Rolling Stone Digs Deeply Into MSNBC Anchor Rachel Maddow & Her Dogged Pursuit of Trump Truth

Beware of women wearing pearls! Calif. Dem. Senator Kamala Harris reinforced that message last week (and Tuesday June 14, 2017) when she grilled Trump administration cabinet members in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. 

This Vassar-ready blonde has morphed into the woman today known as Rachel Maddow, the openly-gay Rhodes scholar who arrived on the MSNBC cable news scene via progressive Air America Radio. 'The Rachel Maddow Show' is now the number-one prime-time news program on cable TV, a notable achievement for the woman who leads the resistance in the Trump era with a firm commitment to "increase the amount of useful information in the world". 

Rolling Stone makes Rachel Maddow their cover girl, writing that in mid-May, 'The Rachel Maddow Show' was "second only to the NBC playoffs as the most-watched program on cable, period."

 On the whiteboard behind Maddow's desk is a running, if haphazardly diagrammed, list of the stories she's thinking about, with the most important circled in blue marker. Perpetual favorites like Flynn and Trump's ex-campaign manager Paul Manafort hold a prominent place. Another name floating in its own blue circle: Viktor Medvedchuk, "a superclose-to-Putin oligarch" whose name recently turned up in intercepts for having had contact with the Trump campaign. "But we haven't talked about the fact that he was [also] one of the first individuals sanctioned by the U.S. government after the Crimea thing," says Maddow. "And so what is that guy doing talking to the Trump campaign during the campaign when he is one of the sanctioned individuals?"

We all know the truth: Rachel Maddow is relentless on the hunt to uncover all the relevant facts about connections between the Trump Administration and Russia. 

ArtNet Interviews New York Philanthropist Agnes Gund, Founder of Studio in a School

artnet News' Andrew Goldstein introduces us to Agnes Gund, New York's 'renowned philanthropist' who brings art and money together for progressive causes. As a beloved figure in New York, Gund attained a special cachet joining Patti Smith, Serena Williams, Tavi Gevinson and more for the 2016 Pirelli calendar, lensed by Annie Leibovitz. . 

The daughter of an Ohio banking magnate, Gund has expressed guilt that she was given so much more in birth than others. Her fervor for philanthropy saw her on the boards of some 20 charitable and cultural organization as of a few years ago.

Gund is especially proud of her project Studio in a School, the nonprofit program founded in 1977 to bring art lessons, taught by real working artists, to New York City’s public schools. Forty years later, Studio in a School has reached nearly one million children in New York alone, with 90 percent of its activities benefiting students from lower-income families.

Agnes Gund and Sadie Rain Hope-Gund by Annie Leibovitz for Pirelli Calendar 2016.

Merkel's Christian Democrats Have Strong Showing In Germany's Regional Election

German Chancellor Angela Merkel surely was smiling today, learning the results of France's presidential election. But Merkel had an even more important reason to celebrate over the "stunning triumph", writes the LA Times, of her Christian Democrats over the ruling center-left Social Democrats in Schleswig-Holstein, home to 2.3 million voters and 400,000 dairy cows. The win gives Merkel's Christian Democrats much-needed momentum in advance of next Sunday's regional election in Germany's most populous state -- North Rhine-Westphalia, with 13 million voters. 

Germany is not worried presently about a Marine Le Pen-like, nationalist confrontation among German voters, but Merkel has been at risk to her "colorful, straight-talking, multilingual challenger Social Democrat Martin Schulz" in the Sept. 24 election where she is seeking a fourth four-year term. Merkel's Christian Democrats beat the Social Democrats in Schleswig-Holstein by a margin of 32.5% vs 27%. Next week will give Merkel a comprehensive view of where she stands, although four months is forever in today's world.