Yale students want to repeal the First Amendment. They sign a petition to remove their right to petition.

It is astonishing that someone who is under criminal investigation by the FBI should be standing as a candidate for the presidency of the United States. Astonishing that the Democratic Party  is letting her stand and will almost certainly nominate her as its official candidate. Astonishing that it is apparently not even taking the precaution of putting up an alternative plausible candidate. Astonishing that she carries on campaigning as if criminal charges are not hanging over her.

Hillary Clinton is a shameless scofflaw.

Here is a useful review of the charges the FBI could bring against her. (But will Obama’s corrupt “Department of Justice” consent to indict her?)

Judge Andrew Napolitano writes at Fox News Opinion:

While the country has been fixated on Donald Trump’s tormenting his Republican primary opponents and deeply concerned about the government’s efforts to identify any confederates in the San Bernardino, California, killings, a team of federal prosecutors and FBI agents continues to examine Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state in order to determine whether she committed any crimes and, if so, whether there is sufficient evidence to prove her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

What began as an innocent Freedom of Information Act request by Judicial Watch, a D.C.-based public advocacy group promoting transparency in the executive branch, has now become a full criminal investigation, with Clinton as the likely target.

The basic facts are well-known, but the revealed nuances are important, as well. When the State Department responded to the Judicial Watch FOIA request by telling Judicial Watch that it had no emails from Clinton, Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit. When the State Department made the same representation to the court – as incredible as it seemed at the time – the judge accepted that representation, and the case was dismissed.

Then The New York Times revealed that Clinton used a private email server instead of the government’s server for all of her work-related and personal emails during her four years as secretary of state. After that, the Judicial Watch FOIA case was reinstated, and then the judge in the case demanded of State that it produce Clinton’s emails.

When Judicial Watch expressed frustration to the judge about the pace at which it was getting emails, the judge ordered Clinton, “under penalty of perjury”, to certify that she had surrendered all her governmental emails to the State Department.

Eventually, Clinton did certify to the court that she did surrender all of her governmental emails to the State Department. She did so by sending paper copies of selected emails, because she had wiped clean her server. She acknowledged that she decided which emails were personal and which were selected as governmental and returned the governmental ones to the State Department.

She has denied steadfastly and consistently that she ever sent or received any materials marked “classified” while secretary of state using her private server.

All of her behavior has triggered the FBI investigation because she may have committed serious federal crimes.

For example, it is a crime to steal federal property. What did she steal? By diverting to her own venue the digital metadata that accompany all emails — metadata that, when attached to the work-related emails of a government employee, belong to the government — she stole that data. The metadata do not appear on her paper copies — hence the argument that she stole and destroyed the government-owned metadata.

This is particularly troublesome for her present political ambitions because of a federal statute that disqualifies from public office all who have stolen federal property. (She is probably already barred from public office — though this was not prominently raised when she entered the U.S. Senate or the Department of State — because of the china, silverware and furniture that she and her husband took from the White House in January 2001.)

Clinton may also have committed espionage by failing to secure the government secrets entrusted to her. She did that by diverting those secrets to an unprotected, nongovernmental venue — her own server — and again by emailing those secrets to other unprotected and nongovernmental venues.

The reason she can deny sending or receiving anything marked “classified” is that protected government secrets are not marked “classified”. 

So her statement, though technically true, is highly misleading. The governmental designations of protected secrets are “confidential,” “secret” and “top secret” – not “classified”.

State Department investigators have found 999 emails sent or received by Clinton in at least one of those three categories of protected secrets.

Back when Clinton became secretary of state, on her first day in office, she had an hourlong FBI briefing on the proper and lawfully required care of government secrets.

She signed a statement, under penalty of perjury, acknowledging that she knew the law and that it is the content of emails, not any stamped markings, that makes them secret.

Earlier this week, my Fox News colleagues confirmed the certain presence of top-secret materials among the 999 emails.

Intelligence from foreign sources or about foreign governments is always top-secret, whether designated as such or not. And she knows that.

As well, she may have committed perjury in the FOIA case. When the House Select Committee on Benghazi, in its investigation of her role in the deaths of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, gathered emails, it found emails she did not surrender to the State Department.

Last week, the State Department released emails that give the FBI more areas to investigate. These emails may show a pattern of official behavior by Clinton designed to benefit the financial interests of her family’s foundation, her husband and her son-in-law.

Moreover, the FBI knows of a treasure-trove of documents that may demonstrate that the Clinton Foundation skirted the law and illegally raised and spent contributions.

Two months ago, a group of FBI agents sat around a conference table and reviewed the evidence gathered thus far. Each agent was given the opportunity to make or detract from the case for moving forward. At the end of the meeting, it was the consensus of the group to pursue a criminal investigation.

Judge Napolitano cautiously states that “Clinton is the likely target”. Well, it’s not likely to be anyone else!

We wonder impatiently how long it will take. We would be filled with joy – okay, Schadenfreude – if she were to be charged immediately after being nominated the Democratic candidate for the presidency.

Pat Condell tells the truth about our need for the truth:

The wrecking legions of the Left marched through the institutions of the West decade after decade, until they dominated most of them: the media, trade unions, professional associations, the academy, the entertainment industry, the book publishing industry, the awards committees, the charities, the NGOs, local government, central government agencies, the parliaments; even to some extent the judiciaries; and finally the peak of power, the presidency of the United States.

Those institutions which they couldn’t take over – the police, the military – they so vilified as to bring them into almost universal disrepute.

Urgently now the Left needs to be accused, toppled, disarmed, and permanently disgraced.

Is there a chance of that happening?

There’s no chance in Europe, unless perhaps by civil war. There’s a remote chance in Britain. And what chance is there in America?

We quote from an article by Dennis Prager at Townhall:

Leftism is ruining America.

But almost no Republican ever — let alone repeatedly — says this.

The universities of this country have become a laughingstock. They have degenerated into anti-intellectual, anti-Western, anti-rational institutions with their ludicrous “safe spaces”, trigger warnings that infantilize students, and all the lies about the racism and a rape culture that allegedly pervade the campuses and American society.

What is responsible for that? Leftism.

According to Pew Research, 40 percent of millennials do not believe in the principal of freedom of speech if the speech might hurt the feelings of a member of a minority group.

What is responsible for that? Leftism.

Why did Islamic State rise in Iraq after that country had been pacified by American troops and the Sunni uprising? Because a leftist president, the left-wing Democratic Party, and the left-wing media demanded a complete American withdrawal from Iraq.

Why are race relations worse than in living memory despite the election and re-election of black president? Because of the left-wing lies about “systemic” racism. Because of the left-wing “Ferguson” lie, repeated regularly by the president of the United States, as if an innocent “unarmed black teenager” was killed by a white policeman because the teen was black and not because he was threatening the life of the officer. Because of the absurdity of “microaggressions”, those lists of often noble statements – such as “there is only one race, the human race” – that the left characterizes as racist.

Why is it harder to open and sustain a small business than at any time in American history? Because of the left and their endless regulations.

Why do we have the highest national debt in American history? Because the left keeps expanding the size of the government.

Why are more Americans on public assistance than ever before? Because left-wing policies are designed to get more and more Americans dependent on government.

Why are Americans increasingly separated into ethnic, racial and religious identities? Because of the left-wing belief in multiculturalism and the left’s neo-fascist emphasis on the importance of race.

Why are more Americans born to women without husbands than ever before? Because, ideologically, the left has determined that children do not need fathers, and because, policy-wise, the left has enabled mothers to depend on the state rather than the man who fathered her children.

Why is the American military weaker and less feared than at anytime in the last 50 years? Because the left doesn’t want America to be the strongest country in the world.

In addition to criticizing Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, Republicans need to tell the American people over and over that the only thing that can stop the further degradation of the United States of America is conservatism and the Republican Party. Because only conservatism and the Republican Party can stop the left.

Only a more conservative Republican Party can stop the left, we would say. Is there a chance of the Republican Party becoming more conservative?

Best of all would be a triumphant conservative Republican Party that keeps religion in a locked box somewhere far from the chambers of government and the corridors of power. But we regretfully accept that there’s little chance of that.

Some 40,000 believers in the science of extracting moonbeams from cucumbers (a long endeavor, first made known to the world three hundred years ago by Gulliver) and other such sages met in Paris to change the climates of the world, and have announced a great success.

Paul Driessen and Roger Bezdek question their triumph.

They write at CFACT:

Paris climate talks this week descended into madcap all-night negotiations, as delegates desperately tried to salvage some kind of agreement beyond empty promises to do something sometime about what President Obama insists is the gravest threat to our planet, national security and future generations.

He gets far more energized about slashing energy use than about Islamist terrorism, even after the Paris and San Bernardino butchery. Determined for once to lead from upfront, he took a 500-person greenhouse gas-spewing entourage to the City of Light, to call for preventing increasing droughts, floods, storms, island-swallowing rising acidic ocean levels and other disasters conjured up by alarmist computer models.

Legally binding carbon dioxide emission targets were too contentious to pursue. So was modifying the concept of “differentiated responsibilities”. It holds that countries that historically caused the recent atmospheric carbon dioxide build-up must lead in cutting their emissions, while helping developing countries eventually do likewise, by pouring trillions of dollars in cash and free technology into the Green Climate Fund for supposed climate change adaptation, mitigation and compensation. Developing countries had insisted on that massive wealth redistribution as their price for signing any binding document.

Although China now emits far more CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHG) than the USA or EU, it refused to fast-track reducing those emissions. China and wealthy petro-states also opposed paying into the Climate Fund. Other major bones of contention were likewise never resolved.

Thus, in the end, what we apparently got out of Paris is voluntary emission caps, voluntary progress reviews, no international oversight of any voluntary progress, and voluntary contributions to the Fund.

Of course, the entire climate cataclysm mantra is based on the claim that carbon dioxide has replaced the solar and other powerful natural forces that have driven climate change throughout Earth and human history. Now, merely tweaking CO2 emissions will supposedly stabilize climate and weather systems.

President Obama fervently believes this delusion.

He will likely use the voluntary Paris gobbledygook to say America somehow has a “moral obligation” to set an example, by de-carbonizing, de-industrializing and de-developing the United States. Thankfully, Congress and the states will have something to say about that, because they know these anti-fossil fuel programs will destroy jobs and living standards, especially for poor, working class and minority families.

The impacts would be far worse than many news stories and White House press releases suggest. Those sources often say the proposed climate treaty and other actions seek GHG reductions of 80% below predicted 2050 emission levels. The real original Paris treaty target is 80% below actual 1990 levels.

That means the world would have to eliminate 96% of the greenhouse gases that all humanity would likely release if we reach world population levels, economic growth and living standards predicted for 2050. The United States would likely have to slash it CO2 and GHG reductions to zero.

Moreover, current 2050 forecasts already assume and incorporate significant energy efficiency, de-carbonization and de-industrialization over the next 35 years. … Further CO2 reductions beyond those already incorporated into the forecasts would thus be increasingly difficult, expensive, and indeed impossible to achieve.

As we explain in a MasterResource.org analysis, there is a strong positive relationship between GDP and carbon-based energy consumption. Slashing fossil energy use that far would thus require decimating economic growth, job creation and preservation, and average per-person incomes. In fact, average world per capita GDP would plummet from a projected $30,600 in 2050 to a miserable $1,200 per year. 

Average per capita GDP in 2050 would be less than what Americans had in 1830!

Many futuristic technologies would still exist, but only wealthy families and ruling elites could afford them.

That would be catastrophic for jobs, health and welfare in developed countries – and lethal to millions in poor nations, who would be denied the blessings of electricity and fossil fuels for decades to come. That is indefensible, inhumane and immoral. And for what?

Mr. Obama and the alarmists in Paris insisted that drastic GHG reductions will hold global temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius (3.5 F) and prevent climate and weather disasters. Now some even claim that the upper safety limit is actually 1.5 degrees C (2.7 F), which would require even more draconian energy and emission cutbacks. Otherwise, Earth could become uninhabitable, they assert. Nonsense.

EPA’s own analyses suggest that its fully implemented Clean Power Plan would bring an undetectable, irrelevant reduction of perhaps 0.02 degrees Celsius (0.05 F) in average global temperatures 85 years from now – assuming carbon dioxide actually does drive climate change.

Which is not just disputed but flatly denied even by a co-founder of Greenpeace.

(We are speaking of Patrick Moore, who has parted company with that increasingly evil organization. For the evil it does, see our posts: The evil  Greenpeace does, January 16, 2010; The blind cruelty of Greenpeace, January 20, 2010; How environmentalists are committing mass murder on a vast scale, July 6, 2014.) ).

In the Real World, climate changes regularly, and recent climate and weather trends and events are in line with historic experience. In fact, average global temperatures haven’t risen in nearly two decades; no category 3-5 hurricane has struck the USA in a record ten years; Greenland and Antarctic ice are at record levels; and still firmly alkaline sea levels (8.1 pH) are rising at barely seven inches per century.

Many scientists believe the sun and other powerful natural forces may soon usher in a new era of colder temperatures, regardless of whether atmospheric CO2 rises above 0.40% (400 ppm). That would pose much greater threats to human health, agriculture and prosperity (and wildlife) than global warming.

We must never forget: Fossil fuels facilitated successive industrial revolutions and enabled billions to live better than royalty did a century ago, helped average incomes to increase eleven-fold, and helped average global life expectancy to soar from less than 30 in 1870 to 71 today.

Carbon-based energy still provides 81% of world energy, and supports $70 trillion per year in world GDP. It will supply 75-80% of global energy for decades to come, Energy Information Administration, International Energy Agency and other studies forecast. Carbon-based energy is essential if we are to bring electricity to the 1.3 billion people who still do not have it, and end the rampant poverty and lung, intestinal and other diseases that kill millions of people in poor countries every year.

Furthermore, thousands of coal-fired power plants are built, under construction or in planning around the world. China and India will not consider reducing GHG emissions until 2030, and even then it will be voluntary and dependent on how their economies are doing. That means atmospheric carbon dioxide levels will continue to climb, greening the planet and spurring faster crop, forest and grassland growth. …

President Obama and the 40,000 climate alarmists gathered in Paris ignored these inconvenient realities, and whitewashed the adverse consequences of anti-hydrocarbon policies. …

Even binding targets would have … horrendous adverse effects on human health and environmental quality, while doing nothing to prevent climate change or extreme weather events. What alarmists wanted in Paris would have let unelected, unaccountable activists and bureaucrats decide which industries, companies, workers, families, states and countries win the Climate Hustle game, and which ones lose.

And it’s not just President Obama, who wants to slash America’s carbon dioxide emissions by 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2025 – and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050! Every Democrat presidential candidate demands similar actions: Hillary Clinton wants one-third of all US electricity to come from wind and solar by 2027; Bernie Sanders wants 80% by 2050; Martin O’Malley wants 100% by 2050.

Obligating the United States to slash its fossil fuel use, and send billions of taxpayer dollars annually to dictators, bureaucrats and crony industrialists in poor countries would be disastrous. Thank goodness it did not happen. 

Not only has Obama done everything he could to help Islam advance its ideological program of world domination – even bringing Muslim Brotherhood personnel into the US government* – but he also does everything he can to weaken forces opposing it.

Western Journalism reports:

On Thursday, a whistleblower came forward. Phillip Haney, a former Department of Homeland Security investigator, says he could have likely prevented the attacks in San Bernardino if the government had let him do his job. Three years ago, Haney had developed surveillance that revealed a global network of jihadists had infiltrated the United States.

Haney, one of the founding members of Homeland Security, had been transferred to the Intelligence Review Unit and it was in that capacity that he discovered the global network of jihadists at work in the U.S. It was then that he was visited by officials from the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security’s Civil Rights Division who told Haney that tracking the jihadists was “problematic” because they were Islamic groups. [Emphasis ours – ed.)

Haney said his investigation was shut down and 67 of his files were deleted.

One of the files that was deleted was an investigation into the mosque that the San Bernardino terrorists frequently attended.

Haney claims that he was targeted, reassigned, and eventually lost his security clearance, even though he had received a commendation letter for locating 300 known terrorists in the U.S.

Haney’s claim that he was prohibited from investigating the mosque that the terrorists attended is now being followed up with accusations that Obama issued a directive to downplay the terrorist attacks.

Unnamed sources have come forward and reported that the White House tried to spin the San Bernardino attack by putting pressure on officials to downplay what happened as terror, in favor of the term “gun violence”. …

A confidential source revealed, Obama held a meeting in the Oval Office with his National Security Council, the attorney general, and the directors of the DHS, FBI, and NSA, in which a directive was given to “downplay the terrorism angle”.

* See for instance here, here and here.

Ed Straker explains why ethanol production should not be subsidized.

It’s a matter on which he sides with Ted Cruz against Donald Trump.

But he agrees with Trump on how to deal with illegal immigration.

He wishes he could merge the two candidates.

He writes at American Thinker:

Donald Trump attacked Ted Cruz for not supporting ethanol subsidies.  He said in Iowa on Friday, “Oil companies give him a lot of money, so he’s for oil.”

The thing about oil and gas is, it doesn’t require big subsidies, because it’s the cheapest and most efficient form of fuel for cars. Ethanol, on the other hand, does require big government subsidies, because it is highly uneconomical.  Ethanol is much more expensive than oil and gas and, gallon for gallon, produces much less energy than gasoline.  That’s why the government has to hand over billions in subsidies to big agri-businesses to keep it going.  And that’s also why the government has to force oil companies to blend ethanol in with their fuels.  Because without government coercion, oil companies wouldn’t do it, and the price of gasoline would be substantially lower than it is now.

Additionally, ethanol actually acts as a corrosive on car engines.  It slowly degrades car parts over time.

But the worst thing about ethanol is that not only does it require taxpayer subsidies, and not only does it raise the price of blended gas, but it also raises the price of many different kinds of foods.  Ethanol is made with corn – a lot of it.  And when a lot of corn production is diverted to ethanol, there is less corn available to use for food.  Corn is heavily used as a sweetener in many food products.  By raising the price of corn, the price of many different kinds of foods are raised.

That is what subsidizing ethanol gives us.  That is what Donald Trump is for and Ted Cruz is against.  Ted Cruz is starting to lead in some Iowa polls, and he’s doing it without this kind of pandering.

I think Donald Trump is fabulous when it comes to immigration and securing our borders, even better than Ted Cruz.  But on economic issues, Donald Trump is no economic conservative.  His tax plan would not lower taxes as much as Cruz’s and would take many taxpayers off the tax rolls entirely, giving them no incentives to vote against tax hikes on the rest of us.

If only we could take the immigration part of Trump and merge it with the rest of Cruz, we’d have the ideal candidate.

We wouldn’t go as far as to say “ideal”. But we agree with Cruz about ethanol, and with Trump about immigration – in particular, closing the borders to Muslim immigration for the duration of the war with Islam.

(Hat tip to our highly valued commenter, liz)

Here is Hillary Clinton, when the coffins of the men who died in Benghazi and members of their families were beside her, blaming “a video” for the violent attack that killed them:

And here she is asserting that she did not say that:

Hillary Clinton lies not just by habit, but by nature. She is a liar as a tortoise is a creature with a shell. Her lies are her carapace.

Donald Trump is entertaining. His shameless boasting is funny.

He’s not our favorite candidate for the presidency – though he’d be a darned sight better than the lying Hillary Clinton who has failed at everything she’s ever tried to do, even lying.

But we do agree with Trump that Muslims need to be stopped from entering the United States. Barring Muslim immigrants, tourists, students, and guest workers would be sensible. (Barring Muslim citizens from re-entry would not be possible.)

The right comparison for Trump’s proposal that Muslims not be allowed to enter the United States is not the confinement in internment camps of Japanese, German, and Italian Americans during the Second World War, but the barring of Communists for decades during the Cold War.*

Communism is an evil religion just as Islam is. Islam is an evil ideology just as Communism is.

* The 1952 law – still in force – that barred Communists from entering the US, could be used to bar Muslims, on the grounds that Islam is also a totalitarian ideology and also aims at the overthrow of the Constitution of the United States. (Warning: The article we link to is a Christian site and full of annoying references to Jesus and “Biblical law”. But its argument for barring Muslims is sound, and it does quote the sections of the 1952 Act which could be used to exclude Muslims.)

Mark Steyn interviewed by Sean Hannity on Fox News, the day after President Obama made his speech deploring the bigotry of American people for which they deserve to be shot and bombed by peaceful Islam: