; three dozen wood, metal and Styrofoam fragments; and a thumb-size gray-white metal shard. Pellegrini handed some of them to the jurors.

How did Martin die? she asked.

“Cause of death was blast injuries to the torso and extremities,” Nields said. “The manner of death was homicide.”

What did that mean? she asked.

He died “essentially from loss of blood,” the doctor said.

Was it painful?

Nields was careful. Obviously the boy died within seconds. “But,” he said, “I would say overall the injuries were painful.”

Defense lawyers, who have conceded that Tsarnaev, 21, left a bomb near the boy’s feet, had no questions for the medical examiner...

Also, "Boston Marathon defense team rests; verdict is likely next week."

'Tolerance isn't the goal. Religious conservatives must atone for their heretical views with acts of contrition...'

From Timothy Carney, at the Washington Examiner, "The Left wages total war; and then plays victim."