FLASHBACK: CNN & MSNBC’S ENTHUSIASTIC COVERAGE OF RUSSIAN-SPONSORED ANTI-TRUMP RALLY.

Related: If Your Voters were Persuaded by Bad Russian Ads, They Were Never Your Voters.

ON JORDAN PETERSON AND THE FUTURE:

We are, all of us, faced with the same basic set of choices. Are we taking full responsibility? Are we being careful to grow our sovereignty in alignment with our power? Are we able to take complete responsibility for what we find ourselves capable of doing?

Here is the final thing. No one is going to come close to being able to do this on their own. And no one is coming to save us. We are it.

If this seems overwhelming, return to Jordan Peterson. Yes, the world is in trouble. And yes, we are going to need to do incredible things to make it through this transition. But until you have achieved your own sovereignty, you are as likely to make it worse as you are to make it better. Thus the task is simple. Whether you are seated at the throne of Empire or are struggling to just make ends meet, the right, best and only path begins at the center of you. Clean your room. Get yourself sorted out. Build yourself into a rock upon which profound things can be set. Then, and only then, is it time to begin taking care of the rest of the world.

Slowly and deliberately become a master of your own sovereignty. And then, find the load that is yours to carry and carry it.

Related: Jordan Peterson Reveals a Glitch in The Matrix of The Blue Church (Video).

And as Glenn and Helen have noted, still at #1 on Amazon, Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.

GREAT AGAIN: Domestic Luxury Trucks Now Usurping Germany’s Market Share of Premium Vehicles.

AT AMAZON, deals in Hunting & Fishing.

Plus, save on Bestsellers in Home & Kitchen.

DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY: Reagan, Obama Beat Lincoln and Washington in List of ‘Best Presidents.’

C-SPAN: A Conversation With Justice Clarence Thomas.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON ON UNDERSTANDING THE CALIFORNIA MIND:

In California, civilization is speeding in reverse—well aside from the decrepit infrastructure, dismal public schools, and sky-high home prices. Or rather, the state travels halfway in reverse: anything involving the private sector (smartphones, Internet, new cars, TV, or getting solar panels installed) is 21st-century. Anything involving the overwhelmed government or public utilities (enforcing dumping laws, licensing dogs, hooking up solar panel meters to the grid, observing common traffic courtesies) is early 20th-century.

Why is this so, and how do Californians adjust?

Read the whole thing. And note VDH’s warning: “In a state where millions cannot be held accountable, those who can will be—both to justify a regulatory octopus, and as social justice for their innate unwarranted privilege.”

JAZZ SHAW: How A Union Sank A Mom And Pop Company Overnight.

I WISH WE HAD SOME MAGIC POTIONS: ‘Not a Magic Potion.’ Flu Death Puts Antiviral Drugs in the Spotlight.

Maybe one of Joel Rosenberg’s healing draughts. I’d like to keep a case of those around.

BABY STEPS: Saudi Arabia allows first woman to star in theatrical play.

LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: America at Home: Grandparents in the Attic, Children in the Basement.

CRINGEWORTHY: Fergie Botches National Anthem at NBA All-Star Game, Twitter Laughs Out Loud.

UP THE ACADEMY: 100 Chicago Professors “Propose To Exclude Viewpoints They Find Objectionable.”

THE 21ST CENTURY IS NOT TURNING OUT AS I HAD HOPED: Report proposes fentanyl test strips to prevent overdoses.

WELL-OILED CONFIRMATION MACHINE: While you were focused on … Republicans kept moving judicial nominees through pipeline.

POPULAR MECHANICS: There’s No Evidence Video Game Violence Causes Mass Shootings.

“COMPROMISE” NEVER WORKS OUT WITH THESE PEOPLE: 6 Reasons Your Right-Wing Friend Isn’t Coming To Your Side On Gun Control.

Also, the whole “If you disagree with me you’re a bloody-handed killer” stance doesn’t go well with “let’s have a national conversation.”

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Four ’80s Reunions We Want Next (After ‘Karate Kid’).

YES, HEADS SHOULD ROLL FOR FAILURE: John Fund: End the 9/11 Syndrome at the FBI: Terrible Things Happen, and There’s Little Accountability.

In the wake of the Florida school shooting, can we now have a real conversation about what is wrong with the FBI?

Howard Finkelstein, the Broward County public defender whose office is representing Nikolas Cruz, the suspect in the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., puts it bluntly:

This kid exhibited every single known red flag, from killing animals to having a cache of weapons to disruptive behavior to saying he wanted to be a school shooter. If this isn’t a person who should have gotten someone’s attention, I don’t know who is. This was a multi-system failure.

Specifically, the FBI admits that it received two separate tips about Cruz. Last fall, a frequent YouTube vlogger noticed an alarming comment left on one of his videos. “I’m going to be a professional school shooter,” said a user named Nikolas Cruz. The vlogger alerted the FBI and was interviewed. But the agency subsequently claimed its investigators couldn’t locate Cruz, despite the highly unusual spelling of his first name.

Then, just six weeks ago, a person close to Cruz warned a call taker on the FBI’s tip line that the expelled student had a desire to kill and might attack a school. The bureau said that the information was not passed to agents in the Miami office. Florida governor Rick Scott has called for FBI director Christopher Wray to be fired. So has NRO’s Kevin Williamson in a powerful piece: “Fire the FBI Chief.” Other officials are calling for FBI heads to roll, but at a level below Wray’s. Florida attorney general Pam Bondi told Fox News, “The people who had that information and did not do anything with it, they are the ones that need to go.” . . .

Nor is the Parkland shooting the first time the FBI has fallen down on its most basic job: assessing threats and acting on them. Look at what has happened just in Florida in the last two years. FBI agents investigated as a suspect the man who gunned down 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2016, but concluded the agency couldn’t act against him. The FBI also had an unexpected visit from the mentally ill man charged with killing five people at Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport last year. He had walked into an FBI field office and made bizarre, though not threatening, statements.

Of course there should be a housecleaning at the FBI. But there is a larger issue. I call it America’s 9/11 Syndrome. I was across the street from the World Trade Center the day the terrorists flew two planes into it. I will never forget what I saw that day, including people holding hands jumping from the burning towers before they collapsed and killed 2,606 people.

I retain a mixture of feelings about that day, ranging from deep sadness to pride that my fellow New Yorkers played against stereotypes and helped each other so much that day and afterwards. But what also sticks in my mind is a simple fact: Not one person in the federal government was fired on account of 9/11.

When there’s this sort of major failure, the firings should begin at the top, but reach all the way down the chain. And not just at the FBI.

NIKKI HALEY: The U.N.’s Uncomfortable Truths About Iran.

Last week, the United Nations published a report with news a lot of people don’t want to hear. A panel of experts found that Iran is violating a United Nations weapons embargo — specifically, that missiles fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels into Saudi Arabia last year were made in Iran.

The mullahs in Iran don’t want to hear this news, because it proves Iran is violating its international agreement. Die-hard defenders of the Iran nuclear deal don’t want to hear it because it proves, once again, that the Iranian regime can’t be trusted. And some members of the United Nations don’t want to hear it because it is further proof that Iran is defying Security Council resolutions, and the pressure will be on the U.N. to do something about it.

Yemen is the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis today. After three years of brutal civil war, 75 percent of the population is in need of humanitarian assistance. The government has virtually ceased to exist. Terrorist groups like the Islamic State and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula are exploiting that lawlessness to pursue their barbaric agendas.

The U.N. report reveals much more than just the Iranian sanctions violation. It charges the anti-government Houthi rebels with not only launching ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia but also using the people of Yemen as human shields and kidnapping Yemeni children to fight in the war.

Read the whole thing.

POLITICO’S BLAKE HOUNSHELL: Confessions of a Russiagate Skeptic.

NARRATIVE-BUSTING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM. “It’s not that gender equality discourages girls from pursuing science. It’s that it allows them not to if they’re not interested.”

NO. NEXT QUESTION? Would you surrender your assault rifles for free martial arts training?

BAD NEWS FOR COMEY, MCCABE, STRZOK, ET. AL.: Attorney General Jeff Sessions told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo that the Department of Justice is investigating the FBI’s failure to notify the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court that its warrant application to surveil Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page was based on material paid for by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee. As of noon Monday, this fact appears not to have been reported by either the New York Times or the Washington Post.