March 19
Journalists lie awake nights fretting about a scary phenomenon known, depending on their publication cycle, as a slow news day or a slow news week. Journalists did not lose much sleep this week, Facebook Friends. But anyone else with a lick of sense probably did:
1. On Wednesday, President Obama nominated Merrick Garland, chief judge of the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, to succeed Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court. Garland has served as a federal appellate judge longer than any current Supreme Court justice, and nearly 10 times as long as Chief Justice John Roberts did. Legal experts uniformly praised Garland’s brilliant legal mind, even-handed approach to cases, absence of apparent ideological bent, and interchangeable first and last names. Many Senate Republicans had urged Obama to appoint Garland twice before, when Obama instead chose Sonia Sotomayor and then Elena Kagan. So in a characteristically classy gesture immediately after Obama named Garland, Senate Majority Leader Mitch “Eeyore” McConnell called Garland to tell him he would not get so much as a meeting with McConnell, much less a Senate confirmation hearing. McConnell made clear that if the next president, even Hillary Clinton, names Garland, that will be fine with him and his Republican Senate colleagues. And it has nothing to do with the fact that the next president will be white.
2. In other nomination news, Pope Francis’s plan to make Mother Teresa a saint also hit an early snag when McConnell announced he would not meet with her, either, nor hold hearings on her canonization. Told by reporters that Mother Teresa had been dead since 1997, McConnell said, “Well, that might improve her chances slightly. But my colleagues and I will not consider any nominee until after the next pope is elected. We believe the cardinals’ voice should be heard.” Republican front-runner Donald Trump voiced his support for Senate Republicans. “We should do anything to keep that Commie bitch out of there,” he told thousands of supporters as they beat up several nuns carrying “help the poor” signs.
3. In a final, desperate move, President Obama nominated Mother Teresa for the Supreme Court, and Pope Francis proposed Merrick Garland for sainthood. But that didn’t work, either. “I am way too smart for you guys,” McConnell said. “I happen to know that Merrick Garland has been dead since 1997.”
4. In the long-running CBS reality show “Survivor 2016 – States Without Starbucks,” violence at Trump campaign rallies and the candidate’s other excesses finally began to have an effect on voters. He won only three or maybe four of five primaries on Tuesday, with his margin of victory in winner-take-all Florida a mere 19 percentage points over former Florida Tea Party darling Marco Rubio. Rubio was kicked off the island after failing the survivors’ latest challenge. His concession speech included the revelation that he has already been chosen as one of the whiners on a future episode of “Naked and Afraid.” In Missouri, votes were still being counted at week’s end, with Trump and Ted Cruz all but tied. The slow vote count was attributed to elections officials having difficulty finding volunteers dumb enough to count ballots, knowing they will face summary execution by either Trump or Cruz supporters if their guy doesn’t win.
5. The nation’s seven remaining Mainstream Republicans were heartened when John Kasich beat Trump handily in Ohio, securing 66 delegates courtesy of his state’s loser-take-all format. Kasich, whose relentlessly positive campaign has left him just 549 delegates behind Trump and only 1,092 shy of the 1,237 he will need for the nomination, indicated that a change in tone might be forthcoming. Armed with his new delegates, he’s begun planning to turn this summer’s Republican convention into a colonial version of Lady Edith trying to bitch-slap Lady Mary on “Downton Abbey.”
6. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, all but sewed up the Democratic nomination with a sweep of all five primary states on Tuesday. The victories were attributed to a change in campaign strategy that has the candidate voicing more concern about the economy. The strategy showed immediate effects. Now, according to a Gallup poll, just 53 percent of Americans don’t like her. She is disliked by a whopping 10 percent fewer Americans than don’t like Trump, setting up a November “Whom Do You Hate Least?” presidential campaign that promises to greatly improve America’s standing in the world.
7. The stock market, which reacted to something at the beginning of the year by falling nearly 2,000 points and had investors predicting another recession, has since recovered all those losses in reaction to something else that has investors predicting healthy economic growth for the foreseeable future. Experts disagreed on what that something was in each case. They attributed the sudden changes in the market variously to fluctuations in the price of crude oil, less manipulation of China’s currency by its government, several day traders finding some crayons they had lost, or Lady Edith finally marrying well on “Downton Abbey.”
8. Fast-food giant McDonald’s unveiled a new ordering option for diners called “Pick Muck.” Industry watchdogs immediately praised the oft-criticized chain for its transition to a new, truth-based marketing strat – excuse me, The Jourmudgeon has just been handed a corrected news release. It turns out that the new ordering option is called “McPick,” not “Pick Muck.” Never mind.
9. And finally, in a case sure to pose a serious threat to responsible journalism everywhere, a jury in St. Petersburg, Fla., awarded $115 million to victim Hulk Hogan, a longtime advocate of public modesty and traditional values, because the website Gawker was mean to him by publishing a grainy black-and-white video showing nine seconds of sex between Mr. Hogan and his friend’s wife. The jury decided that revealing poor Mr. Hogan bonking his buddy’s spouse invaded Mr. Hogan’s privacy. Gawker’s lawyers promised an appeal because, they said, the deck was stacked against them when the judge would not allow testimony from the husband, whose legal name is Bubba the Love Sponge Clem. Honest to God. (The judge ruled that Mr. the Love Sponge Clem might not be credible. Imagine.) The judge, who also promised not to turn the trial into a circus, will call the jury back next week to consider giving Mr. Hogan even more money. (Cue calliope.)
