3.30 Michael Che on SNL: “How can America run out of space [to hold immigrants]? We still have two Dakotas. Most countries don’t even have one.”
3.30 Albany
3.30 Albany
3.29 Thomas Piketty at Columbia
3.29 Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “So, what is the president afraid of? Is he afraid of the truth, that he would go after a member, a chairman of a committee, a respected chairman of a committee in the Congress? I think they’re just scaredy cats.”
3.28 Eli Manning on playing in Philadelphia, in Newsday: : “You go there, and that 9-year-old kid is giving you the double finger. Not a thumbs-up. Not, ‘We’re No. 1.’ And he said something about my mom; I had to Google what it was. It’s just different. It’s a different culture.”
3.27 Lindsay Graham: “President Trump has been good to me in the sense that he’s allowed me in his world. He’s made decisions, I think, based on some input I’ve given him. He’s subject to changing his mind, and I want him to be successful.”
3.27 Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez: “I am very encouraged by the sudden concern on the other side of the aisle about climate change, and it makes me feel as though our efforts have been effective, at the very least in distancing between the dangerous strategy of climate denial, which we know is costing us lives — at least 3,000 in Puerto Rico in Hurricane Maria.” But concerns about the environment, she continued, were hardly “elitist.” “You want to tell people that their concern and their desire for clean air and clean water is elitist? Tell that to the kids in the South Bronx which are suffering from the highest rates of childhood asthma in the country,” she said. “Tell that to the families in Flint whose kids have — their blood is ascending in lead levels. Their brains are damaged for the rest of their lives. Call them elitist. You’re telling them that those kids are trying to get on a plane to Davos? People are dying. They are dying. And the response across the other side of the aisle is to introduce an amendment five minutes before a hearing in a markup? This is serious. This should not be a partisan issue. This is about our constituents and all of our lives. Iowa, Nebraska, broad swaths of the Midwest are drowning right now. Underwater. Farms, towns that will never be recovered and never come back. If we tell the American public that we are more willing to invest and bail out big banks than we are willing to invest in our farmers and our urban families, then I don’t know what we’re here doing. I don’t know what we’re here doing.”
3.26 Quartz: Attitudes have drastically changed since the Victorian era, when regular epidemics made death pervasive and post-mortem photographs abounded, sometimes depicting an entire family gathered around a deceased individual. Ariès notes that in the last two centuries, death has become an increasingly solitary, “invisible” phenomenon, in tandem with a cultural shift toward individuality and drastic improvements in healthcare. For those who could afford it, death was outsourced from the living room to the funeral parlor, and the dying moved from the home to the hospice. Today, only about 25% of Americans die at home. Hence, there has been a push to create new online and physical spaces, like death cafés, which exist to humanize death—and, in doing so, celebrate life.
Whatever happens this day or the next, or in this investigation or the next or the one after that, we should always remember this: We should expect far more from a president than merely that he not be a provably a criminal beyond a reasonable doubt.
— George Conway (@gtconway3d) March 24, 2019
3.26 Bohemian Rhapsody opened in China, with Freddie Mercury’s gayness edited out
3.25 A flight leaving from London to Germany ended up in Scotland by mistake. Incorrect flight paperwork caused a British Airways plane to land in Edinburgh instead of Düsseldorf.
3.25 In a significant shift, the Justice Department now says that it backs a full invalidation of the Affordable Care Act, the signature Obama-era health law. Paul Waldman in the Washington Post: what would that fallout be? Never in our history has the health-care system undergone an upheaval such as what the Trump administration and other Republicans are seeking. It would be an absolute catastrophe for tens of millions of Americans. The expansion of Medicaid would be rolled back, snatching coverage away from millions of Americans. So would the subsidies that millions more receive to afford coverage. Protections for preexisting conditions? Gone. Insurers would once again be able to deny you coverage if you’ve ever been sick or had an accident. Young people allowed to stay on their parents’ plans until age 26? Not anymore. Women could once again be charged more for insurance than men. Yearly and lifetime caps on coverage would come back, as would the Medicare prescription drug “donut hole.” Rural hospitals would be starved of funding and would close. That covers just a portion of what the ACA does.
Trump publicly welcomed the support of an enemy, one with whom he had hidden financial ties, that enemy worked to help get him elected and he rewarded them with a defense of their attacks on our democracy and with policy benefits no US president had offered before.
— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) March 26, 2019
3.25 The Atlantic: Though the investigation once looked like it might imperil Trump’s presidency, Barr’s initial interpretation seems to now be a tchotchke he can tout on the campaign trail. On the flip side, plenty of liberals had been anticipating that Mueller would effectively put an end to Trump’s presidency—with a small cottage industry of books and Mueller-themed wares such as candles and throw pillows peddled to those who saw the special counsel as the singular messiah who could lift them out of the Trump malaise.
3.25 The US has spent $32 million per hour on war since 2001
3.24 For only the second time in NCAA tournament history, all No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 seeds advanced to the Sweet 16. The last time was 10 years ago
3.24 Rob Gronkowski retires. “In my opinion, he’s the best combination of power, athletic ability, great hands and excellent instincts in the game, and it was right from the beginning when he came to New England,” said Texans coach Bill O’Brien.
3.24 University of Central Florida Coach Johnny Dawkins, after a shot at the buzzer that would have upset top-rated Duke rolled out: “Look, man, it’s going to always end one of two ways when we invest like we invested: celebrating or we’re going to end in tears. We end in tears. That’s because we invested so much in each other and so much in what we were doing. I love you guys. It’s been amazing coaching this group.”
3.24 The Washington Post: “The Attorney General’s letter “removes one of the darkest clouds hovering over the Trump presidency.. . . support[s] his long-held stance about the Russia investigation, feed[s] into his notion that the Washington establishment is out to get him and probably make[s] it more difficult for House Democrats to investigate the president. The extent of his victory could be tempered, though, if Democrats succeed in their push for Mueller’s complete report to be released and the documents reveal questionable behavior by the president.”
3.24 BBC: “The best day of Trump’s presidency.”
3.24 Mueller says Trump did not collude with Russia, but did not exonerate him on obstruction charges
3.23 The Washington Post: United States counties where President Trump hosted a campaign rally in 2016 saw a 226 percent increase in reported hate crimes compared to similar counties that did not host one
3.22 More children were shot dead in 2017 than were on-duty police officers
3.22 Mueller submits his report
3.22 Just over half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 — 51 percent of them — said they do not have a steady romantic partner, according to data from the General Social Survey released this week. That 2018 figure is up significantly from 33 percent in 2004 — the lowest figure since the question was first asked in 1986 — and up slightly from 45 percent in 2016.
3.21 According to a Pew Research Center study published Thursday, when adults are asked to think about what the United States will be like in 2050, they see the country declining in stature on the world stage, a widening gap between the haves and the have-nots and growing political polarization. They think health care will be less affordable, public education will be lower quality and retiring will be harder. They fear the growing national debt, the likelihood of an attack that’s as bad or worse than 9/11 and another 1970s-style energy crisis. Many people also think robots will take their jobs. Few folks in either party believe the political class is up to the task of addressing the most pressing challenges. Part of the problem is that there is less agreement about what the biggest problems even are than there once was, let alone the best ways to tackle them.
3.21 Look who’s on the cover of Time
3.21 Albany
3.20 Albany
3.20 Cam Newton on “Late Night With James Corden.” “OK, so every month, this being the offseason, I try to challenge myself in many different ways. January, I decided the whole year, I’m not gonna bet. So his fantasy league, it wasn’t the only thing I was losing at. So no bets in January, then it carried over. February … what was February? Oh, Vegan! … And then March, I hope this is an adult crowd, no climax. … That’s including no wifi, no thigh-thigh. … It’s challenging”
3.20 Barbra Streisand on the men who accused Michael Jackson of molestation in the documentary Leaving Neverland: “[Jackson’s] sexual needs were his sexual needs, coming from whatever childhood he has or whatever DNA he has,” she said. “You can say ‘molested’, but those children, as you heard say [the grown-up Robson and Safechuck], they were thrilled to be there. They both married and they both have children, so it didn’t kill them.”
3.20 Beto O’Rourke, in Vanity Fair: “I don’t ever prepare a speech. I don’t write out what I’m going to say. I remember driving to that, I was, like, ‘What do I say? Maybe I’ll just introduce myself. I’ll take questions.’ I got in there, and I don’t know if it’s a speech or not, but it felt amazing. Because every word was pulled out of me. Like, by some greater force, which was just the people there. Everything that I said, I was, like, watching myself, being like, How am I saying this stuff? Where is this coming from?”
3.19 Los Angeles Angels sign Mike Trout to a 12-year, $430 million deal
3.18 Senator Michael Bennet, quoted in the Post: “We’ve got to nominate somebody who can beat Donald Trump. That means we have a responsibility not to do ourselves in. I went around in 2016 saying Trump couldn’t win. I was totally wrong. …Trump’s not an idiot. Whatever you think of Trump – and I can’t stand the guy myself – he is a marketing genius. He is a savant of some kind when it comes to marketing. And where he sees the weakness, he will exploit it. … Trump knows he can’t get elected on his two feet. What he’s trying to do is disqualify the Democratic Party. He looks for opportunities to do that by calling people socialists … by saying Democrats are for open borders … and by saying Democrats are anti-Israel. … I think Democrats need to be very strategic in not falling into the traps that Donald Trump is laying for us.”
3.18 Robert Kagan in the Post: Today, authoritarianism has emerged as the greatest challenge facing the liberal democratic world — a profound ideological, as well as strategic, challenge. Or, more accurately, it has reemerged, for authoritarianism has always posed the most potent and enduring challenge to liberalism, since the birth of the liberal idea itself. Authoritarianism has now returned as a geopolitical force, with strong nations such as China and Russia championing anti-liberalism as an alternative to a teetering liberal hegemony. It has returned as an ideological force, offering the age-old critique of liberalism, and just at the moment when the liberal world is suffering its greatest crisis of confidence since the 1930s. It has returned armed with new and hitherto unimaginable tools of social control and disruption that are shoring up authoritarian rule at home, spreading it abroad and reaching into the very heart of liberal societies to undermine them from within.
3.17 Nasreen Yazdani in Modern Love in the New York Times: “Sometimes I wonder if relationships are like math problems: You add the pros, subtract the cons, run the numbers and round up to the nearest husband. I have never been good at math, but I keep puzzling over this equation, trying to reconcile whether love for us is greater than, or less than, doubt.”
3.16 The New York Times, quoting lines from the TV comedy Catastrophe: “As for Rob and Sharon, parenthood itself concentrates one’s focus like the prospect of an execution. “Having kids,” Rob tells a starry-eyed new-dad friend, “is like strapping yourself to a Formula One racecar, you know? Boom! Your life is over. But not in a bad way!” “Yeah,” Sharon says. “You just have to take everything you ever wanted and put it in a box because you never … but yeah! It’s great!”
3.16 Sen. Rand Paul: “We spent the last two months debating how much money should be spent on a wall, and Congress came to a clear conclusion: $1.3 billion. Without question, the president’s order for more wall money contradicts the will of Congress and will, in all likelihood, be struck down by the Supreme Court.”
3.15 In Houston TV, Thelma Chiaka gave birth to six babies in just nine minutes. Four boys and two girls arrived between 4:50 and 4:59 a.m.