NATIONAL PISTACHIO DAY UPDATES
Shelled or Unshelled?
-Many guests on the Sunday news talk shows … yes, they still air … are focusing on the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s military defeats over the year, Russia’s efforts to try to get more support from China to continue the war amid Ukrainian counter-resistance and a unified NATO led by President Biden, and continued efforts from the GOP UltraMAGA flank to defund Ukraine and give poor poor Vladimir Putin a chance to just live his best life. President Biden on ABC continues to make clear that from his perspective US support will be unwaivering, even as hoped-for GOP Presidential hopeful Gov. Ron DeSantis adopted pro-Putin language in criticizing Biden and the claim that Biden cares more about Ukraine than the Mexican border or East Palestine, OH. While GOP support for Ukraine has decayed, overall support for Ukraine continues.
-Slava Ukraini!
-Speaking of DeSantis, this weekend he held a summit to line up financial, media, and political support for his campaign, likely to be formally announced in May after the FL legislature passes a law that would allow DeSantis to keep his Governorship while running for the White House. A glittering array of GOP leaders came to help DeSantis, led by the man who most establishment Republicans hoped would be their 2016 candidate and who gave his coveted to some people endorsement to DeSantis: former FL Gov. Jeb Bush (R!).
-That early DeSantis support was reiterated by nominative GOP party chair Ronna (ROMNEY) McDaniel, who on Fox Sunday News made the bold promise that no Republican candidate would be allowed on the GOP debate stage without signing a pledge to support the eventual GOP nominee – a clear “warning” (don’t laugh) towards Ex-President Trump, who has not only made clear that under no circumstances would he ever support DeSantis (since he never supports anyone who ‘crosses’ him, which is pretty much everyone that he’s ever worked with), but whom as we all know is a man whose word is bond, and who will honor that word by honoring that pledge if he signed it.
-NOW you can laugh!
-And by the way, when Biden announces his re-election campaign – and all indications are that he will, with his approval ratings now approaching the best of his term – he will have at least one opponent. 2020 candidate Marianne Williamson has announced she will, indeed, run a second time in the Democratic primary against Biden. While she has not spelled out a specific platform on which she will run besides unhappiness that Democrats have made South Carolina its first primary rather than New Hampshire or the Iowa caucuses, she told students at the Medill School of Journalism that she hopes to “contribute to harnessing the collective sensibility that I feel is our greatest hope at this time.” So … there’s that …
-The EPA is now managing the cleanup of that train accident in OH, but that is not stopping the right from continuing to try to use it as a wedge against the Biden Administration – this despite preliminary findings that a brake issue had a share of the blame, a brake issue that could have been addressed had the Trump Administration not relaxed that regulation (along with a regulation permitting more transport of dangerous chemicals on trains) during his term, which ended in 2021 after his loss in the 2020 election. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigeg continues to be the object of UltraMAGA venom, with Trump in interviews childishly pronouncing his name “boot-edge-edge,” and Rep. Lauren Boebert (N-R-A, CO) continuing the GOP’s homophobic slurs against Buttigeg by sneering that his knowledge of trains come from “watching Thomas the Tank Engine” and that Buttigeg “dressed as a white male construction worker” when he went to the site on Friday.
-A reminder: Lauren Boebert’s idea of rugged masculinity likely comes from her relationship with her husband, Jayson – a man who, in 2004, was arrested, charged, pled guilty to, and served jail time for, exposing himself to two teenage girls at a bowling alley. Boebert was also at that bowling alley at the time of the incident. One more thing: Jayson was 24 and Lauren was 17 at the time of the incident. So keep that in mind whenever “the Boebs” decides to give any opinion about anything involving “being a man.”
-We end with a story about … newspaper comic strips? Yep! You see, over the weekend a number of newspapers (including USA Today, Washington Post, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer) announced they will no longer run the DILBERT comic strip. The reason? DILBERT’s creator, Scott Adams, went on an unprovoked live social media rant earlier this week in which he called African-Americans “a hate group,” adding “the best advice I would give to White people is to get the hell away from Black people, just get the f**k away … because there is no fixing this.” Adams, an unabashed Trump supporter who has also railed against “going woke,” undoubtedly will have a lot more to say about THAT subject, even though saying a lot has got him in the trouble he currently finds himself in.
-Also, apparently DILBERT still exists. Who knew?!
-On this date in 1917, the first jazz records were recorded in New York City. On this date in 1919, the Grand Canyon was declared a national park. On this date in 1929, the Grand Teton national park was established. On this date in 1993, a car bomb went off in a parking garage of the World Trade Center, killing six and injuring over 1,000. And on this date in 2012, Trayvon Martin was shot and killed walking home from a convenience store in FL – his killer was acquitted, and his death spurred protests that became the early part of the Black Lives Matter movement (and the subsequent “going woke” backlash we see today).
-Happy Birthday to Christopher Marlowe, Victor Hugo, Levi Strauss, Buffalo Bill Cody, John Harvey Kellogg, Grover Cleveland Alexander, William Frawley, Tex Avery, Robert Alda, Jackie Gleason, Mason Adams, Tony Randall, Fats Domino, Ariel Sharon, Johnny Cash, William Ferris, Bill Duke, Mitch Ryder, Bobby “Bingo” Smith, Priscilla Lopez, Jonathan Cain, Michael Bolton, Sen Tim Kaine, Mark Dascaros, Erykah Badu, Max Martin, Marshall Faulk, and Corinne Bailey Rae.
-Rest in Peace/Rest in Power to Roy Eldridge, Slim Galliard, Jean Yawkey, automobile stereo inventor Avery Fisher, Bill Hicks, David Doyle, Lawrence Tierney, Johnny “Red” Kerr, Norm Van Lier, Earl Lloyd (the first black NBA player), and Judge Joseph Wapner.
-Feed the Worms: Turkish strongman and sorta-kinda Trump ally Recep Tayvip Erdogan entered Earth on this date. Gatling gun inventor Richard Jordan Gatling (duh!) bought it on this date.