by John Walters

So, wait. When I write less y’all comment more? Good to know. 

Starting Five

James and the Giant Impeach*

The judges will also accept “Comey Don’t Play That.”

How did you enjoy Comey Day? The “Lordy, I hope there are” quote, John McCain babbling incoherently, Marco Rubio admonishing somebody else for not calling Trump out for being out of line, and the White House launching the spit-take inducing, “The President is not a liar?”

What does it all mean? We now know, pardon the pun, unimpeachably, that James Comey considers Donald Trump a liar. We all figured that before, but now we know. However, unlike Watergate, which began with a crime that no one understood and ended with Richard Nixon’s resignation, here we have everything BUT the crime. We have the criminals, we have the motive, we even have the back-channel colluding.

 

Despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication…and WOW, Comey is a leaker!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 9, 2017

 “It’s not a lie if you believe it, Jerry” — G. Costanza

We just don’t have an actual crime yet. We don’t have the money trail. Or the tape in which the parties agreed to a sinister partnership. And even if we get that, we still have a Republican Congress. And even if we get an impeachment, we’ll still have President Stick-Up-His-Ass who will pardon Trump. Just you wait.

The Axis of Weasels*

*The judges will also accept “Creme de la Kremlin”

It was good to see the usual suspects (pun intended) rally around the President yesterday. Paul “the President is new at this” Ryan, Corey “Comey Isn’t Man Enough” Lewandowski, Kellyanne Conway and the rest. When the hornet’s nest is this aroused, you can be sure Comey landed a direct blow.

3. Ni**er, Where You At?

What was Bill Maher thinking on Friday night when he used the term “house ni**er?” I mean, sure, it’s HBO, but it’s not The Wire (where you’d hear that term profusely). The funny part to me is that this word constitutes the greatest widespread acceptance of a double standard since the dude I was talking about in Item 1.

It’s okay for African-Americans to use this term all day and all night (in fact, I was reading Paul Beatty‘s The Sellout, a novel about black people by a black author that has this term on just about every page, as this was happening) but not for whites. Of course, you’ve heard that point before. What was funny to me about this instance is that Maher–because like him or not, he is a smart guy–absolutely used this reference accurately. He was invited by the congressman from Nebraska to “work in the fields” and Maher’s joke was that he’s more suited to domestic work. So he dropped in that slang for humor’s sake.

I think this will blow past. As it should. Maher didn’t call someone a “ni**er.” He was evoking an historical term as a joke about the fact that he’s too prissy to do real man’s work. Of course Maher has plenty of enemies and they’re here to pounce on him, but the fact that they would because of this is the latest double standard.

4. The Longest Running Run of Running

Meet Jon Sutherland. The 66 year-old Southern Californian has run at least one mile each day since May 26, 1969. My story in Newsweek. 

5. What Is Tentacle Porn, Anyway?

Yesterday, as Newsweek‘s British managing editor was prepping for a meeting about, as they’d say on The Office (Gervais version), “redundancies,” a symbolic bomb exploded in his lap. One of the magazine’s most esteemed writers, the best-known and respected in the Beltway, Kurt Eichenwald, was busy mansplaining on Twitter why he and his grown children were discussing “tentacle porn” with his wife and their mom.

 

…some to show her it was real. But I couldn’t find any – & ended up w/ this. My family reads my twitter feed, so they know this is true.

— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) June 8, 2017

It’s kinds of astounding what you can get away with and NOT be fired for, isn’t it, M.M.?

 

While hentai (until now, I thought it was called manga) was on screen as part of search to prove 2 my wife tentacle porn exists, what….(1)

— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) June 8, 2017

Earlier this morning I went on Slack to see if anyone at Newsweek had volunteered to do a tentacle porn piece (think of the clicks!), but no one had. In fact, the site hadn’t even covered it, which is 180 degrees opposite of what would happen now if anyone but a Newsweek writer had been the subject of the piece.

To finish up, tentacle porn, or “tentacle erotica,” actually exists. See here. 

Music 101

Hold Back The Rain

Duran Duran, specifically their album Rio that was released in the U.K on May 10, 1982, achieved Peak New Wave (and don’t let anyone tell you different). “Hungry Like The Wolf,” the title track, “New Religion,” “Save A Prayer”, and this song helped propel the album to double platinum and kept it on the charts for 129 weeks.

Remote Patrol

Game Last?: Dubs at Cavs

9 p.m. ABC

Will the Dubs be the first NBA team (or pro sports team among the big four) to go 16-0 in the postseason? Will Susie B. blame Channing Frye for the defeat? Will Jason McIntyre move on to yet another specious debate topic that will be irrelevant three days from now because by then he will have found an even more recent and ephemeral debate topic on which to obsess? Tune in and find out.