The Buzz: Misrepresenting the news for a tenth of a century
Published 1:30 am Saturday, April 14, 2018
By Jon Bauer
A look at the week that wasn’t:
It’s a series of rubes: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg endured questioning before committees in the House and Senate midweek, offering apologies several times for lax controls that allowed third parties to “scrape up” the data of millions of Facebook users.
To speed up the hearings, members of Congress were able to register their opinions regarding Zukerberg’s testimony by clicking one of six buttons for “like,” “love,” “haha,” “wow,” “sad” or “angry.”
A charm of powerful trouble: President Trump turned to Twitter last week to lash out at prosecutors following the FBI raids on the office and home of his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, during which agents seized client and financial records linked to payments to two women who had alleged affairs with Trump several years ago. Trump, in tweets, called the investigation — again — “A TOTAL WITCH HUNT!!!”
The FBI neither confirmed nor denied whether the searches turned up any brooms. magic wands, books of incantations or vials of eye of newt or toe of frog.
And — poof! — they disappeared: Later asked whether he would fire special investigator Robert Mueller, President Trump said, “We’ll see what happens.”
Tellingly, VA Secretary David Shulkin, FBI Deputy Director Andew McCabe, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and FBI Director James Comey were all fired with the utterance of the magic spell, “We’ll see what happens.”
And the meatballs are on us: Developers for Everett’s Riverfront residential and commercial development are looking for new retail partners after it was revealed this week that talks broke down last year to bring Ikea, the world’s largest furniture retailer, to the city.
The talks weren’t a complete bust. Ikea gave city leaders some help in finding new retailers for the development, which included pictogram instructions and Allen wrenches.
Hey, wait for me, guys! House Speaker Paul Ryan announced that he will not seek re-election this fall to his seat, representing his Wisconsin district, adding to doubts that Republicans will be able to retain control of the House and raising speculation that Ryan didn’t want to continue with Democrats in power.
Ryan, R-Nautilus, shook off the theory and said he was retiring so he could spend more time with his lobbyists.
Put a cork in it: Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, is expressing alarm about recent projections from the Congressional Budget Office that show the impacts on the national debt from the tax cuts that Republicans in Congress passed earlier this year. “If it ends up costing what has been laid out here, it could well be one of the worst votes I’ve made,” said Corker, who like Ryan, won’t seek re-election this year.
“Not as bad as the vote we made six years ago,” said Tennessee voters.
Don’t know much about history: On April 10, 1912, the British liner RMS Titanic set sail from Southampton, England, on its ill-fated maiden voyage.
Sadly, passengers Rose and Jack didn’t notice the sign on the door that read: “In the event of a sinking, this door can be used as a flotation device for two people.”
And on April 9, 1959, NASA presented its first seven astronauts: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald Slayton.
In addition to physical and mental attributes, the seven were selected on how good they’d look suited up and slowly walking down a corridor to heroic soundtrack music.
Jon Bauer: jbauer@heraldnet.com.
