PrairiePundit

IBD: Shock Poll: 59% Back Trump On Deportation of Illegals For some reason the media and the political elites have always been wrong about the public attitude about illegal immigration.  It has  happened every time they have tried to push "comprehensive immigration reform."  No one has been more wrong that Hillary Clinton and her supporter Jorge Ramos.

Daily Mail: US military is developing 'Gremlin' drones to overwhelm enemy defenses and conduct missions too dangerous for manned aircraft The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is developing the swarms of re-usable drone aircraft that can work together to perform a mission. The drones could be used as many as 20 times as they returned to an airborne aircraft carrier that was out of range of enemy fire.  It would be a potent stand off weapon that could prepare the battle field for man fighter jets to follow.  They could probably take the place of expensive cruise missiles.

Christian Science Monitor: Ben Carson, in many ways, is the antithesis of Donald Trump. And they’re both hot properties in the GOP presidential nomination race, ranked one and two nationally , and tied for the lead in the latest poll out of Iowa. Trump and Carson each got 23 percent of the vote among likely Iowa GOP caucus-goers, according to a Monmouth University poll released Monday. Iowa’s Republican caucuses, scheduled for Feb. 2, are the first contest in the 2016 nominating race, and are a crucial test.Mr. Trump is loud and bombastic; Dr. Carson is low-key and genial. When Trump speaks, he chops his hands in the air as if to enhance his brashness. Carson has calm, steady, surgeon’s hands – “Gifted Hands,” as his memoir is titled. Trump comes across as the aggressively self-confident businessman he is; Carson has the bedside manner of the physician he is. The outsider appeal of the three nonpoliticians in the GOP race – Trump, Carson, and Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett P...

Washington Times: Californians are fleeing the state in unprecedented numbers, and their primary destination is Texas, according to an analysis issued Monday. About 5 million Californians departed the Golden State between 2004 and 2013, while 3.9 million arrived from other states for a net population loss of roughly 1.1 million, The Sacramento Bee reported Monday, using tax return data from the Internal Revenue Service. The estimated loss in annual income to California? Roughly $26 billion. Nearly 600,000 Californians wound up in Texas, while about 348,000 Texans moved to California. The other top net recipients of Californians were Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, the analysis found. Even so, California has seen its population increase slightly from 37 million in 2010 to nearly 39 million, thanks largely to an influx of foreign-born immigrants. The graphic also shows that the people leaving California earn more overall than those entering California. For example, those leavin...

Anatole Kaletsky: ... The predictive significance of oil prices is indeed impressive, but only as a contrary indicator: Falling oil prices have never correctly predicted an economic downturn. On all recent occasions when the price of oil was halved – 1982-1983, 1985-1986, 1992-1993, 1997-1998, and 2001-2002 – faster global growth followed. Conversely, every global recession in the past 50 years has been preceded by a sharp increase in oil prices. Most recently, the price of oil almost tripled, from $50 to $140, in the year leading up to the 2008 crash; it then plunged to $40 in the six months immediately before the economic recovery that started in April 2009. An important corollary for commodity-producing developing countries is that industrial metal prices, which really are leading indicators of economic activity, may well increase after an oil-price collapse. In 1986-87, for example, metal prices doubled a year after oil prices fell by half. A powerful economic mechanism un...

Rick Manning: ... The stated objective of lowering carbon emissions might make sense if these very regulations weren’t projected to have the perverse effect of encouraging the continued and expanded burning of these fuels in countries with significantly lower environmental standards while costing hundreds of thousands of American jobs . When coupled with the Obama Administration’s goal of establishing a Trans-Pacific Partnership that will encourage outsourcing manufacturing to nations with virtually non-existent environmental protections, the net result would be fewer well-paying jobs here at home to help raise the middle class and more pollution worldwide. But this may be considered an esoteric argument. One Obama EPA regulation that would have an obvious devastating impact on the very poor is the EPA’s rule on residential wood heaters. This regulation would make the cost of manufacturing heaters that burn wood prohibitively expensive denying consumers a low-cost means to safel...

Marc Thiessen: In his seminal essay “ How to argue effectively ,” humorist Dave Barry had some advice for what to do “when your opponent is obviously right and you are spectacularly wrong.” The answer, he wrote, is simple: “Compare your opponent to Adolf Hitler.” That is precisely what Hillary Clinton did Friday. A day after comparing her GOP opponents to terrorists, Clinton played the Hitler card, declaring that Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans want to “go and literally pull [illegal immigrants] out of their homes and their workplaces . . . Round them up, put them, I don’t know, in buses, boxcars, in order to take them across our border.” Clinton’s comments reeked of desperation — a candidate willing to say anything to distract us from the FBI investigation into her e-mails. They also reeked of hypocrisy. Recall that it was her husband, Bill Clinton, who sent federal agents with semiautomatic weapons to bust down an immigrant’s door and drag away a terrified, screaming child...

LA Times: China and Russia are cross-indexing hacked data to target U.S. spies, officials say At least one clandestine network of American engineers and scientists who provide technical assistance to U.S. undercover operatives and agents overseas has been compromised as a result, according to two U.S. officials. For no drama Obama it is no big deal taht US national security is at risk because of his failure to safe guard it.

The Black Lives Matter movement is based on the lie "Hands up don't shoot."

Town Hall: 'Liberal Agenda' To Blame For Islamic State Rise Says Former Army Boss ... ... “In Ukraine, as in Syria and Libya, there is a lack of strategy. The problem is the inability to think things through. It seems to be more about the Notting Hill liberal agenda rather than statecraft.” ... I would add that this is what happens when Obama abdicates leadership responsibility and turns decisions into a co-op where those willing to do the least control the agenda.

Rowan Scarborough: Green Berets have growing doubts of duties with skittish political leadership I think it starts at the top with leaders who are trying to appease a President who has an amateurish sense of leadership and avoiding responsibility.

Bing West: ... The intelligence community, the military and civilian leadership in the Pentagon and the State Department all recommended leaving a residual force in Iraq. The president decided otherwise. Similarly, he promised the removal of the Bashar al-Assad regime from Syria, then did nothing as the Islamic State turned that nation into its lair. Now he confronts the tragic consequences. As commander in chief, only he can orchestrate the political, military and strategic components to wage a resolute war. He has declined to do so. Given that reality, Neller exhibited prudence in not endorsing the infusion of advisers on the front lines. It does not assure victory; it does require coordination, however quietly and at arm’s distance, with Iranian forces. It places our forces under the de facto control of an untrustworthy Baghdad government. Deploying forward air controllers places us in the middle of a war that our commander in chief has no intention of winning. The administration ...

NY Times: University of Texas at Austin Moves Confederate Statue A statue of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, was taken down from its pedestal on the University of Texas at Austin campus after a legal appeal to keep it in place was rejected. I got both my undergraduate degree and law degree from the University of Texas and I would be hard press to tell you where the Jefferson Davis statue was originally located.   The George Washington statue dominates the main mall right below the famous Texas Tower.  The main entrance to the campus features the Littlefield fountain with statues of wild horses prancing through the water.  In my undergraduate days, it was sometimes filled with soap bubbles after some prankster emptied a box of Tide detergent into the fountain. So Jefferson Davis has been scrubbed from view.  Will George Washington be next?  Do not put it past those trying to appease the Black Lives Matter Mob.

Erick Erickson: Perhaps I am overly cynical, but when I heard that Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) N/A% referred toSen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 100% as a “jacka–” at a fundraiser in Colorado, my first thought was that he knows the establishment’s goose is cooked. Between Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 100%, he’d prefer Cruz. Boehner, to be sure, hates Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 100%. But he also knows the difference between Trump and Cruz is that Trump is, even now, pouring gasoline around the Capitol and White House waiting to strike a match. Cruz, for all of Boehner’s dislike of him, is the more reasonable of the two. “We can do business with him,” Boehner thinks. Boehner is, if nothing else, a survivor in politics. Caught on the wrong side of the Gingrich coup, he waited it all out, plotted slowly, and got himself into the Speaker’s chair. He knows with Trump, win or lose, the party is over. With Cruz, if Cruz wins the party might be able to repair itself and move on and if Cruz loses Boehner a...

Victor Davis Hanson: How Illegal Immigration Finally Turned Off the Public If there were not a Donald Trump, he would likely have had to have been invented. The political consensus among the Washington elites about the need for "comprehensive immigration reform" is being rejected by voters.  Hanson gives several reasons for the rejection including the cynicism of Mexico and that of its supporters like Jorge Ramos.

Moe Lane: ... And that’s important not because the Democrats are having second thoughts about the Iran deal, although they really should be. It’s important because the Democratic party is probably quite keen to be in a position where they can effectively pretend that they’re not in favor of the Iran deal, if necessary. There’s a saying in one of the social clubs that I belong to: Non scriptus, non est . Which basically means “If it’s not written down, it didn’t happen.” A resolution that puts the Democratic party officially on the side of the President could end up being a profoundly embarrassing resolution indeed; replacing it with a more informal letter showing personal support by DNC members would be safer. ... They know this deal is opposed by the majority of votes and they do not want such a  vote in support of it to be used in ads against them.  That is also why Obama is conspiring with Harry Reid to try to filibuster a resolution of disapproval of the deal.  T...

Obama's strategy has been a complete failure.  His pin prick air strikes and decapitation strikes have done nothing to dislodge ISIL, which has spread its tentacles from Afghanistan to North Africa.  The White House management of the war has been a disaster. Meanwhile Egypt has sentenced 12 ISIL supporters to death for attacks on security forces.

AP/Fuel Fix: A large fire broke out Sunday in the basement of a sprawling residential complex in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich east, killing at least 11 people and injuring many others, officials in the kingdom said. The blaze began early in the morning in a multistory residential compound known as Radium in the eastern city of Khobar. The complex houses workers for state oil giant Saudi Aramco, which oversees petroleum production in the OPEC powerhouse. The company later put out a statement saying that the fire resulted in 10 fatalities and 83 injuries. It said an investigation has begun into the cause of the fire, which sent thick black smoke billowing from the pink-and-tan colored building. The Interior Ministry’s General Directorate of Civil Defense said victims were of various nationalities, without elaborating. Like many companies in the Gulf, Aramco relies heavily on foreign professionals and other migrant workers. Earlier the directorate reported 219 people were and said ...

Washington Examiner: Ahead of his 3-day swing through Alaska, President Obama announced Sunday that Mount McKinley will return to its native Alaskan name, Denali — meaning "the great one." ... Here is the SUV it is named after :   The GMC Yukon Denali XL is a big luxury SUV. This should fit in nicely with his global warming pitch in Alaska.

BBC: Italian energy group Eni says it has found one of the world's largest natural gas fields off Egypt's coast. The company said the area was 1,450m (4,757 feet) beneath the surface and covered 100 sq km (39 sq miles). It could hold as much as 30 trillion cubic feet of gas, or 5.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent, Eni said. The company says that the Zohr field "could become one of the world's largest natural-gas finds" and help meet Egypt's gas needs for decades. ... The Egyptian economy certainly needs such a boost.  This coincides with the huge natural gas field found off the coast of Israel.  It could further shake up the dominance of the Gulf states and Russia in the natural gas business.

Daily Mail: Career criminal charged with capital murder after 'executing Houston cop in gas station ambush' as sheriff blames 'out of control' Black Lives Matter movement for his death Some of the statements made by the group called for the killing of cops and whites in general.  Many of them act like racist who think only black lives matter.  While law enforcement has not given a definitive motive for the killing, the statements by the group have been in the media for some time.

Rasmussen Reports: Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump during the first pre-primary debate reiterated a point he’s made throughout his campaign that “the big problem this country has is being politically correct." Most Americans strongly agree with that sentiment. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 71% of American Adults think political correctness is a problem in America today, while only 18% disagree. Ten percent (10%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here .) ... What this poll suggest is just how unpopular liberal attempts to control the language have become.  It si a real danger sign for Democrats who have been the chief proponents of political correctness.

His critique of Obama's foreign policy is devastating and right on.

Frank Bruni: Kasich is the Real Threat to Hillary Clinton Have you noticed how liberals tend to build up "moderate" Republicans during the primary then destroy them in the general election taking advantage of a dispirited conservative base?   McCain and Romney are two cases in point.  It has the effect of suppressing conservative turnout making it easier for Democrats to survive their bad policies. Kasich seems to fit that role this cycle.  While Trump is also more liberal on issues like taxes than the rest of the field, he is probably too much of a wild card for the liberals too push, and his stance on immigration is too in your face for them.

Sunday Telegraph: French intelligence fears Islamist 'missile strike on airliner' or 9/11-style attack Army prepares for civil unrest as Islamist threat grows amid fears of September 11-style attack or missile strike on passenger airliner. The Islamist are determined to engage in mass murder for Allah attacks on those who do not follow their weird beliefs.  Europe's reaction continues to be too defensive and there is a lack of leadership from the US.  The most effective means of stopping this threat is too wipe out ISIL and its bases, but there is a lack of will in the West to do what is needed.

Daily Beast: Spies: Obama’s Brass Pressured Us to Downplay ISIS Threat Obama seems determined to push his old "junior varsity" meme even when it is clear that the treat is much greater. Senior military and intelligence officials have inappropriately pressured U.S. terrorism analysts to alter their assessments about the strength of the self-proclaimed Islamic State , three sources familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast. Analysts have been pushed to portray the group as weaker than the analysts believe it actually is, according to these sources, and to paint an overly rosy picture about how well the U.S.-led effort to defeat the group is going. ... This enforced delusion is very dangerous for US national security.   It is a reflection of the corrupt core of the Obama administration that hears on what it wants to hear and disregards the rest.

Washington Post: As migrant tragedies shock Europe, a bigger crisis looms in Mideast Attention is fixed on Syrian refugees swarming into Europe, but they’re only a fraction of the 4 million who have fled into Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq. Muslim countries have no concept of assimilation of migrants.  They put them into make shift concentration camps and as the Palestinians can attest, they become permanent ghettos.   For those who do flee to the west there is also a tendency to start new enclaves rather than assimilate.  They cling to their failed culture and embrace it even tighter as things get tough.  It is why they are so vulnerable to Islam's preachers of hate and intolerance.

NY Times: Zombie Factories Stalk the Sputtering Chinese Economy The government is keeping failing factories on life support in an effort to maintain social stability, but the policy may hinder a return to healthy growth. It si the same reason socialist countries like Venezuela, Ecuador and Mexico are reeling from the down turn in the oil markets.  In the US businesses are being forced to cut staff and become more efficient to remain competitive, but in the socialist countries they can't seem to even imagine such a  response.   When governments do intervene it is usually to subsidize failure. But socialist are incorrigibly wrong headed on basic economics.  It is why people like Bernie Sanders will still push socialism despite its obvious failures.  In France and Britain it is even worse.  It is a disease to make people equally poor.

AP/Fuel Fix: With melting glaciers and rising seas as his backdrop, President Barack Obama will visit Alaska next week to press for urgent global action to combat climate change, even as he carefully calibrates his message in a state heavily dependent on oil. Obama will become the first sitting president to visit the Alaska Arctic when he travels to Kotzebue — population around 3,000 — just north of the Arctic Circle at the end of his three-day trip. He’ll kick off the visit Monday with a speech to a State Department-hosted conference on climate change and the Arctic. The unambiguous goal of the president’s trip is to use dramatic and alarming changes to Alaska’s climate to instill fresh urgency into his global warming agenda. Sea ice is melting, critical permafrost is thawing and Alaska’s cherished glaciers are liquefying — powerful visuals that Obama hopes will illustrate the threat to natural wonders and livelihoods and serve as a global call to action. “This is all real,” O...

Politico: ISIL fight forces U.S. to choose between allies Syrian Kurds are serving as 'boots on the ground' against the Islamic State, but Turkey opposes their involvement. The Turks have been worthless allies in this fight to date, and there is substantial evidence they have been helping ISIL.  While the Kurds are the only real effective fighting force in the region that is willing to take on ISIL.  Even with the Turks belated involvement, they are just wanting to join the pin prick air campaign that is not even targeting hundreds of ISIL training camps.  Even with their large army, the Turks are not committing ground troops to destroy ISIL.  They are just using this campaign as an excuse to attack the Kurds who are actually doing the fighting.

AP: President Hassan Rouhani said Saturday he opposes a parliamentary vote on the landmark nuclear deal reached with world powers because terms of the agreement would turn into legal obligations if passed by lawmakers. Rouhani told a news conference that the deal was a political understanding reached with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany, not a pact requiring parliamentary approval. The deal also says Iran would implement the terms voluntarily, he said. The historic deal calls for limiting Iran's nuclear program in exchange for lifting economic sanctions. "If the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is sent to (and passed by) parliament, it will create an obligation for the government . it will mean the president, who has not signed it so far, will have to sign it," Rouhani said. "Why should we place an unnecessary legal restriction on the Iranian people?" ... So, he claims the deal is binding on the US, but not binding on Ira...

Fox News: The Mexican government is warning that Texas’ denial of birth certificates for U.S. children born here to undocumented immigrants stands to imperil the relationship between Mexico and the Lone Star State. The concern was raised in an amicus brief filed Monday evening to lend support to immigrants parents who sued Texas after being denied birth certificates for their U.S.-born children, even after showing their “matrículas,” the ID cards issued by the Mexican Consulate to undocumented immigrants. Mexico says the practice stands in stark contrast to the historical practice among countries to accept passports or other forms of ID to issue birth certificates. “[It] not only jeopardizes their dignity and well-being, but could threaten the unique relationship between Mexico and Texas,” the Mexican government said in a brief tied to a lawsuit filed against the state by Texas Civil Rights Project and Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid. The lawsuit, the Texas Tribune reported, was filed on...

Daily Mail: Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has hit out at Univision anchor Jorge Ramos during an interview, branding him a 'dangerous activist'. Speaking about Ramos being ejected from a Trump press conference for shouting questions about immigration, Palin said: 'You sure schooled that radical activist. He's not doing that again.' Palin made her remarks while asking Trump about the unfair treatment she claimed conservatives receive from the media, asking The Donald whether he felt he was treated badly over the incident. Trump reminded Palin that he is currently suing Univision for $500million after cancelling his Miss Teen USA pageant following his remarks on Mexicans when he launched his campaign. He added: 'The press was actually quite good to me on that one, he was screaming and ranting and raving. I actually didn't know who he was at first. ... There is more. She has certainly had her own experience in dealing with a hostile media.  I do not ha...

Washington Post: Migrant smugglers were part of a vast criminal syndicate A top European law enforcement official said the hunt is on for the ringleaders of the sophisticated human smuggling network. It does appear to be an organized effort much like some of the migration into the US being run as a sideline by the drug cartels.  People from failed cultures like the ones in teh Middle East seem willing to pay and do anything to escape even as they attempt to bring aspects of that failed culture with them.

NY Times: U.S. Is Seen as Lagging Behind in Scramble for the Arctic Some lawmakers in Congress, analysts, and even some government officials say the United States is behind other nations, chief among them Russia, in preparing for the new realities facing the region. You would think with his fixation on global warming he would have an interest in an areas that is going to become much more hospitable.  If he is right about it, the Arctic will become one of the more important trade routes shaving thousands of miles off trips from Asia to the East Coast of the US.  It should also be an important resource for minerals and energy.

Mollie Hemingway: The 3 Saddest Things About Hillary Clinton Comparing Pro-Lifers To Terrorists Her extremist rhetoric is deeply wrong and a sign of a flailing campaign helmed by an unsteady leader. She followed that up by comparing those who want to protect the border with Nazis.  This kind of name calling is not Presidential, but she appears to be mimicking Donald Trump with ever more extreme insults.  So in Hillary Clinton's world those who want to stop the killing of fetuses with a beating heart to sell body parts are terrorist and those who push for the rule of law on immigration are Nazis.

AP/NY Post: A sheriff’s deputy in uniform was shot and killed Friday night while filling up his patrol car at a suburban Houston gas station, according to authorities. Deputy Darren Goforth, 47, was pumping gas into his vehicle about 8:30 p.m. Friday when a man approached him from behind and fired multiple shots, Harris County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Ryan Sullivan told The Associated Press. Once the deputy fell to the ground, the suspect fired more shots. Police described the suspect as a dark-complexioned male who is believed to be between 20 and 25 years old, and stands about 5-foot-10 to 6-feet tall. He was wearing a white T-shirt and red shorts and driving a red or maroon pickup-style truck with an extended cab. Police said an intensive search for the suspect remained ongoing Saturday morning. No motive was determined for the shooting. Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman said Goforth, who was a 10-year veteran of the force, had a wife and two children. ... The deputy ...

Washington Post: Police arrest foreigner in Bangkok shrine bombing case A man with a fake Turkish passport and bomb-making materials is held in connection with the deadly incident two weeks ago. Fake documents in Bangkok are something of a cottage industry, but other reports indicate the suspect was captured in a predominately Muslim section of the city.   Bangkok has several shrines to Buda and in the case of this bombing a Hindu site.  There have been other attacks by Muslim terrorist in the city in recent years by foreigners.  The home grown Muslim terrorist tend to be more near the border with Malaysia.

NY Times: Obama Tries to Soothe Divided Jewish Community on Iran Deal Speaking to Jewish umbrella organizations, President Obama defended his nuclear accord with Iran and called for a more civil debate. Obama has been a very divisive President  who has become even more uncivil as his powers of persuasion have failed him.  His style of capitulation to foreign enemies like Iran while refusing to negotiate in good faith with domestic critics feeds the divisiveness.  He has pushed a hated healthcare program on the people of this country and is now pushing a deal with Iran that is overwhelming opposed by the couple in the US.  And he is the one calling opponents crazy?

NY Times: Europe’s Halting Response to Migrant Crisis Draws Criticism as Toll Mounts Matthias Rietschel/Getty Images Migrants in Germany, which is generally seen as generous in its acceptance of refugees, looked through donations at a shelter in Heidenau. The escalating death toll has highlighted the bloc’s failure to quit squabbling and come up with a unified plan for a crisis months in the making. One of the answers is the Muslim culture is failing in countries run by Muslims. One of the dangers to Europe is that these people will cling to that failed culture when they settle in Europe.  That will lead into increased violence through out the continent. The best way to slow the migration is to take effective military action against the major producers of this violence in the Middle East.  That would start with seizing the territory held by ISIL and al Qaeda.  Europe has the means to do this along with the US.  It just lacks the will to stop the suff...

Fuel Fix: Shale boom has made U.S. oil production less vulnerable to hurricanes ... In 2003, the Gulf of Mexico produced 27 percent of the nation’s crude oil output, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. A decade later, that share had dropped to 16 percent. Natural gas production from the Gulf tumbled from a high of 26 percent in 1997 to just 4 percent in 2014. ... With storage tanks also filled any disruption in the flow from the Gulf can be easily managed.   In recent years there have actually been very few hurricanes that actually went into the Gulf of Mexico.

Bill Gertz: Pentagon Not Targeting Islamic State Training Camps No airstrikes against 60 camps producing 1,000 fighters monthly I have complained often about the failure to target the victory parade ISIL had after taking Ramadi. You get the impression that the targeting is controlled by someone not interested in defeating this enemy and stopping its terror campaign.   For a long time I thought the campaign was being run by amateurs.  I may have been too kind.

Daily Mail: Watch Boeing test radical new 'silent strike' laser weapon small enough to fit in a suitcase but powerful enough to blast a drone out of the air The Compact Laser Weapon System can be assembled in 15 minutes, and then destroy targets from up to 22 miles away with an an energy beam of up to 10 kilowatts. It appears to operate using a diesel  generator for power, giving it almost unlimited.  It can destroy drones and incoming mortar rounds quickly.  The larger units can burn through the targets even quicker.

Daily Mail: University of Tennessee tells staff and students to stop using 'he' and 'she' - and switch to 'xe', 'zir' and 'xyr' instead This appears to be the opposite of education.  It is taking political correctness into the giggle zone.  How can you respect an institution that promotes such silliness to make a tiny minority actually stand out?

Washington Times: Sarah Palin ripped ESPN as “a journalistic embarrassment,” following the network’s suspension of baseball analyst Curt Schilling for a tweet that compared radical Muslims to Nazis. “ ESPN — what happened to you? Your intolerant PC police are running amok and making a joke out of you!” the former Alaska governor wrote in a Facebook post Thursday night. “By picking and choosing who they’ll tolerate and who they’ll try to destroy, ESPN has zero credibility as a sound and reasonable media outlet.” Her comments come after ESPN   suspended   Mr. Schilling for what it called a “completely unacceptable” tweet, which contained a meme that read: “It’s said only 5-10% of Muslims are extremists. In 1940, only 7% of Germans were Nazis. How’d that go?” Mrs. Palin argued that Mr. Schilling ’s tweet was accurate, and actually “too generous in estimating Muslims’ attitudes.” “Reports show it’s 88% of Egyptian Muslims favoring DEATH for anyone who leaves Islam. The m...

Glenn Kessler: Why you shouldn’t retweet Sanders’s claim that Hitler ‘won an election’ Hitler did not take power through and election. ... But while there were many elections held in Germany in 1932, Hitler was a loser when he appeared on the ballot. He mostly gained power not through the voting booth but through violence, intimidation and deceit. Still, we wavered between Three and Four Pinocchios, given that the Nazis did gain seats in the parliament. But we ultimately decided that calling it “an election” devalues the traumatic history of the era, and Sanders should clarify the record — especially when legions of his supporters are repeating his flawed history lesson all over the Internet. Four Pinocchios ... This seems another testament to the failure of liberal education.  Like Obama, Sanders appears to be a poor student of history.

Daily Mail: Thousands breach Europe's wall of wire: Young migrant gets her hair tangled while scrambling into Hungary - as police say 700 children crossed border in just one day Young Syrian forced to crawl under razor-sharp fence on Serbian border 3,241 migrants crossed into Hungary yesterday alone – a record number Migrants in desperate scramble before new four-metre barrier is erected Budapest threatens to deploy army after unrest erupted at refugee centre Europe is getting the fallout from its failure to destroy ISIL.  It is not from lack of capacity, but from lack of will and the results is a migration crisis of gigantic proportions.  It is a desperate invasion from a failed culture with people who will likely cling to that failed culture when they get into Europe.

S.E. Cupps: ... I have a different explanation for ascendant Trumpism. It isn't the result of conservatism but of liberalism. Thanks to unrelenting demands by the left for increasingly preposterous levels of political correctness over the past decade, people are simply fed up. Trump survives -- nay, thrives! -- because he is seen as the antidote, bravely and unimpeachably standing athwart political correctness. The new era of liberal political correctness -- in which colleges designate "free speech zones," words like "American" and "mother" are considered discriminatory, and children are suspended from school for firing make-believe weapons -- has reached critical mass. If not for the loony sensitivities foisted upon us by the left, someone like Trump would be immediately dismissed as unprofessional and unserious, an incoherent blurter. Instead, he's the equally extreme response to extreme correctness -- if everything is offensive in Liberalvi...

Benny Avni: Coordinated multi-arrest raids in Spain and Morocco this week indicate that it’s high time we do away with the “lone wolf” theory when fighting terror. Madrid and Rabat coordinated their simultaneous raids, and I’m told they acted partially on information from Paris. All in all, 14 men were arrested on various charges related to recruitment of fighters for ISIS. The raids followed last week’s much-publicized train incident in France , which could have become one of Europe’s bloodiest, but for the heroism of four Americans and several other train passengers who bravely disarmed the would-be terrorist. Everything in that incident screamed “lone wolf,” and indeed that’s how it was initially reported. The “wolf” in question was Ayoub El-Khazzani, a Moroccan-born 26-year-old who has lived in Spain and other European countries since 2007, where he was radicalized. He first pumped himself up watching ISIS-produced propaganda in the bathroom of a high-speed train traveling in Eur...

Washington Post: ... The invitation was sent from Abedin’s State Department account as Clinton planned for an official trip in her role as secretary. The dinner was attended by the chief executive of the private consulting firm Teneo, which has close ties to the Clintons and employed Abedin as an adviser. Seated around the tables were donors to Hillary Clinton’s campaigns as well as to the Clinton Foundation, where Abedin was a contractor preparing for Clinton’s eventual transition to the charity. And Clinton, who was also paying Abedin out of personal funds to prepare for her transition from secretary of state to private life, showed up for about an hour. ... The event was at a private club in Dublin.  The excerpt is from a long piece giving some of the details of the many hats worn bu Abedin and the many different payrolls she was on.  Abedin is also at the center of the email scandal that is enveloping Clinton's Presidential campaign.  She is tied to at least on o...

NY Times: Donald Trump’s Latest Target: The New York Times On Thursday, during a speech in Greenville, S.C., he deployed a new prop: a copy of The New York Times , from which he read, on and off, for about eight minutes — alternately praising and mocking a front-page story about him. When Trump first started going after the media, I suspected it was because he was thin skinned, but I am beginning to believe he does it because voters really do not like the media, especially of that media is attacking Republicans.   The Times joins Megyn Kelly as a tool in his arsenal to appeal to voters.  Those attacks appear to be part of his charm to many voters. It would not surprise me to see other candidates start doing this.

NY Times: Iran Deal Opens a Vitriolic Divide Among American Jews Jewish lawmakers who support the nuclear deal with Iran have been likened to Nazi collaborators, and those who oppose it have been called traitors. I suspect this disagreement is more about loyalty to Democrats and Obama than to Israel and the Jews who live there.  Why else would you call opponents of the deal a traitor, since the deal is unpopular in Israel too.  It has been said that liberal Jews in the US put liberalism ahead of everything else and that appears to be the case with supporters of this deal.  When the support for what looks like an irrational deal is so strong, you have to look for other reasons and they are still hard to find.

Byron York: In GOP scramble, voters want leadership before policy When voters were asked what it was about Trump they liked it was that he pushes back against the media.  His appeal seems to be tied to the lack of appeal of the media as much as anything.  BTW, they like that in Ted Cruz too.

Washington Examiner: A tourist, lost in the Irish countryside, once asked a local farmer how to get to Dublin. The grizzled old man's reply: "I wouldn't start from here, if I were you." Irish pessimism aside, we recount this tale to make a point. One cannot set abstract goals without considering the real-world starting point from which they must be reached. This is the problem for the many dreamers who, seeing Wednesday's on-air slaying of two journalists by a disgruntled colleague, look cross the Atlantic today. They ask aloud why America cannot enjoy the astoundingly low rates of gun violence that exist in Western European countries, where guns are less widely available. They are wrong in more than one way — for example, those European rates are not directly comparable to American ones, and not quite as low as they think. But their most important error is their failure to consider the starting point from which they would have to reach the utopia they imagine. ...

Wall Street Journal: U.S. and British officials decided earlier this year that a hacker needed to die. Junaid Hussain, a British citizen in his early 20s, had risen fast to become a chief in Islamic State’s electronic army. One person familiar with the matter said he hacked dozens of U.S. military personnel and published personal and financial details online, including those of a general, for others to exploit. He helped sharpen the terror group’s defense against Western surveillance and built hacking tools to penetrate computer systems, said people familiar with the matter. Mr. Hussain was killed by a U.S. drone strike on Tuesday while he was in a car in Raqqa, Syria, U.S. officials said. That he was targeted directly shows the extent to which digital warfare has upset the balance of power on the modern battlefield. Islamic State didn’t build a large cyber force like the U.S.’s National Security Agency or China’s People’s Liberation Army. Instead, it had people like Mr. Hussain, a...

This weapon allows Israel to launch attacks outside the enemy defense zone.  It can defeat GPS jamming and give the pilot a view of the target right up to impact.

Troy Senik: The most disturbing aspect of the scandal around Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server during her tenure as secretary of state is not the former first lady’s penchant for secrecy. In fact, we all ought to be a little taken aback that Mrs. Clinton’s poll numbers are declining as a result of that storyline. It boggles the mind to imagine that, after a quarter-century, there’s a slice of the electorate just now coming to the realization that she is not a terribly forthcoming politician. What’s truly unsettling is that it has been widely taken as read among both the media and the general public that Mrs. Clinton will likely avoid serious legal consequences for her behavior because the Justice Department is ultimately answerable to President Obama – and Democrats will not use the instruments of government to destroy one of their own. Whether that eventually proves true, the sentiment itself reveals a troubling trend in American politics. While it’s far from unheard...

Jeffrey Lord: Jorge Ramos played the race card in an Iowa press conference. Donald Trump would have none of it. Bravo. So as the scene unfolded on CNN, there is Donald Trump in Iowa, holding a press conference. And from off screen comes this insistent voice — barely heard as there was no microphone for the unidentified speaker. But even barely heard it was clear whoever it was had a cause to promote — an agenda. Trump, the anti-Hillary who repeatedly talks to reporters of all stripes, all networks, all publications, was clearly in the process of calling on another reporter. The speaker was having none of this. He demanded attention from Trump — right NOW! As it came clear that Trump — no Bernie Sanders he — was not going to be bullied by whomever and would actually run his own press conference — the cameras pulled back to reveal the rude guy. It was Jorge Ramos of Univision. Ahhhh. The agenda comes clear. Univision — the company that broke its contract with Trump and dumped...

Fox News: An unsettling surge in terrorism by Iranian proxies has many Israelis convinced the release to Tehran of tens of billions of dollars in frozen funds is already putting the Jewish state in danger. In recent days, rockets have rained down on Israel from Gaza in the south and the Golan Heights to the north, Israeli forces foiled a bomb plot at the tomb of biblical patriarch Joseph, and Gaza-based terrorist groups that also have a presence in the West Bank have openly appealed for aid on Iranian television. Israeli officials fear the terrorist activity is spiking as groups audition for funding from Tehran, which is set to receive the long-frozen funds as part of its deal to allow limited nuclear inspections. They say the international focus on Iran's nuclear ambitions has left its more conventional methods of attacking regional adversaries unaddressed. "The nuclear context is just one aspect of the negative Iranian activities in the region," Emmanuel Nahshon,...

The Hill: A vast majority of the public would oppose the White House moving forward with the nuclear deal with Iran without the support of Congress, according to a new survey released by an organization critical of the deal. The poll released by Secure America Now found that 82 percent of Americans — including large majorities in both parties — oppose the White House granting billions of dollars in sanctions relief “without the approval of Congress.” The survey also showed that, when informed about “secret side deals between Iran and the U.N. monitoring agency,” 61 percent of people thought that Congress should vote to kill the deal. Just 16 percent said it should be approved despite the existence of the “side deals.” ... This should be devastating news for Democrats who support this bad deal.  It would certainly be an issue in the 2016 elections where Democrats hope to gain seats, especially in the Senate.

Seth Lipsky: A “staggering betrayal” is how one pro-Israel activist in Washington describes any use by the Democrats of a filibuster to prevent the Iran deal from getting a full vote next month in the Senate. That is emerging as the goal of the backers of President Obama’s contract with the mullahs. They want to block the measure from getting a vote in the Senate at all, which would leave Obama with a free hand to release billions to the Tehran regime. The activist, Omri Ceren, who is The Israel Project’s managing director and has been working the story for months, says that would be a “stab in the face.” He notes that “Americans by a 2-1 margin want Congress to reject the bad Iran deal.” The pro-Israel community, he says, has “worked in a bipartisan fashion with Congress to give the president breathing room for negotiations while protecting legislative prerogatives.” He thinks the Senate Democrats therefore owe Americans an up-or-down vote. As this drama drags on, however, it’s not ...

Dana Milbank: Republicans stay silent in face of Trump’s bigotry I think Milbank is not paying attention.  There is actually a pretty robust debate going on in the GOP on how to respond to illegal immigration.   But what Milbank is really doing is coming out against the rule of law when it comes to immigration.  He seems full of empathy for those jumping the queue ahead of those who follow the law.  What is the limiting principle for those who push for open borders.  Would they allow 8 billion people to just come on in? If most of the people in Mexico and Central America want to be Americans it would probably make more sense to annex those countries and allow US citizens the same rights.

NY Times: Today in Politics: Ad Portrays Donald Trump and His Rivals as a Single Voice on Immigration Priorities USA, the “super PAC” supporting Hillary Rodham Clinton, has released a digital ad that uses Donald Trump’s statements to paint the entire Republican presidential field as hostile toward immigrants. The premise of the ad is ridiculous.  Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio are both on different sides of the issue than Trump.  Scott Walker seems to be on several sides of the issue.  To suggest they speak with one voice on this issue demonstrates a willful deceit.  This is just another pander by Democrats to gain the support of Hispanics while throwing poor blacks and others under the bus.

NY Times: Traveling in Europe’s River of Migrants Tens of thousands of people, most fleeing unrest, are desperately pushing through the Balkans to reach Hungary before it seals its border. The Times is documenting their journey. The cause of the unrest is that Muslim countries have become failed states in many instances and terrorist are taking advantage of this collapse to also sneak mass murderers into Europe.  Another problem with this migration is that those coming still cling in most cases to the failed culture that propelled them into flight to begin with.