KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: DHS Sec. Mayorkas Wins This Week’s Biden Administration Dumbstakes. “Every Biden administration official who has to go in front of a camera immediately reveals that he or she is in over his or her head. The level of cluelessness in this crowd is stunning even for those of us who struggle to find anything nice to say about Democrats.”

THIS VIOLENT DISPLAY WAS IN SUPPORT OF GUN CONTROL: Unhinged Dem Rep. Jamaal Bowman screams in Rep. Thomas Massie’s face, puts hands on him on House floor.

YES, LAW STUDENTS ARE ADULTS AND THEIR ACTIONS SHOULD FACE CONSEQUENCES: Ilya Shapiro in Newsweek: Stanford Dean’s Letter Is Great, but Disrupters Should Be Punished.

HMM: Tech Giants Call For a Pause in AI Experiments, Fearing “Profound Risks to Society.” Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak are among them.

Meanwhile, James Pethokoukis says no to the pause.

In the past, I would have reflexively sided against the pause, but my reduced techno-optimism has me less reflexive. The “smart people” and “experts” haven’t had a very good decade. So for the moment, I’m siding with Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak, pro-pause.

AI: ChatGPT has passed the Turing test and if you’re freaked out, you’re not alone. “With OpenAI’s ChatGPT, we’ve certainly crossed that threshold to a large degree (it can still be occasionally wonky, but so can humans), but for everyday use, ChatGPT passes this test.”

Creatively though, ChatGPT (so far, anyway) lacks human spark. The results I’ve read just aren’t any fun.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): The AI to really be afraid of is the one that deliberately fails the Turing Test.

HMM: D.A. Steps Down In Alec Baldwin Case, Clears Path For Special Prosecutor.

DON SURBER: Post-Trump, Biden unleashes hell. “President Trump’s departure from the White House brought back the Dark Ages of the deep state’s ownership of the federal government. The new regime seeks to punish his supporters as well as destroy him.”

THEY AREN’T ASSAULT WEAPONS: Sen. Kennedy Stumps Mayorkas (Again) Regarding the Definition of ‘Assault Weapons’ He Wants to Ban.

DEMOCRATS ACCUSED TRUMP OF BEING A RUSSIAN TOOL, BUT WHAT WOULD A CHINESE TOOL DO DIFFERENTLY? ‘Sinking Our Future’: Biden’s Budget Cuts Funds to U.S. Navy As China Ramps Up Shipbuilding.

AND DIDN’T WORK, OF COURSE: Brad Thompson: When Communism Came to America.

THE FOLLY OF WAR: Putin’s drive to expand Armed Forces intensifying labour shortages in Russia’s economy. “Citing people familiar with the plan, the report suggested that Kremlin is now seeking 400,000 more contract recruits this year to fight in Ukraine as Putin digs in for a long fight. Putin has approved a goal to increase the size of Russia’s military to 1.5 million from 1.15 million, which may take until 2026 to achieve, added the report.”

Related: Putin looks for positives as Russia’s consumer demand, industrial output slide.

The result so far: Russia’s Winter Offensive Has Failed Due To “Extreme Attrition” of Forces.

I don’t know if Russian losses are actually “extreme,” but there’s been an awful lot of fighting and virtually nothing to show for it on the map.

OH, GROW UP: More Elite Law Student Foolishness, This Time at Columbia.

More here.

BIDEN ADDS ISRAEL TO THE LIST OF ALLIES HE HAS ALIENATED:

US President Joe Biden issued his gravest warning yet over the judicial overhaul being advanced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, saying Tuesday that Israel “cannot continue down this road.”

“Like many strong supporters of Israel, I’m very concerned. And I’m concerned that they get this straight,” Biden told reporters before boarding Air Force One at the Raleigh-Durham airport. “They cannot continue down this road. And I’ve sort of made that clear.”

He also said emphatically that Netanyahu that would not be invited to the White House in the “near term.”

An Obama administration retread trashing Netanyahu? I don’t think I need to borrow Sarah’s shocked face for this one.

And speaking of Joe’s former(?) boss:

BE VERY AFRAID: The RESTRICT Act Is Exactly What It Sounds Like.

Ostensibly, the RESTRICT Act is designed to protect Americans from TikTok — you know, that nifty piece of Chinese spyware masquerading as a fun way to showcase dance videos, asinine behavior, and other things people can live without. And Congress is interested in protecting the country from bad international actors. That is because it can be done via the RESTRICT Act, which will do far more than keep TikTok off of your phone or tablet. How much more? More than you want or even thought possible, even under this administration.

The RESTRICT Act goes after anyone whom the powers that be deem a threat. That determination is made by the secretary of commerce. A threat can include people abroad and U.S. citizens.

Americans are much more of a threat to our ruling class than their cash-flush benefactors in Beijing.

IT’S EASY TO TELL WHERE THEIR SYMPATHIES LIE.

PRESS SECRETARIES ARE SUPPOSED TO MAKE YOU LOOK GOOD, AND THEY PROBABLY SHOULDN’T HAVE AN INDEPENDENT PERSONAL PROFILE: AZ Governor’s Press Secretary Resigns Over the Most Poorly Thought Out Tweet in History.

JEFF GOLDSTEIN: “The mainstream press and trans-activists are trying to pin the targeted shooting deaths of 6 people, including three nine-year-old children, on Christians, while simultaneously rehabilitating the shooter, a trans man. Fair…?”

Well, fairly predictable, anyway.

OPEN THREAD: It’s the one thread to have, when you’re having more than one.

OVER AT MY SUBSTACK, thoughts on age segregation. Sequestering teens and old people is bad for them, and for everyone else. (Bumped).

JOY BEHAR SAYS THE QUIET PART OUT LOUD: Joy Behar: ‘Trump Is The One Who Needs To Get The Nomination Because Then Democrats Will Win.’

Joy Behar, co-host of ABC’s “The View,” said on Wednesday that she hopes that former President Donald Trump beats Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the 2024 Republican primary because Trump is the candidate that Democrats can beat.

Behar made the remarks after other co-hosts on the leftist show took shots at DeSantis, who has not announced whether or not he will seek the White House in 2024.

Cohost Alyssa Farah Griffin said that she believes that DeSantis “is the most over-hyped politician in America.”

“I want to see him sit down with a neutral interviewer like George Stephanopoulos and actually answer tough questions,” Griffin said. Stephanopoulos served as White House press secretary for former President Bill Clinton.

“DeSantis is what they call a dweeb,” Behar exclaimed. “And Trump is the one who needs to get the nomination because then the Democrats will win.”

That’s some serious grifting when Farah Griffin is paid to be the token faux-conservative in the cast, and yet still describes Stephanopoulos as “a neutral interviewer.”

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Lockheed Martin subsidiary to offer commercial lunar communications and navigation services.

OUT ON A LIMB: There Are No Banned Books. Books are ‘banned’ in Tennessee in much the same way a person can’t say the word ‘gay’ in Florida. It’s a myth.

For the left, the banned book claim is a political racket, allowing them to feign indignation over the alleged “authoritarianism” of Republicans who don’t want kids reading identitarian pseudohistories or books depicting oral sex, rape, violence, or gender dysphoria in their schools.

Yet, major media now regularly contend, as indisputable fact, that “book bans” are in place. The claim is embedded in the Democrat’s daily rhetoric. After the mass shooting at Covenant School in Nashville, we were not plunged into another inane discussion about “stochastic terrorism” or political violence, but rather a preposterous comparison of Tennessee’s “book bans” and lax gun control. As Liz Cheney noted, “if we really want to keep our children safe, we need to spend less time banning books and more time stopping the horrific gun violence in our schools.”

Books are banned in Tennessee in the same way a person can’t say the word “gay” in Florida. It’s a myth. Yet, here is a recent headline from NPR: “Plot twist: Activists skirt book bans with guerrilla giveaways and pop-up libraries.” In the piece, the reader learns that with “a record number of book bans” on the horizon, “some activists are finding creative ways to make banned books available to young readers anyway.”

“Activists” buying books at a local Barnes & Noble, where an endless supply exists, and handing them to other people’s children against the wishes of parents isn’t so much “creative” as it is creepy. NPR makes it sound as if these people were risking their lives trading Samizdat one step ahead of the Secret Police. Any dope with a car, a bus pass, a bicycle, legs, or an internet connection can hand some impressionable kid softcore porn. Because there are no banned books.

Why is NPR pro-grooming? Flashback: NPR Goes Full Groomer, Promotes ‘Queer’ Sex Education.

MICHAEL WALSH: “Not One Step Back.”

Ron DeSantis has made his first unforced error in his nascent, as yet still-unannounced, campaign for the Republican presidential nomination 2024. Even worse, he showed weakness – and that, in this late-Roman Republic political climate, is an unforgiveable sin. If DeSantis is not to be bullied out of the primaries by the raging bull elephant that is Donald Trump, he needs to do better, asap.

Read the whole thing.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Basic training without yelling: Army recruits get 2nd chance.

So far, 5,400 soldiers have made it through the prep course since it started in August at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. That’s an important boost since the Army fell dramatically short of its recruiting goals last year, due to low unemployment and general wariness about military service. And at least one other military service, the Navy, took notice and is setting up a similar course.

For those who make it through the program, it can be life-changing. Holiday, 23, said many of her peers in her hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, didn’t make it out of high school, with some “dead or in jail.” Sitting outside the class building in her Army fatigues last summer, she talked about trying to pass the academic test for two years with no success.

She said she wanted to set an example, especially for her younger siblings. The prep course gave her a second chance. She raised her academic score by more than 20 points.

The course, she said, was like “basic training without the yelling.” It also allowed her to bond with fellow students. “We helped each other out throughout basic training, so it was easy,” she said. “All of us actually passed, so it was a good experience. And we all keep in touch.”

Army leaders say the program — it involves classroom instruction and training ranging from how to wear the uniform and properly make a bed to fitness and discipline — gives recruits like Holiday an advantage.

As the first commenter to the AP article on Yahoo notes, “The real take away here is our public education system is so bad that these kids can’t even pass a very basic entrance exam. Rather than put money into the schools, we’re paying to have the military tutor kids so they can pass. We’re talking about the ASVAB. Most high school sophomores can pass it without even knowing what they’ve done. And what about the other kids who don’t enlist?”

Flashback: An army of snowflakes. The British Army wants to recruit snowflakes to its ranks. What is it thinking? “Its new PR campaign features posters and TV ads calling on ‘snowflakes’, ‘selfie addicts’, ‘class clowns’, ‘phone zombies’ and ‘me me me millennials’ to sign up. One poster says: ‘Snowflakes – your army needs YOU and your compassion.’”

TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! How Feeble Is He? “This feeble:”

Shocking Biden hot-mic reveals how handlers program his every move

WATCH.

Yes, this is 100% real.pic.twitter.com/Qgsii21QBe

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) March 28, 2023