Russell Baker: The great former NY Timescolumnist Russell Baker has died at age 93. Starting in 1962, Baker wrote his gently funny and irreverent “Observer” column for 36 years.

  Baker and syndicated columnist Art Buchwald were the best known newspaper humorists of their day. They were the equivalent of  James Thurber, H L Mencken, and Mark Twain.

  Later in his career Baker wrote “Boyhood,” a bestselling memoir about growing up.

  Baker began his career in the days when reporters wore trench coats and fedoras. He was a police reporter, a rewrite man, and a London correspondent for The Baltimore Sun.

  From politicians to Hollywood, joggers, television, and attempting to read Proust, no one could avoid a poke from Baker’s pen. After the food critic Craig Claiborne infamously hosted a $4,000 dinner in Paris in 1975, Baker wrote a column about his own dinner he called “Francs and Beans.” He wrote, “The meal opened with a 1975 Diet Pepsi served in a disposable bottle. Although its bouquet was negligible, its distinct metallic aftertaste evoked memories of tin cans one had licked experimentally in the first flush of childhood’s curiosity.”

The Supremes: The court has breathed life into President Trump’s ban on most transgender people serving in the military, allowing the policy to stay in effect while it wends its way through legal appeals.

  The vote was 5-4 with the Supreme Court’s five conservatives in the majority. 

  The Trump ban bars from the services people identifying with a gender other than their biological sex. It makes exceptions for several hundred transgender people already serving openly and for those willing to serve “in their biological sex.”

  The court also took no action on President Trump’s plan to shut down the Obama-era program that shields 700,000 young illegal immigrants from deportation — the so-called “Dreamers.” That means the “DACA” program stays in place, for now, and denies President Trump the leverage to threaten Dreamers with deportation while negotiating for his border wall.

The Shutdown: It’s day 33 of the government shutdown and the only thing happening in Washington is nothing. The Senate scheduled competing votes for Wednesday on bills to reopen the government. Most Republicans are expected to vote for President Trump’s border wall and the Democrats will not. Neither side is likely to get the 60 votes they need to pass a bill along to the House. 

  With the President holed up in the White House focusing his entire presidency on getting his wall, he tweeted out why his press secretary hardly stages briefings anymore. “The reason Sarah Sanders does not go to the ‘podium’ much anymore is that the press covers her so rudely & inaccurately, in particular certain members of the press. I told her not to bother, the word gets out anyway! Most will never cover us fairly & hence, the term, Fake News!”

The Envelope: The Netflix production “Roma” is tied at 10 for the most Oscar nominations alongside the theatrical release, “The Favourite.” The Oscar nominations were released yesterday among the usual complaints about who and what got stiffed or under-nominated. Wait, what? Bradley Cooper not nominated for Best Director for “A Star is Born”?

 “Roma,” a black and white picture about the life of a maid in Mexico City in the 1970s, is the first Best Picture nominee for the streaming service Netflix.The Marvel comics production of “Black Panther” is the first superhero movie nominated for Best Picture.

  The batting order by number of nominations:

8 – “A Star Is Born,”  “Vice”

7 – “Black Panther”

6 – “BlacKkKlansman”

5 – “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Green Book”

4 – “First Man,” “Mary Poppins Returns”

The Obit Page:Harris Wofford, a former US Senator from Pennsylvania whose passion for public service helped create John F. Kennedy’s Peace Corps and Bill Clinton’s AmeriCorps, has died at age 92.

  Wofford, who was white, studied law at the all-black Howard University and joined Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s civil rights movement. He was president of two universities.

  Wofford married his wife Clare in 1948 and had three children with her. She died in 1996. In 2016 Wofford married a 40-year-old man. He wrote,  “At age 90, I am lucky to be in an era where the Supreme Court has strengthened what President Obama calls ‘the dignity of marriage’ by recognizing that matrimony is not based on anyone’s sexual nature, choices or dreams. It is based on love.” —Kaye Ballard, the comedian and sitcom actress who had an expansive yet little-known career making people laugh, has died at age 93. Her fame came in “The Mothers-in-Law,” an NBC sitcom in which she and Eve Arden played neighbors whose children married, turning the mothers-in-law into partners in marital meddling. Ballard said, “The show was on just long enough to typecast me as a loudmouth Italian actress, but not long enough to ensure that I would earn the kind of money where I wouldn’t have to worry about being typecast.”

Home Run:Mariano Riviera, the NY Yankees closing pitcher with a winning arm and winning smile, yesterday became the first player unanimously voted to the Hall of Fame, taking all 425 votes. “This was just beyond my imagination,” Rivera said on a conference call with reporters. “Just to be considered a Hall of Famer is an honor, but to be unanimous is just amazing.”

Back to the Blackboard:Teachers in Los Angeles are returning to class today after settling for a 6 percent raise and a nurse to be hired for every school.

Sloganeering:President Trump tweeted out his new campaign slogan this morning; “BUILD A WALL & CRIME WILL FALL!” Maybe it will fit on a hat in small type.

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