RICHARD FERNANDEZ: Hybrid Warfare is Dangerous.

Alternatively Putin may have come to regard Washington as so divided he could send hybrid forces into Syria and overrun an objective before anyone could react. The Washington Post editorial board believes the Kremlin is feeling its oats. In an article titled “Russia is betting it can push the U.S. out of Syria”, the WaPo warned Putin may be embarked on yet another attempt at “bold duplicity”:

Russian forces are backing the Assad regime’s offensives, and they, along with Iran, may have supported the attack on America’s Kurdish allies east of the Euphrates River. Russian ruler Vladi­mir Putin gave Turkey a green light to launch its offensive against the Kurds, and his phone call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday put a stop to hostilities between Israel, Syria and Iran.

Mr. Putin is seeking to establish Russia as the dominant power in Syria and, by extension, a major player in the Middle East — all at the expense of the United States. His attempt to stage a conference supplanting the U.N.-sponsored peace process for Syria largely flopped last month. But he has established Russia as the arbiter of Syria’s multiple conflicts, capable of fueling them or shutting them down.

The headlines out of Washington delegitimizing the current administration certainly might have contributed to a feeling of invincibility in the Kremlin. Unfortunately for Russia Trump’s much criticized delegation of authority back to the military may have decoupled its tactical response from Washington’s political paralysis.

As I wrote earlier today, “When a state actor gives the go-ahead and dozens of your mercenaries get blown up, you can’t exactly get in a big diplomatic (or military) huff about it.”

Anyway, it’s Richard Fernandez so do read the whole thing.

JAZZ SHAW AND THE LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: ICE Is Demonstrating The Fruits Of “Sanctuary” Policies In Los Angeles.

If you happened to be in or around Los Angeles this week you may have seen some new visitors in town wearing ICE/Police body armor. They’ve been paying visits to a number of businesses and residences, rounding up illegal aliens and scheduling them for deportation hearings. Their primary targets are those with known criminal records, but since they have to go out into the community to locate these criminals (rather than picking them up from local law enforcement when they get picked up for other crimes), they’re encountering and arresting some with little or no criminal records as well.

That’s quite some sanctuary California has provided.

THEY’VE BEEN WORKING HARD AND SMART AT THIS: China will soon have air power rivalling the West’s.

THE CRAZY YEARS: Ohio Christian Parents Lose Custody of 17-Year-Old Daughter For Refusing Her Transgender Drugs.

WE’LL HAVE PLENTY MORE DIFFERENCES IN THE FUTURE: Turkey and the U.S. agree to move forward, not dwell on past differences.

WHITE HOUSE: Russia’s Cyber-Attack on Ukraine Most ‘Destructive and Costly’ in History.

The Office of the Press Secretary’s statement echoes the conclusion of British intelligence, as the U.K. earlier on Thursday declared Russia responsible for the attack, the BBC reported. The 2017 attack was known as “NotPetya” and targeted companies conducting business with Ukraine, a country with which Russia has been in conflict since its 2014 annexation of Crimea.

“In June 2017, the Russian military launched the most destructive and costly cyber-attack in history,” the White House statement reads.

The statement goes on to say that the economic damage—which resulted from attacks on shipping giant FedEx, drugmaker Merck, and others—has reached billions of dollars. The White House maintains the attack was part of the Kremlin’s campaign against Ukraine.

“The attack, dubbed ‘NotPetya,’ quickly spread worldwide, causing billions of dollars in damage across Europe, Asia, and the Americas,” the statement reads. “It was part of the Kremlin’s ongoing effort to destabilize Ukraine and demonstrates ever more clearly Russia’s involvement in the ongoing conflict.”

It might be worth revealing some of the West’s methods if we turned off the lights in Moscow for 24 hours — and put an end to this Kremlin BS.

FLASHBACK: I used to think gun control was the answer. My research told me otherwise.

WHEN THEY GO LOW… THEY GO VERY LOW: Gun Control Advocates Bully Shooting Victim’s Father Because He’s a Trump Supporter.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: How Much Money Does It Take to Be Happy?

As I’ve told my sons on more than one occasion, money can’t buy you happiness, but it can forestall an awful lot of misery.

WILL IT BE WIRED WITH SCHRÖDINGER’S CAT 6? The quantum internet has arrived (and it hasn’t).

This is a deep read, but fascinating stuff.

FLASHBACK: There’s a Way to Stop Mass Shootings, and You Won’t Like It.

You’re not going to like it because it’s going to require you to do something personally, as opposed to shouting for the government, or anyone to “do something!”

You ready? Here it is:

“Notice those around you who seem isolated, and engage them.”

If every one of us did this we’d have a culture that was deeply committed to ensuring no one was left lonely. And make no mistake, as I’ve written before loneliness is what causes these shooters to lash out. People with solid connections to other people don’t indiscriminately fire guns at strangers.

I know what you’re thinking. That’s never going to work because no one is going to make the effort to connect with the strange kid sitting by himself at lunch each day. No one is going to reach out to the gawky, awkward guy at work and ask him about his weekend.

You’re probably right and that’s an absolute shame.

Indeed.

THE RUSSIANS DID IT: CNN viewership collapses 23%, 30% in primetime.

AVNER ZARMI: The Netanyahu Recommendations: What Happened, What’s Next.

PRIVACY: Beware “Protect” In Facebook’s iOS App.

In case you ever doubted Facebook’s commitment to hoovering up as much information about you as it can, the company has come under fire for a change in the Facebook app for iOS in the United States. In the last few days, users have discovered a new option when you tap the hamburger button to access your pages, shortcuts, and settings. In that screen is a section called Explore that lets you get to a vast number of Facebook services, such as On This Day, Crisis Response, Live Videos, Find Wi-Fi, and Device Requests. There are so many, in fact, that the last one is Show More, and tapping that displays another 11, including the reassuringly named Protect.

However, tapping Protect takes you to the App Store and displays an app called Onavo Protect — VPN Security. It is indeed a VPN — a virtual private network — that securely tunnels all your traffic through Onavo’s servers. The problem is that, as you might expect from the link source, Onavo is owned by Facebook. If you were to stumble on Onavo Protect in the App Store, you’d have to tap More and read the full description to discover that. If you read all the way to the end, you’d learn that Onavo Protect “directs all of your network communications through Onavo’s servers,” and that, “as part of this process, Onavo collects your mobile data traffic.”

And:

It’s bad enough when some unknown company provides a free VPN service in order to collect data about its users. It’s another thing when the company in question is part of Facebook, and that data can be combined with both any data you’ve allowed Facebook to have and any data about you that people you know have inadvertently provided to Facebook.

If you need a VPN, they’re inexpensive and not difficult to set up. Like any other “free” internet services, on a free VPN you are the product — and there’s nothing private about it.

KEVIN MCCOLLOUGH: Why We Must Arm Teachers Now!

The only real thing that gun confiscation has proven is that the increase of gun free zones in our society is also an increase in targets for people who never abide by laws on guns or anything else.

If the Broward Sheriff and the Parkland police were able to respond in 5-6 minutes yesterday….

If two squads of armed resource officers are on campus but not in the building where the shooter begins firing…

If electronic locks, and reinforced doors do not prevent the penetration of a committed killer into a school where innocent children wait like sheep to be slaughtered…

Then it is time for teachers to be armed, locked, loaded, and ready to end a killing spree before dozens more die.

As an added bonus, if you want to bring more men and conservatives into the teaching profession — and I do — this might help do just that.

HMM: Syrian downing of F-16I begs the question: Why didn’t Israel deploy F-35s?

In early December, the Air Force declared initial operational capability of the nine F-35s now in its possession. And from the aerial activity reported by residents near its home base at Nevatim, southern Israel, the aircraft are accruing significant flight time.

Yet none of the operational F-35s were part of the eight-aircraft force package tasked with destroying an Iranian command center in central Syria. The command center was reportedly operating the unmanned Shahed 171 drone that Israel says penetrated its airspace in the early morning of Feb. 10.

Nor were they tasked to lead the follow-on wave of strikes on 12 separate Syrian and Iranian assets in the punitive operation launched later that day in response to the F-16I downing.

Perhaps these costly stealth fighters are too precious to use. Or perhaps the Israeli Air Force is not sufficiently confident in the aircraft or its pilots’ proficiency in operating the fifth-generation fighter.

The Israeli F-35I isn’t all that much more expensive than the newest F-16s the IAF flies, which have been modified in all kinds of interesting ways. So my hunch is that the IAF is still training up pilots and ground crews for its tiny force of F-35Is.

But I’m certain that the headline writer misused “begs the question.”

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: 18 School Shootings?, Immigration Fail, and Much, Much More. “In total, all seventeen of Everytown’s shootings before the Parkland shooting resulted in a grand total of 5 deaths, two from suicide, one from a fight in a parking lot, and two from a true mass shooting. Three mass shootings is still too many for a year this young, but it is nothing like the 18 falsely reported.”

Tyler O’Neil is filling in for Liz today.

FASTER, PLEASE: SecAF Says B-21 ‘On Schedule’ As China Rises To Air Force’s Top Threat.

Good.

I can’t find the comment, but earlier this week, longtime Instapundit reader HMS Lion wrote that the battlespace in the Pacific will belong to vehicles and missiles with long ranges — not to short-distance fighter-bombers. With that in mind, he said, it would make sense to cancel some planned F-35A (the Air Force version) fighters to make room in the budget for more B-21s.

Makes sense to me.

BLUE ON BLUE: The Left’s War Against The New York Times.

The Times has flourished under Trump, witnessing a surge in digital subscriptions and regularly breaking major news about the administration and the Russia inquiry (not to mention #MeToo). Yet liberal criticism of the Times has also intensified, especially on social media. Not a day passes, it seems, without a prominent Twitter user complaining that the Times is biased against the left, too friendly to Trump and his supporters, or engaging in false equivalences between Democrats and Republicans.

Reporter Michael Schmidt was criticized for not asking more follow-up questions during an impromptu sit-down with Trump in December. His colleague Richard Fausset was accused of normalizing a neo-Nazi in his profile of an Ohio white nationalist the month before. Critics frequently charge that the Times is preoccupied with giving a voice to Trump supporters or even just saying something nice about the president, and the paper has openly struggled with how to cover racists. Broader criticisms go to questions of framing and context—whether news analysis of Trump is too gentle, like when Peter Baker described the president’s “reality-show accessibility,” or why the Times’ mobile phone push notifications seem strangely favorable to the White House. And then there’s the steady moan about the Times opinion section—not just stalwarts like Brooks and Ross Douthat, but Bret Stephens and Bari Weiss, both of whom joined the paper last year from The Wall Street Journal.

“I think there’s been a lot more anger from the grassroots against the Times,” Willis told me. “They’re able to be more vocal about it because of social media and Twitter specifically.” Sean McElwee, a socialist policy analyst and columnist at The Outline, said this anger sometimes “unites everyone from a deeply anti-imperialist socialist to someone who works at a center-left think tank.”

The Left turns on its own, always.

I HAVE A HEADACHE: Drug maker hikes price of 2-in-1 painkiller >2,000% — $36 drugs now $3,000.

A 60-pill bottle of the drug combo, Vimovo, cost $138 in 2013 when AstraZeneca sold it to Horizon. The bottle now costs $2,979 after Horizon raised the price on 11 occasions.

Vimovo is a combination of the common painkiller naproxen and esomeprazole. Naproxen is the active ingredient in Bayer’s over-the-counter painkiller Aleve. Bought separately, the two can cost as little as $36 total.

Horizon also makes the two-in-one painkiller Duexis, which pairs painkiller ibuprofen with the antacid famotidine. The company charges $2,979 for a 90-pill bottle, while the drugs would cost as little as $15 if bought separately.

Nevertheless, Duexis and Vimovo are sometimes covered by US health insurance companies. And Horizon made $134 million in sales from both products in the first nine months of 2017, Rea said.

Rea added that he saw no reason patients couldn’t simply take the separate, over-the-counter versions of the drugs. But a spokesperson for Horizon argued that “there are no FDA-approved generic, over-the-counter, or clinically equivalent medicines to Duexis and Vimovo, and any assertion otherwise is completely inaccurate.”

In other words, the price hikes are a side effect of over-regulation (two inexpensive drugs don’t have the FDA seal-of-approval that the combined drug does) and the insurance-for-everything model (which isolates consumers from the actual cost of particular items).

BRET STEPHENS: On Venezuela, Where Are Liberals?

Scour the Web and you’ll find a handful of reports of anti-Maduro protests or teach-ins at universities in recent years, usually organized by Venezuelans living in the U.S. And most politically informed people are more-or-less aware of Venezuela’s political and economic disorders. No doubt they don’t like what they see, and no doubt they wish it were otherwise.

They just don’t seem to care that much.

Every generation of campus activists embraces a worthy foreign-policy cause: Ending apartheid in South Africa; stopping ethnic cleansing in the Balkans; rescuing Darfur from starvation and genocide. And then there’s the perennial — and perennially unworthy — cause of “freeing” Palestine, for which there never is a shortage of credulous campus zealots.

Then there are the humanitarian causes young activists generally don’t embrace, at least not in a big way. Cuba’s political prisoners. Islamist violence against Christians in the Middle East. The vast and terrifying concentration camp that is North Korea. Where are the campus protests over any of that?

Simple: Venezuela is socialist, and the Left remains enamored with socialism.

It’s like that because they each picture themselves becoming one of the big shots with the nice dacha, but none of them imagines they’ll end up a corpse in a mass grave.

BILL GERTZ: Mercenaries Killed in Syria Were Part of Russian-Backed Hybrid Force.

The dead fighters worked for the Wagner company, part of Moscow’s use of hybrid warfare—covert military and influence operations that include use of so-called “little green men”—unconventional forces operating without official insignia. The forces were first seen in 2014 during the military takeover of Ukraine’s Crimea by Russia.

“They are a private army,” said Vasyl Hrytsak, head of Security Service of Ukraine, known as SBU, in a recent interview.

Ukraine believes the Wagner company was formed, equipped, and financed by Russian intelligence services for military, terrorist, and other criminal activities in support of Russian geopolitical interests.

The two big advantages of using sub-state actors are plausible deniability and giving state actors pause before — or if — they take any action against them. On the flip side, when a state actor gives the go-ahead and dozens of your mercenaries get blown up, you can’t exactly get in a big diplomatic (or military) huff about it.

Uniforms, ranks, controlling legal authority and all the rest separate soldiers from mercenaries and terrorists. Treat enemy mercenaries more like terrorists and less like soldiers, and I suspect we’ll see less of this kind of subterfuge.

DAN MCCLAUGHLIN: Every solution to mass shootings inevitably involves a serious trade-off.

Even if the mainstream media goes dark, there’s social media. Our exhibitionist culture may encourage disturbed people to perform acts of retribution that guarantee them maximum publicity; think of the mass shooter as taking a kind of mass selfie of rage. But that genie can’t be put back in the bottle, either, at least not without a massive campaign against freedom of expression.

As always, human beings are the real weapons of mass destruction, and the tools they choose are not the causes of violence. If we want to weed out people who might commit violent acts in the future, we need to scale back due process protections and incarcerate more people on less evidence. Although that too is a trade-off many of us would find it hard to make, we could plausibly target privacy laws that make it difficult to compile records on people with a history of threatening behavior.

Social media has evolved into an enabler of antisocial behaviors, and our attempts at dealing with the mentally ill more humanely hasn’t worked out to be very humane for the rest of society.

BRUCE BAWER: Rebekah Mercer Fights Back. “She won’t put up with the witch hunters now targeting her.”

Good. She seems to have taken someone’s advice about punching back twice as hard.

THIS IS GONNA HARSH SOME NARRATIVES: Black Panther’s Home Country Is ‘Practically Alt-Right Africa,’ Reviewer Says.