I'm With Amanda Marcotte: Go Donald Go

Of course, I hope we're not wrong.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I like Trump — I hate him with the passion of a thousand burning suns — or that I want him to be president. But yes, I think he should win the Republican nomination. He’s run the best campaign, one that speaks to what Republican voters want to hear, and, by that measure, he deserves to win the nomination, so that Hillary Clinton can wipe the floor with him in November.

Bookmarking Fallows

Haven't had a chance to read this so I'm just putting it up as a bookmark.

This was a side piece that was appreciably shorter and thus I was able to make it through. It's 11 sign a city will succeed. I live in a village, but I'm sure the same principles apply. He saved the best, and strangest, for last.

They have craft breweries. One final marker, perhaps the most reliable: A city on the way back will have one or more craft breweries, and probably some small distilleries too. 

This piece also accompanied the article. In Glens Falls we have the Crandall Library which is the most wonderful place. It is the source for my free internet, free movie rental, free books and cheap books, as the book sale was, and is, this weekend.

As we traveled around the U.S. reporting on the revival of towns and cities, we always made the local library an early stop. We’d hit the newspaper offices, the chamber of commerce, city hall, and Main Street for an introduction to the economics, politics, and stresses of a town. The visit to the public library revealed its heart and soul.

I really need to start supporting and frequenting the library in my current hometown more. If they had internet they would be my number one choice. Soon, I'm sure.

Odds and Ends

Starting with the Supreme Court situation in which President Obama once again proves supremely capable of trolling Republicans. I was a little concerned when I heard that Sandoval was a Republican because I wasn't aware that there were any sane ones left.

Sandoval is a well-regarded governor, Hispanic, and he's a Republican, although if he accepts this nomination, he's likely to be read out of the party forever. Opposing him would be blind and stupid. Sandoval has a reputation among many people as a devoted member of that ever-dwindling faction of the Republican Party that fairly can be called Not Insane. He is moderately pro-choice, considers marriage equality to be a done deal, signed the largest tax increase in Nevada's history, largely supports the president's position on immigration reform, and even has fought against his state legislature's attempts to enact tort reform. He also has sought to pry Nevada's economy loose from its dependence on the gaming industry. 

And here's a piece on why Jesus may no longer love us quite so much. 

In Matthew’s gospel (chapter 25) readers are taken to the time when God judges all the nations of the world. It is a rather terrifying scene because many of the people present are convinced that they are the legitimate inheritors of the Kingdom of God.

But God is not fooled. God simply asks: Did you feed the hungry, offer drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick and visit those in prison?

How will America fare in this time of judgment, especially when we admit as evidence the  millions of Americans (many of them children and the elderly) who do not have enough good food to eat, or the millions of Americans who have to drink water polluted with lead and industrial/agricultural pollutants?

What about the refugees and immigrants who are being refused at our borders and made to feel unwelcome in our land, or the homeless (many of them ill) who do not have a home and proper protection from the elements, or the prison inmates (many of them African American) who are treated like the garbage of society?

God is asking the nations about their public policy, not their verbal piety, because the true test of Christianity has only ever been the test of love.

I'm surprised He hasn't already come back to boot our asses off the city on the hill. 

And here's something that's absolutely no surprise. Students are not flocking to Texas schools with mad abandon knowing that they are now beacons of second amendment freedom. As well, educators at schools in the state are sending out their resumes to universities in areas where they might not be threatened at gun point for an "A." Go figure!

The faculty senate at the University of Houston prepared a slideshow for recent faculty forums warning that academics may want to “be careful discussing sensitive topics; drop certain topics from your curriculum; not ‘go there’ if you sense anger; limit student access off hours; go to appointment-only office hours; only meet ‘that student’ in controlled circumstances.”

A slide provides potential arguments against the policy, such as “most parents don’t want their underage children to attend a gun-enabled campus” and “The MILITARY doesn’t allow guns in barracks and classrooms (outside of weapons training), why should there be guns in dorms and classrooms?”

Hat tips to Shaw and Infidel753 for this:

Sensibility in Dealing with the Heroin Crisis

Hometown blog exists to salute common sense and battle the illogical force of uncommon sense. And bookmark stuff I like.

Today it bows deeply (if blogs could bow) to Peter Shumlin from neighboring Vermont.

Shumlin often thanks Vermonters for “changing their attitudes about addiction and opioid addiction.” The shift has encouraged so many addicts to come out of the shadows that the state’s treatment centers, despite an increase in number, have long waiting lists. Other states are experiencing the same problem as they move to a treatment-first model. In fact, much of the pitch by the governors in Washington was for more federal funding for drug treatment facilities.

Of course, a government in Afghanistan would probably help. In the meantime:

Shumlin says states also need federal help to curb the overprescription of powerful painkillers too often used for nonmedical purposes. “Until America is willing to have an honest conversation about the way we are dealing with pain, our challenges will continue,” he says.

Matt, The Insult Candidate

Haven't put up a Matt post in awhile. Here he is in action on the Post Star comment threads.

Woolf's campaign made the cowardly decision to use locals within the Democratic Party establishment

a primary may well have been exactly what Woolf needed to strengthen and boost his severely lackluster campaign

Mike Derrick is much more in the "Bill Owens/DINO/Blue Dog" comfort zone for most upstate Democrats

it's really not very surprising (especially in a Hillary election cycle) that the fake left party of the corporate status quo is putting pressure on people like Burke to "do the right thing" and support said status quo

Derrick will not see any DCCC money and will lose the race badly

the Democratic Party is just a sad and corrupted corporate cult, after all, not a democratic mechanism

Isn't he sweet? At least he's not calling on Mike Derrick to drop out of the race yet. 

I'm With You, Grimmy

My second favorite sport, after politics.

Here's some of that. Lisa Murkowski's twitter feed. Trolls unite!

Surprise! Obama Iced Scalia

The Daily Beast has a really good round-up of the nuts out there.

“I wish it was natural causes,” Jones said of Scalia’s death, which was determined to have been caused by a heart attack. “But my gut tells me no. If this is an assassination, it signifies that they’re dropping the hammer. That’s the canary in the coal mine.”

Yeah, you knew Alex would be in here. His gut tells him. That's good enough for me. 

“Maybe they’ll kill Ron Paul. Maybe they’ll kill Donald Trump next,” Jones said of the other red pudgy-faced man with whom he seems to share a deep bromance. “They all had heart attacks. How many more of these are we going to sit here and put up with? Or maybe their airplane blows up.”

Why the fuck would they kill Ron Paul? And I like Trump alive. He's done damage to the GOP brand that money can't buy.

Trump’s campaign did not respond when The Daily Beast asked if they were concerned about Obama’s plot to kill their candidate.

Really?

Trump, as he’s want to do, subtly egged on the wingnuts in an interview on Michael Savage’s radio show on Monday.

“It’s a horrible topic, but they say they found a pillow on his face, which is a pretty unusual place to find a pillow. I can’t give you an answer,” Trump said stoking the conspiracy flames.

Oh, he was busy with Michael Weiner. 

YouTube user NatureHacker—bearded and likely holed up in a bomb shelter with plenty of tinfoil hats—pointed out, Poindexter is a Vietnam War veteran who was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation by, wait for it, none other than President Obama.

I will warn you not to watch the clip with Nature Hacker. Lunacy can be contagious.

Mike King, a writer for the conspiracy website Tomato Bubble, and the author of two books detailing the rise of the New World Order, is pretty certain there was foul play involved in Scalia’s death.

“Is it also possible that an evil murdering homosexual communist President with only 10 months left in office could have ordered a hit so that he could drive that final nail into America’s coffin? Why not?” King, asking the questions on everyone’s mind, wrote.

See, Mike King watched it. And there's someone named Mark Dice who talks about the "heart attack" weapon. Actually, those may have been the  cigs Scalia smoked and the knife and fork he ate with. He didn't look like the picture of health. 

In any case, the Daily Beast missed the real villain behind this dastardly deed. 

The wild card in this equation is likely Leonard Nimoy, who various leaked reports have identified as the newest leader of the Illuminati.

I love Nimoy and am glad to see he's back and killing the enemies of darkness. Hail Spock!