Yes, it’s still somehow free to subscribe to this nearly daily newsletter! Greg Mitchell is the author of fourteen books and director of four films for PBS since 2022. In a previous life, he was a longtime editor at the legendary Crawdaddy.
Lot of commentary this week re: the event we featured yesterday, the annual “nerd prom” or White House Correspondents dinner in D.C. Colbert talks about it here, along with Trump’s bailout of longtime butt of Stephen’s jokes, Spirit Airlines.
But Jimmy Kimmel took it several steps further, devoting much of his monologue to a fantasy where he gets to roast the President at the dinner since this year for once there is no comedian at the event, replaced by, no kidding, a “mentalist” (that’s how cowed the pathetic D.C. journos are now):
Our buddy Lucian Truscott IV at his Substack adds:
The White House Correspondents Dinner, which will be attended this year by you-know-who, is a yearly cesspool of slimy stroking and joking. Any reporter who shows their face on Saturday should be dragged over to the recent sewage spill fouling the waters of the Potomac and given a good dunking….Only today, you-know-who called a female journalist “a disgrace” when she asked him a question about gas prices at a press-availability in the Oval Office. A few moments later, he fell asleep in his chair….
They should change the name of the White House Correspondents Association to the “Please, sir, may I have another” club and issue members little paddle-shaped pins they can wear on their lapels and dresses.
And Steve Brodner:
At least there is this, from Axios newsletter this morning:
Resistance-minded House Democrats are pushing their colleagues to begin building the case against President Trump now in anticipation of a Day 1 impeachment vote if they retake the House…
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) told Axios the party should “build up the case so that when we are in power in January, we’ve created the conditions ... we’ve done the fact-checking, we’ve done the shadow hearings, everything we need to be able to impeach” Trump. Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) told Axios that if Democrats recapture the House, as history says is likely, “the push for impeachment is going to be overwhelming.”
Did you miss this?
An Army special forces soldier, who was part of the Nicolás Maduro raid, was charged with making $400,000 by betting on the leader's downfall. The 38-year-old, stationed at Fort Bragg, was involved in planning and executing the Jan. 3 raid, beginning Dec. 8. The indictment says the soldier made 13 bets related to Maduro being toppled by Jan. 31.
Nick Kristof:
Last year a record 129 media workers were killed worldwide, 2/3 by Israel -- reflecting “a persistent culture of impunity for attacks on the press,” the Committee to Protect Journalists, said. Israel killed 10 times as many journalists as Sudan, and 20 times as many as Russia.
Music Picks
Michael Stipe last night on the Colbert show preview his upcoming solo album with “The Rest of Ever.”
More punk than punk: a re-issue of classic Mississippi Fred McDowell and Johnny Woods, “Mama Says I’m Crazy.”
From Tunes to Toons
Bramhall:
Bennett:
Luckovich:
Anderson:
Kemensky:
Luckovich again:
Photo Finish
From my camera to you: “Blueberries, Kazuaki Kita Bowl”
Kimmel! 🔥 👏 🤣
Thanks for the brilliant replay of the Kimmel show. That was brilliant-I love him.