Just another reminder that Trump's comments about bringing down black unemployment were completely full of shit.

Donald Trump has not implemented any policies thus far that really help anybody except his rich friends and of course himself.

Nor is there any real evidence that will change.

So much for Trump's claims that he is doing more for the economy than anybody.

Average Monthly #Job Gains
-by year

•2017: 171,000
•2016: 187,000
•2015: 226,000
•2014: 250,000
•2013: 192,000
•2012: 179,000
•2011: 174,000
•2010: 88,000#JobsReport

— Fox News Research (@FoxNewsResearch) January 5, 2018

And this is Fox News!

It should be noted that those 2010 numbers were while the country was still recovering from the Bush Administration which saw us lose jobs at an alarming rate.

As the Rachel Maddow blog reports that these numbers represent the lowest job numbers in six years.

No Trump has not earned any bragging rights as of yet, and likely never really will.

But of course that will not stop him from bragging.

The Donald Trump/Vladimir Putin bromance continues with late night phone calls and public mash notes to each other.

Courtesy of Sky News:  

Vladimir Putin has revealed he and Donald Trump are on first name terms, as the Russian President spoke to the media during his four-hour, end-of-year news conference. 

"This is how relations should be between people like us," Mr Putin said to reporters at the marathon annual event. 

He praised Mr Trump's "accomplishments", saying: "I'm not the one to evaluate the (US) President's work. That needs to be done by the voters, the American people. 

"(But) we are objectively seeing that there have been some major accomplishments, even in the short time he has been working. 

"Look at how the markets have grown. This speaks to investors' trust in the American economy."

Putin also claimed that allegations that Russia tampered in the 2016 election are made up by the US media.  (Perhaps forgetting that a number of Russian media outlets have confirmed that as well.)

Courtesy of Yahoo News: 

"All of this has been invented, made up by people who are in opposition to President Trump with a view to shedding a negative light on what President Trump is doing " Putin said, translated from Russian, and going on to call it "nonsense."

Personally I'm just amazed he restrained himself from calling it "fake news," because you know he wanted to.

For his part as soon as he learned that his boyfriend and complimented him, Donald Trump gave him a ring.

Courtesy of USA Today: 

Russian President Vladimir Putin had some kind words for President Trump's handling of the U.S. economy on Thursday — so Trump called Putin to personally thank him. 

The two sides sent out only bare-bones summaries of the afternoon phone call, but the White House version of the call noted that Trump "thanked President Putin for acknowledging America’s strong economic performance" earlier in the day. 

In his annual freewheeling press conference Thursday, Putin remarked on the booming U.S. stock market — a regular Trump talking point — and said it was a sign that investors "trust in what President Trump has been doing in this field."

Jesus, get a room already. 

I heard a host on MSNBC today saying that Trump's consistent affection for Putin is "one of the greatest mysteries facing us right now." And that it "made no sense."

I beg to differ.

If somebody gifted you with the most powerful political office on the planet, wouldn't you be making goo goo eyes at them as well?

White men having trouble economically are more likely to become emotionally attached to their guns and consider using them against the government.

Courtesy of Baylor Media Communications:  

White male gun owners who have lost, or fear losing, their economic footing tend to feel morally and emotionally attached to their guns, according to a Baylor University study. 

This segment of the population also is most likely to say that violence against the United States government is sometimes justified, reported researchers F. Carson Mencken, Ph.D., and Paul Froese, Ph.D., professors of sociology in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences. 

“This speaks to the belief in some ‘dark state’ within the government which needs fighting,” Froese said. 

“What’s paradoxical is that white male gun owners in the U.S. see themselves as hyper-patriotic, but they are the first to say, ‘If the government impedes me, I have the moral and almost patriotic right to fight back.’” 

In contrast, nonwhite gun owners who have faced or may be coping with financially difficult times do not place as much importance on the gun, researchers found. They also are much less likely to approve of violence against the federal government even if they feel high levels of economic stress.

And that my friends is why domestic terrorism is far more concerning than anything that may come at us from a foreign land.

White men, heavily armed, and terrified that they are losing their place of prominence in society, are essentially a powder keg just waiting for a spark to set them off.

They may have believed that by voting Donald Trump into office that they would no longer have to worry about women, minorities, and immigrants negatively impacting their ability to find work, but when they discover that nothing of consequence has changed they may become even more radicalized and potentially dangerous.

Some world leaders are bypassing the White House and dealing directly with blue state governors like California's Jerry Brown.

Courtesy of WaPo:  

Nearly a year into the Trump presidency, countries around the world are scrambling to adapt as the White House has struggled to fill key government positions, scaled back the State Department and upended old alliances. Now some nations are finding that even if they are frustrated by President Trump’s Washington, they can still prosper from robust relations with the California Republic and a constellation of like-minded U.S. cities, some of which are bigger than European countries. 

Brown’s 10-day trip to Europe, which ended Tuesday, was just the latest in a growing transatlantic back-and-forth that bypasses the Trump-era White House. In July, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio headlined a protest in Hamburg against the Group of 20. Several European countries have stationed ambassadors in Silicon Valley to boost trade ties.

Meanwhile, state and municipal governments are expanding or building new offices to help them manage the increased interest in Europe and Asia. This year, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (D) created the position of deputy mayor for international affairs to better manage relations with foreign governments. 

Last week Garcetti huddled in Los Angeles with the Israeli president and Armenian defense minister. The latter stopped by on his way to a peacekeeping conference and briefly described his country’s ongoing dispute with Azerbaijan over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region. 

The mayor’s motives for taking the meeting were simple. “We have a big Armenian population in Los Angeles that cares about events in Armenia,” said Nina Hachigian, who filled the international affairs position and previously served in the Obama administration as U.S. ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Jakarta, Indonesia. 

Many world leaders say they have no illusions that they can avoid the White House on critical issues at the core of global stability, especially those related to security. But they have embraced efforts by Democratic governors and mayors to present a different face of U.S. power to the world, albeit at a lower level than the White House or State Department. 

“There is an impression by politicians here that President Trump in person is no longer the voice of the free Western world,” said Christian Ehler, a German lawmaker who heads the European Parliament’s delegation for relations with the United States and helped broker Brown’s visit to Brussels. “We are much more carefully looking now to the diversity of what is being discussed in the United States, and we see that California is one of the powerhouses of the world economically.”

Typically I would think that overall this would be a bad idea, because even though states do indeed make individual economic deals with foreign governments, the main negotiations have always been the work of the White House.

However since we have a White House that is currently critically understaffed, and in constant disarray, I am not sure what other options exist for keeping things moving forward.

One has to wonder however if this may devolve into a kind of quiet economic civil war where blue states continue to make trade deals and negotiate exchanges of information with foreign governments, which inflates their coffers, while red states sit on their hands waiting for the Republican White House to lead the way, and slip further and further into abject poverty?

Of course the solution to this is to elect a Democratic President next time and the entire country will have the opportunity to prosper as one.

Jerry Brown seems to already be doing the job, so maybe he really will be the best bet in 2020.

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski reminding everybody that she is still a Republican.

Courtesy of HuffPo:  

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) introduced legislation Wednesday night that would open a portion of a pristine wildlife refuge in her state to oil and gas development, a move expected to bring in slightly more than $1 billion in federal revenue over the next decade. 

The bill would open up part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), described by some as “America’s Serengeti,” which covers more than 19 million acres in northeastern Alaska. The region is home to polar bears, caribou, moose and hundreds of species of migratory birds. It’s considered one of the state’s crown jewels. 

In a statement, Murkowski called it “a tremendous opportunity” for the country. 

“The legislation ... will put Alaska and the entire nation on a path toward greater prosperity by creating jobs, keeping energy affordable for families and businesses, generating new wealth, and strengthening our security — while reducing the federal deficit not just by $1 billion over ten years, but tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars over the decades to come,” she said.

This is usually the point where somebody not from Alaska will chime in that Murkowski needs to be voted out of office.

The problem with saying that over and over is that it will essentially have the same effect as spitting into the ocean over and over again. In a word...none.

The problem is that instead of making Murkowski toxic in Alaska this will only prove to endear her to Alaskans most of who overwhelmingly support the opening of ANWR.

The hard truth is that the money is drying up faster than our glaciers are melting up here, and people in the state are starting to feel a little desperate.

I actually have very little confidence that this bill will pass, but even if it does not it still reinforces Murkowski's conservative credentials and signals to the voters that she is somebody who is working to make the state more prosperous.

I really do not think opening ANWR would accomplish that, but I am definitely in the minority.

The "Trump Slump" continues.

Courtesy of Forbes:  

After the announcement of the first two travel bans in January and March, the number of international travelers arriving in the U.S. has dramatically dropped, according to ForwardKeys, a European travel-prediction firm. 

Looking at the number of U.S. inbound arrivals – or the number of international tourists arriving at airports around the country – the firm found that the number of visitors dropped 1.3% following the announcement of the first travel ban on January 27. On June 26, when the second ban was partially re-instated, inbound visitors dropped again by 2.4%. 

Experts expected to see falling arrivals following the first executive announcement in January, when European interest in visiting the U.S. fell 12% but to see the number of arrivals impacted so quickly is startling.

“The confusing and convoluted travel bans have done nothing but worsen the country's reputation around the world,” said Lee Abbamonte, an American travel expert who has been to every country in the world, in an email. Although he believes there should be a vetting process, he says that as it stands now, it is too stringent, and confusing for many international citizens. 

A small percentage drop in arrivals is no small potatoes when translated into a dollar amount. In 2016, the U.S. travel and tourism industry generated over $1.5 trillion in economic output, supporting 7.6 million jobs, according to SelectUSA, an international trade analyst firm. That represents 2.7% of overall GDP.

Estimates are that this slump is costing the American economy billions of dollars.

I reported on this slump back in April, but apparently it has become much worse.

I guess that Trump has made America so great again that nobody wants to visit it anymore.

Good job.

P.S. Oh and by the way, travel to other countries is actually up.

Fact Check.org releases final numbers on Obama's presidency.

Courtesy of Fact Check.org: 

The numbers are nearly all in now. What they show about what really happened during the eight years that Barack Obama was president is sometimes different from what politicians claimed. 

• The economy gained a net 11.5 million jobs. The unemployment rate dropped to below the historical norm. 
• Average weekly earnings for all workers were up 4.1 percent after inflation. The gain was 3.7 percent for just production and nonsupervisory employees. 
• After-tax corporate profits also set records, as did stock prices. The S&P 500 index rose 166 percent. 
• The number of people lacking health insurance dropped by 15 million. Premiums rose, but more slowly than before. 
• The federal debt owed to the public rose 128 percent. Deficits were rising as Obama departed. 
• Home prices rose 20 percent. But the home ownership rate hit the lowest point in half a century. 
• Illegal immigration declined: The Border Patrol caught 35 percent fewer people trying to get into the U.S. from Mexico. 
• Wind and solar power increased 369 percent. Coal production declined 38 percent. Carbon emissions from burning fossil fuel dropped 11 percent. 
• Production of handguns rose 192 percent, to a record level. 
• The murder rate dropped to the lowest on record in 2014, then rose and finished at about the same rate as when Obama took office.

 Overall those are pretty damn good numbers. 

Critics of the President can complain that the numbers could be better, and that opportunities were missed, but they have to be reminded that everything the President accomplished he did with the Republicans attempting to obstruct him every step of the way.

I can hardly wait to compare this to the final numbers on the Trump presidency.

No, Donald Trump has NOT made the economy better.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

Kayleigh McEnany, who used to be a Trump propagandist on CNN before becoming one on the Pravda-esque Trump TV, thinks the fact that we've added more than 1 million jobs since Trump took office shows that he has “clearly steered the economy back in the right direction.” 

What she forgot to mention, though, is that this is slightly worse than things were at the end of President Barack Obama's term. That's right: The economy added an average of 181,000 jobs a month in Obama's last six months in office compared to an average of 179,000 a month in President Trump's first six months. That's a statistically insignificant difference — and a negative one at that — which shows that Trump hasn't made a diffference on the economy. And why would he have? He hasn't cut taxes or increased infrastructure spending or done anything else that would meaningfully boost GDP. (Going golfing and tweeting #MAGA a lot don't count.)

This, in a lot of ways, is the archetypal Trump story: trying to take credit for something he inherited. In his business career, that was all the money and connections he got from this father. Indeed, while Trump likes to say that he turned a “small” $1 million loan from his father into a “massive empire,” the truth is that Trump's father arranged and guaranteed all of the bank loans that made his son's first big project possible.

I remember when the conservatives were hammering President Obama because we were still suffering historic job losses during his first months in office.

Of course the facts were that his policies had not even taken effect yet, and the recovery was still some distance in the future.

The same holds true now, we literally have NO idea what impact Trump's presidency will have on the economy of this country. But if history is any guide, the country will probably have to file for bankruptcy. 

In response to Lisa Murkowski's no vote on Trumpcare, the Administration threatens Alaska. Update!

Courtesy of Alaska Dispatch: 

Early Wednesday, Trump took to Twitter to express displeasure with Murkowski's vote. By that afternoon, each of Alaska's two Republican senators had received a phone call from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke letting them know the vote had put Alaska's future with the administration in jeopardy. 

The response follows Trump's no-holds-barred style of governing, even when it comes to his own party. It is his first strike of retaliation against Murkowski, however, despite her tendency to stray from the party line and the president's priorities. 

Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan said the call from Zinke heralded a "troubling message." 

"I'm not going to go into the details, but I fear that the strong economic growth, pro-energy, pro-mining, pro-jobs and personnel from Alaska who are part of those policies are going to stop," Sullivan said. 

"I tried to push back on behalf of all Alaskans. … We're facing some difficult times and there's a lot of enthusiasm for the policies that Secretary Zinke and the president have been talking about with regard to our economy. But the message was pretty clear," Sullivan said. The Interior secretary also contacted Murkowski, he said.

Oh you fucking stepped in it now.

If Donald Trump thinks that he can make Alaskans turn on one of their own by threatening our economy he has another think coming.

We may not all agree with each other politically, but if an out of stater attacks one of our own, they are going to witness a circling of the wagons like they have never seen before.

We live in one of the harshest climates on the planet, and are constantly surrounded by predators that will kill us just as soon as look at us, so if that corpulent orange POS thinks that Alaskans cave to threats than he knows nothing about us as a people.

And by the way if Lisa Murkowski's no vote on Trumpcare keeps his administration from inflicting their economic plans on us, I might even erect a statue to her in my backyard.

The very LAST thing I want is for the guy who has almost as even more bankruptcies than ex-wives, to "help" Alaska economically.

Yes, yes I know, Lisa Murkowski is a political animal who probably made her decions based on careful political calculations, but at least she is actually one of us.

Dan Sullivan on the other hand is a carpetbagger bought and paid for by the Koch brothers who does not give a shit about Alaskans, and is only interested in furthering his own career and lining his own pockets.

So of COURSE he is going to vote along with Donald Trump and support Donald Trump policies.

Look if we get a good Democrat to run against her I will likely vote against her in the next election cycle, but if I have to choose sides between my Senator and that shitgibbon in the White House, I will stand with Lisa Murkowski every time.

Update: Lisa retaliates.

DELAYED: Hearing to confirm a series of nominees to Zinke's Interior. Murkowski also controls Interior $$ via approps subcom chair

— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) July 27, 2017

Interior nomination hearing delayed "due to uncertainty of the Senate schedule," per committee spokesperson #Murkowski

— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) July 27, 2017

Have to remember that Lisa Murkowski learned at the feet of her father Frank, and a guy named Ted Stevens.

I was not a fan of either one, but when it came to playing political hardball those guys had very few equals.
 

Alaska's legal marijuana industry has now paid more than a million dollars in taxes.

Courtesy of Alaska Dispatch.

Courtesy of KTUU: 

Alaska's marijuana industry has brought in more than $1 million in tax revenue since commercial sales began in October. 

The Juneau Empire reports that June 30 was the due date for Alaska cannabis growers to pay taxes collected in May. The state's May revenue was $272,600, which is the highest of any month since October and pushed overall tax revenue to $1.2 million. 

The Department of Revenue predicted earlier this year that the state would collect $2 million in the fiscal year that ended July 1. The revenue will miss that mark, but sales are on the verge of increasing. 

Kelly Mazzei of the department's tax division says outdoor growing operations have not yet made their first harvest. She says when that happens the state's tax revenue might soar.

I have to admit that this started off slower than I anticipated, but it looks like legalized weed might finally be making some impact on Alaska's bottom line.

Not much yet of course, but if Alaskans start consuming weed in the same amounts they do alcohol and ice cream this could be huge.

Uh oh.

In case it has been awhile since you have taken a history class the significance of 1929 is it is when the Great Depression took hold of the country.

An incident by the way that lasted more than ten years and required a world war to finally overcome.

And remember this is Trump, so any depression that HE helps brings about will have to be even bigger and more impressive than the one that came before.

White House leaks claim that Donald Trump called General Mike Flynn at 3 AM to ask whether it was a strong or weak dollar that was good for the US economy.

"Yeah, I'm going to save the economy. Just as soon as I figure out how the damn thing works."

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

President Donald Trump was confused about the dollar: Was it a strong one that’s good for the economy? Or a weak one? 

So he made a call ― except not to any of the business leaders Trump brought into his administration or even to an old friend from his days in real estate. Instead, he called his national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, according to two sources familiar with Flynn’s accounts of the incident. 

Flynn has a long record in counterintelligence but not in macroeconomics. And he told Trump he didn’t know, that it wasn’t his area of expertise, that, perhaps, Trump should ask an economist instead. 

Trump was not thrilled with that response ― but that may have been a function of the time of day. Trump had placed the call at 3 a.m., according to one of Flynn’s retellings ― although neither the White House nor Flynn’s office responded to requests for confirmation about that detail.

Remember this is the guy who is going to dramatically increase jobs and save the economy.

Kind of heard to imagine if he does not understand such a basic premise, and if he continues going to people who have no expertise economics.

It should be noted that there are numerous news articles discussing the unprecedented number of leaks coming from his administration, and even this article suggests that the people working for Trump who are essentially terrified at his lack of experience and extreme impulsiveness:

Unsurprisingly, Trump’s volatile behavior has created an environment ripe for leaks from his executive agencies and even within his White House. And while leaks typically involve staffers sabotaging each other to improve their own standing or trying to scuttle policy ideas they find genuinely problematic, Trump’s 2-week-old administration has a third category: leaks from White House and agency officials alarmed by the president’s conduct.

I know I have said this before, but just in case you missed it, yeah....we're fucked. 

So Alaska is curently in a recession, from which it will never fully recover. Oh boy.

Courtesy of ADN: 

A leading Alaska economics firm predicts our recession will continue for three more years and foresees no real recovery, just decline and then a future with a smaller economy. 

Jonathan King, vice president of Northern Economics, said he feels like he is riding a down-bound train, able to see hard times for his business a year ahead but unable to do anything about it. We visited to look down the track together and think about what is coming for his and others' families. 

King presented Wednesday to the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee after Mouhcine Guettabi, of the Institute of Social and Economic Research of the University of Alaska Anchorage. The economists' teams worked independently, using different computer models, but they came to strikingly similar conclusions. 

"This is our great recession. By the time this is over, we expect to lose 6 percent of our jobs," King told the committee. 

A recession is unfolding of similar severity to what the nation endured after the 2008 financial crisis, but with a critical difference, King said. The U.S. economy recovered. He expects Alaska's economy to shrink long term to a smaller base.

At oil going for less than $54 a barrel, and no real hope that it will go any higher, there is just not enough profit in opening new fields in Alaska for drilling. (So yes Senators Murkowski and Sullivan, that means opening ANWR does nothing to save us.)

With oil off the table as the quick fix Alaska had relied on, there is really no other fallback industry which will help Alaska get back on its feet in the immediate future.

However King did offer this one possibility:

"We're one tweet away from $100 a barrel oil," King said. "All it takes is a shooting war in the Middle East and we're back in business. Which I hate to say."

Well there's a happy thought.

Personally I am fortunate to be in a recession proof job, however I know that a recession will still have an effect on all of our lives.

So for all of you considering a move to the Last Frontier, I would suggest that you alter your plans immediately. Because simply put, we can't afford you. 

Jobless claims are the lowest in 43 years. And yet we are replacing the guy that made that happen.

You're welcome folks.

Courtesy of KRQE News: 

The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits dropped last week to the lowest level in more than 43 years, another sign that most American workers enjoy job security. 

THE NUMBERS: The Labor Department said Thursday that 234,000 Americans sought jobless aid, a drop of 15,000 from the previous week and lowest since November 1973. The four-week average, which is less volatile, fell by 10,250 to 246,750, also the lowest since November 1973. The total number of people receiving unemployment benefits was 2.05 million, down 7.7 percent from a year earlier. 

THE TAKEAWAY: Unemployment claims are a proxy for layoffs. They have now come in below 300,000 for 98 straight weeks.

Remember this is the President that the Republicans accuse of screwing up the country.

And today he is leaving and we are welcoming a guy who is famous for not paying the people who work for him.

We are so fucked. 

Donald Trump congratulates himself for the consumer confidence that resulted from eight years of the Obama administration's hard work.

The U.S. Consumer Confidence Index for December surged nearly four points to 113.7, THE HIGHEST LEVEL IN MORE THAN 15 YEARS! Thanks Donald!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2016

Seriously, who does this?

Not only did Trump rub one out to his own imagined awesomeness, he also bitched that President Obama was still acting like the President.

Doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks.Thought it was going to be a smooth transition - NOT!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2016

To be clear all the President has done is to continue doing his job, apparently Trump wants him to STFU and let him just step in and start destroying the country even before he is sworn in.

Donald Trump can't shut down his so-called "charity" while there is a lawsuit pending so he decides to defend it instead.

Courtesy of The New York Daily News:  

Donald Trump might have jumped the gun on calling it quits for his namesake foundation. 

The President-elect announced late Saturday afternoon that he would dissolve the Donald J. Trump Foundation "to avoid even the appearance of any conflict with my role as President," adding he intends to "continue to pursue my strong interest in philanthropy in other ways." 

But Amy Spitalnick, the press secretary for New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, told the Daily News in a statement Monday evening that Trump can't simply fold his controversy-embroiled foundation when he pleases. 

"The Trump Foundation is still under investigation by this office and cannot legally dissolve until that investigation is complete," Spitalnick said, declining to reveal any details about the probe. "The Foundation's fundraising activities remain suspended following the AG's notice of violation earlier this year."

Oops.

So since he cannot rid himself of the stench of his non-charity, Trump instead decides to lie about it on Twitter.

I gave millions of dollars to DJT Foundation, raised or recieved millions more, ALL of which is given to charity, and media won't report!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 27, 2016

The DJT Foundation, unlike most foundations, never paid fees, rent, salaries or any expenses. 100% of money goes to wonderful charities!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 27, 2016

Okay remember, if Trump says it, tweets it, or has a spokesperson say it on his behalf, chances are very good that it is a lie.

And yep, so is this:

"Although Donald Trump has described himself as an “ardent philanthropist,” he has only donated $3.7 million to his own foundation. In comparison, a wrestling company has given Trump’s foundation $5 million. He ranks among the least charitable billionaires in the world."

In fact we already know that Trump has used his charity as a kind of personal piggy bank, using it to settle a lawsuit, and to buy himself a picture. Of himself.

Also in our edition of hilariously incorrect tweets from Donald Trump is this one taking credit for President Obama's economy.

The world was gloomy before I won - there was no hope. Now the market is up nearly 10% and Christmas spending is over a trillion dollars!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 26, 2016

Actually the economy has been improving steadily for most of Obama's eight years.

We will probably not see what impact his presidency has for almost a year into it.

At which time I am confident he will blame any bad news on the previous administration. 

First legal marijuana store opens in Anchorage.

Courtesy of ADN: 

Arctic Herbery's opening Thursday afternoon marked the beginning of marijuana retail sales in Alaska's largest city, about six weeks after the state's first store opened in Valdez. 

Last week, Arctic Herbery opened with only "clones" — immature marijuana plants — in stock.

By 11:40 a.m., about 50 people waited in a line that curved around the perimeter of the property. 

Bryant Thorp, owner of Arctic Herbery, had set up a shuttle service, as he has only a handful of parking spots at the store, and the shuttle brought a steady flow of customers to the shop.

I actually think that this might be a future source of cash for Alaska now that the oil is no longer as reliable a source of revenue as it was once upon time.

It certainly has been a boon to the economy in Colorado.

I don't see how it would be any different here.

Personally I am still not terribly interested in firing up a doobie (As the young kids say today.), but I am a little curious about the edibles.

Putting to rest the argument that Hillary Clinton lost because she ignored the Middle Class. She didn't.

Courtesy of The Atlantic:

In the days after her shocking loss, Democrats complained that Clinton had no jobs agenda. A widely shared essay in The Nation blamed Clinton's "neoliberalism" for abandoning the voters who swung the election. “I come from the white working class,” Bernie Sanders said on CBS This Morning, “and I am deeply humiliated that the Democratic Party cannot talk to where I came from.” 

But here is the troubling reality for civically minded liberals looking to justify their preferred strategies: Hillary Clinton talked about the working class, middle class jobs, and the dignity of work constantly. And she still lost. 

She detailed plans to help coal miners and steel workers. She had decades of ideas to help parents, particularly working moms, and their children. She had plans to help young men who were getting out of prison and old men who were getting into new careers. She talked about the dignity of manufacturing jobs, the promise of clean-energy jobs, and the Obama administration’s record of creating private-sector jobs for a record-breaking number of consecutive months. She said the word “job” more in the Democratic National Convention speech than Trump did in the RNC acceptance speech; she mentioned the word “jobs” more during the first presidential debate than Trump did. She offered the most comprehensively progressive economic platform of any presidential candidate in history—one specifically tailored to an economy powered by an educated workforce. 

What’s more, the evidence that Clinton lost because of the nation’s economic disenchantment is extremely mixed. Some economists found that Trump won in counties affected by trade with China. But among the 52 percent of voters who said economics was the most important issue in the election, Clinton beat Trump by double digits. In the vast majority of swing states, voters said they preferred Clinton on the economy. If the 2016 election had come down to economics exclusively, the working class—which, by any reasonable definition, includes the black, Hispanic, and Asian working classes, too—would have elected Hillary Clinton president.

The Atlantic goes on to report that it appears the reason that Trump did as well as he did is because he essentially promised people whatever they wanted to hear.

Rather than talking about the economy and jobs in a broad sense, Donald Trump promised that he would protect the jobs of each and every person who came to his rallies. A promise that there is no way in hell he could ever keep.

If Hillary Clinton made a mistake it was by telling the truth, while many much preferred the lies spilling from the orange anus shaped mouth of Donald Trump.

Hillary Clinton did not fail to make her argument to the Middle Class, it's just that many in the Middle Class failed to understand the truth in what she was saying.

Of course we have to add that fact to the fake news stories, the Russian hackers, and the FBI sabotage as well.

Max Weiss over at HuffPo listed all of the things he blames for Hillary's "defeat" including misogyny, fake news, and Bernie Sanders but does NOT include Hillary Clinton in that list:

She won every debate. She came up with well thought out, concrete plans to govern. She carried herself with dignity and grace, despite all the endless, misogynist shit that was hurled at her. She was nothing short of heroic.

Exactly. 

At the start of this election cycle way back in 2015 I was a lukewarm supporter of Hillary's. But by the time we reached election day I was an honorary "nasty woman" doing everything I could to spread the news that she was uniquely qualified for the job of leading this nation.

I did not come to that conclusion based solely on my disgust with her opponent, I came to that conclusion based on what a bad ass she turned out to be. 

I make this point because it is important historically for us to remember that we did not run a deeply flawed candidate in 2016, but rather that the campaign against her was unprecedented in the fact that it used the illegal activities of a foreign government, the intrusion of the FBI, very likely some vote tampering, and the ignorance of a large segment of the American population to beat her.

And yet, despite all that, Hillary still won the popular vote by over 2.5 million.

A reminder that President Obama brought the jobs back after the LAST Republican president damn near destroyed the economy.

Courtesy of CNN:

The U.S. economy added 178,000 jobs in November, the Labor Department reported Friday, and the unemployment rate fell sharply to 4.6% from 4.9% in October. 

It's the lowest rate since August 2007. 

Unemployment has been at or below 5% for nearly a year as more people have returned to the job market and hiring has maintained momentum. 

November was the 74th consecutive month America added jobs. 

"The positive momentum we've seen in the labor market is continuing as 2016 comes to a close," says Sam Bullard, senior economist at Wells Fargo.

Even IF Donald Trump were not a fucking train wreck, which we know he is, the Republicans are histrionically bad at dealing with the economy and driving down unemployment.

Any Trump voter who thought they were voting to bring more jobs back, must have been living in a cave for the last twenty or thirty years.

It should also be pointed out that the best job growth of all time was under President Bill Clinton, and we had the opportunity to put the person who was his co-president in the White House and failed to do so.

Just keep this in mind the first time some Republican starts bitching that jobs are disappearing under president Trump, and then tries to lay the blame at the feet of President Obama.