This week, President Trump Googled “treason” and learned it was sort of serious. He immediately called his best lawyer.
What do you think, Morty? Am I going to get a warning?
It’s a capital offense, dum-dum.
That sounds bad. Will I have to pay a fine?
You’ll be hanged by your neck until you die, and it’s possible your head might pop off.
I don’t want kids kicking around my head like a soccer ball, Morty. Make sure someone picks it up.
Will do, peabrain.
Can everybody please excuse me for a moment. I have to take a call from a very prominent chimpanzee lawyer.
• Jeet Heer writes of Trump as a capo with nuclear capabilities.
• Bill Kristol thinks Trump may be the ruination of the GOP.
• Richard Evans offers historical context on Trump’s baffling behavior.
• Richard Reeves takes aim at the mockery that is American meritocracy.
• Sara Roy reports from the Gaza Strip, a deeply desperate place.
• Kazakhstan’s EXPO 2017 in Astana is a $5 billion boondoggle.
• Zeeya Merali considers the morality of humans creating baby universes.
• Cars that are almost driverless are useful but not transformational.
• Ornithologist Rich Prum answers question about duck copulation.
• Old Print Articles: The last days of Sigmund Freud. (1938/39)
• A brief note from 1945 about J. Edgar Hoover.
• This week’s Afflictor keyphrases: Roxane Gay, Tex Rickard, etc.