Rain in Southern California

Photos at the Los Angeles Times.

Clintons Received More Than $25 Million From Speeches Since January 2014

At WSJ, "Campaign official says Hillary Clinton received more than $5 million from book ‘Hard Choices’":

WASHINGTON—Hillary and Bill Clinton earned more than $25 million in the past year and a half delivering more than 100 paid speeches, and Mrs. Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, collected more than $5 million from her book “Hard Choices,” an official for the campaign said Friday.

The Clinton campaign released the figures on the same day it filed a personal financial disclosure statement going back to the beginning of 2014, which it said is required by the Federal Election Commission. The information provided by the campaign was a preview of the full financial disclosure, which had yet to be released, and didn’t include the Clinton family’s total assets and liabilities.

The Clintons’ disclosed income since the beginning of 2014 would place them among the highest earners in the top 1% of the population. That is likely to serve as a reminder of the couple’s wealth, at a time when she is positioning herself as a champion of struggling middle-class families.

Earlier in May, Mr. Clinton, the 42nd president, said he would continue to give paid speeches. “I gotta pay our bills,” he told NBC News. “I work hard at this. I spend hours a day just doing the research. People like to hear me speak.”

The Clintons paid an effective federal income-tax rate in 2014 of more than 30%, the campaign official said. They also since early 2014 opened up a Vanguard mutual fund linked to the S&P 500 stock index, the couple’s only investment during this period, the official said.

Mr. Clinton said in the NBC interview that he gives 10% of his speech revenue “off the top every year” to the family’s charitable foundation and that Mrs. Clinton in the time she was at the foundation gave 17% of her proceeds.

Mrs. Clinton left the foundation after she announced her candidacy in April...

They're in the top 1 percent, but they're virtuous one-percenters, because they have the correct ideology.

ABC News Shafts Washington Free Beacon

At Instapundit, "ERIK WEMPLE: Dear ABC News PR: Tell us you didn’t shaft the Washington Free Beacon."

And at AoSHQ, "Washington Post's Eric Wemple Blasts ABC For Shopping the Story to Politico While Lying to the Free Beacon That Comment Was On The Way," and "Woman Who Delayed Response to Free Beacon While George Stephanopoulos Scrambled to Plant His Story at Politco Used To Work As Press Contact For... HILLARY CLINTON."

PREVIOUSLY: "George Stephanopoulos Issues Pathetic Non-Apology for Donations to Corrupt Clinton Cash Foundation (VIDEO)."

Islamic State Seizes Government Headquarters in Ramadi, Iraq

Hey, we've got the terrorists on the run!

Oh wait. They're running the wrong way. Shoot!

At WSJ, "Islamic State Militants Make Gains in Key Iraq Province":

Islamic State fighters seized the government compound in the city of Ramadi on Friday and besieged hundreds of government forces nearby, coming closer to controlling the capital of Iraq’s largest province, officials said.

The compound’s capture marks a setback to the government’s offensive against the extremist group in Anbar, the Sunni province that borders Baghdad, and complicates the Shiite-led government’s ties with the province’s Sunni tribes as they cooperate to expel the militants.

Many of Anbar’s leaders have pleaded for more help from Baghdad to stave off recent Islamic State gains in their province, Iraq’s Sunni heartland. But Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has calibrated his support, sending security forces and arms, but not the powerful Shiite militias that have in recent months helped to drive Islamic State out of central Iraq, including the city of Tikrit.

Anbar’s Sunni tribes are split on whether they need the Shiite militias, and some U.S. and Iraqi officials fear their participation would inflame sectarian tensions and undermine the government.

“The government response has been very weak,” said Rajeh Barakat, an Anbar tribal leader and member of the local provincial council.

Iraqi’s parliament speaker, Salim al-Jabouri, warned on Friday that Ramadi might fall to Islamic State, saying that its collapse “would have consequences on the national security level.”

U.S. officials played down the development, characterizing the Islamic State gains in Ramadi, as well as in the fight to control the oil refinery in Beiji, in Salahudeen province, as ephemeral victories that are likely to be reversed sooner or later. The difficult fights in both places haven’t yet sparked any high-level concern about the U.S. strategy, American military officials said on Friday...

More.

Storm Brings Heavy Flooding to Fresno

My wife saw videos of Fresno on her Facebook feed this morning. I'm sorry some folks are getting flooded, but it's good news that the valley's getting soaked.

Storm drenches #Fresno and Valley; lightning, flooding reported http://t.co/ryc3IcX288 pic.twitter.com/HwZ5fYDlFj

— Fresno Bee (@FresnoBee) May 15, 2015

#UPDATE Large thunderstorm hits Fresno and surrounding areas, causes major flooding --> http://t.co/qOfpFeGsZt pic.twitter.com/HHxQBEz9jI

— ABC30 Fresno (@ABC30) May 15, 2015

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Gets Death Penalty — #BostonBombing

On Twitter right now, and I'm glad.

BREAKING NEWS: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will be sentenced to death for the Marathon bombing http://t.co/Ico3dl5rQd

— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) May 15, 2015

TSARNAEV GETS DEATH! #Justice #BostonBomber #Tsarnaev pic.twitter.com/t1MNpD33Kt

— Linda Suhler, Ph.D. (@LindaSuhler) May 15, 2015

Drudge. http://t.co/AUhk9FF8Dv pic.twitter.com/xAooxEEJLb

— J. Freedom du Lac (@jfdulac) May 15, 2015

George Stephanopoulos Issues Pathetic Non-Apology for Donations to Corrupt Clinton Cash Foundation (VIDEO)

This morning's Los Angeles Times has the story on yesterday's Clinton corruption bombshell, "ABC's Stephanopoulos under fire for failing to disclose donations."

But see Lloyd Grove, at the Daily Beast, for Stepanopoulos' on-air "non-apology", "George Stephanopoulos Makes a Passive-Aggressive Non-Apology for Clinton Donation":

George Stephanopoulos cloaked his undisclosed Clinton Foundation donations in charity. That half-hearted apology isn’t going to suffice if he wants to keep his anchor chair.

In a non-apology apology that is unlikely to appease the referees of press ethics, let alone his Republican detractors—and may just baffle morning television viewers who haven’t paid attention to the blossoming scandal within the media-political complex—the former top aide to Bill and Hillary Clinton put the very best face possible on his lapse in judgment in not disclosing $75,000 in donations to the Clinton Foundation when he conducted a contentious April 26 interview with foundation critic Peter Schweizer on This Week With George Stephanopoulos, ABC News’s Sunday show.

Although Stephanopoulos’s case is very different from—and nowhere near as serious as—the embellishments of suspended NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, his explanation of his mistake on Friday morning was much in the same vein as Williams’s claim last February that he made up a story about a helicopter ride in Iraq simply in an innocent, good-hearted attempt to honor America’s fighting men and women.

Willams wrapped himself in the flag; Stephanopoulos cloaked himself in charity.

His 48-second statement, which he read near the end of GMA’s first block, went as follows: “Now I want to address an issue you may have seen about me. Over the last several years, I’ve made substantial donations to dozens of charities, including the Clinton Global Foundation. Those donations were a matter of public record, but I should have made additional disclosures on air when I covered the foundation, and I now believe that directing personal donations to that foundation was a mistake. Even though I made them strictly to support work done to stop the spread of AIDS, help children, and protect the environment in poor countries, I should have gone the extra mile to avoid even the appearance of a conflict. I apologize to all of you for failing to do that.”

It is hard to argue that asking tough questions of a charity’s critic on the air—as Stephanopoulos did last month with Schweizer, whose much-publicized book Clinton Cash has been the target of war room-level pushback from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign—without bothering to mention that you’ve donated to that charity, is anything other than a serious breach of accepted journalistic standards. Or that letting viewers know about such a potential conflict of interest is “going the extra mile.”

Apparently Stephanopoulos still fails to grasp that there is nothing “extra” about what should have been a common-sense disclosure. What’s more, on GMA Friday morning, he didn’t see fit to mention the sheer size of his donations; no doubt many of his viewers would consider $75,000 real money, even for a television personality reportedly making double-digit millions...

More.

And see Howard Kurtz, "Why Stephanopoulos tarnished his credibility by hiding his Clinton Foundation donations" (at Memeorandum):

Let me be blunt: For George to give money to the Clinton Foundation, out of all possible charities, knowing full well that Hillary was gearing up to run, is a grave error in judgment. For him not to disclose this to his network or to viewers—especially when he was aggressively interviewing “Clinton Cash” author Peter Schweizer about that very foundation—is unthinkable. And for ABC to brush this off as an “honest mistake” is embarrassing.

Hard Rain Hits Southern California

It came down hard yesterday afternoon, bringing as much as a half inch of rain in some locations. I saw flood channels rushing with water on the way home from work, so hopefully area reservoirs are getting a little bit of water to hold them over for a little longer. We need the rain.

At LAT, "Storm sweeps into Southern California; heaviest rain expected Friday."



Also at CBS Los Angeles, "Spring Storm Brings Thunder, Lightning to Southern California," and "Storm Brings Snow to Big Bear, Running Springs."

Blues Legend B.B. King Dead at 89

I saw B.B. King play at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach back in, oh, 1980 or so.

A fabulous performer.

See the obituary at the New York Times, "'King of the Blues' Blues Legend B.B. King Dead at Age 89." ADDED: "B.B. King, Defining Bluesman for Generations, Dies at 89."

And at the Los Angeles Times, "Blues guitarist B.B. King dies at 89":

B.B. King, the singer and guitarist who put the blues in a three-piece suit and took the musical genre from the barrooms and back porches of the Mississippi Delta to Carnegie Hall and the world's toniest concert stages with a signature style emulated by generations of blues and rock musicians, has died. He was 89.

The 15-time Grammy Award winner died in Las Vegas, his attorney said. He had struggled in recent years with diabetes.

Early on, King transcended his musical shortcomings — an inability to play guitar leads while he sang and a failure to master the use of a bottleneck or slide favored by many of his guitar-playing peers — and created a unique style that made him one of the most respected and influential blues musicians ever.

“B.B. King taps into something universal,” Eric Clapton told The Times in 2005. “He can't be confined to any one genre. That's why I've called him a ‘global musician.’”

King spent decades honing the craft that helped him escape the poverty of the Deep South, where he grew up on a Mississippi plantation as the son of a sharecropper who became a teenage sharecropper himself before singing and playing his way out of the cotton fields.

He was an indefatigable performer who seldom left the concert trail for more than a few days at a time. In 1956 he played 342 shows and even in his later years kept a schedule that would test the endurance of musicians half his age.

He tapped his music and oversized personality in transcending the limitations of a genre that rein in most blues musicians, forging an international identity as a beloved cultural ambassador. King collaborated with hundreds of musicians in most fields of pop music, culminating with his 1989 teaming with U2 on the Irish rock quartet's single “When Love Comes to Town,” which brought him to the attention of millions of young rock fans when he was in his mid-60s.

Decades earlier, when black audiences largely moved away from listening to the blues in favor of R&B and soul performers such as James Brown and Ray Charles, King's flagging career was resuscitated when the Rolling Stones, the Animals, Clapton, Van Morrison and other white rockers of the British Invasion started singing the praises of King and other American blues musicians to their young fans.

More.

Here's the New Book from Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Jared Meyer

It's Disinherited: How Washington Is Betraying America’s Young.

I blogged the authors yesterday, "Dear Class of 2015, You're in Big Trouble."

In my classes, I've been discussing the trends addressed in the book for years. Students seem to think everything's rosy with Obama and the Democrats, but when you break down the myriad ways they're being robbed --- from ObamaCare to the student debt crisis to out-of-control entitlements --- it dawns on them that they're getting screwed. My goal is to have students think critically about the issues. I used to do the same thing when G.W. Bush was in office, playing something of a devil's advocate, especially on the Iraq war. But obviously, it's way more fun with the Democrats in power. There's so much material these days! The left is so hypocritical I almost want Hillary to win in 2016 just to enliven my lectures. Almost.

In any case, more shopping here: Father's Day Gifts in Tools.

'Leftism generally is about hatred, and envy, masquerading as compassion...'

Well, yes, like I always say.

At Instapundit, "WHEN POLITICS SUBSTITUTES FOR RELIGION: Daniel Hannan: How the Left’s hatred devoured its own election campaign":

“The Left’s error was its usual one: to assume a moral superiority, to treat conservatism as a kind of mental disorder, to define the campaign as a test of voters’ ‘compassion’. As Ed Miliband kept putting it, ‘This election is about values’. Labour’s core vote lapped it up: plenty of Leftists define their ideology by whom they loathe. But others found it off-putting. In a column shortly before polling day, the actor Tom Conti explained why he had switched sides. ‘Labour, I realised, was built on hatred’.”

And ICYMI: "Democrats and Leftists Should Learn Lesson from British Labour's Election Debacle."

This is Elizabeth Warren's Party Now

A great piece, from David Harsanyi, at the Federalist.

Plus, at Politico, "Senator suggests gender played into Obama-Warren spat."

And at Twitchy, "‘Popcorn time': Sherrod Brown accuses president of sexism toward Elizabeth Warren," and "‘So. Much. Butthurt.’ WH awaiting apology from Sherrod Brown for suggesting Obama’s sexist."

Also at WSJ, "Senate Deal Gives Trade Bill New Life."

Amtrak Train Derailed at Over 100 Miles an Hour

A horrific crash and one that could have easily been prevented.

At WSJ, "Amtrak Crash: Train Hit Curve Going Over 100 MPH":

PHILADELPHIA—An Amtrak train involved in a fatal crash here was traveling at more than 100 miles an hour, twice the speed limit, as it entered a sharp curve where it derailed Tuesday night, federal officials said Wednesday.

As rescue personnel picked through the train’s wreckage and local hospitals cared for injured passengers, the National Transportation Safety Board said a “black box” data recorder put the train’s speed at 106 mph just before the curve. The train’s engineer applied emergency brakes, but several seconds later, the train’s speed was only down to 102 mph, when the data recorder stopped.

“As we know, it takes a long time to decelerate a train,” said NTSB member Robert Sumwalt in a news conference.

Referring to the application of the brakes before the crash, he added, “You’re supposed to enter the curve at 50 miles an hour. He was already in the curve.”

A law-enforcement official identified the engineer as Brandon Bostian of Queens, N.Y. Mr. Bostian wasn’t at home Wednesday, and it couldn’t be determined if he had retained an attorney.

At least seven people were killed in the crash, including a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy and a technology company CEO. Eight others were in critical condition, and 30 remained hospitalized.

“We are heartbroken at what has happened here,” Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said during a news conference.

Passengers described a chaotic and frightening scene that began 10 to 15 minutes after Amtrak’s Northeast Regional Train 188, en route from Washington, D.C., to New York City, left Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station at 9:10 p.m. on Tuesday.

Andrew Brenner, 29, a public-relations expert who lives in Washington, said he was relaxing and texting in the last car with his shoes off. He said he noticed that the train seemed to be taking a curve rather fast, but that it didn’t cause much alarm.

Then, the train jolted and swayed. Within moments, Mr. Brenner said he and other passengers were tossed around cars as seats were ripped from the train floor.

“I got thrown like a penny,” said Mr. Brenner, who said he weighs 250 pounds. “That is how violent this was.”

After the crash, Mr. Brenner said he was transported along with other passengers by bus to a hospital, where X-rays showed damage to his vertebrae.

Of the total 243 people on the train, which included five crew members, more than 200 were injured, city officials said.

The locomotive and all seven passenger cars of the train went off the tracks at a tight curve at Frankford Junction, just northeast of Center City, where the Federal Railroad Administration said trains aren’t authorized to exceed 50 mph.

Mr. Sumwalt of the NTSB said it was too soon to determine if the excessive speed caused the derailment. Investigators don’t know whether the train accelerated steadily or suddenly to 106 mph, he added.

The NTSB was studying other factors, such as track and mechanical conditions, and train signals, Mr. Sumwalt said.

More.

Also, "Midshipman, Associated Press Employee Among the Dead in Philadelphia Amtrak Crash."

Mormon Temple in West L.A. Lets Front Lawn Turn Brown

Well, at least someone's getting in the spirit of Democrat Party water rationing.

Of course, folks at the Mormon Church aren't the ones calling for the big environmental regulations. They're just doing the decent thing to set an example.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Letting iconic Mormon temple lawn die was a 'difficult decision'."

And don't miss the Hollywood hypocrites, "Celebrities are now targets of California #DroughtShaming."

Also, from Doug Powers, at Michelle's, "Cher’d sacrifice: They don’t call ’em ‘green’ Hollywood libs for nothing."

Democrats Vote to Block Obama’s Fast-Track Trade Authority

Michelle Malkin was having a field day on this yesterday.

Look. I agree with Senate Democrats for once in my life! #SayNoToTPP #NoFastTrackForObama ==> https://t.co/Ie02n9s94q

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) May 12, 2015

Statist Orrin Hatch is melting down on Senate floor over failure of TPP. Once again, I commend Senate Democrats for making this happen.

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) May 12, 2015

TPP peddler Orrin Hatch is mad that more Senate Democrats won't join him & Obama in carrying water for cheap labor-hungry Big Business.

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) May 12, 2015

And see the Washington Post, "Senate Democrats vote to block Obama on trade":

President Obama collided with his own party Tuesday when Senate Democrats stalled consideration of a trade measure that would give the administration greater authority to negotiate more freely with other countries.

The Senate vote was a sharp blow to the president’s efforts to win approval for a new Asia-Pacific trade bill that has emerged as a top agenda item for Obama. Only one Democratic senator, Thomas R. Carper of Delaware, voted with the president Tuesday.

Administration officials and Republican leaders immediately said they would bring a measure back to the Senate floor.

But the setback highlighted the president’s failure to convince Democratic lawmakers, labor union leaders and environmental groups that the 12-nation trade deal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership would help the U.S. economy. Obama has argued that the pact would open markets, promote better labor conditions abroad and protect endangered species and the environment.

Obama has made the trade deal one of his top priorities, and to bolster his ability to finish negotiating the still-secret terms of the accord, he has asked Congress to give him “fast track” trade authority. But a procedural motion to open up debate of the fast-track legislation failed by a 52-to-45 vote, falling short of the 60 votes needed to begin consideration of the complex Pacific trade accord.

Ahead of the vote, White House press secretary Josh Earnest played down crumbling support for the legislation as a “procedural snafu” — a phrase he repeated 10 times — that could be worked out in the coming days. Earnest said fast-track authority was “critically important to the future of our economy.”

But in the Senate, the measure’s failure seemed to be more than a procedural glitch. The trade accord has sparked a Democratic revolt and laid bare a spat between Obama and liberal Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). And it has embittered labor union leaders who feel they helped elect Obama and have received little for their efforts.

Moreover, Senate Democrats — including the handful who have supported Obama’s trade push — said they were not inclined to move forward with debate unless Republican leaders provided assurances that related pieces of legislation would move in tandem...

More.

And leftists are playing the inevitable sexism card --- against the freakin' president! Man, they're eating their own.

At Politico, "Senator suggests gender played into Obama-Warren spat" (and at Memeorandum).

The New York Times to Announce Partnership with Facebook

This is a trip.

At New York Magazine, "The New York Times–Facebook Deal":

Tomorrow morning, in what marks a tectonic shift in the publishing industry, the New York Times is expected to officially begin a long-awaited partnership with Facebook to publish articles directly to the social media giant, a source with direct knowledge of the talks told me. According to people familiar with the negotiations, the Times will begin publishing select articles directly into Facebook's news feed. Buzzfeed, NBC News and NatGeo are said to be also joining the roll out, among others.

The deal raises all sorts of knotty questions for the Times....

The talks have been dragging out for weeks as Times CEO Mark Thompson has pushed for the most favorable terms. According to one source familiar with the talks, a major sticking point for the Times has been ensuring that any Facebook deal protects its paid digital audience, which is crossing the crucial one-million subscriber mark. "The New York Times' obsession with this product is their subscribers," the source said. "They shouldn't kill their subscriber business and the data around that.” Officials with the Times and Facebook did not respond to requests for comment.

As much as anything, the Facebook deal is a concession by Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. that the paper's app strategy failed to produce the turnaround the company hoped for. Now the Times is throwing its fate into Facebook's hands. "This is really about the crown jewels," a senior media executive familiar with the deal told me. "The stakes are that high."

ADDED: At Facebook, "Introducing Instant Articles." Plus, commentary at Memeorandum and Mediagazer.

Dear Class of 2015, You're in Big Trouble

A great piece.

From Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Jared Meyer, at WSJ, "Facing unemployment, loan debt, expensive retiree payouts and more problems, young people need a lobby":

Over the next few weeks 3.5 million of you will graduate and try to find jobs. We’re sorry to tell you that achieving success will be more difficult than it was for your parents or grandparents. Not because you’re less intelligent, or lazier or less deserving of realizing the American dream. The primary reason why today’s graduates face a daunting future: Government is making life more difficult for you...

More.

GOP 'Strategist' Ana Navarro: Jeb Bush 'Misheard' Megyn Kelly's Question About Iraq

She's such a faux-con amnesty shill.

At TPM, "Ex-Bush Aide: Jeb Told Me He Misheard Question About Invading Iraq (VIDEO)":

Ana Navarro, a former aide to ex-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), said on CNN Tuesday that the potential presidential candidate told her he'd misheard a question about the Iraq War.

Navarro, who was Bush's director of immigration policy in the governor's office, said on CNN's "New Day" that she'd emailed Bush on Tuesday morning for clarification about his comments.

"I emailed him this morning and I said to him, 'Hey, I'm a little confused by this answer so I'm genuinely wondering did you mishear the question?'" Navarro said. "And he said, 'Yes, I misheard the question.'"

Bush gave the answer in a sit-down interview with Fox News host Megyn Kelly that aired Monday night. The question came after reports surfaced last week that he sought advice on the Middle East from his brother, President George W. Bush.

"Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?" Kelly asked.

"I would," Bush answered.

On Tuesday morning, Navarro she wasn't sure whether he would clarify the answer.

Bush has taken heat from both conservative radio host Laura Ingraham and the Democratic National Committee since the remark went live.

Fellow guest and Democratic strategist Paul Begala chimed in after Navarro's answer.

"I didn't know he had a hearing impairment and we pray for his swift recovery," Begala said.

More at NYT, "Jeb Bush, Ana Navarro and the Question That May Have Been Misheard."

Kirsten Powers: The Silencing — How the Left is Killing Free Speech

Ms. Powers' new book is out, The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech.

Plus, here she is at yesterday's Daily Beast, "How Liberals Ruined College."

And an interview at Christianity Today, "Kirsten Powers: The Rise of the Intolerant Left."

Democrats and Leftists Should Learn Lesson from British Labour's Election Debacle

Don't count your chickens before the eggs hatch, for one thing.

From Michael Wolff, at USA Today, "U.K. election: Painful lessons for Labour, leftists, pollsters":

Dems should learn lesson from U.K. elections, says @USATODAY's Michael Wolff http://t.co/tV5RDAeW8W (Getty photo) pic.twitter.com/mlWo0E0fsC

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) May 11, 2015

LONDON — Many popular media notions of what a restless electorate is against (bankers, corporate power, tax dodgers, economic austerity) and what it is for (fundamental change, leveling the powerful, taxing the rich and big social program promises) came a cropper in the British election last week.

Rather than endorsing this leftward shift in politics — a view arguably now animating the Hillary Clinton campaign for president in the U.S. — voters returned the Conservative Party to No. 10 Downing St. with a heretofore unimaginable majority.

It was, in Britain, a conservative revolt, an unwillingness to play loose with hard-won economic stability, or risk the gains, however small, that have been made over the last few years.

The Conservatives painted a picture of a country that was moving steadily forward in place. The Labour opposition painted a picture of a floundering nation that needed to be overhauled and rescued by new spending plans paid for by new tax-the-rich schemes — a view rejected in almost every way.

Labour not only got the mood of the country wrong, but so did the news media. Indeed, part of Labour's problem was likely to have only seen its future, and understood the ambitions of the electorate, through its own favored media. The left-leaning BBC was wrong; the left-leaning Guardian was wrong; digitally centric Buzzfeed, trying to make inroads in Britain by targeting news to a young audience, was wrong.

The American pollster Nate Silver, famous for his 2012 U.S. polling, also got it wrong. Conservatives, at least those in Britain, don't necessarily like to admit they are conservatives. And Obama campaign consultant David Axelrod, hired to advise Labour for $500,000 and offering a strategy of economic populism, was wrong.

In a sense, the Internet itself was wrong: Many polls promising a tight race or a Labour win were conducted online. Those done by phone, reaching a less digitally inclined electorate, were more accurate.

Perhaps the high point of wrongness in the campaign was in the week before the vote. It was the well-publicized, middle-of-the-night meeting of Labour's leader and would-be prime minister Ed Miliband with Russell Brand, the entertainer famous for pseudo-revolutionary positions, 9/11 conspiracy theories and a big social media following. The Brand meeting was reportedly an Axelrod idea designed to court the youth vote. Indeed, there was a surge of youthful registration, but with few of those votes going to Labour.

It was the U.K. Independence Party, the far-right, anti-immigration party that was once assumed would undercut the Conservative vote, that in fact siphoned off many more votes from Labour. UKIP's Labour votes were a kind of replay of 1980's Reagan Democrats.

Labour's leftward position was not only a wrong move but also a carefully calculated one. Since the days of Margaret Thatcher, the British political grail had been that Labour only had a hope of ruling the country if it forsook its trade union roots and found a centrist, business-tolerant tone. That was the success of Tony Blair's new Labour — 13 years in power as Bill Clinton-esque centrists.

Miliband's promise, on the other hand, was to take Labour back to its left-wing roots and offer voters a clear choice. And Labour's rejection and rout seemed to be a rather striking demonstration of how, as the right-leaning Daily Mail put it, "Middle England rose up to humiliate the pollsters and save the nation from Red Ed."

More.

PREVIOUSLY: "British Pollsters to Conduct 'Independent Inquiry' After Polling Debacle in General Election 2015."

Over sample leftists and you come out looking like blithering idiots.