• Hillary’s Executive Order? By Debbie Young
• Conflicts the U.S. Should Avoid By Richard C. Young
• Your Burgundy Wine Tour By Dick and Debbie Young - On the ground intel!
• Average Federal Compensation: $120,000 By E.J. Smith
• Syria: “The U.S. Has Nothing Vital At Stake” By Richard C. Young - With Video!
• Buyer Beware—Organic, Farm Raised, Wild? By Debbie Young
• “Organic” and “Cage Free” Deception By Richard C. Young - With Video!
• House Conservatives Back Webster By Richard C. Young - With Video!
• I like Jindal’s Thinking By E.J. Smith - With Video!

Kevin D. Williamson reminds us in NRO that theatrical shootings like the most recent one that took place at the Umpqua Community College in Oregon are not the problem. Nor, as he notes, are hysterical reactions the solution.

As President Barack Obama rushes to make another pitch for stricter gun-control policies and Hillary Clinton proposes stricter regulations on gun sales through legislation and “the use of executive power,” Americans should understand that these policies have little or no effect on such tragic events. The Left’s war on the 2^nd Amendment will do nothing to stop lunatics from shooting up schools, shopping malls, or anything else that hits their deranged fantasies.

Wouldn’t it be more useful if President Obama, Hillary and Congress seriously addressed public-policy questions regarding those with mental health issues or criminal recidivists? As NRO points out:

In most American cities, the great majority of murders are committed by people with prior police backgrounds, often by those who already have been convicted of a criminal offense. It is maddeningly common for murders to be committed by killers with violent gun crimes on their criminal résumés. The streets of American cities are plagued by armed violent criminals because police, prosecutors, and parole officers refuse to do their jobs, or are unable to do their jobs.

Read more here from Mr. Williamson, who writes, “Politicians sell you emergency when they want to take something away from you. Terrorists are not the only people who know that a scared population is a compliant population.”

The American Conservative’s Daniel Larison writes that the fact the U.S cannot support any of the major groups vying for control of Damascus should make it clear that the U.S. has no business being involved in the conflict at all.

Hawks just wanted to inflict a loss on Iran. Now fighting ISIS has taken priority, but not so much that it overrules the old hostility to Iran, which is why so many hawks now propose fighting both Assad and ISIS at the same time.

Burgundy or Bordeaux? When The Wine Questionnaire asked the “B or B” question of Daniel Johnnes, wine director for Daniel Boulud’s Dinex Group, Daniel answered, “Ask anyone in the world of wine and they will laugh at the question. BURGUNDY!!!.”

Burgundy and Its Wines tells readers, “In Burgundy it is the terroir—the peculiarly French combination of soil, subsoil and climate—that dictates reputation.”

In The Great Domaines of Burgundy Michael Broadbent explains to readers:

Compared to Bordeaux, Burgundy is far more complex: small vineyards with similar names are in the ownership of several individual producers who, in turn, more often than not own vines in more than one designated vineyard. The importance of terroir is also paramount and exemplified by the wines of the Domaine de La Romanee-Conti. For example, La Tache, produces wines of distinctly different style to Romanne- Conti, despite the two vineyards being separated by a mere footpath.

Cote D’Or  (slope of gold) is the center of Burgundy, to the north and south of the small city of Beaune. It consists of a narrow strip of vineyard, located along a chalk-marl slope beginning south of Dijon and continuing for about 30 miles. The Cote D’Or is divided into two sections—the Cote de Nuits (mostly red Pinot-Noir) to the north of Beaune and the Cote de Beaune (primarily white Chardonnay) to the south of Beaune extending to the world-class white wine village of Puligny-Montrachet.

We recently returned from a trip to Paris/Beaune and worked with Tara Hyland Universal Travel ([email protected]) in Houston, Texas, to handle our travel details.

Plan to stay three nights at L’ Hotel De Beaune as your base of operations. We have gotten to know owner Johan Bjorklund over many visits. Johan runs what is clearly Beaune’s premier hotel/bistro destination. The rooms are sizable and tastefully decorated. Bistro de l’Hotel is traditional French, warm and comfortable. The food is superb and, if your focus is Burgundy, the wine list almost impossible to match. You will find wines that are scarce and often impossible to find, even in Paris. By example, the wines of Chris Newman (see more on Chris and Domaine Newman here) are on Bistro’s wine menu. Chris is a good friend of Johan’s and a gentleman we had the great fortune to chat with over dinner.

The high-speed TGV from Paris to Dijon is fast and enjoyable. At Gare de Dijon, you can rent a car and make the short, easy drive south to Beaune. When you are making travel arrangements, keep in mind that most car agencies are closed between 12:15 and 2 p.m. (welcome to France). Or you can hire a Beaune-based car service to meet you at the station. This fall trip, David Verez of Bourgogne Avec Chauffeur picked us up in Paris. In the small-world category, David recognized us immediately and remembered that he had taken us on a private wine tour of the Cote D’Or several years ago. You will enjoy touring with David no matter your specific needs. L’Hotel de Beaune had made the arrangements for our initial wine tour with David, and Universal Travel made the arrangements for the Paris/Beaune service.

You will likely want to devote two days to your Cote d’Or field trip: one day to the Cote de Beaune and the other to Cote de Nuits. When touring Cote de Nuits, Au Clos Napoleon in Fixin (Fee’san) is a great place for lunch—pretty and rural, yet just minutes from the main road. David Verez originally introduced Au Clos Napoleon to us on our first wine tour with him. On your tour south in Cote de Beaune to Puligny-Montrachet (Pool’-een-yee), lunch at Hotel Le Montrachet (originally introduced to us on a Butterfield and Robinson bike tour; also highly recommended), or at Olivier LaFlaive. You can book LaFlaive’s wine tasting menu at olivier-laflaive.com. Either property works nicely for overnight stays.

To drive through the Cote de Beaune, leave L’Hotel de Beaune and take the old ring road that follows the ancient city walls of the compact city. Bypass the sign to Dijon and continue around the rotary until you are headed south to Pomard/Volnay on Route D973 Route de Pommard (scenic) or D974. Continue on D973 south through Monthelie, Auxey-Duresse, Mersault and finally into Puligny-Montrachet, where you will park in the main square for lunch at Le Montrachet. Take time to walk around this peaceful little wine village and to appreciate that you are on home base for the finest white Burgundy wine in the world.

After lunch head north to Beaune on the faster moving, yet scenic, D974. And enjoy your stay in legendary Burgundy.

A votre santé,

Debbie and Dick

P.S. For more on Burgundy read here, here and here.

Your federal tax dollars help  support the third highest average (far from it!) paying jobs. Cato’s director of tax policy studies Chris Edwards explains:

New data show that worker compensation is rising faster in the federal government than in the private sector. After rapid growth in federal pay during the George W. Bush years, growth slowed from 2011 to 2013 after policymakers enacted a partial freeze on federal wages.

That era of restraint is now over. The latest data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) show that wages rose 2.9 percent in the federal government in 2014, on average, compared to 1.7 percent in the private sector. When benefits such as pensions and health care are included, federal compensation increased 2.8 percent, on average, compared to 1.3 percent in the private sector.

Federal civilian workers had an average wage of $84,153 in 2014, compared to an average in the private sector of $56,350. The federal advantage in overall compensation (wages plus benefits) is even greater. Federal compensation averaged $119,934 in 2014, which was 78 percent higher than the private-sector average of $67,246. This essay discusses trends in federal and private pay.

The American Conservative’s Daniel Larison tells readers, “The real shame of Obama’s Syria policy is not that he has mocked his hawkish detractors, but that he has made the mistake of listening to them at all.”

Daniel writes, “The truth is that the mostly hawkish objections to current Syria policy are “half-baked” and always have been.”

Daniel responds to Bret Stephens’ recent Wall Street Journal op-ed:

Obama’s Syria policy is undoubtedly a mess, but not for any of the reasons Stephens gives. These examples are reminders that his hawkish critics really don’t have anything credible to offer as an alternative. Republicans that threaten to shoot down Russian jets over Syria and want to bomb Syrian government forces arewarmongers. They are openly agitating for policies that will take the U.S. to war against one or more foreign governments with potentially grave consequences for our country. Presenting them as irresponsible hard-liners is not an exaggeration or misrepresentation. It is a fact that they don’t like to have pointed out in public. Clinton may not be “playing politics” by supporting a “no-fly zone,” since that position puts her on the wrong side of most Democratic voters, but it’s perfectly true that presidential candidates can indulge in reckless posturing without serious consequences in a way that a sitting president can’t. In Clinton’s case, Obama was trying to soften the blow of dismissing her position as the folly that it is without explicitly ridiculing her. It’s not Obama’s fault if he correctly points out that his hawkish opponents make terrible arguments and endorse insane policies.

Here’s some on the ground video from VICE News of the battle in Syria. Be warned, some of this is graphic:

Confused on the labeling for fish: “organic,” “wild” or “farm raised”? You should be, because the USDA does not have organic-certification criteria for seafood. Food & Water Watch reports that any fish with an organic label is imported and is “organic” according to some other country’s standards.

Here is what an “organic” label means:

• It was farmed (not wild caught)
• It was produced in accordance with standards set by a private organization or by a country other than the U.S.

Here is what “farm raised” means:

• The fish was harvested from a controlled environment using standard aqua-cultural methods. The fish could come from a leased bed that uses artificial structures like predator protection. Or the fish was harvested from ocean-based pens. In either case, farmed seafood, like conventionally produced meat, may include chemicals. Antibiotics and added growth hormones are also often used.

Here is what “wild” means:

• The fish was caught or harvested from non-controlled waters (i.e., wild).

Here in The American Conservative, Gracy Olmstead delivers a shocker on the real meaning of organic and cage free, including a goodie from my favored Michael Pollan:

Back in 2007, Michael Pollan warned in his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma that terms such as Cage free” and “organic” could be more deceiving than you may think. He profiled several Whole Foods farmers whose products marked happy chickens and small sustainable farms. Sadly, the reality was often starkly different from the branding. “Free range” had but a fraction more space than their conventionally housed counterparts, and often-lived similarly putrid and unsavory existences. The idyllic little organic farm was often a large factory farm, treated with synthetic substances approved under USDA organic guidelines. [Read more here about The Cage-Free-Egg Sham]

It has been many years since Debbie and I shopped in a big box supermarket so prone to offering sub-par commercially grown food and miss-labeled food featuring government approved wording like natural and free range. We buy most of our food from our local farmers market where we know the growers and farmers. Real free-range chicken, by example, comes from birds that range free outside and are housed in small, airy, lean-to mobile sheds that are moved to fresh ground regularly by the farmers. The meat we buy comes from 100% pasture-raised cattle, that means the cattle are never fed corn, even in the finishing process.

Related video:

Reuters reports that House conservatives are supporting Congressman Daniel Webster as the next Speaker unless they see major changes in the way the House of Representatives is run.

The Freedom Caucus members said the decision to support Webster on Thursday does not bind them to vote as a bloc for the Florida conservative in the full-House vote. They will reserve judgment until they hear from the winner of Thursday’s ballot.

“Our intention is to go all the way to the floor (with Webster) unless real changes are made in how the House is run,” Representative Raul Labrador told reporters after the group met on Wednesday.

Labrador said more than 30 of the group’s members voted for Webster, meeting its 80 percent threshold for policy decisions.

Webster, 66, was first elected to Congress in the Tea Party wave of 2010 and was speaker of the Florida House of Representatives in the 1990s. Freedom Caucus members said he was best positioned to make the changes they want, with committees given more power over legislation and fewer backroom deals pushed onto the floor by their leaders.

I like Republican presidential candidate Bobby Jindal’s thinking on taxes. “We simply must require that every American has some skin in this game,” Mr. Jindal said in a written statement. “If we have generations of Americans who never pay any taxes, it will be very easy for them to turn a blind eye to absurd government spending and to continue to allow our government to bankrupt our nation.”

As the WSJ notes, Mr. Jindal acknowledged it would be controversial to expose lower-income Americans to taxation. “It re-establishes the idea that, in America, everyone is expected to help row the boat,” he  said in the release. “Independence, not dependence, is the root of the American dream. It’s time we had the guts to say so in public.”