HALF-FULL REPORT 03/13/15

It’s Friday the 13^th, which is bad luck for somebody. But not this week for conservatives.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark, has written a letter, cosigned by 46 Republican senators, to the mullahs in Iran reminding them that if the Senate doesn’t approve it, any deal they make with Zero won’t survive his presidency.

Cotton et al are making common cause with the Iranian hardliners, Obama said.

 "If there has been a more clearly defined example of projection from an American president in recent memory, it’s a struggle to come up with it," said Noah Rothman.

Americans know who is making common cause with the mullahs. Zero’s deal won’t prevent Iran from getting the bomb, said 71 percent in an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll Monday.

"The brilliance of the Cotton letter is that it has forced Obama to admit openly what he had only hinted at indirectly before-that he has no intention of submitting any Iran agreement to Congress for ratification-or even for review," said Joel Pollack.

Which doubtless is why libs are squealing. The Cotton letter is "sedition," said "Tingles" Matthews. It’s beneath the dignity of the Senate, said Slow Joe Biden, who was for the Senate’s Constitutional power before he was against it.

Politics should stop at the water’s edge, Democrats say. Except, of course, when a Republican is president.

"Joe Biden has been wrong about everything for 40 years," responded Cotton, who rebuts Dem nonsense here, here, and, especially, here.

Legal experts agree the next president can revoke the Iran deal if the Senate doesn’t ratify it. Even Secretary of State Lurch admits it is "legally non-binding."

The online petition of lefties demanding prosecution of Cotton et al for violating the Logan Act is "unintentionally hysterical," says Moe Lane. It’s "the talking point of hacks and morons," says Erick Erickson.

Jed Babbin has more on the deal. Amir Taheri discusses "collateral damage" from it. There’s another option besides bombing Iran or letting the mullahs have the bomb, says Michael Ledeen.

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In response to Zero’s appeasement of Iran, Saudi Arabia has made a nuclear deal with South Korea.

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The Justice Department plans to indict Sen. Robert Menendez, on corruption charges. Menendez is a Democrat from New Jersey, so the odds are he’s guilty. But since when has the Holder Justice Department been concerned about Democrat corruption? 

Menendez, is the leading Democratic critic of Zero’s Iran policy. Paula Bolyard writes here about how Menendez became an Enemy of the State.

An honest Justice Department would be looking into this. And this.

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Two police officers in Ferguson, Mo were shot shortly after midnight Thursday morning (3/12) during what the Lying Swine described as "mostly peaceful" protests.

They were prompted by the Justice Department report accusing the Ferguson police department of "racism," which Milwaukee County (Wis) Sheriff David Clarke, a Democrat who is black, called a "witch hunt."

The police shootings in Ferguson were the inevitable byproduct of the Obama administration’s racism, and the "Hands Up, Don’t Shoot" mantra of protesters, eagerly promoted by the Lying Swine, which even the Justice Department admits is utterly phony.

This race and police crisis "is driven by self promoters like Al Sharpton and fueled by the White House and the Justice Department’s acquiescence in Sharpton’s theories," Sheriff Clarke said.

There was a backlash after two police officers in New York City were murdered in December by an Islamist radical. The Ferguson shootings may provoke another.

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Speaking of Al, suspicious fires have destroyed his financial records – twice. Al owes about $4.5 million in unpaid taxes.

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Venezuela is the most recent proof of how right William F. Buckley Jr. was when he said: "If the Communists took over the Sahara desert …there would be a shortage of sand."

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At the Iowa Ag summit in Des Moines last weekend, Sen. Ted Cruz and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry took a stand against ethanol mandates. This won’t enhance their prospects in the caucuses next January, but good on them! Ethanol is the worst of all greenie weenie scandals, because it doesn’t just waste great gobs of money. It hurts hungry people, and the environment.

Jeb Bush and Scott Walker did partial panders. (Both once flatly opposed ethanol mandates. Both now say they should be phased out over an indefinite period of time.)

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Of all the abuses of power we have in America today, the most vile, despicable and dangerous is the one University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) writes about here.

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According to an audit by the inspector general of the Social Security Administration, there are approximately 6.5 million people in America aged 112 or older. Which is odd, because there are only about 35 in the entire world.

SSA expects illegal immigrants to start collecting benefits next year.

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Wisconsin became the 25^th right to work state Monday, which made National Review very happy, Barack Obama very unhappy. Perhaps most significant is how pathetic were the union/leftist protests this time (pictures here).

Could New Mexico be 26?

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After vociferous opposition from Republicans in Congress, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has backed off its plan to ban a popular type of ammunition used in the AR-15 rifle.

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Fox News is the most trusted source of television news, according to a Quinnipiac poll this week.

"Only one-in-10 Americans now trust the news coverage of any of the "Big Three," notes Tom Bevan of RealClear Politics. "It’s hard to overstate what a radical shift that represents in the television news landscape."

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Last weekend "American Sniper" became the top grossing film released in 2014.

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Don’t let the leftist canard about a "runaway" convention keep you from supporting a Convention of the States.  The Founding Fathers provided two means by which amendments to the Constitution may be proposed – but only one by which they may be adopted – ratification by the legislatures of three fourths of the states (38).

Of the 98 partisan legislative chambers (Nebraska’s unicameral legislature is nonpartisan), Republicans control 66. There is zero chance they’d support amendments that would do violence to the intent of the Framers.

The Bill of Rights is safe from us, but not from judges who declare the Constitution a "living document" – then eviscerate it. Since Republicans in Congress so far have been as useful as tits on a boar, only amendments proposed by a Convention of the States can rein them in.

The COS project is headed by Mark Meckler, a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots. He’s seeking district captains in legislative districts in 40 states. If you’d like to volunteer, I can’t think of a better way to spend your time.

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Retired Army colonel, Harvard law grad and conservative pundit Kurt Schlichter is as disgusted as you are with the GOP "leadership" in Congress, but urges you in this must read column to "knock off the loser talk. This fight hasn’t even begun."

There aren’t enough conservatives in Congress — yet. But Republicans are more conservative than ever before, will soon be more so, he said. The generation of Republicans coming up behind "aging pseudo-cons" like McCain is "decidedly unsquishy." We’re likely to nominate a conservative from outside Washington for president in 2016.

"We are outworking, outthinking and outbreeding our withered, hateful, failed opponents," Schlichter said. We’ll lose only if we quit fighting. So "stop whining. Our country is at stake. Ruck up and move out."

Dread Pirate Cates, scourge of liberals on Twitter, agrees. "We’re almost there in taking over the GOP from the bottom to the very top, so naturally this is the perfect time to quit – NOT."

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Hillary Clinton held a news conference Tuesday (3/10) to address scandals that erupted 22 days ago. The lapse of time prompted Jim Geraghty of National Review to wonder how long it might have taken Hillary to answer that 3 a.m. phone call she posited in her famous 2008 campaign ad.

There’s really only one scandal, say liberal Ron Fournier of the National Journal, and conservative Mollie Hemingway of the Federalist.

The greatest relevancy of Hillary’s secret communications cache "is what the emails might reveal about any nexus between Clinton’s work at State and donations to the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation from U.S. corporations and foreign nations," Mr. Fournier said.

If Bill and Hillary wanted to launder bribes, this would be how they’d do it, Ms. Hemingway said.

Hillary’s use of private email "partially vindicates" the GOP’s investigation of her role in Benghazi, said MSNBC correspondent Luke Russert, in what may have been the first kind words he’s ever said about Republicans in his life.

Hillary held the news conference because the basic Clinton scandal strategy – hide in the bunker until the Lying Swine move onto something else – wasn’t working. She chose the United Nations as the venue because the cumbersome accreditation process there would pretty much restrict attendance to journalists who cover the UN, not domestic politics in the USA.

To be sure she’d be asked few questions that hadn’t been planted by her staff, Hillary timed the press conference to preclude attendance by journalists who didn’t have UN credentials. She seemed irritated she had to answer questions at all, cut them off after 20 minutes.

Reviews of her performance have not been kind. The front page photo in the New York Post of the "Deleter of the Free World" sums them up:

Democrats who were nervous before her presser are panicking now, said the Washington Post. If this wasn’t an accident, the Lying Swine may be turning on her.

Hillary is a person of the past, said 51 percent in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll March 9. The aging feminists of Emily’s List are still in thrall, but to younger women – who are more likely to notice she talks the talk better than she’s walked the walk – Hillary is meh.

Her defenders are 90s retreads such as James Carville, Paul Begala and Lanny Davis, noted Matt Lewis. When Carville accuses MSNBC and the New York Times of basing their stories on "right wing talking points," you know they’re flailing.

The absence of a credible alternative is all Hillary has going for her. When Plan B is Fauxcahontas, you know the Dem bench is very thin.

Barack Obama set out to change America, but changed only his party, which adopted policies a growing majority of Americans oppose, wrote Josh Krausharr of the National Journal in a thoughtful article you ought to read.

This scandal is going to grow. If Dems vociferously defend conduct most Americans think indefensible, it could drive another wedge between them and the great American middle. After November, 2016, the Democrat Party may be a shriveled husk of its former self.

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Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al Sisi, who has closed 27,000 mosques in his fight against Islamist radicals, instituted sweeping free market reforms this week. He shares Hero of the Week with Sen. Tom Cotton, who’s already had more effect on foreign policy than his predecessor had in 12 years.

Putz of the Week is the PIAPS.

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Col. Schlichter is right. Despite the shortcomings of Boehner, McConnell, et al, we’re winning.

During the 22 months remaining in his presidency, Zero can and doubtless will inflict more harm, some of it substantial. But aside from nuclear war (which, alas, can’t be ruled out), there’s nothing he can do from which we can’t recover.

Hillary dug the hole she’s in deeper this week. Big labor suffered a big blow in Wisconsin. With trust in the broadcast networks at 10, 10, and 8 percent, it isn’t only us who think the Lying Swine are Lying Swine.

According to a Gallup poll released yesterday (3/12), Americans think government is our biggest problem. In a Quinnipiac poll of swing states last month, "by margins of 24 points or higher, voters say they want the next president to change direction and not follow President Obama’s policies."

The hysterical, hypocritical, and often hilarious efforts of Democrats to convince Americans it is "treason" for Republicans to criticize a capitulation to Iran 77 percent of Americans oppose suggests a crackup is drawing nigh. The glass is more than half full.

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