1. The US Department of Justice decides that Bud and Miller owning a combined 70% of the American beer market and 30% of the world market does not constitute a monopoly. "Don't worry," says the DoJ. "We've made deals with them." Meanwhile, the companies say that the merger will help them compete with craft brewers. It's good to know that our government is protecting mega-corporations from the little guys.
2. Ted Cruz refuses to endorse Donald Trump. Let's see. At the Republican convention in 1976, Reagan endorsed the man who beat him in the primaries (Gerald Ford) and went on to become President when his turn came four years later. Hillary endorsed Obama at the Democratic convention in 2008 after her beat her in the primaries and went on to become her party's nominee eight years later. Cruz...is Cruz.
3. Police shoot Charles Kinsey, on camera, while Kinsey was lying on his back with his hands in the air. Next to him, an autistic adult plays with a toy truck. We learn later that the cop who shot Kinsey was aiming for the disabled man. And missed. Three times.
We have to be careful. We can't get used to this. Just as we can't get used to the police being ambushed. Both circumstances are indefensible. You don't have to be on one side or the other. Senseless violence on both sides has to stop.
4. Hillary picks Kaine. In doing so, she pisses off Bernie Sanders. Makes sense. George McGovern wasn't progressive enough for Sanders, so Sanders worked for Spock. (Not Mr. Spock. Dr. Benjamin Spock. The baby doctor. Are you old enough to remember that he ran for President?)
So although Kaine consistently is rated 100% by Planned Parenthood (and the anti-gun lobby and many labor groups and many civil rights groups...), and although Kaine did mission (not missionary) work in Central America becoming fluent in Spanish, and although Kaine started his professional life as a civil rights lawyer, Kaine is just not progressive enough for Progressives.
DEMOCRAT BONUS: "I wouldn't vote for her for dog catcher." A Midwestern delegate to the Democrat convention who has never met Hillary much less worked with Hillary decides that she knows Hillary better than Bernie and Michelle and Barack and Warren and Biden and Jimmy Carter and the Presidents of the NEA and NARAL and so on and so on. Maybe she should vote for Susan Sarandon.
REPUBLICAN BONUS: Trump says that his sacrifices...working very hard and building big buildings...are equivalent to that of the Muslim Blue Star parents of a dead Marine hero. Trump also said that the NFL wrote him a letter complaining about the scheduling of the Presidential debates. The NFL says emphatically that they didn't. See either picture above for my take on The Donald's latest forays into theater of the absurd.
