CHANGE: U.S.-led coalition confirms Marines deploy to Syria.

The U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State confirmed on Thursday the deployment of additional U.S. forces to Syria to accelerate the defeat of Islamic State in its Syrian base of operations at Raqqa city.

Coalition spokesman U.S. Air Force Colonel John Dorrian said the additional forces would be working with local partners in Syria – the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Syrian Arab Coalition – and would not have a frontline role.

The SDF includes the Kurdish YPG militia.

The additional forces that had arrived in “the last few days” comprised a Marines artillery unit and Army Rangers.

“We are talking about an additional 400 or so forces in total, and they will be there for a temporary period,” Dorrian said by telephone. The deployment was on top of an existing 500 U.S. forces already in Syria, he said.

Look for headlines with the words “quagmire” and “grim milestone” in five… four… three…

More seriously, Reuters headlined their writeup with “Turkey’s Syria plans face setbacks as Kurds see more U.S. support.” That seems like the smart — and right — thing to do.

Erdogan’s ambitions are now getting squeezed by Washington from one side and by Moscow from the other.

THE HILL: Senators want warrants, court orders for any Trump wiretapping.

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) are requesting the Justice Department and FBI hand over any potential applications for a warrant to wiretap the Trump campaign.

“We request that the Department of Justice provide us copies of any warrant applications and court orders … related to wiretaps of President Trump, the Trump Campaign, or Trump Tower,” the two senators wrote in a letter to Dana Boente, the acting deputy attorney general, and FBI Director James Comey.

Of course, there may not have been warrants.

HMM: Border Patrol apprehensions plummet as Trump turns up heat.

U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions have dropped 40 percent since Donald Trump was sworn into office and issued a series of executive orders that have fueled the perceptions that migrants are unwelcome in the United States.

The number of people apprehended in February, 18,762, was dramatically lower than the 31,578 detained in January.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said the Border Patrol typically sees a 10 to 20 percent increase starting in January. The drop this year makes February’s one of the lowest apprehension totals in at least the last five years.

“This trend is encouraging because it means many fewer people are putting themselves and their families at risk of exploitation, assault and injury by human traffickers and the physical dangers of the treacherous journey north,” Kelly said in a statement.

I thought it was illegal aliens, not “migrants,” that a wall was being built to stop.

HAVE YOU HUGGED A FRACKER TODAY? Here’s why U.S. oil data should rattle OPEC nerves.

Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries have been concerned that rising U.S. crude output will offset OPEC-led efforts to ease a glut of global crude and raise oil prices.

“Market participants must begin to wonder how sustainable some of this production growth will be as recent trends, if persistent, could disrupt the narrative of a swift market rebalance” between global supply and demand, said Starkey.

Saudi Arabia’s energy minister recently stated that the Saudis have borne “most of the production cuts and requested more cooperation,” noted Macaluso.

Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said at the annual CERAWeek conference this week that he was surprised by the speed at which operators have returned to U.S. shale basins, according to The Wall Street Journal. But he said that his country welcomes shale investments because more spending will be needed to meet demand in the coming years.

al-Falih would probably prefer that it were just Saudi wells supplying the increased demand.

DAVID BERNSTEIN: The great anti-Semitism panic of 2017. “There is also a general sense among Jews, at least liberal Jews, that Trump’s supporters are significantly more anti-Semitic than the public at large. I have many times asked for empirical evidence that supports this proposition, and have so far come up empty. I don’t rule out the possibility that it’s true, but there doesn’t seem to be any survey or other evidence supporting it. Given that American subgroups with the highest proportions of anti-Semites — African Americans, first-generation Hispanic immigrants, Muslims and high school dropouts — are strong Democratic constituencies (though the latter group appears to have gone narrowly for Trump this time), one certainly can’t simply presume that Trump has a disproportionate number of anti-Semitic supporters. Often living in a blue bubble, liberal Jews easily can panic when they don’t know anyone who voted for the other side’s candidate(s), and can assume the worst about the other side’s supporters. . . . The irony of all this is that if you talk privately to those who work in the Jewish organization world, many will confide that the greatest threat to the security of the American Jewish community is ‘changing demographics,’ which is a euphemism for a growing population of Arab migrants to the United States. Anti-Semitism is rife in the Arab world, with over 80 percent of the public holding strongly anti-Semitic views in many countries.”

DEEP STATE UPDATE: Lawmakers probe claim DOJ aided Iraqi terror suspect days before November election.

Federal lawmakers are investigating the possibility that senior Department of Justice officials interfered in a terrorism probe involving a refugee just prior to the November election in an effort to deny campaign momentum to Donald Trump, Fox News has learned.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has launched a formal inquiry into the Texas, case, in which a terror suspect’s pending arrest was allegedly spiked just over a week before the election. Trump had run on a tough-on-terror platform and had been critical of President Obama’s refugee policy.

“When [Joint Terrorism Task Force] and the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Western District of Texas sought to prosecute this refugee, the local law enforcement and prosecutors allegedly ‘met resistance’ from officials within the National Security Division’s Counter Terrorism section in Washington DC,” Committee chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said in a March 6 letter to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

The Obama Administration’s politicization of the federal bureaucracy is a toxic legacy. How will we detoxify it?

Also, it would be fun to see a “Deep State Update” show on YouTube, modeled on the old “Red State Update.”

BE FAIR, IT WAS ACTUALLY A DAY WITHOUT STALINIST FELLOW-TRAVELERS: A Day Without Women.

LET THEM EAT FREEDOM: Food, Virtue Signalling, and Narcissistic Supply Part II.

IT’S EITHER A MYSTERY, OR THEY’RE ALL RUSSIAN AGENTS: If Trump Is a Russian Agent, How Come the Village Voice’s Gossip Columnist, Who Covered Him For 40 Years and Had a Network of Informants, Has Nothing About It In His Files?

WHEN I WANT POLITICS IN MY DICTIONARY, I’LL LOOK BETWEEN P*SSED AND PUSILLANIMOUS:Why Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary is Trolling Trump.  (Apparently the answer isn’t “because they want to p*ss off half of their public.”  How odd.)

YEAH, NO DISPARITY OF POWER THERE: Nothing to see here, move along. Tinder reportedly launches exclusive version for hotties and celebs.

I BELIEVE PARENTS DEFER TO EXPERTS BECAUSE THEY FEEL GUILTY AT HOW LITTLE TIME MOST OF THEM HAVE FOR THEIR CHILDREN: Let the Kids Eat Cake.

I BELIEVE HUMAN INGENUITY IS WHAT FUELS THE FUTURE: Caltech and JCAP Discover Solar Fuel Materials.

IRS COMMISSIONER IS SHOCKED, SHOCKED: I’m only surprised he hasn’t borrowed my shocked face, yet. IRS has 7,000 unreleased documents related to conservative and Tea Party targeting.

IT IS AS I SUSPECTED: Communists (The Working Families party is a known front) reproduce by fission and are unclear on how humans work.

NEW YORK TIMES HEADLINE ON JANUARY 15, 2017: “Lie to Me: Fiction in the Post-Truth Era.”

Apparently the Times staff took their headline to be their own how-to guide for the news.

Shot:

“Truth Doesn’t Matter to The NY Times.”

Brilliant @NRA commercial?? It needs to be spread like wildfire! #trumpaddress #JointAddress pic.twitter.com/SsQVVc4bjX

— Tennessee (@TEN_GOP) February 28, 2017

Chaser:

Notice the @nytimes Orwellian headline change of “Wiretapped” to undermine @realDonaldTrump Tweet. Compare: https://t.co/hlOvWPG1KQ pic.twitter.com/nKHru2X7qL

— Chris Farrell (@cjtfarrell) March 8, 2017

Related: NY Times Forgets Internet is Forever, Contradicts January Report on Wiretapping.

SUZANNE VENKER: What would America look like if men went on strike?

Actually, it’s beginning.

SHE’S MORE OF A MAN THAN JUSTIN IS, BUT THAT’S HARDLY A SURPRISE: PM Trudeau’s wife wants to celebrate men on Women’s Day.

AT AMAZON, save on bestselling Pet Supplies.

Plus, deals in Tools and Hardware.

WELL, THAT’S AN ACCOMPLISHMENT OF SORTS: Megan McArdle: The Republican Plan Is Even Worse Than ObamaCare.

YOU WENT FULL SJW, POPSCI. NEVER GO FULL SJW.

Who am I kidding? PopSci went full SJW years ago.

FOR INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY, we need to teach women not to rape.

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CLUE? Matt Taibbi: Why the Russia Story Is a Minefield for Democrats and the Media. “We have to remember that the unpopularity of the press was a key to Trump’s election. Journalists helped solve the billionaire’s accessibility problem by being a more hated group than the arrogant rich. Trump has people believing he shares a common enemy with them: the news media. When we do badly, he does well. . . . We can’t afford to bolster these accusations of establishment bias and overreach by using the techniques of conspiracy theorists to push this Russia story. Unfortunately, that is happening.”

WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, THOUGH: The Democrats’ ‘Red Scare’ Narrative Is Over, Roger Kimball writes.

Hey, the worst of it lasted about 57 days or so, didn’t it?

YOU MAY SAY THEY’RE DREAMERS, BUT THEY’RE NOT THE ONLY ONES: From John Lennon to Charles Murray: We All Want to Change the World. At the American Spectator, Stacy McCain asks, “What can a rock-and-roll life teach us about public policy?”