Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Josh Marshall: The Trumpcare Butcher Block Celebration in Photos, Annotated (TPM)
Here's a collection of photographs of the good times, annotated with the number of people who will lose their health care coverage in each representative's district.
Marc Dion: I Wrote a Book in a Difficult Time (Creators Syndicate)
I love my own people more than I've ever loved them, because they've set up a terrible whiplash that's going to come back on them like a striking snake. It sounded so tough, and it's going to end so weak. The country is rocketing back to 1905, crushing workers' rights, encouraging pollution, asking blacks, "Just who the hell do you think you are, boy?" and giving women the old kitchen/whorehouse choice.
Clive James: 'I have put aside Shakespeare, to remind myself that others can write, too' (The Guardian)
The best artists are a bit like children and the best critics are a bit like artists.
Hadley Freeman: From Nick Cave to Kate McCann, it's time we judged parents a little less (The Guardian)
Parents of missing children are demonised by a public needing to reassure themselves it could never happen to them.
What I'm really thinking: the care home visitor (The Guardian)
I feel like an inconvenience, a stranger interrupting my relative's routines.
Jamelle Bouie: Cruel Old Party (Slate)
Here is what the AHCA, deemed "Trumpcare," would do if signed into law: Allow states to waive coverage for "essential health benefits" like hospitalization, maternity care, and mental health coverage; allow discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions like asthma, cancer, and other ailments without a safety net for Americans priced out of the individual market; allow employers to hollow out health benefits for their employees, threatening health insurance for the millions of Americans who receive it through their jobs; …
Zanandi Botes, Andrea Menes: 12 Brilliant Tributes Hidden In Plain Sight, In Movies (Cracked)
Filmmakers are fond of throwing in fun little visual references, homages, and inside jokes that they know for a fact no one in the audience is even going to notice. They're probably nervously waiting for someone to come along and notice their cleverness, so …
David Christopher Bell: Reminder: No One Gets A Plaque For Taking Away Civil Rights (Cracked)
History has a funny way of looking back at controversial moments with hindsight that's far more objective. And so far, literally every case in which a person was proudly attempting to limit the civil rights of a group of people or desperately clinging to old racist traditions has been seen as hilariously wrong. And because of the terrifyingly immortal nature of social media, these people (with entire lives beyond these beliefs) are going to be forever immortalized as wrong-headed chucklecocks.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
answered:
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
WELL, DUH!
"YEAH! OUR SIDE WINS!
"HEY TRUMP! NEW YORK HATES YOU!"
MATTHEW 25: 31-40
STEVE BANNON'S RAP MUSICAL.
THE DICTATOR.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast day and a cold, rainy night.
Fox "News" Now Government Sanctioned
Rupert
An email has been sent to staff at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announcing that all their agency's televisions will show Fox News, apparently by order of the Trump administration.
Journalist Paul Thacker tweeted a screengrab of the message, but an FDA spokesperson denied there had been any such order.
It reads: "Please excuse me for sending this out to your entire group via your listserv, but I was alerted by a member in your group and I wanted to let everyone know that the reason for the change from CNN to Fox.
"The reason for the change is that a decision from the current administration administrative officials has requested that all monitors, under our control, on the White Oak Campus, display Fox News.
Rupert
Protections For 27 May Be Curtailed
National Monuments
Twenty-seven national monuments, mostly in the West, face the curtailing or elimination of protections put in place over the past two decades by presidents from both parties, the Interior Department said.
Donald Trump (R-Crooked) ordered the review last month, saying protections imposed by his three immediate predecessors amounted to "a massive federal land grab" that "should never have happened."
A list released Friday includes 22 monuments on federal land in 11, mostly Western states, including Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah, Nevada's Basin and Range and Katahdin Woods and Waters in Maine.
The review also targets five marine monuments in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, including a huge reserve in Hawaii established in 2006 by resident George W. Bush and expanded last year by President Barack Obama.
Bush, Obama and Bill Clinton were among a host of presidents who protected hundreds of millions of acres under a 1906 law that authorizes the president to declare federal lands and waters as monuments and restrict their use.
National Monuments
Cargo Cult Worship Prince Philip
Vanuatu
The retirement of Britain's Prince Philip from public life led world headlines on Thursday, but his most devout and remote followers have only just heard the news.
A tribe in Vanuatu was shocked and dismayed to discover on Saturday that the man they pray to as the son of an ancestral local mountain god will likely never return to their Pacific Island home.
The British royal, who said he would no longer take part in public engagements, alone or alongside his wife, Queen Elizabeth II, is part of the fabric of life in the village of Younanen on Tanna Island.
Villagers pray to the 95-year-old prince daily, asking for his blessing on the banana and yam crops that make their primitive and extremely poor community self-sufficient.
"If he comes one day the people will not be poor, there will be no sickness, no debt and the garden will be growing very well," village chief Jack Malia told Reuters through an interpreter at the village's Nakamal, a traditional meeting place where the men gather at night to drink highly intoxicating kava.
Vanuatu
Thoroughly Underwhelming Crayon
Crayola
Just as you're starting to recover from Crayola's heartbreaking decision to kill off off the beloved Dandelion crayon, the company goes and reveals Dandelion's utterly underwhelming replacement.
Yes, after a full month of mourning a pivotal piece of our childhood and Crayola boxes, the art supply company that broke our creative little hearts revealed the currently nameless stick of wax from the blue family that will be joining the box.
The only problem? It looks a bit like every other blue crayon we've ever known, which is a tremendous letdown.
On Friday, the brand new crayon was revealed at an on-campus event at Oregon State University, the place where the vibrant YInMn Blue pigment that inspired it was first discovered in 2009.
In a press release shared with Mashable, chemist Mas Subramanian - who discovered the pigment with his team -said that it's a true honor to see his work inspire such a "beloved instrument for creativity."
Crayola
'Natural Meaning' Law Raises Fears
Tennessee
Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam (R-Fink) on Friday enacted a bill that critics say is an underhanded way of denying rights to same-sex couples by insisting on the "natural and ordinary meaning" of words in state statues.
The legislation, which was signed by the Republican governor despite pressure from civil liberty and gay-rights groups, requires words in Tennessee law be interpreted with their "natural and ordinary meaning, without forced or subtle construction that would limit or extend the meaning of the language." It did not explain, however, what that means.
Civil rights and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) advocates warned the law is meant to undermine the rights of same-sex couples in any statutes that include words like "husband," "wife," "mother" or "father."
Neither of the two sponsoring lawmakers, Republican state Senator John Stevens and Republican state Representative Andrew Farmer, could be reached to comment.
However, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported Stevens said he proposed the measure partly to compel courts to side more closely with the dissenting opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 2015 ruling in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges which legalized same-sex marriage.
Tennessee
Recuses Himself
Pruitt
EPA chief Scott Pruitt has recused himself from lawsuits against the Environmental Protection Agency that he was involved in as Oklahoma's attorney general.
Pruitt's recusal statement, obtained by E&E news and dated May 4, outlines several lawsuits he has agreed not to be involved in until one year after his Senate confirmation on Feb. 18 of this year. He also will not take part in any cases in which the state of Oklahoma is a party.
In his previous role as Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt participated in more than a dozen lawsuits against the EPA, including challenges to the Obama-era's Clean Power Plan and a rule related to the Clean Water Act.
Pruitt said in his statement Thursday that his recusal "addresses all of my ethics obligations."
Pruitt
Pre-Existing Condition
Chaffetz
Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Weasel) flew in to Washington to cast an affirmative vote for a healthcare repeal bill that could allow insurers to deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions even though he recently had a surgery for a pre-existing condition himself.
Mr Chaffetz recently underwent an ankle surgery to remove 14 screws and a metal plate from his foot that were put in after a fall in his garage nearly 12 years ago. He had been experiencing pain in his ankle and his doctors advised that he come back to Utah, where he lives, to remove the hardware or risk serious infection.
The healthcare bill that he returned to Washington to vote on included an amendment, added after the first failed attempts to repeal Obamacare earlier this year, that would allow states to opt-out of provisions in the law that bar insurance companies from raising rates for people with preexisting conditions.
Since Mr Chaffetz's foot injury happened over a decade ago, he may have encountered issues with his insurance regarding that surgery since "pending surgeries" was one of the conditions that may have been exempt in the bill.
A picture snapped of Mr Chaffetz rolling through the halls of Congress on a knee scooter with what has been described as a look of joy on his face as her headed to cast his vote has since become a meme online, with people adding captions to the picture describing morbid intentions to leave people uninsured behind his smile.
Chaffetz
Nearly 400 Migratory Birds Died
Texass
Nearly 400 migratory birds of brilliant plumage were killed when they smashed into an office tower in Texas while flying in a storm, officials said on Friday.
Office workers arrived at the tallest skyscraper in downtown Galveston on Thursday morning and found the birds with feathers of blue, green, yellow and other hues dead on the ground, said Josh Henderson, animal services supervisor for Galveston police.
The birds were coming from Central and South America and arrived in the coastal city of Galveston, likely fatigued from their flight over the Gulf of Mexico. The birds migrate to several areas across North America during the warmer months of the year.
More than 20 species were represented among the 395 birds that died, Henderson said. The biggest group was Nashville Warblers, followed by Blackburnian Warblers.
Henderson said he did not know if all the birds were flying together or if they struck the office tower at different times.
Texass
Cassini Spacecraft Delivered Stunning Photos
NASA
NASA's Cassini spacecraft continues to delivery some truly jaw-dropping photographs from Saturn, and its most recent "Grand Finale" dive between the planet's rings has produced some of its most striking eye candy yet. But what's most interesting about the newest crop of photos isn't necessarily the images of Saturn and its rings - those are also really, really cool - it's the snapshots that Cassini's lens managed to capture of the planet's moons Rhea and Titan.
The photos, which were captured before, during, and immediately after the second of Cassini's over 20 planned dives, were sent back to NASA from the spacecraft on May 3rd. The collection of new images was just released to the public in a huge media dump by the agency.
Of course, Saturn itself is Cassini's most important photography subject, and the craft spent some time snapping some really fantastic new shots of the planet's complex ring structure as well. The photos, especially the one below, are so incredibly detailed that they honestly look fake. The sharp lines you see are actually made up of all kinds of dust and debris that has been circling Saturn for ages, forming the strikingly beautiful pattern.
Cassini's next Grand Finale dive will take place on May 9th, when it will make its way from the northern end of Saturn to the south, flying through the rings as it goes. Let's hope its next 20 dives produce just as much fancy photography as its first two.
NASA
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