WAPO: GOP MUST DESTROY ITSELF TO SAVE ITS SOUL.

Well, that’s been a perennial fever swamp dream at the Washington Post, ever since the paper’s heyday under the Grahams and Ben Bradlee.

COMING FULL CIRCLE PART II: Howard Kurtz: Liberal pundits experiencing Hillary buyer’s remorse.

Earlier this week: ANOTHER RUBE SELF-IDENTIFIES: “Bill Press, a liberal radio and television host, has authored ‘Buyer’s Remorse,’ a distillation of the Obama years that comes down to ‘yes, but’…‘The transformative new era of leadership Obama promised never happened,’ Press laments. ‘His presidency looms as a huge opportunity wasted.’”

What policies would a president who didn’t disappoint his far left backers implement?

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COMING FULL CIRCLE PART I: Peak Obama Reached as Clown POTUS Replaces Che on Cuban Propaganda Posters.

Flashback from 2008: Obama Worker’s Che Guevara Poster Was No Fluke.

SPYING: A Government Error Just Revealed Snowden Was the Target in the Lavabit Case.

AT AMAZON, deals galore in Training & Fitness.

And shop the Amazon Emergency Prep Store. Plus, Emergency & Long-Term Storage Food Deals. When bad things happen, it’s good to have food.

Plus, Generators and Portable Power for Storm Season. Or if a generator isn’t practical, consider an inverter.

With winter storms pretty much behind us, now it’s time for spring and summer storms!

SO WHY KEEP VOTING FOR THE SAME POLICIES THAT CREATED THESE CONDITIONS? A crumbling, dangerous South Side creates exodus of black Chicagoans.

Earlier: Say, where is the African-American revolt against Democrats?

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Chelsea Clinton reveals her mom thinks it is ‘important’ to extend Obamacare to illegal aliens.

ANDREW KLAVAN: Good News! Hollywood is Fair to Us Now! “Through the miracle of Donald Trump, left wing Hollywood can no longer insult or debase us enough to actually describe us. Our long battle against Hollywood bias is over! We have defeated them by becoming exactly what they said we were.”

Read the whole thing.

YEAH, BUT WHO NEEDS ANOTHER HOUSE FOR POOR PEOPLE? The Cost Of Legal Scholarship: 3 Law Review Articles = 1 Habitat For Humanity House.

LAW ENFORCEMENT IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Fearing no punishment, Denver cops abuse crime databases for personal gain.

SO OPPONENTS OF CAMPUS FREE SPEECH ARE TRYING TO SUGGEST THAT TENNESSEE STATE REP. MARTIN DANIEL IS PRO-ISIS OR SOMETHING. Funny, I remember when that sort of thing was called “McCarthyism,” and was bad. But anyway, he sends this statement, which he’s circulating to the media:

I would like to clarify comments made on Wednesday before the House Education Administration Committee.

I fundamentally disagree with ISIS’s philosophy and I unequivocally condemn their abhorrent, cruel, inhuman acts of terror and violence. That said, the unavoidable fact is that the First Amendment guarantees us the right to express any opinion, including opinions that most of us find repugnant and fundamentally wrong, so long as they don’t cause an imminent risk of harm. To make it clear, there’s a big difference between saying that someone has a right to speak, and agreeing or disagreeing with the content of that speech. Frankly, simple recruitment efforts by any organization, standing alone, might be protected by the First Amendment. However, offering material support, including one’s service, to a terrorist organization is forbidden by the United States Patriot Act of 2001. Joining ISIS (offering one’s service to a terrorist organization) is illegal, on college campuses or anywhere else in the United States.

Furthermore, although clearly I believe that free speech should generally be protected, if such speech should cross the line so that it becomes an imminent threat to someone, including our country, that would NOT be protected speech (see Brandenburg v Ohio, a Supreme Court opinion from 1969, in which the Supreme Court held that only speech that presents a “clear and present danger” is prohibitable).

I realize these comments may not be satisfactory to some, who may question how I could defend the right to free speech of supporters of a cruel and evil organization like ISIS. Granted, I firmly believe that ISIS is despicable and evil, and I am confident that the vast majority of people with any sense of human decency will agree as well.

I am sure that each of us holds many opinions that someone, somewhere, would find wrong or offensive. My point is that if we weaken the First Amendment by making its protection selective, based on what is currently viewed as evil or inappropriate, we are weakening its ability to protect us all.

Opponents of my Tennessee Student Free Speech Protection Act, by bringing up an unrelated hypothetical situation of ISIS recruiting on campus, have intentionally distracted from the point of my bill, which is to guarantee all students the right to express themselves on college campuses, whether their opinions are considered open-minded, closed-minded, religious, non-religious, anti-religious, brilliant, stupid, progressive, or offensive. I am seeing liberal college administrators impose their views of what is right and proper speech on conservative students who feel uncomfortable in disagreement. I am trying to remedy that problem. ALL students should have the right to express their opinions, and that is what this bill is about.

In conclusion, speech advocating violence is not and should not be legally protected. The remedy for objectionable, disagreeable non-violent speech is not silence or suppression of speech – it is more speech.

The text of the Tennessee Student Free Speech Protection Act (HB 2063) can be found at the following link.

I think it’s a good bill, and I wish certain members of the legislature took it seriously, instead of engaging in unfortunate theatrics.

SPYING: The Feds Are Wrong to Warn of “Warrant-Proof” Phones: Throughout history, communications have mainly been ephemeral. We need to be sure we can preserve that freedom.

HEH: “The Zuck-up.” Who is Facebook boss trying to impress by running in Beijing’s poisoned air? “It is an open secret that Mark Zuckerberg is pretty keen to get Facebook unblocked in China. But is he taking things just a tiny bit too far?”

AUSTIN BAY: Time to Question Presidential Candidates on Missile Defense.

I SEE NOTHING, I KNOW NOTHING: CMS Was ‘Passive’ in Preventing Fraud in Administering Obamacare.

A third of applications had “inconsistencies” worth almost two billion dollars in subsidies.

BILL KNOWS HOW THEY FEEL: Kurtz: Liberal pundits experiencing Hillary buyer’s remorse.

THEY PROBABLY HAD IT COMING: How Donald Trump Bent Television To His Will.

Two network sources also confirmed the unprecedented control the television networks have surrendered to Trump in a series of private negotiations, allowing him to dictate specific details about placement of cameras at his event, to ensure coverage consists primarily of a single shot of his face.

Network officials say the ratings have born out commercial incentives to devote their campaign coverage to largely unfiltered streams of Trump talking. CBS CEO Les Moonves quipped that Trump “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS, that’s all I got to say.”

But many inside the networks are growing increasingly disturbed with what they’ve helped create.

“As a programmer, it’s an easy decision, people watch it,” said one producer. “As an American, I’m sort of troubled by it, because I feel like we contribute it.”

And this:

According to two sources familiar with the call, the Trump campaign, citing security concerns from Secret Service, dictated to the networks that their camera crews can only shoot Trump head-on from a fenced-in press pen.

Under the Trump campaign’s conditions, camera crews would not be able to leave the press pen during Trump’s rallies to capture video of audience reactions, known in the industry as “cutaway shots” or “cuts.” Networks would also not be able to use a separate riser set up to get cutaway shots.

The terms, which limit the access journalists have to supporters and protesters while Trump is speaking, are unprecedented, and are more restrictive than those put on the networks by the White House or Hillary Clinton’s campaign, which has had Secret Service protection for its duration.

You don’t have to be enthusiastic about Trump to enjoy watching him beat Clinton at her own media game.

ALAN KORS: The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses.

HEH: A Journalist Faces Rejection and Hope at Richardson High School’s Career Expo.

ASIA PIVOT: U.S. sees new Chinese activity around South China Sea shoal.

The head of U.S. naval operations, Admiral John Richardson, expressed concern that an international court ruling expected in coming weeks on a case brought by the Philippines against China over its South China Sea claims could be a trigger for Beijing to declare an exclusion zone in the busy trade route.

Richardson told Reuters the United States was weighing responses to such a move.

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion in global trade passes every year.

Maybe now isn’t the best time to be considering further cuts to our aircraft carrier force.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1044.

THIS SEEMS IMPORTANT: Hillary Has An NSA Problem: The FBI has been investigating Clinton for months—but an even more secretive Federal agency has its own important beef with her.

What DoJ decides to do with EmailGate is ultimately a question of politics as much as justice. Ms. Clinton’s recent statement on her potential prosecution, “it’s not going to happen,” then refusing to address the question at all in a recent debate, led to speculation about a backroom deal with the White House to shield Hillary from prosecution as long as Mr. Obama is in the Oval Office. After mid-January, however, all bets would be off. In that case, winning the White House herself could be an urgent matter of avoiding prosecution for Ms. Clinton.

That said, if DoJ declines to prosecute after the Bureau recommends doing so, a leak-fest of a kind not seen in Washington, D.C., since Watergate should be anticipated. The FBI would be angry that its exhaustive investigation was thwarted by dirty deals between Democrats. In that case, a great deal of Clintonian dirty laundry could wind up in the hands of the press, habitual mainstream media covering for the Clintons notwithstanding, perhaps having a major impact on the presidential race this year.

Neither is the FBI the only powerful Federal agency that Hillary Clinton needs to worry about as she plots her path to the White House between scandals and leaks. For years, she has been on the bad side of the National Security Agency, America’s most important intelligence agency, as revealed by just-released State Department documents obtained by Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act. . . .

Now, over two months later, I can confirm that the contents of Sid Blumenthal’s June 8, 2011 email to Hillary Clinton, sent to her personal, unclassified account, were indeed based on highly sensitive NSA information. The Agency investigated this compromise and determined that Mr. Blumenthal’s highly detailed account of Sudanese goings-on, including the retelling of high-level conversations in that country, was indeed derived from NSA intelligence.

Specifically, this information was illegally lifted from four different NSA reports, all of them classified Top Secret / Special Intelligence. Worse, at least one of those reports was issued under the GAMMA compartment, which is an NSA handling caveat that is applied to extraordinarily sensitive information (for instance, decrypted conversations between top foreign leadership, as this was). GAMMA is properly viewed as a SIGINT Special Access Program or SAP, several of which from CIA Ms. Clinton compromised in another series of her “unclassified” emails.

Currently serving NSA officials have told me they have no doubt that Mr. Blumenthal’s information came from their reports. “It’s word-for-word, verbatim copying,” one of them explained. “In one case, an entire paragraph was lifted from an NSA report” that was classified Top Secret / Special Intelligence.

How Sid Blumenthal got his hands on this information is the key question, and there’s no firm answer yet.

Somebody should find out.

ARE YOU FEELING THE LIGHTWORKER’S HOPE-AND-CHANGE YET? A deep dive into an angry, and divided, America.

THERE’S SOMETHING GOING ON HERE, BUT YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS, DO YOU, MR. BROOKS? “Trump voters are a coalition of the dispossessed. They have suffered lost jobs, lost wages, lost dreams. The American system is not working for them, so naturally they are looking for something else. Moreover, many in the media, especially me, did not understand how they would express their alienation. We expected Trump to fizzle because we were not socially intermingled with his supporters and did not listen carefully enough. For me, it’s a lesson that I have to change the way I do my job if I’m going to report accurately on this country.”

Well, David, you should get out more. You might also try reading InstaPundit regularly. But mostly, you owe a bigger apology than this.

The Tea Party movement — which you also failed to understand, and thus mostly despised — was a bourgeois, well-mannered effort (remember how Tea Party protests left the Mall cleaner than before they arrived?) to fix America. It was treated with contempt, smeared as racist, and blocked by a bipartisan coalition of business-as-usual elites. So now you have Trump, who’s not so well-mannered, and his followers, who are not so well-mannered, and you don’t like it.