FRENCH PRIME MINISTER: ‘I Refuse to Use This Term Islamophobia:’ Manuel Valls argues that the charge of ‘Islamophobia’ is often used to silence critics of Islamism. Well, yes.

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: France, The Jews, and “Bad Luck.”

HEH: Instapundit serves up ‘most disturbing mental image.’

2016: Ted Cruz builds his White House team.

Team Ted Cruz is taking shape, and the Senate first-termer’s presidential campaign could start before this spring.

The Republican senator from Texas tentatively plans to launch in the first quarter of this year, with senior campaign roles to be filled by the triumvirate he signed last summer to expand his political operation. At the top is Jeff Roe, whose organizational title is undefined but who would be the campaign’s chief strategic and logistics decision-maker. Jason Miller would shape and oversee campaign messaging; Lauren Lofstrom would direct fundraising.

Cruz is in the process of “feeling out” additional campaign hires and prospective donors in preparation to join the field of 2016 candidates. If the senator decides to run for president, he wants to hit the ground at full speed, a senior Cruz advisor confirmed Monday.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure he’s going to run.

RADLEY BALKO: More fallout from Eric Holder’s changes to civil asset forfeiture law. “There’s also a lesson here about how difficult it can be to undo bad laws. These forfeiture laws were mostly passed at the height of 1980s drug-war panic, usually with little debate and by overwhelming majorities. Although most people are aghast when they hear how civil forfeiture work in practice, it has taken decades of persistent court challenges from groups like IJ and the ACLU, activism from advocacy groups, investigative reporting from media organizations and victims coming forward with their stories to get even modest reforms. I think Holder’s new policy is important, but it does contain some potentially large loopholes, and it could be undone by the next attorney general or the next administration.”

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): 7 Years After Recession Started, Only 65 U.S. Counties Out Of More Than 3000 Have Recovered.

National employment surpassed 2007 levels during 2014 and the U.S. gross domestic product had fully recovered from the recession by 2011. But the national unemployment rate was 5.6% in December compared with 5% when the recession began seven years earlier. And housing values in much of the country have yet to fully return.

The recovered counties are largely located in energy-rich areas and have small populations. Of the 65 recovered counties, 24 are in Texas and 16 are in North Dakota. The others are generally in the middle of the country, including nine in Minnesota and eight in Kansas.

None of the recovered counties has more than 500,000 residents.

Hmm. Related item here. “Before the recession, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected we would have 5 million more jobs at the end of 2014 than we actually do. It also projected that the GDP would be more than 11 percent higher in 2014 than it is now. This translates into a difference in annual output of roughly $2 trillion or more than $6,000 per person. They predicted that wage and salary income would be roughly 20 percent higher than it is today. Many economists had similar projections.”

LAW ENFORCEMENT: Police Flashbang Grenades Leave Trail Of Injuries.

AND HE’S DOING THE SAME AGAIN. CHANGE! Obama has proposed tax hikes in every State of the Union.

ELI LAKE: Why Obama Can’t Say ‘Radical Islam.’

VIDEO: What’s Going On In France?

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: France, The Jews, and “Bad Luck.”

PROGRESS IN THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE: ‘Why is Beheading Always in the News, is This Really 2015?’ “If this was Britain in 1975 or 1955 or 1925 or 1885 or 1835, it wouldn’t be in the news. But it’s 2015 and beheading’s on the upswing. . . . Unless you’re prepared to do something about your immigration policy, get used to more decapitation. It’s 2015, and beheading is just one strand in the vibrant tapestry of the multicultural utopia.”

DAVE FREER: The Winter Of Our Discontent. “Historically the shrillness is inversely proportional to facts and the zeitgeist. When they tell you the sun never sets on British Empire (yes I know that meant it was around the world) it’s about to go down. When Neville Chamberlain tells you it’s peace in our time, you know that just ain’t going to be so. It’s obvious to anyone that economic and social factors are running us towards a change.”

THIS IS GOOD ADVICE: By Making A Game Out Of Rejection, A Man Conquers Fear.

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IT NEEDS TO BE AN EXPENSIVE LESSON: UVA Begins to Deal With Legal Costs of Discredited Rape Story.

THE GOOD NEWS IS, IT’LL BE OVER IN JUST A FEW HOURS: Are you ready for ‘Blue Monday’? Today is the gloomiest day of the year. “Christmas is over, New Year is over and all you have to look forward to is Valentine’s day – great times. It only seems natural that Monday January 19 is described by experts as the unhappiest day of 2015. Dubbed Blue Monday, this apex of gloominess is thought to be caused by multiple factors: miserable weather, broken resolutions post-Christmas debt and weight anxieties.”

RACISM IN THE MEDIA: MSNBC Guest Accuses Jindal of ‘Trying to Scrub Some of the Brown Off His Skin.’

TRANSPARENCY! Loretta Lynch’s Secret Docket: There are allegations her U.S. Attorney’s Office is keeping cases quiet. “Lynch appears to have let self-professed criminals walk free in exchange for their cooperation with her office, watched impassively as they committed further crimes, and intentionally kept the victims of those crimes in the dark — denying them their chance to seek tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution in direct contravention of federal law.”

She’d fit right in as Obama’s AG.

THIS IS NEWS ONLY IF YOU HAVEN’T BEEN PAYING ATTENTION: German Embed Reporter: ISIS Plans On Killing ‘Hundreds of Millions’ in ‘Religious Cleansing.’ “He warned that the Islamic State ‘is much stronger than we think,’ and that their recruiting has brought motivated jihadis from across the globe.”

There are quite a few people in the world who are happy to join a movement that lets them do unspeakable things while being praised for it. The traditional response to such people was to kill them as soon as possible.

HISTORY: 31 Rolls of Undeveloped Film from a Soldier in WWII Discovered and Processed.

KNOXVILLE AREA GUN-RIGHTS FOLKS may be interested in this gun-control debate at UT on Wednesday night.

VIA TWITTER, I SAW THIS BY MEREDITH PATTERSON: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy. This relates to the tendency of feminists to attack men who are on the autism spectrum.

Related: When Nerds Collide.

INSTAPUNDIT: Come for the politics, stay for the helpful cleaning tips. The Bissell I recommended is this one, and it really works.