CLUELESS OR TRUE BELIEVER? Obama’s Theology of Original Sin, Fundamental Transformation and Utopia. Leftism is a religion. It’s just a shitty one that promises heaven on earth, while always yielding something closer to hell.

IMMIGRATION POLICY IS ALL ABOUT CHEAP LABOR AND BOUGHT VOTES FOR BOTH PARTIES: Funding deal hits backlash over increase in foreign worker visas. “The $1.1 trillion omnibus bill includes language that would dramatically increase the number of visas available for foreign workers, setting off alarm bells among conservatives and labor unions. Congressional leaders quietly slipped the provision into the 2,009-page funding bill, with rank-and-file lawmakers only discovering it Wednesday morning. The move immediately sparked protests from both ends of the political spectrum.”

At the risk of repeating myself, this kind of behavior from the Bipartisan Governing Party is why we get Trump. And, if things go on, will get someone much worse than Trump.

ON HIS WATCH: Abe Greenwald  on “The meltdown of Syria. The rise of ISIS. The worst refugee crisis of our time. Homegrown terror in the United States,” at Commentary:

All these issues, however, are but manifestations of the larger encumbering reality: Barack Obama’s theological opposition to exercising effective American power abroad. The president’s inflexibility on that point has nurtured the rise of ISIS and tied our hands in the fight against it. But, with so few prudent options left, his stubbornness may have made a larger conflict with ISIS inevitable, either during the remainder of his term or after it. If so, Obama will have worked for eight years to avert a fate his very actions have summoned.

Today, the president still dismisses significant “boots on the ground” in Iraq and Syria as a nonstarter. On December 6, Obama spoke from the Oval Office, saying, “We should not be drawn once more into a long and costly ground war in Iraq or Syria.” He then added this bizarre coda: “That’s what groups like ISIL want. They know they can’t defeat us on the battlefield.” ISIS wants to engage the United States in a war in order to lose? And we should therefore resist the fight? This is theology outweighing logic.

Perhaps in this period of post-Bush America, however, a ground war against ISIS really is out of the question. But we should be clear about something. ISIS controls vast swaths of land, out in the open. In adopting the structure of a state, the group has given up some measure of the asymmetrical advantage enjoyed by terrorists who traditionally “melt away” into the shadows after an attack; ISIS, in short, can be targeted and defeated like a state. If an American commander in chief cannot even countenance deploying ground soldiers and Marines to defeat a state comprising the worst terrorist threat we’ve ever faced, then we might have finally forfeited our last defense against evil. We are in the final year of a presidency that unwittingly midwifed a monster.

Which is why, as Glenn linked yesterday, Mollie Hemingway writes that “We’re All Being Pretty Quiet About Obama’s Failures, Aren’t We?”

Why yes — to the point where “NBC Ignores Own Poll Showing ‘Plummet’ in Obama Approval.”

But as Jim Geraghty reminds his readers, “Don’t let the 2016 campaign news obscure a year of defeats for the president.”

NO TRUE SCOTSMAN: Perfect: ‘You Ain’t No Muslim’ Guy Now Afraid Of Being Killed By Muslims.

BASICALLY, IT’S A JAYVEE ADMINISTRATION: Defense Secretary Ash Carter Used Personal Email for Work.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter occasionally used his personal email for work-related matters, the Pentagon acknowledged late Wednesday.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said Carter believed it “was a mistake,” adding in a statement that the defense secretary had stopped such use of his personal email.

The statement from Cook follows a report in the New York Times which said Carter used personal email to conduct some work matters during his first months at the Pentagon — a violation of Defense Department rules — and even after Hillary Clinton came under fire for doing the same while secretary of state.

There was no comment from Carter himself, who on Thursday arrived in Erbil, Iraq, for meetings with U.S. commanders and personnel there.

The country’s in the very best of hands.

OMNIBUS BILLS PRODUCE CHICANERY. BAN THEM. Ominous Cybersharing Legislation Finds a Seat on the Omnibus: CISA is alive and appears to have the White House’s support.

Lodged toward the bottom of the 2000-plus page, $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill is the Cybersecurity Act of 2015 (it starts on page 1,728 here if you’re feeling like a masochist). This is what has come of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), the controversial (in tech quarters where people are paying attention anyway) legislation that encourages private businesses to share customer data with the federal government in exchange for liability from lawsuits in the case of data breaches, all under the guise of fighting cybercrime.

The controversy is that this alleged cybersecurity legislation actually appears to be a new form of authorization for surveillance. Experts say it won’t actually improve cybersecurity at all (partly because the federal government has a poor reputation for handling such data), and major tech companies like Apple, Google, and Twitter oppose it.

But here it is, being shoved into a “must pass” bill, escorted in by new Majority Leader Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.). Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future, an activist group fighting the passage of CISA-style privacy-threatening Internet regulations, has a dim view of the legislation.

“There’s been a bunch of negative changes to the bill over the last couple of weeks,” Greer says. “It went from something that was supposed to be a cybersecurity bill and has become a surveillance bill. It has even become a mass incarceration bill. … They’ll be able to investigate, prosecute and jail people for a wide variety of offenses that having nothing to do with cybersecurity and terrorism.”

Message to the GOP: You have the Trump threat because you pulled crap like this after 2010 and again after 2014.

AT AMAZON, fresh “Lightning Deals,” updated hourly.

IT WAS A PLEASURE TO BURN: What Happens When Homes Have No Books.

CRONY CAPITALISM AT WORK: Congress’s $12 billion giveaway to health insurers.

WELL OKAY, BUT BE CAREFUL HANDLING SALMON WHILE IN ARMOR: Britain Prunes Silly Laws on Salmon Handling and Armor Wearing.

YES. NEXT QUESTION: Are Mandatory Electronic Medical Records Causing Doctor Burnout?

A FACADE OF NORMALCY: Listen to Scott Weiland’s widow about the dark side of rock fame.

TO THE POINT: A short course in counter-terror theory.

THE BOY LIBERALS WHO CRIED WOLF: Hate Breeds Hate.

IS THAT A FLIP OR A FLOP: America surrenders on Assad, and Putin wins again.  The only thing sure is that Jean Kerry is a disgrace.

AND YET THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE: Unaccompanied children crossing southern border in greater numbers again, raising fears of new migrant crisis.

THE PAST IS ANOTHER COUNTRY: And the world is much bigger there. Travel Before Flight.

ALAS: A Day in the Life of an Imperial Staff Officer.

THERE HE GOES WITH RAMPANT SANITY: Could It Be The Cost?

A CELEBRATION I CAN STAND BEHIND: To Commemorate the Paris Climate Conference, Let’s Celebrate Coal.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Feds Fund Plays About Food Stamps, Gun Control Activist Lesbians. And as an artist who earns her living with the sweat of her brow, I take this opportunity to quote Robert A. Heinlein (who also earned his living and paid his own way): “Support for the arts — merde! A government-supported artist is an incompetent whore!”

IT’S NOT THE PRINCIPAL, IT’S THE PRINCIPLES: Behind the lunatic Santa ban: Don’t just blame the principal.

POINTING OUT BERNIE’S FALSE DICHOTOMIES IS A DIRTY JOB: But someone has to do it.

YEAH, THE US IS THE PROBLEM:“Gender Equality” In The United States

DIVERSITY IS OUR STRENGTH: John O McGinnis on the need for political diversity on campuses.