CHANGE: Au revoir and shalom: Jews leave France in record numbers.

KURT SCHLICHTER: Trump Is Making Performance Art Out Of His Fans, But His Supporters Are Doing The Same To Him.

QUESTIONS NOBODY IS ASKING: Why Are Americans Ignoring Trevor Noah? “I’m going to hence go out on a limb here and suggest that say that the Daily Show caters to a distinctly left-leading audience.  And from there it’s obvious: liberals don’t groove as much on the show because its new host Trevor Noah is a black dude.”

LOS ANGELES TIMES: Bernies Sanders turns “uncharacteristically confrontational” against Hillary Clinton in Iowa town hall.

But in reality it was the usual rant on income inequality, the Iraq War, and Keystone XL. Sanders still refuses to go for the jugular on Clinton’s felonious handling of classified intelligence, or her serial mistreatment of the many victims of Bill Clinton’s unwanted sexual advances.

Sanders however is within striking distance in Iowa, dominates New Hampshire, and has cut Clinton’s lead in half in South Carolina.

All this, despite pulling his punches on Emailgate and other issues, campaigning as essentially a single-issue protest candidate, and being by some reports a deeply unpleasant human being.

What’s his secret? It’s no secret at all.

Also, I still believe that Hillary is an AWFUL candidate & may be beatable by just about any Republican with a pulse https://t.co/zvyHhtiabQ

— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) January 25, 2016

WALTER MONDALE, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Comrade Bernie Sanders: ‘ We will raise taxes. Yes we will.’

MICHAEL BARONE: How stupid and vicious do elites think ‘we’ are?

The “we” in that question are ordinary citizens and the “they” are political and media elites who hold them in contempt. Which they do over and over again by trying to obfuscate and cover up the source and motives of terrorist attacks.

Barack Obama, who refuses to use phrases akin to “Islamist terrorism,” is a prime offender, but far from the only one. His predecessor George W. Bush, after the attacks of September 11, made a point of visiting mosques and calling Islam a religion of peace.

Undoubtedly he then feared that many Americans would attack and assault Muslims, real or perceived, and a very few such attacks occurred. But government statistics count far fewer “hate crimes” against Muslims than against Jews.

Nonetheless Obama still behaves as if any suggestion that terrorists shouting “Allahu akbar!” has something to do with Islam will spark massacres and persecution across the country. The American people are seen as a great beast, incapable of reason or cool judgment. Stupid and vicious.

So they must be reminded that they are not morally superior to terrorists. At a national prayer breakfast, Obama felt obliged to remind Americans that Christians attacked Muslims — in the Crusades, 800 years ago. . . .

Americans may be noticing as well how far political correctness has gone in Europe, especially Germany. European and American elites praised Chancellor Angela Merkel for promising to take in 1 million mostly Muslim, mostly male refugees. Why can’t America be so generous?

But ordinary people, there and here, have seen how police, municipal and national officials have covered up migrants’ behavior on New Year’s. Even mass assaults on women in Cologne and other cities, and how print and broadcast media eagerly cooperated. Cellphone cameras told the story which elite media wanted to ignore. . . .

Ordinary Americans, I think, have a better sense of how to get these questions right, without dissolving into irrational hatred, than the elites who look down on them as stupid and vicious.

The ruling class hates the ruled. The ruled have begun to return the favor. Which goes to the point of my USA Today column.

ROGER SIMON: Will Rubio Surprise in Iowa? Ask the Bookies!

HILLARY WAS PAID $225K A POP FOR WALL STEET SPEECHES THAT REPORTERS WERE BARRED FROM COVERING: Not only were reporters kept out, but Clinton refuses today to release transcripts. What was she promising Goldman Sachs Group, the Carlyle Group, Morgan Stanley, et. al. that she didn’t want reporters to hear then or us to read now? The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group’s Richard Pollock obtained a copy of Hillary’s Harry Walker Agency speaking engagement contract and much more.

DISPATCHES FROM THE HIGHER EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: MU professor Melissa Click, who called for ‘muscle’ to remove reporter, charged with third-degree assault, a class C misdemeanor that carries a possible 15-day jail sentence.

THE MORE THEY TALK ABOUT SUSTAINABILITY, THE LESS SUSTAINABLE THEIR ECONOMIC MODELS ARE: The Campus Sustainability Movement: A Threat to the Marketplace of Ideas.

The roughly 60 professors, administrators, and students who attended the event were asked to brainstorm ideas and provide the Council and its working groups with a starting point as drafting of the plan begins (it will be finalized in 2017). For some campus affiliates, alumni, and taxpayers, the proposals may seem alarming. More on them later.

Although “sustainability” is an innocuous-sounding term, perhaps conjuring images of community gardens or recycling, at its core is a totalitarian philosophy that seeks to curtail personal and economic freedom. That’s one of the takeaways from the National Association of Scholars’s comprehensive 2015 report Sustainability: Higher Education’s New Fundamentalism. Across the country, campus activists are shutting down debate on important issues such as climate change, watering down liberal arts curricula with fluffy, politicized courses, and forcing behavioral changes on the part of students.

Each year, according to the NAS report, universities spend approximately $3.4 billion on sustainability initiatives. That’s in addition to the billions in higher education grants provided in the last two decades by government agencies (such as the Environmental Protection Agency) and private philanthropists. Today there are more than 1,200 degree programs—and thousands of courses—related to sustainability. Support for the movement, as evidenced by funding, research, student involvement, administrative growth, and course integration, is at an all-time high.

All funded, ultimately, by lifetimes of student debt. How sustainable is that?

I DON’T SAY IT’S ALIENS: 10 Amazing Galactic Oddities.

SOME OF THESE ARE NOT THAT STRANGE: 11 Strange Habits of Geniuses.

BUT LET IT NOT END THIS WAY: Is the election over?

MY SHOCKED FACE IS GETTING AN AWFUL LOT OF PLAY: Europe’s Immigration Policies? Not Likely to End Well.

CAUSE FOR CONCERN: Still support him, Trumproids?  (This is the Liberty Zone, so language warning in effect.)

THE OLD NEW: The Bold, New and Unique (just like everyone else).

THINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS AS THEY SEEM: Particularly in publishing.  Sabrina Chase on The Darkest Hour

DOWNTON ABBEY GOES ROGUE: ‘Downton Abbey’s Dowager Countess delivers epic rant against government-run healthcare.

THE FRUITS OF APPEASEMENT: More Iranian Goodwill.

FROM AMANDA S. GREEN: Honor From Ashes.

THERE IS THAT SHOCKED FACE AGAIN: Clinton’s paid speech problem goes beyond Goldman Sachs.

THIS IS MY SHOCKED FACE: Income Inequality Is Higher In Democratic Districts Than Republican Ones.

I UNDERSTAND HIS FINGERPRINTS ARE ALL OVER ALL AI WORK: Marvin Minsky, Pioneer in Artificial Intelligence, Dies at 88.

FASTER PLEASE: A different kind of doctor’s office: Patients pay directly, keeping insurance out of it.

ARISTO, ARISTO: How stupid and vicious do elites think ‘we’ are?