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LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Trump Flips on 2A, Hicks Out and Much, Much More. “It was a nightmare. Trump taunted lawmakers by telling them ‘you’re afraid of the NRA.’ He’ll soon find out why politicians are afraid of the NRA during the 2018 elections if he doesn’t walk balk some of the insanity he was tossing about in that meeting.”

REALCLEARINVESTIGATIONS: Behind Cruz’s Rampage: Obama’s School-Leniency Policy.

Despite committing a string of arrestable offenses on campus before the Florida school shooting, Nikolas Cruz was able to escape the attention of law enforcement, pass a background check and purchase the weapon he used to slaughter 14 fellow students and three adults because of Obama administration efforts to make school discipline more lenient.

Documents reviewed by RealClearInvestigations and interviews show that his school district in Florida’s Broward County was in the vanguard of a strategy, adopted by more than 50 other major school districts nationwide, allowing thousands of troubled, often violent, students to commit crimes without legal consequence. The aim was slowing the “school-to-prison pipeline.”

“He had a clean record, so alarm bells didn’t go off when they looked him up in the system,” veteran FBI agent Michael Biasello told RCI. “He probably wouldn’t have been able to buy the murder weapon if the school had referred him to law enforcement.”

Disclosures about the strategy add a central new element to the Parkland shooting story: It’s not just one of official failings at many levels and of America’s deep divide over guns, but also one of deliberate federal policy gone awry.

Maybe government-run schools are just a bad idea.

STEVEN BUCCI: Sheriff Scott Israel Is a Lesson in Failed Leadership.

Real leaders take responsibility for everything their people do, and fail to do. Israel said he gave the school resource officer a weapon and training, but that he is not responsible for the officer’s lack of heart to take action.

Seriously, sheriff? Training the spirit to protect is not part of a leader’s job? So you have no responsibility for the performance of your people?

That is a cowardly supposition, and an inaccurate one. If your deputy failed to go to the sound of gunfire to save those children, it is on you. If he was too incompetent to recognize the shooter was still firing inside the building, it is on you, sheriff. Leaders take responsibility.

Servant leaders work to empower their people in order to accomplish the mission. Beyond that, they give their troops the credit in success. But most importantly, if they fail, the true leader stands up and says, “It’s on me.”

It’s pretty clear Israel thought he could use this tragedy to further his career; it’s even more clear he isn’t up to the job he has now.

AS USUAL: “What I love about this is how she means to be a committed lefty, but it’s all always so cluelessly intertwined with self-regard and personal entitlement.”

NED RYUN: Schiff Is Losing The Memo Wars.

SOUTH AFRICANS: YOU KNOW WHAT WE’D REALLY LIKE TO BE? ZIMBABWE! ‘The time for reconciliation is over’: South Africa votes to confiscate white-owned land. Amazing how little media attention this has gotten.

South Africa can expect a run of bad luck.

LIVE BY THE NETWORKING GIANT, DIE BY THE NETWORKING GIANT: Changes To Facebook’s Algorithm Have Claimed Their First Casualty.

Media companies have been waiting for the other shoe to drop since Facebook announced changes to its all-important newsfeed algorithm that (at least on paper) were designed to stop posts from businesses, brands and media from “crowding out” personalized content.

Now, barely six weeks after the changes were first announced, Facebook’s decision to deprive publishers from a crucial stream of user traffic has claimed its first casualty: A four-year-old publisher called LittleThings.

The change, according to LittleThings’ COO Gretchen Tibbits, had a “material” impact on the site’s traffic, killing 75% of its organic reach, according to DigiDay.

LittleThings’ comScore traffic declined to 40 million this month from 58 million last May. The closure will leave the company’s 100 employees without jobs.

Facebook is great for reconnecting with old friends and sharing adorable family photos, but never forget that it’s somebody else’s business with no real concern for anyone else’s.

KURT SCHLICHTER: They Don’t Hate The NRA, They Hate You.

HE’LL PROBABLY BE CHARGED WITH A HATE CRIME: The Archbishop of Canterbury: Islamic Rules Are Incompatible with Britain’s Laws.

INFIGHTING: Sessions defends himself after Trump bashed him on Twitter.

“Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse. Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey etc,” the president tweeted. “Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy? Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL!”

In an unusual public response that did not mention Trump by name, Sessions rejected the attack.

“We have initiated the appropriate process that will ensure complaints against this Department will be fully and fairly acted upon if necessary,” Sessions said. “As long as I am the Attorney General, I will continue to discharge my duties with integrity and honor, and this Department will continue to do its work in a fair and impartial manner according to the law and Constitution.”

I’m not sure why Trump has kept Sessions this long as AG. Or why Sessions chooses to stay, for that matter.

WELCOME TO THE CLUB: I Bought My First Gun Because Of The CNN Town Hall.

Seeing a mob of people celebrating baseless and morally reprehensible claims at CNN’s town hall was frightening. More than that, as the evidence continues to mount over the failure of law enforcement in handling the Parkland shooter, it will only heighten the truth that a promise of security from the government doesn’t actually guarantee safety.

The town hall was a display of tyranny. For tyranny has never come from a single person, but rather from a mob cheering for the destruction of liberty and rights from those with whom they disagree.

So I bought a gun.

Reportedly, NRA memberships spiked (again) after CNN’s antigun circus.

JULIE KELLY: This is CNN: The Children’s News Network.

WAS OBAMA A PARTNER IN CRIME OR UNWITTING VICTIM OF CLINTON CORRUPTION? Here’s the threshold observation in answering that question, according to Charles Ortel, writing today in LifeZette:

“The deep and intertwined extent to which loyalists of Bill and Hillary Clinton were immediately inserted into the Obama administration after the 2008 presidential election has never been fully exposed or adequately explained …

“But we have yet to learn the real story — one that explains why, for example, so many Obama appointees would allow Hillary Clinton to mishandle classified information, while also letting the Clinton Foundation run riot soliciting billions of dollars (including affiliates) in contributions for patently unauthorized causes, and flouting so many strict laws in the process.”

MIAMI HERALD: Parkland shooter always in trouble, never expelled. Could school system have done more? Yes. Next question?

READY OR NOT: AI Experts List the Real Dangers of Artificial Intelligence.

Digital:

Automated phishing, or creating fake emails, websites, and links to steal information.
Faster hacking, through the automated discovery of vulnerabilities in software.
Fooling AI systems, by taking advantage of the flaws in how AI sees the world.

Physical:

Automating terrorism, by using commercial drones or autonomous vehicles as weapons.
Robot swarms, enabled by many autonomous robots trying to achieve the same goal.
Remote attacks, since autonomous robots wouldn’t need to be controlled within any set distance.

Political:

Propaganda, through easily-generated fake images and video.
Automatic dissent removal, by automatically finding and removing text or images.
Personalized persuasion, taking advantage of publicly-available information to target someone’s opinions.

The fact that the T-800 isn’t listed might be taken as evidence that this report was generated by a hostile AI.

OH: Barack Obama To Skip Billy Graham Funeral.

IT’S A BUNCH OF GRIFTING HATERS: Stop treating the Southern Poverty Law Center like it’s a respectable and responsible organization.

WHY ARE DEMOCRATS PUTTING IDEOLOGY AHEAD OF SAVING LIVES? Trump: Background checks will ‘never’ pass if concealed carry is attached.

MY WEEKLY COLUMN IS UP AT DAILY CALLER: “Laughably Stupid Media Mistakes In Gun Reporting: How Much Do They Matter?“

HERE’S AN INTERESTING WRITEUP AT POLIZETTE, on my state secession piece.

OKAY, I DON’T KNOW HER BUT SHE’S A FRIEND OF IOWAHAWK’S AND THIS BOOK TITLE IS A WINNER: Hardcore Carnivore: Cook Meat Like You Mean It. Anyway, I ordered a copy.

OUT: Snowfalls Are Now Just A Thing Of The Past.

In: Europe braced for fresh blizzards as deadly ice blast strands travellers.