Slight delay in blogging as I engaged in a pretty widespread Twitter debate over my post on Schweitzer and the disconnect between lefty opinion-leader and Democratic “base” attitudes. Head over there (@ed_kilgore) if you’re interested.

Here are some mid-day news/views snacks you can sample:

* Charlie Pierce has great fun with the latest Ben Carson effort to find appropriately evil analogues for Obamacare.

* MSNBC’s Disrupt With Karen Finney cancelled. Faithful echo-chamber for the MSNBC party line that I am, I never once watched the show or was even aware of its existence. Sorry, Karen.

* Growing conservative state government defiance of EPA climate-change regs highly reminiscent of efforts to sabotage Obamacare. More about that later.

* Bernie Sanders and John McCain reportedly close to bipartisan “response” to VA health system issues.

* HRC notes in response to GOP “concern” over her health that she’s had two fewer concussions than 2012 GOP Veep candidate Paul Ryan. Bazinga!

And in non-political news:

* Florida officials using donuts as bait in count of black bear population. Who knew bears liked donuts? Who knew there were black bears in Florida?

As we break for lunch, here’s another 1956 Elvis performance on the Milton Berle Show, this time featuring “Heartbreak Hotel.” Seems to be on a battleship.

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Ed Kilgore is a political columnist for New York and managing editor at the Democratic Strategist website. He was a contributing writer at the Washington Monthly from January 2012 until November 2015, and was the principal contributor to the Political Animal blog.