HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, SECESSION EDITION: EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: UC-Berkeley spox doesn’t rule out violence if Trump visits Berkeley.

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FLASHBACK: To Reduce Inequality, Abolish The Ivy League. Newly relevant in light of the college admissions scandals.

ANDREW KLAVAN: My Thoughts And Prayers.

When tragedy or atrocity strikes — as it just did with the mosque shootings in New Zealand — thoughts and prayers are not just an expression of compassion. They are, more importantly and more wisely, an expression of humility and helplessness. They are a way of saying: “There is nothing we can do in the face of this wickedness but we stand in solidarity with the victims and ask God to comfort their families in their sorrow.”

Almost every other reaction is absurd. To suggest you have the solution to the eternal problem of evil in the form of addressing your pet peeve or of blaming and attacking your political opponents is disgraceful. It is to use the bodies of the slain for a soap box. It degrades you and insults the victims.

Yes.

MY DAYS OF NOT CARING WHEN “YOUNG FOLKS” ARE “OFFENDED” ARE COMING TO A MIDDLE:

On the other hand, given that Angelou’s whole career is based on lefty tropes, it’s sort of fun to see the Red Guards go after her now.

WAIT, WHAT? Top Obama aide praises Kushner-Trump high-tech drive. “While it is easy for critics to focus on Trump’s crowd pleasing stabs at green technology, his team led by son-in-law Kushner have pushed far further than any past administration into overhauling government technology that both cuts costs and helps taxpayers get the help they need, sometimes with a simple click on a government website.”

BLUE ON BLUE: CHELSEA CLINTON BLAMED FOR NEW ZEALAND MOSQUE SHOOTING ON ACCOUNT OF “STOKING ISLAMOPHOBIA” — by calling out Ilhan Omar’s antisemitism.

RIGHT TO RIOT? Black Lives Matter L.A. Co-Founder Refers to Cops as ‘Slave Catchers,’ Refuses to Engage Them. “We have a right to riot because you’re not hearing us when we speak in the way that you dictated that we need to speak.”

ROGER KIMBALL: The PC censors target a lesbian author.

The case of the American novelist E.J. Levy, celebrated author of “Love, In Theory” and “Tasting Life Twice,” an anthology of lesbian fiction, makes me wonder.

Levy has also written a forthcoming historical novel titled “The Cape Doctor.” At least, I hope it’s forthcoming. The book is about a real-life character, James Barry, née Margaret Ann Bulkley, a 19th-century, Irish-born army surgeon who practiced in Cape Town and lived as a man.

It’s that last fact, of course, that gives Barry’s story its dash of hot sauce. As one news report tells it — and note, please, the use of the participle “assigned” — “Barry was assigned female at birth but lived his entire adult life as a man. In the past, he was seen as a woman who donned men’s clothing so he could become a doctor, but LGBTQ historians now regard him to be a transgender man.”

And since “LGBTQ historians” so regard him, you had better, too. Or else.

Read the whole thing.

Earlier: Peggy Noonan: Get Ready for the Struggle Session.

CHANGE: ‘A Very Good Start’: Sen. Graham Says He’s Committed to Getting Judges Confirmed.

COULD? Smart TVs could get annoying ads just like your web browser does.

My solution to Hollywood nags and spies is a bit extreme, but it does work.

NOBODY HATES ACTUAL HUMAN RIGHTS MORE THAN MEMBERS OF STATE-CONTROLLED “HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONS:” State Human Rights Commission attacks private citizen for “Black Rifles Matter” bumper sticker. “In a now deleted Facebook post, the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights called out a private citizen on their official Facebook page for a bumper sticker on the back of his truck. Not long after, they deleted the post and made another post explaining why they did. The comments are something else.”

Y’all are trash, and your commission shouldn’t even exist. The best way to protect human rights is to slash the number of officious government employees.

MATTHEW CONTINETTI: Our Bankrupt Elite: Operation Varsity Blues and the hypocrisy of Hollywood liberals.

It’s not what happens in class that matters. The university has long been corrupted by athletics, politicization of the curriculum, identity politics, grade inflation, affirmative action, the death of the humanities, and ideological bias among faculty. What matters is the chit you receive at graduation.

Finally, there are the lessons to be drawn from this story. It’s the media’s vocation, drawing lessons. I’ve heard it said that the parents ought to have been concerned about the lesson they were teaching their children—though right now I’d wager they are more concerned with avoiding jail time. Others say this is the latest example of the falsity of meritocracy. For progressives, the affair reveals the classism and racism of our society, its rampant white privilege.

Which is a funny thing to say about the academic world. Colleges exert tremendous energy to be as diverse and inclusive and woke as possible, to the point where Asian-American students are discriminated against lest they ruin the schemes of college admissions officers. A scandal over which the media seems far less upset.

Lessons? Here are two. First the good news: We are shocked by the actions of these parents precisely because there is so little corruption in America. If the problems were as systemic as some on the Internet believe, they would hardly raise such an outcry. Denizens of countries where bribery is a way of life look at us and say, “Amateurs.”

The second lesson is not as comforting. Operation Varsity Blues is further evidence of the bankruptcy of American elites. For over a decade now, the legitimacy of elites in politics, foreign policy, central banking, journalism, religion, and economics has crumbled as reality failed to match their rhetoric. Education is the latest sphere where elites have betrayed our country’s institutions and our country’s people by using wealth and connections to rig the rules of the game.

The scandal also points to the flagrant hypocrisy of Hollywood liberalism. No class is more moralistic, more hectoring, more obnoxiously activist than the Hollywood left. They barrage Americans with displays of their virtue, their calls to humanitarianism, their paeans to multiculturalism and feminism, their slanders of President Trump, Vice President Pence, Republicans in general, and conservatives in particular. And they have great sway in national politics. A Democrat’s future depends on the beneficence of Hollywood donors—donors who were well represented among the individuals charged in Operation Varsity Blues.

The entertainment industry liberals talk a good game. But look at their actions. Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey are synonymous with predation. Jussie Smollett was a B-list celebrity until he faked a hate crime against himself and blamed it on supporters of Trump. Now we have actors breaking the law so their kids can go to USC.

Why on Earth should we take political cues from these people?

No reason at all. To be honest, they’re not even very good at making movies anymore.

THEIR APPEAL IS BECOMING MORE SELECTIVE: Attention Boomers: 2020 Democratic Candidates Don’t Want Your Vote.

SPACE: The Washington Empire Strikes Back:

In response to the revelation earlier this week by NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine that the agency is considering replacing SLS with commercial rockets for Orion’s first unmanned lunar test mission in June 2020, the swamp in Washington quickly rallied to SLS’s defense.

Not surprisingly, porkmeister Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) led the charge:

“While I agree that the delay in the SLS launch schedule is unacceptable, I firmly believe that SLS should launch the Orion,” Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said in a statement to SpaceNews.

This was followed by statements from industry groups and other lawmakers, all supporting SLS. Next came Bridenstine himself, who emphasized his strong support of SLS at a conference yesterday, then issued a memo to NASA employees reiterating that support.

As far as I can tell, the only way SLS will eventually die is when private companies begin doing things that SLS is designed for, for less money and faster, and for profit. And that won’t happen if this Washington swamp has its say. Rather than see an American success, these cronies have made it clear in the past decade that they will work to squelch any such success if poses any threat to their boondoggles. And it appears now that they are moving to block Bridenstine’s suggestion for that first Orion flight.

Whether this new big government campaign against private enterprise succeeds however is not clear.

It used to be, this sort of thing wasn’t even noticed.

THAT AIN’T NO GOD:  The God that Failed…Over and Over Again.

UNFORTUNATELY TRUE, AND I’M GLAD I’M NO LONGER THE ONLY VOICE SHOUTING IN THE WILDERNESS:  We Fight Now or the Socialists Win.

AGAIN I MUST SAY: OH MY DEAR AND FLUFFY LORD!  Go Beto! [Updated Hilariously: “I Need a Butt Shine”]

OH, DEAR LORD:  Beto O’Rourke Is Running With Vanity Fair.

TO BE FAIR, I DOUBT SHE HAS ANY IDEA WHERE CHRISTCHURCH IS:  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Dunks On Prayer And The NRA In Response To Christchurch Tragedy.

SAME AS THE OLD PARTY LINE:  The New Party Line.

ST PATRICK RID US OF THESE SNAKES:  St. Patrick’s Day Meets Political Correctness.

DON’T TALK WITH YOUR MOUTH FULL:  How we speak was shaped by our ancestors giving up raw meat.