The Morning Roundup: LeBron James For President

Good morning, Cleveland is no longer a punchline. 

1. The Cleveland Cavaliers win the NBA Championship.

Last night was one of the greatest basketball games of all time.

For some background, the Golden State Warriors had the best record in NBA history this year, they were up on the Cavs 3-1 three games ago in the series, and the city of Cleveland hasn't won a championship since 1964 - when the Cleveland Browns won the NFL championship two years before Super Bowl I.

The Cavs didn't care about any of that, winning 93-89 on the strength of a triple-double from LeBron and a clutch hot from Kyrie Irving. 

Some highlights:

lebron traveled through time to block this shot https://t.co/D8a6lOfWFb

— Shea Serrano (@SheaSerrano) June 20, 2016

Say #TheShot in Cleveland for the rest of your life and it's this: https://t.co/0BtoWXE85L

— RealGM (@RealGM) June 20, 2016

When you put your blood, sweat, tears, and passion into what you love https://t.co/JXveWurONU

— Montana Max $$$ (@GULLYKING82) June 20, 2016

I submit that if there's anyone who can not only beat Donald Trump in November, but dunk on his orange ass, it's LeBron. And hey, it wouldn't be the first time he's been down for posterizing a Republican. 

2. Burr for VP?

David Graham at the Atlantic lists Burr as a potential Trump running mate:

Meanwhile, there’s fresh buzz about Richard Burr of North Carolina, a somewhat low-profile second-term senator who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. Talk-radio host Hugh Hewitt said that he had heard Burr is on Trump’s short list. Burr says he’s heard no such thing, but wouldn’t rule out serving. He might help Trump in the Old North State, which Democrats believe they can put in play in November, but he’d be a risky selection, because he’s currently in a close reelection race. He’d have to withdraw from the Senate race to run as a vice-presidential candidate, which could give Democrat Deborah Ross a boost.

The bolded is especially important. If the Republicans had to pick a replacement for the Senate ticket, there's a certain Congresswoman who just got shelled in her primary that might be free.

We asked Burr's office if he would accept an offer to be Trump's VP; as of the writing of this blog, they haven't gotten back to us.

3. Read this op-ed. 

Timothy McNair of Carrboro penned a poignant, important op-ed in the N&O on Saturday that's a must-read in the wake of the Orlando shooting. An excerpt:

The Pulse in Orlando was not simply a club or a gay club – it was a club that held a Latin-centered night. Of the LGBTQ murdered, they were overwhelmingly black and brown persons. The carnage on the floor of that club had endured way more than anti-gay violence. By their sheer virtue of living and breathing in the United States, their skin color was met with extreme violence and their sexuality was made complicated as a result.

Many of those brave souls were not from money or students at top colleges, and many were using that night as a space for empowerment and engagement. Like myself, an LGBTQ black, these persons were used to avoiding death on multiple levels every day. While white LGBTQ counterparts discuss their encounters with anti-LGBTQ violence, it is a much more nuanced and difficult reality for those of us who do not have pale skin. We are not allowed into many places of employment, though qualified; black gay men are now up to 1 in 2 likely to contract HIV, according to CDC; and the average life expectancy for our trans of color family is below 40. One could explore the socialized criminality of black and brown LGBTQ and our representation in the criminal injustice system, but that’s for another time.

4. Hillary Clinton in Raleigh. 

The presumptive Democratic nominee is going to be speaking at the NC State Fairgrounds' Exposition Center in Raleigh on Wednesday. Doors open at 12:30, Clinton is scheduled to speak at 2:30.

5. Donald Trump's mentor. 

The Washington Post has a good piece on Donald Trump's relationship with Roy Cohn, the chief counsel for Sen. Joseph McCarthy's communist hunting crusade who later became a New York City "fixer." Give it a read, and give this other, more pointed piece from The Daily Beast last year on Trump and his mentor a read as well. From the latter:

“If you need someone to get vicious toward an opponent, you get Roy,” he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press. “People will drop a suit just by getting a letter with Roy’s name at the bottom.”

In 1973, at Cohn’s urging, Trump sued the federal government for $100 million in damages, after the government sued the Trump Management Corp. for allegedly discriminating against blacks in its leasing of 16,000 apartment units throughout New York.

Trump accused the government of making “irresponsible and baseless” charges. “I have never, nor has anyone in our organization ever, to the best of my knowledge, discriminated or shown bias in renting our apartments,” Trump said at a press conference, held at the New York Hilton Hotel, according to a December 13, 1973 New York Times report. Trump said, in true Trump fashion, that the government had singled out his business because it was big. Cohn, for his part, criticized the government for not providing specifics about the people Trump allegedly discriminated against.

The judge dismissed Trump and Cohn’s suit, saying they were “wasting time and paper.”

Classic Trump.

That's it. Have a good week!