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Joanne pre-NYMHM: 2 May 17

5/2/17 #newsyoumayhavemissed – a shorter one this time:

(1) In case you somehow missed it, Hasan Minhaj (from the Daily Show) spoke at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. I hate the tradition of this dinner (journalists in this country are far too cozy with politicians) but it was pretty telling that Trump didn’t go, and Minhaj’s set was good.

(“In four hours, Donald Trump will be tweeting about how bad Nicki Minaj bombed at this dinner, and he’ll be doing it completely sober.”).

[WaPo]

The journalists were stiffly unamused in a way that made me want to slap them, and which I thought must have made the stand-up more difficult. But mostly the slapping thing. 

(Also, as an immigrant, the whole “Only in America can a first-generation Indian-American Muslim kid get on this stage and make fun of the president” thing? Is so irritating. The First Amendment is great and everything, but I’ve never understood the American delusion that they’re the only country with free speech or where immigrants can succeed. I mean, the only reason that statement couldn’t ever be true for Canada or the UK is that we don’t have presidents or, I suppose, that particular stage.)

(Also also, can somebody for realsy make a movie about stripper cops solving a murder? Maybe starring, I dunno, the cast of New Girl?)

(2) The Great Barrier Reef is dying, from bleaching, with little chance to recover. [PopSci, Guardian]

(3) The Environmental Protection Agency’s website has had some information removed, including information that has been used to challenge their new administrator Scott Pruitt’s policy suggestions. [WaPo]

(4) 777 former EPA officials signed a letter urging Congress to reject the Trump administration’s climate denial policies. [BI]

(5) I’ve mentioned before the dire state of things in several African countries right now―particularly Somalia (which borders Kenya, who are chafing at having to absorb their refugees), South Sudan (which borders Uganda, who have an open border and want to help but are struggling for funding), Ethiopia, Yemen, and Nigeria. Drought, cholera, war. The migrant crisis is enormous and it’s only going to get worse, especially because we’re limiting aid. [WorldBank, ABC, CTV, IISD, Independent, ReliefWeb, WaPo]

(6) More from the Guardian on alleged contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russia, including this: hackers used botnets and porn traffic to plant viruses and steal data from Democrats. They were under Putin’s control, but paid by the Trump organization. 

(7) I mentioned in the last news round-up that Trump is appointing former pro-forced-birth president of Americans United for Life Charmaine Yoest to assistant secretary of public affairs for Health and Human Services. Turns out her website had a list of tips for spotting women lying about being raped, including stuff like “Does the girl have problems or a desire for attention?” 

This no-kidding makes me want to cry. 

[NBC] (h/t)

(8) Fred Upton, who has led the vote to repeal Obamacare a number of times, is not comfortable with the AHCA because of the high costs for patients with pre-existing conditions. This is good. [Bloomberg]

(9) Vox has an article all about how Trump and his family are personally profiting from the presidency.

(10) A conservative terrorist attacked Democrats with a machete in Kentucky, asking their political affiliation first.

(11) Kansas needs to come up with millions of dollars for metal detectors and armed guards in order to keep guns out of state psychiatric facilities, because of a bloodyminded concealed weapons law they passed.

(12) Rex Tillerson proposes cutting 2,300 jobs from the State Department. [WSJ]

(13)

“BuzzFeed News asked the USDA for records about its decision to remove a database on animal welfare from the web. The department responded on Friday, with 1,771 pages that are completely blacked out.”

(14) Republicans are pushing a bill to deregulate Wall Street. It throws out most of the banking oversight passed under Obama, including Dodd-Frank, because none of these shitstains can remember as far back as 2008, and/or because they didn’t feel any particular pain from it personally and have no empathy whatsoever for the rest of the country. [Vox]

[Note from the future: NYMHM grew out of these public posts from Joanne Merriam’s Facebook account. We retain them here in archives to provide a record going back to the beginning of Trump’s presidency.]