TGIF 3/22/24

I've got short good week/bad week lists for you, in this week that brought us the first day of spring and multiple cold, blustery, non-spring-like days.

It also brought us the start of the NCAA's March Madness madness, including anger over who got selected, and misery as brackets were busted by upsets. We also learned this week of a scandal in the circle of baseball's highest-paid player, and of a second cancer diagnosis in the highest echelon of the British royal family. 

We'll learn more about all of that in the coming days, I'm sure.  In the meantime, let's get to the lists.

The media - yet again - had a bad week.

The disappearance of a white male college student in Nashville garnered tons of breathless national news coverage, including the repeated airing of videos from the night he disappeared. You would have thought each of us - even me, sitting some 850 miles away - was part of his story, part of the search, part of his life. We were not. We are not. We shouldn't be.

Why was his story so important that it commanded so much of the limited national news time? Is it because it fits the narrative of out-of-control crime in our country? I guess it did, at least until this morning, when his body was found - and no foul play was suspected. 

But wait - there's more! News is breaking that NBC has hired Ronna 'I'm So MAGA I Changed My Name' McDaniel, the former head of the Trump National Committee, as a political commentator. 

McDaniel is expected to contribute to both NBC and MSNBC. Her first appearance will be on Sunday on “Meet the Press,” where she will give her first interview since stepping down from the RNC.

I hope you all laughed as hard as I did at "McDaniel is expected to contribute..." Honestly, I couldn't imagine how they could make Meet the Press worse, but a Kristin Welker/Ronna McDaniel interview is certainly a great way to start. Here's what network bigwig Carrie Budoff Brown had to say about the hire. 

It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team. 

And here's Ronna's voice, so you know what you have to look forward to. 

House Republicans - yet again - had a bad week.

Rep. James Comer (R-MAGA Camp), chair of the House Oversight Committee, is now saying that the best way to hold the Biden Crime Family accountable is through criminal referrals, and that he's got more than enough evidence to do that. This comes after Lev Parnas, former Rudy "Too Broke" Giuliani BFF, said he was sent to dig up dirt on Biden in Ukraine, and found none. 

Parnas also accused the GOP of doing Russia's bidding, and he named names, including Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Putin); you may remember he once famously spent our nation's birthday in Moscow. And after, of course, other witnesses have gone through some stuff.

But wait - there's more! Rep. Marjorie Taylor Flamethrower Greene (R-You Kidding Me?) has filed a motion to oust Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson (R-ighteous Indignation). She did that as the House passed the remaining bills to avoid a government shutdown by a vote of 286 - 134; 101 Republicans voted for the package, while 112 of them voted against it. It's "more of a warning" to Johnson, she said. 

I do not wish to inflict pain on our conference and throw the House in chaos, but this is basically a warning and it’s time for us to go through the process, take our time and find a new speaker of the house that will stand with Republicans and our Republican majority instead of standing with the Democrats.

Green doesn't recognize 47% of her own caucus, and apparently Johnson isn't supposed to recognize them either.

Voters in my neck of the woods had a good week. Now, I know that can be said pretty much any time people can vote, but I'm talking about an unusual situation here. Village officials made a decision that would make it much harder for a local business owner to sell his business and retire. Villagers were highly disappointed in the actions of the officials, enough so that another businessman started a write-in campaign against the mayor - and he won.

This is a big deal for the little village where it happened, but it's a big-picture story, too. It shows the power of engagement, the power of fighting for something you believe in, and yes, the power of voting. Hopefully, this will resonate with people who think no one listens, or who think that one or ten or 302 votes don't matter - because they do. 

TGIF, everyone.