by John Walters

Tweet du Jour

 

The 👏 point 👏 of 👏 the 👏 title 👏 was 👏 that 👏 though 👏 they 👏 thought 👏 they 👏 were 👏 the 👏 best 👏 and 👏 the 👏 brightest 👏 they 👏 screwed 👏 up 👏 US 👏 involvement 👏 in 👏 Vietnam 👏 stop 👏 using 👏 it 👏 un-ironically 👏

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) March 7, 2018

Starting Five

Cohn Heads Out*

*The judges will grudgingly accept “Tariff Tiff”

Yesterday afternoon, not long after Donald Trump boasted, “Everybody wants to work in the White House,” his Chief Economic Adviser, Gary Cohn, turned in his resignation letter.

Apparently, Cohn had written the resignation after his boss equated the people protesting the Charlottesville Nazis with the Charlottesville Nazis (wouldn’t this make a great name for a AA minor league team?) themselves, but was not moved to act on it until Trade Wars: The Last Tariff was released on Monday.

 

So if the Charlottesville Nazis had been marching to protest the 15-cent rise in the price of Cream of Mushroom soup, Gary Cohn would have left then?

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) March 6, 2018

What is stultifying here is how some of the supposedly smartest and most accomplished men in the U.S.A. (e.g, Cohn, John Kelly) have come to the White House and seem genuinely shocked and disappointed by the president’s behavior. Were they not paying attention the past 30 years?

Trump’s White House really is a lot like The Apprentice: a different character departs each week and some folks are given immunity.

2.  Selection Sunday Sorrow

How to make a gaggle of sportswriters gloomy and irate at the same time? Tell them you’re changing the format of the March Madness Selection Show (never mind that you’re airing it on Turner, not CBS).

This year, for the first time, all 68 teams will be informed whether they are in or not, first, in alphabetical order. Only then will the brackets be revealed. In the past viewers would learn their team, its opponent and where it was playing its first game(s) all at once.

Turner’s idea, and we’re more than willing to give it a chance, is a double reveal. The first reveal is all about Who’s In/Who’s Out. The second reveal, and this will keep your eyes glued to Turner longer as opposed to switching over to ESPN or focusing on your bracket immediately, is where and who your team gets.

It’s actually very, very smart from a programming standpoint. It keeps you tuned to CBS longer and it rolls out the information you desperately want in two stages. It’s sock-sock, shoe-shoe as opposed to the old way, which was sock-shoe, sock-shoe. We can dig it. Or at least give it a chance.

I mean, Sunday is the first day of Daylight Savings Time, which may as well be a national holiday on the East Coast. Why get upset about anything?

3. He Sells Bombshells in the Seychelles

We know. We know. We know: You have Trump-International-Skulduggery-Bombshell Fatigue. You’re forgiven. But the latest is that the FBI detained a Lebanese-born American and United Arab Emirates adviser,  George Nader, last December because he attended a meeting in the Seychelles Islands (Indian Ocean) in 2017 that involved a Russian investor and Trump adviser/Blackstone founder Erik Prince. Nader is cooperating with Robert Mueller.

So many bombshells. It’s like the beach at Dunkirk at Robert Mueller’s office.

4. The Labors Of Hochulis

Ed Hochuli, buff ref extraordinaire, announced his retirement from the NFL yesterday. Upon further review, the 67 year-old zebra’s retirement was upheld. The NFL cannot bear to be without a Hochuli, though, so his son Shawn, a back judge, to replace him.

5. Weathering The Stormy

How is an incarcerated “Russian Sex Coach” (MH, yesterday) supposed to get any attention with Stormy Daniels‘ incessant high-pressure system dominating the headlines? On Monday it was reported that Donald Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, was “complaining” that he had not been reimbursed for the $130,000 in hush money he paid Daniels on his boss’ behalf.

This is Classic Trump: allegedly cheating on his newly mothered wife with a porn star, then having his lawyer pay her to keep mum, promising to reimburse the lawyer and then conveniently forgetting all about it. If you’re keeping score, Trump stiffed Stormy Daniels AND Michael Cohen.

Now Daniels, through her lawyer, is claiming that the NDA she signed is invalid because Trump did not also sign it. Sing away, Stormy. Sing away!

There are those on the right who’d call Daniels a venal opportunist in their defense of the world’s most venal opportunist.

Reserves

Durban Chainsaw Attack 

In South Africa, triathlete Mhlengi Gala was out for a training ride when three men abducted him, pulled him off his bicycle, and attempted to hack off his legs with a chainsaw. Why do humans keep behaving like such sh*ts?

The men fled after sawing Gala’s left calf. Doctors believe they will be able to save the leg.

****

Trump Panama: A harbinger?

Music 101

Karn Evil 9

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P19BpRijJD4

We’re giving you the abridged, AOR-radio-friendly 9-minute version of Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s ambitious 29-minute, 37-second musical suite. From 1973, off the album Brain Salad Surgery. This is about as Seventies as it gets.

Remote Patrol

Notre Dame vs. Virginia Tech

ACC Quarterfinals

7 p.m. ESPN2

Bonzie’s beckoning the brackets….