March 22, 2023

Wednesday, March 22, 2023. Annette’s News Roundup.

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Joe is always busy.

WATCH: Biden and First Lady Jill Biden host an arts and humanities award ceremony.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Bruce Springsteen has a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a coveted Kennedy Center Honor. He has won multiple Grammys and Golden Globes, plus an Academy Award and a special Tony Award.

Springsteen added to his collection of accolades on Tuesday when President Joe Biden honored “the Boss” with the 2021 National Medal of Arts. It’s the nation’s highest award for advancing the arts in America.

WATCH: Bruce Springsteen, our complete interview

Springsteen, who has sold around 140 million albums, is among a dozen individuals and groups that Biden has chosen to honor with arts medals during a White House ceremony on Tuesday. First lady Jill Biden also participated.

At the same event, Biden awarded 2021 National Humanities Medals to a group including authors Amy Tan, Colson Whitehead and Ann Patchett. The medal honors individuals or groups for work that deepens understanding of the humanities.

The medals are Biden’s first batch of awards for the arts and humanities and were delayed by the pandemic. The president surprised Sir Elton John with a National Humanities Medal during a White House musical event last September.

Recipients of the 2021 National Medal of Arts:

• Judith Francisca Baca, artist.

• Fred Eychaner, businessman and philanthropist.

• Jose Feliciano, singer.

• Mindy Kaling, actress.

• Gladys Knight, singer.

• Julia Louis-Dreyfus, actor.

  

• Antonio Martorell-Cardona, painter.

• Joan Shigekawa, film producer.

• Bruce Springsteen, singer-songwriter.

  

• Vera Wang:, fashion designer.

• The Billie Holiday Theatre.

• The International Association of Blacks in Dance.

Recipients of the 2021 National Humanities Medal:

• Richard Blanco, poet and author.

• Johnnetta Betsch Cole, anthropologist.

• Walter Isaacson, writer.

• Earl Lewis, social historian.

• Henrietta Mann, academic.

• Ann Patchett, author.

• Bryan Stevenson, advocate for the poor.

• Amy Tan, author.

• Tara Westover, author.

• Colson Whitehead, author.

• Native America Calling. (PBS News Hour).

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Remember Tuesday, April 4 is Election Day- for the Wisconsin Supreme Court and for the Mayor of Chicago.

Wisconsin Court Candidates Clash Over Abortion and Democracy.

MADISON, Wis. — The dueling contenders in Wisconsin’s consequential and costly Supreme Court race collided on Tuesday in their lone debate, a hostile affair that illustrated their stark disagreements over cultural issues and the role of a justice on the state’s high court.

The candidates, Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal Milwaukee County judge, and Daniel Kelly, a conservative former State Supreme Court justice, have such personal animus that they did not shake hands before or after the debate, repeatedly called each other liars and argued that electing the other would lead to a demise of Wisconsin’s democracy.

“I am running against probably one of the most extreme partisan characters in the history of this state,” Judge Protasiewicz said of Justice Kelly, who was ousted in a 2020 election. “He is a true threat to our democracy.”

Justice Kelly slammed Judge Protasiewicz for making a muscular defense of abortion rights and calling the state’s gerrymandered legislative maps “rigged” — the two issues that sit at the centerpiece of her campaign.

For a State Supreme Court debate, even in a race that has become the most expensive judicial election in American history, with $29 million spent on TV ads alone, the event turned into something of a political circus. Outside the debate, which was hosted by the State Bar of Wisconsin in an office park on the east edge of Madison, a woman dressed as a uterus reminded attendees of the stakes of the election: If Judge Protasiewicz wins, the court will be likely to overturn Wisconsin’s total ban on abortion, which was enacted in 1849.

Whichever side wins the April 4 election will hold a four-to-three majority on the court, which along with rulings on abortion and gerrymandering is expected to decide an array of voting issues ahead of and during the 2024 presidential election. Judge Protasiewicz holds a single-digit lead over Justice Kelly in private polling conducted by groups on both sides of the race. No public polls have been released. (New York Times).

Tuesday's debate by the candidates for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court can be watched here.

Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice, Republican Dan Kelly and Democrat, Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Janet Protasiewicz faced off in debate yesterday afternoon. The election in Wisconsin two weeks from yesterday, on Tuesday April 4, will decide the balance of power on the state's highest court, and will be the most consequential election on abortion since Kansas. Or here.

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Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker Takes Swipe At Chicago Mayoral Candidate Paul Vallas.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker's office appears to throw shade at Chicago mayoral candidate Paul Vallas.

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Paul Vallas, one of two finalists in the race for Chicago mayor, has often been critical of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D).

The Pritzker policies with which Vallas took issue included an election-year tax cut that Vallas saw as an effort to “fool” voters, a reduction in a tax credit for low-income private school parents and, most of all, the progressive governor’s cautious approach to reopening public schools and lifting mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pritzker has remained neutral in the Chicago mayoral runoff, which is due to conclude on April 4. In that contest, Vallas, a centrist, faces off against Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, a progressive.

HuffPost nonetheless asked Pritzker’s political staff whether he had any response to Vallas’ most striking criticism of the governor.

Pritzker campaign spokesperson Natalie Edelstein replied with a statement that both defended Pritzker’s conduct and took a subtle jab at Vallas, homing in on his affinity for right-wing talk radio.

“Throughout the pandemic, Governor Pritzker spent every day fighting to save people’s lives and livelihoods,” Edelstein said. “He did it by following the advice of the nation’s best virologists and epidemiologists, many of whom are at Illinois’s world-class research institutions and hospitals.”

“Leadership requires making tough choices and not pandering to the loudest voices driven by politics,” she added. “The next mayor of Chicago may be called upon to lead in a similar type of emergency and residents deserve to know if their next Mayor will listen to experts or instead to right wing talk show hosts when making decisions about people’s lives.” (Huff Post).

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Sources: Special counsel claims Trump deliberately misled his attorneys about classified documents, judge wrote.

Special Counsel Jack Smith has made a preliminary case that Trump lied to his lawyer. This presents the possibility that Trump will eventually be charged with obstruction of Justice.

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Prosecutors in the special counsel's office have presented compelling preliminary evidence that former President Donald Trump knowingly and deliberately misled his own attorneys about his retention of classified materials after leaving office, a former top federal judge wrote Friday in a sealed filing, according to sources who described its contents to ABC News.

U.S. Judge Beryl Howell, who on Friday stepped down as the D.C. district court's chief judge, wrote last week that prosecutors in special counsel Jack Smith's office had made a "prima facie showing that the former president had committed criminal violations," according to the sources, and that attorney-client privileges invoked by two of his lawyers could therefore be pierced.

The Justice Department made the request on the basis of the crime-fraud exception, sources said, which allows for claims of attorney-client privilege to be pierced in cases where it is suspected that a lawyer's legal services were rendered in the commission of a crime.

Howell said in Friday's order that the DOJ has met the threshold of the crime-fraud exception, according to sources familiar with the matter.

(ABCNews).

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DeSantis has lost even his GOP luster, as the GOP internecine battle goes on between Trump and the Florida Republican Governor.

From Heather Cox Richardson (Letters from an American)- “Florida governor Ron DeSantis has his own problems with the whole situation [of Trump’s likely indictment]. He wants Trump’s voters but does not want to be saddled with a scenario in which Trump tries to hole up at Mar-a-Lago to resist an indictment in New York. Today, DeSantis said he would not get involved in an extradition order, although Florida law allows him to intervene in a contested extradition.

His lack of support for the former president apparently outraged Trump, who promptly accused DeSantis of sexually assaulting a teenaged boy. The tension between the two Republican leaders has prompted speculation that Trump will fight extradition if only to force DeSantis to choose between alienating Trump’s supporters or kowtowing to the former president. Either would wound his presidential hopes, perhaps fatally.”

With his Truth Social post, Trump included this Tweet from @MeidasTiuch, clearly for fun. 😂😂

Last week, the Republican Ron DeSantis, sounding like a Putin plant, said Russia’s war on Ukraine was a mere “territorial dispute.”

Zelenskyy answered him.

Exclusive: Zelenskyy Has an Answer for DeSantis - Anne Applebaum.

Atlantic Staff writer Anne Applebaum; the chair of the board of directors of The Atlantic, Laurene Powell Jobs; and The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg interviewed President Volodymyr Zelensky at the presidential palace in Kyiv in March 2023.

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Imagine that someone—perhaps a man from Florida, or maybe even a governor of Florida—criticized American support for Ukraine. Imagine that this person dismissed the war between Russia and Ukraine as a purely local matter, of no broader significance. Imagine that this person even told a far-right television personality that “while the U.S. has many vital national interests ... becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.” How would a Ukrainian respond? More to the point, how would the leader of Ukraine respond?

As it happens, an opportunity to ask that hypothetical question recently availed itself. The chair of the board of directors of The Atlantic, Laurene Powell Jobs; The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg; and I interviewed President Volodymyr Zelensky several days ago in the presidential palace in Kyiv. In the course of an hour-long conversation, Goldberg asked Zelensky what he would say to someone, perhaps a governor of Florida, who wonders why Americans should help Ukraine.

Zelensky, answering in English, told us that he would respond pragmatically. He didn’t want to appeal to the hearts of Americans, in other words, but to their heads. Were Americans to cut off Ukraine from ammunition and weapons, after all, there would be clear consequences in the real world, first for Ukraine’s neighbors but then for others:

If we will not have enough weapons, that means we will be weak. If we will be weak, they will occupy us. If they occupy us, they will be on the borders of Moldova and they will occupy Moldova. When they have occupied Moldova, they will [travel through] Belarus and they will occupy Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.

That’s three Baltic countries which are members of NATO. They will occupy them. Of course, [the Balts] are brave people, and they will fight. But they are small. And they don’t have nuclear weapons. So they will be attacked by Russians because that is the policy of Russia, to take back all the countries which have been previously part of the Soviet Union.

And after that, if there were still no further response? Then, he explained, the struggle would continue:

When they will occupy NATO countries, and also be on the borders of Poland and maybe fight with Poland, the question is: Will you send all your soldiers with weapons, all your pilots, all your ships? Will you send tanks and armored vehicles with your young people? Will you do it? Because if you will not do it, you will have no NATO.

At that point, he said, Americans will face a different choice: not politicians deciding whether “to give weapons or not to give weapons” to Ukrainians, but instead, “fathers and mothers” deciding whether to send their children to fight to keep a large part of the planet, filled with America’s allies and most important trading partners, from Russian occupation.

But there would be other consequences too. One of the most horrifying weapons that Russia has used against Ukraine is the Iranian-manufactured Shahed drone, which has no purpose other than to kill civilians. After these drones are used to subdue Ukraine, Zelensky asked, how long would it be before they are used against Israel? If Russia can attack a smaller neighbor with impunity, regimes such as Iran’s are sure to take note. So then the question arises again: “When they will try to occupy Israel, will the United States help Israel? That is the question. Very pragmatic.”

Finally, Zelensky posed a third question. During the war, Ukraine has been attacked by rockets, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles—“not hundreds, but thousands”:

So what will you do when Russia will use rockets to attack your allies, to [attack] civilian people? And what will you do when Russia, after that, if they do not see [opposition] from big countries like the United States? What will you do if they will use rockets on your territory?

And this was his answer: Help us fight them here, help us defeat them here, and you won’t have to fight them anywhere else. Help us preserve some kind of open, normal society, using our soldiers and not your soldiers. That will help you preserve your open, normal society, and that of others too. Help Ukraine fight Russia now so that no one else has to fight Russia later, and so that harder and more painful choices don’t have to be made down the line.

“It’s about nature. It’s about life,” he said. “That’s it.” (The Atlantic).

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Are you a gambling wo/man?

Lindsey Graham: $20 says Trump beats Biden in 2024.

The senator made the bet with former Sen. Al Franken during an appearance on “The Daily Show.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is betting big on Trump victory in 2024.

The conservative senator bet former Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) $20 that former President Donald Trump will beat President Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential election Monday night during an interview on “The Daily Show.”

Franken, a comedian and former colleague of Graham’s, is one of the rotating cast of comedians who have hosted the Comedy Central show for a week as its producers look for a replacement for former host Trevor Noah.

“I look at the policies of Trump, and I like the policies of Trump. And at the end of the day, he’s got to prove to people, not me, that he’s able to lead us again, and that will be a challenge for him. And that’ll be a challenge for Biden, to say, give me four more years after the last four. We’ll see what happens,” Graham said Monday.

“I think Biden wins that,” Franken replied, to which Graham offered the $20 bet. The two shook on it. (Politico).

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Yesterday, the Roundup featured a post about a Trump provocateur at the White House but this happened too. 👇

Watching it will make Ted Lasso fans happy.

Ted Lasso Cast at the White House Press Briefing - YouTube

Ted Lasso cast members Hannah Waddingham, Brett Goldstein, Brendan Hunt and Toheeb Jimoh join the White House Press Briefing with Press Secretary Karine Jean...

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How did Jen Psaki do on Sunday?

Politicususa.com - MSNBC’s Inside with Jen Psaki was the top cable news show with viewers age 25-54 on Sunday as it beat Fox News and almost doubled CNN.

According to Nielson ratings data as provided to PoliticusUSA, Inside with Jen Psaki was the most-watched show on cable news at noon in 15 of the nation’s top 20 markets. Psaki was number one on all of cable TV in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Psaki delivered MSNBC’s highest-rated weekend debut in four years.

Well done, Jen Psaki.

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The Los Angeles Times spent a day with the Speaker Emerita after she left the Democratic Leadership chair.

‘I’m emancipated now’: Nancy Pelosi enjoying life after leadership.

WASHINGTON — 

“Now we’re going to have some fun,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) says enthusiastically, winning a giggle from her daughter.

It’s a little past 6:30 p.m. on a recent Thursday. The former House speaker is sitting in a packed black SUV with a reporter on her left, a driver and a member of her security detail in the front and her daughter Christine and two top congressional aides squeezed into the backseat.

The group is en route from the Swedish Embassy, where Pelosi was the keynote speaker at an event supporting Ukraine, to the St. Regis Hotel for “Thank You, Madam Speaker,” a reception celebrating her legacy.

Nancy Pelosi and her daughter Christine Pelosi embrace while watching a tribute video during an event called “Thank You, Madam Speaker” at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington.

Pelosi embraces House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y) as other representatives look on during that same “Thank You, Madam Speaker” event.

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The Times spent a day with Pelosi and her team to see how the former House speaker is adjusting to life outside of leadership. She began it with ice cream for breakfast and finished it church-style dancing to a performance of the Resistance Revival Chorus.

“You never can dance too much,” she advises.

To spend a day with Speaker Pelosi, click here.

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Some of you know that I am working with Playwright, Lolita Chakrabarti on an adaptation of Lawrence Anthony’s memoir, The Elephant Whisperer.

Lolita’s earlier play, Life of Pi, scheduled to open on Broadway on March 30th, won 5 Oliviers last year in London, including Best Play.

This news 👇 was reported yesterday.

Stage Version Of Maggie O’Farrell’s ‘Hamnet’ Has Become A Phenomenon Before It Opens; Transfer From Stratford-upon-Avon To London’s West End Revealed.

Lolita Chakrabarti.

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The  Royal Shakespeare Company’s stage adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s best-selling novel Hamnet, a tale of love and heartbreak concerning Agnes Hathaway and her beloved one William Shakespeare, has taken the unheralded step of announcing its West End transfer before it has has even opened in the famous playwright’s place of birth.

The play, adapted by Lolita Chakrabarti — whose version of Life of Pi is on Broadway — directed by Erica Whyman and starring Madeleine Mantock (Charmed, Age Before Beauty) begins performances at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 1 through June 17.

But following a “tsunami” of interest from eager ticket buyers, the show will transfer after its run in Stratford to London’s Garrick Theatre for 14 weeks from September 30 through January 6.

If the phenomenal level of interest is maintained, then expect seats at the Garrick to be hard to come by after they go on priority sale from March 28, with public booking from April 6.

The plain fact is that O’Farrell’s engrossing novel has sold more than 1.5 million copies and has fans on every continent.

Her story of the plain-speaking, free-spirited Agnes Hathaway; her relationship with Shakespeare; the heartbreaking death of Hamnet, their 11-year-old son; and how that tragedy inspired the Bard to write Hamlet; touched a nerve coming out as it did during the pandemic. “It’s totally a love story, it’s very romantic,” Chakrabarti told us. (Deadline).