Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Trump Versus the Hog-Maker (NY Times Column)
Think about it. Imagine that you're Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, who has already been telling leaders of multinational corporations that he plans to "punch back" against Trump's tariffs. How do you feel seeing Trump squealing over a few hundred jobs possibly lost in the face of European retaliation? Surely the spectacle inclines you to take a hard line: If such a small pinprick upsets Trump so much, the odds are pretty good that he'll blink in the face of real confrontation.
Josh Marshall: Don't Miss This (TPM)
Understandably, it got little attention in today's rush of news. But spare a moment for this. CNN had a short package of news on the now finalized plans for a summit between President Trump and Vladimir Putin. As the CNN reporter in Moscow put it, "the Russians [are] clearly showing they are in the driver's seat on this." Here's short excerpt of video with John Bolton in a begging mode, insisting there's no problem with the summit, while Russian state television mockingly says Russia elected Trump.
Josh Marshall: How You Lose Can Be More Important Than How You Win (TPM)
I want to take the liberty of reprinting something I wrote 14 years ago, in December of 2004. The political and legislative context were quite different. This was right after the 2004 election after President Bush had announced his intention to partially privatize Social Security. Yet certain dynamics remain unchanged …
Josh Marshall: Thoughts On Justice Kennedy's Announcement (TPM)
How do we react? I wrote […] that we can't expect the courts to save us[.] That was clear with yesterday's decisions. It's even more overwhelmingly clear today. Litigation remains critical. But the fight for voting rights, for instance, will be won at the ballot box. Change will come through robust political coalitions - at the local and state level, building to the federal level. Everything else must follow the same path. We are on our own, left to our own devices. The history, whatever mistakes, misfortunes and interventions, is simply the terrain we now grapple with.
Josh Marshall: Please Read This Through. He's Right. (TPM)
"Democrats have a much stronger case to make: no vote should be taken until after the Special Counsel has submitted a report to Congress, or closed the investigation of the President. A President under federal criminal investigation for stealing an election should not be able to nominate the person who may decide his fate. There will be a cloud over the legitimacy of this nomination unless and until the cloud of the Mueller investigation has been lifted." - a former federal public corruption prosecutor
David Wong: Why You're Being Kept In A Constant State Of Impotent Rage (Cracked)
Hey, did you know Chick-Fil-A's sales have nearly doubled since we all swore we'd boycott them a few years ago? Sure, we care about gay rights, but not so much that we'll settle for our second-favorite chicken sandwich at lunchtime.
Ed Halter: "Female Trouble: Spare Me Your Morals" (Criterion)
… there's a good argument to be made that Female Trouble (1974) is [director John Waters'] true magnum opus. Waters himself has expressed the opinion that this hilariously sordid pseudomelodrama is the finest of his early works, and the film's star, drag icon Divine, likewise considered it his favorite. Mention Female Trouble to any of Waters' more hard-core devotees and choice snatches of demented dialogue from the film will soon trip off their lips with the actors' original intonations intact, as easily as a nun recites her one millionth Ave Maria (listen long enough and you may eventually hear the entire screenplay).
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Marc Perkel
Marc's Guide to Curing Cancer
So far so good on beating cancer for now. I'm doing fine. At the end of the month I'll be 16 months into an 8 month mean lifespan. And yesterday I went on a 7 mile hike and managed to keep up with the hiking group I was with. So, doing something right.
Still waiting for future test results and should see things headed in the right direction. I can say that it's not likely that anything dire happens in the short term so that means that I should have time to make several more attempts at this. So even if it doesn't work the first time there are a lot of variations to try. So if there's bad news it will help me pick the next radiation target.
I have written a "how to" guide for oncologists to perform the treatment that I got. I'm convinced that I'm definitely onto something and whether it works for me or not isn't the definitive test. I know if other people tried this that it would work for some of them, and if they improve it that it will work for a lot of them.
The guide is quite detailed and any doctor reading this can understand the procedure at every level. I also go into detail as to how it works, how I figured it out, and variations and improvements that could be tried to enhance it. I also introduce new ways to look at the problem. There is a lot of room for improvement and I think that doctors reading it will see what I'm talking about and want to build on it. And it's written so that if you're not a doctor you can still follow it. It also has a personal story revealing that I'm the class clown of cancer support group. I give great interviews and I look pretty hot in a lab coat.
So, feel free to read this and see what I'm talking about. But if any of you want to help then pass this around to both doctors and cancer patients. I need some media coverage. I'm looking for as many eyeballs as possible to read these ideas. Even if this isn't the solution, it's definitely on the right track. After all, I did hike 7 miles yesterday. And this hiking group wasn't moving slow. So if this isn't working then, why am I still here?
I also see curing cancer as more of an engineering problem that a medical problem. So if you are good at solving problems and most of what you know about medicine was watching the Dr. House MD TV show, then you're at the level I was at when I started. So anyone can jump in and be part of the solution.
Here is a link to my guide: Oncologists Guide to Curing Cancer using Abscopal Effect
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
THE BUSINESS OF LIES AND FABRICATION.
THE NAZIS ARE SHARPENING THEIR KNIVES!
TWO STATES, ONE COUNTRY.
PRESIDENT POOTY POOT!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
What a week!
Prank Call
'Stuttering John'
Prank calls have long been the domain of of radio shock jocks and bored juveniles. But when one gets through to the president on Air Force One, it highlights for the rest of us the lax security that the White House is taking in securing the president's communications.
John Melendez, a comedian known as "Stuttering John" who was once a regular on the Howard Stern Show, claimed during his podcast to have reached President-for-now Trump (R-Flaccid) Wednesday night while posing as New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat who has been outspoken on immigration reform.
The recording of the call features a voice that sounds like Trump's discussing immigration policy with the fake Menendez.
In the call, the prankster posing as Menendez tells Trump that his constituents have been asking him about immigration policy, saying "I know that you did something very noble by trying to, you know, get the kids back with their families, but I have to answer them."
Trump replied: "I wanna be able to take care of the situation, every bit as much as everybody else at the top level… It's not like it's good for you or good for me. It's good for both of us."
'Stuttering John'
After Kennedy's Retirement
'Handmaid's Tale'
Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement from the Supreme Court on Wednesday, effective July 31. Given that Donald Trump gets to pick his replacement, and Mitch McConnell controls the Senate confirmation process, it seems all but certain that the next judge on America's all-important bench will be a hardline conservative.
Kennedy, appointed by President Reagan, was something of a conservative jurist himself. He has voted with the court's four other conservatives in every major decision of the Trump era thus far. But he was also the court's so-called swing vote; his decisions saved Roe v. Wade in 1992 and instituted gay marriage as the law of the land in 2015.
There's a strong chance that any replacement for Kennedy picked by Trump will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade the first chance they get. That would mean no more guaranteed access to abortion for American women; Republican states would then be likely to outlaw it, sending women in those states back to the unsafe abortion practices of the pre-Roe era. Decades of progress on LGBTQ rights in the court could also be erased. And then where will we be?
For many on Wednesday, the answer was obvious: we'll be in Gilead, the misogynistic nightmare future America of Margaret Atwood's classic The Handmaid's Tale.
Ironically, CNN's Brian Stelter had just declared Gilead comparisons to be "fear-mongering" 24 hours previously, in response to citizenship-testing roadblocks in New England (Atwood's location for Gilead). Thousands immediately chimed in.
'Handmaid's Tale'
Rite Aid Stores
Barry Manilow
Even as homelessness becomes an increasingly visible issue facing Los Angeles and other cities across the U.S., one of the nation's biggest pharmacy chains is turning to an unlikely source to help ease the problem.
Barry Manilow, the 75-year-old singer-songwriter famous for hits such as "Copacabana" and "Mandy," has long been a staple on soft rock radio, but now several Rite Aid stores in Southern California are playing his music specifically to deter transients.
Stores in Hollywood, Long Beach and San Diego are among those blasting Manilow's music outside their entrances to keep panhandlers away - and judging from some social media posts, it appears to be working.
Record producer John Fields captured the ambience in a YouTube video shot outside a Rite Aid store at Sunset and Gower, where he says the "best of Barry Manilow cranks through the parking lot PA system."
It wasn't immediately clear whether the Manilow deterrent would be used at other Rite Aid stores across the country.
Barry Manilow
'Weed Apocalypse'
California
Six months after California made recreational marijuana use legal, the so-called "Weed Apocalypse" arrives this weekend, as tight state regulations going into effect on Sunday have dispensaries scrambling to unload non-compliant product.
But while the deadline is giving pot shop owners headaches, it is creating an opportunity for consumers. They are already anticipating deep discounts on their favorite marijuana products on what has been dubbed "Green Saturday" - for the color of cannabis - and for black market dealers.
"There's going to be a lot of massive sales, a lot of retails fire-selling a lot of products," said Nick Danias, manager of The Pottery cannabis dispensary in mid-city Los Angeles.
"It's about getting rid of a lot of older product that doesn't meet city and state requirements and getting through that old inventory and moving on to the next steps after July 1," he said.
The government-approved pot will be marked with a harvest and "best use by" date and sealed in child-resistant packaging. The rules were designed to take effect on July 1, six months after legalization approved by voters in November formally took effect on Jan. 1.
California
NRA Crisis Actor
Dana Loesch
National Rifle Association spokeswoman Dana Loesch said journalists need to be "curb stomped", in footage that has resurfaced after the Maryland newspaper shooting.
A gunman opened fire at Capital Gazette in Annapolis on Thursday - killing five people and injuring others in what police have branded a "targeted attack".
Staff at the local paper said the attacker, armed with a shotgun and smoke grenades, shot through a glass door into the newsroom in what is being deemed one of the deadliest attacks on a US media publication in history.
Shaun King, a civil rights activist and writer, shared an old clip of Ms Loesch berating journalists on Twitter in the wake of the Maryland tragedy.
Ms Loesch, who is a spokesperson for the largest gun lobbying group in the US, said: "I'm happy frankly to see them curb-stomped. I mean let's be real about it."
Dana Loesch
Migration Agency
UN
The U.N.'s migration agency snubbed the Trump administration's candidate to lead it on Friday, a major blow to U.S. leadership of a body addressing one of the world's most pressing issues - and only the second time that it won't be run by an American since 1951.
Portuguese Socialist and former European Union commissioner Antonio Vitorino won a race to be the next director-general of the International Organization for Migration, edging out both a top IOM official and U.S. candidate Ken Isaacs, the body said in a statement.
Vitorino, 61, will become the group's second director-general not from the U.S. since the intergovernmental organization was founded. He is a former EU commissioner for Home and Justice Affairs who has been President of the "Notre Europe" think tank for the last seven years, and is considered very close to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, also a Portuguese Socialist early in his political career.
The move marks a searing rejection of the U.S. candidate just as the Trump administration has been retreating from or rebuffing international institutions - including two others based in Geneva: Earlier this month, the United States pulled out of the U.N.'s Human Rights Council, and Trump has recently criticized the World Trade Organization as "unfair" to the U.S.
"Yet another sign that US power, authority and prestige has been so dramatically diminished," tweeted Keith Harper, who was the Obama administration's ambassador to the rights council. The "IOM Director is seen as an 'American seat' and Trump was unable to place an American in it."
UN
Fails 'Stress Test'
Deutsche Bank
German banking giant Deutsche Bank's American operations failed the US Federal Reserve's annual stress test due to "widespread and critical deficiencies" in its risk management, the central bank said Thursday.
The Fed gave a "conditional" pass to US investment behemoths Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, even though their capital backstops sank below required levels since that was due to one-time charges tied to December's tax cuts, officials said.
But the Fed "objected to the capital plan of DB USA Corporation because of widespread and critical deficiencies across the firm's capital planning practices," according to the annual test results.
Should DB hit hard times in an economic downturn or financial crisis, poor data capabilities and internal controls, bad forecasts for revenue and losses under stress, and substandard internal audits would leave the bank in danger, the Fed announced.
The stinging rebuke for Deutsche Bank, Europe's second-largest lender, came as shareholders continue express serious doubts about the bank's health. The bank's shares on Wednesday hit a two-year low in Frankfurt.
Deutsche Bank
Ancient Cemetery
Egypt
Archaeologists have uncovered six cases of cancer while studying the bodies of ancient Egyptians who were buried long ago in the Dakhleh Oasis. The finds include a toddler with leukemia, a mummified man in his 50s with rectal cancer and individuals with cancer possibly caused by human papillomavirus (HPV).
The researchers found these cancer cases while examining the remains of 1,087 ancient Egyptians buried between 3,000 and 1,500 years ago.
Extrapolating from these cases, the researchers estimated that the lifetime cancer risk in the ancient Dakhleh Oasis was about 5 in 1,000, compared with 50 percent in modern Western societies, wrote El Molto and Dr. Peter Sheldrick in a paper published in a special cancer issue of the International Journal of Paleopathology. "Thus, the lifetime cancer risk in today's Western societies is 100 times greater than in ancient Dakhleh," they wrote.
Molto, a retired anthropology professor at Western University in Ontario, Canada, cautioned that some people living at Dakhleh could have died of cancer without any traces being left in their remains and that people in the ancient world tended to have shorter life spans than people today. However, even accounting for these factors, the researchers believe the risk of cancer was considerably lower in ancient Egypt.
In five of the six cases, scientists determined that they had cancer by studying lesions (holes and bone damage) on their skeletons. Those holes were left when cancer spread throughout their bodies. For instance, a woman in her 40s or 50s had a hole on her right hip bone that is about 2.4 inches (6.2 cm) in size that researchers believe was caused by a tumor. In one case (the man in his 50s with rectal cancer), an actual tumor was preserved. Researchers cannot be certain where the cancers originated in many of the cases.
Egypt
Something Weird Brewing
New England
No, there isn't a supervolcano brewing beneath New England, despite what some media outlets are saying.
That said, something weird is going on about 100 miles below the lush New England ground.
Scientists have found a mass of warmer rock that appears to be welling upwards. This research, led by geophysicist Vadim Levin, appeared last yearin the scientific journal Geology.
"We never advocated it could lead to volcanism," Levin, who performs research at Rutgers University-New Brunswick's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said in an interview.
In a press release about the research, Levin is quoted as saying it will take "millions of years" for this blob of hot rock to "get where it's going." But this doesn't mean the rocks will melt or lead to a supervolcano or any volcano at all.
New England
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