PrairiePundit

Jerusalem Post: Iraqi daily Azzaman quoted a Western diplomatic source as saying Thursday that the alleged Israeli attack on Syria reported on Wednesday caused heavy casualties among special Iranian Guards stationed at the Syrian facility. The source also said that the attack took place more than 48 hours before it was reported, eventually being leaked by Israel. The source for the story, who was interviewed by the paper in London, said that the report about a strike on a convoy to Lebanon was probably meant to divert attention away from the main objective of the operation, which used F-16 aircraft to fire at least eight guided missiles at the facility. The source also said that the base was heavily fortified and contained experts from Russia and at least three thousand Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who have been guarding the site for years. Many of these Iranian Guards suffered casualties. Israel most likely got its intelligence, said the source, from penetrating deep inside Iran

Jennifer Rubin: It’s fascinating, actually, to see a nominee of this importance do so poorly. Chuck Hagel, nominated for defense secretary, has gone from awful to atrocious today, having to deny the obvious meaning of words he previously authored (on Global Zero), correct himself repeatedly (no, he didn’t mean Iran’s government was “legitimate”) and find himself simply unable to explain himself. Forgetting about his views, he does not radiate the confidence nor project the intelligence the job demands. It is unclear whether he was not prepped properly, whether he refused to be coached or whether he simply isn’t bright. A long-time Capitol Hill Democrat astounded by the hearing tells me, “It is very clear from the testimony that Sen. Hagel will not be bringing the potato salad to the next Mensa picnic.” Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) did an immense amount of danger, disclosing that Hagel would  still  oppose unilateral sanctions. (How then could he possibly be the defense secretary in t

Fuel Fix: OPEC crude oil production declined to a 15-month low as Saudi Arabia reduced output because of waning demand from consumers, a Bloomberg survey showed. Output in the 12-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries slipped 525,000 barrels, or 1.7 percent, to an average 30.479 million barrels a day this month from a revised 31.004 million in December, the survey of oil companies, producers and analysts showed. The December total was revised 430,000 barrels a day lower mostly because of the change to the Saudi number. “OPEC members are cutting because of concern about demand and a surplus in stockpiles and are responding to a lack of market interest,” said Sarah Emerson, managing director of Energy Security Analysis Inc. in Wakefield, Massachusetts. “They are getting to that magic number of 30 million and won’t have to cut much more.” Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s biggest oil producer, pumped 9.1 million barrels a day this month, the lowest level since May 2011. Output was down

Peter Wehner: ... To say that the elite media has a liberal bias is similar to declaring that the sun rises in the east. But it’s never been this transparent, the infatuation never this deep, the advocacy this passionate. We are now seeing shows like “60 Minutes”–once a fearless giant in journalism–give interviews that you would expect to see on Entertainment Tonight or state-run television. We’re at the point when we have to count on tough interviews coming from news outlets like Univision. There are of course exceptions to this–journalists who are both tough-minded and fair-minded. But among the most significant political developments of our time is how many members of the press have become partisans in ways we’ve never before seen. What explains this? A combination of factors, I think. One is the rise of Fox News. For decades progressives had a monopoly on news, which meant they were content to slant the news but not routinely cross the line into advocacy. But now that Fox News

He was doing an interview on Al-Jazeera at the time he agreed with the statement by questioner.  Sen. Cruz does not let him slip by the facts.  The rest of the country is getting a chance to see just how smart Ted Cruz is.

The Hill: Dems ask NFL, NBA for suggestions on how to battle climate change This looks like an act of desperation.

Telegraph: North Korea 'under martial law' In an emergency meeting of his top defence and security officials on Saturday, the North Korean leader issued a series of orders that included the conclusion of preparations for a new nuclear test, the Joongang Daily reported. ... The country appears to be trying to get people wee weed up for its next act of defiance of the UN.  Will they be disappointed if people ignore them until the vote on the next round of sanctions?  

Washington Post: Sixteen years after he fled from the Taliban, Zia Ahmadi was back at the Kabul airport, waiting for the body of a cousin who tried to do the same. Zia had done what he thought was best for his cousin, Javed Ahmadi, offering a smuggler $15,000 to shuttle him out of Afghanistan and away from insurgents. By December, Javed, 19, was halfway through an arduous 3,500-mile trip from Helmand province to Zia’s home in Sweden, running from the same Taliban that Zia escaped in 1997. But the smuggler’s overloaded skiff capsized off the coast of Greece, and Javed’s body washed ashore with 21 others, nearly all of them Afghan refugees eager to leave their country before U.S. troops do next year. Now Zia was back in Kabul to bury his cousin. Two decades after Afghanistan witnessed one of the 20th century’s most dramatic refugee crises, a quieter exodus is gaining momentum. Zia Ahmadi was part of the first generation of Afghan refugees. His cousin aspired to be part of the second.

NY Times: Money Issues Drive Down Law Schools’ Applications Applications are headed for a 30-year low, reflecting increased concern over tuition, student debt and diminishing prospects of lucrative employment. I got my law degree in 1971 from the University Of Texas.  By the mid 80's there were more lawyers in the city of Houston than there were in the entire state in 1971. This growth was clearly not sustainable.  Many of these new lawyers had to take jobs in other professions.  When the business downturn hit, even large law firms were laying off people.  Some lawyers wound up with jobs in the media.  Attractive women lawyers seem to have the best shot at getting these gigs.  With the current glut of unemployed lawyers, starting salaries are declining and if the students borrowed money to get through school they were left in a real bind.

The Lid: ... Their big complaint is that they are closest to the issue and Trumka has shut them out and forbidden them to discuss  the issue in public: As AFL-CIO affiliates, the Union representing ICE Agents has been excluded by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and his top advisors and prohibited from participating in the development of immigration policy within the AFL-CIO as well as with lawmakers and the Administration. The ICE Agents union has reportedly made multiple requests directly to Trumka's top advisors all resulting in no change. "It's shocking," said Chris Crane , President of the National ICE Council which represents approximately 7,000 ICE Agents, Officers and employees, "the last time I checked, all of the heavy hitters within immigration enforcement to include ICE, the U.S. Border Patrol and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services were all excluded by the AFL-CIO from policy planning and input – and we're all AFL-CIO affiliates. With

I think this woman has a fair point.  Having a gun with a high capacity magazine makes it easier for a mother to defend her children than trying to wield an unwieldy shotgun.

Karl Rove: ... The ideological composition of the American electorate hasn't changed dramatically. Self-identified liberals were 25% of voters in 2012 and 23% in 2008. Conservatives were 35% of voters in 2012 and 34% in 2008.  By some measures, voters are less liberal today than they were four years ago. In the 2008 exit poll, 51% said "government should do more to solve problems" while 43% felt "government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals." In 2012, 43% said "government should do more" and 51% believed "government is doing too many things." While 44% wanted ObamaCare "expanded or left as is," 49% wanted to "repeal some or all of it."  Another sign that Mr. Obama hasn't fundamentally changed America's political structure: Compared with 2008, there were 371,800 fewer white votes cast in Ohio in 2012, when Mr. Obama carried the state by 166,214 votes. Many whites who voted for

And, Obama does not want to deal with it.

Austin American-Statesman: Two men and a juvenile have been arrested after police say they stole a truck to smuggle immigrants, according to arrest affidavits. Oscar Hernandez-Villanueva, 18, and Rosalio Tovar-Torres, 30, were charged with engaging in organized criminal activity — theft. On Tuesday, Austin police were conducting surveillance on a 2003 Yukon Denali, which they said in the affidavit had been involved in several large truck thefts in the past. The trucks were stolen for human smuggling, police said in the affidavit. Police said that they saw Tovar-Torres exit the Denali, which was parked at the Texas Department of Transportation offices at 7901 N. Interstate 35, and steal a 2001 Ford truck parked a few spaces away, the affidavit stated. The drivers of the Denali and the truck switched vehicles with each other at a nearby Goodwill store, according to the affidavit, and drove south on U.S. 183. When the vehicles arrived near the intersection of FM 973 and FM 812 in Southe

The Sideshow: Want more sex, guys? Stop helping with the chores  

Bill Gertz: A jihadist website posted a new threat by al Qaeda this week that promises to conduct “shocking” attacks on the United States and the West. The posting appeared on the Ansar al Mujahidin network Sunday and carried the headline, “Map of al Qaeda and its future strikes.” The message, in Arabic, asks: “Where will the next strike by al Qaeda be?” A translation was obtained by Inside the Ring. “The answer for it, in short: The coming strikes by al Qaeda , with God’s Might, will be in the heart of the land of nonbelief, America, and in France , Denmark , other countries in Europe, in the countries that helped and are helping France , and in other places that shall be named by al Qaeda at other times,” the threat states. The attacks will be “strong, serious, alarming, earth-shattering, shocking and terrifying.” Under a section of the post on the method of the attacks, the unidentified writer said the strikes would be “group and lone-wolf operations, in addition to the use of

RNC Research: SHOT: Today, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney Blamed The Weak GDP Figure On The GOP Using The Sequester As Leverage, Saying The Possibility Of Going Through With Sequestration Contributes To The Weak Economy. WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY JAY CARNEY: “I could read you quote after quote after quote from Republicans saying how desperately important it is to avoid sequester because of the impact, the negative impact it would have. And if they’ve changed their minds, they have changed their minds for apparently nakedly political reasons. Now that’s not…” REPORTER: “And what would those be?” CARNEY: “Well it says here in The Wall Street Journal, Speaker Boehner suggests that having sequester in his back pocket is a good thing in terms of negotiations. Now that’s not a positive way to approach an issue that does harm to our economy, and even the uncertainty the possibility creates has contributed to the GDP number we’ve seen today. So, you know, our point is, there are r

Houston Chronicle: John Cornyn has some work to do. For a man who has been a senator for 10 years and recently became the second-ranking Senate Republican leader, the San Antonio Republican does not have the universal name recognition of other Texas political figures like, say, Gov. Rick Perry. A new Public Policy Polling survey released today found that 30 percent of Texans say they don’t know enough about the state’s senior senator to have an opinion on his performance in office. Of those who do, Cornyn has more detractors than supporters. According to the PPP poll, 34 percent of voters approve of him while 36 percent hold a negative view of the veteran Republican. Warning signs for Cornyn: His approval rating stands at 17 percent among moderates, 26 percent among Independents, 26 percent among women and 30 percent among Latinos. ...  They had a similar poll earlier suggesting similar problems for Gov. Perry.  I get the problem they are trying to help the Democrats who are tryi

It is not surprising that Ted Cruz was such an effective appellate lawyer or was discribed by one of his liberal law professors as "scary smart."

LA Times: Student-loan delinquencies hit danger zone The delinquency rate, now 15.1%, signals that monstrous debt is a problem not only for students but potentially for the broader economy, a consumer credit watchdog reports. The air is starting to come out of what Glenn Reynolds calls the "higher education bubble."   For too long administrators have been pushing higher cost on unsophisticated student borrowers rather than cutting overhead.

Jerusalem Post: Israeli forces attacked a convoy on the Syrian-Lebanese border on Wednesday, sources told Reuters, after Israelis warned their Lebanese enemy Hezbollah against using chaos in Syria to acquire anti-aircraft missiles or chemical weapons. "The target was a truck loaded with weapons, heading from Syria to Lebanon," said one Western diplomat, adding that the consignment seemed unlikely to have included chemical weapons. A source among rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad said an air strike around dawn (0430 GMT) blasted a convoy on a mountain track about 5 kilometers (3 miles) south of where the main Damascus-Beirut highway crosses the border. Its load probably included high-tech anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles. "It attacked trucks carrying sophisticated weapons from the regime to Hezbollah," the source said, adding that it took place inside Syria, though the border is poorly defined in the area. ... The supposedly sophisticated Russian

Foreign Policy: Though economic conditions have improved in Zimbabwe since the days of 231 million percent inflation, this week brought some pretty disturbing news : After paying public workers' salaries last week, the balance in cash-strapped Zimbabwe's government public account stood at just $217, Finance Minister Tendai Biti said Tuesday.  "Last week when we paid civil servants there was $217 (left) in government coffers," Biti told journalists in the capital Harare, claiming some of them had healthier bank balances than the state.  "The government finances are in paralysis state at the present moment. We are failing to meet our targets.  "It's hard to think of a public servant than a less enviable job than Biti's, but despite this week's news, he deserves some credit for a pretty remarkable turnaround . The inflation that made the country world famous is now under control, thanks to his decision to abolish the country's curr

AP/Washington Post: Mexican officials broke up a bizarre cult that allegedly ran a sex-slavery ring among its followers on the U.S. border, Mexican immigration authorities said Tuesday.  The “Defensores de Cristo” or “Defenders of Christ” allegedly recruited women to have sex with a Spanish man who claimed he was the reincarnation of Christ.... ...  The ring was made up of foreigners none of whom were from the US.  They set up their operation in Nueva Laredo which is on the border near Laredo, Texas.  It is an area that has been dominated by the Zetas in recent years although the Sinaloa cartel has been making moves there recently.  In that regard the location was as bizarre as the cult.

Jennifer Rubin: ... I don’t know why they say the drop is unexpected. We are preparing to decimate national security, at a cost of perhaps 1.2 million jobs. The country was and still is poised to accept more tax hikes. The regulatory burden on employers and the prospect of Obamacare hang over our heads. No wonder we are in an economic slump. One more quarter of this, and, according to the technical definition, we will be in a recession. ... It already looks and feels like a recession and it could be one that gets worse if Obama stays on his same course of high taxes and high regulations.  His refusal to do entitlement reform is also a drag on the economy.  It is better to do it now than wait until it is too late.  Romney had better ideas but they were drown out by a relentlessly negative and deceitful campaign by Obama.  Those who were fooled by it will now have to suffer the consequences.

NY Times: U.S. Economy Unexpectedly Contracted in Fourth Quarter Economic output at the end of 2012 fell at an annual rate of 0.1 percent as weaker exports, a drop in military spending and a slower buildup in inventories combined to pull the economy down. I am sure that President Obama will not take responsibility for the performance of the economy in a down quarter.  It is getting hard to blame George Bush so of late he has been blaming House Republicans who want let him spend in the manner to which he would like to become accustomed. But it is hard to avoid the fact that businesses have been cutting back to pay for higher healthcare cost because of Obamacare.  Many are already laying off workers and reducing operations to meet the added cost.  Some upper income people are also reducing spending because of higher taxes.

Houston Chronicle: Gov. Rick Perry called for investing billions in water and transportation plus tax relief Tuesday, but what he left out of his State of the State speech got attention, too. He included no mention of the hot-button issues of abortion or immigration, and he left untouched the emotional debate over gun laws. Perry did push for tax relief of at least $1.8 billion over two years in a speech to a joint session of the Legislature in the House chamber , asking for feedback from Texans on exactly what form it should take. The relief would be paid for in part by taking money from the state rainy day fund, according to his proposed budget. He also asked lawmakers to dip into the rainy day fund for $3.7 billion to invest in water and transportation infrastructure, calling it critical to the state's economic development and Texans' quality of life. He highlighted South Texas higher education, calling for the region to get access to the Permanent University Fund that

Phillip Klein: ... there’s another reason why it will be difficult for Republicans to back legislation as currently outlined – immigration reform could represent a massive expansion of Obamacare, potentially costing hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade. As the Washington Post’s Sarah Kliff details , legalizing immigrants who are currently in the country illegally could make millions of them eligible for Obamacare. Though the exact number is difficult to pin down for a number of reasons, and we don’t know how many immigrants would obtain legal status as a result of any reform package, one Congressional Budget Office report estimated that 7 million to 8 million illegal immigrants would be uninsured after Obamacare because they won’t qualify for benefits. If this population were legalized and became eligible, it would mean increasing the number of Obamacare beneficiaries by over 20 percent. (The CBO has estimated that Obamacare would cover 36 million people either throu

It is an interesting contrast to see their hostility to Eric Cantor and their fawning questioning of Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Miami Herald: FBI agents late Tuesday night raided the West Palm Beach business of an eye doctor suspected of providing free trips and even underage Dominican Republic prostitutes to U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J. — who has denied what he calls the “fallacious allegations.” Agents gathered at the medical-office complex of Dr. Salomon Melgen, a contributor to Menendez and other prominent politicians, to start hauling away potential evidence in several vans. The investigation is believed to be focusing on Melgen’s finances and the allegations about Menendez’s trips and contact with prostitutes. A spokesman for Menendez could not be reached for comment, nor could Melgen. Melgen has an outstanding IRS lien of $11.1 million for taxes owed from 2006 to 2009, according to records filed with the Palm Beach County recorder’s office. A previous IRS lien for $6.2 million was released in 2011. Despite those financial problems, Melgen and his family have contributed at least $357,000 to candidate

Texas Congressman Mike McCaul (who represents my district) is trying to secure some of the sensor surveillance equipment that will be no longer needed in Afghanistan to be used on the Texas border with Mexico.  He and Congressman Henry Cuellar recently visited Afghanistan and while there asked the various generals what would happen to the equipment after US troops left and they said it would probably be left behind. McCaul and Cuellar then contacted DHS to try to get it transferred for use in stopping the infiltration from Mexico. The problem on the Texas border with Mexico has evolved in recent months.  Now the primary migrant traffic is from Central America and the cartels are now using human trafficking to get them into the US and transport them to major cities where they look for work.  Rather than trying to evade border agents, the cartels are spending time and money attempting to infiltrate and corrupt those agents. The administration has tried to push the perception that

Canada Free Press: Federal Judge Reed O’Conner ruled on Friday that 10 ICE agents and officers indeed do have standing to challenge in Federal court the so-called Morton Memo on prosecutorial discretion and the DREAM directive on deferred action. The agents filed their complaint in October, charging that unconstitutional and illegal directives from DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and ICE Director John Morton order the agents to violate federal laws or face adverse employment actions. This is a major first step for the ICE agents in their case against the administration! In his 35-page decision, Judge O’Conner found that the ICE agents and officers have standing, but that the State of Mississippi does not. He has not yet ruled, however, on the agents’ motion for a preliminary injunction to halt implementation of the DHS directives. The primary impetus for the lawsuit came last June, when Secretary Napolitano issued a memo offering deferred action and employment authorization to ill

Fox News: Feeling bullied by Rahm Emanuel? Bring your business down to Texas. That's the message Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is sending big banks and firearms companies, after the Chicago mayor urged those banks to stop lending to the gun manufacturers. The freshman senator sent a letter Tuesday to the CEOs of Bank of America and TD Bank Group offering up the Lone Star State as a place where they could do business without hassle from the government. He said he understands that, since they do "considerable business" with Chicago, they might be worried about the "risks" of not complying with Emanuel's request. "In light of the reception you have received in the Windy City, please know that Texas would certainly welcome more of your business and the jobs you create," Cruz wrote in his Jan. 29 letter. "Texans value jobs and value freedom, and over 1,000 people a day are moving to Texas (often from cities like Chicago), because Texas is where the job

Daily Caller: Researchers in Norway recently found that Global Warming is less severe than previously predicted by the United Nations climate authority, causing skeptics to argue that a growing body of data is on their side while experts cast doubt on the results. “It’s one in a substantial number of papers appearing in scientific literature within the last year or two, reducing the forecast global warming for the 21st century,” Patrick Michaels, director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, told The Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview. “This is just more evidence that the sensitivity was overestimated,” he added. ... The usual suspects disagree, but they are also usually wrong.  The proponents of the theory have a tendency to exaggerate the effects.  Whether it is because they are power hungry or are greedy for grants, they have lost credibility in the process.

SHUSHANNAH WALSHE , ABC News: Sarah Palin's break up with Fox News should not have been, well, breaking news, as she had publicly complained in August on Facebook that the network had canceled her appearances at the Republican National Convention. And going back even further, Palin didn't give Fox the scoop in October 2011 when she announced she wasn't going to run for president. Still, the news of the Fox split overtook Twitter and the news cycle by storm. One thing I've learned in my years covering Palin, which began on Aug. 29, 2008, when Sen. John McCain stunned the country by selecting her as his running mate: Everyone has an opinion on whatever she does, and she can get clicks and coverage like no one else. The prevailing theory now is that since Palin no longer has a megaphone like Fox News through which she can blast her opinions, her moment is now officially over. It might be true, but there have been so many "ends of Sarah Palin" that it's al

Guardian: The US government appears close to opening a new front in its fight against Islamist militants by planning a new base for surveillance drones in the west African country of Niger . American forces are already assisting a French offensive in neighbouring Mali that is aimed at recapturing the country's northern desert territory from the hands of Islamist rebels. But on Monday the US signed a military agreement with Niger that paves the way legally for US forces to operate on its soil and prompted a series of reports in the US media that the Pentagon was keen on opening a new drones base there. That news appeared to be confirmed by Niger government sources, who said the US ambassador in Niamey, Bisa Williams, had asked Niger's president, Mahamadou Issoufou, for permission to use surveillance drones and had been granted it. ... The move would be the latest in a gradual expansion of American surveillance drones in Africa , which have so far been operated from Burkina F

Washington Examiner: An internal study for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security describes 15 incidents in known associates of Mexican drug cartels tried to inflitrate the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting. The same study detailed "turf battles, internal dysfunction and other troubles" that have hobbled the agency in its efforts "to get a handle on corruption and other misconduct within its ranks," CIR said. The internal study was conducted by the Homeland Securities and Analysis Institute, which is an internal think tank for DHS. The study has been kept under wraps for more than a year, according to CIR. The study's authors said there may have been many more attempts by drug cartels to infiltrate the U.S. government in addition to the 15 discussed in their document. "As part of lie detector tests, prospective hires have admitted to drug trafficking, human smuggling and other illegal activity

Daniel Greenfield: Sweden has imported huge numbers of Muslim immigrants with catastrophic effect. Sweden’s population grew from 9 million to 9.5 million in the years 2004-2012, mainly due to immigration from “countries like Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia”. 16 percent of all newborns have mothers born in non-Western countries. Employment rate among immigrants: 54 percent. Sweden now has the second highest number of rapes in the world , after South Africa, which at 53.2 per 100,000 is six times higher than the United States. Statistics now suggest that 1 out of every 4 Swedish women will be raped. In 2003, Sweden’s rape statistic s were higher than average at 9.24, but in 2005 they shot up to 36.8 and by 2008 were up to 53.2. Now they are almost certainly even higher as Muslim immigrants continue forming a larger percentage of the population. With Muslims represented in as many as 77 percent of the rape cases and a major increase in rape cases paralleling a major increase in Muslim

Fox News: A key figure in Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi's government called the Holocaust a hoax cooked up by U.S. intelligence operatives and claimed the 6 million Jews who were killed by Nazis simply moved to the U.S. The outrageous claims, by Fathi Shihab-Eddim, a senior figure close to President Morsi who is now responsible for appointing the editors of all state-run Egyptian newspapers, came as the world marked Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27, and also as the U.S. continues to assess its relationship with the increasingly radical Arab state. “The myth of the Holocaust is an industry that America invented,” Shihab-Eddim said, leaving no room for doubt that the Egyptian government -- like Iran's -- has at the very least significant elements that deny humanity’s greatest crime of all. “U.S. intelligence agencies in cooperation with their counterparts in allied nations during World War II created it [the Holocaust] to destroy the image of their opponents in Germany,

Washington Times: Even as President Obama travels to Las Vegas Tuesday to call for legalizing illegal immigrants, the latest numbers from the U.S. Border Patrol suggest that the flow across the nation’s southwest border jumped by 9 percent up last year. The Border Patrol made 356,873 arrests along the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2012, up from 327,577 in 2011, according to figures obtained by the Associated Press and confirmed by The Washington Times. Border Patrol officials estimate that apprehensions are a good proxy for illegal crossings, so when the numbers go up, it means that the flow of illegal immigrants is going up as well. Last year’s increase marks a reversal. Apprehensions peaked in 2005 at 1.2 million and had been steadily dropping every year since as first President George W. Bush and then Mr. Obama committed more manpower and resources to the border. In his first term Mr. Obama said he had fortified the border so much that it could now be deemed secure, and Congre

Ed Rogers: ... My favorite quote from the “news analysis” is, “air travel emissions now account for only about 5 percent of warming.” What a ridiculous statement. Five percent of warming? Not only has the New York Times determined how much the planet has warmed, they’re even able to assign percentages to the offending behaviors. The president’s inaugural address has brought this issue back to the center of the political stage in the United States. The Democrats in Congress and the president now face the burden of saying who they will charge and what burdens they will create in exchange for … something. We’re about to see where ideology and political practicality collide. There is no feasible scenario where Americans could do anything to control the world’s climate. The only question is, how much are we going to pay and what is that amount supposed to get us? I’ve been watching polling on this issue for several years, and it’s clear that while voters can be concerned about glo

Byron York: "On day one of our bill, the people without status who are not criminals or security risks will be able to live and work here legally." With those words, Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer, who moments earlier had heaped effusive praise on Republican colleagues standing with him in the Senate press room, made it infinitely more difficult for many GOP lawmakers to sign on to the bipartisan immigration proposal put forward by the so-called Gang of Eight. The problem is that giving instant legality -- it's now called "probationary legal status" -- clashes with the principle, deeply held among many conservatives and Republicans, that securing the border must come before creating a mechanism for legality and, ultimately, a path to citizenship for the roughly 11 million illegal immigrants already here. Sen. John McCain, standing at Schumer's side, surely knows that. Back in 2007, as he ran for the Republican nomination for president, McCain ran into a t

Andrew Malcolm: It's a good thing our federal government is going on a strict spending diet to curb its out-of-control borrowing. Otherwise, the latest piece of spending legislation passed Monday worth more than $50 billion might have been substantial. Good grief! Remember -- how can any of us forget? -- that long, hard fight President Obama just staged to squeeze more taxes out of wealthy Americans? The top 2% wealthiest already pay 45% of the taxes. But Democrat Obama felt they needed to pay their "fair share," despite the risks that new taxation presents to creating real jobs for the rest of us, Obama already being employed for the next 1,452 days. But who's counting? The Real Big Spender is off to Las Vegas this morning for a $1.5 million-plus photo op day-trip to sell his immigration reform ideas to a select audience that already likes it. For weeks Obama traveled the country telling anyone who would listen and some who'd rather not that he's so absolut

Austin American-Statesman: Rural school officials insisted Monday that their classrooms will be safer if teachers are allowed to carry guns, but urban districts and top law enforcement officials warned the practice could put those educators at “high risk” of being mistakenly shot by responding officers in the event of a campus shooting. The opposing opinions emerged at the first public hearing on school safety at the State Capitol since a gunman invaded a Connecticut elementary school in December, killing 20 children and 5 adults. Lawmakers are exploring a variety of options to prevent such a tragedy in Texas: State-paid training for teachers who are authorized to carry guns in classrooms, special voter-approved taxing authority for districts to pay for beefed-up security measures, even changes in state law to allow concealed-handgun licensees to carry firearms in college and university buildings. If there was a common thread in testimony Monday, it was to let local school boards and

Kirsten Powers: There is no war on terror for the Obama White House, but there is one on Fox News. In a recent interview with The New Republic, President Obama was back to his grousing about the one television news outlet in America that won’t fall in line and treat him as emperor. Discussing breaking Washington's partisan gridlock, the president told TNR,"If a Republican member of Congress is not punished on Fox News...for working with a Democrat on a bill of common interest, then you’ll see more of them doing it." Alas, the president loves to whine about the media meanies at Fox News. To him, these are not people trying to do their jobs. No, they are out to get him. What other motive could a journalist have in holding a president accountable? Why oh why do Ed Henry and Chris Wallace insist on asking hard questions? Make them stop! The president seems more comfortable talking to "real journalists" such as Chris Hughes, who asked the question in the TNR interv