World, Show Trump (and the Kids) the Money!

Trump towers, Trump golf courses, trump steaks would be valueless if separated from DJT.  He, his gaudy bragadoccio are the brand,are the value.  And now as he has said "the brand is hot".  The Trump presidency goes beyond conflict of interest.  It is monetizing the presidency. - gwc

World, Show Trump (and the Kids) the Money!

by Josh Marshall

The point is that there's no way to sell this operation to Larry Stein and have these gaudy monstrosities become Stein Towers. The value disappears or almost entirely disappears once the name goes. The value of this business is inextricably tied to Trump's (or his immediate family members) owning them and using his name. As we speak he's doing precisely the same thing, just with the value of the Trump name turbocharged with the new "President of the United States" brand which generations of Americans have been building up for almost a quarter of a millennium.

Party building

http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/brief/us-presidents-and-challenge-party-building

How much could Trump’s education secretary damage public schools? Just look at Detroit.

How much could Trump’s education secretary damage public schools? Just look at Detroit.

President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Betsy DeVos, a philanthropist and a strong supporter of school choice, as his education secretary. And although DeVos isn’t a household name, she could end up having a big impact on public school students across the country.

For evidence, just take a look at Detroit — a city where DeVos’ influence shows how an expansion of charter schools without the proper oversight can hurt the quality of education for low-income students.

Throughout DeVos’ career as a school choice advocate, she has aggressively pushed for the expansion of charter schools. Although many charter schools across the country benefit low-income families seeking an alternative to public schools, educational equity advocates often raise concerns that a lack of accountability allows less effective charter schools to thrive. And DeVos has been at the forefront of efforts to push against this accountability.

DeVos sits on the board of the Great Lakes Education Project, which advocates for its education reform priorities in the Michigan state legislature. This group is responsible for pushing the legislature to end its plans for a Detroit commission to regulate charter schools.

Why is it so hard to make a sobriety test for marijuana? | Igor Grant | Opinion | The Guardian

Why is it so hard to make a sobriety test for marijuana? | Igor Grant | Opinion | The Guardian

Unlike alcohol, the amount of pot in someone’s blood doesn’t necessarily correlate with the ability to drive safely. We must learn how to assess the risk

On 8 November, voters in California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevadaapproved ballot measures to legalize recreational cannabis. It is now legal in a total of eight states. This creates potential problems for road safety. How do we determine who’s impaired and who’s not?

The effects of alcohol vary based on a person’s size and weight, metabolic rate, related food intake and the type and amount of beverage consumed. Even so, alcohol consumption produces fairly straightforward results: the more you drink, the worse you drive. Factors like body size and drinking experience can shift the correlation slightly, but the relationship is still pretty linear, enough to be able to confidently develop a blood alcohol content scale for legally determining drunk driving. Not so with marijuana....

But how do you know when you’re too stoned to drive? How can police tell?

My colleagues and I at the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at UC San Diego have received a $1.8m grant from the state of California to gather data about dosages, time and what it takes to impair driving ability – and then create a viable roadside sobriety test for cannabis.

Alcohol and marijuana both affect mental function, which means they can both impair driving ability.

Some elements of cannabis use are similar. Potency of strain affects potency of effect. Marijuana and its active ingredient – THC – alter brain function, affecting processes like attention, perception and coordination, which are necessary for a complex behavior like driving a car.

Regular users tend to become accustomed to the drug, particularly in terms of cognitive disruption or psycho-motor skills. Because they are accustomed to the drug’s effects, this means they may function better relative to naive users....

Fashion's Function in Intellectual Property Law by Christopher Buccafusco, Jeanne C. Fromer :: SSRN

Fashion's Function in Intellectual Property Law by Christopher Buccafusco, Jeanne C. Fromer :: SSRN

Clothing designs can be beautiful. But they are also functional. Fashion’s dual nature sits uneasily in intellectual property law, and its treatment by copyright, trademark, and design patent laws has often been perplexing. Much of this difficulty arises from an unclear understanding of the nature of functionality in fashion design. This Article proposes a novel account of fashion’s function. It argues that aspects of garment designs are functional if they affect the perception of the wearer’s body. Clothes are not designed simply to look good. They are also designed to look good on. This approach clarifies the appropriate treatment of fashion design in intellectual property, and it offers a solution to Varsity Brands Inc. v. Star Athletica, LLC, the copyright case now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

School Segregation: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)