TRUMP’S RAMADAN MESSAGE: Holiday Can Strengthen Muslims’ Resolve to Battle Terrorists’ ‘Perverted Ideology’

RULE OF LAW: Byron York: On travel ban, judges reach ‘Trump only’ decision. “Chief Judge Roger Gregory’s majority decision is 79 pages long, but it boils down a single point: It doesn’t matter whether the text of the Trump order is constitutional, because the president’s previous statements about Muslims, made mostly during the campaign, prove that it is based in animus against a religion, and is therefore unconstitutional. . . . The majority’s decision, as laid out by Gregory, suggests a mind-bending possibility: If the Trump executive order, every single word of it, were issued by another president who had not made such statements on the campaign trail, the court would find it constitutional.”

The judiciary’s prestige-well is going to dry up pretty fast at this rate.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How to launch your own beer brand for $5,000.

Although I can’t help but think of an old joke I first heard in Napa. “How do you make a small fortune in wine? Start with a huge fortune…”

YOU DON’T SAY: Comcast customer satisfaction drops 6% after TV price hikes.

HILLARY SAYS CHARDONNAY EASED HER PAIN, COUGHS UP A STORM AT ALMA MATER.

And speaking of pain, in-between coughing fits, Hillary told graduating Wellesley students,  “There will be trolls galore, online and in person, eager to tell you that you don’t have anything worthwhile to say, or anything meaningful to contribute. They may even call you a nasty woman.”

Wow, she’s still really bitter about how her fellow Democrats discarded her in 2008 like Bill tosses used interns, isn’t she?

IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Drinking coffee may help prevent liver cancer, study suggests. I’ve blogged about this before, but the evidence keeps piling up.

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BUT OF COURSE: De Blasio Confirms He Will March In Parade Honoring Puerto Rican Terrorist.

WHY ARE LEFTWING UNIVERSITIES SUCH CESSPITS OF INTOLERANCE AND VIOLENCE? Police Tell Prof He’s in Danger for Not Participating in Campus ‘No Whites’ Day.

HE’S NOT ACTING LIKE A COMMIE STOOGE: Trump Launches First FONOP in South China Sea. “For the first time since President Trump took office, the U.S. Navy has conducted a freedom-of-navigation operation in the South China Sea, provoking a predictable protest from Beijing. . . . This patrol has been a long time coming. Along with others, we have been wondering whether the Trump administration had so far declined to approve FONOPs in a gambit to solicit China’s cooperation on North Korea. If that logic indeed held sway early on, it seems that the administration has now changed its tune, rightfully recognizing that going easy on China in one dispute won’t guarantee its cooperation on another. The exercise also sends an important signal in its own right that the U.S. refuses to recognize China’s claims, and that it will not remain passive as Beijing seeks to expand its maritime reach.”

Good.

BANNING LOU REED: The Cultural Revolution Eats Its Fathers.

I wrote about the left’s counteraction to Reed just a few days ago.

S.C. SERIAL KILLER: Todd Kohlhepp pleads guilty in seven South Carolina slayings.

Todd Kohlhepp admitted his role in the deaths of seven people less than seven months after he was arrested when investigators checking on a missing couple rescued a woman “chained like a dog” inside a shipping container on his Spartanburg County property. “48 Hours” investigated the case in the episode, “Buried Truth.”

The woman, Kala Brown, had been raped and locked inside the container for more than two months after Kohlhepp shot and killed her boyfriend, authorities said. Charles David Carter, 32, was the last of the seven murder victims.

CBS News does not normally identify victims of sexual assault, but Brown has spoken publicly about her ordeal. She said on the “Dr. Phil” show in February that Kohlhepp raped her daily during her captivity and bragged that he was good at killing, claiming that his victims numbered nearly 100.

The plea deal keeps Kohlhepp from facing execution, but the story doesn’t say whether it includes cooperating on identifying any victims beyond the seven he pleaded guilty to killing.

HMM: Alzheimer’s deaths are skyrocketing, CDC reports.

PUTTING THE “C” IN GENOCIDE: Hunter College Offers ‘Abolition of Whiteness’ Class.

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ELI LAKE: Trump’s Allies, Convicted of High Crimes Without a Trial.

Flynn has yet to be charged with a crime. If there is evidence that he betrayed his country, it has yet to be presented. None of the many news stories about Flynn’s contacts with Russians and Turks has accused him of being disloyal to his country. And yet a decorated general has already been tried and convicted in the press.

None of this would be happening without some very dirty business from the national security state. It’s a two-pronged campaign. First there are the whispers. Anonymous officials describe in detail elements of an ongoing investigation: intercepts of conversations between Russian officials about how they could influence Flynn during the transition; monitored phone calls about how Flynn had lied about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to his colleagues; how Flynn failed to disclose his payment from the Russian propaganda network on his official forms. This prong of the campaign is at least factual, but the facts don’t speak for themselves.

The second and more insidious element here is the innuendo. Yates never says Flynn was a spy for Russia. But her public remarks to Congress and the media appear designed to leave that impression. As she told Lizza, Flynn was “compromised by the Russians.” This sounds far more sinister than Flynn’s explanation when he left his post in February. Back then he said he had forgotten elements of his discussion with the Russian ambassador that covered a wide range of issues.

Yates’s innuendo is nothing compared to that dropped by former CIA director John Brennan.

Read the whole thing and remember: The Deep State does what it wills.

CAN WE QUANTIFY MACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS? “Computationalism is based on the assumption that if two systems are functionally indistinguishable, they will be mentally indistinguishable. Because we experience the world, the argument goes, a digital computer that is functionally equivalent to us would necessarily also experience the world as we do—that is, it would also be conscious. But is this assumption warranted? To answer such a question, we need a principled, quantitative theory of what consciousness is and what it takes for a physical system to have it.”

I wrote a song once called Shut Up And Compute! but I’m not sure I actually adhere to that philosophy, whether in physics or in AI.

THE WINE-GLASS CEILING: Hillary on handling defeat: “Chardonnay helped.”

But maybe some of it went down the wrong way: Hillary Clinton has a coughing fit while delivering Wellesley graduation speech.

HAVE YOU HUGGED A FRACKER TODAY? Gasoline prices ahead of Memorial Day are higher than 2016, but second lowest since 2009.

ANN ALTHOUSE CORRECTS JAKE TAPPER:

The Constitution protects freedom of speech and freedom of the press not just for reporters, but for everyone. And the Constitution guarantees due process for the criminally accused. Someone who would “strongly condemn a politician committing assault on a reporter” might also demonstrate a love of constitutional values by refraining from assuming that a particular individual accused of committing a crime is guilty. The hesitation to condemn Gianforte — I believe, even though I averted my eyes from yesterday’s swarming and feasting — had to do with a fear that an audiotape was being exploited and possibly distorted to raise a sudden frenzy just as an election was occurring.

You talk about courage, but jumping into a frenzied mob isn’t a mark of courage. Show me everyone who without hesitation condemned Gianforte, and I’d like to know whether he or she either: 1. Wanted the Republican to lose the election, or 2. Was afraid of getting attacked for endorsing violence. Is there anyone left? Show me the man or woman of true courage.

You can forgive people for believing that any last-minute pile-on directed at at GOP candidate is probably a hoax, because it’s so often the case — and the news media, functioning as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, are not to be counted on for accuracy.

SKYNET (OR MAYBE HOWARD WOLOWITZ) SMILES: Meet the Most Nimble-Fingered Robot Yet.