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.

Islamophobia: Thought Crime of the Totalitarian Future

From David Horowitz and Robert Spencer, the opening chapter to The Black Book of the American Left Volume 4: Islamo-Fascism and the War Against the Jews, at FrontPage Magazine.

And at the post:

In the aftermath of the jihadist attack in Garland, TX, leftists and Islamic supremacists are moving swiftly to blame Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer for their American Freedom Defense Initiative/Jihad Watch Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest for supposedly “provoking” the violent attack. Once again, advocates of free speech are being slandered while any attempts to examine the real motives of the ISIS-linked terrorists who tried to slaughter them are being labeled as unjustified and “Islamophobic.”

To combat this pernicious tactic and the toxic delusion that impoliteness about the prophet, and not planned Islamic terrorism, is somehow the cause of the attack in Garland in particular and the global jihad in general, FrontPage is running the Freedom Center’s pamphlet, Islamophobia: Thought Crime of the Totalitarian Future, written by David Horowitz and Robert Spencer.

The authors reveal how the word “Islamophobia” is used by the Muslim Brotherhood to inhibit opposition to jihad terror, and detail how the portrayal of Muslims as victims after every Jihadist attack is a carefully planned and skillfully executed program with the ultimate goal of curtailing the West’s freedom of speech and allowing the jihad to advance unimpeded.

Keep reading.

And buy the book, at Amazon, The Black Book of the American Left Volume 4: Islamo-Fascism and the War Against the Jews.

Bourbon Feels the Burn of a Barrel Shortage

I love bourbon.

At WSJ, "Surge in popularity coincided with downturn in white oak logging":

In 50 years of making bourbon barrels, no one had ever offered Leroy McGinnis more than what he charged for them. But over the past six months, multiple distillers have offered to pay him $250 a barrel—a 70% premium above the $150 list price.

The offer illustrates just how scarce bourbon barrels have become. As bourbon sales have soared, both barrel production and the lumber industry have struggled to keep up.

Mr. McGinnis’s Missouri-based company, McGinnis Wood Products Inc., gets about four email requests a day for barrels. He turns most down. Like many of his competitors, he has only enough capacity and wood to fill orders from longtime customers. The rest go on a waiting list, perpetuating a bourbon barrel shortage now entering its third year.

“There’s never been nothing like there is today, and I don’t see it letting up,” said Mr. McGinnis, whose Cuba, Mo., company will sell 150,000 bourbon barrels this year.

The shortage reflects a supply-chain conundrum. Upstream, barrel makers face a wave of demand because a half dozen established bourbon distilleries and 300 new, craft distilleries are increasing production amid a bourbon boom. Downstream, they face a shortage of white oak wood used in barrels because the lumber industry hasn’t rebounded from the housing market’s collapse...

Keep reading.

Islamic State Amputates Hand of Thief

Only photos. No video.

Still, it's horrifying enough, and this is the evil that leftists are constantly defending.

At Jihad Watch:

“The thief, the male and the female, amputate their hands in recompense for what they committed as a deterrent from Allah. And Allah is Exalted in Might and Wise.” (Qur’an 5:38)

Not that this has anything to do with…uh…

West Germany Knew Adolf Eichmann's Hiding Place Years Before His Capture

Eichmann was captured May 11, 1960.

Via RealClearHistory, at Der Spiegel, "Document Find Hailed as Sensation: Germany Knew Eichmann's Hiding Place Years Before His Capture":

West Germany could have hunted down Adolf Eichmann, the chief organizer of the Holocaust, as early as 1952, eight years before Israeli agents caught him in Buenos Aires, according to a newly released document that suggests postwar Germany was unready and unwilling to put him on trial.

The revelation has been described as a sensation, and it sheds light on West Germany's reluctance to confront its past in the decades following the Holocaust...

And see Doron Geller, at the Jewish Virtual Library, "Israel Military Intelligence: The Capture of Nazi Criminal Adolf Eichmann."

The Slow Fade of 'American Idol'

At the Los Angeles Times, "'American Idol': The slow fade of an instant hit":

"American Idol" cancelled, will officially end next year http://t.co/c3SmUHtBmo #AmericanIdol

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) May 12, 2015

Not long ago, "American Idol" was such a ratings juggernaut that a rival TV executive dubbed it a "monster" that should be killed. That wish has now been granted, with Fox executives announcing Monday that they will end the record-breaking singing contest after it finishes its 2016 season.

Fox executives had long vowed that "Idol" could run for years past its peak, like "Survivor" or "The Amazing Race." "Idol" was the top-ranked show for eight years, with audiences in its heyday regularly topping the 30-million-viewers mark.

But the show has been staggering for years. This season, the viewership has shrunk to barely 10 million, and the show — once a virtual mint for Fox — has seen its huge profits disappear, industry experts say.

It's a humble end to a show that changed television during the first decade of the 21st century, proving that broadcasters could still be relevant in an age of media fragmentation and helping spawn a wave of hit talent shows, including "Dancing With the Stars" and "America's Got Talent."

"This was the biggest show on television by a mile, not like the normal 'biggest show,' " said Mike Darnell, a veteran reality TV executive who helped oversee "Idol" for years at Fox and now works in a top role for Warner Bros. "For about six years there, it was 30% or 40% above the next biggest thing on TV. An absolute phenomenon.''

"But eventually, any show is going to start to erode. Nothing lasts forever," Darnell added. "It's sad. It feels like the end of an era. … I don't honestly believe anything will ever approach the numbers it was getting at its peak."

The first decade of the new millennium was a golden age for reality TV, with shows such as "Survivor" and "The Apprentice" dominating the headlines. But no show so eclipsed its competitors like "Idol," which started unassumingly as a limited summer series on Fox in 2002. It was an Americanized version of "Pop Idol," a British series that ran for two seasons on ITV.

"American Idol" proved an instant hit. The trio of original judges — the British-born music executive Simon Cowell along with former '80s pop queen Paula Abdul and bassist and record producer Randy Jackson — blended with an appealing on-screen chemistry. Cowell became a star with his wisecracks and sometimes nasty put-downs of aspiring singers.

Audiences turned up to see an ingenious two-part process in which a wide variety of contestants — some great, some terrible — turned up for open auditions, followed by a grueling winnowing process down to the finals, telecast live.

"It established a format that is everywhere now," said Robert J. Thompson, a TV expert and director of the Bleier Center for Television & Popular Culture at Syracuse University. "It didn't invent the talent competition … this format of the three judges, the potentially snarky comments, allowing lots of people in who may not be very good — we see that everywhere now. It's not just singing competitions."

Rivals found "Idol" in its zenith nearly impossible to compete with.

"If somebody would kill that show, I'd appreciate it," CBS boss Leslie Moonves said at a media conference in 2008.

As it turned out, "Idol's" slow fade had already started by that time. The median age of "Idol" viewers crept higher as teenagers and young adults began to drift away....

More.

Where the British Left Went So Horribly Wrong

From Milo Yiannopoulos, at Breitbart UK, "ED’S DEAD: WHERE THE BRITISH LEFT WENT SO HORRIBLY WRONG":

For a party established to defend working-class interests, Labour has remarkable difficulty relating to ordinary people. Of course, the primary reason is that the idea of a Labour Party is a strange anachronism in modern Britain.

There is really no place today for a party funded and effectively dictated to by the trades unions. But in seeking to reinvent itself and recapture relevance, the Left concocted a bizarre mixture of old-fashioned socialism and bleeding-edge American social justice, fomented in tired old Tory hatred and the politics of envy and grievance.

In other words, because Labour doesn’t have an interest group to protect any longer, it has reimagined itself as a party with a higher moral purpose. Yet the morality it aspires to appeals to few outside of the media and universities and its economic principles have not been deployed since Soviet Russia...

Yeah, well.

The Soviet Union's been dead for almost 25 years. About time some of these leftists got into the 21st century. Sheesh.

More.

Auto Shop in Oakland Calls Out City 'Leaders' After Violent Communist Protests on May Day

Shit's out of control. Even in California folks be getting fed up with this bull.

At ABC News 7 San Francisco, "BUSINESS CALLS OUT OAKLAND LEADERS AFTER DESTRUCTIVE MAY DAY PROTESTS."

#Oakland auto shop damaged in #MayDay protests uses artistic flair to call out city leaders: http://t.co/foV9rceVxT pic.twitter.com/f4gRHtAkqi

— ABC7 News (@abc7newsBayArea) May 12, 2015

'My Student Debt is $200,000...'

A Dilbert cartoon, via Instapundit, "THE HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE, as illustrated by Dilbert."

Hailey Clauson Reveals What She'd Do With $1 Million

At Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:

The 100 Most Popular Conservative Websites of 2015

From John Hawkins, at Right Wing News, "These websites were ranked using Alexa. The number beside of each website represents its overall rank on the Internet."

Obama Could Go Down as Worst President in History

You think?

At Gateway Pundit, "Ron Fournier: Obama Could Go Down As Worst President Ever (VIDEO)."

Japan Confirms Major Shift in Military Doctrine

At Euro News, "Japanese government confirms major shift in military policy."



PREVIOUSLY: "U.S. and Japan Tighten Alliance in Face of Surging Threat from China," and "Japan Shifts Military Posture to Defend Against Chinese Threat."

Sister Hatune Dogan: ISIS is Islam

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Catholic Nun: ‘ISIS Is Islam; Islam Is ISIS’."

All Remaining Female Soldiers Fail Army Ranger School Class

At the Other McCain, "War Against Human Nature: 100% Failure."

War Against Human Nature: 100% Failure http://t.co/kDIVZf2uRn via @rsmccain pic.twitter.com/57EKysvJt5

— Þe Political Hat (@ThePoliticalHat) May 12, 2015

Cellphone Photo Saves Little Boy's Life

At ABC 7 San Francisco, "PPHOTO SAVES TODDLER'S LIFE AFTER REVEALING RARE FORM OF CANCER."

#ICYMI: A photo saved a toddler's life by helping to reveal a rare form of cancer: http://t.co/hYu7wyxhBj pic.twitter.com/lNU2NONmOc

— ABC7 News (@abc7newsBayArea) May 12, 2015

Officials, Students at University of California, San Diego, Defend 'Candlelight' Nude Art Final Exam

Background at London's Daily Mail, "Outrage as students forced to strip naked with male professor and perform 'erotic gesture' by candlelight before being allowed to graduate from University of California, San Diego."

And at KGTV ABC10 San Diego, "UCSD teacher has students take final in the nude."

Also, "UC San Diego officials defend professor's art class that requires nudity in final exam."

'Stay Quiet and You'll Be Okay'

From Mark Steyn:

It'll be a long time before you see "Washington Post Offers No Apology for Attacking Target of Thwarted Attack" or "AP Says It Has No Regrets After Blaming The Victim". The respectable class in the American media share the same goal as the Islamic fanatics: They want to silence Pam Geller. To be sure, they have a mild disagreement about the means to that end - although even then you get the feeling, as with Garry Trudeau and those dozens of PEN novelists' reaction to Charlie Hebdo, that the "narrative" wouldn't change very much if the jihad boys had got luckier and Pam, Geert Wilders, Robert Spencer and a dozen others were all piled up in the Garland morgue.

If the American press were not so lazy and parochial, they would understand that this was the third Islamic attack on free speech this year - first, Charlie Hebdo in Paris; second, the Lars Vilks event in Copenhagen; and now Texas. The difference in the corpse count is easily explained by a look at the video of the Paris gunmen, or the bullet holes they put in the police car. The French and Texan attackers supposedly had the same kind of weapons, although one should always treat American media reports with a high degree of skepticism when it comes to early identification of "assault weapons" and "AK47s". Nonetheless, from this reconstruction, it seems clear that the key distinction between the two attacks is that in Paris they knew how to use their guns and in Garland they didn't. So a very cool 60-year-old local cop with nothing but his service pistol advanced under fire and took down two guys whose heavier firepower managed only to put a bullet in an unarmed security guard's foot.

The Charlie Hebdo killers had received effective training overseas - as thousands of ISIS recruits with western passports are getting right now. What if the Garland gunmen had been as good as the Paris gunmen? Surely that would be a more interesting question for the somnolent American media than whether some lippy Jewess was asking for it.

A reminder of how close it came in Garland. And also a reminder that the left would have cheered the deaths of Pamela, Robert and their allies. I said exactly the same thing the other day.

More at Hot Air, "Quotes of the day."

'Note: this class is not academically challenging nor deeply time-consuming, but the assignments are meant to provoke some thought into the subject...'

The class?

"Palestine & Israel: Settler Colonialism and Apartheid," at the University of California, Riverside.

And those assignments aren't "meant to provoke some thought" so much as they are to force students into a murderous Israel-hating ideology.

The class is good for one unit of credit and the student organizers (yes, students teach it, not professors) are looking to double that for winter quarter.

See Jonathan Marks, at Commentary, "Anti-Israel Course is a Campus Farce."

A farce indeed.

The student "teacher," Tina Matar, is the president of the university's Students for Justice in Palestine chapter. Yes, and that's another indicator of how "balanced" the class is likely to be. (Flashback to 2011: "Israeli Apartheid Week, Students for Justice in Palestine, UCLA, February 23, 2011.")

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."



Also at Randy's Roundtable, "Friday Nite Funnies," and Reaganite Republican, "Reaganite's SUNDAY FUNNIES."

More at Lonely Con, "Saturday Funnies," and Theo Spark's, "Cartoon Roundup..."

Cartoon Credit: Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – Molon Labe."

Anarchists and Hard-Line Socialists Lay Siege to No. 10 Downing Street

The hateful left, out for another hateful day of hateful protests.

Hate, hate, hate.

That's what the left is all about.

At London's Daily Mail, "Hate mob in No.10 rampage: Hard Left's shame as rioters attack police and deface WWII memorial as socialists lay siege to Downing Street."



More video, "UK: Police battle to keep anti-Tory protesters from Downing St.," and "UK: Anger boils over in London as anti-Tory protesters face-off with riot police."

Mother Dies in Laguna Beach Car Crash on Mother's Day

This crash is getting national attention, at ABC News, "2 Young Children Lose Their Mom in Mother's Day Car Crash":

Mother driving her kids dies in Laguna Beach crash early on Mother's Day http://t.co/Yr6KbEd7N8 pic.twitter.com/E3XkOtNJQB

— NBC Los Angeles (@NBCLA) May 10, 2015

A 31-year-old woman driving with her two children on Mother's Day was killed after her car collided with another car in Laguna Beach.

The woman was driving with her 8-year-old and 5-year-old at 12:30 a.m. Sunday when a car traveling in the opposite direction sideswiped her, causing both cars to spin out of control, Capt. Jason Kravetz said. The woman, from Mission Viejo, had to be cut out of the car and was taken to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Her children were treated at a hospital for minor injuries and released to family.

"For an unknown reason, one of the two veered out of its traffic lane," Kravetz said. "We don't know which one it is."

The driver of the other car, an 86-year-old man from Laguna Woods, is in extremely critical condition. His car flipped over a couple times before landing on its wheels. His wife, who was also in the car, didn't suffer serious injuries.

More.

Mark Halperin's 'Painful' Interview with Ted Cruz

Oh boy.

It's going to be a long election season. Sheesh.

From Rubin Navarette, at the San Jose Mercury News, "Halperin interview of Ted Cruz was painful":

Yo ese, why you no drive '58 Chebby mang?? https://t.co/lC9wOAiLAK

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) May 10, 2015

SAN DIEGO -- Imagine the following pep talk that a young Ted Cruz might have gotten from his father, Rafael, about 35 years ago.

"My son, I was tortured in a jail cell in Cuba, but I managed to come to the United States and build a life so that you could live your dreams. I grew up speaking Spanish, but I made sure you spoke English so you could go far. If you study hard, you can attend great universities. You can clerk for the chief justice of the Supreme Court, become a great trial lawyer and argue nine cases before the high court, get elected to the U.S. Senate, and someday run for president.

"Then, after all the family's efforts and sacrifices, one day, you can go on an interview program and be asked by a smug and clueless white journalist if you're authentically Cuban."

Watching Mark Halperin of Bloomberg Politics interview Cruz recently, I wasn't just uncomfortable. I was actually nauseated.

As a journalist, I felt embarrassed for Halperin. As a Hispanic, I felt like I was watching a college fraternity have fun with racial stereotypes, like when staging a "border party" where people show up in serapes and fake mustaches. And as someone who doesn't adhere to a party line to the point where I've been accused of being a "coconut" (white on the inside, brown on the outside), I was furious enough to -- as Sarah Palin once said approvingly about Cruz -- chew barbed wire and spit out rust.

The online interview show that Halperin co-hosts on BloombergPolitics.com is called "With All Due Respect." But there was nothing respectful about the line of questioning. It started off innocently enough with Halperin asking the 2016 GOP presidential candidate about whether he thinks Hispanics will vote for him. He also mentioned a speech that Cruz had given to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and gave Cruz the chance to explain his argument that Republican economic policies help Hispanics.

Nothing wrong with that. But then Halperin made it personal, and the interview careened into a ditch. He told Cruz that people are curious about his "identity." Then, the host asked a series of questions intended to establish his guest's Hispanic bona fides. What kind of Cuban food did Cruz like to eat growing up? And what sort of Cuban music does Cruz listen to even now?

Well, there you go. Identity politics. One of the many things that makes leftists so unpleasant to be around. They're terrible people.

Fausta has more, "Identity politics: Halperin interviews Ted Cruz, expects Ricky Ricardo":

I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, and, if I had $5 for every liberal idiot who looks at me and says “You don’t look Puerto Rican”, etc., because I don’t fit the Liberal template of what a Lateeeno/Lateeena should be like, this blog wouldn’t need to carry ads.

Frankly, by now I expect to consistently encounter discrimination and bigotry from Liberals. It’s in their mindset – identity politics is their lifeblood.

Racist hatred is the lifeblood of identity-mongering leftists. Again, these are just terrible people.

Via Memeorandum.

British Pollsters to Conduct 'Independent Inquiry' After Polling Debacle in General Election 2015

I was at work, but I saw a few folks on Twitter (especially Louise Mensch) debating the accuracy of the final exit poll predicting a big win for the Tories. Too tired, I didn't even blog Thursday night, but I did check the results at the British newspapers throughout the evening. David Cameron's party shocked the political establishment. Louise Mensch was imploring her partisans against gloating. Numbers guru Nate Silver issued a major wake-up call on the state of elections surveys.

I have no idea what went wrong other than the pollsters got lousy samples, which underrepresented conservatives. Some of the articles I've read suggest that Tory voters were shy and refused to state their real voter preferences. I always doubt such stories, especially in this case, since there's no shame in voting for the incumbent party. It wasn't a race issue like that of the much-hyped "Bradley effect." So I suspect that the "independent inquiry" that been proposed by the British Polling Council will basically be going back to the drawing board on basic methods. The group might do well to examine institutional left-wing biases among pollsters, a situation so serious that Survation, a market survey research firm, refused to publish a poll on the eve of the election showing the Tories holding a 37-to-31 percent lead.

In any case, here's the New York Times from this morning's paper, "British Election’s Other Losers: Pollsters":

LONDON — The Labour leader Ed Miliband may have stumbled badly in the British election, but there was another big loser on Thursday night: the pollsters who were far off the mark and failed to see the outright majority won by Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservative Party.

Before the election, nearly every poll showed the race as a near-tie that would result in a hung Parliament and force complex negotiations to form a coalition government. In the last days of the campaign, a survey by Ipsos/MORI, a widely respected pollster, forecast that the Conservatives would win 36 percent of the vote and the Labour Party 35 percent. On Thursday, The Guardian reported a poll by ICM putting Labour at 35 percent and the Conservatives at 34 percent.

A consortium of researchers from the University of East Anglia, the London School of Economics and Durham University aggregated national polling and online surveys, and in its final projection on Thursday forecast that the most likely outcome would give the Conservatives 278 seats in Parliament and Labour 267.

The final result, with the Conservatives securing a majority and projected to win as many as 331 seats, only added to an intensifying debate in the United States, Britain and elsewhere about the accuracy of polling, the problems of getting accurate samples in the era of the iPhone when voters can no longer be reached as easily by traditional means like landlines and the fracturing of politics making it harder to predict voter behavior.

In Britain’s case, weeks of assumptions built around the consistency of pre-election polling gave way to a sense of shock among even veteran Westminster watchers when broadcasters unveiled the results of their exit poll right after the polls closed on Thursday night. The exit poll accurately predicted, within a few seats, the final outcome, but it was initially greeted with deep skepticism by party leaders and some voters.

Paddy Ashdown, a former leader of the Liberal Democrats, pledged to “publicly eat my hat” after the first exit polls suggested that his party would see its parliamentary ranks slashed by 10 members. “I have been offered 10 hats on Twitter tonight,” he told Andrew Neil of the BBC, “not all of them politely, I have to say.”

As the poor performance of the Liberal Democrats became more clear, Mr. Ashdown’s hat went viral on Twitter, with a fake account attracting more than 12,000 followers, and manipulated images of his eating a hat proliferated on social media.

The failure to accurately predict the result was reminiscent of recent elections in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won a clear victory after pre-election polls showing the rival Zionist Union in the lead. Analysts attributed Mr. Netanyahu’s surprise comeback to an 11th-hour political offensive, including a pledge that there would be no Palestinian state.

Writing in The Guardian, Alberto Nardelli, the news organization’s data editor, said there was no simple explanation to what went wrong with the polling.

“It could be simply that people lied to the pollsters, that they were shy or that they genuinely had a change of heart on polling day,” he said. “Or there could be more complicated underlying challenges within the polling industry, due, for example, to the fact that a diminishing number of people use landlines or that Internet polls are ultimately based on a self-selected sample.”

Peter Kellner, the president of YouGov, a leading survey firm, told The Daily Telegraph that the pollsters had erred, attributing the results to the capriciousness of voters rather than to statistical lapses.

“What seems to have gone wrong is that people have said one thing and they did something else in the ballot box,” he was quoted as saying by The Telegraph. “We are not as far out as we were in 1992, not that that is a great commendation.”

He was referring to the British general election of 1992, when pollsters predicted a hung Parliament, only to see the Conservatives win an outright majority.

Later in the day, YouGov issued a mea culpa, though it declined to draw firm conclusions on what went wrong. “For any polling company, there inevitably comes a time when you get something wrong,” it said in a statement. “Every couple of decades a time comes along when all the companies get something wrong. Yesterday appears to have been one such day.”

Such was the concern over the failure of the pre-election polls to get it right that the British Polling Council announced Friday that it would set up an independent inquiry to determine what had gone wrong.

“The final opinion polls before the election were clearly not as accurate as we would like, and the fact that all the pollsters underestimated the Conservative lead over Labour suggests that the methods that were used should be subject to careful, independent investigation,” it said in a statement. It said the independent inquiry would “look into the possible causes of this apparent bias, and to make recommendations for future polling.”

More.

Also at the BBC, "Election 2015: Inquiry into opinion poll failures," and "Election results: How did pollsters get it so wrong?"

And at the Independent UK, "Election results: What went so wrong for the pollsters – and how did the exit poll get it right?"

No, There's No 'Hate Speech' Exception to the First Amendment

Leftists bitching about "hate speech" are simply attempting to shut down speech with which they disagree.

They're ghoulish reprobates and totalitarians.

See Eugen Volokh, at the Washington Post:

I keep hearing about a supposed “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment, or statements such as, “This isn’t free speech, it’s hate speech,” or “When does free speech stop and hate speech begin?” But there is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment. Hateful ideas (whatever exactly that might mean) are just as protected under the First Amendment as other ideas. One is as free to condemn Islam — or Muslims, or Jews, or blacks, or whites, or illegal aliens, or native-born citizens — as one is to condemn capitalism or Socialism or Democrats or Republicans...

Continue reading.

Perhaps the idiots at the New York Times should read the Volokh Conspiracy:

.@nytimes Hey dullards at the New York Times, there's no such thing as 'hate speech.' @nytopinion cc. @RSMcCain @Instapundit @PamelaGeller

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) May 7, 2015

Vintage World War II Planes Fly Over Washington D.C.

At the Washington Post, "Photos: Arsenal of Democracy Flyover salutes World War II veterans," and "Meet the 19 WWII planes of the D.C. flyover."



More video at CNN, "WWII-era warplanes flyover Washington monuments," and "Come aboard one of the B-25 bombers that flew over Washington D.C."

Mel Gibson Surprises Fans, Tom Hardy with 'Mad Max: Fury Road' Premiere Appearance

Pretty cool.

At Us Weekly.

'Martin Luther King picked some of the cities he went to precisely in order to provoke, and bring out the racists and show what kind of violent people they are, so the world could see what is wrong with Jim Crow...'

At Pat Dollard's, "Alan Dershowitz: 'There’s No Difference' Between Martin Luther King, Jr. and Pamela Geller."

Death Threats Against Pamela Geller

Here's more of that compassionate "love and inclusiveness" leftist hypocrites are always prattling on about. F-king murderous ghouls.

At Atlas Shrugs, "You’ve got mail!":

My emailbox is a microcosm of this terrible war on freedom. Hundreds of notes and letters in support of our work in defense of freedom, and then there are these:

'Waiting for the other shoe to drop...'

Heh.

From Michael Ramirez, at IBD:

Ramirez cartoon: Waiting for the other shoe to drop http://t.co/S60Zmghf9i #HillaryClinton #tcot pic.twitter.com/4jK11vZd99

— IBDeditorials (@IBDeditorials) May 9, 2015

Memorial Service for NYPD Officer Brian Moore

"Grimly familiar."

At NYT, "Thousands Honor N.Y.P.D. Officer Brian Moore in a Grimly Familiar Ritual":

Brian Moore was born blue.

His father was police. His uncle and his cousins were police.

On Friday, nearly a week after he was fatally shot while on patrol in Queens, Officer Moore was laid to rest surrounded by a sea of blue.

As the funeral procession made its way through the streets of Seaford, N.Y., on Long Island, with uniformed officers escorting the hearse carrying Officer Moore’s body, thousands of men and women lined the streets in silence.

They offered a final salute to one of their own.

When Officer Moore joined the New York Police Department five years ago, it was like he was signing up for the family business. At his funeral, that family grew by tens of thousands at what was expected to be one of the largest police funerals in the New York City area in decades.

“We are united today as a family,” Msgr. Robert J. Romano, the Police Department’s chaplain, said during the homily. “A family of blood. A family of blue and the American family.”

Monsignor Romano said that the hundreds in the church, the thousands of people outside and millions of people around the country were mourning alongside those closest to Officer Moore...

More.

PREVIOUSLY: "NYPD Officer Dies After Being Shot in Face by Black Thug With Long Rap Sheet."

Louise Mensch Flies to Britain to Vote in #GE15

She's such a lovely political junkie.

Corby, her former constituency, returned to the Conservative fold yesterday as well, which brought tears to her eyes, apparently.

Postal ballot didn't arrive in time? No problem - flew in early to #VoteConservative #GE15 :) pic.twitter.com/QG8sV9yN3X

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) May 7, 2015

Threat Level Raised at U.S. Military Bases

At CNN, "ISIS activity prompts threat level increase at bases."



ADDED: At Instapundit, "THE “PANIC” HAS APPARENTLY NOT EXTENDED TO THEM OFFERING PROTECTION TO PAM GELLER: ABC News is running a story today about how the FBI and the rest of the homeland security apparatus is in a state of near “panic” in the aftermath of the Garland shooting."

Community-Policing Helps Inoculate City of Fresno from Radical Left's Anarchy and Violence

A great piece.

And Fresno's mayor is Republican Ashley Swearengin.

At the Washington Post, "In Fresno, a community-policing ethos builds ties between officers and residents."

Tina Fey May Be the Last Woman to Strip Down for David Letterman

On his late-night show, of course.

Watch, at CNN, "Tina Fey strips for Letterman."

David Cameron Makes Victorious Return to No. 10 Downing Street

I'm really happy about this. It reaffirms my belief in basic human decency, if not innate intelligence. Sheesh.

Cameron's not perfect --- indeed, his frequent politically correct kowtowing to the forces of Islamic jihad is cringeworthy --- but at least conservatism will rise to see another day in Britain.

At London's Daily Mail, "Cameron makes a victorious return to No 10 as he promises to make 'Great Britain Greater' -- TOGETHER WE'LL MAKE GREAT BRITAIN GREATER STILL: Cameron hails shock Tory outright majority as Miliband, Clegg and Farage all QUIT. SNP wins near clean-sweep of seats in Scotland."

Nick Clegg Resigns as Liberal Democrat Party Leader

At the Guardian UK, "In farewell speech to party members, Clegg describes election result as ‘the most crushing blow to the Liberal Democrats since our party was founded’."

And video at Sky News, "Nick Clegg Quits as Lib Dems Leader."

Nigel Farage Resigns as UKIP Leader

Another one bites the dust.

At the Guardian UK, "Nigel Farage quits as Ukip leader but may return after break."

Plus, video at Britain's Channel 4 News, "Nigel Farage resigns as Ukip leader."

Ed Miliband Resigns as Labour Party Leader

A huge political earthquake out of Britain yesterday. The Tories held on to power despite all kinds of polls showing a Labour juggernaut. I can't stand Ed Miliband, whose father was an unrepentant British communist, so this is great news.

At the Guardian UK, "Miliband steps down after admitting scale of election defeat had taken him and his staff by surprise."

Yeah, well, the polls were all f-ked up, so he's not alone in that.

More at Memeorandum.

ADDED: Video, via Sky News, "Ed Miliband Resigns As Labour Leader."

Stop the Islamization of America

Buy Pamela Geller's book, Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.

Also, Freedom or Submission: On the Dangers of Islamic Extremism & American Complacency.

I'm teaching all day. More blogging tonight.

A Rubicon Moment for Free Speech

From Amanda Foreman, at the Wall Street Journal, "Charlie Hebdo and a Rubicon Moment for Free Speech":

By awarding Charlie Hebdo the Freedom of Expression Courage prize, PEN has also shown its willingness to lead by example and from the front. That leadership is more important than ever.

If human-rights organizations, starting with PEN, fail to affirm the indivisibility of free speech, that failure will not lead to more peace and harmony in the world. It will lead to the reverse as vigilantes from all sides interpret such weakness as an invitation to impose their own order. The shootings in Copenhagen in February, and in Garland, Texas, last weekend—both involving Islamists targeting events they deemed insulting to their religion—are two examples of how some would like to see the “debate” unfold.

For those who believe in freedom of expression, the moment has come to make the choice between its defense or abandonment against a murderous movement that believes democratic values are subordinate to religious sensibilities. At the end of the evening on Tuesday, I spoke with Jean-Baptiste Thoret, Charlie Hebdo’s film critic. “There are just two options facing us all,” he said, “and we have to take a side.”

 RTWT.

Online Jihadist Who Supported #Garland Attacks Used to Work for Amnesty International.

*SMH*

At Instapundit, "MORE MORAL ROT IN THE NGO WORLD."

David Cameron to British Voters: 'Don't do something you'll regret...'

The polls are now open. This is from last night.

At Telegraph UK, "David Cameron tells voters as they go to the polls: Don't do something you'll regret":

Prime Minister makes final appeal for voters to back Conservatives before polling stations open.

David Cameron has urged the British public not to "do something you'll regret" as voters head to the polls for the closest general election in a generation.

With the final round of opinion polls showing Labour and the Conservatives neck and neck, the Prime Minister uses a Telegraph interview to urge voters to reflect in the "solemn quiet" of the polling booth before casting their ballot.

Mr Cameron says that the 2015 general election will "define this generation" with major constitutional and economic issues at stake for the country.

The last round of opinion polls and forecasts from bookmakers suggests that the election will lead to a chaotic result - with Labour and the SNP vying with the Conservatives, propped up by the Liberal Democrats, to form the next Government.

Senior Conservatives privately hope that, as in 1992, the opinion polls are not reflective of the nation's mood and that so-called "shy Tories" or people having last-minute doubts over Labour's credibility could yet swing behind Mr Cameron.

On current polling, the Tories are hopeful of winning at least 290 seats – potentially as many as 300. They require at least 323 seats to claim a majority in the House of Commons and would therefore need the support of at least one other party under this scenario.

he bookmakers narrowly predict that Mr Cameron will remain Prime Minister after the election and discreet game-planning for the Coalition negotiations which may start on Friday have already begun.

Speaking on the final day of campaigning, as he made a symbolic visit to Scotland just hours before the polls open, Mr Cameron made a final appeal for potential Ukip voters - seen as a key group who could yet switch and deliver a Conservative win.

The Prime Minister said that a vote for Nigel Farage's party will “endanger the economy and your family’s security” by allowing a “shambolic” government to take power.

"The future of the country is in your hands. Don’t do something you will regret,” Mr Cameron said.

"Think of the future of our country before you vote. We can stay on a strong path of growth, jobs and success - or we can put it at risk with taxing, borrowing and Ed Miliband propped up by the SNP."

Also, "LIVE: Election 2015: Polls have Labour and Tories tied as Cameron urges public 'don't do something you'll regret'."

Nina Agdal Sunburned

At London's Daily Mail, "Nina Agdal shows off more than just her white bits as she poses TOPLESS to reveal painful-looking sunburn in candid new snap."

PREVIOUSLY: "'The Only Thing Better Than Dessert...'"

Pamela Geller: 'This Is a War...'

Pamela responds, at Time, "Pamela Geller: A Response to My Critics—This Is a War."



This morning Drudge linked to the New York Daily News, "ISIS threatens controversial blogger Pamela Geller in message boasting of '71 trained soldiers in 15 different states'."

And ICYMI, from Dr. Helen Smith, "Is Pam Geller the Bravest Woman in the U.S.?"

The left's anti-free speech responses have started to become literally unhinged. It's pretty bad when you hate someone's speech so much that you'd rather see them killed for it. But that's where we are with radical leftists. They'd be cheering Pamela's death had the jihadists been able to get past security to open fire on their targets. Of course, radical leftism is a murderous ideology, so no one should be surprised.

See Hot Air, "Quotes of the day."

Los Angeles Times Pushes 'Extremist' Moral Equivalence Attack on Pamela Geller in #Garland Jihad Shooting

A particularly odious comparison at today's Los Angeles Times front-page, claiming moral equivalence between Pamela Geller and the Islamic jihadists who attempted a Charlie Hebdo attack in Texas.

I tweeted the photo of the piece this morning, and here's the online article, "Texas attack refocuses attention on fine line between free speech and hate speech":

.@RSMcCain Front-page L.A. Times pushes "extremist" moral equivalence attack on @PamelaGeller. #Garland pic.twitter.com/kYA8YbKdg6

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) May 5, 2015

Pamela Geller is a 56-year-old Jewish arch-conservative from New York, a vehement critic of radical Islam who organized a provocative $10,000 cartoon contest in this placid Dallas suburb designed to caricature the prophet Muhammad.

Elton Simpson was a 30-year-old aspiring Islamic militant from Phoenix who fantasized to an FBI informant about “doing the martyrdom operations” in Somalia and was convicted in 2010 of lying to the FBI about his plans to travel to the volatile eastern African nation.

Their lives intersected Sunday in this small town in north-central Texas, an unlikely venue for a violent collision of cultures. After a Sunday evening shootout outside the contest site between police and Simpson and another man firing assault rifles, both gunmen lay dead in the street. And Geller quickly posted a defiant blog: “This is a war on free speech. ... Are we going to surrender to these monsters?”

The Texas showdown was America’s Charlie Hebdo moment, erupting just four months after gunmen shot and killed 12 people at the Paris offices of the satirical newspaper that had published cartoons of the prophet considered blasphemous by many Muslims. The Garland attack refocused public attention on the fine line between free speech and hate speech in the ideological struggle between radical Islam and the West.

The shooting unfolded just before 7 p.m. Sunday outside the Curtis Culwell Center, a public school building where about 200 people had just heard an impassioned anti-Islamic speech — “The less Islam, the better!” — by Geert Wilders, a right-wing Dutch politician. Wilders said the venue was significant: It was chosen as a defiant response to an American Muslim group that had held a “Stand With the Prophet Against Terror and Hate” conference in January in the same building.

Security had been intense, with officers from local police, SWAT teams, a bomb squad and school security, along with FBI and other federal agents waiting for trouble, and it came: The two men pulled up and opened fire but were quickly shot and killed by a Garland police officer firing his service handgun.

“He did what he was trained to do and did a very good job,” Garland police spokesman Joe Harn said. “He probably saved lives.”

Harn said of the gunmen, “Obviously, they were there to shoot people.” He said they wore some form of body armor, and police found ammunition — but no explosives — in their car.

In Phoenix on Monday, police searched Simpson’s home. A federal law enforcement source said Nadir Soofi, 34, identified as the second gunman, was Simpson’s roommate.

The cartoon contest was organized by Geller as a rallying point for cartoonists and conservatives united in their belief that verbal attacks on radical Islam are a form of free speech.

Geller has posted bus ads and billboards condemning Islam. In 2010, the same year the FBI was investigating Simpson’s vows to fight “kafirs,” or nonbelievers, Geller cofounded American Freedom Defense Initiative, also known as Stop Islamization of America. The organization, considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, hosted the Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon contest, offering $10,000 for the best cartoon of the prophet.

“We know the risks,” Geller wrote in a blog promoting the event. “This event will require massive security.”

Police said the gunmen drove a sedan up to a police car blocking access to the conference, jumped out and opened fire with assault rifles. A school security guard was wounded in the leg...

Still more at that top link.

As Pamela always says, "truth is the new hate speech."

Actually, there's no such thing as hate speech. As the FIRE notes, "“Hate speech” is not a category of speech recognized under current constitutional law. It is merely a convenient way to pigeonhole speech that some people find offensive."

Yeah, well, Muslims and regressive leftists don't like being called out with the truth. Hence, as soon as shots rang out virtually the entire media establishment and the left's terror-enablers blamed Pamela for the attack. It's an enormous perversion of reality, but this is the nature of the war we're in. Obviously, the reporters at the Times are down with a sick moral equivalence that smears a freedom fighter who calls Islam for what it is --- a political ideology seeking to eliminate all opposition, using any means necessary, including murderous jihad. Ironically, our mass media overlords truly believe that genuninely speaking your mind, quoting the words of the jihadists themselves, and courageously standing up for your right to do it, is extremism. It is, according to the Times, exactly the same as launching an armed attack on peaceful citizens attending a political convention about drawing cartoons. It's so absurd it's to die for.

More at Memeorandum.

In the Mail: Carly Fiorina, Rising to the Challenge: My Leadership Journey

I've started reading Ms. Fiorina's new book.

She's got a great story. And her presidential campaign promises the most stinging criticisms of Hillary Clinton of the season.

At the New York Times, "Carly Fiorina Announces 2016 Presidential Bid, Citing Years Leading Hewlett-Packard." Also at Memeorandum, Mark Haperin, "The Definitive H&H Carly Fiorina Scouting Report."

More at CBS News San Francisco, "Former HP CEO Carly Fiorina Makes Presidential Run."

Pick up a copy of her book at Amazon.

National Offend a Feminist Week

At the Other McCain, "Feminists Chase ‘Avengers’ Director Off Twitter, Because … Gender Theory?"

BONUS: Robert and I stood with Pamela Geller back in 2010, at the Los Angeles event to promote her book, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America.

.@RSMcCain: Standing with @PamelaGeller. #GarlandAttack #FreeSpeech pic.twitter.com/cv4d88Y0wO

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) May 5, 2015

Sorry, Charlie Hebdo

At the Wall Street Journal, "Western writers abandon their support for free speech":

Je suis Charlie. French for “I am Charlie,” the phrase became a global expression of solidarity and resolve after Islamist gunmen murdered 12 people at the Paris offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

In a terrifying copycat attack Sunday in Garland, Texas, two men with assault rifles attempted to gun down people attending an event satirizing Muhammad with cartoons. A single police officer managed to shoot and kill both gunmen before they got inside the event. With some 200 people in the building, the potential for another politicized mass murder was great.

On Monday authorities said one of the gunman, Elton Simpson of Phoenix, had been under surveillance for years because of interest he’d shown in joining jihadist groups overseas. He was found guilty of making false statements to the FBI, but a federal judge ruled there wasn’t enough evidence that Mr. Simpson’s activities were “sufficiently ‘related’ to international terrorism.”

Against this backdrop we have the extraordinary—almost comical—irony of some of America’s bien pensant intellectuals boycotting a ceremony Tuesday by the PEN American Center to confer its annual courage award for freedom of expression on Charlie Hebdo. PEN is an association of writers, and six prominent novelists—Peter Carey,Michael Ondaatje,Francine Prose,Teju Cole,Rachel Kushner and Taiye Selasi—have been trying to repeal the award for Charlie Hebdo.

Ms. Kusher said she was uncomfortable with the “forced secular view” and “cultural intolerance” represented by Charlie Hebdo, whose signature attacks were on organized religion. Before the boycott, Mr. Cole wrote in the New Yorker magazine questioning the praise for Charlie Hebdo in the wake of the massacre. He lamented that the concern for Charlie Hebdo’s murdered cartoonists won’t be matched by concern for the young men of military age “who will have been killed by U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan and elsewhere.”

A separate petition signed by more than 200 PEN members complains that their organization is “not simply conveying support for freedom of expression, but also valorizing selectively offensive material: material that intensifies the anti-Islamic, anti-Maghreb, anti-Arab sentiments already prevalent in the Western world.”

Trumpeting the list of petition signers was no less than Glenn Greenwald, last seen lionizing Edward Snowden’s right to go public with information stolen from the National Security Agency’s efforts to track the people who committed the Paris murders and tried to do it again in Texas this week.

Much of what Charlie Hebdo published was insulting and not infrequently obscene. No doubt that was true at the event in Texas. We would not routinely publish it in this newspaper. But insults are protected under the First Amendment. The terrorists who attacked cartoonists in Paris and in Texas hoped that murder would intimidate them—and others—into silence. As such theirs was not merely an attack on a publication; it was an attack on the foundations of liberal democracy.

All this PEN award does is underscore that in a civilized—indeed “tolerant”—society, you don’t get to murder people who insult or offend you. It is a principle that should be easy for everyone—especially acclaimed writers—to understand.

Of note: WSJ did publish images of the Charlie Hebdo Mohammed cartoons after the Paris attacks, unlike so many other craven Western news outlets.

RELATED: At the Other McCain, "TERROR IN TEXAS: Garland Gunman Elton Simpson Was Muslim Convert."

15-Foot Waves at the Wedge in Newport Beach

It's been beautiful beach weather too.

At the O.C. Register, "The Wild Wedge puts on a show with waves reaching 15 feet and higher."

And at ABC-7 Los Angeles, "HUGE WAVES LURE BODYSURFERS, CROWDS TO NEWPORT BEACH."

Free Speech or Islamofascist Suppression?

At IBD, "After Attack In Texas, Will It Be Free Speech or the Thugs' Veto?":

After a Muhammad cartoon event was attacked in Texas, the intelligentsia pointed the finger at the organizers. Let's get one thing straight: This event was not about guns, civility or Islam. It was about free speech.

Activist Pamela Geller is no stranger to saying things that horrify the politically correct. She protested the World Trade Center mosque and bought bus-sign ads describing what's really written in the Quran. Last weekend, she and writer Robert Spencer's American Freedom Defense Initiative organized a contest for the best Muhammad cartoon drawing with a $10,000 prize in Texas in response to the Islamofascist newsroom massacre of cartoonists in Paris at the French paper Charlie Hebdo earlier this year.

And to no one's surprise in a nation whose leaders consider rising Islamofascist terror groups "junior varsity" and where extremist depravities are viewed as "workplace violence" or dismissed as reactions to bad filmmaking rather than organized terror, a couple of Islamofacists from North Phoenix, Ariz., shot up the Garland, Texas, cartoon conference, wounding a security guard before an off-duty traffic cop took the pair down and saved the country from another massacre.

Since then, it's been Charlie Hebdo all over again, given the media's failure to understand that this is about the threat that radical Islam poses to free speech.

Incredibly, the left wasted no time blasting Geller and Spender, blaming them for the murderous behavior of the gunmen.

CNN's Alisyn Camerota attacked Geller as anti-Islamic, cherry-picking various news clips to make her case, despite Geller asserting that she wasn't.

"Civilized men can disagree," Geller told CNN. "Savages will kill you when they disagree."

Why she should be on the hot seat instead of the would-be attackers and their enablers is beyond us.

But the finger-pointing at Geller kept coming.

"Free speech aside, why would anyone do something as provocative as hosting a 'Muhammad drawing contest'?" tweeted New York Times' Rukmini Callimachi.

Free speech aside? From the newspaper of record?

Callimachi didn't seem to understand that the entire event — as Geller's participants repeatedly said in the pre-shooting film clips of the event posted on her blog — was explicitly about free speech, which is now under attack by Islamofascists and which can be demonstrated only by extreme means, such as cartoons.

And that's the heart of the matter. Agree with Geller or not, there can be no compromise on free speech. The attack on her event underscored the fragility of America's free speech, the basis for all of America's freedoms.

Also from Ms. EBL, "Blaming the Victims of Jihadi Terror: Leftist Media calling Pam Geller, AFDI, and Jihad Watch 'hate groups'."

#FreeSpeech Matters http://t.co/VuNE0Estco #garlandshooting #ISIS #texasattack #PamelaGeller @rsmccain @DanaTheBlaze pic.twitter.com/wBagWBGP37

— JeSuisEBL (@MsEBL) May 4, 2015

Rush Limbaugh Really, Really Likes Marco Rubio

Well, I'm glad.

I have a sense Rubio might catch on with the general electorate --- and here's to hoping he gives the big GOP frontrunners a run for their money.

From Aaron Blake, at the Washington Post:

On his radio show Tuesday, Rush Limbaugh devoted plenty of time to praising Rubio in what can only be described as glowing terms. Yes, he said he wasn't happy about the "amnesty" thing, but he also seems to have pretty quickly moved past it. He even volunteered some excuses for Rubio.

More.

NYPD Officer Dies After Being Shot in Face by Black Thug With Long Rap Sheet

Don't expect nationwide protest marches against black thug murderers killing cops. Doesn't fit the left's evil narrative.

At WSJ, "New York City Police Officer Shot In Face Dies":

Brian Moore, who died Monday after being shot in the face attempting to stop a suspect, was hailed by Police Commissioner William Bratton as “an exceptional young officer” who ascended to an elite anticrime unit since joining the New York Police Department in 2010.

“I did not know this officer in person in life. I have only come to know him in death,” Mr. Bratton said outside Jamaica Hospital Medical Center after visiting with Officer Moore’s family and colleagues.

Mr. Bratton called the 25-year-old, who came from a family of police officers, including his father, “an extraordinary young man—a great loss to his family, a great loss to this department and a great loss to this profession and to this city.”

Officer Moore made 159 arrests since joining the force and received medals for Excellent Police Duty and Meritorious Police Duty, the NYPD said.

Hundreds of officers lined up outside the hospital to honor Officer Moore when his body was taken to the city medical examiner’s office in Manhattan.

Family members leaned in to touch the ambulance as it pulled away. Flags at the city’s police headquarters were lowered to half-staff.

Officer Moore had been in a coma since undergoing surgery for injuries suffered after he was shot through the glass of his unmarked police car Saturday. He was taken off life support Monday.

He was in plain clothes on Saturday, patrolling in an unmarked police car with his partner, when he was shot by a suspect who they saw tugging at the waistband of his pants, authorities said.

Demetrius Blackwell, a 35-year-old man with a long criminal record, has been charged with attempted murder and is being held without bail....

The incident that led to Officer Moore’s death occurred Saturday night near 104th Road and 212th Street in Queens Village neighborhood of Queens.

According to a law-enforcement official, Officer Moore, who was with his partner, Erik Jansen, saw Mr. Blackwell, identified himself as a police officer and asked “Do you have something in your waistband?”

Mr. Blackwell replied, “Yeah, I got something,” took a gun from his waistband and fired at the officers, striking Officer Moore, the official said. Officer Jansen wasn’t injured.

Mr. Blackwell was arrested about two hours later, near the crime scene...

More from CBS News New York, "Mayor De Blasio Speaks on Death of NYPD Officer Brian Moore."

Also at NYDN, "Suspected cop shooter has long rap list, including 8 years in prison for attempted murder."

'The Only Thing Better Than Dessert...'

Here's the smokin' Danish fashion model Nina Agdal, for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:

Gun Salutes for Princess Charlotte

The royal baby is Charlotte Elizabeth Diana, Princess of Cambridge.

At the BBC, "Royal baby: London gun salutes mark birth of princess."

'Clinton Cash' Campaign Scandal: 'How Could This Have Happened?'

From Megan McArdle, who is increasingly becoming one of the more perceptive analysts around.

At Bloomberg, "What the Clintons Haven't Learned":

Tuesday will be the unveiling of what can be breathlessly awaited only in campaign season: a book on the Clinton Foundation, and allegations of a torrent of sleazy foreign cash that has poured into its coffers. I'm already on record as saying that the author, Peter Schweizer, might struggle to meet the burden of proof to show that the Clintons absolutely and unquestionably did something wrong. On the other hand, there's a lower burden of proof for "raises unsettling questions that will dog Hillary Clinton through a tough campaign," and that may already have been met.

The great mystery that remains is how this could have happened. The Clintons have known for a long while that Hillary would be running in 2016. And they ought to have known that accepting foreign donations, from folks who wanted things from the State Department, would become a problem for her candidacy. They certainly should have been aware that funneling all of her State Department e-mails through a private server, and then destroying them, would create terrible optics for her campaign and fuel any subsequent scandals. Why, then, did two such tenacious, wily campaigners proceed with this nonsense?

It looks to me like the answer is that they somehow didn't know the things that they should have known. They certainly act surprised. The campaign machine that used to blast away at incipient scandals with the white-hot fury of a thousand suns now lets them fester for weeks before offering a lame response: Hillary's press conference about the e-mails gave critics more fodder, and Bill's non-response response to questions about foundation finances is even worse. The former president told NBC that he has to keep giving high-priced speeches all over the world because "I gotta pay our bills." Coming from a man reputed to be worth tens of millions, who gave his daughter a multi-million-dollar wedding, this seems a bit ... off.

Which makes me wonder if the famed Clinton campaign skills aren't a little bit out of date...

More.

Hateful Leftists Try to Change the Subject to 'Islamophobia' After #Garland Jihad Attack

The attacks on Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer erupted immediately last night on Twitter, showing the radical left's true colors. One of these days jihadists will succeed with their own Charlie Hebdo-style attack on U.S. soil, and the left will demonize the victims for their alleged "hateful" ideas. The only hate involved is on the left, however. Depraved leftists hate anyone who challenges their ideological, politically correct shibboleths. If you speak out, you must be destroyed --- by any means necessary, it turns out.

From Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "After Garland, Don’t Change the Subject to Islamophobia":

Almost immediately after the news of last night’s shooting in Garland, Texas broke many in the chattering class started to blame the intended victims of the attack. The group that had sponsored a contest to draw pictures of the Prophet Muhammad and two of the controversial speakers at the event were quickly depicted as having invited violence by their willingness to offend Muslims. But whether or not you agree with Dutch politician Geert Wilders or American activist Pam Geller, the failed attempt to slaughter them or those who chose to hear their words illustrated one of their main contentions. You can offend any other religion with impunity but dare to speak rudely or even truthfully about Islamist intolerance and you’d better pay for heavy security and/or hope the police are doing their job (as, thank Heaven, they were in Texas). That, and not whether or not Wilders or Geller are right about some things or even anything, remains the only question to discuss when it comes to talk about Islamophobia.

Let’s specify that not all Muslims, especially here in the United States, are violent or intolerant. Most are hard working, decent people and deserve the same respect as any other American.

But there is a reason why humorists fear to skewer Islam or its holy book the same way they do Catholics or Mormons. You can mock Christian symbols, call it art and then expect cultural elites to lionize you and denounce those who are offended as fascists. You can stage an opera rationalizing Palestinian terrorism and the murder of Jews and be lionized as a courageous defender of artistic freedom and call those who denounce your bad taste Philistines. Write a play wittily trashing the Mormon faith and you can become immensely rich. None of those activities are particularly commendable but they are safe. But speak ill of Islam and you take your life into your hands.

Talk about Islamophobia in the United States is misleading since there is little or no evidence that the years that followed 9/11 or even now after the rise of ISIS that Muslims have suffered discrimination or violence. To the contrary, anti-Semitic attacks have always far outnumbered those despicable incidents in which Muslims were targeted. But the attempt to distract us from Muslim intolerance also misses the point.

You may say it is bad that some people are drawing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad specifically to offend Muslims who believe such drawings are forbidden. But the problem is that unlike other faiths that have learned to express outrage about those who show them disrespect without violence, a great many Muslims throughout the world still take it as a given that they are entitled to kill those who commit what they call blasphemy. The attacks on the Danish newspaper that first thought to publish Muhammad cartoons and then Charlie Hebdo illustrated this distorted principle...

Keep reading.

Fresno Man Arrested on Suspicion of Beating Wife Because She Posted Selfie on Instagram

Wouldn't want others to share his wife's beauty, or something.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Police: Fresno man attacks wife over Instagram selfies."

The wife desperately tried to delete the selfies but it was too late. The man "lunged at her, choked her and threatened to kill her," pretty much what leftists do when you expose their hatred.

Despite the Risk on Europe, the Coalition Led by David Cameron Should Have a Second Term

At the Economist:

Why Britons should give the Conservative-led coalition another term in office http://t.co/xDzCprzukd pic.twitter.com/NOrlOeduhP

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) May 4, 2015

Ben Carson's Legacy Among Blacks Fades

He's one of America's most accomplished black leaders, although his star is fading in the black community --- over his attacks on Obama.

An interesting piece, at WaPo, "As Ben Carson bashes Obama, many blacks see a hero's legacy fade."

Also, "Ben Carson announces presidential campaign."

Police Audio: Shooting at Mohammed Cartoon Art Show in Garland, Texas

At Telegraph UK.

Plus, at Rebel Media, "Garland TX Mohammed Cartoon Contest Shooting: First report," and "Garland Texas Mohammed Cartoon Contest Shooting (Video 2)." Also, "Garland TX Mohammed Cartoon Contest Shooting (Video 3)."