The Left Opens Fire on Kelly Ayotte

From Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "Stalking Kelly Ayotte and Common Sense":

The video of a relative of a victim of the Newtown massacre confronting Senator Kelly Ayotte at a New Hampshire town hall meeting has been all over the cable news channels, as the effort to shame those who opposed efforts to expand background checks for gun purchases escalated this week. Other objects of the increasingly aggressive gun-control lobby like Arizona Senator Jeff Flake have also been subjected to attempts by gun violence victims’ relatives to embarrass him for voting against the Manchin-Toomey amendment. But if these supporters of gun-control bills are really interested in getting something passed, they should listen to one of the measure’s co-sponsors.

Continue reading.

And check the Google News search for the senator.

Here's PuffHo, for example, the hacks: "The Political Suicide of Kelly Ayotte."

But see the New Hampshire Journal, "Ayotte told she ‘looks presidential,’ town hall crowd erupts in cheers – UPDATED with video."

Amnesty Proposal Triples Number of Illegal Aliens Crossing Border

From Daniel Greenfield, at FrontPage Magazine:

It’s like legalization is a magnet or something. But we know that can’t be true because we were repeatedly told by amnesty advocates that illegal aliens would not show up just because we promised to legalize them.

But someone neglected to tell them that.

Arrests of illegal immigrants crossing into the United States have nearly tripled in recent months — in anticipation of Congressional efforts to enact comprehensive immigration legislation, border patrol agents told CBS News Wednesday.

“Once the first group gets across, they call their family, they call their friends and let them know, ‘Hey the time is right, come on over,’” Border Patrol agent and union representative Chris Cabrera told CBS News.

In March, 7,500 illegals were arrested in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas — which includes McAllen — Cabrera told CBS News. That’s up from 2,800 in January.

In February, nearly 4,800 illegals were arrested in the Rio Grande, the local news website The Monitor.com reports.

In fact, agents in McAllen used their station’s carport to process nearly 900 illegals caught over three days in March, according to the Monitor.com.

Image Credit: The People's Cube.

The View From Above

Lots of lovelies at Subject to Change.

And below is Jade Hayden:

Bonus: At Pirate's Cove, "If All You See……is snow created by too much fossil fueled heat, you might just be a New Climate Denier." And at Randy's Roundtable, "Thursday Nite Tart: Elyse Taylor."

Updates on Camarillo Springs Fire

There's local news video from last night here, and from this morning's ABC's Good Morning America here.

And check the Ventura County Star, "Day 2: Air attacks continue."

Check back for further updates...

Added: At the Los Angeles Times, "California wildfire: Firefighters defend naval base at Point Mugu."

Also, "Southern California fire season off to a sinister start":

#SpringsFire:#PointMagu State #Park on #PCH. twitter.com/RobertNBCLA/st…

— Robert Kovacik (@RobertNBCLA) May 3, 2013

The Southern California wildfire season got off to an ominous start Thursday with a massive brush fire in Ventura County that officials fear is just a preview of dangerous months ahead.

The fire showed in dramatic fashion how the region's record dry conditions and lack of rainfall can quickly combine with fierce Santa Ana winds to produce widespread havoc.

Firefighters said the dry winter and spring left the brush much more combustible than they've ever seen it at this time of year. Weather forecasters said the Santa Ana wind conditions Thursday produced gusts topping 60 mph. Those are speeds significantly above normal for May and more common for the fall, when the Santa Anas are at their strongest.

Thousands fled from several communities Thursday morning as flames consumed bone-dry terrain, devouring more than 6,500 acres in just a few hours. Humidity levels dropped to as low as 4%. Walls of flames — some topping 20 feet — bore down on homes and licked up against the side of the 101 Freeway. Temperatures topped 90 degrees.

The heavy winds forced officials to ground air tankers battling the so-called Springs fire, putting more pressure on weary firefighters. Helicopters continued with water drops, and ground crews made several tense stands that prevented flames from getting into subdivisions in Camarillo and Newbury Park.

"It's very unpredictable. Winds are swirling and twisting, and we don't know what way it's going to turn," said Ventura County Fire Department spokesman Tom Kruschke.

With only about 5 inches of rain since last July, Los Angeles is headed toward its fourth-driest year since 1877.

Pamela Geller Under Attack

A report from Mike Lumish, at the Times of Israel.

Well, she's hitting all the progressive terror-enabling hot buttons.

More here: "AMERICAN FREEDOM DEFENSE INITIATIVE ANNOUNCES PLATFORM FOR DEFENDING FREEDOM IN WAKE OF BOSTON JIHAD."

Tsarnaev Widow Katherine Russell Stops Cooperating With Police

Speaking of mugshots.

At London's Daily Mail, "Katherine clams up: Boston bomber's widow stops cooperating with authorities... but the female DNA found on bomb is NOT hers."

America's Bad Girls — The Hotties Who Still Look Hot for Mug Shots

America's police precinct pinups.

London's Daily Mail is on the case, "Don't let them steal your heart: America's 'bad' girls who still look so good - even when they're posing for their police mugshots":

For most women a police mug shot is the most humiliating photograph that will ever be taken.

In recent months, photographs of celebrities such as Reese Witherspoon and Lindsay Lohan have been forced to pose for the mandatory 'booking in' picture at the police station. But these pictures of 10 women arrested in the U.S. have shown that some women have managed to maintain their looks in their mug shots.

More at the link.

Pictured below is Jennifer Jensen of Osceola, Florida.

Why Are Phony 'Hate Crimes' So Common, Especially on College Campuses?

Robert Stacy McCain blogged this story a couple of days ago, "The Dreaded Wyoming GOP Facebook ‘Hatef–k’ Rapist Has Been Apprehended."

And James Taranto has a report out today, "Hate Crime' Hoaxes" (via Memeorandum):

Why are phony "hate crimes" so common, especially on college campuses? We'd like to go through a few obvious answers, all of which have merit, and then delve a bit deeper into the psychology of such incidents.

One obvious answer is that people do this sort of thing to get attention. Multicultural identity politics, which is a dominant force on campus and a significant one off it, creates a perverse incentive structure by rewarding victims of purported hate and going easy on hoaxers. In March Michelle Malkin wrote of an incident in which her alma mater, Ohio's Oberlin College, experienced a rash of racist graffiti.

The college president and three deans "ostentatiously published an 'open letter' announcing the administration's decision to 'suspend formal classes and non-essential activities.' " The incident drew national media coverage--but the denouement didn't: "After arresting two students involved in the spate of hate messages left around campus, police say 'it is unclear if they were motivated by racial hatred or--as has been suggested--were attempting a commentary on free speech.' "

Lanker-Simons, unsurprisingly, turns out to be quite the left-wing activist herself. The Boomerang reports that in 2010 she successfully sued the university challenging its decision to bar domestic terrorist and presidential pal Bill Ayers from speaking on campus. But this time around, the university's position vis-à-vis Lanker-Simons isn't exactly an adversarial one...

Continue reading.

Fake outrage and false allegations: the sum of the left's civil rights agenda. Or, as Scared Monkeys writes, "Looks like we have a modern day liberal Tawana Brawley …"

Word.

L.A. Times Reporter Hector Becerra Lamely Poses as Stoop Laborer to Shill for Immigration Reform

You gotta love it.

Reporter Hector Becerra tried to get all authentic with the non-English speaking field workers in Santa Maria, "A day in the strawberry fields seems like forever":

I wore the uniform of the other men: jeans, a tad too baggy so that I kept having to pull them up; a sweat shirt with a hoodie and a jacket over it; a baseball cap; and dusty, steel-toed work boots that a daddy long-legs had called home.

But even if I was dressed like the other workers, the clothes felt like a disguise. As soon as I opened my mouth, my fluent but American-sounding Spanish, not to mention my baby-soft hands, gave me away.

I shared that my parents were immigrants too. It was a defense mechanism, I guess, as much as a way of connecting with them. It didn't matter — they probably would have been generous either way.

About an hour into the picking, my upper and lower back were beginning to tighten and my legs began to burn a little from the stooping.

Oh poor Hector, you pathetic left-wing shamnesty tool. More:

Mark Teixeira, the owner of Teixeira Farms, which owns much of this land, snapped a long stalk and said: "This is how you eat broccoli." With his front teeth, he skinned the stalk and ate it like a carrot.

He invited me to try it. It was sweet and better-tasting than the broccoli head.

Teixeira, an affable guy with a sharp sense of humor, has argued publicly that Americans are unwilling to do the hard work that's necessary to gather crops. Like other growers, many of them conservative Republicans, he argues for immigration reform that provides for a steady stream of immigrants to do the work others won't.

"Americans don't want to do the fieldwork. They'll go over and make hamburgers for $8 an hour with no insurance, no nothing, when they can make more money here," Teixeira said. "I don't care if you pay $20 an hour, they'll come here one or two days, and they're gone. It's a mind-set: They think fieldwork is below them."

Yeah, yeah. Let's just open up the flood gates to the world's poor just yearning to breathe free --- and yearning to mooch off our over-generous welfare state. We have plenty of legal immigrants who will do this work. You don't have to pose like a freakin' idiot to make the case for the left's moral bankruptcy. Go find some news or something to report on, you hack. You think people in California don't know how hard it is to pick strawberries?

More at the link.

#Boston Jihad Bombers Planned July 4th Bombings

They were contemplating suicide bombings as well. I guess the 72 virgins weren't that appealing, considering all the worldly pleasures they enjoyed right here in the good ole U.S. of A. Besides, it's hard to break that welfare dependency. They just couldn't let go.

A great piece at the New York Times, "Boston Plotters Said to Initially Target July 4 for Attack."

They built the bombs faster than they expected so they moved up the date of the attack to Patriot's Day. And the probe continues of the elder brother's trip to Chechnya last year.

And more at the Wall Street Journal, "Boston Suspects Inspired by Cleric." They were inspired by watching Anwar al-Alawki's death to America videos? Nah. That's gotta be right-wing disinformation. It's just gotta be!

There's going to be lots more devastating revelations on this story. Was Tamerlan's widow Katherine Russell an accomplice? She's clammed up since first cooperating with authorities, and now you've got the indictments of the three pals of the younger brother. Who else is out there undiscovered in the wings?

Give me your tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free!

Michelle Malkin Schools Juan Williams on Violent Left-Wing Terrorists Ensconsed in America's Elite Universities

Good stuff:

Jason Collins: The Gay Black Sandra Fluke

From AoSQHQ's must-read essay on the dismissal of idiot Howard Kurtz from the Daily Beast, "Howard Kurtz Screws Up Yet Again, But This Time He's Fired, Because He Offended the Left's Gay Lobby":

There's no doubt, none at all, that Howie Kurtz is a bit of an idiot and says lots of foolish things.

But what makes this time any different? Ah, well it's because this time he offended the left's current top-banana on the Victimization/PC Protection pyramid.

What did he say? Oh, something stupid and dumb and about Jason Collins. Specifically-- he claimed that Jason Collins left something big out of his Sports Illustrated confessional about being gay.

Specifically, Kurtz alleged that Collins' Sports Illustrated confessional failed to disclose that...

"He was engaged. To be married. To a woman."
Now, I would never normally link the Huffington Post, but this is a real zinger so I will. Below, an excerpt from the SI piece -- early in it, I believe -- in which Collins completely omits mentioning his previous engagement to a woman, except for all the times he mentions it.

Clearly Kurtz erred, and rather dumbly. But he does this a lot, and no one's had a problem with it in the past.

Why now?

I think it's pretty obvious -- Jason Collins is now the Gay Black Sandra Fluke, and therefore now An Hero, and the Left protects its heroes.

More here.

Also at Atlhouse, "'Howard Kurtz leaves Daily Beast following Jason Collins column mistake'."

Camarillo Springs Fire Reaches Pacific Coast Highway in Ventura County

This has been the big story on local news today. It's hot weather with Santa Ana conditions.

At the Los Angeles Times, "California wildfires: Springs fire reaches PCH in Ventura County."

More at KABC-TV Los Angeles, "Camarillo fire at 8K acres, new evacs ordered."

Reports on the Death of Blogs Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

I've been having a lengthy email exchange with David Swindle and Michael van der Galiën regarding my post the other day, "The Death of Collaboration in the Independent Blogosphere." David's the associate editor at PJ Media and Michael's a new media professional with longtime experience in the conservative blogosphere.

My essay argued that "We've still got lots of independent bloggers out there doing what the mainstream press refuses to do." I recognized the increasing professionalization of the conservatives 'sphere but indicated that blogs will continue to play the key role in alternative media and government accountability going forward. Here's how David responded:

I think there's a big intellectual divide between "bloggers" and "new media professionals." Bloggers are just hung up on the medium of blogging (a medium that is now more than 15 years old and pretty ancient.) New media professionals are people who make their living by exploring and developing new forms of media. I am a partisan of the latter temperament. Blogging is just a means to an end. It shouldn't be an end in and of itself which it is for the kinds of "independent" bloggers who are complaining now about how nobody wants to work with them and link to them anymore. (Not talking about you with that comment, Donald.) New Media professionals should be more interested in finding and developing the next media formats (right now I'm interested in e-books and apps). Preserving the blogosphere as it was in 2002 in like wanting to preserve the newspaper as a format. Time to move on to the next medium and stop fetishizing blogs and "the blogosphere."

I agreed with David for the most post, although I suggested that for all the talk of these "new media professionals" it continues to be bloggers who're among the most well-known alternative media personalities shaping the direction of traditional news reporting. Folks like Michelle Malkin, Ace of Spades HQ, and the Power Line crew are prominent examples. David and I went around a bit more then Michael chimed in:

Listen folks, there are hobbyists - people who run blogs - and there are professionals - people who work for new media organisations. The difference between all too often isn't passion, but strategy, approach, and the time they're taking for it.

As for 'blogging' as in blogging, that's - professionally - more or less dead. It's about generating news yourself, offering different kinds of 'news' (sport, culture, political, etc.), in different ways (Internet TV, written, short written, long written, apps, mobile, normal on the Net, podcasts).

If you're making a living off of this - as I do, and David does - it isn't 'blogging' anymore, it's being a member of the new media.

We all went around for a number of iterations after that. David and Michael pressed further on the "new media professionals" while I continued to hammer the vitality of blogs as watchdogs on the mainstream press.

I don't make a lot of money so I resist the "new media professional title." still, I've been blogging at a number of top conservative blogs for awhile and continue to publish occasionally at PJ Media. When Rick Moran first recruited me to PJ Media in 2008 he mentioned that I was, like him, one of the last "long form bloggers," so even at that time, 5 years ago, the nature of the form was changing.

Change is the theme Andrew "RAWMUSCLEGLUTES" Sullivan stressed in a blog post on the topic earlier this week, "The Death of Blogs? or of Magazines?":

Of course, blogs have evolved – and this one clearly has from its early days. What began as one person being mean to Maureen Dowd around 12.30 am every night is now an organism in which my colleagues and I try to construct both a personal and yet also diverse conversation in real time. But that doesn’t mean the individual blogger – small or large – is disappearing. Our entire model requires, as it did from the get-go, links to other sites and blogs – and we have not detected a shortage.

One reason we have had to grow and evolve – and this started as far back as 2003 – is that the web conversation has grown exponentially since this blog started (when Bill Clinton was president). Yes, many bloggers now get employed by more general sites, or move on to more complex forms (think of Nate Silver, a lone blogger when the Dish first championed his work and now part of an informational eco-system). But every page on the web is equally accessible as every other page. Blogs will never die – but they might form a smaller part of a much larger online eco-system of discourse.

My own view is that one particular form of journalism is actually dying because of this technological shift – and it’s magazines, not blogs. When every page in a magazine can be detached from the others, when readers rarely absorb a coherent assemblage of writers in a bound paper publication, but pick and choose whom to read online where individual stories and posts overwhelm any single collective form of content, the magazine as we have long known it is effectively over.

There's more at the link.

Sullivan is of course one of the premiere (ancient) bloggers who started fifteen years ago. He concludes by arguing that blogs have now evolved into one patch of a larger patchwork of digital forms that constitute a larger presence of web content.

For me, It's been seven years with blogs and I'll keep plugging away like a dinosaur, as long as folks are interested enough to read and link what I have to say.

And returning back to the original theme of collaborative blogging, here's TrogloPundit, "In the spirit of keeping all this blog collaboration going, I shall now coin a new word..."

I'll have more later...

Hat tip to Mark Twain on the title, "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

Occupy Wall Street May Day 2013

From Charles C. Cooke, at National Review, "Occupy Wall Street: 2013 Edition."

Cooke says "I found a very different group than I saw in 2011. My report is here."

Well, the Occupy goons were pretty much always warmed over communists, but hey, I need to get back out on the streets!

Anyway FWIW, at the New York Times, "Occupy Movement's Changing Focus Causes Rift."

RELATED: At the Seattle Times, "May Day of peaceful protests grows rowdier at night." Isn't it always Seattle? And on Twitter, "#WaMayDay."

'We've forgotten what abortion really is...'

From Ed Morrissey, at Hot Air, "Video: “We’ve forgotten what abortion really is”":

Lila Rose gets straight to the heart of why the media didn’t want to cover the Gosnell trial — and why they won’t want to cover what happens in other late-term abortion clinics, either. They don’t want to see the brutality or the inhumanity, and the culture sanitizes the horror of abortion in order to keep public opinion from turning against it. These films, and the Gosnell trial, strip the façade away...

Angry White Dude Gets Angry at Geico's Eddie Money Commercial

I'm re-posting the old Midnight Special segment of "Two Tickets to Paradise."

I'm sure AWD would rather remember old Eddie this way

See: "GEICO EDDIE MONEY COMMERCIAL – WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!"

Smokin' Mila Kunis Named FHM's 'Sexiest Woman in the World'

Well, she's definitely a looker.

At London's Daily Mail, "'She's the perfect girlfriend': Mila Kunis voted no. 1 on FHM's 100 Sexiest Women In The World list."

And at the source, "FHM 100 Sexiest Women In The World 2013: The full list."

Kelly Brooks checks in at #5. Yes!

Helen Flanagan takes the #3 spot and is Britain's top ranked sexy woman. More at Daily Mail, "So that's why! Helen Flanagan shows off her best assets in lingerie shoot to become Britain's sexiest woman."

Reports of al-Qaeda's Imminent Defeat Are Greatly Exaggerated

A great editorial, at the Wall Street Journal, "The al Qaeda Franchise Threat":

President Obama has preferred disengagement from the Middle East and South Asia to focus on "nation-building at home." One result is Middle East instability and the al Qaeda resurgence. To address these emerging problems, the Administration first needs to acknowledge them. The tide of war, to correct President Obama's other favorite line, isn't receding. It's rising.

RTWT.

Rick Perlstein, Call Your Publisher

Perlstein is the go-to author for idiot progressives attacking the GOP's alleged "racism" in the post-1968 era. It's a bunch of hokum, of course. The Democrats by that time had a 100 years of the most vile eliminationist white supremacy under their hats, and the left is nearly as racist today as it was back in its Jim Crow heyday.  But it's especially good to see political science research showing empirically that progressives like Perlstein are charlatans and liars. See Steven Hayward, at Power Line, "THE SOUTHERN STRATEGY” DEBUNKED AGAIN":

Liberals will never tire of calling conservatives racist, because it’s always a show-stopper, a way of cutting off further debate on any issue where a liberal is likely to lose. So don’t expect it to go away any time soon. (Though why Republicans aren’t better at “punching back twice as hard,” e.g., by pointing out the permanent racist legacy of the Democratic Party, noting the vote tally for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, etc., is beyond me. Another example of Republican rhetorical incompetence.)

Gerard Alexander began a thorough debunking of this theme in the Claremont Review of Books several years ago (“The Myth of the Racist Republicans“), and Sean Trende continues the job with a fine column today on RealClearPolitics, “Southern Whites’ Shift to GOP Predates the ’60s.” It’s worth reading the whole thing...

More at the link.

Hat Tip: Instapundit.

And remember, progressives are the biggest racists.

Perlstein's book is here, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America.