YOU NEED TO CHECK MY WHAT? Alabama’s Bathroom Bill Would Have People Guarding Stalls.

The bathroom bill, called the Alabama Privacy Act, would put attendants in mixed gender public bathrooms to guard against potential “molestation, assault and battery,” reports AL.com.

“Further, to the extent possible, it is incumbent upon this state to ensure the emotional and physical security of its residents and the visitors to this state,” the bill states.

The act, slated to be introduced in February by GOP Sen. Phil Williams, would force public institutions to have bathrooms that only serve one gender or to place attendants in bathrooms that serve both genders.

But who will police the bathroom police?

ANALYSIS: TRUE. If You’re Freaking Out Over Donald Trump’s Presidential Powers, Thank a Liberal!

NOAH ROTHMAN: Obama’s Iran Is Trump’s Dilemma.

Questions abound as to how Trump will prosecute the conflict in Iraq against ISIS when some of America’s chief allies in that conflict are the Iran-backed Shiite militias. Thousands of members of those militia groups are in the fight to retake Mosul from ISIS, and some of them have been accused of crimes against humanity. While U.S. brass has praised the discipline of some of these forces, American military officials have nothing glowing to say about Iran’s conduct in Syria. Iranian air and ground forces began streaming into Syria as early as 2012, and Tehran’s involvement in the Syrian civil war has only deepened over the last four years.

While Trump administration has made it clear he desires rapprochement with Russia, Moscow is working hand-in-hand with Damascus and Tehran to ensure Bashar al-Assad emerges victorious. The Trump administration’s desire to see Iran punished for its provocations against the United States is going to slam into its preference for a thaw in Russo-American relations, particularly considering that the company with which Vladimir Putin surrounds himself have hands that as soaked in American blood as were Rafsanjani’s. If the Trump administration hopes to see the Middle East revert to a sort of status quo ante, in which Tehran is again relegated to the role of local pariah, the Trump White House is going to have to reconcile its contradictory attitudes toward Moscow.

And Putin’s Kremlin is going to have to decide if it’s worth enabling potentially nuclear-armed terrorists in order to defeat terrorists armed with garbage trucks.

PARTY LIKE IT’S 1979: NY Governor shutting down successful nuclear power plant because… it’s New York.

Cuomo says the plant is unsafe, but Jazz Shaw notes that

Indian Point has an above average safety record and is one of the more profitable properties owned by Entergy. In fact, the plant was recently awarded the highest possible safety rating by federal regulators, as it has for a number of years running. What exactly is Cuomo worried about in terms of safety considerations… an earthquake? The last one to hit anywhere near here didn’t manage to knock over any lawn chairs. Is he perhaps worried about a tsunami? Take a look at where Indian Point is located. If a tsunami reaches that location you’ll have much bigger fish to fry because all of New York City will have been destroyed first.

And finally, let’s remember that Indian Point provides fully 25% of all the electricity consumed in the Big Apple and its suburbs. Where will the power come from to replace it?

Take a guess:

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, will argue that more than enough other sources of energy will be available by 2021, including hydropower from Quebec carried by new transmission lines, state officials said. He also will say that the effect on electric ratepayers will be negligible.

Justin Trudeau laughed.

STRONG ENOUGH FOR A MAN BUT MADE FOR A WOMAN: Shower Beer Has Arrived, Because Why Not?

HEADLINES FROM 1987: The Edge Breaks Down U2’s Upcoming ‘Joshua Tree’ Tour.

U2 is one of those rare upside-down rock bands — I like their politics more than their music.

HEH: Troops sour on Mattis nomination after he releases 6,000-book reading list.

JUST A NUMBER: IMDB seeks injunction against law that prevents it from posting actors’ ages.

While IMDb insists that it “shares the worthy goal of preventing age discrimination,” it claims that the law “does not advance, much less achieve, that goal.”

Now, a week after the January 1 deadline to remove actor ages from its site, IMDb is taking things a step further, and has in fact made a court filing to request a preliminary injunction stopping the Attorney General of California from enforcing the law.

“Rather than properly passing laws designed to address the root problem of age discrimination, the state of California has chosen instead to chill free speech and to undermine access to factual information of public interest,” the Amazon subsidiary said in a Thursday court filing. The law “plainly violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and cannot be enforced.”

But if you think of California lawmakers as Hollywood operatives with a (D) after their names, it all makes sense.

“WHAT CHANGED BETWEEN AUGUST AND JANUARY?” he asked rhetorically.

THAT’S (NOT) ENTERTAINMENT: The Serious Problem with Prioritizing Race at the Golden Globes.

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY: College Progressives Try to Label Conservative Students as ‘Hate Group’

Wait, I thought dissent was patriotic again.

THE HEAT IS OFF: Donald Trump’s Win Is Punishing Gun Company Stocks.

The firearms industry loses its greatest salesman on January 20.

MOB RULE: Rough ride for Uber as Morocco cabbies sabotage app.

As their smartphone screens lit up with ride requests last month, Uber drivers in the Moroccan city of Casablanca must have thought that business was booming.

Instead, they found themselves surrounded by irate local taxi drivers, who forced them from their vehicles and handed them over to the police, the latest in a string of protests in the kingdom against the controversial travel app.

“After the tramway, illegal drivers and now Uber, they are trying to kill us off,” said Abdelouahed, who works for a small local taxi firm.

Uber launched in Morocco’s economic hub in 2015 but was banned by local authorities after just one month.

It has recently found itself the target of increasingly brash protests organised by owners of Casablanca’s famous tomato red cabs.

“When you open Uber on your phone, you see drivers swarming around you like a virus,” said Nordine, a fifty-something driver sat on the hood of his taxi.

“And like a virus, you need radical solutions. Trap them.”

If cabs swarmed like a virus to provide immediate and inexpensive service, Uber wouldn’t be necessary. Compounding the problem, every cabbie busy harassing an Uber driver is a cabbie too busy to provide service to a passenger — creating more Uber demand.

Cabbies don’t seem to have thought this through.

THIS DEAL KEEPS GETTING WORSE ALL THE TIME: Obama Gifts Iran With Massive Uranium Shipment From Russia Sufficient “For More Than 10 Nuclear Bombs”

In what amounts to an 11th hour “gift” by the outgoing Obama administration to Tehran’s leadership to keep the country, which on Sunday was involved in yet another shooting incident with a US destroyer, content and compliant with Obama’s landmark “Nuclear deal”, the AP reported that Iran is to receive a huge shipment of natural uranium from Russia to compensate it for exporting tons of reactor coolant. The move was approved by the outgoing U.S. administration and other governments “seeking to keep Tehran committed to a landmark nuclear pact.”

AP cites two senior diplomats who said that the transfer which was recently agreed by the U.S. and five other world powers that negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran, foresees delivery of 116 metric tons (nearly 130 tons) of natural uranium. U.N. Security Council approval is needed but a formality, considering five of those powers are permanent Security Council members, they said.

It’s almost like the Allies offering up Danzig to keep Hitler “content” with the Munich Agreement.

CHICKENS, ROOST: Pandemonium at Mexico’s Gas Pumps.

Through the week, roads across Mexico were blocked by protesters and burning tires, thousands of businesses were ransacked, upward of 1500 people—among them, police officers— were arrested, and at least five people were killed as furious citizens took to the streets following the more than 20 percent price gas hike.

The Mexican government has for years maintained artificially low gas prices in Mexico thanks to massive subsidies that are absorbed by the state, but as of this year that all changes. The cost of fuel will finally be adjusted to conform to real market value. The surge in gas prices is the just first major sign of changes to come, but certainly the most tangible so far.

And Mexicans, clearly, are not happy.

Dozens of videos have appeared online showing mass looting across the country in response to the gasolinazo, as the gas price surge is called—from Sinaloa and neighboring Puebla and Mexico State, all the way to the southernmost state of Chiapas, which shares its border with Guatemala.

Statism: Creating rising prices amidst increasing supply since… ever.

WOW: Nearly $100K raised for Chicago beating victim.

The GoFundMe campaign had set a goal of just $10,000, and is now up to $140,000 or more.

THESE ARE HEINLEIN’S CRAZY YEARS; WE JUST LIVE IN THEM: Society Could Collapse In A Decade, Predicts Math Historian.

“We should expect many years of political turmoil, peaking in the 2020s,” the cultural evolution researcher [Peter Turchin] writes.

“This is a science-based forecast, not a ‘prophecy. It’s based on solid social science.”

Turchin is a leader in cliodynamics, an interdisciplinary field of study that sees historical events such as the collapse of empires as following predictable mathematical models based on historical data.

The professor has tracked 40 factors in society that hit some kind of turning point in the 1970s. They include such aspects as wealth inequality, stagnating well-being, growing political fragmentation and governmental dysfunction.

The key to society’s armageddon will be “elite overproduction” in which the number of rich grow larger while the majority of society grapples with a stagnant standard of living and poor fiscal health, he believes. The upper echelons, too, will be ripped apart by bitter competition with a population of capable but angry “elite-wannabes” who will be shut out of power. That fissure will undermine the spirit of co-operation and cause society to fragment further, Turchin says.

Keep your powder dry — and keep lots of powder.

UPDATE (From Glenn): Specifically, this is Heinlein’s “The Year of the Jackpot,” with Turchin in the role of Potiphar Breen.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: U.S. Bombed Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia in 2016.

Congress had granted legal authority for bombing just two of those seven countries.

SALENA ZITO: Kellyanne Conway unplugged.

Conway’s conversion from pollster to campaign manager came on a Friday that she describes as the low point of the campaign.

“The worst day of the campaign was the day before I became the campaign manager. It was Aug. 11, it was a Thursday, and I went out on the road with Gov. Pence, who I adore, who has been a client and a friend of mine for 10 years,” she says.

Conway describes in detail a creeping malaise that filled the organization, and people wondering aloud, “Is it worth it? Can we win? What is going on? What are they meeting about? Why did he say that? Who is in charge?”

At the time, Manafort, Trump’s second campaign manager after Corey Lewandowski, reportedly didn’t get on with the candidate, and there was dark talk about political work he had done in Ukraine.

When the New York Times reported Manafort may have received cash payments from a political party affiliated with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the atmosphere reportedly within the campaign began to turn sour and despairing.

The next day Conway was back in Trump Tower, helping with a video shoot in which Trump “was doing different commercials and appeals and videotaped messages to groups that were holding meetings that he could not attend.” They had been working on it for an hour or so and were about to leave for Pennsylvania when Trump asked everyone but her to leave the room.

After the others had gone, Conway asked Trump what was going on. “You are running against the most joyless person in presidential political history,” she told the candidate, “and you don’t look like you are having fun anymore.”

Read the whole thing.

If any one person other than Trump himself can be credited with Trump’s victory, it’s Conway.

TRAFFIC INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE: Uber debuts Movement, a new website offering access to its traffic data.

Uber says it was looking at all the data it gathered and began to realize that it could be used for public benefit, and assembled a product team to make this happen. The result of this effort was Movement, which aims to address problems city officials and urban planners encounter when they’re forced to make key, transformational infrastructure decisions without access to all of, or the proper information about actual conditions and causes.

Essentially, according to Uber, it’s hoping to make it easier for those with influence over a city’s transportation picture to make the right decision, and to be able to explain why, where and when the changes are happening with accurate data backing them up. It also wants to do this in a way that makes it easy for organizations to work with, so it’s releasing the data organized around traffic analysis zones within cities, which are agreed-upon geographic demarcations that help with existing urban planning and traffic management.

Uber is the only major vested interest I can think of which stands to make more money under a sane infrastructure planning regime — which is why I doubt urban planners will make good use of this treasure trove.

WE THE PEOPLE: Most Americans Want Supreme Court to Keep ‘Original’ Meaning of Constitution.

THE CHICAGO WAY: U. Chicago offers $500 for ‘creative ways’ to fight city’s ‘perception of violence’

Perception?

CHANGE? U.S. Navy destroyer fires warning shots at Iranian vessels.

A U.S. Navy destroyer fired three warning shots at four of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps vessels on Sunday after they closed in at a high rate of speed in the Strait of Hormuz, two U.S. defense officials told Reuters on Monday.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the USS Mahan established radio communication with the boats but they did not respond to requests to slow down. The Navy destroyer fired warning flares and a U.S. Navy helicopter also dropped a smoke float. The Iranian vessels came within 900 yards (800 meters) of the Mahan, which was escorting two other U.S. ships, they said.

Back in ’87 or ’88, when Donald Trump was first being talked about as a possible GOP contender, he did an interview (if memory serves) with 60 Minutes’ Lesley Stahl. Asked about the latest Iranian provocation, Trump said that if he were President, he’d respond by ordering the military to seize an Iranian offshore oil rig.

Thirty years later, we’ll get to see if Trump still holds to that view now that he’s in office.

TWITTER PEOTUS: Trump Shoots Back: Meryl Streep is ‘A Hillary Flunky Who Lost Big’

SMART DIPLOMACY: U.S. Surrendered More Than $10 Billion in Gold, Cash, Assets to Iran.

Senior Iranian officials late last week confirmed reports that the total amount of money paid to Iran over the past four years is in excess of $10 billion, a figure that runs counter to official estimates provided by the White House.

The latest disclosure by Iran, which comports with previous claims about the Obama administration obfuscating details about its cash transfers to Iran—including a $1.7 billion cash payment included in a ransom to free Americans—sheds further light on the White House’s back room dealings to bolster Iran’s economy and preserve the Iran nuclear agreement.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi confirmed last week a recent report in the Wall Street Journal detailing some $10 billion in cash and assets provided to Iran since 2013, when the administration was engaging in sensitive diplomacy with Tehran aimed at securing the nuclear deal.

Ghasemi disclosed that the $10 billion figure just scratches the surface of the total amount given to Iran by the United States over the past several years.

Barack Obama kept the Iranian terrorist regime on financial life support long enough to get his reckless nuclear deal — and the sanctions lifted.