NONACQUIESCENCE: DOJ Claims TX Ruling Against Amnesty Only Matters in One District: They claim the win against Executive Amnesty does not apply to the rest of the country. Orval Faubus, call your office!

ANNALS OF “SMART DIPLOMACY,” (CONT’D): U.S. Ambassador Knifed, North Korea Calls It “Punishment.”

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Harry Reid Secured Subsidies for Aides’ Donors.

GIVEN OBAMA’S IRAN PLANS, THIS IS WORTH A RE-MENTION: The Unexpected Return Of Duck And Cover. And here’s the accompanying video.

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UNEXPECTEDLY! “The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week and nonfarm productivity contracted more sharply than previously thought in the fourth quarter.”

SHOCKER: New Poll: Obama Aids Rich, Not Middle Class. “A new Pew Research Center survey shows most Americans believe President Barack Obama’s two terms in office have favored the rich, and have not benefited the middle class or the poor. Those negative attitudes are justified by much negative economic data, and could help GOP candidates in 2015 and 2016 who offer a populist criticism of ‘crony capitalism.'”

Ya think?

HYPOCRISY ROADSHOW: Hillary Clinton still decrying gender wage gap despite paying women less.

Hillary Clinton is still decrying the gender wage gap, even though the exact same measurement of wage by gender reveals her own senate office to be a more egregious offender than the average American business.

During her speech Tuesday night at the Emily’s List 30th Anniversary Conference, Clinton, while discussing other issues women and families face in the workforce, brought up the wage gap.

“And it still is an outrage that so many women are paid less than men for the same work.”

Using the same metric as the study demonstrating the wage gap Clinton cited, women in Clinton’s senate office earned 72 cents to the dollar that men earned. The reason for this, of course, is not discrimination (Clinton’s spokesman told the Washington Examiner that many of the top positions in her senate office were held by women) but primarily the choices women tend to make in their careers. . . .

Clinton is trying to live by two sets of rules. On the one hand, she wants to argue that women in her office held senior-level positions and therefore the wage gap was due to reasons other than discrimination. On the other hand, she wants to maintain that it’s different for everyone else in the country — that women everywhere else are suffering from a wage gap mostly due to discrimination.

She can’t have it both ways by ignoring the many reasons why the wage gap exists.

Well, she can if the press lets her. And it’s likely to.

ED DRISCOLL: Tammany Hall Redux: The Clinton Political Machine.

WELL-OILED MACHINE: Revelation About Hillary Clinton Emails Catches Democrats Off Guard.

The revelation that Hillary Rodham Clinton conducted government business entirely on a private email account as secretary of state has blindsided the Democratic establishment.

It was a bracing reminder of the risks entailed in the party’s all-but-all-in bet on Mrs. Clinton so early in the presidential nominating process. And it left Democrats contemplating the prospect of yet another long cycle of dramatic Clinton flare-ups — the type that President Obama obliquely campaigned against in 2008.

The report on Mrs. Clinton’s emails, published by The New York Times late Monday night, left many Democrats privately expressing wonder as late as Wednesday morning that Mrs. Clinton and her aides had not anticipated the political problems that this could create.

Huh. A lot of Dems have told me that Hillary is “as oiled as a Diesel train,” so I expected things to be slicker.

GOOD: Mike Lee & Marco Rubio Lay Out Ambitious Tax Reform Plan. “The plan, in its outline, would dramatically simplify the U.S. tax code. On the individual side, it would institute just two brackets, setting up a 15 percent tax rate for up for people earning up to $75,000 or married couples making up to $150,000, and a 35 percent top rate for everyone above that line. The current top rate is 39.6 percent. Gone would be taxes on capital gains and dividends, as well as estates. It would also create a new $2,500 child tax credit, applicable to payroll tax liabilities as well as for the income tax. The senators justify that credit on the grounds that the current tax code creates an unfair bias against parents who raising children who will pay for government programs supporting retirement and old age healthcare benefits. Otherwise, the plan would reduce deductions, sparing only mortgage interest and charitable contribution deductions.”

MAN WHO TOOK JOB FROM FORMER KLANSMAN SUPPORTS POLICE FORCE THAT KILLS BLACK PEOPLE: Harry Reid Sticks Up for Capitol Police Leadership.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, asked Tuesday about lingering concerns over the Capitol Police Department’s handling of a controversial State of the Union night car chase, said the force does a “masterful job.”

The Nevada Democrat, who put himself through law school working as a Capitol Police officer, called himself a “stalwart defender and protector” of the force, saying they have “a job that is very, very difficult.

That’s racism, straight up.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The End Of Tennessee Temple University. “Students have the option to move to Piedmont with assured admittance and continue their education at a discounted price, but the merger effectively means that come May 1, Tennessee Temple University will no longer exist.”

Who could have seen this coming?

GOVERNMENT IS JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR THE THINGS WE CHOOSE TO DO TOGETHER: At DHS, “Accountability” Is Just Another Word For Looking the Other Way.

THE HILL: House Oversight chairman: Clinton acting like Petraeus?

Asked on “Fox and Friends” whether Clinton’s exclusive use of a personal email address during her time as secretary of State raised national security concerns, Chaffetz said, “It does beg the question: Were there any sort of classified pieces of information that were flowing through her personal email account?”

“Which is something you can’t do and something yesterday Gen. Petraeus had to plead guilty to, or was going out in a deal, dealing with his personal email and interaction with somebody who didn’t have a classification,” Chaffetz added.

Petraeus reached a plea deal, the Justice Department announced Tuesday, over charges he failed to turn over for archiving small record books kept while commanding U.S. forces in Afghanistan, instead providing them and their classified information to his mistress, Paula Broadwell, who wrote a biography of the Army general.

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Tuesday, “we have no indication that Secretary Clinton used her personal email account for anything but unclassified purposes,” adding that Clinton used secure phone calls, aides or took other steps to send sensitive messages and has turned over some emails for archiving.

“To maximize transparency, they’re supposed to adhere to the law, which, for her, means complying with the Federal Records Act,” Chaffetz said of Clinton on Fox.

Well, so long as she wasn’t sleeping with a hot woman that she shared secrets with. And how likely is that?

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Ex-teacher pleads guilty to sex with student. “A former Highland Middle School teacher pleaded guilty to multiple criminal charges stemming from her relationship with a 13-year-old student in 2013. Jessica Boyers, 26, accepted a plea agreement Friday morning in Jefferson Circuit court to serve 10 years on charges of second degree rape, second degree sodomy and first degree sex abuse.”

YOU MAY BE INNOCENT, BUT WE’RE STILL GOING TO MAKE AN EXAMPLE OF YOU. BECAUSE FAIRNESS! After lab recants date-rape drug finding, Brown stands by its punishment of frat.

Brown University finds itself in damage-control mode after its case against a fraternity for date-rape drugging fell apart.

The Providence Journal reports that the unnamed lab that tested an alleged victim’s urine samples for the presence of GHB has “recanted” its positive finding after “outside medical experts” challenged its work:

As a result of the faulty testing, the university has dropped its inquiry into drugging allegations by two female students who attended an unregistered party held by Phi Kappa Psi on Oct 17, 2014. The students had reportedly drunk spiked punch and experienced symptoms of being drugged, including a short period of memory loss.

The frat has always maintained its innocence – but rather than lift its punishment, Brown is simply shortening its four-year suspension to two-and-a-half years.

The school explained in a testy press release intended to “correct misinformation and dispel rumors” that Phi Kappa Psi was guilty regardless of the urine test (as well as an inconclusive hair test) – essentially that it had to prove its innocence:

And they make sure that proving your innocence is impossible.

HUH: U.S. millennials post ‘abysmal’ scores in tech skills test, lag behind foreign peers.

It’s like our K-12 system is dysfunctional or something.

THIS WASHINGTON POST STORY IS PREDICTABLY UPSET ABOUT THE RISE OF PRIVATE POLICING, but I think we’d be better off if we fully privatized most law enforcement. Then it would be carried out by people who can’t claim official immunity.

A COLLEGE EDUCATION IS NO GUARANTEE AGAINST COMMITTING ATROCITIES; IF ANYTHING, IT’S THE REVERSE: “Many were shocked that the apparent executioner in videos made by the Islamic State, or ISIS, was an educated, middle-class metropolitan.” “In fact, academic institutions in Britain have been infiltrated for years by dangerous theocratic fantasists. I should know: I was one of them.” Like communists, they thrive in institutions that fundamentally see themselves as in opposition to the society that hosts them.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Designing mechanical functions into DNA nanotechnology.

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WHEN ONE TWIN EXERCISES and the other doesn’t.

Identical twins in Finland who shared the same sports and other physical activities as youngsters but different exercise habits as adults soon developed quite different bodies and brains, according to a fascinating new study that highlights the extent to which exercise shapes our health, even in people who have identical genes and nurturing. . . .

It turned out that these genetically identical twins looked surprisingly different beneath the skin and skull. The sedentary twins had lower endurance capacities, higher body fat percentages, and signs of insulin resistance, signaling the onset of metabolic problems. (Interestingly, the twins tended to have very similar diets, whatever their workout routines, so food choices were unlikely to have contributed to health differences.)

The twins’ brains also were unalike. The active twins had significantly more grey matter than the sedentary twins, especially in areas of the brain involved in motor control and coordination.

Presumably, all of these differences in the young men’s bodies and brains had developed during their few, brief years of divergent workouts, underscoring how rapidly and robustly exercising — or not — can affect health, said Dr. Urho Kujala, a professor of sports and exercise medicine at the University of Jyvaskyla who oversaw the study.

I would rate this study as suggestive rather than authoritative due to its small size, but I think it’s probably right that you can do more to influence your body via exercise than just about anything else.

ONWARD, CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS: Message from an Assyrian Christian Fighter.

THAT’S WHO THEY ARE, THAT’S WHAT THEY DO: Did the administration lie about Obama’s immigration action?