I THEORETICALLY KNOW 4 LANGUAGES, AND IN REALITY I’M JUST TRYING TO HOLD THE LINE WITH ENGLISH: At What Age Does Our Ability to Learn a New Language Like a Native Speaker Disappear?

CHANGE: How Reason Became a ‘Mainstream Intellectual Magazine with an Unusual Point of View.’

THE INSTA-WIFE ON being a badass. Which she most definitely is.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Democrats Outnumber Republicans 70 to 1 in College Religion Departments, 10 to 1 Overall.

SALENA ZITO: The 2016 election was far from a fluke.

America’s political experts got it wrong in 2016 — not because they took too few polls, but because they made the false assumption that American elections are immune to societal change.

They are, in large part, still getting things wrong, not only by failing to understand a new group of voters who put President Donald Trump in the White House but also by ignoring why they voted the way they did.

When explaining the Trump voter, the media usually offers portraits of isolated, uneducated, working-class rubes who are driven by anger, race and nationalism. To the experts and those who didn’t support Trump, it’s hard for them to see it any other way.

And while the media obsesses over the future demise of the president, they aren’t pausing to consider the strength and durability of the coalition that swept him into office.
They aren’t asking why people in the Rust Belt counties who voted for former President Barack Obama twice suddenly switched to Trump.

But they should. Because Trump was not the cause of this movement, he was the result of it. In order to fully appreciate his rise to the White House, you need focus on the people who put him there.

That of course, is what her terrific book (with Brad Todd), The Great Revolt, does. But here’s a thought: I’ve been reading an advance copy, and it sounds like a preference cascade among a lot of traditionally Democratic voters. Now you’ve got black voters teetering on the brink . . .

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Who is Behind the Sharp Sting of the Babylon Bee?

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Ivies snub conservatives at commencement for third straight year.

Meanwhile, if you want to fight inequality, abolish the Ivy League.

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PACIFIC FLARE SHOW: A Seahawk fires flares over the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt . Photo snapped May 3, somewhere in the Pacific.

REUTERS/IPSOS: Our poll shows big movement for Trump but we don’t believe it. “The Reuters/Ipsos Core Political poll has a significant realignment this week across a number of metrics. Most pronounced is President Trump’s approval rating which currently sits at 48% with all Americans. His number with registered voters is essentially the same at 49%. Corresponding with Trump’s stronger approval rating, evaluations of his job performance across the board are stronger this week from 57% approving of his handling of the economy to 44% approving of the way he treats people like them. On the generic congressional ballot, our current poll shows a +5-point advantage for Democrats, the smallest lead we’ve seen in recent weeks.”

Reuters thinks this poll is an “outlier.” Well, stay tuned and we’ll see.

FREE SPEECH GOOD NEWS: The Tennessee Supreme Court Rejects ABA Model Rule 8.4(g).

On April 23, the Supreme Court of Tennessee denied a petition to adopt a slightly modified version of ABA Model Rule 8.4(g). The Court had held a public comment period on the petition, which was filed by the Tennessee Bar Association and the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility. During the comment period, the Court received over 400 pages of public comment.

The Tennessee Attorney General filed a comment letter with the Court, explaining that a black-letter rule based on ABA Model Rule 8.4(g) “would violate the constitutional rights of Tennessee attorneys and conflict with the existing Rules of Professional Conduct.” The comment letter was incorporated into Attorney General Opinion No. 18-11 (Mar. 16, 2018), which noted that ABA Model Rule 8.4(g) “has been widely and justifiably criticized as creating a ‘speech code for lawyers’ that would constitute an ‘unprecedented violation of the First Amendment’ and encourage, rather than prevent, discrimination by suppressing particular viewpoints on controversial issues.”

Noting the rule’s application to “‘verbal . . . conduct’ – better known as speech,” Tennessee Attorney General Slatery’s comments concluded that “any speech or conduct that could be considered ‘harmful’ or ‘derogatory or demeaning’ would constitute professional misconduct within the meaning of the proposed rule.”

In short, it’s just another rule designed to empower lefty speech police. No wonder the ABA is pushing it.

MATT WELCH: Jordan Peterson Is Not the Second Coming. So why has a generation of wayward young men welcomed him as their messiah? I like Matt, but I don’t think this piece gets it. I’m not sure a happily married father of girls can write the piece that needs to be written on this topic (and yes, that rules me out too).

But a (female) friend on Facebook comments: “I find it curious that so many Peterson detractors focus solely on a single sector of his fan base — those aimless young men who have been on the receiving end of the hard leftist hate-and-blame game and found themselves creeping towards the Alt-Right — as though that is supposed to be an argument. I wonder why it is that Peterson’s detractors minimize or never mention at all his many liberal fans, his centrist fans, or his female libertarian fans…? Does that complicate the narrative too much…?”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: You Can Return To 1950s America Any Time You Want. “To be blunt, if you want to return to the 1950’s that means a one income household. One person is going to go out and make the money, the other is going to keep the home and raise any would-be children. This means you have to major in the right thing and today 2/3rds of American students major in worthless, unemployable slop. So it is vital you choose the right profession. . . . This translated into budgets that were mere fractions of what people spend today, but even more shocking to modern Americans, families in the 50’s had money left over. This frugality required living in homes that had 1/3rd the square footage of today’s modern homes, owning only one car, taking the bus, children sharing rooms, cutting coupons and budgeting, hemming and darning clothes, and not outsourcing your children to daycare. . . . Thankfully today’s housing technology allows you to buy more home for the same inflation-adjusted dollar and automotive technology allows you to afford more than one car.”

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION, NASHVILLE EDITION: Money for flood recovery used for design of public facility.

What did the McEwens get from the government?

“Nothing. Nothing,” Carol McEwen told the News4 I Team.

What happened to all that flood money from the federal government?

Nashville got $10 million from HUD’s Disaster Recovery Fund to start and received another $22 million in a second appropriation from HUD in 2011.

Our News4 I-Team investigation discovered that one-third of that $22 million – $7.4 million – never went to flooded homeowners.

It was used to design Ascend Amphitheater, a downtown concert venue.

“Where is it, why wasn’t it used what it was appropriated for?” Gentry asked News4.

Three years after the flood, Nashville told the federal government they wanted to redirect the $7.4 million towards riverfront development; essentially saying they couldn’t find any other homeowners who needed help.

Uh huh. Nashville mayoral candidate Carol Swain is calling for an investigation.

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY, 1983, THE SO-CALLED HITLER DIARIES–A SUDDEN GLOBAL SENSATION–WERE EXPOSED AS A FORGERY:  In my family, credit goes to my ex-husband, who said to us at the time: “They ought to test the ink, not the paper. Any idiot can find old paper to write on.”  Right again, Mr. Brock.  It was indeed the ink that proved the diaries were fake.

HEROIC SEATTLE POLICE OFFICER FACES DISCIPLINE:  Should the officer have waited for the lunatic with an ice ax stolen from the REI to kill somebody before putting him in a bear hug?  Somebody at the Seattle police department must think so.  It’s amazing anybody is willing to be a police officer these days.