Greg Mitchell has authored more than a dozen books (see most of them here) and directed four recent PBS films, including the current “The Atomic Bowl.” Subscribing to this newsletter is still FREE—so if you want to help fund, maybe purchase one of those books, thanks. Or recommend this Substack to a friend!
After another call with Putin and meeting with Zelensky:
Former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger yesterday: “The dumbest man to ever sit in the White House. Not even as president just the dumbest human to ever take a seat anywhere in the White House.”
The NY Times, meanwhile, has a lengthy interview today with the “new” Marjorie Taylor Greene. Just one excerpt:
Greene’s last exchange with the president was by text message on Nov. 16. That day, she received an anonymous email threatening her college-aged son: “Derek will have his life snuffed out soon. Better watch his back.” The email’s subject heading used the nickname Trump had given her the day before: “Marjorie Traitor Greene.”
Greene texted that information to the president. According to a source familiar with the exchange, his long reply made no mention of her son. Instead, Trump insulted her in personal terms. When she replied that children should remain off-limits from their disagreements, Trump responded that she had only herself to blame. Greene texted a senior administration official that Trump had endangered her family.
You also will NOT find this on Fox News, I suspect:
Suspect Confessed to Planting Pipe Bombs Near the Capitol Before Jan. 6
In the public first hint at a motive in the case, the documents said that the man, Brian J. Cole Jr., felt he needed to “speak up” after he began to suspect that the 2020 election, in which President Trump was defeated, had been “tampered with.”
This went viral yesterday, awaiting updates, from Julie K. Brown, the reporter who helped break the Epstein case wide open:
My Flights Are in the Epstein Files
Why is a flight itinerary I booked in June 2019 part of the files?
I expected my name to be in the Epstein files, since the Miami Herald published the series “Perversion of Justice” — an unsparing look at how Jeffrey Epstein got away with his crimes in South Florida — and that series led prosecutors in the Southern District of New York to open a criminal probe — just days after the series ran in late November 2018.
And there are plenty of references to my stories in the Epstein files.
But what I didn’t expect to see was an American Airlines flight record from 2019 with my full name on them, including my maiden name, which I don’t use professionally. It’s an unusual name, so it’s clear it’s me.
The document appears to be details of an itinerary for a series of flights I booked in July just before the SDNY and FBI arrested Epstein.
A reminder that the film “Bombshell” will premiere on American Experience via PBS nationally on January 6. I served as an advisor for the film and frequent “talking head” on screen. It explores a subject to which I’ve devoted more than forty years or research, writing and now film-making: official and media manipulation and “cover-up” in the first years after the creation and use of the atomic bomb against Japan. My own current PBS film “The Atomic Bowl” will be airing over hundreds of stations next month, often immediately following “Bombshell” as a January 6 package (or you can watch it now streaming). Last night I launched a new site about the program and some of my contributions in the past.
Music Picks
On this date back in 1971, I was there, at the crummy Academy of Music in NYC, for one of four concerts by The Band that week—immortalized in a live album that many consider among the greatest ever. Here’s “King Harvest.”
A few days ago I touted a massive profile of Willie Nelson in the latest New Yorker. In it there’s a scene of Willie recording, remarkably quickly, with almost no overdubs, one of my favorite songs, “Across the Borderline,” co-written by Ry Cooder. Here it is:
Also in that article, a discussion of Dylan’s little-heard cover of Willie’s “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground.” It got bumped from one of Bob’s albums but here it is, though at a low point for Bob’s vocal stylings:
From Tunes to Toons
Baron:
Goris:
Two classics but newly relevant from earlier this year by Bill Bramhall:
Photo Finish
“At Ancient Castle, Clisson, France”
Across the Borderline co written by the great writer John Hiatt. Just giving credit where credit is due.
I have no empathy for marjorie. This is the person who chased after a school shooting victim while berating him and calling him a paid actor and other heinous stuff. This is the person who yelled at another representative through a mail slot, so very professional. This is the person who stood in front of the prison and said Jan 6 people were political prisoners rather than because they tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power. This is the person that spread the Big Lie as much as she could and screamed at a sitting president during a State of the Union Address. This is the person who blamed Jewish space lasers and Democrats and their supposed weather machine. This is the person who thinks germs are grown in peach trees and Gestapo is cold soup. This is the person who did oh, so many heinous things in the name of conspiracy theories and maga. She laid down with a flea-bitten weasel and now she's complaining he's being a weasel. No. Empathy.