ROGER SIMON: From El Paso to Antifa to LA: America the Insane.

Predictably, Beto O’Rourke fairly sprinted down to his hometown of El Paso to blame Donald Trump for the city’s mass murders in the hope of reigniting the Texan’s failing presidential campaign. But if you read the gunman’s manifesto, you would find the murderer as much in agreement, possibly more so, with Elizabeth Warren and O’Rourke himself than with Trump. The shooter wants universal healthcare and a guaranteed income. He also wants to kill Mexicans and to partition the country into equal race-based sections, a kind of identity politics taken to the nth power, not that any of this matters. The man is clearly insane, as was the now-deceased Dayton killer who was reportedly a Democrat and a Satanist, planning on voting for Warren, as well as, of course, being mentally ill. . . .

This is obviously not politics in any rational sense, although we are hearing endless political statements from pols anxious to exploit the tragedy. It’s about craziness. An epidemic is sweeping the country and has been for some time. Mass shootings are only one manifestation, although arguably the most horrible and extreme one.

It may not immediately seem to be so, but the expanding homeless populations all over the streets of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle are another salient example. These people are hugely disturbed, unwilling to live in shelters, some quite well-equipped, that have been built for them. They prefer to live in tents more hospitable to their lifestyle that frequently involves drugs and to be left alone with their delusions while defecating on the sidewalks. Neighborhoods are being destroyed as a result.

And then there’s Antifa. Is running around in masked costumes smashing windows and beating people in the name of fighting “fascism” an example of sanity or derangement? Obviously the latter. Antifa is yet another tragedy waiting to happen. Their mirror images, white supremacist groups, are similar manifestations of severe emotional disturbance with obvious violent implications.

All these people and groups are connected by their high level of psychological disturbance. Their number is small, even tiny, compared to the total population, but our population is approaching a giant 330 million. If only one-tenth of one percent of that number is seriously disturbed, that’s 330,000 dangerous nut cases.

Yes, as I’ve said, society doesn’t just seem to be growing crazier — it actually is growing crazier. But then, these are the Crazy Years.

CLOUDFLARE SHUTS DOWN SERVICE FOR 8CHAN AS A TERRORIST SITE. “We just sent notice that we are terminating 8chan as a customer effective at midnight tonight Pacific Time. The rationale is simple: they have proven themselves to be lawless and that lawlessness has caused multiple tragic deaths. Even if 8chan may not have violated the letter of the law in refusing to moderate their hate-filled community, they have created an environment that revels in violating its spirit.”

Prediction: This will not help, and there will be a slippery slope as the usual woke idiots will be encouraged to demand bans of other sites they dislike. Will Cloudflare be strong enough to resist those? I doubt it, personally, but I’d love to be wrong.

NEW YORK TIMES: WHY ARE WHITE MEN SO PARANOID AND UNHAPPY WITH THE CULTURE?

ALSO NEW YORK TIMES: Requiem For White Men. And yet even this sorry Maureen Dowd piece winds up being nostalgic for what’s lost: “He reflects many of the values that America once proudly stood for: toughness without belligerence, charm without smarminess, loyalty without question. He is masculine yet chivalrous.”

All the stuff that the Dowds of the world wanted to extinguish — because, you know, chivalry was a system, one that demanded certain behaviors of women as well as men. And demanding behaviors of women might limit their options, or hurt their self esteem, or make them regret their life choices, all things that are not allowed.

FLASHBACK: Larry Correia: My Opinion On Gun Control.

IF TRUE, DAYTON INCIDENT TO BE MEMORY HOLED IN 3…2…1…: The Dayton Shooter Was a Satanist, Leftist-Socialist, and Bernie/Warren Fan, Supported Antifa.

Earlier: Bernie Bro James T. Hodgkinson, Attempted Assassin Of Steve Scalise, Already Being Erased From History. And additional examples of leftist violence and eliminationist rhetoric at the link.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Dayton Shooter Connor Betts: Twitter Posts on Being a Leftist, Guns. “Kill every fascist.”

Related: El Paso Shooter Wanted To Kill People To Save Environment.

OPEN THREAD: Conduct yourselves in a manner opposite to the Democratic Socialists of America at their convention this weekend:

THEY SAY THAT AS IF IT’S A BAD THING: Boris Johnson’s cabinet choices point to assertive policy from UK government.

NOW DO BACON: Countries with more butter have happier citizens.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

Shot: Trump says cities are ‘a mess.’ They’re actually enjoying a golden age.

—The Washington Post, yesterday.

Chaser: 14 Baltimore neighborhoods have lower life expectancies than North Korea.

—The Washington Post, April 30, 2015. 

Way back in 2015, when the Washington Post was racist, to coin an Instaphrase.

Hangover: Chicago shootings leave 47 shot, 4 fatally; Mt. Sinai Hospital closes emergency room.

Chicago’s ABC affiliate, today.

LAMBORGHINIS, BURKAS, SEX PARTY INVITES AND ‘CHOP CHOP SQUARE:’ A New York Lawyer’s 15 Years In The Middle East. In Qatar, oil sheikhs, edgy western ex-pats, an image-obsessed native middle class and Indian laborers working in modern slavery come together in the desert.

FLASHBACK: How ‘elite overproduction’ and ‘lawyer glut’ could ruin the U.S. “The problem with the elites is they’re not that elite, and growing numbers spur intense rivalries that spark ideological polarization and bitter political divisions. . . . Elite overproduction generally leads to more intra-elite competition that gradually undermines the spirit of cooperation, which is followed by ideological polarization and fragmentation of the political class. This happens because the more contenders there are, the more of them end up on the losing side. A large class of disgruntled elite-wannabes, often well-educated and highly capable, has been denied access to elite positions. Consider the antebellum U.S.”

A friend on Facebook points out the connection with Pareto’s theory of revolutions as elite turnover.

Possibly related: Obama orchestrated a massive transfer of wealth to the 1 percent.

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GOOD: Trump offers condolences in wake of dual mass shootings: ‘Hate has no place in our country.’

As he said in his inaugural address, when your heart is filled with patriotism, there’s no room for hate. Which is why we should demand that our institutions promote patriotism. Basically, if they don’t, people will die.

OH, WE KNEW THEY WERE LYING WHEN THEY SAID OTHERWISE: Vox Confirms That, Yes, They Do Want To Take Our Guns.

DISPATCHES FROM THE MEMORY HOLE: Now, why does this premise seem just a bit flimsy? WaPo columnist says it’s time for the media to choose sides:

Washington Post columnist Margaret Sullivan says the time is now for members of the national media to choose sides and become pro-gun control.

Curiously, Sullivan had no problem choosing sides when she declared Fox News “An American Plague” in March. Not to mention her claim today that the media must (the “gasp” is a nice touch) choose sides is pretty rich coming from someone employed by a newspaper that through its then-subsidiary publication declared “We Are Are Socialists Now” on the eve of Obama’s inauguration in early 2009. Two years later, the Post itself then rushed to smear Sarah Palin and declare her clip art the magical driving force behind the shooting of then-Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 24 others (including a Bush #41-appointed federal judge who was quickly airbrushed out of the story to avoid muddying the narrative).

Related: The left’s big blame game after El Paso: Guns, Trump, white supremacy.

LOGAN COOK: The problem with importing drugs from Canada.

FOREIGN INFLUENCE: Senator Josh Hawley Reveals the Nasty Truth Behind Confucius Institutes.

Related: While Everyone Is Distracted By Russia, Chinese Spying And Influence Runs Wild. But it’s not just China.

OLD AND BUSTED: DC councilman: Hey, sorry for that whole “Jews control the weather to own the cities” thing.

—Headline by Ed Morrissey, Hot Air, March 19, 2018.

The New Hotness? Climate Change: Is It Good for the Jews?

—Headline by Steve Hayward at Power Line today, who asks, “Now just how will Ilhan Omar, AOC, and the rest of The Squad carry on with their Green Nude Eel once they find out it is a central Jewish cause and would help Israel?”

HEY, TV PRODUCERS, CHECK OUT THIS PROGRAMMING TIP:

I SHOULD HOPE SO: Everyone Has a Right to Call Politicians “Idiots.” And, statistically, a high chance of being right when they do!

Plus: “No, calling politicians idiots or ‘Four Horsemen [of the Apocalypse]’ isn’t ‘inciting violence’ or ‘encouraging gun violence.’ It is urging people to dislike the politicians—a basic right of every American. That’s so when people criticize President Trump or the Republican Congressional leadership or the left wing of the Democratic party or anyone else. It’s so regardless of what groups those politicians belong to.”

Leftists think that others’ criticism is incitement, and their own incitement is mere criticism. Or at least they pretend to think that.

WELL, IF TRUMP INVOKES THE INSURRECTION ACT, CAN THE SPLIT-UP OF ILLINOIS BE FAR AWAY? Pritzker’s signing of two immigration bills an ‘open rebellion’ against U.S. laws, Rep. Miller says.

IT’S OKAY IF PEOPLE LOSE THEIR JOBS, SO LONG AS DEMOCRATS GET POWER: Bill Maher: ‘I’ve Been Hoping for a Recession’ to Get Rid of Trump.

Related: In Democrats’ war on Donald Trump, ‘stupid’ economy still stubbornly good.

I KEEP TELLING THESE GUYS THAT I CAN REALLY HELP FIX THIS:  “Colleges Vie for Resources to Address STEM Disparities.”  But the most effective thing they could do is cost-free:  Stop trying to “help” minority students by giving them an affirmative action leg up.  It’s backfiring.

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