Gunnery Sgt. Brian Jacklin Awarded the Navy Cross

At the O.C. Register, "Valor is 'what these Marines are all about,' officer says of those who earned Navy Cross, Bronze Star":

CAMP PENDLETON – Gunnery Sgt. Brian Jacklin still remembers being vastly outnumbered and surrounded by the enemy in a small village in the volatile Helmand Province of western Afghanistan.

He and his team of nine special operations Marines had taken heavy fire for hours from outside a compound. His captain and a sergeant had been hit and were bleeding out. Jacklin saw blowing out the wall as the only way to evacuate his wounded comrades and get his team to a landing zone and an arriving copter.

“I asked the guys, ‘Does anyone have a problem with blowing out the wall to get out of here?’” Jacklin recalled. “They all said ‘I’m in, just do it.’ There was no hesitation when I gave the order. I told them, ‘If you get hit on your way out just keep going and we’ll figure it out afterward.’”

After the wounded and his team were evacuated, Jacklin stayed behind providing intelligence and personal fire to the assisting SEAL Team 3 and local Afghan forces.

Jacklin, 32, a critical skills operator with 1st Marine Special Operations Battalion, on Thursday was awarded the Navy Cross – the nation’s second-highest award for valor.

“With his decisive actions, bold initiative and complete dedication to duty, Jacklin reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service,” his citation reads.

He was decorated by Maj. Gen. Joseph Osterman, commander of the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, during a ceremony at Camp Pendleton. Jacklin received his medal for heroic actions during a 48-hour standoff with the enemy while he was part of a team conducting village stability operations in Afghanistan’s volatile Upper Gereshk Valley in June 2012.

During the ceremony, five of Jacklin’s team members – all critical skill operators – also were honored with the Bronze Star with combat “V” device for their role in the battle. They included Gunnery Sgt. William Simpson IV, Staff Sgt. Christopher Buckminster, Staff Sgt. Hafeez Hussein, Sgt. William Hall and Sgt. David Harris.

“These six extraordinary Marines are being recognized for their gallantry and valor,” Osterman said. “It always takes a team to make it work. This epitomizes the team concept and what these Marines are all about.”

Dodgers' Adrian Gonzalez Hits Three Home Runs Against Padres

Sweet.

At LAT, "Adrian Gonzalez is riding a home-run wave as Dodgers head to Arizona," and "Believe it or not: Adrian Gonzalez says he's no home run hitter."

Hillary Clinton to Declare Sunday

The epic anticlimax.

At the Guardian UK, "Exclusive: Hillary Clinton to launch 2016 campaign on Sunday en route to Iowa" (at Memeorandum).

Charles Krauthammer — Iranian Nuclear Talks: Anatomy of a Disaster

At the Washington Post, "The Iran deal: Anatomy of a disaster":

“Negotiations . . . to prevent an Iranian capability to develop a nuclear arsenal are ending with an agreement that concedes this very capability . . . ”

— Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, the Wall Street Journal, April 8

It was but a year and a half ago that Barack Obama endorsed the objective of abolition when he said that Iran’s heavily fortified Fordow nuclear facility, its plutonium-producing heavy-water reactor and its advanced centrifuges were all unnecessary for a civilian nuclear program. The logic was clear: Since Iran was claiming to be pursuing an exclusively civilian program, these would have to go.

Yet under the deal Obama is now trying to sell, not one of these is to be dismantled. Indeed, Iran’s entire nuclear infrastructure is kept intact, just frozen or repurposed for the length of the deal (about a decade). Thus Fordow’s centrifuges will keep spinning. They will now be fed xenon, zinc and germanium instead of uranium. But that means they remain ready at any time to revert from the world’s most heavily (indeed comically) fortified medical isotope facility to a bomb-making factory.

And upon the expiration of the deal, conceded Obama Monday on NPR, Iran’s breakout time to a nuclear bomb will be “almost down to zero,” i.e., it will be able to produce nuclear weapons at will and without delay.

And then there’s cheating. Not to worry, says Obama. We have guarantees of compliance: “unprecedented inspections” and “snapback” sanctions.

The inspection promises are a farce. We haven’t even held the Iranians to their current obligation to come clean with the International Atomic Energy Agency on their previous nuclear activities. The IAEA charges Iran with stonewalling on 11 of 12 issues.

As veteran nuclear expert David Albright points out, that makes future verification impossible — how can you determine what’s been illegally changed or added if you have no baseline? Worse, there’s been no mention of the only verification regime with real teeth — at-will, unannounced visits to any facility, declared or undeclared. The joint European-Iranian statement spoke only of “enhanced access through agreed procedures,” which doesn’t remotely suggest anywhere/anytime inspections. And on Thursday, Iran’s supreme leader ruled out any “extraordinary supervision measures.”

The IAEA hasn’t been allowed to see the Parchin weaponization facility in 10 years. And the massive Fordow complex was disclosed not by the IAEA but by Iranian dissidents...

Keep reading.

Let's be honest: The frantic administration push for an Iran deal hasn't been about arms control or nuclear non-proliferation. It's been about Obama's legacy. And nothing --- not even the security of the free world --- will be allowed to stand in the way of that.

Universities Failing Students in Every Respect

From VDH, at National Review, "The Modern University Is Failing Students in Every Respect":

A bachelor’s degree is no longer proof that any graduate can read critically or write effectively. National college-entrance-test scores have generally declined the last few years, and grading standards have as well.

Too often, universities emulate greenhouses where fragile adults are coddled as if they were hothouse orchids. Hypersensitive students are warned about “micro-aggressions” that in the real world would be imperceptible.

Apprehensive professors are sometimes supposed to offer “trigger warnings” that assume students are delicate Victorians who cannot handle landmark authors such as Joseph Conrad or Mark Twain.

“Safe spaces” are designated areas where traumatized students can be shielded from supposedly hurtful or unwelcome language that should not exist in a just and fair world...

More.

Laptop of the Future

This is pretty good.

I'm on a cheap Acer Chromebook, which is all I need. I do word processing on my son's MacBook or at the office on my dinosaur Dell PC.

But the new MacBook is wicked. Get the kinks worked out and you'll be in laptop heaven.

From Joanna Stern, at WSJ, "Apple MacBook Review: The Laptop of the Future Isn’t Ready for the Present."

Be sure to watch the video as well. She's funny.

Technology and Social Media Trends Among American Teenagers

An extremely interesting survey from Pew Research, "Teens, Social Media & Technology Overview 2015."

And see especially this part, "Mobile Access Shifts Social Media Use and Other Online Activities."

Also at WaPo, "Teens aren’t fleeing Facebook as quickly as we thought."

Authorities Release Dash Cam Video of Moments Before Fatal Shooting of Walter Scott

At WIS-TV Columbia, S.C. (via Memeorandum), "Authorities release dash cam footage from Michael Slager's patrol car before fatal shooting."

He ran. Walter Scott ran from the scene of his traffic stop. It doesn't justify being shot in the back, but it does raise the question that if Scott would have just cooperated with Officer Slager, he almost certainly would still be alive.

Watch at CNN:



ADDED: "Witness: Cop and Walter Scott struggled on ground."

The Reservoir Is Nearly Empty

Yeah, Jerry Brown's cranial reservoir. The idiot.

Yup, we are living the "California Dream" here... Ramirez' new cartoon explains it ... pic.twitter.com/E5TWUcJg2f
— Mark Larson (@marklarsonradio) April 9, 2015

Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America

I love the title of Dick and Liz Cheney's forthcoming book, being published by Threshold Editions.

Here's the press release, "THRESHOLD EDITIONS TO PUBLISH NEW BOOK BY FORMER VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY AND LIZ CHENEY."

And at Amazon, Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America.

Heh, the epic title of a neocon manifesto. Leftist heads are going to explode.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and the Death Penalty

I expressed my opinion on this earlier. It really doesn't matter to me what happens to Tsarnaev, although if there's a good candidate for capital punishment, it's him.

But see the Boston Globe editorial, "Spare Dzhokhar Tsarnaev the death penalty."

Also, from Kevin Cullen, "Are we going to kill Dzhokhar Tsarnaev or not?"

The Inconvenient Truth About the California Drought

I've been over this: Sure, California is experiencing record shortfalls of rain. However, the state's environmental policies have extremely exacerbated the situation, to the point where many analysts consider this a man-made crisis.

The problem, of course, is that the Democrats got us into this mess and they've got no clue about how to get us out. Thus, mass suffering among the populace, especially among minorities and the poor.

At iOWNTHEWORLD Report, "The most important question might be the one that is not being asked: WHY is there a water shortage?"



Image Credit: The People's Cube.

Lester Holt Interview with Feidin Santana, Bystander Who Recorded Shooting of Walter Scott (VIDEO)

The shooting death of Mr. Scott is an abomination, but the larger media coverage --- and the availability of eyewitness video --- is a very good thing. It's going to set a high bar for the radical #BlackLivesMatter movement. If you claim police brutality, you're going to have near incontrovertible evidence.

At NBC News (via Memeorandum), "Feidin Santana, Who Recorded Police Shooting 0f Walter Scott, Speaks Out."




Also, "Bystander Considered Erasing Footage of Cop Shooting."

Wounded Dude Gets Dragged to Safety During Yemen Fighting (VIDEO)

Can't say this looks like fun.

Watch, via Reuters, "Wounded, under fire, dragged to safety, in embattled Yemen."

Also, at the Los Angeles Times, "Yemen rebels advance near key gas terminal; capital hit by new strikes":

The conflict in Yemen, already the Arab world’s poorest country, has triggered a humanitarian disaster, with food, water, medical supplies and electricity running short in many areas. Civilian casualties are mounting; at least 643 civilians have been killed and more than 2,200 wounded, according to the United Nations.

The Saudi-led airstrikes have so far failed to dislodge the Houthis from Aden, the southern port city that is Yemen’s main commercial hub. Fierce street-to-street fighting, some of it with heavy weapons such as field artillery, continued Thursday in central districts, with explosions reverberating across the city.

More at al-Jazeera, "Intense fighting reported in Yemen's Aden."

Sofía Vergara for Vanity Fair May 2015

See, "Sofía Vergara Poses for Annie Leibovitz on the May 2015 Cover."

Hat Tip: L.A. Times, "Sofia Vergara confirms what we've suspected all along: They're huge."

A Verdict in Boston — #Tsarnaev

At the Wall Street Journal, "In sentencing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, remember the Richards family":

As terrorist attacks go, the Boston Marathon bombing was not especially major: In scale, it barely compares to last week’s massacre of Christians at a university in Kenya or December’s school massacre in Peshawar. But that’s all the more reason to take terrorism more seriously than we often do today. We remain a nation living under the shadow of a threat that even the Marathon bombings, with all their carnage, only faintly made visible.

We hope the Boston jurors bear that in mind as they deliberate on a sentence that will be a statement of justice—and of resolve.

Death penalty or no death penalty? That is the question. The editors don't say, but is there anyone more worthy? I'm not the biggest fan of capital punishment, but this guy Tsarnaev's a poster boy if there ever was one.

'Do not be deceived. People who are willing to lie about rape will lie about anything...'

From Robert Stacy McCain, "Why Facts Matter."

Suspected Drug Tunnel Discovered Near Tijuana Airport

Pretty amazing, especially the audacity of it.

At ABC News 10 San Diego, "Border tunnel discovered near Tijuana airport."

Kill Obama's Iran Deal

From William Kristol, at the Weekly Standard, "Special Editorial: Kill the Deal":

Commentators have exposed how bad the Iran deal is in various ways; the point, however, is to kill it.

Why? Because the deal can't be fixed. Even if sanctions relief were somewhat more gradual, even if the number of centrifuges were somewhat lower, even if the inspections regime were somewhat more robust—the basic facts would remain: Iran gets to keep its nuclear infrastructure, including the most sensitive parts of it. The sanctions come off. And the inspectors can be kicked out. So Iran, a state-sponsor of terror, an enemy of the United States, an aggressive jihadist power, a regime dedicated to the destruction of Israel, will become a threshold nuclear weapons state...

Keep reading.

Mother Who Gave Birth to Her Own Brother and Sister

Pretty strange.

Very strange, in fact.

At London's Daily Mail, "Mother who gave birth to her own brother and sister: An extraordinary story raising profound questions about surrogacy and the future of the family."

Russian Company Sells Advertising Space on Women's Breasts

Heh.

The Russians got game.

At the People's Cube, "Marketing Genius in Russia: Mammary Space Available."

Be sure to scroll down to the "Many-Titted Empress Comrade Hillary," lol.

What does 'feminist' even mean at this point?

From Katherine Timpf, at National Review.

The Left is now linking fracking with feminism. True story: http://t.co/L2FoW7eBxH pic.twitter.com/9eNEi3mEON

— National Review (@NRO) April 9, 2015

University of Virginia Fraternity Phi Kappa Psi to Sue Rolling Stone

Following up from earlier, "UVA's Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity Will Slap Rolling Stone With 'all available legal action...'"

Law Professor Jonathan Turley is interviewed at this segment from CBS This Morning:

Let Them Bake Cake

From Mark Steyn:

Denver's Azucar Bakery Wins Right to Refuse to Make Anti-Gay Cakes.

So in the age of flour power the state can compel you to make certain kinds of cakes but relieve you of the obligation to make certain other kinds of cakes. In our brave new gâteaupia, it will all eventually wind up at the Supreme Court, at which America's Masterchef Anthony Kennedy will decide precisely which half-baked state-mandated menu items on the cake stand of American liberty are constitutional and which are not.

And, if a few Indiana pizzerias have to be put out of business along the way, well, as the Commies used to say, you can't make a gay wedding cake without breaking a few eggs...

Keep reading.

The Trouble with Black Power Revisionism

A great historical review of black power militancy, from Randall Kennedy, at the Boston Review, "Protesting Too Much."

Few, If Any, Consequences for Those Perpetuating Rape Hoaxes

Yeah, and no consequences especially for the "rape culture" mastermind, Professor Caroline Heldman.

See Ashe Schow, at the Washington Examiner, "Few, if any, consequences for those involved in perpetuating rape hoaxes."

Because the #WalterScott Shooting Is Totes Like #MichaelBrown and #Ferguson

Totes.

@StCyrlyMe2 @allinwithchris NO CPR ..similarities in pics..no remorse ,,don't try 2 save them #WalterScott #MikeBrown pic.twitter.com/Dwzf9MvCq1

— Nancy Mitchell (@NancyWonderful) April 9, 2015

How Charlotte McKinney Maintains Her Bombshell Figure

All natural.

At People, "DWTS Cast-Off Charlotte McKinney: What I Eat in a Day."



BONUS: At Puff Ho, "Charlotte McKinney Channels Kate Upton In New Topless Shoot."

One Big Ass Mistake America!

I love this!

I Saw This Guy On The Road & Asked Him 2 Pullover!! #tcot #ccot #pjnet @TrucksHorsesDog @Stonewall_77 @LodiSilverado pic.twitter.com/sd7BPw81G3

— DR. TWEET, Ph.D. (@Callisto1947) April 9, 2015

Bob Schieffer to Retire

He's a lefty, but an old fashioned guy that I admire a lot.

At CBS, "'Face the Nation' host Bob Schieffer to retire this summer."

Sad to see CBSNEWS Bob Schieffer step aside. One of the very few grownups left... pic.twitter.com/ISGEDFsGkV
— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) April 9, 2015

More, "Bob and Pat Schieffer minutes after announcing his retirement at #TCU."

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."