JACOB SULLUM: Anti-Abortion Activists Face Dubious Eavesdropping Charges in California.

Yesterday California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced 15 felony charges against two anti-abortion activists, David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, in connection with their hidden-camera recordings of conversations with Planned Parenthood employees they sought to implicate in the illegal sale of fetal tissue. “The right to privacy is a cornerstone of California’s Constitution, and a right that is foundational in a free democratic society,” Becerra declared. “We will not tolerate the criminal recording of confidential conversations.”

The right to freedom of the press, which Daleiden and Merritt claim they were exercising, is also foundational in a free democratic society, and it conflicts with California’s dubious definition of the right to privacy. That conflict is especially troubling when law enforcement officials use privacy as a pretext to attack political opponents, which is what seems to be happening in this case.

Shameful — but the Deep State has no sense of shame.

And here’s the kicker:

Surprised?

UPDATE (FROM GLENN):

CALIFORNIA SCHEMIN’: Proposed legislation bans “fake news.” “Even satirical websites, such as The Onion, could come under fire.”

The new proposal bars the online publication of a “false or deceptive statement designed to influence the vote.” Bye-bye online news. On the flip side, this legislation would probably outlaw lawmakers’ and candidates’ online speech, too.

The bill is proposed by California Assemblyman Edwin “Ed” Chau, a Democrat representing a section of Southern California. The proposal, which is likely unconstitutional on its face, was supposed to have a committee hearing Tuesday afternoon, but it was pulled at the 11th hour.

The measure does have a laudable goal, however. It’s designed to combat the so-called “fake news” that filled the 2016 election season.

There’s nothing laudable about telling adults what they may read, see, or listen to.

ISN’T THERE ANYTHING REAL OUT OF RUSSIA ANYMORE? Russian dressing is actually from Nashua, New Hampshire.

GOOD: New Data Could Help Give Warning of Catastrophic Solar Storms.

OFFICIAL: No terror connection in Capitol Hill traffic stop.

The chase of the female suspect appeared to have followed a traffic stop gone bad. A police official briefing reporters said the investigation is in “preliminary stages” but there appears to be “no nexus to terrorism.”

“This incident appears to be criminal in nature,” the official said, adding that the standoff started as a “traffic stop.”

TOM KNIGHTON: Catholic Archdiocese in Mexico Says Aiding Border Wall ‘Traitorous’ “Of course, he takes no stance on Mexico’s own tough immigration laws.”

It’s different when they do it.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1420: A Hidden Cause.

IT’S THE “SCREW DAD” PARTY. WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? The Democrats’ Anger Management Issues Are Terrible for the Country, Roger Simon notes.

(Classical reference in headline.)

HMM: Shots fired near Capitol after driver crashes into police car.

A suspect struck a Capitol Police car and tried running over officers on foot, ABC News reported. The report said the suspect was taken into custody and nobody was hit by the suspect’s car.
“Everyone’s okay but someone tried to hit one of our guys with a car,” one officer told The Hill, adding that there were five shots fired.

“There is ongoing Police activity at Washington and Independence Avenues SW,” read a notice sent by Capitol Police to all congressional offices, warning staffers and lawmakers to stay away from the area.

“The U.S. Capitol Police and the House Sergeant at Arms are aware of and are monitoring the situation. Details will be provided as they become available and as the situation warrants.”

Developing…

NO. NEXT QUESTION? Is the US Producing Too Much Oil?

“BLUE” POLICIES GENERALLY ARE: California’s Housing Market is a Disaster for Millennials.

California’s high-end housing market is one of the most attractive for America’s rich. The market for starter homes for young families looking to put down roots? Not so much. . . .

California is one of the most unequal states in the country, and its housing market is similarly bifurcated, offering both multimillion dollar houses and rent-controlled apartments, but less and less of a foothold for people in the middle. This is a key reason so many working class families have left the Golden State in the past 25 years.

Homeownership is the backbone of American prosperity, forcing families to accumulate wealth and feel they have a stake in the system. California’s low ranking for young home buyers is not an encouraging sign for a state once thought to be a model for America’s future.

Now it’s a model for dystopian novels by Kurt Schlichter.

TRIGGERED! Conservative Canadian MP photographed firing ‘Nazi-era’ handgun.

THE NEW CRIME OF Interracial Painting.

JAZZ SHAW: Killing that online digital privacy rule will come back to bite the GOP.

We’ll get to the stunningly bad optics of this move in a moment, but it’s first worth keeping in mind how transparently thin the arguments against this rule are. The entire idea of “adding costs and stifling innovation” is laughable on the face of it. We’re talking about a rule which doesn’t impact the amount of data which is available and collected or any of the normal processes involved in providing internet service to customers. It simply forces the provider to proactively obtain the permission of the user (“opting in”) before all of their personal data can be scooped off and auctioned off for marketing and advertising purposes. The fact that virtually no sane person who doesn’t wish to be further bombarded with spam advertising or have their private online activity shipped around with even more chance of it being hacked would ever want to opt in for that tells you all you need to know.

And what data are we talking about? An editorial piece from Motherboard provides some of the chilling details.

Financial and medical information. Social Security numbers. Web browsing history. Mobile app usage. Even the content of your emails and online chats.

These are among the types of private consumer information that House Republicans voted on Tuesday to allow your internet service provider (ISP) to sell to the highest bidder without your permission, prompting outrage from privacy watchdogs.

Unlike Google, Facebook and other so-called “edge providers” (who can already see far too much of your data), the ISPs have direct access to everything that passes through their portals when you are connected to the web. And allowing them to gather all that data up, parse it, package it and sell it to marketers and advertisers is an intrusive nuisance at a minimum and a severe security risk in worst case scenarios.

I don’t find myself agreeing with the Democrats in Congress all that often, but Massachusetts Congressman Michael Capuano asked the correct and not terribly subtle question when he said, “What the heck are you thinking?”

ObamaCare is left untouched, but this the GOP manages to get through?

President Trump is expected to sign the repeal.

Dumb.

YOU SPELLED “PILE OF CRAP” WRONG: Lena Dunham Says ‘PC’ No Longer Means Political Correctness—It’s ‘Proactive Compassion.’

People who spend a lot of time talking about “compassion” are usually manipulative and dishonest.

NORTH DAKOTA: In Emails, State Bar Association Members Insult State Lawmakers Over Shared Parenting Bill.

KONY 2017: The Facebook world didn’t catch the commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army.

THE LAW IS THE LAW: Mass. Sheriff: Arrest City Officials Who Harbor and Conceal Illegal Aliens.

KEN MASUGI ON ROCKVILLE: A Rape In Bureaucracy’s Bedroom.

CIVIL TRADE WAR? A trade war is brewing inside the White House between rival camps.

Soon after President Trump took office, an executive order was quietly drafted to suspend talks with China on an obscure but potentially far-reaching treaty about bilateral investment.

After eight years and two dozen rounds of negotiations, the treaty terms were almost in final form. Pulling out after so much time and effort would send a clear message that the Trump administration meant to take a new and tougher approach to China.

But the executive order never even got to the president’s desk. It was quietly shelved, according to sources inside and outside the White House, at the behest of former Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn, now Trump’s top economic advisor.

Killing the order was a small victory for a White House faction that supports free trade and the global economy. But it was only an opening skirmish in what promises to be a long and bitter struggle over trade policy that so far is being waged behind the scenes in the Trump administration.

“Personnel is policy,” but like in any Administration, not all of Trump’s personnel support the same policy.

TRAFFIC CAMERAS ARE A CROCK — AND OFTEN THE DEALS BETWEEN THE COMPANIES AND THE POLITICIANS ARE CORRUPT. GOOD FOR TENNESSEE REP. ANDY HOLT FOR STANDING UP AGAINST THEM: FAKE NEWS: State Rep. Andy Holt Declares NewsChannel 5’s Traffic Camera Citation ‘Investigation’ of Him a Sham. “Representative Holt shot down the local reporter’s implication that Holt – a notorious and outspoken opponent of automatically operated ‘red light cameras’ by third-party vendors as a revenue generator for the state – somehow hid his record of unpaid traffic citations.”

NOW THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY I WAS HOPING FOR: Domino’s Will Begin Using Robots to Deliver Pizzas in Europe.

Domino’s Pizza Enterprises Ltd., the world’s largest franchise licence owner of Domino’s Pizza, with operations in markets across Asia and Europe, has formed a group called Domino’s Robotic Unit to oversee the project.

Domino’s has tested ground-based autonomous vehicles for pizza delivery in Australia and New Zealand in 2016. In November it also delivered a pizza –peri-peri chicken– by drone in New Zealand.

“With our growth plans over the next five to 10 years, we simply won’t have enough delivery drivers if we do not look to add to our fleet through initiatives such as this,” Domino’s Pizza Enterprises Chief Executive Officer Don Meij said in a statement.

Domino’s ended its old “30 minutes or it’s free” guarantee because of the danger it created for its human delivery drivers — might robots let the company bring it back?

REQUIRED READING: Here’s the epic email suspended Christian sent his Muslim professor to challenge her flawed lessons.

I’m emailing you about the first essay in your Rollins class. You recently failed me with a 52% despite the fact that I followed all the guidelines listed, covered all the topics and asked you directly about the problem areas. I specifically asked you about sources in person as a result of your request that the paper be an analysis and not research. Everything I wrote came from personal memory and research or first hand experience in my travels with the government, personal visits with friends, teaching experiences or philanthropic efforts in the Middle East.

Quite frankly the grade you assigned to me exposes your a true agenda which is to silence me in class. As I told you before I’m not interested in speaking anymore. But since you’ve decided to carry a blitzkrieg out against me, I may have to speak up in regards to your extreme bias and not necessarily to the class but to the dean. You’re one of the most incompetent professors I have ever seen in my entire life.

It’s very clear you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. You may have a college degree but you belong in a reform school.

This kid might have a future writing columns for the New York Post.