* One of the deep ironies of our time is how conservatives have branded themselves as the great defenders of the U.S. Constitution and yet, almost daily, we have to wonder if they have any idea what is actually in it (other than the Second Amendment, of course). For example:
Democrats including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Mazie Hirono (Hawaii) made repeated requests Wednesday to confirm a batch of Obama’s judicial nominees who are ready for votes. Each time they tried, Tillis objected and suggested the Senate shouldn’t be spending time on judges.
“What we get are things that have nothing to do with doing our jobs,” he said. “I’m doing my job today and objecting to these measures so we can actually get back to pressing matters.”
Perhaps someone needs to read Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution to Sen. Tillis. Just sayin…
* One of the dangers of having candidates who say outrageous things all the time is that we can become immune. Today Greg Sargent highlights something Trump said that was particularly loathsome.
O’REILLY: There will be by the end of the summer 10,000 Syrian refugees. Twenty percent women. Sixty percent children. Twenty percent men….do you consider those people threats? Do you consider them security threats?
TRUMP: Of course I do. We have no idea in many cases — and I’ve been studying the situation so closely, law enforcement says that you really can’t tell where they come from — they may be ISIS, this could be the great Trojan Horse of all time. This could be the ultimate Trojan Horse.
Emphasis mine.
* The Trump/Pence campaign released their logo today.
Much hilarity immediately erupted on twitter. Some of it is not suitable for children and/or work environments. But these should give you a good idea of where things went.
What is the T doing to that P? https://t.co/tDvYm2QJYi
— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) July 15, 2016
* Did you hear the one about #ObamaJAMA?
Barack Obama just became the first sitting president to publish a scholarly article.
The article, titled “United States Health Care Reform: Progress to Date and Next Steps,” with “Barack Obama, JD” listed as the author, was published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (known as JAMA) on July 11.
It’s a pretty badass move for a president, and he got a lot of love on Twitter with the hashtag #ObamaJAMA.
* Timothy Egan writes: “With Obama, the Personal is Presidential.”
As we saw again this week, when he took the deep breath for us, when he begged us not to let hearts turn to stone when the world is a quarry of hate, he is at his best when the rest of us are at our worst. We will long remember him singing “Amazing Grace” at that service for people slaughtered in a Charleston church, their deaths a hate crime. And we may well remember him trying to wring something teachable from the ambush of police officers; their deaths also a hate crime.
“All of us, we make mistakes,” he said. “And at times we are lost. And as we get older, we learn we don’t always have control of things — not even a president does. But we do have control over how we respond to the world. We do have control over how we treat one another.”…
What’s remarkable is that Obama hasn’t turned Nixonian or hard.
* Finally, a friend of mine posted this song on Facebook yesterday. I thought that was a wise move. So I decided to pass it along too.
