Robert Mueller contributed money to anti-marriage, pro-Obama crackpot William Weld in 1996

Reported here:

Mr. Mueller made two contributions in 1996 to Republican William Weld, then a candidate for a U.S. senate seat in Massachusetts, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics.

From my lips to God's ears: Death Wish is back, starring Bruce Willis

Trailer here.

White House renovations August 4-21, so Trump's headed to New Jersey

Not Martha's Vineyard.

Insane libertarian fixation on mortgage interest deduction, edition 4716

You would think a libertarian would acknowledge that shielding YOUR money from taxation is a good thing, but you would be wrong. There are at least seven tax loss expenditures more costly to the tax man than the mortgage interest deduction, but their crazy war on it continues nonetheless. What it masks is the underlying hatred of conservatism homeownership represents. Homeowners settle down and raise kids instead of sacrificing themselves to the needs of global capitalists. That's their real problem with it.

Mark Krikorian must be spending too much time in the sun this summer

Laugh of the Day: Mickey Kaus does the math CBS-DFW cannot

That's right Mickey. 92.22% to be exact.

Grand Rapids, Michigan, climate update for July 2017

Mean average temperature was 72.5 degrees F in July 2017 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The mean is 72.2. The average to date is 50.0. The mean to date is 46.7.

The lowest minimum temperature was 53. The mean is 49.

The highest maximum temperature was 90. The mean is 94. July is the warmest month of the year by average temperature (above), so it's not going to be a very hot summer since it's all downhill from here.

Precipitation was 1.12 inches. The mean is 3.13.

Cooling degree days came to 240, which is the mean. The total to date is 432. The mean to date is 422.

I have corrected my climate update for June 2017. Either I or NWS reported incorrect figures for lowest minimum temperatures and for cooling degree days, not sure which. I noticed the discrepancy today and fixed it. May 2017 checks out OK.

The three month Oceanic Nino Index value has averaged -0.32 over the last eleven months, climbing to +0.5 in the last measurement period in April-May-June after a weak cooling event in the Pacific lasting five months.  

America is a country full of addictive drug users: 92 million opioid users in 2015, 2 million abusers

From the story here:

"A very large proportion and large number of adults use these medications in a given year," said study author Dr. Wilson Compton, deputy director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Bethesda, Maryland. "I was still a bit surprised that 38 percent or about 92 million people used prescription opioids in 2015."

Stupid Donald Trump decides to own the stock market, and when it crashes he will

Whence the "credulity baked into the culture to make room for a Bernie Madoff"?

Pondered here rather lazily.

May I suggest:

What's the difference between Australia and The United States?

The crooks went to Australia against their will.

Most Obamacare mandate fines last year came from far more low to moderate income people than CBO estimated

In other words, Obamacare penalizes people who can least afford it.

Obamacare is just another case of liberals raising taxes on the have-nots and screwing up their healthcare in the process.

From Jed Graham, here:

What is striking about the data is that the average payment is barely higher than the minimum payment of $695. Since people were required to pay the greater of $695 or 2.5% of taxable income above the filing threshold ($10,350 in 2017), one takeaway is that most of the $2.8 billion in fines paid through April appear to have come from people with modest to moderate incomes. As a frame of reference, CBO's 2014 analysis implied that the average mandate payment for this tax season would be roughly $1,075 and that the total amount paid by people earning up to three times the poverty level would barely exceed $1 billion. ... Based on mandate collections that streamed in after April in prior years, the full-year total is likely to rise to roughly 5 million tax forms with mandated payments totaling closer to $4 billion [an average Obamacare individual mandate fine of $800].

Laugh of the Day: CNBC says US Dollar moves lower after Scaramucci fired

NASA temperature data tampering puts Amundsen's Northwest Passage in the tenth coldest year on record

Story here.

Are we sure Scaramucci's wife isn't a guy?

Out goes the Mooch after soiling the carpet

Now you see him, now you don't. A veritable turd flying at the speed of light, who wiped out both Sean Spicer and Reince Priebus in one fell swoop. Or should I say poop?

Mission accomplished, he's gone.

Wouldn't it have been cleaner doing it the usual way?

Story here.

Watch Rep. Louie Gohmert expose the FBI's Robert Mueller for his incompetence in the Boston bombing case

Watch Mueller squirm, here, as Gohmert makes him admit he was never aware the mosque which radicalized the Boston bombers was started by the convicted terrorist A. Alamoudi.

Orange County Register thinks Trump has a point, correctly calls for an end to the filibuster rule in the Senate

Here:

The 60-vote requirement to cut off debate isn’t in the Constitution. In fact, the opposite is true. The Constitution’s forerunner in 1781, the Articles of Confederation, required the approval of nine of the thirteen states to pass a law, but that supermajority provision was conspicuously absent from the document hammered out at the convention in Philadelphia in 1787 after the Articles were replaced.

Laugh of the Day: The New York Times' David Brooks is a conservative the same way Obama is a Christian

But he sort of repeats himself, here in the comments section.

John McCain's exit strategy