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If you didn’t see Last Week Tonight with Jon Oliver last night, the Main Story was on Trump's budget bill. It doesn't cover everything in the 940-page debacle, but focuses on health care and food assistance. And the show does a wonderful, detailed -- and very funny -- job explaining why this is so disastrous for the public.
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Actually, to be accurate, "Today" should be read here as meaning "This past Saturday."  Last week, I posted an article here about how, amid all the hell that coming from Trump and MAGOPs in Congress, there were (for reasons I explain at length) nonetheless reasons for optimism, most especially for taking back control of the House. And picking up seats in a razor-thin Senate. Probably not enough to flip the Senate, but "probably" is not even close to a certainty. There's still a year-and-a-half ahead, the tariff price increases haven't kicked in yet, MAGOPs seem like they may pass the Trump budget bill that is massively underwater in popularity (by between -19 and -29 points across five polls) and Trump has dementia which is degenerative.
And I noted, too, that all such political discussions, whatever the topic, however much evidence there may be, always must end with -- "I hope." Just to add more hope in your Hope Chest: Late Friday afternoon, I came across this news item on RawStory – "A centrist Republican who has a history of pushing back on President Donald Trump won't seek re-election, and may have opened the door for Democrats, according to a report. "Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) plans to retire at the end of his term, two people familiar with his plans told Politico on Friday night. "Bacon represents Nebraska's 2nd congressional district, a swing district that voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in 2024." At the moment, the MAGOP can only afford to lose two seats in the House. (There are two Special Elections coming this year, which could change that, however both of the Special Elections are in heavily Blue districts where the sitting Democrat passed away, and the party should easily retain both seats. One of those two races is in Texas, where the then-sitting Democrat won his previous election with 69%. The other is in Arizona where the sitting Democrat at the time won by 27 points. And his daughter, who is an Arizona elected public official, is a candidate to run for her father’s seat.) So, if the margin MAGOPs hold in the House is, indeed, just two at the moment -- and it should be -- that means that, with Don Bacon not running for re-election, and a very strong likelihood Democrats will flip that seat, MAGOPs can only afford to lose one other seat in the Mid-Terms. And that was all I was going to write today for this Hope Edition addendum to my article last Friday. The things is, though, the world o' politics is a very fast-changing morass. So, I now must add that on Sunday, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) announced that he will not be running for re-election. Though North Carolina likely could be considered a state that very slightly leans Red, that's comes with a lot of asterisks. Most notably because it also has a Democratic governor. And a Democratic governor. And Tillis was considered one of the most vulnerable MAGOPs in the Mid-Terms. So...updates in Hope as they occur. On this week’s ‘Not My Job’ segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the guest contestant is actor Brian Tyree Henry, who has a trifecta, receiving an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor as ‘Paper Boy’ in the series Atlanta, an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor in the drama Causeway, and also a Tony nomination as Best Featured Actor in a play for Lobby Hero. His conversation with guest host Karen Chee – a comedian and Emmy-winning writer who is charming and quick-witted, though every time she guest-hosts is much too giggly and suck-uppy for my taste, and annoyingly announces she has a question almost every time before asking her question – is nonetheless a lot of fun because he’s very amusing. This is the full Wait, Wait… broadcast, but you can jump directly to the “Not My Job” segment, it starts around the 18:15 mark. Following up on last week's very entertaining and interesting conversation with music legends Elvis Costello and T. Bone Burnett, on this week's Naked Lunch podcast, co-hosts Phil Rosenthal and David Wild Phil and David write that they "didn't want last week's conversation with Elvis Costello & T Bone Burnett to end, so they invited The Artists Also Known as Howard Coward and Henry Coward to discuss the Beatles and so much more."
I will only add that as far as "and so much more" goes, this episode is particularly wonderful. And more fun with the audio version than the video, so we'll leave it at that. We have a new one this week. The contestant this week is Deborah Conquest from Pittsford, New York. I had one guess for the hidden song, though I didn’t have confidence in it – and I was right not to have confidence it the guess, because I was wrong. I didn’t have the slightest idea, but it’s very well-known (and well-hidden). I also didn’t get the composer style – though my guess was one that pianist Bruce Adolphe said was along the right track. And when he started giving hints, I did guess it right away. Which doesn’t count, but it beats not guessing it at all.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. 
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