THE ONGOING SECURITY NIGHTMARE THAT IS THE ZOOM VIDEOCONFERENCING APP: Attackers can use Zoom to steal users’ Windows credentials with no warning. “Zoom for Windows converts network locations into clickable links. What could go wrong?“

RIP: Legendary guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli dies at 94.

NEVER LET A PANDEMIC GO TO WASTE: Gavin Newsom Says Coronavirus Pandemic ‘Opportunity’ To Create a New ‘Progressive Era.’

THUG LIFE: NY Unions to Amazon: It Sure Would Be a Shame If Anything Happened to Your Company, Jeff Bezos.

TRAINS TO NOWHERE: Predictably, the House Democrats have dusted off their long-standing plans for building more transit and are pushing it as essential for the inevitable Phase IV stimulus bill. Here’s my colleague Marc Scribner on why that’s a terrible idea.

THERE’S A LOT TO CHOSE FROM: Ilhan Omar Uses Violent Quran Passage to Respond to Criticism About Affair.

MOTHER NATURE ISN’T LOOKING SO MATERNAL ANYMORE: How the Pandemic Will Change Our Views on Technology, Innovation, Privacy — and Nature. Europeans and North Americans are paying the price for their neo-Luddite policies.

OUR USELESS MEDIA CLASS:

GIVE HIM CREDIT — FRED NEVER LET SCOOBY DRIVE THE MYSTERY MACHINE: Cops Find Pit Bull at Wheel After Car Chase — and Owner Allegedly Said He Was Teaching Dog to Drive.

RIP: Adam Schlesinger, Emmy Winner and Fountains of Wayne Cofounder, Dies of Coronavirus Complications at 52.

Fountains of Wayne was a fun band.

WE NEED A COMPLETE AND TOTAL SHUTDOWN OF HIGHER EDUCATION UNTIL WE FIGURE OUT WHAT’S GOING ON: Survey results suggest many women nationwide sexually violated by profs, other campus employees.

Of course, with schools going online, I suppose this is a thing of the past. Once again, Reynolds Online University leads the way!

RIP: Ellis Marsalis, New Orleans jazz piano legend hospitalized with coronavirus symptoms, dies at 85. “In his days on the staff of the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, Xavier University and the University of New Orleans, Marsalis taught and tutored several future stars, including Terence Blanchard, Harry Connick Jr., Irvin Mayfield, Jesse Davis, Charlie Dennard, Victor Goines, Donald Harrison, Marlon Jordan and Paul Longstreth, as well as his renowned musical sons, Branford, Wynton, Delfeayo and Jason. Marsalis retired from UNO in 2001.”

SPAIN IS DOING BADLY, CATCHING UP TO ITALY: Coronavirus cases worldwide near 1 million; 10,000 deaths in Spain.

“HATE SPEECH” ISN’T A THING, IT’S JUST A LEFTIST POLITICAL SLOGAN: Disturbing number of students say ‘offensive jokes’ could be hate speech.

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SOME OF THIS IS DUE TO ADVERTISING MUCH MORE GENEROUS JOBLESS BENEFITS, OF COURSE, AND ALSO TO REMOVING SOME PREREQUISITES FOR APPLYING, BUT IT’S ALSO BECAUSE OF ALL THE LAYOFFS AND CLOSINGS: Jobless claims double last week’s record high with 6.6 million.

THIS IS WHY THE FLU COMPARISONS A MONTH AGO WERE BULLSHIT — THEY DIDN’T TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE GROWTH RATE: More than 1,000 in US die in a single day from coronavirus, doubling the worst daily death toll of the flu.

And the deaths will double again shortly. The trouble with this sort of growth rate — especially with the lag in transmission-to-symptoms with this disease — is that by the time you notice the death rate, it’s too late to take useful action. Which is what some of us were saying a month ago.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Let’s All Get Comfortable With Saying Bad Things About China Now. “China is still a totalitarian communist monster and should be viewed as a threat to the United States, not an exotic business partner. The U.S. military has long viewed it as such, it’s time for the rest of us to get on board.”

SPIRIT AND LIGHTNING: A USAF B-2A Spirit bomber and a Royal Netherlands Air Force F-35A Lightning II conduct aerial operations over the North Sea, March 18, 2020.

CHINA’S HUAWEI GAMBIT: Beijing spies on the world using a 5G “virus”?

Here’s the high-risk rub: Does anyone not on the payroll of the Chinese Communist Party trust Beijing’s dictatorship with the power to pervasively monitor communications (spy locally as well as globally), interrupt, deny or corrupt digital services, and possibly take surreptitious control of digital devices, say, the air traffic control computers at Los Angeles International Airport?

Outrageous scenario? No, given Huawei’s baggage is a legitimate worry exacerbated by the regime’s criminal dishonesty (e.g., lying about COVID-19/Wuhan virus). For all practical purposes, Huawei is a Chinese Communist Party tool. In spy lingo, a cutout company can hide an espionage operation. Abundant evidence suggests Huawei serves as a cutout.

My latest Creators Syndicate column (bumped).

TWO-EDGED SWORD: Saudi Power Play Could Send Oil Below $20 a Barrel for an Extended Period.

The U.S. urged Saudi Arabia and Russia to back off plans to increase production. While Russia is reportedly not going to pump more, the kingdom ignored the plea. It plans to raise production to 12.3 million barrels a day, up from 9.7 million a day in February. Oil prices, already down more than 50% in March, were moving lower on Wednesday. Brent crude futures fell 5.7% to $24.84, while West Texas Intermediate futures were trading flat.

Saudi Arabia is angling to take market share from U.S.-based producers, after those oil drillers have taken share at the kingdom’s expense for the past few years. Saudi Arabia tried this in 2014, boosting production to force prices lower. But while the rate of bankruptcies for U.S. producers rose, production dipped only temporarily and the U.S. continued its market-share gains. That time, prices fell to $26.

This time, Saudi Arabia is in a better position to cause U.S. companies to flinch. Demand for petroleum products has fallen dramatically as people around the world stay home to combat the coronavirus, so producers are having trouble finding buyers for their barrels at almost any price. Spot prices at some U.S. pipelines have fallen below $10 a barrel.

Even smaller US producers are better hedged than they were in 2014, but they weren’t also facing a collapse in demand.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Trump’s already using this to fill the strategic petroleum reserve from US suppliers — “at a very nice price” — but he should double down on that.

TEAM USA: 50 companies join Trump’s war on coronavirus.

U.S. NAVAL WAR COLLEGE WAR-GAMED A PANDEMIC: It was last year and involved 50 experts responding in ways that were eerily like what has been happening in the real-world in 2020, according to military.com.

“Called Urban Outbreak 2019, the war game involved 50 experts who spent two days coordinating response, containment and messaging efforts around the notional pandemic. Some of the conclusions, such as the way forced mass quarantine can backfire and trigger additional disease spread, and how the mortality rate is better than the overall number of disease cases in assessing the scale of an outbreak — have been proved out through the response to the novel coronavirus.”