On Saturday evening, as the WHCD was taking place in Washington, District of Columbia, President Donald Trump spoke in Washington, Michigan. Trump spoke for nearly 80 minutes. Here are most of the people he name-dropped during his speech:
Bill Schuette (Michigan Attorney General)
California governor Jerry Brown (“Moonbeam”)
General James Mattis (“Mad Dog”)
Sen. Jon Tester (Montana-Dem)
Natalia Veselnitskaya (Russian lawyer)
James Comey (former FBI director)
Hillary Clinton (you may know her)
Admiral/Doctor Ronny Jackson
Jon Lovitz (comedian who made lying a joke…those were the days)
Andrew McCabe (former deputy FBI director)
President Macron
The planet Mars
*****
And here’s who Donald Trump did not mention: James Shaw, Jr., an unarmed black man who overwhelmed a white gun man at a Waffle House and probably saved at least half a dozen lives, his own included. Then Shaw set up a Go Fund Me page whose proceeds paid for the funerals of all four victims. More than one week later, and not in a speech that droned on and on for more than an hour, the man’s name has still not escaped Trump’s lips.
Like Mr. Lupner, the WHCA was born without a backbone.
Starting Five
1. Wolf Blitzer
Raunchy. Uneven. Vulgar. Occasionally on the mark and bitingly funny (“That’s a pu**y? I guess mine just has a lot more yarn on it“). Those are the most accurate descriptions of comic Michelle Wolf’s 20-minute address at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. At least that’s how we heard it.
The Sarah Huckabee Sanders riff garnered the most attention, but for all the wrong reasons. Both Mika Brzezinski and The New York Times‘ Maggie Haberman, who won the night’s major award (“A MAJOR award!”…thanks, Darrin McGavin) but did not attend, criticized Wolf for mocking SHS’ physical appearance. But, aside from noting her “smokey eye,” a reference to makeup application, she did not. At all.
What Wolf did note is that SHS is an “Uncle Tom for white women,” which is accurate. It’s kinda weird that no one disputed that.
2. LeBron Prevails
Victor and Victor
When you’re 6’9″ and 260 pounds of sinewy steel, and then on top of that you’re allowed to palm the ball, barrel into defenders and take three steps after your last dribble with impunity, well then yeah, you’re pretty difficult to stop. Unless Lance Stephenson gently taps you on the head, then it’s as if you’ve just been whacked by Mike Tyson, but that’s a different story.
Making histrionics and history simultaneously, LeBron put up 45 points to lead Cleveland past a game and hungry Pacers team that will definitely be back and better next season in Game 7, 105-101. For the series LeBron averaged just over 34 points per game but more important, he spared us from hyper-early, entirely uninformed LeBron-to-Lakers hot takes for at least another fortnight.
Toronto will be easier. The Eastern Conference finals will be interesting, if LeBron’s body holds up (that’s a softball lob for you, Susie B….)
3. Atlanta A’s
Acuna had been labeled the top prospect in the minors before Atlanta called him up
Acuna and Albies. Those are the names to know for the reinvigorated Atlanta Braves. Left fielder Ronald Acuna, 20, of Venezuela, was just called up a week ago and is batting .412. He has four home runs but is the manner in which he smokes them, rockets to deep in the left field seats, that has drawn attention. Second baseman Ozzie Albies, from the Netherlands Antilles in the Caribbean, is 21 and has already stroked a tied-for-NL-best nine home runs with 20 RBI. He leads he NL in hits with 34.
Albies. This photo could have been taken in 1958 and don’t @ us about the tomahawk, please
The Braves are 16-11. The Braves, D-Backs, Yanks and Red Sox are all good again. Who put the time machine 20 years back?
4. Joy To The Whirled
Reid’s husband, Jason, is the lead NFL writer at The Undefeated
We’ll admit, we have not been paying that much attention to the Joy Reid scandal at MSNBC (we’re still kinda annoyed they got rid of Tamron Hall, who dunked on Scott Baio in 2016), but it’s 2018 and no one’s gonna believe your Twitter/blog/Facebook post was hacked even if it was (like when this site was hacked when I told y’all to invest in GBTC…).
Mostly, what’s been a little odd is seeing fellow MSNBC’ers such as Rachel Maddow and Nicolle Wallace publicly come to Reid’s defense while casually ignoring that she may have written a lot of homophobic garbage a few years back for public consumption, which is extra weird because one of them identifies as such. Anyway, in the age of The Worst Wing we’re sure there’ll be another atrocity tomorrow or Wednesday by someone else, and this too will be put into the dustbin of “I’m so offended.”
5. Two-Mile Island
Great photo here, no?
One of MH’s favorites, Jenny Simpson, sets the American record in the 2-mile run on Friday night at the Drake Relays. Simpson, 31, ran a 9:16.78, shattering the existing U.S. record by nearly four seconds.
Music 101
Do You Wanna Hold Me?
Punk impresario Malcolm McLaren, who managed the New York Dolls and the Sex Pistols, formed this band, a mixture of former Adam and the Ants musicians and a 13 year-old female lead singer. It worked, first with “I Want Candy” and then this lighter than a B-52’s beehive ‘do hit. This was peak MTV.
Remote Patrol
Sixers-Celtics, Game 1, Eastern Semis
8 p.m. TNT
Yes, beginning with Larry Bird’s rookie season (1979-1080) and then for two years after that, the annual Celtics-Sixers Eastern Conference finals, featuring a slew of future Hall of Famers (Dr. J, Larry Bird, Moses Malone, Kevin McHale, Tiny Archibald, Dave Cowens and even Pete Maravich), not to mention bizarro talents such as Darryl Dawkins and Bobby Jones, was the fiercest rivalry in the NBA. And annually more exciting than the NBA Finals. Welcome back.
Mayfield had a little Instagram fun on draft day by recreating a photo of a reclining Brett Favre in which he WAS wearing pants
Baker Backers
Cleveland Brown fans had barely washed the taste of Johnny Manziel out of their mouths and then their franchise goes ahead and drafts Baker Mayfield with the number one pick? So who will he be, a relatively short, not-quite-as-athletic-as Russell Wilson bust or the dude who put up the top two individual seasons, based on QBR ratings, in the modern history of college football?
It’s easy to lean toward the former, but let’s remember that Mayfield has surpassed expectations and overcome hurdles everywhere he’s been. At Texas Tech he walked on and then started as a freshman. At Oklahoma he walked on again—basically arriving unannounced in Norman—and twice led the Sooners to the college football playoff and won the Heisman Trophy.
2. Draft Night USA
Derwin James can’t believe he lasted that long, either.
It was a night that began and ended with a Heisman Trophy winner: Baker taken at No. 1 and Lamar Jackson taken at No. 32 and their teams play twice a year.
Winners: New York Giants, selecting Saquon Barkley at No. 2…Josh Rosen, landing in Arizona, even if he was the fourth QB picked; are they now the A-Rosen-a Cardinals?….Former Notre Dame O-line coach Harry Hiestand, who had two of his players selected in the top nine…the Edmunds DNA, as two brothers (Tremaine and Terrell) are chosen in the first round for the first time…the Broncos and Chargers, who see a pair of All-ACC studs—DE Bradley Chubb and safety Derwin James—fall into their laps.
Josh Allen’s next N-word is “Niagara”
Losers: Browns fans. You had two of the top four picks, and you take two guys who are the size of Douglas in accounting. Denzel Ward meets a need, but I’m not sure anyone is all that excited about it….Sam Darnold and Josh Allen, who were raised in California and now find themselves in New Jersey and Buffalo. Climate change is real…the Oakland Raiders, who selected 15th and took an O-lineman from UCLA?!?
3. Infinity War Opens. Infinity War Ends.
In what may be an historic moment for a whole bunch of humans named Kim, South Korea and North Korea have decided to make up. Today leaders Kim Jong-Un of North Korea and Moon Jae-in of South Korea met at the DMZ and pledged to formally end the Korean War (you can return to Crabapple Cove, Hawkeye) and to move toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. A North Korean leader had never set foot in the South before this moment.
Sometimes, holding a grudge just gets too tiring.
4. He Was Weird Harold All Along
On Wednesday a jury found Bill Cosby, a.k.a. Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable, guilty on three counts of sexual assault against former Temple student Andrea Constand. Ms. Constant was the only one of dozens of accusers to actually bring criminal charges against America’s Dad as opposed to sharing their stories with New York magazine.
This trial originally ended with a hung jury two years ago, but then the judge let five former victims who’d been assaulted in a similar fashion (drugged, then raped) dating back to 40 years ago testify. The pathology was more than evident and the guilty verdict came back. Cosby will almost certainly spend the rest of his life in jail.
“I did NOT grab her like this”
And, oh, another ’80s NBC icon, Tom Brokaw, has been accused of sexual harassment by former NBC anchor Linda Vester. The alleged incident(s) date back 25 years.
Vester has since married and left the biz to raise children
either. It may be that J. Fred Muggs is the only former Today Show host who treated his female co-workers with dignity.
5. The Prince of Tithes*
*The judges will also accept “Charred Chaplain”
Did you know there was a House Chaplain for the House of Representatives? We didn’t either, but currently there is not as the 60th House Chaplain in our nation’s history, a Jesuit priest named Patrick Conroy, was forced out last week by perpetually spineless Speaker Paul Ryan.
Apparently, during the tax debate last November Conroy offered up a prayer in which he said, in part:
“...may all Members be mindful that the institutions and structures of our great Nation guarantee the opportunities that have allowed some to achieve great success, while others continue to struggle. May their efforts these days guarantee that there are not winners and losers under new tax laws, but benefits balanced and shared by all Americans.”
“And another thing, my children, we need to deregulate the natural gas industry…”
Ryan was reportedly offended that Conroy’s views, in his mind, tilted Democratic (as do almost all of Jesus’ teachings, but that’s neither here nor there, right?). Ryan felt that the prayer tilted toward the idea that the tax cuts are more beneficial to the rich (which they are).
And Ryan is correct, of course. We all recall that part of the Sermon of the Mount where Jesus instructed his followers to give more of their scheckels and goats to property owners, who will then create more jobs with it and the surplus would trickle back down to them like water out of a rock. Right? Wasn’t that in there?
Music 101
Party In The U.S.A.
Give ’em hell, Hannah Montana. Okay, so the song is anything but autobiographical—Miley Cyrus is the daughter of a country music star and was famous herself as a kid—but this summer 2009 hit established her as a legit pop star at the age of 16. Not just a pretty face, she has a legit voice (ooh, hot take). Though the Red Hot Chili Peppers may want to ask for their bass line back. And you also have to love the Bellas’ rendition of it, below…
Remote Patrol
The Magnificent Seven
8 p.m. TCM
Why watch this 1960 Western starring Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and James Coburn, among others? First, it’s an American remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 classic, The Seven Samurai. Second, it has arguably the best score of any Western ever filmed.
Here’s Trump ranting about the fake news media while the Fox & Friends desperately try to get him to talk about something else. pic.twitter.com/yvWdfpeRc9
Watch a Port Authority commissioner/mom/over-entitled woman pull the “Do you know WHO I am?” card on a pair of Tenafly (N.J.) policemen who are having absolutely none of it. This was on Easter Sunday/Passover. For those unfamiliar, Tenafly is an affluent town just across the George Washington Bridge from Manhattan and a little bit north, along the Hudson.
Once this began going viral, Caren Turner was forced to resign. Meanwhile, you can imagine her daughter is like, “MOM, I’ll never be able to show my face in my MIT PhD. program seminar again!”
2. (THE SOUND OF SUSIE B. SHRIEKING CAN STILL BE HEARD)
It’s often overstating it to say that one man won a game or a series, but you watch what LeBron James did in the final few seconds of Game 5 last night and well, it’s not. With three seconds to play and the score knotted at 95, LeBron swatted away Victor Oladipo’s potential go-ahead layup and grabbed the board. On the ensuing inbound, he freestyled for a second or two and then calmly buried a 28-footer for the win.
LeBron finished with 44, 10 and 8. Gentlemen, start your narratives….
One last thing: Maybe the King got away with a little reigning in of Victor?
We imagine a few of us have fantasized about men in white coats taking President Trump away, but that’s not what’s happening here.
After allegations of drinking on the job, wrecking a government vehicle and handing out Percoset so profligately that staffers dubbed him “Candyman,” Dr. Ronny Jackson (no really, he’s white) withdrew his name as a candidate for Secretary of the Veterans’ Administration. It probably didn’t hurt that only yesterday the man who nominated him, Donald Trump, dog-whistled to reporters, “If I were him, I wouldn’t do it [seek the nomination].”
Doc, what’s the prescription for when the president throws you under the bus?
4. The Woman Who Stalked The Night Stalker
Yesterday police in California believe they finally nabbed the Golden State Killer, a.k.a., the Original Night Stalker, a.k.a. the East Area Rapist, whom they discredit with having committed at least 12 murders and 45 rapes dating back to 1976 (it’s a former police officer named James Joseph DeAngelo, who is 72). Much of the credit for this apprehension, though the cops publicly gave her none yesterday, belongs to the late Michelle McNamara, whose bestseller, I’ll Be Gone In The Dark, included numerous details and evidence about the killer’s crimes and served as sort of a national “Three Billboards Outside Sacramento” for these crimes. The tome was released posthumously earlier this year with help from the McNamara’s late husband, comedian Patton Oswalt.
McNamara, a suburban Chicago native and Notre Dame alum, wrote for television but also had a dogged fascination with unsolved crimes. In 2006 she started a True Crime Blog and then became somewhat obsessed with the Night Stalker (she renamed him the Golden State Killer). Almost two years ago to the day, McNamara died in her sleep after an accidental overdose of Adderall, Xanax and Fentanyl.
There is DNA evidence linking the murderer to crimes in both Sacramento and southern California, so this case should be expedited one way or the other quite decisively.
When asked yesterday if McNamara deserved any credit for assisting the police in their arrest, Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones said, ““It kept interest and tips coming in, but other than that there was no information extracted from that book that directly led to the apprehension.”
Replied Oswalt on Twitter: “[Michelle] didn’t care about getting any shine. She cared about the Golden State Killer being behind bars and the victims getting some relief.”
5. “Let’s Make Sure That We Keep This Confidential”
Sorry, Roger. The New York Times kept it Colinfidential, and if you read the story yesterday in which the tapes of last October’s NFL kneeling-protest summit are revealed, you see a room in which the players want to discuss the issue and the owners want to discuss spin and p.r.
Meanwhile, perhaps it’s only a coincidence, but San Francisco 49er defensive back Eric Reid was considered enough of a personage to be invited to the summit, but now six months later he is without a team and no one appears interested in signing him. Did Reid’s wearing a Kaepernick T-shirt over his dress shirt and tie to the meeting have anything to do with that?
Dig it: Fans who believe that players should keep politics off the field have a terrific point. But they should be consistent. The moment you put the flag and the national anthem onto the field you bring politics into the discussion. Contrary to what a lot of Americans believe, one of the wonderful things about being a United States citizen is that you are under no obligation to love the U.S.A. You are only obliged to obey its laws.
By playing the national anthem in public (plays don’t do this, movies don’t do this) at an entertainment event, owners (in all sports) are demanding a public show of loyalty from fans and players both. To not stand is to risk the opprobrium of those around you, and that’s fine. But that’s as far as the penalty should extend in a free society where people have First Amendment rights. Colin Kaepernick did not actually start this war: people who play the national anthem did.
Meanwhile, just a few hours after this story was released, Robert Kraft snapped at an NFL administrative assistant. He’d phoned in, presumably to speak with Roger, and was put on hold, during which time he heard a recording of the Eagles’ winning play in the last Super Bowl (52 was it?). When he finally got back through to a live voice, he was salty and mean. Surprised?
Music 101
A Little Respect
Before there was Daft Punk, there was the British synth-pop duo Erasure, i.e., singer Andy Bell and Vince Clarke. This 1988 single went to No. 14 on the Billboard charts. The openly gay Bell has helped to make the duo icons in the LGBT community, and they’ve been championing the cause long before anyone ever used those four letters together.
Remote Patrol
NFL Draft
Fox, ESPN, ESPN2
Do the Browns see the next Carson Wentz in Josh Allen and pick him?
Four quarterbacks—two Joshes, one Sam and one Baker—and in what order they will be picked is anyone’s guess. Two players who will undisputedly be studs and Pro Bowlers: RB Saquon Nelson and OG Quenton Barkley, or is it the other way around? Cleveland with picks 1 and 4. Do they trade down on one. Do they secure Saquon or Quenton (or DE Bradley Chubb or DB Minkah Fitzpatrick) with a pick? The first 10 picks here are Must-See TV. By the way, we likeMike Mayock’s mock draft, though our gast is flabbered at the thought that Rosen would still be available at No. 15 (though he’d love playing for the Cardinals and they’d love him(.
Inside the Oval Office, Donald Trump hosting French president Emmanuel Macron: “They’re all saying what a great relationship we have, and they’re actually correct. We do have a very special relationship. In fact, I’ll get that little piece of dandruff off — we have to make him perfect. He is perfect.”
2. Truck Stop*
*The judges who are KISS fans will also accept, “Detroit Truck City”
In Detroit, 13 trucks all stop beneath an overpass to help prevent a potential jumper from killing himself by leaping off the I-696 overpass. If this were a better world, Evel Knievel would then be seen flying over them on a motorcycle. Still, that’s a cool show of unity and what CB radios can do. This may be the best argument against driverless trucks yet.
It’s wonderful that they helped save a life, but when the foiled jumper wakes up this morning, he’ll still be in Detroit, so…
3. Philadelphia Freedom
Just in time for Game 5, rapper Meek Mill is released from prison, rings a replica of the Liberty Bell inside the Wells Fargo Center, and then the Sixers dispatch the Heat in Game 5 for their first playoff series win in six years. Bring on either the Celtics (yawn) or the Bucks (Yay!). Giannis, Ben and Embiid are the future of the Eastern conference.
Simmons and Embiid both posted double-doubles while veteran J.J. Redick scored a game-high 27 points.
4. Coast-to-Coast Pedaling
Did you know that there’s a TransAmerica Bicycle Trail? Well, there is and that’s it and it was launched unofficially in 1973. Here are details. Give yourself three months.
5. Hardware Store
Before Liverpool’s 5-2 victory against A.S. Roma at Anfield (Liverpool) in the first leg of their Champions League semi, violence erupted just outside the pitch. An Irish supporter of Liverpool was hit over the head and two Roma fans were arrested. He is in critical conditions. Guns are a no-no in Great Britain, which is why this hooligan was spotted carrying a hammer.
Music 101
The Jackal
The late Ronny Jordan (1962-2014; he’s playing the guitar here) wrote this song and released it in 1993 (the vocalist here is Dana Bryant) and most of us would have never heard of it if Allison Janney, as C.J. Clegg, had not lip-synched it on The West Wing in 2000 near the end of Season 1. What a treat. The song is phenomenal, but we need to mention Bryant’s name again, because what would this song be without her sexy, superfine voice?
Remote Patrol
Champions League
Real Madrid at Bayern Munich
2:45 p.m. FS1
Robert Lewandowski is not only Bayern’s top scorer (28 goals), but Real Madrid is looking to sign him after the season concludes. That’s cold.
These two super clubs have won four of the past five Champions League finals, but only one will advance this time. The first of two legs.
Yes, beginning with Larry Bird’s rookie season (1979-1080) and then for two years after that, the annual Celtics-Sixers Eastern Conference finals, featuring a slew of future Hall of Famers (Dr. J, Larry Bird, Moses Malone, Kevin McHale, Tiny Archibald, Dave Cowens and even Pete Maravich), not to mention bizarro talents such as Darryl Dawkins and Bobby Jones, was the fiercest rivalry in the NBA. And annually more exciting than the NBA Finals. Welcome back.
