A Ronna Way Train

NBC No Evil, Baltimore Bridge Collapse

After days of on-air reporter revolts, NBC News has reportedly unhired former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel. Some will position the outrage over McDaniel's hiring as being overly partisan or driven by a fear of hearing opposing views on opinion shows. That view is wrong. Michael Steele, also a former RNC Chair, is a current NBC News employee. The issue with Ronna McDaniel isn't just that she has spent the last several years attacking the press (even though that alone would be a good reason for the press not to hire her). The issue is that Ronna McDaniel was an active part of an ongoing effort to deny and overturn the results of an American election. She betrayed America. And until she was dropped from the RNC in favor of Trump's daughter-in-law, she was an active participant in telling the lies required to get Trump back into the White House - enabling and empowering a candidate who has made the Jan. 6 attack a cornerstone of his bid for the White House. When your reaction to a question about a legitimate Biden election is to say, I don't think he won it fair, I don't. I'm not going to say that, then you don't get to work for a legitimate news organization. NBC News should not be in the Big Lie advancement business. We cannot normalize lies. Why am I leading with an inside-baseball story about a bad hire at a news organization? Because it's part of the bigger story of what Americans are willing or unwilling to tolerate and normalize as we face an existential threat to our democracy. With democracy on the line, we need the American press to be better than ever. Journalists working for a major brand were called upon to take a stand when an absolutely critical line was crossed, and with near uniformity, they did. It's taken while, but maybe the good guys finally know what's at stake.

+ Historian Timothy Snyder: "So this is like a trial run for NBC and everyone else to say okay, we're going to practice appeasing a dictator and then when it comes, we'll be better at it." Yeah, we're talkin 'bout practice.

+ After following news links for a couple decades, I have a spidey-sense for news momentum and how stories might play out. Right after McDaniel's hire, I predicted she'd be gone by Monday. I was off by about eleven hours. I guess I forgot what time Maddow was on. (Here's an idea: Maybe news orgs should stop hiring pundits altogether and hire reporters instead.)

2

Bridge Collapse

The videos of a cargo ship crashing into and taking down Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge are truly shocking. "The cargo ship, which is called Dali, reported losing power just before it struck a column on the bridge. Watch the moment the bridge collapsed. Rescuers are still searching for six construction workers, presumed dead by their employer, who were working on the bridge at the time of the collapse." Here's the latest from AP and CNN.

+ It's not just the tragic loss of life and a key piece of infrastructure. The Baltimore bridge collapse could devastate supply chains and cost billions.

+ The cargo ship that hit Baltimore bridge was involved in Antwerp collision in 2016. "The Dali was reportedly detained in Belgium after scraping side of quay and significantly damaging part of hull in good weather."

+ Photos: Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse.

3

Obrador Hinge

Andrés Manuel López Obrador is the president of Mexico. But because he runs the country on the other side of a politically-charged border, he's very much a key player in the US presidential election. NYT (Gift Article): Who Could Sway the Outcome of the U.S. Election? Mexico’s President. "The administration says publicly that its diplomacy has been a success. But behind closed doors, some senior Biden officials have come to see Mr. López Obrador as an unpredictable partner, who they say isn’t doing enough to consistently control his own southern border or police routes being used by smugglers to bring millions of migrants to the United States, according to several U.S. and Mexican officials. None of them would speak on the record about delicate diplomatic relations. 'We aren’t getting the cooperation we should be getting,' said John Feeley, former deputy chief of mission in Mexico from 2009 to 2012 ... I know what it looks like when there is genuine cooperation as opposed to what we have now, which is being touted as great cooperation but I think is bupkis.'"

4

Swing and Mifepristone?

As MoJo explains, The Supreme Court Abortion Pill Case Is Based on Imaginary Patients and Shoddy Science. Apparently (and surprisingly, given the makeup of this Court), SCOTUS wasn't much more impressed. AP: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday seemed likely to preserve access to a medication that was used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the U.S. last year, in the court’s first abortion case since conservative justices overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago. In nearly 90 minutes of arguments, a consensus appeared to emerge that the abortion opponents who challenged the FDA’s approval of the medication, mifepristone, and subsequent actions to ease access to it, lack the legal right or standing to sue."

+ Vox: Even the Supreme Court seems sick of its abortion pills case.

+ The NYT (Gift Article) on Erin Hawley: The Woman Arguing Against the Abortion Pill. She's the wife of the Jan 6th fist-raising Senator Josh Hawley. "It was 2014, and Erin Morrow Hawley was fighting against the egg-laying hens of Missouri. Specifically, a new requirement that chicken cages have enough space for the hens to stand up, turn around and stretch out."

5

Extra, Extra

Don't Forget the Hostages: "'He came towards me and shoved the gun at my forehead,' Ms. Soussana recalled during eight hours of interviews with The New York Times in mid-March. After hitting Ms. Soussana and forcing her to remove her towel, Muhammad groped her, sat her on the edge of the bathtub and hit her again, she said. He dragged her at gunpoint back to the child’s bedroom, a room covered in images of the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants, she recalled. 'Then he, with the gun pointed at me, forced me to commit a sexual act on him.'" NYT (Gift Article): Israeli Hostage Says She Was Sexually Assaulted and Tortured in Gaza. The fact that these stories will be plentiful and probably a lot worse certainly plays a role in Hamas' refusal to release more hostages and agree to ceasefire terms.

+ Trump Pump and Dump: The judge in the hush money case has issued a gag order barring the GOP presidential nominee from commenting on witnesses and others. Meanwhile, the man found guilty of fraud is now the major shareholder in a publicly traded company and just added billions to his net worth. What exactly is creating value in this newly public company? That's unclear. "Trump Media brought in less than $3.5 million in revenue in the first nine months of 2023, while posting a $49 million net loss in the same period." As far as I can tell, he’s going to pay for his fraud with an even bigger fraud. If this doesn't work, there's always the bibles he started selling today. It's incredible that anyone would buy anything from this guy.

+ He's a Neumann: Adam Neumann has made a $500 million bid for his old company, WeWork. You run something down from $47 billion to $500 million and you still have $500 million to buy anything? I'm sure all the investors wiped out by WeWork's implosion are delighted.

+ Diddy or Didn't He? "In the first nine months of 2023, Sean “Diddy” Combs triumphantly performed at the MTV VMAs, released an R&B album that garnered a Grammy nomination and was a suitor to buy the BET network. But several lawsuits filed late last year raised allegations of sexual assault and rape against Combs — one of hip-hop’s most recognizable names as a performer and producer." And now this: Authorities searched Diddy’s properties as part of a sex trafficking probe.

+ News Nugget: Chick-Fil-A backtracks from its no-antibiotics-in-chicken pledge, blames projected supply shortages.

+ Shohei Can You See: "I never bet on baseball or any other sports or never have asked somebody to do that on my behalf ... And I have never been through a bookmaker to bet on sports ... Up until a couple days ago, I didn't know that this was happening. ... In conclusion, Ippei has been stealing money from my account and has told lies." Shohei Ohtani breaks silence on interpreter gambling scandal. The explanation still seems weird. If we could spend weeks on Deflategate, this story could be around for a while. Maybe MLB and Fan Duel should launch an app where you can bet on how the Shohei Ohtani scandal turns out.

+ Uberman: "Huberman sells a dream of control down to the cellular level. But something has gone wrong. In the midst of immense fame, a chasm has opened between the podcaster preaching dopaminergic restraint and a man, with newfound wealth, with access to a world unseen by most professors. The problem with a man always working on himself is that he may also be working on you." I have a genetic resistance to the preachings and teachings of self-helpers like Andrew Huberman, the world’s biggest pop neuroscientist. So I hadn't even heard his name before reading about his behind the scenes behavior and his relationship juggling. Maybe he should be called a pop physicist because his schedule bends time. NY Mag: Andrew Huberman’s Mechanisms of Control.

+ K Pop: RFK picks Nicole Shanahan as his running mate. She had donated close to $5 million to his campaign and PAC. But, "Kennedy denied in a News Nation interview that Shanahan’s wealth was a factor in his decision making." If you believe that, I've got some shares in Donald J Trump's new shell company I'd like to sell you.

6

Bottom of the News

"Three types of Krispy Kreme doughnuts — original glazed, chocolate iced with sprinkles and chocolate iced 'kreme' filled — will go on sale at McDonald’s restaurants starting later this year." Krispy Kreme doughnuts are coming to McDonald’s. It's only a matter of time before you can buy Ozempic in the drive thru.

+ "The Penguins said they were notified recently that a special cargo recovery team had negotiated the return of the bobbleheads to a secure warehouse." Case closed? Penguins say stolen bobbleheads have been recovered and shipped to Pittsburgh. (It would be weird if Shohei Ohtani's interpreter was the one who stole the bobbleheads.)