Wednesday roundup

Two insightful pieces on last week's bombing of that peace rally of Kurds and labor unions in Ankara, one by Michael Rubin at Commentary and one by Cliff May at Townhall.  Common question posed by both: Did Erdogan have some kind of hand in it?

David P. Goldman at PJ Media echoes LITD's reasons for still putting Ted Cruz at the top of the list of Pub prez faves:

Ted Cruz, in summary, is best positioned to capture the Republican protest vote, and best positioned on the ground in primary states. He is also without doubt the most intelligent, literate and cultured person running for president, a former national debating champion, and a star student of the conservative philospher Robert George at Princeton as well as the liberal law professor Alan Dershowitz at Harvard.  If I read him correctly, he has paced himself, allowing Donald Trump to grab the headlines, tipping his hat to this wild man of the Republican primaries by way of acknowledging the sympathy he has won from voters. Meanwhile has has spent most of his time building an organization on the ground, in preparation for the moment when the anti-Establishment vote fades. He carries none of the toxic baggage of the Republican foreign-policy establishment; on the contrary, he drew their ire for ridiculing the idea that the U.S, could turn Iraq into Switzerland.

With a guy like that, what could possibly motivate a principled conservative to not put him at number one?

Joe Allbaugh at the Daily Caller points up a phenomenon you may not have considered: the occupation known as farming is on the wane in post-America. More than six times as many farmers are ending their careers as are beginning them.

Steven Hayward at Power Line looks into the reality behind these Scandinavian countries that socialists like Bernie Sanders like to sing the praises of:

 . . . their beloved European welfare states rely on much more than high incomes taxes to pay for their benefits. All of them have very high (and regressive) consumption taxes. Sweden’s value-added tax is set at 25 percent. Any liberals in America want to propose such a tax here? Didn’t think so. You can count on that being one thing we won’t “look at” as Sanders goes forward.

Worth adding that Norway pays for a lot of its welfare state through North Sea oil and gas revenues. Guess Norwegian environmentalists aren’t as politically powerful as ours, or maybe their like their welfare state goodies too much to complain. I forget the estimates, but expanded oil and gas production on public lands in American could yield something like $1.5 trillion in revenue.