The Houthi have local religious grievances, being Shiites in a majority Sunni land. But they are also agents of Shiite Iran, which arms, trains, and advises them. Their slogan - 'God is great. Death to America. Death to Israel' - could have been written in Persian.
Why should we care about the coup? First, because we depend on Yemen's government to support our drone war against another local menace, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). It's not clear if we can even maintain our embassy in Yemen, let alone conduct operations against AQAP. And second, because growing Iranian hegemony is a mortal threat to our allies and interests in the entire Middle East.
Perhaps the most striking thing about the 2015 State of the Union address was not the president at the podium but the audience in the seats. The joint session of Congress listening to President Obama Tuesday night included 83 fewer Democrats than the group that heard Obama's first address in 2009 - 69 fewer Democrats in the House and 14 fewer in the Senate. The scene in the House Chamber was a graphic reminder of the terrible toll the Obama years have taken on Capitol Hill Democrats.
If one cannot imagine Obama saying such a thing — well, he didn't.
You know, you just know, that after the president goes out there and announces he wants to make community college free for all Americans - as though anything government does is 'free' - or is unilaterally and unconstitutionally legalizing millions of undocumented immigrants, he comes back to the offices, pulls out the presidential BlackBerry, and gleefully follows along as the Right goes completely ape over these wild policy decisions.
Imagine his delight after it 'leaked' that he will propose raising taxes on the wealthy by $320 billion over the next 10 years, including increases to the capital gains and inheritance taxes.
This, of course, has no chance of passing. But then Tuesday night's State of the Union address could be the first one in history deliberately designed solely to generate a Pavlovian rage response in members of the opposing party.
I stand with the Santa Barbara News-Press. How about you?
The newspaper is under fire for refusing to kowtow to left-wing word police and militant propagandists who demand unfettered illegal immigration. Last week, in the wake of angry protests against the publication, vandals threw paint bombs and spray-painted graffiti on its offices.
So, what exactly is the News-Press' unforgivable crime? Calling illegal aliens 'illegals' in a headline for a story about illegal aliens descending on California DMVs. A new law went into effect last Friday allowing illegal aliens to obtain driver's licenses without proof of lawful residence. The article featured interviews with ecstatic illegal aliens, including one who has been in the country illegally for '22 years.'
Not since the multiplication of the loaves and fishes near the Sea of Galilee has there been creativity as miraculous as that of the Keystone XL pipeline. It has not yet been built but already is perhaps the most constructive infrastructure project since the Interstate Highway System. It has accomplished an astonishing trifecta
It has made mincemeat of Barack Obama's pose of thoughtfulness. It has demonstrated that he lacks even a rudimentary understanding of the most basic economic realities. It has dramatized environmentalism's descent into infantilism.
Obama entered the presidency trailing clouds of intellectual self-regard. His carefully cultivated persona was of a uniquely thoughtful, judicious, deliberative, evidence-driven man comfortable with complexity. The protracted consideration of Keystone supposedly displayed these virtues. Now, however, it is clear that his mind has always been as closed as an unshucked oyster.
This was a different form of French resistance in Paris on this day, all of these people coming together and sending out pictures like this to the world about the world we still want this to be, instead of the one that terrorists want, and that means all terrorists, the world where we live in constant fear.
And the United States of America should have been at the front of that line. And was not.
Everybody knows how complicated this country's relationship with France has been, in war and in peace. Certainly there have been times when the leaders of France could have done better by us. We should have done better by them on Sunday. Only you couldn't find us.
Were anyone wondering how Sen. Harry Reid intended to manage life in the minority, it took one day of the 114th Congress to get the answer: Exactly as he did in the majority. Republicans would be wise to understand what he's up to.
After the horrific massacre Wednesday at the French weekly satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, perhaps the West will finally put away its legion of useless tropes trying to deny the relationship between violence and radical Islam.
This was not an attack by a mentally deranged, lone-wolf gunman. This was not an 'un-Islamic' attack by a bunch of thugs - the perpetrators could be heard shouting that they were avenging the Prophet Muhammad. Nor was it spontaneous. It was planned to inflict maximum damage, during a staff meeting, with automatic weapons and a getaway plan. It was designed to sow terror, and in that it has worked.
The West is duly terrified. But it should not be surprised.
Top IRS officials specifically targeted tea party groups and misled the public about its secret political targeting program led by ex-official Lois Lerner, according to a bombshell new congressional report.
You can't fix a fundamentally broken law; you've got to replace it. That's why Congress can't save Obamacare with a few tweaks, despite what its defenders say. No quick fix can correct the main flaw: The law takes power away from patients and hands it to bureaucrats.
But just because we can't fix Obamacare doesn't mean we can't start to get rid of its worst features. On Thursday, the House will take up a bill to define 'full time' as 40 hours per week, so more people can work full time.
Ultimately, the law will collapse under its own weight. Until then, we have to start building a better health care system in its place. And we need to start with a new principle: Put the patient in the driver's seat. That's how we can build a healthy economy.
The new Republican Congress should move full speed ahead to repeal and replace Obamacare. It would be unwise to wait for the Supreme Court to perform this service for the American people.
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