Los Angeles Times Poll: Mitt Romney With Double-Digit Lead in California

This is hardly surprising, but California's the biggest state, and the election could well go down to the wire.

See, "California Republicans get behind Mitt Romney":

Republican voters in California have swung behind Mitt Romney, with the national presidential front-runner crushing his rivals by double digits and substantially expanding his support in the state, a new poll has found.

Romney won 42% of registered Republican voters, with his closest rival, Rick Santorum, trailing by 19 points, according to the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll. Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul were a distant third and fourth.

Romney's support has risen by 15 points since a November USC/Times poll, when Herman Cain was his closest competitor. (The former businessman has since dropped out.)

Yet there remains a palpable lack of enthusiasm for the Republican field. Half of GOP voters said they wished other candidates were running for president.

Barbara Foley, a 73-year-old Republican, said she would prefer former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio or Rep. Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin. She decided to vote for Romney by process of elimination — she says Santorum is too socially conservative, Gingrich is smart but a "loose cannon," and Paul — "well, I just think he's nuttier than a fruitcake."

"I vote the lesser of two evils, unfortunately," said the Alpine retiree, who deeply disapproves of President Obama, notably his healthcare law, and fears the nation has grown increasingly socialist under his watch. "Mitt Romney is the lesser of the evils."

Continue reading.

That "lesser of two evils" sounds pretty disappointing, actually. But Republican enthusiasm will kick back up around the time of the GOP convention, and Mitt Romney can fire up the base with a shrewd pick for the V.P. slot. (And the emphasis there is on shrewd, not reckless --- see, "Raising the Bar for Vetting a No. 2.")

Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers Debunks Democrat Scare Tactics on Women's Health

Rep. McMorris-Rodgers exposes leftist lies on the so-called "Republican war on women":

She was also on "Hardball" this week, with video at the link.

And see the Weekly Standard, "By 21-Point Margin, Americans Oppose Birth Control Mandate," and at New York Times, "President Obama’s Approval Rating Drops."

And from Robert Robb, at the Arizona Republic, "'War on women' a Dem exaggeration":

The effort by Democrats to make the case that Republicans are waging a "war on women" has been interesting to watch. As often is the case in politics, the accusation reveals more about the accuser than the accused.

At the national level, that's been the spin to try to wrest control of the flap over the Obama administration not providing an exemption for religious-affiliated institutions -- principally Catholic schools, hospitals and charities -- from its mandate that all health- insurance plans include free contraceptives.

RTWT.

BONUS: At New York Times, "On the Right, Santorum Has Women’s Vote."

Dick Cheney Recovers After Heart Transplant Surgery

I'm glad he's okay.

See the New York Times, "For Cheney, 71, New Heart Ends 20-Month Wait."

In appearances since he left office in 2009, Mr. Cheney has appeared gaunt and increasingly frail. Last August, he published an autobiography, “In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir,” written with his daughter Liz Cheney, in which he reported that a team of doctors assessed his heart condition before George W. Bush chose him as his vice-presidential running mate in 2000. He also described writing a letter of resignation shortly after taking office and giving it to his counsel, David S. Addington, to be delivered to President Bush if he were incapacitated.

In a government career with few parallels, Mr. Cheney, who was vice president for all eight years of Mr. Bush’s presidency, has been chief of staff to President Gerald R. Ford, represented Wyoming in Congress and served as defense secretary under the first President George Bush.

He is widely considered to have been among the most powerful vice presidents in American history, working behind the scenes on policies as varied as energy and counterterrorism and advocating an aggressive assertion of presidential power.

He was a lightning rod for critics of the Bush administration, and his influence as vice president during Mr. Bush’s second term was considerably diminished. But he remains revered on the political right and in the Republican Party and has been one of the Obama administration’s toughest critics, speaking out regularly despite his fragile health.

And see Lonely Conservative, "Dick Cheney Recovering from Heart Transplant, Liberals React as Expected – Updated with More Lefty Hate." And Memeorandum.

French Killer Mohamed Merah's Path to Jihadist Rampage

At the Wall Street Journal, "A French Killer's Path to Jihadist Rampage":

PARIS — The death of Mohamed Merah, the suspected French killer who met his end Thursday in a barrage of special-forces gunfire, left officials piecing together how he became the alleged homegrown terrorist behind the most violent attacks on French soil in almost two decades.

On Thursday, a more-complete picture emerged of Mr. Merah, who police say conducted seven point-blank killings in and around Toulouse over the previous 11 days.

Over recent years, according to the emerging accounts, the French citizen of Algerian descent appeared to be looking for a place to belong—seeking twice, without success, to join the French armed services.

He had also, according to his own account, sought to belong to al Qaeda. On Wednesday, as he was pinned inside a Toulouse apartment by special forces, he told a police negotiator he had trained with al Qaeda in Afghanistan and in the Pakistani militant stronghold of Waziristan. Western intelligence agencies couldn't confirm his claims.

Controversy emerged Thursday over whether French authorities should have been watching Mr. Merah more closely. The U.S. put him on its no-fly list as a suspected terrorist, U.S. officials say, because in 2010 he had been in custody in Afghanistan and then sent back to France. France put him on a watch list of suspected Islamist militants, but stopped short of including him on a narrower surveillance list.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé on Thursday said authorities should investigate whether there was a failure by French intelligence gatherers. "I can't tell you what kind of failure, but we need to shed some light on that," he told French radio.

Continue reading.

Also, "French Shooting Suspect Was on U.S. No-Fly List."

New Black Panther Party Offers $10,000 Bounty for George Zimmerman, Dead or Alive

At Right Truth, "Wanted: Dead or Alive."

And Chicago Tribune, "Trayvon Martin case: New Black Panthers offer $10,000 bounty for capture of George Zimmerman."

And it was a Day of Rage yesterday at Memeorandum.

PREVIOUSLY: "Progressives Tweet George Zimmerman's Address, Issue Death Threats — 'Ima get a group of niggas to KILL George Zimmerman'."

Atheists Rally at the National Mall in Washington D.C.

At Washington Post, "Atheists rally on National Mall in show of political force."

And Reason Magazine declaims any organizational affiliations:

Reason.tv headed down to the National Mall for the Reason Rally (no affiliation!) in Washington, DC. The March 24 event was billed as the "largest gathering of the secular movement in world history" and drew a several thousand-strong crowd of damp, enthusiastic unbelievers (and a few protesting believers) to the National Mall.

Liberty and ObamaCare

More on the health care arguments coming up on Monday at the Supreme Court, from the Wall Street Journal, "The Affordable Care Act claims federal power is unlimited. Now the High Court must decide":

Few legal cases in the modern era are as consequential, or as defining, as the challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that the Supreme Court hears beginning Monday. The powers that the Obama Administration is claiming change the structure of the American government as it has existed for 225 years. Thus has the health-care law provoked an unprecedented and unnecessary constitutional showdown that endangers individual liberty.

It is a remarkable moment. The High Court has scheduled the longest oral arguments in nearly a half-century: five and a half hours, spread over three days. Yet Democrats, the liberal legal establishment and the press corps spent most of 2010 and 2011 deriding the government of limited and enumerated powers of Article I as a quaint artifact of the 18th century. Now even President Obama and his staff seem to grasp their constitutional gamble.

Consider a White House strategy memo that leaked this month, revealing that senior Administration officials are coordinating with liberal advocacy groups to pressure the Court. "Frame the Supreme Court oral arguments in terms of real people and real benefits that would be lost if the law were overturned," the memo notes, rather than "the individual responsibility piece of the law and the legal precedence [sic]." Those nonpolitical details are merely what "lawyers will be talking about."

The White House is even organizing demonstrations during the proceedings, including a "'prayerful witness' encircling the Supreme Court." The executive branch is supposed to speak to the Court through the Solicitor General, not agitprop and crowds in the streets.

The Supreme Court will not be ruling about matters of partisan conviction, or the President's re-election campaign, or even about health care at all. The lawsuit filed by 26 states and the National Federation of Independent Business is about the outer boundaries of federal power and the architecture of the U.S. political system.

More at the link.

And at Reason, "$2 Trillion For a Decade of Expanded Health Coverage Under ObamaCare?"

Jihad in Toulouse

From the Wall Street Journal (via Google):

Mohamed Merah died Thursday morning in a hail of bullets as he leapt from the window of his Toulouse flat, firing on the way down. During the preceding 33-hour standoff, the 23-year-old Frenchman said he wanted to die "gun in hand." Nobody should feel sorry that the authorities obliged him.

Merah began his murder spree 12 days ago when he gunned down French paratrooper Sgt. Imad Ibn Ziaten in Toulouse. Four days later he killed two more uniformed paratroopers, Cpl. Abel Chennouf and Pte. Mohamed Legouad, in nearby Montauban. On Monday Merah attacked Toulouse's Ozar Hatorah Jewish school, killing Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his two young sons Gabriel and Arieh, and seven-year-old Myriam Monsonego. What made the killings all the more grotesque was that Merah filmed them, a reminder that terrorism is, in some sense, also a form of pornography.

The reaction of the French has been commendable. Revulsion at the murder of Jewish children gives the lie to the notion that France is fundamentally anti-Semitic. Muslim leaders have lined up to condemn the killings. Security authorities have been criticized for not acting more effectively—Merah was already on a terrorist watch-list—but every free society will always be at an initial disadvantage against individual killers. "We have shown our sang-froid, our cool and our ability to overcome this kind of terrorist threat," President Nicolas Sarkozy said Thursday. "We must be implacable in defending our values."

Well said. Less useful was initial speculation that the killer must have been a white supremacist since he seemed to target Jews and North Africans equally—a line of thinking that seems to have been inspired by the notion that Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik represented a larger underground movement...

Check that top link to continue reading.

And from Mark Steyn, at National Review, "Lather, Rinse, and Repeat." (Yeah, it's about Islam, despite the MFM accounts.)

And at Pamela's, "Toulouse Jihad: The Devout 'White Emir' Who May Have Inspired Jew-Killing Jihadist Mohamed Merah."

Rick Santorum Wins Louisiana Primary

At CNN, "Santorum takes Louisiana" (via Memeorandum).

And at New York Times, "Santorum Gets a Boost in Winning Louisiana":

Rick Santorum easily won the Louisiana Republican primary Saturday night, capturing a deeply conservative state with a hefty portion of the kind of evangelical Christian voters who have helped him claim victories in 10 other states.

The win gave Mr. Santorum a much-needed psychological boost but it will be unlikely to change the dynamics of the race. Only 20 delegates were up for grabs on Saturday, with 26 more to be allocated later. Even if Mr. Santorum were to claim most of them, he would still have only half the delegates that Mitt Romney, his chief rival, already has.

Mr. Romney’s win last week in Illinois, as well as his subsequent endorsement by Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, dimmed Mr. Santorum’s political prospects, although his victory in Louisiana showed how he could still complicate Mr. Romney’s efforts to capture the 1,144 delegates needed for the nomination.

In a fund-raising letter sent out Saturday night, Mr. Santorum said the results in Louisiana had sent “shock waves” through the political world.

“Tonight with our strong victory in Louisiana, our campaign has now won 11 states, tying a record and proving we can win in the West, South and Midwest,” the letter said. “Not since Ronald Reagan in 1976 has a conservative candidate won as many states as we have.”

More from Robert Stacy McCain, who's on the ground in Louisiana, "LOUISIANA PRIMARY RESULTS HQ: Santorum Wins by Wide Margin."

And at Washington Post, "Romney roundly defeated in Louisiana":

At the same time, this is likely one of the last times Romney will face such a difficult electorate.

Louisiana is the last state from the Deep South that will vote, bringing an end to what has been Romney’s most difficult region of the country.

Next month’s contests will take place almost totally in the Northeast — a region where Romney is thus far undefeated.

In addition, a few of those states award their delegates on a winner-take-all basis — something only two states have done so far — allowing Romney to expand his delegate lead more quickly than he has to this point.

I think from here on out we'll likely see Mitt Romney roll up the delegates on the way to the GOP nomination. It's been an extremely impressive run for Santorum, but polls in upcoming states indicate an uphill slog. See, for example, Los Angeles Times, "California Republicans get behind Romney."

More on that poll later...

Saturday Night Kelly Brook Rule 5

Dana Pico brings us more of the hot women in the military: "Rule 5 Blogging: Cover Girl Cosmetics Edition."

But I'll share some more Kelly Brook, who keeps getting loads of media coverage at London's Daily Mail.

See: "Don't know where to look! Kelly Brook goes for maximum exposure in see-through top and hot pink trousers."

PREVIOUSLY: "Thursday Night Kelly Brook Rule 5."

Plus, check the archives for some earlier Kelly Brook Rule 5.

More later.

Progressives Tweet George Zimmerman's Address, Issue Death Threats — 'Ima get a group of niggas to KILL George Zimmerman'

At Twitchy, "Spike Lee retweets George Zimmerman’s address."

And the now-deleted tweet from @Simply_Reiona:

"Ima get a group of niggas to KILL George Zimmerman ( the fat ass racist ass white man who killed Trayvon Martin ) ! He deserves to DIE !!!!— Couldnt Care Less (@Simply_Reiona) March 24, 2012"

She now whines about taking flak:

Right.

Why are they on his side? Well, most folks aren't down with black lynch mobs.

RELATED: From Doctor Zero at Human Events, "George Zimmerman: Wanted Dead or Alive," and at Weasel Zippers, "New Black Panther Party Circulating “Wanted Dead or Alive” Poster For George Zimmerman…"

ADDED: Linked at Instapundit. Thanks!

Witness Says Trayvon Martin Attacked George Zimmerman

Well, first I think folks should just keep checking the left's narrative a bit, no?

So here's Sandy Banks at the Los Angeles Times, "Anger over teen's shooting transcends race":

[George] Zimmerman hasn't been arrested, claiming self-defense under Florida's Stand Your Ground law. Now protests are spreading across the country, turning Trayvon's death into a national symbol of racial prejudice and violent bias.

But this is not just about the color of skin, but the color of authority.

It's about a neighborhood bully allowed to carry a gun, encouraged by a reckless law to wield it and absolved by local police, who had barely begun to investigate before declaring the killer "squeaky clean."

Does race play into it? Certainly. I have no doubt Trayvon would be behind bars if he'd been the shooter in that scenario.

But what is moving America now owes its resonance to a bag of Skittles, a can of iced tea and a hoodie pulled low against the cold.

And the heartbreaking photo we can't seem to avoid, of a bright-eyed kid in a Hollister shirt smiling broadly into the camera, who was shot to death walking to his dad's home by someone who felt he didn't belong.

Heartbreaking!!

Everyone wants to talk about that "Hollister" photo, right? But the hoodie is out of bounds, remember?

Fucking progressive hypocrites.

And here's this at Fox News Tampa Bay, "Witness: Martin attacked Zimmerman."

More at Weasel Zippers, "Race Pimp Jesse Jackson On Trayvon Martin Case: “Blacks Are Under Attack” … Obama’s Victory Has “Triggered Tremendous Backlash”…"

There's more at LAT and Memeorandum.

This is one of those cases where your natural sense of decency is to have due process afforded and justice prevail, but the left has cooked the narrative and now we've got this bogus national outcry over a fictitious "race war" against blacks. No wonder American politics is so polarized. That's the only way the Obama-Dems can gain any traction.

ADDED: At Raw Story, "Trayvon Martin case ‘not as conclusive as people think’, says legal expert."

MORE: From London's Daily Mail, "Now witness claims TRAYVON attacked Zimmerman: Anonymous onlooker told police neighbourhood watch captain was provoked... as friends insist teen was not violent and protests mount."

And at Riehl World View, "As Media Reports Conflict, Why Was Trayvon Martin Photo Altered?" (Via Memeorandum.)

STILL MORE: From the Orlando Sentinel, "George Zimmerman's father: My son is not racist, did not confront Trayvon Martin":

Police have released little information about what happened that night and no details about how Trayvon and Zimmerman came to be face to face.

No one disputes that Zimmerman called police from his SUV, then left it and encountered Trayvon on foot as the teenager returned from a 7-Eleven candy run.

Before an officer arrived, Trayvon and Zimmerman got into a fight, according to police, and witnesses heard one or both calling for help, and Zimmerman shot Trayvon once with a 9 mm handgun.

Zimmerman told police he acted in self-defense. Police found blood on his face and the back of his head as well as grass on the back of his shirt.

That jibes with what Cheryl Brown's teenage son witnessed while walking his dog that night. Thirteen-year-old Austin stepped out his front door and heard people fighting, he told the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday.

"I heard screaming and crying for help," he said. "I heard, 'Help me.' "

It was dark, and the boy did not see how the fight started, in fact, he only saw one person, a man in a red shirt — Zimmerman — who was on the ground.

The boy said he is not sure who called for help. After a moment, his dog escaped, and he turned to catch it and a few seconds later heard a gunshot, he said.

"When I heard the shot, the screaming stopped," he said.

He then rushed inside and told his sister to call police.

And check the roundup at Instapundit, "NEW WITNESS IN THE TRAYVON MARTIN CASE..."

Plus, linked at Blazing Cat Fur: "Race Baiters Narrative Has Serious Flaw: Witness Says Trayvon Martin Attacked George Zimmerman." Thanks!

Rick Santorum in Louisiana: Looking to Expand Support Beyond Evangelicals and Tea Partiers

Rick Santorum is heading to victory in Louisiana, but the going will get tough after this last primary in the South.

See the Los Angeles Times, "Santorum, at home in Louisiana, tries to broaden his reach."

And the fallout continues over Santorum's comments on the choice for November:

“Republicans and conservatives who are so worried about, you know, getting control back — ‘We have to win and so we have to nominate someone who can appeal to more’ — no, you win by giving people a choice. You win by giving people the opportunity to see a different vision for our country, not someone who’s just going to be a little different than the person in there. If you’re going to be a little different, we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk with what may be the Etch A Sketch candidate of the future.”

At the New York Times, "Santorum on Defensive Over Remark on Romney."

It's not that big of a deal, although some folks are having second thoughts about Santorum. See Yid With Lid, "Withdrawing My Endorsement of Rick Santorum." And the folks at Hot Air are all over this, Ed Morrissey, for example, "No, Senator Santorum, Obama and Romney aren’t the same," and "Santorum spokewoman says he’ll support Romney if nominee … Update: Santorum statement added."

I'll have more on Louisiana later today.

Meanwhile, at Los Angeles Times, "Louisiana primary: Conservatives remain skeptical of Mitt Romney."

And Robert Stacy McCain is on the ground for today's primary, "Neutral Objective Journalism."

Pope Benedict XVI Slams Communism: Marxist Ideology 'No Longer Corresponds to Reality'

You gotta love this.

At London's Daily Mail, "'Communism isn't working here': Pope's outspoken warning days before he is due to land in Cuba."

Pope Benedict XVI has said that Marxism has no place in the modern world and urged Cubans to find 'new models'.

Cuba has remained a communist country for more than 50 years and his comments will no doubt cause irritation, just days before he is due to visit.

He said: 'Today it is evident that Marxist ideology in the way it was conceived no longer corresponds to reality. In this way we can no longer respond and build a society. new models must be found with patience and in a constructive way.'

Mohamed Merah — Man of the West

From Caroline Glick:

The massacre of Jewish children at the Ozar Hatorah Jewish day school in Toulouse presents us with an appalling encapsulation of the depraved nature of our times - although at first glance, the opposite seems to be the case.

On the surface, the situation was cut and dry. A murderer drove up to a Jewish school and executed three children and a teacher.

Led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, all of France decried the massacre and announced its solidarity with the French Jewish community. World leaders condemned the crime. The killer died in a standoff with French security forces. Justice was served. Case closed.

But dig a little deeper and it becomes clear that justice has not been served.

Indeed, it hasn't even begun to be addressed. The killer, Mohamed Merah, was not a lone gunman. He wasn't even one of the lone jihadists we hear so much about.

He had plenty of accomplices. And not all of them were Muslims.

An analysis of the nature of his crime and the identity of his many accomplices must necessarily begin with a question. Why did Merah videotape his crime?

Why did take the trouble of strapping a video camera to his neck and filming himself chasing eight-year-old Miriam Monsonego through the school courtyard and shooting her three times in the head? Why did he document his execution of Rabbi Jonathan Sandler and his two little boys, three-year-old Gavriel and six-year-old Aryeh?

The first answer is because Merah took pride in killing Jewish children. Beyond that, he was certain that millions of people would be heartened by his crime. By watching him shoot the life out of Jewish children, they would be inspired to repeat his actions elsewhere.

And he was surely correct.

Millions of people have watched the 2002 video of Daniel Pearl being decapitated. Similar decapitation videos of Western hostages in Iraq and elsewhere have also become runaway Internet sensations.

Led by Youssef Fofana, the Muslim gang in France that kidnapped and tortured Ilan Halimi to death in 2006 also took pictures of their handiwork. Their photographs were clearly imitations of the photos that Pearl's killers took of him before they chopped his head off.

The pride that jihadist murderers take in their crimes is not merely manifested in their camera work. US Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who massacred 13 US servicemen at Fort Hood in 2009, showed obvious pride in his dedication to jihad. Hassan gave a presentation to his colleagues justifying jihad. He carried business cards in which he identified himself as an "SOA," a soldier of Allah.

Similarly, Naveed Haq, the American Muslim who carried out the attack at the Seattle Jewish Federation building in 2006, murdering one woman and wounding another five, bragged to his mother and friend about his crime in monitored telephone calls from jail. Haq boasted that he was "a jihadi" and that his victims deserved to die because they were "Israeli collaborators."

The exhibitionism common to all the men's behavior makes it obvious that that their attacks were not the random actions of isolated crazy people or lone extremists. All of these killers were certain that they were part of a global movement that seeks the annihilation of the Jews, the subjugation of the Western world and the supremacy of jihadist Islam. And they were convinced that their actions served the interests of this movement and that they would be viewed as heroes by millions of their fellow Muslims for their killing of innocents.

THIS SITUATION is bad enough on its own. But what make it truly dangerous are the West's responses to it...

Continue reading.

The Islamist Version of Anti-Semitism the Most Virulent and Lethal

At Jerusalem Post, "The Anti-Semitic Disease":

After an extended standoff, Mohamed Merah, the 24-year-old French-Algerian terrorist who murdered three Jewish children and a teacher in front of their school in Toulouse, is dead. Unfortunately, that inexplicable disease called anti-Semitism is very much alive.

The deadliest form of anti-Semitism today is the sort that inspired Merah, who, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), was indoctrinated in jihadi camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan and had ties to Fursan al-Izza (Knights of Glory), the French branch of al- Qaida.

Only the warped, anti-Semitic mind of a member of al- Qaida could justify the murder of Jews living in France, including a three-year-old child, to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children – as Merah did.

Unfortunately, however, Merah was not the only one to link the massacre in Toulouse with Israel’s war on terror in the Gaza Strip. European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton also claimed that the murder of French Jews in Toulouse was somehow connected to “what is happening in Gaza.” She later repudiated her remark.

“When we think of what happened in Toulouse today.

When we remember what happened in Norway a year ago, when we know what is happening in Syria, when we see what is happening in Gaza and Sderot and in different parts of the world – we remember young people and children who lose their lives,” she said.

Though it would be an exaggeration to call Ashton’s remarks, made in Brussels before a crowd of “Palestinian refugee representatives,” blatantly anti-Semitic, her failure to draw distinctions – a crucial fault shared by many on the progressive Left – helps to set the stage for men such as Merah to be seen not as cold-blooded murderers motivated by irrational anti-Semitism, but as militants engaged in warfare.

Exactly.

Continue reading at the link.

And see Blazing Cat Fur, "Teacher Suspended: Asks Class To Remember 'Victim' Mohammed Merah." That's just one example.

'Obamaville'

At The Hill, "New Santorum campaign ad warns of desolate ‘Obamaville’ towns in the future." And Politico, "Santorum spokesman denies Obama-Ahmadinejad conflation in new ad" (via Memeorandum).

RELATED: On the campaign controversy today, whether Santorum would support Mitt Romney as the GOP nominee, see The Other McCain, "Rick Santorum in Cavuto Interview: ‘This Is the Hatchet-Job of All Time’ (Video Added)," and "What Santorum Said, What He Meant, and What Romneybots Want You to Think."

And from Pundette, "Etch A Sketch, continued; Update: Santorum's remark misinterpreted?", and Sister Toldjah, "Temperature check: Is Barack Obama preferable to Mitt Romney?"(via Memeorandum).

Geraldo Rivera on Trayvon Martin Shooting: 'This Whole Stylizing Yourself As a Gangsta ... Well, People Are Going to Perceive You As a Menace'

Here's the video.

Geraldo's 100 percent correct. But the left doesn't want to deal with this, that it's possible that Treyvon Martin appeared threatening and his hoodie gangsta styling contributed to his death.

PREVIOUSLY: "Justice for Trayvon Martin! Racial Tensions (and Hypocrisies) Flare in Wake of Florida Teen Shooting," and "President Obama's Comments on Shooting Death of 17-Year-Old Trayvon Martin."

Katy Perry Joins the Marines!

Well, temporarily, at least.

See: "Katy Perry Joins the Marines in 'Part of Me' Video."

Via Blazing Cat Fur, "Katy Perry made a smart move dumping Russell Brand..."

Justice for Trayvon Martin! Racial Tensions (and Hypocrisies) Flare in Wake of Florida Teen Shooting

Actually, I'm not criticizing the outrage over this shooting. What I am criticizing is the left's politicization of it. See Gateway Pundit, "It Begins… Far Left Media Ties Trayvon Martin Killing to Rush Limbaugh (Video)." Follow the link there to MSNBC analyst and Democratic strategist Karen Finney, who makes an aggressive attempt link the GOP presidential candidates to the death of Trayvon Martin. It's sick and disgusting and really has no place in the discussion. (And don't even get me started on this: "Farrakhan Tweets: 'Where There Is No Justice, There Will Be No Peace…Law of Retaliation May…Be Applied'.")

And while it's elevated, the discussion from last night's PBS NewsHour isn't that much better. I'm interested especially in the commentary from The Altantic's racial-grivance columnist Ta-Nehisi Coates, who is interviewed. Listening to the guy he's clearly less impressive an intellectual when one actually hears his patter on television. He sounds not much more than a homie with a suit. Worse though is this Donna Britt lady, who says "Thank God" Treyvon Martin "looks like a kid ... he looks like someone who is young and vulnerable and who matters. And that's part of the reason why people have responded so much..." That's really cold and offensive --- it wouldn't matter if the victim was a genuine black thug? --- and it's a way for black intellectuals to completely discount --- even hide --- the real pathologies in the black community. For example, I'm no fan of Geraldo Rivero, but I think he's right to point out that the way the boy was dressed could have been a factor in his killing. So notice the discrepancy here: A black intellectual confesses that we should thank God that the boy wasn't an invulnerable hardened criminal, and that's "part of the reason people have responded so much," but when Geraldo Rivera speaks out on gangsta attire that's "victim blaming." Honestly, only on the left do you see these kinds of disgusting double standards.

The whole video is good but scroll forward to Britt's comments at about the 10:00 minute mark:

More later...

President Obama's Comments on Shooting Death of 17-Year-Old Trayvon Martin

Obama suggested that we all need to do some "soul searching," although he sidestepped the issue of whether the kid should have been wearing a hoodie.

See New York Times, "Obama Speaks Out on Trayvon Martin Killing." (Via Memeorandum.)

More: An excellent commentary from Ed Morrissey, "Obama weighs in on Trayvon Martin case."

Kim Kardashian Flour Attack

Well, I'm not sure what purpose this serves, but again, if someone can get in there with a sack of flour they can get in there with something deadly.

And see London's Daily Mail, "Pictured: The moment Kim Kardashian got flour-bombed... before TV star jokes: 'I told my make-up artist I needed more powder'," and Vanity Fair, "An Unabridged Analysis of the Kim Kardashian Flour Attack, and What It Means for Her Career."

And some additional coverage at LAT, "Fashion News: Kim Kardashian 'flour-bombed' at fragrance launch."

PREVIOUSLY: "Kim Kardashian Steps Out in Revealing Low-Cut Ensemble After Church," and "Kim Kardashian and Sisters Khloe and Kourtney Promote Their Kardashian Kollection."

ObamaCare Slow to Gain Favor in Public Opinion

Gallup reported on ObamaCare's weak public support a couple of weeks ago: "Americans Divided on Repeal of 2010 Healthcare Law."

Less than half of all Americans support the law, and a large majority of Republicans favor repeal.

The numbers are interesting if we recall that Democrats argued that support for the law would increase as Americans began to experience the benefits. Well, that's not happening. See the Wall Street Journal, "Health Law Slow to Win Favor: Some Provisions Stumble in Practice" (click through at Google):

When the health-care overhaul became law after a bitter debate, many Democrats predicted Americans would grow to like it as they started enjoying some of the early benefits.

The day after the president signed the bill into law, which happened exactly two years ago, an average of major polls collated by the website Real Clear Politics showed 50.4% of Americans opposed. This week, that had changed only by a tenth of a percentage point, ticking up to 50.5%.

The health law remains a tough sell for reasons that go beyond the drumbeat from Republicans for its repeal and questions about its constitutionality that will be debated next week at the Supreme Court. Several of the law's early pieces, designed to win public support, haven't worked as well in the real world as on paper and have irked even some of the Americans they were designed to help.

Some elements have been a success. An estimated 2.5 million young adults have gained coverage from the provision saying children can stay on their parents' plan until they turn 26, and Medicare beneficiaries have saved on prescription drug costs.

But, among some other less-successful provisions, an insurance plan designed to help the sick and uninsured before the full impact of the law kicks in has drawn only a fraction of the expected participants, because of high premiums and strict enrollment rules. Some states have already burned through federal cash allotted to them as costs have come in higher than anticipated.

Francee Levin, a 59-year-old artist in Columbia, S.C., said in March 2010 that she thought the law would be a "godsend." Injuries from being hit by a drunken driver had left her unable to find coverage. But when Ms. Levin looked into South Carolina's version of the plan, she decided she couldn't afford the premiums of $650 a month.

She rolled the dice and remained uninsured. Last month, just after Ms. Levin had given a class at a middle school, her heart suddenly stopped and had to be restarted with a defibrillator. Early bills from her two-week stay in the hospital, including helicopter transportation and six days on life support, top $10,000.

Another piece of the law that seemed like a winner—eliminating co-payments for preventive health services—spawned a religious battle over contraception coverage that has turned some Catholic leaders against the Obama administration. That happened after an advisory body deemed contraception preventive care.

The law's curbs on how severely insurers can limit annual claims payouts sparked a backlash, with the administration giving 1,231 employers and insurers waivers after some companies threatened to drop coverage altogether.

In addition, federal officials halted the creation of a long-term-care insurance program several months ago after deeming it financially unsustainable.

President Barack Obama doesn't plan to tout the law publicly on Friday, the second anniversary of his signing the bill. A senior administration official said his involvement politicizes the matter, which makes it all but impossible to change negative public opinion about the law.

Be sure to read it all.

Charles Krauthammer: The ObamaCare Reckoning

Now this is someone whose analysis is genuinely worthy.

See Krauthammer at Washington Post, "Obamacare: The reckoning" (via Memeorandum).

James Taranto Bitch Slaps Linda Greenhouse

I read only the first paragraph of Linda Greenhouse's ObamaCare essay last night:

Journalistic convention requires that when there are two identifiable sides to a story, each side gets its say, in neutral fashion, without the writer’s thumb on the scale. This rule presents a challenge when one side of a controversy obviously lacks merit. But mainstream journalism has learned to navigate those challenges, choosing evolution over “intelligent design,” for example, and treating climate change naysayers as cranks.

That passage combines so much condescension and anti-intellectualism it's almost funny, but the primary effect of Greenhouse's idiocy was to have me click the back button to find something else to read. So imagine the laugh I got this morning seeing James Taranto go after Greenhouse with a well-deserved bitch slap. See: "The Ineffective Greenhouse" (via Memeorandum).

Just read it at the link. Taranto is reasonable, and frankly tentative, in his commentary, a sign of someone willing to consider possible outcomes that differ from his ideological preferences.

Mohammad Merah Shot Dead Following 32-Hour Siege

Here's an earlier headline at London's Daily Mail, "WHY DIDN'T FRENCH POLICE STOP AL QAEDA FANATIC SOONER?" (via Memeorandum).

That's what I was asking last night.

And here's the latest update: "Al Qaeda claims Toulouse fanatic shot dead by police was 'one of ours' as it emerges killer had sick video of himself executing victims."

Plus, at Telegraph UK, "I am on an al-Qaeda mission, taunts besieged gunman who shot children."

More at New York Times, "French Slaying Suspect Dead After Police Raid Hideout" (via Memeorandum).

Thursday Night Kelly Brook Rule 5

Well, here's to kicking off a great weekend of blogging.

There's no shortage of political news, so more of that in a bit.

But perhaps some Rule 5 readers will enjoy this piece at London's Daily Mail, "'My secret's out!' Kelly Brook reveals the key to her bountiful cleavage... a pair of Sport Relief socks."

BONUS: At Pirate's Cove, "If All You See…are wonderful trees capturing CO2, you might just be a Warmist."

2012 L.A. Woman — Skateboarding Tour of Los Angeles

Via The Sound L.A.:

The Story of Obama and Israel

Via Caroline Glick:

And at New York Times, "Hawks Steering Debate on How to Take On Iran."

'The Road We've Traveled'

From Karl Rove, at Wall Street Journal, "Three dismal years are spun into 17 minutes of fact-challenged campaign film":

This month, Barack Obama's re-election campaign released a 17-minute film, "The Road We've Traveled," that previews the Democratic general election narrative. Directed by Academy Award winner Davis Guggenheim and narrated by actor Tom Hanks, the film explores Mr. Obama's most important decisions.

Viewers are told Mr. Obama deserves re-election for restoring America to prosperity after a recession "as deep as anything . . . since the Great Depression." He accomplished this in part, so the film says, by bailing out the auto companies—deciding not to just "give the car companies" or "the UAW the money" but to force them to "work together" and "modernize the automobile industry." The president, we're told, also confronted "one of the most worrisome problems facing America . . . the cost of health care."

Abroad, Mr. Obama ended the Iraq war and, in the "ultimate test of leadership," Osama bin Laden was killed on his watch. The film heralds Mr. Obama as a leader committed to "tough decisions" and as someone who "would not dwell in blame" in the Oval Office.

Where to begin? Perhaps with the last statement: Mr. Obama has spent three years wallowing in blame. His culprits have ranged from his predecessor, to tsunamis and earthquakes, to ATMs, to Fox News, to yours truly. If you Google "Obama, Blame, Bush" and "Obama, Inherited," you'll get tens of millions of hits.

As for inheriting the worst economy since the Great Depression: Perhaps Mr. Obama has forgotten the Carter presidency, which featured double-digit inflation, double-digit interest rates, and high unemployment.

The film is riddled with other inaccuracies and misleading claims. For example, the United Auto Workers may not have gotten "money" in the bailout, but as an unsecured creditor, the union received a 17.5% ownership interest in General Motors and 55% of Chrysler, while the companies' bondholders got hosed.

The film asserts that the auto companies "repaid their loans." But they still owe taxpayers $26.5 billion, and the Treasury Department's latest report to Congress noted that nearly $24 billion of the bailout money is gone forever.

The film includes Mr. Obama's 2008 claim that the death of his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, from cancer "could have been prevented" if only she "had good, consistent insurance." But earlier this year, a biography of Dunham by Janny Scott, "A Singular Woman," revealed that she had health insurance that covered most all her medical bills, leaving only a few hundred dollars a month in deductibles and uncovered costs. For misleading viewers, the Washington Post fact checker awarded this segment of the film "Three Pinocchios" ...

 More at the link.

Walker Recall Vote Key Test of Union Power

At IBD, "Wisconsin Scott Walker Recall Election a Key Test for Future of Public Employee Union Power."

And at Wisconsin Reporter, "Report: Public-sector unions using dues to fight political assaults."

But see National Review, "The Wisconsin Governor is Confident He'll Win."

Obama's Corrosive Energy Strategy

Via Lonely Conservative:

Toulouse Victims' Funeral in Jerusalem

Via Israel Matzav:

Are You Comfortable, Monsieur Merah? Can We Get You Coffee, a Croissant?

I'm not one to joke at a time like this, but chalk it up to gallows humor.

The French have this guy "under siege," still? And this is the guy who murdered the Jews of the Ozar Hatorah School, in cold blood? Why? What's taking so long? Oh, wouldn't want to be too harsh on the jihadi, that might be racist, to hear Steve Erlanger of the New York Times:

Here's this just now from the Toronto Star, "Toulouse killings: Siege on suspect’s apartment drags on more than 24 hours":

After a siege that lasted more than 24 hours, the man suspected of a killing spree that shocked and terrified France remained holed up in his Toulouse apartment.

Authorities said Mohamed Merah told negotiators that he killed a rabbi and three young children at a Jewish school on Monday and three French paratroopers last week to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children and to protest the French army’s involvement in Afghanistan.

The slayings stunned France in their brutal and calculated execution. Eyewitness reports led French Interior Minister Claude Guéant to describe the gunman as “someone very cold, very determined, very much a master of his movements and, by consequence, very cruel.”

Merah, 24, was caught hours after the victims were buried amid scenes of profound grief. At the Jerusalem cemetery known as Har Hamenuchot, or the Mount of Rest, family members wept as they buried a rabbi, his two sons and an 8-year-old girl who were killed outside Ozar Hatorah School in Toulouse on Monday.

And Telegraph UK continues its live coverage.

And at Jerusalem Post, "Toulouse shooter standoff continues into second day":

Police have been trying to get 24-year-old Mohamed Merah to turn himself over after he fired through the door at them while they tried to storm his apartment in the suburbs of Toulouse in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Plus from D.G. Myers, at Commentary, "Removing All Traces of Islamist Terror from Toulous Shootings."

And from Melanie Phillips, at London's Daily Mail, "Laying the goundwork for the Toulouse massacre":

When the Toulouse school massacre happened, the media rushed to say that the perpetrator was a white far-right racist. The lone gunman had mown down at close range a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school, wounding several others. He was thought to be the same killer who a few days earlier had murdered three black French paratroopers in two separate attacks. A killer who targeted Jews and blacks – must be a far-right white racist, right?

Wrong. The suspect who the French police have now cornered turns out to be a jihadi Islamic terrorist with self-declared links to al Qaeda, who has made trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan in the past. Well, there’s a surprise.

Jews throughout the world are all potential targets for attack in a terrifying manifestation of global incitement to murder. Many Islamists regularly declare their intention to kill Jews wherever they can find them. Hundreds of rockets fired from Gaza at southern Israel over the past couple of weeks bear out daily the frenzied attempt to murder as many Jews as possible. In the Mumbai massacre in 2008, it turned out that the attack on the tiny ultra-orthodox Lubavitch centre was for the Islamic perpetrators of that atrocity the most important target. There have been repeated terrorist attempts on Jewish targets around the world. Oh - and Islamists have been murdering black people in Libya because they are black.

Yet all this is ignored by the mainstream media. Desperate to sanitise Muslim genocidal terrorism and prove that racism and Jew-hatred is confined to white people and the ‘far right’, the media simply did not entertain the possibility that the perpetrator of the French killings might have been a Muslim. So a range of likely perpetrators was canvassed – but they were all variations on white racists.

And even when the perpetrator turned out to be an Islamic terrorist the media were still trying to spin it away, with Sky News stressing the deprivation of the killer and his family and interviewing a French female journalist living in London who claimed that this was ‘an attack against diversity’. As blogger Edgar Davidson observed here:

‘She said that it was all down to the racist climate in France which had been made worse by Nikolas Sarkozy in the last five years and she picked out, as an example of racist lack of tolerance, the burka ban he had introduced.’

Not only are the media and ‘progressive’ commentators in the west desperate to sanitise Islamic terrorism and genocidal incitement; they also join in. The Toulouse jihadist said he was ‘seeking revenge for Palestinian children and French military postings overseas.’

But no Palestinian children have ever been targeted by Israel for murder. Quite the reverse: Israel regularly puts its own soldiers in harm’s way in order to any minimise civilian casualties in military operations against Palestinian terrorists and their infrastructure which  it undertakes solely to protect its own people from further murderous Palestinian attacks. Any Palestinian child casualties in such operations occur solely as a tragic and inadvertent by-product of war – and as often as not because the Palestinians have put their own children in harm’s way.

I'll have more later...

VIDEO: Police Raid Mohammed Merah Compound in Toulouse, France

This is a long siege.

See Telegraph UK, "Toulouse Siege: Live."

More at No Pasaran!, "First Images of the Toulouse Killer."

'Etch A Sketch'

What an amazing day in politics.

See Robert Stacy McCain, "Romney’s ‘Etch-a-Sketch’ Platform: Santorum’s ‘Act of God’ Moment?" (via Memeorandum).

And at the New York Times, "Shaking It Up With a Popular Low-Tech Toy: Etch A Sketch Becomes a Symbol of Second Chances":

THE United States is the great land of second chances. Change your name. Change your location. Change your life. If you’re a politician, change your ideas, and in so doing, change your prospects. It’s a deep-rooted American tradition that the Mitt Romney campaign has now given a colorful symbol.

It was widely reported that Wednesday on CNN, Eric Fehrnstrom, a senior adviser to Mr. Romney, predicted a fresh start for his boss’s campaign after victory in the Illinois primary. “Everything changes,” Mr. Fehrnstrom said. “It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.”

Mr. Romney’s political opponents seized on the image as a sinister expression of the candidate’s pliability. But to millions of Americans, the Etch A Sketch has offered a precious life lesson: No matter how badly you screw up, you can always make a fresh start. The past does not exist. The Etch A Sketch offers total deniability in a neat rectangular package.

The Etch A Sketch was invented in the late 1950s by André Cassagnes, a French electrician, and the first model was manufactured for the American market by the Ohio Art Company on July 12, 1960. The device is simple and ingenious: a framed plastic screen coated with aluminum dust on the reverse side. Two knobs move a stylus vertically and horizontally, allowing the user to draw pictures as the tip of the stylus leaves a dark line against a light gray background.

If the results do not please, the user simply shakes the screen, causing polystyrene beads to create a fresh surface by smoothing out and recoating the inside of the screen. History, with a flick of the wrist, vanishes.

Over the years, the company has added color and electronic features, but the essential appeal of the device has remained the same. No matter how bad the drawing, how distant the final product from the original intent, the clock can be turned back.

More at Pundette, "The Etch A Sketch candidate."

And the response at Astute Bloggers, "ROMNEY ETCH-A-SKETCH BROUHAHA IS BULLSHIT."

And It's Too Late Baby, Now It's Too Late...

Some wonderful music until later.

I picked up this up at The Sound L.A. when I dropped off my kid at school. Here's set:

8:47  Feels Like The First Time  by Foreigner

8:43  Rocky Raccoon  by Beatles

8:39  Behind Blue Eyes  by Who

8:37  The Letter  by Box Tops

8:20  Free Bird  by Lynyrd Skynyrd

8:16  Gimme Three Steps  by Lynyrd Skynyrd

8:11  It's Too Late  by Carole King

8:08  I Feel The Earth Move  by Carole King

8:02  For You  by Bruce Springsteen

7:58  Evil Woman  by E.L.O.

French Forces in Standoff With Shooting Suspect Mohammed Merah

There are all kinds of conflicting reports, and it's not clear yet if the suspect is in custody.

Check the live updates at Telegraph UK.

Plus, at Washington Post, "Mohammed Merah, French shooting suspect, exchanges gunfire with police in standoff."

And at Jerusalem Post, "Juppe: Police not at fault for not arresting suspect sooner."

Israel Rebukes EU's Catherine Ashton on Comments Linking Gaza to Toulouse

Well, nothing's surprising anymore.

See New York Times, "Fury in Israel at Remark Linking Gaza to Toulouse."

And see Israel Matzav, "Ashton claims her remarks were 'grossly distorted'." Not.

With Loss in Illinois, Pennsylvania Rises in Importance for Santorum

At New York Times, "Pennsylvania Rises in Importance for Santorum After Loss in Illinois":

GETTYSBURG, Pa. — It may seem an odd choice, holding a rally here in Pennsylvania to “celebrate” the results of the Republican presidential primary in Illinois.

Rick Santorum’s staff said that he came here Tuesday night for a symbolic connection to the Land of Lincoln, as Gettysburg is “the very place President Lincoln gave his most poignant and passionate defense of freedom and the American spirit.”

But Mr. Santorum also came here to plant the flag. The Pennsylvania primary is not until April 24, but it is essential that Mr. Santorum, who represented the state for 16 years in Washington, win here if he is to have any hope of moving forward, particularly after his loss Tuesday night in the Illinois primary.

Despite the loss, Mr. Santorum sounded defiant Tuesday night while speaking to supporters in Gettysburg, saying he would press on.

“We have five weeks to a big win,” he said of the Pennsylvania primary, and he returned again to the theme of his parents and grandparents who worked in the mines, “men and women who worked and scraped and clawed so their children could have a better quality of life.”

While early polling in Pennsylvania shows him leading Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul in the popular vote, he has cause for concern in the more important contest for the state’s 72 delegates.

They can vote for anyone at the party’s nominating convention in August in Tampa, Fla. Some are in fact uncommitted, but many have connections to the state party and the establishment, which leans toward Mr. Romney.

By coming here Tuesday, Mr. Santorum could focus on trying to trying to persuade some of those uncommitted delegates to commit to his side.

“This will give him a chance to sit down around the table and say, ‘Let’s go through the list of who we’ve got lined up and who we have to go back to and revisit and work on,’ “ said one person close to the Santorum campaign who spoke on the condition that he not be identified. “There will be assignments from tonight, ‘Go back to visit with people, talk to your guys,’ and Rick will be reaching out to folks.”

Justice Department Opens Investigation in Killing of Trayvon Martin

At New York Times, "A Florida Law Gets Scrutiny After a Teenager’s Killing."

Rick Santorum Leads in Latest Polling on Louisiana Primary

Mitt Romney announced in Illinois that voters had had "enough," but Rick Santorum is heading into Louisiana will a solid lead in public opinion polls.

See the Lafayette Advertiser, "Santorum strengthens lead in Louisiana while candidates solicit votes across state: Candidates continue touring Louisiana before Saturday's primary election":

A new poll of likely Republican voters in Louisiana shows former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum is poised to win a plurality in Saturday's primary election while Pelican State voters struggle to accept national frontrunner Mitt Romney's candidacy.

The poll, conducted by Magellan Strategies BR, found that Santorum leads in Louisiana with 37 percent of the vote. Romney trails in second with 24 percent.

Santorum's 13 percent lead reflects his strengthening foothold in Louisiana. According to a March 8 to 10 poll by WWL-TV, Santorum lead the candidates with 25.4 percent of the vote, topping Romney's 21 percent by a much slimmer margin earlier in the month.

Furthermore, the Magellan Strategies BR poll found that Santorum leads not only among both male and female likely Republican primary voters in Louisiana but also leads among all age groups and in all six congressional districts.

And here's that WWL-TV poll, "Santorum leads GOP candidates in La., exclusive WWL-TV poll shows."

Well, so much for Romney putting this thing away. Santorum's going to pick up some momentum this weekend and that will help him as the campaign heads into the big primaries coming up in Maryland and Wisconsin on April 3, and especially the Pennsylvania primary on April 24.

French Police Launch Raid on Jewish School Shooting Suspects

At Jerusalem Post, "French police swoop on suspects in Jewish school killings."

And from Telegraph UK, "Toulouse shooting: police corner suspect in pre-dawn raid":

A French police special forces unit hunting an anti-Semitic serial killer launched a pre-dawn raid on Wednesday on a house where a man claiming Al-Qaeda ties was holed up, police sources said.

The suspect is thought to be a 24-year-old man who had previously travelled to the lawless border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan which is known to house al-Qaeda safehouses, one of the officials told AFP.

Two police were slightly wounded as the operation got underway, led by officers investigating three attacks by a lone gunman in which three off-duty soldiers, three Jewish school children and a rabbi were killed, he said.

A source close to the inquiry told AFP a 24-year-old suspect had exchanged words with the RAID team and had declared himself to be a member of Al-Qaeda, the armed Islamist group founded by late Saudi extremist Osama bin Laden.

"He was in the DCRI's sights, as were others, after the first two attacks," an official said, referring to France's domestic intelligence service, adding: "Then the criminal investigation police brought in crucial evidence."

French Interior Minister Claude Gueant had arrived at the operation site, in the Croix-Daurade district of the southwestern city of Toulouse, scene of two of the shooting incidents over the previous nine days, he said.

Also at London's Daily Mail, "Two French police hit in shoot-out as armed officers hunting Toulouse serial killer storm house." And New York Times, "French Police Execute Raid on Toulouse Jewish School Shooting Suspects."

And at Fox News, "Al Qaeda link claimed as French police raid house over school shootings." (This is interesting, considering everyone's so far been talking about neo-Nazis, but we'll see.)

More later...

Mitt Romney Wins Illinois Primary

At the Chicago Tribune, "Mitt Romney declares victory in Illinois":

Illinois Republicans delivered a decisive victory to Mitt Romney in the state's presidential primary Tuesday, crushing Rick Santorum in what amounted to the first big-state head-to-head contest among the front-runners for the GOP nomination.

With 98 percent of the state's precincts reporting, unofficial results showed the former Massachusetts governor with 47 percent of the vote to Santorum's 35 percent. The other two candidates in the race, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, made only token campaign efforts in Illinois and were trailing badly.

Even more important for Romney, he swamped Santorum by winning 39 of the 54 elected delegates up for grabs in the state. Santorum had only five, though votes were still being counted in several Downstate congressional districts where he ran strongest.

"What a night. Thank you, Illinois. What a night. Wow!," Romney said to supporters at his victory party at a Schaumburg hotel shortly after 8 p.m. "Tonight we thank the people of Illinois for their vote and for this extraordinary victory."

Savoring a victory in President Barack Obama's home state, Romney framed the general election as a "defining decision" for the American people. "This election will be about principle. Our economic freedom will be on the ballot. ... It's time to say this word: enough."

Continue reading.

Also at New York Times, "Romney Wins by Wide Margin in Illinois."

Peter Beinart Backs Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Against Israel

Beinart writes at yesterday's New York Times, "To Save Israel, Boycott the Settlements":

In 2010, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel called the settlement of Ariel, which stretches deep into the West Bank, “the heart of our country.” Through its pro-settler policies, Israel is forging one political entity between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea — an entity of dubious democratic legitimacy, given that millions of West Bank Palestinians are barred from citizenship and the right to vote in the state that controls their lives.

In response, many Palestinians and their supporters have initiated a global campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (B.D.S.), which calls not only for boycotting all Israeli products and ending the occupation of the West Bank but also demands the right of millions of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes — an agenda that, if fulfilled, could dismantle Israel as a Jewish state.

The Israeli government and the B.D.S. movement are promoting radically different one-state visions, but together, they are sweeping the two-state solution into history’s dustbin.

It’s time for a counteroffensive — a campaign to fortify the boundary that keeps alive the hope of a Jewish democratic state alongside a Palestinian one. And that counteroffensive must begin with language.

Jewish hawks often refer to the territory beyond the green line by the biblical names Judea and Samaria, thereby suggesting that it was, and always will be, Jewish land. Almost everyone else, including this paper, calls it the West Bank.

But both names mislead. “Judea and Samaria” implies that the most important thing about the land is its biblical lineage; “West Bank” implies that the most important thing about the land is its relationship to the Kingdom of Jordan next door. After all, it was only after Jordan conquered the territory in 1948 that it coined the term “West Bank” to distinguish it from the rest of the kingdom, which falls on the Jordan River’s east bank. Since Jordan no longer controls the land, “West Bank” is an anachronism. It says nothing meaningful about the territory today.

Instead, we should call the West Bank “nondemocratic Israel.” The phrase suggests that there are today two Israels: a flawed but genuine democracy within the green line and an ethnically-based nondemocracy beyond it. It counters efforts by Israel’s leaders to use the legitimacy of democratic Israel to legitimize the occupation and by Israel’s adversaries to use the illegitimacy of the occupation to delegitimize democratic Israel.

Having made that rhetorical distinction, American Jews should seek every opportunity to reinforce it. We should lobby to exclude settler-produced goods from America’s free-trade deal with Israel. We should push to end Internal Revenue Service policies that allow Americans to make tax-deductible gifts to settler charities. Every time an American newspaper calls Israel a democracy, we should urge it to include the caveat: only within the green line.

But a settlement boycott is not enough. It must be paired with an equally vigorous embrace of democratic Israel. We should spend money we’re not spending on settler goods on those produced within the green line. We should oppose efforts to divest from all Israeli companies with the same intensity with which we support efforts to divest from companies in the settlements: call it Zionist B.D.S.

Supporters of the current B.D.S. movement will argue that the distinction between democratic and nondemocratic Israel is artificial. After all, many companies profit from the occupation without being based on occupied land. Why shouldn’t we boycott them, too? The answer is that boycotting anything inside the green line invites ambiguity about the boycott’s ultimate goal — whether it seeks to end Israel’s occupation or Israel’s existence.

For their part, American Jewish organizations might argue that it is unfair to punish Israeli settlements when there are worse human rights offenses in the world and when Palestinians still commit gruesome terrorist acts. But settlements need not constitute the world’s worst human rights abuse in order to be worth boycotting. After all, numerous American cities and organizations boycotted Arizona after it passed a draconian immigration law in 2010.

The relevant question is not “Are there worse offenders?” but rather, “Is there systematic oppression that a boycott might help relieve?” That Israel systematically oppresses West Bank Palestinians has been acknowledged even by the former Israeli prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, who have warned that Israel’s continued rule there could eventually lead to a South African-style apartheid system.

Boycotts could help to change that. Already, prominent Israeli writers like David Grossman, Amos Oz and A. B. Yehoshua have refused to visit the settlement of Ariel. We should support their efforts because persuading companies and people to begin leaving nondemocratic Israel, instead of continuing to flock there, is crucial to keeping the possibility of a two-state solution alive.

I think the phrase "useful idiot" was invented for people like Beinart.

I remember a few years ago Beinart emerged on the scene with some writings on foreign policy (although I can't recall the titles of his books, which should tell you something). And now apparently he's a professor at the City University of New York. I wouldn't recommend him to my students. Beinart's giving aid and comfort to Israel's enemies. Recall that I'm reading Professor Michael Curtis' new book, Should Israel Exist?: A Sovereign Nation Under Attack by the International Community. Let me refer readers to Chapter 9, "The Mufti of Jerusalem and the Nazis." The Mufti was Haj Amin al-Husseini, an Arab nationalist who worked with Adolf Hiter and top leaders of the Nazi regime to develop Germany's policy on the Middle East and the Jews. One key policy proposed was a Jewish boycott. In the 1930s, the Mufti was the lead organizer of Palestinian Arab campaigns of assassination and terrorism against British forces and the Jews in the area of Palestine. After World War II, Husseini was the head of the Arab High Committee in Palestine that imposed an economic boycott on Jewish companies, industry, and trade throughout Palestine. According to Curtis, "The Arab League in 1948 formerly organized a boycott, which had begun more informally three years earlier and had preceded the establishment of Israel, not only of Israeli companies and products, but also of those from other countries maintaining economic relations with or who were perceived to be supporting Israel." Curtis notes that elements of the "boycott is still in existence" today and it costs Israel "considerable amounts of finance in terms of lost markets and economic problems" (p. 149). (The boycott was the economic arm of the Arab state strategy that came to a head in the Arab's war of aggression against the new state of Israel in 1948 --- and it's thus in fact a central cause of the current conflict in the Middle East today.)

Folks should get a hold of Curtis's book --- it's a must-read history, vital for the intellectual and political defense of Israel. And you can see why: The idiot Beinart is attempting to make distinctions between this and that side of the Green Line where none exist. The West Bank territories do not belong to Arab states or the so-called Palestinians. These are not "occupied territories." The lands were delineated and internationally accepted by the 1948 partition plan: "there was never an international border on the Green Line..." Beinart is involved in helping to propagate a lie that works to further the delegitimation program of the global left's Israel extermination industry. He should be ashamed of himself.

In any case, Beinart has a new book out, The Crisis of Zionism. I haven't read it but Sol Stern has a review at Commentary, "Beinart the Unwise."

I'll have more later.

In the meantime, keep pushing back against the assholes. This is getting ridiculous.

Media Matters' MJ Rosenberg Boasts to Al-Jazeera: Obama Mistreated Netanyahu

At Big Peace, "Media Matters Boasts to Al-Jazeera: Obama Mistreated Netanyahu."

And at Daily Caller, "Media Matters for America linked with anti-American, anti-Israel Al-Jazeera network."

RELATED: At Commentary, "How Do We Define “Pro-Israel?”"

Cal State University Executive Pay Scandal

There's talk at my college of heavy layoffs for classified employees. I'll know more soon, and no doubt we'll be seeing reports in the local news. Meanwhile, the Long Beach Business Journal has this: "City College Faces $3.5 Million in Mid-Year Unexpected Cuts: The New Fiscal Year Could Result In Another $9.8 Million In Reductions." One of the things that's always interesting is to notice how the layoffs and cuts in services hit those on the lower end of the hierarchy. For example, I don't hear a lot about sacrifices at the top levels of administration. But the college is gutting summer school offerings, so that hits instructors and students. The top-heavy executive class is still chugging away. More on that later.

Until then, check out this editorial at the Long Beach Press-Telegram, "A lesson not learned -- Cal State trustees flunk test on presidential pay":

A couple of months ago, it looked as if the California State University trustees' remedial lessons in public relations were paying off. Now, it's obvious they still don't get it.

Responding to the outcry over the San Diego State president's huge raise, the public university system's board of trustees approved a policy in January that limits executives' base pay to 10 percent more than their predecessors' salaries.

The move drew cheers all around. Critics in the state Legislature backed off. Students, tired of paying higher and higher fees while campus presidents got higher and higher pay, might even have begun to think university leaders were sensitive to their plight.

But now there's this.

Meeting in Long Beach this week, the CSU trustees are scheduled to consider proposals to give 10 percent salary hikes to two new campus presidents.

Mildred Garcia, appointed president of Cal State Fullerton, would receive $324,500 in base pay (10 percent more than predecessor Milton Gordon made, and also 10 percent more than she got when she ran Cal State Dominguez Hills). Garcia also would receive housing at Fullerton's official presidential residence and a $12,000-a-year car allowance.

Leroy Morishita, the new president of Cal State East Bay, would receive $303,660 (10 percent more than predecessor Mohammad Qayoumi made, and 10 percent more than his own salary as interim president). Morishita also could count on allowances of $60,000 a year for housing and $12,000 for a car.

In other words, having set that 10 percent limit on raises, the people who run CSU are determined to wring every penny out of it.

Do they realize 10 percent is a ceiling, not a requirement?

 More at the link.

Now remember: I'm at community college and the editorial is talking about the Cal State system. But public taxpayer money is funding all of this, so it's worth highlighting the mindset of the bureaucratic mandarins.

PREVIOUSLY: "Budget Cuts Force 'Rationing' at California Community Colleges," and, "Realities of Higher Education in California."