Manchin in the Promised Land?

Hot news and politics takes, cartoons, James Baldwin, controversy over Jon Stewart on Wuhan, and music today from the Drive-By Truckers, Bonnie Raitt and Pink Floyd.

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News & Politics

The results of a clinical trial suggested that laughing-gas therapy might be an effective treatment for depression.

Look Out, Cleveland: Yes, Dennis Kucinich is running for mayor (again).

The Senate yesterday voted by unanimous consent to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, with quick passage expected in the House, followed by President Biden's signature.

MacKenzie Scott, the billionaire philanthropist and Jeff Bezos's ex-wife, has given away another $2.7 billion to charity, bringing her total donations since July 2020 to $8.5 billion. Yesterday she said: "We are all attempting to give away a fortune that was enabled by systems in need of change....It would be better if disproportionate wealth were not concentrated in a small number of hands."

Will Joe Go? I’ve raised this in past, but this morning Politico’s Playbook warns that ever harsher criticism of Sen. Manchin from liberals “could eventually push him to switch parties, something there’s increasing chatter about among top Dems.

Manchin did not hit 50% in his last reelection, and Trump won the state by almost 40 points. Politics is nationalized now, and there are few remaining states that vote for different parties for the Senate and presidency, making Manchin an extreme outlier. Democrats whose memory of politics stretches beyond the rise of Trump have been reminding us that in 2001, Sen. JIM JEFFORDS (R-Vt.), who was relentlessly attacked by conservatives, left the Republican Party and threw the 50-50 Republican-controlled Senate to the Democrats.

New AP probe: In the first public accounting of its kind in decades—at least 1,900 US military firearms were lost or stolen during the 2010s, including armor-piercing grenades, with some used in violent crimes. Some services have suppressed the release of information.”

Is it safe for dogs and cats to snack on cicadas?

If you haven’t noticed, great controversy sparked by Jon Stewart’s appearance on Colbert show Monday night, which we usually skip as earlier ones have been truly unfunny, even cringeworthy. So this time Jon went into a rant on Covid coming out of a Wuhan lab, even while Stephen tried to push back. Rightwingers of all stripes, for once, hailed Stewart all over social media. Others felt it was mere satire but if so—poorly done. Colbert even said to Stewart: “How long have you worked for [conspiracy nut] Sen. Ron Johnson?” Then last night, Colbert guest Rita Moreno defended Lin Manuel Miranda from criticism that he did not have enough Afro-Latinos in his new In The Heights movie.

Trevor Noah and the The Daily Show, meanwhile, going on summer hiatus until Sept. 13

Axios: “The National Institutes of Health had found evidence that COVID-19 was in the U.S. way before it got on the public radar and allegedly flowed from China and Europe. The NIH study of blood samples found a handful of cases here dating back to early January 2020 and perhaps December 2019.” Meanwhile, Washington State launched a program that would provide free joints, but not edibles, to those who receive the vaccine at marijuana dispensaries.

So common in USA in such cases: Man who argued with cashier in GA over not wearing mask--and then shot her in the head and wounded a guard--had history of family violence/battery.

About the Pulitzer Prize board's decision not to name a winner in editorial cartooning... at Poynter.

Hero pilot “Sully” Sullenberger will be nominated as the U.S. representative to the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization.

Tremendous historical project by vital Baseball Reference site to re-consider and track down Negro League stats plus elevating it to a true and equal “major league” pre-Jackie Robinson. In their usual way, posting all statistics for players baseball on confirmed evidence, not mere claims. For example, they don’t question claim that Josh Gibson hit 900 home runs but can only find box scores giving him about 240. Still, that rate per at bat about the same as Babe Ruth. And so on.

Music

That was bananas: We noted yesterday Roger Waters turning down Instagram offer of big bucks to use old Pink Floyd ditty for promo, calling Zuckerberg a “little prick,” no less, but let’s go back to when the Floyd (or someone) allowed use of this tune for Dole….

After various shootings, mass and otherwise: My man Jason Isbell’s old group Drive-By Truckers hit the concept of “Thoughts and Prayers” for victims being enough.

Sleater-Kinney will perform a song from their new album on Wednesday’s “Late Show.”

Film/TV

Watch a never before seen “blistering” but killed interview with James Baldwin from 1979. ABC allegedly said it had no interest in a “black, gay, has-been.” Baldwin: “White people go around, it seems to me, with a very carefully suppressed terror of Black people—a tremendous uneasiness. They don’t know what the Black face hides. They’re sure it’s hiding something. What it’s hiding is American history. What it’s hiding is what white people know they have done, and what they like doing.”

Books

Jared Kushner has secured a book deal to recount Trump’s presidency. Broadside Books, a conservative imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, announced that Kushner’s book will come out in early 2022.

Song Pick of the Day

A favorite cover of “Runaway” by young Bonnie Raitt. Norton Buffalo on six harps!

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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.