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News & Politics
Stephen Colbert: “Uh-oh, Matt Gaetz is screwed, and this time he doesn’t have to Venmo anyone, because his old buddy Greenberg has now publicly admitted to paying women for commercial sex acts for himself and other men.”
Headline yesterday: “The Onion Calls On Israel To Bomb Our Offices In Case Any Hamas Agents Hiding Out There.”
Sen. Mazie Hirono after SCOTUS decided to take up key abortion case: “Someone once said when climate change comes up, Republicans say ‘I'm not a scientist.’ But when a woman's health issue is being discussed, they're all gynecologists.” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that President Biden is “committed to codifying” Roe vs. Wade regardless of the Supreme Court’s eventual decision.
Politico :
Abortion rights supporters in Congress and around the country are bracing for their worst-case scenario — a court ruling that gives states a green light to ban abortion before a fetus can survive outside the womb — and are ramping up the pressure on the Biden administration to intervene as a wave of red and purple states introduce new bans on the procedure. The move could also pour gasoline on the already raging debate over whether Democrats should move to expand the number of seats on the Supreme Court. A decision on the case is likely to come down in the summer of 2022 — just a few months before midterm elections that could decide control of both the House and Senate, and both parties are likely to use the case to rally their bases.
New misinformation crisis: Axios warns, “The Middle East conflict is a new test of social-media companies' ability to manage their platforms, Sara Fischer and Ashley Gold write.” Lies abound and many accounts frozen.
Steve Brodner:
Yang, dang doodles: In the past week,Politico reports, Stephen Miller has posted 10 messages in support of New York City mayoral hopeful Andrew Yang. There are suspicions in New York political circlesthat Miller is sabotaging Yang to help a more conservative candidate.
Tuesday from Axios: “Florida congresswoman Val Demings will challenge Marco Rubio for his Senate seat.” From NBC: Andrew Giuliani (R), the son of Rudy Giuliani, announced Tuesday that he’s officially running for governor of the state in 2022. Said Giuliani to the New York Post: “I’m a politician out of the womb. It’s in my DNA.”
Peter Thiel is GOP’s new favorite paying pal. “Rise of a megadonor: Thiel makes a play for the Senate.” His plans, and dough, going way beyond J.D. Vance in Ohio.
John Oliver’s five-minute segment on Sunday skewering Israel’s disproportionate bombing campaign in Gaza rightly went viral, and here it is—but below that also check out the response of the host of a comedy show in Israel.
From a Fox News email blast: “The Bidens release tax returns, earning far in excess of average Americans." Of course their hero, the previous president, earned (if that’s the word) a zillion times more than that—and not only refused to release his tax returns—he also failed to pay federal tax some years (the Bidens paid at 25.9%).
Off the media: Major NPR station WNYC has fired On the Media host Bob Garfield for a second violation of its anti-bullying policy. It said Garfield was formally reprimanded last year. (I’ve been a guest on the show a half dozen times, with Garfield leading half the interviews.) On Twitter, Garfield responded: "I was fired not for 'bullying' per se, but for yelling in 5 meetings over 20 years. Anger mismanagement, sorry to say. But in all cases, the provocations were just shocking. In time, the story will emerge...and it is tragic."
Protests growing in Tokyo calling for cancellation of the Summer Olympics there. Protesters point to cases surging in Japan (and with low vaccination rate) and even more so in other countries.
On the road again:How to travel while vaccinated.
Music
Lookee who graduated high school in 1965, in Woodbridge, VA, and below from her yearbook page:
No mention, among these varied highlights, of singing! Yet five years later she would record her first folkish album, soon partner with Gram Parsons, and the rest is history. Here, many years later, she performs a terrific song, “Telling Me Lies,” with Linda Ronstadt (and Bernie Leadon on guitar) —a song written by Linda Thompson after her breakup with a better known tunesmith, husband Richard.
Here’s a new Patti Smith interview, on the pandemic, playing at an outdoor festival this week, and marking Dylan’s 80th birthday next week.
We have to do these things in increments….[Performing now] requires a certain amount of understanding and compassion and discipline in terms of the new rules. For instance, I’m the kind of person that likes to just move around the people, hang out with people that may be outside of the venue, sign stuff. I’m a person that when I sing, I get a lot of spit in my mouth. And ever since the Seventies, I spit. People used to think it was because I was being tough. But it’s because when I’m singing, I get water in my mouth and I just spit it out. It’s the kind of person I am. I can’t do that [now]. And I found it really challenging.
That’s what I’m saying, these are all things where it’s what it is in our new world. And I still have to find out how I can best serve these new times we’re living in.
Here’s how she marked Bob’s birthday three years ago, with his “Boots of Spanish Leather.”
Books
Bio diversity: Skyhorse said it would publish the new Philip Roth book in paperback on June 15, and would release e-book and audiobook versions “as soon as possible.” Skyhorse is the same indie press that last year released Michael Cohen’s memoir and the one by Woody Allen that had been dropped by his publisher.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo reported earning $3.1 million last year from his memoir about leading New York during the coronavirus pandemic. State officials said his contract for the book also included another $2 million to be paid over the next two years.
Film/Tv
My first film Atomic Cover-up was just accepted for the Venezia Shorts Film Festival, Italy, for its European Premiere. It gets its Latin American premiere starting this Thursday for ten days in Rio, and you can stream it for free anywhere, details and more on the film here.
Song Pick of the Day
I must say, until last night I didn’t know Springsteen covered my man Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne” very early on, in 1967, when he was just a teen and in the Jersey band The Castilles. I caught this because on this date in 1966 the band made their first recordings at Mr. Music Inc in Brick Town, New Jersey, cutting two Springsteen songs, “Baby I” and the Byrdsy “That’s What You Get” (they are on YouTube, along with a Kinks cover, “See My Friends,” and Donovan’s “Catch the Wind”). Not the best sound quality below on “Suzanne” but unmistakenly young Brucie on lead vocal.
“Essential daily newsletter.” — Charles P. Pierce, Esquire
“Incisive and enjoyable every day.” — Ron Brownstein, The Atlantic
“Always worth reading.” — Frank Rich, New York magazine, Veep and Succession
Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including the bestseller The Tunnels (on escapes under the Berlin Wall), the current The Beginning or the End (on MGM’s wild atomic bomb movie), and The Campaign of the Century (on Upton Sinclair’s left-wing race for governor of California), which was recently picked by the Wall St. Journal as one of five greatest books ever about an election. His new film, Atomic Cover-up, just had its world premiere and is drawing extraordinary acclaim. For nearly all of the 1970s he was the #2 editor at the legendary Crawdaddy. Later he served as longtime editor of Editor & Publisher magazine. He recently co-produced a film about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
The Castiles single & a ‘72 demo of Growin’ Up are included on Bruce’s Chapter & Verse compilation. I’d like to hear them do the Kinks!
HBO pulled to Jon Oliver video from YouTube, but I was able to find at least part of it on Twitter.