Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 121

Trump Keeps Everyone Guessing

Just a couple hours ago, everything seemed so simple: Donald Trump was going to pick Mike Pence as his running mate, and the dives into Pence’s background and analysis of the choice were beginning.

It seems everyone forgot who they were dealing with: the mercurial Donald Trump, showman extraordinaire.

Suddenly things aren’t nearly as clear. A slew of news organizations, including The New York Times, reported that the pick was as good as done, but now it looks like a Pence pick is an informed intelligent wager, but nothing more. Reuters, for example, cites a source who says Trump has already told the RNC he selected the Indiana governor:

BREAKING: Trump told Republican officials he picked Indiana Governor Mike Pence as running mate - source

— Reuters Politics (@ReutersPolitics) July 14, 2016

But less than a half-hour later, The Washington Post’s Robert Costa said no one had called any of the VP candidates:

UPDATE: Two senior Trump campaign officials tell @PhilipRucker and me that Trump has NOT yet called Pence or other VP prospects

— Robert Costa (@costareports) July 14, 2016

On a Facebook Live event, meanwhile, Newt Gingrich—one of the leading contenders—said he hadn’t heard from Trump yet but expected to get word Thursday afternoon.

“I think it’s pretty clear it’s come down now to Governor Mike Pence, an old friend of mine in Indiana, and myself,” he said. “I’m very flattered to be in that group.” Who knows how reliable his estimation that he’s in the final two was; in any case, he didn’t know more: “Like you, I’m looking forward to the next 24 hours.”

NBC News’s Katy Tur heard directly from Trump’s son after 2 p.m. that Trump hadn’t even decided and there were still three possibilities:

EXCLUSIVE @DonaldJTrumpJr tells me "It's down to 3." Trump will decide this afternoon.

— Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) July 14, 2016

In most situations, all of these reporters are extremely reliable; in this case, the accounts are sometimes fundamentally at odds. What on earth is going on?

One factor here is that it’s tough to get a good hold on what’s going on inside Trumpworld. His inside team is tightly knit and very small, consisting largely of family members. That means the number of people who really know what’s going on is minuscule. A source may sincerely believe something but simply be incorrect. It wouldn’t be the first time that a Trump aide has been unaware of what the boss was thinking.

Or maybe the Pence pick was just a big, cruel trial balloon, calibrated to see how the political world would react to his selection. (Matea Gold reports, for example, that picking Pence wouldn’t convince the Koch brothers to move their large political organization into action in the presidential race.) Or what if Trump just did a massive head fake in order to show how credulous and easily distracted the media are? (If so: We doff our fedora, with “press” card in the band, to you, sir.)

Or maybe this is just Trump being Trump. He has vacillated 180 degrees on plenty of other issues in this campaign, and maybe he was set on Pence but then got cold feet and is trying to decide again. Besides, as cliche as it has been to compare Trump’s political operation to a reality show, the hallmarks are all here. Trump has transfixed the political world with the will-he-or-won’t-he dance over the last few days, summoning the likes of Gingrich to Indiana to meet with him and allowing the Pence speculation to grow to a roar. There aren’t many ways to ratchet up the drama ahead of the finale and unveiling of a winner, but Trump, of course, is no apprentice. He is an expert.

Hollande's High-Priced Hairline

NEWS BRIEF The French head of state’s head is not cheap—9,895 euros (or $10,000) to be exact.

French President Francois Hollande faced controversy Wednesday after French satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné revealed the president’s coiffeure, or hairdresser, has earned a monthly salary of $10,000 since Hollande took office in 2012.

The socialist politician, a self-described “Mr. Normal,” campaigned on a platform of frugality in comparison to Nicolas Sarkozy, his predecessor. When asked about scandal, dubbed Coiffeurgate, directly, Hollande reminded his interviewers he reduced the Élysée Palace’s budget by 9 million euros, reduced its staff by 10 percent, and cut his own salary by 30 percent.

In a translation of his Thursday Bastille Day Interview:

Concerning the hairdresser’s costs, we used to use external contractors until now, and I preferred that it was handled from here. … You can reproach me on anything you like, but not on that.

Hollande isn’t the first democratic leader to face controversy for high-priced expenditures. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made headlines last year after it was revealed he spent $1,600 on a personal hairdresser during a trip to New York City.

Breakouts, Snubs, and Stars in the 2016 Emmy Nominations

In the age of Peak TV, the list of worthy contenders for the 2016 Emmy Awards was always going to be long, with even more inevitable snubs and omissions given how many worthy shows there are to choose from. But the nominations, announced on Thursday morning by Black-ish’s Anthony Anderson and Gilmore Girls’s Lauren Graham, seemed to show the growing importance of acclaim over ratings, with voters mainly rewarding critical hits over commercial ones.

On the drama side of things, the long-ignored but beloved FX series The Americans got three major nominations for its fourth season: one for Outstanding Drama Series, and one each for its lead actor and actress, Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell. The 2015 breakout USA hit Mr. Robot (which just started its second season) found its way into the outstanding drama category as well, alongside Better Call Saul, Game of Thrones, and the (questionable) Emmys favorites House of Cards and Homeland. Meanwhile, the limited series category seems to only be growing in prestige, with not a single weak show in the bunch.

This year, streaming networks made up exactly half of the entrants for Outstanding Comedy Series, with Netflix’s Master of None getting a nomination for its debut season, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Transparent remaining in the running after their second seasons. Most shows nominated for best comedy also have strong showings in the performance categories. Silicon Valley has been a notable exception in this regard, but this year marked a turnaround with a lead actor nomination for Thomas Middleditch.

After two straight years of the Oscars being criticized for a stark lack of diversity, the Emmys have come out looking impressive in comparison—for the first time in the show’s history, every top acting category has at least one performer of color, if not multiple. One exception to the heartening trend came in the variety talk series category: Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee got a nomination, where many critics expected (and hoped) the excellent newcomer Full Frontal With Samantha Bee would be recognized. Though Bee, Trevor Noah, and Larry Wilmore have been welcome additions in the last year to a field long exclusively dominated by white men, the Emmys nominations didn’t reflect that diversity in the top categories.

The list of snubs is virtually endless: HBO’s The Leftovers, which had a stunning second season, was left out of the best drama category again, as was its strong lead and supporting cast. Sophie Turner’s role as Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones’s sixth season drew much acclaim, but she was ignored while her co-stars Peter Dinklage and Maisie Williams (who had much more minor roles this year) received honors. The Good Wife was shut out in its final year of eligibility, and neither Rhea Seehorn nor Uzo Aduba made the supporting-actress list for Better Call Saul and Orange Is the New Black, respectively. Given the vitality and creativity of television today, the roster of overlooked talent will only grow in the coming years. (On the bright side, Beyonce’s gorgeous visual album Lemonade won four nominations.)

The Emmys site has the complete list of nominees, all of whom will face off on September 18, when the awards ceremony takes place.

Outstanding Drama Series

The Americans

Better Call Saul

Downton Abbey

Game of Thrones

Homeland

House of Cards

Mr. Robot

Outstanding Comedy Series

Master of None

Modern Family

Silicon Valley

Transparent

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Veep

Lead Actor in a Drama Series

Kyle Chandler (Bloodline)

Rami Malek (Mr. Robot)

Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul)

Matthew Rhys (The Americans)

Liev Schrieber (Ray Donovan)

Kevin Spacey (House of Cards)



Lead Actress in a Drama Series

Claire Danes (Homeland)

Viola Davis (How to Get Away With Murder)

Taraji P. Henson (Empire)

Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black)

Keri Russell (The Americans)

Robin Wright (House of Cards)

Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

Anthony Anderson (Black-ish)

Aziz Ansari (Master of None)

Will Forte (The Last Man on Earth)

William H. Macy (Shameless)

Thomas Middleditch (Silicon Valley)

Jeffrey Tambor (Transparent)

Lead Actress in a Comedy Series

Ellie Kemper (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt)

Julia Louis Dreyfus (Veep)

Laurie Metcalf (Getting On)

Tracee Ellis-Ross (Black-ish)

Amy Schumer (Inside Amy Schumer)

Lily Tomlin (Grace and Frankie)

Limited Series

American Crime

Fargo

The Night Manager

The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story

Roots

Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie

Bryan Cranston (All the Way)

Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock: The Abominable Bride)

Idris Elba (Luther)

Cuba Gooding Jr. (The People v. O.J.)

Tom Hiddleston (The Night Manager)

Courtney B. Vance (The People v. O.J.)

Lead Actress in Limited Series

Kirsten Dunst (Fargo)

Felicity Huffman (American Crime)

Audra McDonald (Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill)

Sarah Paulson (The People v. O.J.)

Lili Taylor (American Crime)

Kerry Washington (Confirmation)

Variety Talk Series

Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

Jimmy Kimmel Live

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver

The Late Late Show With James Corden

Real Time With Bill Maher

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

It Looks Like Mike Pence

It’s like they always say: Date a bad boy, but marry a nice one.

Several news reports—from The Indianapolis Star, Roll Call, and The New York Times—suggest that after flirting with the free-wheeling, self-described “pirate” Newt Gingrich and brash jock Chris Christie, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has decided to settle down with the more buttoned-down choice of Indiana Governor Mike Pence, asking him to be his running mate.

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The Donald Trump Veepstakes: A Cheat Sheet

The reports are all based on anonymous sourcing. Late this morning, Trump campaign spokesman Paul Manafort was still insisting that the decision had not been made. A formal announcement is scheduled for Friday morning at 11 a.m. in New York City. And no one has ever accused Trump of excessive consistency in his decisions. But a Pence pick would be in line with the direction of gossip and insider speculation over the last few days.

Trump has long said that he wanted to choose a vice-presidential candidate with experience in politics and in Washington, filling out areas where Trump has no resume. Pence certainly fits that bill. A six-term member of the U.S. House, he came to Washington in 2001 and left in 2013, when he became governor of Indiana. Before that, he was an attorney, talk-radio host, and led a conservative think-tank. On the Hill, Pence was known for involvement in policy issues, another of Trump’s weaknesses. With a strong backing in right-wing circles, a Pence pick is seen as a way for Trump to reassure Republicans that he’s is aware of and responsive to their priorities, despite his many departures from GOP orthodoxy.

More recently, Trump said he wanted an “attack dog” as a running mate, which suggested that the more pugnacious Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, or Christie, the current governor of New Jersey, might be leading the pack. Christie was one of the first major Republican figures to endorse Trump, and has often campaigned with him. Gingrich, meanwhile, made himself ubiquitous in the media as a Trump defender, deploying his trademark ideological flexibility and ability to extemporaneously and polysyllabically defend nearly any position. Gingrich campaigned with Trump in Ohio recently.

But Christie and Gingrich both have plenty of detractors on the right. Christie is still persona non grata for embracing President Obama after Hurricane Sandy, and he’s something of a moderate. Gingrich is widely viewed as a loose cannon, and he carries serious baggage; a Trump-Gingrich ticket would have boasted six marriages between the two candidates.

Pence looks like a safer pick, though he has his detractors, too. He frustrated many conservatives with his handling of a so-called religious-freedom law in Indiana in 2015. The law earned the state widespread condemnation, especially from major businesses in the state, and Pence eventually backed down, backing a gutted version of the law. That upset evangelicals like Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, who told NBC Trump could “do better.” Pence’s unsteady handling of that crisis raises concerns about how he will perform under pressure, and as a vice-presidential candidate, Pence is in for a pounding.

Like many running mates, Pence and Trump have not always been on the same political page. Pence waited until the eve of the Hoosier State primary to endorse, but when he did so, he threw his support behind Senator Ted Cruz. Still, the governor made it a tepid endorsement, declining to assail Trump before the crucial primary, and he quickly jumped on the Trump Train after Trump’s victory. Pence previously backed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Trump fiercely opposes:

Trade means jobs, but trade also means security. The time has come for all of us to urge the swift adoption of the Trans Pacific Partnership

— Governor Mike Pence (@GovPenceIN) September 8, 2014

He also blasted the idea of barring Muslims from entering the U.S., another signature Trump proposal:

Calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. are offensive and unconstitutional.

— Governor Mike Pence (@GovPenceIN) December 8, 2015

If the latest reports are true, Trump seems to have decided these bygones can be bygones. Pence would have his first real star turn as a running mate next week at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

A Pence pick does complicate the Indiana governor’s race. Pence, the incumbent, was planning to run for reelection, but he cannot run for both governor and vice president. The deadline to replace Pence on the ballot is Friday at noon. Former Governor Mitch Daniels, a fellow Republican who is now president of Purdue University, said on Thursday he would not try again for his old job.

The Specter of a 'Serial-Shooter' in Phoenix

NEWS BRIEF Police are looking for serial killers in two U.S. cities: In Phoenix, a man is shooting people outside of their homes late at night, prowling a mostly poor neighborhood. In San Diego, someone is lighting homeless people on fire.

This week police in Phoenix included another death to the killer they are calling the “serial street shooter.” That makes seven homicides, and three others injured since March 17. The killer uses a semi-automatic pistol, and seems to pick victims at random. They have been as young as 12, as was the case with Maleah Ellis, who sat in a car with her mother and friend when a man walked out of a light-colored car and shot them. It also includes 55-year-old Krystal Annette White, killed alongside the road. The pattern police have to work with is that most of the victims lived in a poor neighborhood of Phoenix called Maryvale, west of downtown.  Here’s a map of where the killer shot his victims.

The serial street shooter last killed June 12. Survivors described him as a white or Latino man in his mid-30s, with a medium built. Here’s a police sketch:

Courtsey Phoenix Police Department

The other serial killer is burning homeless people in San Diego while they sleep. On Tuesday, the police released their only suspect in the case because they lacked enough evidence to keep him. That man was convicted of burning a homeless person in 2010, and he looked similar to a surveillance footage of a man police believe is the killer. So far, the killer has burned four people, three of whom have died.

The first attack came July 3. Witnesses said they saw a man run across the freeway carrying a gas can as Angelo De Nardo burned to death under an interstate bridge. After that attack, police released a photo taken from surveillance footage that showed a man in a tan jacket, green cap, and wearing gloves as he bought a gas gas can.

Courtesy San Diego Police Department

The FBI estimates that at any time in the U.S. there are about 25 to 50 serial killers. Their victims account for about 1 percent of all murders, and despite popular myth they are not always psychologically damaged loners, motivated by sex, or white men.

A Call to Activism by Professional Athletes

NEWS BRIEF Some of the biggest stars in professional sports want to start a movement among their peers to embrace political activism and speak out against racial injustices.

NBA players Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade, and LeBron James spoke at the start of the ESPY Awards Wednesday night, before an audience of fellow athletes and sports fans, pleading for change and new voices in the debate over police brutality. “The system is broken,” said Anthony, a guard for the New York Knicks. “The problems are not new, the violence is not new, and the racial divide definitely is not new. But the urgency to great change is at an all-time high.”

Paul, who is a nephew of a police officer, named recent victims of police shootings, while Wade, a Chicago native, spoke out against gun violence tearing apart communities across the country. James, for his part, challenged other athletes to educate themselves on these issues.

Anthony this week already sent out a call for action, writing for The Guardian Wednesday, “We athletes can no longer remain on the sidelines in the struggle for justice.” On Saturday, four players for the Minnesota Lynx WNBA team held a news conference before their game to address the recent violence. Sidelined from activism for decades, there is finally movement among professional athletes to join crucial debates of the country.

The stands taken by athletes have sometimes spurred angry reactions from police officials and their unions. Indeed, after the Lynx made their activism public, four off-duty Minneapolis police officers, who were working private security at the game, quit, and the president of the union that represents Minneapolis police officers praised them for walking off the job. Nor are all athletes’ views as benign: Isaiah Crowell, the running back for the Cleveland Browns, posted an image on social media that appeared to show a police officer’s throat being slit. He apologized after the backlash.

A Shattering Act of Civil Disobedience

Updated at July 14 at 10:56 a.m.

The dishwasher who last month knocked out a stained-glass window at Yale University will not be charged for shattering the image of slavery, and he would like his job back.

On Thursday Yale President Peter Salovey sent a statement to the “Yale Community,” apparently to address the wide concern for Corey Menafee from alumni. In it, Salovey said the school reached out to the State’s Attorney office in Connecticut and asked it not to pursue charges agains Menafee, adding Yale didn’t intend to recoup restitution for the window. Salovey also said Yale had already begun to reconsider which images around the school belong on walls, or in windows, and which were wiser to keep in galleries or exhibits, where “historical background can be provided.”

In April Salovey started a committee to review art around the school, and that “based on their work so far, a number of windows have already been scheduled to be removed from Calhoun College and conserved for study and future exhibitions.”

The stained-glass pictures that are taken down will be replaced by other works. But in the meantime, they will be covered with tinted glass.

Menafee, meanwhile, appears to want his job back, according to the union of service and maintenance employees at Yale. In a statement, Bob Proto, president of Local 35 UNITE HERE, said:

Facing termination and worrying about providing for his family, Mr. Menafee chose to resign; the union stood with Mr. Menafee through this terrible ordeal, and we will stand with him again if Yale is willing to discuss a pathway for Mr. Menafee to return to a Yale University job.

July 12 at 12 p.m.

NEWS BRIEF The stained-glass window pictured a black man and woman carrying bales of cotton atop their heads in a field that looks very much like a plantation. It was located in a dining hall in Calhoun College, a residential college at Yale University named for John C. Calhoun, a former vice president, U.S. senator from South Carolina, and defender of slavery.

The man who smashed the window pane was Corey Menafee, a 38-year-old dishwasher who is black. Although he knocked it out on June 13, lost his job, and was arrested last month, the New Haven Independent recently reported on what Menafee, a nine-year employee of Yale, has called an act of “civil disobedience.” Menafee told the Independent he had grown disgusted with looking at the image, which he called “racist, very degrading.”

In the past year, campus activists started a petition to change the name of the Calhoun College. Menafee told the Independent his decision had nothing to do with that:

“When I walked into this job, I wasn’t aware of none of that,” Menafee said. “And then you know, being there, you start hearing different things.”



“I took a broomstick, and it was kind of high, and I climbed up and reached up and broke it,” he said. “It’s 2016, I shouldn’t have to come to work and see things like that.”



“I just said, ‘That thing’s coming down today. I’m tired of it,’” he added. “I put myself in a position to do it, and did it.”

The Independent reported that a room full of people watched Menafee tap twice on the window with the broom as the glass fell. Menafee said he then walked to the bathroom and shaved, to make sure he was “clean-shaven for the authorities.” He left in handcuffs, and now faces charges of reckless endangerment, and first-degree criminal mischief, which is a felony. He has yet to enter a plea.

Yale has said it won’t “advocate that the employee be prosecuted” and that it reached out to the State’s Attorneys office to ask for the charges to be dropped. The university also said Menafee apologized for his actions and resigned from his job. Menafee has said he lost his job over his actions.

According to the school, the window may have already been on its way out. In a statement, Yale said it asked its Committee on Art in Public Spaces to assess the windows in Calhoun, and that it had “recommended in June that this window and some others be removed from Calhoun, conserved for future study and a possible contextual exhibition, and replaced with tinted glass for the time being.”

For the past year, student activists at Yale have campaigned for the university to change the name of Calhoun College because of its links to slavery. But in April, Yale said it would keep the name. The former vice president and former student of Yale once said of slavery: “I hold then, that there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other.”

Google's EU Problem

NEWS BRIEF EU regulators said Thursday Google distorted shopping-search results in its favor and unfairly suppressed advertising from rival platforms.

The claims were laid out in Brussels by Margrethe Vestager, the EU antitrust commissioner. Here’s the EU’s statement:

The Commission has reinforced, in a supplementary Statement of Objections, its preliminary conclusion that Google has abused its dominant position by systematically favouring its comparison shopping service in its search result pages.

Separately, the Commission has also informed Google in a Statement of Objections of its preliminary view that the company has abused its dominant position by artificially restricting the possibility of third party websites to display search advertisements from Google's competitors.

In a statement, Google said it will provide a “detailed response” in the coming weeks, but “We believe that our innovations and product improvements have increased choice for European consumers and promote competition.”

The investigation into Google’s shopping-search results date back to 2010. But it’s the investigation into Google’s advertising, centered on Google’s AdSense for Search, that could affect the search giant the most. Advertising accounts for the bulk of Google’s revenue.

The EU’s allegations on Thursday are separate from the bloc’s complaint earlier this year over Android, Google’s mobile-phone software.

A Short History of Boris Johnson Insulting Foreign Leaders

Boris Johnson, a New York City native and accused Little Englander, probably isn’t much of a fan of the twangy Americana stylings of Dan Hicks. Which is a shame, because he might take a cue from Mr. Hicks and His Hot Licks: “How can we miss you when you won’t go away?” BoJo, who was barely finished licking his wounds after being unceremoniously tossed under a double-decker London bus by his friend and fellow Conservative Michael Gove, thus losing his shot at the prime ministership of the U.K., is now the freshly announced foreign secretary in PM Theresa May’s government.

It’s an amusing landing spot. Boris is one of the more cosmopolitan figures on the world political stage: great-grandson of a Turk, born an American citizen (and, depending on whom you ask, perhaps still one), and a veteran journalist on the European continent. He speaks, with varying degrees of fluency, French, Italian, German, and Spanish. If simple knowledge of foreign parts is the foreign secretary’s mandate, he’d be set. But overseeing diplomacy is also in the portfolio, and diplomacy has never been one of Johnson’s strengths. U.S. conservatives howled that President Obama kicked his presidency off with a metaphorical “apology tour,” but Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson might find a literal apology tour essential to kick off his stint in Whitehall.

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Britain, Post-Brexit

Obama is, in fact, as good a place to start as any. The U.S. and U.K. have historically been very close allies, but Johnson—a leading voice in the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union—was displeased with the president weighing in on behalf of the “remain side.” In a column in The Sun, Johnson said Obama’s stance was “incoherent. It is inconsistent, and yes it is downright hypocritical.” He also mentioned the incident in which Obama removed a bust of Churchill from the White House (it was, the president noted, only one of several), implying that the removal was “a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire—of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender.”

It’s not partisan. Johnson was no fan of Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, whom he called “a cross-eyed Texan warmonger, unelected, inarticulate, who epitomizes the arrogance of American foreign policy.”

Obama, of course, is on his way out of the presidency. But that won’t necessarily mend fences between the two countries. On the one hand, the winner of the presidential election could be Hillary Clinton, of whom Johnson wrote in 2008, “She’s got dyed blonde hair and pouty lips, and a steely blue stare, like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital.” To be fair, Johnson concluded that he wanted Clinton to win that election—though only because it would bring Bill Clinton back to the White House, a reasoning that would probably not endear him to Hillary Clinton.

On the other hand, Donald Trump could also win. The presumptive Republican nominee previously speculated that he was “not going to have a very good relationship” with then-PM David Cameron, a Johnson frenemy of long standing. But don’t count on shared disdain for Cameron bonding the two barmily bouffanted blonds. As mayor of London, Johnson lashed out at Trump for insulting the city with “complete and utter nonsense,” saying that “the only reason I wouldn't go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump.” He later said he was “genuinely worried” that Trump might win, and described being mistaken for the entertainer as the low point of a visit to his hometown.

As of press time, Johnson doesn’t appear to have insulted Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, but there’s still plenty of time.

Closer to home, European leaders had no reason to be fond of Boris even before Brexit. As former Times of London journalist Martin Fletcher wrote:

For decades, British newspapers have offered their readers an endless stream of biased, misleading and downright fallacious stories about Brussels. And the journalist who helped set the tone — long before he became the mayor of London or the face of the pro-Brexit campaign — was Boris Johnson.

His new boss, May, recently mocked him for being incapable of standing up to hard-nosed Teutonic negotiation, remembering an incident in which he bought second-hand water cannons to fight riots but never used them. “Boris negotiated in Europe,” the prime minister quipped. “I seem to remember last time he did a deal with the Germans, he came back with three nearly new water cannon.”

His cheerleading for Brexit only inflamed tensions with continental leaders, and he has made no effort to smooth over ruffled feathers. He accused EU President Jean-Claude Juncker of “deceit,” and has sparred with the French, too—though he did so in their own tongue, perhaps dulling the pain.

Johnson has also picked some fights directly with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, calling her decision to prosecute a German comedian who insulted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “sickening.” He wrote: “She numbly decided to kowtow to the demands of Erdogan, a man who is engaged in a chilling suppression of Turkish freedom of expression.”

However undiplomatic those words about Merkel, he happens to be right about Erdogan and the prosecution. In any case, no one will accuse Boris of numbly kowtowing to the Turkish leader. In May, Johnson came out on top in a contest, inspired by the prosecution, to write an offensive limerick about Erdogan. Here’s the entry:

There was a young fellow from Ankara

Who was a terrific wankerer.

Till he sowed his wild oats

With the help of a goat

But he didn’t even stop to thankera.

Johnson claimed to be surprised that his entry won, and no wonder: “Wankerer” isn’t a word, though “wanker” certainly is, and it’s hard to even produce an imaginary meaning.

In any case, more to Johnson’s liking is Erdogan’s neighbor, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who on the one hand is a murderous maniac, but on the other hand warmed the cockles of the Oxford classics student’s heart by preserving an ancient monument. That’s not a cheap caricature of Boris’s words—it’s a more or less direct paraphrase: “I suppose it is bizarre to feel such joy at the military success of one of the vilest regimes on earth,” he wrote. “But I cannot conceal my elation as the news comes in from Palmyra and it is reported that the Syrian army is genuinely back in control of the entire Unesco site.”

Looking to East Asia, Johnson has found openings to offend as well. In 2008, he couldn’t resist a jab at China, the world powerhouse in ping-pong: “Virtually every single one of our international sports were invented or codified by the British. And I say this respectfully to our Chinese hosts, who have excelled so magnificently at Ping-pong. Ping-pong was invented on the dining tables of England in the 19th century and it was called Wiff-waff!”

Mild stuff, to be sure. Not so easily forgiven was a remark in a 2006 column, in which he wrote, “For 10 years we in the Tory Party have become used to Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing.” The country’s attache in London was not amused.

Of the many ironies of Boris’s Brexit success, quick fall, and subsequent rebound as foreign secretary is that he may have given himself a larger and more complicated portfolio than his predecessor. It wasn’t so long ago that Johnson was railing against Scottish independence, warning darkly on the eve of a 2014 referendum that the U.K. was “on the verge of … an act of self-mutilation that will leave our international rivals stunned, gleeful and discreetly scornful.” He further worried about the “horrific financial and constitutional implications” of such a split.

The referendum failed and Scotland remained, but having engineered a split between the U.K. and EU, however, Britain is seeing horrific financial implications already, and it could reap some constitutional ones, too: Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has suggested that the Brexit vote is grounds for a second Scottish independence referendum, since an overwhelming majority north of the border favored remain. Perhaps Boris can use his personal charm to bring the first minister around?

Or perhaps not. Johnson previously likened Sturgeon to a fox in a henhouse, a jewel thief, King Herod, and a “voracious weasel.” All of these descriptions were found in the same column. Ah well: If the Scots split off, Sturgeon should fit in very well with all the other fuming foreign leaders he’s managed to offend.

The Stranded Modern-Day Viking Ship

NEWS BRIEF Vikings—not the folks at the U.S. Bank Stadium—probably didn’t travel to Minnesota during the time of Leif Eriksson. But they’re trying to now.

Academics have long dismissed the “discovery” of a rune-covered stone by a Swedish-American farmer in the western part of the state in 1898, calling it a forgery. But Vikings did arrive in North America around A.D. 1000 in an expedition led by Eriksson.

He heard from an Icelandic trader that there was land west of Greenland. And so he went, along with 35 others. They eventually settled in a land of meadows, rivers, and wild grapes, which was likely present-day Newfoundland in Canada. He was so fond of this region, and the wine he made with those grapes, that he named it Vinland, or “Wineland.”

Today, a new band of norsemen attempting to re-create Eriksson’s transatlantic journey are sailing from Norway to Duluth, Minnesota, by mid-August in the world’s largest Viking ship built in modern times, called the Draken Harald Hårfagre.

When he traveled to North America, Eriksson and the other Vikings didn’t have to pay much to make the journey (with the exception of his brother’s life by the hands of the indigenous population). But these modern-day Vikings have some big costs of their own: a $400,000 fee to pay for a pilot who can get them through the Great Lakes, required by the U.S. Coast Guard. And there’s no more room in the ship’s budget.

Björn Ahlander, the ship’s captain, says, “it is a pity if we cannot pursue this expedition.” It also has people who were expecting the ship’s arrival in a frenzy, The Minneapolis Star Tribune notes:

The news has officials in Duluth, Green Bay, and Chicago scrambling to ensure the Draken is able to make its final ports of call. Meanwhile, outraged supporters have started an online petition at Change.org calling for the fees and pilot requirement to be waived. The petition had nearly 7,500 electronic signatures by Tuesday evening.

Tall Ships Duluth executive producer Craig Sam­borski called the developments disappointing, but said efforts are underway to ensure the Draken arrives in Duluth. They include lobbying the U.S. Coast Guard to grant a waiver and finding more money in the budgets to help cover the cost.

But until it gets the funds, this oak-hulled vessel with a 3,200-square-foot sail will remain docked in Bay City, Michigan, on the coast of Lake Huron, after finishing its journey through Canadian waters where the pilot is not required.

When Eriksson was returning to Greenland, carrying with him the spoils of grapes and timber from Vinland, a land to which he would never return, it is said his boat came across a group of Icelanders stranded at sea. The incident earned him the name “Leif the Lucky.” This ship today could use some of that luck.