1. According to a report in Automotive News, Ford and General Motors discussed a merger in July.
2. The price of gasoline has gone down 50 cents in a month. How much lower can it go before the election? (Thanks to mjh’s blog for focusing my thought on this one.)
3. Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez‘s favorite books include “Les Misérables” by Victor Hugo and “Don Quixote” by Cervantes. Also “Dude, Where’s My Country?” by Michael Moore.
4. Charles P. Pierce thinks the president is on the edge:
This all came back to me because, quite frankly, I think the president of the United States is getting ready to slug somebody. And, based on several recent on-camera performances, all of them readily available to anyone who wants to watch, you wouldn’t have to say anything about his momma, his wife, his kids, his dogs, or the fundamental legitimacy of his pedigree to get him to throw down on your ass like the genuine Earnie (The Acorn) Shavers. It appears that all that would be necessary is for you push a question about his policies beyond the limits of whatever talking-points he has on the subject.
… There are presidents who can rise above it, and presidents who can’t, but none of them ever looked like they were ready to toss hands because people questioned their right to torture. It’s become truly startling how close we seem to be coming to the “Because I said so, that’s why” moment.
5. John Yoo understands American history a little differently than I learned it.
But the founders intended that wrongheaded or obsolete legislation and judicial decisions would be checked by presidential action, just as executive overreaching is to be checked by the courts and Congress.
6. Path to 9/11 writer Cyrus Nowrasteh is even more delusional.
I felt duty-bound from the outset to focus on a single goal–to represent our recent pre-9/11 history as the evidence revealed it to be. The American people deserve to know that history: They have paid for it in blood.
… Fact-checkers and lawyers scrutinized every detail, every line, every scene. There were hundreds of pages of annotations. We were informed by multiple advisers and interviews with people involved in the events–and books, including in a most important way the 9/11 Commission Report.