REVOLT AGAINST THE MASSES: Don’t want to take migrants? Then you pay.

A top aide to Italian Premier Matteo Renzi says Rome supports a proposal by the European Union’s executive to fine nations for refusing migrants they were supposed to accept.

Fewer than 600 of 40,000 asylum-seekers who were supposed to be relocated from Italy to other EU countries have been transferred since October.

On Thursday, the European Commission proposed that countries refusing to accept migrants should face fines of 250,000 euros ($287,000) per person rejected.

That could turn out to be a bargain.

HERPES: Australia’s Surprising Weapon Against Invasive Fish.

To rid their streams and rivers of invasive European carp crowding out native freshwater species, officials plan to begin introducing a strain of the herpes virus — Cyprinid herpesvirus 3 (CyHV-3), or “carp herpes” — into fish populations.

In a statement released May 1, Australian Department of Agriculture and Water Resources (DAWR) officials described their National Carp Control Plan, which will be developed over the next two and a half years at a cost of approximately AU$15 million (about US$11.2 million) and potentially deployed by 2018.

Research by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has already determined that the virus kills European carp quickly, and that it does not develop in native fish, in other introduced fish species or in other animals — including humans.

Good to know.

RED LINE: John Kerry vows not to let Aleppo fall to Bashar Assad.

WAPO HEADLINE: “What Donald Trump wants to do to America.”

Think WaPo will phrase the headline the same way when Hillary secures her party’s nomination?

DISINVITED ON CAMPUS: The anti-free speech takeover is so complete that now the fear of stirring a protest can determine what ideas students will hear.

Manhattan Institute senior fellow Jason Riley was barred from Virginia Tech for doubleplusungoodthink:

The Obama presidency, high-profile police shootings, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and the national debate surrounding mass incarceration have led to more invitations from schools to offer my opinion on race relations. Many of the students I encounter tend to believe that white racism largely explains racial disparities in the U.S. I encourage them to consider other possible explanations given black history. Large parts of these speeches are devoted to what was happening in black America in the first half of the 20th century with respect to employment, schooling, crime and parenting and why so many positive black trends either slowed dramatically or reversed course beginning in the 1960s.

Students who disagree with my lectures don’t hesitate to speak out during the Q&A. The back-and-forth is spirited but civil, and I have never been shouted down or physically threatened.

Still, a disinvitation at some point may have been inevitable.

The stated reason for Riley’s disinvite? His presence might spark protests.

VIDEO: WHat’s the Right Angle on “meternity” leave? PJTV alums Bill Whittle, Scott Ott, and Steve Green discuss from their new home.

Full disclosure: I’m Green.

THE SINGULARITY APPROACHES: How IBM’s new five-qubit universal quantum computer works.

NIALL FERGUSON: The resurfacing of anti-Semitism in Britain.

Last week’s controversy is of course not really about the history of 1930s Germany, but about the much more recent history of the British Labour Party. Since the late 1960s — the era when both Ken Livingstone and the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn joined the party — a significant element of the British left has aligned itself with the Palestine Liberation Organization and other groups hostile to the state of Israel. Close to half a century of anti-Zionist rhetoric lies behind Livingstone’s complaint that “there’s been a very well-orchestrated campaign by the Israel lobby to smear anybody who criticizes Israeli policy as anti-Semitic.”

Yet Livingstone and Corbyn are no longer the devious “entryists” of their early militant years. Rather, they have become the useful idiots of an entirely new generation of Labour infiltrators.

Remember: Livingstone’s comments were made in defense of two 2014 Facebook posts by Naseem (“Naz”) Shah, who became the Labour Party member of Parliament for the Bradford West constituency last year. One stated: “Solution for Israel-Palestine conflict — relocate Israel into United States. Problem solved.” The other explicitly equated “Apartheid Israel” with Hitler’s Germany.

Now, ask yourself why the MP for Bradford West was systematically using the Palestinian issue to mobilize voters.

It is not that Naz Shah is herself an Islamist. If she were, I doubt she would appear with her head uncovered in the House of Commons. It is just that bashing Israel appears to be an effective way of mobilizing Muslim voters, who account for roughly half the electorate in Bradford West.

Read the whole thing.

And try not to dwell on the fact that a place named “Bradford West” has a half-Islamic electorate.

PRESIDENT ASH CARTER: Coalition Vows to Build up Further Against Islamic State.

FINALLY: Brazil Ponders an Erotic Theme Park, With No Sex Allowed.

PRESIDENT ASH CARTER ISSUES STERN WARNING TO PUTIN: US ready to ‘defend our allies’

“We do not seek to make Russia an enemy. But make no mistake – we will defend our allies, the rules-based international order, and the positive future it affords us,” Carter said at the U.S. military’s European Command in Stuttgart, Germany.

Carter expressed a desire not to start a new Cold War with Russia – or a “hot” one.

But he said Russia seeks to “erode” the peaceful order Europe and the rest of the West have enjoyed since the end of the Cold War.

It’s nice to have a grownup like President Ash Carter running things again.

CHANGE: CNN Destroys Fox News in April Prime Time Ratings.

While you weren’t looking, CNN has been busy demolishing the once-invincible ratings gap between themselves and Fox News. CNN beat Fox News decisively for their prime time lineup in April, and especially in the coveted age gap of 25-54. In fact, the only demographic in which Fox News beat CNN was the over 54 demographic, which is one of the least valuable to advertisers.

Neither was April a fluke. CNN has now beaten Fox News in prime time ratings for five out of the last 8 months. They have also scored wins in weekend ratings and are closing the gap in daytime ratings as well. Overall, where CNN used to have less than half of Fox News’ overall viewership, they now are behind Fox News by a measly 9%, and they continue to dominate MSNBC.

What changed around eight months ago?

MICHAEL A. COHEN: Bernie Sanders declares war on reality.

Instead of coming to grips with the overwhelming evidence that Democratic primary voters prefer Hillary Clinton be the party’s 2016 presidential nominee, Bernie Sanders continues to create his own political reality — devising new and creative excuses to explain why he’s losing to her and why he should be the party’s standard-bearer in November.

Don’t listen to the haters, Senator Sanders — keep making them feel the Bern.

RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: Afghan boy’s family flees Afghanistan in wake of viral Lionel Messi photos.

“Life became a misery for us,” said Ahmadi, speaking to The Associated Press over the telephone from Quetta. He added that the family didn’t want to leave Afghanistan, but the threats were just getting more and more serious.

Ahmadi said he feared that his son, Murtaza Ahmadi, would be kidnapped after becoming an Internet sensation after pictures of him wearing a Messi shirt made out of a striped plastic bag went viral.

The family first traveled to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, but couldn’t stay there long because of the high cost of living. They later moved to Quetta.

“I sold all my belongings and brought my family out of Afghanistan to save my son’s life as well as the lives of the rest of the family,” the father said.

Over a soccer jersey.

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.

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.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: French teacher at HISD school doesn’t speak French.

“Have you ever heard him speak a word of French?”

Nathanial White: “Bonjour, but everybody knows that.”

The teacher, Albert Moyer, said in a brief phone interview that the extent of his French education was just one year in high school.

So why was he hired? To replace Jean Cius, a certified French teacher for more than 25 years.

“It makes me extremely mad,” Cius said. “I feel bad for the fact that the kids are not learning.”

Records show after a dispute in December, the school’s principal removed Cius from campus.

But when he was later declared fit for duty, HISD did not give him back his old job, or any teaching job for that matter.

Cius was sent to another HISD campus, where he said he was assigned to monitor the halls.

“I feel so bad for the taxpayers because they’re paying me for not doing anything at all,” he said.

However, Nathanial White’s report card shows H-I-S-D is still using Cius as the teacher of record.

Houston Independent School District’s Energy Institute High School Principal Lori Lambropoulos would seem to have some explaining to do about why a French teacher with 25 years experience and “declared fit for duty” is functioning as a hall monitor, while his replacement sends students to Google because he doesn’t speak any French.

AN ENORMOUS DEAL: A Look at Hillary Clinton’s Promise of a Cabinet Full of Women.

Thank goodness she didn’t say “binders.”

SHOT: Trump: ‘We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country’

“We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country, and that’s what they’re doing,” Trump said during his second rally Sunday in Fort Wayne, Indiana, referring to China’s high number of exports relative to the U.S.

Trump has repeatedly accused China of manipulating its currency to make its exports more competitive on the global market and has claimed that China is “killing” the U.S. on trade.

CHASER: China, Trying to Bolster Currency, Taps Foreign Reserves.

Beijing has spent perhaps a trillion dollars since last year to keep the yuan strong as investors flee the country, and as the Chinese leadership pushes for the IMF to crown the yuan as a reserve currency later this year.

HANGOVER: Yuan drops against basket even as policy makers talk stability.

China’s central bank faces a delicate balancing act with the yuan. While weakening the currency bolsters economic growth by making exporters more competitive, declines in the exchange rate could also exacerbate capital flight and erode consumer confidence. More than $900 billion left China in 2015 as the yuan dropped 4.4 percent against the dollar, the biggest annual slide since 1994.

Central planning rarely works as advertised.

CHANGE: The Uberization of Banking.

Once inside SoFi’s modern, open-floor-plan headquarters, I meet the CEO, chairman and co-founder, Mike Cagney, sitting at a table in a gray company T-shirt and jeans. The 45-year-old native Californian speaks in a deep, deliberate voice, with an undercurrent of confidence and excitement. What’s he so confident and excited about? Doing to banks, with a smartphone-based model, what Amazon has done to book stores and Uber has done to taxi fleets. “There is going to be a seismic redistribution of market cap in the banking world,” he says. “They won’t see it coming until it’s done.”

Much of America wasn’t sure what it was seeing when SoFi aired a dreamy “Great loans for great people” Super Bowl ad this year. But the high-profile TV spot, in the telecast’s tradition, stuck a flag in the ground for a young company with big dreams.

There might also be a market for a Chapter 11 app for people who abuse SoFi.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: Coalition In-Fighting Threatens the War Against ISIS in Iraq

Hostilities broke out over the weekend between two groups considered critical components of the ground war. Troops from the predominantly Shiite Muslim militias – known as the popular mobilization units or PMUs – reportedly attacked the home of an officer with the Kurdish fighting force known as the peshmerga, according to media reports. The militiamen claimed they were retaliating against an unprovoked peshmerga attack.

Fighting escalated into Sunday as peshmerga troops launched mortars and Shiite militias lit two of the Kurdish unit’s tanks on fire. Iraq’s ambassador to the U.S. described the incidents as unfortunate and in an area “where longstanding fault lines exist.”

An uneasy truce took hold Wednesday, but concern remains.

The rival forces provide the backbone to an Iraqi army that has proved less than capable in battle so far, and their continued clashes come on the eve of the U.S.-led coalition’s biggest challenge to date: the liberation of the Iraqi city of Mosul.

The right time for a swift, US-led reaction against ISIS was three years ago.

THE TRUTH ABOUT PARENTAL LEAVE: There’s no “me” in maternity, Meghann Foye.

DUMB: Obama makes move on ‘smart guns’

President Obama on Friday announced new efforts to speed up development of so-called smart guns, the latest step in his final-year push to reduce gun violence.

Smart guns are weapons that use technological safety features designed to prevent accidental shootings, such as fingerprint activation that allows only designated users to fire the gun.

The Obama administration is developing guidelines so that gun manufacturers understand how they can meet law enforcement agencies’ needs for smart guns.

The Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security are expected to complete the guidance in October, according to a new interagency report published Friday.

The Justice Department is also offering certain federal grants to state and local governments that purchase smart guns.

This is the Administration that couldn’t even roll out a functioning website on time, despite years of effort and a budget unlike any other in the web-development business.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: Assad siege of Aleppo could be ‘imminent,’ experts warn.

A government encirclement of the Syrian rebel stronghold of Aleppo could be “imminent,” according to military and humanitarian observers, some of whom point to United Nations-sponsored peace talks as having given the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad maneuvering room.

If Syria’s largest city is surrounded by government troops, the strategic situation in Syria could change very rapidly for the worse, not only for Syrians, but also for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan—and for the Obama Administration, which has banked heavily on the crumbling peace talks to end five years of civil war and an expanding presence for ISIS amid the chaos.

The encirclement would also be a major strategic advance for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has drawn his forces in Syria, but has also been helping the Assad regime conduct more focused military operations under a two-month “cessation of hostilities.”

Smart Diplomacy™

FASTER, PLEASE: The Collapse of the Old Oil Order.