Happy Thursday. Today is National Beer Day, when we mark the day in 1933 that legal beer sales began after 13 years of prohibition, which is now generally known in America as “childhood.”

AFTER FAILING TO SAVE Americans from the scourge of universal health coverage, Ted Cruz is now trying to protect the nation from another threat: Donald Trump losing the general election in a massive landslide that could cost Republicans the White House, both houses of Congress and up to four appointments to the Supreme Court in one election.

THE NEW YORK TIMES today suggests the party’s biggest donors are “learning to love Mr. Cruz,” even though the man who some observers say resembles all of The Munsters in one would be the “most extreme right wing nominee in modern American history,” according to pollster Geoff Garin and anyone who has ever listened to Ted Cruz speak.

“IT'S NOT JUST, ‘Would you rather be shot or poisoned?’” GOP strategist Kellyanne Conway said, referring to the choice between Cruz or Trump. “Now it’s, ‘This isn’t so bad.’” Cue the inspirational music!

DONALD BLANKENSHIP – the former chairman and CEO of Massey Energy, the sixth largest coal company and leading producer of future drought and famine – will reportedly serve one year in prison, one year of supervised release and pay $250,000.

IF YOU SELL CANCER VICTIMS pot you could go to prison for years, but this is the maximum punishment for conspiring to break mine-safety rules (this particular mine got 5,000 citations from the federal Mine Safety & Health Administration), which led to 2010’s Upper Big Branch explosion that killed 29 men.

“THERE'S NO DIRECT EVIDENCE that I committed any crime,” Blankenship told U.S. District Judge Irene Berger. At least 3 percent of climate scientists agree with that statement.

COUNTRY MUSIC'S ONLY REAL-LIFE OUTLAW Merle Haggard has died at the age of 79 of double pneumonia, because single pneumonia didn’t stand a chance against Merle Haggard.

AFTER A CHILDHOOD as a prototypical dust bowl refugee/Steinbeck character (he was raised in a derailed train car and lost his dad when he was only 9) turned Haggard to crime, a Johnny Cash concert in San Quentin prison was all the rehabilitation the young man needed.

LESS THAN THREE YEARS after his parole, Haggard’s first single “Sing a Sad Song” was on the charts. His wrenching odes to barroom brawls and prison pain rubbed the underbelly of America just right.

• Donald J. Trump: Making Words Great Again
• America Is Failing Its IQ Test
• WATCH: The Real Difference Between Ted Cruz & Donald Trump

NO, AMERICAN SCHOOLS AREN’T BUYING PRAYER RUGS for Muslim children to pray on. That would be offensive and would totally clash with the Christmas decorations.

RECTAL LAPSE—The Koch-funded institution recently renamed the Antonin Scalia School of Law is being named again after someone discovered that the acronym ASSoL was a little too “on the nose.”

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