TO ASK THE QUESTION IS TO ANSWER IT: Why Aren’t We Having a National Conversation About Leftist Violence?, David Harsanyi asks at the Federalist:

The media was happy to portray the peaceful Tea Party as a movement surreptitiously driven by racism without a shred of proof outside its opposition to Barack Obama. You will remember Paul Krugman blaming peaceful assembly and free speech for an insane person’s “assassination” attempt against Kathleen Gifford, and Ezra Klein lamenting how scary things get when conservatives oppose liberal doctrine. Every shooting in America necessitates a thorough investigation into political proclivities of the perpetrator. Is he angry at the president? Did he ever register as a Republican? Is he fond of the Confederate flag? But only when the facts mesh with the helpful narrative do we hear about it.

At the American Conservative, Rod Dreher adds, “What’s the matter with California? I was shocked last week to see the Latino mob riot outside a Donald Trump rally in Orange County, destroying a police car:”

[S]eeing what happened last week at the two Trump events in California makes me wonder if there’s something particularly extreme about the state’s political culture. I am far from a fan of Donald Trump, and I fully support the right to protest him. But riots and violent protests? Imagine if white Trump supporters rioted in an attempt to shut down a Hillary Clinton rally, and tore down police barricades in an attempt to get into a hotel where she was speaking, to shut down her speech? The news media would be in crisis mode, and I wouldn’t blame them, actually: a country in which a candidate running for president has to fear for his and his supporters’ safety at a political rally is a country that is in trouble.

But hey, no big deal as far as our media are concerned. Just like the radically illiberal culture on many American campuses, where SJWs no-platform speakers they don’t like all the time, has not bothered the media overmuch. They don’t seem to mind mobs and thugs running roughshod over basic civil liberties, as long as those mobs and thugs are on the political and cultural left.

While the future is always uncertain, in his latest column at Townhall, Kurt Schlichter is back from a trip in the TARDIS to 2017 to explore one way the disparity between the DNC-MSM’s efforts at whitewashing their own and the vastly different optics the public witnessed could play themselves out in the coming months.

Hint: It’s titled, “Looking Back On How Donald Trump Beat Hillary Clinton.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: University admits paying $17,570 for a dining hall table was a mistake.

The University of New Hampshire now acknowledges that spending $17,000 on a custom-made chef’s table with LED lights for the campus dining hall was a mistake.

Initially, university officials thought the light-up table would allow the dining staff to interact with students and demonstrate healthy cooking techniques.

But word soon got out about the $17,570 price tag on the 16-seat table, which was installed several weeks ago. The school newspaper wrote about it, and other media outlets picked up on it.

The table costs nearly as much as in-state students pay annually for tuition and fees.

I don’t think I’ve seen a TV chef with a table that nice, and presumably those shows make money.

YEAH, I PRETTY MUCH START WITH THE ASSUMPTION THAT THESE THINGS ARE FAKES NOW: There Have Been Over 100 Hate Crime Hoaxes In The Past Decade. “Victimhood isn’t just used to push agendas and win power. It can also be used to make money. Professional victims like feminist pest Anita Sarkeesian have received thousands of dollars in donations after complaints about unkind words on the internet. Little wonder that there’s been such an epidemic of hate crime hoaxes in the past few years, particularly among regressive activists on university campuses. We’ve seen students scrawl swastikas on the doors of their own dorm rooms, send themselves anonymous rape threats, and falsely accuse fraternities of queer-bashing.”

PROTESTERS FOR TRUMP:

“I think it’s going to get worse if he gets the nomination and is the front-runner. I think it’s going to escalate,” Luis Serrano, an organizer with California Immigration Youth Justice Alliance, told the Los Angeles Times. “We’re going to keep showing up and standing against the actions and the hate Donald Trump is creating.”

Even Americans who don’t support Mr. Trump may hear this and wonder who is really creating hate. The spectacles are made-for-ratings cable TV fodder, and Mr. Trump knows it. Every protester who breaks the law or waves a Mexican flag as a political statement in favor of illegal immigration might as well be voting for Mr. Trump.

There’s a lot about Trump and his most fevered supporters to question (as we should everyone who seeks the oval office and his or her supporters), but watching a man trying to wade through a mob that pays lip service to tolerance and diversity, and yet is poised to rip him to shreds because he’s wearing the wrong baseball cap, I know which side I’m on.

ANDREW McCARTHY ASKS: WHERE WOULD TRUMP BE IF HE HAD RUN AS WHAT HE IS, THE AMNESTY CANDIDATE?

Mark this down: Trump is running as the immigration scourge, but there is no way the wall is happening, and there is no way the Muslim moratorium is happening. If elected, after due hemming and hawing, Trump would state the obvious: It would be impractical and prohibitively expensive to arrest and deport 11 million people just so we can bring them back again. But he would also claim that his victory was a mandate for the ultimate objective of his immigration proposal: the granting of amnesty to millions of illegal aliens through a legal process. The Trump administration would thus dispense with any talk of deportations, and proceed promptly to the legalization part of the plan.

Donald Trump is the amnesty candidate. If he had made that clear to Republican voters at the beginning, he would already be out of the race.

Try telling that to the diehard, will-not-be-swayed by any logic stylin’-shades-wearing Indiana Trump supporter whom responded to Ted Cruz’s questions and civil tone with Clockwork Spray-on Orange mechanical soundbites:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tdm4UfdoEI

But it may all be academic. As Allahpundit wrote yesterday, “Here’s a fun idea, though: Re-interview this guy a year from now after Trump has gone down in flames and President Hillary’s preparing to sign an amnesty bill that Chuck Schumer just ushered through a Democratic Senate. See what he thinks about the wall then.”

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: David French: Small Acts of Cowardice Are Destroying Our Culture.

THE OPPORTUNITIES FOR GRAFT, HOWEVER, WERE SUPERB: Dan Mitchell: Obama’s Miserable Economic Legacy.

AT CLEMSON, HOAX AND A COVERUP?

Recently, Clemson students have been the victims of a smear campaign. Individuals on social media and around campus have claimed that the Clemson student body is racist. On Monday, April 11, a controversial image surfaced on social media. The image circulated online displayed four bananas hung on a poster dedicated to Clemson’s African-American heritage. In the following nine days of protest, five students were arrested and the administration mandated new diversity and inclusivity training for all students and faculty.

Some lower level administration even attended and endorsed the protests, giving credibility to the smear campaign. The administration as a whole genuflected to the protesters’ demands, granting the smear further substance.

Since campus wide unrest was the direct result of the four bananas being hung it seems natural to ask who hung the bananas and what their motivations were. The Clemson administration knows the answers to these questions, but has not revealed them. The only thing most people on campus are aware of is the suspicious behavior and activity from the administration and the student protest leaders.

This leads to more questions than answers. . . .

There have been allegations on campus that the student who placed the bananas on the banner in the first place was African American. The implication is that the student intended for the incident to incite a campus protest. If this is not the case, why has the administration not released any information about the race or motives of the student who placed the bananas?

As it turns out, no charges (criminal or disciplinary) were brought against this student. If the act was supposedly so racist that the administration has decided to start assigning mandatory diversity and inclusivity training to faculty and students, then why was the individual not sanctioned? And if the individual was not sanctioned because she or he did not place the bananas in an act of racism, why are administrators and student activists still claiming the campus has a racially discriminatory environment?

Suspiciously, the identity of the student who posted threatening messages to Yik Yak was released to the public, amid calls for the university to do so. Yet, the identity of the person who placed the bananas is being kept a secret. Why are they so interested in this banana vandal’s privacy?

Stay tuned.

THE NEW OLIGARCHS: ‘Burning Man for the 1%’: the desert party for the tech elite, with Eric Schmidt in a top hat; Further Future is the tech-centric, unapologetically luxurious alternative to Burning Man, complete with personal assistants, spa treatments and fine dining. It’s not the 1%. It’s the .00001%.

AT AMAZON, it’s the Outdoor Fun Event. Grills, firepits, portable generators, and more.

Plus, there’s still time to shop the Amazon Mother’s Day Store.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Every Industry Gets Worse When Government Gets Involved. “This is easily provable with Public Choice Theory, and consistently proven in practice.”

Check out this graphic:

I’D RATHER JUST NOT AGE: Aging In Place. “Throughout the country, communities are being retrofitted to accommodate the tsunami of elders expected to live there as baby boomers age.”

THIS ISN’T THE 21st CENTURY I WAS PROMISED:  ‘N16GA We Made It’ Senior T-shirts Trigger a Teachable Moment in W.Va.

Related: Obama not offended by Larry Wilmore’s N-word shout-out.

AT AMAZON, deals on Printers & Ink.

Plus, bestsellers in Business & Money.

TRUMP VS. HILLARY:

Okay, this is something I’ve been wanting to talk about — reliance on “unfavorables.” It seems to me, we’re going to end up with 2 major-party candidates that most people don’t like. The election is going to be decided by the people who are going to be stuck voting for one of 2 people neither of whom they like. The question isn’t who has higher unfavorability, but which one is more capable of getting a vote from a person who is disgusted by both of them. As Sullivan’s paragraph suggests, one is exciting, risky, and entertaining. The other is dreary, predictable, and medicinal.

Hillary is the Cod Liver Oil of candidates. Except that Cod Liver Oil is at least good for you.

WAR IS HELL, A CENTURY LATER: Zone Rouge: An Area of France So Badly Damaged By WW1 That People Are Still Forbidden To Live There. “Since the end of the war, at least 900 people have been killed by unexploded WW1 ordnance across France and Belgium, with most recent deaths as late as 1998. Meaning that the war was still claiming victims 80 years after the cease-fire went into effect.”

MODERN SHOPPING: Florida woman calls out creep who she said harassed her in the bikini section of a Target store.

A Florida woman approached by a man holding a basket full of razors in the bikini section of a Target store caught him on camera, she said.

Candice Spivey recognized Jeffrey Polizzi, 31, last week at the Jacksonville-area Target as the same creep who asked her indecent questions at a grocery store two years ago, according to the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office.

Polizzi, who was convicted of video voyeurism in 2009, could be seen on Spivey’s cell phone video telling her, “You want to make sure it’s not too sheer or clear.”

Polizzi reacted in horror when she asked him if he remembered the earlier encounter. He dropped the basket, ran out of the store and sprinted out of the parking lot as Spivey yelled, “Get this guy! Stop him! Stop this guy! Call the cops!”

Under Target’s new policy, this creep could have been hanging out in the ladies female-ish gendered room, no problem.

LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: These Jeans Are Designed to Give You A Wedgie, Which Seems Wrong.

ANOTHER CIVIL RIGHTS SUCCESS: Haslam allows controversial guns on campus bill to become law. “The bill, Senate Bill 2376, allows full-time faculty, staff and other employees of Tennessee’s public colleges and universities who have handgun-carry permits to carry their guns on campus — but they must notify the local law enforcement agency with primary responsibility for security on their campus — the campus police, for example. The governor said in a letter to the House and Senate speaker that he prefers to let campuses make their own decision.” We don’t let campuses “make their own decision” about other civil rights. Why should we treat this one differently? But he didn’t veto the bill, realizing the political debacle that would have been.

Colorado has had campus carry for 12 years, with No Mass Shootings, No Crimes by Permit Holders.

WOULD HILLARY HAVE PULLED OUT IN 2008 IF OBAMA HAD BEEN UNDER INVESTIGATION BY THE FBI? Joe Trippi: Bernie has no path to the nomination. Delegate math is a heartbreaker. Clinton accepted reality in 2008 and Sanders should do the same.

I HOPE THE MAINTENANCE WON’T BE AS UGLY AS THE 928: Porsche Could Revive the 928 as a Panamera-based Coupe.

VIDEO: CRUZ TAKES ON TRUMP SUPPORTER IN INDIANA FOR SEVEN MINUTES: “At least I think it’s a Trump supporter,” Allahpundit quips. “This guy comes off as more of a parody of a Trump supporter, unable to explain why he likes Trump except that he likes ‘the wall,’ so who knows. Confrontation videos like this are always eye-of-the-beholder stuff, though, so Cruz fans will probably see it as a case of Cruz showing admirable patience in trying to reason with an opponent and Trump fans will probably see it as Sunglasses having dropped a sick burn on Lyin’ Ted, bro. Here’s a fun idea, though: Re-interview this guy a year from now after Trump has gone down in flames and President Hillary’s preparing to sign an amnesty bill that Chuck Schumer just ushered through a Democratic Senate. See what he thinks about the wall then.”

GRAPHIC VIDEO: This Is How Bad the Anti-Trump Protests Have Gotten.

Related: RAW VIDEO: Trump supporter walks through angry crowd of protesters.

CBS TO LET COLBERT BE COLBERT (WHOEVER THAT IS):

But, of course, it was more than that. It was about whether they could pull off one of the most intriguing experiments in late-night television history; whether Mr. Colbert, who became a leading voice in American political satire by playing a fictional character on his Comedy Central show — holding forth before a cable congregation of the converted — could succeed as himself in the big broad tent of network television, whose commercial and corporate imperatives can be homogenizing.

CBS and Mr. Moonves have hundreds of millions of dollars riding on the result, not to mention corporate pride. Mr. Colbert has something more personal on the line: his reputation as a comedic actor who used his longtime perch at Comedy Central to show how integrity, grace and wicked intelligence could inject something politically powerful — and powerfully funny — into the late-night lineup of stupid pet tricks and vapid celebrity interviews.

* * * * * * *

John Oliver and Bill Maher have made their marks on HBO, but their shows are not nightly, and have not alleviated the sense that Mr. Colbert and Mr. Stewart are badly missed in the face of all the Trumpmania. That’s why you see headlines such as “Calling Jon Stewart: American Needs You Now More Than Ever” (the liberal website Daily Kos) or declarations like the one made by the former Variety editor Peter Bart, who said that “at the moment of truth” — this election — Mr. Colbert and Mr. Stewart “hid in their foxholes” by leaving Comedy Central.

It’s pretty odd when you think about it. It’s like saying, “No one has replaced Stephen Colbert, not even Stephen Colbert,” when, in fact, he’s on television every weeknight, just not as the jingoistic Conservative talk show host alter ego he employed on Comedy Central.

* * * * * * *

Of course Mr. Colbert knew what he signed up for when he took the job David Letterman held for more than two decades. He seemed sincere last August when he told GQ he was eager to shed his “Colbert Report” character. The great irony is that Mr. Colbert is still learning how to be himself on television after nine years of pretending to be someone else.

Whether it’s Carson, Letterman and Leno, or Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams, the traditional path to power in show business involves posing as a friendly, often Midwestern fresh face marketed to appeal to the entire country; it’s only after being successfully ensconced in the gig that we find out that he leans to the left. In retrospect – the performer has to be to have survived being vetted by the corporate boardrooms in Manhattan and Hollywood for his superstar TV gig. (Barring that, he will allow himself to be molded into one if he wants the gig bad enough.) Colbert might be the first late night talk show host hired with a C.V. and past history of political broadcasting that alienates half the country, because they know how much he loathes Middle America. Or as Sonny Bunch of the Washington Free Beacon tweets, “It’s weird that a political comedian dedicated to mocking half the country isn’t working out as a late night host.”

But then, those who fail to watch HBO’s The Late Shift are doomed to repeat it.

DON’T TRUST THOSE USB STICKS: Multiple computer viruses have been discovered in this German nuclear plant. I assume they’re Russian viruses.