UH OH: Did James Comey’s Document Leaks Violate The FBI Employment Agreement? “By his own account, it seems that Comey may not have followed the agency’s employee agreement, which places numerous restrictions on the use of information or documents acquired during an individual’s employment by the FBI. Paragraphs 2, 3, and 4 of the FBI employment agreement appear to cover Comey’s distribution of content he says he created on government property in his capacity as a government official. . . . o if Comey followed protocol and surrendered all government property, including the memos he produced in his capacity as an FBI employee, it would have been impossible for him to provide the memos to his friend. The fact that he was able to provide hard copies of the memos to both his friend and special counsel Robert Mueller suggests that Comey did not surrender them to authorities as required by the FBI employment agreement.”

PHILIP KLEIN: Not all leaks are created equal, but what James Comey did was still a leak.

UM, ALL OF US? Congress Getting Pissed Off Over Failure Of Intel Community To Reveal How Many Americans Are Being Spied On.

Flashback: Ex-intel contractor sues Comey, alleging FBI covered up mass civil liberties violations. “A former U.S. intelligence contractor tells Circa he walked out with more than 600 million highly classified documents on 47 hard drives from the National Security Agency’s archives. It was a breach potentially larger than Edward Snowden’s, and now he is suing fired FBI Director James Comey and other current and ex-government officials, alleging the bureau has covered up evidence he claims he provided them showing widespread illegal spying on Americans. . . . Montgomery divulged to the FBI a ‘pattern and practice of conducting illegal, unconstitutional surveillance against millions of Americans, including prominent Americans such as the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, other justices, 156 judges, prominent businessmen, and others such as Donald J. Trump, as well as Plaintiffs themselves,’ Montgomery and Klayman alleged in their suit.”

Double Flashback: Maxine Waters: ‘Obama Has Put In Place’ Secret Database With ‘Everything On Everyone.’ (Bumped).

RON RADOSH: Is Trump About to Reverse Obama’s Cuba Policy?

SO WE HAVE A TV OVER THE FIREPLACE in our family room and it’s always been too high for comfort. In particular, the Insta-Wife complains that watching it hurts her neck. So to solve that problem, and to test out Amazon Home Services, which I hadn’t used yet, I ordered a MantelMount TV bracket, which pulls out and down from the wall, dropping the TV nearly 3 feet to a very comfortable eye level. I ordered it with “Expert Installation” from Amazon Home Services and it worked out great. I made an appointment at the time I ordered, the MantelMount arrived a couple of days later, and on schedule — actually, one minute early — the guy showed up. He got it mounted and it works very well. I call it a big success.

I AGREE: Blimps Seem Like the Friendliest Kind of Indoor Flying Robots.

LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE: Police groped 900 Georgia students in intimate areas during warrantless drug search, lawsuit claims.

The human rights group, Southern Center for Human Rights, filed the lawsuit on behalf of the students against the Worth County sheriff over an April 14 incident when 40 officers came into the school with no advance notice, KTLA-TV reported.

According to the lawsuit, the officers put the school on lockdown for four hours, during which they ordered students out of the classrooms and into the hallways. Students were allegedly then forced to stand spread eagle against the lockers while officers conducted intimate searches of male and female students, including touching the breast and genital areas, KTLA reported.

The lawsuit mentions one girl in particular, using only her initials K.A., who was searched by Deputy Brandi Whiddon. The lawsuit goes into disturbing detail about how in-depth Whiddon’s search of K.A. was.

And:

In a telephone interview with WALB, Worthy County Sheriff Jeff Hobby said that the warrantless searches were legal because school administrators were present when it occurred.

It was not clarified whether or not school administrators present had agreed to the searches, however, interim Worth County Superintendent Lawrence Walters denied that the deputies had the approval to conduct the search from school administrators, nor does he condone the actions of the deputies.

“Under no circumstances did we approve touching any students,” Walters told WALB.

According to Walters, Hobby had told him in March that a search of the school was going to be conducted after spring break.

“We did not give permission but they didn’t ask for permission, he just said, the sheriff, that he was going to do it after spring break,” Walters said.

Terrible move by the sheriff’s department if true, but if Walters hadn’t given permission for the search, why did he allow it to go forward?

WINNING: First U.S. Natural Gas Shipped to Poland.

Poland just took a symbolic step forward in wresting itself from Russia’s energy dominance.

On Thursday, the first ever liquified natural gas shipment from the United States arrived in Poland, a landmark of sorts in Europe’s continuing drive to diversify the sources of its energy imports. The gas came from an export terminal in Louisiana that was first out of the gate to exploit the U.S. shale boom to supply the global market.

For Warsaw, the first delivery is fruit of new energy infrastructure that allows it to reduce near total dependence on Russian imports, following closely in step with neighboring Lithuania’s move to open its own floating LNG terminal.

This doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that would be allowed to happen if we had a President in thrall to the Kremlin.

SO POST-COMEY, I guess the “Deep State” really is a thing, huh?

THE THAAD TANGO IN SOUTH KOREA: The U.S. State Department says the deployment to South Korea of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missiles is very important. And it is.

A THAAD battery has six launchers. Two of the six launchers in the THAAD battery now deployed in South Korea are in position. So is the battery’s radar. However, the new South Korean government has delayed the deployment of the other four launchers pending a “review of its environmental impact.”

This delay is all about South Korean internal politics. The Reuters summary is accurate. During the recent presidential election, South Korea’s new President Moon Jae-in “promised to review the THAAD deployment decision.” The delay is political theater to demonstrate that he is different from his predecessor. His government knows China’s objections to THAAD are baloney. The weapon is a defensive system and the threat posed by North Korean missiles is real.

RELATED: Photo of a THAAD test launch from 2014. This test was particularly relevant to defending South Korea and Japan because it involved both THAAD and a USN Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) warship. Hence the caption mentioning “a layered defense.” The Ground-based Missile Defense system (GMD) is the “layer” designed to intercept ICBMs targeting North America.

FLASHBACK: Overdrive Magazine (1972-1973): Voice of the American Trucker.

‘HUNGER’ OUGHT TO BE INDUCEMENT ENOUGH: Georgia Tells Able-Bodied Food Stamp Recipients to Work for ‘Greater Good’

RIP: Glenne Headly, ‘Dick Tracy’ and ‘Lonesome Dove’ Star, Dies at 63.

I’d been a fan since Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, when she went toe-to-toe with bigger stars Michael Caine and Steve Martin — and held her own with ease.

WHY AMERICANS AREN’T LOVING RETIREMENT LIKE THEY USED TO: The USA Today opinion piece is a good read and it’s packed with common sense. It compares “retirement satisfaction trends” from 1998 to 2012. Key line: “…groups saw their satisfaction levels decline over time, as health and income eroded.” But I’m left wondering about the questions used in the satisfaction study.

YOU STAY CLASSY, DEMOCRATS! Senator Gillibrand on Democrats: ‘If we’re not helping people, we should go the fuck home.’

EVERY TIME I THINK I’M OUT, THEY PULL ME BACK IN: US Navy Looking At Bringing Retired Carrier USS Kitty Hawk Out Of Mothballs.

Certainly pulling a carrier directly back into service would go a long way to bridging America’s “carrier gap” and would make President’s Trump’s demand for a 12 supercarrier fleet much more obtainable. Currently the Navy has 10 operational supercarriers, and with the USS Gerald Ford’s (CVN-78) entry into service date murky at best, that number may not increase for years to come.

Even just the possibility of Kitty Hawk returning to the fleet is likely music to the ears of those in Mayport, Florida, who have been begging the US Navy to return a supercarrier to the naval station there. The facility was never upgraded to support nuclear propulsion, so after the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) was retired in 2007, it has been without a resident supercarrier, which hurt the local economy and also has strategic implications as well. The Kitty Hawk would be an ideal candidate to call the base home without the need for major infrastructure investments.

Left unsaid? Finding enough combat-ready planes and pilots to fill that flight deck.

IT’S A MYSTERY: Jarrett ‘Not Sure’ Why Obamacare ‘Ever Became a Political Issue’

WES PRUDEN: Mr. Comey’s not very good day.

The Donald was revealed again as a man who talks too much, with a gift for the memorable insult, the demand to have his ego stroked. But didn’t we already know that? What we know now about James Comey, only suspected earlier, is that he’s what the British call “wet,” a wimp under pressure. He offered evidence at last of collusion, but it was only evidence of his eagerness to collude with his own emotions. He was incapable of standing up to Donald Trump, beyond the instinctive deference everyone accords a president.

He’s guided by his feelings, which perhaps explains why he has become a late hero of the present age. He testified that he “felt” “directed” to terminate the investigation into the activities of Mike Flynn. “I mean, this is the president of the United States, with me alone, saying, ‘I hope this.’ I took it as, this is what he wants me to do.”

One of the most telling moments of the day was an exchange with Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, a Democrat, asking the question that Republicans have raised over the weeks of rumor and not much real news. When he “felt” that Mr. Trump was asking him to throttle his investigation, she asked: “Why didn’t you stop, and say, ‘Mr. President, this is wrong?’ “

“That’s a great question,” Mr. Comey replied. “Maybe if I were stronger, I would have.”

Comey’s testimony goes a long way towards explaining his erratic behavior throughout 2016.

AND YET PEOPLE THINK TRUMP HAS NO IDEA WHAT HE’S DOING:

But Ann Althouse understands: “Yesterday’s silence was effective. This tweet is getting maximum attention, and the foregoing silence gives resonance to today’s message: Comey didn’t lay a hand on him.”

FIGHT INEQUALITY: How Elites Protect Their Status: Private School Edition.

In National Review, Gabriel Rossman delivers a much-needed skewering of the latest frontier in the “holistic” assessment fad overtaking elite education: The effort by America’s most prestigious prep schools to eliminate transcripts and replace them with jargon-filled written evaluations of each student. Rossman rightly notes that despite its veneer of fairness and the high-minded social justice-y language used to sell it, the effort to downplay old-fashioned measures of academic merit is really about protecting the already-privileged. Objective tools like grades and test scores have long been an important tool for distinguishing the talentless elite from upstart competitors from below; “soft” assessments, by contrast, often make it easier for the wealthy and well-connected to navigate the system. . . .

All elites justify their claims to power using the accepted language of their age. When the early and mid-20th century WASPs wanted to devise a system that would restrict entry to business and political establishment, the Ivy League adopted admissions criteria like character and breeding and fitness to lead. Today’s diverse, socially liberal elite instead wraps its claim to rulership in the mantle of individuality and social justice. So the past few decades have seen an ever-expanding push for “holistic” evaluations that recognize the ways that each student is special and unique. But the ultimate goal is the same: to consolidate the existing upper-class’s prerogatives while pretending to advance the common good.

Hence all the racism against Asians in the Ivy League.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: ‘Drone Hunting Drone’ Developed By Airspace Systems.

As drones become more and more prevalent in the U.S. and elsewhere, a California company is developing a system it says is a “complete drone security system” that will meet threats ranging from an out-of-control UAV to potential terrorist attacks.

San Leandro-based Airspace Systems has developed what it calls a “drone hunting drone” as part of that system, according to a report appearing in Forbes. The aircraft are designed to detect, track and deter or capture enemy drones. Jaz Banga, one of the founders of the company, said the aircraft do not rely on electronic jamming for deterrence. “We actually physically intercept the drone,” he told Forbes.

The system is designed for security in cities and suburbs considered high-density areas. The drones, which operate autonomously, use a Kevlar module to scoop their targets out of the air, rather than shoot them down, and detonate any explosives that the enemy aircraft might carry. It can also deploy a parachute if a soft landing is needed.

And eliminating a threat via 12-gauge is generally frowned upon in urban areas.

WHY IS THIS PLACE EVEN ACCREDITED? The Course Catalogue at Evergreen State College Is Bonkers.

AT AMAZON, fresh New Releases, updated hourly.

Plus, today’s new Kindle Daily Deals.

And shop the Digital Deals of the Day.

ADMINISTRATIVE EFFICIENCY: 437,000 Deportation Cases Backlogged; Delayed for up to 5 Years.