Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 1078

Joe Manchin Wants to Bring Gun Reform Back to the Senate

Sen. Joe Manchin wants to bring that ol' background check bill back to the Senate floor, he revealed on Fox News Sunday. "The only thing we've asked for is for people to read the bill," the Democratic Senator said. "I truly believe that if we have time to sell the bill and if people will read the bill," Manchin said, then it will pass. He also expects his old partner, Republican Senator Pat Toomey, will be along for the ride again. (Toomey has said in the past that it's time to move on.) "I don't think he's done," Manchin said. "I was with Pat last night and Pat's totally committed to this bill. And I believe that with all my heart. And we're gonna work this bill," he added. Host Christopher Wallace asked Manchin to clarify whether what he was saying really means he's going to bring the bill back to the Senate floor. "Absolutely," Manchin replied. So we're going to do gun control again. Fun! 

Sen. John McCain argued the Syrian conflict is going to get out of control now that the U.S. passed the "red line" threat of chemical weapons and didn't act while appearing on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday morning. "The president drew a red line on chemical weapons, thereby giving a green light to Bashar al-Assad to do anything short of that, including Scud missiles and helicopter gun ships and air strikes and mass executions," McCain said. He thinks the U.S. needs to "change the balance of power by not using incrementalism when then there's every risk of a stalemate that could go on for months and months while the jihadists flood in." If it were up to John McCain, the U.S. would have intervened long ago. "Our actions should not be dictated by whether Bashar al-Assad used these chemical weapons or not," he said. "Sooner or later, he probably would in order to maintain his hold on power."

Sen. Lindsey Graham thinks the U.S. surveillance system failed to do its job when it comes to Tamerlan Tsarnaev. This all came out during an interview on CBS's Face the Nation. "The FBI investigated the older brother but never shared the information with the fusion cell in Boston so people in the Boston area could be on the lookout," the Republican said. "When he goes back to Russia in January 2012, the system pings at the Department of Homeland Security, but DHS doesn't share their information with the FBI or CIA. And when he comes back in 2012, he creates a YouTube channel of his own making where he's got radical extremist videos that he's watching and interacting with. It's a failure to share information and missing obvious warning signs." Graham couldn't believe that officials could have missed the obvious warning signs of that one guy on the internet looking at some things. Like, who misses that stuff? "We've got to up our game," Graham said. "When one of these guys goes into the system and they leave the country, we need to make sure where they're going and interview them and when somebody in the database like this begins to openly interact with radical Islamist websites, an FBI agent should knock on his door and say, 'You told us before that you wanted to be an Olympic boxer. You love this country. What the hell is going on here? We're watching you.'"  

       

The Rolling Stones Played the Best Show You Didn't See Last Night

Last night the Rolling Stones played the ideal show that everyone wants but no one ever gets to see. They played a short set of their best hits and favorite covers at a small, "surprise" gig at the Echoplex, a 700-person Los Angeles club. Be jealous, because you weren't there.

It was the unofficial kickoff of their North American mega-stadium mega-tour. Everything the Rolling Stones do is on the biggest stage possible, except for last night's show. That's just how it is when you're the biggest rock and roll band in the world. But this, this was different. The show was announced early Saturday morning on the band's Twitter account. Tickets were given out via a lottery and sold for $20 a pop. (Even with that layer of randomness, The Hollywood Reporter says Johnny Depp, Bruce Willis, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Skrillex, Brian Grazer, Steve Bing and Jim Gianopulos were all in attendance.) Yes, the guys in the band are embarrassingly old now. Their new tour is celebrating their 50th year in the music industry, after all. But they can still play their instruments better than most people that are half, or even a quarter, of their age. 

For the few lucky fans who got to go, it was the kind of show everyone dreams about. Seeing the biggest band in the world play a small intimiate venue. And the setlist couldn't have been better. They played "Midnight Rambler," Start Me Up," "Street Fightin' Man," "You Got Me Rocking," "She's So Cold," among others. And then, on top of all that, they played covers of Otis Redding’s "That's How Strong My Love Is," and Chuck Berry's "Little Queenie." The encore? "Brown Sugar" and "Jumpin’ Jack Flash," because of course that was the encore. 

Here's the video the band released after the show: 

This is a terrible video of a hilarious local news report about the show. Look at the cast of characters who got in: 

Los Angeles truly is one of the strangest places in the world.

       

Is This Why Russian Intelligence Asked the F.B.I. About Tamerlan Tsarnaev?

A new report from the Associated Press sheds new light on everything we thought we knew about the Boston bombers parents and the Russian intelligence that tipped off the FBI. 

On Sunday morning, the Associated Press reports Russian intelligence picked up a phone conversation between one of the bombing suspects and their mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, wherein they "vaguely discussed jihad," sometime in 2011. On a second call, Zubeidat was heard speaking with another man in southern Russia who is being wiretapped in an unrelated case. Russian intelligence apparently just passed this information along a few days ago. 

It's unclear which suspect she was speaking with, but we know Zubeidat grew closer with 26-year-old suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev during the last few years of is life as they both dedicated themselves to Islam. The younger bother, 19-year-old surviving suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was kind of a slacker.

But it also seems to imply that Zubeidat Tsarnaeva knew maybe more than she's been letting on in interviews with the media since the bombing. She has been the most vocal family member in the wake of her sons' alleged crimes. She has said there's a conspiracy against her sons and even that she believes Tamerlan is still alive. She gave conflicting reports to different outlets about when the last time she spoke to her sons was. Who knows what she told the FBI officials who traveled to Dagestan to interview her and their father, Asnor Tsarnaev. Zubeidat has been a hysterical, unreliable source of information, and this tells us she may know more than she's leading us to believe. 

This is likely what caused Russian intelligence to contact the FBI initially ahead of Tamerlan Tsarnaev's trip to Dagestan in 2011. The FBI interviewed the Boston bombing suspect ahead of his trip but didn't find any information that would prompt a further investigation. When American officials contacted Russia asking what tipped them off, Russia never called back. It's routine for Russia to  contact the U.S. ahead of any Chechens traveling to the region, so there was no reason to suspect anything larger was looking ahead. 

       

The Best of the White House Correspondents' Dinner After Party Gossip

So everyone in D.C. is likely still in bed, or throwing back two Tylenol and heading out for brunch right now. The nerds had their little prom. Obama made jokes, and Conan did too, and everyone looked great on the red carpet. Politico probably asked a bunch of stupid questions, because that's what they do. The White House Correspondents' Dinner was a wild success for another year. But now that it's the morning after, our main concern is what happened at the after parties, where the drinks flowed and some of the most and least powerful people in the world rubbed shoulders (among other things) late into the night. Here's what we could scrap together from the few reporters who stayed (somewhat) sober in D.C. last night: 

This might be my favorite bit of dinner party gossip. No, it definitely is. By a mile. Geraldo Rivera and Tracy Morgan had a deep heart-to-heart about growing up in Brooklyn, and Morgan talked about his father dying of AIDS when he was a teenager. (!) Now they're best friends. What. WHAT. No, seriously, whaaaaat? Conan O'Brien gave a really great interview to New York, who, it should be noted, have been killing it with party reports all weekend, where he explained why he doesn't think the "headliner" is necessary and why he was ready to get some bad reviews after the speech. It's a great little talk, but I wanted to highlight the part where he talks about the role of the comedian at the White House Correspondents' Dinner and why he was an awkward choice to follow the President. He nails it here: 

I have a completely different energy than him. So when I first went up, it felt like: he’s the headliner. He’s very kindly calling me the headliner but he’s the headliner. It’s a very weird thing to have the leader of the free world and the coolest guy in the room do a solid 25 minutes of pure laughs and then touch us all at the end with his comments and then to say: now we need a comedian. You don’t! So I was thinking, like, well there’s no need for me. But I’m here and I’ve got good jokes, so let’s go.

Buzzfeed offered a counter programming party where every reporter and flack in D.C. without enough cache to get an invite to the real WHCD danced the night away while mostly ignoring the main event broadcast on the bar's TVs. The party was so packed they had to open another floor for people to mingle and dance. What we really want to know is what went down after the party at the hotel lobby, as they say.  Vanity Fair has two galleries up this morning from their after party co-sponsored by Bloomberg. There are too many good unintentional photobombs to list so you'll have to click through them on your own. (Admit it, you're hungover and don't want to read that much anyway.) This one of Matthew Perry and Conan is definitely my favorite, though. Also this picture of Martin Short, Goldie Hawn and Rashida Jones drinking and laughing together makes my heart fill up with butterflies and sunshine.  I will be completely honest with you: I am the last remaining person on earth, or at least the last remaining blogger, who has not seen House of Cards. I don't know what's going on here, but it's a scene from the BBQ with Buzzfeed after party and I get the impression everyone else may understand it better: 

Claire, breaking it down on the dance floor. I love this woman like sharks love blood. twitter.com/RepUnderwoodSC…

— Francis J. Underwood (@RepUnderwoodSC) April 28, 2013

Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Amy Poehler are endorsing Prince for 2016 and, sorry everyone, that's decided. You can all pack your things and go home now. They have it locked up.  This photo would be one of the night's most absurd: 

With two Jersey boys at #whcd twitter.com/ariannahuff/st…

— Arianna Huffington (@ariannahuff) April 28, 2013

...if it wasn't for this one. This perfectly captures the ridiculous mess that is the White House Correspondants' Dinner: 

Best pic I took all night: Callista Gingrich's hair meets Duck Dynasty #whcd instagram.com/p/Yop-uajfjG/

— Callie Schweitzer (@cschweitz) April 28, 2013

Alright, roll over and go back to bed, this disgrace is over. If you see anything around the web that we missed, feel free to send along a little message. Until next year, folks. 

       

Fashion and Fun from the White House Correspondents' Dinner Red Carpet

Ah, the White House Correspondents' Dinner. The place where political reporters get to ask questions that would make Us Weekly proud and the pretty people of Hollywood get to mingle with the, well, people of the Beltway. Conan O'Brien will be making some people laugh and—hopefully—some people squirm, and we'll be here all night giving you updates on who is wearing what and who is making awkward small talk. (Will Duck Dynasty and Barbra Streisand interact?) E! is live streaming the red carpet, getting excited about security sweeps, proving just how weird this event is. Stay with us as we update through the night.

5:58 E! has already screamed for, and talked to, Kerry Washington who plays a fake D.C. insider on Scandal. 

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5:53 p.m.: Before we begin get familiar with the night's seating chart.

       

Zach Braff Will Get His Dirty Kickstarter Money

The very rich Zach Braff's Kickstarter-funded Garden State sequel will see the light of a movie projector. His project reached its fundraising goal Saturday afternoon and has another 24 days to rack up as much money as possible. 

Braff made a plea on Kickstarter earlier this week for fans to donate $2 million so he can make Wish I Was Here, a spiritual sequel to his 2004 hit Garden State. (Braff didn't elaborate on how this movie would differentiate from every other movie he's ever done since Garden State.) It took Braff's project slightly longer than the Veronica Mars movie project to achieve its fundraising goal. The Mars movie only needed ten hours to reach $2 million, whereas Braff needed four days. Just shy of 29,000 people have pushed it to $2,028,021 as of press time. 

"28,000 Financiers in 3 days! Un-f-cking I will not let you down. Let's go make a killer movie!" he exclaimed, shortly after the project passed their proposed funding threshold. On Friday night, as the project was closing in on its goal, Braff was quite appreciative. "Dear Fans, I cannot believe your unbelievable support for WIWH. I wish I could hug each and every one of you," he said. 

He's already asking bands to be on the soundtrack again. 

So there you have it. 28,000 people are paying Zach Braff to make the most Braff-ian movie he possibly can -- a freaking sequel to Garden State for heaven's sake -- so they can pay him again when they buy tickets at the theater to see this terrible movie.

The problems with celebrities on Kickstarter are well worn at this point. Our Richard Lawson went over these problems first when the Veronica Mars project appeared, and then again earlier this week when Braff made his plea to fans for money because the studio suits were allegedly going to ruin his movie. The short version: giving money to famous rich people to do something creative is silly and irresponsible. The whole world needs better financial advice. Or at least to be taught the value of a dollar. Someone was loony enough to pledge $10,000 to be in this stupid thing. That person should not have that much money. 

       

Politico's Leaked Celebrity Tip Sheet Is as Bad as You Expect

Everyone knows that Poltico's coverage of the White House Corespondents' Dinner is sickening in its shallowness and shamelessness, but you wouldn't believe how lazy their tip sheets for reporters are. Seriously, they are this bad. 

[image error]Gawker somehow got their hands on a Politico memo with questions to guide reporters in case they find themselves rubbing shoulders with certain celebrities at one of the weekend's many White House Corespondents' Dinner-related parties. 

A lot of ink has been spilled this week about how awful the White House Corespondents' Dinner is, and how awful Politico generally is, and how awful their coverage of the Dinner is. On a weekend when the press is openly mingling with the Washington power players they're meant to cover, with a dash of real celebrity on top, Politico's relentless not-so-nerd prom coverage only adds to the embarrassment on display. 

And this list is no exception. It's the latest bright red zit on Politico's blemished face. Reporters are instructed to ask Homeland stars Claire Danes and Navid Negahban the exact same question, but phrased differently to suit their character, and receive the blandest answer possible. ("You play __________ on TV -- how does that affect the way you see stories like the Boston bombings?") They're meant to ask Shaq about Chris Christie's potential 2016 presidential run, but not New Jersey native Jon Bon Jovi. Anyone who was reportedly partying late night with the President after the inauguration will be asked about partying late night with the President after the inauguration. It's the laziest collection of prepared question you could possibly prepare. 

Of course, the person they have the most questions for is Ashley Judd. The actress was reportedly mulling a run for office in Kentucky but ultimately decided against it. Will it be awkward if she runs into Mitch McConnell, especially after that Mother Jones tape? Probably, but more, importantly, who cares? 

We'll try not to laugh too hard at the hilarious "SEO tips from Mitch" that has, for whatever reason, a semi-suggestion to get Bradley Cooper on video this weekend. You know, for the clicks. 

If it makes you feel any better, they're already losing when it comes to the pre-party gossip coverage. Spotted at last night's joint affair from Time and People magazines was Jill Kelley, the Tampa socialite caught up in the General David Patraeus controversy. Politico didn't get a quote from her, but the Washington Post did. 

       

Great News! Only Two More Days of Terrible Flight Delays

This really is spectacular news, because airports are the worst be design, but the Federal Aviation Administration isn't waiting for the President's signature on that bill to fix the sequester-caused furloughs that were making everything so much worse. Your airport experience will go back to its normal levels of awful starting on Sunday evening. 

The FAA     

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's Instagram May Not Tell Us Anything

The already flushed out social media profile of 19-year-old bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev expanded on Saturday morning when former friends revealed Dzhokhar's since-deleted Instagram account to CNN. 

We don't know when the jmaister1 account was deleted, but it allegedly contained some of the mast revealing traces of the younger suspect's radicalization. According to CNN's research, he liked many Chechnia- related photos, including one of a former warlord and another with the hashtags #FreeChechenia #Jihad #Jannah #ALLAH #Jesus and #God attached. Traces of his account can still be seen in Google's cached results for the Instagram stat-tracking service Statigr.am. 

What evidence the Instagram account will reveal is unclear. The company's terms of service say they will cooperate with any search warrants presented to them, but cautions they don't store all of their data for long periods of time. "Given the volume of real-time content on Instagram, some information may only be stored for a short period of time," the company warns. "We do not retain data for law enforcement purposes unless we receive a valid preservation request." The question that requires answering is what evidence of Dzhokhar's activity still exists on their servers. 

Dzhokhar was transported to a prison hospital for further treatment while his case plods closer and closer to a trial. He's now residing at at Federal Medical Center Devens, located at Fort Devens, which is about 50 miles outside of Boston. 

Elsewhere on Saturday morning, The New York Times provided the most comprehensive breakdown of the days between the bombings and the shootouts with police where Dzhokhar and the 26-year-old, now deceased mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev briefly went back to their normal lives. The two continued living as if they hadn't allegedly detonated two bombs at the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring over 250 more. Dzhokhar was seen on the UMass Dartmouth campus going to the gym, playing Fifa on Xbox in his dorm room, and smoking with his friends. (Something he did fairly often.) Tamerlan was seen caring his three-year-old daughter and buying groceries at his local Whole Foods. Eventually, they went off and killed 26-year-old MIT police officer Sean Collier to kick off a wild two days that resulted in one suspect's death and the other's arrest. We still don't know what prompted them to kill Collier, though. 

       

They Arrested the Other Weird Guy in the Already Too Weird Ricin Story

J. Everett Dutschke, the 41-year-old former bluesman and taekwondo instructor who feuded with the Elvis impersonating initial suspect, has been arrested for sending letter laced with ricin to the President and two other Mississippi politicians.

Reuters reports Dutschke was taken into custody by U.S. marshals on Saturday morning. The feds spent much of the last week investigating Dutschke. Charges against Kevin Paul Curtis, the Mississippi man initially charged with sending the ricin letters, were dropped earlier this week after a search of his home revealed no incriminating evidence. Dutschke's home and former dojo were searched earlier this week so authorities must have discovered something to raise their suspicions. Other than Dutschke's arrest, the rest of the details — like what charges Dutschke is facing — are pretty murky at this moment. 

Dutschke has a very long and very weird history with Curtis. The two men have feuded over something about a Mensa membership on a Myspace page since around 2010. But beyond that, Dutschke is just as weird as the Elvis impersonating Curtis, as Talking Points Memo's Hunter Walker discovered earlier this week. He once recorded an album with the drummer from Pearl Jam and sold insurance as "the insurance warrior." There was also a very sad run for the Mississippi House of Representatives.