The EPA must be dismantled yet this morning - today's edition

The terms "outlaws" and "rogue agency" come to mind:

The Environmental Protection Agency engaged in “covert propaganda” and violated federal law when it blitzed social media to urge the public to back an Obama administration rule intended to better protect the nation’s streams and surface waters, congressional auditors have concluded.

The ruling by the Government Accountability Office, which opened its investigation after a report on the agency’s practices in The New York Times, drew a bright line for federal agencies experimenting with social media about the perils of going too far to push a cause. Federal laws prohibit agencies from engaging in lobbying and propaganda.

“I can guarantee you that general counsels across the federal government are reading this report,” said Michael Eric Hertz, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York who has written on social media and the government.

Here's specifically the sleaze the agency was engaged in:

The G.A.O. report details two specific violations that took place as the E.P.A. was preparing to issue the final rule. The first involved the Thunderclap campaign in September 2014, in which the E.P.A. used a new type of social media tool to quickly reach out to 1.8 million people to urge them to support the clean-water proposal. Thunderclap, described as an online flash mob, allows large groups of people to share a single message at once.
“Clean water is important to me,” the Thunderclap message said. “I support E.P.A.’s efforts to protect it for my health, my family and my community.”
The effort violated federal law, the G.A.O. said, because as it ricocheted around the Internet, many people who received the message would not have known that it was written by the E.P.A., making it covert propaganda. The E.P.A. disputes this finding, noting that it sent out the original Thunderclap message and was hardly hiding its role.
The agency is also said to have violated the anti-lobbying law when one of its public affairs officers, Travis Loop, wrote a blog post saying he was a surfer and did not “want to get sick from pollution.” That post included a link button to an advocacy group that discussed the danger that polluted water posed to surfers and, at least at one point, also included text that said “Take Action,” telling the public to “tell Congress to stop interfering with your right to clean water.”

Now, let's deep-six the Waters of the United States rule.

Why clearly demarcated and enforced borders are a fine thing - today's edition

The stuff these Muslims had on their phones ought to make any decent human being hurl:

Hundreds of asylum-seekers entering Norway were discovered to have images of ‘executions’ and ‘severed heads’ on their mobile phones.

The revelation comes amid heightened fears that ISIS is exploiting the migrant crisis to smuggle fighters into Europe, following last month’s attacks in Paris.

Police admitted that the ‘explosion’ of refugees crossing into the country over the summer and in recent months meant that security checks were less thorough than required, and weren’t checking the background of those entering the country.

The Police Immigration Service (PU) in Norway has been forced to work overtime and under severe pressure due to the massive numbers of asylum-seekers hoping to take refuge in the country.

But after searching belongings and mobile phones belonging to refugees and migrants crossing the border, police discovered ‘hundreds’ of examples of ‘photos and videos of executions and brutal punishments, such as images of people holding up severed heads or hands’.

They also reportedly found photographs of dead children and other victims of war, crimes and terrorism.

And any sane country is supposed to let hordes of Muslims from Syria and other Middle Eastern and South Asian countries just cross its borders without airtight vetting?

Western civilization's death rattle is beginning to shake the chandeliers.

Monday roundup

As I've said here before, when W first proposed the idea of a Department of Homeland Security in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, I thought it was a bad idea that would lead to inevitable overlap, redundancy, corruption and PC silliness. We already had a Defense Department and a CIA. Alas, it turns out that the bureaucracy charged with keeping us secure may get us all murdered in our beds:

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson resisted calls last year to allow immigration agents to review visa applicants’ social media activity because of fear of “bad public relations,” according to a former agency official.

“During that time period immigration officials were not allowed to use or view social media as part of the screening process,” John Cohen, a former under-secretary at DHS for intelligence and analysis, told ABC News, where he now works as a national security consultant.

The issue of social media vetting has taken on new significance during the investigation into Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, the jihadi couple who killed 14 people in a terrorist attack in San Bernardino earlier this month.

And how's this for a wake-up call?

Early Saturday morning two “foreign speaking” men set off alarms after they entered the local Walmart store in Lebanon, Missouri and purchased 60 cellphones. The purchase was made around 4 AM in the morning. Police were called but released the men saying they didn’t have a legal reason to detain them.

The Macon County Sheriff’s office is investigating a second suspicious purchase of dozens of cellphones at the Columbia Walmart on Conley Road.

A third suspicious purchase was made at a Walmart in Macon, Missouri.

On Thursday a fourth Walmart in Jefferson City in mid-Missouri reported another bulk cell phone purchase.** On Friday The Gateway Pundit reported that dozens of propane tanks were recently stolen near Kansas City.
Two more Walmarts reported bulk cell phone purchases by Friday night.Now this…

A stash of explosives was discovered in Mark Twain National Forest in Mid-Missouri in October. 

The Most Equal Comrade makes a rare trip across the Potomac to the Pentagon for a national-security briefing on the contained jayvee team.

And back in its caliphate, the contained jayvee team issues a fatwa ordering kids with Downs Syndrome and other congenital irregularities to be killed. 38 have been exterminated so far.

Precisely why we think so highly of Bibi here at LITD: the post-American overlords don't like the way he's "disrespectful" of the Most Equal Comrade:

A new profile of US Secretary of State John Kerry in The New Yorker casts light on the stormy relationship between the US and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who have often clashed publicly over the Iran nuclear deal and the Palestinian conflict but who also routinely refer to each other as friends.

The piece, written by the magazine’s editor in chief, David Remnick, quotes “American officials” who describe Netanyahu as “myopic, entitled, untrustworthy, routinely disrespectful toward the president, and focused solely on short-term political tactics to keep his right-wing constituency in line.”

The overlords have that last part wrong, though. Bibi is focused solely on trying to preserve his nation and Western civilization generally. But Freedom-Haters view everything through the lens of self-serving political maneuvering.

Rahm Emanuel is the leader of Chicago in name only. In actuality, he's toast.

One political figure who is anything but toast right now is LITD's fave prez candidate Ted Cruz. At The Hill, political analyst and communications strategist Naomi Konst has an uplifting perspective on the current juncture:

Every show has an end. Just like "The Apprentice" — gripping the first few few seasons, tired and contrived in the last — Donald Trump's campaign is aging toward death, one reckless outburst at at time. Although the casual political junkie wouldn't know by the looks of most polls, the media fetish with The Donald and his cultish following.

With primaries a bit less than 50 days out, at this point, previously skeptical pundits have assumed not only that Trump is the front-runner in the GOP primary, but that there is no real contest. But while cable news is capitalizing off of kabuki theater, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has been backstage outplaying the entire GOP field.In the modern ratings-based media world we live in, where candidates get attention off fundraising numbers and sensationalism, we often miss the politics brewing below the surface. Even seasoned politicos get distracted by earned media and national polls; but just as former House Speaker Tip O'Neill (D-Mass.) declared decades ago, the tried and tested formula of winning a presidential primary remains the same: It's all local.
Which is why, at this point in the campaign, we should prioritize "likely GOP voter" polls in early primary states over national and "total registered GOP voters" polls — like the Monmouth University poll out last week taken of Iowa GOP voters who have voted in previous caucuses, which shows Cruz winning at 24 percent (Trump is at 19 percent). Or, Sunday's Des Moines Register poll of likely Republican caucus-goers, which has Cruz at 31 percent and Trump 10 percentage points behind.
Recent general GOP polls (like this one and this one), where Trump is winning, factor in new Republican voters — a key portion of his support, but also those less likely to engage in the arduous Iowa caucus voting. And if those voters don't turn out, suddenly Trump drops below Cruz (in Iowa and South Carolina) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (in New Hampshire) in early primary states, making him dead on arrival to that "brokered convention" the media are fantasizing about.
All the focused polls in early primary states this week show Cruz's momentum growing, a reflection of his formulaic long-term strategy centered on fundraising, investment in ground game across the country, key endorsements and messaging to a coalition of conservative voters.
As we approach the final stretch before primaries begin, third-quarter fundraising reports indicate the health of a presidential campaign. Cruz not only out-raised all other candidates ($12.2 million), but he has assiduously maintained the most cash on hand ($13.8 million). While other big raisers (former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina) have spent resources on pricey ads, Cruz focused on field — perhaps saving media buys for the final days and tight race states. Cruz's investment in ground operations has paid off, as he notably has the strongest infrastructure in Iowa and South Carolina, and is far ahead of the pack in Super Tuesday primary states.
Cruz's organizing success is related to the number of conservative influencers he has wooed — from prominent conservatives like Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) and influential evangelical pastors. In presidential primaries, endorsements still matter, as community leaders are surrogate advocates for the campaign — speaking to congregations and at events, making personal phone calls and rallying other leaders.

You may wonder why Cruz surged this week? A predictable phenomenon in GOP primaries is occurring: As the flavors of the month rise and fall, the candidates focused on the long game benefit. 

I'm going to wrap up this roundup on that positive note. Positive notes are not so easy to come by in this dark time, so let us all proceed into the afternoon with this in the forefront of our mental file drawers.

 

 

Paris deal: already showing itself to be a big dud

Walter Russell Mead states what is fairly obvious who understand normal-people economics as the engine of human advancement - and, not incidentally, a cleaner environment:

The Chinese are rich enough now to care about how filthy their air is; that will drive change more than anything that happens in Paris. Fracking has made natural gas cheaper and more reliable than coal in the United States. Online shopping is keeping people home from the malls, and more and more workers are working remotely. Down the road, more changes will come as the world shifts from a manufacturing economy based on metal bashing to an information and service economy. Technological change is also coming: self-driving cars, renewable energy that can actually compete with fossil fuels without generous government subsidies, genetically modified plants that don’t need fertilizer or pesticide, safe nuclear power. Always and everywhere, capitalism is pushing companies to produce more goods using fewer raw materials and energy, and generating less waste.

And carbon-capture systems don't fit into the picture at present. They've priced themselves out of the real-world market:

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Amber Rudd, the UK energy and climate change secretary, described the 1.5C goal as merely “aspirational” while defending the UK government’s decision last month to scrap £1bn in funding for carbon capture systems that could hold emissions down. “I don’t think it was a mistake,” she said. “They are still expensive.”

Of course, the overlords will give lip service to by-God forcing countries to develop such systems, but in the end, that good old LITD First Law of Economics will prevail: The money has to come from somewhere.

Even Freedom-Haters see that this arrangement is not feasible on the political level, let alone the economic reality:

Kerry had compelling political reasons to take the $100 billion a year of climate money out of the text of the treaty. Though not in the treaty, the $100 billion a year — now pushed back to 2025 — survives as a formal decision of the Paris conference (paragraph 54 of the decision document). That massive fund would have been not only a killer for the deal, it would also have been a killer for Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy. As secretary of state, Clinton made the $100 billion pledge at the Copenhagen climate conference to keep those talks from cratering.

Of course, there will be an attempt at a raw shakedown, couched in ever-so-bureaucratize language about "international financing and technology transfer":

Article Four of the Paris Agreement states that developing countries should be provided with support for implementing the agreement, and this provision in turn is tied to Article Nine on the obligation of developed country parties to provide financial contributions to developing countries. India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution makes this conditionality explicit by tying its mitigation efforts “to the availability and level of international financing and technology transfer” (emphasis is mine). By contrast, developed countries are on the hook and obligated to ratchet up their emissions cuts over time — whatever developing countries do or don’t do — in perpetuity.

Excuse me, India, may I chime in here for a moment? "Technology" belongs to particular companies, and it is their decision whether to "transfer" it. I doubt they will do so unless it's a "transfer" known "selling something of value at a profit."

Then there is this aspect: the Paris "agreement" puts the Most Equal Comrade on the position of being an outlaw. Not for the first time, I know, but on a perhaps unprecedented scale.

President Obama has developed a new presidential doctrine to bind his successors by aiming to make them accountable to the court of international opinion. “Everybody else is taking climate change really seriously,” the president said at a press conference shortly before he left Paris. “They think it’s a really big problem. . . . So whoever is the next president of the United States . . . is going to need to think this is really important.” If the president decides to ratify the Paris Agreement without obtaining congressional approval from two-thirds of the Senate, not only will he ensure that the only way of reversing the agreement will be to put a Republican in the White House, but he also will be subverting Article Two of the U.S. Constitution. For America, the Paris Agreement is a very big deal.

Exit question: How far can something this bad and wrong go before it finally meets the kind of death that bad and wrong things inevitably do?

 

The world's self-appointed overlords ink a deal in Paris

Not much time to get into it right now, but first thoughts are that if Bernie Sanders and James Hansen think it's flimsy and insufficient as an instrument of imposing their tyranny, then I'm not inclined to get overly alarmed.

The real fireworks here in post-America will begin as a Pub legislature digs in its heels, a process that could get executive-branch support if there is a President Ted Cruz. (Can't you just hear how Squirrel-Hair is looking at this? "Terrible deal. Terrible. I would have negotiated a much better deal, one in which we would win.")

More later.

Ted is clearly bothering Squirrel-Hair

We know that Ted took immediate measures to put the kibosh on any notions of a cage match between himself and S-H after S-H posted one of his customarily bone-headed tweets - basically yet another boast about his poll numbers - in response to Ted's remarks about the nation needing someone with sound judgement.

Whether there is a cage match may not be Ted's to choose.

S-H chose Iowa - and blatant pandering to its corn lobby - to try to cast Ted's principled stand against ethanol subsidies in a bad light:

The Donald literally said:

With the ethanol, really, he's got to come a long way, 'cause right now he's for the oil. But I understand it, oil pays him a lot of money. He's got to be for oil, right? But I'm with you. I'm self-funding. I have no oil company. I have no special interest.

Of course The Donald is a special interest, but it would be rather inconvenient for him to point that out. And so he's playing the self-funding card once again, hoping it'll give him the edge, while defending crony capitalism.

Trump apparently thinks that he can win Iowa by defending ethanol subsidies. This is what he does: he tries to buy people's votes. The difference with Cruz is stark: the senator from Texas chooses principles over short-term political gain. Unlike what Trump seems to believe, this principled approach to politics is one of the main reasons very conservative and evangelical voters are enamored with Cruz.

Notice S-H's angle of choice: claiming that Cruz is beholden to oil companies. Sheesh, that's the kind of claim radical greenies make. But it makes sense coming from S-H. In his world, everybody is bought and sold. Except King Donald, who is so rich he only buys others.

Squirrel-Hair is so foul, so wrong for this nation, that I have to believe Providence has plans running counter to his. Then again, there's a track record established for letting a formerly special nation crumble when it chooses the proscribed path rather than the one set forth by the law and the prophets.

It may be that late in the day for post-America.

Your absolute must-read for today

Guy Benson's piece at Townhall is one of those columns that I'm not sure how to excerpt. Every word is supremely important.

It really doesn't cover any new territory for LITD readers. I've said here and on my podcasts multiple times that one of the most disturbing aspects of the Squirrel-Hair phenomenon is his right-of-center enablers.

Consider how willing they are to overlook the alarm bells going off in their faces:

Please recall this Huffington Post poll released in September. It demonstrated how Republican voters -- driven, it would seem, by Trump backers -- became astonishingly supportive of (a)maintaining the Iran nuclear deal, (b) government-run and -fundedhealthcare, and (c) race-based affirmative action when the pollster informed respondents that those positions were held by Donald Trump, as opposed to Barack Obama.  These aren't hypotheticals, by the way.  Follow those links, and you'll discover that longtime Democrat Donald Trump has embraced all three liberal stances during his current presidential run. Not back when he was donating generously to Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid over the years (yes, yes, "because he's a businessman!"), and not even more recently, when Trump was declaring his support for the wasteful "stimulus" package enacted by Obama, whom he declaredhad rescued the American economy; no, these are viewpoints articulated by the current iteration of Trump.  The punchline is that his supporters don't care at all.  Trump's Democrat-style campaign is driven by feelings and identity, not issues. 

The particular talk-show host I have focused on in these discussions here at LITD is Laura Ingraham, who cannot contain her giddiness when rattling off S-H's latest poll numbers or rally attendance figures, and who seems compelled to cram as many mentions of his name into a show segment as possible.

Benson's focus is Rush Limbaugh, and he does a thorough job of analyzing the lapse of this heretofore towering champion of real conservatism into a willingness to overlook the harm S-H inflicts on this nation:

A number of Trump's enablers in the conservative media firmament (some of whom loudly expressed contempt for him not long ago) are caught up in the same sort of feedback loop they routinely ridicule when it exists on the Left or within the GOP establishment.  Here's how the coy game has worked:  When Trump is right, they praise him.  Fine.  When Trump is factually wrong, while making an argument that may contain a "larger truth," they justify his inaccuracies.  When Trump lies, they deflect and excuse.  And when Trump does something indefensible, they side-step the substance, resorting to marveling at how masterful he is at "driving a narrative," playing the media, and aggravating all the 'right' people.  Sure, he may be a sloppy, impulsive, non-conservative ignoramus on actual policy, but at least "he fights" in a manner that gratifies our audience's political id; plus, "without him, we wouldn't even be talking about [fill in the blank]!"  There's never an explicit endorsement, mind you, just loads of adulation.  And airtime.  In response to Trump's ridiculous 'Muslim ban' proposal, which has been rejected by every other Republican presidential candidate, Rush Limbaugh had this to say:

"You Republicans, you can denounce Trump all day, all week, all month, and the Democrat party and the media are still gonna say you laid the table for it," Limbaugh said. "You can condemn Trump all you want, but it is not going to buy you any love or respect or admiration from the drive-by media and the Democrats.  Now, folks, the conventional wisdom is that Trump is scum, that Trump is a reprobate, that Trump is obscene, that Trump is dangerous, Trump's insane, Trump's a lunatic, Trump's dangerous, Trump's got to go. Why join in with that phrase? Why join that crowd? We never fall in with conventional wisdom here." 

As a long-time listener who has been entertained and informed by Rush's prodigious "talent on loan from God" for years, this protracted game of footsie with Trump is deeply demoralizing.  They're both hyper-successful Alpha Males and occasional golf partners, so perhaps there's some personal solidarity and friendship in the mix, but Rush's calling card has always been the fierce defense of conservative principles.  He excoriates "establishment" politicians for ideological deviations and heresies, shreds liberal strawmen, and exposes posers.  Trump is a self-serving, unprincipled, unreliable political shape-shifter.  He's a walking, bloviating strawman, habitually arming the Left with ammunition to claim vindication for their cartoonish characterizations of conservatives.  And he's the ultimate conservative poser.  He may be pushing the right buttons to suit a segment of the populace's mood, but he evinces exceedingly tenuous knowledge of issues, and displays little in the way of loyalty to any core convictions beyond, "what benefits Donald J. Trump at this exact moment?"  The above quote from Rush's Tuesday monologue attributes conservative criticisms of Trump to some deep-seated desire to earn "respect and admiration" from the biased mainstream media -- the "drive-bys" as Rush calls them, a moniker that is often infuriatingly apt.  This is a variation of the tired "Beltway cocktail party" refrain, wherein right-of-center figures deemed insufficiently devoted to the cause are presumed to be in the thrall of coastal elitists.  That template isn't always inaccurate, it must be said, but it's been overused and abused as a means of impugning motives, rather than engaging arguments. A staple of the End of Discussion Left.  

I suppose one way to look at the phenomenon of rightie excuse-making for S-H is their desperation - shared quite clearly by a large swath of the American public - for someone to so dramatically shake up the political landscape that any veneration of the status quo is seen as an unacceptable position.

The thing is, we don't need Squirrel-Hair to do that.  A certain Constitutional scholar from Texas fits the bill magnificently.

And the Freedom-Haters are as scared of him as they are of Squirrel-Hair.

The Most Equal Comrade: our Israel-hater-in-chief

Only the MEC could come up with this way to celebrate Chanukah:

the White House chose Susan Talve to light the Menorah. Talve is a member of the anti-Israel group T'ruah which is currently promoting assorted "soft BDS" programs. She's also a Ferguson activist. Her behavior was deeply insulting to the religious Jewish community and made it clear that the White House was determined to hijack even a Chanukah party to promote an anti-Jewish agenda.

So the general conviviality of the Chanukah party was disrupted by a crazed rant from Susan Talve in which she seemed determined to jam as many leftist talking points as possible in her limited time. Instead of talking about Chanukah, Talve blathered on about getting, "guns off our streets" and to "clean up the fires of toxic nuclear waste".

Talve screeched, "I stand here with my fierce family of clergy and black lives matter activists who took to the streets of Ferguson". 

Having celebrated the race riots which destroyed a community, she pivoted to Syrian Muslim migrants. Chanukah is a celebration of the Maccabees defeating a Syrian occupation, but Talve may not even know that. Radical clergy tend to be light on the religion and heavy on the social justice.

Instead she rambled on about how the "gates of this nation would stay open for all immigrants and all refugees".
Then, not satisfied with having made a disgrace of the Chanukah ceremony, Susan Talve declared, "I stand here to light these lights to say no the darkness of Islamophobia and Homophobia and Transphobia."

Talve babbled about insuring "justice for Palestinians" and began gleefully chanting, "Ins'Allah, Ins'Allah". Or "Allah Willing".  

The task of restoring post-America to its former status as the United States of America is going to be so very daunting. The damage is gargantuan.

H/T: Thomas Lifson at American Thinker

When a member of Congress acts with principle, it's worth celebrating

Today's case in point: Iowa Representative Steve King:

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) successfully pushed legislation through the House that prevents the Obama administration from negotiating immigration and climate change provisions with trade deals.

“It’s got many provisions within it which I’m happy about…the currency manipulation provision is one of them,” King said of the legislation.

The House adopted King’s amendment, which keeps the Obama administration from negotiating immigration and climate change provisions in trade agreements, on Friday in the Customs Conference Report.

“There were those that had significant heartburn over Trade Promotion Authority, I’m one of them. There were two provisions that I so badly wanted to be included within the TPA legislation because I have a bit of a history of working to keep the immigration components out of trade deals. Congress needs to be passing immigration law, not trade negotiators,” King charged. 

In post-America, it's more important than ever to keep the lines of demarcation between the branches of federal government bright and clear.

Well played, Mr. King.

Your overlords think it's fine if you get murdered in your bed

National security doesn't just take a back seat with the Most Equal Comrade and his nomenklatura; they've stuffed it in the trunk.

A former Department of Homeland Security agent says that an investigation he was conducting into a fundamentalist Islamic group operating in the U.S. may have helped stop San Bernardino jihadi Syed Farook had the government not shut down his probe.

During an interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly on Thursday, Philip Haney said that in 2012 as an agent with U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s National Targeting Center, he opened an investigation into a Sunni Islamic group called, Tablighi Jamaat, a subset of the fundamentalist Deobandi movement.

But Haney said that just a year into the investigation it was shut down by the State Department and the Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

The reason the investigation was quashed? Because the federal government did not want to profile Islamic groups, Haney told Kelly.

In the process of shutting down Haney’s inquiry, the feds also deleted his files, which included information on an organization with ties to Farook’s mosque, San Bernardino’s Deobandi movement-affiliated Dar-al-Uloom al-Islamia.

And Farook’s wife and accomplice, Tashfeen Malik, went to school at Pakistan’s al-Huda, which also has ties to the Deobandi movement.

This is of a piece with the former DIA chief's assertion that this regime has been cooking the books on the magnitude of the ISIS threat.

The Most Equal Comrade is so enamored of his selfie stick and his golf clubs, his wagyu beef and his Beyonce command performances that the thought of you experiencing the anguish and horror of your civilization being devastated and your family raped does not enter his mind.

You call that evil.

 

Memo to Ted: Steady as she goes

Jazz Shaw at Hot Air has a piece on the pressure from Iowa's corn lobby on Ted Cruz to cave on his stance on ethanol subsidies.

The ethanol lobby has been running ads against Cruz non-stop, painting him as being too heavily invested in the fossil fuel industry. Even though Cruz received the endorsement of Steve King, he’s under fire from Eric Branstad, executive director of America’s Renewable Future.

Branstad said Tuesday that King has been a powerful ally for the renewable fuels industry and he hopes the Iowa congressman is sharing information with Cruz. But he expressed disappointment that Cruz has ignored “invitation after invitation” to discuss renewable fuels issues.

“He came to Iowa with his allegiance already established the oil industry, not Iowans and not our caucus process,” Branstad said.

They’re spreading some serious lies about Cruz on the radio there, implying that he’s in favor of government subsidies for fossil fuels but not ethanol. The reality is that Cruz has repeatedly and consistently called for an end to all subsidies, even those for oil and gas. (Which barely exist, in reality, but he still wants to wipe the slate clean.)

Shaw goes on to talk about how Christie and Fiorina have begun to do a dance that leaves them vulnerable to charges of inconsistency.

This is why Ted Cruz remains LITD's favorite candidate at present.

Don't fold, Ted. Remember your understanding that government subsidization distorts the market value of anything.

Stay wedded to clarity and absolutes.

Much as I hate to, we must discuss Squirrel-Hair again

A round-up of a few of the most salient takes on his ban-all-Muslims utterance, and then my own thoughts.

Douglas Murray at the UK Spectator:

 . . . suppressing legitimate concerns and decent discussion inevitably leads to people addressing the same things indecently. We can thank the American left for the creation of Donald Trump and we can thank them for his comments last night. For years the left made the cost of entering this discussion too high, so too few people were left willing to discuss the finer points of immigration, asylum or counter-terrorism policy and eventually the only release valve for peoples’ legitimate concerns is someone saying – wrongly in my view – ‘keep them all out.’"

David French at NRO starts his take with an explanation of the Overton Window:

 Developed by the late Joseph Overton, a former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, the “window” refers to the range of acceptable political discourse on any given topic. As the Mackinac Center explains, “the ‘window’ of politically acceptable options is primarily defined not by what politicians prefer, but rather by what they believe they can support and still win re-election.” The key to shifting policy lies not so much in changing politicians but in changing the terms of the debate. In other words, “The window shifts to include different policy options not when ideas change among politicians, but when ideas change in the society that elects them.”

He then lists the numerous fronts on which the Left has moved the Overton Window in post-American public discourse. And then he describes what S-H has done with it:

On key issues, he didn’t just move the Overton Window, he smashed it, scattered the shards, and rolled over them with a steamroller. On issues like immigration, national security, and even the manner of political debate itself, there’s no window left. Registration of Muslims? On the table. Bans on Muslims entering the country? On the table. Mass deportation? On the table. Walling off our southern border at Mexico’s expense? On the table. The current GOP front-runner is advocating policies that represent the mirror-image extremism to the Left’s race and identity-soaked politics.
Critically, the Overton Window was smashed not by a politician but by a very American hybrid of corporate/entertainment titan — a man rich and powerful enough to be immune to elite condemnation and famous enough to dominate the news media. How many people can commandeer live television simply by picking up the phone and calling in? How many politicians can cause Twitter to detonate seemingly at will? While many of Trump’s actual proposals are misguided, nonsensical, or untenable, by smashing the window, he’s begun the process of freeing the American people from the artificial and destructive constraints of Left-defined discourse. 

French foresees "deeper polarization, and even less civility." He says that the only recourse for those disturbed  by this probability is to "model the values you wish to see in others" - that is, speak with "informed conviction" but stay above the venomous level which is going to comprise an ever greater portion of post-American discourse.

John Podhoretz at the NY Post says that  S-H's latest salvo was slickly calculated to put him back at the fore of the news cycle for the next couple of days, at a time when poll numbers indicate slippage in Iowa.

Mona Charen at Jewish World Review sees that that is indeed S-H's objective, and his success at it bodes ill not just for the Republican party, but national security:

As Commentary's Jonathan Tobin noted, during a week in which the disastrous fecklessness of President Obama and his party in the face of terrorism ought to have been Topic A, we are all talking about Trump instead. Brilliant. Tobin's point actually applies to the entire presidential contest. By rights, it should be about the Democrats' unraveling. From Obamacare to terrorism, from the economy to climate change, and from guns to free speech, progressive policies have proven deeply disappointing when not downright obtuse and dangerous. Clinton promises more of the same while trailing an oil slick of corruption in her wake. And yet swinging into the frame, week in and week out, the orange-maned billionaire bogeyman dominates the discussion.

Hell yes, Republicans are anti-Hispanic bigots, Trump (a lifelong Democrat) is supposed to confirm. Just look at the way he talked about Mexican "rapists" and vowed to build a wall that Mexico will fund. 

Hell yes, Republicans want to fight a war on women. Did you hear what Trump said about Megyn Kelly and Carly Fiorina?

Hell yes, Republicans are anti-immigrant, anti-handicapped, anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim. Line 'em up and Trump will offend. Not cleverly, mind you, but crudely. Donald Trump is fond of saying that our political leaders are stupid, constantly outmaneuvered at the bargaining table by shrewder Chinese, Mexicans, and Japanese. No one can accuse him of stupidity: provided his goal is to elect Hillary Clinton.

This week, while we were still burying our dead from San Bernardino, every Republican -- rather than explaining why President Obama's refusal to fight the war on terror has led to this moment -- instead had to condemn Donald Trump's mindless proposal to keep every single Muslim out of the United States until further notice.

She gets to the heart of what I think is most important about all of this a few paragraphs later:

Leave it to Trump to lob a stink bomb that putrefies everything.
Above all, the great favor that Trump does for Obama and for Hillary Clinton is to focus on personalities instead of philosophy. Trump, of course, has nothing to offer except personality (even if its charm eludes me). But his emphasis on "getting the best people" is exactly wrong. That's the progressive idea -- that the best people know better how to run your life than you do. That's what we've had under President Obama. Obama is a failure not because he's stupid, or stubborn, or inexperienced. He's a failure because he believes in failed ideas.
Hillary Clinton believes in all the same myths and shibboleths. After two terms of decline and decay, voters are ready for a different approach, unless someone crashes the Republican Party. Can it be pure accident that Donald Trump is playing the role to perfection?

Consider our current juncture. As of mid-December 2015, the two presidential candidates likely to face each other are a.) a bitter, power-mad radical leftist with an axe to grind due to her far more likable yet incorrigibly womanizing husband, and b.) a narcissistic, bombastic, shallow huckster with no regard for the way government is Constitutionally arranged. Also consider that they are both 69 years old.  Then consider that the current person holding the office of president - or, more accurately, the office of dictator of post-America - combines Candidate A's power lust and radical leftism with Candidate B's narcissism and bombast.

Then there is a Congress comprised of roughly equal parts Republican establishment squishes, radical leftist Democrats, and principled conservatives with great ideas for restoring America.


Then there is a society more bitterly polarized by the day, and a culture more crude, raw and addicted to distraction by the day.


The sum total is not a good formula for a bright future for the nation.

Indeed - and I'm far from the first to point this out - each succeeding outburst of Squirrel-Hair's - from "how-stupid-are-the-people-of-Iowa" to "Israel-doesn't-seem-interested-in-the-sacrifices-needed-for-peace" to "I'take-my-little-wine-and-my-little-cracker-and-I-guess-it-makes-me-feel-cleansed" to this latest utterance - only further stokes his following.

And a certain type of supposedly principled conservative opinion leader in the right-of-center pundit-sphere - primarily found on talk radio, but in some print and online forums as well - tries to castigate as an elitist anyone who points out that the cycle of new outrageous pronouncements and ever-greater zeal for he who pronounces is an unhealthy development. They say it is us who endanger the GOP's chances for, as they see it, calling S-H's base a mob of oil-informed pitchfork-wielders.

I'll be candid; there is a certain pitchfork quality to their mentality. But even at this late date, I'd rather steer the to a serious candidate. I don't wish to dismiss them. With the electoral picture stacked the way it is, I don't want to toss anybody who is anti-Hillionaire overboard.

But it's hard to have a serious conversation with just about anybody in late-2015 post-America.

Not that this bombshell is likely to get the attention it needs . . .

 . . . but in a sane universe, this would sink Hillionaire:

A new email released today by Judicial Watch shows that the Department of Defense was ready to mobilize forces to Benghazi three and a half hours after the attack began.

An email was sent by then-Department of Defense Chief of Staff Jeremy Bash to State Department leadership that offered “forces that could move to Benghazi” during the terrorist attack on the U.S. Special Mission Compound in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012.

In an email sent to top Department of State officials, at 7:19 p.m. ET, only hours after the attack had begun, Bash says, “we have identified the forces that could move to Benghazi. They are spinning up as we speak.” The Obama administration redacted the details of the military forces available, oddly citing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) exemption that allows the withholding of “deliberative process” information.

Bash’s email seems to directly contradict testimony given by then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta before the Senate Armed Services Committee in February 2013. Defending the Obama administration’s lack of military response to the nearly six-hour-long attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Panetta claimed that “time, distance, the lack of an adequate warning, events that moved very quickly on the ground prevented a more immediate response.”

Panetta said the 130 gunships or fixed wing fighters -- which would have required refueling abilities, armaments, targeting and support facilities -- "were not in the vicinity of Benghazi."

But according to Bash, their forces were "spinning up" and ready to deploy about an hour into the second wave of attacks.
The first assault occurred at the main compound at about 9:40 pm local time – 3:40 p.m. EST in Washington, D.C.  The second attack on a CIA annex 1.2 miles away began three hours later, at about 12 a.m. local time the following morning – 6 p.m. EST.

At approximately 11:15 EST, former U.S. Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed at the annex in the mortar assault. A DS agent and annex security member were severely wounded in that attack. 

It's a sign of how cacophonous the current moment is that this revelation is likely to evoke yearns from far too many post-Americans who are either outraged or enthused by the latest uttering of a buffoon like Squirrel-Hair.

"Deeply concerned": yeah, right

Iran continues to very concretely demonstrate its contempt for the "international community":

Iran has carried out a new medium range ballistic missile test in breach of two United Nations Security Council resolutions, a senior U.S. official told Fox News on Monday.

Western intelligence says the test was held Nov. 21 near Chabahar, a port city in southeast Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan Province near the border with Pakistan.  The launch took place from a known missile test site along the Gulf of Oman.

The missile, known as a Ghadr-110, has a range of 1,800 – 2000 km, or 1200 miles, and is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. The missile fired in November is an improved version of the Shahab 3, and is similar to the precision guided missile tested by Iran on Oct. 10, which elicited strong condemnation from members of the U.N. Security Council.
“The United States is deeply concerned about Iran's recent ballistic missile launch," Samantha Power, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., said in a statement after the last Iranian ballistic missile test in October. 

President Obama mentioned the Iranian missile test during a press conference on Oct. 16 and said the United States was preparing to brief the U.N. sanctions committee. He added that it would not derail the nuclear deal.   

"I think what we'll be doing is we'll review, as we have in the past, any violations of U.N. resolutions, and we'll deal with them much as we have in the past," Obama said of the October incident. 

Which is to say not do a damn thing.

 

The most noteworthy take on the Most Equal Comrade's speech I've seen so far

I didn't watch it. I knew I could rely on the following morning's reviews to give me an accurate assessment of its essence and impact - or lack thereof.

The general consensus is that it was a tepid rehash and vintage MEC, full of scolding of the post-American cattle-masses for being insufficiently open to the erosion of their culture, hints at gun-control measures to come, and obligatory platitudes about destroying "ISIL" that were utterly lacking in conviction.

But here's an informed speculation on how it was seen by the jihadists it was ostensibly about:

Michael Weiss, a senior editor at The Daily Beast’s and co-author of ISIS: Inside The Army Of Terror, was somewhat harsh in his analysis of the president’s remarks. Weiss, who is also a CNN contributor, told Wolf Blitzer that ISIS probably laughed Obama out of the room after last night’s speech. 

Weiss pretty much took the president to the woodshed on almost every point he made during last night’s remarks. ISIS is not contained, a point that was confirmed last week by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Strategically, the terrorist organization has established “franchises” in the Sinai Peninsula, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Northern Caucuses (located between the Black and Caspian Seas).

Most disconcerting was Weiss citing the Pentagon’s latest report showing that U.S. bombers are flying back to their respective bases without having dropped about 75 percent of their munitions. Additionally, he cited his own publication, which reported that before the president made his containment remarks, which were then followed by the ISIS-executed terrorist attack in Paris, an intelligence assessment was commissioned that showed we weren’t winning our fight with the Islamic State.
Right now, there’s a possible scandal within the intelligence community, with 50 or so Defense Intelligence Agency analysts coming forward saying that they’re being forced to “cook” their reports to fit the narrative of the Obama administration.
As for the evolution of terrorist attacks, self-radicalization isn’t a new phenomenon by any stretch of the imagination. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up an airliner in the first year of Obama’s presidency. As Weiss noted, he was radicalized “while he was sitting at University College London in Great Britain. We have been dealing with this menace for well–almost a decade now. There is nothing evolved here.” 

Weiss also mentioned that in the past two months, ISIS has launched five major terrorist attacks. Three have occurred in NATO countries. This isn’t a contained threat, and the president has his “head in the clouds” if he feels his current strategy is going to get the job done. He applauded the president for drawing the distinction between ISIS and Islam, but also wanted a) some realism at the same time, given that this fight will happen long after he’s left office and b) some level of contrition for calling ISIS the “JV team” and saying they were contained before he was fully given the details of the threat. 

So it wasn't exactly a yawner. More like a white flag.

The fast-encroaching darkness

A new European Parliament report is hair-raisingly candid about how advanced the threat is:

ISIS has recruited experts with chemistry, physics and computer science degrees to wage war with weapons of mass destruction against the West, a shocking European Parliament report has claimed. 

The terror organisation, according to the briefing document, 'may be planning to try to use internationally banned weapons of mass destruction in future attacks'.

The document, which was compiled in the aftermath of the deadly attacks on Paris claimed that ISIS has already smuggled WMD material into Europe.  

Experts fear that ISIS will be able to exploit a failure of EU governments to share information on possible terrorists.  Already, British police forces have been conducting exercises on how to deal with various types of terrorist attack. But the EU report claims that government should 'consider publicly addressing the possibility of terrorist attack using chemical, biological, radiological or even nuclear materials'.

The report, ISIL/Da'esh and 'non-conventional' weapons of terror warns: 'At present, European citizens are not seriously contemplating the possibility that extremist groups might use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) materials during attacks in Europe. Under these circumstances, the impact of such an attack, should it occur, would be even more destabilising.' 

Rob Wainwright, head of Europol said after the attacks on Paris: 'We are dealing with a very serious, well-resourced, determined international terrorist organisation that is now active on the streets of Europe. 

'This represents the most serious terrorist threat faced in Europe for 10 years.' 

Mr Wainwright warned that ISIS had serious capabilities in terms of resources and manpower.' Nomi Bar-Yaacov, Associate Fellow in Chatham House's International Security Department said: 'There is a very real risk of ISIS using unconventional weapons in Europe and beyond.' Wolfgang Rudischhauser, Director of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Non-Proliferation Centre at NATO said: 'ISIS actually has already acquired the knowledge, and in some cases the human expertise, that would allow it to use CBRN materials as weapons of terror.' The report claims 'ISIL/Da'esh has recruited and continues to recruit hundreds of foreign fighters, including some with degrees in physics, chemistry and computer science, who experts believe have the ability to manufacture lethal weapons from raw substances.' EU governments have been warned to watch out for 'other radicalised individuals, who have access to, or work in, sensitive areas'. Intelligence services have also been warned to screen returning Jihadi fighters for 'specialist CBRN knowledge'. The shocking study claims that 150 cases of nuclear or radiological trafficking are reported annually. Worse still: 'CBRN substances have been carried undetected into the European Union. 

Exit question: What is sufficient to stop this?