A National Security History Lesson for Marco Rubio

Flashback to April 2013, from Michelle Malkin (a needed reminder to enthusiasm for Marco Rubio, even mine):

Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio seems well meaning enough. As second-generation conservative Americans, I know we both share a common passion for this great land of opportunity. But when it comes to comprehending the real agenda of the open-borders zealots he’s allied himself with, Rubio doesn’t have a clue.

And his abject ignorance threatens all of us who cherish American sovereignty and exceptionalism.

On Fox News’ “The Sean Hannity Show” Tuesday night, Rubio defended his Gang of Eight “immigration reform” bill and insisted that we could and should have a system in place that vets foreign tourists and short-term visa holders based on their “national security” profiles.

“In essence, we should be able to analyze (whether) these are individuals coming from a part of the world that keeps feeding into the terrorist network,” Rubio earnestly explained. “(W)e should be very careful about who we allow in and take into account every single measure or every single factor that we think could lead to somebody being more likely possibly a member of a terrorist organization or involved in terror.”

Great idea, Rubio! Newsflash: The concept of a national security entry-exit screening database is at least 10 years old. It’s an idea that was sabotaged by the progressive soft-on-security ideologues with whom Rubio has recklessly partnered.

In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration created NSEERS, the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System. Administered and championed by Justice Department constitutional lawyer, immigration enforcement expert and now-Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, NSEERS stopped at least 330 known foreign criminals and three known terrorists who had attempted to come into the country at certain official ports of entry.

NSEERS required higher scrutiny and common-sense registration requirements for individuals from jihad-friendly countries including Afghanistan, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, as well as other at-risk countries. The basic components included a more rigorous application process in light of the shoddy visa questionnaires and undetected overstays of the 9/11 hijackers; 30 extra minutes of interviewing at ports of entry; a digital fingerprint check and in-person registration after they arrived in the interior of the country; and verification of departure once they exited.

The targeted registration of certain foreign nationals already in the country (temporary visa holders including students, tourists and businesspeople) resulted in the apprehension of dozens of illegal alien felons. As I reported at the time, these scumbags included:

- a Tunisian convicted of multiple drug-trafficking offenses, in addition to previous violations of immigration law.

- an Iranian who had been convicted three times of assault with a deadly weapon and had been convicted twice of grand theft in addition to immigration violations.

- an Iranian twice convicted of child molestation.

- two suspected al-Qaida operatives who were caught trying to enter the U.S. after their fingerprints matched ones lifted by our military officials from papers found in Afghanistan caves.

But grievance-mongering identity groups and the American Civil Liberties Union could not stand the idea of an effective national security profiling database. For one thing, a successful program would have laid the groundwork for a broader nationwide entry-exit system affecting all foreign visitors. Congress mandated that system six times over the past 17 years. It has yet to be built.

Let me repeat that: We still have no way of tracking who has actually met their visa requirements, who has overstayed their visa, and who has left the country when their visa requires them to do so. Earth to Rubio: This malignant failure is by special-interest design, not by accident or lack of imagination.

Here`s a test: Why doesn`t Rubio form a Gang of One and dare Washington to pass the entry-exit system his new pals all say they support as a stand-alone first. Let`s see them prove they can keep even a single one of their national security/immigration enforcement promises before entertaining 900 more pages of them. Prove it.

I`ve read the bill — and I can see right through it. The Democrats` history speaks for itself. The late Sen. Ted Kennedy, whose illegal alien amnesty spirit infuses the Gang of Eight`s bill, spearheaded legislative attempts to de-fund and destroy NSEERS. His left-wing pals (and a few open-borders Republicans such as heavyweight operative Grover Norquist, who stood literally and figuratively behind Rubio at the amnesty bill unveiling) decried NSEERS and its supporters for fostering “discrimination” and “profiling.”

Never mind that the pilot program was in line with alien registration systems around the world. And never mind that indiscriminate entry and immigration policies are what enabled so many jihadi plots in the first place.

When the Obama administration took over, as Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul pointed out this week, it indefinitely suspended the NSEERS pilot program and has no plans to revive it in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings.

Now the Gang of Eight Republicans want conservatives to jump in bed with these security saboteurs for another Amnesty Now, Enforcement Never plan? Who`s Rubio kidding? Only himself...

Still more.

Ted Cruz Has a Problem

From Leon Wolf, at Red State:

Up until last night, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 100%‘s refusal to attack Donald Trump was defensible. Without question, it was smart politics, as his rise in the polls would attest. But it was also defensible on the merits as a guy who is a solid conservative in good standing, who was just refusing to criticize any of the other Republicans in the race, preferring rather to point out, like a good white knight should, how much better all the Republicans were than Hillary Clinton.

Last night, though, what the country watched was a Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 100% who called Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) 94% a liar several times to his face, and also on more than one occasion treated him like someone who was ignorant of the issues. After the way Cruz has treated Trump throughout this contest, that’s a major prolbem.

Prior to last night, Cruz had engaged in substantive disagreements with some of the other candidates (including Rubio), but he had always kept it on an above the fray level. Even when Trump came after him personally, he responded with a tweet that was positively fawning towards the Donald in response.

Listen, this is all fine and good, and as I acknowledged, it’s smart politics. It earned Donald Trump a rebuke from Limbaugh and Levin, which probably contributed to the fact that last night, Trump was back praising how great Cruz was on stage. For people who are sympathetic to Trump, they no doubt like to see the way that Cruz refuses to tangle with Trump no matter what.

For the rest of us – including the ones who grudgingly accepted that it was necessary for Cruz to do this for political reasons – last night’s sparring with Rubio was borderline infuriating.

It’s not just that Cruz disagreed with Rubio. It’s that his disagreement was laced with biting sarcasm and personal attacks. For many (if not most) of us who are not already in Camp Trump, Rubio is considered to be an acceptable choice for the nomination (if not our first), and only a fool would not concede that he presents the best chance in the general to defeat Hillary. Watching a guy who’s turned turtle repeatedly to a fake conservative insult comic, only to turn around and show some fighting spirit against a guy who is actually conservative was a little hard to stomach.

I know that many of Cruz’s own supporters consider him to be a slightly better choice between the two good choices of Cruz and Rubio. I think that’s probably where a good portion of the editorial staff here at RedState stands. Watching the two in nuclear war last night was more than a little vaguely unsettling.

It would be different if Cruz had been been in attack mode against all the other candidates equally. Cruz has a legitimate claim to the mantle that all the other candidates – especially Trump –  have been trying to wear since day one and he would have been forgiven (if not expected) to vigorously defend his claim to being the guy who has actually fought against the “establishment,” as opposed to Trump, who has given some speeches in which he insulted people.

But instead, people who realize that Trump represents an existential threat to the credibility and future existence of the conservative movement as a political force have been forced to grind our teeth as Cruz – who really has been a champion for our causes – held fire on this charlatan for months. Now we are treated to the spectacle of Cruz treating Rubio in the same way many of us wish he had treated Trump from day one? It’s frankly galling...

Well, I like Trump, but he's too crazy sometimes. I don't count him out at all for the nomination, but deep inside I really like Marco Rubio, despite his shady record on illegal immigration. So, I agree Ted Cruz is pretty craven in his selective attacks, and I say that notwithstanding my considerable respect for Cruz. I'd be happy to support him in the general as well. Frankly, all of this reminds me how much I hate the GOP primary season. It's the time when lots of folks on the right make a lot of enemies.

In any case, from last night, "Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz Battle Takes Center Stage at #GOP Debate (VIDEO)."

Save $50 on Select Nikon Golf Laser Rangefinders

At Amazon, Shop - Nikon Golf Laser Rangefinders Sale.

Here's Adele's new CD, 25.

And ICYMI, from Michelle Malkin, Sold Out: How High-Tech Billionaires & Bipartisan Beltway Crapweasels Are Screwing America's Best & Brightest Workers.

Ted Cruz Iowa Backer Steve Deace Apologizes for Tweet Saying Carly Fiorina Went 'Full Vagina' in #GOPDebate

Heh, now that's a pretty wild story.

From Jennifer Jacobs, at the Des Moines Register, "Iowa Cruz backer Steve Deace apologizes for 'full vagina' tweet."

Dana Loesch Unloads on the 'Godless Left'

Not watching her language.

The Bleak Reality Driving Trump's Rise

Well, it's particularly bleak if you're a leftist. Democrats are going to get hammered.

From William Galston, at WSJ, "Workers with low or middle incomes sense a deep and alarming economic shift":

Elections are about more than counting votes. They reveal peoples to themselves. They are democracy’s mirror. And what we see is often disconcerting.

In 2015, for the first time in decades, an angry, disaffected U.S. white working class has found its voice. Xenophobia, nationalism and bigotry are the dominant tones, so it is tempting for the rest of us to turn away in dismay. We should resist that temptation, because underlying the harsh words are real problems that extend well beyond our shores.

Throughout the West, democratic governments are struggling to maintain a postwar order premised on prosperity and economic security. Since the onset of the Great Recession, established center-right and center-left parties have failed to meet that test, opening the door to the far left and the populist right. From Hungary to France to Poland (long regarded as the poster-child for postcommunist democratization), illiberal populism is on the rise.

Western democracies may be on different decks, but we are all in the same boat. In a world of mobile capital and global labor markets, we have not figured out how to maintain jobs and incomes for workers with modest education and skills. In Europe the result has been sustained double-digit unemployment and a generation of young adults on the economic margins. The U.S. has made a different choice: large numbers of low-wage jobs that don’t offer the promise of upward mobility.

Beneath the dry statistics of the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we can see that future emerging. Over the next decade, the service sector will provide 95% of all the new jobs. Manufacturing, which shed more than two million jobs between 2004 and 2014, will shrink by an additional 800,000, to only 7% of the workforce. Of the 15 occupations with the most projected job growth, only four ask for a bachelor’s degree; eight require no formal education credentials; nine offer median annual wages under $30,000.

Few Americans know these statistics, but most of them are living the reality they represent. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the economy has ceased to work for households at and below the middle. A recent report from the Pew Research Center finds that the median income for middle-income households is about where it was in 1997. For lower-income households, median income stands where it did in 1996...

Galston's a Democrat analyst, so naturally he's going to dismiss rising populism as "illiberal." It's not. That's the big lie the media's foisting on the American people, designed to help the Democrat Party. The truth is regular folks have had it with political correctness and politics-as-usual, and the first casualties are those responsible for the mess we're in --- establishment politicians from both parties. Next year's election promises a realignment in American politics, particularly if an outsider wins the White House.

More at the link.

And ICYMI, "Donald Trump's Rise Coincides with Decline of the Middle Class."

Jackie Johnson's Got Your Cold Wednesday Forecast

It's been nippy in the mornings, man!

Teenager Killed Crossing Street After L.A. Unified Closed All Campuses Because of Terror Threat

Now this is just sad.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Teen killed crossing street after L.A. schools closed over threat was 'awesome student'":

A 17-year-old student was struck and killed by a city service truck Tuesday morning as he was crossing a Highland Park street not far from his charter high school.

The crash occurred after the Los Angeles Unified School District closed all campuses because of a threat sent to several school board members.

The county coroner identified the student as Andres Perez of Montebello.

The teen, who an administrator said was en route to Los Angeles International Charter High School on Coleman Avenue, was crossing the street at Avenue 60 and Figueroa Street at about 7:30 a.m. when the L.A. city street services truck struck him, according to Officer Jane Kim of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Tony Torres, the school's director of recruitment, said that "the decision to close the school came very late. So people were still heading to school."...

Muath Qagi, 28, of Fontana was driving in the area Tuesday morning when he saw something in the road -- a black shoe. And a cellphone. The AAA employee said he saw the fire trucks and ambulances. Someone was in the street.

Police had covered the body by the time he parked and stopped to watch.

He said Perez's mother was near the intersection, screaming: "My son! My son!" and laying on the ground, distraught. She tried to get closer to the body but wasn't allowed any closer, Qagi said.

"She was on the ground, just crying, screaming," he said.

A little ways away, sitting on the curb by the front of the parked truck was the driver, holding his face in his hands and crying hysterically.

The truck driver told authorities he did not see the teen, police said, but immediately stopped after the incident and helped Perez, who was pronounced dead by Los Angeles Fire Department officers.

Clifford Moseley, the charter school's executive director, rushed to the scene along with other administrators just after 8 a.m. Moseley said police were just starting to tape off the street when he got there.

The administrator said he knew the identity of the student but did not want to release his name before the coroner confirmed his identity.

According to Moseley, the teen and his mom had taken the Gold Line train and he had just exited while she continued on to work.

Perez had just been accepted to film school at Cal State L.A., Moseley said.

The charter school is not part of the Los Angeles Unified School District, said Joseph Riser, the school's director of development, but decided to close Tuesday morning because it was near other L.A. Unified schools...

And to think: the bomb threat ended up being a hoax.

You just never know when you're going to go.

More at the link.

Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz Battle Takes Center Stage at #GOP Debate (VIDEO)

I like Marco Rubio. I think he won the debate, but Ted Cruz came in looking very sharp.

See the Wall Street Journal, "Terror Takes Center Stage at Republican Presidential Debate."

Praise for San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan After #SanBernardino Attack

Amazingly professional. The kudos are quite justified.

At the Los Angeles Times, "San Bernardino police chief kept his cool after the massacre":

As police officers kicked open doors in the Inland Regional Center in the search for the armed assailants who had just massacred 14 county employees, San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan was outside scanning the terrain for a safe place to coordinate the sweeping emergency response.

He found it a block away — an abandoned house with a dirt yard and boarded-up windows, one of many pocking the streets of this hollowed-out city. Within minutes, police, fire and other emergency agency commanders huddled inside, out of gunshot range.

It was a no-nonsense move by a city police chief who has been praised for his cool-headed response in the chaotic aftermath of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11.

When standing before television news cameras, Burguan's cleanly shaven crown and thick, linebacker frame punctuated his blunt, straightforward accounts of the manhunt and the rapidly developing investigation.

"He was quite effective in giving out whatever information he could, calming the public and discouraging any other lunatics from committing acts of backlash," said Brian Levin, a former New York City police officer and terrorism expert teaching at Cal State San Bernardino. "The response, of all the agencies, was a national model for first responder actions regarding terrorist attacks."

Burguan knew that the nation was watching, and that San Bernardino was on edge. He held three news conferences on the day of the attack. He didn't dodge questions but also knew some leads could not be made public.

"I believe in transparency," Burguan, 45, said. "My philosophy has always been that if I can tell you, I'm going to tell you. And if I can't tell you, I'm going to say I can't tell you."

Burguan also took to Twitter to provide instant updates and knock down rumors: "Suspects are down, one officer wounded. Details still unfolding," he tweeted shortly after the assailants were killed in a gun battle with police.

On Friday, he was at home and sending out a series of tweets explaining why a UPS station was evacuated after a delivery driver spotted a package addressed to one of the killers. "Item was safe, posed no threat." Moments later, he watched, amazed, as his tweet popped up on a television news broadcast.

"The power of social media," Burguan said.

Burguan, named chief two years ago after two decades as a San Bernardino officer, is uneasy with the attention, sensitive to the lives lost and victims maimed in the terrorist attack and the long list of agencies, including the FBI and San Bernardino Sheriff's Department, involved in the case.

His pride, however, is difficult to hide.

"We knew the response was good, we knew people were very, very happy that we hunted down these guys and caught them very quickly," he said. "There's no doubt that these guys were going to do something else. They had an arsenal on them. They were going to continue fighting."

Burguan, a former football star at Bloomington Christian High School, just outside of Rialto, was 21 when he joined the San Bernardino Police Department in 1992. It was near the height of the crack epidemic, when gunfire echoed around the city almost every night and the homicide rate was double what it is today. He worked the night shift and went to night school, eventually earning undergraduate and master's degrees at the University of Redlands.

San Bernardino was a different city then. Lumbering C-141 Starlifters still flew out of Norton Air Force Base. There were two malls in town and a hopping restaurant row. Burguan, living on a traffic officer's salary, failed to qualify for a loan when he tried to buy a home up near Cal State San Bernardino.

"I watched the decline. I've watched businesses leave, and I saw Norton close," he said.

This once-proud blue-collar city has been hamstrung by years of bankruptcy, poverty and noxious politics. Since 2009, the police force has been cut by 100 officers. The anti-gang and other crime prevention programs "are a shell" of what they used to be, he said. There is a proposal to beef up the agency over the next five years, but it is before a federal bankruptcy judge awaiting approval.

"We're largely a reactive agency. I hate to say it, but that's the truth of the matter," Burguan said. "Our response times are not good. And the irony is, people are praising us for our response to this incident."

More.

I watched the press conferences. He's totally no nonsense.

Also, at the letters to the editor, "Readers React San Bernardino shooting: In praise of the police response."

Paris Climate of Conformity

From the editors, at the Wall Street Journal:

The moment to be wariest of political enthusiasms is precisely when elite opinion is all lined up on one side. So it is with the weekend agreement out of Paris on climate policy, which President Obama declared with his familiar modesty “can be a turning point for the world” and is “the best chance we have to save the one planet that we’ve got.”

Forgive us for looking through the legacy smoke, but if climate change really does imperil the Earth, and we doubt it does, nothing coming out of a gaggle of governments and the United Nations will save it. What will help is human invention and the entrepreneurial spirit. To the extent the Paris accord increases political control over human and natural resources, it will make the world poorer and technological progress less likely.

***
The climate confab’s self-described political success is rooted in a conceit and a bribe. The conceit is that the terms of the agreement will have some tangible impact on global temperatures. The big breakthrough is supposed to be that for the first time developing and developed countries have committed to reducing carbon emissions. But the commitments by these nations are voluntary with no enforcement mechanism.

China (the No. 1 CO2 emitter) and India (No. 3 after the U.S.) have made commitments that they may or may not honor, depending on whether they can meet them without interfering with economic growth. If the choice is lifting millions out of poverty or reducing CO2, poverty reduction will prevail—as it should.

No less than the supposedly true global-warming believers of Europe are also happy about voluntary commitments because Paris liberates them from the binding targets of the Kyoto Protocol of 1997. Germany’s high energy costs in particular have been driving companies offshore thanks to its renewable energy costs and mandates.

But no one is happier than President Obama, who would have to submit a binding treaty to the Senate for ratification. As we have learned from the Iran nuclear deal and so much else, Mr. Obama is not into winning democratic consent for his policy dreams. Mr. Obama plans to use Paris as a stick to beat Republicans even as he ducks a vote in Congress. We doubt the Paris climate deal would get 40 Senate votes once Democrats in Ohio, Colorado or North Dakota were forced to debate the costs.

Mr. Obama’s U.S. CO2-reduction targets are fanciful in any case, short of a major technological breakthrough. The President promises that the U.S. will reduce carbon emissions by 26% to 28% from 2005 levels by 2025, but the specific means he has proposed to get there would only yield about half that. And that’s assuming none of Mr. Obama’s unilateral regulatory policies are declared illegal by U.S. courts.

As for the bribe, rich countries in Paris bought the cooperation of the developing world by promising to send $100 billion a year in climate aid. So the governments of the West are now going to dun their taxpayers to transfer money to the clean and green governments run by the likes of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe. We can’t wait to see New York’s Chuck Schumer make the case on the Senate floor for American aid to China so it can become more energy efficient and economically competitive...

Lol.

The editors better not talk too much sense. They might get attacked as racist, heh.

Still more.

Left and Right Differences: How Do You Judge America?

An awesome clip, from Dennis Prager:

Poll: Heightened Fear of Terrorism is Rippling Through the Electorate

Yes, and the Democrats want to mock people for it.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Poll Finds National Security Now a Top Concern":

WSJ/NBC poll finds that after terror attacks, national security is now a top concern. https://t.co/f1uyRwCFEl

— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) December 15, 2015

Fear of terrorism surges after attacks in Paris and California, WSJ/NBC poll finds, and likely will impact 2016 election.

Heightened fear of terrorism is rippling through the electorate, thrusting national-security issues to the center of the 2016 presidential campaign, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released on the eve of Republicans’ latest presidential debate.

Some 40% of those polled say national security and terrorism should be the government’s top priority, and more than 60% put it in the top two, up from just 39% eight months ago.

More than one quarter worry they or their family will be a victim of a terror attack. The most prominent news event of 2015, in the public’s mind, was the terrorist attack in Paris.

“For most of 2015, our country’s mood and thus the presidential election was defined by anger and the unevenness of the economic recovery, and now that has abruptly changed to fear,” said Fred Yang, a Democratic pollster who conducted the survey with Republican Bill McInturff.

That undercurrent of anxiety, if it lasts, has the potential to reshape the 2016 policy landscape, shifting attention to national-security issues that traditionally are Republicans’ strong suit and away from the economic issues that Democrats prefer to spotlight.

But for now, the increased concern hasn’t seemed to change the election’s fundamentals: The new poll, as ones before the recent spate of attacks, found voters evenly split on which party they want to control the White House. Still, Mr. McInturff said, candidates are now facing “a very different campaign than the one we thought we were going to be running.”

Republican presidential candidates will be trying to adapt to this environment when they meet on the debate stage Tuesday night in Las Vegas. In the run-up to the debate, candidates have increasingly focused on foreign policy as they try to promote their own leadership skills and discredit their rivals.

Businessman Donald Trump has been betting that his trademark swagger will be a selling point at a time when voters are looking for someone to stand up to terrorists. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is talking tough about defeating Islamic State, but he has stopped short of calling for U.S. ground troops in Iraq and Syria. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida has argued that Mr. Cruz has taken votes in the Senate that weakened U.S. intelligence gathering.

Overall, the mood of the electorate has turned bleaker in the weeks since the latest Journal/NBC News survey in late October—a period that included the terrorist attacks in Paris, the shootings by a lone gunman at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado, and the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., by a pair of Islamic militants...

Still more.

Democrats Mock Americans' Terror Fears

It's come to this, despite overwhelming --- and bipartisan --- polling data that show a genuine anxiety about U.S. national security.

From Noah Rothman, at Commentary, "Dems Turn to Mocking Terror Fears":

In just over a year, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has graduated from taking and holding territory inside its nascent “caliphate” to exporting terrorism around the globe. From Sydney to Ottawa, from Copenhagen to San Bernardino, this terrorist organization is directing or inspiring jihadists to conduct heinous acts of mass-casualty terrorism. Since October of last year, three such attacks have taken place in the United States; one of those being the worst act of radical Islamic terror in America since September 11, 2001. Subsequently, Americans now rate terrorism as their number one concern. They feel unsafe and insecure. They are justifiably afraid of the threat that might be just around the next corner. Americans are lunging for the shotgun and barricading the door. And what do they get from their leaders? Reassurance? Understanding? Resolve to defeat terrorism abroad before it comes home? No, they get a lecture on their latent hostility toward the Islamic faith and practicing Muslims. Stranger still, now that it has become inescapably clear that the fear of terrorism is broad-based, the left’s mission to convince itself that these concerns are isolated to the fever swamps has become even more urgent.

For Democrats, particularly those who must defend President Barack Obama’s record on foreign affairs and terrorism, there is no good news. According to the latest New York Times/CBS News survey, seven in 10 Americans now describe ISIS as a major threat to national security. Another 44 percent of respondents believe another attack inside the United States at some point in the next few months is “very” likely, greater than at any point since October 2001. 57 percent of those polled disapprove of Obama’s handling of the issue of terrorism. According to Gallup, 67 percent believe future “acts of terrorism” inside the United States are either somewhat or very likely. Gallup further revealed that confidence in the government’s ability to keep its citizens safe is lower than it has ever been since the 9/11 attacks.

Simultaneously, a majority of Americans fear they will be the next victims of that forthcoming attack for the first time since 2001. Perhaps most ominously from a Democratic perspective, satisfaction in the direction the country is headed has not been this depressed since November of 2014 when Republicans rode a wave of voter dissatisfaction to pick up control of the U.S. Senate.

Regarding the potential political ramifications of this negative development for the president, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was asked today about Gallup’s numbers. Earnest’s tart reply: “Gallup predicted Mitt Romney would be president.”

There is no worthy response to this non sequitur; it was not designed to elicit one. The strategy here is clear, and it is one that this president has used to great effect in the past: Project to like minds in media that concerns over terrorism are a preoccupation of the intellectually sequestered right. To lend any credence to that notion would be to align yourself with that brutish, unthinking element in flyover country, and you wouldn’t want to be thought of by your peers in that way, would you?

Even Democrats are finding themselves the target of this rather elementary form of manipulation...

More.

U.S. Counterterrorism Officials Plan to Beef Up Social-Media Scrutiny

Folks were really fired up about this on Twitter this afternoon.

At ABC News, via Memeorandum, "Secret Policy Kept Social Media Out of Visa Vetting."

And here's WSJ, "The Department of Homeland Security is working on a plan to scrutinize social-media posts as part of its visa application process":

WASHINGTON—The Department of Homeland Security is working on a plan to expand scrutiny of social-media posts as part of its visa application process before certain people are allowed to enter the country, a person familiar with the matter said.

The move is part of a new focus on the use of social-networking sites following the shooting rampage in San Bernardino, Calif.

Currently, DHS looks at postings only intermittently, as part of three pilot programs that began in earnest earlier this year. It is unclear how quickly a new process could be implemented, and other details couldn’t be learned.

Investigators are looking for clues in Facebook posts, computer records and elsewhere that may have hinted at the intentions of the Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, the married couple suspected of killing 14 people at a holiday gathering Dec. 2 before dying in a shootout with police.

Ms. Malik lived most of her life in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia but moved to the U.S. in 2014 on a K-1 visa given to those engaged to Americans. The day of the shooting, she pledged allegiance to the leader of Islamic State, law-enforcement officials have said, on a Facebook account registered to a pseudonym. Counterterror officials are looking to see if she made similar postings in the past.

Islamic State and other terror groups have used social media to communicate with one another and seek converts. Intelligence, law-enforcement and counterterrorism officials have spent years trying to unearth clues about attacks in such postings.

The House of Representatives on Tuesday will vote on a bill to require the Obama administration to come up with a comprehensive strategy to combat terrorists’ use of social media. Under the measure, the White House would have to inform Congress about the social-media training it provides law-enforcement officials.

That bill is the latest to respond to public anxiety following the San Bernardino killings, which investigators believe could have been inspired by Islamic State propaganda fueled by social media. House Republicans have worked to advance several bills since the rampage that aim to show they are taking concrete steps to address Americans’ security concerns.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said the DHS move is overdue. “It is time this administration stopped worrying about the privacy of foreigners more than the security of Americans,” he said.

Separately, congressional negotiators were looking at including in a fiscal 2016 spending bill a measure to impose new curbs on travel by citizens who live in one of the 38 countries that enjoy expedited travel clearance to the U.S...

More.

Bill O'Reilly's Talking Points Memo: 'The Age of Anger' (VIDEO)

Watch, from earlier this evening, at Fox News, "The Age of Anger."

Graffiti at California Mosques Investigated as Hate Crimes (VIDEO)

This is wrong.

But if leftists got as outraged by Islamic jihad as they do by so called "hate crimes" against Muslims, we'd probably have defeated ISIS by now.

At the New York Times, "California Police and F.B.I. Open Hate Crimes Inquiry Into Vandalism of Mosques."

Tarek and Christina El Moussa, Stars of HGTV's 'Flip or Flop', Cancel Events in Portland After Protests by Far-Left Rent Control Alliance

Big mistake.

If there was ever a cool inspiration for entrepreneur ship and business hustle, it's Tarek and Christina. They're really cool.

At Instapundit, "BLUE STATE IDIOCY: Stars of HGTV house-flipping series cancel events in Portland after angry residents claim seminars will only worsen the city’s ‘rental crisis’."

Kelly Brook Leaves Little to the Imagination in Very Sexy 2016 Calendar

She's still got it.

At London's Daily Mail, "Kelly Brook shows off her ample cleavage and pert posterior as she strips naked for very sexy calendar shoot."

From Decadence to Destruction in California

Check out Victor Davis Hanson's new collection of essays, The Decline and Fall of California: From Decadence to Destruction.

Plus, Hanson's classic on illegal immigration, Mexifornia: A State of Becoming.

Lily Aldridge, Candice Swanepoel Show Off Bikini Bodies at St. Bart's

At London's Daily Mail, "Lily Aldridge shows off her beautifully bronzed body in a little pink bikini for Victoria's Secret photo shoot in St. Bart's," and "All things bright AND beautiful! Bikini-clad Lily Aldridge leads the hard-to-miss Victoria's Secret Angels in neon as they show off their cheekier sides in St Barths."

Plus, "Looking heavenly! Candice Swanepoel shows off her bikini body as she poses in St Bart's for Victoria's Secret."

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'Home Grown Terror' is America's New Nightmare

A great piece, from John Schindler, at the Observer, "The Intelligence Lessons of San Bernardino":

Americans were shocked by the San Bernardino crime, and no wonder: Farook, a native-born citizen, coldly gunned down co-workers who were assembled at an office party, with help from his immigrant wife, both of whom had left their six month-old baby at home when they left for their suicide mission. While female participation in jihadist terrorism is nothing new, this was an unusually brazen and horrifying attack, particularly since given the size of their arsenal – with thousands of rounds of ammunition and multiple homemade bombs – Farook and Malik intended to kill many more people than they did.

Making matters worse, most Americans felt reasonably safe from the threat of domestic jihadism in recent years, despite repeated warnings about the rise of the Islamic State and terrible attacks like the recent mass-casualty atrocity in Paris. Although the November 2009 Fort Hood massacre, perpetrated by Army Major Nidal Hasan, killed thirteen, it happened within the confines of a military base and did not involve the general public.

Two months before that, authorities rolled up a major jihadist cell in the New York City area that was plotting complex attacks that would have rivalled the 2005 London 7/7 atrocity in scope and lethality. That plot was backed by Al-Qa’ida Central in Pakistan and might have changed the debate on terrorism in the United States, but it was happily halted before execution – “left of boom” as counterterrorism professionals put it.

In general, American domestic counterterrorism since 9/11 has been astonishingly effective. The combination of National Security Agency signals intelligence (SIGINT) providing lead information for Federal Bureau Investigation operations has disrupted dozens of terror plots over the last fourteen years. Something like eighty percent of disrupted terrorism cases in the United States begin with a SIGINT “hit” by NSA. Before San Bernardino, the NSA-FBI combination had a near-perfect track record of cutting short major jihadist attacks on Americans at home since late 2001.

Indeed, the marriage of NSA SIGINT with old-fashioned FBI gumshoe work has been so effective that civil libertarians and anti-intelligence activists have complained that it has worked too well, with the FBI using agents provocateurs to egg homegrown radicals onto the path violence – and then rapid arrest. While the issue of the limits of provocation in counterterrorism is a legitimate one that needs discussion, it’s evident that many of those castigating the FBI and NSA for being too effective are also the first to criticize them when those agencies miss a terrorist.

However, the effectiveness of the NSA-FBI counterterrorism team has begun to erode in the last couple years, thanks in no small part to the work of such journalists-cum-activists. Since June 2013, when the former NSA IT contactor Edward Snowden defected to Moscow, leaking the biggest trove of classified material in all intelligence history, American SIGINT has been subjected to unprecedented criticism and scrutiny.

The uproar that followed the Snowden leak and defection has put NSA in an unflatteringly light, which has taken a serious toll on Agency morale. The recent Congressionally-mandated halt on NSA holding phone call information, so-called metadata, has harmed counterterrorism, though to what extent remains unclear. FBI Director James Comey has stated, “We don’t know yet” whether the curtailing of NSA’s metadata program, which went into effect just days before the San Bernardino attack, would have made a difference. Anti-intelligence activists have predictably said it’s irrelevant, while some on the Right have made opposite claims. The latter have overstated their case but are closer to the truth.

While the importance of metadata to American counterterrorism will continue to be a hot-button topic, the disastrous effect of the Snowden affair and its political aftershocks on our intelligence agencies is not up for debate. Neither is the fact, as attested to by several Western intelligence chiefs, that Snowden’s leaks have made terrorists more careful in their communications, and therefore more difficult to intercept. Just as bad, several top secret NSA programs, beyond metadata, that assisted counterterrorism have been downscaled since 2013 out of fears they may “look bad” if leaked.

“Before Snowden we had a definite bias for action,” explained a senior NSA official with extensive experience in counterterrorism. “But now we all wonder how the White House will react if this winds up in the newspapers.” “It’s all legal,” the official added, “the lawyers have approved, and boy do we have lots of lawyers – but will Obama throw us under the bus again?”

That concern is widespread in American counterterrorism circles, where the Obama administration’s worries about appearing “Islamophobic” are well known. This White House early on warned intelligence personnel about using the term “Islamic terrorism” even in classified reports that would never be released to the public. “Since 2009 we’ve opened investigations of groups we knew to be harmless,” explained a Pentagon counterterrorism official, “they weren’t Muslims, and we needed some ‘balance’ in case the White House asked if we were ‘profiling’ potential terrorists.” One of the worst side-effects of the Snowden affair is the entirely false image it created of NSA as an all-listening and all-seeing agency that spies on everyone, everywhere without respite. The truth is more mundane – or worrisome, depending on your viewpoint. While 21st century SIGINT, thanks to advanced filtering technologies, can collect and process unprecedented amounts of information for analysis – phone calls, text messages, emails, online chats, and whatnot – that has in no way kept up with the global IT revolution. There is much more information out there that might be of interest to counterterrorism officials but which will never be examined closely by any NSA analyst, much less passed to the FBI for action

Investigation has revealed that Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik were radicalized long before they embarked on their mass murder spree. Both had engaged in online radicalism for years and it’s evident that a devotion to violent hatred brought the couple together; speculation in counterintelligence circles that Malik was actually the prime mover of the couple’s jihadism – and may even have been a provocateur – are plausible but not yet substantiated.

What is known, however, is that Malik, a Pakistani national who had lived for years in Saudi Arabia, had written extensively on her public social media accounts about her ardent desire to wage jihad and seek martyrdom in the name of radical Islam. Americans who are accustomed to having their social media accounts examined whenever they apply for a job have questions here, and rightly so...

Still more.

Wow! Donald Trump Surges to 41 Percent in New Monmouth University Poll

Ah, I guess those Muslim comments didn't hurt trump too much at all.

Here's the the latest Monmouth University poll:

LATEST - National poll: Trump at 41% Cruz 14%, Rubio 10%, Carson 9% https://t.co/hwCSwPBy1I

— MonmouthPoll (@MonmouthPoll) December 14, 2015

And at Politico, "Trump hits a new high in national poll: The billionaire businessman surges to 41 percent after releasing proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S.":

Donald Trump just got a little more vault in his ceiling. Nationwide, the polling-obsessed Manhattan multi-billionaire and leading Republican presidential candidate broke into the 40s on Monday.

According to the results of the latest Monmouth University poll surveying voters identifying as Republican or independents leaning toward the GOP, Trump earned 41 percent, nearly tripling the support of his closest rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who took 14 percent.

The poll underscores Trump's success at keeping voters fixated on his unprecedented presidential campaign. The latest national survey was taken after Trump landed another whopper, proposing in an emailed statement last Monday to temporarily ban all Muslims from entering the U.S. The statement gave Trump another boost of media attention, and some speculated it was designed to shift the conversation away from a Monmouth poll from Iowa released earlier that day that showed Cruz with a 5-point edge in the state.

Trump was still smarting from that poll last Friday, trashing it during a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa, though he may change his tune after this latest result.

“What the hell is Monmouth?” Trump asked at the rally, adding, “I only like polls that treat me well.”

Monmouth's survey also held good news for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who moved up to 10 percent support and third place, and bad news for retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who plummeted from 18 percent in October to 9 percent in this latest survey. Other candidates, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, polled within the margin of error, with 6 percent remaining undecided.

Among various demographic groups, Trump picked up 13 points among those with a high-school education, earning 54 percent support with that group, and 11 points with those identifying with the tea party, earning 52 percent with that group. Cruz, however, picked up 15 points among tea party supporters, receiving 29 percent with that group. Trump's standing among women has fallen slightly, down four points since October (41 percent to 37 percent this time), though he has gained three points with men (41 percent to 44 percent). Among those with a college degree, support for Trump fell by 10 points, from 41 percent to 31 percent.

In terms of favorability, Cruz led the way with a net positive 40 points (58 percent favorable to 18 percent unfavorable), followed by Rubio at +37 points (55 percent to 18 percent) and Trump at +32 points (61 percent to 29 percent). For Trump, the latest results mark an improvement over the last two months in the Monmouth poll. In October, his favorability sat at 52 percent to 33 percent.

Regardless of whether they supported Trump, 30 percent said they would be enthusiastic if he were the nominee, compared to 37 percent who said they would be satisfied. Just 12 percent said they would be dissatisfied, while 16 percent said they would be upset...

More.

WATCH: Video Shows Suspect in Lynwood Shooting Brandishing Gun

ABC News reports, "Deadly LA Shooting Raises Questions: Was Suspect Unarmed?"

And at the Los Angeles Times, "Fuller narrative emerges after officials release new video of fatal Lynwood shooting."

Plus, watch at CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Donald Trump Surges to New High in Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll

At WSJ, "Trump, Cruz Lead GOP Field; Support for Carson Plummets, Poll Finds":

Donald Trump has risen to a new high and Ben Carson’s support has plummeted among Republican primary voters after a tumultuous month of international and domestic terrorism, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds.

Mr. Trump leads the Republican field with 27% support, taking over the top position from Mr. Carson, who led in a late October Journal/NBC News survey.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has vaulted into second place, amid signs that he has picked up former Carson supporters. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida placed third in the survey, but the poll also carried evidence that he stands to benefit most when the big field of GOP candidates is winnowed.

Mr. Carson, the retired neurosurgeon, dropped to fourth place, with 11% support, down from 29% in late October. As terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., heightened attention to national security in the past month, Mr. Carson has stumbled on foreign policy questions, and critics have raised doubts about his mastery of international affairs.

The shifts are a reminder that the large GOP presidential candidate field is still sorting itself out, less than two months before the nominating process begins with the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses.

Mr. Trump’s 27% support was his highest showing in Journal/NBC News polling this year and compares to 23% support in the prior survey, in late October. The results continue to defy the expectations of many political analysts and Trump rivals that the celebrity businessman’s candidacy would fade, or at least hit a ceiling, when its novelty wore off.

The poll suggests a new dynamic has arisen in the race, with Mr. Cruz becoming a formidable force. His spike in support—to 22% of GOP primary voters, up from 10% in late October—catapulted him to the poll’s No. 2 spot for the first time since the 2016 campaign began.

Mr. Cruz has been assiduously courting evangelical voters who had also been drawn to Mr. Carson, and the poll suggests his efforts are reaping benefits. Support for Mr. Cruz among “values voters”—those who most strongly support traditional marriage and oppose abortion rights—increased to 27%, from 14% in October. Meanwhile for Mr. Carson, support among those voters dropped to 14%, from 34% in October.

Similarly, Mr. Cruz’s support among voters who call themselves “very conservative’’ rose by 23 percentage points, while Mr. Carson’s support among that group dropped by 23 points.

“This is a good poll for Ted Cruz,’’ said Fred Yang, a Democratic pollster who helped conduct the survey with GOP pollster Bill McInturff. “He’s been doing things for the last 3-4-5 months that are now paying” off.

The poll offered little ground for cheer for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, long ago considered the party’s front-runner, who like the rest of the field remained stuck with single-digit support.

Mr. Bush was the first choice of 7% of GOP primary voters; former Hewlett-Packard chief Carly Fiorina was first choice of 5%; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie drew 3% each; and Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky each drew 2%.

The poll also tested what would happen if the field narrowed to only five candidates: Messrs. Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Carson and Bush...

More.

Attendance Skyrockets at Del Mar Gun Show (VIDEO)

At ABC News 10 San Diego:



Reminds me of a couple of years ago at the O.C. Fairgrounds, "Long Lines, Ammunition Shortages at Orange County Gun Show."

Smokin' Instagram Star Steph Claire Smith Wins Contract for Australian Lingerie Brand Intimo

She's really hot.

At London's Daily Mail, "An Insta-star on the rise! Social media darling Steph Claire Smith, 21, lands new modelling gig with lingerie brand Intimo."

Donald Trump's Rise Coincides with Decline of the Middle Class

At WaPo, "Charting Trump’s rise through the decline of the middle class":

For anyone trying to understand the emergence of Donald Trump as a force in this pre-election year, the Pew Research Center this past week provided some valuable insight. There’s little doubt that what has happened to America’s middle class has helped to create the climate that has fueled Trump’s sudden rise.

The Pew study charts the steady decline of the middle class over the past four decades. It is a phenomenon often discussed and analyzed, but the new findings highlight a tipping point: Those living in middle-class households no longer make up a majority of the population.

There has been a “hollowing out” of the middle class, as the study puts it. In 1971, the middle class accounted for 61 percent of the nation’s population. Today, there are slightly more people in the upper and lower economic tiers combined than in the middle class.

The report is not entirely gloomy. Every category gained in income between 1970 and 2014. Those in the top strata saw incomes rise by 47 percent. Middle-income Americans saw theirs rise by 34 percent. Those at the bottom saw the most modest increases, at 28 percent.

But the share of income accounted for by the middle class has plummeted over the past 4 1 / 2  decades. In 1970, middle-class households accounted for 62 percent of income; by 2014, it was just 43 percent. Meanwhile, the share held by those in upper-income households rose from 29 percent to 49 percent, eclipsing the middle class’s share.

The past 15 years have been particularly hard on wealth and income because of the recession of 2001 and the Great Recession of 2007-2009. For all groups, incomes rose from 1970 to 2000. In the next decade, incomes for all groups declined. During the past four years, incomes rose 3 percent for the wealthiest, 1 percent for middle-income Americans, and not at all for those with the lowest incomes. For those in the middle, the median income in 2014 was 4 percent lower than in 2000, according to the study.

For most families, the two recessions have wiped out previous gains and widened the wealth and income gap between the wealthiest and all others. “The losses were so large that only upper-income families realized notable gains in wealth over the span of 30 years from 1983 to 2013,” according to the Pew study....

This is where the report connects directly to what’s happened politically this year. Pair those last findings from the Pew study with what recent polling shows about who supports Trump.

A recent Washington Post-ABC News survey found Trump leading his rivals overall, with 32 percent support among registered Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. Among white people with college degrees, he was at 23 percent and led his nearest rival by only four percentage points. Among white people without a college degree, however, his support ballooned to 41 percent — double that of Ben Carson, who was second at 20 percent, and five times the support of Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Ted Cruz (Tex.), who were tied for third...

More.

In America and Europe, Right-Wing Populist Politicians Are on the March. The Threat is Real

Heh. The threat to American and European populations is from "right-wing populists," not global jihad terror?

And the Economist used to be a respectable news magazine.

Here, "Playing with fear."

Hat Tip: Instapundit, "When elites are weak, ineffectual, and dishonest — not to mention staggeringly corrupt — you get populism. If those, like The Economist, who purport to police the elites had done a better job over the past decade, maybe we wouldn’t have come to such a pass."

Kelsey Merritt Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Casting Call (VIDEO)

Lovely.

ICYMI, Winter Is Coming

At Amazon, from Garry Kasparov, Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped.

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CBS 'Face the Nation' Roundtable: Will Donald Trump Become the GOP Nominee (VIDEO)

Who knows at this point?

My sense is, again, we're talking about things that no one else would be talking about, and that's an extremely important contribution. And I'm not ruling Trump out one bit. He could win the nomination, or at least cause the GOP to completely implode.

#SanBernardino Terrorist Attack: Police Find and Stop the Jihadists

This is a great report, at the Los Angeles Times, "'All Hell Broke Loose' as Police Chased the San Bernardino Shooters."

'All hell broke loose' as police chased the San Bernardino shooters https://t.co/EyyKUXrPzZ pic.twitter.com/rntIP3tne7

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) December 13, 2015

Heavy Surf Pounds Ventura Pier (VIDEO)

Wild.

At the Ventura County Star, "Piers, campgrounds, roads closed due to high surf."

Cruz Wins Iowa, Trump Wins New Hampshire

Here's Matt Lewis, looking kinda prognostic, at the Telegraph UK, "Cruz wins Iowa, Trump wins New Hampshire - and the Republicans have a floor fight at the convention":

I haven’t seen anyone really go out on a limb yet and make predictions about the Republican primaries. So it's time to engage in some wildly premature political punditry.

This, of course, is risky. There are so many variables. What happens if one candidate drops out and scrambles things? What is more, factors in the political universe - say, God forbid, another terrorist attack - can quickly swing public opinion. (Remember how Ben Carson’s numbers declined after the Paris attacks?)

It is with all these caveats disclosed that I boldly present my picks.

The good news is that these predictions are based on a study of past primary elections, conducted by elections analyst Henry Olsen, who is the co-author of a new book, The Four Faces of The Republican Party.

If I were betting today, this is how I think things might play out in the New Year:

Texas Senator Ted Cruz wins Iowa on February 1. He’s surging there, having picked up several key endorsements, and his flavour of conservative evangelicalism matches the state’s Republican primary base. (Disclosure: my wife previously consulted on Mr Cruz’s US Senate campaign.)

A few days later, Donald Trump wins the New Hampshire primary. This is the one I’m least confident in. Trump is way ahead in the polls there, and he does surprisingly well with Republican moderates who make up the largest faction of the Granite State’s primary base (see John McCain’s success there).

Still, New Hampshire voters decide late and the state likes to surprise us by playing kingmaker. So someone like Chris Christie or Marco Rubio could conceivably mount a late surge.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio wins South Carolina on February 20. The Palmetto State is thought of as a very conservative state, but as Olsen points out, it “mirrors the nation” and usually goes for the “somewhat conservative” candidate that defines Rubio's constituency.


Cruz wins Nevada on February 23, and then performs very well in what has been dubbed the “SEC Primary” – a collections of Southern states that will hold their primaries on March 1.

At this point, Cruz will have momentum, but maybe not the numbers. His problem? Because of rules governing this primary process, delegates in these states are awarded proportionally. What this means is that Ted Cruz wouldn't receive all the delegates; he could conceivably run the table without really running up the delegate score.

After some smaller contests, the big states of Florida and Ohio vote on March 15. Importantly, these are “winner take all” states, meaning that the winner of these states could rapidly accrue delegates. And, assuming Rubio won South Carolina (my theory is that you have to win one of the first three states to remain viable), he should be well positioned to win these delegate-rich states...

Well, predictions are hard, especially about the future, heh.

More.

I'll hold off on my own predictions. I'm not so good at it, although I have a hunch Trump's going to win both Iowa and New Hampshire, which would give him enormous momentum going into the Southern states. But we'll see. We'll see.

No Political Guardrails

From Kim Strassel, at WSJ, "President Obama broke all the boundaries—and now Clinton and Trump are following suit":

Twenty-two years ago, my esteemed colleague Dan Henninger wrote a blockbuster Journal editorial titled “No Guardrails.” Its subject was people “who don’t think that rules of personal or civil conduct apply to them,” as well as the elites who excuse this lack of self-control and the birth of a less-civilized culture.

We are today witnessing the political version of this phenomenon. That’s how to make sense of a presidential race that grows more disconnected from normality by the day.

Barack Obama has done plenty of damage to the country, but perhaps the worst is his determined destruction of Washington’s guardrails. Mr. Obama wants what he wants. If ObamaCare is problematic, he unilaterally alters the law. If Congress won’t change the immigration system, he refuses to enforce it. If the nation won’t support laws to fight climate change, he creates one with regulation. If the Senate won’t confirm his nominees, he declares it in recess and installs them anyway. “As to limits, you set your own,” observed Dan in that editorial. This is our president’s motto.

Mr. Obama doesn’t need anyone to justify his actions, because he’s realized no one can stop him. He gets criticized, but at the same time his approach has seeped into the national conscience. It has set new norms. You see this in the ever-more-outrageous proposals from the presidential field, in particular front-runners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Mrs. Clinton routinely vows to govern by diktat. On Wednesday she unveiled a raft of proposals to punish companies that flee the punitive U.S. tax system. Mrs. Clinton will ask Congress to implement her plan, but no matter if it doesn’t. “If Congress won’t act,” she promises, “then I will ask the Treasury Department, when I’m there, to use its regulatory authority.”

Mrs. Clinton and fellow liberals don’t like guns and are frustrated that the duly elected members of Congress (including those from their own party) won’t strengthen background checks. So she has promised to write regulations that will unilaterally impose such a system.

On immigration, Mr. Obama ignored statute with executive actions to shield illegals from deportation. Mrs. Clinton brags that she will go much, much further with sweeping exemptions to immigration law.

For his part, Mr. Trump sent the nation into an uproar this week with his call to outright ban Muslims from entering the country. Is this legally or morally sound? Who cares! Mr. Trump specializes in disdain for the law, the Constitution, and any code of civilized conduct. Guardrails are for losers. He’d set up a database to track Muslims or force them to carry special IDs. He’d close mosques. He’d deport kids born on American soil. He’d seize Iraq’s oil fields. He’d seize remittance payments sent back to Mexico. He’d grab personal property for government use.

Mr. Obama’s dismantling of boundaries isn’t restrained to questions of law; he blew up certain political ethics, too. And yes there are—or used to be—such things. Think what you may about George W. Bush’s policies, but he respected the office of the presidency. He believed he represented all Americans. He didn’t demonize.

Today’s divisive president never misses an opportunity to deride Republicans or the tea party. He is more scornful toward fellow Americans than toward Islamic State. This too sets new norms. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid now uses the chamber to accuse individual citizens of being “un-American.” Asked recently what “enemy” she was most proud of making, Mrs. Clinton lumped “Republicans” in with “the Iranians.” Ted Cruz rose to prominence by mocking his Republican colleagues as “squishes.” Mr. Trump has disparaged women, the other GOP contenders, Iowans, wives, the disabled, Jews. (Granted, he might have done this even without Mr. Obama’s example.)

Can such leaders be trusted to administer Washington fairly? Of course not. That guardrail is also gone...

Sobering.

And there's still more.

Victoria's Secret Holiday Commercial 2015 (VIDEO)

It's the extended cut, via Theo Spark:

Loretta Sanchez Attacked for Saying Between '5 and 20 Percent' of Muslims Support Terrorism (VIDEO)

Following-up, "Democrat Loretta Sanchez Says 'Between 5 and 20 Percent' of Muslims Back Terrorism to Bring Caliphate (VIDEO)."

Now, at the O.C. Register, "Rep. Loretta Sanchez attacked for saying between '5 and 20 percent' of Muslims support terrorism":

Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a Democrat from Orange running for U.S. Senate, is under fire for saying that between “5 and 20 percent” of Muslims could be extremists willing to participate in terrorism.

Critics, including Islamic and immigration-rights activists, said the statement was inaccurate, reckless and promoted a false stereotype. One group called for her to bow out of the race to replace retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer.

“At a time when bigoted, Islamophobic rhetoric is spurring troubling incidents of hate across the country - including in Orange County - Rep. Loretta Sanchez' wildly off-the-mark claims are irresponsible and dangerous,” Reshma Shamasunder, executive director of the California Immigrant Policy Center, said Friday.

“We expect California's representatives to uphold our values of inclusion and diversity, not trample them.”

Sanchez, a 10th-term congresswoman who sits on the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, made the comment Wednesday on the online TV program “PoliticKING with Larry King.”

“We know that there is a small group, and we don’t know how big that is — it can be anywhere between 5 and 20 percent, from the people that I speak to — that Islam is their religion and who have a desire for a caliphate and to institute that in anyway possible,” she said.

“And again, I don’t know how big that is, and depending on who you talk to, but they are certainly — they are willing to go to extremes. They are willing to use and they do use terrorism.”

The terrorist Islamic State group known as ISIS has called for a caliphate – a worldwide Islamic government without national borders.

After her appearance on the show, Sanchez issued a follow-up statement that appeared to be an effort to quell criticism.

“I strongly support the Muslim community in America and believe that the overwhelming majority of Muslims do not support terrorism or ISIS,” she said. “We must enlist the voices of the Muslim community in our fight against ISIS instead of alienating them through fear-mongering and discrimination.”

The Muslim population is 1.6 billion worldwide and 2.8 million in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. It is not known how many favor a caliphate, but Sanchez told PBS-TV that her estimate came from an unnamed book published by Harvard Press.

On Friday, she issued another statement, saying there was “equally compelling data to support far lower estimates.”

“I want to reiterate that my reference to those numbers does not reflect my views of the Muslim community in my district, in America or the vast majority of Muslims around the world,” she said. “I believe that Muslim Americans are fully committed to the security and prosperity of our country.”

This Blitzkrieg will be unrelenting. She'll get no respite from the far-left Islamo-enablers. Sad.

'Big Shakeup' in Iowa as Ted Cruz Surges to Lead (VIDEO)

This has got tongues wagging, big time.

At the Des Moines Register, "'Big shakeup' in Iowa Poll: Cruz soars to lead":

Seven weeks from the caucuses, Ted Cruz is crushing it in Iowa.

The anti-establishment congressional agitator has made a rapid ascent into the lead in the GOP presidential race here, with a 21 percentage-point leap that smashes records for upsurges in recent Iowa caucuses history.

Donald Trump, now 10 points below Cruz, was in a pique about not being front-runner even before the Iowa Poll results were announced Saturday evening. He wasted no time in tearing into Cruz — and the poll — during an Iowa stop Friday night.

Ben Carson, another "Washington outsider" candidate, has plunged 15 points from his perch at the front of the pack in October. He's now in third place.

"Big shakeup," said J. Ann Selzer, pollster for The Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll. "This is a sudden move into a commanding position for Cruz."

Cruz, a Texas U.S. senator famous for defying party leaders and using government shutdown tactics to hold up funding for the Obamacare health care law and abortion provider Planned Parenthood, was the favorite of 10 percent of likely Republican caucusgoers in the last Iowa Poll in October. He's now at 31 percent.

Carson's zenith was 28 percent in the poll two months ago. Trump's highest support was 23 percent back in August, when he led the field by 5 points.

And there are signs Cruz may not have peaked in Iowa yet. Another 20 percent of likely caucusgoers say he's their current second choice for president. Cruz hits 51 percent support when first- and second-choice interest is combined, again leading the field.

With Cruz's popularity and his debate proficiency, "it's certainly possible that he could win Iowa big — very big," said Frank Luntz, a Nevada-based GOP focus group guru who follows the Iowa race closely...

Keep reading.

ADDED: From Bloomberg, "Cruz Soars to Front of the Pack in Iowa Poll; Trump Support Stays Flat." (At Memeorandum.)

Shattering Southern California's Illusion of Safety — #SanBernardino

Following-up, "An Existential Fear of Foreign Infiltration."

Now, at the Los Angeles Times, "San Bernardino terrorist attack shatters Southern California's illusion of safety":

As terrorist attacks fueled by extreme Islamist ideology convulsed cities in the U.S. and Europe over the last 15 years, Los Angeles and its sprawling suburbs were spared.

It couldn't last forever.

The assault on a San Bernardino social services center last week by a U.S.-born Muslim man and his Pakistani wife was an event of national significance, potentially reshaping next year's presidential contest and raising Americans' fears of terrorism to levels not seen since the World Trade Center attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

But the killing of 14 people by Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik has had a particular effect in Southern California, a densely populated region whose residents have at times felt themselves remote from the transatlantic waves of terror that have washed over New York, London, Paris, Madrid and Washington, D.C.

That sense of separation is deeply rooted in the state's culture and history, experts say, though it is in many ways unrealistic. The truth is that the Southland — home to more than 22 million people, as well as an entertainment industry that is arguably the foremost exporter of the secular culture denounced by Islamic fundamentalists — is as vulnerable as anywhere else in the U.S. to extremist violence in the post-9/11 era.

"We used to call California an 'island on the land.' There was a sense of — take your pick: outside history, ahead of the curve. But that's simply not true," said William Deverell, a history professor at USC who studies the American West. "The notion that this is an island that can't be breached, that's wrong. And San Bernardino has proven it."

Deverell said the attack was in a sense more jarring for having happened in the far-flung Inland Empire, where many ex-Angelenos have sought refuge from high housing costs and urban crime, rather than at an iconic location in Santa Monica or the Hollywood Hills. Security experts say assaults on "soft" targets unprepared for politically motivated violence are now as much a risk as the spectacular, symbolically resonant attacks on famous buildings or tourist sites.

Farook and Malik appear to exemplify this brand of "homegrown" or "self-radicalized" terrorist. Federal officials have said the pair may have quietly plotted a mass killing for years in relative isolation, taking inspiration but not direction from overseas terrorist groups.

"You can't think of it in terms of, 'Here is someone sitting at terrorist central control who says we have to look at California more seriously.' It's not that at all," said Brian Michael Jenkins, a national security expert at the Rand Corp. "Whether or not something in California is a target of terrorism depends on whether someone who is radicalized lives in California."

Debbie Maller, 55, has lived in San Bernardino for two decades and was at a coffee shop in the city's downtown Friday afternoon. She said she had sometimes worried about terrorist violence when visiting big cities after the 9/11 attacks, but had never had such fears in her hometown.

"I would have never thought of the words 'San Bernardino' and 'terrorism' together," she said...

Still more.

An Existential Fear of Foreign Infiltration

Fear is a natural reaction to danger. Don't let leftists berate you. They're welcoming our enemies with open arms.

At the New York Times, "Attack Spurs New Chapter in History of Dread in the U.S.":

The handsome Washington townhouse where Wayne Hickory practices orthodontics is a landmark of terrorism in America.

In 1919, an anarchist exploded a bomb at what was then the home of the attorney general. The failed assassination set off a wave of violent raids on radicals, Communists and leftists, and the deportation without due process of hundreds of innocent European immigrants — a high point of hysteria in an era known as the first Red Scare.

“Maybe there is something to learn from history,” Dr. Hickory said in a sitting room that now contains advertising for invisible braces. But asked about Donald J. Trump’s call to bar Muslims from entering the United States, Dr. Hickory said that, as implausible as it was, the proposal had prompted a necessary discussion about whether travelers from countries fraught with Islamic extremism should receive increased scrutiny. “Perhaps,” he said, “the line needs to be drawn a little bit more severely.”

An existential fear of foreign infiltration, unfamiliar minorities and terrorist attacks is not a new feeling in America. Neither is the nativist, if at times innovative, language that Mr. Trump has mastered on his way to leading the Republican presidential primary race.

But interviews this week with dozens of American voters, even those who do not support Mr. Trump and reject his ban as an indecent proposal, make clear that their anxiety is on the rise in a climate more fearful than at any time since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. From the Capitol to the campaign trail, from Mr. Trump’s childhood neighborhood to the suburbs near the Islamic State-inspired killing of 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., voters acknowledged, almost despite themselves, the gnawing sense of insecurity that has fueled Mr. Trump’s vision and persistent appeal.

People are seeing things, and saying things...

Heh, what a bunch of Islamophobes!

But keep reading.

Bill O'Reilly's Talking Points Memo: 'Explaining the Trump Surge' (VIDEO)

Watch, from last night, at Fox News, "Explaining the Trump surge."

Carly Fiorina's Not 'Snarling' at CNN's Chris Cuomo (VIDEO)

Here's Tom Boggioni --- the leftist idiot 'TBogg' --- at Raw Story (via Memeorandum), "WATCH: Carly Fiorina snarls at CNN host after he confronts her over Planned Parenthood smears."

She's not "snarling."

Watch for yourself, "Fiorina gets heated over Planned Parenthood."

Why Trump's Muslim Ban Resonates

From David Horowitz, at Front Page Magazine, "Who's the Crazy One?":

Presidential candidate Donald Trump has called for a moratorium on Muslim immigration until we can figure out why Islamic terrorists have been able to enter our country and devised ways to protect ourselves. This has caused the left and right establishments to dogpile on Trump. Echoing the sentiments of virtually all Democrats and many Republicans, a Washington Post editorial has declared that Trump’s proposal disqualifies him as a candidate because in the Post’s view what he recommends is unconstitutional and therefore un-American. But President Obama has issued executive orders – as it happens orders that sabotage our borders - that he himself has called unconstitutional (“I don’t have the authority to stop deportations”).  Has the Post editorialized that this is un-American and disqualifies him for the presidency? Has it called for Obama to be impeached? Have Democrats ridiculed Obama for his un-American prescriptions?

Consider the nature of the threat. A 2009 “World Opinion” survey by the University of Maryland showed that between 30 and 50% of Muslims in Jordan, Egypt and other Islamic countries approved of the terrorist attacks on America and that only a minority of Muslims “entirely disapproved” of them. ISIS has acknowledged its plans to use refugee programs to infiltrate its terrorists into the United States and other infidel countries. In Minneapolis we have a Somali refugee community many of whose members have returned to Syria to fight for ISIS. Other Muslim immigrants like Major Hassan and Tashfeen Malik have carried out barbaric acts of terror here at home. Today Muslim terrorists are using assault rifles and pipe bombs, but we know they have Sarin gas and other chemical weapons which they might use tomorrow. The terrorists inexorably arrive along with the other immigrants, no one in authority apparently knowing who’s who. Who, then, in his right mind does not think that Muslim immigration poses a serious security threat to us?

The outrage against Trump should properly have been directed at our president who refuses to identify the enemy as Islamic terrorism, who has opened the door to nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to the Islamic America-haters in Iran, whose policies have created the vacuums that ISIS has filled, and who even after Paris and San Bernardino is determined to bring 100,000 immigrants from Syrian war zones to our unprotected shores. This outrage is missing and it is precisely because it is missing that Trump’s unconstitutional proposal resonates with so many rightly concerned Americans. When the man in charge of our security is by general consensus out to lunch in regard to fighting the war on Islamic terror, or protecting us at home, a proposal like Trump’s, which at least recognizes the threat, is going to resonate with the public.

In middle of a crisis of national security, the Democratic Party seems to think that climate change and especially gun ownership are greater threats to our survival than the one that comes from hundreds of millions of Muslims who think America should be attacked and who believe the whole world should be put under medieval Islamic law. In the face of this threat, the Democratic Party and its leaders seem to have no problem with the fact that we have more than 350 “Sanctuary Cities” that are dedicated to sabotaging our immigration laws; that we have no southern border and as a result have 179,000 illegal alien criminals and who knows how many terrorists in our country today.

Once again we have Trump to thank for changing the surreal conversation about whether having a border at all is compatible with American values, and forcing people to focus on the dangers we face. Republicans are generally defenders of this country, but not in this controversy over Donald Trump. Would that they would use the same ridicule and outrage over the Democrats’ many betrayals of our country and its citizens through proposals to expose us to our enemies as they do over a proposal to protect us from them. Trump’s idea may be unconstitutional and unworkable, but it springs from a desire that is honorable and patriotic. The appropriate response would be to propose alternatives that recognize the same dangers and serve the same ends but do so within constitutional limits.

Donald Trump’s great contribution is saying the unsayable; putting things on the table that would otherwise be buried; calling a spade a spade in a time when political correctness has made us unable to discuss things that have to do with our basic national survival.  This is the crux of the issue.  Every time he creates a controversy like this he also tells this country that its emperors, Republican and Democrat, have no clothes. That they prefer propriety over defending the country.  That they are dedicated only to keeping the lid on a cauldron of threat and challenge they have allowed to boil over.

The 2016 election will be a referendum on the defense of this country and its survival. Let’s see who answers the call.

Donald Trump's Polling Obsession

At Politico, "The Republican front-runner's faith in the numbers is about to be tested yet again":

Week after week, month after month, Donald Trump has led nearly every poll. And it hasn't been close.

From New Hampshire, to South Carolina — and nationwide, the Manhattan mogul has commanded strong leads across a heap of surveys, despite — or perhaps because of — intemperate remarks that would doom anyone else. Now, after Trump's widely denounced call to bar Muslims from entering the U.S., the puzzled political world is again on the edge of its collective seat, wondering: Is this what finally brings him down?

It's an existential question: Poll numbers are, unlike perhaps any candidate in history, central to Trump's pitch to voters. In his telephone and in-person morning talk show interviews and his evening rallies, not to mention on his hyperactive Twitter account, he rarely lets an opportunity escape without mentioning his titanic standing. "Wow, my poll numbers have just been announced and have gone through the roof!" Trump tweeted Thursday morning.

And yet, unlike rivals who spend thousands on expensive gurus and polling firms, Trump doesn't even employ a pollster, as he often boasts. "My pollster's me," he said at an Iowa rally last week.

One Trump insider likens Trump's obsession with his poll numbers to a TV executive's hunger for ratings: "It’s a barometer of success."

But the polls also serve a legitimizing function for a candidate who has been dismissed all along as unelectable, this person added. "Strategically, it’s made his candidacy look as if it were feasible to primary voters."

And in an indication of the symbiotic relationship between Trump and those who cover him, sometimes Trump even knows the results of his national polling before the embargo lifts.

During an interview with CBS' "Face the Nation" aired Oct. 11, the show featured a segment taped the previous Friday, Oct. 9, in which host John Dickerson shared with Trump that 60 percent of registered voters did not find him honest and trustworthy, among other results collected between Oct. 4 and 8.

Pollsters have watched Trump's fixation with their work with a mixture of fascination and revulsion.

"He is given a big assist by the media when it persists in focusing on the 'horse race' in [a] way that overstates its importance, such as talking about who is in third versus fourth place, even though the polling error suggests there may be no discernible difference between the two," said Monmouth University polling director Patrick Murray. "As someone who Trump has hailed as either a hero or a goat depending on our poll numbers that day, it’s fascinating to watch. Trump saw an opening in the marketplace and decided to harness a pre-existing inclination, especially at this early stage, to reduce elections to popularity contests."

Through the course of his campaign, Trump has also touted polls with shakier methodology, such as unscientific post-debate polls on Drudge Report and online surveys with brief response windows, trashing those showing a name other than Trump in the No. 1 spot.

In a late October CBS News/New York Times poll, for example, Trump trailed Ben Carson by 4 points nationally, days after a separate ABC News/Washington Post survey "that nobody wanted to use" showed him up by 10 points on Carson. Trump groused in an interview with MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Nov. 5 that the media covered the CBS/NYT poll "bigger than Benghazi."

"And I never really understood it, but that's the way the world of politics works, I guess," he said.

Trump doles out praise for outlets as well. After a favorable poll release from CNN last week, for instance, he tweeted his thanks to the network and political team for "very professional reporting."

It remains to be seen what effect, if any, the businessman's proposed Muslim entry ban will have on his polling nationally and in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. But betting that Trump would fade after outlandish comments has proven foolish before...

Actually, we already know: Trump's Muslim comments have given him a fresh boost in public opinion, and have freaked out the Democrats, especially Hillary Clinton.

I'm loving it!