Today’s comic by Ruben Bolling is Attention, 'illegals': Prepare for deportation:
• Feds keep marijuana on Schedule I, same as heroin and cocaine, but will allow more research. The decision is the Drug Enforcement Administration's ridiculous response to a 5-year-old petition by two former governors who had urged federal agencies to re-classify marijuana as a drug with accepted medical uses:
"[The] DEA's decision flies in the face of objective science and overwhelming public opinion. The reality is that half of U.S. states have already passed effective laws allowing patients legal access to medical cannabis, and it is changing lives," read a statement from the National Cannabis Industry Association. "Continuing marijuana prohibition forces critically ill people to suffer needlessly, leaves life-changing treatments undeveloped, and keeps patients and providers in limbo between state and federal laws. We appreciate the positive step - however small - of opening up a few additional avenues for medical marijuana research. But patients deserve more, and Congress should help them by removing marijuana from the Controlled Substance Act, allowing state programs and medical research to move forward without interference."
• Analysis shows Trump’s (angrier) hyperbolic tweets come from his android phone while the non-hyperbolic ones come from his staff’s iPhone.
• It's Thursday, August 11, and Day 180 since Justice Antonin Scalia died and Mitch McConnell decided no nominee would get any Senate attention: No meetings, no hearings, no votes. It's also Day 143 since Merrick Garland was nominated by President Obama to fill that vacancy. McConnell’s last remark on the matter? "One of my proudest moments was when I looked Barack Obama in the eye and I said, 'Mr. President, you will not fill the Supreme Court vacancy.'"
• Arianna Huffington is leaving the Huffington Post to run her new health and wellness venture:
"I thought HuffPost would be my last act. But I’ve decided to step down as HuffPost’s editor-in-chief to run my new venture, Thrive Global" Huffington tweeted at the same time a Wall Street Journal article announced her departure. "To everyone at HuffPost: it’s you who make HuffPost what it is. I’m filled with gratitude to all the colleagues and friends I’ve made here."
• At the 21st floor, cops nab man climbing the Trump Tower with suction cups.
• Check out the super high-definition video of a NASA rocket test.
• Democratic Congressman’s bill would gut Labor Dept.’s new overtime rule:
Rep. Kurt Schrader has introduced legislation (the Overtime Reform and Enhancement Act, or OREA) that would in two important ways undermine the Department of Labor’s new rule that expands the overtime rights of salaried employees who earn less than $47,476 a year ($913 per week). Rep. Schrader’s bill would delay by three years the rule’s increase in the exemption threshold, the salary level below which all workers are guaranteed overtime pay. The Department of Labor (DOL) rule raises this threshold from $23,660 to $47,476 on December 1, 2016, whereas Rep. Schrader’s bill would gradually increase it to this level by late 2019.1Additionally, Rep. Schrader wants to eliminate the rule’s indexation of the threshold, which would raise it automatically every three years, as wages for salaried workers rise.
• On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, we feature another Greg Dworkin v. Armando battle over media both-siderism. Trump won’t accept help on ISIS accusations. Are you really rich if you don’t pay your bills? Or are you just stealing? Trump the fabulist might not know there’s a difference.
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