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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

$450,000 Federal Grant Went to Make Climate-Change Video Game By Bridget Johnson

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has taken up the task of chronicling government waste since notorious pork-fighter Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) retired, today revealed a nearly half-million-dollar video game produced for climate-change education.

The Climate Change Narrative Game Education (CHANGE) is being developed by researchers at the University of South Florida and piloted at Hillsborough County high schools. It received a nearly $450,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.

“CHANGE’s goal is to help high school students learn complex Global Climate Change science by making it personally relevant and understandable,” says the USF description of the game, which uses “scientifically realistic text narratives about future Florida residents” about 50-100 years into the future and “simulations & games based on scientific data to help students learn principles of GCC so students can experience and try to cope with potential long term effect of GCC via role-play and science-based simulation.”

In his Waste Report today, Paul slammed the project as “a video game aimed at indoctrinating kids into the climate change way of thinking.”

Hate Rhetoric Spurs U. of Chicago Student to Try to Avenge Police Killing of Chicago Teen By Rick Moran

A University of Chicago engineering student was arrested for making online threats against the school’s students and faculty.

Jabari Dean’s motive was to exact revenge for the killing of 17 year old Laquan McDonald by a Chicago police officer who shot the teen 16 times.

This is my only warning. At 10 a.m. on Monday mourning (sic) I am going to the campus quad of the University of Chicago. I will be armed with a M-4 Carbine and 2 Desert Eagles all fully loaded. I will execute aproximately (sic) 16 white male students and or staff, which is the same number of time (sic) Mcdonald (sic) was killed.

He also threatened to kill white policemen.

“I then will die killing any number of white policemen that I can in the process. This is not a joke. I am to do my part to rid the world of the white devils. I expect you to do the same,” the post read.

The school was shut down in response to the threat:

Axis of Sophomores: Obama-Hillary-Kerry By James Arlandson

Sophomore literally means “wise fool.”

Though they’re wise in their own eyes, the title’s three leftists – even former Secretary of State Clinton – own America’s diminishment and the predictable subsequent chaos around the world.

Skipping over Cuba and Asia, here’s your evidence that they act foolishly in the Middle East and Central Asia.

1. Hillary’s private email server while secretary of state shows bad judgment.

One exception to our Middle East focus – this folly has gone around the globe.

How dumb can she be?

Be sure that China and Russia and any number of countries have hacked it and now possess compromising secrets about her. This may (and should) disqualify her from the White House.

2. The worst failure: overthinking, peacenik Obama campaigned on withdrawing military from Iraq and did so. Now ISIS has swamped the zone.

This is what happened in Vietnam. We withdrew, and the North overwhelmed and slaughtered countless people in the South. Kerry has a history of bad foreign policy decisions.

Now the Syrian refugees (and others) are naturally streaming into better places. Safe havens in the area would have been adequate and less costly until the conflict cooled down.

Let’s figure out this ISIS swamp by using the logic of history and our knowledge of Islam.

Liberalism’s Imaginary Enemies In Paris, it’s easier to battle a climate crisis than confront jihadists on the streets. By Bret Stephens

Little children have imaginary friends. Modern liberalism has imaginary enemies.

Hunger in America is an imaginary enemy. Liberal advocacy groups routinely claim that one in seven Americans is hungry—in a country where the poorest counties have the highest rates of obesity. The statistic is a preposterous extrapolation from a dubious Agriculture Department measure of “food insecurity.” But the line gives those advocacy groups a reason to exist while feeding the liberal narrative of America as a savage society of haves and have nots.

The campus-rape epidemic—in which one in five female college students is said to be the victim of sexual assault—is an imaginary enemy. Never mind the debunked rape scandals at Duke and the University of Virginia, or the soon-to-be-debunked case at the heart of “The Hunting Ground,” a documentary about an alleged sexual assault at Harvard Law School. The real question is: If modern campuses were really zones of mass predation—Congo on the quad—why would intelligent young women even think of attending a coeducational school? They do because there is no epidemic. But the campus-rape narrative sustains liberal fictions of a never-ending war on women.

Obama’s Appalachian Tragedy The president’s anti-coal policies have devastated West Virginia. Since 2009, 332 mines have closed. By Paul H. Tice

‘The traveler comes to the Appalachians in the lovely season. He sees the hills, the streams, the foliage—but not the poor.” That passage comes from “The Other America,” Michael Harrington’s 1962 book that opened the eyes of liberal policy makers to America’s invisible poverty. The classic work helped provide the intellectual ammunition for President Lyndon Johnson’s “unconditional war on poverty,” announced in his State of the Union address two years later.

Fast forward to today. The latest touchstone of liberal policy, the regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions, is causing economic destruction and pushing poverty higher in the Appalachians. But those backing the climate-change agenda are doing their best to keep this reality hidden from the public.

Since 2012, 27 coal-mining companies with core operations in Central Appalachia, a region roughly centered in southern West Virginia, have filed for bankruptcy protection. The list includes a number of large-cap, publicly traded entities, such as Alpha Natural Resources, James River Coal and Patriot Coal. Production of coal in southern West Virginia declined by 45% between the first half of 2011 and the first half of 2015, according to data from the Energy Information Administration. Since 2009, 332 coal mines in West Virginia have been closed, and 9,733 jobs—roughly 35% of the industry’s total employment in the state—have been lost, figures from the West Virginia Coal Association show.

The Selective Amnesia of Neocons by Edward Cline

One of the most significant critical phenomena occurring within the last five years was the persistent and oftimes viciously personal neoconservative (“neocon”) attack on Diana West’s compelling and thoroughly documented account of how the U.S. lost World War II because of Soviet infiltration and manipulation of the Roosevelt administration. These machinations were fiddled not so much by Josef Stalin, as by his fifth column and domestic politburo of American Stalinists and an obliging U.S. president, Franklin D. Roosevelt. The book is American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character. The U.S. government then was termite-riddled with Soviet agents and sympathizers (“fellow-travelers”), much as our government now is termite-riddled with Muslims.

I reviewed Diana West’s path-breaking book in May 2015 in my Rule of Reason column, “Blaming the Right Culprits.” In it I wrote:

Diana West has performed yeoman’s work in exposing the Soviet-FDR connection in American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character. She has aired out America’s dirty laundry and hung it out to dry. Neocons and other strange creatures attacked her for contradicting their over half-century-old meme that FDR was a blameless dupe of Joseph Stalin and that there were no real Soviet agents and fellow travelers in FDR’s administration.

Debt Under Obama Up $8,000,000,000,000 by Terence Jeffrey

The debt of the federal government has now increased by more than $8,000,000,000,000 during the time President Barack Obama has been in office, according to the official debt numbers published by the U.S. Treasury.
The total federal debt, which was $18,722,746,583,118.03 at the close of business on Monday, now equals about $159,007 per household.
It has increased approximately $68,756 per household during Obama’s presidency.
On Jan. 20, 2009, when Obama was inaugurated, the total debt of the federal government was $10,626,877,048,913.08. On Nov. 23, 2015, it was $18,722,746,583,118.03 Thus, so far in Obama’s presidency, the federal debt has increased $8,095,869,534,204.95.
As of September, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 117,748,000 households in the United States. The $18,722,746,583,118.03 in federal debt equals $159,006.91 for each one of those households.
The $8,095,869,534,204.95 that the debt has increased under Obama equals about 68,755.90 for each one of those households.

As CNSNews.com reported last month, the portion of the federal government’s debt that is held by the public-as opposed to the portion that is borrowed out of government trust funds such as the Social Security and Medicare trust funds-has more than doubled during President Barack Obama’s time in office.
When Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, the $10,626,877,048,913.08 in federal debt consisted of $6,307,310,739,681.66 in debt held by the public and $4,319,566,309,231.42 in intragovernmental debt. The $18,722,746,583,118.03 in total federal debt at the close of business Monday consisted of $13,487,562,419,580.15 in debt held by the public and $5,233,308,167,077.60 in intragovernmental debt.

Why Did the Terrorist Cross the Border? And what did he do after he entered? Michael Cutler

The obvious short answer to the question that serves as the title for my commentary is, “to carry out an attack.”

However, unlike football players who need to simply carry the ball into the end zone or baseball players who have to cross home plate in order to score, aliens engaged in terrorism must, after entering, find a way to hide in plain sight as they go about their deadly preparations without being identified and without being interfered with by law enforcement authorities. Crossing our borders, one way or another, is just the beginning of their efforts to attack us.

The 9/11 Commission referred to this as the embedding tactics of the terrorists.

Terrorists who keep a low profile until they are called into action are known as “sleepers.” On January 23, 2015 FrontPage Magazine published my article: “Sleeper Cells: The Immigration Component of the Threat.”

It is understandable that the recent terror attacks in Paris and elsewhere have elevated concerns about terror attacks. The ongoing coverage of the manhunt for terrorists around the world has captured public attention. Hunting down suspected terrorists requires a two-pronged approach, determining what country the suspect has entered and then digging him/her out of the “woodwork.” Immigration enforcement can be instrumental in such an effort.

Rep.John Lewis (D-Ga. District 5): Black Lives Matter Movement ‘Must Understand’ the Way of Peace By Nicholas Ballasy

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) said the Black Lives Matter movement “must understand” the way of peace and nonviolence.

Lewis, one of the “Big Six” civil rights leaders, said many young people are using his series of March books on the Civil Rights Movement as a guide.

“I think many of the young people all over America, high school students, college students and even elementary school students, are reading the book and they are able to associate the story, my story, my involvement in the Civil Rights Movement with what is happening in America today,” Lewis told PJM at the National Press Club Book Fair in Washington. “It is teaching people the way of peace, the way of love, the way of nonviolence and this young man, [co-author] Andrew Aydin, had the idea that we should do this book.”

Lewis provided his assessment of how the Civil Rights Movement compares with the Black Lives Matter movement of today.

“When we first got involved, before we had gone on the sit-in of the freedom ride, before the March on Washington or March from Selma, we studied the way of peace, the way of life, the way of nonviolence and we accepted nonviolence as a way of life, as a way of living. So the young people involved in the Black Lives Matter movement must understand, and many of these people are reading this book and using it as a guide,” Lewis said.

Rubio Vows to Restore Intelligence Programs Restricted by Obama- Exclusive Interview by Roger Simon

With our president running off to Paris not in response to the recent terror attacks, but to deal with what he considers our greatest national security threat — climate change — 2016 is more than ever a foreign policy election.

Not surprisingly, however, Republican candidates are emphasizing this continued spread of radical Islamic terrorism. Few have been more focused on the issue than Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. PJ Media’s Diary of a Mad Voter sent Senator Rubio six questions in the crucial area of foreign policy, which he has been gracious enough to answer. Among his responses below, Rubio has promised to restore overseas intelligence programs Obama has restricted.

Part of an ongoing series, these questions are not meant to be “gotchas,” but an opportunity for the candidates to explore their views at length, which we feel they don’t always get to do during the televised debates. Previously, Senator Ted Cruz answered a similar series of foreign policy questions for us. Readers can find his answers here.

PJM: Once deemed a “jayvee team” and then “contained” by President Obama, events (Paris, Sinai, Beirut) have shown ISIS very much alive, growing and dedicated to their goal of a global caliphate under Sharia. Furthermore, the attack in Mali has demonstrated the supposedly quiescent al Qaeda also remains active. Making matters worse, a new Pew Poll reveals upwards of 287 million of those polled in 11 Muslims countries viewed ISIS favorably or were “neutral” to it. Given the horrific situation, what specific concrete steps would a Rubio administration take starting day one to put an end to these and similar groups militarily and ideologically?

SENATOR RUBIO: As the Paris attacks demonstrate, our first priority must be to shore up our defenses. I would begin by working with regional partners to prevent jihadists from traveling between their homes and the battlefield. I would also boost domestic efforts to detect potential “lone wolf” attackers, and I would stop the flow of Syrian refugees to the U.S. for now—not because we don’t want to help those in need, but because it is currently impossible to verify their identities or intentions. I would also bolster the Visa Waiver Program’s security screening to ensure that those entering the country are not a threat. Most importantly, my administration would lift the limits on overseas intelligence collection put in place by President Obama and restore the intelligence programs required to keep America safe. The terrorists that attacked Paris reportedly relied on sophisticated technology to communicate, and we need every constitutionally available tool to uncover future plots.