WHEN THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF DOESN’T CARE ABOUT YOU OR YOUR SACRIFICES, MORALE SUFFERS: Army morale low despite 6-year, $287M optimism program. You know what helps morale? An Army that fights and wins. You know what doesn’t? A $287 million 6-year “optimism” program. An army overrun with sociology grads, “resiliency directorates,” diversity officers, and the like is not an army that’s focused on fighting and winning.

UPDATE: From the comments:

Let’s see – the military was sent into a hell hole to fight with their hands tied behind their backs, and then were pulled out so they could watch the areas they conquered by loss of their friends be over-run by maggot terrorists while the politicians crowed and crowed. And the politicians wonder why the soldier’s morale is low?

The world is run by idiots that can’t remember what happened yesterday.

Related: Memo: Army’s Top Priority Is Not Winning Wars, It’s Sexual Assault. “The U.S. Army’s top priority for 2015 is not winning wars. Secretary of the Army John M. McHugh named preventing sexual assault as his top priority for the Army in the fiscal year 2015, according to a memo obtained by The Daily Caller.”

STEPHEN KRASNER: Failed States And American National Security.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 708.

PERSONNEL IS POLICY: Meet Jeb Bush’s National Security Adviser. “They may have been mocked at the time, but the views Mitt Romney articulated on the campaign trail in 2012 about foreign affairs are now considered not just clear-sighted but clairvoyant. He said that the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq was a mistake; that Vladimir Putin was a major threat; and that radical Islam was on the ascent. Romney detailed many of these ideas in a wide-ranging address on foreign policy at the Virginia Military Institute. That speech was crafted in part by John Noonan, who was recently tapped to be Jeb Bush’s national-security adviser.” Editing tip: You mean “prescient,” not “clairvoyant,” which basically (“clair” + “voyant”) just means clear-sighted. But yeah.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH FOSSIL FUEL DIVESTMENT?

Never underestimate the environmental movement’s ability to squander its resources. Today’s fossil fuel divestment campaign is the latest example of fecklessness, and yet another demonstration—as if we needed one—that greens don’t understand the problems they’re trying to fix. . . .

College students campaigning against fossil fuel investments might be best served by putting down their picket signs and enrolling in an Economics 101 course. People invest money to grow their wealth, and while a family like the Rockefellers may be wealthy enough to assuage its guilt for how it made its money by publicly divesting from fossil fuel holdings, the rest of us can’t afford that luxury.

Take the time to read Gapper’s piece in full. It gets to the heart of the problem with the divestment movement: its rampant inconsistencies. By taking on something as enormous as investments in brown energy, greens have not only set themselves up for failure, they’ve also started tallying up opportunity costs. Public appetite for green initiatives isn’t limitless, and neither is the funding or media attention these causes du jour receive.

But greens are nothing if not experts at finding ways to attack problems from the wrong angles, whether it’s anti-Keystone activism or the Global Climate Treaty or divestment.

If people keep choosing means that seem unsuited to their ends, consider that you might not understand their ends.

I THINK THAT’S A TERRIFIC IDEA: Journalists at Gawker Media’s Websites Are Planning to Unionize.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: L.A. School District Terminates iPad Program and Seeks Refund From Apple. “It’s been an interesting ride, but the Los Angeles school iPad program is done. Between the rampant student hacking and the FBI probe, you can see how the focus kind of wandered away from education. But there are millions of dollars tied up in the project, so it’s not just lunch money.”

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CHANGE: House Votes To Repeal Estate Tax, Preserve Step-Up In Basis At Death.

SPENGLER: Yoram Hazony’s Brilliant Essay on Jewish Conservatism.

STEPHEN GREEN: Does the GOP Need a Republican Obama to Beat Hillary?

ASHE SCHOW: Due process on campus needs a congressional champion.

It’s a sad day in America when due process rights granted in the Constitution need protection, but here we are.

On college campuses across the country, students — particularly male students — are learning the hard way that they have little if any due process rights should they ever be accused of sexual assault. Indeed, an accusation is all that’s needed to destroy or severely alter their future.

The reason for this comes from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which has reinterpreted Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to view sexual assault as a form of gender discrimination instead of a crime. It therefore must be treated as a disciplinary matter, more closely aligned with plagiarism than the felony crime it actually is.

And since Title IX and OCR’s subsequent, infamous “Dear Colleague” letter recommend inadequate due process rights for those accused, following those guidelines has been shown in at least one instance to be an acceptable excuse for subverting the Constitution. For instance, although Title IX theoretically requires a fair hearing for the accused, it also requires a Title IX officer to oversee the investigation of sexual assault complaints and be a victim’s advocate, thereby placing the power of the office behind the accuser and against the accused. . . .

It is politically dangerous these days to even suggest that schools provide due process to those accused of sexual assault. Especially since these days all that is needed to brand someone a rapist is an uncorroborated accusation. But there must be someone in Congress brave enough to take up the issue and offer a bill that either amends existing law or requires colleges to provide due process to students who are accused.

One would hope.

REALLY? BECAUSE IT SEEMS TO ME HE DIDN’T GET ENOUGH: Reid Not Sure If Boxing Blows to the Head Were Good for Him.

WALTER HUDSON: Why Blacks Aren’t Voting Republican.

THE HILL: Obama immigration orders face major test in federal court.

President Obama’s executive actions on immigration will be tested on Friday when a federal appeals court considers whether to lift an order blocking the actions to allow millions of immigrants without legal status to remain in the United States.

Lawyers from the federal government and 26 states opposed to Obama’s immigration policies will make oral arguments in front of a three-judge panel from the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans, the most conservative circuit in the country.

The administration is seeking an emergency stay lifting a Texas judge’s order freezing Obama’s November executive actions, which could provide deportation relief and work permits to as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants.

Supporters of Obama’s programs are hopeful the court’s recent dismissal of a separate lawsuit against the immigration programs are a sign the judges will be on their side.

The panel may take days or weeks to decide on the government’s motion.

If it lifts U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen’s preliminary injunction, the Obama administration could begin implementing its programs. If it does not, Obama’s actions will remain in limbo.

The atmosphere surrounding the hearing is expected to be charged. More than 150 people plan to demonstrate outside the courthouse, including immigrants eligible for relief under Obama’s programs, according to immigrant-rights groups.

Well, the Obama crowd managed to intimidate John Roberts, so it’s worth a try with Judge Hanen, I guess.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: ‘Culture of Cheating’ Prevalent at Stanford, Other Elite Colleges.

BECAUSE IT’S THE PARTY OF OLD WHITE PEOPLE AND THEIR LOYAL RETAINERS. Byron York: Why is the 2016 Democratic field so old?

Why are the Democrats running for president so old? Blame the Clintons.

There are five Democrats who have either declared or are thinking about running for president. Three — Joe Biden, Bernard Sanders, and Jim Webb — will be over 70 years old on Inauguration Day 2017. Frontrunner Hillary Clinton will be nine months short of 70. Only Martin O’Malley, who will turn 54 a couple of days before the 2017 swearing-in, has not reached retirement age already.

In 2008, Democrats had a 47 year-old candidate who mesmerized the party and ran away with the votes of Americans aged 18 to 29. Republicans, meanwhile, ran a 72 year-old man whose reputation was based on heroism in a war 40 years earlier. Youth won.

This time the situation is reversed. The average age of the Republican field is far below the Democrats, with every candidate younger than Clinton. The most senior is Jeb Bush, who will be 64 on Inauguration Day. Scott Walker will be 49; Marco Rubio will be 45; Ted Cruz, 46; Rand Paul, 54; Chris Christie, 54; Mike Huckabee, 61; Bobby Jindal, 45. Although Bush is in the older range, they’re all in the career sweet spot to win the White House.

What accounts for the Democrats’ dramatic change from the party of youth to the party of age?

“It’s the snuffing out of young talent by the strength and size and sheer velocity of the inevitable nominee,” says a well-connected Democratic strategist. “The Clintons took all the air out of the collective Democratic room. There are a lot of people who would be running who are much younger, but they’ve got their future in front of them, and they don’t want the Clintons to ruin it, in this campaign or after this campaign. So they’re waiting for a moment when there is enough oxygen to run.”

“If Hillary Clinton weren’t running, we’d have a field that looks like the Republican field — young and vibrant and diverse.”

Hillary is none of those things.

ED DRISCOLL: We Came in Peace, for All Humankind: Six years of Social Justice Warriors fighting the dictionary, with some thoughts from David Gelernter and Kurt Schlichter.

ILYA SOMIN: How the Constitution protects “free range” parents.

The Supreme Court has always indicated that parental rights are not absolute. The state can intervene to protect children against serious threats to their health and safety, and to ensure that all children get at least a basic education. But, as Troxel makes clear, the state can’t infringe on parental control over child-raising unless they have real evidence showing that there is a genuinely significant threat to the childrens’ safety and well-being. Otherwise, as Justice O’Connor’s opinion makes clear, the authorities must respect the “presumption that fit parents act in the best interests of their children.”

Forcibly detaining elementary school-aged kids for walking by themselves in a safe, middle-class neighborhood doesn’t even come close to meeting the necessary standard. Statistically, such walking is extremely safe, and probably less dangerous than police officers’ actions in forcibly detaining the children and driving them to a CPS office. According to the Center for Disease Control, car accidents are a leading cause of death among small children; riding in a car as a passenger is far more dangerous for kids than walking in most neighborhoods. Far from “protecting” the two children, the police and the CPS probably put them at greater risk than they were exposed to before (though the risk was still very low in an absolute sense). The Meitivs’ parenting practices are also much safer than numerous typical childhood activities, such as participating in contact sports like basketball and hockey, or going downhill skiing. If the CPS can force parents to stop letting their children walk home from the park, it can similarly target every other comparably risky activity, including numerous sports, and even driving the children in a car.

The bottom line is that the CPS’ actions here seem to be the result of exactly the kind of “mere disagreement” with parental choices that the Supreme Court specifically barred as a basis for overriding parents’ constitutional right to direct their children’s upbringing.

Tar. Feathers.

JOURNALISM: Rubio gets the Cruz treatment with dubious ‘fact check.’ The big-media fact-checkers have been pathetic partisan shills for quite a while. This particular piece of work was authored by the AP’s Steve Peoples.

ONWARD, CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS: ISIS Fighter converts to Christianity. “An ISIS jihadist has recently converted to Christianity after being left for dead near the Eastern border of Syria where he was finally rescued by Christian missionaries from the region.”

Related: Boots on the ground: The foreign volunteers training anti-ISIS fighters.

UPDATE: While I slept, InstaPundit readers exposed the first story as a hoax. Thanks!

JUST THE KIND OF “IMMIGRATION” EUROPE NEEDS: Italian police: Muslim migrants threw Christians overboard. “Muslims who were among migrants trying to get from Libya to Italy in a boat this week threw 12 fellow passengers overboard — killing them — because the 12 were Christians, Italian police said Thursday. Italian authorities have arrested 15 people on suspicion of murdering the Christians at sea, police in Palermo, Sicily, said. The original group of 105 people left Libya on Tuesday in a rubber boat. Sometime during the trip north across the Mediterranean Sea, the alleged assailants — Muslims from the Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal — threw the 12 overboard, police said.”

RECKLESS DISREGARD: Mediaite Screws Up Congressman’s Marital Status (And In This Case, It Matters). “Mediaite did correct themselves (see below). So now it’s a story about an unmarried congressman who’s dating an airline lobbyist.”

#HASHTAGFAILURE: One year later, Nigerian schoolgirls are still missing.