LESSON (RE-)LEARNED: Don’t Expect the US Military’s Next Fighter to Be Joint.

“I don’t necessarily foresee an exact sort of repeat of F-35 in a single solution set.” Angie Knappenberger, deputy director of air warfare for the deputy chief of naval operations for warfare systems, said Monday at the Navy League’s Sea Air Space conference in National Harbor, Maryland. “I do see an awful lot of capabilities and systems that we can take, share one service to another.”

When the F-35 was conceived in the 1990s, it was thought that three variants for Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force might share about 70 percent of their parts, saving money. Almost 30 years later, the jets are only about 20 percent the same.

Different tools for different jobs.

HAVE YOU HEARD OF ‘MEDICAL KIDNAPPINGS’ BY SWAT TEAMS: I hate to admit it but I had not before reading Michael Volpe’s superb expose today for The Daily Caller. Essentially, it’s the use by the state of its police power to take a child from his or her parents because they won’t allow a medical treatment the state judges to be required, even if there is doubt about the accuracy of diagnosis.

The problem is especially apparent in Arizona, according to experts and activists quoted by Volpe, but a federal law pushed by former Vice-President Walter Mondale is the root, via generous federal funding it provides that amounts to an incentive for the raids. For the record, I am NOT an anti-vaxxer and neither is Volpe.

HEH: Anderson Cooper denies he’s ‘on the left,’ then rips Trump for tweeting about Kentucky Derby.

YOU CAN STOP EATING FOR AS LONG AS YOU WANT, KIDS, I’LL REMAIN UNMOVED: Swarthmore students go on hunger strike amid frat scandal.

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN IS ABOUT BOB ZUBRIN’S THE CASE FOR SPACE, WHICH IS A MUST-READ. Robert Zubrin makes ‘The Case for Space:’ Sure we should go to space for the knowledge and the challenge, but it will also ensure our survival and protect our freedom.

KYLE SMITH: Bill de Blasio for President? “De Blasio is not just a snoozy, groundhog-murdering buffoon who causes the city embarrassment on a par with the New York Knicks or JFK Airport. He’s also a skeezy money grubber who borrows tricks from his former boss Hillary Clinton (for whom he served as campaign manager in 2000). He has a tendency to set up noble-sounding activist groups that by miraculous coincidence attract dollars from entities wishing to grease the wheels with City Hall.”

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: No Trump Tax Returns for You! “Secretary of the Treasury Mnuchin told the vexatious litigants in congress that Treasury will not be turning over Trump’s tax returns as requested. Mnuchin wrote that the request for the president’s tax returns ‘lacks a legitimate legislative purpose.’ I’ll say.”

AND DONALD TRUMP KNEW THAT: Xi Jinping Wanted Global Dominance. He Overshot. China wasn’t ready for the trade war with the United States.

NEW CIVILITY WATCH: Linda Sarsour at 2015 Farrakhan’s ‘Justice Or Else’ Rally: “I’m Tired of People Asking What The ‘Else’ Is.”

DESPITE PREDICTIONS IN 2016, IT’S BEEN RATHER SUCCESSFUL: Why Aren’t Democratic Presidential Candidates Criticizing Trump’s Foreign Policy? Perhaps the biggest compliment to Trump’s foreign policy is that his political opponents largely want to make the 2020 election about domestic issues.

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: Feminists, Conservatives Join Forces to Oppose ‘Equality Act.’

The Equality Act just passed the House Judiciary Committee last week, and it threatens to erase protections for women — protections that benefit women and society as a whole. Legislative and policy “reforms” proposed in this dangerous bill will lead to blatant violations of our safety, privacy, and dignity.

Under this bill, men and boys will take away women’s small business grants and hard-won spots on sports teams; they will be allowed to live in women’s domestic violence shelters and use our locker rooms. And united as women, we are just not going to stand for it.

If you doubt the seriousness (and absurdity) of this situation, read what has already happened in Washington state, as just one example. In 2012, Colleen Francis was a 45-year old student at The Evergreen State College. Francis who identifies as a woman, but has male genitalia, has used the Evergreen women’s locker room.

High school students and other minors also use Evergreen’s pool and locker rooms, and Francis was completely naked in the locker room sauna when teenage girls practicing for their high school swim team saw him and reported him to their coach. The female coach confronted Francis and asked him to leave. 

Was Francis discouraged from exposing his adult naked male body to underage girls in a public facility supported by tax dollars? Were the teenage girls congratulated and encouraged to continue exercising good judgement, affirmed in their power to set boundaries about who can inhabit or expose themselves in a female-only locker room?

No. The result was that everyone had to apologize to Francis — who is “female” on paper but male in the flesh.

These are Heinlein’s Crazy Years — we just live in them.

WELL, THEY STILL HAVEN’T ACCEPTED 2016: Liberal Media Scream: Anti-Trump media fears he’ll never leave office.

Related: Honoring elections is no longer the Democratic Party way.

ROBERT FRANCIS O’ROURKE: ‘Yes, I Think There’s Enough Evidence’ for Congress to Impeach Trump.

WORST PUTIN PUPPET EVER: U.S. Readies New Sanctions on Cuba, Russia for Backing Maduro in Venezuela.

POOR DEAR THINGS: Men Have No Friends and Women Bear the Burden. “Toxic masculinity—and the persistent idea that feelings are a ‘female thing’—has left a generation of straight men stranded on emotionally-stunted island, unable to forge intimate relationships with other men. It’s women who are paying the price.”

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): After a half-century devoted to destroying male spaces, feminists now complain that men don’t have enough male friends.

LICENSE TO TILL: Illinois ‘license to landscape’ bill is a pure protection racket.

Senate Bill 1899 says that anyone working in the field of landscape architecture must obtain a special license from the state. That means passing an exam, and you’ll need to jump through some high hoops just to take it.

You can either 1) complete a course of study and graduate from an accredited landscape architecture school and gather two years of experience under the supervision of a licensed landscape architect; or 2) get a bachelor’s degree in surveying, urban planning, architecture or engineering and work for six years under a licensed landscape architect.

It’s an expensive, yearslong slog.

But what counts as landscape architecture? And how has the field been functioning without state licensure for so long?

The bill is maddeningly broad, making it unclear what Illinois