Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Waldman: We're living in an age of minority rule (Washington Post)
A minority Senate will confirm a justice appointed by a minority president to give a minority control of the Supreme Court.
Paul Waldman: The Liberal Backlash Is Coming (Prospect)
As the recent argument over "civility" has shown, we tend to treat conservative anger as something to be analyzed, understood, even empathized with, while liberal anger is greeted with stern lectures about proper behavior-and little or no attempt to plumb its depths. But more than ever before, liberal anger is something the political system is going to have to deal with.
Paul Waldman: Should Trump Staffers Be Shamed and Protested Wherever They Go? (Prospect)
As Trump staffers are heckled in public, the administration makes a bizarre appeal to civility.
Paul Krugman: Brexit Meets Gravity (NY Times Blog)
These aspects explain why Theresa May is trying to do a soft Brexit or even, as some say, BINO - Brexit In Name Only; and why the favored alternative of Brexiteers, trade agreements with the United States and perhaps others to replace the EU, won't fly.
Benjamin Lee: The First Purge review - patchy, dour prequel is a nihilistic Trumpian horror (The Guardian)
The fourth chapter in the often inventive yet shoddily written franchise, where crime is legal once a year, delivers an unpleasant, visceral assault with uneven results.
Garrison Keillor: Why I do not own an air mattress
What a glorious summer. Sunny skies and idyllic summer nights and then we had that ferocious heat wave to prevent us from going camping. When it's 100 degrees in the North Woods, only demented people would be camping, and if you weren't demented when you pitched your tent, you soon would be. If you love campfires, you can download a video of one. You know that, right?
Jonathan Jones: "Rembrandt: Britain's Discovery of a Master review - mediocrity beside magic" (The Guardian)
The Dutch genius shows up the glib emptiness of his progenies, and the attempt to trace his legacy is flimsy. Yet it is impossible not to come away spellbound
David Lynch: "BREAKING: DAVID LYNCH HAS THOUGHTS ON THE DARK SIDE OF FIFTIES SUBURBIA" (LitHub.com)
BOMBS, BULLETS, AND AMPUTATED FEET, OBVIOUSLY.
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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
Wrong airport!
Dulles and Reagan National airports are in such distinctive areas! Ha ha ha ha hah! Sarah Palin and daughter allowed themselves to be delivered to the wrong one!
"the Cohen/CBS/Showtime production team purposefully dropped my daughter and me off at the wrong Washington, DC airport after the fake interview ...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
And they missed their flights and everything, apparently because the mother-daughter team of Sarah and Bristol Palin can't rub two brain cells together well enough to use the time-tested method of "LOOK OUT THE CAR WINDOW AND SEE IF WE ARE GOING TO DULLES OR REAGAN NATIONAL."
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
MONEY TO THE PEOPLE.
'EVIL, EXPLOITATIVE AND SICK'.
STUMBLE BUM.
WHAT A BUNCH OF CHICKEN SHITS!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still way too warm and way too humid.
Read Letter
30 Celebrities
A Honduran woman separated from her child while seeking asylum in the U.S. is getting to tell her story with the help of 30 celebrities.
In February, the woman, who is identified only as Mirian, was separated from her 18-month-old son at the Texas border.
The video was created by actress Maggie Gyllenhaal and is titled "My Name Is Mirian."
The four-minute video features celebrities like Ryan Reynolds, Chadwick Boseman, Kumail Nanjiani and Kristen Wiig reading Mirian's account of her experiences since she came to the U.S. seeking help.
There is good news for Mirian: An immigration judge ruled in April that she had a credible asylum claim and she was released from custody, according to CNN.
30 Celebrities
Song Re-Enters British Charts
"American Idiot"
President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Tone Deaf) is about to get a very rude reception on his latest overseas trip, as he is slated to touch down Thursday in the U.K. for a four-day visit that is shaping up to be a magnet for anti-Trump protesters.
By now you've likely heard about the 20-foot tall diapered "Big Baby" balloon that London Mayor Sadiq Khan has greenlighted to fly over the city during Trump's stay. But the former Celebrity Apprentice star will also get a dose of harsh reality if he turns on the radio during his stay.
Thanks to a social media campaign launched in May by a Twitter group calling itself "American Idiot for UK No. 1 When Trump Visits" encouraging Brits to push Green Day's 2004 hit "American Idiot" to No. 1 on the singles charts, the track is currently No. 18 on the Official Charts tally, even as it hits No. 1 on Amazon's best-seller list. The song was originally written about former resident George W. Bush and features the refrain, "Welcome to a new kind of tension / All across the alien nation / Where everything isn't mean to be okay / Television dreams of tomorrow / We're not the ones who're meant to follow." According to The Guardian, British police are mobilizing the biggest detachment of officers since the 2011's widespread national riots, with thousands of cops being deployed as if "London was burning down," said one chief constable.
Trump reportedly asked British Prime Minister Theresa May to block all the protests upon his arrival, which she told him was not possible. The president canceled a visit to London earlier this year for the opening of the new U.S. embassy building, saying he disapproved of the deal made by the Obama administration (though it was actually the George W. Bush administration) to sell the old U.S. consulate for "peanuts."
"American Idiot"
Signature Top Hat Heading to Auction
Tom Petty
Tom Petty's 1965 Gibson SG guitar is headed to auction alongside other items that belonged to the rocker, including one of his signature top hats. Rare guitar collector Norm Harris is providing the lots, which will be sold via Heritage Auctions July 21st in Dallas, Texas.
The 1965 SG boasts a cherry finish, pearloid inlay on the face and headstock, as well as Petty's signature, dated 1988. Petty famously used the SG while he and the Heartbreakers toured with Bob Dylan during the latter's True Confessions tour. The instrument is expected to fetch as much as $300,000.
Petty originally bought the 1965 Gibson from Harris, then decades later swapped it for a rare Rose Morris Rickenbacker Double Bound 360 guitar. As part of the deal, Harris also received a selection of Petty's stage-worn clothing, some of which will head to auction as well.
Among these items is the iconic top hat Petty wore during his time in the Traveling Wilburys (it can be seen in the videos for "Handle With Care" and "End of the Line"). Other items include a cavalry jacket Petty wore during the Echo tour, a custom-made royal blue jacket from his 1991 European tour and a black dragon-print jacket.
The auction will also feature a signed 1963 white Gibson SG Junior guitar that Harris leant Petty after several of the musician's personal guitars were stolen. Petty used the white SG during rehearsals for his 2012 world tour, eventually returning the instrument - with his signature - after his stolen guitars were found.
Tom Petty
'Multi-Ethnic and Multicultural'
Early Human Evolution
The early evolution of humans was "multi-ethnic and multicultural", according to a new analysis that challenges the traditional view of our species deep origins.
Rather than arising from a single fixed point in Africa, a team of international experts has suggested that the rise of modern humans was a much messier affair.
Ancient Africa was populated by separate populations of ancestral humans, scattered across the wild prehistoric continent and separated by deserts, forests and rivers, the study has suggested.
Gradually, it says, these populations mixed together - sharing ideas and genes - and ultimately gave rise to everyone on Earth today.
Although the fossil record shows early manifestations of modern humans appearing around 300,000 years ago, it would take many thousands more years until something emerged we would recognise as one of our own.
Early Human Evolution
Oopsie
DoJ
The Department of Justice (DoJ) told a federal judge Tuesday that it may have mistakenly separated a father and toddler who could both be US citizens for as long as a year, in the process of enforcing the Trump administration's "zero-tolerance" immigration policy.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called the revelation "horrific" and blamed the administration's poor execution of the practice of family separations.
"The fact that a citizen got caught up in this mess shows just how poor the government's record-keeping was, and this is just the latest example," said Lee Gelernt, the deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project.
In a hearing on Tuesday, just before the deadline, the DoJ was asked to account for each failed reunification of the 102 younger children in its care. It noted 27 cases where it found reunification was not currently feasible, including one "because the parent's location has been unknown for more than a year … and records show the parent and child might be US citizens".
Previously the DoJ had only revealed that the child's father could not be located. The ACLU and the court were only made aware that both father and child might be US citizens on Tuesday.
DoJ
Falsehoods About NATO, Germany
AP FACT CHECK
Unleashing in-your-face rhetoric at the NATO summit, President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Fabulist) pressed the falsehood Wednesday that members of the alliance owe money to the U.S. and took sole credit for higher military spending by NATO partners - a decision that preceded his presidency.
Trump also misrepresented Germany's energy picture, asserting coal and nuclear power are gone from the mix. Coal remains a bedrock energy source for Germany despite its hope to wean itself from that mineral and nuclear plants have several years of life before they are to be phased out.
TRUMP: "Frankly, many countries owe us a tremendous amount of money for many years back, where they're delinquent, as far as I'm concerned, because the United States has had to pay for them. So if you go back 10 or 20 years, you'll just add it all up. It's massive amounts of money is owed." - comments at meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. In a tweet Tuesday, he said: "Will they reimburse the U.S.?"
THE FACTS: There is no such debt to the U.S. or to NATO. Therefore, no delinquency or question of reimbursement.
He is referring to how much each NATO country spends on its own defense and pressing them to spend more. Doing so would relieve some pressure on U.S. military spending. But there are no IOUs to collect from past years.
AP FACT CHECK
Students, Alumni Urge Leadership
Yale Law School
Even though Yale Law School published a press release touting the accomplishments of Brett Kavanaugh, its alumnus and President Donald Trump's new Supreme Court nominee, not everyone at the school is singing his praises.
As of Tuesday night, more than 200 students, staff members and alumni of Yale Law School signed an open letter calling for the institution to rescind its apparent support of Kavanaugh.
The letter, addressed to the law school's leadership and Dean Heather Gerken, argued that Kavanaugh, as a possible Supreme Court justice, puts American democracy in danger and called his nomination an "emergency."
The letter cited several of Kavanaugh's past opinions, arguing that his conservative bias would place past Supreme Court rulings at risk. It also claimed Kavanaugh would act as a "rubber stamp for President Trump's fraud and abuse," pointing to the judge's support for expanding presidential power.
"At a time when the President and his associates are under investigation for various serious crimes, including colluding with the Russian government and obstructing justice, Judge Kavanaugh's extreme deference to the Executive poses a direct threat to our democracy," the letter read.
Yale Law School
Needs To Register As Foreign Agent
Rudi
Donald Trump (R-Crooked) lawyer Rudy Giuliani (R-Nosferatu) must register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA), experts say, after it was discovered he has maintained overseas clients while serving the president.
In May, the former New York mayor delivered a paid speech in Washington to Mujahideen-e-Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian resistance group formerly listed by the State Department as a terrorist organisation from 1997 to 2012, in which he called for regime change in Tehran. His consulting firm has also reportedlykept a list of clientele from cities across the globe, who have hired him to help with their security and police practices.
Such actions are considered "political activity" under FARA, according to Josh Rosenstein, an attorney with the firm Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock and an expert on the foreign agent statute. "The speech in Washington on behalf of MEK constituted measurable political activity under virtually any reading of the statute," he said. "What's unusual is the fact that this administration seems to have one FARA violation after another … there is an emerging pattern of ties between the administration's personnel and close friends - like Giuliani, Manafort and Gates - to foreign governments."
Mr Giuliani told the Washington Post it was unnecessary for him to register under FARA, saying, "I've never lobbied [Trump] on anything."
"
I don't represent foreign government in front of the US government," he continued. "I've never registered to lobby." He also denied having to register as a foreign agent, since he works for the president pro-bono.
Rudi
Win Immunity From Abuse Claims
TSA Screeners
Fliers may have a tough time recovering damages for invasive screenings at U.S. airport security checkpoints, after a federal appeals court on Wednesday said screeners are immune from claims under a federal law governing assaults, false arrests and other abuses.
In a 2-1 vote, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia said Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screeners were not "investigative or law enforcement officers," and were therefore shielded from liability under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA).
The majority said it was "sympathetic" to concerns that its decision would leave fliers with "very limited legal redress" for alleged mistreatment by aggressive or overzealous screeners, which adds to the ordinary stresses of air travel.
"For most people, TSA screenings are an unavoidable feature of flying," but it is "squarely in the realm" of Congress to expand liability for abuses, Circuit Judge Cheryl Ann Krause wrote.
The FTCA generally affords the government sovereign immunity when employees commit intentional torts, a type of civil wrong.
TSA Screeners
Mediterranean Whales?
Ancient Romans
Ancient Roman hunters may have precipitated the disappearance of grey and right whales from the Mediterranean, a study said Wednesday, suggesting commercial whaling is much older than we thought.
Bones belonging to the two species were uncovered around the Strait of Gibraltar south of Spain, where they were never thought to have existed at all, a research team reported.
The finding suggests right and grey whales were "common" in the North Atlantic 2,000 years ago, likely navigating the strait to calve in the temperate Mediterranean Sea.
The Basques of northern Spain and southwestern France who lived about 1,000 years ago, are widely considered as being the first large-scale whalers.
But the latest discovery of bones, identified as belonging to right and grey whales through DNA analysis, appear to challenge that timeline.
Ancient Romans
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