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Heather Mac Donald lets it all hang out in a piece in City Journal titled “The Big Lie of the Anti-Cop Left Turns Lethal.”

Since last summer, a lie has overtaken significant parts of the country, resulting in growing mass hysteria. That lie holds that the police pose a mortal threat to black Americans—indeed that the police are the greatest threat facing black Americans today. Several subsidiary untruths buttress that central myth: that the criminal-justice system is biased against blacks; that the black underclass doesn’t exist; and that crime rates are comparable between blacks and whites—leaving disproportionate police action in minority neighborhoods unexplained without reference to racism. The poisonous effect of those lies has now manifested itself in the cold-blooded assassination of two NYPD officers.

The highest reaches of American society promulgated these untruths and participated in the mass hysteria. Following a grand jury’s decision not to indict a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer for fatally shooting 18-year-old Michael Brown in August (Brown had attacked the officer and tried to grab his gun), President Barack Obama announced that blacks were right to believe that the criminal-justice system was often stacked against them. Obama has travelled around the country since then buttressing that message. Eric Holder escalated a long running theme of his tenure as U.S. Attorney General—that the police routinely engaged in racial profiling and needed federal intervention to police properly.

University presidents rushed to show their fealty to the lie. …

… The only good that can come out of this wrenching attack on civilization would be the delegitimation of the lie-based protest movement. Whether that will happen is uncertain. The New York Times has denounced as “inflammatory” the statement from the head of the officer’s union that there is “blood on the hands that starts on the steps of City Hall”—this from a paper that promotes the idea that police officers routinely kill blacks. The elites’ investment in black victimology is probably too great to hope for an injection of truth into the dangerously counterfactual discourse about race, crime, and policing.

Paul Mirengoff has a book recommendation germane to events in New York and the country.

To Scott’s lists of recommended books for the Christmas season, I would like to add Yuval Levin’s The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left. Levin, probably my favorite current analyst of politics and policy, describes the philosophical clash between Burke and Paine and explains how it forms the root of the current political divide in America.

Levin’s discussion of Burke also has relevance, I think, to recent events in Ferguson and New York City. Virulent anti-police, anti-order sentiment has reared its head in ways not seen since the early 1970s, when society seemed to be unraveling. And unlike in the 1970s, top level public officials — President Obama, Attorney General Holder, and Mayor de Blasio — have contributed to this sentiment through irresponsible public proclamations. …

Turning back to DC, Matthew Continetti writes on the president who is a friend to tyrants, dictators, and enemies of our country.

… If there was a theme to 2014, it was Obama’s persistence in bailing out dictators and theocrats from political scrapes and economic hardships, his tenacity in pursuit of engagement with America’s adversaries no matter the cost to our strength, principles, credibility, or alliances.

In this president the thugs in Havana and Caracas, Damascus and Tehran, Moscow and Naypyidaw and Beijing have no better friend. For these bullies, these evildoers, these millenarians and sectarians, Barack Obama is more than a dupe. He is an insurance policy.

Cuba is but the latest example of this president’s failing to exercise leverage in the pursuit of American strength and security and prestige. Here are the Castro brothers, decrepit and spent, their revolution a joke, their economy in peril thanks to the collapse in oil prices brought on by a strong dollar and increased U.S. supply.

The China option—foreign direct investment from America—is Raul and Fidel’s only play to sustain power over the society they have impoverished. And Obama says yes, yes to everything: an embassy, an ambassador, diplomatic relations, travel and exchange, status among nations, removal from the list of state sponsors of terror, and a serious opportunity to lessen the embargo that has kept the dictators caged for decades.

In return, the Castro brothers give up … well, what? Alan Gross, a political prisoner and persecuted religious minority who shouldn’t have been imprisoned in the first place? A second man who has been in captivity for decades? Thin gruel.

No promise of elections, no declaration of religious freedom, no demilitarization, no opening up of Cuban prisons to international inspection. Not even a pledge that salaries from U.S. companies operating in Cuba at indentured-servitude rates—the minimum wage is $19 a month—will be paid directly to employees rather than passed through the bloated, corrupt, suffocating state. …

Regarding the North Korean cyber attack on Sony, Max Boot despairs of any chance forceful actions will come from our government.

… I know it’s probably expecting too much from this president, but it would be nice if just once he would act decisively instead of talking a good game and setting red lines that can be crossed with impunity. What would constitute decisive action in this case? The obvious proportional response–attack North Korea’s computer networks–isn’t very satisfying for a couple of reasons. First North Korea simply doesn’t have a lot of computer networks; it is one of the most disconnected countries on earth. Second, as someone in the government has (unwisely) leaked to the Wall Street Journal, what few networks it has are monitored for intelligence by the US. …

John Fund reminds us there is something important going on in Vermont – the affordable care act is collapsing.

The one state that not only embraced Obamacare but insisted on going beyond it to a full single-payer system was Vermont, the haven of hippies and expatriate New Yorkers, which has become one of the most liberal states in the nation. In 2011, it adopted a form of neighboring Canada’s government-financed health care and promised to implement it by 2017. (And Jonathan Gruber was a key architect of this plan as well as of Obamacare.) This week, however, Governor Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, admitted the state couldn’t afford the plan’s $2 billion price tag and consequent sky-high taxes, and pulled the plug. The lessons for Obamacare are obvious and profound. …

And, let’s not forget about cratering oil prices. The Wall Street Journal reports on why the Saudis decided to let the price drop.

In early October, Saudi Arabia’s representative to OPEC surprised attendees at a New York seminar by revealing his government was content to let global energy prices slide.

Nasser al-Dossary ’s message broke from decades of Saudi orthodoxy that sought to keep prices high by limiting global oil production, said people familiar with the session. That set the stage for Saudi Arabia’s oil mandarins to send crude prices tumbling late last month after persuading other members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to keep production steady.

Hard-hit countries like Iran, Russia and Venezuela suspected the move was a coordinated effort between the oil kingdom and its longtime ally, the U.S., to weaken their foes’ economies and geopolitical standing.

But the story of Saudi Arabia’s new oil strategy, pieced together through interviews with senior Middle Eastern, American and European officials, isn’t one of an old alliance. It is a story of a budding rivalry, driven by what Saudi Arabia views as a threat posed by American energy firms, these officials said.

Mr. Dossary’s October message signaled a direct challenge to North American energy firms that the Arab monarchy believes have fueled a supply glut by using new shale-oil technologies, said the people familiar with the session. …

… Still, some oil-industry executives said, Riyadh and Mr. Naimi may underestimate how technology and the shale-oil boom have fundamentally altered energy markets. Many U.S. companies, they said, can make money or break even with oil below $40.

The move has also exposed cracks inside the Saudi ruling circle. In October, as the oil-price slide accelerated, billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, a nephew to King Abdullah, castigated Mr. Naimi in an open letter for appearing to shrug off price declines. Belittling the impact, he wrote, “is a catastrophe that cannot go unmentioned.”

At about that time, Mr. Naimi’s deputy, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, another nephew of the king, worried to colleagues that the kingdom’s budget couldn’t bear lower prices long, said people familiar with the matter. The offices of Prince Abdulaziz and Prince al-Waleed didn’t respond to inquiries. …

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Yes, we’re still covering what the fool is up to. Jennifer Rubin posts on the Cuba betrayal.

There are many reasons to condemn President Obama’s decision to sell out the Cuban people. It is perfectly consistent with Obama’s disdain for human rights, addiction to coddling dictatorships and contempt for Congress.

The Post’s editorial board points out that “the accelerating economic collapse of Venezuela meant that the huge subsidies that have kept the Castros afloat for the past decade were in peril. A growing number of Cubans were demanding basic human rights, such as freedom of speech and assembly. On Wednesday, the Castros suddenly obtained a comprehensive bailout — from the Obama administration.”

Indeed, just when we have the most leverage — be it economic sanctions against Russia (Sen. John McCain likes to call it “a gas station masquerading as a country”), Iran or Cuba — Obama prefers capitulation. Marketing the policy shift as a tactical move to improve human rights insults our intelligence. (“Mr. Obama says normalizing relations will allow the United States to be more effective in promoting political change in Cuba. That is contrary to U.S. experience with Communist regimes such as Vietnam, where normalization has led to no improvements on human rights in two decades. Moreover, nothing in Mr. Obama’s record of lukewarm and inconstant support for democratic change across the globe can give [dissident blogger Yoani Sánchez] and her fellow freedom fighters confidence in this promise.”) …

Craig Pirrong of Streetwise Professor posts on subjects covered in the president’s recent presser.

… Come to think of it, I think that Obama’s real reason for opposing Keystone XL is that the Venezuelans would be the biggest losers. I am pretty sure he has much more of an affinity with Chavistas than Canucks.

Which brings me to the other issue: Cuba.

I am ambivalent about the embargo, or the lack of diplomatic recognition. I can argue either side. But there are many things about this initiative that make me uneasy.

For one thing, Cuba is in dire straits. This is where Venezuela comes in. The Bolivarian paradise has been carrying the Castros’ shambolic regime for years, but is now itself on the verge of economic collapse. Default is imminent, and at the current level of oil prices economic collapse is a real possibility. Venezuela is already cutting back support to the Cuban regime, and will cut it back further. Given that, the Castros are desperate, and Obama could have extracted a much better deal. A deal that would have given some benefit to the Cuban people, rather than bailing out the regime and allowing to continue its repression and depredations.

Obama’s rhetoric was also offensive, and at times historically ignorant. He characterized the embargo as a “failed policy.” Pretty rich for a serial failure to insult 9 previous presidents and 26 Congresses. He could have made an affirmative case for a new policy, and recognized the reasons for the previous policy, without such condescension.

Moreover, he made mention of the need to move beyond “the legacy of colonialism and communism.” Communism isn’t a legacy in Cuba: it is a daily reality. Insofar as colonialism is concerned, is Obama referring to Spain? Because he sure as hell can’t be referring to the US: Cuba was never an American colony. …

… I could go on, but I’ll close with one point. People have compared this to Nixon’s opening of China. Superficially, this is plausible. But there is a major difference.

Nixon could go to China because his stalwart anti-Communist credentials (which had won him the intense enmity of the left) made it credible that Nixon was acting in the interests of the US, rather than indulging his ideological preferences: if a McGovern or a Henry Wallace had attempted the same there would have been justifiable suspicions of their motives and the benefits to the US. In contrast, Che is worshipped as a hero rather than condemned as a psychopathic murderer in Obama’s political circles. His administration has taken a very benign approach to leftist Latin American regimes, including Venezuela and Nicaragua. This raises doubts about what his Cuba initiative will entail, and whether it will advance American interests or benefit the long-suffering and repressed Cuban people.

So to summarize Obama’s last press conference: he slammed a long-time ally and sucked up to a long-time enemy. Which pretty much summarizes his foreign policy, generally.

Jennifer Rubin thinks it’s cool to see Hollywood thrown under the bus.

Hollywood execs should have seen this coming. For six years, the world has seen how President Obama betrays and belittles friends of the United States while extending the hand of friendship and acceding to the demands of dictators from Moscow to Havana. It was only a matter of time, then, before the president threw the Hollywood elite — who raised money by the boatload for him, gloried his presidency, swooned at his speeches, populated his parties and ignored his blunders — under the bus. Had the glitterati vilified him instead, raised money for the GOP and snubbed White House state dinners, he might have treated them better. Instead, his best friends are treated like America’s best friend, Israel.

With Obama, it invariably means blaming the victim. In the case of Israel, he blames the Jewish state for the death of peace talks, condemns it for civilian deaths which the IDF strenuously tried to minimize in the Gaza war and excoriates the government for every new building complex. In the case of Hollywood, Obama blames the film studio for being bullied by North Korean threats.

At his Friday news conference, Obama declared Sony Pictures Entertainment “made a mistake” pulling the film. He lectured the beleaguered studio: …

… Next time the Hollywood elites might be a little more circumspect about whom they anoint as the next political messiah. And they might begin to take national security seriously. They might consider how precarious is their own safety (financial and otherwise) without a decisive commander in chief, a well-funded military and an adept intelligence community. When it is about them, by gosh, it might be time to get serious.

Jonathan Tobin is looking at other areas where the president can try to act extra-legally; before the Supremes start putting him in his place. 

… Looking ahead to other possible presidential actions, if he makes enough concessions and the Iranians are feeling generous, Obama may get a nuclear deal with the Islamist state. That, too, will be interpreted as a sign of life in what would otherwise be considered a lame duck presidency.

But none of this will change the fact that Obama’s ideological fixation with outreach to tyrants has not made the world better or increased America’s security or influence. To the contrary, with ISIS on the rise in the Middle East, Iran successfully challenging for regional hegemony via its successes in Syria, its alliance with Hamas and its intimidation of moderate Arab nations, and likely to gain U.S. acquiescence to it becoming a nuclear threshold state, Obama is leaving the world a more dangerous place than when he entered the White House. Nor will his Cuban gambit make the island a more democratic or free place.

On domestic policy, his admirers cite his immigration executive orders as a sign that he can govern despite the opposition of Congress. But by acting in this extralegal fashion, Obama has actually doomed for the foreseeable future any chance of working out a compromise with Republicans to pass some kind of immigration reform. Flexing his muscles in this fashion and showing his contempt for the law has convinced even many moderate Republicans that he can’t be trusted to enforce any legislation that he doesn’t like or benefit from. Nor will the problems that he postponed in the implementation of ObamaCare but which will begin to be felt in 2015 do much to bolster confidence in his judgment or the wisdom of his efforts. …

David Harsanyi calls it the president’s “imaginary winning streak.”

… Would the media describe a string of Republican victories won exclusively through executive action a “winning streak”? Today, somehow, even after a historic repudiation of his policies, Obama is not only reinvigorated and freed from the constraints of annoying process, but according to some in the media, he has been “politically triumphant.” There are two ways to explain this phenomena: Some folks are engaged in a lot of wishful thinking or we’ve severely downgraded the meaning of winning. Then again, maybe it’s a little of both.

Andrew Malcolm with some quotes he says prove the prez needs a vacation.

** “I’m being absolutely sincere when I say I want to work with this new (Republican) Congress to get things done.” ROTFL (Rolling on the floor laughing) Beware of politicians who say “Frankly,” “To be perfectly honest” and “I’m being absolutely sincere.” They aren’t.

** “Like the rest of America, black America in the aggregate is better off now than it was when I came into office.” That’s breaking news for all the unemployed African Americans. November unemployment nationally was 5.8%. For blacks, it was more than twice that, 11.9%.

** “We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States. Because if somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they start doing when they see a documentary that they don’t like, or news reports that they don’t like.”

Wait, wasn’t it Obama and then-Secy. of State Hillary Clinton who had the maker of that obscure YouTube anti-Islam video arrested and jailed as the phony fall guy for the Benghazi massacre in 2012? And sought to have the video taken down?

All of which leads Jennifer Rubin to conclude the Dems are in more trouble than they think.

… Among registered voters, his approval is near an all-time low (39 percent), while his handling of issue like the economy (42/55), immigration (35/58 percent) and international affairs (36/58) score miserably with voters. The Post’s pollsters provided me with a look at how those numbers for registered voters look over time. Graphically, his presidency looks like a lesser-than symbol (<) with his handling of issues, the gap between disapproval and approval, rising over time and disapproval increasing, particularly in the second term. The last time Obama was in positive territory on the economy, for example, was the tail end of 2012. In short, the longer voters know him, the less they like what he is doing. It seems hard to imagine he could get into positive territory on these top issues with registered voters.

That is not only bad news for Democrats who have tied themselves to his mast but for the next Democratic presidential nominee. Looking over at the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, we find, “A whopping 71 percent of American voters want the next president to take a different approach than President Barack Obama’s; [Hillary] Clinton served as his first-term secretary of state. And by 40 percent to 38 percent, voters prefer a Republican to win the White House in 2016 instead of a Democrat.” …