More insanity out of New York

At Hot Air, Jazz Shaw brings us the latest from New York City:

I’m no longer sure on any given day if I’m watching the actual news out of New York City or reading the summary of a William Gibson novel. Either way, the crazy train has well and truly pulling into the station in the Big Apple. We learned this week that Hizzonor Bill de Blasio has yet another plan to entrench the city in “transgender” warfare and make sure that business owners are made to toe the line on political correctness. Under this latest scheme, any business which greets someone using a pronoun not matching the gender (or lack thereof) the customer “identifies” as could face a stiff fine in court. No… I’m not even remotely kidding you. (Washington Times)

Greeting customers as “Mr.” or “Mrs.” — or even not using the pronoun “ze” or “zir” — could prove costly for New York City businesses under rules drafted by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s bureaucrats.

The Gotham mayor’s Commission on Human Rights says entities that fail to address customers by their preferred gender pronouns and titles are in violation of the law and could be subject to penalties of up to $250,000.

The commission issued a “legal enforcement guidance” for the New York City Human Rights Law, which now “requires employers and converted entities to use an individual’s preferred name, pronoun and title (e.g., Ms./Mrs.) regardless of the individual’s sex assigned at birth, anatomy, gender, medical history, appearance, or the sex indicated on the individual’s identification.”

So now New York City will regulate the speech of business owners and employees down to the level of punishing those who use standard, polite pronouns which have been accepted protocol for nearly as long as we’ve had language skills. If we were to stretch credulity to the point of denying basic medical science, you might be able to make the argument that someone you assumed was male could correct you and say they are female. With today’s fashions and hairstyles, who’s to say, right? If what appears to be a woman walks up to the perfume counter and, upon being greeted with a cheerful, “Good afternoon, Ma’am” informs you that they should be addressed as sir, what’s the harm? You still want to make the sale, so just call them sir and ring up the purchase. But if you fail to conform to the request, what law has been broken? Your boss might fire you for driving away business (and they would be well within their right to do so) but can you be dragged into court and fined? And we’re not talking about a small fine here.

The maximum civil fine that the commission may impose upon “misgendering” is $125,000. But when the violation is the “result of willful, wanton, or malicious conduct,” the maximum fine can double to $250,000.
That doesn’t even begin to address the question of demands to use misappropriated terms like “they/them/theirs” or worse, completely fake pronouns such as “ze/hir.” Shifting generic plurals to be used in the singular (“Would them care for some more coffee?”) is simply bad English and makes you sound illiterate. And don’t get me started on this “ze/hir” nonsense. Those aren’t even words. The city administration chooses to define them as, alternative pronoun systems developed by academics and/or LGBT communities, but that doesn’t make them part of the language and nobody is required to use these made up terms.

Read more here.

Go figure

Tom Krannawitter writes,

At one end of the education spectrum in the United States are adults who never finished high school. As a statistical, demographic fact, they tend to identify as "liberal" or "progressive," and to the extent they vote, they tend to vote for Democrats.

Those in the middle of the education spectrum -- having graduated from high school and have some college under their belt or earned an undergraduate degree -- tend to be non-progressive, and they tend not to vote for Democrats.

Those with the highest levels of formal education -- completing graduate-level programs that result in some form of a terminal degree, such as a J.D., M.D., or Ph.D. -- are similar, politically, to those with the least formal education: they identify as "liberal" or "progressive," and to the extent they vote, they tend to vote for Democrats.
This could mean that the most educated, smartest Americans are liberal, progressive, Democrat. Or that liberalism, progressivism, and the Democratic Party attract the smartest, most educated citizens among us.

Or it could mean that our universities and graduate schools are very effective at training Americans to be liberals, progressives, and Democrats.

Or it could mean that the most educated, smartest Americans know not much more about politics than Americans with the least education.

More research is needed. Stay tuned.

Reduce risks, or take risks together?

Chateau Heartiste writes today about the hidden costs of dual-income relationships,

this comment by Cail Coreshev is a valid criticism of dual-income marriages that one doesn’t often read from more mainstream sociological pundits:

Good comment, but it’s too bad he threw in that sop to getting an “education” before marriage. The “she needs it for a financial backup just in case” attitude is a big part of the feminist narrative. It leads to women entering marriage with one foot out the door, trying it out for a while before deciding whether to go with the backup. By the time she gets that college degree “just in case,” she’s already burned through several of her most attractive, fertile years; and unless she’s unusually virtuous, has been on the carousel learning bad habits.

It makes logical sense to reduce your risks as much as possible, but taking risks together is one thing that bonds a couple. When people like my parents and grandparents started a life together, owning very little and highly dependent on each other to make ends meet, it bonded them in such a way that they couldn’t imagine having done anything else. If a man died and widowed a young mother with no skills outside the home, that sucked, but it was very rare, and that’s what family and community are for. But when a married couple are both financially stable and don’t particularly need each other, you don’t get that interdependence. Instead you get a lot of people wondering if they could be doing better elsewhere.

To which Chateau Heartiste adds,

There are many good reasons why the feminist idea of a successful marriage is a warped one. Humans are not (yet) an androgynous blob of asexually-reproducing drones. Women love men who come closest to the masculine ideal, and men love women who come closest to the feminine ideal. This means, in real life, women love powerful confident men who serve as the oak tree under which they can find shelter against the storms, and men love to shelter pretty, vulnerable, feminine women whose first instinct is to nurture rather than swim with the corporate sharks.

Cail’s theory that shared risk — and shared vulnerability — helps bond couples is also worth pondering. It’s not hyperbole to say that women who depend on “having a backup in the event of a broken marriage” unwittingly encourage the breaking up of their marriages. Not a sermon, just a shiv.

Read more here.

Lost American deterrence

Victor Davis Hanson writes at National Review,

In 1939, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier warned Adolf Hitler that if the Third Reich invaded Poland, a European war would follow.

Both leaders insisted that they meant it. But Hitler thought that after getting away with militarizing the Rhineland, annexing Austria, and dismantling Czechoslovakia, the Allied appeasers were once again just bluffing.

England and France declared war two days after Hitler entered Poland.

Once hard-won deterrence is lost, it is almost impossible to restore credibility without terrible costs and danger.

Last week, Russian officials warned the Obama administration about the installation of a new anti-ballistic missile system in Romania and talked of a possible nuclear confrontation that would reduce the host country to “smoking ruins” and “neutralize” any American-sponsored missile system.

Such apocalyptic rhetoric follows months of Russian bullying of nearby neutral Sweden, harassment of U.S. ships and planes, warnings to NATO nations in Europe, and constant threats to the Baltic states and former Soviet republics.

China just warned the U.S. to keep its ships and planes away from its new artificial island and military base in the Spratly archipelago — plopped down in the middle of the South China Sea to control international sea lanes.

Iranian leaders routinely threaten to close down the key Strait of Hormuz. North Korea and the Islamic State are upping their usual unhinged bombast to new levels — from threatening nuclear strikes on the U.S. homeland to drawing up hit lists of Americans targeted for death.

After the abject pullout from Iraq in 2011 and the subsequent collapse of the country eroded U.S. credibility, after the fake Syrian red lines, the failed reset with Russia, the Benghazi fiasco, and the slashing of the military, America has lost its old deterrence.

...Israel has formed an alliance with some of its longtime enemies in the Persian Gulf based on their shared fears of Iran and their mutual distrust of American commitment. Israelis and Saudi Arabians alike are confused about whether the Obama administration naïvely appeased Iran with a nuclear deal or deliberately courted it as a new ally.

In a recent New York Times Magazine interview, deputy national-security adviser and presidential speechwriter Ben Rhodes ridiculed the “Blob” — his derogatory term for the bipartisan Washington, D.C., foreign-policy establishment. He also bragged about deceiving journalists and policy wonks in order to ram through the Iran deal without Senate approval or public support. Rhodes, who wrote Obama’s mythological “Cairo Speech” and also the infamous Benghazi “talking points,” seemed to confirm accusations that this administration has contempt for traditional U.S. foreign policy.

Recent interviews with the president and his advisers might confirm the impression abroad that the global order is, for a rare moment, up for grabs, as a lame-duck administration retreats from America’s role of world leader. And given that there are only eight months left to take advantage of this global void, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and Islamic terrorists are beginning to believe that the U.S. will not do anything to stop their aggressions once they change global realities by force.

South Korea, Estonia, Japan, Romania, the Czech Republic, Poland, the Philippines, and much of Europe all expect provocations — and fear the U.S. might issue more red lines, deadlines, and step-over lines rather than come to their aid.

Aggressors are not sure whether Hillary Clinton, if elected, will govern more like a traditional Democratic president committed to leading the Western alliance. And if Donald Trump were to be elected, no aggressor would know exactly why, when, or how he might strike back at them.

Given those uncertainties, it may seem wise in the waning months of 2016 for aggressors to go for broke against the predictable Obama administration before the game is declared over in 2017.

For that reason, the next few months may prove the most dangerous since World War II.

Read more here.

The Renegade Party

Matthew Burke reports at Politistick that a new political party has been formed on Twitter. It is called the Renegade Party.

The new Twitter account is only following six individuals, which may provide a clue as to who has organized the party.

Besides Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, considered an establishment Republican, the account follows a group who would normally not be in 100 percent agreement on issues, from Tea Party-supported Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse , to more establishment types like 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, American Enterprise Institute’s Arthur Brooks, and General (Ret.) Stanley McChrystal, along with former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, who also ran for the presidency in 2012, and even billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks.

...It’s interesting and more than ironic that the group would use the name “Renegade,” being that on Sunday, Breitbart News, ran a piece entitled, “Bill Kristol Republican Spoiler, Renegade Jew,” an opinion piece disparaging Kristol for not joining the Trump Train, a piece that former Breitbart editor Ben Shapiro referred to as “garbage.”

Read more here.

Facebook bias? How about Google?

Have you seen this on your Google screen today? It is a drawing of Yuri Kochiyama, who died in 2014 (Thursday would have been her 95th birthday). Who was she and what did she stand for? Matthew Burke reports at Politistick,

On Thursday, Google honored America-hating communist and Muslim supporter of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden, Yuri Kochiyama with a Google “doodle,” on their popular Google search engine site. How evil was she? Here are two quotes from her: “To me, [bin Laden] is in the category of Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, Fidel Castro, all leaders that I admire. They had much in common. Besides being strong leaders who brought consciousness to their people, they all had severe dislike for the US government and those who held power in the US. I think all of them felt the US government and its spokesmen were all arrogant, racist, hypocritical, self-righteous, and power hungry.”

“I thank Islam for bin Laden. America’s greed, aggressiveness, and self-righteous arrogance must be stopped. “

Read more here.

Terrorism?

Politico's Nick Gass wrote today,

Hours after EgyptAir Flight 804 disappeared over the Mediterranean Sea en route from Paris to Cairo, officials chose their words carefully, saying they were ruling nothing out in the investigation.

But not Donald Trump, who tweeted Thursday morning that it “[l]ooks like yet another terrorist attack,” remarking upon the flight departing from Paris.

“When will we get tough, smart and vigilant? Great hate and sickness” Trump tweeted.

Well, guess what? Here is the New York Times 27 minutes ago:

CAIRO — An Egyptian jetliner carrying 66 people en route from Paris to Cairo abruptly swerved, vanished from radar and apparently plunged into the Mediterranean early Thursday, shortly before it was scheduled to land. Egypt’s aviation minister suggested terrorism was a more likely cause than technical failure.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/egyptair-missing-trump-terrorism-223351#ixzz497cY7L4c
Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook

Dissolving organs

Sarah Malm reports for the Daily Mail,

ISIS has executed 25 people in Mosul, northern Iraq, by lowering them in a vat of nitric acid, according to several local news reports.

The men had been accused of spying on ISIS on behalf of Iraqi government security forces.
According to witnesses, the 25 alleged 'spies' had been tied together with a rope and lowered in a large basin containing nitric acid until their organs dissolved.

Nitric acid is a colourless, yellow or red, fuming liquid with an acrid, suffocating odour which is highly corrosive to all parts of the human body.
It is normally used in manufacturing ammonium nitrate for fertilizer and explosives, organic synthesis, photoengraving, etching steel, and reprocessing spent nuclear fuel.

Read more here.

"Now in Hillary's testicle lock box"

Ed Rendell, former Governor of Pennsylvania, is one of Hillary Clinton's biggest supporters. But he just stepped in it big time, said Rush Limbaugh this morning. He's in trouble. Why? For telling the truth: "There are more ugly women in America than attractive women." He said this because he believes the majority of women, who are not attractive, will take personally and feel insulted by Donald Trump comments about the looks of various women, and therefore would vote for Hillary instead of Trump.

More chemical weapons attacks in the Syria

At National Review, Jim Geraghty reports,

Chemical-Weapon Warfare Rages in Syria; Everyone Shrugs

You would think this would be a bigger deal, the sort of thing regularly discussed by President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the Republican nominee.

It was midmorning on Sunday May 8 when the rockets began to fall on the abandoned town. At first there was the thud of the shells, followed by black and white smoke and an acrid smell. The police officers deployed in the deserted town later said they began to feel pains in their chests and their airways close up. They called for urgent medical help, and were evacuated to a hospital in the next town.

In interviews two days after the shelling, two police officials who were on the scene during the attack and a physician who treated the victims said the rockets contained chemical weapons, possibly sulfur mustard (so-called mustard gas) or chlorine. A police report obtained by TIME says that rockets fired by Islamic State militants on May 8 landed in Bashir, just south of the city of Kirkuk, releasing toxic gasses. The report also lists the names of 46 people wounded in the attack.

“Yeah, yeah, there goes Jim again, ranting about chemical weapons again.”

Depending on which list you use, since 2012 there have been 60 alleged chemical-weapons attacks in Syria; the Syrian-American Medical Society puts the number of confirmed attacks at 161 and another 133 alleged but unverified. The group calculates that nearly 1,500 people have been killed with chemical weapons.

And now we know they’re in the hands of ISIS: They made 600 people sick in Kirkuk in March.

Think back to President Obama’s address to the nation, September 10, 2013:

If we fail to act, the Assad regime will see no reason to stop using chemical weapons. As the ban against these weapons erodes, other tyrants will have no reason to think twice about acquiring poison gas, and using them. Over time, our troops would again face the prospect of chemical warfare on the battlefield. And it could be easier for terrorist organizations to obtain these weapons, and to use them to attack civilians.

Hey, the man may not have done anything about it, but he was prescient!

The most astounding fact about the Universe

Ethan Siegel asks us to consider at 3tags.org, what is the most astounding thing about the universe.

there is one fact that stands out as the most astounding. The entire Universe,

on all scales,
in all places,
and at all times,
obeys the same fundamental laws of nature. This is the most remarkable thing of all. Imagine what things would be like if this weren’t true. Imagine an existence where nature behaves randomly and unpredictably, where gravity turns on-and-off on a whim, where the Sun could simply stop burning its fuel for no apparent reason, where the atoms that form you could spontaneously cease to hold together.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, the ACS Science Team and N. Benitez et al.


The core of the Tarantula Nebula, as revealed for the first time by Hubble back in 2009. Image credit: NASA, ESA, and F. Paresce (INAF-IASF, Bologna, Italy), R. O’Connell (University of Virginia, Charlottesville), and the Wide Field Camera 3 Science Oversight Committee.

When you put it all together, it means the most astounding fact about the Universe is this: that it exists in such a way that it can be understood at all.

Read more here.
h/t American Digest

When a reporter does his job

Will this help you to decide to vote for Trump?

Donald Trump has released a list of suggested names he would consider appointing to fill the Supreme Court vacancy. You can read a paragraph about each of them here. Ann Althouse writes,

Saying the reaction was "mixed," the Times quotes Nan Aron (president of the liberal Alliance for Justice Action Council), who found these people "dangerous" — "some of the most extreme conservatives on the federal bench today" — and Ed Whelan ("a prominent conservative legal commentator") who said it was "a good list of some of the outstanding judges who give ample sign of being faithful to the Constitution." Actually, that sounds like an unmixed reaction: It sounds like the reaction that the potential nominees all seem to be conservative.

A commenter named Quizbowla at Ann's blog added,

Some notes on the 11: Only one attended Harvard or Yale (Yalie Steven Colloton), nine clerked at the federal level (Gruender and Hardiman did not), three former law profs, two (Hardiman and Sykes) have experience as a trial judge, two (Colloton and Gruender) former US attorneys. Of the nine federal clerks, six made it to the Supreme Court. Three (Eid, Lee, Stras) clerked for Thomas, and one each clerked for Rehnquist (Colloton), Kennedy (Kethledge), and Scalia (Larsen).

Geographically, this list is a shot against the bi-coastal dominance of the current Court. One Yale graduate, one Georgetown graduate and one Duke graduate, with the rest from decidedly "flyover" country. (Stras attended U Kansas law school!) This is a "freshwater" list.

Finally, almost half (5 of 11) would come directly from a state supreme court. The last SCOTUS justice to come directly from a state supreme court was Bill Brennan (NJ) in '56. O'Connor came from AZ's intermediate appellate court.

Commenter Madison Man noted that none the 11 are Harvard grads:

Steven Colloton: Yale Law.
Raymond Gruender: Wash U St. Louis
Thomas Hardiman: Georgetown
William Pryor: Tulane
Diane Sykes: Marquette
Raymond Kethledge: Wayne State/U. Michigan
Allison H. Eid: U. Chicago
Joan Larsen: Northwestern
Thomas Lee: Chicago
David Stras: Kansas
Don Willett: Duke

Commenter EDH notes,

But Trump isn't promising. He's just saying these are people "he would consider as potential replacements for Justice Scalia."

Interesting how Trump limited this short list to only replacing Scalia.

Trump can address any center-left backlash by saying these are the nominees he's considering to replace Scalia's "conservative seat" on the SCOTUS, giving him some wiggle room if criticism mounts about limiting himself to naming one of these to replace, for example, RBG's "liberal seat."

Commenter Bay Area Guy adds,

Good move by Trump. Without googling, I can opine that Colloton, Pryor, & Sykes are excellent judges (meaning conservative in the same manner than Scalia was).

So, if the remaining judges are of the same ilk, Trump, on the merits, has provided convincing evidence to the #NeverVoteTrump crowd, that he is superior to Hillary on this critical issue.

Plain old pot has lost its edge

Sarah Maslin Nir reports in the New York Times that some marijuana users are chasing bigger highs, called "dabbing."

On a recent bright afternoon, two teenage boys in boat shoes and shorts strolled up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan in a crowd of passers-by. At 56th Street they paused as one pulled an electronic pipe out of his pocket and held it to his friend’s lips. Inside was a potent and little-studied drug made from distilled marijuana; they were emboldened, they said, by the fact that the gooey wax hardly has a smell, and is so novel in New York that, even if discovered, parents, teachers or even the authorities hardly seem to know what it is.

As throngs walked by, the boys stood in front of the diamond-filled windows of Harry Winston, getting high.

The practice of consuming marijuana extract — a yellow, waxy substance that can contain high levels of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the chemical in unprocessed marijuana that produces a high — appears to have risen rapidly in New York City over the past few years, according to federal law enforcement officials as well as people who use and sell the drug. Its rise crosses social lines, from experimenting teenagers to workers on Wall Street. And it is driven by many factors, including the Eastward-trickling effects of a much more permissive marijuana culture in the West, where it is now dispensed legally in some states.


marijuana extract photo by Sam Hodgson of the New York Times

...Federal law enforcement officials, however, say the drug, also known as shatter, butter and honey, is now on their radar. “We monitor any type of new twist on drug use in order to warn the public of its danger,” James J. Hunt, special agent in charge of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration’s New York division, said in an email. Referring to the marijuana extract, he said, “Not only is the method of production explosive, but the use has serious physical and psychological side effects.”

Underscoring the drug’s rise is a profound cultural shift: As social mores regarding marijuana have loosened, there is a sense among some that dabbing, as the practice of using the extract is popularly known, titillates because plain old pot has lost its edge.

“A lot of it is, we’re doing it in disguise,” said one of the teenagers on Fifth Avenue, both students at the Masters School, a private boarding school in Dobbs Ferry, New York. The two asked that their names not be used because they did not want get in trouble with the police or school administrators. The advent of vaporizers and the smaller “vape pen,” a device similar to an e-cigarette, users say, is also increasing the popularity of dabbing. Just squeeze the extract into a chamber inside the pen, one teenager said, and inhale. “And we can do it so freely,” he said.

His classmate says the appeal is the ferocity of the high. Users can sometimes pass out after inhaling, and the stupefying effects can last for hours, and border on the hallucinatory. Marijuana, in its traditional plant form, has a THC concentration of about 20 percent, according to information distributed by the Drug Enforcement Administration. The wax used for dabbing can have a concentration of up to 80 percent.

The extract is typically made by pouring a solvent over marijuana plants to extract the THC, then letting the solvent evaporate. The waxy substance that remains, and its variants, now make up a booming sector of the marijuana economy, according to the ArcView Group, a company that studies and invests in the cannabis industry.

There has been little research on marijuana concentrates and whether they affect the body differently than other forms of marijuana. But what is known is cause for concern, according to Emily Feinstein, the director of health law and policy for the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. “There is some evidence to suggest that the outcomes, like the effects, may be supercharged,” Ms. Feinstein said in an email. “Side effects can include: a rapid heartbeat, blackouts, psychosis, paranoia and hallucinations that cause people to end up in psychiatric facilities.”

In New York, users say there is a heightened appeal: the ease of evasion. Videos are traded among teenagers that show off brazen dabbing in public, in the bleachers at high school sports games, or even in school.

One user, a 27-year-old man who lives in Midwood, drew a parallel with the technological advances that have shrunk computers into palm-size smartphones and as driving the fad for a smaller, more powerful punch. “Back in the day, people had to find a way to smoke weed, to roll it into something,” he said, adding that to do so now, in this era of concentrates, seems archaic.

...A man who sells marijuana on Craigslist, who identified himself as Tony Holl, said in an interview that his business had risen dramatically. “I was surprised; once one person asked, then a whole bunch of people asked,” he said. “It’s definitely a trend.”

On a recent afternoon in SoHo, Mr. Holl, who is 40, produced manila envelopes he said he was on his way to deliver. A police officer walked nearby, but Mr. Holl said he was not concerned as he displayed his wares: white paper smeared with brownish wax. He said most people would not recognize it as a drug.

One thing Mr. Holl says he will not do, however, is use his product. The high, he said, is too intense. “That’s the only dangerous thing about it,” he said. “Opportunities can pass you by.”

Read more here.

Changes

I am now listening more to NPR than to conservative talk radio. I realized I had heard the commercials so often that I almost had them all memorized. There are just so many of them, and they are too long. NPR just gives two sentence ads that say, "support comes from..." and goes on in those two sentences to list one or two notable things about those businesses. (However, NPR is now in their Spring drive to build more listener financial support, so I am flipping back to conservative talk radio during their membership drive).

I am also reading more centrist blogs, such as Ann Althouse. I realized during this primary season that the mainstream media is not the only place that is biased. The Drudge Report and Breitbart were two internet sites I used to read regularly. I used to prefer Fox News to CNN. No longer. I now view them as similar, while Drudge and Breitbart have been in the tank for Trump, who was not my first choice during the primary season.

It's up to us readers and viewers to realize the biases influencing how news stories are presented by those sources. Glenn Beck is one I still listen to. He stands for the principles inherent in the founding of our country. Today he told us that he is going to a face-to-face meeting with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg tomorrow. It was revealed recently that Facebook's "trending" stories are not always based on computer algorythms, as they are purported to be. Stories of interest to conservative readers often do not make that list. But Beck recognizes Facebook's rights as a private business. They should be free to run their business any way they want, and they must be doing something right, because they have over one billion users! If businesses make the wrong choices, they should eventually lose customer support. Beck just wants to "look Zuckerberg in the eyes" and see what he has to say about the allegations of bias.

Where do I go to find news stories I post on this blog? That's changing, too. Notice that in my last two posts I have quoted from New York Times stories three times. That used to be anathema. For years Rush Limbaugh has been showing us how the media is biased against conservatives, especially. places like the New York Times and CNN. That remains one of Rush's strengths, and I still tune him in for brief moments during the day. Oh, and by the way, I am using Facebook more than I ever have. I am finding stories there every day that are worth discussing here on this blog.

Lifestyle choices: becoming drug free, or staying unemployed!

Jackie Calmes reports in the New York Times,

All over the country, employers say they see a disturbing downside of tighter labor markets as they try to rebuild from the worst recession since the Depression: They are struggling to find workers who can pass a pre-employment drug test.

I know that is true here in Colorado, and I think it is due to the legalization of marijuana. Marijuana can stay in ones blood stream several weeks. One can't just smoke or eat some marijuana and wait a couple days before applying for a job. The test will be positive for marijuana. Drug users know that, and many just skip applying at places that require drug testing, or skip going to the drug-testing place.

Calmes continues,

That hurdle partly stems from the growing ubiquity of drug testing, at corporations with big human resources departments, in industries like trucking where testing is mandated by federal law for safety reasons, and increasingly at smaller companies.

But data suggest employers’ difficulties also reflect an increase in the use of drugs, especially marijuana — employers’ main gripe — and also heroin and other opioid drugs much in the news.

Another New York Times article from January pointed out that

Deaths from overdoses are
reaching levels similar to the H.I.V. epidemic at its peak. ...The number of these deaths reached a new peak in 2014: 47,055 people, or the equivalent of about 125 Americans every day.

Calmes adds,

In Colorado, “to find a roofer or a painter that can pass a drug test is unheard-of,” said Jesse Russow, owner of Avalanche Roofing & Exteriors, in Colorado Springs. That was true even before Colorado, like a few other states, legalized recreational use of marijuana.

In a sector where employers like himself tend to rely on Latino workers, Mr. Russow tried to diversify three years ago by recruiting white workers, vetting about 80 people. But, he said, “As soon as I say ‘criminal background check,’ ‘drug test,’ they’re out the door.”

Testing dates to the Reagan administration. The 1988 Drug-Free Workplace Act required most employers with federal contracts or grants to test workers. In 1991, Congress responded to a deadly 1987 train crash in which two operators tested positive for marijuana by requiring testing for all “safety sensitive” jobs regulated by the Transportation Department. Those laws became the model for other employers. Some states give businesses a break on workers’ compensation insurance if they are certified as drug-free.

Read more here.

Will Trump win Sanders supporters, if Hillary is the Democrat nominee?

Is it possible that Bernie Sanders might one day come out to endorse Donald Trump? Ashley Parker and Jonathan Martin write in today's New York Times,

On a range of issues, Mr. Trump seems to be taking a page from the Sanders playbook, expressing a willingness to increase the minimum wage, suggesting that the wealthy may pay higher taxes than under his original proposal, attacking Mrs. Clinton from the left on national security and Wall Street, and making clear that his opposition to free trade will be a centerpiece of his general election campaign.

...Mr. Trump’s approach has scrambled longstanding assumptions about how the two parties can position themselves in a general election fight, and could augur at least a short-term shift in how a Republican presidential nominee campaigns. Until Mr. Trump’s successful campaign, unwavering support for free trade and the business community, a robust American presence in the world, and a commitment to deep tax cuts have been articles of faith for the modern Republican Party.

But Mr. Trump, who has also made attacks on illegal immigrants central to his campaign while vowing to protect Social Security and Medicare, is plainly going to run as more of a Sanders-style populist than as a conservative. And this approach suggests that the 2016 campaign will not be decided in the increasingly diverse states that represent the face of a changing nation — Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Virginia — but in the more heavily white Rust Belt, where blaming trade deals for manufacturing job losses provided resonant themes for Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders during the primaries there.

Mr. Trump recently offered a taste of his coming line of attack on the campaign trail in Oregon, where he praised Mr. Sanders for highlighting Mrs. Clinton’s ties to the country’s largest financial institutions. “She’s totally controlled by Wall Street,” Mr. Trump said, echoing a Sanders rallying cry.

Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime adviser to Mr. Trump, said he expected the presumptive Republican nominee to grow aggressive on the banks. “Who’s been tougher on bankers than Donald Trump?” asked Mr. Stone, suggesting Mr. Trump could appeal to some of Mr. Sanders’s supporters. “He’s taken them to the cleaners. I think he has a healthy skepticism and deep knowledge of bankers and how they operate. He’s going to be tough on Wall Street.” Mr. Trump has said that “the hedge fund guys are getting away with murder.”

If by abandoning the traditional Republican playbook Mr. Trump were to put Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in the Republican column, as some of his aides suggested, he would swing 46 electoral votes from states that have voted for Democratic presidential candidates since the 1980s.

The Times article quotes Arizona Senator Jeff Flake as saying,

“I think he’s more likely to take Michigan than he is to take Arizona,” said Mr. Flake, whose state is home to a fast-growing Latino population.

The unease on the right with Mr. Trump’s ideological positioning spans the party’s factions, alarming national security hawks, fiscal conservatives focused chiefly on promoting free markets, and the Christian right.

And even when he has hit Mrs. Clinton from the left, he has also shown a flexibility that has positioned him on both sides of some issues. He has called for a higher minimum wage, for instance, but has also said the issue should be left to the states rather than have a federal increase. On foreign policy, too, his cautious approach to nation-building and intervention has been juxtaposed by bellicose remarks and a promise to be tougher on Iran and the Islamic State.

Read more here.

Who would Trump pick?

Scott Adams thinks right now US Senator Scott Brown from Massachusetts is most likely to be Trump's Vice Presidential running mate. Adams hedges by acknowledging,

As I said, predicting a VP choice is nearly impossible until the last minute because the situation is fluid. A candidate might need some help in a key state, based on current polling. Or the opponent might open up a new line of attack that needs a defense. A lot can change in a few weeks.

I do think it is fun to think about whom Trump might appoint as running mate, and to various cabinet posts. Brown, notes Adams, is handsome. Physical attractiveness is important. Although Republicans have not carried Massachusetts since 1988, Brown might help there and in other New England states. I don't think he would help in Colorado, because of his weak stance on the Second Amendment. He is also for abortion rights. Those last two are important to most people in the base of the Colorado Republican Party.

Adams also thinks the Senator's last name, Brown, would help the Trump/Brown ticket seem less white. Color me unpersuaded. As things stand now, Trump is extremely unpopular among Hispanics. Maybe New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez would help overcome this weakness, but I doubt it. I don't know what she has accomplished as Governor, although she is the current chairwoman of the Republican Governors Association. If Trump were to pick a governor, Scott Walker of Wisconsin has fought and won many battles near and dear to the Republican base.

When will we learn about how Iran treated our sailors?

Adam Kredo reports for the Washington Free Beacon,

The classified details behind Iran’s treatment of several U.S. sailors who were captured by the Islamic Republic during a tense standoff earlier this year are likely to shock the nation, according to one member of the House Armed Services Committee, who disclosed to the Washington Free Beacon that these details are currently being withheld by the Obama administration.


Rep. Randy Forbes (R., Va.) told the Free Beacon in an interview that the Obama administration is still keeping details of the maritime incident under wraps. It could be a year or longer before the American public receives a full accounting of the incident, in which several U.S. sailors were abducted at gunpoint by the Iranian military.

“I think that when the details actually come out, most Americans are going to be kind of taken aback by the entire incident, both how Iran handled it and how we handled it,” Forbes disclosed. “I think that’s going to be huge cause for concern for most Americans. That’s why I’ve encouraged members of Congress to get that briefing so they do know exactly what did take place.”

Forbes suggested that Iran’s treatment of the U.S. sailors—which included filming them crying and forcing them to apologize at gunpoint—may have been much worse than what has been publicly reported.

“I think clearly there were violations of international and maritime law that took place here,” Forbes said. “We [the United States] did almost nothing in response, in fact, to have Secretary [of State John] Kerry actually thank them for releasing our sailors after they way they captured them, I think was a slap in the sailors’ face.”

Forbes is pushing a new measure that would increase sanctions on Tehran for its treatment of the U.S. sailors in order to hold Iran accountable for its aggressive behavior.

Forbes’ measure outlines a range of Iranian aggressions against U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf region.

Read more here.

Let's talk

Neo-Neocon writes,

Everyone’s conferring with Trump. Paul Ryan, for example.

Makes sense. They want to see what he’ll promise, what they’re willing to give, whether it’s a good idea to support him, and probably much more.

But I wonder if they understand that whatever he promises them he will do or say, whatever deal he makes, is completely mutable at his discretion. I cannot imagine why they would believe him. He contradicts himself daily (for example, now it’s that banning Muslims was just a “suggestion” and he’s not releasing his tax returns till after the election—yeah, right!). To even try to determine which is the truth—what he said yesterday, what he says today, what he will say tomorrow, or something else entirely—is a futile waste of time.

Many Trump supporters would no doubt say that’s what’s so clever about Trump—so wily, so unpredictable!