NEVER INTERRUPT YOUR ENEMY WHEN HE IS MAKING A MISTAKE. The Politico has a sad: “GOP strategy on Omar: Let Dems struggle on their own.”

House Republicans are sitting back and letting Democrats inflict damage on themselves as they struggle to respond to the growing firestorm over Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).

GOP leaders had been weighing whether to take their own action against Omar, who sparked an uproar for suggesting that pro-Israel activists and lawmakers hold “allegiance to a foreign country.” The freshman firebrand has emerged as a top target on the right in recent months.

But Republicans, who already successfully used procedural tools to rebuke Omar for using anti-Semitic tropes last month, are instead choosing to not respond right now, forcing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to pick from a difficult set of options.

“I would like to see what the Democrats are going to do,” Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters Wednesday. “We’ve already led on this issue.”

Republicans, who saw years of infighting when they were in the majority, are now relishing watching the other side erupt into chaos and are eager to exploit those intraparty divisions.

Republicans pounce! By, err, not pouncing.

As Jim Treacher said during Benghazi hearings, “Here’s the rule: When a Republican screws up, that’s the story. When a Democrat screws up, the Republican response is the story.”

And speaking of Treacher’s rule, if you are looking for “actual” pouncing,“There It Is! Reporter for the The Hill says National Republican Campaign Committee ‘pounces’ on Jim Clyburn’s Ilhan Omar comments.”

That’s more of a “seize” than a “pounce” in my book, but I’ll defer to the judges.

PAUL KRUGMAN, MEET DATA. DATA, MEET PAUL KRUGMAN: Does Krugman not know this, or is he in such a bubble that he thinks “it can’t happen here?”

HERE’S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON’T DO ARITHMETIC: Life in the GND “Paradise”? Nasty, Brutish, and Short.

UGH: U.K. Jury Convicts Father in Acid Attack on 3-Year-Old Son Amid Custody Battle.

The identities of the man and his five co-conspirators weren’t revealed.

BUT OF COURSE: Democrats’ Antisemitism Rebuke Has Gone From Impotent To Totally Worthless.

VIDEO: CEO Jack Dorsey Defends Twitter’s #LearntoCode Purges.

Dorsey claims that #LearnToCode is coded language for some kind of threat, when in fact it originated with asshole members of the press who somehow didn’t get purged when they used it against ordinary Americans who had lost their jobs to Obama’s anti-coal regulations.

IT’S NOW MORE IMPORTANT WHAT KIND OF SHIRT YOU WEAR THAN WHAT KIND OF SCIENCE YOU DO: Cern cuts ties with ‘sexist’ scientist Alessandro Strumia. Because feelings.

TYLER O’NEIL: Trump Judge Confirmed Despite Dems Weaponizing SPLC ‘Hate Group’ Smears Against Her. “This is a de facto religious test for public office.”

Allison Jones Rushing is also quite young and likely to sit on that bench for a good long time.

What’s that old Klingon proverb about revenge?

STOP THE F-35 DEAL WITH ERDOGAN’S TURKEY: That says it all. But read the whole thing — it’s my latest Creators Syndicate column.

AIRBORNE ON TARGET: Two machine gunners light up the Alaskan night in a live fire exercise. The soldiers are assigned to Blackfoot Company, 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division.

DON’T WORRY, THE TSA’S UNBROKEN RECORD OF NEVER STOPPING AN ACTUAL TERRORIST REMAINS PRISTINE: Media Outlets Spread Fake News About TSA Seizing ‘Rocket-Propelled Grenade Launcher:’ They’re just helping the TSA push its scaremongering narrative. “It’s not until midway through the release that the TSA notes “the device was not a functioning launcher and the grenade itself was determined to be a realistic replica.”

ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM: Virginia Governor Northam is being asked (by Al Gore among others) to stop “environmental racism.” I don’t know anything about the particular cases being brought to Northam’s attention. But with “environmental racism” things are not always as they seem on the surface.

A few years ago, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights decide focus its attention on the supposed fact that coal ash landfills and ponds are disproportionately located near African Americans..   The report it issued gave our Chairman the perfect opportunity to make an emotional statement decrying “environmental racism” and even blaming it for the cancers in his family. There was just one problem: The Commission’s empirical study (massively downplayed in the report itself) showed that, if anything, coal ash landfills and ponds may be disproportionately located near whites. Facts didn’t matter.

HEH: Let Coloradans decide National Popular Vote at the ballot.

So how odd that the disenfranchisement-phobic progressives in charge of the Colorado state legislature are now passing a bill to do what they say they hate — disenfranchise all Colorado voters when it comes to voting for electors to represent Colorado in the Electoral College.

And the cherry on top — they are passing this “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact” without a popular vote of the people of Colorado.

Call it voter suppression.

Should the national popular vote plan become a reality, it would mean Coloradans would not decide to whom our nine (soon to be 10) electoral votes go in a presidential election. Highly populated metro areas like New York City and Los Angeles would dictate how our Colorado electoral votes are cast.

I’d like to get Glenn’s opinion on this, but it seems like there’s an easy equal protection case to be made against state legislators effectively giving away their constituents’ presidential franchise to out-of-state voters.

LAW ENFORCEMENT IS THERE TO PROTECT ANTIFA, NOT YOU: VIDEO: Portland State officials, police stand by as protester shuts down gun-rights talk with a bell.

The truth is, the authorities condone, and even support, this kind of behavior. It’s like southern sheriffs and the Klan a hundred years ago.

Related:

BADLY: How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former industry execs tell all.

Both Butler and Dahan acknowledged what most consumers have long suspected: that the prices we pay for eyewear in no way reflect the actual cost of making frames and lenses.

When he was in the business, in the 1980s and ’90s, Dahan said it cost him between $10 and $16 to manufacture a pair of quality plastic or metal frames.

Lenses, he said, might cost about $5 a pair to produce. With fancy coatings, that could boost the price all the way to $15.

He said LensCrafters would turn around and charge $99 for completed glasses that cost $20 or $30 to make — and this was well below what many independent opticians charged. Nowadays, he said, those same glasses at LensCrafters might cost hundreds of dollars.

Butler said he recently visited factories in China where many glasses for the U.S. market are manufactured. Improved technology has made prices even lower than what Dahan recalled.

“You can get amazingly good frames, with a Warby Parker level of quality, for $4 to $8,” Butler said. “For $15, you can get designer-quality frames, like what you’d get from Prada.”

And lenses? “You can buy absolutely first-quality lenses for $1.25 apiece,” Butler said.

Yet those same frames and lenses might sell in the United States for $800.
Butler laughed. “I know,” he said. “It’s ridiculous. It’s a complete rip-off.”

With augmented reality a common feature on new smartphones, giving people the ability to try on virtual glasses without leaving home, this is an industry ripe for disruption.

DEMOCRATIC WHIP CLYBURN SCOLDS CHILDREN OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS: Your dad survived Auschwitz and you’re disturbed by Ilhan Omar’s antisemitism? Check your privilege.

IF “FAKE FACTS” ARE DISQUALIFYING, THE ENTIRE DISCIPLINE OF POLITICAL SCIENCE IS IN TROUBLE: Poli sci dept nixes ‘White Privilege is a Myth’ student event ad, cites ‘fake facts.’

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RAHM EMANUEL ON ILHAN OMAR: “Omar is crossing a line that should not be crossed in political discourse. Her remarks are not anti-Israel; they are anti-Semitic.”

Ilhan Omar is the Democratic Party’s dream of the future, made real. Rahm Emanuel is its past, crying out as it dies.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: How hard is it to condemn antisemitism and much, much more. “The same crowd that shrieked about the neo-Nazi’s at Charlottesville and grandstanded about a climate of hate at the Pittsburgh synagogue slaughter are going wobbly on whether they should condemn the compulsive and repeated antisemitic smack coming from Rep. Ilhan Omar.”

That’s different because Democrats.

ADULT SUPERVISION NEEDED: South Dakota Revives Free Speech Legislation:

After passing through South Dakota’s House, a bill to ensure that freedom of expression and intellectual diversity be protected at all of South Dakota’s campuses died in the Senate State Affairs Committee on February 27 by a vote of 6-3.

On the same day that the decision was passed, there was a free speech controversy at the University of South Dakota (USD). The Student Bar Association had planned a “Hawaiian Day” event for which students would wear floral shirts and be given leis. The organizers of the event were informed by university administrators that the “Hawaiian Day” was offensive, and in turn changed the name to “Beach Day” and retracted the use of leis.

The incident has drawn criticism and commentary throughout the South Dakota press. Hawaii State Rep. Bob McDermott chimed in, rejecting the idea that wearing leis is offensive: “The lei is a symbol of our Aloha spirit in Hawaii, inclusive and welcoming . . . It is part of who we are in Hawaii and we are happy to share it.”

USD president Sheila Gestring has called for an investigation into whether the administration’s actions violated the policies of the Board of Regents regarding freedom of expression. Board President Kevin V. Schieffer has stated that he supports the investigation.

Following the “Hawaiian Day” debacle, the Senate State Affairs Committee voted 7-2 to reconsider the bill.

Good.

THIS WILL HELP–A LOT: Antonin Scalia Law School Receives Gift of Over $50 Million.

Conservatives have been justifiably grousing about ideological bias in the academy for decades, but for decades my law school, a very rare secular institution in which the faculty leans right, was among the worst-funded law schools in the country and received almost no assistance from the donor class. Fortunately, that has started to change.

CHANGE? China’s superrich are losing faith in the country’s economy, with some even worried it will turn into the next Venezuela.

Word of China’s wealthy elites losing faith in the future of China’s runaway economic success story comes with the country at a major crossroads of a trade dispute with the US and a general slowdown in growth.

China’s economic growth, while still very high by the standards of developed economies, is slowing. At the end of 2018, it expanded at its slowest year-on-year pace since the height of the Great Recession.

The Chinese economy grew by 6.6% over a year earlier, down from 2017’s 6.9%, official data suggested in January.

Not only is growth slowing, but many Chinese elites are said to be fearful that the economic liberalization that helped make China the second-largest economy on earth is stuttering.

As I was just saying…