The Weekly Sift

It’s been the kind of week where the retirement of the Speaker of the House can get lost in the shuffle: The US attacked Syria, Michael Cohen’s office was raided, Jim Comey’s book leaked ahead of its publication date, the inspector general’s report on Andrew McCabe came out … and probably some other important stuff I’m forgetting.

I’m going to start today by having some fun. I love to write song and poem parodies — during the Trump administration I’ve already chronicled the failure of ObamaCare repeal in the form of “Casey at the Bat” and re-imagined “If” as Trump’s advice to his sons. This week, I present the musical version of Robert Mueller trying to persuade Michael Cohen to testify against Trump (and reminiscing about Sammy the Bull flipping on John Gotti). It’s “Make a Deal” to the tune of “Cabaret”. That should post soon.

The second featured article is my take on what Paul Ryan is thinking. At some point this week I realized that I have written thousands and thousands of words about Ryan during the last six years, and read tens of thousands more by or about Ryan. I kind of feel like I get him by now, so I suspect my version of his thoughts is as good as anybody else’s. That should post before 10 EDT.

The weekly summary will also raise some questions about the Syria raid. (Do we have a strategy? Is the attack even legal?) I have few answers. Also, some thoughts about Michael Cohen, and a few reflections on how my taxes would be different if I had different kinds of income (as an illustration of how the tax code is stacked against working people). (I’m still debating whether to spin that off into its own article.) I didn’t have the connections to get a pre-release copy of Comey’s book, which comes out tomorrow, so I’ll probably have more to say about that next week. The summary should be out before noon.