PrairiePundit

CNS News: Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who grew up in a scientific household – both of his parents are mathematicians – said a recent exchange he had with the president of the Sierra Club further affirmed that “climate change is not science" but is "religion,” and he added that climate change disciples use the “language” of religion, regardless of scientific facts, to push their doctrine. ... “Look at the language where they call you a denier,” said the senator. “Denier is not the language of science.” Look, I’m the child of two scientists,” he said. “My parents are both mathematicians, computer programmers. My dad was a self-taught geophysicist. The essence of the scientific method is to start with a hypothesis and then look to evidence to disprove the hypothesis. You’re not trying to prove it. You’re trying to disprove it.” “Any good scientist is a skeptic,” said the senator. “If he’s not, he or she should not be a scientist. But yet the language of the global war...

Breitbart: Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s embassy in Tripoli, Libya, warned State Department officials in Washington, D.C., not to blame the Youtube video, Innocence of Muslims , for the Benghazi terrorist attack. The House Benghazi Committee released a new email Saturday that a Tripoli embassy official sent to Clinton’s underlings in Washington, D.C., on September 14, 2012, two days before Susan Rice appeared on Sunday talk shows to use the administration’s “video” talking point. “Colleagues, I mentioned to [redacted] this morning, and want to share with all of you, our view at Embassy Tripoli that we must be cautious in our local messaging with regard to the inflammatory film trailer, adapting it to Libyan conditions,” the official wrote. The official added: Our monitoring of the Libyan media and conversations with Libyans suggest that the films [sic] not as explosive of an issue here as it appears to be in other countries in the region. The overwhelming majority of the...

Washington Post: Ben Carson’s escape from poverty was fueled by his drive, his faith and his mother — plus a leg up from the government The neurosurgeon-turned-GOP presidential candidate holds up his life story as proof that anyone can climb the economic ladder. But despite benefiting from aid for the poor, he says he wants to cut dependency on government. There are literally millions of poor who have gotten benefits from the government and have not achieved a third of what Carson did.  I give credit to his mother for not only working hard to take care of him but to also instill a drive to learn and educate himself.  She demonstrated what can be accomplished with drive and determination.  If government dependency created success there would be millions like Carson instead of a handful.

NY Times: Guantánamo Leaves Obama With No Simple Choices Unless President Obama uses executive power to relocate detainees at the prison, he will leave his promise to close it unfulfilled. Actually the choice is pretty simple.  Admit he was wrong and move on.  Closing Gitmo has always been based on the false premise that it was the cause and not the effect of of terrorism.   The terrorism exist because of the inherent religious bigotry of radical Islamist.  Their bigotry sometimes results in their blaming others for the failure of their culture and lashing out against the other.  Obama and liberals in general have always had a problem comprehending this dynamic.

NY Times: German Village of 102 Braces for 750 Asylum Seekers Sumte has become a showcase of the pressure on Germany as it scrambles to shelter what could be more than a million people. At least one neo-Nazi welcomes the news, if not the refugees. What is the German plan for dealing with refugees who bring their failed culture with them to Europe and expect to be given housing and benefits.  So far, what is happening does not look like a plan.  It looks like chaos and a recipe for disaster for current residents who are being pushed aside by the refugee hoard.

NBC News: After leading the crowded Republican field since July, Donald Trump finds Ben Carson pulling even with him in the latest national NBC News online poll conducted by SurveyMonkey, beginning Tuesday before the debate through Thursday. Among Republican or Republican-leaning registered voters, Carson and Trump each have 26% support - taking up more than half of all the vote preference. Republican leaned voters who watched the debate gave highest marks to Ted Cruz, but Trump is seen as best at leading the U.S. economy. While the top two candidates are head and shoulders above the rest of the field, Ted Cruz has climbed into third place with 10% support, the first time he has hit double-digits since after the first Republican debate this summer. His performance in the debate is likely boosting his standing in the poll; among those leaned Republican voters who watched or followed the debate coverage, Cruz gets 17% support, while Trump and Carson get 25% and 24%, respectively. ... ...

Washington Post: ‘Probably the largest’ al-Qaeda training camp ever is destroyed in Afghanistan Army Gen. John F. Campbell said the camp was used by AQIS, short for al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent. That they had such a large base of operations to begin with suggest the risk to the world created by Obama's retreat from Afghanistan. Long War Journal has more on the raid on the al Qaeda camp.

NY Times: Netanyahu Retracts Assertion That Palestinian Inspired Holocaust After more than a week of condemnation, the Israeli prime minister issued a statement retracting his accusation that a Palestinian cleric had given Hitler the idea of annihilating Jews. In fact the main difference between the Palestinians and the Germans, is that the Germans admit their guilt, while the Palestinian leaders in many cases either deny that it happened or or wish it had been more successful.  Too many of the Palestinian leaders are both ethnic and religious bigots who still want to exterminate the Jews.  It is in fact in the charter of groups like Hamas. While Netanyahu may have overstated the mufti's role in persuading the Germans to kill Jews to begin with, there is no doubt that he eagerly embraced that effort and did what he could to facilitate it.  The anti Israel left seems to want to ignore this historic reality. Netanyahu's larger point was that Palestinians have been ...

NY Times: Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice With a clause in complex contracts that few people read, corporations have insulated themselves from lawsuits and locked Americans into a system where arbitrators overwhelmingly favor business. I have been involved in scores of arbitration over the years both as an arbitrator  and representing clients from individuals to companies.  I made it to be a practice to be fair to all sides and let them all get their say, and I found that to be the case in cases where I represented people and companies. One of the things arbitration did do and I think was a good thing was it stopped the legal extortion that some trial lawyers engaged in where a market move against a companies stock would be used as an excuse to bring a class action  that the companies and the brokerage firms would be forced to settle for their litigation cost in defending the case.  This created a terrible waste of resources and was very...

ABC News: Donald Trump Says He Thinks Obama 'Hates Israel' I think Obama;s Iran deal harms Israel and other Middle East allies.  Apparently Trump does too.

PJ Media: 5 Can’t-Miss Hillary Emails from New Batch Recall that Chris Stevens did not have her email address, but actor Ben Affleck did.  There there is one to Sid Blumenthal whom she denied was an adviser which said "Thx--I need all the good advice I can get." Then there is this: 4. Libyan assassination stories make her think of home decorating There is more.

BBC: A Russian airliner has crashed in central Sinai with more than 200 people on board, the office of Egypt's prime minister has confirmed. The Airbus A-321 had just left the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, bound for the Russian city of St Petersburg. Wreckage was found in the Hasana area and bodies removed, along with the plane's "black box". An official described a "tragic scene". Flight KGL9268 disappeared when travelling at 9,500m (31,000ft). Egyptian officials said all the passengers were Russian. Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered an official investigation into the crash, and for rescue teams to be sent to the crash site. ... A criminal case has also been opened against the airline, Kogalymavia, for "violation of rules of flight and preparation for them", Russia's Ria news agency reported. ... But the aircraft's altitude suggests that it could not have been struck from the ground, she adds. ... The pilot reported som...

KENS5: When Mexican drug cartel members, plaza bosses and high-profile smugglers get arrested in South Texas, the agents kicking down the door to take them into custody belong to the special response team from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "They're an elite team of law enforcement officers who are specially trained to do high-risk situations, such as search warrants (and) arrests warrants," said Enrique Lucero, the field office director for San Antonio's ICE office. The missions they carry out are so dangerous, ICE asked us to conceal the agents' faces in the video that accompanies this story for their protection. The special response team is looking to add new member to covers its huge region that stretches from Del Rio all the way east to Brownsville, and from there north to Waco. The 17 current members are ready to be deployed anywhere in that vast area at a moment's notice. KENS 5 was granted exclusive access to the tryout to earn a spot on the te...

Fuel Fix: Lawmakers seeking to repeal the longstanding U.S. ban on exporting crude are eyeing a federal highway bill as a vehicle to lift the oil-trade restrictions. Two oil export amendments have been teed up for possible consideration when the House of Representatives next week takes up legislation that would reauthorize federal highway and transit programs for six years. The highway bill is seen as one of just a few must-pass measures on Congress’ agenda this year, making it a prime candidate for unrelated provisions, like the crude exports proposals. The highway bill also is a top priority for lawmakers, as it funds major infrastructure and transportation projects nationwide. The Senate has already passed its own long-term highway bill without an oil export provision. If the House voted to add language authorizing widespread oil exports, the issue would be negotiated by a joint House-Senate conference committee made up of Democrats and Republicans from both chambers. The tactic h...

AP: Hundreds of immigrant families caught illegally crossing the Mexican border told U.S. immigration agents they made the dangerous journey in part because they believed they would be permitted to stay in the United States and collect public benefits, according to internal intelligence files from the Homeland Security Department. The interviews with immigrants by federal agents were intended to help the Obama administration understand what might be driving a puzzling surge in the numbers of border crossings that started over the summer. The explanations suggest the U.S. government's efforts to discourage illegal crossings may have been unsuccessful. Its efforts have included public service campaigns in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala to highlight the dangers and consequences of making the trek across Mexico to cross illegally into the United States. The Associated Press obtained copies of the interview summaries, which were compiled in reports by the U.S. Customs and B...

Hannity: Here Are The 7 (Non-Benghazi) Lies The Press Refuses To Take Hillary To Task For I have also noticed that the liberal media has been trying to parse Hillary's deceitful and misleading statements about Benghazi to counter claims that she lied.  But they can't get around the fact that what she told the families of the victims was clearly false.

Bloomberg: Increased interactions between the the Chinese and U.S. navy in the contested South China Sea risk becoming more complicated by the increasingly sophisticated missiles being carried by submarines. A new report to the U.S. Congress assessing a Chinese submarine-launched missile known as the YJ-18 highlights the danger, noting the missile accelerates to supersonic speed just before hitting its target, making it harder for a crew to defend their ship. Defense chiefs from several countries in Southeast Asia have warned in recent months of the danger of undersea “clutter” as countries build up submarine fleets and the U.S. challenges China over its claim to a large swath of the South China Sea. This week’s U.S. patrol inside the 12-nautical mile zone that China claims around its man-made islands in the waters saw the USS Lassen shadowed by two Chinese naval vessels. The YJ-18 missile can cruise at about 600 miles an hour, or just under the speed of sound, only a few meters abov...

PJ Media: Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus informed NBC News chairman Andrew Lack today that the party is “suspending” its partnership with the network for the Feb. 26 Telemundo/National Review primary debate at the University of Houston. “The RNC’s sole role in the primary debate process is to ensure that our candidates are given a full and fair opportunity to lay out their vision for America’s future,” Priebus wrote. “We simply cannot continue with NBC without full consultation with our campaigns.” Some of the campaigns want changes after Wednesday night’s CNBC event. “Debates are supposed to be established to help the people know the candidates… what their philosophy is,” Ben Carson told reporters Thursday. “What it’s turned into is a ‘gotcha’ opportunity to cast candidates in a negative light. That’s silly. That’s not really helpful.” Carson hasn’t threatened an outright boycott of future debates, but said he’ll be consulting with other campaigns for...

Jonah Goldberg: Being A Minority And A Conservative Is Not a Contradiction ... How strange it must be for people who comfort themselves with the slander that the GOP is a cult of organized racial hatred that the most popular politician among conservatives is a black man. Better to ignore the elephant in the room than account for such an inconvenient fact. The race card is just too valuable politically and psychologically for liberals who need to believe that their political opponents are evil. Carson's popularity isn't solely derived from his race, but it is a factor. The vast majority of conservatives resent the fact that Democrats glibly and shamelessly accuse Republicans of bigotry -- against blacks, Hispanics and women -- simply because they disagree with liberal policies (which most conservatives believe hurt minorities). Yet conservatives also refuse to adopt those liberal policies just to prove they aren't bigots. Carson -- not to mention Carly Fiorina and H...

Washington Times: An Iranian dissident group said more than 20 of its members in Iraq were killed Thursday when a barrage of Iranian-made rockets slammed into a former U.S. military base near Baghdad where Iraqi authorities have kept the dissidents in a state of semi-captivity for years. Although the casualty count could not be immediately verified, Iraqi police confirmed that at least 16 rockets had rained down on Camp Liberty , a facility the Iraqi government has used since 2012 to house more than 2,000 members of the Iranian opposition group known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK . No one claimed responsibility, but MEK leaders, who have powerful advocates in Washington and in several European capitals, were quick to pin ultimate blame on the Iranian government and claimed that Tehran-backed leaders in Baghdad willingly allowed the attack to occur. ... Iran is just showing its appreciation for its Kerry-Obama deal.  The fact is the country is run by genocidal religious ...

NY Times: Obama Administration Campaign Will Publicize Health Care Subsidies Ahead of an open enrollment period amid a decline in customers, the administration will provide information about help for people with lower incomes. They have been spending lavishly on this message for years and still have trouble getting people to buy into their healthcare product.

NY Times: Saudi-Iranian Rivalries Threaten Talks on Syrian War Syria advised Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister to “keep his mouth closed and keep his country out of a matter that is none of his business.” It is hard to see why Kerry thinks the genocidal religious bigots of Iran will be helpful in resolving the "Syrian civil war.  While they may be a player in Syria it is not in the US and its allies interests to bail them out of their quagmire.

Washington Examiner: Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican presidential candidate, conducted a 90-minute takedown late Thursday of his own Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, who he characterized by name as a weak leader unwilling to fight for conservative causes. Cruz, a Tea Party conservative, frequently bucks Senate GOP leaders and has on at least one other occasion criticized McConnell in a Senate floor speech. But late Thursday, he took on McConnell with renewed antipathy, using pie charts to demonstrate that the Kentucky Republican has bolstered the Democratic agenda rather than conservative goals during his ten-month tenure. "Why is a Republican majority leader fighting to accomplish the priorities of the Democratic minority?" Cruz asked. Cruz criticized a broad budget and debt limit deal the Senate is scheduled to vote on early Friday, arguing that the accord gave President Obama and Democrats all that they wanted, with nothing in return for Republicans seeking to rein...

National Defense: A potential nightmare for combatant commanders is a “day without space.” In this scenario, a peer or near-peer competitor severely limits U.S. forces’ access to military communication and navigation spacecraft through jamming or something more destructive, such as anti-satellite weapons. “Space is no longer a sanctuary. It is a contested environment. We have known that for a while, especially with peer competitors,” David Madden, director of the military satellite communications systems directorate at the Air Force Space and Missile Center, said at the Milcom conference in San Diego. Current doctrine calls for operations to continue in anti-access, area-denied confrontations, he noted. The services are already training for that day. Lt. Gen. John A. Toolan Jr., commanding general of I Marine Expeditionary Force based at Camp Pendleton, Calif., said operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Marines were deployed in fixed sites, made them “addicted to big-pipe, space-...

Mackenzie Eaglen: There’s a reason Pentagon leaders are obsessed with outreach to Silicon Valley and furiously pursuing ventures in innovation like the “Third Offset” strategy. That reason is because the U.S. military is being challenged in a fundamental ingredient of what makes America a superpower: Power Projection. Advanced enemy air defenses, newer ballistic and cruise missiles, shrinking overseas basing, and hardened, buried and mobile targets are increasing. The geriatric B-52s and aging B-1s cannot survive against the surface-to-air missiles of China, Russia, and even Iran. Additionally, both Russia and China will soon field long-range fifth-generation interceptor aircraft sporting longer range air-to-air missiles, a combination specially designed to destroy non-stealthy bombers and their support aircraft at great range. Until the Navy develops a long-range carrier drone, its carrier air wing will have a relatively short range; to make a difference, it will have to put a $13 b...

Eli Lake: This week, in a little-noticed report, a U.N. official may have helped solve a riddle about Iran. Since President Hassan Rouhani's election in 2013, state executions in Iran have spiked. How could a man who promised to free political prisoners preside over this reign of terror? It turns out part of the answer, at least, is the global war on drugs. According to the report, released by Ahmed Shaheed, the U.N.'s special rapporteur for human rights in Iran, 69 percent of the state executions of prisoners in the first six months of 2015 were for drug-related offenses. In 2014, when Iran executed 753 people (the highest total in Iran in 10 years), Shaheed said nearly half were killed for drug crimes. There are many reasons the Iranian state detains, tortures and hangs its citizens. These range from offenses against God to publishing propaganda critical of the regime. But it's the drug dealers who are being hanged the most, according to Shaheed. "The Government h...

John McCain says veterans will question Clinton's qualifications to be President .  Clinton's problem is that she is a statist who would like to see a single payer healthcare system for the entire country and and she sees the Va as a model and not as a failure despite its incompetence. She still is out of touch on the issue as even more evidence emerges that more vets are dying waiting for an appointment .

Caleb Howe: Rubio Says Media Is Super PAC For Democrats, Media Take To Twitter To Prove It Their reaction ranged from defensive to insulting with no pause for introspection. Meanwhile there is this story: Television News Network Lobbyists Are Fundraising for Hillary Clinton This also seems to explain why the Democrat debate questions are such softballs.

Politico: Republican presidential campaigns are planning to gather in Washington, D.C., on Sunday evening to plot how to alter their party’s messy debate process — and how to remove power from the hands of the Republican National Committee. Not invited to the meeting: Anyone from the RNC, which many candidates have openly criticized in the hours since Wednesday’s CNBC debate in Boulder, Colorado — a chaotic, disorganized affair that was widely panned by political observers. On Thursday, many of the campaigns told POLITICO that the RNC, which has taken a greater role in the 2016 debate process than in previous election cycles, had failed to take their concerns into account. It was time, top aides to at least half a dozen of the candidates agreed, to begin discussing among themselves how the next debates should be structured and not leave it up to the RNC and television networks. The gathering is being organized by advisers to the campaigns of Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Bobby Jindal and...

Fox News: Grounded: New Mexico driver's licenses fail feds' test, thanks to illegal immigrant policy If DHS can't tell whether the ID is for a valid resident it is dangerous to let them on a plane or access to other restricted areas.

Washington Times: President Obama’s top economic adviser said Thursday that reduced oil drilling, weak demand for U.S. exports and political “brinksmanship” by congressional Republicans all contributed to anemic economic growth in the third quarter. ... Mr. Furman said reduced oil drilling “continued to weigh on business investment, subtracting from overall growth.” The number of rigs drilling in the U.S. dropped to a five-year low this month, mainly in response to a global oil glut. ... From an administration that does everything in its power to thwart energy development that is not tied to their favored inefficient alternatives  which BTW are not producing any of the economic growth they earlier predicted.

Daily Beast: When Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced Tuesday that the U.S. would begin "direct action" against Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq, it sounded like a new mission for U.S. forces in a country where the president has repeatedly insisted Americans would not be engaged in combat operations. But America's special operations forces have been engaging in these kinds of missions for several months, particularly in the Kurdish-controlled provinces in northern Iraq. And the special operations forces have already built up an extensive infrastructure to support these activities. This casts doubt on the official Pentagon statements that last week’s raid was “ a unique circumstance.” Since President Barack Obama authorized the first special operations teams to deploy to Iraq in the summer of 2014, the White House has provided few details on the mission and composition of the forces. The Pentagon today refers to the mission for the 3,500 U.S. service members...

Washington Post: Why Marco Rubio is so effective and dangerous Greg Sargent  in an opinion piece marvels at Rubio's ability to play to the genuine anger of Republican voters while also projecting a sunny and hopeful message. ... This isn’t just because Rubio is young and Latino. His formula is a bit complicated. Last night, Rubio, in what appeared to be an appeal to the deep resentment of many of these voters, skillfully converted legitimate questions about his personal financial management into evidence of Democratic and elite media contempt for his relatively humble upbringing, which he proceeded to explain he had overcome through hard work. Rubio’s narrative is both laden with legitimate resentment and inspiring! In another big moment, Rubio bashed the media as the “ultimate Super PAC” for Hillary and Democrats, because it was slow to report that Clinton had been supposedly exposed as a liar at the recent House Benghazi hearing. The “MSM” rightly declared the hearing a d...

NY Times: Emily’s List Official Accuses Bernie Sanders Team of Sexism Stephanie Schriock, the president of the group Emily’s List, which helps elect female candidates to public office, has seized on joking comments made by Senator Bernie Sanders’s campaign manager about vetting Hillary Rodham Clinton for his vice-presidential nominee. Sanders was just treating Hilary like any other rival and this group acts like she is a victim.  Their reaction to the compliment Sanders paid her raises questions about their attempt to silence everyone who disagrees with their choice.  Sander's remark was no different than other candidates have made through the years, only this time Hillary supporters act like she is too fragile to deal with it.

Fuel Fix: Tesoro Corp. reported record profit Wednesday for third quarter, as earnings jumped 91 percent. The San Antonio-based refiner’s earnings from continuing operations jumped to $759 million, or $6.13 a share, compared with earnings of $397 million, or $3.06 a share, for the same period a year ago. Favorable margins and high utilization of its plants aided the results. Margins on Tesoro’s products rose to $15.57 a barrel compared with $11.82 for the third quarter of last year. ... Unlike the producers, the refiners can export their products from the US.  Because the export ban on production skews the price for US oil, they can take advantage of the lower price for domestic oil and sell the refined product at the world price.   I blame the Democrats for this mess although some of the refiners are doing well on their rent seeking politics.

Erick Erickson: The Endgame is Ted Cruz vs. Marco Rubio The two Hispanic Republicans both had a strong night despite the limited time given Cruz.

Washington Examiner: Benghazi committee gets classified White House records There was a 10 month delay in delivering the documents about the military response to the attacks in Libya.

Wall Street Journal: Obama’s Military Policy: Down-Size While Threats Rise A deliberate strategy shift to a smaller standing army risks leaving the U.S. unable to fight when necessary. The results of this downsizing will make any conflict the US finds itself in bloodier and more dangerous because he is frittering away the overpowering force that was able to deter aggression.

Washington Examiner: Ben Carson slammed the politically correct culture he argued is destroying America during the GOP presidential debate on CNBC. Carson challenged the idea that his participation on the corporate boards of companies who may hold different ideological beliefs than his own is questionable. During the third GOP presidential debate, Carson pushed back against what he perceived to be political correctness. "Why would you serve on a company whose policies seemed to run counter to your views on homosexuality?" asked Carl Quintanilla, a CNBC moderator. "Well obviously you don't understand my views on homosexuality," Carson said. "I believe that our Constitution protects everybody regardless of their sexual orientation or any other aspect. I also believe that marriage is between one man and one woman and that there is no reason that you can't be perfectly fair to the gay community. They shouldn't automatically assume that because you bel...

Rubio had a very strong debate performance but this line will be memorable even if the mainstream media tries to bury it. It may have been a breakthrough performance for him.

Check out the video from the focus group that gave Cruz the highest score ever in response to his critique of the media questions.  Many of those in the group switched their support to Cruz after the debate.   Politico also described it as an " Off the Charts Moment ."

This is brilliant.  From the very beginning I have been wanting to hear them ask questions about what is wrong with the way things are now done and what would you do to change things.  But the moderators seem more interested in digging for future Democrat talking points than substance.

Lenny-Ben David: ... The current Mufti surely knows that the Al Aqsa Mosque suffered a major collapse during an earthquake in 1927. Renovation took several years, and in that period at least two Christian photographers, including British archeologist Robert Hamilton, ventured into and under the mosque. Hamilton, from the British Archaeological Authority, “photographed, sketched, excavated and analyzed” what he saw, according to Nadav Shragai, a scholar on Jerusalem, writing in Yisrael HaYom.4 But Hamilton promised the Islamic Authorities, the Waqf, that he would make “no mention of any findings that the Muslims would have found inconvenient” such as findings from the time of the Jewish Temples. The photographers documented the mosaics, passageways, cisterns, and lumber that apparently were part of the Temples. Many of Hamilton’s photos may be viewed today on the site of the British Authority’s successor, the Israel Antiquities Authority.5 Other pictures may be found in the Library...

PJ Media: New Video Shows Al-Qaeda Using Weapons U.S. Gave to ‘Vetted Moderates’ It is just more evidence of just what a fiasco Obama's Syrian policy has been.

Reuters: The U.S. naval challenge to China's territorial assertiveness in the South China Sea this week came after months of frustration within the Pentagon at what some defense officials saw as unnecessary delays by the White House and State Department in approving the mission. As early as mid-May, the Pentagon was considering sending military aircraft and ships to assert the principle of freedom of navigation around China's artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago after Defense Secretary Ash Carter requested options to respond to their rapid construction. That patrol eventually took place on Tuesday when the USS Lassen, a guided-missile destroyer, sailed within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef, triggering an angry rebuke from China and threatening to ratchet up tensions between the world's two biggest economies. An intense, prolonged internal U.S. debate over the patrol revealed by Reuters' reporting appears to contradict Washington's insistence that it was s...

Rush Limbaugh: So how does the budget deal pave the way for Hillary Clinton? Folks, it's real simple. Over half of any Republican candidate's campaign arsenal has just been neutered. The Republican Party cannot campaign by running around blaming the Democrats for destroying budget, for overspending, for threatening the very fabric economically of the country. They can't do it. This is the Republican budget deal that Barack Obama cannot wait to sign. So the idea that the Democrat Party and their nominee, most likely Hillary Clinton, pose a grave threat to this country's future because of their runaway spending, their expansion of the welfare state, the expansion of the entitlement state, the creation of more and more dependents, we can't say that anymore. A Republican presidential candidate is not saying that anymore. All the Democrats are gonna have to do is say, "Wait, wait, whoa, you're accusing us of doing what?" And they just have to go...

Washington Times: Ben Carson is the best-liked GOP candidate heading into debate: Gallup poll Gallup is no longer doing the horse race polls but the likability numbers are somewhat interesting.  Rubio, Huckabee and Cruz are also in the top tier, but Carson's numbers are much higher.  He is clearly an easy guy to like, even if you have questions about his agenda and how he will implement it.  Besides being soft spoken he also has none of the grinding snark that makes people like Obama unpopular with those who oppose him. Cruz seems much popular with the voters than he is with the Washington "cartel."

Washington Post: Scores slip in math and reading for young U.S. students The Nation's Report Card showed a decline in math scores for U.S. fourth- and eighth-graders for the first time since testing began in 1990. Reading scores were also sobering. In addition, the tests once again revealed large achievement gaps between white and minority students, and between poor and affluent children. It si not too surprising when part of the common core math is incomprehensible to those who actually understand math and know that three times five is 15.  Teacher's hate standardized tests because they expose failure of the students and those who are supposed to be teaching them.  It si not surprising that an administration that specializes in avoiding responsibility for its screw ups would side with the teachers' unions that also want to avoid responsibility.

NY Times: A Budget Deal Promising Peace Is Rooted in Modest Goals The 144-page bill is almost underwhelming in its size and scope. But after five years of political gridlock, that may be the inherent genius of it. Taxpayers are being asked to pay a high price for "peace" between big spending Democrats and conservative Republicans.  To the extent that Boehner got any concessions from Obama they were probably because of the fear that  more conservative Republicans would be even harder on his spending addiction.  There is already opposition within the Republican caucus to the deal.

Mollie Hemingway: ... So permit me to ask the obvious questions: Why in the world is liberal journalist John Harwood moderating Wednesday’s Republican debate? And where the heck is his conservative media partner? Wednesday night’s debate will be hosted by CNBC at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado. It will be moderated by Harwood along with CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla and Becky Quick and is supposed to focus on economic issues, though previous CNBC debates have strayed far from that topic. Harwood frequently angers conservatives for his partisan takes on the news. I mostly laugh off his predictably liberal views because I don’t take him that seriously. But that only leads us back to figuring out why he’s moderating this Wednesday’s debate. Let’s just look at a few examples of how he covers news. These Headlines Tell You Most of What You Need to Know Harwood works for both CNBC and The New York Times. You can get something of a feel for his predictable but conventiona...

Lawfare: The Drone Papers: Intercepting the Nonsense This is a devastating critique of the  recent attempt to delegitimize the drone program.  Classified information was published by the same guy who did the same thing with the NSA. Christine Fair, an assistant professor at Georgetown University's Security Studies Program dissects the claims in a way that raises questions about the motivation of the leaker and the accuracy of the claims. ... With respect to Pakistan, there is one study that actually comes to the exact opposite conclusion as the one put forward by Mr. Greenwald. A few years ago, a Pakistan-based journalist sent a Waziri stringer into Waziristan to interview locals about who died in the drone strikes in their villages. According to the report from that six-month-long study, villagers claimed that “at least 194 people killed in the attacks, about 70 percent–at least 138–were militants. The remaining 56 were either civilians or tribal police, and 38 of the...

Israel National News: Police: Israeli Arabs stopped rioting, fearing Jewish boycott Experts say Arabs fear financial losses due to Jewish boycott. Police: the past 10 days have been quiet. The fact is that if they do not have Jewish customers their businesses will fail.  It is something the  genocidal wing of Palestinians tend to forget about. ... "They are afraid of the response of the Israeli society, which knew how to boycott them on several levels. A social boycott by some Jews. An economic boycott that has two levels – a boycott of governmental suppliers like Bezeq (phone company), the IEC and Israel Postal Service, which have been refusing to enter Arab communities because their personal security will be at risk; and a boycott by suppliers of food and equipment like dairy giant Tnuva, Strauss and others. The Egged [bus company] has also canceled its lines to Arab communities, for a few days." Individual Jews, too, stopped frequenting Arab communities for vario...

Red States: The out of touch GOP establishment What worked for 41 and 43 is not working for Jeb.  The nomination is not about scaring off the competition by blowing them away with fund raising and playing to the center.  The Republican establishment seems as puzzled by this as the media is.  They think Trump is saying things that would disqualify him with the Tea Party and much of the base of the party, yet he is still doing better than the establishment candidates. The piece suggest the reason for this is that Trump is getting his support from the Ross Perot wing that is angry with the status quo.  But there is also anger with the establishment's caving to Obama's big spending ways on programs they absolutely detest such as Obamacare and amnesty.

Josh Rogan: Battle Over China's Artificial Islands Has Just Begun ... Officials said Carter had told Pacific Command to come up with a detailed plan for conducting freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea that could include deploying more naval forces to the western Pacific to routinely conduct these exercises out of Clark Air Base in the Philippines with support from P8 surveillance aircraft. The official in charge of developing the plan is Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, the head of Pacific Command operations. Carter and the top brass support that strategy, U.S. officials briefed by Carter's staff said, but others in the Pentagon -- , including Admiral John Richardson, the new chief of Naval Operations -- favor less confrontation and more engagement with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy. Pacific Command will submit its proposal to an interagency process. It could be debated for months before the president makes another decision. Some Republican ...

IBD: Hillary Clinton's Icy Indifference To Veterans' Suffering At The VA I suspect that the reason why Hillary Clinton is downplaying the failures of the Va is because she would like to see the Va be the model for the single payer system that Democrats want for everyone.  Big government liberals can;t afford to admit it has been a disastrous failure for those dying before even making it to triage.

Jay Sekulow: Lois Lerner and the IRS: Why we need a special counsel now more than ever I suspect that the lack of accountability  by the IRS and the DOJ may also lead to an attempt to impeach the IRS director. 'VIOLATED THE PUBLIC TRUST' House GOP introduces measure to impeach IRS Commissioner Koskinen

Daily Beast: ‘Star Wars’ Tractor Beams Are Real Scientists have figured out how to create a sound beam that can hold, move and rotate small objects from far away. There is still the problem of scaling it up to the point that it might become a weapon, but it is interesting how fiction can lead to the creation of new devices. What I would really like to see is a counter cyber attack weapon that can hone in on the attacker and destroy his computer.  It should be possible, but it will take some engineers and geeks to pull it off.

Max Boot: To Die in an Unserious War Last week, Delta Force staged a raid inside Syria along with Kurdish Peshmerga to free prisoners held by the Islamic State. The operation reportedly freed 70 hostages, but resulted in the death of Master Sargent Joshua Wheeler, one of Delta’s storied “operators.” ... There are many things that Obama would do if he were serious about defeating ISIS, but among them would be unleashing JSOC as President George W. Bush did. JSOC squadrons based in the Kurdish region of Iraq, in Jordan, and possibly Turkey could mount regular operations against ISIS strongholds. As far as we can tell from open source reporting (which is admittedly an imperfect source of information on such highly classified matters), that’s not happening. Apparently JSOC is going out only occasionally — just often enough to run the risk of casualties such as Master Sargent Wheeler, but not enough to actually have a strategic impact. That raises the troubling question of why JSOC’s e...

The Hill: Donald Trump is well ahead of the pack heading into Wednesday night’s third Republican presidential debate, according to a new poll. Trump has a 14-point lead over his nearest competitor before the contest in Boulder, Colo., according to a One America News Network survey. Pollsters found support for the real estate mogul at 35.6 percent, compared with 21.7 percent for retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) trails the pair, with 10.7 percent. “It’s all Trump going into the third debate,” One America CEO Robert Herring Sr. said in a statement Tuesday morning. “Mr. Trump’s continued top national ranking will also make him the candidate to target Wednesday night,” he added. Former Gov. Jeb Bush (Fla.) ranks fourth in the new poll, with 7.6 percent. Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina follow, with 5.9 percent to her 5.7 percent, respectively. ... This poll may be an outlier since other recent polls show the race tightening and a ...

Washington Times: The three teens police believe killed a high school student in Loudoun County last month all entered the U.S. as illegal immigrant children, were released into society and skipped their deportation court hearings, a top senator revealed Tuesday as he demanded answers. “Had these suspects appeared for their mandatory court date, they would have likely not had the opportunity to murder a 17-year-old high school student from Loudoun County,” Sen. Charles E. Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. Mr. Grassley said his committee has received information that the three suspects all entered the U.S. as part of the surge of illegal immigrant children that jumped the southwest border over the last few years, and said two of the three may have had ties to MS-13. ... It appears the dead student was a victim of Obama's open border policy.  As more people are victims of crime by illegal aliens, it seems cl...

NY Times: Poll Watch: Ben Carson Edges Ahead Nationally in Times/CBS News Poll Ben Carson has dislodged Donald J. Trump from the front of the Republican presidential pack for the first time in months, according to a New York Times/CBS News survey. Carson's low key demeanor should not be mistaken for low energy.  That is a mistake Trump has made recently along with Trump's strained remarks about religion.   I suspect the debate this week will focus more on Carson and his ability to govern.  As I have noted before he is not a sound bite candidate, but he has touched voters on issues from whether a Shariah compliant Muslim could serve as President to his statements on abortion that is tied to his knowledge as a doctor who has performed surgery on babies in the womb. Rubio came in third followed by Jeb Bush and Carly Fiorina.

Fox News: Meet the F-16V ‘Viper’ - the newest, most advanced fighter in the F-16 family that has just made its maiden flight. The latest version of the F-16 introduces numerous cutting-edge enhancements. Made by Lockheed Martin, the fourth-generation aircraft is often referred to as the Fighting Falcon. The F-16 can travel speeds faster than Mach 2 – that’s more than 1,500 mph. The aircraft is just under 50 feet long and has a wingspan of about 31 feet. The F-16V flew with Northrop Grumman's advanced APG-83 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) and Northrop’s Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR) for the first time last week. Northrop’s SABR AESA fire control radar provides next-gen air-to-ground and air-to-air radar capability. The technology supports countering advanced threats. These AESA radars are also used by the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II. SABR works by scanning electronically, rather than mechanically. This helps reduce the need for moving parts. The receiver, exci...

AOL Jobs: The 10 Best Cities to Start Your Career 150 most populous US cities ranked by professional opportunities Some of the very top cities will surprise you such as Irving and Grand Prairie.   BTW, PrairiePundit is not located in Grand Prairie.

Daily Beast: Three weeks of Russian aerial bombardment in Syria hasn't exactly helped the Bashar al-Assad regime in its push north of Damascus . Social media has for the last three weeks been awash with images of burning Syrian Arab Army tanks, all wrecked by a tactically powerful anti-tank missile, the BGM-71 TOW , supplied (via Saudi Arabia) by the United States to certain CIA-backed anti-Assad militias. Yesterday, two large rebel umbrella groups—Jaysh al-Fateh (Army of Conquest), a large consortium of Islamists which includes the official Syrian al-Qaeda franchise, and the Free Syrian Army, an admittedly catchall category but one that includes 39 CIA-vetted TOW recipients—announced a major counteroffensive. The push is taking place in northern Hama and the eastern hills of Latakia. This coastal province is the Assad family’s homeland—and the area where Russia has constructed a forward operation base and headquarters for its Syrian adventure. Far from being pushed out, the re...