Shaima al-Sabbagh

I was thumbing through my hard-copy of Time and saw a photo of this woman seconds after being shot in the head. A beautiful woman.

So I Googled her.

See the Mirror UK, "Shaima al-Sabbagh: Heartbreaking picture shows moments of panic after leading Egyptian female protester dies after being 'shot by police'."

Also at London's Daily Mail, "Mourners gather to bury mother, 32, gunned down by Cairo police during demonstration as death toll rises to 11 on anniversary of Arab Spring."

Scott Walker Surging in Iowa Poll as Jeb Bush Struggles

Heh.

This is the best news on the GOP nomination front I've seen yet.

At Bloomberg:

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is surging, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush is an also-ran and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is dominating in a new poll of Iowans likely to vote in the nation's first presidential nominating contest.

The Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll, taken Monday through Thursday, shows Walker leading a wide-open Republican race with 15 percent, up from just 4 percent in the same poll in October. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky was at 14 percent and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008, stood at 10 percent.

Bush trailed with 8 percent and increasingly is viewed negatively by likely Republican caucus-goers. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is in even worse shape, with support from just 4 percent. More troubling for Christie: He's viewed unfavorably by 54 percent, among the highest negative ratings in the potential field. At 9 percent, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson pulls more support than either Bush or Christie...

More.

Statement by President Barack Obama on the Death of Kenji Goto

Well, at least they got the word "terrorist" in there.

Via Politico:

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 31, 2015

Statement by the President on the Death of Kenji Goto

The United States condemns the heinous murder of Japanese citizen and journalist
Kenji Goto by the terrorist group ISIL. Through his reporting, Mr. Goto courageously
sought to convey the plight of the Syrian people to the outside world. Our thoughts are
with Mr. Goto’s family and loved ones, and we stand today in solidarity with Prime
Minister Abe and the Japanese people in denouncing this barbaric act. We applaud
Japan’s steadfast commitment to advancing peace and prosperity in the Middle East
and globally, including its generous assistance for innocent people affected by the
conflicts in the region. Standing together with a broad coalition of allies and partners,
the United States will continue taking decisive action to degrade and ultimately destroy
ISIL.

PREVIOUSLY: "Islamic State Beheads Japanese Hostage Kenji Goto."

White House Idiots NOW Worried About Harsh Blow of #ObamaCare Tax on Uninsured

Now they're worried.

Sheesh.

At the New York Times, "White House Seeks to Limit Health Law’s Tax Troubles":

WASHINGTON — Obama administration officials and other supporters of the Affordable Care Act say they worry that the tax-filing season will generate new anger as uninsured consumers learn that they must pay tax penalties and as many people struggle with complex forms needed to justify tax credits they received in 2014 to pay for health insurance.

The White House has already granted some exemptions and is considering more to avoid a political firestorm.

Mark J. Mazur, the assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy, said up to six million taxpayers would have to “pay a fee this year because they made a choice not to obtain health care coverage that they could have afforded.”

But Christine Speidel, a tax lawyer at Vermont Legal Aid, said: “A lot of people do not feel that health insurance plans in the marketplace were affordable to them, even with subsidies. Some went without coverage and will therefore be subject to penalties.”

The penalties, approaching 1 percent of income for some households, are supposed to be paid with income taxes due April 15. In addition, officials said, many people with subsidized coverage purchased through the new public insurance exchanges will need to repay some of the subsidies because they received more than they were entitled to.

More than 6.5 million people had insurance through the exchanges at some point last year, and 85 percent of them qualified for financial assistance, in the form of tax credits, to lower their premiums. Most people chose to have the subsidies paid in advance, based on their projected income for 2014. If their actual income was higher — because they received a raise or found a new job — they will be entitled to a smaller subsidy and must repay the difference, subject to certain limits.

“If the advanced premium tax credit amount is too high, the taxpayer could have an unwelcome surprise and owe money,” said Nina E. Olson, the national taxpayer advocate at the Internal Revenue Service.

Many people awarded insurance subsidies for 2014 did not realize that the amount would be reviewed and recalculated at tax time in 2015.

Consumers are sure to have questions, but cannot expect much help from the tax agency, where officials said customer service had been curtailed because of budget cuts.

The 2015 filing season could be the most difficult in decades, officials said. Ms. Olson said new paperwork resulting from the Affordable Care Act would probably exacerbate problems with customer service, which “has reached unacceptably low levels and is getting worse.”

“The I.R.S. is unlikely to answer even half the telephone calls it receives,” she added. “Taxpayers who manage to get through are expected to wait on hold for 30 minutes on average and considerably longer at peak times.”

Maybe Obama will waive the whole dang thing in time for the 2016 election, heh.

More (via Memeorandum).

Lily Aldridge Super Bowl Party: We get 'like HUNDREDS of chicken wings, chips and salsa, and Coronas...'

That's my kind of woman!

At GQ, "The GQ+A: Model Lily Aldridge on the Hottest Super Bowl of All Time."

Plus, Brian Kilmeade had a sweet interview yesterday at Fox News, "Lily Aldridge talks Victoria's Secret Super Bowl ads."

And at London's Daily Mail, "Behati Prinsloo and Lily Aldridge attend Leather and Laces Super Bowl party."

She's a smokin' hot babe!

Oliver North Slams Obama as 'Acting Like a Petulant Child...'

This is great.

From Megyn Kelly's show last night.

Watch: "Deadly Fighting Between Hezbollah and Israel."

Iran — Unafraid and Undeterred

From Carolyn Glick:

Israel’s reported strike January 18 on a joint Iranian-Hezbollah convoy driving on the Syrian Golan Heights was one of the most strategically significant events to have occurred in Israel’s neighborhood in recent months. Its significance lies both in what it accomplished operationally and what it exposed.

From what's been published to date about the identities of those killed in the strike, it is clear that in one fell swoop the air force decapitated the Iranian and Hezbollah operational command in Syria.

The head of Hezbollah’s operations in Syria, the head of its liaison with Iran, and Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of Hezbollah’s longtime operational commander Imad Mughniyeh who was killed by Israel in Damascus in 2008, were killed. The younger Mughniyeh reportedly served as commander of Hezbollah forces along the Syrian-Israeli border.

According to a report by Brig.-Gen. (res.) Shimon Shapira, a Hezbollah expert from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, the Iranian losses included three generals. Brig.- Gen. Mohammed Alladadi was the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps liaison officer to Hezbollah and to Syrian intelligence. He was also in charge of weapons shipments from Iran to Hezbollah. Gen. Ali Tabatabai was the IRGC commander in the Golan Heights and, according to Shapira, an additional general, known only as Assadi, “was, in all likelihood, the commander of Iranian expeditionary forces in Lebanon.”

The fact that the men were willing to risk exposure by traveling together along the border with Israel indicates how critical the front is for the regime in Tehran. It also indicates that in all likelihood, they were planning an imminent attack against Israel.

According to Ehud Yaari, Channel 2’s Arab Affairs commentator, Iran and Hezbollah seek to widen Hezbollah’s front against Israel from Lebanon to Syria. They wish to establish missile bases on the northern Hermon, and are expanding Hezbollah’s strategic depth from Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley to the outskirts of Damascus.

On Wednesday night, Yaari reported that the Syrian military has ceased to function south of Damascus. In areas not held by the al-Qaida-aligned Nusra Front and other regime opponents, the IRGC and Hezbollah have taken control, using the Syrian militia they have trained since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

The effectiveness of Hezbollah’s control of its expanded front was on display on Wednesday morning. Almost at the same time that Hezbollah forces shot at least five advanced Kornet antitank missiles at an IDF convoy along Mount Dov, killing two soldiers and wounding seven, Hezbollah forces on the Golan shot off mortars at the Hermon area.

While these forces are effective, they are also vulnerable. Yaari noted that today, three-quarters of Hezbollah’s total forces are fighting in Syria. Their twofold task is to defend the Assad regime and to build the Iranian-controlled front against Israel along the Golan Heights. Most of the forces are in known, unfortified, above ground positions, vulnerable to Israeli air strikes...

Keep reading.

And see Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "Is Iran Preparing for a Two-Front War Against Israel?"

The Far-Left, Obama-Coddling Media Gives Jeb Bush the 'High School Bully' Treatment

This is the same treatment the Obama-coddlers gave Mitt Romney.

So pathetic.

At Legal Insurrection, "Leave it to the media to get me to defend Jeb Bush." (Via Memeorandum.)

Althouse is not impressed, "The cruelty that is Jeb Bush." And see Ed Morrissey, at Hot Air, "Boston Globe: Hey, Jeb was a bully and pot-smoker in high school!" (at Memeorandum):

In 2012, the national news media that couldn’t be bothered to look up the college records or classmates of a first-term Senate backbencher running for President suddenly found the high-school life of teenage Mitt Romney utterly fascinating. The media painted him as a rich-snob bully, a meme that continued even after the source admitted he was passing along third-hand hearsay, and after the family of the high-school prank victim ripped news outlets for exploiting the story about the now-deceased young man, and called the narrative “factually inaccurate.” Romney ended up in the ridiculous position of being a man in his sixties apologizing for pranks in his teens, but the aftereffects lingered … not coincidentally, during the summer when Team Obama conducted a massive character assassination campaign against the Republican nominee.

Well, Republicans aren't just running against the Democrat nominee. They've got to topple the entire MSM media complex as well.

More of the same, exactly.

Measles Outbreak Fears Plague the Super Bowl

A race against the clock.

At ABC News, "Super Bowl Alert: Race to Contain Measles Outbreak at the Super Bowl."

PREVIOUSLY: "California Measles Outbreak: 107 Cases, Latest in Affluent Far-Left Marin County."

Mitt Romney, Foreseeing Third Defeat, Decides Not to Run in 2016

More on Mitt Romney, at the New York Times, "Support Waning, Romney Decides Against 2016 Bid."

The moneyed power-brokers were bailing out on him. Indeed, they took him at his word he wasn't running again and glommed onto Jeb Bush's emerging campaign.

Again, I think it's good Mitt bowed out, although the prospect of a Bush/Clinton general election battle in 2016 gives me the creeps.

VIDEO: Eddie Elguera, Tony Hawk, and Christian Hosoi, et al., at 'El Gato Classic'

This is phenomenal.

Tony Hawk especially is shredding like it was yesterday. Amazing.



Plus, at Thrasher, "The El Gato Classic."

Santa Monica's 'Vidiots' Movie Rental Store to Close

I'm surprised it's still open, heh.

At LAT, "Vidiots movie rental store in Santa Monica is closing after 30 years":

The shelves at the Vidiots movie rental store are covered with dozens of messages scribbled by filmmakers on the covers of faded VHS and DVD containers. Notes from "Chinatown" writer Robert Towne, reclusive "Thin Red Line" director Terrence Malick and others praise the Santa Monica store's brainy staff and the mammoth film selection that has made it famous among film buffs worldwide.

One message, from Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone, stands out now: "What would life be like without Vidiots?"

Its patrons and fans will soon find out. Vidiots is closing in April after years of struggling to survive the onslaught of Internet rentals, streaming services and online piracy.

Rentals have dropped 24% in the last six months and are down 60% from the store's peak years in the early 2000s, co-owner Cathy Tauber said.

The store tried being a nonprofit, soliciting donations and hosting in-store events with directors. It even auctioned off a lunch with actress Laura Dern and a pitch meeting with an executive producer of the TV series "Homeland" to raise funds.

Tauber said the store also considered launching an online crowdfunding campaign but thought that it wouldn't be a long-term fix.

"We are just bleeding money. We just can't do that anymore," she said. "We didn't want to do something and end up right back where we were in six months."

Video rental stores have been suffering for years after reaching a peak in the late 1990s and early 2000s as DVDs took off, said Mark Fisher, chief executive of the Entertainment Merchants Assn.

There were about 20,000 locations that got at least 50% of their revenue from renting films in 1999 compared with the 3,900 independent and supermarket outlets that rented discs in the U.S. in 2013, he said. An explosion in movie rental kiosks like Redbox, which has more than 35,000 locations in the U.S., has also hurt stores such as Vidiots.

The stores that survive have found ways to supplement their revenue with other retail sales, Fisher said.

One chain in the Midwest, Family Video, owns and develops the land it is on and has actually expanded locations in recent years by integrating a pizza chain into its stores, according to a report from the Entertainment Merchants Assn.

But independent stores like Vidiots have struggled to find a model that works...

Strange.

I saw some lady renting videos out of one of the Redbox machines are Ralph's the other day. Seems like so last century, despite the automation.

More.

Israel Yinon, Renowned Conductor, Dies After Collapsing Onstage in Lucerne, Switzerland

You never know when you're going to go.

In this case, at least he died with his conducting boots on, doing what he loved to do. RIP.

At the Times of Israel, "Renowned Israeli conductor dies on stage during concert," and London's Daily Mail, "Internationally renowned conductor drops dead in front of screaming audience and musicians during a symphony in Switzerland."

Amedy Coulibaly Made GoPro Video of Attack at Hyper Cacher Market in Porte de la Vincennes, France - #ParisAttacks

Jake Tapper reports, at CNN, "French Terrorist Taped Rampage in Kosher Grocery Store with Chest Mounted GoPro."

California Measles Outbreak: 107 Cases, Latest in Affluent Far-Left Marin County

If your child is unvaccinated, not only are you reducing scientific herd immunity, you're putting your child at risk of catastrophic illness or even death.

Leftists are anti-science that way, though. Vile crackpots and Utopian ideologues, frankly.

At LAT, "Measles outbreak grows to 107 cases, latest in Marin County."

PREVIOUSLY: "Affluent Leftists Dominate the Ranks of Anti-Vaxxers, Overwhelmingly Voted for Obama."

Live Audio from Mitt Romney's Call to Supporters

There's a lot of fresh, talented faces in the GOP field. A bid for the nomination was gonna be no Sunday stroll.

It's better Romney's not running, mainly so that the GOP can present a fresh, more diverse face to the electorate in 2016.

Listen to Romney's call to supporters, at CNN, "Romney: It's for the best that I step aside."

Plus, at Hugh Hewitt's, "The Romney Statement: Not Running" (via Memeorandum).

Still more, at Bloomberg (via Memeorandum), "New Iowa Poll: Romney Would Have Faced Many Campaign Hurdles," and "How Mitt Romney Made His Decision Not to Run."

Let's Stick Together

I can't resist, heh.

Some Bryan Ferry:

Super Bowl Tickets Selling for More Than $10,000 on StubHub (VIDEO)

Hey, if you've got the money...

At CBS News This Morning, "Inside StubHub's Super Bowl Ticket Operation."

When Bread Bags Weren't Funny

From Megan McArdle, at Bloomberg:

Last week, in her State of the Union response, Joni Ernst mentioned going to school with bread bags on her feet to protect her shoes. These sorts of remembrances of poor but honest childhoods used to be a staple among politicians -- that's why you've heard so much about Abe Lincoln's beginnings in a log cabin. But the bread bags triggered a lot of hilarity on Twitter, which in turn triggered this powerful meditation from Peggy Noonan on how rich we have become. So rich that we have forgotten things that are well within living memory:

I liked what Ernst said because it was real. And it reminded me of the old days.

There are a lot of Americans, and most of them seem to be on social media, who do not know some essentials about their country, but this is the way it was in America once, only 40 and 50 years ago:

America had less then. Americans had less.

If you were from a family that was barely or not quite getting by, you really had one pair of shoes. If your family was doing OK you had one pair of shoes for school and also a pair of what were called Sunday shoes -- black leather or patent leather shoes. If you were really comfortable you had a pair of shoes for school, Sunday shoes, a pair of play shoes and even boots, which where I spent my childhood (Brooklyn, and Massapequa, Long Island) were called galoshes or rubbers. At a certain point everyone had to have sneakers for gym, but if you didn’t have sneakers you could share a pair with a friend, trading them in the hall before class.

If you had just one pair of shoes, which was the case in my family, you had trouble when it rained or snowed. How to deal with it?

You used the plastic bags that bread came in. Or you used plastic bags that other items came in. Or you used Saran Wrap if you had it, wrapping your shoes and socks in it. Or you let your shoes and socks get all wet, which we also did.

I am a few years younger than Noonan, but I grew up in a very different world -- one where a number of my grammar school classmates were living in public housing or on food stamps, but everyone had more than one pair of shoes. In rural areas, like the one where Joni Ernst grew up, this lingered longer. But all along, Americans got richer and things got cheaper -- especially when global markets opened up. Payless will sell you a pair of child's shoes for $15, which is two hours of work even at minimum wage...

Keep reading.

My dad was born in 1913, in Jim Crow Missouri. He faced a lot of hardship in life, to say nothing of racism. Stories like Joni Ernst's were a staple of the dinner table around my house growing up. Thriftiness wasn't just some noble virtue, it was a way of life. And we weren't bad off at all. My dad drove a Mercedes. It's just once you do things a certain way, you don't change when things get better for you.

And yes, we are an extremely affluent society these days. Even the poorest Americans have access to the kind of basic commodities that the poor of the developing world can only dream about.

Amazing.

'A Muslim allowed a topless Jew to sit on his camel. And we say we can't live side by side?...'

Heh, at Truth Revolt, "Chelsea Handler Goes Topless....Again."

Those Star of David doilies are the best!