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. 2Bridge CollapseThe 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. 3Obrador HingeAndrés 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.'" 4Swing 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." 5Extra, ExtraDon'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. 6Bottom 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.
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