Heat Wave, Burning in Our Hearts
"Hot" news and political takes, cartoons, the "Sopranos" prequel nears, and music from Jason Isbell and the legendary Wanda Jackson.
And away we go, even as we “can’t keep from crying.” Don’t forget to share and/or subscribe (it’s still free).
News & Politics
Andy Borowitz claims: “Out-of-Practice Trump Forgets to Strand Rally Crowd in Parking Lot.”
New Colbert name for Trump: “Jabba the Gut.” Last week’s was “Dick l’Orange.”
Former football great Herschel Walker will indeed challenge Sen. Raphael Warnock in 2020 Georgia contest—at least according to “Jabba” Trump.
Samantha Bee: “Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump have a lot in common, except one major thing: Ron is ever-so-slightly more competent. And that's concerning.”
Board game: NY Times reports that the University of North Carolina’s board of trustees is scheduled to hold a special meeting today “amid intensifying pressure over its failure to approve tenure for Nikole Hannah-Jones.”
The National Security Agency issued a rare statement last night to rebut Tucker Carlson's ludicrous claims that the Biden administration is "spying" on him in a conspiracy to take him off the air.
AP:
The New York City Commission on Human Rights has fined Fox News $1 million, the largest penalty in its history, for violations of laws protecting against sexual harassment and job retaliation. As part of a settlement agreement announced Tuesday, Fox also agreed to mandate anti-harassment training for its New York-based staff and contributors and to temporarily drop a policy requiring people who allege misconduct to enter into binding arbitration. The penalty stems from an investigation that began in 2017 following several reports of what the commission called “rampant abuse” at the popular news and opinion outlet.
Incredible boo-boo: New York Mayor’s Race in Chaos After Elections Board Counts 135,000 Test Ballots. Jeff Greenfield jokes (?): “Arizona Senate moves to seize NYC mayoral ballots and ship them West for an audit.”
Judd Legum: “If you sign up for a newsletter using Facebook's new service, Bulletin, you agree to have your data harvested in all the ways Facebook typically harvests data. PLUS Facebook will harvest ‘additional information’".
Did not miss its pandemic shot: The $30 Million Founding Father: How ‘Hamilton’ Got Federal Aid.
Not Gilding the Hillbilly: With J.D. Vance announcing his Senate bid in Ohio probably today you might check out this profile—on how he became a “Trumpist troll” and “joined the jackals.”
Axios: A classic icon of dad style is now a hot designer item, with denim shorts available at prices ranging from $10 to $850, Wall Street Journal reports. "Jean shorts are definitely making a comeback for summer 2021," said Janine Chilton-Faust, the global VP of men’s design at Levi's.
“Members of Congress Are Spending More Than Ever on Security,” by Mother Jones: “Republican and Democratic lawmakers in both chambers—especially those vilified by Trump and his allies—have started hiring security consultants and bodyguards, upgrading their home security systems with cameras, and, in some cases, employing firms that specialize in fortifying residences with reinforced doors, bulletproof glass, and other high-end protective features. An analysis of campaign finance records by Mother Jones found that in the three months after the Capitol attack, security spending jumped 176 percent from the same period last year. Such spending is up 233 percent from the first quarter of 2019.”
Huff Post on killer white supremacist:
The first time The Boston Globe wrote about Nathan Allen, less than a year ago, it was a love story, describing his “perfectly executed” wedding proposal and a “marriage set against the backdrop of a killer pandemic.” On Sunday, the Globe wrote about him a second time: Allen allegedly “executed” two Black people, in the words of the Suffolk County district attorney, in what was being investigated as a hate crime, before being gunned down by police.
Can’t live with it or without it: Axios reports, “Dealing with all the heat caused by global warming is likely to increase greenhouse gas emissions even more. Why it matters: The world is going to need a lot more air conditioning. A 2017 study found that 30% of the world’s population endures climate exceeding a deadly threshold for at least 20 days a year. By 2100, that could be 48%, even if drastic cuts are made.”
A town in Canada hit 121 degrees yesterday. From the New Yorker:
Film/TV
Trailer dropped yesterday for much-anticipated—or dreaded—Sopranos “prequel,” starring Michael Gandolfini as young Tony, plus Leslie Odom Jr. and etc. Coming October 1.
Apple, meanwhile is developing a drama series about Negro League Baseball, Variety reports.
Music
No new Jason Isbell album, sadly, but he does offer us a Johnny Cash song from the soundtrack of The Ice Road and then, in contrast, a great bluesy shouter and slide workout for a new Metallica package covering their “Sad But True.”
Song Pick of the Day
Rockabilly badass legend Wanda Jackson has a new album with a lot of help from Joan Jett (Jack White helped with her previous) but here is one of her early rocking classics, “Hard Headed Woman.’
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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.