• cause At last night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, both Barack Obama and Seth Meyers scored some ice cold burns on Donald Trump — while he was in the room, grimacing.
• effect This morning, Trump called the comments “inappropriate” and tried to redirect things to political issues. WAIT. Now you wanna talk issues all of a sudden, Sideshow Don? Too late, brah. source

• Obama Today, the president used his weekly radio address to suggest, in the wake of high gas prices and huge oil company profits, to remove the oil subsidies big oil companies enjoy. This might just be the time to pull it off.
• GOP In this case … it appears that top GOP figures agree. John Boehner recently suggested removing corporate tax breaks for oil companies (which his staffers have tried to walk back), and Paul Ryan recently made a similar pitch. source

• Letterman’s lashing out On a Thursday night episode of “The Late Show with David Letterman,” the host ripped into one of Trump’s friends, Dr. Phil, over Trump’s behavior in recent weeks. “It’s all fun, it’s all a circus, it’s all a rodeo, until it starts to smack of racism. And then it’s no longer fun,” he said. Letterman also noted that they may not bring Trump back on the show as a guest in the future over the birther stuff.
• Seinfeld’s Charity drop-out The incident mirrors a recent decision by Jerry Seinfeld to not take part in a Trump-sponsored charity event. Rather than handle the real issue at hand, Trump went after Seinfeld’s admittedly terrible “The Marriage Ref.” “What I do feel badly about is that I agreed to do, and did, your failed show, ‘The Marriage Ref,'” he wrote, “even though I thought it was absolutely terrible.” Damn brah. source

• The correspondents’ association dinner was a minor annoyance for years, when it was a ‘nerd prom’ for journalists and a few minor celebrities. But, as with so much else in this town, the event has spun out of control. Now, awash in lobbyist and corporate money, it is another display of Washington’s excesses.
• The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank • Arguing that the White House Correspondents’ Dinner — an event once noted for its low-key approach and minor celebrity host — now has dozens of parties around the event, is flooded with money from lobbyist types, and has numerous celebrities looking to hob-nob with both politicians and the media. While Milbank doesn’t criticize its peers for the individual parties or any small aspect of the whole, he says that “the cumulative effect is icky. With the proliferation of A-list parties and the infusion of corporate and lobbyist cash, Washington journalists give Americans the impression we have shed our professional detachment and are aspiring to be like the celebrities and power players we cover.” And he’s right. That’s dangerous. source

• Armadillos may be able to give humans leprosy. Emphasis on the “may,” but the evidence is extremely compelling. The Armadillo has long been known to be a leprosy carrier, but it wasn’t thought that cross-species infection was a concern until recently. Researchers found that a substantial amount of people with leprosy in the American deep south had been infected near their homes, and that other humans or armadillos were the only known sources in those areas. Further, some of the people afflicted had handled armadillos prior to the contraction. source

• Pro-tip: Don’t preface your argument by proclaiming that you don’t know what you’re talking about. The premise in this RedState piece is that we can “common sense” our way out of any political impasse that comes our way, complexity be damned. This is a dangerous way to go about public policy. “Without a strong position among those on my side of the aisle, and with my limited economic understanding that I mentioned earlier, I must revert to what rarely fails me: My gut.” If you lack enough information to form an opinion, either educate yourself more or recuse yourself from the debate. Comprehending the ramifications of raising the debt ceiling require a basic, if not advanced, level of economic knowledge, and to advocate for a one view or another without this knowledge is both intellectually and journalistically disgraceful. source

• The cuts that have been made so far don’t seem to us to have very significant consequences for short-term economic activity… so far I’ve not seen any fiscal changes that have really changed our near-term outlook.
• Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke • Speaking at his press conference today, when asked by a reporter about the package of budget cuts congressional Democrats and Republicans agreed upon. Bernanke’s dim view of the package is very easy to understand, as the size of the cuts were incredibly overstated; taking the long-term value of the package (this year’s savings reportedly only amount to $353 million or so) as $38.5 billion, you’re still talking about chump change as far as the total deficit, estimated over $1.5 trillion, is concerned. Bernanke also said Standard & Poor’s downgrading America’s outlook rating isn’t surprising, because everyone knows the U.S. is on shaky fiscal ground, but that he hopes it will spur more action.  source

• Working the crowd: Bernanke told reporters that his decision to hold this first-ever event was part of his effort to increase transparency at the Federal Reserve. On the issues, though, Bernanke was less a revelatory messenger than that of a lot of news we sort of already knew — unemployment is high, inflation is a risk as always (though one he sought to downplay), the deficit is unsustainable, and the Fed will be broadly staying the course with its monetary policies. That said, we want to give him some credit. First, the Federal Reserve has been a very secretive organization throughout its life, and Bernanke’s effort in making himself more available is admirable. Second, that might be the best damn beard in all of central banking. source

• dirty death Cremation has long been one of the two mainstream methods of corpse disposal. The burnings are not necessarily eco-friendly, though, releasing carbon into the air and using up a fair share of energy to turn a body to ash.
• clean death? Jeff Miller, a California state assemblyman, proposes allowing people to have their remains liquefied, a new process that uses 1/10th the energy of cremation. We can’t help but think this is going to hurt his political career. source

(via John Ness)

• I understand what’s at stake. It is not just getting behind a microphone and screaming ‘Aflac.’ If you’re a spokesperson you have responsibilities.
• New voice of the Aflac duck, Daniel McKeague • Speaking about his view of professionalism and responsibility as a corporate spokesman, which evokes a not so subtle reminder of why McKeague has the job in the first place. When Gilbert Gottfried posted deliberately offensive jokes about the Japanese earthquake and tsunami just after the twin disasters, Aflac cut him loose. We’re wondering, though — will the new Aflac duck voice just be McKeague imitating the old voice? Because the old voice was rather undeniably Gottfried’s creation, a voice he’s been employing in stand-up comedy, film, and television for decades. Getting paid “low six-figures” to imitate a funny voice created by someone else? Good work if you can get it! source