Lawyer Up or Cowboy Up
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Congratulations to Lee Bernick for being the winner of last week’s Daily Pnut Week in Review. Lee is a senior at MIT studying physics and math with computer science, and she’s looking forward to starting her first full-time job this fall in New York City. Many of those who participated had a perfect score and so we used a random number generator to select the winner. |
| SEASONED NUTS: QUOTABLE |
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“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.” – Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow “Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no fibs.” – Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer |
| IN A NUTSHELL: MUST READ |
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Who’s Afraid of Mueller and More Questions?: Beginning in January, President Trump’s legal team, led by attorney John Dowd, was in negotiations with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team over whether it was necessary for the president to be interviewed in person, other than by written response. Mueller told Dowd he needed to question the president directly to determine whether Trump had criminal intent when he fired FBI director Jim Comey. Dowd wanted to know what questions Mueller intended to ask beforehand, and held out until Mueller’s team agreed to provide the president’s lawyers with more specific information about the subjects that prosecutors wanted to ask the president. Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow then compiled a list of 49 questions that the team believed the president would be asked. Afterward, Dowd was more certain than ever that his client must never sit down in person, under oath. Trump still wanted to talk to Mueller, and when Dowd was unable to convince him otherwise, Dowd quit. The list remained under wraps with Trump’s legal team – until Monday, when someone leaked them to The New York Times. Of the approximately four dozen questions, a few relate to possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia, but the majority concern possible obstruction of justice, and demonstrate how an investigation into Russia’s election meddling expanded to include an examination of the president’s conduct in office. |
| MIXED NUTS: QUICK TAKES ON WORLD NEWS |
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-It has been nine months since camps in southeast Bangladesh were filled with hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees fleeing the violence in Myanmar. Now international aid agencies such as Save the Children are bracing for the babies who will be born to women and girls raped by Myanmar soldiers and militiamen. (The Guardian) -Canada is not at war, yet a UN investigator says violence against women in Canada is a “serious, pervasive and systemic problem.” In dealing with sexual assault complaints, the justice system is woefully behind the times, and far too often male judges are quick to blame the victim. At particular risk are indigenous (aboriginal) women, who are three times more likely to be physically or sexually assaulted and four times more likely to go missing or be murdered than non-indigenous women. (The Guardian) More News Reads:
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| NUTS IN AMERICA |
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-Who hasn’t read Walden Pond and fantasized about spending some quiet time in a charming cabin in the woods? Sounds peaceful, right? Unfortunately, if there’s deer in them thar woods, they probably have ticks and fleas, which could very well be carrying Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, anaplasmosis, or some other newly discovered disastrous disease. That’s not even mentioning mosquitoes, with all the joy of a Zika epidemic. And while a new CDC study says warmer weather is a big cause of the huge surge in reported cases of diseases transmitted by mosquito, tick and flea bites, the report carefully omits any mention of climate change or global warming. (NYT) -Wonder what Henry David Thoreau would have said, out there alone on Walden Pond, on purpose, about all the lonely people in America today? There’s even a tool for measuring loneliness – the UCLA Loneliness Scale. Health insurance giant Cigna used it to conduct an online nationwide survey of 20,000 adults across the country, and according to the report released Tuesday, “most Americans are considered lonely.” That’s actually reflective of several studies in recent years that have documented the public health effect of loneliness. What’s most surprising, the survey found that “actually the younger generation was lonelier than the older generations.” (NPR) -Move over, Rex Tillerson. White House chief of staff John Kelly may be joining you soon. Eight current and former officials say Kelly thinks of himself as the sole bulwark against the catastrophic urges of an erratic president with a questionable grasp on reality. And just to underscore that assessment, Kelly has called Trump “an idiot” multiple times. Kelly said that’s “total BS.” Hard to believe Kelly’s only been on the job nine months. But then, Tillerson never denied calling Trump “a moron” barely six months into his job as secretary of state. (NBCNews) More Reads: |
| SPONSORED NUTS: LOVEPOP |
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| LOOSE NUTS: FASCINATING NEWS |
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-It makes sense that in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, the most popular drinks are LaCroix, Kombucha, Hint, and Soylent. (The Daily Pnut’s publisher, based in San Francisco, can attest to this phenomenon from first-hand observation.) The rest of us are wondering if LaCroix is better or different than any other brand of no-calorie flavored sparkling water that wears away teeth enamel over time? (Quartz, The Inquirer, Forbes, Salon) –People who adhere to five healthy habits in adulthood can add years to their lives, according to researchers at Harvard University. So, keep a healthy diet, control your weight, exercise regularly, drink in moderation, quit smoking, and you could add more than 10 years to your life. (The Guardian) -Scientists are finding evidence of biological clocks in all sorts of creatures – fruit flies, mice, and even single-cell organisms. Now researchers have found evidence that trees might also “sleep” at night. Scientists tested two birch trees, one in Finland and one in Austria, and found that over the course of a night, their branches drooped as much as 10 centimeters, “as if they were taking a load off from a long day.” The trees seemed to relax for a few hours each night, after sunset until just before sunrise. The findings are still preliminary and have only been observed in one tree species, but if a tree falls in a forest, it may just mean it was tired. (Vox) –Here are seven reasons stocks are better than real estate. We find these three reasons the most compelling: much more liquidity (want out of a stock? Press a button.), much lower fees (you can trade stocks for less than 5 dollars per transaction), and less work (stocks can be tucked away and left to collect dividends). (MarketWatch) –It’s been more than 30 years since the first credit card offering frequent flier miles made its debut, and surprisingly, the appeal of airline credit cards is still strong. It doesn’t matter that the value per mile has decreased by a lot – it’s the “emotional hook” of credit card airline miles. Your everyday spending can help you get as far as possible from your everyday life. (NYT) More Fascinating News:
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