BUT WILL WE BE PLAYING DEFENSE? Air Force Chief Goldfein: ‘We’ll be fighting from space in a matter of years.’

MICHAEL WALSH: Turks are fleeing Islamist Turkey for… of all places… Greece.

CHANGE: Saudi military leaders replaced amid stalemated war in Yemen.

Plus: “The kingdom also announced a new female deputy minister of labor and social development as it tries to broaden the role of women in the workplace.”

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE: Bernie Sanders struggles to address Russian support after Mueller indictment.

A bombshell Feb. 16 indictment filed against 13 Russian nationals in Robert Mueller’s Russia probe bolstered those allegations, in stunning detail — but also said the Russians sought to help Sanders.

Russian nationals, the indictment said, “engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.”

The details create an awkward situation for the Vermont senator, as he is seen to be positioning himself for a potential 2020 White House run.

Sanders, however, has yet to give a clear response on whether he and his campaign were aware of, or took action to address, the interference — like Russian bot social media accounts allegedly supporting his campaign. Instead, Sanders, I-Vt., has tried to shift the scrutiny toward Clinton’s campaign for not doing more to prevent Russian meddling.

I’d say let him squirm, but what of it? Sanders has a long history of playing footsie with brutal socialist regimes like the Soviet Union and “Bolivarian” Venezuela, while insisting that his own socialist beliefs were the kinder, gentler, “democratic” variety.

That wasn’t enough to sink him with millions and millions of Democratic primary voters — so why should this more recent revelation be a worry?

COLLUSION! Ceremony Outside Russian Embassy to Mark Street Renaming After Slain Putin Foe. “Marking the third anniversary of his murder in the shadow of the Kremlin, starting Tuesday Russian Embassy officials will have to go to work each day on a D.C. street named after opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.”

THE JOURNOLIST LIVES: As Supreme Court positions harden on union case, likely deciding justice is silent.

This WaPo writeup by Robert Barnes repeats a refrain you’ve been seeing all week:

In an hour-long, often caustic oral argument, the justices largely echoed their stances from two years ago, when a shorthanded court split, 4 to 4, on whether it is unconstitutional to require government workers to pay a fee to unions representing them even when they choose not to join.

But the justice likely to break the tie — rookie Neil M. Gorsuch, who in his short time on the court has consistently sided with conservatives — said nothing Monday to hint at his leanings in a similar case.

What Gorsuch decides will have major implications for the future of organized labor, which has become a pillar of Democratic Party politics, and for millions of workers in the nearly half of the states that require payments from nonmembers to cover the cost of collective bargaining.

If union dues only cover the cost of collective bargaining, then where do all those political donations (almost exclusively to Democrats) come from?

And why has almost every infotainment industry story I’ve read on this case include that same bit of legerdemain? Or is to ask the question to answer it?

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Five Reasons Kimmel’s Oscars Will Go Hard Left (Again). “Word that the show’s producers will tone down the progressive lectures doesn’t pass the smell test.”

It’s also a safe bet Kimmel’s Oscar ratings will go hard south (again).

PARTY OF THE COMMON MAN: Bernie Sanders’ son just announced he’s running for Congress.

PATRICK POOLE AND FAKE NEWS: Egyptians Enraged After BBC Report Quickly Falls Apart.

THE PUNCHLINES WRITE THEMSELVES: Your Tax Dollars Are Helping to Pay for a Clown College in Nancy Pelosi’s District.

HEH: The Supreme Court May Rescue Blue-State Finances.

In that 2016 case, Friedrichs v. California Teacher Association, the justices seemed set to strike down agency fees. But Scalia died and the court split 4-4. Now, with Justice Neil Gorsuch on the bench, the court seems likely to deem agency fees unconstitutional. The ruling in Janus will probably come in June.

If so, big changes could be in store for the blue-state model of governance. Without the ability to charge agency fees, public unions will lose members and millions of dollars in revenue each year. Over time this will weaken their ability to fund candidates for office, lobby elected officials, and campaign for ballot measures.

What’s bad for Democrats is good for Blue States — which is the natural result of years of one-party rule.

THAT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE SHUT UP:

UPDATE: No evidence of foul play in mysterious case of CDC employee missing for 2 weeks.

But no evidence of where he might be, either.

SPENGLER: A tidal wave of refugees is coming.

Africa can’t absorb its rapidly growing population. The World Bank estimated in 2014 that between 993 to 2008 the average per capita income of sub-Saharan African economies barely budged—it increased from $742 to$762 per year (measured in 2005 purchasing-power parity-adjusted dollars). Africa retains the fertility behavior of pre-industrial society, with an average of five children per female, but lacks the infrastructure, education, and governance to absorb them into economic life. 64% of sub-Saharan Africans live on $1.90 per day or less.

The problems of sub-Saharan Africa (as well as Pakistan and other troubled countries) are physically too large for the West to remedy: The sheer numbers of people in distress soon will exceed the total population of the industrial world. That means that there is a point in time at which the most devout pussy-hat wearing, virtue-signaling, politically correct liberal will pretend not to notice millions of starving children dying before his eyes.

Read the whole thing.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Fix NICS Lies, Broward Cowards and Much, Much More. “The anti-gun Democrats are not interested in making meaningful change, only in grandstanding.”

ROBBY SOAVE: 5 Things Barack Obama Said in His Weirdly Off-the-Record MIT Speech. “‘We didn’t have a scandal that embarrassed us,’ said the former president. ‘I know that seems like a low bar’.”

Journalists present had agreed for whatever reason not to record the speech, but somebody smuggled out a recording.

Now let’s do the Khalidi tape.

NOT GONNA HAPPEN: US calls for ‘immediate end’ to Syria offensive.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders says Syria is “terrorizing hundreds of thousands of civilians” with air strikes, artillery, rockets and “a looming ground attack.”

She adds that, “The regime’s use of chlorine gas as a weapon only intensifies this.”

More than 500 people have been killed since last week in the eastern Ghouta region, where activists on Sunday reported a suspected poison gas attack.

A U.N. Security Council resolution for a 30-day cease-fire across Syria has failed to stop the carnage.

The U.S. last year bombed a Syrian air base in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack against civilians.

Sanders said that Trump “put the Assad regime on notice some time ago.”

Perhaps SecDef Mattis ought to authorize giving Assad’s army a bloody nose like the one the Russian mercenaries got a couple weeks ago, and see if attitudes don’t change.

LIKE, YESTERDAY: Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel Needs To Resign For Incompetence.

In the days since the shooting, as allegations of incompetence and misconduct stacked up, Sheriff Israel has shown absolutely no willingness to accept any responsibility for the gross failures of his department. Yesterday, in an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN, Israel was asked about how his department dropped the ball. His shocking response was the playful old quip, “If ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ were candy and nuts…” Even Tapper, who hosted the town hall and is a former gun control spokesman, seemed shocked. He reminded the sheriff that they were talking about an incident that left 17 people dead.

But that response, as horrible as it was, wasn’t even the height of Israel’s bizarre hubris yesterday. He also claimed he has provided “excellent leadership” to the department. Not only is his assessment of his own leadership delusional, it’s dangerous. Israel assures us that independent investigators will look into the actions of his department and assess what went wrong. But given his own assessment, that he did a bang-up job, how can anyone have confidence that he will implement any changes that investigators may recommend?

Had Israel responded to the shocking and obvious failures of his department by admitting very bad mistakes were made by himself and others, had he acknowledged those mistakes and promised to do all in his power to do a better job, then maybe continuing his tenure as sheriff could be a reasonable option. As it stands, his refusal to do so makes it clear to any reasonable person that he has absolutely no business being the sheriff of anything, let alone one of the largest police departments in the country.

After Waco, Janet Reno at least paid lip service to accountability, stating that “I made the decision. I’m accountable. The buck stops with me,” before dodging any actual accountability. Israel is too smug to observe decency even in the breach.

CHARLIE CAMPBELL: China’s Lurch Toward One-Man Rule Under Xi Jinping Should Worry Us All.

The move is the culmination of a series of power plays by Xi over recent months, including having his eponymous political thought enshrined in the national constitution, and failing to appoint any potential successors to China’s apex executive body, the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC). But the timing of the announcement before Xi has even officially completed his first term in office has stunned China-watchers and raised serious questions concerning the governance of the world’s number two economy going forward.

“This is a very significant move towards China transforming into a one-man system,” says Jude Blanchette, a Beijing-based researcher on Chinese politics for The Conference Board analysis firm. “It’s hard to overemphasize what a big deal this is for the future of China and the world given China’s importance to the global economy and global institutions.”

Xi’s consolidation of power domestically comes as he has also announced his intention to be more assertive internationally. His signature Belt and Road Initiative — a trade and infrastructure network tracing the ancient Silk Road though Eurasia and Africa — stands to radically boost China’s geopolitical clout at a time when the White House under Donald Trump has questioned key alliances and the very international institutions that have been the foundation of American hegemony.

Leave aside the anti-Trump talk, which is based on old campaign promises that (thankfully) never materialized.

But the author of this piece is also mistaken about why we ought to worry.

Dictatorships trade the superficial instability of democratic republics, where ritualized revolutions — in the form of elections — make for institutional stability, and allows for overhaul without violence. In its place, dictators bask in superficial stability, immune from electoral whims. But when the would-be electorate gets fed up, violence is often their only outlet.

Just ask the Ceaușescus.

Or, to keep the people distracted, the dictator might embark on a war of foreign conquest — which almost always ends poorly for the would-be conquerer.

This is the road Xi has chosen. We’ll see if he (or China) likes where it leads.

DEROY MURDOCK: The Russians Colluded Massively — with Democrats.

There is not enough proof of Russian collusion by Trump to fuel a stovetop pilot light.

In contrast, the evidence of Democratic collusion with Russia blazes on, even as Team Mueller ignores it.

• The Obama administration’s Russian Reset began in Geneva on March 6, 2009. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton huddled with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, and together they pressed a red button that should have been labeled “Reset” in Russian. Instead, Hillary’s aides had mislabeled it with the Russian word for “Overload.” Regardless, once pushed, the button symbolized a red dawn of increasingly cozy U.S.–Russian affairs.

• Obama announced on September 17, 2009, that he would cancel President George W. Bush’s plan to station missile-defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. “This is a U-turn in U.S. policy,” complained former Czech ambassador to Washington Alexander Vondra. “Russia had furiously opposed the project, claiming it targeted Moscow’s nuclear arsenal,” added Luke Harding and Ian Traynor of London’s Guardian. “Obama’s climb-down is likely to be seen by Russia as a victory.”

Indeed, Vladimir Putin applauded Obama’s strategic abandonment of the Poles and Czechs. The Russian strongman said: “I do anticipate that this correct and brave decision will be followed by others.”

Plus, Obama had all that extra flexibility after his re-election.

There’s more DNC-Kremlin collusion at the link. Much more.

A TASTE OF THEIR OWN MEDICINE: Time to Go Ask Your Local Progressive Bakery to Bake an NRA Cake. “If they refuse, sue them.”

The First Amendment gives everyone enough elbow room to avoid these kinds of legal unpleasantries, but since the progressive left wants to short-circuit the First, this might be the only way to make them learn.

TRUMP ON SCHOOL SHOOTING: ‘I’d Run in There Even if I Didn’t Have a Weapon.’

VIDEO: Blogger R.S. McCain Says Tech Giants are ‘Deplatforming’ Conservatives Every Day. “People need to wake up.”

YOUR DAILY TREACHER: Let’s Lower the Voting Age to Six Years Old.

CHICKENS COMING HOME TO ROOST: Madonna Slams Modern Hitmaking in Instagram Post. “Can you help me now please!!” she wrote. “Remember when i made records with other artists from beginning to end and I was allowed to be a visionary and not have to go to song writing camps where No one can sit still for more than 15 minutes.” She then added several flame emojis and the words “coming soon.”

This is ironic, given that Madonna’s video-first approach to hit-making drove one of the last nails in the coffin of quality popular songwriting.