Macy's drops Trump's menswear line over comments, keeps line from convicted felon Martha Stewart

New York Magazine's "definitive American woman of our time" in 1995 was convicted of four felonies in 2004. She spent five months in a Federal prison camp and five months in home confinement.

It's a good thing.

June 2015 temperature anomaly for Grand Rapids, MI: 1.7 degrees F below normal

The total cumulative anomaly for 2015 rises to 19.7 degrees F below normal through June, from 18 degrees below normal through May.

Obama lives in his own world, but Chris Christie lives in the long-dead NE liberal Republican world of compromise

Here:

“If Washington and Jefferson and Adams had believed compromise is a dirty word, we’d still be under the crown of England,” he said, promising to work with Democrats who had good ideas to fix America.

Last time I checked, Jefferson and Adams supported the General, George Washington, whom they appointed to SHOOT at the crown's representatives in America, the Redcoats, not to compromise with them.

You can blame The Greatest Generation for same sex marriage

From Joel Miller, here:

'The values changed all the way back in the forties and fifties. In that sense, the gay marriage battle was already over when Eisenhower was in the White House. How so?

'[Historian Alan] Petigny describes what he calls the Permissive Turn, a liberalization of values that happened following World War II. Some of it came down to a “renunciation of renunciation.” The war had demanded a great deal of austerity and self-sacrifice. But with Germany and Japan subdued, it was time to live it up. Americans plowed their prosperity into material self-gratification. But there was more.

'At the same time, the culture witnessed a shift in the way we viewed human nature. We swapped the traditional American view, grounded in a certain pessimism inherited from the Protestant understanding of original sin, for the newly refurbished and Americanized psychotherapy. ... Religion, morality, even reality were now questions of self-fulfillment—making truth subjective and traditional truth claims irrelevant and meaningless.'

President signs Trade Promotion Authority (Fast Track) knocked off the news by Supreme Court decisions

The Senate passed TPA last Wednesday, on the 24th, 60-38, but the next day ObamaCare was upheld by the Supremes and the following day Same Sex Marriage, both of which sensational developments obliterated the trade story from the news cycle. The trade vote story from last Wednesday is here. The roll call vote is here. Once again just five Republicans in the Senate voted against the job-destroying measure: Collins, Cruz, Paul, Sessions and Shelby. The same five who voted against bringing the measure to the floor.

The signing story from today is here.

They do what they want to do. We have no say in the matter. But if we vote for any of the principals, we are complicit in the deed.

The country is shell-shocked by it all, walking about in a daze, the part of it that cares anyway.

Obama has had a huge week, winning everything consequential, with Republican help in the Congress and the Court, meaning Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader McConnell and Reagan appointee Justice Kennedy.

The only thing Obama lost and the people won was the Supremes' rebuke of the EPA on coal. Your electric bill will go up later rather than sooner.

The last days of this administration are dark indeed.

John Kasich is a cheese-eating surrender monkey just like Paul Ryan

Trump: NBC stands behind lyin' Brian Williams, but not behind me

From the story here:

After NBCUniversal severed its relationships with Donald Trump on Monday, the billionaire businessman and presidential candidate responded by invoking suspended NBC anchorman Brian Williams and threatening to meet NBC in court. ...

"If NBC is so weak and so foolish to not understand the serious illegal immigration problem in the United States, coupled with the horrendous and unfair trade deals we are making with Mexico, then their contract violating closure of Miss Universe/Miss USA will be determined in court. Furthermore, they will stand behind lying Brian Williams, but won't stand behind people that tell it like it is, as unpleasant as that may be."

ObamaCare is a problem created by Congress: Congress should have fixed it, not the Supremes

Deb Saunders, here:

'As a conservative, I think it serves the country best if elected officials, not judges, repair what's wrong in Obamacare. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a 2016 GOP presidential hopeful, hit the right note when he said he did not agree with the ruling. "It was never up to the Supreme Court to save us from Obamacare," he said in a statement issued Thursday.

'Because the Democratic Congress wrote a heavy-handed provision that the Obama White House determined it was best to ignore, the Supreme Court got handed a live grenade. With all the Democratic justices on board, Roberts jumped on the grenade -- leading with a bogus argument.'

Obstruction of justice: Hillary Clinton caught lying about turning over "all" emails to State Department

From The New York Times report, here:

The State Department said on Thursday that 15 emails sent or received by Hillary Rodham Clinton were missing from records that she has turned over, raising new questions about whether she deleted work-related emails from the private account she used exclusively while in office. ... State Department officials then crosschecked the emails from Mr. Blumenthal with the ones Mrs. Clinton had handed over and discovered that she had not provided nine of them and portions of six others. Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, who is running for president, said that she had given the State Department “over 55,000 pages of materials,” including “all emails in her possession from Mr. Blumenthal.”

The Cars crash: You're all I've got tonight!

Senate Republicans reach peak stupidity, receive praise from liberals Bob Dole and Trent Lott

Run for the barf bag. Americans elected Republicans to stop Obama, but instead they are helping him, and liberal Republicans Bob Dole and Trent Lott are tickled pink that Mitch McConnell is making it happen.

Here.

Trump understands that JOBS are Americans' main concern

So says John Crudele, here:

'I think Donald Trump — if he can stop himself from saying crazy things about his wealth, immigration and such — will be a very important factor in the 2016 election. Why? Because he understands that the main concern in this country today is the economy — which is another way of saying “jobs.” That was the chief thing on people’s minds in 2012 and during the last congressional election in 2014. It still is today and will be throughout the primaries and right up to the 2016 election. “I will be the greatest job president God ever created,” Trump said last week. People are worried about immigration because the newcomers will take the scant jobs available. China is bothersome because its manufacturing might is sapping jobs from the US. One group in this country doesn’t like another group because we are all fighting for the same jobs. Jobs, jobs, jobs!'

Ann Coulter: No greater army ever took the field than the Confederate Army

Ann Coulter, here:

"The Confederate flag we're talking about never flew over an official Confederate building. It was a battle flag. It is to honor Robert E. Lee. And anyone who knows the first thing about military history, knows that there is no greater army that ever took the field than the Confederate Army."

Retire your own damn flag: This one stands for murdering the unborn and for faggotry

Just 5 Senate Republicans voted against advancing TPA to a vote, which succeeded 60-37

Collins of Maine

Cruz of Texas

Paul of Kentucky

Sessions of Alabama

Shelby of Alabama

Corker of Tennessee and Lee of Utah didn't bother to vote.

Make no mistake: 47 Republicans made this happen, with the cooperation of 13 Democrats.

Did Americans elect Republicans to help Obama, or stop him? If it were to help him, wouldn't it have been easier to elect Democrats?

The Roll Call is here.

Neanderthal US General Stephen Wilson should know about raising rhetoric, compares Vladimir Putin to Adolph Hitler

You should be very afraid when a man with his finger on the nuclear trigger like General Wilson exposes himself as a demonizing thinker. The man is at the top of US Global Air Strike Command but has the intellectual subtlety of an anvil.

Here:

Lieutenant General Stephen Wilson, commander of US Global Air Strike Command, said: “I don’t think we’ve ever seen so much power put in one person in Russia, and some of the things happening there are troubling and concerning for everybody.” He added: “[They’ve] annexed a country, changing international borders, raising rhetoric unlike we’ve heard since the cold war times, and so lots of people are trying to figure out what is the strategic intent of Russia. Some of the actions by Russia recently we haven’t seen since the 1930s, when whole countries were annexed and borders were changed by decree.”

Europe's being invaded by Muslims and all you care about is Kim Kardashian's big butt

Taki here:

"First we had the suicide of two world wars, then a de-Christianized Europe led by the crooks in Brussels conning everyone about the need for cheap labor and letting in millions upon millions of Muslims. Charles Martel stopped them in Tours, Don John in Lepanto, and John Sobieski at the Vienna gates, but now they’re in and they’re staying. ... The fourth and final African invasion is taking place as I write this, but most of the media are busy covering Jay Z, the Kardashians, and the odd white policeman who handcuffs a black criminal."

Republican establishment already wants to exclude Trump from televised debates because he naturally overshadows everyone else

featured in the story

The Wall Street Journal eagerly reports here, deliberately featuring a ridiculous photograph of Trump:

Some in the GOP are counseling that Mr. Trump be kept out of candidate forums and debates. “His involvement in any televised debate will be damaging,” said Matt Mackowiak, a Republican strategist based in Texas. “It is my sincere hope that he is blocked from participating.” “He’s a very toxic addition to the field,’’ said Katie Packer Gage, deputy campaign manager of Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. Mr. Trump so far has been invited to a number of GOP candidate forums, including one sponsored by the conservative website RedState slated for early August in Atlanta. Erick Erickson, the editor in chief of RedState, said he had concerns about including Mr. Trump but extended an invitation. “We invited him yesterday,” Mr. Erickson said. “I like him. … There is a level of the conservative base who like him. My concern is that I don’t want the other candidates to be overshadowed by Trump.”

Desperate Hillary Clinton blames church violence on Donald Trump, must be really afraid of his candidacy

ABCNews' story is here.

Minus TAA, Fastrack Trade Authority passes the House 218-208 thanks to 28 Democrats

The measure faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where TAA is critical for Democrat support.

Just 50 Republicans voted against the so-called free-trade measure both times (the latest Roll Call vote is here), vs. 54 previously (Gosar, Jolly and Young of Alaska didn't vote this time, and Yoho switched to "Aye", while previous "Aye" votes Byrne, Rodney Davis, and Kelly of Mississippi didn't vote this time):

Aderholt Amash Brat Bridenstine Brooks (AL) Buck Burgess Clawson (FL) Collins (GA) Collins (NY) Cook Donovan Duncan (SC) Duncan (TN) Farenthold Fleming Garrett

Gibson Gohmert Griffith Harris Hunter Jenkins (WV) Jones Jordan Joyce Katko Labrador LoBiondo Lummis MacArthur Massie McKinley Meadows Mooney (WV) Mulvaney

Nugent Palmer Pearce Perry Poliquin Posey Rohrabacher Rothfus Russell Smith (NJ) Webster (FL) Westmoreland Wittman Zeldin