Obama Commemorating Earth Day with Massive Carbon Footprint in Florida

At the Tampa Bay Times, "Obama's big carbon footprint celebrating Earth Day in Fla":

@VictoriaTaft #EarthDay2015 tweet of the day!! @TwitchyTeam pic.twitter.com/queB62S1Gq

— Tom Thurman (@Tommm1954) April 22, 2015

President Obama will visit the Everglades Wednesday, Earth Day, to call attention to global warming and the administration's efforts to cut carbon pollution across the globe. CBS News reporter Mark Knoller raised an intervesting question with honorary Floridian and former Jim Davis adviser Josh Earnest at the press secretary's daily briefing today. Here's a transcript of the exchange:

     Q    Thanks.  On the Everglades trip, does the President risk undermining his message when he flies to the Everglades on a 747 hundreds of miles to make a statement about climate change?  (Laughter.)
     Q    He could drive.  (Laughter.)
     MR. EARNEST:  It’s a provocative question.
     Q    Take a van.
     MR. EARNEST:  But, no, he doesn't.  The President believes that there are important changes that we can make to reduce carbon pollution in this country, and we can do it in a way that will be good for our economy.  That is precisely the case that the President will be making at the Everglades.  And he’s looking forward to the trip.
     Q    Does he try to minimize the carbon footprint that he leaves whenever he goes anywhere?
     MR. EARNEST:  Well, obviously, the Department of Defense and the Presidential Airlift Group at the United States Air Force is responsible for the President’s transportation.  So you can talk to them about any steps that they may have taken.
     I can say as a general matter that the Department of Defense has acknowledged that climate change does pose a national security threat to the United States.  And there are a lot of practices that the Department of Defense has taken to try to reduce their carbon footprint.  I don't know how that intersects with the use of Air Force One, but you could check with the Air Force on that.
All right?  Thanks, everybody.  Have a good Monday.

Obama Earth Day on Air Force One

At the Washington Times, "Inevitable: An Earth Day trip on Air Force One":

Earth Day could be interesting in Florida: President Obama will journey aboard Air Force to visit the Everglades on Wednesday, burning jet fuel and taxpayer funds as he goes. Well, at least it’s not as far as Tokyo, which was his Earth Day destination last year. That venture prompted the London Daily Mail to do the math and reveal that magnificent but pricey aircraft consumes 5 gallons of jet fuel for every mile it flies — emitting over 21 pounds of dreaded CO2 per gallon. The fuel alone costs taxpayers about $180,000 per hour of flight time. Oh, the carbon footprint — and the irony.

“We’ve committed to doubling the pace at which we cut carbon pollution,” Mr. Obama said during a weekend address that outlined the details of his trip. Climate change is on the president’s mind, though, and he will emphasize the potential economic and environmental impact of global warming and rising seas on the fragile Everglades during an event in Homestead, conveniently the home to an Air Force Reserve base.

Happy Earth Day! Drivers Ditching Hybrids and Electric Vehicles for SUVs

And it's not just about cheaper gas prices these days. Hybrids and EVs just aren't "equal" after all.

At USA Today, "Earth Day, bah! Hybrid, EV owners shift to SUVs":

Owners of gas-electric hybrids and battery electric vehicles are less and less likely to trade for another one, according to data from auto buying and research site Edmunds.com. Even more surprising: they are increasingly likely to shift to SUVs.

The disenchantment with clean-air fuel savers appears to be the result mainly of relatively low fuel prices, though there also seems to be a decline in their being seen as "special."

"For better or worse, it looks like many hybrid and EV owners are driven more by financial motives rather than a responsibility to the environment," says Edmunds.com Director of Industry Analysis Jessica Caldwell. "Three years ago, when gas was at near-record highs, it was a lot easier to rationalize the price premiums on alternative fuel vehicles. But with today's gas prices as low as they are, the math just doesn't make a very compelling case."

It's a blow to the sentiment of Earth Day today, the 45th annual fete for the planet.

And it's bad news for automakers, who need to sell more and more alternative-power vehicles to meet tightening federal fuel-economy rules.

To avoid a backlog, General Motors recently cut the prices of its Spark EV and Cadillac ELR extended-range electric and temporarily halted production of its Chevrolet Volt plug-in car.

Sales of the Nissan Leaf, the best -selling EV in the U.S., are down 27.2% the first quarter this year in a new-vehicle market up 5.6%, says Autodata.

Toyota's Prius gas-electric hybrid is down 7.7%; the plug-in version, fell 61.4%, Autodata says.

Overall, only 45% of this year's hybrid and EV trade-ins have involved the purchase of another alternative-power vehicle, Edmunds data show. That's down from slightly more than 60% in 2012 and is the first time the rate has fallen below 50%...

Hollywood Leftist Ben Affleck Had Inconvenient Truth About Slave-Owning Ancestor Scrubbed from PBS 'Finding Your Roots' Segment

Pretty typical, actually.

At LAT, "PBS sets internal review over Ben Affleck's 'Finding Your Roots' segment."

Angry Baltimore Protester Grabs Microphone from CNN Reporter Miguel Marquez: 'F*** You! F*** That! F*** CNN!'

At Twitchy, with video, "Angry Baltimore protester takes over CNN’s microphone during Freddie Gray march."

Also at NYT, "Freddie Gray in Baltimore: Another City, Another Death in the Public Eye."

Pamela Geller Counters Attacks on AFDI Islamic Jew Hatred Bus Ads

At NBC News Philadelphia, via Blazing Cat Fur:

Buy 'Clinton Cash' Book Bombshell Pre-Release

Hey, buy your copy pre-release at Amazon, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.

And from yesterday, ICYMI, "'Clinton Cash' Book Bombshell Set to Explode Hillary Clinton Democrat Party Pay-to-Play Scandal."

Benjamin Netanyahu at Annual Holocaust Memorial Day Ceremony — Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem

He's a great guy.

Rich Smuggling Trade Fuels Deadly Migration Across Mediterranean

At WSJ, "Brazen, multi-million-dollar people-smuggling enterprise run by Libyan militias and tribesmen proves hard to combat":

The deaths of more than 1,000 Italy-bound migrants in the Mediterranean Sea in the last week are the product of a multi-million-dollar people-smuggling enterprise run by Libyan militias, tribesmen and bandits, law-enforcement officials and migrant-aid groups say.

Authorities in the European Union on Monday pledged to step up efforts to crack down on a well-oiled and increasingly brazen business of putting desperate people on rickety boats and setting them afloat on the deadliest migrant route in the world. Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni called for international support “to fight against these traffickers of human beings, this new slavery of the 21st century.”

Yeah, it's bad.

More at London's Daily Mail, "Captain arrested over Mediterranean migrant disaster: Two charged with 'multiple manslaughter' when they step on to Italian soil with survivors - as EU vows to 'capture and destroy' human traffickers' boats."

Also at the Guardian UK, "EU ministers meet for crisis talks after hundreds of migrants drown in Mediterranean."

National Review on Wisconsin Democrat Party's 'John Doe' Investigations

I remember reading about the Democrat Party's Nazi-style "John Doe" raids a couple of years ago, at the Wall Street Journal, "Wisconsin Political Speech Raid."

As terrifying as initial reports were, you get a genuine appreciation of Democrat Gestapo tactics with National Review's report, "Wisconsin's Shame: ‘I Thought It Was a Home Invasion’." (Via Memeorandum.)

Patterico writes:

The investigations were conducted at the behest of a prosecutor whose offices “were festooned with the ‘blue fist’ poster of the labor-union movement.” According to one prosecutor who spoke to journalist Stuart Taylor, the wife of the lead prosecutor, John Chisholm, was “a teachers’-union shop steward who was distraught over Act 10’s union reforms” — and Chisholm “felt it was his personal duty” to stop the reforms. Pursuant to the politically motivated subpoenas lacking in probable cause, prosecutors subpoenaed electronic data such as emails and conducted these abusive raids.

It’s the type of activity you would expect to see from the Stasi in East Germany. Conservative activists in Wisconsin literally do not feel safe. They think that police could burst into their homes at any moment to punish them for their First Amendment activity.

In a country that actually valued freedom, this story would spark front-page headlines all over the country. It would be all anyone would be talking about for weeks, and nobody would rest until we knew it could never, ever happen again.

We are no longer such a country.

Gestapo. Stasi. Well, you get the point.

More at Instapundit.

'Clinton Cash' Book Bombshell Set to Explode Hillary Clinton Democrat Party Pay-to-Play Scandal

From Amy Chozick, at the New York Times, "New Book, ‘Clinton Cash,’ Questions Foreign Donations to Foundation" (at Memeorandum):

The book does not hit shelves until May 5, but already the Republican Rand Paul has called its findings “big news” that will “shock people” and make voters “question” the candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” by Peter Schweizer — a 186-page investigation of donations made to the Clinton Foundation by foreign entities — is proving the most anticipated and feared book of a presidential cycle still in its infancy.

The book, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, asserts that foreign entities who made payments to the Clinton Foundation and to Mr. Clinton through high speaking fees received favors from Mrs. Clinton’s State Department in return.

“We will see a pattern of financial transactions involving the Clintons that occurred contemporaneous with favorable U.S. policy decisions benefiting those providing the funds,” Mr. Schweizer writes.

His examples include a free-trade agreement in Colombia that benefited a major foundation donor’s natural resource investments in the South American nation, development projects in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake in 2010, and more than $1 million in payments to Mr. Clinton by a Canadian bank and major shareholder in the Keystone XL oil pipeline around the time the project was being debated in the State Department.

In the long lead up to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign announcement, aides proved adept in swatting down critical books as conservative propaganda, including Edward Klein’s “Blood Feud,” about tensions between the Clintons and the Obamas, and Daniel Halper’s “Clinton Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine.”

But “Clinton Cash” is potentially more unsettling, both because of its focused reporting and because major news organizations including The Times, The Washington Post and Fox News have exclusive agreements with the author  to pursue the story lines found in the book.

Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which includes Mr. Paul and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, have been briefed on the book’s findings, and its contents have already made their way into several of the Republican presidential candidates’ campaigns.

Conservative “super PACs” plan to seize on “Clinton Cash,” and a pro-Democrat super PAC has already assembled a dossier on Mr. Schweizer, a speechwriting consultant to former President George W. Bush and a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution who has contributed to the conservative website Breitbart.com, to make the case that he has a bias against Mrs. Clinton.

And the newly assembled Clinton campaign team is planning a full-court press to diminish the book as yet another conservative hit job.

A campaign spokesman, Brian Fallon, called the book part of the Republicans’ coordinated attack strategy on Mrs. Clinton “twisting previously known facts into absurd conspiracy theories,” and he said “it will not be the first work of partisan-fueled fiction about the Clintons’ record, and we know it will not be the last.”

Mr. Schweizer and a spokeswoman for HarperCollins, which is owned by News Corporation and is publishing the book, declined to comment.

The timing is problematic for Mrs. Clinton as she begins a campaign to position herself as a “champion for everyday Americans.”

From 2001 to 2012, the Clintons’ income was at least $136.5 million, Mr. Schweizer writes, using a figure previously reported in The Post. “During Hillary’s years of public service, the Clintons have conducted or facilitated hundreds of large transactions” with foreign governments and individuals, he writes. “Some of these transactions have put millions in their own pockets.”

The Clinton Foundation has come under scrutiny for accepting foreign donations while Mrs. Clinton served as secretary of state. Last week, the foundation revised its policy to allow donations from countries like Germany, Canada, the Netherlands and Britain but prohibit giving by other nations in the Middle East.

Mr. Schweizer’s book will be released the same day former President Bill Clinton and the Clintons’ daughter, Chelsea, will host the Clinton Global Initiative gathering with donors in Morocco, the culmination of a foundation trip to several African nations. (A chapter in the book is titled “Warlord Economics: The Clintons Do Africa.”)

There is a robust market for books critical of the Clintons. The thinly sourced “Blood Feud,” by Mr. Klein, at one point overtook Mrs. Clinton’s memoir “Hard Choices” on the best-seller list.

But whether Mr. Schweizer’s book can deliver the same sales is not clear.

More.

And man does this sound juicy!

See also Politico, "New York Times, Fox News strike deals for anti-Clinton research." Look, if the Old Gray Lady's striking a deal with Schweizer, you know he's got the goods. The editors have access to preliminary copies, so you know they're Jonesin' to rake some tabloid cash on the story. No one's above raw naked interests these days. No one.

And note:

The New York Times, The Washington Post and Fox News have made exclusive agreements with a conservative author for early access to his opposition research on Hillary Clinton, a move that has confounded members of the Clinton campaign and some reporters, the On Media blog has confirmed.

Yes, "some reporters" are confounded --- those paragons of dispassionate media integrity. Confounded I say! Why, how dare other dispassionate paragons throw tribal caution to the wind for the beef of a good tabloid romp?!! Heh!

And with Breitbart fingerprints too!

Still more from ABC News, "White House Won't Comment on Reports of Preferential Treatment for Clinton Foundation Donors." Well who can blame them? Hillary's running for Barack's third term --- or, Bill's, depending on your generational perspective!



Image Credit: Zero Hedge, "Secretary of State for Hire: Hillary Clinton Made Millions from Foreign Donors in Exchange for 'Favors'."

Women at Coachella

At Egotastic!, "Celebrity Cleavage from Coachella Week 2." (Don't miss that Kelly Brook coverage at the link.)

I never did post on Week 1, so here you go: "Kendall Jenner, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Bella Thorne Lead Pack of Show Off Desert Hotties at Coachella Weekend One."

Also, "Peyton List Shakes Her Booty In Jean Shorts at Coachella," and "Hilary Duff Sextastic See-Through Cowgirl at Coachella."

Workers Abuse ADHD Drugs to Boost Productivity

Look, when social norms have completely legitimized recreational drug use, is it any surprise that prescription pharmaceuticals will be abused as well?

At the New York Times, "Workers Seeking Productivity in a Pill Are Abusing A.D.H.D. Drugs":

Fading fast at 11 p.m., Elizabeth texted her dealer and waited just 30 minutes for him to reach her third-floor New York apartment. She handed him a wad of twenties and fifties, received a tattered envelope of pills, and returned to her computer.

Her PowerPoint needed another four hours. Investors in her health-technology start-up wanted re-crunched numbers, a presentation begged for bullet points and emails from global developers would keep arriving well past midnight.

She gulped down one pill — pale orange, like baby aspirin — and then, reconsidering, took one of the pinks, too.

“O.K., now I can work,” Elizabeth exhaled. Several minutes later, she felt her brain snap to attention. She pushed her glasses up her nose and churned until 7 a.m. Only then did she sleep for 90 minutes, before arriving at her office at 9.

The pills were versions of the drug Adderall, an amphetamine-based stimulant prescribed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder that many college students have long used illicitly while studying. Now, experts say, stimulant abuse is graduating into the work force.

Reliable data to quantify how many American workers misuse stimulants does not exist, several experts said.

But in interviews, dozens of people in a wide spectrum of professions said they and co-workers misused stimulants like Adderall, Vyvanse and Concerta to improve work performance. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing their jobs or access to the medication.

Doctors and medical ethicists expressed concern for misusers’ health, as stimulants can cause anxiety, addiction and hallucinations when taken in high doses. But they also worried about added pressure in the workplace — where the use by some pressures more to join the trend.

“You’d see addiction in students, but it was pretty rare to see it in an adult,” said Dr. Kimberly Dennis, the medical director of Timberline Knolls, a substance-abuse treatment facility for women outside Chicago.

“We are definitely seeing more than one year ago, more than two years ago, especially in the age range of 25 to 45,” she said.

Elizabeth, a Long Island native in her late 20s, said that to not take Adderall while competitors did would be like playing tennis with a wood racket.

“It is necessary — necessary for survival of the best and the smartest and highest-achieving people,” Elizabeth said. She spoke on the condition that she be identified only by her middle name.

Most users who were interviewed said they got pills by feigning symptoms of A.D.H.D., a disorder marked by severe impulsivity and inattention, to physicians who casually write prescriptions without proper evaluations. Others got them from friends or dealers.

Obtaining or distributing stimulants without a prescription is a federal crime, but the starkest risks of abuse appear to be overdose and addiction.

A 2013 report by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that emergency room visits related to nonmedical use of prescription stimulants among adults 18 to 34 tripled from 2005 to 2011, to almost 23,000.

The agency also reported that from 2010 to 2012, people entering substance rehabilitation centers cited stimulants as their primary substance of abuse 15 percent more often than in the previous three-year period...

More.

Stumbling to War Against Russia?

From Graham Allison and Dimitri Simes, at the National Interest, "Russia and America: Stumbling to War":

AFTER THE Soviet Union collapsed, Richard Nixon observed that the United States had won the Cold War, but had not yet won the peace. Since then, three American presidents—representing both political parties—have not yet accomplished that task. On the contrary, peace seems increasingly out of reach as threats to U.S. security and prosperity multiply both at the systemic level, where dissatisfied major powers are increasingly challenging the international order, and at the state and substate level, where dissatisfied ethnic, tribal, religious and other groups are destabilizing key countries and even entire regions.

Most dangerous are disagreements over the international system and the prerogatives of major powers in their immediate neighborhoods—disputes of the sort that have historically produced the greatest conflicts. And these are at the core of U.S. and Western tensions with Russia and, even more ominously, with China. At present, the most urgent challenge is the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. There, one can hear eerie echoes of the events a century ago that produced the catastrophe known as World War I. For the moment, the ambiguous, narrow and inconsistently interpreted Minsk II agreement is holding, and we can hope that it will lead to further agreements that prevent the return of a hot war. But the war that has already occurred and may continue reflected deep contradictions that America cannot resolve if it does not address them honestly and directly.

In the United States and Europe, many believe that the best way to prevent Russia’s resumption of its historic imperial mission is to assure the independence of Ukraine. They insist that the West must do whatever is required to stop the Kremlin from establishing direct or indirect control over that country. Otherwise, they foresee Russia reassembling the former Soviet empire and threatening all of Europe. Conversely, in Russia, many claim that while Russia is willing to recognize Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity (with the exception of Crimea), Moscow will demand no less than any other great power would on its border. Security on its western frontier requires a special relationship with Ukraine and a degree of deference expected in major powers’ spheres of influence. More specifically, Russia’s establishment sentiment holds that the country can never be secure if Ukraine joins NATO or becomes a part of a hostile Euro-Atlantic community. From their perspective, this makes Ukraine’s nonadversarial status a nonnegotiable demand for any Russia powerful enough to defend its national-security interests.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russia was on its knees, dependent on Western assistance and consumed by its own internal affairs. In that context, it was not surprising that Western leaders became accustomed to ignoring Russian perspectives. But since Vladimir Putin took over in 1999, he has led a recovery of Russia’s sense of itself as a great power. Fueled by rising oil production and prices that brought a doubling of Russia’s GDP during his fifteen-year reign, Russians increasingly bridled at such treatment.

Americans would do well to recall the sequence of events that led to Japan’s attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into the Second World War. In 1941, the United States imposed a near-total embargo on oil shipments to Japan to punish its aggression on the Asian mainland. Unfortunately, Washington drastically underestimated how Japan would respond. As one of the post–World War II “wise men,” Secretary of State Dean Acheson, observed afterward, the American government’s

misreading was not of what the Japanese government proposed to do in Asia, not of the hostility our embargo would excite, but of the incredibly high risks General Tojo would assume to accomplish his ends. No one in Washington realized that he and his regime regarded the conquest of Asia not as the accomplishment of an ambition but as the survival of a regime. It was a life-and-death matter to them.

Just days before Pearl Harbor, Japanese special envoy Saburo Kurusu told Washington that “the Japanese people believe that economic measures are a much more effective weapon of war than military measures; that . . . they are being placed under severe pressure by the United States to yield to the American position; and that it is preferable to fight rather than to yield to pressure.” Despite this warning, the Japanese response to U.S. economic warfare caught the United States off guard, killing nearly 2,500 people and sinking much of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

I think you can see where this argument is headed, but continue in any case. (Via Instapundit.)

Far-Left Radicalism Goes Mainstream

From Michael Goodwin, at the New York Post, "Radicalism is going mainstream":

Something’s in the air, and it’s not just the normal spring rituals of protests, love and allergies. It’s the unsettling sound of radicalism tearing America apart.

Ideas that only recently were relegated to the fringes are now going mainstream. And policies that were settled, established norms are under vicious assault.

Here’s the real shocker: The radicals are not limited to Occupy Wall Street and other anarchists demonstrating against cops, capitalism and all authority. Instead, respected public figures and government officials who would normally defend the establishment are leading the charge against it.

Take the growing New York movement to opt out of standardized student tests. While unions are protesting the use of tests for teacher evaluations, many middle-class parents are joining them.

Indeed, the most prominent opt-out leader is Rob Astorino, the county executive of Westchester County and last year’s GOP gubernatorial nominee.

Astorino, who presides over a suburban bastion of orderly and manicured prosperity, wants to repeal the Common Core standards adopted by New York and more than 40 other states. He boasted that he and his wife, a special-ed teacher, withheld their children from the exams for the second year because the tests “are poorly and secretly devised, developmentally inappropriate, disruptive to wider learning, and federally rather than locally engineered, among other concerns.”

A Bronx middle-school principal went further down the rabbit hole, charging in a published letter that the tests come from “the same system that facilitated our current economic gap, redlining, crack ­cocaine, Jim Crow and the trans-Atlantic slave trade.”

The principal, Jamaal Bowman of the Cornerstone Academy for Social Action, insisted, “We should not trust the state” because it uses “testing as a smoke screen to destroy public education.”

Wow, imagine what his students are learning.

If that were all, it would be bad enough. But mainstream radicals also are assailing childhood vaccines as another government plot. California is the epicenter, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went off the deep end making the case...

Keep reading.

Armageddon times, on the firing line.

Changing Party Coalitions to Clash in 2016 Election

I expect the electorate wants change, although Republicans can't discount the changing demographics.

Interestingly, Hillary Clinton is not the candidate to sustain the so-called Democrat rainbow coalition of the ascendant. She'll be freakin' 69 in January 2017. And she doesn't tip the counter help.

At the Los Angeles Times, "2016 election pits desire for change against a demographic shift":

The presidential campaign got fully underway this last week with a flurry of announcements, road trips and rallies that will roll across the country with increasing intensity for the next year and a half.

Most of what grabs headlines in the coming campaign will have little or no impact on who wins, past experience has shown. But underneath the hoopla, two clashing realities will shape what is likely to be a close and hard-fought battle.

Democrats will be trying to win a third consecutive presidential election, a difficult task made harder by the fact that by almost 2 to 1, Americans continue to believe the country is on the wrong track, polls show.

Republicans will be trying to win with a base of supporters that is roughly 90% white in an increasingly diverse country, having failed so far to develop a strategy to attract the growing minority populations who rejected them in 2008 and 2012.

Who wins will almost certainly depend on which proves more powerful — the hunger for change or the inexorable demographic wave.

Or to put it another way, the 2016 election will test whether the Obama coalition of minorities and white liberals can hold together, turn out and defeat the aging but still powerful coalition of social and economic conservatives and foreign policy hawks assembled by Ronald Reagan 35 years ago.

The best case for Republicans is that "the American public seldom has the stomach for a third term, and President Obama hasn't been the kind of leader who generates a third term," said political scientist Julia R. Azari of Marquette University in Wisconsin.

The two presidents in the modern era whose parties did win three or more elections, Reagan and Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, both transformed American politics by embodying — and helping bring about — a change in what people believed government should do.

Obama has not accomplished that. As a result, Azari said, for Hillary Rodham Clinton — or another Democratic nominee if she stumbles — it's hard to "talk about the Obama legacy" because it's not clearly defined.

Obama came into office with hopes of leading the country toward a new acceptance of activist government. Some Democrats hoped, for example, that successful implementation of the Affordable Care Act would cause Americans to warm toward the expanded government role in guaranteeing health coverage it represents.

Obamacare by now has helped more than 20 million Americans get insured, the biggest increase in coverage in half a century.

Contrary to dire warnings from the law's opponents, healthcare costs have not shot upward — the rate of healthcare inflation is the lowest in years — the job market has improved and the cost to the federal government is below forecasts.

Despite those successes, the country remains sharply divided on the law. American views of the Affordable Care Act have improved a bit in recent months — 43% disapproved and 41% approved in the most recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation in March — but mostly, opinions have been stuck about where they were when Congress first passed the bill in 2010.

Rather than changing the nation's close partisan divide, the healthcare law appears to have reinforced it.

Broader measurements also find continued widespread skepticism about government...

Keep reading.

Oklahoma City Bombing 20th Anniversary

At WCPO-TV 9 Cincinnati, "20th anniversary of Oklahoma City bombings."

Also, from Bob Schieffer, at Face the Nation, "Face The Nation Flashback: The Oklahoma City bombing."

And at NYT, "Bill Clinton Leads Tribute on 20th Anniversary of Oklahoma City Bombing."

U.S. Concerned About al-Qaeda's Reemergence in Yemen as Saudi-Led Coalition Attacks Houthi Rebels

At the Los Angeles Times, "Saudi-led Yemen air war's high civilian toll unsettles U.S. officials":

Concerned about reports of hundreds of civilian casualties, Obama administration officials are increasingly uneasy about the U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led air war against rebel militias in Yemen, opening a potential rift between Washington and its ally in Riyadh.

Backed by U.S. intelligence, air refueling and other support, Saudi warplanes have conducted widespread bombing of Yemeni villages and towns since March 26 but have failed to dislodge the Houthi rebels who have overrun much of the Arab world's poorest nation since last fall.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, widely regarded as the terrorist network's most lethal franchise, has capitalized on the chaos by sharply expanding its reach. Fighters loyal to the group claimed control Thursday of a military base and other key facilities near Mukalla, an Arabian Sea port in southern Yemen.

Saudi officials said they are not targeting areas with Al Qaeda fighters, however, and are focusing only on the Houthis, a Shiite Muslim minority whom they view as proxies for Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional rival.

With the country sliding into civil war, the United Nations special envoy to Yemen, Jamal Benomar, resigned under pressure Wednesday. Officials said the Moroccan-born diplomat had lost the support of Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf allies.

Pentagon officials, who pride themselves on the care they take to avoid civilian casualties, have watched with growing alarm as Saudi airstrikes have hit what the U.N. this week called "dozens of public buildings," including hospitals, schools, residential areas and mosques. The U.N. said at least 364 civilians have been killed in the campaign.

Although U.S. personnel don't pick the bombing targets, Americans are working beside Saudi military officials to check the accuracy of target lists in a joint operations center in Riyadh, defense officials said. The Pentagon has expedited delivery of GPS-guided "smart" bomb kits to the Saudi air force to replenish supplies.

The U.S. role was quietly stepped up last week after the civilian death toll rose sharply. The number of U.S. personnel was increased from 12 to 20 in the operations center to help vet targets and to perform more precise calculations of bomb blast areas to help avoid civilian casualties.

U.S. reconnaissance drones now send live video feeds of potential targets and of damage after the bombs hit. The Air Force also began daily refueling flights last week to top off Saudi and United Arab Emirates fighter jets in midair, outside Yemen's borders, so they can quickly return to the war.

Saudi officials say their goal is to pressure the Houthis to disarm and to reinstate President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi. That would require the Houthis to give up virtually all their gains since they captured the capital, Sana, in September and forced Hadi into exile in March...

More.

Leftist Democrat One-Party Coalition Destroying the Once Expansive California Dream

Actually, it's an old story by now, but told well by Joel Kotkin, the expert on the dwindling dream of the once-golden state.

At the Daily Beast, "The Big Idea: California Is So Over."

American Jewry's Moment of Decision

From Caroline Glick:

This week in two meetings with prominent American Jews, President Barack Obama threw down the gauntlet. Either the Jews of America will rise to the challenge or they will allow Obama to marginalize them.

It is their choice, and now is the time for them to decide.

In the first meeting, Obama met with centrist Jewish leaders from major Jewish organizations like the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, the Anti-Defamation League and AIPAC. Major donors to these groups, like to almost every other major Jewish organization in America, are largely Democrats.

According to The Washington Post, the purpose of the meeting was “to defuse antagonism toward [Obama] and to convince [Jewish leaders] that he shares their concerns about the safety of Israel and the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.”

That is, the main goal of the meeting was to silence Jewish criticism of Obama’s deal with Iran.

So far, Obama seems to have accomplished that goal.

Although, according to a source who spoke to The Algemeiner, the atmosphere at the meeting was “ungiving, very stern and tense.” Since the meeting took place, none of the leaders who participated has openly criticized Obama’s policies regarding Iran. Their silence comes despite the fact that, according to the participants who spoke with The Algemeiner, Obama did not allay the concerns they expressed regarding the dangers his nuclear deal with Iran constitute for Israel.

The second meeting of the day was a far friendlier affair. According to The Algemeiner, participants included supporters of the anti-Israel organization J Street, including Alexandra Stanton, Lou Susman, and Victor Kovner. Other outspoken leftist Jews, including Haim Saban and former AIPAC presidents Amy Friedkin and Howard Friedman, also attended.

As The Algemeiner reported, participants in this meeting were much less concerned about Obama’s deal with Iran. At least one participant, described as more “centrist” than other participants gushed at the president, saying, “You are doing the right thing [with Iran]. We are behind you 100 percent.”

Participants in the second meeting also were excited at the prospect of Obama making good on his threat to act against Israel at the UN Security Council. Indeed, they lobbied him to abandon Israel at the international forum. A participant told The Algemeiner that one of his colleagues told Obama, “If you decide to go against Israel at the UN, let us know first and we’ll do the legwork for you, in the [Jewish] community…so you’re not going to come in cold.”

The purpose then of Obama’s second meeting with American Jews was not to silence dissent, but to mobilize his supporters to weaken community opposition to his hostile policies toward Israel, both in regard to Iran and in regard to the Palestinians.

And here, too, the meeting was largely successful.

An indication of the success of Obama’s efforts to rally his Jewish supporters in favor of his anti-Israel policies came on Wednesday, when the Jewish arm of the Democratic Party, the National Jewish Democratic Council, issued a stunning press release. In it, the NJDC condemned Sen. Marco Rubio for supporting Israel. On Monday, Rubio announced that he is running for president.

Rubio’s pro-Israel crime involved his plan get the Senate to condition approval of Obama’s nuclear deal with the ayatollahs on Iran’s recognizing Israel’s right to exist. According to the NJDC, Rubio’s plan, “has no purpose other than to politicize the US-Israel relationship at a time when the Jewish state needs our steadfast support. It is shameful that Sen. Rubio would further politicize this issue to advance his own political goals.”

If the NJDC is truly steadfast in its support for Israel, it is hard to understand what its members are so upset about.

As far as Israelis are concerned, Rubio’s plan is aligned with the widest political consensus imaginable.

The Israeli Left, led by Labor Party leader Yitzhak Herzog, supports Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand that sanctions against Iran should be dropped only after Iran recognizes Israel’s right to exist.

As to America, it is hard to understand how anyone in the American mainstream could oppose conditioning Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons on its abandonment of its aim to destroy Israel.

Obama himself has always insisted that protecting Israel’s security is a paramount goal of his presidency.

Both in his meetings with Jewish leaders and in his interview earlier this month with The New York Times’s Tom Friedman, Obama claims to have been deeply hurt by accusations that he doesn’t care about Israel’s security and said that he would consider it a personal failure if Israel were weaker when he leaves office.

Yet, by refusing to condition a nuclear deal that as Obama himself acknowledges will reduce Iran’s breakout time for military nuclear capabilities to zero on Iran’s eschewal of the goal of Israel’s destruction, the NJDC, like Obama himself, is not protecting Israel or supporting it. Like Obama, the NJDC is indirectly legitimizing Iran’s goal of destroying Israel...

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