OF COURSE:  Professor says his course proposal on conservative thought was rejected at Portland State University because … wait for it … it wasn’t diverse.

DISPATCHES FROM GROUND ZERO OF THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Oberlin Is Forced to Check Its Woke Privilege.

If there is one thing you learn about at Oberlin College, the notoriously progressive liberal-arts college, it is surely privilege: white privilege, hetero privilege, gender privilege, you name it.

Now, an Ohio jury has identified an entirely new variety, woke privilege, and resolved to hold people who believe they are protected by it to account.

The jury handed down a staggering $11 million verdict against Oberlin for a smear campaign against a local business, and it awarded another $33 million in punitive damages to the targeted mom-and-pop store, Gibson’s Food Market and Bakery.

The damages will certainly be reduced, but the verdict is a shot across the bow of well-heeled institutions tempted to join social-justice mobs.

Oberlin thought that it could defame Gibson’s as racist with impunity, that the hothouse rules of campus politics applied (i.e., anyone accused of racism is ipso facto guilty of racism), and that no one would question its superior righteousness and cultural power vis-à-vis a mere local business.

In other words, Oberlin counted on its woke privilege to give it the latitude to discount reason, evidence, and fair play.

Oberlin’s woke privilege may impact any number of uber-woke academic institutions, as trial lawyers wake up to the rewards that can be found by punching back twice as hard, to borrow from the recommendation of an uber-woke community advisor.

IT’S A BAD IDEA: Speed Holstering: Why It’s a Bad Idea.

AT AMAZON, Shop Amazon Warehouse Deals – Deep Discounts on Open-box and Used Products.

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

WORST. RACIST. EVER. Poll: Trump Better for Black Americans Than Obama.

IS THERE NOTHING IT CAN’T DO? How Ford’s flathead V-8 helped save lives as an aerial minesweeper during World War II.

ASK AMY: My daughter lives with me and owns a gun. Can I kick her out? “I agree with your ultimatum; I also weep that there is yet another (likely unsafe) gun owner in this country.”

Better advice: Ask your daughter to take you down to the range for professional instruction.

21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: A New Instrument Is Actively Searching For More Planets Around Alpha Centauri.

BLUE CITY BLUES: A Deadly Gang War Is Happening In A Highly Gentrified Washington, DC, Neighborhood.

DON’T GET COCKY, KIDS: 797 Trump reelection ‘watch parties’ set, six times the number of #ImpeachTrump events.

Here’s why you shouldn’t get cocky: Swing states: Biden dominates, Trump’s reelection in trouble.

SAD: Why Targeting Millennial Consumers Might Not Be Such a Hot Idea After All. “A growing body of evidence shows why Gen Y consumers aren’t ideal: because many of them are broke.”

THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE AMERICAN LEFT CONTINUES APACE: Leftist Actor John Cusack Tweets Vile Anti-Semitic Attack, Then Deletes.

It’s often difficult to distinguish between the arguments of anti-semetic pro-Palestinians (à la Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Louis Farrakhan) and anti-semetic white nationalists. Actor John Cusack ran across this problem Monday night when he posted an anti-semetic tweet that used a Neo-Nazi quote, thinking it was a pro-Palestine meme. The Con Air star later deleted the tweet and issued an apology, but through the left’s readiness to forgive, it unintentionally exposed its own hypocrisy.

The tweet in question is a picture of a Star of David-emblazoned arm crushing a group of haggard paupers with a quote that reads: “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” The quote — falsely attributed to Voltaire — comes from Neo-Nazi Kevin Alfred Storm. Cusack added the caption “Follow the money.”

Flashback: Cusack signs on to Roger Waters’ pro-BDS manifesto.

AT AMAZON, save on Lawn Mowers and Tractors.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: The Sexbot Devolution.

CHANGE: Trump opens 1.4 million federal acres to hunters, anglers.

WINNING: Trump Drives Down Price Of F-35 Fighter 25% From Obama Level.

The flyaway price was always supposed to drop once production ramped up, but Trump has been aggressive in his push to drive that price down even further, and faster.

EVERYTHING USES GPS; MY UNDERWATER CAMERA TAGS PICS WITH THE LAST GPS READING FROM THE SURFACE: Study finds that a GPS outage would cost $1 billion per day. “90 percent of the technology’s financial impact has come since just 2010.”

ENDGAME: How 7.4 Tons of Venezuela’s Gold Landed in Africa—and Vanished.

On two early-March flights, at least 7.4 tons of gold with a market value over $300 million moved from Venezuela to a refinery in Uganda, say officials in Venezuela and Uganda, a foreign diplomat and Venezuelan opposition lawmakers, who have concluded Mr. Maduro’s government exported the ingots.

The gold arrived on a Russian charter jetliner in two shipments at the international airport in Entebbe, says Ugandan national-police spokesman Fred Enanga. The accompanying paperwork identified the ingots, some with stamped labels partially scratched off, as Venezuelan central-bank property, says a senior Ugandan police officer who saw the bars and documents. Flight records show the trips originated in Caracas, Venezuela.

The shipments expose one link in a global underground economy many suspect is helping Mr. Maduro cling to power by bypassing the U.S.-dominated international finance system. Washington has recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate president, slapped financial and other sanctions on Venezuelan officials and institutions, and threatened penalties for others doing business with the regime.

When the gold runs out, that’s when the real fun begins.

DEAR DIARY: Jim Acosta Risks Life and Limb to Sell His Book. “Valley Forge. Gettysburg. Pearl Harbor. Omaha Beach. And now, we can add another name to the list of sacred places in the American collective unconscious: the DoubleTree by Hilton in Philly. That’s where CNN’s brave correspondent Jim Acosta bravely spoke yesterday about The Enemy of the People, his brave new book about how brave he is.”

DANIEL MITCHELL: The Trump Tax Reform Is Generating Good Results.

CHANGE: Politicians from both sides back Virginia attorney general’s call for decriminalizing marijuana.

The call from the state’s top lawyer to decriminalize marijuana possession could be enough to break the question free from the General Assembly committees where it has died in recent years, politicians and lobbyists who follow the issue say.

Attorney General Mark Herring said in a Sunday op-ed essay in the Daily Press and Virginian-Pilot that racial disparities in enforcement and the number of young lives ruined mean it is time to stop putting people in jail for possession of small amounts of marijuana.

“I’m wide open to looking at it,” said Del. Barry Knight, R-Virginia Beach, who as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee’s public safety panel keeps an eye on law enforcement issues.

“I could see handling it like a traffic violation, with a fine,” he said.

It’s not smart to smoke the stuff, but it’s even dumber to send people to jail for it.

JUSTICE: A former FBI agent hired by St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner to help in the criminal investigation of then-Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens was hit with charges of perjury and tampering with evidence Monday.

YES, LET’S: Let’s Move More Federal Agencies Out of Washington: There’s no need for most federal agencies to be stationed in the nation’s capital, one of the most expensive cities in the country.

Hey, there’s bipartisan support for this idea.

And here’s my column: Make DC A Swamp Again: Trump is scaring progressive hipsters away, he should send federal workers after them. “A few decades ago, Washington was a sleepy town, famously mocked by JFK for being a combination of ‘northern charm and southern efficiency.’ You could dine at the fanciest restaurants on a senior civil servant’s salary, real estate prices were reasonable, and the cultural life was, well, pretty lifeless. This is what we should aspire to for D.C.’s future.”

If Trump were really smart, of course, he’d send them to the rural parts of deep-blue states, so they won’t boost the Democrats’ electoral fortunes, and so that lefty-types won’t want to work for the federal government as much.

SALENA ZITO: What Happens When Joe Stops Being Joe?

What if he starts being no different from his 20-plus competitors?

One month after Biden rolled out a near-perfect presidential announcement, bookending his tour in his home state of Pennsylvania, Biden started to become a little less Joe. His opponents, special interest groups and his own campaign staff leaned him on the question of abortion subsidies, and so he flipped, abandoning his longtime support for the Hyde Amendment.

Keep in mind that pressure came from people who, for the most part, do not live in proximity to the very voters who will likely decide a presidential election, who instead live in the same super ZIP codes that surround Washington and New York City. Everyone they know supports federal subsidies for abortion. That taxpayer dollars for abortion would upset some Democrats or independents is unthinkable to this crowd.

This same crowd that advised Hillary Clinton persuaded Biden.

And that is when Joe stopped being Joe.

Read the whole thing.