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UNEMPLOYMENT HITS 3.9% UNDER TRUMP AND, RIGHT ON CUE, HERE’S SLATE: “The unemployment rate is meaningless.”

IN RESPONSE TO SJW LIBELS, John Ringo explains the difference between fiction and autobiography. “There is a word in the English language for someone who thinks a character is the author. That word is: Idiot.”

Plus: “I’m also not a gay Imperial Space Marine Gunnery Sergeant just to make that perfectly clear. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a gay Imperial Marine Gunnery Sergeant. Live and let live. I’m just not one.”

Meanwhile, if you want to support him, the best thing you can do is buy his books. And avoid cons where he’s been treated disrespectfully. (Bumped).

MICHAEL BARONE: Democrats’ dangerous case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Newton’s third law of motion states that in nature for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It can operate in politics, too. Or as Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith recently wrote, “It is part of Trump’s evil genius that he elevates himself by inducing his critics to behave like him.“

Call it Trump Derangement Syndrome, and recognize it for what it is: something that could end up snatching defeat from the jaws of victory for the Democratic Party once again in 2018 and 2020.

Signs of that possibility are apparent in the polls. President Trump’s job approval has remained low, by historic standards, but it has also remained pretty steady — and has been rising, just a bit, in recent weeks. . . .

Trump’s recent upswing has his approval at 43.5 percent — well below 50 percent, but far higher than the 35 percent President George W. Bush had before the Republicans’ “thumping” in 2006.

Perhaps this reflects the economic upswing since the Republican tax bill passed in December. Perhaps it reflects presidential initiatives on Korea, Iran, China, or the respect shown him by the leaders of France, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Germany, and others. He may be uncouth, some may think, but he’s getting results.

And perhaps it reflects the Democrats’ Trump Derangement Syndrome.

You had the spectacle of every Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and 42 Democrats on the floor opposing Trump’s nominee for secretary of state — a nominee, Mike Pompeo, for whose confirmation as CIA director some of them voted and who has been getting good marks at Langley.

That’s as unprecedented as Trump’s insulting tweets, and less fact-based than many of them, too. Some Democrats complained about Pompeo’s stands on gay issues. But they’re the party that blocked for seven months the nomination of a gay ambassador to Germany, Ric Grenell.

Another spectacle of Trump Derangement Syndrome was last Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ dinner where a comedienne’s vitriolic monologue and mean-spirited attacks on the physical appearance of Trump’s press secretary validated his decisions this year and last not to attend. The event only further undermined the credibility of the anti-Trump press.

Its credibility may be further reduced if, as seems likely, special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation ends with no finding of “collusion” between Russia and the Trump campaign. Mueller’s questions for the president leaked to the press, if accurate, indicate that he has reluctantly concluded as much and is looking now for evidence that he can spin up as obstruction of justice.

Much of the press, notably CNN, have treated the Russian collusion story as a second Watergate, and many Democrats amuse their friends with little quips assuming Trump administration policy is set in Moscow. It’s not very funny any more.

The “collusion” that seems more likely to have occurred is between President Barack Obama administration intelligence and law enforcement personnel and the news media to push the Russia collusion story largely or solely on the evidence of the Clinton-financed Steele dossier.

Yep.

WELL, GOOD: Federal prisons abruptly cancel policy that made it harder, costlier for inmates to get books.

Federal prison officials abruptly reversed a controversial policy Thursday that had made it harder and more expensive for thousands of inmates to receive books by banning direct delivery through the mail from publishers, bookstores and book clubs.

The restrictions were already in place in facilities in Virginia and California and were set to start this month at a prison in Florida.

Under the rules, inmates in at least four facilities were required to order books only through a prison-approved vendor and, at three of the prisons, to pay an extra 30 percent markup.

The reversal came after two days’ of inquiries from The Washington Post asking about the vendor, the markup and the rationale for the restriction.

Prison officials said in an email Thursday that the bureau had rescinded the memos and will review the policy to “ensure we strike the right balance between maintaining the safety and security of our institutions and inmate access to correspondence and reading materials.”

Officials declined to identify the vendor and explain the costs added to the book purchase prices.

For months, the restrictions meant inmates could not have books shipped free from friends and relatives but also could not have books sent directly from online retailers like Amazon.com or book clubs. Using online retailers or book clubs are two avenues many facilities employ as a way to preserve access but reduce opportunities to alter books or use them to smuggle drugs and other contraband.

One of the many under appreciated travesties of our criminal justice system is how inmates, and their families, are fleeced by corrupt crony vendors employed by correctional systems.

I THINK THEY’RE TRYING TO RUN OUT THE CLOCK: Why The Justice Department Is Defiant.

What we do know is that every time they’ve withheld information up to know, it’s turned out to be because it made them look bad.

NICOLE RUSSELL: With All the Focus on Toxic Masculinity, What about the Waffle House Hero?

“TEMPORARY” PROTECTED STATUS: DHS ends immigration protection for 57K Hondurans. “The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Friday the end of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 57,000 Honduran citizens in the United States. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen gave them until January 2020 — the maximum 18-month period — to return to Honduras or seek different immigration status. The Hondurans protected by TPS have been in the United States at least since Hurricane Mitch hit the country in 1998.”

BUT IT THINKS IT’S HELPING:  The Media Is Killing the Democratic Party .

WELL, YES:  We the Internet Shreds ‘Truth to Power’ Liberal Comics.

INTERESTING STUFF:  Space Impacts of FAA Reauthorization: Discretionary User Fees, Rulemaking Committees and FACA, and Space Support Aircraft.

WHY THE PONZI SCHEME IS BROKEN:  Social Security: How many people were expected to receive benefits?

AIN’T THIS A KICK IN THE HEAD:  Loud snoring may be weakening your skull.

INVERT THE GENDER ON THIS HEADLINE AND SEE HOW IT READS:  I left my husband because he couldn’t sexually satisfy me.

NEWS YOU CAN USE:  Giving your kids financial help may ruin their careers forever.

DON’T YOU WANT A BED OF NAILS ALL YOUR OWN?  Can this ‘torture mat’ cure your back pain?

ABOUT THOSE ARTICLES YOU’VE READ ABOUT TAKING SELFIES BOOSTING YOUR HEALTH …  LEAVE THE BEAR OUT:  Man mauled to death by bear while taking selfie with it.

SAVE THE TA-TAS?  New ownership could spell big changes for SI Swimsuit edition.

YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP: Well, you could, but who’d believe you.

After pouring whisky over the statuette, the revelers perch a wide-brimmed hat atop its head and parade it up the street as a band plays a rowdy tune.

This is the festival of Jesus Malverde, considered the patron saint of drug traffickers, held every year in the Mexican city of Culiacan.

Culiacan is the capital of Sinaloa state, home base to one of the country’s most powerful drug cartels.

It is also home to a chapel devoted to Malverde, a folk hero who legend has it stole from the rich to give to the poor in early 20th century Sinaloa.

Here’s my beef. Why pour whisky (whiskey) on an idol? Will Vodka Pundit dare comment?

HYPOCRISY ALERT: A new study finds that the more one believes in global warming, the less one is likely to engage in eco-friendly individual behaviors. It’s funny how that works.

ROBIN HANSON responds to his critics. It’s fun to watch Slate’s Jordan Weissman trying to shove him into a box, while he refuses to cooperate. But Weismann’s notion that a man should clear his ideas with women before writing about sex is offensive and sexist — no one would suggest that a woman should clear her ideas with men.

Then, for irony, there’s this on Slate.

SCOTT ADAMS COMPILES A LIST: “People keep asking me what exactly @realDonaldTrump did to deserve a Nobel Prize.

OPEN THREAD. Proceed as per usual.

MATT DRUDGE OFFERS A SITREP: