Bloglander

ON INLANDER.COM

It's kind of a big deal
Anchorman and Step Brothers are going to be a Suds and Cinema double feature in August.

Everybody Reads is back in black
Black River is the new Everybody Reads book.

Arresting developments
Kids are being arrested less often in Spokane Public Schools, but there significant racial disparities still exist.

The line between prosecution and persecution
Two accused in a marijuana grow case escape a maximum sentence as the U.S. attorneys prosecuting them are accused of "vindictive prosecution."


IN OTHER NEWS

Let's talk about sex-ed, baby
After news came out that Spokane Public Schools may be using a sex-ed curriculum partly developed by Planned Parenthood, droves of angry emails and emphatic petitions flooded in. (Spokesman-Review)

The Maverick flies again
For a moment, reflect on how insane this is: John McCain, who Barack Obama defeated to win the presidency in 2008, returns from the hospital — facing the prospect of near-certain death in the next few years — to cast the deciding vote to cement Obama's legacy.

The proposal — a so-called "skinny repeal" — had been widely derided across the organizational spectrum. Conservatives hated it because it left most of Obamacare intact. Liberals hated it because it repealed the unpopular piece arguably holding the whole law together. Remove the individual mandate, and a lot of healthy people won't bother to buy health insurance, driving up prices for everybody else and destroying the individual market. That's what happened in Washington state back in 1995.

But in the end, "skinny repeal" was defeated, thanks to Republican Sens. McCain, Susan Collin, and Lisa Murkowski. Don't expect Republicans to stop trying to repeal Obamacare — even McCain thinks it deserves to go. But for now, the campaign promise of the president who said of the war-hero McCain, "I like people that weren't captured," has been defeated. (Washington Post)

Speak to me, Mooch
So Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director, calls up Ryan Lizza at the New Yorker and launches into a profanity-peppered rant about staff leaks, Reince Priebus' scheming,  and Steve Bannon's flexibility.  Oh, and he's on the record the entire time. Later, he tried to argue that perhaps he didn't think he was on the record, and the reporter had betrayed him. Which, if true (it isn't: Lizza has the recordings) would make Scaramucci precisely the sort of leaker he's decrying. (New Yorker)