#WARONWOMEN: Progressive Blogger’s Sexually Graphic and Despicable Attack on Dana Loesch.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How To Make Perfect Coffee. I have my own solution.

DON’T WORRY — THAT’LL ALL CHANGE ONCE OBAMA IS PRESIDENT. Guantanamo Legal Proceedings Get Ever-Weirder and Increasingly Unjust.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 111.

REMEMBER, VOTER FRAUD IS JUST SOMETHING THE GOP MADE UP BECAUSE OF RACISM OR SOMETHING: Somali Immigrants Charged With Illegal Double Voting in Minnesota. “But will U.S. Attorney Todd Jones act? Double voting in a federal election is a federal crime. So far, the U.S. Justice Department has been slack in enforcing this federal law which protects federal (as opposed to state) interests. Meloweese Richardson in Ohio still has not been charged with double voting. Neither has Wendy Rosen in Maryland. There are more. Why isn’t Eric Holder’s Justice Department enforcing federal laws against double voting? Is it because they voted for the right candidates? Might it have something else to do with the perpetrators? These days, it could be anything.”

HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Fed-Up Saudis Look to Russia.

Talk about a cry for help. The Saudis have apparently judged President Obama to be rudderless in his Middle East policies, judging by their recent diplomatic moves toward Russia: They appear to have plied Putin with a deal to collude in the global oil market, while also urging him to distance himself from Syria’s Butcher Assad.. . .

This is jaw-dropping stuff, to say the least. Nothing was signed in this closed-door meeting between Putin and Bandar—Putin requested time for both countries to look into the specifics of such a deal. But the mere fact that our allies felt like they needed to go this route signals that something is seriously awry in President Obama’s Middle East approach.

Ya think? It’s almost as if Obama is trying to weaken our position internationally.

RAND PAUL: We’re not the party that wants to give you another cellphone.

MEGAN MCARDLE: Will The Smoke From Jack Lew’s Burning Pants Obscure A Debt Ceiling Deal?

Unfortunately, as Noam Scheiber has observed, Jack Lew has a bit of history with Republicans in Congress. Before he was Treasury Secretary, he worked on the 2011 budget negotiations for the administration. The Republicans were demanding $100 billion be cut out of the budget, which the administration thought was unreasonable as we were just pulling of a recession. Jack Lew’s answer was to come up with tens of billions of cuts that looked deep, but turned out to be mostly “cuts” in money that wasn’t going to be spent anyway. Unfortunately, as soon as the Republicans signed on the dotted line, the administration trumpeted its little trick to every fiscal reporter in town. As a result, the hardliners in the Republican caucus do not trust Jack Lew.

Since no one knows exactly when Treasury is going to run out of money, there’s no way to produce an alternate set of figures that Republicans will trust. That may greatly complicate things as negotiations get down to the wire.

These people aren’t even competent liars. A competent liar doesn’t brag about how he snookered people he’ll have to deal with in the future.

AT AMAZON, markdowns on bestselling men’s running shoes.

Also, today only: 24: The Complete Series, $109.99 (69% off).

ASKING QUESTIONS IS RACIST, I’M SURE: A Few More Questions Before We Bomb Syria.

BRYAN PRESTON: Is The IRS Fishing For Lists Of Veterans?

ONLY REPUBLICAN WARS ARE BAD: Outspoken Liz Warren stays silent on Syria.

FROM JAMES TARANTO, more on why the Left needs racism.

Carlson’s whole appeal to emotion actually cuts against her argument. No doubt the Jim Crow scenes in “The Butler” are shocking. But in 2013, that is the shock of the unfamiliar. If blacks were still oppressed in the South, you wouldn’t need to go to the theater to see it. You could watch it in high-definition in your living room, on the evening or cable news.

The Carlson piece got us to thinking about why race plays such a central role in the worldview of today’s liberal left, and why those on the left seem to suffer from a compulsion to exaggerate wildly the continuing prevalence of racism. In the first two columns in this series, we argued that it serves a political purpose, sustaining black loyalty to the Democratic Party, and a psychological purpose, allowing white liberals to assert their moral supremacy over other whites. (Since we wrote the latter column, it has also occurred to us that the idea of “white privilege” seems to be a guilty pleasure for some whites.)

Carlson’s argument suggests a third purpose, an ideological one.

It has now been 49 years since Congress passed the Civil Rights Act and 48 since the Voting Rights Act. If racism really remained as prevalent as liberals claim, one could argue that would represent a failure of liberal governance. Contrariwise, if indeed racism has largely abated, as this columnist asserts, that would seem to be a vindication for liberal governance.

But actually the liberal position is not inconsistent. Carlson does not deny the efficacy of the Voting Rights Act; rather, unfamiliar with its actual workings, she takes it as an article of faith that without it, even in 2013, blacks would be forbidden from voting.

When you’re that ignorant, you take a lot of unlikely things on faith. Especially when they’re ideologically convenient.

HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Crude Oil Prices Reach 18 Month High.

JOHN MCWHORTER: A Better Way To Honor Dr. King’s Dream.

ROGER SIMON: Emerson, Syria, and the Principal Enemy.

CHECK OUT VARIETY’S COVERAGE OF THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON. The real one from 50 years ago, not the pathetic Jackson/Sharpton parody of today.

AS MOVIE BUSINESS FLEES CALIFORNIA, Barbara Boxer praises Jerry Brown.

AN ARTIST FINDS Government Censorship In Google Earth.

RANDY BARNETT ON THE TED CRUZ BIRTHERS: From Natural Born “Subjects” to Natural Born “Citizens.”

BRUCE SCHNEIER: The Real, Terrifying Reason Why British Authorities Detained David Miranda. “The scariest explanation of all? That the NSA and GCHQ are just showing they don’t want to be messed with.”

Yeah, but how did that work out for them? They’re errand boys, sent by grocery clerks. I mean, come on, they’re getting their asses kicked by Glenn Greenwald.

ROLL CALL: If Obama Bypasses Congress on Syria, Will He Face Consequences?

THE HILL: 22 House lawmakers demand say in approving Syria military strike. “Nearly two dozen House members have signed onto a letter demanding President Obama consult Congress — and wait for its authorization — before launching military strikes against Syria.”

Related: Candidate Obama: “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Bad News Is Good News For The Obama Economy:

The Obama administration is stuck in a surreal world, where bad news is good news for the economy it has created. Trickle down from the stock market and artificially low interest rates are the only drivers of the economy. The second-estimate gross domestic product report this week will be vital to the life-support system that President Obama has constructed for the 1 percent. If the revised GDP numbers are good – relatively speaking – it will suggest that bond-buying by the Federal Reserve will be tapered in the near future. If the tapering begins, the stock market is going to fall. If the stock market falls, the wealth effect and the trickle-down that stock market boom has produced are going to dry up.

Obviously, an economic crash would be terrible, but so would a slowing down of the conveyor belt of money between Washington and Wall Street, which is fueling what little growth we have.

They told me if I voted for Mitt Romney, we’d . . . oh, Hell, you know the rest.