1. It’s Wednesday, March 23, 2016.

2. Reacting to the Brussels bombings, Ted Cruz called for the nation’s police departments to “patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods” in an effort to ward off similar attacks in the United States.

That puts Cruz and ISIS on the same team. They both want American Muslims isolated and alienated.

You can understand why ISIS – a collective of sick minds that tries to cloak itself in respectability by appropriating Islam – would feel that way. Like the vampires they are, ISIS’ members want fresh blood for their nihilistic view.

I can’t for the life of me think why any sane American, concerned with the threat of terrorism, wants to create breeding grounds for ISIS.

But then you have Cruz, supposedly more respectable than Donald Trump (just ask Jeb Bush), but at least as big a horse’s ass.

Muslims serve proudly and bravely in our military and our nation’s police forces. Their hard work in businesses across America pays the taxes that pay this dope’s salary as a U.S. senator. Their contributions to our society dwarf anything Cruz has done for anyone but himself.

Turning our law enforcement into a special Gestapo for Muslims is an insult, an affront to anyone with a sense of decency. It is exactly what Cruz and his ilk call “radical Islamists” want us to do in order to give a foothold in the United States.

It’s probably a little hyperbolic to say Ted Cruz is colluding with ISIS for mutual gain. But after a stupid statement like the one he made yesterday, it’s the end result.

3. Hillary Clinton won big in Arizona. Bernie Sanders won bigger in Utah and Idaho. The end result was that Sanders got five more delegates than Clinton in yesterday’s primary and caucuses.

That’s not going to change the basic picture in the Democratic race. And even when, as expected, Sanders sweeps Saturday’s contests in Washington State, Hawaii and Alaska, he still has way too far to go to catch Clinton.

Again, that should not stop Sanders. He’s doing the American people and the Democratic Party a service by raising issues that affect them every day. There are still primaries in some major states – New York, Pennsylvania and California, among others. Those folks have a right to be heard.

In the end, Clinton is likely to be the nominee. She’ll be a better one for having faced Sanders and embraced some of the ideas that he and his supporters have advanced.

4. One of those issues is income inequality and the fact that there are people who are working a full-time job and are still in poverty.

The people in California get a chance to do something about that. A ballot initiative this fall would raise the minimum wage statewide to $15 an hour, more than twice the current federal level of $7.25.  New York’s legislature will have also something to say on this issue, voting in the next few weeks on the $15-an-hour wage advocated by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and many labor groups. 

They’re getting a boost from a University of California study showing that, should New York implement the increase, it will improve living standards without costing jobs. That’s because a higher minimum wage reduces worker turnover and increases productivity, making it a net neutral for employers.

By contrast, Idaho’s legislature has approved legislation barring municipalities in the state from raising the minimum wage, the way certain cities have done elsewhere in the nation. The state’s governor let the measure become law without signing it, partly because even if he had objected, the bill passed with veto-proof margins. 

Of course, that’s Idaho, which doesn’t have as many as people as Queens alone. And, with mindsets like that of its lawmakers, for good reason.

2. Even if it was an exhibition game, I hate when the Yankees beat the Mets. Hopefully, we’ll do better when the games count in August.