FACEBOOK MAKES THIS ESPECIALLY RELEVANT: Maurice Stucke: Should We Be Concerned About Data-Opolies? “Data-opolies can also be more durable than some earlier monopolies. Moreover, data-opolies at times can more easily avoid antitrust scrutiny when they engage in anticompetitive tactics to attain or maintain their dominance. The United States Department of Justice has brought only one monopolization case under Section 2 of the Sherman Act in the past decade. This abdication is not justifiable going forward, given the risks posed by these data-opolies, whose abuses can affect not only our wallets but also our privacy, autonomy, democracy, and well-being.”

We need to break up Facebook and Google.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. John Bolton Is The National Security Advisor Trump Has Been Waiting For.

GET WOKE, GO BROKE, EH? David Solway on Going for Broke, the Canadian Way.

MUSK V. ZUCKERBERG: Musk Takes Down the Tesla and SpaceX Facebook Pages.

BAN THESE BEFORE THEY START A NEW ICE AGE: Bacteria eats greenhouse gas with a side of protein.

I HAD BEEN ASSURED HIS WAS “A REMARKABLY SCANDAL-FREE ADMINISTRATION”: Obama Regs on For-Profit Colleges, Finance, Railroads, and Airlines All Profited His Best Friend.

Tyler O’Neil is on this story like no one else I know of.

SWAMP THING: Trump says he’s signed $1.3 trillion spending bill into law despite being ‘unhappy’ about it.

HELL, BILL NYE HAS BEEN DOING IT FOR DECADES: Ivanka Trump Pretending to Be a Scientist Is The Only Meme We Need in 2018. You want to encourage girls to get into STEM or not?

JUSTICE: Two more MS-13 members plead guilty in plot to kill 16-year-old in Lawrence.

Oscar Recinos Garcia, 24, and Jose Andrade, 27, pleaded guilty to federal RICO-related charges in US District Court in Boston in the July 2015 killing of Jose Alexander Aguilar-Villanueva, according to legal filings and US Attorney Andrew E. Lelling’s office.

Recinos Garcia, also known as “Psycho,” pleaded guilty Wednesday, and Andrade, who goes by “Inocente,” copped his plea the day before, prosecutors said. Both men are Salvadoran nationals and members of the Everett Locos Salvatrucha, or ELS clique, of MS-13, according to Lelling’s office.

“The defendants admitted that their racketeering activity, on behalf of MS-13, included their involvement in the murder of [Aguilar-Villanueva] who was associated with MS-13 and wrongly suspected by the gang of cooperating with law enforcement,” Lelling’s office said in a statement.

Plus: “Andrade and Recinos Garcia are the 36th and 37th defendants, respectively, to be convicted in this case either after trial or after entering a guilty plea,” Lelling’s office said.

IMPORTANT LAWN TRACTOR NEWS: John Deere’s 30-Second Oil Change Turns This Task Into a One-Handed, Half-a-Minute Job.

TAKING SIDES: Shake Shack, Lyft, Cava among those offering freebies during March for Our Lives.

TYLER O’NEIL: Senate roll of honor for opposing omnibus.

He has the “sellouts” listed, too.

DO NOT DISPLEASE THE SULTAN: Turkish singer, actress Zuhal Olcay sentenced to 10 months in prison for ‘insulting Erdoğan.’

A lawsuit was filed against the artist for “insulting” Erdoğan during a concert last year, with the prosecutor seeking a four-year prison sentence for the singer.

The indictment prepared by the Istanbul Prosecutor’s Office stated that a person told the police that Olcay had made an insulting hand gesture against Erdoğan during a concert in the Kadıköy district of Istanbul on Aug. 5, 2016. An investigation was subsequently launched and footage from the concert was examined by an expert, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Dec. 12, 2017.

Olcay is accused of revising lyrics to the song “Boş Vermişim Dünyayı” (I Let Go of the World) to criticize Erdoğan, devising a hand-gesture to accompany the melody. According to the footage, the revised lyrics say: “Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, it’s all empty, it’s all a lie, life will end one day and you’ll say ‘I had a dream.’”

In her testimony, Olcay reportedly said she revised the lyrics because the president’s name fit the rhyme scheme and she “had not had any other ulterior or insulting motive.”

The singer also said the hand gesture had targeted an audience member in the front row after they had made a negative comment about her.

Ominous.

NON-LETHAL WEAPONS: DOD seeks to use lasers to create shouting will-o-the-wisp.

I’LL TAKE MY CHANCES: Your Grilled Burger May Come with a Side of High Blood Pressure. “Regularly eating meats that are sizzled on the grill may increase the risk of high blood pressure, a new study suggests. Other high-temperature cooking methods, including broiling and roasting, were also linked with high blood pressure, the study found.”

You know what really raises my blood pressure? Beef without a great sear on it.

SPENGLER: Uber’s Death Car and the Cracks in Liberal Culture.

Industry experts know that driverless cars are more hype than reality. As I noted earlier this week in Asia Times: “The Information, a consulting organization that showcases industry specialists, recently held a conference call on self-driving where one expert warned: ‘You have to remember that self-driving does not work, at least in… a highly functional, driverless robotaxi sense. It does not work. And there are many folks clamoring for architectures to get there. Again, think back to flight. Do you ever watch those YouTube videos where the guy pumping the umbrella and the dude with a big corkscrew and the person with the bird wings? I would think of it more that way. It is left to be seen which one of those architectures gets you to a useful outcome.'”

That is cold comfort to the family of Ms. Herzberg, whose death we can watch in a real-life horror movie. It is probable that improved sensors and communications might be able to prevent this sort of accident in the future; the sort of situations which AI never will master are things like lane changes in traffic in which one driver has to communicate intention to other drivers in order to avoid collisions.

But that is now beside the point. The cultural damage done by the Utopian vision of brain-as-a-machine is enormous, and the skepticism with which the public now must view Artificial Intelligence is a healthy corrective.

Read the whole thing.

FINALLY: ‘Smoking while walking’ could become illegal in NYC if proposed bill passes.

The legislation, proposed by New York City Councilman Peter Koo (D) from Queens would make it a misdemeanor to walk and smoke at the same time, WNYW-TV reported. Violators could face a $50 fine if caught.

“My bill is very simple, no smoking and walking on New York City sidewalks,” Koo told WNYW.

In other words, going someplace while smoking will become a taxable activity.

At least they haven’t figured out how to tax, well, you know…

HMM: Best Buy won’t sell Huawei phones, laptops, or smartwatches anymore. “Major carriers including AT&T and Verizon have refused to sell the company’s phones due to pressure from the US government, leaving retailers like Best Buy and Amazon as the only remaining places for US customers to get devices like the recently released Mate 10 Pro or upcoming P20 line of devices. Losing Best Buy, the largest consumer electronics retailer in the country, is another major setback for the Chinese phone company.”

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOC…..WAIT, WHAT? Trump: I think campus bias against conservatives is highly overblown.

Wait until the president hears what those Antifa fellas think about him…

BREAKING: Trump threatens to veto $1.3 trillion spending bill, raising risk of a government shutdown.

If he signs it as-is, it could be the end of the GOP Congress — if that phrase still means anything anymore.

ST OLAF’S COLLEGE, CESSPIT OF HATE: Conservative students at Minnesota’s St. Olaf College are now being accused of “white supremacy” after stating their belief in the “right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

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LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Budget Passes Senate, McMaster Down, Citibank and Much, Much More. “Citigroup, a financial institution, has decided to place restrictions on how its business partners can sell firearms.”