IF ONLY: The Washington Times editorializes about “Multiculturalism Reconsidered.”

A generation ago the Europeans, who had bled themselves white in war after war, usually in the service of chauvinistic nationalism, decided they could save the day with a new concept called multiculturalism. . . By cultivating their differences, rather inviting them to join a melting pot that had worked so well for so long in North America, tolerance and “cultural enrichment” became the norm.

But there’s a growing realization that maybe “multi-culti” hasn’t worked so well, after all. Prominent Europeans are turning their backs on the idea. Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany have called the scheme, however well meant, into serious question.

The reasons are clear enough. The idea that new arrivals would inherit a mixture of the old and the new turned out to be non-achievable. Instead, multiculturalism created ghettoes, often impoverished ones. The institutionalized subsidies to the new arrivals created dependence on government handouts rather than self-reliance through integration in the workplace. This in turn produced resentment among the native population . . . .

I’m doubtful that the European left or middle is going to seriously consider leaving the multi-culti cult anytime soon. It’s too deeply engrained. The coverup about the nature and extent of the mass sexual assaults committed by immigrants in Cologne and elsewhere in Germany on New Year’s Eve is evidence of just how far the European left will go to keep multi-culti alive. According to a detailed story in the Daily Mail:

Mrs Merkel said: ‘Everything must be done to identify the guilty parties without regard to their background or origins. We must send clear signals to those who are not prepared to abide by our laws. Questions arise over whether some groups are subscribing to misogyny.’

Her words were clearly carefully chosen to avoid specifically linking migrants with these attacks against women. But the truth is the mass assaults have clear echoes of the sex crimes in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in Egypt in 2011, during celebrations welcoming the so-called Arab Spring, when groups of men violently harassed women.

Lara Logan, a CBS reporter, was sexually assaulted by a mob in scenes reminiscent of those in Germany. Her clothes were torn off, and between 200 and 300 men took pictures of her naked body as her attackers ‘raped her with their hands’ over and over again.

Another deeply worrying aspect of the New Year horror in Cologne also emerged this week.

Many Germans, including some of the victims themselves, have accused authorities of a conspiracy of silence over the assaults to stop criticism of the mass immigration policy pursued by Mrs Merkel and her politically-correct supporters. The mainstream media in Germany has, until recently, toed the Government line; a top public broadcaster, ZDF, recently refused to run a segment about a rape case on its prime-time ‘crime-watch’ show because the ‘dark-skinned’ suspect was a migrant.

The programme’s editor defended her decision, saying: ‘We don’t want to inflame the situation and spread a bad mood. The migrants don’t deserve it.’ . . .

And until Thursday, a week after the attacks, there had been silence from Mrs Merkel’s ministers about the backgrounds of the perpetrators. Initially, they insisted there was no evidence that new migrants were involved in the violence.

A leaked police report which emerged 48 hours ago showed this was far from the truth. It revealed that one of the Cologne attackers said: ‘I am Syrian. You have to treat me kindly: Mrs Merkel invited me.’

Indeed. Read the whole thing.

NEW EMAIL SHOWS HILLARY EVADED NATIONAL SECURITY MEASURES: Chuck Ross at the Daily Caller has a story today revealing that while Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton instructed her top advisor to send potentially sensitive national security information to her via a nonsecure method:

On June 16, 2011, Hillary Clinton’s top foreign policy adviser, Jake Sullivan, was having trouble sending his boss a list of talking points that contained sensitive — and possibly classified — information. Sullivan told Clinton there were issues “sending secure fax,” an email released by the State Department early Friday shows.

So Clinton offered a shocking solution: remove the markings identifying the information as sensitive and send it by regular fax.

“Turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure,” Clinton instructed Sullivan. . . .

It is possible that the talking points Sullivan intended to send Clinton did not contain classified information. A document being sent via a secure method does not necessarily indicate that information contained in it is classified. But Clinton hadn’t seen the talking points at that point, and likely would not have known whether they contained classified information.

By instructing Sullivan to remove markings noting the sensitive nature of the talking points, Clinton appears to have invited her aide to violate the the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual, and possibly, federal law.

The legality of Clinton’s command would likely depend on whether Sullivan followed through with his boss’ instruction. A State Department official told The Daily Caller that there is no indication that the stripped talking points were emailed to Clinton.

The official also declined to “speculate” on whether the talking points contained classified information. . . .

[T]he email is troubling because it is the first to show Clinton displaying her willingness to skirt State Department protocol — and federal law, potentially — regarding the handling of sensitive information on her personal email account.

Drip, drip, drip.

Is this the kind of person you’d trust as Commander-in-Chief? During her tenure as Secretary of State, Clinton’s cavalier disregard for simple measures designed to protect our country’s national security is breathtaking. If she were a Republican, the mainstream media would have (appropriately) disgraced and branded her as a traitor by now.

GERMAN WOMEN, WELCOME TO SHARIA: Germany shocked by Cologne New Year (Muslim) gang assaults on women.

The mayor of Cologne has summoned police for crisis talks after about 80 women reported sexual assaults and muggings by men on New Year’s Eve.

The scale of the attacks on women at the city’s central railway station has shocked Germany. About 1,000 drunk and aggressive young men were involved.

City police chief Wolfgang Albers called it “a completely new dimension of crime”. The men were of Arab or North African appearance, he said.

Women were also targeted in Hamburg. . . .

What is particularly disturbing is that the attacks appear to have been organised. Around 1,000 young men arrived in large groups, seemingly with the specific intention of carrying out attacks on women.

Police in Hamburg are now reporting similar incidents on New Year’s Eve in the party area of St Pauli. One politician says this is just the tip of the iceberg.

And there are real concerns about what will happen in February when the drunken street-parties of carnival season kick off.

And this gem from the New York Slimes Times:

Calls came from the Bavarian Christian Social Union on Tuesday to deport any asylum-seekers found to be among the perpetrators in Cologne, a sentiment echoed by the left-leaning Süddeutsche-Zeitung in a commentary that noted that German law provides for such action.

Yet the commentary, by Heribert Prantl, also warned about the risks of the debate’s taking on a poisonous tone that would only make integration of the many young refugees and immigrants legitimately in the country that much more difficult.

“The young men who come to Germany must begin working as quickly as possible,” he wrote. “Work socializes. It is about our national peace, which is threatened by the excesses in Cologne and the excesses in the Internet.”

Yeah, I’m sure that’s it: Give these men a job–and/or rich taxpayer-funded benefits–and all of this violence and sexism will magically disappear. I mean, it’s not like Islam considers women to be objects or anything. And a sovereign nation can’t deny entry to non-citizens because of such dangerous beliefs or kick them out; that would be a violation of their “human rights.” 

MARCO RUBIO: Writes in today’s NRO, “Iran Thumbs Its Nose at America and Obama Does Nothing.”

Last week, the White House hailed Iran for shipping most of its low-enriched uranium stockpile to Russia. Secretary of State John Kerry called it “one of the most significant steps Iran has taken” under the nuclear deal signed this past summer. But the real news happened several days earlier: Even as the administration heaped praise on the mullahs in Tehran, Iranian Revolutionary Guard ships fired unguided rockets near a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Strait of Hormuz.

This provocation is just the latest in a series of dangerous acts committed by Iran that belie President Obama’s rosy promises of putting pressure on Iran for its aggressive actions. . . .

Iran has already stretched the terms of Obama’s deal. Iran is now trying to claim that a U.S. law aimed at protecting Americans from terrorists trying to come to the United States is an American violation of the agreement. This is a blatant attempt to pressure the Obama administration not to seek or enforce any new sanctions whatsoever, even those targeting human-rights abuses and support for terrorism, which are allowed under the deal. It has twice tested ballistic missiles — violating a U.N. Security Council resolution. On December 31 the supposed moderate Iranian president Hassan Rouhani even stated that Iran would be expanding its ballistic missile program. This comes just weeks after the Obama administration joined with its diplomatic partners to sweep Iran’s past illicit nuclear-weapons activities under the rug. . . .

That is why as president I will scrap this fundamentally flawed deal. Instead, I will reimpose the sanctions that President Obama waives and will impose crushing new measures targeting all of Iran’s illicit behavior.

It’s almost as if President Obama is an apologist for Iran. Rubio at least tried to insert a “poison pill” into Corker-Cardin (which effectively approved of the Iran deal as an ordinary statute rather than a treaty) to condition the deal on Iran’s explicit recognition of Israel.

But as Bruce Ackerman and David Golove recently argued in The Atlantic,  liberals/progressive (ironically) assert that repudiation by a Republican President would violate Article II, section three’s command that the President “take care that laws be faithfully executed.”

This argument is specious, as Corker-Cardin was not an expression of approval of the Iran deal, but instead a decision by Congress not to approve of the Iran deal as a treaty (as it should, constitutionally, have been handled). Since Congress has never “approved” of the Iran deal by majority vote, a future President that chooses to repudiate the deal could hardly be characterized as failing to “faithfully execute” a law enacted by Congress.

BUT WILL HE STILL HUMP EVERY LEG?: William McGurn on how “The Big Dog–Bill Clinton–Gets Fixed.” Donald Trump’s statement that Bill Clinton’s sexual past is “fair game” for discussion has set the pace:

Now the Clintons must expect such moments throughout her 2016 campaign. Nor can Mrs. Clinton brush them off as her hubby’s problem, especially given that many of the women who accused Bill of sexual assault also say it was Hillary who orchestrated the smears against them. . . .

Mr. Clinton is now facing the heat himself as he gets into the race. It can’t help that his past misbehavior is resurfacing at the same time Bill Cosby, once a beloved figure himself, has just been charged with sexual assault. The comparisons between the two men are too obvious.

So is the question about the different responses the two men have received. Even before Bill Cosby was charged with a crime, the allegations against him led to his being stripped of honorary degrees, booted off boards and seeing his name replaced on buildings. Bill Clinton, meanwhile, is feted and rakes in the millions.

All this would be academic except for one thing: Mrs. Clinton needs the Obama coalition, especially its young women, to propel her into office. Unfortunately, as a recent New York Times feature about a Democratic mother and her daughter recently reported, “younger women are less impressed” by Mrs. Clinton than are older women. . . .

For one thing, Americans now know that the Clintons were often lying to us about her husband’s accusers. Exhibit A? When Hillary appeared beside Bill on “60 Minutes” to deny an affair with Gennifer Flowers that her husband would later admit to under oath.

As Christopher Hitchens once put it, Bill Clinton didn’t lie about sex. He lied about women. The Clintons’ problem today is that they are being called on these lies—and neither he nor his wife has a good answer.

I always use my mom as the bellwether for presidential elections; she has supported the winner as far back as I can remember. And as a Southern lady of a certain age, she absolutely adored Bill Clinton–almost as much as Elvis. She initially planned to vote for Hillary because, in her mind, voting for Hillary would mean a “third term” for Bill.

Today, my mom says she will “never” vote for Hillary. She (correctly) thinks she is a liar who, along with Bill, has used the Clinton Foundation to sell political influence and abuse power.

I also have another, middle-aged liberal woman friend who recently told me that she will no longer support Hillary. Why? Because after Trump began the discussion about Bill’s past sexual behavior, she thinks there’s an important difference between a man who is a common philanderer, and one who abuses power to get a piece. She feels sorry for Monica Lewinsky and the way her life was ruined at a very young age.

These are only anecdotes, of course. But in my mind, they indicate that there is an “abuse of power” theme with the Clintons that is resonating very powerfully with women voters.

Trump has (once again) dared to tackle an issue that others were too fearful to address, and in doing so struck a chord with a critical part of Hillary’s “war on women” base.

NO. NEXT QUESTION?: Can Jeb Bush Make a Comeback? Joe Rago at the Wall Street Journal interviews Jeb! to ascertain the answer to a question that answers itself:

Contra Mr. Trump, Mr. Bush is medium energy, if graded on the overly amped-up curve of his competitors. That isn’t meant as a put-down. Part of Mr. Bush’s appeal—an acquired taste, apparently—is his analytic thoughtfulness and sometimes ironic detachment. A more deliberative debate might underscore his strengths. His challenge will be to translate the exclamation mark on his “Jeb!” logo, which he told Stephen Colbert “connotes excitement,” into the genuine article. . . .

Yet one obstacle to a Bush comeback is that, at minus 25.8 points, the spread between his favorable-unfavorable polls in the Real Clear Politics average—27.5% to 53.3%—is the highest of any candidate, including Mrs. Clinton at minus 8.5. Mr. Trump, the runner-up, has net favorability at minus 23.3. The difference is that the businessman is disliked by Democrats, while Mr. Bush is not well liked among Republicans. In a Dec. 22 Quinnipiac poll, 30% of registered GOP voters viewed Mr. Trump unfavorably, versus 52% for Mr. Bush.

Mr. Bush broke with one faction of the political right on immigration and education standards—but it’s hard to imagine any specific policy apostasy that could rationalize this level of dislike. Not in an election where Mr. Trump, a lifelong Democrat who in 1999 proposed a one-time 14.25% tax on wealth, is feted as a conservative luminary. . . .

The problem with Jeb! is that he fails to exude strength and leadership at a time when Americans are desperately yearning for it. His personality reminds one of a geeky, boring history professor who drones on and on about details, when at this particular moment of history, Americans seem to want a larger-than-life hero who may be short on details, but long on courage.

FREE STUFF! OBAMACARE EDITION: Despite subsidies, the poor are spending big on Obamacare.  A new study by the Urban Institute–quietly released just prior to Christmas–reveals that lower income Americans are paying about 10-20 percent of their income on Obamacare premiums.

The Urban Institute study would normally be an interesting, albeit dry, topic of discussion in a class on health economics or the limits of tackling huge challenges through public policy. The findings, though, should signal a serious warning alarm for the future of ObamaCare.

The fundamental vulnerability of ObamaCare is that relatively healthy individuals would decide that the costs of even subsidized coverage exceeded its benefits. According to the Urban Institute study, even relatively healthy individuals are paying over 15 percent of their income for ObamaCare health insurance plans.

The costs for insuring those with even modest health care needs are in effect subsidized by these healthier individuals. If these healthier Americans decide that even the subsidized costs are too high, they will likely opt out of the program entirely. This will push the costs of those with more health care needs even higher, creating what economists warn could be a “death spiral,” where both premium and out-of-pocket costs skyrocket.

Gosh, who could ever have predicted that Obamacare would raise premiums, cause a death spiral and ultimately, the demise of private health insurance?

SO MUCH FOR PRIVACY: The New York Slimes Times editorial board laments that “Political Dark Money Just Got Darker.”  After (again) bashing the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, the NYT editors focus on the liberal/progressive campaign finance cause du jour: mandating disclosure of the identity of donors to 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations, such as some tea party groups, the National Organization for Women, AARP, various ACLU chapters, right to life committees, kennel clubs, Rotary clubs, environmental groups, fan clubs, and voting rights organizations.

The rationale for such disclosure? So-called “dark” money. In the words of the NYT editors:

In the new budget bill, Republicans inserted a provision blocking the Internal Revenue Service from creating rules to curb the growing abuse of the tax law by thinly veiled political machines posing as “social welfare” organizations. These groups are financed by rich special-interest donors who do not have to reveal their identities under the tax law. So much for effective disclosure at the I.R.S.

In another move to keep the public blindfolded about who is writing big corporate checks for federal candidates, the Republicans barred the Securities and Exchange Commission from finalizing rules requiring corporations to disclose their campaign spending to investors. It was Citizens United that foolishly envisioned a world in which: “Shareholders can determine whether their corporation’s political speech advances the corporation’s interest in making profits, and citizens can see whether elected officials are ‘in the pocket’ of so-called moneyed interests.”

In acting to seal that pocket and hobble the I.R.S., congressional Republicans are advancing what has become the dark age of plutocratic money in campaign spending. At every turn, they are veiling the truth about the special-interest ties they have with rich donors shopping for favors. Since the Citizens United decision in January 2010, politicians have collected more than $500 million in dark money from phantom donors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, with hundreds of millions more expected in the current campaign.

Since the people’s elected representatives have so foolishly thwarted the liberals’/progressives’ attempt to invade individual privacy in the guise of “disclosure,” the NYT editors have this modest proposal:

Is there any ray of light in this moneyed darkness?

For two years, President Obama has dithered and withheld the one blow he could easily strike for greater political transparency: the signing of an executive order requiring government contractors to disclose their campaign spending. This would not solve the overall problem, but in mandating new disclosures in time for the 2016 elections it would help affirm that democracy is about transparency. Mr. Obama should sign the order now. If Republicans want to make an issue of this, let them — and let them defend the scourge of dark money before the voters on the campaign trail.

That’s classic. An iconic liberal/progressive newspaper’s editorial board, frustrated by the “inaction” (i.e., disagreement) by Congress on its liberal/progressive agenda, is demanding that the President “go around” Congress to issue an executive order mandating disclosure of the identities of donors to 501(c)(4) organizations that have government contracts.

I guess liberals/progressives only value individual privacy when it comes in the form of de-identified metadata about cell phone calls and “democracy” only when it creates results with which it agrees. Big Brother wants to know to whom you are giving your money, so that it can bring you out of the “darkness” of privacy.  And if the people’s elected representatives won’t force you out of the “darkness,” one person–the President–should do it unilaterally. Nice.

NARCISSIST-IN-CHIEF: “It’s because I’m black, isn’t it?”  Kevin Williamson over at NRO explains President Obama’s narcissistic trait of turning around criticism about his presidency, implying that his critics are racist:

In a pre-vacation interview with NPR, the president argued that (as the New York Times decodes the message) “some of the scorn directed at him personally stems from the fact that he is the first African American to hold the White House.” I.e, “It’s because I’m black, isn’t it?”

This is kind of clever, in a way. The president says that much of the unhappiness with his administration is “pretty specific to me, and who I am and my background,” which is slippery in that by saying it’s about him, he’s really saying it’s about his critics, and their bigotry and prejudice. “It’s not me, it’s you.”  . . .

The really maddening thing, though, is that President Obama thinks the reason he isn’t perceived as being especially good at his job is that we yokels aren’t smart enough to understand how spectacularly spectacular he is. Barack Obama is a man almost entirely incapable of self-criticism, and in the NPR interview, he repeated one of his favorite claims: He has had trouble with public opinion because he didn’t explain his awesome ideas well enough. That’s a very politic way of saying: “These rubes don’t get it.”

Yep, this is the way narcissists behave. It’s never their fault. They are so perfect, so awesome, that ordinary mortals cannot comprehend their greatness. Those who dare to criticize The Great One must be haters or idiots.

ACTUALLY, OVERT RACISM IS THE CULPRIT: Sigal Alon writes in The Nation about “How Diversity Destroyed Affirmative Action.” Alon is reading the Supreme Court tea leaves after it heard oral arguments Dec. 9 in Fisher v. University of Texas-Austin (Fisher II):

The Bakke case is often looked upon as the landmark ruling for legitimizing race-conscious admissions policies in higher education. Justice Powell set the stage for what came to be known as the “diversity rationale” for race-conscious admissions policies—the argument that having a diverse student body in postsecondary institutions serves a compelling government interest because “the ‘nation’s future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure’ to the ideas and mores of students as diverse as this Nation of many peoples.” Race-conscious admissions, then, are permissible because, when narrowly tailored, they serve this substantial educational interest.

The Bakke ruling shifted the rationale for affirmative action from reparation for past discrimination to promoting diversity. This, in essence, made the discourse about affirmative action race-neutral, in that it now ignores one of the key reasons for why we need to give an edge to minorities. Today the University of Texas, Austin, when defending the consideration of race and ethnicity in admission decisions, cannot say that this practice is needed because of persistent racial inequality; because minority students do not have the same life chances as white students; because there is extensive racial discrimination in the labor and housing markets; because students who study in poor high schools have less chances for learning and lower achievements; or because growing up in poverty impedes your cognitive development. The only argument at the disposal of UT Austin in defense of its admission practices is that it needs a diverse student body to enrich the educational experience of privileged white students.

Today, the fate of affirmative action rests solely on the Court’s endorsing diversity as a compelling societal interest. The oral arguments in Fisher this week demonstrate the fragility of this situation. Chief Justice Roberts questioned the educational benefits of racial diversity, asking, “What unique perspective does a minority student bring to a physics class?… I’m just wondering what the benefits of diversity are in that situation?” . . .

The root causes for the practice of affirmative action in higher education—that is, the systemic effects of racism and segregation in America—were shoved under the rug. This likely causes a frustration among minority students, especially blacks. But what is more troubling it that it also may lead to race-neutral admissions.

The point Chief Justice Roberts was making (as Alon surely knows) is that no one benefits from the notion that a physics class is improved by having the “black perspective” in the room, not even the poor black kid who, under affirmative action, inevitably bears this heavy burden.

God forbid we should be a colorblind nation with a colorblind Constitution. It’s far better, in the warped liberal/progressive mind, to have all Americans in 2015–not just white, but Asian, Hispanic, native American, or purple polka-dotted–relinquish their dream of attending X, Y or Z college so that someone who is black (regardless of socio-economic status or other “privilege”) can achieve theirs.

In the liberal/progressive worldview, the U.S. history of slavery forever brands all blacks (even those whose ancestors were not slaves) as perpetually “behind” the rest of society, entitled to special “help” from other Americans (even those whose ancestors were not slave owners), as a sort of penance for the pain suffered and inflicted by those long dead. The very articulation of this “benign” justification for affirmative action reveals its ugly, rotten, racist core.

In 2015, if a black child performs poorly in school–rendering him/her academically non-competitive with a non-black child–how could it ever be “fair/just/equitable” and consonant with “equal protection of the laws” to to reward that black child (and thus necessarily punish the non-black child who performed better) with the functional equivalent of college admissions “extra credit”?

If the problem of poorly performing black students is going to be solved, it must be solved within the black community, starting with the parents, but extending also to the teachers, administrators, and the students themselves. But of course this commonsensical approach will never be embraced by the race-baiting “civil rights” leaders, who make their living by fueling the fire of perpetual black victimhood.

For the rest of America, however, colorblindness is the only way to ensure “equal protection” of the laws in an increasingly racially diverse society. As Chief Justice John Roberts said in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1,  “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” It’s really not that complicated.

WELL, EVIL GENERALLY LACKS SELF-AWARENESS: Ronald Kessler, “The FBI’s Problem with Muslim Leaders.”

As we all know, the vast majority of Muslims are peace-loving. We all have Muslim friends or co-workers who are admirable people. And a handful of terrorist plots have been rolled up by the FBI based on tips from Muslims.

But what the FBI finds disturbing is that Muslim leaders by and large are reluctant to cooperate with the FBI to let the bureau know of radicals within their midst. The FBI is not about to publicize this. But for my book “The Secrets of the FBI,” Arthur M. “Art” Cummings II, who was the FBI’s executive assistant director in charge of counterterrorism and national security investigations, opened up about the problem.

The FBI has outreach programs to try to develop sources in the Muslim community and solicit tips, but Mr. Cummings found little receptivity. He found that while Muslims have brought some cases to the FBI, Muslim leaders in particular are often in denial about the fact that the terrorists who threaten the United States are Muslims.

“I had this discussion with the director of a very prominent Muslim organization here in D.C.,” Mr. Cummings told me. “And he said, ‘Why are you guys always looking at the Muslim community?’ “

Mr. Cummings began laughing.

“OK, you know what I’ll do?” Mr. Cummings said. “I’ll start an Irish squad, or how about a Japanese squad? You want me to waste my time and your taxpayer’s dollars going to look at the Irish? They’re not killing Americans. Right now, I’m going to put my money and my people in a place where the threat is.” . . .

While Muslims will occasionally condemn al Qaeda, “rarely do we have them coming to us and saying, ‘There are three guys in the community that we’re very concerned about,’” Mr. Cummings said. “They want to fix it inside the community. They’re a closed group, a very, very closed group. It’s part of their culture that they want to settle the problem within their own communities. They’ve actually said that to us, which I then go crazy over.”. . .

“I talked to a very prominent imam in the U.S.,” Mr. Cummings said. “We would have our sweets and our sweet tea. We would talk a lot about Islam. I would say we understand Islam and where they’re coming from. We’d tell him what our mission is, trying to keep people from murdering Americans or anybody else, for that matter.”

Months later, the FBI found out that the man’s mosque had two extremists who were so radical that they kicked them out. Clearly, those two extremists would have been of interest to the FBI. If they only engaged in anti-American rhetoric, the FBI would have left them alone. More likely they were planning action to go with their rhetoric.

Mr. Cummings asked the imam, “What happened?”

“What do you mean?” the imam asked.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” the agent said.

“Why would I tell you about this?” the imam said. “They’re not terrorists,” he said of the radicals. “They just hate the U.S. government.”

This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who understands Islam, which considers non-Muslims to be third class citizens (behind Muslim women) and does not recognize the legitimacy of authority exercised by non-Muslims.

Plus, you know, evil is rarely self-aware, incapable of introspection, excuses its own behavior, and always tries to exert control.   

BERGDAHL TO FACE COURT-MARTIAL FOR DESERTION: Frankly, the only surprising thing about this is that Army General who made this decision, General Robert B. Abrams, had the courage to move Bergdahl’s case forward despite the Obama Administration’s repeated attempts to downplay the seriousness of Bergdahl’s