MOLLY BALL: Colorado Senate Race: Definitive Proof Republicans Are Getting Their Act Together; Representative Cory Gardner’s candidacy shows that Democrats could be losing their biggest electoral advantage: GOP disarray.

Gardner is a rising star in the GOP whose candidacy gives the party its best shot at unseating the Democratic incumbent, Senator Mark Udall. But perhaps more significant, it’s proof Republicans are reasserting control over the chaotic primaries that have been the party’s Achilles heel in recent years.

At the same time as Gardner entered the race, two others who had been running, Ken Buck and Amy Stephens, indicated they would drop out of it. Buck, a hard-core social conservative, was previously seen as the frontrunner, but now says he will run for Gardner’s seat in Congress instead. Stephens announced Thursday she was dropping out and endorsing Gardner. Though a state senator named Owen Hill remains in the primary, Republicans appear to have made a backroom deal to virtually clear the field for Gardner.

That’s the kind of backroom deal has repeatedly eluded the GOP since 2010, when the Tea Party revolted at party leaders’ attempts to handpick the most electable candidate for the general election. Right-wing bloggers and grassroots activists were incensed by the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s efforts to get moderates like Mike Castle, in Delaware, and Charlie Crist, in Florida, through GOP primaries. They rallied on behalf of candidates they considered more conservative, like Christine O’Donnell (of “I am not a witch” fame) and Marco Rubio. In cases like Rubio’s, this worked out fine; in cases like O’Donnell’s, not so much.

Of course, O’Donnell’s campaign imploded in part because of rampant law-breaking by the IRS.

Before running, O’Donnell had heard that if she chose to run in 2010 for the U.S. Senate against former Delaware governor Mike Castle, the IRS and others would “F— with her head,” in the words of a top Delaware political insider.

In short order, someone accessed O’Donnell’s tax return information containing private financial details. A U.S. Treasury agent informed O’Donnell that a Delaware state employee may have accessed her tax information and improperly used it. After an inquiry by Senator Chuck Grassley, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration confirmed that unidentified persons, presumably IRS employees, had gained improper access to multiple individuals’ tax information. This indicates more than what President Obama would call a “smidgen of corruption.”

The IRS then wrongly attached an $11,744 tax lien to a property O’Donnell no longer owned, and political opponents speciously used the after-the-fact lien to damage O’Donnell’s standing and manufacture a tax scandal just as she launched her Senate campaign. . . . It was bad enough that the IRS would target O’Donnell with a politically motivated audit, an illegitimate lien and the public release of her private financial information. Worse than that, the misconduct in this matter inappropriately affected the outcome of a U.S. Senate election. Now, worst of all, the IRS is successfully thwarting efforts to find and prosecute illegal conduct within the agency.

So, you know, some of that “disarray” was the result of illegal dirty tricks by a corrupt bureaucracy. Just reminding people of that . . . .

BEST WAY TO KEEP PUTIN IN HIS PLACE, IF PEOPLE REALLY CARE: U.S. Moves Toward Atlantic Oil Exploration, Stirring Debate Over Sea Life. Luckily for Putin, he’s got the Greens on his side, even as they conveniently overlook the environmental aspects of the Russian oil business.

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: How Gun Rights Have Expanded Over The Last 20 Years: A Story of Hope.

OUCH: Hurts so bad that Palin was right and Obama-Media Industrial Complex wrong: For Politico and others, “sorry” seems to be the hardest word.

OOPS: Russian Stocks Crash As Central Bank Scrambles, Hikes Rates Most Since 1998 Default. “European and U.S. leaders have threatened sanctions against Russia, creating risks that economic growth will stall, demand for the country’s assets will dry up and a selloff in the currency will deepen. ‘There is a risk of international backlash against Russia at a time when the economy faces an increasing need for foreign capital inflows… This uncertainty risks a further escalation in domestic capital outflow.'”

ROLL CALL: Mumia Abu-Jamal Case Reverberates in Senate Nomination Fight.

President Barack Obama’s nomination of Debo P. Adegbile to head the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has unleashed a decades-old racial feud centered on the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal that threatens to cross partisan lines and give credence to Senate Republican worries that more controversial nominees will be confirmed since Democrats eased the process last year.

The Senate is scheduled to vote on cloture on the Adegbile nomination Monday evening. Adegbile, senior counsel for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., previously worked for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which helped commute the death sentence of Abu-Jamal, a black nationalist who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1982 for the murder of white Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner.

Senate Democrats control 55 votes in the Senate and only need 51 to clear the hurdle. But it is likely to be close, as one of their own, Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania announced Friday he would oppose the nomination, and several Democrats up for re-election in swing or conservative states might think twice about wading into the hornets’ nest that surrounds Abu-Jamal.

The case goes back to a dark period in Philadelphia history, when the MOVE group of black separatists clashed frequently with the Philadelphia political and law enforcement community. The case bounced around the appeals process for years, with the backdrop of continued violence between MOVE, which Abu-Jamal was affiliated with, and the predominantly white police force. The feud reached a nadir in 1985, when police allowed a MOVE compound in West Philadelphia to burn in a confrontation, and the conflagration went on to consume several city blocks. That incident is the topic of a recent documentary by Jason Osder, “Let the Fire Burn,” which has renewed interest in the conflict and stories behind it, such as Abu-Jamal’s case.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, said now that Democrats don’t need Republicans to cut off debate on most nominations, “More extreme judicial nominees, more extreme executive branch nominees” will be the consequence “when you don’t have to reach across the aisle.”

Expect plenty of race-baiting.

A PORTRAIT OF INNOCENCE: Lois Lerner: Still Taking The Fifth?

ANGELO CODEVILLA: There Will Be Blood: Our Own. “Something like that has happened before. A hundred years ago Theodore Roosevelt had warned Americans that, if we wanted peace in the Pacific, we should either withdraw from the Philippines or build a navy that Japan must respect. We did neither. Instead, US policy consisted of sonorous moral commitments to peace and good order, coupled with an increasingly hollow military: the unbridled tongue and the unready hand. The American people paid the price in blood.”

MICHAEL BARONE: What to do about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine?

SALENA ZITO: Say, this doesn’t seem like such a good time to be slashing the defense budget.

RICHARD FERNANDEZ: “The capitals of Europe have gone from complacency to a near panic in the last 72 hours, not simply over the crisis in the Ukraine but in the growing awareness that for at least the last half decade they’ve been standing on a trapdoor. At least president Obama, the leader of the Free World, has.”

WE NEED A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR TO INVESTIGATE: White House Counsel Robert Bauer Behind IRS Assault On Tea Party?

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Peggy Noonan: America And The Aggressive Left; Half the country feels—and is—beset by government. That’s not progress.

The constant mischief of the progressive left is hurting the nation’s morale. There are few areas of national life left in which they are not busy, and few in which they’re not making it worse. There are always more regulations, fees and fiats, always more cultural pressure and insistence.

The president brags he has a pen and a phone. He uses the former to sign executive orders. It is not clear why he mentioned the latter since he rarely attempts to bring legislators over to his side. Who exactly is he calling? The most hopeful thing he’s done is signal this week what he’ll be up to after he leaves. He will work with young minority men. Good. He is a figure of inspiration to them, and they need and deserve encouragement. This also leaves us understanding for the first time the true purpose of his so far unsuccessful presidency: to launch a meaningful postpresidency. I’m glad that’s clear.

But to American morale. Here one refers to recent polling data. Gallup in December had 72% of those polled saying big government is a bigger threat to the future than big business and big labor—a record high. This may be connected to ObamaCare, an analyst ventured. Rasmussen this week had only 32% of those polled saying the country is headed in the right direction, with 61% saying we’re on the wrong track. Both numbers fluctuate, but the right track is down two points since this time last year and the wrong track up three. Gallup also had only 39% of respondents saying they saw America in a positive position, with less than half thinking it will be better in five years.

None of these numbers are new, exactly, as they reflect long-term trends. But they never lose their power to startle. The persistent blues, the lack of faith, the bet that things won’t get better—it just doesn’t sound like America. . . . People feel beset because they are. All these things are pieces of a larger, bullying ineptitude. And people know, they are aware.

Conservatives sometimes feel exhausted from trying to fight back on a million fronts. A leftist might say: “Yes, that’s the plan.”

But the left too is damaged. They look hollowed out and incoherent. Their victories, removed of meaning, are only the triumphs of small aggressions.

If you don’t like it, don’t put up with it.

THE HILL: US moves to isolate Russia from ‘community of civilized nations.’ If the Euros are serious, they’ll push fracking. If we’re serious, we’ll push offshore drilling, and end the ban on exports. My prediction: They’re not, and we’re not.

A QUESTION: Who put “acute political pressure” on Lois Lerner “to crack down on conservative-leaning organizations,” and why did Lerner need a “plan” to avoid “a per se political project”?

And what did Lerner do that impelled her to take the Fifth, and who pressured her to do that?

FLASHBACK VIDEO: Chris Matthews mocks Mitt Romney for calling Russia #1 Geopolitical Threat.

INTELLIGENCE FAILURE: Ex- CIA Chief: Why We Keep Getting Putin Wrong. Note that Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney both seem to have figured him out, only to have been mocked by the press as old-fashioned cold warriors. Like, you know, Putin. . . .

THE GERMAN WORD IS GLEICHSCHALTUNG:

If you don’t recognize my description of the bill, then you probably followed the press coverage, which was mendacious and hysterical — evincing no familiarity with the legal issues, and endlessly parroting the line that the bill would institute “Jim Crow” for gays. (Never mind that in Arizona it’s currently legal to discriminate based on sexual orientation — and mass discrimination isn’t exactly breaking out.) Allegedly sensible centrists compared the bill’s supporters to segregationist politicians, liberals invoked the Bob Jones precedent to dismiss religious-liberty concerns, and Republican politicians behaved as though the law had been written by David Duke.

What makes this response particularly instructive is that such bills have been seen, in the past, as a way for religious conservatives to negotiate surrender — to accept same-sex marriage’s inevitability while carving out protections for dissent. But now, apparently, the official line is that you bigots don’t get to negotiate anymore.

Which has a certain bracing logic. If your only goal is ensuring that support for traditional marriage diminishes as rapidly as possible, applying constant pressure to religious individuals and institutions will probably do the job. Already, my fellow Christians are divided over these issues, and we’ll be more divided the more pressure we face. The conjugal, male-female view of marriage is too theologically rooted to disappear, but its remaining adherents can be marginalized, set against one other, and encouraged to conform.

When weak, the left preaches tolerance. When strong, conformity. But it has shown itself ready to cave over a few beheadings, which makes me wonder if people have thought this whole thing through. As a mild-mannered law professor who was supporting gay marriage when Barack Obama was still a “bigot” on the issue, I won’t be the one sawing off heads. But people tend to emulate what works, and the evidence of the past decade or so is that violence in support of one’s religious views wins, while “negotiation” does not.