AT AMAZON, summer savings in Men’s Clothing.

Plus, deals in Grocery and Gourmet Food.

OPEN THREAD: Thread ’em if you got ’em.

THE MOUNTAIN HAS LABORED AND BROUGHT FORTH A MOUSE: Manafort trial to focus on lavish lifestyle, not collusion. Hmm. Is the Dowager Empress of Chappaqua living a “lavish lifestyle?”

THIS SHOULD SURPRISE NO ONE: Using smartphones during lectures leads to lower grades, study finds.

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Defense Distributed Sues New Jersey, Los Angeles Over Legal Threats: The authorities threatened the gun-making software and hardware company. Now the company is striking back, citing its First and Second Amendment rights.

AUSTIN DECIDES IT’S TIME TO BAN ITSELF: Austin city report on Confederate monuments suggests renaming city. Well, “Trumpville” has a nice ring to it. Someone should propose that just for fun.

NYT PUBLISHER CAUTIONED TRUMP IN MEETING THAT ‘ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE’ LABEL ‘WILL LEAD TO VIOLENCE.’

As John Hinderaker adds at Power Line, “Apparently the AP did not seek comment from Steve Scalise, Sarah Sanders or Kirstjen Nielsen.”

MAN, THE LEFTIES AT NBC TURNED INTO THE JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY SO SLOWLY, I HARDLY EVEN NOTICED: NBC’s New Anti-NRA Attack Line: They’re Infiltrated by the Russians!

(Classical allusion in headline.)

SORRY, LEFTY “COMEDIANS,” YOU PLAYED ALONG WITH THIS FOR TOO LONG: It’s the Era of That’s Not Funny.

HMM: Antibiotic Resistance Can Spread Through The Air, Scientists Warn, And Yes You Should Be Terrified.

ITS ORIGIN AND PURPOSE, STILL A TOTAL MYSTERY:

But for residents like Joanna Galilli, this area in northwestern Paris represents a tactical retreat. It has become a haven for many Jews who say they have faced harassment in areas with growing Muslim populations. Ms. Galilli, 28, moved to the neighborhood this year from a Parisian suburb where “anti-Semitism is pretty high,” she said, “and you feel it enormously.”

“They spit when I walked in the street,” she said, describing reactions when she wore a Star of David.

France has a painful history of anti-Semitism, with its worst hours coming in the 1930s and during the German occupation in World War II. But in recent months, an impassioned debate has erupted over how to address what commentators are calling the “new anti-Semitism,” as Jewish groups and academic researchers trace a wave of anti-Semitic acts to France’s growing Muslim population.

Nearly 40 percent of violent acts classified as racially or religiously motivated were committed against Jews in 2017, though Jews make up less than 1 percent of France’s population. Anti-Semitic acts increased by 20 percent from 2016, a rise the Interior Ministry called “preoccupying.”

—“‘They Spit When I Walked in the Street’: The ‘New Anti-Semitism’ in France,” the New York Times, Friday.

While anti-Semitism has existed in Europe for hundreds of years, often fanned by Christian churches that blamed Jews for the killing of Jesus, a large new influx of immigrants from Mideast countries into Germany has provided new sources of tension, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to German officials and Jewish activists.

The German Interior Ministry said in its annual crime statistics survey that police received reports of 1,453 anti-Semitic incidents in 2017— four per day.

—“Jewish teens enlisted to fight anti-Semitism in Germany,” the Associated Press, today.

The other day I read an article that was first posted in December. In it, an anonymous gay Dutch guy recounted his life in the Bos en Lommer neighborhood of Amsterdam, which is a few blocks from a flat where I once lived (and where I first recognized the problem of Islam in Europe). He noted that Bos en Lommer “has undergone a dramatic transformation in the last three decades, with the most rapid change happening since 2000.” At first he felt safe there; then, biking home one day with his boyfriend, he heard antigay slurs being hurled at them by “a group of young men of Moroccan descent.” Recalling the similar taunts they’d heard back in the 1950s and ’60s (he’s obviously not a young dude), he turned to his boyfriend: “Is this really starting all over again!?”

—Bruce Bower, “Lying about Amsterdam,” at PJM today.

I’m sensing an aura of a penumbra of a perturbation of a pattern here.

IT’S DELICIOUS? What to know about the trendy, meat-only ‘carnivory’ diet.

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GOOD: More Women Buying Guns. “American women are buying more guns than ever before, mostly to protect themselves.”

WHY ARE LEFTIST-DOMINATED INDUSTRIES SUCH CESSPITS OF MISOGYNY AND ABUSE? A survey of more than 2,000 Writers Guild of America West members found that 64% of female writers have experienced sexual harassment sometime in their careers.

AT AMAZON, save on Men’s Socks. Also Men’s Underwear.

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I BLAME OUR TOXIC NEWS MEDIA: Motherhood In An Age Of Fear: Women are being harassed and even arrested for making perfectly rational parenting decisions.

THIS IS SO META: Hulu Rejects Political Ad That Planned Parenthood Wanted to Run During The Handmaid’s Tale.

Brian Stelter tried to alert us all to what was coming. If only we had heeded his thoughtful and carefully-considered warnings.

MELANOMA IN A FINGERNAIL. Technically the nailbed. Her mother had already had melanoma. “Other warning signs of a potential nail melanoma include dark pigment on the skin around the nail, splitting or bleeding of the nail, or infection-like symptoms such as drainage, pus and pain. As with other types of melanoma, any change to the nail is also an important warning sign.”

TO BE FAIR, IT’S A NIGHTMARE FOR EVERYONE ON THE OUTSIDE, TOO: Inside my nightmare working in de Blasio’s government.

When Bill de Blasio became mayor of New York in 2014, things changed drastically. I started to hear rumblings early on. My former colleagues who were dedicated public servants were concerned by a large-scale rollback of Bloomberg’s strategic initiatives. These seemed to be based on partisan politics and black-and-white thinking as opposed to critical analysis. It was very disappointing for me since I had also voted for de Blasio.

Although I was still working in the same social-services agency where I had remained at the end of Bloomberg’s term, my job changed radically. I had no contact with the new commissioner who appeared to be disengaged from substantive discussions about social-services programs for an extremely vulnerable population. In fact, she was much more preoccupied with renovating her office — I heard her new desk alone cost thousands of dollars. She even requested that a private bathroom be built for her. She had the attitude of an oligarch and was disturbed that she had to vet invitations to galas through legal and City Hall. She wanted carte blanche to attend expensive events.

She also refused to meet with the lawyers in her department and she kept the door to her office closed and didn’t know the names of the people who worked in her agency.

Don’t turn around. Der Kommissar’s in town.

KEEP [INSERT FUTURE NAME OF CITY TO BE DETERMINED] WEIRD: City report on Confederate monuments raises idea of renaming Austin, Texas.

KEEPING THOSE STEREOTYPES ALIVE: NYP reports that New Yawk Governor Andrew Cuomo does his best to make “The Sopranos” look like a documentary instead of fiction:

“Cuomo accepted $15,000 from Saratoga Casino and Raceway, $7,000 from Sea Crest Construction Corp., and two donations of $5,000 each this month from the Northeastern Line Constructors Chapter of the National Electrical Contractors Association.”

Hmmm…racetracks, casinos, construction companies and electrical contractors.

ONLY FIVE? YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Five Reasons Hillary Clinton Was the Worst Presidential Nominee in History.