BOOM: Google Fined $1.7 Billion by E.U. for Unfair Advertising Rules.

The fine, worth about $1.7 billion, is the third against Google by the European Union since 2017, reinforcing the region’s position as the world’s most aggressive watchdog of an industry with an increasingly powerful role in society and the global economy. The regulators said Google had violated antitrust rules by imposing unfair terms on companies that used its search bar on their websites in Europe.

Europe’s regulatory approach was once criticized as unfairly targeting technology companies from the United States, but is now viewed as a potential global model as governments question the influence of Silicon Valley. Europe is at the forefront of a broad debate about the role of tech platforms like Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google, and whether their size and power hurts competition.

I’m still not convinced these EU fines are anything more, really, than enhanced tax collection, and I’m also not convinced that, as much money as Google makes, that even a fine this large is meaningful.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: I know college admissions offices from the inside — schools basically sign off on scandal.

Admissions officers and deans of admissions appeared to be the victims in this case. That is hard to believe. After years of working in an Ivy League admissions office where I handled the recruited athletes’ applications and being a dean of admissions at a small liberal arts college, I know better.

No matter how much influence the indicted individuals had, we are overlooking the fact that none of them signed off on admissions decisions. Every single student who was admitted under false pretenses received their offer from the admissions office signed by the dean or another high-ranking member of the staff.

Let’s be clear: It is the responsibility of the admissions office to verify applicants, their applications and their viability to succeed at the institution.

Let them set an SAT/GPA lower bound, then admit by random lottery from among applicants above that. For fairness and diversity!

RACISM, STRAIGHT UP: Ocasio-Cortez Joins De Blasio In Call To Punish Asian Students.

SETH BARRETT TILLMAN: DC & MD v Trump—Can the President of the United States get Married or Divorced?

The answer, of course, depends on whether we’re talking about President Trump, or literally anyone else. Because to preserve the rule of law, we must treat President Trump differently from every other president.

FASTER? PLEASE! Air Force To Turn Navy Air Defense Busting Missile Into High-Speed Critical Strike Weapon.

The U.S. Air Force has revealed that it is working to turn the U.S. Navy’ s Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range, or AARGM-ER, into a fast-flying strike weapon that its F-35A Joint Strike Fighters will be able to use against a variety of time-sensitive targets. This is something that The War Zone had thought would be the case based on previous information about this program. The new missile would give those stealthy jets, as well as other aircraft in the future, an important tool for quickly knocking down anti-access and area denial threats, as well as destroying pop-up targets on short notice.

The F-35’s “short legs” matter less when armed with high-speed/long-range missiles.

HERE’S GRAPHIC PROOF OF MSM ANTI-TRUMP BIAS: This is a great example of how smart, honest journalists can use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) not only as a resource for holding government accountable but also each other.

The Washington Free Beacon’s Brent Scher used the government’s online FOIA database to count FOIA requests submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, CNN, The Hill and Politico during President Barack Obama’s second term in the Oval Office and through Trump’s tenure there.

What Scher found is stark: “Reporters at the Washington Post sent just a single FOIA request to the EPA during Obama’s entire second term, and have sent 43 FOIA requests to the agency since Trump took office.”

The New York Times? Reporters there “have made 100 FOIA requests since Trump took office just over two years ago, a 669 percent increase of the number of FOIA requests it made during the four years of Obama’s second term.”

Similar trends were seen at the other four outlets Scher checked. That thump you just heard was the sound of the mike I just dropped. If I had a mike, that is.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Ky. free speech bill cruises through legislature, awaits gov’s signature. The state’s ACLU chapter opposed it, because it might stop lefty groups from shutting down conservative speakers.

Plus, “Utah’s Senate spiked a similar bill earlier in March.” WTF, Utah?

UPDATE: The Kentucky bill is linked in the story but since some commenters haven’t figured that out, here’s a direct link. Read it yourself and see if there’s anything that a civil liberties group should find objectionable. I can’t find anything

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LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Cohen documents unsealed and much, much more. “CNN has won a Walter Cronkite award for best ‘National Network News Program’ for broadcasting an infomercial promoting gun control.”

That’s all so fitting in so many ways. Yesterday, CNN’s Jake Tapper unfollowed Dana Loesch when she correctly called out him and CNN for their award-winning behavior at that town hall.

GOOD: Trump, Bolsonaro vow fight against socialism in Western Hemisphere.

I remember when that seemed like a distant dream:

BUT OF COURSE: 2020 Dems Endorse Violating Due Process for US Citizens With ‘No Fly, No Buy’ for Guns.

FLASHBACK: Thanks to Joe Manchin’s Proposed Gun Ban, I Bought a New AR-15.

Full story at the link.

CLOWN CAR UPDATE: Sanders tops New Hampshire ‘Power Ranking,’ Warren a ‘flame-out,’ Buttigieg the ‘Cinderella story.’

Slogan: “With a name like Buttigieg, he’s got to be good!”

THEY’D TURN AMERICA INTO VENEZUELA IF THEY COULD: Bernie Sanders’ New Campaign Advisor David Sirota Once Touted Hugo Chavez’s ‘Economic Miracle’ in Venezuela.

TIME TO SPLIT NEW YORK IN TWO: Why Upstate New York Feels Unwelcome in its Own State.

Related: Splitsylvania: State Secession and What to Do About It.

DRAIN THE SWAMP: Congress Unloads on Pro-Iran Deal Forces in Trump Administration.

Leading Republican senators are uniting against what they describe as a bid by some elements of the Trump administration to keep the Iran nuclear deal on life support via a package of waivers exempting Tehran and its allies from new sanctions spearheaded by President Donald Trump, according to multiple conversations with top congressional officials both on and off the record.

A debate has been raging inside the Trump administration for months over how far it will go to sanction the Iranian regime. While President Donald Trump has promised a “maximum pressure” campaign to choke off Tehran’s resources, the State and Treasury Departments have advocated in favor of waivers permitting Iran to continue sensitive nuclear work as well as its lucrative oil trade.

The debate has split certain elements of the Trump administration and will come to a head in the coming weeks as a series of sanctions waivers permitting eight countries to continue purchasing Iranian crude oil is set to expire in May.

Already, some elements of the administration are pushing to issue another round of sanctions waivers, prompting outrage on Capitol Hill where multiple officials stand ready to fight that potential decision.

If they can’t get on board with their boss’s policy, they need to be shown the door. It’s gotten so bad that when I remember that line in Star Wars about that “wretched hive of scum and villainy,” I picture the State Department building.

THE NEVERTRUMPERS GET STEADILY MORE RIDICULOUS:

Related: “It’s been a tough two years if you’re a post-Reagan era, Bush-flunky fake conservative.”

WELL, THAT WOULD DOOM TWITTER, SO YEAH: Roger Simon: Trump Should Quit Twitter — After He Wins.

IT WAS ALL JUST A DIRTY-TRICKS POLITICAL SCAM FROM THE BEGINNING: Trump-Russia 2.0: Dossier-Tied Firm Pitching Journalists Daily on ‘Collusion.’

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Ocasio-Cortez, Chief-of-Staff Removed as Governors of Justice Democrats PAC.

Justice Democrats, a far-left PAC whose members helped elect Ocasio-Cortez to Congress, has come under fire in recent weeks for transfers that the PAC made to two limited liability companies started by Chakrabarti.

In addition to the money that was sent from the Justice Democrats PAC to the two entities, transfers were made from the Brand New Congress PAC, also started by Chakrabarti and other individuals involved with Justice Democrats, to the limited liability companies that totaled nearly $1 million, according to an FEC complaint filed by the National Legal and Policy Center.

Ocasio-Cortez and Chakrabarti were later found by the Daily Caller to be listed as governors of Justice Democrats on D.C. corporate filings and remained so as recently as early March. Ocasio-Cortez did not report this to the FEC, which a former commissioner said could get them into “big trouble” with violations.

Hmm.

HMM: Guaido supporters in Venezuela ‘took control’ of diplomatic buildings, US says.

Spokesman Robert Palladino told reporters that Guaido’s supporters were in possession of two military attache installations in Washington D.C. and the Venezuelan consulate in New York. Palladino added that the Trump administration was “pleased to support these requests.”

Carlos Vecchio, Guaido’s ambassador to the United States, posted videos on Twitter of diplomats and military officers walking through the vacant buildings. At the consulate in Midtown Manhattan, staffers removed images of disputed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez from the walls.

“It is impossible not to feel emotion as we enter this homeland, the sovereign territory of our #Venezuela, liberated from the usurper regime Of Maduro,” tweeted Gustavo Marcano, another pro-Guaido official. “This is what will happen throughout our country when the usurpation ceases!”

If we have to send pallets of cash to anyone overseas, it ought to be to people like these.

A FEW YEARS AGO THIS WOULD HAVE SEEMED LIKE NOTHING MORE THAN THE PREMISE FOR A QUESTIONABLE SPY MOVIE: Someone in State Department likely involved in bid to take down Trump.

Fox News’ chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge believes a claim by Republican North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows of a coordinated effort to hurt President Trump — including “sitting ambassadors,” the FBI and the Department of Justice — also likely involves someone in the State Department.

“I think the congressman is referring to someone within the State Department based on my reporting,” Herridge said Tuesday on Fox News Radio’s “Brian Kilmeade Show.” “Because we have a pretty good sense now from these transcripts that have been revealed and then also records that were unsealed at the end last week in the defamation suit with BuzzFeed that … the government network was being pulsed with the dossier in the final months of the campaign and then during the transition period. And that it was coming at the FBI and Justice Department through many different lanes or many different avenues, and the objective was to lend it credibility.”

Herridge added, “My recollection is there is a tie into the State Department, so we’ll see exactly who Congressman Meadows is referring to … but that is where I think it’s going.”

Read the whole thing.

WHO DIDN’T SEE THIS COMING: Politician who opposes mandatory chickenpox vaccinations contracts chickenpox. Of course, opposing mandatory vaccination isn’t the same as saying vaccines don’t work.

FINE. AS SOON AS THEY TURN OVER THEIR NUKES AND MISSILES AND DESTROY THE FACILITIES UNDER U.S. SUPERVISION: North Korea seeks sanctions relief.