Still Rocking in the Free World

Hot news and politics takes and cartoons, plus Foo Fighters return to post-pandemic live arena joined by Dave Chappelle doing Radiohead--as Neil remains forever Young.

And away we go. First, the usual political cartoons, and don’t forget to share, comment, tweet and subscribe (it’s still free).

The Onion: “John Legend Releases Uplifting New Single About Healing Power Of Forgiving Chrissy Teigen.”

Nuts still allergic to vote: On Monday, Monmouth released polling showing about a third of Americans think Biden won in 2020 only because of voter fraud, the same fraction that held that view in Monmouth’s polling in March, in January and in November. Six in 10 Republicans think Biden won only because of fraud.

Gitmo Bitter Blues: During the early stages of the pandemic, Trump was looking for ways not to bring infected Americans in Asia home—to keep the Covid “numbers” down so it wouldn’t hurt his re-election chances—and asked White House staff if sending them to Guantánamo Bay, to join terrorist suspects, was an option. “Don’t we have an island that we own?” the president reportedly asked during a February 2020 meeting in the Situation Room. “What about Guantánamo?” This is according to a new book by journalists Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta called “Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic That Changed History.”

Jimmy Kimmel commented on the above last night: “Of course the reality star wanted to send them to an island. He’d probably send a camera crew, too, and call it ‘Survirus’ or something.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that Biden did not interpret his Catholic faith “through a political prism,” declining to comment on a recent decision by U.S. Catholic bishops that could result in a rebuke of the president for his views on abortion.

Left in the cold on voting bill: Politico Playbook this morning with probably accurate take on today’s sad anti-climax.

The top legislative priority of progressive Democrats is set to die in the Senate today with barely a whimper of protest from the White House. Republicans will easily filibuster the For the People Act, killing the sweeping elections proposal once and for all. It’s a reminder that for all the talk about H.R. 1by both sides, it’s always been a messaging bill — a check-the-box move allowing party leaders to tell the left they tried.

The left, however, is not happy. Progressives are steaming that President Biden didn’t use his bully pulpit to try to move the needle on the bill — or strike a deal allowing Congress to block GOP legislatures from curbing access to voting. They want to know how Democratic leaders can claim in one breath that democracy is in jeopardy — and in the next let this legislation crash and burn.

Activists aren’t alone in their frustration. More than 480 state legislators from all 50 states signed onto a letter this morning calling for the bill’s passage. And progressives in the Senate like Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) are warning that the party will pay a big price for failing to meet the moment. “We are going to lose the opportunity to basically enact legislation for the people for a decade, or decades, to come,” he told thousands of activists on a Zoom call Monday night. “It’s very, very, very bleak. It’s policy and political Armageddon.”

Commenting on the above, Steve Brodner today:

Coke, out: Biden administration to endorse bill to end disparity in drug sentencing between crack and powder cocaine.

Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib announced in a video message Monday that he is gay, making him the first active NFL player to come out. “I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now, but I finally feel comfortable enough to get it off my chest.” He's also donating $100,000 to the Trevor Project, which provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services for LGBTQ youth.

Chuck him out: Nearly two-thirds of voters in Iowa believe that Senator Chuck Grassley should not run for reelection in 2022, according to a new poll. A Des Moines Register poll found that 64 per cent believed it was now time for someone else to represent them in the Senate. Some reports claim that Grassley merely wants to win so he can then resign and have governor appoint his grandson….

Gaming: Why are the Tokyo Olympics happening, despite Covid fears? The NY Times asks. These numbers explain it.

Watch what we Tweet: Bobby Burack of Outkick wrote about how misleading Twitter chatter often sets the agenda for punditry, TV, media and comedy. "Pew data finds that 3% of the population creates 90% of all tweets sent," he wrote. "Only 8% of the US population is 'active' on Twitter."

Climate Central, a nonprofit science research group, launched a new tool yesterday to detect unusual weather or climate events around the country, with email alerts to newsrooms with information on the underlying climate-change context.

Music

Billie Eilish has responded to a resurfaced video that appears to show her mouthing an anti-Asian remark, apologizing for behavior that she says dated to when she was 13 or 14 but still makes her “want to barf.”

The Foo Fighters played the first concert at Madison Square Garden since pandemic struck and unveiled this Bee Gees classic—they have six covers of the group’s songs on new album. More on my own Bee Gees experience later this week.

Dave Chappelle also appeared with the Foo Fighters and covered Radiohead’s “Creep.”

Bruce Almighty: No, not that Bruce, but Col. Bruce Hampton, legendary if little known Atlanta rocker, who collapsed and died of a heart attack on stage in 2017. Now Paste has an article about a new book about him.

Film

There’s a new doc on a group I never cared much about, Sparks, and Rolling Stone has a new piece. It’s titled The Sparks Brothers.

Song Pick of the Day

Neil Young is recording a new album with Crazy Horse. Not known if old pal Nils Lofgren will be joining them again. Here he is in his most recent USA appearance, rocking in the free world at Farm Aid 2019.

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“Greg is a master curator, and he goes for the soul every time.” —David Beard, National Geographic

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.