IT’S A LITTLE HARD TO BUY THIS GIVEN FACEBOOK’S PAST: Zuckerberg says Facebook’s future is ‘privacy-focused.’

I DON’T: The 21st Century Belongs to China? Don’t Buy It.

As I write in Bully of Asia, China is becoming more totalitarian almost by the day. To give just one example, everyone’s social media is monitored all the time, and used as the basis for a “social credit score” that goes down if you criticize the regime, and goes up if you flatter it.

This score is then used by Beijing to determine whether you will be allowed to travel outside the country, obtain a low-interest rate loan, or even buy an in-country plane ticket. If your social credit score falls low enough, you will be sent to a re-education camp even if you have not committed a crime.

Runciman, our British cousin, argues that China’s lack of “individual dignity” is more than compensated for by a surfeit of “national dignity.” In this he is parroting the current party leadership which, in effect, proposes just such a trade-off to the people it oppresses.

Here is, in essence, what the Chinese Communist Party tells the masses: You may be under constant state surveillance, unable to speak freely, and prevented from forming political associations. But remember that to be Chinese is to be part of the greatest phenomenon in human history, and China’s growing economic and military greatness is your greatness.

The national narcissism that such xenophobic and nationalistic appeals are intended to stoke, however, are a poor substitute for the universally recognized human rights that the Chinese people are being systematically deprived of.

It’s also no way to drive innovation, without which nations and cultures go sterile and stagnate.

IN NO SMALL PART BECAUSE PEOPLE DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT: Why politicians will talk about anything but our ballooning national debt.

THOSE PRECIOUS FEW WHO SURVIVED THE TAX CUTS MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN THIS: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is pushing an effort to restore Net Neutrality.

BREAKING: U.S. journalist detained in Venezuela, according to reports.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A COUNTRY OUTLAWS SELF-DEFENSE: Defence secretary Gavin Williamson says military ‘ready to respond’ to knife crime crisis.

IT’S ALL THE RAGE THESE DAYS: It’s Not Just AOC Who’s Got Radical Ideas For Expanding Government.

Democratic party standard bearer are also proposing to grow government on a scale that would have been political nonstarters just a decade ago.

Americans should ask themselves: Is this really the direction we want our country to take?

Consider this: Representative John Larson (D-CT) has more than 200 Democratic cosponsors for his Social Security 2100 Act, which would be Social Security’s biggest expansion in decades. Not only would Rep. Larson impose an enormous tax increase on American workers to close the entirety of Social Security’s unfunded liability, he would take even more money from workers to increase benefits for retirees.

High earners would take the biggest tax hit: Currently payroll taxes are imposed on the first $132,000 of earnings. Larson would re-impose the payroll tax on earnings above $400,000, an enormous marginal tax rate increase for this group. Yet Rep. Larson would require all workers to pay more, with payroll tax rates climbing from 12.6 percent to 14.8 percent – a historical high.

Despite the “soak the rich” rhetoric, this proposal isn’t about helping low income seniors: benefits would become more generous for all seniors, including those who are rich themselves.

Who gets taxed and who receives benefits are secondary considerations, really. What’s really important is that the money and decisionmaking power travel through Washington in both directions, creating copious opportunities for graft.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Hyperinflation Shatters Venezuelan Manufacturing. “Giuseppe Cordivani’s factory on the outskirts of the capital used to make nearly 300 pairs of women’s shoes a day, from pumps to high-heeled dancing shoes that sold nationwide. With hyperinflation biting, he’s making just 20 today.”

More, from behind the WSJ paywall:

Manufacturing’s fall reflects broader economic devastation. Venezuela’s economy has halved during President Nicolás Maduro’s six years in office, and is expected to decline another 30% this year as new U.S. sanctions on oil hit. The country’s GDP, at $80 billion, is now smaller than General Electric . Oil production, the most vital income source, has dropped 64% under Mr. Maduro, according to AGPV Asesores Económicos, a Caracas-based consulting firm. Imports have caved by 72%, the firm says.

“The fall in consumption is so big that plants work at volumes so low that they can’t maintain themselves and sustain their infrastructure, to keep machinery functioning and be able to pay their workers,” said Juan Pablo Olalquiaga, president of an industry group, Conindustria. “You have to be God to maintain all of these balls in the air.”

Instead of trying to do the impossible — and inadvertently propping up the Maduro regime — manufacturers would be smarter to go Galt.

FOOD FIGHT: Philly Taco Bell Employees Jump Over Counter, Attack Customers Who Complained about Wait.

THE NEW CIVILITY: Man in MAGA Hat Mobbed, Has Hat Stolen as Stephon Clark Protest Spirals out of Control in Sacramento.

THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO SHOW UP: Women Go On BirthStrike Because Of Climate Change.

At least 60 women have joined the BirthStrike movement, which encourages women to refuse to have children because they believe the earth is in crisis due to climate change. Members of this newly formed group believe it would be unjust to raise children in a world that could look vastly different than the world they grew up in.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been outspoken on this subject, holding a live Q&A from her kitchen and asking the question, “Is it OK to still have children?” (RELATED: Poll: 1/3 Of Americans Share Ocasio-Cortez’s Worry About Having Kids With Climate Change)

According to a report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is a body in the United Nations focused on assessing the world’s climate trends, having fewer children is the best way people can cut down on CO2 emissions. And this has prompted the formation of BirthStrike.

Less competition for my sons.

THIS IS NOT THE 21ST CENTURY I WAS HOPING FOR: Man infected with measles violated his quarantine with help from wife to get to gym.

“We do know that measles is one of the most contagious diseases around. For an individual that has measles, nine out of every 10 persons in that area will come down with measles if they don’t already have protection,” said Stephanie Schauer of the Wisconsin Immunization Program.

The Centers for Disease Control’s website notes that is why the measles vaccine is so important. While there have not been any confirmed cases in Wisconsin since 2014, 206 have already been reported across the U.S. so far in 2019.

Prosecutors said deputies stood guard outside the couple’s home during Murawski’s quarantine. But he “hid in his wife’s vehicle” so law enforcement could not see him. Bennett said she was in on the plan “against her better judgment.” Murawski apologized “profusely,” saying that “he needed to get out of the house because he was going crazy.”

That is not a good excuse, to put it mildly.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Omar Antisemitism Resolution Put on Hold and Much, Much More. “Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) cannot shut her Jew-hating yapper so now the Democrats are forced to make some gestures to smooth over relations with an important and generous constituency, the Jewish community. After weighing the cost/benefit analysis of their intersectional bingo political strategy, a resolution to condemn antisemitism has been postponed.”

It was toothless, anyway.

FLASHBACK: There Is Nothing Unlibertarian about Road Pricing.

Iain Murray forwarded me this link after last week’s piece on how to pay for roads in an age of lower gas tax collections:

The claim is that this is necessarily a government surveillance scheme and that such a proposal is inherently unlibertarian. This is false and is based upon ignorance of how such systems actually operate. Furthermore, labeling a mileage-based user fee system as unlibertarian runs contrary to the opinions of virtually every libertarian transportation scholar. What follows is my attempt to articulate why libertarians ought to support mileage-based user fees over fuel taxes and general tax revenue funding for transportation.

Lots to chew on here; worth your time.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): My thoughts in Road & Track, here.

SALENA ZITO: Trump’s Anti-Socialist Strength Could Turn Venezuelan-Americans Into Republicans for Decades.

That was certainly true of Cuban-Americans.

YES: Europe Isn’t Realistic. It’s Weak. “The EU has committed to outsourcing its dirty work to authoritarians in the Middle East and Africa—and to confusing dependence for maturity.”

IS SHE OR ISN’T SHE? Hillary Clinton wasn’t trying to ‘close the door’ on 2020 when she said she was not running.

BUT THEY’RE “DOING SOMETHING” TO COMBAT ANTISEMITISM: House Democrats’ Anti-Anti-Semitism Resolution Is A Sham.

While Tlaib’s long-running ties to genocidal Jew-haters, Holocaust denialists, and apologists for the Shiite supremacist terror group Hezbollah are now out in the public domain, it is Omar’s tripling down on the infamous “dual loyalty” canard that is the immediate cause of the resolution’s being brought to the House floor.

The full text of the resolution is now available. It describes anti-Semitism as “the bigotry faced by Jewish people simply because they are Jews,” and as “entail[ing] prejudicial attitudes or discriminatory acts toward people who are Jewish on the basis of their identity.” The resolution refers to FBI hate crime statistics evincing a recent large spike in anti-Semitic hate crimes, and it even has a whole section decrying the “insidious, bigoted history” of “dual loyalty” canards.

The resolution is, perhaps, a nice touch. It is also completely useless.

It’s kabuki, all the way down.

MICHAEL WALSH: Somali Gangs Battle in Minneapolis; Somalis Demand That Cops Do Something.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: ‘Captain Marvel’ Drowns in Victimhood, Dull Action.

The Oscar winner railed against too many white male reporters, trumpeted the film’s feminist agenda and dictated which under-represented writers could pen her glossy magazine profiles.

Super chutzpah!

Surely Team Disney, the studio behind the massively successful MCU, wouldn’t inject her intersectional shtick into a four-quadrant crowd pleaser?

Actually, the Mouse House did. Only it’s not the only maddening aspect of this super-letdown.

“Captain Marvel” suffers from anemic characters, lame comic relief and, worst of all, a talented actress who’s all wrong to play a superheroine.

My pet theory is that Marvel knew they had a stinker on their hands, and set Brie Larson loose to alienate the studio’s core audience. If the movie tanks they can claim, “The movie didn’t suck. MEN suck.”

HEINLEIN’S CRAZY YEARS (CONT’D): Father Must Call Daughter a Boy, or It’s ‘Family Violence,’ Canada Court Rules.

ROBERT SPENCER: Amazon Bans Tommy Robinson’s Book, ‘Mohammed’s Koran.’

EURABIA: Swedish PM Says ISIS Fighters Can Return, Refuses to Strip Citizenship.

MY WIFE SAYS SHE HOPES SO: Is Dan Crenshaw the Future of the GOP?

CHUTZPAH: California: Pulling federal high-speed rail funds would be ‘disastrous.’

They cancelled the project but want to keep the money.