THE CONSTITUTION IS A TOUGH TASKMASTER:

U.S. District Judge William Orrick III in San Francisco ruled that a recent memo from the Justice Department that appeared to narrow the scope of Trump's executive order on sanctuary cities did not remove the need for a court-ordered injunction.

Orrick wrote that the memo is not binding and the attorney general can revoke it at any time. [...]

In a ruling in April, Orrick said Trump's order targeted broad categories of federal funding for sanctuary governments and that plaintiffs challenging the order were likely to succeed in proving it unconstitutional.

GOOD HELP IS HARD TO FIND:

The Trump Organization is asking the federal government for special visas to hire scores of foreign workers for two of President Trump's private clubs in Florida -- the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach and the Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter.

The requests for H-2B visas, posted on the Department of Labor website, are for 26 cooks, nearly 50 waiters and waitresses, plus housekeepers, a hostess and a bartender. The jobs range in pay from just under $12 to less than $14 an hour. Mar-a-Lago and the Jupiter club have relied on foreign workers in past years for staffing during their peak seasons, which run October through May.

"WE CAN LOSE WITHOUT YOU":

In an unusual move, the military chief, Gen. Pierre de Villiers, offered his resignation after Mr. Macron said publicly that he would be the one to determine military policy and implicitly criticized General de Villiers for questioning the government's proposed budget cuts. [...]

The dispute with General de Villiers was raised in Mr. Macron's annual speech to the armed forces on July 13, the day before France's imposing Bastille Day military parade.

In that speech, the president referred to concerns the general had raised in a closed parliamentary hearing about the cuts. The general's remarks were later leaked to the news media.

"I do not consider it honorable to put certain debates on public display," Mr. Macron had said.

"I am your chief. The commitments that I have made to our citizens, to the army, I stick to them," he said, adding that he did not need any "pressure" or "commentary."

A WHITER SHADE OF PALEO:

In an analysis for ProPublica, Adam Ozimek and Mark Zandi at Moody's Analytics, an independent economics firm, estimated that for every 1 percent increase in U.S. population made of immigrants, GDP rises 1.15 percent. So a simple way to get to Trump's 4 percent GDP bump? Take in about 8 million net immigrants per year. To show you what that really looks like, we've charted the effect below. You can see for yourself what might happen to the economy if we increased immigration to the highest rates in history or dropped it to zero - and everything in between.

"Immigration is a great economic policy opportunity and it's important to document the impact of that," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, an economist who served on the President's Council of Economic Advisers in both Bush administrations. He agreed with the basic conclusions of Moody's analysis, and said that 1.15 percent was a reasonable estimate of the effect of immigration on GDP.

ON THE OTHER HAND, SHE IS ASIAN:

President Trump said Wednesday that a lack of English conversational skills on the part of Akie Abe, the wife of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, prompted him to leave his spot next to her at dinner at an international summit and talk with Vladimir Putin instead.

Mrs. Abe "doesn't speak English ... like, not 'Hello,'" Trump told the New York Times in an interview.

Not so.

Akie Abe, the daughter of a wealthy Japanese family, attended a private Roman Catholic international school in Tokyo before going on to college. The elementary-through-high-school academy, the Sacred Heart School, includes rigorous English-language instruction as part of its curriculum.

And social media swiftly found clips of the 55-year-old Abe making speeches in somewhat accented but perfectly serviceable English.

THANKFULLY FOR ALL OF US...:

1. Obstruction of Justice Evidence: The Sessions' Recusal Litmus Test

The biggest headline coming out the interview was Trump's insistence that it was inappropriate for Sessions to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, notwithstanding Sessions' failure to disclose contacts with the Russian ambassador during his confirmation hearings to become Attorney General and Sessions' involvement in the Trump campaign itself. Sessions decision to recuse himself -- according to the Justice Department, Sessions' testimony and Comey's testimony -- was essentially a foregone conclusion due in part to regulations dealing with conflicts of interest that relate to his participation in the presidential campaign, and it was a decision taken on the advice of senior Department officials. Even more alarming, Trump said he would not have appointed Sessions had he known Sessions would recuse. A recusal litmus test for the Attorney General signals to prosecutors that Trump expects to be able to interfere in pending criminal investigations, even when those criminal matters touch on his interests. More specifically, it strengthens evidence that Trump intended to impede the Russia investigation through the management controls of the Presidency. Sessions himself theoretically may be implicated in the possible obstruction of justice, depending on how the decision to fire Comey was orchestrated. And Trump's statements to the Times suggest he may have had an expectation, if not an understanding, that Sessions would help quash the Russia investigation, and feels betrayed that Sessions backed away.

2. Quid Pro Quo Evidence: The Donald Trump, Jr. Meeting & Russian Adoptions

This week Ian Bremmer broke news of a second, previously undisclosed, meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, said that the news was wrong and that the two  leaders only engaged in "pleasantries and small talk." During Wednesday's interview, Trump dropped a bit of a bombshell. He said, "we talked about adoption." As Tom Malinowski, former Assistant Secretary of State has noted, Russian "adoptions" is shorthand for "sanctions" because Putin halted American adoptions in retaliation for the passage of the Magnitsky Act.

Of particular import, Trump then tied his conversation with Putin about adoptions to Donald Trump Jr.'s June 9, 2016 meeting in which the lure had been Russian government dirt on Hillary Clinton. 

DONALD WHO?:

The U.S. special counsel investigating possible ties between the Donald Trump campaign and Russia in last year's election is examining a broad range of transactions involving Trump's businesses as well as those of his associates, according to a person familiar with the probe.

The president told the New York Times on Wednesday that any digging into matters beyond Russia would be out of bounds. Trump's businesses have involved Russians for years, making the boundaries fuzzy so Special Counsel Robert Mueller appears to be taking a wide-angle approach to his two-month-old probe.

FBI investigators and others are looking at Russian purchases of apartments in Trump buildings, Trump's involvement in a controversial SoHo development with Russian associates, the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow and Trump's sale of a Florida mansion to a Russian oligarch in 2008, the person said.

HE'S NOT A REPUBLICAN AND THEY DRAGGED HIM IN WITH THEM:

As the brash Mr. Johnson reminded one associate recently, while Mr. Trump may have stunned the political world in 2016 by winning Wisconsin in the election, Mr. Johnson got 76,000 more votes in the state.

Fear is perhaps the most powerful motivating force in politics, and fear of a powerful president is the surest lever to move a lawmaker from a "no" to a "yes" on a presidential priority. But over the past month, Mr. Trump scared no one into supporting the bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. He has proved simply too unpopular nationally -- polling at 36 to 40 percent approval this week -- too weak in many senators' home states, too erratic and too disengaged from the details of governing to harness his party, as other new presidents have.

Mr. Johnson, still angry at the Republican establishment for abandoning his long-shot re-election bid, may come around when Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, holds a make-or-break procedural vote next week in a bid to revive the health care effort.

But the votes of other senators have become more elusive. They have come to believe that their constituents, even the most conservative ones, are more loyal to them than to Mr. Trump.

The starkest demonstration of Mr. Trump's weakness came on Monday when Mr. McConnell and his stunned team learned that Jerry Moran, a typically reliable and evenhanded conservative from Kansas, felt safe stiff-arming Mr. Trump on his top legislative priority, announcing that he opposed the bill.

WHAT IS SELF-RESPECT TO AN IDEOLOGUE?:

President Trump yesterday issued a stunning vote of no-confidence in basically everyone currently in a leadership position in the Justice Department, the FBI, or the special counsel's office--in other words, not just some federal law enforcement, but all of it. The President's rebuke comes in a lengthy interview with the New York Times yesterday, and it reaches everyone from the attorney general to staff attorneys hired by Robert Mueller--whose investigation he pointedly did not promise not to terminate. His complaint? They're all, in different ways, not serving him. And serving him, he makes clear, is their real job.

It's a chilling interview--chilling because of the portrait it paints of presidential paranoia, chilling for its monomaniacal view of the relationship between the president and law enforcement, and chilling for what it says about Trump's potential readiness to interfere with the Mueller investigation.

If Attorney General Jeff Sessions does not resign this morning, it will reflect nothing more or less than a lack of self respect on his part...

THE CULTURE WARS ARE A ROUT:

From hood ornament to taillight, "Cars 3" was conservative! No politics of grievance. No poor victim Cruz held back by a glass ceiling erected by men. Cruz didn't fail because she was female or because she looked different. She didn't fail because of discrimination. She failed because she didn't try--unlike her predecessors, Barnstormer Nash and River Scott, who had real grievances and had to break down color and gender barriers just to race.

Cruz also didn't try because her family weighed her down with the heavy burden of low expectations. Cruz also didn't need some woman to lean in to help her succeed. Having a male mentor proved completely kosher. And Cruz won because, male or female, she was the best racer.

Now, this is a "feminist" theme I can get behind! But it isn't the "smash the patriarchy" kind sold by the Left. Rather, Disney's Pixar took a traditional approach to feminism, presenting Cruz as a product of her choices, not a victim of her circumstances. 

THANKS DONALD:

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, touching its lowest level in nearly five months, suggesting another month of strong job growth. [...]

It was the 124th straight week that claims remained below 300,000, a threshold associated with a robust labor market. That is the longest such stretch since 1970, when the labor market was smaller. The labor market is near full employment, with the jobless rate at 4.4 percent.

ALL IN YOUR HEAD:

These expectations matter, and we know they matter because of a bizarre research technique called sham surgery. In these fake operations, patients are led to believe that they are having a real surgical procedure -- they're taken through all the regular pre- and post- surgical rituals, from fasting to anesthesia to incisions made in their skin to look like the genuine operation occurred -- but the doctor does not actually perform the surgery. If the patient is awake during the "procedure," the doctor mimics the sounds and sensations of the true surgery, and the patient may be shown a video of someone else's procedure as if it were his own.

Sham surgeries may sound unethical, but they're done with participants' consent and in pursuit of an important question: Does the surgical procedure under consideration really work? In a surprising number of cases, the answer is no.

A 2014 review of 53 trials that compared elective surgical procedures to placebos found that sham surgeries provided some benefit in 74 percent of the trials and worked as well as the real deal in about half. [...]

Weirdly enough, surgery's invasiveness may explain some of its potency. Studies have shown that invasive procedures produce a stronger placebo effect than non-invasive ones, said researcher Jonas Bloch Thorlund of the University of Southern Denmark. A pill can provoke a placebo effect, but an injection produces an even stronger one. Cutting into someone appears to be more powerful still.

IT'S WHAT VLAD HIRED HIM TO DO:

US President Donald Trump's persistent overtures toward Russia are placing him increasingly at odds with his national security and foreign policy advisers, who have long urged a more cautious approach to dealing with the foreign adversary. [...]

McMaster expressed his disapproval of Trump's course to foreign officials during the lead-up to his trip to Germany. The general specifically said he'd disagreed with Trump's decision to hold an Oval Office meeting in May with top Russian diplomats and with the president's general reluctance to speak out against Russian aggression in Europe, according to the three foreign officials.

McMaster and other national security aides also advised the president against holding an official bilateral meeting with Putin.

In a highly unusual move, McMaster did not attend the bilateral meeting with Putin. Only Trump, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and a translator made up the US side.

Meetings with such critical national security implications typically include a broader team, including the national security adviser and a regional specialist from the National Security Council -- in this case, the head of the Russia directorate, a position recently filled by Russia expert Fiona Hill.

Foreign and US officials said the Russians recommended that a note taker be present in the bare-bones official bilateral meeting. But Trump, who has repeatedly expressed concern over leaks, refused, instead relying on Tillerson to document the meeting. The session was scheduled for 30 minutes but stretched to more than two hours.

MORE WEALTH, LESS WORK:

What's coming next is known as "deep learning". Similar to big data analysis, it involves processing large quantities of data in real time to make decisions about what is the best action to take. The difference is that the machine learns from the data so it can improve its decision making. A perfect example of deep learning was demonstrated by Google's AlphaGo software, which taught itself to beat the world's greatest Go players.

The turning point in applying artificial intelligence to manufacturing could come with the application of special microchips called graphical processing units (GPUs). These enable deep learning to be applied to extremely large data sets at extremely fast speeds. But there is still some way to go and big industrial companies are recruiting vast numbers of scientists to further develop the technology.

As Industry 4.0 technology becomes smarter and more widely available, manufacturers of any size will be able to deploy cost-effective, multipurpose and collaborative machines as standard. This will lead to industrial growth and market competitiveness, with a greater understanding of production processes leading to new high-quality products and digital services.

Exactly what impact a smarter robotic workforce with the potential to operate on its own will have on the manufacturing industry, is still widely disputed. Artificial intelligence as we know it from science fiction is still in its infancy. It could well be the 22nd century before robots really have the potential to make human labour obsolete by developing not just deep learning but true artificial understanding that mimics human thinking.

Ideally, Industry 4.0 will enable human workers to achieve more in their jobs by removing repetitive tasks and giving them better robotic tools. In theory, this would allow us humans to focus more on business development, creativity and science, which it would be much harder for any robot to do. Technology that has made humans redundant in the past has forced us to adapt, generally with more education.

But because Industry 4.0 robots will be able to operate largely on their own, we might see much greater human redundancy from manufacturing jobs without other sectors being able to create enough new work.