YUGE: Saudi Crown Prince Says Palestinians should take what the U.S. offers.

In a closed-door meeting with heads of Jewish organizations in New York on March 27th, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) gave harsh criticism of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), according to an Israeli foreign ministry cable sent by a diplomat from the Israeli consulate in New York, as well three sources — Israeli and American — who were briefed about the meeting.

The bottom line of the crown prince’s criticism: Palestinian leadership needs to finally take the proposals it gets from the U.S. or stop complaining.

Plus: “A source who was briefed on the meeting told me the attendees were stunned when they heard the Saudi Crown Prince comments on the Palestinian issue. ‘People literally fell off their chairs,’ the source said.”

It’s probably a safe bet that was an instance of the new definition of “literally,” which is the same as the old meaning of “figuratively.”

That aside, between MBS putting the squeeze on the Palestinians, Beijing putting the squeeze on North Korea, and President Trump’s willingness (eagerness?) to throw out the rulebook, the prospects for global peace haven’t looked this good since 1991.

MICHAEL WALSH: Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves.

My attitude has improved already, I swear.

YOUR DAILY TREACHER: Kanye West Doesn’t Care About Cuck People.

MICHAEL LEDEEN: Doing Nothing on Iran Deal Is a Bad Decision.

THE ART OF THE DEAL? US, S. Korea agree to suspend war games during summit with North.

Kim Jong-un hasn’t put anything on the table he can’t withdraw, but this is an actual, real-world, in-advance concession by the US/ROK.

BLUE ON BLUE:

Corn, popped.

(Free Beacon link here.)

ANALYSIS: TRUE. America Needs a Lot More of This Kind of ‘White Hetero-Patriarchal Respectability.’

You don’t get bourgeoisie results without bourgeoisie values — which are separate from race and gender.

RONAN FARROW: Hillary Canceled An Interview When She Learned I Was Reporting On Harvey Weinstein.

I wasn’t sure whether to file this one under “CIRCLING THE WAGONS” or “THE MISANTHROPIC MRS. CLINTON.”

BLUE WAVE? The problem with the Dem wave theory.

John Feehery:

Democrats want to make this race all about President Trump. They want to repeal his tax cuts, as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) promised in a press conference, and replace it with more government spending.

But a battle over tax policy is not what is really animating the Democratic base. What really gets the progressive left is the chance to impeach the president and possibly remove him from office.

They don’t want to be a check on the president and his power. Instead, they want to nullify the election and install somebody more to their liking.

My own experience at using impeachment as a device to drive voters to the polls is that it doesn’t work.

In other words, the Democrats have to manage to not sound crazy…

IT WOULD HELP IF OUR INSTITUTIONS HADN’T BECOME SO CONTEMPTIBLE: Comey Says Trump Administration Views ‘Institutions of Justice with Contempt.’

THEN MAYBE HE SHOULD BOMB FEWER CITIZENS OF OTHER MUSLIM NATIONS: Iran’s Khamenei urges Muslim nations to unite against U.S.

VIDEO: ‘I Advise You to Back the **** Up’: Armed Woman Scared off Alleged Robber.

JEFFREY TOOBIN: The D.N.C.’s Lawsuit Against Russia and the Trump Campaign Isn’t a Bad Idea.

Narrator: “It was a bad idea.”

ANTISOCIAL MEDIA: Did Kanye West Lose 10 MILLION Followers in 20 Minutes After Pro-Trump Tweets?

DRIP, DRIP, DRIP: Joy Reid’s Hacking Story Filled With Holes.

“I don’t think in terms of targeting [Reid] the juice doesn’t seem worth the squeeze. Why would you go through such a thing?” said McNew.

Proving Reid’s case, McNew argued, would requiring digging up up over decade-old data and proving tampering took place — something neither Reid or her hired expert have done.

“Her claims are incredulous to say the least. Proving what she’s saying with any certainly would be extremely difficult,” McNew said. “People’s viewpoints have changed a lot [in the last 25 years].”

Further undercutting Reid’s claim is that on social media she repeatedly exhibited the same behavior — such as accusing her political opponents of being closet homosexuals — that she blamed on hackers.

Reid repeatedly claimed right-wing author Ann Coulter is secretly a man and derided her as a “drag queen.” In a July 23, 2010 tweet, Reid corrected a CNN reporter who referred to Coulter as “her.”

It’s time for Reid to man up — not that there’s anything wrong with that.

HEY, BIG SAVER: Ford Plans $11.5 Billion in Extra Cuts, Kills Slow-Selling Cars.

Ford said it won’t invest in new generations of sedans for the North American market, eventually reducing its car lineup to the Mustang and an all-new Focus Active crossover coming out next year. By 2020, almost 90 percent of its portfolio in the region will be pickups, SUVs and commercial vehicles, the company said.

That means the end of the road for slow-selling sedans such as the Taurus, Fusion and Fiesta in the U.S. The automaker conspicuously left the Lincoln Continental and MKZ sedans off its hit list, but since those models share mechanical foundations with Ford siblings, their futures also are in doubt.

It’s been sad watching the not-so-slow death of the Great American Sedan, but customer tastes have shifted to light trucks and crossovers in a big way.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Delaware woman who killed husband’s mistress previously went on app looking for marriage help.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Rapper and cultural icon Kanye West cause quite a stir when he tweeted what appeared to be support for President Trump. And by support, I mean not HATE.”

Clearly, the thought criminal must be made an unperson.

LET THE CHIPS FALL WHERE THEY MAY: Congressmen Call for Disclosure of U.S. Aid to Palestinian Terrorists.

Reps. David McKinley (R., W.V.) and John Ratcliffe (R., Texas) are circulating a letter to Republican offices urging them to join an effort to compel the State Department to detail the amount of taxpayer money that has been used by the Palestinian government to pay terrorists under a longstanding policy known as “pay to slay.”

Following passage of the Taylor Force Act, which requires the Palestinian government to stop these payments or face a full cutoff in aid, the lawmakers are seeking to immediately freeze U.S. aid to the Palestinians until the State Department explains to lawmakers how it plans to enforce the new law.

The letter follows a recent Free Beacon report disclosing that the Palestinian Authority continues to spend U.S. aid dollars on terrorists. Palestinian officials have also made clear that they have no intention of following the new law and will continue to provide terrorists and their familiar with compensation.

“We urge you to immediately suspend all aid payments to the Palestinian Authority,” the lawmakers write, according to a copy of the letter viewed by the Free Beacon. “Further, we urge you to make the cessation of this abhorrent practice that incentivizes terrorism a pre-condition for any U.S.-brokered peace talks between the sovereign state of Israel and the Palestinian Authority.”

Indeed. But that would do nothing to solve the root problem, which is that Congress has effectively surrendered its power of the purse to the Executive Branch.

HMM: How America’s Mistakes In The Middle East Are Benefiting China. “The paralyzing and costly zigzags of American policy over the last couple of decades have opened doors for rivals to benefit at its expense.”

China — without firing a shot, committing troops to active military intervention in the Middle East’s myriad proxy conflicts, and doing little more in international diplomacy than raising their hands against the occasional contentious resolution at the United Nations Security Council — became the world’s largest investor in the Arab Middle East two years ago, with commitments of almost $30 billion and a close to 32 percent share of all foreign direct investment. Beijing seeks to integrate the Middle East’s largest economies into its One Belt One Road development initiative while avoiding imperial overstretch, recognizing the crucial role of economic development, human capital, and strategic investment to future global power.

In line with its cynically independent foreign policy — which seeks little to no input from secondary powers about its interests — China has methodically reaped the rewards of America’s mistakes.

Read the whole thing.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: The Pentagon Is Making a Ray Gun to Stop Truck Attacks.

The Defense Department’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program, or JNLWD, is pushing ahead with a new direct energy weapon that uses high-powered microwaves to stop cars in their tracks without damaging the vehicle, its driver, or anyone else.

The jammer works by targeting the car’s engine control unit causing it to reboot over and over, stalling the engine. Like an invisible hand, the microwaves hold the car in place. “Anything that has electronics on it, these high-powered microwaves will affect,” David Law, who leads JNLWD’s technology division, said in March. “As long as the [radio] is on, it holds the vehicle stopped.”

Next up: Tractor beams.

PRIVACY: Amazon’s Alexa had a flaw that let eavesdroppers listen in.

Alexa, the voice assistant used by millions of smart gadgets including Amazon’s popular Echo lineup, uses what it calls Skills to carry out commands. You ask if rain is coming, for example, and Alexa uses the “Weather” Skill to answer.

Researchers from security testing firm Checkmarx found a flaw with Alexa that allowed a Skill to continue listening long after a person activated the software, said Amit Ashbel, director of product marketing for Checkmarx.

“As far as we could tell, there was no limit,” Ashbel said. “As long as you don’t tell it to stop, it wouldn’t.”

Amazon said it’s since fixed the reported issues.

But it does make you wonder if anyone has found a similar flaw and not reported it to Amazon.

SULTANS GOTTA SULTANATE: Turkey tells Council of Europe to mind its own business on elections.

Turkey has told a European rights body “to mind its own business” after it voiced concern on Tuesday over the freedom and fairness of Turkish snap elections and recommended they be postponed.

President Tayyip Erdogan announced the June 24 parliamentary and presidential elections last week, saying Turkey needed to switch quickly to a new executive presidency system that was narrowly approved in a referendum last year.

The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) Monitoring Committee said the legitimacy of the elections was at stake after Turkey extended a state of emergency imposed following a failed military coup in mid-2016 and introduced a new electoral system last month.

The committee also expressed concern about what it said would be the possible presence of police forces in polling stations which “could have a deterrent effect on voters”.

The Council might also be worried that Erdogan plans to steal the election result on the first try, rather than following the European tradition of holding as many elections as necessary to produce the desired result.

BIRKENSTOCK-BOOTED THUGS: Parkland Teacher Defends Officer’s Interrogation of Pro-2nd Amendment Student Kyle Kashuv. “Mr. Pittman said it was a ‘really bad idea’ to post photos of ‘assault weapons’.”

I wonder if there are any after-school activities Mr. Pittman engages in which might warrant similar official scrutiny.

YOUR DAILY TREACHER: Should MSNBC’s Joy Reid Be Fired for Expressing an Unstylish Opinion?

Maybe, maybe not. But she should certainly be made to squirm for as long and as uncomfortably as possible.