WELL, GOOD: India to observe U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil.

India said Tuesday it will buy crude oil from other major oil producing countries in view of the United States’ decision this week to end waivers that allowed it to buy Iranian oil without facing U.S. sanctions.

External Affairs Ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar said the Indian government would continue to work with partner nations, including the United States, to find ways to protect India’s energy and economic security interests.

Plus: “The sanctions would choke off more than $50 billion a year in Iranian income.”

I had been assured that Trump’s blundering around on the world stage and abandonment of the Iran Deal would cause other nations to rally around the Islamic Republic.

THE NEXT BIG BOOM? More Than $32 Billion Being Invested in Appalachian Basin Pipelines.

This infusion of capital will result in roughly 3,500 miles of new, repurposed or replaced pipelines across Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia and generate more than 124,000 jobs.

The Appalachian Basin is projected to produce roughly 31.6 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) of natural gas in March, according to the Energy Information Administration. The bulk of this extensive and much-needed regional infrastructure build-out is focused on expanding take-away capacity, enabling the Marcellus and Utica shale gas produced here to be used not only within the tri-state but across the country and even globally.

EID’s new infographic shows construction of all proposed pipelines will add nearly 23 bcf/d of natural gas pipeline take-away capacity. That’s enough room to move nearly 72 percent of the natural gas produced in the region.

Those are jobs a President Hillary Clinton would have almost certainly tried to kill, and most (all?) Democrats running for 2020 would, too. You can safely assume that fact won’t be lost on President Trump as he gears up for reelection.

TYLER O’NEIL: Court Delays ‘Politically Motivated’ Prosecution Over Planned Parenthood Sting Videos. “Under pro-Planned Parenthood Attorneys General Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), David Daleiden and Susan Sandra Merritt faced criminal prosecution for their Planned Parenthood sting videos revealing the alleged selling of aborted baby body parts for profit. On Monday, Daleiden and Merritt were scheduled to appear in a hearing. The California Supreme Court stayed the entire prosecution at the last minute, in the afternoon last Friday.”

More to come.

EMILY JASHINKSKY: Yes, ‘Chick Flick’ Is Still A Perfectly Valid Label.

The argument “there’s nothing inherently gendered about liking a light-hearted film with a strong female lead and emotional arc” is just bizarre, and predicated on the ascendant notion there’s something wrong with “gendering” products. Men and women like different things, and our entertainment options should absolutely cater to those divergent interests. But if you don’t buy into that reality, as is increasingly the case on the left, the world you seek is one in which a timeless masterpiece like “Crossroads” would either be advertised unsuccessfully to men or scrapped entirely (a world I hope I’m never alive to see).

Netflix’s anonymous Twitter pundit also complained that “chick flick” is a trivializing categorization, which I suspect is really at the heart of their disgruntlement.

It isn’t trivializing at all, but I might be biased here since the VodkaWife’s idea of a chick flick is “Die Hard.”

HUH: Marijuana Sales in Canada Are Going Nowhere Fast, Analysts Say.

LOVIN’ IT: Leaked documents show that McDonald’s is adding international hits to its American menu, including the Spanish Grand McExtreme Bacon Burger and the Dutch Stroopwafel McFlurry.

How did Grand McExtreme Bacon Burger not originate in this country?

BUT… THEY WERE: Orwellian WaPo Slams the ‘Far-Right’ for Saying Christians Were Under Attack in Sri Lanka.

YOU WOULD THINK: Electric Car Fires in China Should Set Off Alarms.

The numbers are damning. In 2018, Chinese manufacturers recalled 135,700 NEVs for a crushing 10.8 percent industrywide recall rate. Already this year, another 23,458 electric vehicles have been recalled.

Batteries are the most common source of problems. Some don’t perform as advertised. Others drain unusually fast. Still others run dangerously hot. More than 40 NEVs spontaneously combusted in China in 2018.

Other issues include faulty motors, faulty transmissions, faulty odometers and bad odors (a problem to which Chinese consumers are particularly sensitive). Most notably, according to market research firm J.D. Power, problems are far more common in Chinese NEVs than in traditional Chinese-made cars.

True, as with any new technology, teething problems are to be expected. But China’s government-sponsored largesse and highly protected market have clearly exacerbated the problem.

Paging Tom Friedman…

SULTANS GOTTA SULTANATE: Erdogan Cracks Down on Dissent in Turkey Despite Pledge for Unity.

Mr. Erdogan said last week that the time had come to turn the page on a prolonged sequence of electoral contests and focus on repairing an economy mired in recession. While he and his ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, prevailed in the June presidential and legislative votes, the opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, claimed the two biggest prizes in the March 31 municipal elections, Istanbul and Ankara, the capital.

The political climate in Turkey remains volatile. In the past few days, a schoolteacher was returned to prison for having urged the government to spare children’s lives during the fight against militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party; the AKP filed a second package of fraud claims with Turkey’s national election board, seeking a revote in Istanbul; and the leader of the CHP was attacked during a soldier’s funeral.

Kati Piri, a lawmaker with the European Parliament and the Turkey rapporteur, blamed hostile rhetoric by ruling-party officials for the tense climate. Referring to Sunday’s attack on CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, she said in a tweet: “Likely inspired by hate speeches of ruling politicians. This radical polarization must end.”

Not so long as they think it furthers their power, it won’t.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Dennis Miller: Sam Kinison Couldn’t Survive Our PC Age.

LIZ SHELD: Kamala’s Gonna Grab Your Gun.

DON’T GET COCKY: Four Reasons Why the Dems Will Lose in 2020.

The nation is actually doing quite well under President Trump, although you could never tell if your news comes from MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, collectively the propaganda wing of the Democratic Party. Those manufacturing jobs we were told were gone? They are back. That 3% GDP that eluded Trump’s predecessor has returned and been exceeded. Those young black men who could not find work previously? They have found it now. That wealth disparity that Brother Bernie goes on and on about? It has diminished in recent years. Those flat wages? They have increased. Those who gave up looking for jobs? Many have now found the work that eluded them. Such positive news is always downplayed by the media and the Democrats.

The Democrats do best when the nation does poorly.

Remember in ‘92, Bill Clinton said; “It’s the economy, stupid”. When he said that, he did not have the facts regarding the economy on his side, but the message was clear: The economic condition will play a key role in determining the outcome of the election. Today that plays into President Trump’s hands.

Yeah, but I remember the press falling all over themselves to go along with Clinton’s claim that the short and relatively mild recession of late-1990/early-1991 was the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression — even though it was over before the campaign began.

MEDICARE FOR ALL! Medicare hospital fund reserves likely to be exhausted in 2026.

BOTTOM STORY OF THE DAY: Adam Schiff Not Terribly Interested In Finding Out If Steele Dossier Was Russian Misinformation.

ALL THEY HAVE TO DO IS NOT ACT CRAZY… YOU KNOW THE REST: Kamala Harris open to Bernie Sanders’ call of letting Boston Marathon bomber vote from prison.

TYLER O’NEIL: Supreme Court Considers Redefining ‘Sex’ to Prohibit Discrimination.

OH: That Time Ilhan Omar Smeared U.S. Troops Involved in Black Hawk Down Battle.

THAT’S THE YEAR BEFORE I TURN 67: Social Security shortfall: Trust fund to run dry in 2035, trustees predict.

WELL, THAT’S A TAKE: Sri Lanka church bombings stoke far-right anger in the West.

Click warning: Washington Post.

ABOUT DAMN TIME: U.S. Offers $10 Million Bounty on Hezbollah Operatives.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Bring on the Impeachment and Much, Much More. “The Democrats’ 2020 pageant continues with battle cries of impeachment. This may be a smooth move for the primary, where each one is trying to out ‘woke’ the other, but in the general election, it’s an anchor that the eventual nominee will drag around as they try and sell themselves to the voters.”

MICHAEL ANTON: An insider explains the president’s foreign policy.

The fact that Trump is not a neoconservative or a paleoconservative, neither a traditional realist nor a liberal internationalist, has caused endless confusion. The same goes for the fact that he has no inborn inclination to isolationism or interventionism, and he is not simply a dove or a hawk. His foreign policy doesn’t easily fit into any of these categories, though it draws from all of them.

Yet Trump does have a consistent foreign policy: a Trump Doctrine. The administration calls it “principled realism,” which isn’t bad—although the term hasn’t caught on. The problem is that the Trump Doctrine, like most presidential doctrines, cannot be summed up in two words. (To see for yourself, try describing the Monroe, Truman, or Reagan Doctrine with just a couple of words.) Yet Trump himself has explained it, on multiple occasions. In perhaps his most overlooked, understudied speech—delivered at the APEC CEO Summit in Da Nang, Vietnam, in November 2017—he encapsulated his approach to foreign policy with a quote from The Wizard of Oz: “There’s no place like home.” Two months earlier, speaking to the U.N. General Assembly, he made the same point by referring to a “great reawakening of nations.”

This is a longer piece, but well worth your time.

CROWS OF A FEATHER: Venezuela’s President Maduro Sends Birthday Wishes To Russia’s Lenin.

I’m reminded of an item from Letterman’s old “Top Ten Headlines in Hell.”

“Hitler welcomes Mengele in touching ceremony.”

HMM: A Mystery Agent Is Doxing Iran’s Hackers and Dumping Their Code.

Since March 25, a Telegram channel called Read My Lips or Lab Dookhtegan—which translates from Farsi as “sewn lips”—has been systematically spilling the secrets of a hacker group known as APT34 or OilRig, which researchers have long believed to be working in service of the Iranian government. So far, the leaker or leakers have published a collection of the hackers’ tools, evidence of their intrusion points for 66 victim organizations across the world, the IP addresses of servers used by Iranian intelligence, and even the identities and photographs of alleged hackers working with the OilRig group.

“We are exposing here the cyber tools (APT34 / OILRIG) that the ruthless Iranian Ministry of Intelligence has been using against Iran’s neighboring countries, including names of the cruel managers, and information about the activities and the goals of these cyber-attacks,” read the original message posted to Telegram by the hackers in late March. “We hope that other Iranian citizens will act for exposing this regime’s real ugly face!”

More like this, please.

CORN, POPPED: Ocasio-Cortez targeted by mystery multimillionaire donor.

Just three months after taking office, the Democratic socialist congresswoman’s challengers include an Egyptian American journalist, who has already tossed her hat in the ring, and an NYPD cop-turned-high school civics teacher and conservative talk radio producer, both of whom are seriously exploring a run against her.

And the fledgling challengers could get help from a wealthy New Yorker committed to backing an Ocasio-Cortez opponent, a GOP big said.

“There’s definitely national energy and money on this race,” Bronx Republican chairman Mike Rendino told The Post, adding that he has been in touch with a mega-bucks donor hell-bent on getting AOC tossed.

Rendino wouldn’t divulge the donor’s name but said the individual is “worth over $200 million, plus [has] connections to raise money in Manhattan.”

Tom Doherty, a former deputy to former Gov. George Pataki, said a Republican challenger to AOC would be able to “raise real national money.”

The real fun will be seeing if she gets primaried.