A Literal Notebook Dump

To fill in some of the unplanned posting slack in these very interesting times we're living through, I present to you an actual (though annotated) notebook dump. The underlined phrases are entries from my Anchor Rising ideas notebook, followed by a brief description of the posts they're supposed to become. Meanwhile, some of the even bigger things going on in the world are being worked on, as fuller posts...

MJ & International treaties -- At the same time Rhode Island is considering decriminalizing marijuana, the United Nations is telling the Federal Government of the United States that it shouldn't let the states do this (Associated Press story here). There's potential for identifying some common ground, between folks that don't usually agree, about what makes government power legitimate. Slightly more specifically, this is also an example to ponder about the degree to which treaties can be used as an alternative way to make law within the United States.

NLRB controversy -- You may have heard that the District of Columbia circuit court ruled that the President cannot make recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board when the Senate is not in recess (Washington Post story here). Because of this ruling, the NLRB no longer has a quorum for its meetings. What you may not know is that a further petition has been filed with the Court, asking it to suspend any further action in a Rhode Island case that was ruled on by the vacated NLRB members. Details of the Rhode Island case (United Nurses and Allied Professionals [Kent Hospital] and Jeanette Geary) are available here.

Predictability post -- We know that policymakers, especially economic policymakers, like to cite predictability as a goal, e.g. Governor Chafee saying his administration has "created a climate of certainty, stability, and predictability" in response to the latest unemployment figures. However, predictability really shouldn't be a goal in and of itself, especially when what seems to be very predictable is people dropping out of the RI labor force.

Immigration/Amnesty proposals -- According to folks who follow this issue closely, the latest talk about "comprehensive immigration reform" coming from Washington's political elite all begins from the assumption that an immediate amnesty will be step 1 with disagreements being about what follows -- but in all of these deals, the immediate amnesty is all that matters (and maybe the real goal), and everything else is just window dressing.