SKIN IN THE GAME: A reader emails: “Your post about Missouri secretly sharing CCW info highlights a core problem with restrictions on what government can and can’t do. As the background check proposals in Congress would at least theoretically make it possible to create gun registration, we don’t simply need a law prohibiting doing so; Republicans should propose an amendment that makes creation or assistance in the creation of such a registry a felony under federal law, with mandatory prison time and loss of sovereign immunity. If all the Democrats want is background checks, surely they wouldn’t object.”

Yes, there should be criminal liability, and also civil liability, with each affected person entitled to recover minimum damages of, say, $10,000 plus attorney’s fees and with sovereign immunity waived.

FROM KENNETH ANDERSON AND MATTHEW WAXMAN: Law and Ethics for Autonomous Weapon Systems: Why a Ban Won’t Work and How the Laws of War Can.

WHY YOU HAVE TO LOVE THE NEW YORK POST:

Story here.

MEGAN MCARDLE: Why Bitcoin Is A Bubble. “On net, the digital era has made it easier, not harder, for governments to control the finances of their citizens. . . . Given that, bitcoins seem overvalued to me. People are betting on bitcoins as an actual substitute for money, not a novelty currency. And while I wish the bettors luck, I think they’re facing some pretty long odds.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Administrator Hiring Spree. “All of which is one reason I’m skeptical that you can really do much on the college ‘cost’ front by offering more tuition subsidies. At any given level of subsidy, schools are going to charge families what they can afford to pay and then they’re going to take that money and spend it on the stuff that the people running the school want to spend it on.”

MORE QUESTIONS FOR DAVID CORN.

MICKEY KAUS ON IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT PROMISES: “90% Bull.” “It looks like the requirement that the Border Patrol catch 90% of illegal crossers–reported by the WSJ and touted by both Marco Rubio’s chief of staff and my colleague Matt Lewis as an example of the ‘tough border enforcement measures’ in the Gang of 8 immigration amnesty bill–has turned out to be evanescent, like so many of the other promises amnesty boosters have pitched to conservatives.”

JOHNS HOPKINS excludes black speaker from graduation.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: A Taste For The Refined In North Dakota:

Ground was recently broken on the first new oil refinery in the United States since 1976. The refinery is being built near the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota, one of the centers of the recent American shale boom. Until now, most of the oil extracted in North Dakota has wound its way to Gulf coast refineries by pipeline, truck and train. But, as Reuters reports, America’s oil infrastructure is adapting to a new reality . . . .

Projects like this can ensure the shale boom doesn’t go bust. Despite having the world’s most extensive network of pipelines, America’s shale oil is running into transportation bottlenecks. There’s also a lack of refineries capable of working with the light, sweet crude that’s being extracted from US shale—most Gulf coast refineries are geared toward the heavy, lower quality variety.

This refinery and the two more on the way won’t by themselves change how we bring shale oil to market. But the MDU/Calumet project and similar refineries could make more shale oil economically viable to extract while cutting out some of the potentially hazardous cross-country transportation of crude. The US needs to continue to develop a smart, robust energy infrastructure. This seems like a step in the right direction.

Indeed.

KIRSTEN POWERS ON TODAY’S POLITICIZED JOURNALISM: Philadelphia abortion clinic horror: We’ve forgotten what belongs on Page One. “Infant beheadings. Severed baby feet in jars. A child screaming after it was delivered alive during an abortion procedure. Haven’t heard about these sickening accusations? It’s not your fault. Since the murder trial of Pennsylvania abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell began March 18, there has been precious little coverage of the case that should be on every news show and front page. The revolting revelations of Gosnell’s former staff, who have been testifying to what they witnessed and did during late-term abortions, should shock anyone with a heart. . . . ‘Chaos’ isn’t really the story here. Butchering babies that were already born and were older than the state’s 24-week limit for abortions is the story.”

Doesn’t fit the narrative. I’m pro-choice, but that doesn’t excuse this sort of thing.

CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME WITH OTHER PEOPLE’S WALLETS: Brother Of Rich Senator Elizabeth Warren Lives On $13,200 Per Year. “Given Senator Warren’s considerable personal wealth, one has to wonder why her own brother is forced to live on a meager $13,200 a year in social security benefits. I guess all that talk about paying your fair share doesn’t apply to her, even when it comes to taking care of her own family.” She’d rather tax you to do that.

JOHN HINDERAKER: Good Time Barry’s Got The Blues.

AT AMAZON, 40% Off On Cooling Products: A/C Units, Fans, Air Filters, etc. Summer is coming.

Also, today only: Up to 65% Off SOUL Headphones.

“MASSIVE” DRUG USE AT UNIVERSAL MUSIC HEADQUARTERS?

MAX BOOT: The Iraq War And The Arab Spring. As I’ve said before, I think things might have gone better if we’d had the Arab Spring in 2004 or 2005.

Related: Photos: The Attack On Cairo’s St. Mark Cathedral.

MICHAEL WALSH: Perils Of A Politically Correct Pentagon. “The brass at the Pentagon seems hell-bent on turning the world’s most powerful military into an arm of the PC Police, a fresh field for ‘politically correct’ bureaucrats.”

IOWAHAWK: Yours, Mine, And Ours.

One of the creepier features of lefty language is the application of possessive pronouns. “My” is for rights (real or imagined), “your” is for responsibilities, “our” is for the stuff in my bank account they want to take. Unless it’s the case of “our responsibility” in which case they actually mean “your responsibility.” As the old saying goes, “what’s mine is mine, what’s yours is negotiable.”

Nowhere is this linguistic claim-jumping more bloodcurdling than when they apply it to actual human beings: “our workers,” “our seniors,” and especially “our children.”

Oh, Melissa Harris-Perry? I have a rule. Unless you’re my wife, there ain’t no such thing as “our children.”

Heh.

PULLING A COAKLEY? Ed Markey Plans Post-Primary Victory Party.

ROGER KIMBALL ON MARGARET THATCHER.

CHANGE: Food Inflation Everywhere, But Not A Bit In CPI (Yet).

You might consider strategic shopping.

HANS VAN SPAKOVSKY: Mother Jones’ Source May Be in a Mother Lode of Trouble.

JAMES TARANTO: Slinging Mud at Ashley Judd: A leftist magazine exposes a Hollywood actress as troubled and strange.

Yesterday Mother Jones’s David Corn published an exposé that shows Judd to be every bit as peculiar as her vulgar Malthusian musings lead one to expect. “I freak out in airports,” Corn quotes Judd as saying. “The last time I came home from a trip, I absolutely flipped out when I saw pink fuzzy socks on a rack. I mean, I can never anticipate what is going to push me over the edge.”

Her ideas about religion are odd, too: “I have to expand my God concept from time to time,” Corn quotes Judd as saying, “and you know particularly I enjoy native faith practices, and have a very nature-based God concept. I’d like to think I’m like St. Francis in that way. Brother Donkey, Sister Bird.”

Corn provides some context here, noting that “Judd was referring to well-known stories about St. Francis [of Assisi], who once preached a sermon to birds–‘my little sisters’–and who referred to his own body as the ‘Brother Donkey.’ ” Fair enough, but it’s still pretty weird for a Hollywood actress to compare herself to St. Francis.

Judd isn’t just eccentric, according to Corn, but has a history of mental illness, including suicidal ideation while in the sixth grade and a 42-day hospitalization for clinical depression as an adult.

But the Corn exposé is bizarre in its own way. For one thing, it doesn’t actually reveal anything new about Judd. While the facts Corn presents about her may come as news to a low-information entertainment consumer such as this columnist, they were already on the record. The quotes above come from a public speech, and the information about her medical history is from a memoir she published in 2011.

For another, since she isn’t running for office, it’s difficult to imagine any reason other than sheer sensationalism why Judd’s eccentricities and infirmities would be of interest to readers of a political magazine like Mother Jones.

Indeed. Have you no decency?

YOU CAN TRUST THE GOVERNMENT WITH YOUR INFORMATION: Missouri Secretly Shares Entire CCW List With Feds Against State Law.

ROLL CALL: House Leaders Aim to Pass Debt Limit ‘Prioritization’ Bill in April.

House leaders are planning to bring a debt ceiling “prioritization” bill to the House floor before the end of April, bringing the divisive issue to the forefront ahead of the government hitting the ceiling sometime this summer.

The legislation tries to mitigate the damage of the government reaching the debt limit in the event that negotiations to raise it fail. But Democrats have panned the idea, meaning it is unlikely to be taken up by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

The bill, introduced by Republican Rep. Tom McClintock of California, says the government must pay the interest and principal of its debts with incoming tax revenue before any other obligations.

“It removes default as an option,” said Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee.

Even without the bill, there won’t be a default unless Obama wants one.