What's Judy Woodruff Wearing?

I like this shiny blue shirt on Judy. Doesn’t clash with the hair, is seasonally appropriate and the earrings go well. Good job!

COVID dominated almost all segments of the NewsHour today, from 130,000 deaths in the U.S., to India outpacing Russia’s tally, to the loss of a young Broadway star, to Atlanta’s mayor, to Hong Kong.

If you wonder why the U.S. is lousy at following health professionals’ guidance, just ask this sage:

He put it in a nutshell for us: “I’m an American, and I feel I should be able to do what I want to. I pay my taxes. I live free. I want to be free.” Well O.K., pardner.

Meanwhile, Trump waded into the world of professional sports again. It’s a fact that, before the Presidency, he was dying to join the bizarre billionaires’ club that is the NFL ownership. They wouldn’t have him. Perhaps that was in his mind as he tweeted today that the Washington football team and the Cleveland baseball team are “politically weak” if they change their names from the racist ones they have today.

When I started this blog, I had no idea that I’d have the opportunity to write so frequently about NASCAR. Thanks, Trump! He also took time out from running the free world to say that Bubba Wallace, the NASCAR driver who found a noose in his garage, should apologize to NASCAR because the noose had been there for years. I don’t quite follow that logic, but consider the source. Trump added that, thanks to Bubba Wallace and NASCAR’s decision to ban the confederate flag, NASCAR ratings were down. In fact, NASCAR ratings are up. (I know this blogger did her part, holding on through the one-hour storm delay to watch the at least the first stage.)

The Brief But Spectacular segment was strong again, featuring Mike Smith, the co-founder of the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, who has now turned his attention to making masks for people who don’t have access to them, in this, the second pandemic he has lived through.

The AIDS-related segment is a plausible segue into a book recommendation: The Great Believers, by Rebecca Makkai. It is a novel chronicling the lives of people who lived through the AIDS epidemic and many who didn’t. I would not have read it had it not been the pick for book club this month. Somehow, it’s a real page-turner and, though this blogger sobbed her way to the end, a story about the power of love in all its forms.

Read it!

I must admit that sometimes, I don’t like my pre-school intern archivist. She said that Judy wore this outfit on June 10. So what? Judy looks great, and the red is spot on for this Independence Day weekend. For those of you that tuned in til the end, Judy choked me up with her closing remarks. She asked us to think about what it means to be a part of this country and other good stuff that escapes me at the moment.

Nice piece on Hong Kong activist (now in hiding due to the crackdown), Nathan Law. Truly scary what’s going on with China and Hong Kong. He did say sanctioning senior officials in China would help, along with support for the citizens of Hong Kong. I know there are bills moving through Congress on the former; less certain anything meaningful will happen on the latter.

He doesn’t just look young because I’m old. He is 24.

Nick Schifren interviewed Mr. Law:

Commenter to the contrary notwithstanding, Schifren does nothing for me. His apartment is uninteresting, his hair is pointy and most of all, he doesn’t blow me away as an interviewer. But here’s his mug for you to decide.

Glad to hear the Washington NFL team is reconsidering its name. I’m sure it was all morally motivated and entirely unrelated to the fact that FedEx (FedEx Field, anyone?) and Coke have come out against it, and Nike has pulled the team’s merchandise. I found the person interviewed for this bit annoying and offensive — bet Judy won’t have him back.

OK, no Shields and Brooks. Only Judy is superhuman enough not to take a single day off, not even the Friday before the 4th of July. I promised yesterday that Brooksie would wear a jacket and tie and he did not disappoint:

Neither did his surroundings. Did you get a load of that room? I think it was a converted barn. Really high ceilings, gorgeous framed windows, stairway on the right, baby grand piano dwarfed by the space. Good for David.

The other fellow, Jonathan Capeheart, was just fine. I missed the historical context that Mark Shields provides, though. Jonathan’s living space was blah. Totally generic:

Happy 4th of July, everyone!
Stay safe!

Did the season change and I missed it? This is clearly a fall outfit, if not winter. I mean, I like the leather accents and all, but what whiplash from yesterday’s tank top.

I didn’t see much today to write about, sartorially speaking, but I absolutely wiped a tear at the “Brief But Spectacular” segment about the female utility worker whose son has Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Her name is Savoya Taylor and she is so cool.

For me to tear up at a PBS NewsHour segment is lame, but not unusual. What is unusual is for a hardened journalist like Our Judy to tear up. I swear she did during this segment. I’m telling, you, Judy had two little tears on those lovely cheeks:

Ok, you can’t see them but trust me…

They were there.

I don’t think we’ve seen this shade of blue tank top from Judy before. I know Judy-in-tanks has her detractors, but get this — she’s younger than Debbie Harry, whose seventy-fifth birthday is today. Yes. Judy is younger than Blondie. Say it again: Judy is younger than Blondie:

I note that Blondie is also wearing a blue top. Just.

Go Judy.

More awful COVID news. New horrid records set each day in the U.S., yet the American Academy of Pediatrics says kids should go back to school. I’m pretty sure the American Academy of Parents would agree. The line from the carol, “and Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again,” ain’t for nothin’.

Charlayne Hunter-Gault was back, interviewing David Brooks on his Aspen Weave Project. Sadly, both fell sound asleep during the interview. It’s an exhausting time:

“Weavers,” in Brooks’ terminology, are people who hold things together and make life better in a community.

Wait just a minute. David wears a coat and tie for Judy but not for Frontline, from which this photo was excerpted? Let’s take a closer look:

It’s true! In that same room in Royal Oak, Maryland, he was wearing a coat and tie two Fridays ago when he spoke with Judy. In fact, he always wears coat and tie for her. As well he should.

This blogger has had two glasses of wine, but I could swear David looks almost handsome; endearing, at least, in his little navy linen shirt. You go, David!

I could swear I’ve seen this top before, but my crack summer intern from a highly-rated preschool begs to differ. Not much to say about the outfit though. It’s fine, if a little meh. Still, we should be grateful that Judy hasn’t taken her summer holiday to the Delaware shore yet. Impressive. She is on quite a streak of shows. She hasn’t missed one since the onset of the (surging) pandemic.

So, Justice Roberts joined the liberal wing of SCOTUS to strike down a Louisiana law against abortions? I bet Trump spewed his Big Buford all over the Oval Office when he heard that:

Still, Roberts was doing what SCOTUS is supposed to do: uphold precedent. It’s impressive that he struck down the Louisiana law that was nearly identical to the Texas one, though he dissented in the Texas decision. He is a rules kind of Justice and he stuck to his principles on precedent here.

From the better-late-than-never news desk:

• Iran issued arrest warrants for Trump and his cronies and tried unsuccessfully to get INTERPOL’s support;
• The Golden State killer pled guilty to 13 counts of first-degree murder and he will serve the remainder of his life in prison; and
• The Mississippi flag will no longer include the confederate symbol.

The story with legs is the one the Times broke: that Russia paid Taliban fighters to attack U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. Trump says he never heard of that and that Russia should join the G-8 pronto, which is especially odd even without this story, as we have sanctions against Russian oil companies and several of its banks. It was swell to see Schiffy again. Where’s he been?

A nicely-turned out British ambassador to the U.S. diplomatically said nothing, but her outfit went well with her pretty eyes:

And a new face on the NewsHour was Errin Haines, who joined Tam Keith while the Rachel Maddow doppelganger was on vacation. Errin was rockin’ a baby Gloria Steinem look that worked for me:

Aviator glasses? Check.

Hair parted in the middle? Check?

Total hotness? Well, no, not yet. Errin is too young for that.

I give her an “A” for effort though.

All right, all right, get off her back. Yes, my archivist was quick to note that Judy wore this three weeks and one day ago, on June 4, but she looks great. Who else is even working on a Friday afternoon in the swampy heat of the DC summer?

Shields and Brooks, that’s who! And in coat and tie, no less! LOVE IT!

Texas and Florida are reining in their re-opening. This is not the second wave, friends. This is still the first wave — just post-reopening. 40,000 new US cases in 24 hours and we are up to 125,000 COVID deaths. The young are the latest to be diagnosed en masse, likely because they are the ones who flocked to the crowded bars and boardwalks.

Although Mark is still in his closet, it looks like David has left his Royal Oak place on the Eastern Shore to return to DC.

I didn’t figure him or an abstract art guy (or a chin-up bar guy, for that matter) but I stand corrected. I like the abstract art, at least. I also liked that Mark quoted Ann Richards when Judy asked him about Biden’s lead in the polls, “July results do not make a November election.” Giddy Dems would be wise to remember this.

I loved that David said that in this country, somehow there seems to be a choice between public health and a strong economy. I liked that he added, “the truth is, we won’t have a strong economy without public health.”

That’s all I’ve got. Stay safe. Remember, if it’s ok for Judy to repeat outfits, it’s ok for us to wear the same shorts, ponytail and t-shirt day after day. At least, that’s my interpretation.

Have a great weekend!

Guess who’s a granny? THIS BLOGGER! I am dying to post a picture of the adorable little baby girl, but I want to respect the family’s privacy. Grandpa Blogger is floating around the moon somewhere. Haven’t seen him all day.

Anyway, Judy looks great in this shade of blue and the pearls accent it perfectly. Goes well with her eyes. I wonder what color eyes the new baby granddaughter will have.

Judy interviewed Senator James Lankford. He creeped me out. He was trying to obfuscate about why the Dems rejected the garbage Senate bill on police reform. I couldn’t help but notice that his creepy hair was a shade uncomfortably close to Judy’s. I wonder what color hair the new baby granddaughter will have.

John Feinstein was on with Amna about professional sports coming back. I kept wishing the camera would pull back a bit. Remember the movie, Tootsie? “How do you feel about Cleveland?”

I would be nicer but for one, I’m pretty sure John’s bookshelf was filled with his own books, and two, at the close of the interview he said something along the lines of, “if anyone tells you they know what’s going to happen in professional sports, they either are a lot smarter than I am,” and here he chuckled at the sheer impossibility of that, “or they’re lying.” The arrogance cracked up Amna. I wonder if the new baby granddaughter will play sports.

I’ll be happy whatever she does.

My archivist tells me Judy wore this black tank less than a month ago, on May 27, with the same earrings, but she still looks SUPER! Also love the white peonies and the hydrangea off to her left (our right). Lookin’ great and early-summer-ish.

So today marks the highest one-day surge of coronvirus infections since the start of the pandemic and we are up to 120,000 COVID deaths in the U.S.? Let’s go to a bar!

The Trump campaign is up to 8 staffers who were on the Tulsa advance team while infected with COVID. At least there weren’t too many people at the rally. (Some might say that they wished there were more people at the rally, not wearing masks, so they could get infected, but that’s a bridge too far for this blog.)

I loved that Stephen Morrison, from the think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, had the Talking Heads’ movie poster, Stop Making Sense, in the background while he was being interviewed. I don’t know what that means but I know it’s deep.

In other “I know this portends something but I don’t know what” news, the largest dust/sand cloud from Africa in the past 50 years is moving over the Caribbean, soon to reach the southern U.S.

How about Trump directing his team to “slow down testing” and bragging about it at his tiny rally? “When you do testing to that extent, you are going to find more people. You are going to find more cases. So, I said to my people, slow the testing down, please.” What a stitch.

Once again, I find myself tearing up at NASCAR. Something is definitely wrong with me, but when I saw the images of 39 good ol’ NASCAR drivers pushing Bubba Wallace’s number 43 car down the track at Talladega, alongside Richard Petty, the KING of stock car racing (in his trademark black cowboy hat, and I note, a mask) in a show of support for Bubba after a noose was found in his garage, I loved it.

I fear for the life of the brave and darling reporter from the Philippines, Maria Ressa, who dares to report objectively on Duterte. She is facing 8 criminal cases against her just for being a journalist. I would inset a photo here, but in mine, her eyes are closed, and she’s def an eyes-wide-open kind of gal.

I don’t know how to make sense of it all. I just know that Judy’s repeating her outfits. That’s OK by me because as far as I can tell, she hasn’t taken a day off since the beginning of the pandemic. Even I had been planning to take Memorial Day off, but Judy kept me sharp. Even Shields and Brooks only show up once a week. Go, Judy!

Perfect outfit for Judyteenth! What? It’s JUNEteenth, you say?

Well, that’s nice, too.

Love the navy textured look with the gold piping. There is a gold bead in the middle of the drop earrings, so that’s swell.

Today is also the largest single-day uptick in global COVID cases: 150,000. That’s not good. All evidence says wearing masks helps prevent the spread of COVID. Even in amidst the anti-mask pushback, the darling child-mayor of Montgomery, AL required mask-wearing. What a brave young man!

It is hard to understand how mask-wearing has become politicized, but it has. Wearing a mask should be evidence that you care enough about your fellow person to try to protect him or her, as a public health matter, from COVID.

Trump has said that some people wear masks as a signal that they dislike him. The DSM III says that narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) patients are featured as having an exaggerated (fantastic or behavioral) behavior pattern requiring praise and lacking empathy. If the shoe fits…

Dear Shields and Brooks weighed in on this crazy week. When Judy asked him what Bolton’s book says about Bolton, Shields replied, “what it says about John Bolton is, you can call him a truth teller, you can call him a snitch or a rat fink. You really can’t call him a patriot.”

Brooks went deep into my area, financial crimes, and noted that Bolton had written that Trump offered to “go light” on ZTE, the Chinese telecom company and the U.S. investigation of ZTE’s breakage of the Iran blockage. “That’s true corruption,” and would have been “gigantic” had it come out in the impeachment hearings, but as we know, it did not.

Have a great weekend!

I don’t care what anyone says — Judy looks like a million bucks, and I caught her smiling! I love the ’90s zipper look. So Commander Salamander (for those old enough to remember the punk mecca in Georgetown). The earrings have black in the center, I think, and they go marvelously! Knocked it out of the park!

Who else looked great while slamming Bolton’s cowardice while in the White House? Yes, Nancy Pelosi. She’s wearing her hair less helmet-y, too, and the pink flatters her. How many masks does the Speaker have, this blogger is left to wonder? Noteworthy is the fact that she’s sneering in both pics I snapped. Bolton does that to a girl.

During the interview with Ohio Guv Mike DeWine, I couldn’t help but notice that his globe (dark blue, on the right in the photo below, between the American flag and presumably, yawn, the flag of the great state of Ohio) rotates continuously.

I don’t think that’s a detail that veteran reporter, Judy Woodruff, would have missed. Did he put it there to taunt her? After all, as far as this blogger has been able to deduce, hers is a simple coin bank. It might be dented on the back, there on Africa, for all we know. His spins ’round and ’round seemingly without friction or effort.

Props to PBS for playing the Brooks’ family segment on older people and COVID, warning that an entire generation of comic genius, from Mel to Carl Reiner to Dick Van Dyke, could be wiped out by careless members of the younger generation and positing a solution of putting the older generation behind glass:

Nice look and nice show tonight, Judy!