WHY ARE COLLEGES SUCH CESSPITS OF VIOLENCE? College investigates motive in torching of conservative student’s dorm room door.

KAROL MARKOWICZ: An epidemic of teenage … loneliness.

Rates of major depressive episodes in the last year jumped 52 percent among adolescents aged 12 to 17, the study noted, and 63 percent among young adults aged 18 to 25.

It’s not just the blues, either. ­“Serious psychological distress” and “suicide-related outcomes (suicidal ideation, plans, attempts and deaths by suicide)” also spiked among the young last year.

What is going on here?

The lives of our modern youth should be pretty good. They have all the information in the world on devices they carry in their pockets. They have plenty of opportunities to make friends instantaneously — something the older generation finds increasingly difficult.

And notwithstanding what the insurgent Democratic ­Socialists keep telling us, this is a time of unparalleled prosperity. The ­unemployment rate is 4 percent. Most American families enjoy conveniences that would have been unthinkable to most human generations, across most of history. Life should be grand.

But perhaps those very conveniences are the source of youth ­anguish.

Karol blames social media, at least in part. So do I, and I bet Glenn does, too.

SARAH KLIFF, WRITER AT YOUNG ADULT INFOTAINMENT SITE, VOX: Donald Trump is very committed to taking away your health insurance.

FLASHBACK: Sarah Kliff Discovers Obamacare Stinks.

THIS IS HOW YOU GET TRUMP BREXIT: The other day, the EU Parliament voted to destroy the Internet in Europe. Now it appears that several MEPs voted for the measures by accident. Although they have had their recorded votes changed, the result still stands.

Meanwhile in the country that voted to get away from such lunacy but can’t, the House of Commons upended the constitution (yes, there is one) yesterday to vote on eight different measures to find a consensus way forward. All eight measures failed. Moreover, the Cabinet abstained from the votes in protest at the unconstitutionality, meaning that they would all have failed by more than it looks.

In one last effort to get her awful-but-at-least-it-gets-us-legally-out deal through the House, Theresa May has promised to resign if it gets passed, which is a strange inversion of how things usually work. The power-mad Speaker of the House, however, may refuse to let it be put to a vote.

This will all probably have changed by the time you read this…

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Cornell Political Union admits it succumbed to heckler’s veto in disinviting black Christian speaker.

AT AMAZON, Save on Top Rated Products.

Plus, Hot New Releases – Updated Every Hour.

Also, Shop Amazon Outlet – Clearance, Markdowns and Overstock Deals.

Plus, shop Kindle Deals of the Day.

ALSO, THE LYING ABOUT AND ILLEGAL LEAKING OF CLASSIFIED INFORMATION: Rep. Green Calls for House Intel Committee Chairman Schiff to Step Down Since He Is a ‘Conspiracy Theorist.’

There seems to be a groundswell of sentiment here:

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Trump Wants to Release Sketchy FISA Warrant and Much, Much More. “Citing a ‘high-level source,’ Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul charged in a bombshell Twitter post late Wednesday that anti-Trump ex-CIA Director John Brennan ‘insisted that the unverified and fake Steele dossier’ be included in a classified intelligence community report on Russian interference in the 2016 elections — a decision that ultimately lent credibility to the dossier and may have played a key role in fomenting unfounded fears of Russia collusion for two years.”

EUGENE VOLOKH: Waiting-and-Seeing on the Trump Campus Free Speech Executive Order: It’s an order to create policies, not a policy — so it’s hard to tell what it will do until we see what policies various departments create. And free speech advocates should be pressuring agencies to act, and act strongly.

MAYBE THERE’S SOME LIFE LEFT IN MONROE AFTER ALL: Trump tells Russia to get its troops out of Venezuela.

The arrival of two Russian air force planes outside Caracas on Saturday believed to be carrying nearly 100 Russian special forces and cybersecurity personnel has escalated the political crisis in Venezuela.

Russia and China have backed President Nicolas Maduro, while the United States and most other Western countries support opposition leader Juan Guaido. In January, Guaido invoked the constitution to assume Venezuela’s interim presidency, arguing that Maduro’s 2018 re-election was illegitimate.

“Russia has to get out,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, where he met with Guaido’s wife, Fabiana Rosales.

Asked how he would make Russian forces leave, Trump said: “We’ll see. All options are open.

Classical reference in the headline.

RAND PAUL: Former Obama CIA chief promoted ‘dossier,’ demands investigation of Obama team.

Sen. Rand Paul escalated his demand for an investigation into former Obama officials who “concocted” the anti-Trump Russia scandal, revealing that former CIA Director John Brennan was the key figure who legitimized the charges and discredited “dossier” against the president.

In an interview, the Kentucky Republican said the Senate Judiciary Committee should immediately ask Brennan about his involvement in the document that helped to kick off the Russia collusion investigation of President Trump.

“I think we need to find the truth,” he told Washington Secrets. He said the goal would be to stop similar faulty investigations into future administrations, “Democratic or Republican.”

I think we need a special prosecutor to investigate this, not just Senate hearings.

CONRAD BLACK: Still Dreaming of Watergate II.

PHARAOH’S GREEN NEW DEAL: With Passover coming up next month, it’s time to reflect on whether Pharaoh gets a bad rap. After all, no fossil fuels were used in building the pyramids with Hebrew labor. Indeed, when Pharoah withheld straw from the Hebrew slaves (according to rabbinic commentaries), he was preserving natural resources! And he surely took measures, though perhaps a bit extreme, to limit the Hebrews’ population growth.

WOKESTERS WORK TO RE-ELECT TRUMP: Social Justice Warriors at The Tennessean Publish Op-Ed Claiming ‘Tennessee Is a Racist State and So Is Its Legislature.’ Yesss. Let the smug condescension flow through you. . . .

SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Smoking marijuana while pregnant may raise risks for baby.

The study, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, finds that women who use pot while pregnant could be putting their child at a slightly increased risk of psychosis. Researchers say it’s yet one more reason to be concerned about the significant increase in women using marijuana during pregnancy in recent years.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 20 women in the U.S. use cannabis during pregnancy. A study published earlier this year found that’s a 75 percent increase from 2002.

Experts are concerned that as more states legalize marijuana, it may give the false impression that it is safe to use during pregnancy.

Just don’t smoke anything while pregnant or trying to get pregnant or having just been pregnant — and that goes for the lucky father, too.

BYRON YORK: Release The Mueller Report Now.

Laws and regulations regarding special investigative reports have changed over the years. The last report that matched the Mueller investigation in both importance and intensity of public interest was independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s report on the Lewinsky matter, which served as the basis for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998. That report was prepared under the old independent counsel law, which has since expired and been replaced by the Justice Department’s special counsel guidelines that have been in place during the Mueller investigation.

Although there are many differences between the cases, Mueller faces one major obstacle that Starr faced, and that is how to handle grand jury information included in the report. The law forbids public release of such information. It also forbids release of grand jury information to Congress.

But there is perfectly legitimate way around the law, and that is to seek a court order authorizing release of the material.

I also want to see what was in the FISA warrant applications.

GIVEN THEIR SCANDALS, THIS SOUNDS LIKE HARVEY WEINSTEIN PROMISING TO GO AFTER THE NRA: Southern Poverty declares war on Trump, with Michelle Obama aide’s help.

But I thought they were supposed to be tax-exempt as a “nonpartisan” organization.

Related: The Southern Poverty Law Center Is in a State of Moral Collapse. Maybe it always was, and people are just finally noticing.

EXPUNGE THIS! Chicago Police Have Photos Of Jussie Smollett In Car With Nigerian Brothers.

B-52 WHEELS UP: The plane is deployed with STRATCOM’s Bomber Task Force in Europe.

THE NATIONAL SECURITY IMPACT OF MUELLER’S INVESTIGATION.

SAFE OR MERELY SAFER? Boeing unveils 737 Max fixes, says planes are safer. “Aviation regulators around the world would still need to sign off on the safety of the 737 Max before they approve the planes to fly, and that could take three months.”

HE DID MORE THAN TRY, AND IT WASN’T JUST IN THE FIRST TERM: Biden: I Tried to ‘Prostitute Myself’ to Big Donors During First Senate Run.

Related: Flashback: Kos on Biden: “Biden is a bought and paid for subsidiary of MBNA. When Bank of America acquired MBNA, Biden was likely part of the package deal.”

Extra Bonus: Biden’s son consulted for credit company Biden defended in Senate.

THAT’S A REAL WINNING COMBINATION: The Southern Poverty Law Center Is Both a Terrible Place to Work and a Place That Does Terrible Work.

The leadership shakeup, fueled by allegations that black staffers were shut out of key positions and that Dees personally harassed female staffers, has brought the SPLC considerable media scrutiny, and it’s about time. Regardless of whether these specific accusations have merit, the SPLC should face a reckoning over its extremely shoddy work, which has mistakenly promoted the idea that fringe hate groups are a rising threat.

Peddling this false narrative has long been the SPLC’s business model, and the Trump years have been especially profitable, since the group was almost perfectly positioned to capitalize on growing liberals fears about hate crimes, resurgent white nationalism, and the alt-right. Over the course of the Trump campaign and presidency, the SPLC has added dozens of staffers, saw its social media following rise dramatically, ramped up its fundraising, and built a $200 million endowment. Its role has been to provide intellectual support for a central narrative of the #Resistance: Hate, broadly defined, is surging across America, and Trump is to blame.

But the SPLC’s hate tally is incredibly suspect, as left-of-center writer Nathan Robinson explained in a terrific article for Current Affairs. According to the SPLC’s hate map, there were more than 1,000 hate groups in the U.S. in 2018—nearly twice as many as existed in 2000. The number has increased every year since 2014.

The map is littered with dots that provide more information on each specific group, and this is where the SPLC gives away the game. Consider a random state—Oklahoma, for example, is home to nine distinct hate groups, by the SPLC’s count. Five of them, though, are black nationalist groups: the Nation of Islam, Israel United in Christ, etc. The SPLC counts each chapter of these groups separately, so the Nation of Islam counts as two separate hate groups within Oklahoma (its various chapters in other states are also tallied separately). The map makes no attempt to contextualize all of this—no information is given on the relative size or influence of each group.

In his piece, Robinson describes the map as an “outright fraud,” and it’s hard to argue with him.

The SPLC is a mix of grift and political hit-jobbery.