Kevin Williamson points out some inconvenient truth.

Tim McVeigh was God’s gift to the Left, and the Left will forever keep his memory alive, tending it like a kind of sacred flame.

Al-Qaeda attacks the United States on September 11, 2001? Yes, but don’t forget about McVeigh. Omar Mateen lets loose an “Allahu akbar!” before massacring 49 people at a gay bar in Orlando? Yes, but remember McVeigh. Salman Abedi and his pack of “lone” wolves get a jump on Ramadan by nail-bombing a bunch of little girls and their grandmothers at a concert in Manchester? Terrible, of course, but let us not forget about the real threat: right-wing terrorism on the McVeigh model.

…

We were, impossible as it sounds to say it, in one sense lucky to have al-Qaeda as our main terrorist threat in the years immediately following September 11, 2001. Al-Qaeda was, as an ideological matter, focused on spectacular attacks when it came to the West, desiring each to be more dramatic than the last. Osama bin Laden et al. found 9/11 difficult to follow up on, especially with U.S. forces hunting them down in their safe havens. The Islamic State has no such ideological limitation, and it is happy to bomb a concert here and behead a hostage there. The mullahs in Iran may dream of a nuclear Armageddon, but the Islamic State would be perfectly satisfied with a permanent intifada being fought in every Western city of any consequence.

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Scientists are worried that in 100 years, the effect on global temperature might almost be measurable, if the USA pulls out of the Paris Agreement.

Time to panic.

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But of course the ‘consensus’ on Global Warming is incontrovertible.

Don Boudreaux, a Real Economist, explains the nature of reality to some who Really Need it.

For the first time I see something that I don’t recall seeing in the past – namely, economists who endorse free trade are often criticized, as they are here, for not being emotional or psychological or spiritual therapists.

I have nothing against such therapists.  I have nothing against people who use such therapists.  Such therapists, I’m sure, often do genuine good for those suffering loss, grief, anguish, anger, anxiety, fear, or depression.  But I’m an economist and not a therapist.  My job is to address people’s actual concerns insofar as these concerns are about how the economy actually works and what are the likely consequences of government interventions.  My job is not to sugar coat reality.  My job is not to hide reality from the public.  And it certainly isn’t to distort reality.  (Politicians and media personalities do quite enough of that.)

A favorite cliché of the proglodyte Left is ‘We don’t care how much you know until we know how much you care.’ Such people are morons who put ‘feeling’ ahead of ‘thinking’, which results as you see them in places where the proglodyte Left rule, from the Left Coast to Venezuela. Those who feel first and think later are responsible for a lot of the suffering in this world, not least because they feel free to oppress people who don’t agree with them and act the same way. These Care Bares are the ones that encourage stupid shit, like crossing the Mediterranean in a makeshift boat in the hopes of getting a free ride once they get to Europe, and evil shit, like encouraging a young mother to kill her child so that she is spared from dealing with the consequences of her own thoughtlessness.

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An international journal was forced to apologize Thursday after it featured no black writers in its volume on the Black Lives Matter movement.

There is no escaping Identity Politics under the Narrative. Obviously only black people are qualified to talk about black issues (even though black people are perfectly qualified to talk about white people; nay, encouraged to do so).

Goodin added that the journal would take extra steps to avoid a mistake like this in the future. The journals will try to add two black editors to the editorial board, because the journal doesn’t have any.

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Our English correspondent Seneca III sends his observations about the official response to last Monday’s jihad massacre in Manchester.

Read it.

When you read it, of course, you discover that ‘the Hate’ means ‘stuff contrary to the Narrative’.

A more accurate title would have been ‘How Facebook Can Fight the Hate and Learn to Love Big Brother’.

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If you’re interested in that sort of thing.

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The amount of censorship on the Internet seems to be increasing. Most of it is not implemented overtly by Western governments — with Germany being a notable exception — but by supposedly private outfits. Facebook and Twitter hold near-monopolies in their specific markets, so that when they decide to censor, their actions are as effective as a government clampdown. And in Germany, of course, the government actually requires them to censor. Geert Wilder’s account was recently blocked in Germany, presumably in obedience to Angela Merkel’s orders.

But Twitter is quite willing to institute censorship on its own initiative, as in the recent case when the account for WorldNet Daily was suspended. If your opinions veer too far from the Narrative, and you become prominent enough that your tweets and posts are often “trending”, then in all likelihood you will eventually be squashed.

Check Scott Adams’ blog where he talks about getting shadowbanned on Twitter.

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I’ll start with a question: What is good writing?

It depends on what country you’re from. We all know what’s considered “good writing” in our own country. We grow up immersed in the cadences and sentence structure of the language we were born into, so we think, “That’s probably what every country considers good writing; they just use different words.” If only! I once asked a student from Cairo, “What kind of language is Arabic?” I was trying to put myself into her mental process of switching from Arabic to English. She said, “It’s all adjectives.”

Well, of course it’s not all adjectives, but I knew what she meant: it’s decorative, it’s ornate, it’s intentionally pleasing. Another Egyptian student, when I asked him about Arabic, said, “It’s all proverbs. We talk in proverbs. People say things like ‘What you are seeking is also seeking you.’” He also told me that Arabic is full of courtesy and deference, some of which is rooted in fear of the government. “You never know who’s listening,” he said, so it doesn’t hurt to be polite. That’s when I realized that when foreign students come to me with a linguistic problem it may also be a cultural or a political problem.

William Zinsser has forgotten more about good writing than you will ever know.

First, a little history. The English language is derived from two main sources. One is Latin, the florid language of ancient Rome. The other is Anglo-Saxon, the plain languages of England and northern Europe. The words derived from Latin are the enemy—they will strangle and suffocate everything you write. The Anglo-Saxon words will set you free.

How do those Latin words do their strangling and suffocating? In general they are long, pompous nouns that end in –ion—like implementation and maximization and communication (five syllables long!)—or that end in –ent—like development and fulfillment. Those nouns express a vague concept or an abstract idea, not a specific action that we can picture—somebody doing something. Here’s a typical sentence: “Prior to the implementation of the financial enhancement.” That means “Before we fixed our money problems.”

Believe it or not, this is the language that people in authority in America routinely use—officials in government and business and education and social work and health care. They think those long Latin words make them sound important. It no longer rains in America; your TV weatherman will tell that you we’re experiencing a precipitation probability situation.

And that’s a lot of the problem with America today. Churchill said it best: ‘Short words are best; and old words, when short, are best of all’. (Of course, he always did.)

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I’ll bet you didn’t know that.

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Hint: It’s worse than you think.

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No one knows exactly how many bodies remain on Mount Everest today, but there are certainly more than 200. Climbers and Sherpas lie tucked into crevasses, buried under avalanche snow and exposed on catchment basin slopes – their limbs sun-bleached and distorted. Most are concealed from view, but some are familiar fixtures on the route to Everest’s summit.

Perhaps most well-known of all are the remains of Tsewang Paljor, a young Indian climber who lost his life in the infamous 1996 blizzard. For nearly 20 years, Paljor’s body – popularly known as Green Boots, for the neon footwear he was wearing when he died – has rested near the summit of Everest’s north side. When snow cover is light, climbers have had to step over Paljor’s extended legs on their way to and from the peak.

Think of it as evolution in action.

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Teaching children according to their individual “learning style” does not achieve better results and should be ditched by schools in favour of evidence-based practice, according to leading scientists.

Thirty eminent academics from the worlds of neuroscience, education and psychology have signed a letter to the Guardian voicing their concern about the popularity of the learning style approach among some teachers.

Demonstrating how short a life a ‘scientific consensus’ has as a reflection of reality.

The group opposes the theory that learning is more effective if pupils are taught using an individual approach identified as their personal “learning style”. Some pupils, for example, are identified as having a “listening” style and could therefore be taught with storytelling and discussion rather than written exercises.

The letter describes that approach as “one of a number of common neuromyths that do nothing to enhance education”. It is signed by Steven Pinker, Johnstone family professor of psychology at Harvard University; Dorothy Bishop, professor of developmental neuropsychology at the University of Oxford; and leading neuroscientist Prof Uta Frith of University College London among others.

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One of my recent articles predicted that the Fish & Wildlife Service’s endangered species designation for the rusty patched bumblebee would lead to its being used to delay or block construction projects and pesticide use on hundreds of millions of acres of US farmland. The abuses have already begun.

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What qualified a terrorist in training for state aid? I suppose the answer is, anyone can get state funding these days, no serious questions asked.

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I suspect that’s why they keep losing.

As Democrat delusions go, though, it’s pretty minor.

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That’s more fun than I ever had at school.

What is it about the water in California?

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I’ve always had my suspicions about the Welsh.

26 Egyptian Coptic Christians Gunned Down On Their Way To A Monastery

Fearless 70-Year-Old Man Fights ISIS-Linked Terrorist In ‘Hand-To-Hand’ Combat

U.S. military: ISIS largely to blame for deadly March 17 airstrike in Mosul

Marine artillery barrages ISIS during secretive deployment

RAF crew writes ‘Love from Manchester’ on bomb seemingly headed for Isis

Birmingham man found guilty of making pressure-cooker bomb from Christmas lights

US Investigation Concludes ISIS Explosives Responsible For Civilian Deaths In Airstrike

ISIS-Linked Rebels Behead Philippine Police Chief, Slaughter Civilians  In accordance with Sura 8:12 of the Koran.

Manchester Bomber ‘Wanted Revenge’ For US Airstrikes In Syria  So he blows up teenagers in Britain. That makes perfect sense.

Manchester attack: Salman Abedi’s explosives same as bombs used in 7/7, Brussels and Paris terror attacks

Two More Arrested In Manchester As Bomb Unit Is Deployed To Local College

Salman Abedi: Manchester bomber’s two brothers and father arrested by counter-terrorism forces

Manchester attack: UK authorities missed several opportunities to stop suicide bomber Salman Abedi

Threat level will remain at critical days after Manchester bombing, suggesting another terror attack is ‘imminent’

Philippine troops battle to restore order in Marawi after Isis militants kill 21 on street to street rampage

Indonesia’s President orders investigation after twin suicide attacks target police

Manchester attack: Possible connection between Salman Abedi and Paris terror cell ‘being investigated’

Manchester attack: Seventh arrest in arena bombing investigation as man held in Nuneaton

Manchester Bomber’s Brother, Father Arrested In Libya

Salman Abedi: Father of Manchester bomber ‘arrested in Libya’

Salman Abedi’s younger brother arrested in Libya over alleged Isis links

Egypt detains opposition leader for ‘obscene gesture’

Massive Jailbreak Fuels Citywide Firefight Against ISIS In Asia

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte threatens to deal ‘harshly’ with Isis militants in Marawi

Isis-linked militants take priest and churchgoers hostage in Philippines

Mattis Personally Requests More Bombs To Kill ISIS Terrorists

Abbas and Palestinian Authority Honor Terrorists Amid Trump Visit  Well, that’s all right then.

Philippines soldiers battle Isis-linked gunmen on Marawi city streets

‘We’re Not Okay Here’: Filipino City In Flames As Battle Rages With ISIS-Linked Militants

US Kills 7 Al-Qaida Terrorists In First Yemen Operation Since Botched SEAL Raid

Military Clashes With Terrorists After ISIS-Linked Militants Enter Philippine City

Manchester Arena attack: Isis claim responsibility for suicide bombing that killed at least 22 people

Manchester Arena explosion: Terror attack is four years to the day since Lee Rigby’s murder

Manchester explosion: Isis supporters share messages celebrating explosion  My, what a surprise.

ISIS Called Upon Followers To ‘Hunt Your Prey’ In UK Before Manchester Explosions

Man pleads guilty to ‘marrying’ 14-year-old girl amid spate of underage girls forced to become child brides

Turkey places 200 senior military commanders on trial for plotting coup

ISIS Using Humans As Guinea Pigs To Test Chemical Weapons

ISIS claims attack on Iraqi training camp north of Baghdad

#NotAllMuslims Shoot Neo-Nazi Roommates For Insulting Islam

Turkey summons U.S. ambassador, demands to know why Erdogan’s thugs weren’t allowed to beat Americans with impunity in D.C.

Turkish Government Complains About ‘Unprofessional’ Treatment Of Erdogan Goons

IRAQ: After ISIL Comes The Iranian Threat

UKIP and the Islamic Republic of Britain

Australia Says The ‘Game’s Up’ For ‘Fake Refugees’

Dozens of Nigerian schoolgirls reunited with their families after three years in Boko Haram capitivity

Isis tests chemical weapons on ‘human guinea pigs’, secret documents reveal

Austrian Town Won’t Accept Any More Refugees After Girl Is Raped

Saudi king tells Donald Trump Syrians ‘brought destruction to their own country’

NBA Star Says Turkish Government Cancelled His Passport Because Of His Political Beliefs

US pitches plan to Russia to avoid armed conflict in Syria

Women Are Not Welcome on the Streets of Chapelle-Pajol

Al-Qaida Breaks Up With Its Most Successful Branch After Internal Drama

Iranian-Backed Rebels Claim To Launch Missile At Saudi Capital Hours Before Trump’s Arrival  No word on whether they actually managed to hit anything.

Banned Islamist Movement Plotted New Attacks on Israelis

Katibat Dir’ al-Watan: New Sub-Unit of the Fifth Legion

Read it.

Yesterday the Congressional Budget Office released an analysis of the current version of the House health care bill that was trumpeted by Democrats because it projected that 23 million people would “lose” their health insurance if the law went into effect. However, as Guy Benson points out, this claim is false, since “the large bulk of those who are said to be ‘losing’ coverage do not currently have coverage.” Further, to the extent that some who currently are forced to buy health insurance by Obamacare decide it isn’t worth the cost to them, and choose not to purchase it, that is rightfully their decision.

I guess we have to revise the classic phrase ‘Lies, damned lies, and statistics’ to ‘Lies, damned lies, and government information.’

Why should we believe an agency on a topic where its past projections have been wildly off the mark?

Indeed. If you look at the history of the CBO, it has never been right in any of its projections. Not once. Not ever.

Read it.  Well, part of it, anyway.

Hey, that’s one way to get Newt out of Washington.

Seems rather extreme, though.

Maybe he doesn’t consider the Vatican all that important. Can’t imagine where he got that idea.

Oh, wait, maybe I can.

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Evergreen State College students have berated a professor and called for his resignation after he objected to an event where white students were asked to leave the campus for a day.

Bret Weinstein, a biology professor at the university, sent out an email criticizing the purpose of this year’s “Day Of Absence” event where, unlike in the past, white students and faculty members were asked to leave campus to give space to people of color.

Traditionally, the annual event is characterized by people of color leaving the campus to show their contribution to the campus, while white students and faculty members are attending anti-racism workshops.

The brownshirts of the Left are on the march. Yet Trump is the New Hitler.

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Not your Franz Joseph’s Austria.

In the old days, his vicim’s family would be waiting for him when he got out. But that was then, and this is now.

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I’m surprised that a Real Skraeling hasn’t called out Fauxcohontas before this. But I guess a Real Indian will do.

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An American company has launched a rocket into space from New Zealand, the first from a private launch facility.

Rocket Lab’s 17m-long (56ft) Electron lifted off from the Mahia Peninsula, in the North Island, the firm said.

The test flight was the first launch from New Zealand and is a major first step in an emerging market: launching cheap disposable rockets to carry small satellites and other payloads.

The company plans to start frequent commercial launches later this year.

Space — it’s not just for governments any more.

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Enough about Trump, let’s look at something important.

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Yeah, that’s some affordable care, all right.

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Gee, it’s as if he wasn’t some crazy loner but actually part of an organized group after all.

Hint: It’s called Islam.

Reminder for the dimwitted: Islam is an oppressive totalitarian ideology masquerading as a religion with which no co-existence is possible.

It’s us or them, people. Time to wake up and smell the hashish.

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‘Cultural appropriation’ is apparently the new racism.

So where is Portland, the Whitest City in America, going to get their hipster Mex food?

Is puzzle.

Read it.

Nonprofit organization Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed for a temporary injunction against Kellogg Community College after the university arrested two members of Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) for distributing small Constitutions on campus, according to a press release obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

An administrator told Kellogg students Brandon Withers and Michelle Gregorie that students from rural areas have “grown up to be ultra polite” and “might not feel like they have the choice to ignore” the students.

“That’s who I’m trying to protect,” said the unnamed administrator.

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I like it already.

The ‘U.N. budget’ is just a way to transfer money from rich stupid white people to corrupt greedy non-white people; Just Say No.

The WaBenzi squeeze enough from their own people, they ought not to be allowed to squeeze more from ours.

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Keeping people safe is the first priority of government. Except under Democrats.

It’s all about the Narrative, Larry.

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Of course he will. Democrats never met a terrorist they didn’t like, unless he was white.

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Just some Cultural Enrichment by a Muslim going about his business. Nothing to see here. Move along.

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Officials expect the unit to handle around 150 clients per year, only 10 percent of the 1,500 detained immigrants that currently have court dates in San Francisco.

So this is just a sop to prove how progressive and caring they are.

“Mass deportation is against our core values as Americans and San Franciscans,” Adachi said.

I see no ‘mass deportation’, even in the fever dreams of the Left Coast. Perhaps this is like Global Warming, something with which to scare college students and other children but which probably won’t happen.

I guess encouraging people to break the law is a ‘core value’ in San Francisco — which actually doesn’t surprise me.

“Due process still means something in this country and we are not going to let the federal government ship off our friends and neighbors without a fight.”

If somebody is in the United States illegally, shipping them off IS ‘due process’.

‘You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.’

I’d really like to see the LGBTQRSTUVWXYZ brigades from San Francisco fight the Federal government. That would be amusing. Presumably Jar Jar Binks is their mascot.

“Just several weeks ago in California’s Bay Area, after a raid captured 11 MS-13 members on charges including murder, extortion and drug trafficking, city officials seemed more concerned with reassuring illegal immigrants that the raid was unrelated to immigration than with warning other MS-13 members that they were next,” the DOJ said.

Some ‘friends and neighbors’ you got there, San Francisco.

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That’s why they call it the ‘Affordable Care’ Act. The first target of Leftist corruption, as Orwell pointed out, is the language.

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Tipper Gore will attend a June 8 fundraiser to support of Kathleen Murphy, a candidate for Virginia’s House of Delegates. The fundraiser is being hosted at the home of Al and Claire Dwoskin in McLean, Va, according to an invitation obtained by the Free Beacon and published Tuesday. Tickets cost $250 and $2,500 to attend the fundraiser.

Al Dwoskin is the president and CEO of his own real estate development and management firm and the couple are major Democratic donors who support Bill and Hillary Clinton. The couple also runs a charitable foundation, which claimed ” there may be links between increased cases of reported autism and childhood vaccinations.”

It’s all about the Narrative, Larry.

Pick somebody who thinks astrology is a science. Place your bets: Democrat or Republican?

Pick somebody who self-identifies as a ‘witch’. Place your bets: Democrat or Republican?

Pick somebody who has a ‘healing crystal’ dangling from the rear-view mirror. Place your bets: Democrat or Republican?

And yet they are The Party of Science. Reality says: Nuh-uh.

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Say, how did the Post start its story when Obama met Francis at the Vatican on March 27, 2014? Was he the “world’s moral counterpoint to the president’s abortion agenda”? Of course not.

It’s all about the Narrative, Larry.

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Until a few years ago, Professor Rachel McKinnon was a Canadian, and was also a male. Rhys McKinnon attended the University of Victoria in British Columbia, where he got a bachelor’s degree in philosophy in 2005. Sometime thereafter, Rhys McKinnon decided he was a “she,” so that by the time he/“she” received his/“her” Ph.D. at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, the name on the diploma was “Rachel Veronica McKinnon.”

The problem with having multiple Fashionable Victim Classes is that often they start mauling each other.

As Henry Kissinger said about the Iran/Iraq war, ‘I hope they both lose.’

Richard Epstein does the autopsy.

A recent story in the Wall Street Journal foretells a grim financial future for Connecticut, the wealthiest state in the union by per capita income. Its great wealth, however, does not translate into financial stability. For this coming year, the state expects a $400 million shortfall in tax collections that will only compound its looming budget deficit of some $5.1 billion, attributable to the usual suspects: service on existing debt, a lowered credit rating, surging pension obligations, runaway health care expenditures, and a declining population. In both 2011 and 2015, Connecticut Governor Daniel Malloy sought to fill the fiscal gap by engineering two tax increases on the state’s wealthiest citizens, so that today the state’s highest tax bracket is 6.99 percent. Under the state’s tax pyramid, about one-third of the state’s $7-billion budget is paid by the several thousand people earning over $1 million per year.

The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.

Determined progressives may claim the path to prosperity remains blue. But sooner or later, the bubble has to burst. Even the well-heeled individuals willing to pay high taxes for superior services will cut back their business activities or flee when fleeced. Massive government wealth transfers cannot succeed if those whose wealth is to be transferred end up leaving the state altogether. Indeed, in some cases, the departure of just one billionaire can lead to a hole in the budget, as with David Tepper’s departure from New Jersey.

Funny how that works.

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One of the very best analyses of the group dynamic of the Left came from Tom Bethell and Joe Sobran years ago, when they referred to the Left as “The Hive.” Like bees or ants, the Left simply goes into action in a coordinated and instinctual fashion, without need to meet and plan. Naturally the mainstream media is a chief nest of The Hive, and it buzzes constantly on behalf of liberalism.

Hence California’s Bee newspapers—the Sacramento Bee and the Fresno Bee (both long time McClatchy properties)—are appropriately named nodes of conventional liberalism. You could rightly think of them as the Bee Hive. Normally you’d never pay any attention to their house editorials. But the Fresno Bee editorial page over the weekend took note of the spectacle of the recent California Democratic Party convention and found it was even too much for them.

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Oh, ya think?

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Hey, it’s all about priorities … and The Narrative.

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But it has nothing to do with Islam, oh no.

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It’s the day after a horrifying Islamic terror attack, and you know what that means: It’s time to make people shut up about it.

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My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

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Facts are dribbling out about the terrorist attack in Manchester last night. The suicide bomber has not been identified as of this writing, but it is reported that he was “known to the authorities.” Another known wolf; but known wolves generally don’t turn out to have been as lonely as one might assume (as opposed to, say, most school shooters). A second 23-year-old man is under arrest. Time will tell whether he was involved, whether the murderer had support and inspiration from a radical mosque, and so on.

ISIS is claiming responsibility, and there are videos of radical Muslims celebrating the carnage. Whether the terrorist actually had any communication with ISIS is unknown and not very important. His method–a suicide vest or backpack stuffed with nuts, bolts and the like–was typical of Islamic terrorists, and instructions for these crude devices are easily available.

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President Donald Trump’s budget proposal for 2018 prevents illegal immigrants from claiming two major tax credits for low and middle income people, according to White House documents released Tuesday morning.

This seems like a no-brainer to me. But of course the Chattering Class will be foaming at the mouth about it.

The reason why we have so many illegal immigrants is because there is no downside for them. If they get in, they have no problem finding work, they have no problem finding housing, and they have no problem sucking on the taxpayers’ tit for all the benefits extended to the useless of this world; and if they get caught, they just get sent back to try again. Time to shut off the spigot.