Stick to baseball, 5/25/19.

For ESPN+ subscribers, I posted my 2019 MLB draft Big Board, ranking the top 100 prospects in this year’s draft class. I’ll tweak that before the draft but this is the last complete re-ranking. I also held a Klawchat on Friday.

I’m behind on just about everything else these days, but I’ll have a fresh game review up for Paste this upcoming week, and I swear there will be a new email newsletter issue soon. Really. I promise. Mostly.

And now, the links…

• I tweeted about this story this week, but the report that set me off was Brandy Zadrozny’s article for NBC News about parents giving their kids bleach as a (fake) autism cure. The so-called MMS “cure” is just a fancy name for a toxic dose of chlorine dioxide, which is used to bleach wood pulp and paper.
• The Washington Post examines how one right-wing activist has helped pack the nation’s courts with conservative judges. Why should any one person, regardless of political bent, have this kind of power over this branch of government? It’s likely to take decades to roll back the damage done to the country’s judiciary when it comes to fundamental issues like civil rights.
• The Atlantic explores Sesame Street‘s introduction of a Muppet who lives with foster parents, and how the show’s writers try to teach viewers about dealing with traumatic events.
• The editorial board of prestigious British medical journal The Lancet wrote this week that all doctors must fight to protect women’s rights and keep abortion safe and legal.
• Anti-vaxxer activists are now working to spread their disinformation within communities suffering from measles outbreaks, including encouraging the orthodox to use (bogus) religious exemptions to skip mandatory vaccinations.
• ProPublica shines a light on how the family of New Jersey political boss George Norcross benefited from over $1 billion in tax breaks, obtained through pressure on state officials that extended to one family lawyer helping write legislation to specifically benefit the Norcrosses.
• Violence against trans people appears to be on the rise, so in response, the Administration is trying to roll back very basic protections for trans people, allowing homeless shelters to turn away people for being transgender and healthcare providers to freely discriminate against them.
• Far far-right Arizona Rep. Kelly Townsend is trying again to pass a bill banning political speech in the classroom in a direct attempt to retaliate against teachers who fought last spring for higher pay and better working conditions in the #RedForEd movement.
• Other far-right politicians attended a rally in Spokane to create a Christian state called Liberty State out of eastern Washington and northern Idaho. I’m sure the old Aryan Nations folks would be thrilled.
• Deadspin’s Albert Burnenko writes that the idea that Trump wants to be impeached is absurd.
• Trump entered office with more debt than any President in history, and last year added even more. So many of the core values that underpinned our democracy have died quiet deaths since his election; the failure to require Trump to divest from all his businesses feels like the worst of all the new precedents we’ve set.
• Quentin Tarantino did not handle it well when asked a fair question about the limited dialogue for Margot Robbie in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
• The Division 3 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference is kicking out St. Thomas after 100 years of membership for being too good.
• Lindsey Adler asked a number of Yankees players about the time each came closest to quitting baseball (subscription required).
• Over at Baseball America, J.J. Cooper looks at what happens in pitching-poor drafts like this year’s when you choose to draft a pitcher. The short answer: it’s not good.
• Alabama continues to roll back the clock as fast as they can, as Alabama public television refused to air an episode of Arthur that showed a same-sex wedding.
• A Methodist pastor in Alabama had some strong words for forced-birth Republicans, but more importantly, doesn’t he look a lot like David Ross?
• Britain’s Labour Party made this tremendous video arguing against UKIP’s politics of exclusion as part of its Labour Voices series.
• Board game news: Pre-orders are up now for Era, the newest game from designer Matt Leacock (Pandemic, Forbidden Desert).
• Asmodee announced a new division, Gamegenic, to design and sell accessories for games, items like card sleeves, playmats, and storage boxes.