GOP CUTS TO JOSH STEIN'S STAFF COULD MAKE ITS MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein has spent the past several weeks asking other state agencies to contribute money from their budgets to pay for the work of assistant attorneys general who might have to be laid off to comply with a surprise $10 million budget cut. Stein, a Democrat and former state senator from Wake County, found out shortly before the new fiscal year began July 1 that his office would lose that state money. Legislative leaders didn’t call his office, he said, to talk about a proposal that showed up only in the final version of the state budget after not being included in either the state House or Senate spending plans.
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article162740648.html

But if you fly here in a jet at 27,500 feet, and look out the window...*sigh* Never mind:

The Flat Earth International Conference will be Nov. 9-10 at the Embassy Suites off of Harrison Avenue. The event’s 525 tickets sold out in May, according to organizer Robbie Davidson. But he’s working with the venue to accommodate 50 to 60 more people.

Alternative theories about the planet’s shape vary within the flat-earth community. But most globe skeptics contend the earth is a disc surrounded by an ice wall, otherwise known as Antarctica, and that the sun and moon are lighted orbs that move around a dome that encloses the disc.

File this one under, "It's even crazier than you thought." A dome? With lighted orbs? I have so many questions, but probably the most nagging question is: How can these people actually have jobs that would allow them to afford going to the Embassy Suites for anything other than directions to their psychiatrist's office? Scratch that, they wouldn't be able to afford a psychiatrist, either.

Better break out the smelling salts:

Religious leaders gathered in the Oval Office laid hands on President Donald Trump to pray that God gives him guidance, wisdom and protection. On MSNBC’s “AM Joy” on Saturday morning, Barber called the prayer “theological malpractice bordering on heresy.” “It is a form of theological malpractice that borders on heresy when you can p-r-a-y for a president and others when they are p-r-e-y, preying on the most vulnerable,” Barber said. “You’re violating the most sacred principles of religion.”

Barber’s comments set the North Carolina Republican Party ablaze. In a news release on Sunday, the party said it was “shocked and outraged” over Barber’s “claim that it’s a sin to pray for President Trump.”

Barber's right. I've never seen such a level of religious hypocrisy than that which surrounds Trump. He not only violates the Ten Commandments on a daily (if not hourly) basis, he doesn't even remotely resemble what the New Testament outlines as a good Christian, let alone a leader of such. And where is the GOP's outrage when televangelists describe Trump as some sort of Prophet, divinely inspired by God? Crickets. Make no mistake, Trump's embrace of religious dogma has a lot more to do about coldly calculating the number of Christians out there than it does any sort of heart-felt beliefs:

WITH TWO MORE REPUBLICANS DEFECTING, MCCONNELL GIVES UP ON SENATE HEALTHCARE BILL: After Republican Sens. Mike Lee and Jerry Moran said Monday evening they would not vote to advance the GOP healthcare bill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said he would abandon the effort to repeal and immediately replace Obamacare. McConnell said in a statement Monday night that the two senators defections made it “apparent that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failure of Obamacare will not be successful.” Instead, McConnell endorsed an approach supported by President Donald Trump to repeal the Affordable Care Act without immediately replacing it with different health care legislation.
http://www.newsobserver.com/latest-news/article161888003.html