I HAVEN’T HAD THIS PROBLEM, FORTUNATELY, BUT PLENTY OF PEOPLE DO: Got A Boy Who Hates to Read? Check Out These Book Recommendations!

AFTER HOURS: On his new show, Bill Whittle talks to Second Amendment activist Antonia Okafor.

EVERYTHING IS RACIST: Not Attracted to Someone? You May Be a ‘Casual Racist’

ANALYSIS: TRUE.

(Except of course that nobody believes Reid’s injuries were caused by an exercise machine.)

CHANGE: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system.

Microsoft isn’t even an also-ran in mobile.

SOONER, PLEASE: Hypersonic Attack Drones by 2040?

Developing recoverable drones is much more challenging given the level of autonomy and re-entry needed for hypersonic vehicles to descend and perform ISR missions.

“A booster sends it into the atmosphere and then it dives down to its target,” Zacharias said. “A re-entry vehicle would need to be maneuverable with sufficient wing area so it can avoid counter-missiles. We need to design that chamber and make it stable to allow for maneuver.”

The advantages of hypersonic ISR drone flight are multi-faceted.

“You could fuel one of these to go for 1,000 miles in ten minutes. It speeds up the kill chain,” he said.

While today’s cruise missiles travel at speeds up to 600 miles per hour, hypersonic weapons will be able to reach speeds of Mach 5 to Mach 10, Air Force officials said.

“Faster, please” felt a little presumptuous for a headline about a Mach 10 attackbot.

NOT AS EXTINCT AS WE THOUGHT? Extinct creature sightings are piling up in Australia.

OUCH: Ford, Chrysler Sales Disappoint as Cars Plunge Despite Discounts.

Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV reported the biggest declines and automakers’ U.S. sales trailed analysts’ estimates, as heavy incentive spending failed to keep struggling sedan and compact models from plunging.

Deliveries slumped 7.2 percent at Ford and 4.6 percent at Fiat Chrysler last month. General Motors Co. sales climbed 1.6 percent, a smaller gain than analysts projected, while Honda Motor Co. reported a surprise drop.

The early results cast doubt on estimates that industrywide U.S. auto sales would rise in March compared with 2016’s weakest month, when results were depressed by the early Easter holiday. Automakers are using heavy discounts to try to trim inventory that’s swelled to the highest level in more than a decade.

Detroit has been indulging itself (again) in channel-stuffing and subprime auto loans, but those can keep the good times going for only so long.

HMM: Anti-Semitism Special Envoy May be Moved to Office with Fewer Resources.

SO MUCH 21ST CENTURY IN JUST ONE HEADLINE: Rachel Dolezal actually thinks she’s similar to Caitlyn Jenner.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: Why Your Extra-Safe Car Costs More to Insure.

Enabling the safety tech are cameras, sensors, microprocessors and other hardware whose repair costs can be more than five times that of conventional parts. And the equipment is often located in bumpers, fenders and external mirrors—the very spots that tend to get hit in a crash. Insurance companies, unwilling to shoulder all the pain, are passing some of the cost off to buyers.

Jeff Woods, a professor in Illinois, recently bought a 2017 Volkswagen Passat to replace a two-year-old model. It was loaded with so-called active safety equipment. So he wasn’t expecting his State Farm insurance policy to spike 20% to $1,200 a year.

“I was told by the car dealership all the technology would improve the cost of insurance,” Mr. Woods said. “Instead, it went up.” Volkswagen AG declined to comment on Mr. Woods’ experience but said it is “proud to offer advanced-safety technology systems on our vehicles.”

Mr. Woods ended up negotiating a price reduction with State Farm.

Don’t accept the first number they give you.

QUESTION ASKED: Why Isn’t Hillary Clinton in Jail?

Because laws are for the little people, and while Hillary might be many things, she certainly isn’t one of those.

IT’S COMPLICATED: Homeowner Finds Intruder Taking Shower, Shoots Him, Gets Arrested.

DAILY CALLER: WaPo Caught Red Handed In Big Lie, Tries To Quietly Overhaul Entire Piece.

Caitlin Dewey’s initial write-up in the paper (which recently adopted the slogan “Democracy Dies In Darkness”) did not include a single quote from the Texas representative she basically accused of using the Bible to justify taking food from starving people. The story also incorrectly referred to “2 Thessalonians 3-10,” and wildly mischaracterized Rep. Jody Arrington’s statements on the verse.

While Arrington did reference 2 Thessalonians 3:10 (The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat) in a discussion of food stamps, he did not, as The WaPo article suggested, use it to argue unemployed people should not be allowed to eat.

After Sean Davis pointed out these mistakes and others in the Federalist Friday, someone at The Washington Post went through and majorly reworked the story. In fact, it appears the stealth edits are a direct answer to his piece. The story now includes the full quote from Arrington and other adjustments, although the incorrect verse reference remains.

Opaque and dishonest, WaPo ought to be the target of a pair of intrepid investigative reporters.

STEPHEN MILLER: The Obama Administration’s Long History of Shady Surveillance.

Maybe the Russians made them do it.

TRUMP E.P.A. CHIEF: Paris climate agreement ‘bad deal’ for U.S.

DETAILS, SCHMETAILS: California Bill Proposes Free Health Care for All, but Has No Funding Plan.

You don’t have to fund it — it’s free!

LUTHERAN PASTOR: The Left Hates Mike Pence For Loving His Wife Because They Don’t Really Think Men Can Be Evil. “The latest Mike Pence furor is not really a clash of political ideologies. It’s a clash of anthropologies, a clash of two incompatible worldviews about human nature.”

Fascinating piece.

RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: Gay Men in Chechnya Reportedly Targeted for Detention.

Novaya Gazeta, which reported the crackdown Saturday, said it was aware of other sources who say the death toll may be far higher. The gay men who have disappeared from the streets of Grozny, the Chechen capital, and other towns and cities are said to have ranged in age from 16 to 50.

Novaya Gazeta, a Moscow-based publication known for independent investigative reporting and its willingness to confront Russian officialdom, said it learned of the action against gay men in Chechnya from the Interior Ministry in the Caucasus republic, local activists and law enforcement sources.

The men were detained “in connection with their nontraditional sexual orientation, on suspicion of such,” Novaya Gazeta reported. It said none of the detainees had openly disclosed their sexual orientation — a move the paper equated with asking for a death sentence in the largely Muslim North Caucasus region.

The Chechen government’s response was to claim that “You cannot arrest or repress people who just don’t exist in the republic,” which is a song we’ve heard before.

“I NEED WIDER POWERS!” Venezuela’s Maduro Wins Power Over Oil Despite Court Reversal.

The Venezuelan Supreme Court may have amended part of its explosive decision to take over the opposition-led congress, but it still gives embattled leftist President Nicolas Maduro broad new powers over the OPEC nation’s vast oil wealth.

The reversal on Saturday came after political leaders worldwide and street protesters at home accused the pro-government court of effectively making Maduro a dictator.

While the court backed off its Wednesday decision to fully take over the legislative branch, it left in place sweeping new authority for Maduro to cut oil deals on behalf of PDVSA, the state-run oil company, without congressional approval.

Maduro’s cash-strapped government now has the autonomy to sell stakes in Venezuela’s oil fields, which contain the world’s largest reserves, or launch new joint ventures with foreign firms.

Venezuela’s socialist government can’t drill the oil profitably itself, and — I’ll put this gently — the country’s political situation makes it somewhat risky for foreign firms to enter into joint ventures.

All unexpectedly, of course.

DUCK AND COVER: Here’s How the Senate Gorsuch Debate Might Play Out. “Timeline sets up for nuclear option standoff on Thursday.”

Developing…

ABOUT TIME: The VA Secretary Himself Is Now Calling for VA Accountability.

ELI LAKE: Top Obama Adviser Sought Names of Trump Associates in Intel.

The pattern of Rice’s requests was discovered in a National Security Council review of the government’s policy on “unmasking” the identities of individuals in the U.S. who are not targets of electronic eavesdropping, but whose communications are collected incidentally. Normally those names are redacted from summaries of monitored conversations and appear in reports as something like “U.S. Person One.”

The National Security Council’s senior director for intelligence, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, was conducting the review, according to two U.S. officials who spoke with Bloomberg View on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. In February Cohen-Watnick discovered Rice’s multiple requests to unmask U.S. persons in intelligence reports that related to Trump transition activities. He brought this to the attention of the White House General Counsel’s office, who reviewed more of Rice’s requests and instructed him to end his own research into the unmasking policy.

The intelligence reports were summaries of monitored conversations — primarily between foreign officials discussing the Trump transition, but also in some cases direct contact between members of the Trump team and monitored foreign officials. One U.S. official familiar with the reports said they contained valuable political information on the Trump transition such as whom the Trump team was meeting, the views of Trump associates on foreign policy matters and plans for the incoming administration.

Those “incidental” recordings are looking less incidental all the time.

UPDATE: Sorry for the double post — looks like Glenn and I were writing this one up at the same time.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: If China doesn’t deal with North Korea, we will.

“China has great influence over North Korea. And China will either decide to help us with North Korea, or they won’t. And if they do that will be very good for China, and if they don’t it won’t be good for anyone,” Trump was quoted as saying, according to an edited transcript published by the newspaper.

Asked what incentive the US had to offer China, Trump replied: “Trade is the incentive. It is all about trade.”

Asked if he would consider a “grand bargain” in which China pressured Pyongyang in return for a guarantee that the US would later remove troops from the Korean peninsula, the newspaper quoted Trump as saying: “Well, if China is not going to solve North Korea, we will. That is all I am telling you.”

Beijing might like nothing better.

TAKING CREDIT: ISIS Celebrates St. Petersburg Metro Blast That Killed 10.

“We ask Allah to bless the operation by the lions of the Caliphate, we ask Allah to kill the Crusaders,” said an ISIS supporter from the terror group’s al-Minbar online forum. Others celebrated by saying that the Monday bombs made for “a metro to hell for the worshipers of the Cross” and claimed that the attacks — which are still under investigation by Russian authorities — were revenge for Russia’s backing of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is fighting against ISIS and other rebel groups in a six-year-long civil war. Russian airstrikes and shelling in Syria have killed hundreds of people and reduced entire areas to rubble.

If Moscow accepts ISIS as the culprits, the aftermath could prove the first real test of Russia’s renewed position in the Middle East.