True to his parasitical nature, Sanders loves the idea of the party but has little interest in actually supporting it. He has raised only $1,000 for the Democratic Party's fundraising alliance, while Hillary Clinton, who is many things but assuredly not a parasite, has raised $26.9 million.

Then again, as a result of their association with the Democratic Party in the last sixteen years the Clintons have earned $153 million for themselves as celebrity speakers (assuming it was for their celebrity that they were so lucratively engaged).

And to hear Trump tell it without any contradiction I've heard, he's ponied up plenty enough cash to Republicans over the years for him to argue that he's long been the host in the relationship. That, and he carried plenty of water for them, which party wasn't complaining about, on the birther issue.

Normally at this point in the election cycle the GOP would be gearing up for attacks on their anticipated Democratic rival for the White House. But party leaders are so distraught at the idea of the blustery businessman heading the ticket, that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has taken to advising candidates to keep their distance from Trump.

According to the New York Times, McConnell is assuring Senate candidates running for reelection that they should feel free to run ads against Trump if they feel he is hurting their own campaigns. According to senators attending private lunches with the Majority Leader, McConnell is taking the approach that Trump will lose badly in the general election and that senators should sell themselves as a bulwark against a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Pointing out that he still won easily when President Bill Clinton was reelected, McConnell reportedly told colleagues that the party will drop Trump "like a hot rock" if he is the nominee

If you've never seen it, it's worth the time. Not the story really.  Just the visuals.  I set it to record because I want to do some frame stepping.   Not the characters.   They are very simple.   But everything else.  In other words the stuff I used to do.   The world, the lighting and camera work.   Very beautiful.

I would probably watch it with the sound down.

Avery's lawyer, Kathleen Zellner, was able to free wrongfully convicted Ryan Ferguson a few years ago.  I followed that frustrating case.  

For Al Jazeera America online, no human tragedy could be reduced to a statistic or dismissed as the collateral damage of another's self-defense or an inevitable consequence of geography, politics, class, race, sect or ethnicity. Poverty, violence and environmental degradation are not immutable forces of nature; they are the product of choices made by those in power.

Scalia's empty Supreme Court seat has cost Dow Chemical $835 million.

That is how much the chemical company is paying in a decade-old lawsuit that was heading to the top court. Dow decided the death of Justice Scalia, a conservative judge, changed the balance of the suit and settled.

Dow's decision puts to rest the urethane price-fixing suit. Dow thought it had a good shot at setting aside a lower court's $1.06 billion award to the plaintiffs on the grounds that it violated class-action law.

Justice Scalia's death threw a wrench into this calculation, however. Not only did Dow cite two cases with rulings written by Justice Scalia in its arguments to the Supreme Court, but a split vote -- now possible with four conservative judges and four liberals -- means lower court decisions stand.