ROGER SIMON ON terrorist apologetics and “psycho-drivel.” “The justification for this extreme bowdlerization by our leadership and mainstream media, I’m assuming, is that to name Islam — and often even radical Islam — as the culprit is to make matters worse, to stir them up. This attitude is actually racist.”

UPDATE: Boston Bombers Fit American Jihadi Profile.

TRANSPARENCY: Another lawsuit filed for EPA official’s private emails. “Yet another Environmental Protection Agency official used his private email account to conduct government business, according to a lawsuit from the watchdog that has recently exposed similar transparency violations at the agency. . . . Federal law and EPA policy bans conducting public work from from personal accounts, in order to facilitate government transparency. In February, another regional administrator resigned in the midst of an investigation into his use of a private account for government work. Before that, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson resigned as lawmakers investigated her use of a private email account under the alias ‘Richard Windsor.'”

IT’S POETIC JUSTICE, THOUGH SINCE IT’S THE CURRANT, ONLY POETIC: Bloomberg Refused Second Slice of Pizza at Local Restaurant. “The owners of Collegno’s Pizzeria say they refused to serve him more than one piece to protest Bloomberg’s proposed soda ban,which would limit the portions of soda sold in the city. Bloomberg was having an informal working lunch with city comptroller John Liu at the time and was enraged by the embarrassing prohibition. The owners would not relent, however, and the pair were forced to decamp to another restaurant to finish their meal

UPDATE: Yes, I know it’s satire, it’s the Currant.

JAKE TAPPER: Change you can believe in? Obama’s bundlers get plum posts.

President Obama announced Thursday that Penny Pritzker, an ex-national finance chair for the Obama campaign, will lead the Commerce Department. If confirmed, she will be the richest cabinet secretary in U.S. history. The president already skipped over her for the nod once.

The New York Times said of Pritzker in 2008, “Ms. Pritzker’s family is renowned for finding ways to avoid paying taxes on its wealth. The Pritzkers were pioneers in using tax loopholes to shelter their holdings from the internal revenue service, and many of their dealings have never been made public.” . . .

On Wednesday, the president named another campaign bundler, Tom Wheeler to head up the Federal Communications Commission. Wheeler spent two decades as a lobbyist representing the two industry groups that represented every single cable company, and every single cellphone provider.

It’s crony capitalism all the way down. You can’t have that without cronies, now can you?

HOWARD KURTZ’S DEFENESTRATION: Dispatches from the Department of That Which Cannot Be Said At Any Time.

Meanwhile, Ann Althouse comments:

This is an important basis for criticism of Collins, who’s being hailed as a hero. Giving up on living a lie is a good idea, but it’s not heroic. Maybe 30 years ago, it was heroic to be openly gay, but even back then, if you chose to keep your sexual orientation quiet, it was still wrong to delude another person to the extent that Collins apparently did. Collins graduated from Stanford in 2001, and it’s just ridiculous that someone who lived in that environment at that time — he roomed with Joe Kennedy and was friends with Chelsea Clinton — would be seriously burdened with backward ideas about sexual orientation. I’ll refrain from lambasting the man for his deceit and cowardice, but extolling him as a hero is absurd. I think that’s what Kurtz might have wanted to say, but he botched his attack.

It would be interesting to know which powerful Democrats, if any, interacted with Tina Brown over the downfall of Howard Kurtz.

Indeed. If Tina Brown had let Kurtz go because his work was becoming slapdash and predictably partisan compared to, say, 10 years ago — which it was — that would be one thing. But just as bringing Kurtz on initially did a lot to enhance the brand of the Daily Beast back then, the manner of his departure serves only to confirm the brand of the Daily Beast today.

Related: Actually, Jason Collins Isn’t the First Openly Gay Man in a Major Pro Sport: Major-league baseball player Glenn Burke was comfortably out to his teammates and friends in 1976—but back then, it was the press that wasn’t ready for a gay male athlete. “The media in general and the sports media in particular found Burke’s homosexuality an inconvenient truth.” They run into a lot of those, and still respond to them with silence.

QUACKING LIKE A LAME DUCK? Peggy Noonan:

I think we’re all agreed the president is fading—failing to lead, to break through, to show he’s not at the mercy of events but, to some degree at least, in command of them. He couldn’t get a win on gun control with 90% public support. When he speaks on immigration reform you get the sense he’s setting it back. He’s floundering on Syria. The looming crisis on implementation of ObamaCare has begun to fill the news. Even his allies are using the term “train wreck.” ObamaCare is not only the most slovenly written major law in modern American history, it is full of sneaked-in surprises people are just discovering. The Democrats of Washington took advantage of the country’s now-habitual distractedness: The country, now seeing what’s coming in terms of taxes and fees, will not be amused. Mr. Obama’s brilliant sequester strategy—scare the American public into supporting me—flopped. Congress is about to hold hearings on Boston and how the brothers Tsarnaev slipped through our huge law-enforcement and immigration systems. Benghazi and what appear to be its coverups drags on and will not go away; press secretary Jay Carney was reduced to saying it happened “a long time ago.” It happened in September. The economy is stuck in low-growth, employment in no-growth. The president has about a month to gather himself together on the budget, tax reform and an immigration deal before Congress goes into recess. What are the odds?

I’d like to see us learn the lesson of ObamaCare — and of the gun debate. No more “gangs,” no more hurry-up votes on incredibly long bills that no one has read. Normal order: Committee hearings in both houses, markups, votes without special closed rules, conference committees to resolve differences. In other words, a deliberative process. If Obama hadn’t been trying so hard for a “win,” he wouldn’t have abandoned that approach for basically his entire presidency. He still didn’t win much — except for ObamaCare, and the bills for that “win” are coming due.

UPDATE: Prof. Stephen Clark writes that he’s quacking like a Chavista:

You write, that If Obama hadn’t been trying so hard for a “win,” he wouldn’t have abandoned that approach for basically his entire presidency. He still didn’t win much — except for ObamaCare, and the bills for that “win” are coming due.

Whatever his motives, and there have been many proposed over the years, one can no longer doubt his disdain for normal order in the legislative process. His repeated attempts, with allied factionalists in the legislature, to circumvent when possible, and bulldoze when necessary, normal order set this administration apart. Others have done so in the past, but none without a clear electoral mandate. Obama and his administration have repeatedly proven themselves more of a kind, in aspiration and action, with the Chavistas’ thuggish majoritarianism than with legislative majorities, and their actions, assembled by FDR or LBJ.

Yes, that’s right. It’s a classic New Left disregard for institutions.

WHERE MONEY MEETS MOUTH: Democrats Pick Pro-Gun Senators to Carry 2014.

DEFENESTRATED: Howard Kurtz Booted From Daily Beast.

THEY CHOSE . . . POORLY: Oops: Dick’s Sporting Goods sales drop after anti-gun shift.

VALERIE JARRETT LOSING CLOUT? Commerce Appointment Opens A New White House Rift.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Poll: 29% of Registered Voters Believe Armed Revolution Might Be Necessary in Next Few Years.

AT AMAZON, 40% to 75% off on Men’s Clothing.

ERIC S. RAYMOND ON lying about rape, and the true meaning of moral panics. “If the rape panic runs parallel to the the now nearly forgotten drugs-and-rock panics of the 1950s and 1960s (and many others like them, before and after) we should expect it to actually be be rooted in an attempt to assert control of or cultural dominance over some threatening Other. And there is indeed evidence that points in that direction. . . . Women like Meg Lanker-Simmons are caught in a trap that has nothing to do with (mythically) rape-minded men and everything to do with the world easy contraception and feminist ideology have given us.”

THE CURSE OF WEARING A 32F Bra.

ONE PHONE CALL COULD HAVE SAVED SEAN COLLIER’S LIFE: The Deadly Sound Silence Can Make. “After two homemade bombs propelled the Boston Massacre into the 21st century, we are supposed to believe Dias Kadyrbayev had no hint of any connection. Had he bothered to use his cellphone to call the FBI at that moment, perhaps MIT police officer Sean Collier might still be alive. Of course, there is no good excuse for why Dias Kadyrbayev did not call the FBI after he entered his friend’s UMass dorm room, along with Azamat Tazhayakov and Robel Phillipos, and realized that Dzhokhar was indeed Suspect No. 2. At that point, Sean Collier is about two hours away from being ambushed and killed in his cruiser.”

MEDIA BLACKOUT: Gosnell Who?

AT AMAZON, coupons galore on Cookware and Kitchen Appliances.

JOURNALISM: Local NBC Reporter Hilariously Denies Soviet Flags Present At May Day Rally: ‘What Do They Represent?’

ED DRISCOLL: What On