WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO TODAY? Microsoft the First Big Company to Say It’s Serving the Legal Marijuana Trade.

Microsoft is breaking the corporate taboo on pot this week by announcing a partnership to begin offering software that tracks marijuana plants from “seed to sale,” as the pot industry puts it.

The software — a new product in Microsoft’s cloud computing business — is meant to help states that have legalized the medical or recreational use of marijuana keep tabs on sales and commerce, ensuring that they remain in the daylight of legality.

There’s a lot of money in those green leaves, as Sonny Corleone might say.

SHOT: Clinton initiates DNC takeover.

On Thursday, Brandon Davis, the former national political director for the Services Employees International Union, came in as the new chief of staff – and was introduced at an all-staff meeting by Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook.

DNC CEO Amy Dacey, a longtime Clinton ally, will expand her role to include more general election responsibilities, according to a Democratic official with ties to the DNC and Clinton. Jen O’Malley Dillon, a former deputy campaign manager for President Barack Obama’s re-election efforts, will continue planning for the general election and serve in a senior advising role.

And more Clinton staffers are set to move over to the DNC.

“There are already people that have begun formally moving over to the DNC payroll from the Clinton campaign,” a Clinton aide said. “That will continue. That is at various levels of seniority.”

CHASER: Sanders loses convention leverage.

This is Clinton’s party now.

WORKPLACE VIOLENCE UPDATE: From death row, Ft. Hood shooter requests to join Islamic State.

From “jayvee” to “strong horse.”

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: 51 U.S. Diplomats Urge Strikes Against Assad in Syria.

The memo, a draft of which was provided to The New York Times by a State Department official, says American policy has been “overwhelmed” by the unrelenting violence in Syria. It calls for “a judicious use of stand-off and air weapons, which would undergird and drive a more focused and hard-nosed U.S.-led diplomatic process.”

Such a step would represent a radical shift in the administration’s approach to the civil war in Syria, and there is little evidence that President Obama has plans to change course. Mr. Obama has emphasized the military campaign against the Islamic State over efforts to dislodge Mr. Assad. Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict, led by Secretary of State John Kerry, have all but collapsed.

But the memo, filed in the State Department’s “dissent channel,” underscores the deep rifts and lingering frustration within the administration over how to deal with a war that has killed more than 400,000 people.

Unprecedented?

ASK KUNTZMAN! A (hopefully) recurring feature courtesy of Larry Correia.

YOU STAY CLASSY, MSM: So it turns out that Daily News writer Gersh Kuntzman misrepresented the owner of the gun shop he visited last week.

I’d be curious to see the “bruise” left on his shoulder from firing an AR-15.

NO DIET, PLEASE: Air Force Leader Wants ‘Flying Coke Machine’ to Replace A-10.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh compared the desired capability to the convenience and flexibility of a soda machine. “Imagine the … flying Coke machine and just having a Coke machine overhead, and you put your quarter in and you get whatever kind of firepower you want when you want it,” he said at a Defense Writers Group breakfast in Washington, D.C. “In the perfect world, that’s close-air support of the future.”

For years, the Air Force has been trying to kill the A-10 Thunderbolt II, the service’s close-air-support workhorse. Officials have cited budget constraints and the need to save money to invest in other platforms as reasons to get rid of it. Congress has kept the plane alive, but service leaders are already thinking about what comes next.

“The right close-air support replacement is something that’s overhead the ground force all the time and is firepower on demand,” Welsh said. “It’s flying artillery” and “911 rockets.”

The Air Force’s top procurement programs have suffered from development problems and schedule delays in recent years. But Welsh doesn’t envision major difficulties in acquiring a new close-air-support system.

“We don’t think this would take that long to do and we don’t think it’s that complicated of a design problem,” he said. “The technology is available to us. We can develop it.”

Make it a drone and put the Army in charge of it.

ORLANDO VICTIM’S GRANDMOTHER FLEW TO FLORIDA TO ATTEND HIS FUNERAL: You’ll absolutely believe what happened next.

Jetblue crew member Kelly Davis Karas decided that the woman, though grieving alone, could not leave the plane without knowing the world was with her. Karas passed around a piece of paper for passengers to sign so their words might ease the grandmother’s aching heart.

As Karas pushed the beverage cart down the plane’s aisle, she whispered to passengers about the paper. Halfway down the aisle, another crew member on board said more paper was needed. Instead of signing their names and moving on, passengers were writing paragraphs—long notes of compassion, grief and strength.

“When we gathered them together to present them to her, we didn’t have just a sheet of paper covered in names, which is what I had envisioned. Instead, we had page after page after page after page of long messages offering condolences, peace, love and support. There were even a couple of cash donations, and more than a few tears,” Karas wrote on Facebook.

This “Read the whole thing” comes with a three-hanky warning.

AFTER A YEAR IN ORBIT: Space Travel Has ‘Permanent Effects,’ Astronaut Scott Kelly Says.

“The environment astronauts are exposed to while in space is unlike anything we experience here on earth. Specifically, astronauts are exposed to high levels of radiation and carbon monoxide, and a micro-gravity environment which causes loss of bone and muscle, vision impairment and effects on our immune system to name a just a few,” he wrote in his prepared remarks to the House Science, Space and Technology committee. “These are very real issues that need to be solved before the human race is able to reach destinations beyond the Earth and the Moon.”

“Exposure to the space environment has permanent effects we simply do not fully understand,” he added.

Kelly’s bravery will help us extend our understanding.

SHOT:

.@Sen_JoeManchin: Due process is what's killing us right now https://t.co/OTf9LnxHXZ

— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) June 16, 2016

CHASER:

Dems and media are *this* close to saying the US Constitution is killing people. They are testing those waters right now

— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) June 16, 2016

Yep. Throwing out the Constitution by any means fair or foul has been the Progressive goal since the beginning.

HMMM: Donald Trump speaks to shrunken Atlanta crowd as poll numbers drop.

That slowdown in support seemed evident on Wednesday when Trump spoke at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre, which holds less than half the audience he commanded during his last appearance in Atlanta in February. “This place is packed,” he said, shielding his eyes against stage lights. “We have people outside who couldn’t get in. Does anybody want to give up their seat?”

Apparently Trump could not see the hundreds of empty seats in the theater’s second level. A similarly reduced crowd showed up at a recent campaign stop in Virginia.

Crowd estimates are notoriously unreliable, but empty seats aren’t a good sign.

A GENTLE REMINDER FROM DAVID FRENCH: Christians Didn’t Commit the Orlando Massacre.

If you read just the major news outlets, there might be some confusion about that.

“SOD OFF, SWAMPY” ON STEROIDS: Global Warming Skeptic Responds To Massachusetts AG’s Subpoena.

Alex Epstein had a terse response to a subpoena sent by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey Wednesday.

Healey demanded the oil giant ExxonMobil hand over 40 years of documents, including information pertaining to the company’s dealings with about a dozen think tanks and trade associations, which have been targeted by environmental groups for opposing left-wing global warming policies.

Healey’s subpoena targeted the Center for Industrial Progress (CIP), a for-profit think tank founded by Epstein. Epstein wasn’t exactly happy about being targeted for disagreeing with Healey on global warming, so he sent the AG’s office the following response:

Punch back twice as hard, the wise man once said.

THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT A SECRET LIZARD PERSON WOULD DO: Mark Zuckerberg Denies Being a Secret Lizard Person.

THIS ISN’T THE 21ST CENTURY I WAS PROMISED: In less than two years, NASA will send three unique Lego Minifigures to their fiery deaths in Jupiter’s atmosphere.

CYBERSECURITY: What the human immune system can teach us about protecting our data.

Human operators are easily fooled by malware’s use of machine- learning techniques to blend into a network. This is where machine learning—techniques that train computers to adapt and learn from data with little or no human involvement—becomes a crucial part of the defense arsenal. Advanced—and, more important, constantly evolving—algorithms behave like an immune system for the enterprise. When the network is breached by a suspicious activity, whether from an insider or from an external threat, the system alerts the security team to that anomaly.

Recent advances in mathematics have improved this immune-system approach by adding digital antibodies that have the ability to act when they detect a serious threat. That action might involve isolating the infected machine or slowing down network activity until a human is available to assess the breach. This allows a company to neutralize fast-moving attacks like ransomware.

That’s from Nicole Eagan, CEO of cybersecurity company Darktrace.

TESTED: The best beer fridges.

CHANGE: Iran says it reached a historic deal to buy Boeing planes.

JUST PUT YOUR LIPS TOGETHER AND BLOW: Very hot drinks are ‘probably carcinogenic’

To be clear, the warning concerns extremely hot beverages served in “South America, the Middle East and East Africa,” which are far hotter than is typical in Europe or North America.

(Classical reference in the headline.)

RESET: NATO ministers approve expanded aid package for Ukraine.

The package includes “projects on countering hybrid warfare and booby traps and other explosive devices, as well as strategic communications,” but the story doesn’t mention anything about sending rifles, ammunition, or antitank weapons.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. The Clinton Global Initiative scam is crashing.

According to the report, the Clinton Global Initiative received an all-time low number of commitments in 2015, the year Hillary Clinton launched her presidential campaign and drew a deluge of negative attention to the Clinton Foundation’s work.

Pay-for-play has long been the Clinton’s M.O., especially since Bill left the White House and they launched the Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Foundation.

So why are the payers holding back just when Hillary seems poised to wield as much power (if not more) as Bill ever did?

NOT FEELING THE LOVE: America decides it really dislikes its presidential options.

WHITTLE, OTT, GREEN: Political correctness killed 49 in Orlando.

Full disclosure: I’m Green.

HAS THE NRA EVER WITHDRAWN AN ENDORSEMENT BEFORE?

THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE CLUB: Omar Mateen called local TV news producer Matthew Gentili from The Pulse.

“I’m the shooter. It’s me,” the man said. “I am the shooter.”

The caller then said he had carried out the Pulse attack for the Islamic State and began speaking quickly in Arabic.

“At the time, I didn’t know what he was saying,” Gentili told News 13 reporter Scott Fais. “He was speaking so fast. But it was … he was speaking fluently. Whatever language he was speaking, he knew it. And he was speaking it very quickly. And that is when I said to him, ‘Sir. Please. Speak in English, please.’”

“I did it for ISIS,” the caller said, according to Gentili, “I did it for the Islamic State.”

It doesn’t get much clearer than that.