UK Independence Party Surges to Best Showing Ever, Winning 150 Local Council Elections

From Tim Stanley, at Telegraph UK, "Ukip is a very British revolution":

The results aren’t all in yet, but it’s obvious what’s happening: Ukip are the moral victors in yesterday’s local elections. A party that was just two men on a golf cart ten years ago has placed second in South Shields and won county seats across the country. A few early observations:

1. The Lib Dems are at risk of becoming politically irrelevant. In South Shields they came seventh, a pathetic result for a governing party.

2. Ukip have helped to smash the BNP. By providing a non-racist Right-wing alternative, they reduced the BNP’s result in the Spalding East and Moulton ward in Lincolnshire from 20.5 per cent in 2009 to just 3.9 per cent today.

3. Labour did well but its gains were only modest. It held South Shields (the kind of seat that a donkey in a red rosette could win) but on a lower majority. Miliband is not popular in southern England and that will prove a problem in 2015.

4. Dan Hannan’s dream of a Ukip/Conservative coalition might actually happen in Lincolnshire and Gloucestershire – a fascinating laboratory for any future pact.

But the big story is the rise and rise of a tiny party once derided by its critics as full of fruitcakes and closet racists. It probably won’t gain any parliamentary seats in 2015: the electoral system is stacked against it and while Ukip’s support is broad, it isn’t deep enough in individual constituencies to win anything. This doesn’t seem to trouble Nigel Farage who says that he sees his party as playing the same role that the SDP played in the 1980s – driving the political agenda in his preferred direction.

RTWT.

Plus, "Ed Miliband needs to fear Ukip, too: Right-wing populism is in the ascendant."

Camarillo Springs Fire Has Now Charred 18,000 Acres

Here's the latest from KABC-TV Los Angeles, "Springs Fire: 10K acres burned from Camarillo to coast."

Sarah Palin Speech to National Rifle Association 2013

It wasn't as choreographed as the CPAC speech this year, and not quite as funny, but she's always a crowd-pleaser. And slamming Michael Bloomberg with that box of Skoal Tobacco was priceless.

Watch it at the link.

Motorcycle Crashes Into Cyclists on Dead Man's Curve

Well, it's an awful crash but there were no serious injuries --- thank God.

More at Biking L.A., "Exclusive — What really happened in the Mulholland motorcycle crash that took out two bike riders."

Jess Davies for ZIP Magazine April 2013

At Egotastic, "Jess Davies poses for ZIP Magazine April 2013."

Flaming Cocktail Fail

And it looked like it was going so well!

Via Blazing Cat Fur, "When bartending goes wrong..."

Unravelling the Boston Terror Plot

An interesting piece from Arnold Ahlert, at FrontPage Magazine.

Just go read it over there. These guys were hardly "knock off" jihadis. But it's still early. We'll know a lot more in due time.

NRA Convention Opens in Houston

And Emily Miller is on hand, "Rick Perry says Obama wants to ‘disarm the America public’":

Guns galore twitter.com/EmilyMiller/st…
— Emily Miller (@EmilyMiller) May 3, 2013

Gov. Rick Perry sat back in shock when I told him President Obama told Mexicans that an upside of his efforts to infringe the Second Amendment would be to make them safer. The Texas Republican, a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association (NRA), pushed back his chair and thought before speaking.

“The idea that a United States president would go to Mexico and make that statement is incredulous,” the 2012 president candidate told me in an interview after his rousing speech at the NRA annual meeting in Houston Friday. “His goal — well before he became president of the United States — was to try to disarm the American public. He just disregards the Constitution.”

Continue reading.

Also at Dallas Morning News, "At NRA convention in Houston, official says 'culture war' more than gun rights."

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'."