Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Josh Marshall: Where to Put Your Campaign Money?, A Modest Proposal (TPM)
The people who've asked me in the last few days I've sort of lamented the lack of good information and said they could do worse than finding an incumbent Democratic Senator running in a state Trump won and giving them money. There's no particular genius to this advice. I just know how critical it is that all of them win and it's not like the reelection of Heidi Heitkamp is going to be the cause that sets people on fire. So it's great to make sure those folks have enough money to withstand everything the GOP will throw at them.
Paul Krugman: "Tax Cuts and Wages Redux (Slightly Wonkish)" (NY Times Blog)
So are workers going to benefit a lot from these tax cuts? There was never a very good reason to think they would, and early indications are even less favorable than the critics expected.
Joe Scarborough: John Bolton's appointment is a fitting coda to conservatism's failures (Washington Post)
Remarkably, order could be pulled from this culturally calamitous crisis if just two GOP senators had the moral courage to deprive Donald Trump of a ruling majority until he agreed to bring to heel his most destructive instincts. But even after a week of high-profile firings, attacks on Robert S. Mueller IIIand perplexing plaudits for Vladimir Putin, ideology continues to best idealism while American conservatism becomes even more detached from its philosophical foundations and fails yet again to confront the greatest challenges of our times.
Tara Golshan: winners and 4 losers from Congress's massive $1.3 trillion spending package (Vox)
Loser: Betsy DeVos. Winner: the Republican tax bill.
Macaulay Culkin spoofs Goop with 'lifestyle' site Bunny Ears (The Guardian)
The former child star's latest venture is a riff on the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow's nonsense emporium. It's the latest curveball in his post-Home Alone career.
Dr. Joel Fuhrman: "G-BOMBS: Top 6 Cancer-Fighting Foods" (Blue Zones)
"G-BOMBS are the foods with the most scientific evidence to prevent cancer. It stands for Greens, Beans, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries, and Seeds. Eat them almost every day."
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
fake news
David
Thanks, Dave!
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
'SIT DOWN BEFORE YOU HURT YOURSELF.'
THE REPUBLICAN MURDERER.
REST HIS EVIL SOUL!
"NUNERS' HITS A POTHOLE.
'FIGHTING FOR OUR LIVES!'
'I'M FRENCH. GET OVER IT!'
THE PARADE OF HAWKS AND LIARS!
AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and breezy.
'Feud' Suit Tossed
Olivia de Havilland
A three-judge panel has tossed out the defamation suit brought by actress Olivia de Havilland, in a ruling that affirms the right of filmmakers to embellish the historical record.
De Havilland sued FX Networks last year, alleging that the miniseries "Feud" included a damaging portrayal of her. The case was closely watched because it appeared to threaten the ability of filmmakers to portray real events with fictionalized elements. But in its ruling Monday, the court unanimously held that such portrayals are protected by the First Amendment.
"Whether a person portrayed in one of these expressive works is a world-renowned film star - 'a living legend' - or a person no one knows, she or he does not own history," Justice Anne Egerton wrote. "Nor does she or he have the legal right to control, dictate, approve, disapprove, or veto the creator's portrayal of actual people."
The FX series includes a scene with de Havilland, who is played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, in which she calls her sister, Joan Fontaine, a "bitch." The character also makes a joke about Frank Sinatra's drinking. De Havilland, 101, objected, saying the producers of the show never consulted her or got her permission for the portrayal. She also said she would never use a vulgarity in referring to her sister, though she did once call her a "dragon lady" in an interview.
FX sought to have her case tossed out on First Amendment grounds, but in a surprise ruling last fall, Judge Holly Kendig denied the motion. FX appealed, arguing that the ruling would have a chilling effect on docudramas. The Motion Picture Association of America came to the network's defense, arguing in an amicus brief that the court's ruling would give politicians and celebrities veto power over films about their lives.
Olivia de Havilland
Rightwingers Attack
Parkland Students
No issue unites the American right more than their opposition to gun control. The spectacle of hundreds of thousands participating in the #marchforourlives, led by young people, was always going to draw a full-spectrum response.
And as of this weekend, this group of idealistic young people have officially become the right's leading hate figures.
The first and most repugnant strategy was to directly attack high-profile campaigners, especially students David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez.
Running short of reasoned arguments, many attempted to push conservative buttons with high impact visuals. Alt-right social media company Gab was one of many that disseminated a doctored animation of Gonzalez in which she falsely appeared to be tearing up the US constitution. Cartoonist and Trump sycophant Ben Garrison depicted Hogg as an assault rifle, wielded by CNN, and loaded with Marxism. Breitbart re-published a round of tweets accusing Hogg of throwing a Nazi salute.
On Front Page - an outlet led by David Horowitz, whose main stock in trade is virulent Islamophobia - Bruce Thornton decried Hogg's "profanity laced tantrums" and reduced him and his fellow students to political "shock troops" being manipulated by a progressive "ideology of melodrama and moral exhibitionism".
Parkland Students
Staffing - Or Casting
Fox
President-for-now Donald Trump's (R-Crooked) favorite TV network is increasingly serving as a West Wing casting call, as the president reshapes his administration with camera-ready personalities.
Trump's new national security adviser, John Bolton, is a former U.N. ambassador, a White House veteran - and perhaps most importantly a Fox News channel talking head. Bolton's appointment, rushed out late Thursday, follows Trump's recent attempt to recruit Fox guest Joseph diGenova for his legal team.
Another recent TV-land addition to the Trump White House is veteran CNBC contributor Larry Kudlow as top economic adviser. Other Fox faces on Trump's team: rising State Department star Heather Nauert, a former Fox News anchor; communications adviser Mercedes Schlapp and Treasury Department spokesman Tony Sayegh. The latter two are both former Fox commentators.
"He's looking for people who are ready to be part of that television White House," said Kendall Phillips, a communication and rhetorical studies professor at Syracuse University. "This is the Fox television presidency all the way up and down."
Trump's affinity for Fox News is by now well-documented. He has bestowed more interviews on the network than any other news outlet and is an avid viewer. People close to the president say he thinks Fox provides the best coverage of his untraditional presidency. It also provides him a window into conservative thinking, with commentary from Republican lawmakers and right-wing thinkers - many of who are speaking directly to the audience in the Oval Office.
Fox
A Warrior?
King Tut
King Tutankhamun, the mysterious boy pharaoh from 1,300 B.C., could have spent time as a warrior, new research suggests.
An analysis of armor found in King Tut's tomb may have proved that he engaged in battle, according to a documentary scheduled to air in the U.K. on Wednesday.
Using new technology called "Reflectance Transformation Imaging" that can take merge images of an object captured under different lighting angles, experts revealed evidence of possible battle damage on the king's 3,000-year-old armor, according to the U.K.'s University of Northampton.
Lucy Skinner, an ancient Egyptian leather expert at the university, took part the documentary called "Secrets of Tutankhamun's Treasures," a three-part series featuring a team of experts looking to uncover the secrets behind his life.
Skinner specializes in the study of ancient Egyptian and Nubian leather with emphasis on its origin. Skinner studied remnants of the tunic-shaped garment, which researchers kept at the new Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
King Tut
Record Congressional Retirements
GOP
Congressional retirements can indicate which way the political winds are blowing.
With Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Ryan Costello announcing this weekend he will not seek re-election, 23 Republican retirements have been announced thus far this cycle in the House, the most in one congressional cycle dating back to 1973, according to "casualty lists"compiled by the congressional reporting outlet Roll Call.
In addition, Reps. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio, Tim Murphy, R-Pa. and Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah also left politics this cycle, resigning their seats for various reasons. Four other GOP representatives also resigned their seats to join President Donald Trump's cabinet and had their seats filled by Republicans in special elections.
Democrats hope this high number and polls showing enthusiasm among their voters means a wave election will come their way in November. Those hopes were bolstered earlier this month by Democrat Conor Lamb's upset victory in Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional District, won by Trump by nearly 20 points in the 2016 presidential election and held by Murphy since the early 2000s.
They need 23 seats to win back control of the House. It's a tougher climb in the Senate, where Republicans are defending nine seats while Democrats have 24 in play, including the two seats held by Sen. Angus King, I-Maine and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who caucus with them.
GOP
Gunmaker Files For Bankruptcy
Remington
US gunmaker Remington filed for bankruptcy on Sunday, as the more than 200-year-old firearms manufacturer vies to restructure its massive debts.
Remington had announced it would file for bankruptcy in February, just two days before a shooting at a Parkland, Florida high school killed 17 people and reignited a national debate on gun control.
The restructuring agreement will allow Remington to reduce some $700 million of its consolidated debt, according to the company, as well as inject a contribution of $145 million of new capital into its operating subsidiaries.
Remington's financial woes illustrate a paradox of the Trump era: weapon manufacturers ramped up production in anticipation of a Hillary Clintonpresidency that would drive sales of those fearing increased gun control.
Instead, they got a period of political dominance for the powerful National Rifle Association gun lobby -- with Republicans controlling Congress and the White house -- that was nonetheless accompanied by financial fragility for gunmakers.
Remington
When Thoughts & Prayers Aren't Enough
Metal Detectors
The two stone churches near the foot of Broadway, in the shadow of the World Trade Center, have seen fire and calamity and the sweep of American history, and through it all have kept their doors wide open.
But in a sign of the times, Trinity Church and St. Paul's Chapel both installed metal detectors this month. Visitors on their way to see Alexander Hamilton's tomb in Trinity's historic graveyard, or who want to sit in the pews at St. Paul's where George Washington prayed and dust-covered rescue workers rested after 9/11 attacks, now have to pass through airport-style security checkpoints.
The metal detectors, installed March 1, will be there "until this world becomes a safer place," said Trinity's vicar, the Rev. Phillip Jackson.
Visitors to St. Paul's passed through them Palm Sunday as they gathered to mark the start of Holy Week, which commemorates the story of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.
Church officials said the decision to step up security was not a response to any specific threat, but Jackson said a terrorist attack in the fall, when a man used a speeding truck to kill eight people on a nearby bike path, was "kind of a wake-up call."
Metal Detectors
In Memory
Linda Brown
Linda Brown, the young girl at the center of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case, passed away on Monday at the age of 76.
It was Brown's father, Rev. Oliver Brown, who sued the Topeka school board to allow his daughter the right to attend an all-white school in the Kansas capital city. Four other school segregation cases were combined with Brown's to be heard by the Supreme Court, but the justices' unanimous ruling was named for Brown.
Brown, who was also known as Linda Carol Thompson after her marriage in the mid '90s, was forced to attend an all-black school far away from her home though an all-white school was only blocks away.
Brown told MSNBC in 2014 that she remembered the embarrassment of being separated from her neighborhood friends and the long walk to the bus stop.
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of Brown. In its decision, the court overturned the 1896 "separate but equal" ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, marking the case as one of the biggest legal victories of the civil rights era. It was due to Brown v. Board of Education that the federal government could force states to integrate schools, allowing children of color the opportunity for an equal education to white children.
Brown credited her father and the other families who took their cases to court for removing the "stigma of not having a choice" during a 1985 interview for the PBS documentary series "Eyes on the Prize."
Even with the decision, it took years of protest and legal battles before segregation would end. Only three years after the Brown case, nine black students had to be escorted by federal guards in order to safely attend the previously all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Linda Brown
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