PrairiePundit

NY Times: Supreme Court to Examine ‘One Person One Vote’ The court has so far not resolved the issue of whether the principle means that voting districts should have the same number of people, or the same number of eligible voters. Voters in a district with a large population of people not legible to vote would have their votes  count more than those in a district with a smaller number of ineligible voters.  That seems fundamentally unfair, but it would not be the first time it happened.  The original 3/5ths compromise allowed slave states to count their slaves as 3/5ths of a person in calculating the number of house seats they were entitled to.  Does the court really want to go back to that type of standard?

Washington Times: A federal appeals court upheld an injunction against President Obama’s new deportation in a ruling Tuesday that marks the second major legal setback for an administration that had insisted its actions were legal. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of Texas, which had sued to stop the amnesty, on all key points, finding that Mr. Obama’s amnesty likely broke the law governing how big policies are to be written. “The public interest favors maintenance of the injunction,” the judges wrote in the majority opinion. Mr. Obama had acted in November to try to grant tentative legal status and work permits to as many as 5 million illegal immigrants, saying he was tired of waiting for Congress to act. The full amnesty, known as Deferred Action for Parental Accountability, or DAPA, had been scheduled to begin last week, while an earlier part had been slated to accept applications on Feb. 18. But just two days before that, Judge Andrew S. Hanen issue...

AP/Houston Chronicle: GOP likely to feel the heat if court decision guts Obamacare This would be an absurd reaction to the realization that the Democrats who drafted the mess screwed up.

Washington Post: The Koch brothers try to rein in the GOP presidential clown show For the party’s leader, the large field of contenders looks like a recipe for trouble. The left is always looking for ways to denigrate and be dismissive of opposition to its agenda.  Because there are so many serious candidates for the Republican nomination several leftist writers have started using the term "clown show."   The fact is that everyone of the announced candidates would be better for the country than Hillary Clinton.  That is also true of those who are scheduled to make an announcement too.

NY Times: Four Words That Imperil Health Care Law Were All a Mistake, Writers Now Say Doug Mills/The New York Times Demonstrators outside the Supreme Court on March 4 as justices heard arguments in King v. Burwell, a case that could decide the fate of the Affordable Care Act. Democrats and Republicans say a clause affecting subsidies, now before the Supreme Court, was an inadvertent product of a sloppy merging of versions. Obamacare was drafted by Democrats and they rejected any Republican input on the law.  But now they want to blame Republicans for their screw up and any fallout if the court rules against the attempt to get around the clear language they left in the law.

NY Times: Maligned Study on Gay Unions Is Shaking Trust The questioned findings, published in December in Science, have shaken not only political scientists but also public trust in the way the scientific establishment vets new findings. It is not just the gay agenda that has been politicized.  The climate change believers have been caught cooking the books to make it look like it is getting warmer.  Unfortunately much of the media supports the climate crusaders control freak agenda and it has not been very aggressive at looking behind the manipulation of data.  In the case of the questionable data on gay marriage, it appears to have been completely fabricated. The left has made such a fetish about science that it has wound up harming its credibility.

Reuters: Governor says deadly flooding is worst ever seen in Texas area The Houston area is also reporting six to 11 inches of rain fall and major flooding closing some freeways and several streets.  We have been getting flash flood alerts on cell phones since Monday night and again this morning.  Fortunately my home is on high ground but I suspect some routes are underwater.  It is currently raining again.

Washington Free Beacon: Congress is demanding that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) release documents detailing how many foreigners seeking asylum in the United States have been found to have ties to terror groups, according to a recent letter sent to the agency by leading lawmakers. The letter comes on the heels of revelations by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that at least 638 aliens seeking asylum in America have been found to have connections to terrorists. This “recent disclosure regarding the numbers of aliens found to have a ‘credible fear’ in cases where the terrorism bar to asylum eligibility may have applied raised the concern that hundreds of known and suspected aliens with terrorist connections may be attempting to take advantage of our country’s asylum system,” according to the letter, sent by leaders of four House committees on national security, the judiciary, and government reform. ... Asylum claims have also been further comp...

Breitbart: SHOCK POLL: 81% OF AL JAZEERA ARABIC POLL RESPONDENTS SUPPORT ISLAMIC STATE The poll was conducted by the network and may not be scientific, but it does reflect the attitudes of those who responded.

Amy Myers Jaffe: ... ISIS’ ability to hold territory is critical to its survival but its original concept to grab as many oil fields as possible to fund that future “statehood” is not succeeding. The terror-statist group is finding that the operational challenge of running those oil facilities is beyond the extremist group’s technical capacity. When ISIS began its campaign in June 2014 to form an Islamic caliphate by seizing large swathes of land in northern Iraq and eastern Syria, of paramount interest to the group was gaining control of producing oil fields and capitalizing on existing oil smuggling operations out of Iraq and Syria to help fund the group’s high operating costs. Instead, the extremist group is finding it cannot sustain oil production, both because it lacks the technical know-how and also because its fighters cannot stave off attacks to recapture key installations. Few people with strong technical expertise have remained in ISIS-controlled territory and the group’...

Daily Mail: Star Wars comes a step closer: US military bosses reveal success tests of airborne 'death rays' Initial trials of laser weapon revealed 'unprecedented power' of system, and it will now be tested against live targets at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The weapon would be used on both drones and fighter aircraft as well as special ops C-130's.  If successful they could also be a real money savers as well as a potent weapon.

Telegraph: The multi-million pound corruption scandal engulfing Russia's space industry The arrest of Dmitry Dyakonov, director of a company called Ekopravo, comes as the space industry faces accusations of embezzlement ... Russia's once-mighty space sector has been rocked by a series of embarrassing accidents and allegations of corruption in recent months , including the loss of two expensive space probes and a scandal over unpaid wages at a new space centre. ... The US has also been relying on Russian space rockets despite the sanctions imposed after Russian aggression in Ukraine.  This could lead to further losses of trade for the Russian economy.

BGN News: Turkey’s Erdoğan explodes at New York Times: ‘know your place’ Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has now lashed out at the New York Times over Friday’s editorial titled “Dark clouds over Turkey” which urged the US to call out Erdoğan for his attacks on free press and democracy, threatening the paper “to know its place.” I have also been critical of Erdogan's rule in Turkey.  He has in fact been a lousy ally on top of his inability to accept criticism of his government.  Turkey was better before him and will be better without him.  BTW, being critical of despots is one of the benefits of free speech.

National Journal: Democrats Aren’t Rushing To Defend Hillary Clinton After e-mail revelations, some Democrats are dodging questions more than offering Clinton cover Democrat Senators are far too busy these days to want to talk with the media about Hillary's screw ups.   In fact they have become as shy in answering questions as Hillary.

This guy seems to be the Democrats's choice for the VP nomination based solely on his ethnicity.

Hans von Spakovsky: Did Obama Administration Really Accidentally Disobey Judge’s Order on Immigration? If I were the government's lawyer the first thing I would do is produce the memo to managers telling them to comply with the order of Judge Hanen.  Instead, the government is blaming the problem on a computer glitch, but where is the memo to the IT staff telling them to change the program?

Medium: Pentagon report predicted West’s support for Islamist rebels would create ISIS Anti-ISIS coalition knowingly sponsored violent extremists to ‘isolate’ Assad, rollback ‘Shia expansion’ Obama's dithering response to events in Syria have a long term consequence.

AP/Washington Post: Official: Syrian army preparing for counterattack on militants in Palmyra Reports say Islamic State fighters have massacred hundreds in town, whose ancient site is in jeopardy. The Syrian army has a shrinking power base and has had several "setbacks" as the White House refers to losses to ISIL.   Whether it still has the capacity to drive out ISIL is in doubt.  It did not even bother to contest ISIL in Kobani where the Kurds did the heavy lifting in defeating them.

NY Times: Carly Fiorina Talks, Iowa Swoons, as Polls Shrug Stephen Crowley/The New York Times Carly Fiorina has been among the most frequent visitors to Iowa in the Republican field. Her campaign is expanding in the state faster than those of some of her rivals. Republicans in Iowa are starting to swoon over Ms. Fiorina, a former Silicon Valley executive who is mostly unknown in much of the country. I think she is attracting attention because she is smart and she is willing to take on Hillary and the Democrats.  She has been willing to take on the media and her critics in a clever way.  I think California made a terrible mistake in not electing her over Barbara Boxer.  Fiorina is much more intelligent.

Amir Taheri: In September, President Obama announced a US-led “broad coalition” assembled to “degrade, and ultimately destroy,” the Islamic State (ISIS). Eight months later, the terrorists are stronger than ever. This month, when the Islamic State launched a massive attack on the large Iraq provincial capital of Ramadi, the government in Baghdad did what it was supposed to do under Obama’s “strategic plan”: Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi called for a meeting of the US-led coalition to coordinate action against ISIS. Very soon, however, it became clear that no such meeting would ever take place. The coalition, supposedly consisting of 50 nations, simply has ceased to exist, if it ever did exist. According to Iraqi sources, al-Abadi then lowered his expectations by meeting US Ambassador to Baghdad Stuart E. Jones to demand intensified airstrikes on ISIS units advancing on Ramadi. The ambassador managed to convince Washington to conduct a few strikes, but not enough to tip the bal...