BACK TO THE FUTURE: A Flying Car from DeLorean Really Won’t Need Roads.

“Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads,” Doc Brown says, before flipping down his reflective goggles and launching his nuclear-powered DeLorean into the air.

If you think you’ve heard that line too many times, try being Paul DeLorean. He’s not just the nephew of John DeLorean, founder of the short-lived automaker that’s now best remembered for its car’s starring role as a time machine in the Back to the Future movies. He is the CEO and chief designer of DeLorean Aerospace, the company he founded in 2012 to develop a real life flying car.

Earlier generations of DeLoreans worked as coach builders, so although he may cringe at the name recognition he has accepted it. “We’ve been in transportation forever—it’s in my blood,” he says.

That heritage has led him into one of the hottest areas of transportation development today. He plans to build a two-seat vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) personal air transport vehicle (what the rest of the world calls a flying car). That moves him well out of sci-fi movie cliche territory and into the company of Uber, Airbus, Darpa, Larry Page, and a ton of startups.

Experts working in the field say that, as far-fetched as flying cars sound, the confluence of new lightweight materials, better batteries, and sophisticated computer controls means these visions—like Uber’s plan to launch a flying fleet in Dubai by 2020—aren’t unrealistic.

Add the business model of ride-sharing, which removes the up-front purchase cost, and there’s even a business case for getting these things to work in cities. The really tricky part, though, will be figuring out how to safely deploy these things, especially when it comes to air traffic control and certification.

I’ve long had the feeling that our betters in Washington would never allow us proles to fly at our own discretion.

RENEGOTIATING NAFTA: Canada Wants to Make Nafta More ‘Progressive.’

Earlier Monday, President Donald Trump tweeted that U.S. lawmakers over the years “have given us (or not fixed) some of the worst trade deals in World History. I am changing that fast!”

She said among the country’s objectives would be a freer market for government procurement across the continent. This could run into opposition from the Trump administration’s push to put more teeth into Buy America directives, which preserve them as part of a revamped Nafta.

She said local-content provisions, such as Buy America, “are political junk-food—superficially appetizing, but unhealthy in the long run.”

Ms. Freeland said Canada also wants to make Nafta more “progressive,” through tougher labor and environmental standards. On the environment, she said Canada wants the countries to support efforts to combat climate change, and cast a skeptical eye toward countries that “[weaken] environmental protection to attract investment.”

Be careful what you wish for.

TOO NORMAL IS ABNORMAL: Walking the Fine Line Between Being a ‘Bad Mother’ and Absolutely-Freaking-Normal.

REPORT: Mexico fast becoming the US’s largest market for energy exports.

PATRICK POOLE: CBS News Host Norah O’Donnell Pushes Fake ‘Right-Wing’ Terrorism Stats.

But of course.

THAT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE SHUT UP:

Think of them as Democrat operatives with bylines. Period.

And over at Hot Mic, a reminder not to play with somebody else’s fixed coin.

THIS SEEMS PREMATURE: Memo to Pence: Prepare to Be Gerald Ford.

TYLER O’NEIL: White Supremacist Website Daily Stormer Called Heather Heyer ‘A Fat, Childless … Sl*t.’

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE: North Korean missiles came from a Ukrainian factory tied to Russia?

END IT, DON’T MEND IT: Beware the Obamacare industrial complex.

The danger of a Republican bailout of Obamacare is mounting with every passing day. A group of “moderate” Republicans calling themselves the Problem Solvers Caucus is quietly negotiating with Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to throw a multi-billion dollar life line to the Obamacare insurance exchanges.

This bailout, of course, would be an epic betrayal by a Republican Party which has promised to repeal and replace the financially crumbling Obama health law.

Republicans who are “negotiating” this bipartisan deal, such as Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, object to the term “bailout” for this rescue package. The left prefers the euphemism “stabilizing the insurance market.” The Washington Post’s left-wing fact checker, who just can’t seem to get his facts straight, says “bailout” is misleading pejorative language. The Post claims this is merely a payment to low income families to help pay for the escalating premiums under Obamacare. These payments were allegedly always part of the law as passed.

The hypocrisy here is towering. These are the same people who told us over and over again that Obamacare was going to “bend the cost curve of health care down.” These are the same people who promised that Obamacare was going to “save” the average family $2,500 a year in lower insurance premiums. (If Obamacare were lowering insurance costs not raising them, there would be no need for these bailout funds in the first place.)

These were also the same people who swore to us that Obamacare wasn’t going to raise the federal deficit by a dime. Oh really. Where is the $10 to $20 billion to pay for this new federal subsidy going to come from? Pixie dust?

Incidentally, is there even one single promise of Obamacare that has been kept after seven years?
So why is everyone suddenly rallying for an Obamacare bailout?

Read the whole thing.

FASCISTS: Violent Antifa Protesters Try to Shut Down Pro-Trump ‘Patriot Prayer’ Rally in Seattle.

MICHELLE MALKIN WANTS TO KNOW: How Did the Dems’ IT Scandal Suspects Get Here?

My question to the House Democrats was simple: Were the Awans and their family and friends H-1B tech workers — like so many of the 650,000 “temporary” foreign guest workers imported into America under that program over the past quarter-century and predominantly working in IT?

And if they’re not H-1Bs, how exactly did Awan and company get here, when did they get here, and who brought them over here and why?

These are simple questions. Given that these foreign IT workers now under investigation were paid for with our tax dollars, Americans deserve to know their path to the public trough. This is especially true when so many members of Congress in both parties continue to clamor for expanding foreign guest-worker programs like H-1B and refuse to enact freezes on corrupted visa programs exploited by foreign tourists (B visas), students (F-1 visas) and workers (H visas) acting in bad faith.

Moreover, U.S. tech workers have grown increasingly vocal about being forced to train underqualified, shoddily vetted foreign replacements before getting pink-slipped — and increasingly alarmed at their access to sensitive personal, financial and health data.

Hey, they’re only doing the jobs Americans want desperately to do.

NUCLEAR DEPLOYMENT: Out of Turkey and Into Poland.

Early in 2017, I wrote about the tactical nuclear imbalance between Russia and NATO regarding both quantity and deliverance capability. There are reportedly 150 deployed U.S. controlled, tactical nuclear weapons based in five European countries including Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Turkey in contrast to the estimated 1850 Russian nonstrategic nuclear weapons. I illustrated that Russia possesses the superior tactical nuclear force and likened the imbalance to NATO playing a game of chess without a queen. I will make the case that tactical nuclear weapons controlled by the U.S. should be moved out of Turkey and into Poland. There are four points I will address that make a strong case for this strategic decision.

First is the current security and political situation in Turkey.

You hardly need four reasons when this is the first one.

JIM TREACHER: It’s Wrong To Physically Attack People For What They Say, Even If What They Say Makes You Very Angry.

THE SCORPION STINGS THE FROG, EVERY TIME: Markos Moulitsas spreads ‘dangerous lie’ about ‘NRA and American conservatives.’

CATCH AND RELEASE: U.S. Lacking Strategy for Terrorists Leaving Prison.

PERVERSE INCENTIVES: The worse North Korea acts, the more cash aid it gets.

“For Pyongyang, it pays to provoke,” Sung-Yoon Lee, a Korean Studies professor at Tufts University, told CNBC on Monday. “Whereas good behavior buys only indifference from its richer neighbors, being a bad apple buys leverage and billions in aid.”

The same countries admonishing North Korea leader Kim Jong Un for nuclear belligerence still shell out large sums of diplomatic aid under the motive of “damage-control diplomacy, i.e. getting the North to back off and stay out of the headlines for a while,” Lee said. “Exporting insecurity is [Pyongyang’s] time-tested means to reaping concessions.”

Over the past quarter-century, the pariah state has amassed $20 billion worth of cash, food, fuel, and medicine from the U.S., Japan, China and South Korea. That’s come from “repeated lies of denuclearization,” according to Lee, who has testified as an expert witness at U.S. government hearings on North Korea policy.

Maybe it’s time to try something different.

UPDATE: Something different.

UTTERLY UNNECESSARY: ‘Crotch charms’ help you bling out your lady bits.

DAILY CALLER: Former Trump Adviser Says He Will ‘Blow’ McMaster, Drudge ‘The F**k Out’ If Bannon Is Ousted.

“If Steve is fired by the White House and a bunch of generals take over the White House there will be hell to pay,” Nunberg, a longtime Trump aide who left the presidential campaign in August 2015, told The Daily Caller in an exclusive interview. His comments came after an Axios report that claimed Bannon’s job is in jeopardy due to damaging leaks against McMaster and anger over a recent book touting Bannon’s role on the Trump presidential campaign.

Nunberg told TheDC that he was “very perturbed” by the Axios story and tied in Bannon’s reported downfall to the Drudge Report, which continues to link to stories that are negative to the White House chief strategist.

“Matt should go back into his hobble hole in Miami and listen to techno,” the former Trump campaign adviser said. “Matt should understand that people like me can blow him the fook up. F-o-o-k, Conor McGregor. Blow him the fook up [sic].” (Nunberg was referencing Irish MMA fighter Conor McGregor, who pronounces “fuck” as “fook.”)

Plus: “I’ll get conservative radio to talk about how Matt Drudge pushed out Steve Bannon so McMaster can control the White House.”

That might not work out as intended.

OWN IT: Yes, Millennials Are Narcissists, but We Can Make America Greater Than Our Narcissistic Parents.

Gen X smiles and shakes its collective head, just as Gen Z will learn to do.

GOOD QUESTION: Where were the police and National Guard at the Charlottesville race riot?

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Related, from Ann Althouse: “Pathetic. The police were afraid of the guns? But no shots were fired, even in response to punching and brawling. That makes it sound as though those people with guns were quite restrained, and yet they terrified the police.”

There was plenty of time to prepare, and it was pretty clear what was happening, but the police just stood by. I think it’s quite possible — as with previous events at Berkeley and Chicago — that the Democratic mayor wanted to see violence against the marchers, and withheld police protection to facilitate it. I hope the Department of Justice will look closely at the decisionmaking here, and bring charges if appropriate.

ANOTHER UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Pro Publica: Police Stood By As Mayhem Mounted in Charlottesville: State police and National Guardsmen watched passively for hours as self-proclaimed Nazis engaged in street battles with counter-protesters.

Plus, Why Were The Police Held Back In Charlottesville?

Law enforcement was on hand at the dueling demonstrations on Saturday, decked out in riot gear and looking prepared for the worst. Except they weren’t allowed to do their job. Police on the scene were reported to have been ordered to “not intervene until given command to do so,” according to the ACLU. That kept them from suppressing the numerous scuffles that broke out.

When police were ordered to disperse the alt-right rally, that act directed the white nationalists into the antifa demonstrators, leading to further street brawls. Police didn’t seem to try to get in between the two groups or suppress the fights.

As I say, the Department of Justice needs to look very closely at what happened here.

JEFF GOLDSTEIN ON FACEBOOK:

I told you all before and I’ll repeat it now: the alt right is not conservative, and it is every bit as driven by identity politics and blood essentialism as the prog left.

Antifa, BLM, CAIR, the New Black Panthers, La Raza, the Pussy Hatters, the KKK — these are all identity movements and all formed and animated by the kind of identity politics championed by the left, and legitimated by the likes of Edward Said and other academic cultural Marxists who recognized the way to power was to divide, and then control, particular identity groups, whose narratives they seek to create and police.

The alt-right is only “right wing” in the continental sense. The American conservative is classically liberal, while the American progressive is Fabian socialist.

Don’t listen to labels; follow the assumptions made by each movement — the alt right, the prog left — and you’ll soon recognize that they are the same. This is tribalism, no more and no less. What we are witnessing is an attempt to corrupt the ideals of a propositional nation based on individualism and individual universal rights (and that’s how our Constitutional republic is designed to operate) — a lesson Google’s pillorying of a software engineer as “anti-diversity” should have made clear.

You should reject this archaic collectivism from whatever group espouses it, because in the end it is simply anti-individualism dressed in mob attire to bolster cowardice and bigotry in numbers.

You were warned.

Indeed.

SALENA ZITO: Judgey about the way people dress? You’re killing America.

Fifteen years ago, we didn’t know what people who weren’t like us were thinking, because they were not around us, explains Dane Strother, a Democratic strategist.

“Facebook and 24-hour news and a plethora of news stations and social media has brought focus to those differences. It’s the first time different Americans have ever looked up and seen each other every day. And neither one likes what the other one is seeing,” he says.

Stereotypes are peculiar things. They make targets out of those who are different, be it in language or traditions. And it appears Appalachia remains the last minority population in America for which it is socially acceptable to question intelligence, speech pattern, the way people dress. Their uniqueness.

Last week as the president was delivering a speech in West Virginia, Stu Rothenberg, a respected Washington-based journalist, remarked on Twitter that “Lots of people can’t support themselves or speak English in West Virginia.”

Speaking to me afterward, Rothenberg did not walk back his comment, but he did offer interesting insight. Like lots of people who do not understand why anyone would “buy in” to the president, he was seeking a way to explain it — by dismissing their intelligence.

What he failed to understand is how insulting his explanation is.

The election should have been a cure-all for that kind of condescension, but instead there’s often been a doubling-down on it. People like Rothenberg should be more careful about who they call slow learners.

GOOD LORD: Indian State Suspends Hospital Chief After 60 Children Die.

The head of an Indian hospital where dozens of children have died in recent days has been suspended, as officials traded blame over cash shortfalls that led to supplies of medical oxygen being cut.

The government of Uttar Pradesh state, run by India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), suspended the head of the state-run BRD Medical College, Rajeev Misra, late on Saturday and ordered an investigation.

Indian media have said the deaths of 60 children, 34 infants among them, were caused in part by oxygen shortages after a private supplier cut the supply over unpaid bills.

It was a government-run hospital.

OH: Powerful Venezuelan lawmaker may have issued death order against Rubio.

The death threat was outlined in a memo to several law enforcement agencies disseminated last month by the Department of Homeland Security. The memo, designated “law enforcement sensitive” but not classified, was obtained by the Miami Herald.

The memo revealed an “order to have Senator Rubio assassinated,” though it also warned that “no specific information regarding an assassination plot against Senator Rubio has been garnered thus far” and that the U.S. had not been able to verify the threat. That Cabello has been a vocal Rubio critic in Venezuelan media was also noted, a sign federal authorities are well aware of the political bluster complicating the situation.

According to the memo, Cabello might have gone as far as to contact “unspecified Mexican nationals” in connection with his plan to harm Rubio.

The U.S. believes Cabello controls all of Venezuela’s security forces.

Stalin’s security forces — the NKVD, forerunner to the KGB — assassinated Leon Trotsky in Mexico, so it’s not like this kind of thing is unheard-of for socialist governments.