News You Might Have Missed
Welcome to another addition of quick takes on what's absurd, funny, and awful in the news.
Good morning! I know how busy you are, so I’ve been diligently assembling precious morsels of news items that might have escaped your radar. Here’s my curated version of what’s happening in the world:
Sycophant du jour: Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna. It’s highly competitive as to who gets the brown-noser award these days but Luna (R.-FL.) is off to a solid start. Not only has she introduced legislation to carve Trump’s face onto Mt. Rushmore to honor “his towering legacy,” but she has a video of herself parading provocatively in a MAGA swimsuit. (Eat your heart out, Lauren Boebert!)
WTF? They’re censoring Hillbilly Elegy too? The Department of Defense, now under the august leadership of Pete Hegseth, is doing vital work to keep this nation safe. On the agenda: getting rid of books that are now considered dangerous for children of American military families around the world. Not surprising that Brave New World by Aldous Huxley was axed, and maybe it’s predictable that an illustrated biography of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an unrepentant feminist, would be censored too. But the shocker is that JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy is also on the hit list. Could it be that the book acknowledges that there are poor folks in America and is, hence, subversive and “woke”? Or is it because it was written before JD’s converted to MAGAism? In any case, here’s the list of banned books, as compiled by PEN.
Best headline so far this year: “Putin Dead At 72 From All The Orgasms Trump And Pete Hegseth Gave Him Yesterday” from Wonkette. And this appeared before Trump started blaming Ukraine for being the aggressor in its war with Russia. At this point, Putin must have died happily a thousand times.
Oops of the week. A whopping 410 applicants got acceptance emails from William & Mary Law School (Matt Gaetz’s alma mater). Only problem: They were sent to the wrong people. Though some recipients were on the waitlist, a “small” number also went to rejects, reports Reuters.
Are legal scholars too optimistic that we will survive Trump? Jay Willis at Balls and Strikes thinks so. He took issue with Noah Feldman’s op-ed in Bloomberg in which the Harvard Law School professor argued that our system of checks and balances will ultimately prevail and “block Trump’s executive overreach.” Willis’s beef with Feldman and others of his ilk: “Feldman makes the same basic mistake made by many law professors moonlighting as legal pundits: explaining that Trump’s actions are no cause for concern because someday, somewhere, an appeals court might declare them illegal. It is the product of a profession that treats law as a system of objective rules that yield clear answers on which all gentlemen of principle will agree, instead of a fight for political power in which the people hailing the system’s integrity never realize they are getting their asses beat.” Worth a read.
A news organization with balls: Associated Press. The AP is suing White House officials on First and Fifth Amendment grounds for barring the news organization from press events because it still uses the term “Gulf of Mexico” instead of “Gulf of America” in its news articles. It’s refreshing to see a media company finally standing up to Trump, unlike the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, ABC News, and CBS.
A woman with balls: Maine governor Janet Mills. During a meeting at the White House, Trump put her on the spot, asking her before a room full of governors if Maine would be abiding by his executive order banning transgender athletes from female sports. Her answer: “I’m complying with the state and federal laws.” To which Trump responded: “We are the federal law,” adding, “you better do it” or he’d be withholding funding from her state. Mills followed: “See you in court.” No matter where you stand on the issue, you’ve got to admire her guts.
Most ridiculous recipe published in New York Times: “Basic White Rice.” It calls for soaking raw rice “for at least 30 minutes and up to 8 hours,” boiling it, followed by a series of “resting” intervals with the lid on and off, then fluffing. Sorry, but I don't know any self-respecting Asian who goes through this rigmarole to make simple rice. Just get a rice cooker, for goodness sake!
Speaking of food, a memorable quote: “This White House celebrating Black history is like asking a cow to serve steak,” said Derrick Johnson, the president of the N.A.A.C.P.
That’s it for now!
Vivia
Oh, Vivia! The world is so much better with you in it!!
The comment on legal scholars is spot on!