BLUE-ON-BLUE ACTION: DCCC snub emboldens insurgent liberals: ‘If that means getting blacklisted … then so be it.’

Liberal activists are furious that the House Democrats’ campaign committee is refusing to do business with consultants who work against incumbent Democrats — but the pollsters and strategists affected say the snub might prove to be a blessing.

Several of those likely to end up on the wrong side of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s new rule say they will no longer feel beholden to the party’s establishment and will have the chance to grow on their own.

“You’re creating a market for people that are running challenger candidates,” said Sykes Global Communications President Michael Oliva, who worked with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her stunning 2018 upset victory in New York.

Corn, popped.

CAN’T HARDLY WAIT: Trump Planning to Dish Dirt and Settle Scores in Post-Presidency Memoir.

PAULA BOLYARD: Ohio Could Become the Next State to Hand Its Electoral Votes Over to California and New York.

New Mexico just did.

Count every vote, except the ones in Flyover Country.

WOW: Scientists Say They Can Make Light Travel 30x Faster Than Normal. “It’s an extraordinary claim, and one the researchers behind it say could revolutionize optical communication.”

SURPRISING EXACTLY NO ONE: Bernie Sanders now says he’ll back bill to study reparations for slavery.

AND ANOTHER ONE: Apple Watch ‘prolonged my life’ by spotting deadly heart illness just days after new ECG feature launched, gadget owner reports.

PEGGY NOONAN: Don’t do it, Joe. Don’t run for president. It won’t work, you won’t get the nomination, your loss will cause pain and not only for you.

Good advice:

Democratic operatives do not fear you will win the nomination—they think you’re too old, your time has passed, you’re not where the energy of the base is, or the money. But they do not want you taking up oxygen the next six to 10 months as you sink in the polls. And they don’t want you swooping in to claim the middle lane. Others already have a stake there, or mean to.

In the past you were never really slimed and reviled by your party; you were mostly teased and patronized. But if you get in the race this time, it will be different. They will show none of the old respect for you, your vice presidency or your past fealty to the cause. And you are in the habit of receiving respect. Soon the topic will turn, in depth, to Anita Hill, the Clinton crime bill, your friendliness to big business. You have opposed partial-birth abortion. Also, the old plagiarism video will come back and be dissected. It was more than 30 years ago, and for a lot of reporters and voters it will be a riveting story, and brand new.

Biden probably has too much ego to listen.

RELATED: And then there were 18.*

*Biden not included.

DEADLY VIRTUE SIGNALING: Why is Gillette trying to glamorize obesity?

UPDATE: More here from Kruiser.

MAKE ‘EM EARN IT: No summit with China’s Xi Jinping until a deal to end trade war is final, Donald Trump says.

SPACE: SpaceX Starhopper Performs a Tethered Hop With a Raptor Engine Firing.

HMM: $100 bills in circulation soar to a record, hinting at rise in global criminal activity.

GOOD: Pentagon nixes Turkish offer to address S-400 fears.

Despite the rising tensions, the United States continues to proceed with Turkish training on the F-35 in hopes that Ankara may come around on the S-400. The Pentagon today delivered two more of the jets to Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, where Turkish pilots are training on the jets before they are flown back to Turkey and formally handed over to Ankara.

The Pentagon appears to already have made its best counter-offer to stave off a potential S-400 sale. In January, Pahon told Al-Monitor, the United States “made our strongest possible offer” with the Patriot missile-defense system, offering fresh batteries, advanced air defense missiles and bilateral coordination on industrial and system development aspects of the program.

“We have provided Turkey the opportunity with Patriot to acquire a NATO interoperable system that will advance our collective security,” Pahon reiterated today.

“As Turkey’s ally, we recognize Turkey lives in a tough neighborhood and its acquisition decisions are its sovereign choice,” he added, while adding that the S-400 purchase was “fundamentally incompatible” with the Patriot offer.

Indeed.

DEBRA HEINE: Why Comey, Clapper, and Brennan Aggressively Pushed RussiaGate Conspiracy Theories. “They doth protest too much.”

So much projection from the Left.

MATT MARGOLIS: The Top 5 Investigations Obstructed by the Obama Administration. “Democrats tolerated unprecedented obstruction for eight years.”

UNEXPECTED HEADLINES: NASA wants to go check out the poop the Apollo missions left on the moon.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Attention, Plebs: New Cars Are Becoming Prohibitively Expensive. “As new vehicle prices continue to climb, many wonder how high MSRPs can go before the public decides to take a pass — assuming they haven’t already. Sales growth is slowing, even in seemingly bulletproof markets like China. Even before this ominous backdrop unfurled, dealers were making noise about new car prices that had grown overly ambitious, claiming they couldn’t endure another period of sustained economic hardship.”

BARBARIC: The ‘Trans’ Child as Experimental Guinea Pig.

Last year Jeanette Jennings, as part of the reality-TV show I Am Jazz, threw her 17-year-old child, Jazz, a “farewell-to-penis party.” Guests cheered as the teenager hacked at a phallus-shaped cake with a knife, shouting, “Let’s cut it off.” The party may have been a bit contrived even by reality-show standards, but the subsequent operation was all too real.

In any other context, we might consider the drug-induced stunting of a child’s penis, followed by its surgical removal, to be mutilation. But in an era of culturally and legally enshrined transgenderism, it’s not just permissible; it’s entertainment.

In February, Representatives Jackie Speier (D., Calif.) and Angie Craig (D., Minn.) participated in the “Jazz and Friends National Day of Community and School Readings,” sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign (a well-funded gay and transgender lobby group) and the National Education Association (a teachers’ union). They read aloud celebratory and euphemistic stories of transgender children (such as Jazz, with the amputated penis) on the House floor. But the mainstreaming of youth transgenderism goes way beyond Congress. In schools nationwide, children as young as five are being taught that they may have been born in the wrong body.

Manipulating, chemically neutering, and surgically altering children in pursuit of a political agenda is nothing short of evil. And just when you think it can’t get more vile or damnable, they go on TV to celebrate it.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Howard Schultz schmoozes Fox… “Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, praised Trump for taking illegal immigration seriously and attacked the Democrats for their calls to defund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He also called for supporting Dreamers.”

Tyler O’Neil is filling in for Liz today.

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME: Sore Loser Stacey Abrams Subverts Democracy, Still Won’t Concede Georgia Governor’s Race.

I’m old enough to remember when Democrats insisted everybody had to accept election results.

HMM: Boeing’s 737 Max Defense Just Got More Difficult.

“The 737 Max is as safe as any airplane that has ever flown the skies,” Boeing swiftly concluded.

Lion Air was furious that the manufacturer appeared to be casting doubt on its safety culture, but for everyone else it sent a comforting message: Perhaps Boeing was right about the 737 Max.

So when a second 737 Max aircraft crashed last month in similar circumstances in Ethiopia, there was puzzlement: Surely the pilot must have known about MCAS and how to switch it off. So why hadn’t he?

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal provided an initial answer to that question, and it’s not a reassuring one for Boeing, its investors and customers.

The Ethiopian Airlines pilot did manage to disable MCAS, at least temporarily, but was still unable to get the aircraft to climb again, the newspaper reported, citing people familiar with the crash investigation’s preliminary findings.

If that is correct, then Boeing and the U.S. regulators may have provided insufficient advice to pilots in their initial bulletin and were too hasty in pronouncing the aircraft safe. It would also increase the likelihood the manufacturer could be sued for damages. Before the Journal report, Bloomberg Intelligence put those costs at an estimated $1 billion.

Boeing is having a bad year — to say nothing of its customers and passengers.

ONE REASON? BECAUSE TRUMP PROMISED JOBS AND IMPROVED WAGES, AND DELIVERED: ‘Why Aren’t Democrats Winning the Hispanic Vote 80-20 or 90-10?’ “While Democratic support among Hispanics has improved over the past decade, from the low 60s to the high 60s, there is evidence suggesting that those gains cannot be relied upon in future elections.”

TIVO WAS AN AMAZING INNOVATION, A NEEDED DISRUPTION, AND MOST OF ALL A DELIGHTFUL CONSUMER ELECTRONICS DEVICE: ‘They Thought It Was Black Magic’: The Definitive Oral History of TiVo.

THE SANCTIONS ARE WORKING: Iran Cutting Funds to Syria as U.S. Sanctions Tighten.

Of course no one should be surprised at these developments. The American sanctions that kicked back in last November were designed well. They’ve hit Iran’s biggest industries, especially the oil sector, and have been slowly producing devastating effects. In January, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran is facing its toughest economic situation in 40 years, and that the United States was squarely to blame.

And Rouhani is exactly right. Much of the world today is now being given a choice between engaging with the market of the U.S. or that of Iran. Regardless of a country’s political proclivities and whether or not it supports America’s policy on the Islamic Republic (much of the West does not), it is nearly impossible for any nation to forgo the $20 trillion American economy in favor of accommodating Iran.

In addition to Iran cutting funds to Syria, the latest consequence of U.S. sanctions have been another massive hit to Iran’s oil industry.

Nope, still not tired of all the winning.

RICK MORAN: Forecasting Model that Predicted Trump Win in 2016 Shows the President in Good Shape for 2020. “It won’t matter who the Democrats run if the economy is experiencing modest growth.”

Great model. Don’t get cocky.

DIVORCE SETTLEMENT: Bezos to keep 75% of Amazon stake, all of WaPo and Blue Origin.