Monday Night, Jon Niese 7 Innings 6 Hits 2 Runs in 4-2 win.

Tuesday Night, Matt Harvey 8 Innings 4 Hits 0 Runs in 4-0 win.

Last Night, Jacob deGrom 7 Innings 2 Hits 0 Runs in 2-0 win.

The NL East lead stands at 3.5 games going into today's action.  '69 we had black cat mojo, '15 it's the yellow parakeet.  

Ms. Davis, the four times married, defender of traditional marriage is being advised by attorneys from the Christian law firm Liberty Counsel to keep on refusing, until the Appellate Court hears her case.

Judge Bunning, in his opinion wrote, "...Davis likely violated the US Constitution's ban on government establishing a religion by openly adopting a policy that promotes her own religious convictions at the expense of others."

In response to Davis, the judge noted that " Davis remains free to practice her Apostolic Christian beliefs.  She may continue to attend church twice a week, participate in Bible studies, and minister to female inmates at Rowan County jail.  She is even free to believe that marriage is a union between one man and one woman, as many Americans do.   However, her religious convictions cannot excuse her from performing the duties that she took an oath to perform as Rowan County Clerk."

Gloucester is taking a novel approach to the war on drugs, making the police station a first stop for addicts on the road to recovery.

Under a policy launched in June, heroin and opioid addicts who voluntarily turn themselves in at the station are fast-tracked into treatment services through a team of police officers, volunteers and trained clinicians.

They aren't charged with a crime, and much of their treatment cost is covered through public and private insurance, grants by service providers and by police using money seized from drug dealers.

They can even hand over drugs and drug paraphernalia to police, no questions asked.

This is revolutionary, and I hope it not only works, but that other departments see the value in of treatment vs. lock-up.

"It's the next logical step in the so-called war on drugs," says Gloucester Police Chief Leonard Campanello, a former narcotics officer who launched the effort. "We need to change the conversation."

...

Gloucester's efforts have not gone unnoticed.

A local nonprofit has been founded to support the program and export its ideas to other communities, some of which are already starting to come up with their own Gloucester-inspired efforts.

...

It's been a busy three days for Gloucester's program when The Associated Press drops in for a visit one Friday in July.

The young woman, whose name the AP is withholding because she alleges sexual abuse as well as domestic violence by her boyfriend, is the last of six addicts who have come through the station doors in a roughly 30-hour span.

"I know this isn't the life I want to live," says the Massachusetts native and a college graduate. "I just didn't know how to get out."

The woman says she landed at the police station after spending three days living on the street and shooting heroin. She eventually called a relative, who had heard about the Gloucester program and drove her to the police station.

Building trust with addicts is just a piece of the puzzle, Campanello says.

It doesn't stop there:

His department is working with pharmacies to provide discounted naloxone, an overdose-reversal drug, and pushing federal authorities to designate some of the money seized from drug dealers for treatment programs, as Gloucester does.

You scroll and scroll and spot check and then scroll some more.

And even while spot checking, I'm still anxious that I might have missed a sensible comment along the way.

Who knew Irving Pitlor was Rick Springfield?

The family's attorney Eric Bland told The Washington Post:

'The shots were so close in proximity to each other that it would be physically impossible unless the car was stopped and the officer came up very close to an open window.'

He also commented on the lack of outcry following his death, suggesting recent police-related shootings have received more press coverage.

'It's sad, but I think the reason is, unfortunately, the media and our government officials have treated the death of an unarmed white teenager differently than they would have if this were a death of an unarmed black teen.

'The hypocrisy that has been shown toward this is really disconcerting.'

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, in his Tuesday speech that was billed as a major foreign policy address, provided a distorted version of the U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq and an incorrect account of the origins of the Islamic State.

Bush vowed that if elected he would expand U.S. military intervention in the Middle East significantly. His version of events, however, seemed intended to absolve his brother, President George W. Bush, of blame in destabilizing the region while trying to pin the region's current bloodshed on President Barack Obama and his former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, the current Democratic presidential frontrunner.

The former Florida governor asserted that the Islamic State's takeover of large swaths of Iraq in 2014 was a direct consequence of the "fatal error" of Obama's decision to withdraw U.S. forces from the country in 2011 after the eight-year U.S. military occupation. He claimed the withdrawal squandered the "success, brilliant, heroic and costly," of the 2007 U.S. troop surge. He said Clinton "stood by as the hard-won victory by American and allied forces was thrown away."

Bush's account of the withdrawal as a "case of blind haste" omitted the fact that it was his brother who'd set the withdrawal date of Dec. 31, 2011, in an agreement that he signed with the Iraqi government in 2008.

He also neglected to note that the Iraqi government strongly opposed the continued presence of U.S. forces.

"The last American soldier will leave Iraq" as agreed, then-Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki said in a Dec. 2010 interview with the Wall Street Journal. "This agreement is not subject to extension, not subject to alternation. It is sealed."

Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve

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ii.)
assigned a stomach with bootstraps
pulling at heartstrings puts on new shoes

iii.)
our reactors run with hourly patches
minute to minute if clocking warts

iv.)
when thirst propositions an owner
never a spigot out back of the dunes

v.)
hurled a sledgehammer into the powder
& it disappeared in a dry white cloud

Carson, a Tea Party darling, has catapulted to number 2 in the Iowa CNN poll released yesterday (Trump 22%, Carson 17%). And,  he is Number 1, tied with Huckabee at 17%;on the issue of Abortion;  And on the criterion, "best represents values of Republicans like you," Carson is top banana, at Number 1. (14%).

A group calling itself the Islamic State hacking division has published the details of 1,400 mostly US military and government personnel, urging supporters to attack those listed.

The spreadsheet, published online on Wednesday, exposes names, email addresses, phone numbers and passwords. Those listed include members of the marine corps, Nasa, the state department, air force and FBI.

Supporters of Isis on Twitter seized on the breach, posting personal details of soldiers and government staffers and encouraging lone wolves to "act and kill".

Hopefully we can believe our government:

"This is the second or third time they've claimed that and the first two times I'll tell you, whatever lists they got were not taken by any cyber attack," the army chief of staff, Gen Ray Odierno, said on Wednesday.

"This is no different than the other two," he said, referring to earlier so-called hacks by Isis supporters in January and May.

"But I take it seriously because it's clear what they're trying to do ... even though I believe they have not been successful with their plan," he said.

• SB 227, which prohibits prosecutors from convening a grand jury in those cases involving alleged excessive or deadly force by law enforcement officers; and

• SB 411, which formally affirms the right of individuals to record the actions of law enforcement officers if the officers are a public place, or if the persons making the recordings have a right to be in that place.

Their findings: The No. 1 cause of on-the-job death for police is motor vehicle accidents. But gun deaths came second, they reported in the American Journal of Public Health.

"We were not surprised to find that firearm ownership is associated with homicide rates," Swedler told NBC news.

"The big surprise finding to me was the differences in homicide rates among officers in states with the lowest gun ownership compared to states with highest gun ownership," he added.

"Officers are three times more likely to be murdered on the job in high gun ownership states in comparison with low gun ownership states. That was the big wow for me."  

This is very surprising to me:

Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Mississippi and Montana were the states with the highest rates of both gun ownership and for law enforcement killings. Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island had the lowest per-capita rate for both.

"Hypothetically, officers might be put at increased risk if they are more frequently encountering violent criminals, but our data doesn't find that to be the case," he said. "We find that officers are at an increased risk for being killed the more frequently they encounter guns in public settings."

According to Ms. Britton in her book, contrary to her paramour's assurances that their daughter would always be provided for, there were no such provisions in his will for her care after his passing.

But when she approached Harding's family after his death and told them about Elizabeth, they told her to get lost, hence her decision to write the book and make money to support their daughter that way. For years afterward, Britton and her daughter were ridiculed, belittled and ostracized.

But recent DNA testing now provides conclusive evidence that Harding was indeed Elizabeth's biological father, belying longstanding counterclaims by Harding's family that this could not possibly be, because he had supposedly been rendered sterile by a case of the mumps.

Warren Harding may have been a mediocre president, but he sure had a way with women. Evidence of his womanizing ways had been suppressed posthumously by his widow and family for decades.

Only recently have historians begun to recount the man's rather prolific love life, aided and abetted by a few less-uptight Harding family members. In fact, it was Harding's grandnephew who arranged for DNA testing in this instance, because he believed Ms. Britton's claims and sought to prove them correct once and for all.

He also signed into law the Mulford Act, which outlawed "open carry" of firearms.  The author of that bill was Assemblyman Donald Mulford.  Here is a video of Mr. Mulford explaining why America needs tougher gun laws.  He cites the "well-regulated militia" phrase of the Second Amendment as part of his argument.

The gun laws proposed by Mr. Mulford are far stricter than any currently proposed by the most loony-left, anti-gun, liberal gun grabber.  Much of the argument boils down to the terrifying notion that Black people were purchasing guns.  

After years of holding herself above the law, telling lie after lie, and months of flat-out obstruction, HIllary Clinton has finally produced to the FBI her server and three thumb drives. Apparently, the server has been professionally wiped clean of any useable information, and the thumb drives contain only what she selectively culled. Myriad criminal offenses apply to this conduct.

Anyone with knowledge of government workings has known from inception that Hillary's communications necessarily would contain classified and national security related information. Thanks to the Inspector General for the Intelligence Community, it is now beyond dispute that she had ultra-Top Secret information and more that should never have left the State Department.

Equal to Ms. Clinton's outrageous misconduct is that of the entire federal law enforcement community. It has long chosen to be deliberately blind to these flagrant infractions of laws designed to protect national security--laws for which other people, even reporters, have endured atrocious investigations, prosecutions, and some served years in prison for comparatively minor infractions. During the same years that Hillary was communicating about national security and world affairs off the grid, the Department of Justice has had no qualms threatening news reporters and prosecuting whistleblowers under the Espionage Act.

It's high time for a special prosecutor to be named to conduct a full investigation into Ms. Clinton's likely commission of multiple felonies, including a conspiracy with Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, and possibly others, to violate multiple laws.

It was easy for the non-political advisers to say keep the troops in, because they wouldn't have had to deal with the consequences, as Obams would've had to if he left them in.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Got that?  Because if there is any part of "all topics welcome". Anyone is not understanding I will try to help.

It was easy for the non-political advisers to say keep the troops in, because they wouldn't have had to deal with the consequences, as Obams would've had to if he left them in.

His military and intelligence folks gave him the facts... Stay or bad things will happen. But he wanted to please his base so he cut and ran. And bad things have and are happening.

And here I keep hearing that Prez's are elected to lead.

Study some history. Go back to France not acting promptly when Hitler entered the Rhineland. Go back to Chamberlain trying to negotiate with Hitler for "Peace in our time."  

How'd that work out?

Try and understand that the goal of radical islamists is to establish a world wide Caliphate. You may think that foolish but look at how many people they have killed so far...and Iran will have a ICBM deliverable nuke in a few years. Read what bin Ladin said. And don't be confused over this Sunni Shia conflict. Whoever wins will turn and fight the West.

When fighting is necessary it is best to do so as quickly and hard as possible. Obama, for whatever reason, doesn't want to win. His strategy is making us the dope in the radical's "rope a dope" strategy. They have studied Vietnam and are executing perfectly.

Destabilizing the entire ME by invading Iraq.

If you're saying, "Sure, he was popular until he sold out to f*cking Hitler!" you're wrong. After he made the deal in Munich his popularity shot up to 68 percent--20 points higher than what Barack Obama gets right now in the USA. Above all else, the people did not want to get into another freaking war.

That's one thing some historians are trying remind everyone about Chamberlain these days. Making the deal with Hitler looks bad now, because we know how the movie ends. Not so easy at the time, when Chamberlain was at the head of a country whose military was in no shape to fight, and the only ones who had offered to stand with him if he threw down against the Nazis were the freaking French. There were no good options on the table.

So instead, he came back home from making the deal with Hitler having bought a period of peace that he spent rapidly building the military that would eventually be strong enough to repel the Nazis. And by the way, the main reason they were able to mobilize so quickly was because of an earlier national program to modernize the nation's factories. A program put in place by... Neville Chamberlain.

The debate rages among historians (and will probably rage in the comments) but the guy probably deserves better than to have his name thrown around as the political equivalent of "p*ssy."

Everyone understands that people do not want a war.

The issue is, how do we stay out of a really big one.

If France had reacted with strength Hitler had advised his military to pull back.

If England had said no, we won't agree with you, Hitler wouldn't have immediately attacked England. And England would have had the same amount of time to prepare. As to your link, vulgar words do not add cachet or insure accuracy. And worse, it avoids the point.

Everyone understands that people do not want a war.

The issue is, how do we stay out of a really big one.

If France had reacted with strength Hitler had advised his military to pull back.

If England had said no, we won't agree with you, Hitler wouldn't have immediately attacked England. And England would have had the same amount of time to prepare. As to your link, vulgar words do not add cachet or insure accuracy. And worse, it avoids the point.

Strong resistance sends the bully a message. Giving in encourages them.

And Chamberlain made even more mistakes. While he poured money into the airforce and navy, he shorted the army.

Under the "limited liability" doctrine, the Army suffered massive cuts while the Navy, and above all the RAF experienced a massive expansion.

After all, blame is important to you in winning your arguments here, and to deprive you of that would make you very poor indeed,

And, again, Hitler was the leader of a technically respectable nation that had much more in the way of  resources than oil sold on the black market and disaffected Islamacists around the world that are the main strengths of ISIS.

Your fear of an ISIS infection spreading over the Middle East is irrational, and at has lead you to another specimen of an  irrational chain of specious logic that you've again entertained us with today.

You should also note that it was around a year between the time Chamberlain proclaimed peace in our time and the war started.

But all of this is trivial. The point is that Chamberlain tried to negotiate, surrendered and was attacked.

Obama has tried to negotiate, and like Chamberlain, surrendered.

Link

Link

And I have lots more.

And did you also miss this??

Read what bin Ladin said. And don't be confused over this Sunni Shia conflict. Whoever wins will turn and fight the West.