Has the United States ever had a weirder president than Richard Nixon? The fact that his only close competitors in this regard are his predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, and his indirect successor, Jimmy Carter, could help to explain why the ’60s and ’70s were such troubled times for this country. But even LBJ (who loved to lecture aides while sitting on the toilet) and Mr. Carter (who claimed to have been attacked by a “killer rabbit” and to have experienced “lust in his heart”) could not match Nixon for sheer bizarreness. Evan Thomas’s terrifically engaging biography contains many choice examples.
The story of IRS targeting of conservative groups that disagreed with Obama Administration policy isn’t over. On Friday the IRS lost another big battle, as the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a viewpoint discrimination lawsuit against the agency can proceed. Next stop, discovery.
The lawsuit began when the Pennsylvania-based pro-Israel group Z Street applied for tax-exempt status in 2009. When Z Street called to inquire about its application, it says an IRS agent said the agency had a policy that required Israel-related applications to get extra scrutiny in a special unit in Washington. Z Street sued in federal court but the IRS claimed the Anti-Injunction Act prevents suits meant to evade the collection of taxes and because the IRS was protected by the doctrine of sovereign immunity. The IRS lost in district court but appealed.
Professors reacted to the budget move as if lawmakers had tried to ban tweed jackets with elbow patches.
On a sunny, early summer day, Memorial Union Terrace on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison is idyllic. The high, cloudless skies and cool blue water of Lake Mendota serve as a backdrop to coeds drinking beer, sunning themselves and studying for exams.
Yet for weeks now this utopian campus has been awash in dyspepsia, ever since the state legislature’s Joint Finance Committee passed a budget motion concerning faculty tenure. Wisconsin is the only state where the university tenure framework is codified in statute. Under the new plan, tenure would be instead administered by the University of Wisconsin system’s governor-appointed Board of Regents.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-state-of-the-kurds-1434712156
With a political win in Turkey, victories over Islamic State and autonomy in Iraqi Kurdistan, the Kurds are enjoying a triumphant moment—and thinking of a country of their own.
It is a time of good news for the Kurds, a people more accustomed to tragedy than to triumph.
Just last week in Turkey, a political party rooted in the struggle for Kurdish rights vaulted over the 10% threshold for parliamentary representation, giving the Kurds their biggest say ever in Turkish politics. Days later, allied Kurdish fighters in Syria seized a crucial border crossing from Islamic State, thus uniting Kurdish areas that now stretch from Iraq halfway to the Mediterranean Sea.
Establishing de-radicalization centers to fight the jihadist plague, either in Muslim countries or in the West is a futile endeavor. They cannot erase centuries of indoctrination by religious authorities in Arab and Muslim countries.
The preaching of hatred of all others (Kuffār), for not following in the footsteps of the Prophet Muhammad, include instructions to dehumanize and subjugate those who cave-in and preferred methods to kill the rest, especially the Jews.
This has been re-enforced by local mosques and madrassas in Muslim dominated territories over centuries, and more recently in non-Muslim countries. Since the mid 1960s the Saudi royal family and the Saudi Kingdom have funded Islamic radicalization.
