Full story here, and whatever you think of Biggie or his music, it was actually a lovely tribute.
Besides, Congressmen can do only one thing at a time — and it’s either harmless constituent service, or introducing legislation to comprehensively reform this, or fundamentally transform that.
THIS DEAL KEEPS GETTING WORSE ALL THE TIME: Defiant Iran Conducts More Ballistic Missile Tests; This Time From Naval Vessel.
DETERRENCE: Aging nuclear triad ‘will not remain viable forever’
Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, pointed to the pieces of the triad that are nearing the end of their service life. Minuteman III missiles were first fielded in 1970, the B-52 and B-2 bombers first deployed in the ’50s and ’80s respectively, and ballistic missile submarines first entered service in 1981, he said. Even the warheads are aging and were mostly designed and built in the 1970s.
Gen. Paul Selva, the vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, told the House Armed Services Committee that the military is currently facing the challenge of maintaining the nuclear triad and that the need to recapitalize is becoming more and more apparent.
“These systems will not remain viable forever,” he said.
We have an awful lot of bills coming due after three Administrations worth of neglect.
JOEL KOTKIN: Common Sense on Immigration.
The need for foreign workers remains important, but the conditions have changed. No longer a largely rural, empty country, more than 80 percent of Americans cluster in urban and suburban areas. Many routine jobs have been automated; factories, farms and offices function more efficiently with smaller workforces. Since at least 2000, notes demographer Nicholas Eberstadt, the “Great American Escalator” has stopped working.
These changes suggest the need to rethink national immigration policies. In a country where wages for the poorest workers have been dropping for decades and incomes have stagnated for the middle class, allowing large numbers of even poorer people into the country seems more burden than balm. They often work hard, but largely in low-income service jobs and in the low end of the health care field. In California, home to an estimated 2.7 million largely Latino undocumented immigrants, approximately three in four Latino non-citizens struggle to make ends meet, as do about half of naturalized Latino citizens, according to a recent United Way study.
Overall, our current immigrants, legal and illegal, have not advanced as quickly as in previous generations. This, along with the crisis in much of Middle America, should be our primary national concern. This doesn’t necessarily translate to mass deportations or even severe cutbacks in legal immigration, as some, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and several congressional Republicans, have said. But it certainly does suggest taking a fresh look at how we view immigration.
Indeed — and “comprehensive” is not necessarily the same as smart.
IVORY AND IVORY: TCU Invites Shaun King to Speak During ‘Unity Week’
NEWS YOU CAN USE: State Individual Income Tax Rates and Brackets for 2017.
California’s taxes are nearly a third higher than the next-highest state (Maine) and yet their infrastructure is still falling apart.
Aside, of course, from Jerry Brown’s never-to-be-completed high-speed train to nowhere.
HE’S FROM JOISEY: Joe Piscopo Makes His Move in NJ Gov’s Race.
CHARLIE MARTIN: Colonel Mustard’s Revenge — What Was Done to Undermine Trump.
THIS JUST MADE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN: The U.S. Army 3D-Printed a Grenade Launcher and Called it R.A.M.B.O.
In a blend of pop culture showmanship and high tech, the U.S. Army has revealed a grenade launcher made almost entirely from 3D-printed parts. Even better, it fires 3D-printed grenades. The project highlights the Army’s interest in integrating new manufacturing technologies, ideally lowering costs and easing supply demands down the road.
Rapid Additively Manufactured Ballistics Ordnance, or R.A.M.B.O., is a modified M203 grenade launcher with a shoulder stock and pistol grip. The M203 grenade launcher is an older, pump-action design that was fitted under the barrel of an M16 rifle or M4 carbine. It’s also probably no longer protected by patent.
R.A.M.B.O. consists of 50 individual parts, and all of them with the exception of springs and fasteners were made by 3D printing.
What a country!
MICHAEL TOTTEN: Brace Yourself for a New Cold War.
Trump said last September that he loves WikiLeaks, forgetting everything he ever knew about the rogue outfit. (Someone should ask him what he thinks of WikiLeaks dumping a trove of classified material onto the Internet supposedly revealing how the CIA spies on people all over the world through their smart phones.) Its founder Julian Assange is emphatically not a Republican operative. WikiLeaks has spent its entire existence waging geopolitical warfare against the United States, mostly on behalf of itself, but partly on behalf of the Russians and everyone else in the world who wants to pull down the American “empire.” Like the Russians, Assange trained his fire on Clinton not because he likes the Republicans but because the Democratic Party includes roughly half the elected officials in the United States and presumably would have included the next president of the United States.
Assange and Putin hoped to kneecap the incoming president before she could even get started.
Their hostility toward the United States in general isn’t obvious to everyone in this country. Putin’s approval rating actually increased during the last year among Trump’s most die-hard supporters. The rest of us, though—and the rest of us still includes most Republicans—are reacting against Russian malfeasance more strongly than we have at any time since the Berlin Wall fell.
That reaction is blowing up in the Trump administration’s face, but the president can turn it around by taking an unambiguously hawkish stance against Russia. Putin, meanwhile, can’t do anything to recover his reputation in the United States.
Read the whole thing.
HIGHER EDUCATION IMPLOSION UPDATE: Staggering number of college students using student loans to pay for spring break.
WELCOME ABOARD, COMRADES! Say Hello to the Liberal Second Amendment Supporters.
Once you’ve got them by the first two amendments in the Bill of Rights, the other eight may follow.
I QUESTION THE TIMING: Two Years Later, IRS Locates 6,924 Documents Related to Tea Party Targeting.
The Internal Revenue Service has located 6,924 documents potentially related to the targeting of Tea Party conservatives, two years after the group Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for them.
The watchdog group intended to find records regarding how the IRS selected individuals and organizations for audits that were requesting nonprofit tax status.
The agency will not say when it will make the documents available to the public.
“At this time, the Service is unable to provide an estimate regarding when it will complete its review of the potentially responsive documents,” the agency said.
It takes time to take time.
WELL PLAYED, UNIVERSE. WELL PLAYED. Lawyer’s Pants Catch Fire During Florida Arson Trial.
DA TECH GUY: Et Tu Vermont? One Year in Rutland Demonstrates why America Elected Donald Trump.
Over the last few weeks the leftist media have elevated several Democrat successes in retaining seats in blue state races that they were already favored to win as a sign that the Trump era is already in retreat.
Oddly enough I haven’t seen them promote a result that, for my money, is not only the biggest election story since November, it is fact one of the biggest stories of a week full of big stories.
It comes from Rutland Vermont where incumbent mayor of 10 years Chris Louras was beaten in a 4 person race by city counselor was beaten in his latest attempt at re-election.
Read the whole thing.
HMM: Trump says privately second healthcare bill ready as early as next week.
Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, said the White House indicated during the meeting that the additional healthcare bill would come “much sooner” than officials had suggested publicly.
“Phase three, from what they were indicating in the meeting yesterday will happen, it seems, very quickly,” Martin told the Washington Examiner. “It seemed like they intended to pass that through the House very soon.”
Another meeting attendee said the president expressed a desire to see the House vote on the second healthcare bill by next week.
“It was classic Trump style. He said phase three they should vote on next week, and everybody in the room knew that was unlikely,” the attendee told the Examiner. “We said to him, ‘look, we’re skeptical you can get to 60 [votes],’ therefore we don’t want to have to have anything major in that third phase.”
Trump and Congress can slice this into as many phases as they like, but there’s no getting around the fact that to repeal ObamaCare, they’re either going to have to find 60 votes in the Senate or go Full Harry Reid on the filibuster.
IT’S A SMART PLAYBOOK: On Labor and Beyond, Trump Is Following Scott Walker’s Playbook.
BATTLESWARM BLOG: Scenes From Securing the Border.
NO. Doctors Would Rather You Take Weed Up the Butt Than Smoke It.
You never hear doctors giving advice like this about scotch or martinis.
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