Social Issues

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Belgian riot police clashed with prison guards who were on strike and demonstrating at the Justice Ministry. The prison warders had burst into the Belgian Justice Ministry building on Tuesday, breaking windows and trashing fittings before being forced out by baton-wielding riot police firing pepper spray. Press TV reports: About a thousand demonstrators had gathered in support of the warders outside the ministry headquarters in the capital, Brussels, throwing eggs at the facade of the building, setting off firecrackers, chanting slogans and protesting budget cuts, according to the media.

Recently Ray Gaster, an owner of lumber yards on both sides of the Georgia-South Carolina border joined some friends at a retreat in Alabama to talk shop. The main topic of concern? Drugs tests, and the increasing inability of potential new hires to pass them.

"They were complaining about trying to find drivers, or finding people, who are drug-free and can do some of the jobs that they have" Gaster said, as he echoed his friends' concerns.

Over the past year, Germany has gone to great lengths in its attempt to culturally integrate the hundreds of thousands of middle-eastern refugees that entered the nation as a result of Angela Markel's now defunct overly welcoming immigrant policies.

Unlike recent months when the Census Bureau reported some fireworks in the New Housing Starts and Permits data, the April update was relatively tame, and saw Starts rise from an upward revised 1,099K to 1,172K, beating expectations of a 1,125K print, mostly as a result of a 36K increase in multi-family units which however remain depressed below recent peaks from early 2015, which will likely stoke even higher asking rents, already at record highs across the nation.