The March Madness edition of The Month in Review
Happy April Fools Day! The only trick is despite the title, the only words about basketball concern a school band and a Hall of Famer. So moving on, it’s time for the monthly recap of the news. Let’s get to it!
Do you play Wordle? If so, you are one of the millions that do every day. This month marked the one-thousandth game. The New York Times celebrated the milestone by canceling the statistics of everyone who didn’t sign up to have a Times account, which included me! Starting completely over didn’t bother me that much because I don’t play every day, but it was a bit annoying. But, now all of us who do have accounts can access ‘all the news that’s fit to print.’ Great—we can now see Maggie Haberman sucking up to Donald Trump for access immediately after we strike out on a Wordle word that has ten different options.
The NCAA tournament has begun. In the first round, Yale’s men's team upset Auburn. The Yale band couldn’t make the cross-country trip to Spokane, Washington so the University of Idaho band stood in for them. They learned the school’s fight song and even wore Yale t-shirts. Pretty cool, right, but just how tough is it to learn “Boola Boola?” They could have flown in the University of Oklahoma band, that plays that same song over and over and over and over at every damn sports event—home and road.
The Summer Olympics are coming to Paris. The organizers got ready by purchasing three hundred thousand condoms that will be distributed to the athletes. The number of participants is estimated to be close to eleven thousand—that’s in sports, not sex. Doing the math, it breaks down to about three condoms per person. There’s no reason for anyone to get pregnant in Paris this summer; although if they do, remember that abortion is now legal throughout France. You sure can’t say that Paris isn’t prepared for the Olympics—at least for the extra-curricular games.
NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar held an auction to sell off his memorabilia. You see a lot of athletes or their families doing this. Usually, they pocket the money or pass it on to future generations of their families—and I make no judgment about this. Kareem went a different route. He donated close to three million dollars to his Skyhook Foundation which funds STEM (Science, technology, engineering and math) programs for kids. Usually, at the end of each segment, I have some snotty, sarcastic remarks, but I can save those for the Donald Trump sections of this column. For this, all I have is admiration. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Great athlete-greater human.
Talking about Donald Trump, CNN’s Jake Tapper was interviewing Nikki Haley after the Supreme Court ruled that Donald could stay on the Colorado ballot. In their back and forth, Tapper said, “They said he participated in an erection, and I have to...Insurrection. Sorry. An insurrection.” Both Tapper and Haley smirked while Jake blamed it on being exhausted as he was awake at five am to be on Kasie Hunt’s morning show. Good thing he was awake enough to not mispronounce Kasie’s last name. But, Jake isn’t the only one to confuse the words insurrection and erection. We’ve also heard it from Chuck Schumer and Anderson Cooper. Hopefully, all of their sexual partners can set them straight on the difference.
When it comes to getting the words inadvertently wrong, MSNBC’s Katy Tur says ‘Hold my beer.’ Tur was discussing possible Robert Kennedy Jr. Vice-Presidential running mates. She brought up the name Mike Rowe to her guest with this, “Mike Rowe has come out and said, ‘I’m not going to talk about discussions.’ But he said he likes RFK Jr. and likes some of his ideas regarding work. Would Mike Rowe as his running mate help him suck off — excuse me, I’m going to be on the internet now, God — suck up any more voters?” That led to her laughing in the background for the rest of the segment which ended her show. But, she was certainly correct. It’s a couple of weeks later, and you’re still on the internet.
Talking about MSNBC, they hired Ronna Romney McDaniel as a commentator. After on-air outrage from most of their hosts, management terminated her contract four days later. Ronna has become the Anthony Scaramucci of cable news. This pissed off Elon Musk enough to come up with this Tweet, “NBC just hired & immediately fired Ronna McDaniel, because the team refused to let even one Republican join them – that’s how biased they are.” Well, let’s see—off the top of my head we have Michael Steele, Nicole Wallace, Tim Miller, Charlie Sykes, John Kasich, David Jolly, and Joe Scarborough. Hmmm…just a little more disinformation from Elon. Oh yeah, one more thing Elon—the difference between all of them and Ronna is none of them tried to help lead an insurrection.
On Tuesday, there was a tragedy in Baltimore. A containership plowed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing it to collapse. Naturally, some of our favorite conspiracists had to weigh in with their bullshit views on what they think caused the accident. Fox News host Maria Bartiromo tried to blame it on what she called “the wide open border.” By the way, what the fuck happened to her? She used to be a respected business journalist and now it’s this? Of course, Marjorie Taylor Greene had to weigh in. Her tweet, “Is this an intentional attack or an accident?” She felt a need to write this after Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley announced that there was no indication of any terrorism. Also, two lines later Margie followed up with “Praying for the victims, survivors and families.” Marjorie, here’s a little advice. Next time try leading with that because that’s what a normal, compassionate feeling person would do. Never mind—I forgot who I was talking to.
Talking about Marjorie Taylor Greene, she had an interesting exchange with British journalist Emily Matlis. Their chat about conspiracies took a turn when the topic turned to Jewish space lasers. Emily asked her "What about Jewish space lasers? Tell us about Jewish space lasers?" Majorie’s pleasant response as she walked away, "Why don't you go talk about Jewish space lasers and really why don't you fuck off." I have to hand it to her. Telling people that is a pretty sure way to end a conversation. Trust me, plenty of commentators have said that to me after reading one of my diatribes. Maybe Margie is smarter than I thought. Naaaa.
Now on to the election season:
Russia held one of its free and fair elections. Vladimir Putin was elected for another term. He received 115% of the vote. Donald Trump is thinking how great it would be if he could pull that off in November.
Here in the United States, Trump thinks American Jews should all vote for him. “Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion. They hate everything about Israel and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed.” Here’s a guy who thinks we forgot about what happened in Charlottesville when he said, "You had people that were very fine people, on both sides." He also must think we don’t care about him having dined with Nick Fuentes, who has denied the Holocaust and has called for the genocide of Jews. But, speaking for my people, good luck with that one, Don.
It’s not only Jews that Trump thinks should be his supporters—he’s big on acting like he’s a big supporter of the police. Get this, “I support the police, I would say at the highest level of any president by far, maybe double or triple.” I wonder what those one-hundred or so Capital police, that he let be attacked at the hands of supporters, think about this?
Finally, let’s talk about fundraising:
We’ve all seen Donald Trump selling Bibles. “Happy Holy Week! Let’s Make America Pray Again. As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless the USA Bible.” For sixty bucks, you not only get a Bible but inside are the lyrics to Lee Greenwood’s song as well as copies of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and the Pledge of Allegiance. Maybe he should have put a package together with this bible thing and those $399 gold “Never Surrender High-Tops.” Like Flo at Progressive tells us, you get a better deal when you do a bundle. But, when you buy any of these latest Trump-grift items, does the money go to his campaign, or to pay his legal bills or does it go straight into his pocket? That’s what I thought.
While Donald Trump was pimping bibles, Joe Biden brought out the big guns. More than five thousand supporters filled Radio City Music Hall in New York City. They came to see the current POTUS, along with former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Mindy Kaling hosted the event which included an hour-long conversation with Biden, Clinton and Obama, moderated by Stephen Colbert. Special guests included celebrities like Queen Latifah, Lizzo, Ben Platt, Cynthia Erivo and Lea Michele. The event raised more than twenty-six million dollars. Doing the math, Trump will need to see more than four hundred thousand Bibles to get to that number. Good luck with that.
That’s all for March—really! I wouldn’t April Fools you about this. See you at the end of April.