According to the German Ministry of the Interior, 18 of the 31 suspects identified in the New Year's Eve attacks in Cologne which saw scores of robberies, physical assaults and sexual assaults are currently seeking asylum in Germany.

It is believed that nearly 1,000 men were involved in these attacks. Out of 1,000 men, 31 is a small sample size. But what we know is that more than half the men identified in these assaults are asylum seekers. When the other 969 men of "Arab and North African appearance" are identified it will be interesting to see if the proportion of asylum seekers remains the same or possibly increases. If it turns out that more than 50% of those responsible for these attacks are asylum seekers then Angela Merkel's days as German Chancellor are numbered and, unless corrective action is immediately taken, Germany's days are numbered as well.

I watched the "Guns in America" Town Hall Meeting on CNN which was hosted by Anderson Cooper featuring President Obama. Here are five observations.

1. At the top of the show, Cooper admitted that CNN approached the Obama White House about doing this town hall after the San Bernardino attacks. So even though the San Bernardino attacks were a result of Islamic terrorism, CNN nevertheless approached the Obama Administration with the idea of having a town hall meeting about gun control and the Obama White House enthusiatically agreed. It once again demonstrates that CNN and the Obama Administration share the same political objectives. It also demonstrates that Obama and CNN would rather talk about anything other than Islamic terrorism. Of course, when it comes to President Obama the words Islamic and terrorism will never collide in the same sentence.

The world has lost an important conservative voice, an elegant and wickedly funny writer, and a true American character with the passing Wednesday of Florence King. Miss King (and woe be to the poor sod who addressed her as Ms. King, or as Florence without an invitation to do so) was 80. She died in her long-time home of Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Florence King was a conservative, but hardly a standard issue one. Her view of the world tended to the curmudgeonly, and she often described herself politically as a royalist. She had no patience with populist foolishness and no delusions about the weak timber of mankind. Her column, which ran for years in National Review, was called “The Misanthrope’s Corner.” She deployed no euphemisms, which she called verbal stool softeners. Her work appeared in other conservative publications, including, I’m happy to say, The American Spectator. 

For a man who has Many Serious Thoughts about the relationship between cronyism and government efficiency, Bernie Sanders and his wife certainly seem to have taken advantage of the public system themselves, when given the chance. 

According to a report by the Washington Free Beacon, Sanders and his wife frequently steered money from his campaign and her job at a Burlington College to their own benefit, and to the benefit of their kids, and used their positions of influence to do favors for family friends.

According to Jane O’Meara Sanders, the senator’s wife, Sanders’ House campaigns paid her more than $90,000 for consulting and ad placement services from 2002 to 2004. She pocketed about $30,000 of that money.

Her daughter Carina Driscoll, Sanders’ stepdaughter, also drew a salary from the campaign. She was paid more than $65,000 between 2000 and 2004, according to her mother.