I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to become a paid subscriber, you can sign up here.
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“Thank You, For A Real Good Time”
(The image above is of more than 600 drones flying in unison. Here’s more video of the amazing drone show at Oracle Park in San Francisco on Sunday night.)
Well, it’s all over but the memories — and the bootlegs. This weekend I attended the final three Dead & Company show in San Francisco, which were phenomenal — a band at the absolute peak of its powers.
For MSNBC, I wrote an essay on what this band has meant to me over the years and why I consider the Dead, America’s last great musical adventure.
It would be a stretch to argue that the Dead always put on a great concert. When you play 2,300 concerts over 30 years you are going to have a few off nights. In the 90s, when I predominantly saw them, there were as many bad shows as good ones. But you never quite knew what you were going to get — and that’s made it unique and special.
No set list was ever the same, no song was played the exact same way and the band relied on a repertoire of literally hundreds of songs. Maybe you’d get a breakout tune that they rarely played. Maybe you’d hear a song you’d seen in concert plenty of times but simply a better and more energetic version. Maybe there’d be pure music magic on stage, a jam so rich and layered that it would take you to a place you’d never been before. Or maybe you’d hear a lame tune that led you out to the concession stand to get a drink. It was a crap shoot, but not knowing — and the possibility of hearing something that blew my mind — kept me coming back. Because when the band was on, Jerry was in a good mood, Phil Lesh, the band’s bass player, was dropping bombs, and the crowd was roaring … nothing was better.
A few years after Garcia died, I was with some friends and someone asked if you could travel in time and see any band in concert who would it be. Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones or Aretha Franklin in their primes would be obvious picks. Me, I said right after the lights went down and the Dead ambled on stage to tune-up. Why? Because at that moment, all the possibilities of a Dead show awaited us. Today, when I see a concert, even a band I love, I have a pretty good sense of exactly what I’m going to get. With the Dead, I never knew — and that’s still true today. In an era of lowest common denominator pop culture and highly choreographed musical experiences, where else in America today can you get that opportunity?
You can read the whole thing here.
You can also watch this video of John Mayer showing why Deadheads came to love him over the past eight years.
Also, read my friend Anthony Fisher write about becoming a Dead fan later in life.
… Finding Out
It seems that the proverbial shit is finally hitting the fan on the January 6 investigations.
Former President Donald J. Trump has received a so-called target letter in connection with the criminal investigation into his efforts to hold onto power after he lost the 2020 election, Mr. Trump and people familiar with the case said on Tuesday, a sign that he is likely to be indicted in the case.
It was not clear what aspects of the sprawling investigation the letter may be related to. The investigation has examined an array of schemes that Mr. Trump and his allies had used to try to stave off defeat, including the events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, riot by his supporters at the Capitol.
The letter was the second from the special counsel, Jack Smith, notifying Mr. Trump that he is a target in a federal investigation. The first, in June, was in connection to the inquiry into Mr. Trump’s handling of national defense material after he left office and his alleged obstruction of efforts to retrieve it.
Days after that letter became public, Mr. Trump was charged with 37 criminal counts covering seven different violations of federal law.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Tuesday that she has filed charges against 16 people who signed paperwork falsely claiming that President Donald Trump had won the 2020 election as part of a scheme to overturn the results.
U.S. presidents are technically voted in by slates of electors from each state who cast their votes for the candidate selected by their states’ popular vote. In December 2020, as Trump tried to overturn the results of the election, his allies readied alternative slates of electors in several states.
These appear to be the first charges filed against fake electors.
Trump announced the target letter in a post on Truth Social in which he also called special prosecutor Jack Smith “deranged.” #Smartmove
According to ABC News, the letter mentions three potential charges: “conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud the United States, deprivation of rights under color of law, and tampering with a witness, victim or an informant.”
The target letter combined with the charges against fake electors in Michigan (lest we forget, Trump and his team tried to orchestrate the fake elector initiative) suggest that Trump will soon be hit with another set of federal charges.
It’s possible a third Trump indictment will give Republican voters pause. But the more likely outcome is that it will strengthen the former president’s hold over the Republican primary electorate. If that weren’t the case, congressional Republicans and Trump’s presidential rivals would be calling for him to drop out of the race ... but of course, as is always the case, they defended Trump and blasted the likely indictment as a political witchhunt (even though not one of them has seen the evidence amassed against Trump). As long as Republicans treat Trump like a victim rather than the criminal and political albatross that he is, the GOP electorate will follow their cue.
Special Election Mojo
Back in 2022, one of the reasons I was persistently bullish on the Democrat’s chances of overperforming in the midterm elections was the party’s consistently strong performance in special elections.
Well, guess what? It’s happening again. There was a special election for a seat in the Wisconsin Assembly on Tuesday, and the Republican candidate won by 7 points. However, the problem for the GOP is that this is a +17 Trump seat, which means the Democratic candidate overperformed by 10 points. In fact …
You can see a whole chart here, put together by the folks at Daily Kos Elections, but the trend lines are clear: even when Democratic candidates lose, they are doing better than expected based on the district's partisan lean. And this phenomenon is happening in red, blue, and purple states.
I realize that we are 15 months until the 2024 elections, but these types of races provide an excellent source of data about the electorate's mood. Moreover, special elections are an excellent predictor of future election results, particularly in House races. Bottom line: keep an eye on this space to see if these results continue. If they do, Republicans are in even more trouble than they currently appear.
What’s Going On
James Comer has a James Comer problem.
An Iowa judge temporarily halted the state’s recently passed six-week abortion ban.
Amazing stat from David Byler’s recent column in the Washington Post — and a useful reminder that race is a social construct.
For example, 59 percent of multiracial Trump converts — that is, mixed-race voters who passed on Mitt Romney in 2012 but voted for Donald Trump in 2016 — also switched their race to White. Among multiracial voters who didn’t support Trump or Romney, only 4 percent moved into the White category.
I haven’t written about the recent heatwaves that are buffeting countries around the world … because I’m not sure I have much to add. Humanity has failed to adequately come to grips with the reality of global warming, and we are now reaping the whirlwind.
Mark Joseph Stern says Brett Kavanaugh is the Supreme Court’s clear legal lightweight.
This is one of the best campaign ads I’ve ever seen — an endorsement of Joe Biden’s legislative agenda by Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Musical Interlude