Cuomo, Covid and Other Evils

Hot news and politics takes, cartoons, and music from Robert Plant, Gene Clark, Brian Wilson, Little Richard and Arthur Lee.

News & Politics

The Onion: “Overrun Chicago Hospital Giving Priority To Lollapalooza’s VIP Ticket Holders.” Plus: “Cult Leader Warns Followers Things Need To Get Way More Deranged To Be Made Into HBO Documentary Series.”

Braking: “Obama Significantly Scales Back 60th Birthday Party as Virus Cases Rebound.” The party plans had been months in the making—and many invitees had already arrived on Martha’s Vineyard.

Young white male, of course: Ohio man taped to seat on flight after allegedly groping, fighting flight attendants.

Message to Turner: Pleased to see Shontel Brown handily defeat Nina Turner (who refused to endorse party nominees Hillary in 2016 and Biden in 2020 vs. Trump) in that Dem primary for the House in Cleveland. Turner, always classy, in concession speech blamed nothing but “evil money.” Note: She outspent her opponent.

Meanwhile, in New York, via Clay Bennett:

Oh, Brother: Chris Cuomo failed to mention the scathing NY Attorney General’s mammoth report on the wrongdoing of his brother, Gov. Andrew, last night. Chris’s ethically questionable secret advising of brother was widely covered in that same report. One document showed Chris weighing in on (and may have helped draft) a public statement for Andrew at crest of early allegations. CNN on the spot again.

Pardons their appearance: Missouri’s governor has pardoned the nutty McCloskey couple who brandished guns at protesters last year.

Ipsos asked an unvaccinated polling sample who they blamed for the current spread of Covid. Their ludicrous top 5 replies: people from other countries traveling to the U.S. (37%), mainstream media (27%), Americans traveling abroad (23%), Biden (21%) and the unvaccinated (10%). 

Axios: A Florida school district reversed its mask mandate after a funding threat by Gov. Ron DeathSantis. Go deeper. Meanwhile, with 11,515 patients, Florida again breaks daily record for COVID-19 hospitalizations.

Four officers who responded to the Capitol attack on Jan. 6 have now died by suicide, with news of the two most recent deaths coming this week.

Nuclear alert: Check out my annual “Countdown to Hiroshima,” with new entries every day for past two weeks, and now we are only two days from 76th anniversary of the first atomic attack. Find our what happened on each day leading up to the world-changing and death-dealing event. My recent book: The Beginning or the End.

Climate change could cause emperor penguin colonies to effectively go extinct by 2100.

Politico:

During a closed-door lunch last week with some of his most vulnerable incumbents, House Democrats’ campaign chief delivered a blunt warning: If the midterms were held now, they would lose the majority. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) followed that bleak forecast, which was confirmed by multiple people familiar with the conversation, with new polling that showed Democrats falling behind Republicans by a half-dozen points on a generic ballot in battleground districts. Maloney advised the party to course-correct ahead of 2022 by doing more to promote Biden’s agenda, which remains popular with swing voters.

Steve Brodner:

Our usual highlights from Harper’s wild-week-in-review:

In Missouri, a clinic at the St. Charles County Fair did not manage to vaccinate a single person. “It’s disappointing,” said one local health official. Pharmacists in Missouri reported that people have been disguising themselves before getting the vaccine, fearing how their friends and family might react. According to one doctor, “They even went so far as to say, ‘Please, please, please, don’t let anybody know that I got this vaccine. I don’t want my friends to know.”

The U.S. government sold Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, the Wu-Tang Clan album that was once purchased by the disgraced drug executive Martin Shkreli, to an anonymous buyer for an undisclosed amount; and the Department of Justice seized the 3,600-year-old Gilgamesh Dream Tablet from Hobby Lobby, a chain of arts-and-crafts stores, alleging that it had been illegally imported. A slice of royal cake from the wedding of Princess Diana and Prince Charles was to be auctioned off in England. “We advise against eating it,” read the auction house’s website.

The Thai government banned frightening news. A Californian man who gave himself the military rank of Supreme Commander was sentenced to three years in prison for recruiting more than 200 Chinese nationals to join a fictitious unit called the U.S. Army/Military Special Forces Reserve, giving them uniforms, and having them march around the Los Angeles suburbs. Pilots reported, for the third time, a man wearing a jetpack flying over Los Angeles. “Use caution,” warned an air traffic controller. “The jetpack guy is back.” Officials in Weber County, Utah, warned of the dangers of hammocking from power lines.

Music

Was interesting to hear Robert Plant this week reveal that the most difficult song he’d ever recorded was my man Gene Clark’s gorgeous 1968 cut for the second Dillard & Clark album. Of course, Plant tackled it for his mega-selling duet album with Alison Krauss a few years back, along with the equally great Clark tune, “Through the Morning, Through the Night.” Plant’s issue was with the decidedly (and to me, rather agonizing) slow pace of his re-do. He said he almost needed an “iron lung” to conquer it. So here is Geno’s perfect original and then the Plant-Krauss effort (which it seems they never did try to offer live).

We’ve posted an unofficial version of the following in the past but now in superior new edition from upcoming Beach Boys box: fabled Brian Wilson a cappella on classic “Surf’s Up.”

One of the most important, if little-known, drummers in rock history has passed away in L.A. at the age of 86. Obit here. This was Charles Connor, who backed up Little Richard in his heyday and known for his “choo choo” drumming style, and then went on to work behind (nice list) Sam Cooke, James Brown, Jackie Wilson and other notables. With Richard appeared in several rock ‘n roll films including the immortal The Girl Can’t Help It….

Song Pick of the Day

Arthur Lee’s group Love produced one of the greatest (if still not widely known) albums of the 1960s, Forever Changes. Then he faded, but returned with this lovely tune, “Five-String Serenade,” later covered by everyone from Mazzy Star to Jack White.

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.