"President Donald Trump's decision to appoint former UN Ambassador John Bolton to serve as his National Security Advisor is arguably the most significant single step he has taken to date toward implementing his America First foreign policy.

"The news hit America's enemies and competitors -- from Pyongyang to Teheran to Moscow to Beijing -- like a wall of bricks Thursday night. ...

"Bolton's healthy skepticism for international agreements; his support for a foreign policy that prioritizes the advancement of American national interests over multilateral diplomacy; and his belief that Obama's signature diplomatic achievement, the nuclear deal with Iran, is a disaster, all make him the senior diplomat most aligned with President Trump's America First agenda in Washington.

"The combination of Trump and Bolton no doubt puts fear in the hearts of America's enemies, and heartens America's allies. Given the hatred Bolton inspires in the Washington swamp, it took great courage for Trump to appoint him. America and its allies will be the primary beneficiaries of this bold move."

"COLUMBIA, Mo. -- There is nothing very intimidating about Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, the 38-year-old grandson of a farmer with a slight frame, affable personality and constant smile. He's a package filled with grace not heat.

"But beware the silent warrior. Like David taking on Goliath, Hawley is going after Google -- a company so entrenched in our lives, it knows how we shop, where we travel, what we read and, thanks to our calendars, what we're up to every single day of our lives. ...

"So, in November of last year, the father of two launched an investigation to find out if Google is violating antitrust laws to crush its competitors.

"'Someone at some point has to take a stand and ask the hard question, "What exactly is it that Google is doing with our personal information?"' Hawley told The Post. 'It's time somebody held them accountable for the information they are collecting and how they are using it.'

"Search-engine companies like Google make the majority of their money through advertising. Hawley wants to know how Google collects and uses its customers' private information, and if they bias search-engine results to hurt or bury other content providers' information and advertising. Last summer the European Commission hit Google with a record $2.7 billion fine for unfairly favoring their own services over those of competitors."

"The omnibus spending bill was crafted in secret and will be passed under pressure; raises discretionary spending as the national debt grows; and fails to deliver on any major GOP priorities except increased defense spending. What might turn out to be the signature achievement of unified Republican government this year is the sort of legislation that would have been right at home in the Obama administration.

"Start with the process. The 2,232-page bill was written in secret by leaders of both parties, unveiled Wednesday night, and passed by the House this afternoon. If the Senate doesn't pass the budget by Friday, the government will shut down. So much for the 72-hour rule Republicans sought back during Barack Obama's first term. The procedural abuse means that many lawmakers are voting up-or-down on a bill they didn't write and had no opportunity to debate. It adds up to a breakdown of the budgetary process, a particular embarrassment for Congress given that passing budgets is one of the few duties that it still discharges with regularity.

"The massive, 13 percent increase in discretionary spending was prefigured by the agreement on budget caps that congressional leaders reached in February. It remains remarkable that, even with control over the branches of elected government, the GOP cannot secure funding for the military without dangling such unnecessary spending for domestic programs."

"Sometimes, for those of us who are constantly reading statistics and poll results, something stands out that you didn't expect to see -- a number that makes you think the future will not be what you have been expecting.

"My latest sighting of such a number was in a March 12 New York Times report of a poll of college students sponsored by the American Council on Education, the Charles Koch Foundation, and the Stanton Foundation. It asked students about free speech on campus, whether it is allowed and whether it should be. ...

"Majorities of students polled said they supported both free speech and 'inclusion and diversity.' When asked which was more important, 53 percent said inclusion and diversity and only 46 percent said free speech.

"What I found most striking -- the numbers that stood out for me -- was the difference between men and women. Among men, 61 percent favored free speech. But only 35 percent of women did so. That's a result I certainly hadn't expected.

"That number is of particular concern, because women are now a majority of college and university students. They appear to be a preponderance of the campus administrators who enforce schools' speech and sexual assault codes, at a time when administrators outnumber teachers in higher education."

Read entire article here.

"Former Cambridge Analytica contractor and now-professional whistleblower Christopher Wylie told CNN that while at the company he helped build a 'psychological warfare weapon' to 'exploit mental vulnerabilities that our algorithms showed that [Facebook users] had.'

"So, in other words, he worked in the advertising business.

"Those who have covered politics for more than a single Trump-cycle should know better than to use this kind of unnerving rhetoric for what amounts to average microtargeting, which has been used by hundreds, if not thousands, of firms. Yet, now, when it serves to bolster convoluted theories about an election being overthrown, terms like 'psychographics' and 'breach' are being thrown around to make it sound like someone hacked into voting rolls after boring into the deepest recesses of our souls.

"Moreover, the idea that Facebook can know your 'mental vulnerabilities' is only true if you share your nightmares with them. If you're uncomfortable with data mining and your information being shared, don't take surveys. Because, breaking news: You don't have to be on Facebook. You don't have to use Twitter. You don't have a constitutional right to play FarmVille without answering some questions. You don't get free stuff. The very existence of these tech companies is predicated on mining data so that they, or third parties, can sell you things."

"The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to consider whether Arizona's death penalty law is so broad that it's unconstitutional.

"The court also passed up an invitation to examine whether capital punishment should be banned nationwide. ...

"Two justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Steven Breyer, have recently said the court should re-examine the death penalty, but the other seven members of the court have shown no similar concerns."

"At the height of the presidential election, the administration of the outgoing president of the United States -- Mr. Trump's most powerful political enemy -- handed over the controls of America's spy apparatus to begin moving against Mr. Trump and his campaign.

"They exposed people, spied on people and began setting the trap just in case the stupid people of America picked Mr. Trump to be their president. They lied, conspired and held secret meetings.

"So special counsel Robert Mueller's endless investigation in search of a crime should have been no surprise. It was cooked up long before Mr. Trump even won the election. Of course, these people were going to do this.

"It is the new standard for 'self-governance' in America. The people can elect any president they want. But then these people will do everything including assassinate their character to hound them from office.

"Truly, these people cannot fathom how much innocent taxpayers despise them."

"The economy has responded well to the tax cuts that became law in January. Growth is up, as is take-home pay. But there was a glaring omission in the tax bill that President Trump signed into law: there was no cut in the capital gains tax rates that act as a brake on more jobs and investment.

"President Trump's appointment Wednesday of supply-side economist Larry Kudlow as head of the National Economic Council could change that. There is no more passionate advocate of having the president issue an executive order to index capital gains for inflation. Unlocking frozen assets and stimulating investment, such a move would further turbocharge the U.S. economy. ...

"Kudlow laid out an example of what he meant in a CNBC column last August: 'You invest $1,000 and, after ten years, you sell that investment for $1,200. But if inflation averaged 2.5 percent in that period, the $1,200 you receive will be worth less in real terms than the $1,000 you invested. And yet, under current law, you will pay a tax on your $200 capital gain.'

"In other words, the capital gains tax paid on such investments can easily exceed 100 percent once inflation is factored in."

"WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Jeff Sessions is reviewing a recommendation to fire the former F.B.I. deputy director, Andrew G. McCabe, just days before he is scheduled to retire on Sunday, people briefed on the matter said. Mr. McCabe was a frequent target of attack from President Trump, who taunted him both publicly and privately.

"Mr. McCabe is ensnared in an internal review that includes an examination of his decision in 2016 to allow F.B.I. officials to speak with reporters about an investigation into the Clinton Foundation. The Justice Department's inspector general concluded that Mr. McCabe was not forthcoming during the review, according to the people briefed on the matter. That yet-to-be-released report triggered an F.B.I. disciplinary process that recommended his termination -- leaving Mr. Sessions to either accept or reverse that decision.

"Lack of candor is a fireable offense, but like so much at the F.B.I., Mr. McCabe's fate is also entangled in presidential politics and the special counsel investigation. He was involved from the beginning in the investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. He is also a potential witness in the inquiry into whether Mr. Trump tried to obstruct justice. ...

"Now, Mr. Sessions is the final arbiter of Mr. McCabe's dismissal, shortly before his retirement takes effect Sunday. Though no decision has been made, people inside the Justice Department expect him to be fired before Friday, a decision that would jeopardize his pension as a 21-year F.B.I. veteran."

"Six years ago, my good friend Greg Lukianoff, the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, coined the perfect phrase to describe the state of free speech in American education: 'unlearning liberty.' Our educational system is at cross-purposes with the Bill of Rights, teaching students to believe that unalienable rights such as free speech and due process are a problem, especially when they conflict with the demands of social justice or political expediency.

"It's not that students are taught to despise free speech -- after all, students love their own right to speak. It's that students believe free speech should be subordinate to other, higher values. With depressing regularity now, surveys of college students reveal a pattern: There's immense support for free speech in the abstract, but that support erodes significantly when the questions get specific. ...

"The true tension in the First Amendment isn't between freedom and diversity or freedom and inclusion. History teaches us that the tension is between freedom and power. Free speech, by its very nature, leads to questioning, debate, and -- eventually -- accountability.

"In reality, speech is the engine that powers American diversity. Individual liberty is indispensable to true inclusivity. Thus, it's incompatible with the false diversity of the college campus, which celebrates differences in sexuality and ethnicity but increasingly expects its faculty and students to think alike. And it's incompatible with the false inclusivity of the modern university, which all too often excludes even the most credible and serious voices if those voices challenge the orthodoxies of identity politics.

"Our students 'unlearn liberty' in part because they've been presented with a false choice. The true conflict isn't between speech and diversity, it's between speech and the unaccountable power that political and cultural leaders so consistently crave."

Read entire article here.