PrairiePundit

Rush Limbaugh: ... ... the whole purpose of amnesty is it's a Democrat voter-registration program. The Democrat Party needs its permanent underclass. In the pre-Obama economy, people in the lower-middle class and the middle class had opportunity to lift themselves, to change their economic circumstances, to go from lower economic middle class to middle class to upper-middle class and beyond. With the advent of the Obama economy, that movement has becoming stagnant. Nobody's moving upward at all. Everybody's stagnating or declining because of the Obama economy. But prior to the Obama economy, the Democrats needed to replace people who started improving their lives. Because as people improved their lives, they became less dependent on Washington, less dependent on the Democrats. Ergo, you need a constant influx of low-wage, low-skill, low-educated people who have no choice but than to depend on government to live, the permanent underclass. The Democrat Party cann...

Guardian: A year after the mysterious death of star prosecutor Alberto Nisman shook Argentina to the core and made headlines around the world, the case may finally be moving closer to a solution. A judicial attempt to rule out the suggestion that Nisman’s death was suicide and the appearance in court of a former spymaster who could provide clues in the case suggests that the stalled investigation may inching towards a conclusion. Nisman was found shot dead in his home last year just hours before he was due to appear before Congress to explain his accusations that thenpresident Cristina Fernández de Kirchner had conspired to cover up Iran’s alleged involvement in a 1994 terrorist attack in Buenos Aires. The death remains unsolved, and until last week, authorities had not even decided whether to define it as homicide or suicide. On Thursday, however, federal appeals court prosecutor Ricardo Sáenz said that “the evidence produced so far” showed that Nisman had been the victim of a ho...

Fox News: Justice Clarence Thomas stunned lawyers, reporters and others at the Supreme Court on Monday when he posed questions during an oral argument for the first time in 10 years. It was the second week the court has heard arguments since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, Thomas' friend and fellow conservative. Thomas for years sat directly to Scalia's right. Scalia's chair is now draped in black in a tribute to his death on Feb. 13. Thomas' questions came in a case in which the court is considering placing new limits on the reach of a federal law that bans people convicted of domestic violence from owning guns. With about 10 minutes left in the hourlong session, Justice Department lawyer Ilana Eisenstein was about to sit down after answering a barrage of questions from other justices. Thomas then caught her by surprise, asking whether the violation of any other law "suspends a constitutional right." ... But Thomas peppered Eisenstein with seve...

Washington Times: U.S. launches cyberattacks on Islamic State ... Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the Joint Chiefs chairman, said cyberattacks in Syria and Iraq are part of the preparation for retaking cities, especially Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. ... The US is also using a more aggressive air campaign to cut of logistics to Mosul in preparation for an attack.  

Dan McLaughlin: Military Strategist Explains Why Donald Trump Leads—And How He Will Fail Air Force fighter pilot John Boyd's theory about confounding opponents with a constantly shifting battlefield applies to Donald Trump and all GOP aspirants. Boyd was a brilliant strategist  who also helped to design the F-16.  It is one of the best fighter jets of all time.  It was specifically designed to help a pilot use the Boyd strategy.

This is probably the most interesting thing said about Trump in recent days.  Competing campaigns should consider turning it into an infomercial.

Doug Hoffman: In the year 536 AD the sun dimmed, and the gloom lasted for more than an entire year. There were frosts and snows in the middle of summer and observers reported that winter never really ended. The sudden shift in climate lead to famine, plague and the fall of empires. What was worse, that year was only the beginning of a shift in climate that brought misery to the entire Northern Hemisphere for more than a century. Yet this well documented period of global cooling was smoothed away by climate change alarmists in works of fabricated data like the infamous “hockey stick” tree ring history. A new analysis has rediscovered this dark period in recent human history, fittingly made possible by new tree-ring measurements from the Altai mountains in Russia. The results help complete a climatological history stretching back 2,500 years. Climate history is a pesky thing, it just won't go away and can't be changed to fit some scientists pet theories. Most people have hear...

NY Post: Obama exposes the poison behind the ‘fight for $15’ ... President Obama last week recalled the lessons he learned working in an ice-cream shop as a young man, and called on other employers to “create summer job opportunities for young people who need them, and extend those opportunities throughout the year.” It’s a worthwhile goal — with one problem: Who’s going to pay a $15 starting wage to hire these kids for that entry-level job? That’s a question both President Obama and Gov. Cuomo must answer as they champion labor unions’ extreme wage demands. The president laments that “landing that first job is all too difficult for students,” and he’s right — especially in New York. The state’s unemployment rate in 2015 was identical to the federal rate of 5.3 percent. But New York’s youth unemployment rate was more than four percentage points higher than the federal average. Statewide, more than 20 percent of the young adults who want to work can’t get hired; in New Y...

Erick Erickson: We have arrived at the time where everyone who does not want Trump to be the GOP nominee must unite. And we may not be able to unite behind our candidate preference to do it. But for the good of the country, we must agree that we must stop Trump. Tomorrow is the SEC Primary. In a number of states where Ted Cruz should be doing very well, he suddenly finds himself in third place behind Marco Rubio. But in other states, Cruz has rebounded and he does have Texas. Nonetheless, in Texas, Rubio may perform well enough to take some delegates away from Cruz. All of this is to say that no one knows who will come out with the delegate lead on Tuesday. What I do know to be sure is that talk of a brokered convention could be ruination to our fortunes in November and bitterly divisive. What I also know is that there is such a strong anti-establishment current in the party and nation right now, a nominee from a brokered convention has the potential to be seen by even the anti-Trump...

Washington Times: Sen. Jeff Sessions, who led the fight against the 2013 Senate immigration bill, endorsed Donald Trump’s presidential bid Sunday, breaking his own precedent to boost the billionaire businessman just ahead of the biggest day on the primary election calendar. He made the move just hours after Mr. Trump’s campaign veered into nativist territory when he refused in a television interview to condemn the Ku Klux Klan or the racism of former KKK leader David Duke. In his comments on CNN, Mr. Trump said he didn’t know Mr. Duke, a well-known white supremacist. When specifically prodded to reject the KKK, the candidate declined, saying he didn’t want to tar all groups because “you may have groups in there that are totally fine.” Sen. Marco Rubio, a fellow presidential candidate, said Mr. Trump’s excuses rang hollow and that the Republican Party should reject him as their nominee. “We cannot be a party that nominates somebody who refuses to condemn white supremacists and...

Washington Post: How can other Republicans manage their campaigns when Trump is their standard bearer? He will say almost anything. At any time. And never apologize. That unpredictability makes it almost impossible to deal with him as a factor in your race if you are one of the vulnerable GOP senators up for reelection in swing states. I think what Republicans have to do is run like Republicans did in 2014 by promising to stop the Hillary Clinton agenda.  It is equally as bad as Obama's and it is well worth running against.   If Trump were to somehow win, Republicans are going to be needed to rein him in too.

NY Times: Court’s Tangles With Obama Set the Stage for Nominee Fight President Obama has publicly feuded with the Supreme Court as few of his modern predecessors have. Today, his unexpected chance to remake the court depends on overcoming the formidable will of Senate Republicans. Obama has approached the court with arrogance and ignorance of the law.  He has willfully attempted to defy the separation powers by ignoring Congress and by assuming dictatorial powers.  No wonder Republicans do not trust him to pack the court withone one who would join him in that endeavor.

Dan McLaughlan: Donald Trump did not like getting humiliated by Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz in the last debate in Houston, and you know how we know that he knows he got humiliated? Because he’s doing what glass-jawed bullies always do when you hit them back – whining like a baby and threatening to run away like a coward: Trump on Friday night hinted he had thought about skipping another GOP debate, as he lamented the events as “a terrible waste of time.” “Aren’t these debates ridiculous, though?” Trump asked supporters at a rally in Oklahoma City, according to Business Insider. “How about if I don’t do the next debate? Yes?” he added, before quickly deciding: “Ah, no, I’ll do it.” The billionaire businessman said debates are repetitive and predictable. “How many times can you say the same thing over and over? I can give you the answers of the governor, the two senators,” he said. “I can give you every single answer. I can also say Ben [Carson] will complain about not being as...

Houston Chronicle: Republican presidential contender and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz suggested on Sunday morning that his leading rival Donald Trump was hiding records of involvement with the mafia. Cruz's comments came as he pushes the billionaire mogul to release his tax returns, which Trump has declined to do, saying he's been under federal audit for almost a decade. "There have been multiple media reports about Donald's business dealings with the mob, with the mafia," Cruz said Sunday on ABC's This Week. "Maybe his tax returns show that those business dealings are a lot more extensive than reported. We don't know." When ABC host George Stephanopoulos alleged that Cruz's charges were speculative, Cruz pointed out an ABC News report on Trump's business relationship with Felix Sater, who in 2010 was "convicted in a major Mafia-linked stock fraud scheme," according to the Associated press . Sater is an owner of S&A Concrete, whic...

Right Scoop: CRUZ HUGE IN TEXAS, according to new poll Cruz and Rubio are tied at 23 in Georgia while Trump has 30.  Trump has his largest lead in Tennessee for some reason.   Cruz is still the only candidate who is beating Trump anywhere.

Derek Hunter: here he was, stripped bare and standing in the middle of the debate stage. Donald Trump was eviscerated in Thursday’s debate. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz took turns pummeling the founder of Trump University with his own words, his own history, and delivering body blow after body blow. It was more than enough to convince any thinking person he was not a serious candidate for president. But Trump isn’t your typical presidential candidate. He’s Barack Obama-light, in every sense of the term. What does Donald Trump stand for? What will he do if elected? What core conservative principle will he advance? If you’re being honest, the answer to each of those questions is you have no idea. Don’t feel bad, neither does he. That’s not entirely true. He was fairly unambiguous about one thing he’d like to do: change the law so he can sue newspapers. When it comes to solutions to the nation’s problems, Donald Trump is the equivalent of a constitutional dumpster fire; and that’s...

Washington Examiner: Expert: Administration tips Syrian 'refugees' to scrub Facebook to get into U.S. ... But the testimony from the administration before Congress is being mocked and criticized by experts who said that by announcing the new program, the government is basically warning terrorists and criminals eager to enter the U.S. to scrub their social media. ... This will be made easier for the Syrian refugees passing through Europe which ahs imposed a "right to be forgotten" on Google and others making it easier for them to scrub their background.  The privacy wackos are the terrorists' best friend.

We Are the Mighty: ‘The last great tank battle’ was a slugfest of epic proportions The men of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment spearheaded one of the American columns that invaded Iraq on Feb. 23, 1991. After three days of light fighting they stumbled into one of the largest Iraqi armored formations and annihilated it with cannons, TOW missiles and mortars in the Battle of 73 Easting, often called “ the last great tank battle of the 20th century .”... The Captain who discovered the Iraqi tanks and engaged them is not a Lt. General.  He is H.R. McMaster who is one of the brightest minds in the American military.

Leon Wolf: I’ve long resisted the urge to compare Trump to Hitler because of the Internet axiom that if you bring the Nazis into an argument, you’ve lost. But the comparisons are mounting up way too high for reasonable people to ignore. It’s not just the cult of personality. It’s not just the fact that he courts white supremacists with a wink and a nod. It’s not that he intentionally fosters an atmosphere at his rallies where his supporters gleefully cheer the physical abuse of protesters and anyone who is different. It’s also not just the shocking level of power that he thinks he should have as President, complete with the right to unilaterally dictate United States trade policy. Even his signature campaign promise – to make Mexico pay for the wall that will never be built – is premised around the authority he believes he should have to unilaterally dictate that American companies cannot conduct business with Mexican ones. But, fine, let’s not compare Trump to Hitler. Let’s comp...

USA Today: ... Indeed, if not for his “conspicuous gallantry” that night the details of that mission would remain largely secret. His SEAL Team Six, the same elite unit that killed Osama bin Laden, had been tapped to rescue Dilip Joseph, an American doctor taken hostage by the Taliban. As he has before every mission, Byers said a prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. “Defend us in battle,” it begins. After a four-hour hike over rugged terrain on the cold night, Byers and his SEAL teammates approached the building where Joseph was being held. The first SEAL through the door, Chief Nicolas Checque, 28, was cut down by fire from an AK-47. Byers barreled in behind Checque, killed a guard pointing a rifle at him, and tackled another man. Byers held that man with one hand while adjusting his night-vision goggles with the other. Byers determined that man wasn’t Joseph and killed him. When Byers heard somebody speaking English, he hurled himself across the room and on top of Joseph t...

Washington Times: MSNBC to cut ties with show host after ‘destructive’ email Melissa Harris-Perry, who refused to appear on her show and complained about how the network treats her program, is one of several minority personalities who have seen their roles shrink at MSNBC. Harris-Perry appeared to blame her setbacks on bias against her black DNA.   This anger appeared to lead to her squandering the opportunity given her by a liberal network.

NY Times: With Fewer Members, a Diminished Political Role for Wisconsin Unions Wisconsin, once a labor stronghold, has lost tens of thousands of union members, and the shift has shaken the order of election-year politics. Wisconsin proves that when given a choice people will reject the forced payment of union dues and the corrupt bargain between the unions and the Democrat party.  The Democrats would grant salary and benefits to unions who would, in turn,  get political donations from the union slush fund which grew from the increases.  When it came time to bargain there was no one at the table representing the taxpayers who were getting stuck paying for this corrupt bargain.  By breaking up the corrupt bargain, Wisconsin was able to get control of its budget.  It is something that every state should do that still has forced union dues for public employees.

NY Times: Hillary Clinton, ‘Smart Power’ and a Dictator’s Fall The president was wary about intervening, but Mrs. Clinton was persuasive. In the end, the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi left Libya a failed state and a haven for terrorists.  After this part of the debacle, she sent Americans into harm's way with inadequate security  and failed to help them when under fire, and then lied about those responsible for the attacks.  She demonstrated incompetence that would destroy the career of most people in a leadership position, but instead she seems to think she deserves a promotion. Her actions were the opposite of "smart power."

Daily Mail: America and Russia's war by proxy in Syria laid bare: The moment a $60k US-made missile hits a $4.5m Russian T-90 battle tank American military officials and NATO chiefs snub Russian Armed Forces Day party in Washington amid heightened tensions over Syria and Ukraine Syria rebels, fighting near the besieged city of Aleppo, Syria, have filmed themselves firing a wire-guided TOW missile (top left) at a Russian T-90 battle tank (top right, missile and tank circled). While the tank survives the blast (bottom left) after the missile slams into its main turret, crew can be seen scrambling from a hatch in the top (bottom right) moments later. The CIA has been supplying TOW missiles to vetted rebel groups, while Russia has deployed its own T-90 brigades in Syria, as well as giving the tanks to Assad's forces. The missle cost around $60 thousand and the tank costs about $4.5 million.  The TOW missile has been in the US arsenal for about 30 years.  It was specifi...

Engadget: If Apple loses, your home could be the next thing that's unlocked Access to your security cameras would be just a judge order away. Acourt can already order access to evidence in your home if the prosecution can prove probable cause.  This has always been true.  There is really no good reason why Apple should be an exception to standard lawful orders of a court. The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides, "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures , shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause , supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched , and the persons or things to be seized ." ... Courts already routinely order access to security cameras.  An Apple loss will not change that.  If it is believed that the system may contain evidence it can be ordered to be produced.  ...

Washington Post: Donald Trump’s misleading claim that he’s ‘won most of’ lawsuits over Trump University ... In true Trump fashion, he boasts that he “won much of” or “most of” the lawsuits against him over Trump University. But all three lawsuits are pending. Trump can claim some court rulings favorable to himself, but so can the plaintiffs. Trump also creates a misleading characterization of the plaintiffs filing the lawsuit against him, saying they signed an evaluation praising the program but are suing them just to get their money back. The charges in the lawsuit originate from attendees’ complaints that they were misled into paying tens of thousands of dollars for a mentoring and training program that didn’t deliver what it advertised. Trump goes too far downplaying the allegations, by saying most of it is already resolved. That’s just not the case. Three Pinocchios

Weekly Standard: Press Forbidden from Filming Hillary Boarding Private Plane That is what happens when you want to stop others from using transportation options that supposedly contribute to green house gases.

Washington Post: What Trump and Clinton have in common This was the headline on a Ruth Marcus opinion piece, but I provided my own question to her apparent answer.   If they become the nominees of their respective parties voters will have to choose between a serial liar and an alleged conman.  It will be a tough choice for all the wrong reasons.

NY Times: Bernie Sanders Is Getting Advice From Expert Who Cited Possible Israeli Ties to Chemical Attacks One of the foreign policy experts advising Bernie Sanders is Lawrence Wilkerson, a former State Department official who has speculated that Israel might have carried out chemical attacks in Syria. I think this is the same guy who had some kooky ideas about George W. Bush and the Iraq war.   His suggestion that Israel was involved belies common sense.

David French: Trump Goes from Alpha to Beta in One Night ... Translation: He’d had enough. He’d been hammered, and he wanted the cameras off him, even if for a moment. For the first time all cycle, a candidate actually wanted less time in a debate. Astounding. And why not? He’d lost the exchanges so thoroughly that at one point he was reduced to simply demanding that Rubio “be quiet.” But Rubio didn’t stop.... ... This is why Trump staged the Christie endorsement to change the news cycle from talking about his disastrous debate performance to something else.  He used Christie to change the subject.

Mary Beth Martin: Ted Cruz and ‘dirty tricks’ Republican establishment is running scared ... Grass-roots activism is often frustrating work. There are candidates who pledge to do one thing while on the campaign trail, but then get to Capitol Hill and never act on those promises. Campaign promises are easily jettisoned once newly elected Members of Congress arrive in Washington, and the actual voting records of Members of Congress rarely match up with the pledges and promises they make on the campaign trail. Sen. Ted Cruz stands out in Washington because he has consistently refused to join in on the backroom deal making, the corruption, and the culture of broken promises. And, yes, there has been hell to pay for his refusal to take part in that culture. The rich irony of the past few weeks is that the Establishment GOP is attempting to get the “dirty trickster” label irrevocably attached to Ted Cruz and his campaign because they do not want a President Cruz challenging the stat...

Business Insider: Turkey has struggled with the consequences of the destructive civil war in neighbouring Syria. Now, the Turkish army is shelling the ancient center of one of the country’s major cities, partially as a result of how the Syria conflict has impacted Turkey’s long-running Kurdish insurgency. Ankara’s stance against the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has put it at odds with both Iran and Russia. Moreover, the Russian intervention in Syria brought Turkey and Russia to the brink of open conflict this past November when Turkey shot down a Russian plane that had allegedly strayed into the country’s airspace. But the Syria conflict’s real danger to Turkey is playing out within its own borders, particularly in a city of nearly 1 million people on the banks of the Tigris River in Turkey’s southeast. Diyarbakir includes a UNESCO-listed historic quarter surrounded by nearly 3.5 miles of thick Roman-era city walls. It’s also one of the region’s largest majority-Kurdi...

Sharyl Attkisson: It only took 3-1/2 years but the State Department has turned over new, previously undisclosed documents to the House Benghazi Committee. No word as to what’s contained in them. According to a committee spokesman, the documents come from the office of the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In a court filing, the State Department reportedly said it only recently discovered the documents. Benghazi “document-sifting” sounds familiar to career public servant The Clintons have been involved in numerous missing document scandals over the decades. A former State Department official under Hillary Clinton says he witnessed a “document sorting” session being conducted in the basement of the State Department after the Benghazi investigations began. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Raymond Maxwell says two top Clinton aides, Cheryl Mills and Jake Sullivan, checked in on the session while he was present. The document sorting went on for several weekends, accordi...

It is time for Trump supporters to take the blinders off.

Buzzfeed: #NeverTrump Trends Worldwide In Revolt Against Donald Trump Hours after the Republican frontrunner scored a major endorsement from Chris Christie, thousands of people took to Twitter to say why they won’t vote for Trump. This is something more than people who disagree with Trump and his supporters.  Millions are starting to believe that Trump supporters are the victim of a con job of grand proportions.

I suspect we will see more of these sad cases of people who did not get what they expected out of their investment.  If Trump wins will his voters be making videos like this in four years?

Fuel Fix: U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Friday that the United States needs to increase exports of oil and natural gas to its allies in Asia and Europe, reducing the influence abroad of countries including Russia and Iran. “Countries like Russia are major suppliers to NATO countries. They can easily use their control of energy resources to hold our partners over a barrel,” the Republican Majority Whip from Texas said at the IHS CERAWeek conference in Houston. “We can no longer keep energy policy in its own distinct silo. We have to understand energy security is intrinsically linked to our overall security.” Those comments come as the United States has ended a decades long ban on oil exports. Earlier this week, the first shipment of U.S. liquefied natural gas left Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana, bound for Brazil. Now that sanctions against Iran have lifted, analysts are predicting up to 1 million barrels a day of new crude production will come onto the worl...

Buzzfeed: Trump Claims He Didn’t Support Libya Intervention — But He Did, On Video Trump in 2011: “And at this point, if you don’t get rid of Gaddafi, it’s a major, major black eye for this country.” There are videos of him giving his support for the operation that he now claims he opposed.  There are also transcripts of other interviews where he supported the disastrous Libyan operation. It raises the question of whether he has a terrible memory or has a convenient lapse of memory when he is wrong. This is another example of Ted Cruz calling him on his past positions and getting a misleading response from Trump.

Texas Tribune: Almost half of the state’s voters support banning non-U.S. Muslims from entering the country, and more than half support immediate deportation of undocumented immigrants now living in the United States, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll. “I really see evidence of how the combination of the politics of national security and terrorism have merged in Texas with the politics of immigration and border security,” said Jim Henson, co-director of the poll and the head of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. “We see a lot of reluctance, particularly among conservatives, to open the state’s borders to outsiders — almost any way that you ask.” Forty-six percent of Texas voters said they would support a ban on non-citizen Muslims entering the country, while 41 percent said they would oppose it. Within those groups, 26 percent said they would “strongly support” such a ban and 22 percent said they would “strongly oppose” o...

Washington Times: Democrats say illegal immigrant children should have constitutional right to lawyers This policy would help build the dependency class of what they see as future Democrat voters while enriching their trial lawyer constituency who can, in turn, increase their donations to Democrats.   It is a way of institutionalizing Democrat corruption.

LA Times: Apple Inc. has come out swinging in its pitched battle with the government on its home turf. But when it comes to its second-largest market, China, the Cupertino, Calif., company has been far more accommodating. Since the iPhone was officially introduced in China seven years ago, Apple has overcome a national security backlash there and has censored apps that wouldn't pass muster with Chinese authorities. It has moved local user data onto servers operated by the state-owned China Telecom and submits to security audits by Chinese authorities. The approach contrasts with Apple's defiant stance against the FBI, which is heaping pressure on the company to decrypt an iPhone that belonged to San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook. The years-long strategy in China is paying off at a crucial time. While sales of Apple products have flatlined or declined in the U.S., Europe and Japan, business in the company's greater China region continues to soar — to a reco...

Washington Times: Young Australians say they are being paid to work for Sen. Bernard Sanders ‘ campaign by the Australian Labor Party in what appears to be a violation of U.S. election law, according to an undercover video released Thursday. The footage captured by Project Veritas Action shows three campaign volunteers discussing how they received compensation from the Australian Labor Party — including airfare, housing and a daily stipend — in order to help Mr. Sanders ‘ bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. ... You can see the video at the link above.  This appears to be a serious violation of US election laws and demonstrates an international solidarity to the failed ideology of socialism.

Catherine Rampell: Surprise — Trump, Cruz and Rubio aren’t all that different   This is sort of like saying that all blacks are not all that different.  In fact, there  are stark differences in the positions of all three if you actually take the time to listen to what they are saying.  The differences matter a lot to conservative voters.  But in the liberal's world, they tend to see all conservatives as racist, bigots and homophobes.

NY Times: Pastor in China Who Resisted Cross Removal Gets 14 Years in Prison The pastor, Bao Guohua, and his wife were convicted on graft and other charges amid a campaign in southeastern China to limit Christian churches’ influence. China's growing population of Christians appears to frighten the atheists in charge.

Algemeiner: House Committee Approves Bill Demanding Obama Recognize Muslim Brotherhood as Terror Group ... The Brotherhood’s strategic goal in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house from within so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions,” Goodlatte said, quoting the Brotherhood’s 1991 Explanatory Memorandum , in a statement given before the vote. “The Brotherhood and its leaders and affiliates, such as Hamas, have supported Islamist terrorism — directly, through fundraising, and through exhortation. Each of these activities constitutes an act of terrorism under the Immigration and Nationality Act.” Under the bill, the Obama Administration would be forced to deny admittance to any foreign national tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. ... It is about time.  It is more than passing strange that the Obama administration has not taken this ac...

Washington Examiner: Crazed woman charges Sanders at rally The Secret Service jumped in front of her to stop the charge.  I have not been able to determine whether she was a Hillary supporter.

Leon Wolf: ... Here’s what a bad night it was for Trump. In the middle of a completely innocuous question from moderator Hugh Hewitt, which was not in any way attacking Trump, Trump out of nowhere slammed Hewitt with “No one listens to your show.” In the span of 20 seconds, he said “I don’t believe anything Telemundo says,” and “I love Telemundo. Everything is fine.” Literally within the same answer. The belief this entire time has been that Donald Trump cannot be rattled in a debate. Tonight proved that it is not true. It’s one thing to expose Trump as a liberal; what the other Republican candidates did tonight was to expose Trump as a lightweight. Trump has gotten away for months with not having answers to anything because no one has pressed him on the point. Tonight, that ended, and he looked like a child. ... He was left with nowhere to hide and even at one point seemed to be begging the moderators to ask someone else questions.  The question is how many of his supporters ...

Phillip Klien: Trump busted: Video shows he blatantly lied on healthcare in debate It was a cross-examination that Trump was not prepared for and the take does not lie.  I expect Cruz will have the confrontation and the tape in an ad starting today.

Daily Beast: All Men in Iranian Village Executed Iran also claims the children of the men are also drug dealers.  Iran does have a serious drug problem.  It is right next to Afghanistan where the Taliban grow and sell dope on an industrial scale, and it has very many unhappy people trying to escape from the oppression of the group of religious bigots who run the country.

John Podhoretz: If debates can change the course of an election, we’ll learn it soon, because Marco Rubio utterly trounced Donald Trump last night in the most commanding performance we’ve seen in the 10 GOP scuffles thus far. I use the word “trounced” advisedly. After an hour in which Rubio turned Trump’s own game on him with quick jabs and mocking counterjabs, and Ted Cruz joined in a surprising tag-team effort with his Florida rival, Trump was actually complaining he was getting too many questions and too much time to speak. A frustrated Trump tried to flummox Rubio by calling him a “choke artist” and referencing the senator’s bad New Hampshire confrontation with Chris Christie, but the opposite was the case. Rubio came loaded for bear. He knows that his back is against the wall, that Trump leads in almost all of the 12 states that will vote on Tuesday and that he has to alter the trajectory of the race in his favor. “If he builds the wall the way he built Trump Tower, he’d b...

Rubio is making the case that Trump is a con artist.  It is a case that I suspect others will pick up.  As someone who has brought cases against those accused of fraud, I noticed early on that Trump had some of the characteristics of a con.  If you buy into what he is selling you are a "wonderful person" or "smart."  If you do not he attacks you viciously. I think it has taken this long for the other candidates to make this case because they were3 too focused on their own pitch and the media has been rewarding Trump with coverage when he makes his counter attacks.  They have been complicit in the con. The Trump supporters also desperately want to believe him like many marks in a con.

This has been the most interesting debate in the campaign.  Rubio and Cruz really took the fight to Trump from the very beginning.  One of the more interesting moments was when Trump made reference to Rubio's problem of repeating himself in an earlier debate and Rubio rattled off Trump's mantras that he repeats ad infinitum in every debate and speech. Trump is saying that the reason he has not released his taxes is because he is being audited.  He has also been pressed on some of his business practices.

Telegraph: Turkish troops are locked in a covert fight against the Islamic State in north Iraq, the Telegraph has learned, despite Baghdad’s insistence that they leave the country. Just nine miles northeast of the Isil stronghold of Mosul a number of tanks overlook the sprawling Nineveh plains, where they have been positioned for months. With their barrels trained on the city, Ankara ’s ground forces are engaged in shelling Isil, according to a Kurdish Peshmerga general. “If the US was doing more the Turks wouldn’t have had to come in,” said General Bahram Yasin in reference to coalition efforts to tackle Isil. Local witnesses have reported Turkish tanks moving around the base and shelling the insurgents. They also produced photographs showing two green camouflage tanks with distinctive turrets identified as Sabras (M60T), a model used by the Turkish military. • What does Turkey's involvement in air strikes mean for Kurds, Isil, Syria and Nato? There are between 1,000 and 2,000 T...

Fox News: ran’s new cash-incentive plan for “martyrs” who strike in Jerusalem is proof the Islamic Republic intends to spend billions reaped in the recent nuclear deal on terrorism, Israeli officials told FoxNews.com Thursday. Already identified as the world’s top state sponsor of terrorism, Iran will now pay the equivalent of $7,000 "to every family of a martyr of the intifada in Jerusalem,” Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon said Wednesday at a news conference in Beirut. What’s more, Tehran will pay $30,000 to the family of any terrorist whose home gets bulldozed by Israel, a tactic the Jewish state has employed in the West Bank to deter attacks. “This demonstrates again Iran’s role in encouraging terror,” Emmanuel Nahshon, spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry told FoxNews.com. “Following the nuclear agreement, Iran continues being a major player in international terror." The Iranian diplomat, Mohammad Fathali, giddily unveiled the new scheme to benefit the families of...

Eli Lake: The chairman of one of the House committees investigating manipulation of military intelligence on the Islamic State said Thursday that e-mails and other files needed for the investigation have been deleted. Representative Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, made that allegation in his opening remarks at a hearing on worldwide threats. "It is vital that this committee protect and seriously consider the testimony of the many whistleblowers who provide information to us," Nunes said. "For example, we have been made aware that both files and e-mails have been deleted by personnel at CentCom, and we expect that the Department of Defense will provide these and all other relevant documents to the committee." These charges are serious. Central Command has been under investigation by the Pentagon's inspector general since last year when scores of CentCom intelligence analysts complained to the watchdog that their...

The Right Scoop: ... KTVT-CBS 11/Dixie Strategies Texas poll: 1.) Cruz - 33.24% 2.) Trump - 24.83% 3.) Rubio - 14.76% 4.) Kasich - 8% 5.) Carson - 5.79% ... I was actually called on this poll.  I thought the questions were fair

NY Times: Trump’s Message to Foreign Workers: You’re Hired Donald J. Trump has stoked crowds by promising to bring back jobs, but he has also pursued more than 500 visas for foreign workers at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Trump turned down over 94 percent of American applicants and instead hired people with "H" visas according to the report.  Trump now says he will turn down applicants for the H1B visa program.   He has apparently been critical of Disney for doing what he did.  Charles C.W. Cooke has more on the apparent political conversion on the issue. This seems to fit into the Cruz criticism of Trump as a "P.T. Barnum."  He apparently believes he can fool most of the people most of the time.

Benny Avni: It didn’t take long for the two Cuban-American presidential contenders to smell a Havana rat. “You wake up this morning to the news that the president is planning to close Guantánamo — maybe even giving it back to the Cuban government,” Marco Rubio said Tuesday while campaigning in Las Vegas. Dropping the “maybe,” Ted Cruz said at a Reno rally, “I believe that President Obama intends to try to give the Guantánamo naval facility to Raúl and Fidel Castro as a parting gift.” Indeed, a diplomat familiar with the administration’s Cuba maneuvering tells me the White House has seriously considered giving in to Raúl Castro’s demand to hand over Guantánamo. America has controlled the naval base since 1903. Since the 1959 revolution, the Cuban government has said Guantánamo is an occupied territory that must be returned. Most recently, Raúl Castro demanded turning Gitmo over as a condition for renewing relations. White House officials say that, yes, Obama believes the detention fa...

Buzzfeed: Donald Trump Said A Lot Of Gross Things About Women On “Howard Stern” In the hours of audio reviewed by BuzzFeed News, Trump ranks, rates, and degrades women. This is the question that angered Trump in the first debate and led to him saying degrading things about Megan Kelly. ... ... In particular, Trump frequently discussed women he had sex with, wanted to have sex with, or wouldn’t have sex with if given the opportunity. He also rated women on a 10-point scale. “A person who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a 10,” he told Stern in one typical exchange. ... There is much more.

Fox News: The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee has approved legislation calling on the State Department to label the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization. Lawmakers voted Wednesday along party lines, 17-10. Supporters say if the measure is signed into law, the U.S. would have to deny admittance to individuals who are tied to the Brotherhood but aren't U.S. citizens or U.S. nationals. Individuals who provide material support to the group would face criminal penalties. The bill would allow the Treasury Department to require U.S. banks and financial institutions to block transactions involving assets held by the Brotherhood. ... Obama seems to have embraced this group of Muslim religious bigots who want to impose their weird beliefs on the whole world.

BBC: ... Eligio Lucena rents a few hectares of land and employs up to 12 people to cultivate potatoes. He says the government's tight controls on imports have made it impossible to get hold of seeds and fertilizer. "It's crippling us. Many people round here have the land all prepared for sowing, but we can't get hold of the seeds." ... That is how a command economy fails.  Control freak government is far worse than capitalism and a free market.  Bernie Sanders should take note as should Hillary Clinton.

Washington Post: 5 ways you can trick yourself into becoming a better saver While the easiest way to boost savings is to make it automatic, some people need a bigger push. The automatic savings feature is one of the secrets to living below one's means if you do not have the self discipline to do it otherwise.

Fuel Fix: Environmentalists want oil companies to leave fossil fuels in the ground. To a large extent, they already have. U.S. shale drillers have created the nation’s biggest oil and gas boom in four decades and the amount of fuel extracted from U.S. shale rocks lags behind only three nations — Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United States. Yet the individual wells they drill only drain a quarter of the natural gas and less than 10 percent of the oil buried in the once-inaccessible shale and other tight rocks. “It’s criminal the amount of oil and gas we’re leaving behind,” said Hans-Christian Freitag, vice president of integrated technology at Baker Hughes, during a panel on the third day of IHS Energy CERAWeek in downtown Houston. Freitag blamed the shale industry’s so-called manufacturing process of shale drilling. The way shale-oil producers approach an oil field is this: to get a constant rising flow of oil and gas out of rapidly declining shale wells, they need to drill up...

NY Times: Mitt Romney Says Donald Trump Should Release His Tax Data Mitt Romney emerged from political hibernation on Wednesday and issued a challenge Donald J. Trump: Show us your taxes. I suspect Reid and the Democrats wanted to wait until Trump was the nominee to spring this demand on him since they view him as easily the most beatable of the candidates in the GOP field.  Reid famously made up stories about Romney's tax returns.  His bogus claims were eventually discredited, but I am sure he is not above doing that again, and Romney's moves preempts the attack and also forces Trump's hand.

NY Times: Democrats Press G.O.P. to Consider a Supreme Court Pick In what appeared to be a political feint, the name of Nevada’s Republican governor leaked out as a potential nominee, as the Democratic power structure mobilized to break Republican opposition. If the Democrats were serious about wanting to name a GOP Governor who could get confirmed they would be pushing Texas's Greg Abbott, a distinguished layer who has had some experience in taking issues to the Supreme court.   Sandoval is a squish on abortion so he would not be acceptable to replace Justice Scalia.  I suspect he was not a serious choice, but was being pushed by Harry Reid to try to get some movement out of the Republican senators who oppose allowing an Obama appointment.  It should be noted that the NY Times was all for not approving court appointments in the last year of Republican presidents.

Breitbart: After a year and a half of investigating, Congress has finally gotten to see a large number of the “missing” emails form IRS administrator Lois Lerner. Some of these emails seem to show that Obama’s Department of Justice (DOJ) was involved in the IRS targeting of conservative groups, a Forbes report says. ... While investigators have yet to comb through this mountain of information, other key documents were finally revealed in a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by government watchdog group Judicial Watch . Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said that the documents show that Obama’s DOJ was “up to its neck in the IRS scandal” and remarked in outrage that the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, which is supposed to be investigating such abuse of authority, is “now implicated in the IRS crimes.” ... No wonder the DOJ has been trying to kill this investigation.  This situation cries out for a special counsel.  The GOP cnadidates for President need to speak t...