IRAN SPIRALS DOWN, DOWN, DOWN, MICHAEL LEDEEN WRITES:

General Baqeri has a multi-front war to supervise.  It won’t be easy. All those pundits who warned us that the billions from the No Deal Deal would stabilize the regime will have to rethink, it seems.  Most of the money goes into the accounts of the corrupt leaders.  Some of it goes for Russian weapons.  But the people hate this hollow regime more than ever, and they have every good reason for that.  It’s a failed regime whose stability is in considerable doubt.  Even the Obama Administration may not be able to save it.

And the administration whose motto is “Don’t do stupid shit”* wants to sell them a new fleet of Boeing jumbo jets as potential troop transports and guided missiles. What could go wrong?

* No, really.

AND THE UPPER AND LOWER CLASSES DON’T LIKE A STRONG MIDDLE CLASS BECAUSE IT’S STRONG ENOUGH TO LIMIT THEIR BEHAVIOR: A Strong Middle Class Doesn’t Just Happen Naturally.

JOHN SCHINDLER: Putin Has Always Seen Himself As At War With The West, And Now He Senses Weakness.

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AS A WISE COMMUNITY ORGANIZER ADVISED HIS CONSTITUENTS, GET IN YOUR OPPONENTS’ FACES AND PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: “Vote Properly, You Virulent Racist!” As Dale Franks writes, “The Elites are about to learn that the rubes and hayseeds in flyover country don’t like them.”

SALON: RACISM. RACISM EVERYWHERE!

• The Clintons’ sordid race game: No one will say it, but the Clintons’ rise was premised on repudiating black voters.

—Headline, Salon, January 31st, 2016.

• Salon Writer: Conservatives Are Racist Against … Bill Clinton.

—Headline, NewsBusters, yesterday.

As Milo Yiannopoulos writes, there’s only one solution to the Clinton’s long sordid history of racism: vote for the first real black president this November.

SHOT: Worries grow about security at GOP convention.

CHASER: Judge scraps Cleveland’s protest rules for GOP convention.

HANGOVER: Cleveland approves $50 million in ‘protest insurance’ for GOP convention.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:  “For American drivers in pursuit of literal rather than figurative fireworks next week, the Brexit fallout could have an unexpected silver lining in the form of flat or even slightly lower gas prices,” NBC reports.

NBC’s Tom Brokaw, hardest hit.

THEIR HOUSE WAS VANDALIZED BY A LYNCH MOB, FACULTY MEMBERS LED PROTESTS AGAINST THEM, THEY WERE FORCED TO MOVE OUT FOR THEIR SAFETY, AND NOW NO COMPENSATION: Fraternity brothers’ lawsuit over Rolling Stone fake rape story dismissed.

A judge has dismissed a defamation lawsuit brought by three fraternity members who believed they were easily identifiable in Rolling Stone’s debunked gang-rape article from 2014.

The article claimed seven members and pledges from the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity held a young woman down and gang-raped her as part of initiation. The story quickly unraveled when the man who allegedly orchestrated the whole event turned out not to exist and there was not even a party the night the rape allegedly took place.

In the wake of the article’s debunking, three lawsuits were filed against Rolling Stone for defamation. One of those lawsuits came from three members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity who argued that family, friends and coworkers identified them as potential rapists from clues in the article.

One of the men, George Elias IV, lived in a bedroom at the top of the first flight of stairs in the fraternity house, which apparently was “the most likely scene of the alleged crime,” according to the lawsuit. Elias said people he knew “interrogated him, humiliated him and scolded him.” His co-plaintiffs, Ross Fowler and Stephen Hadford described similar situations at work and home.

The lawsuit also claims that the men had their names and hometowns listed online, which ensured their “names will forever be associated with the alleged gang rape.” Even after the article was debunked, the men say they were “still being questioned often about the article’s accusations.”

U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel in Manhattan dismissed the lawsuit.

And yet people say Peter Thiel’s support of the Gawker suit enables unaccountable power.

ITS ORIGIN AND PURPOSE, STILL A TOTAL MYSTERY: “Following the triple suicide bomb attack in Turkey, John Kerry is ‘still trying to ascertain what happened and who did it.’” Tim Blair writes, responding, “Three Guesses, Genius.”

Perhaps the would-be new JFK is simply auditioning for his post-Obama career as an MSNBC analyst.

EQUIVALENCE: Corbyn compares Israel to Islamic State at launch of anti-Semitism report.

“Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel than our Muslim friends are for the self-styled Islamic State,” Corbyn told reporters at the event.

“Nor should Muslims be regarded as sexist, antisemitic or otherwise suspect, as has become an ugly Islamophobic norm. We judge people on their individual values and actions, not en masse,” he continues.

When asked if he just compared Israel to the Islamic state, Corbyn quickly denied having made any such connection, only to repeat his previous statement.

Why are leftwing institutions such hotbeds of Jew hatred?

THE SIXTIES ROOTS OF TODAY’S CAMPUS MADNESS: In a new podcast at Ricochet, City Journal editor Brian Anderson interviews Harry Stein, author of recent City Journal article “How My Friends and I Wrecked Pomona College.”

ON THE RUN: Taliban attack on Afghanistan police cadets near Kabul kills dozens.

Plus, this reminder that the Taliban controls more territory than at any time since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in October 2001.

UNFORTUNATELY, IT ALSO OFFERS INSUFFICIENT OPPORTUNITIES FOR GRAFT: The Rule of Law Promotes Growth and Wealth: There is no poor country that has true rule of law.

CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW: FEC deadlocked 3-3 on “punishing” Fox News for holding a second GOP debate.

At issue was the Aug. 6, 2015 Fox presidential debate. Initially, the network planned to host one debate featuring 10 candidates. But as the date got close and the nearly two dozen GOP presidential candidates were close in the polls, Fox added a second debate that included seven other candidates.

One of the candidates left out filed a complaint to the FEC, charging that Fox was essentially making a contribution to the 17 candidates by letting them have a voice in the debate.

Which candidate?

YOUR RIGOROUSLY OBJECTIVE AND DRYLY ANALYTICAL HEADLINE OF THE DAY.

TELEGRAPH JOURNO ASKS READERS TO CONSIDER KILLING FARAGE, ‘LIKE HITLER.’

Don’t know much about history; Farage is the one who’s fighting an unaccountable socialist European super-state, not trying to build one.

Sad; the Telegraph used to be one of England’s more conservative newspapers, until it was, to coin a phrase, “fundamentally transformed.”

Related: “Gloating Farage tells EU: Most of you have never done a proper job in your lives.” But then, the same could be said of much of the world’s MSM as well.

HEATHER MAC DONALD ON BALTIMORE’S FREDDIE GRAY AFTERMATH: A Triumph for Disinterested Justice.

That’s a headline that’s all too rare these days in a “fundamentally transformed” America.

I CAN REMEMBER WHEN THE MEDIA FEARED ELIMINATIONIST HATE SPEECH DIRECTED AGAINST POLITICIANS:

Shot: Mexican President: ‘Demagoguery, Slogans’ of Trump Similar to Hitler, Mussolini.

Chaser: British man who ‘tried to shoot Donald Trump with cop’s gun at campaign rally’ faces 30 years in prison as he is charged.

“When you keep comparing a candidate to Hitler, you have to expect this sort of thing,” Glenn noted last week when the 19 year old Brit attempted to assassinate Trump, adding that “Hillary, Bernie, and their media myrmidons” are “practically accomplices.”

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: EXCLUSIVE: Pro-Hillary group takes $200K in banned donations.

A super-PAC backing Hillary Clinton has accepted $200,000 in donations from a company holding multiple contracts with the federal government — despite a ban on such contributions.

According to a review of contributions by The Hill, Boston-based Suffolk Construction made two contributions of $100,000 to Priorities USA, which is backing the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

At the time it made the contributions, Suffolk held multiple contracts worth $976,560 with the Department of Defense for maintenance and construction projects at a Naval base in Newport, R.I., and the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., according to the government website USASpending.gov.

I’m old enough to remember when money in politics was supposed to be bad.

INSULTING YOUR CUSTOMERS DOESN’T SEEM LIKE A SMART BUSINESS STRATEGY: Richard Branson Calls For Re-Vote, Questions Intelligence Of UK Voters.

Spend your pounds accordingly, England.

REMEMBER WHEN CBS EDITED OBAMA’S ON CAMERA RESPONSE TO BENGHAZI?

Just think of CBS as being Democrat operatives with bylines (for decades) and you won’t be far wrong.

WHY ARE LEFTY INSTITUTIONS SUCH HOTBEDS OF RADICAL INEQUALITY? “I have never felt out of place in my entire life. But I did at Yale.”

When I was at Yale Law, the students were more diverse in terms of class backgrounds than this account suggests is the case now, though I remember some friends, including one military brat, expressing similar sentiments. On the other hand, this is true: “The wealthy and the powerful aren’t just wealthy and powerful; they follow a different set of norms and mores. When you go from working-class to professional-class, almost everything about your old life becomes unfashionable at best or unhealthy at worst. At no time was this more obvious than the first (and last) time I took a Yale friend to Cracker Barrel. In my youth, it was the height of fine dining—my grandma’s and my favorite restaurant. With Yale friends, it was a greasy public health crisis.”

FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: CBO: The 2016 Budget Outlook.

OF COURSE: Germany Really Needs to Give Some Thought to Banning Rocket Launchers.  That or be more careful about what the Lutheran churches preach.