IT’S LIKE THEY DON’T ACTUALLY VALUE “DIVERSITY” AT ALL: Prof. Jacobson: The ugly, repugnant attack on a pro-Israel black American student.

EVEN THE GUARDIAN IS PILING ON MADURO’S VENUEZUELA: Venezuela: chaos and thuggery take the place of the pretty revolution. “Hugo Chávez’s dream world has become a nightmare of shot-down protesters, jailed oppositionists, economic meltdown and a brutal war waged against a defiant middle class.” Hugo Chavez’s “dream world” involved looting the country and enriching himself to the tune of two billion dollars. This is just the endgame.

TRAIN WRECK UPDATE: Washington Post: Health care law’s small-business marketplace not attracting many small businesses.

WELL, THAT JUST FITS IN WITH THE WEIMAR THEME: Proposed budget will reportedly shrink Army to pre-WWII numbers.

APPARENTLY, PEOPLE ARE NOTICING HOW THE “SMART DIPLOMACY” IS WORKING OUT: Gallup: Fewer Americans Think Obama Respected on World Stage.

LOOKING AT OUR RULING CLASS:

What is more important than the decadence on display is the self-satisfied irony. The elites in Washington and Wall Street seem not to care about their decadence and even take joy in the revealing of their decadence. It is as if a burden has been lifted, that we all in the outside world can now know what they have borne in secret. With the secret out, they can enjoy themselves without guilt.

This embrace of the revelation of decadence recalls the cultural milieu of Weimar Germany.

This is a disturbing thing to read, coming from the Hannah Arendt Center.

USA TODAY: Does A Hillary/Univision Deal Cross A Line? “One wonders whether a TV network should partner with a possible presidential candidate.”

DANIEL DREZNER: What Nick Kristof Doesn’t Get About The Ivory Tower.

THUG NATION: The IRS targeted Republican Christine O’Donnell and then leaked her tax records to the press.

EXERCISE: Video: Inside NFL Combine Training.

SPYING: Writing The Snowden Files: ‘The paragraph began to self-delete.’ Hmm. I’d be skeptical, but . . . these days, that’s a lot harder.

TRANSPARENCY: Criminal Defense Group Sues DOJ Over ‘Discovery Blue Book.’

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers today sued the U.S. Department of Justice over public access to a criminal discovery “blue book” that was written after the collapse of the case against Ted Stevens.

The Justice Department last year turned down a request from the NACDL for a copy of the Federal Criminal Discovery Blue Book. The lawsuit was filed today in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Justice Department officials, according to the complaint, cited the book as an example of why federal legislation was unnecessary to prevent future discovery abuses among prosecutors.

During a hearing on Capitol Hill, in 2012, the Justice Department said the blue book was “distributed to prosecutors nationwide in 2011” and “is now electronically available on the desktop of every federal prosecutor and paralegal,” according to the NACDL complaint.

So it can’t be all that secret. If it actually exists. . . .