One piece for subscribers to the Athletic this past week, wrapping up some minor league games I went to over the past week, including notes on Orioles, Rangers, Phillies, and Pirates prospects. Oddly enough, there’s nothing worth going to this holiday weekend, even though I’m home and available. I’m working up the top 100 draft prospects instead, and then will write my next mock, both to run in the Tuesday-Thursday window. I’ll also try to work in a Klawchat this week – the holiday messed up my schedule this past week. I also owe you a newsletter, which is somewhere on the to-do list.
And now, the links…
- Longreads first: The New Yorker has the story of a murder in Queen Creek, Arizona, the work of a gang of affluent teenagers who called themselves “the Gilbert Goons,” in an it-can’t-happen-here sort of story that comes down to parents not parenting and community officials prioritizing economic boom times over prosecuting violent offenders.
- While working up my post with my top ten albums of 2024 so far, I was listening again to the new High on Fire record, which didn’t make the cut. That sent me down a rabbit hole that led me to this 2022 NPR piece on HoF’s Matt Pike, and his embrace of some insane conspiracy theories – and the antisemitic wack job David Icke. It’s a fantastic piece of writing.
- Harvard Magazine asked several professors at the law school there to weigh in on the recent spate of decisions from the Supreme Court.
- A network of Russian-based websites that appear to be American newspapers is spreading fake news with the help of AI, according to a BBC investigation. They have names like the “Houston Post” and the “Boston Times.” Careful what you read and believe.
- The Guardian ran an excellent interview with the Libertines’ two main songwriters, Pete Doherty and Carl Barât, in February, before their superb fourth album, All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade, was released.
- The head of the right-wing, astroturfing ‘think tank’ the Heritage Foundation, the group responsible for Project 2025, is promising violence if Trump/the GOP win and anyone opposes them. This should be on the front page of every newspaper and leading every news program.
- A Christian summer camp in Missouri stands accused of ignoring and covering up decades of sexual abuse allegations and of threatening one of the alleged victims if he chose to come forward. The Hunt family, owners of the Kansas City Chiefs, are not just big supporters of Kanakuk camps, but Clark Hunt’s wife Tavia is harassing family members of abuse victims online. No drag queens or trans people were involved in any of this.
- The Guardian’s Marina Hyde turns her wicked wit on the morbid Tories in the wake of their electoral defeat. Few writers are as deft with the language, or as willing to deploy their extensive vocabularies, as Hyde is: “Farage is the horror version of Inside Out, where Mendacity is only just holding off Racism at the control console.”
- Meanwhile, the Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum looks at Labour’s win and how Democrats here can learn from their successful fight against populism. She’s not wrong: Culture-war battles aren’t going to win elections for the Democrats.
- The Tories’ loss might be good news for higher education in Britain, as their tenure has pushed universities there to the edge of bankruptcy.
- Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for Governor in North Carolina and a Holocaust denier, gave a long, rambling speech where he said “some folks need killing!” and appeared to include “socialists and communists” in that category.
- Meanwhile, the majority-Republican North Carolina Supreme Court decided not to discipline two Republican judges who violated the state’s judicial code of conduct, with one of those cases leading to the death of a defendant.
- On SCOTUS’s dismantling of our system of government: The BBC explains what the Chevron deference meant and why the recent decision is disastrous for all sorts of policies, and for the executive branch in general; Elie Mystal writes that the President can now assassinate you, officially, and claim immunity. He could do it on live TV, call it an official act, and be immune from prosecution for the crime, even after he left office. Great system we have here.
- Why did Justice Clarence Thomas switch his position on the Chevron deference? It might have something to do with all the gifts he received from conservative benefactors.
- After the Grey Lady called for Biden to end his campaign for President for the good of the country, the Philadelphia Inquirer had the proper response, calling for Donald Trump to end his campaign for President for the good of the country. It’s a good dose of perspective.
- A letter to the editor in Science notes that academic freedom is under attack by right-wing politicians and provocateurs, notably the attempt to monitor and rebut online misinformation.
- Should parents praise each other more in front of their kids? I think this is an obvious yes.
- This CNN story on Bhutan’s attempts to balance its high levels of happiness with a young population that wants more modernization is a reminder that even that often useless site publishes some good journalism, here covering a country that I would wager most Americans don’t know exists.
- Closer to home here in Delaware, New Castle County (where I and most residents of the state live) released body-cam footage that shows police officers beating a woman in the head when she was already on the ground after a traffic stop.
God, I hope some Democrat higher-ups can convince Biden to step aside.
Counterpoint: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1809311013839466846.html?utm_campaign=topunroll
“The idea that Dems will do this & will end up feeling unified”
Do you think the Dems are unified now with Biden at the top of the ticket?
Well, this week’s links are somehow even more depressing than ever before.
I really need to move forward with my long-term plan to move to another country, because this one isn’t headed anywhere good.
That counterpoint is grossly inaccurate. Obama generated enthusiasm among voters that Biden never has. Who was ever asking him to step aside? Or asking Bill Clinton to step aside? Poll after poll has shown voters concerned about Biden’s age. His debate performance confirmed their worst fears. Instead of having a candidate consistently and publicly attacking Trump’s agenda, we’re going to be saddled with a candidate who’s actively trying to avoid the public. It’s such an infuriating failure of the Democrat leadership and such an awful display of pride and selfishness on Biden’s part.
“Obama generated enthusiasm among voters that Biden never has.” If you say so. Obama’s high-water mark was 69.5 million votes in 2008, which was 52.9 percent of the total number of votes cast. His total vote and percentage both declined in 2012. Biden earned 81.2 million votes in 2020, which was 51.3 percent of the total number of votes cast. Seems to me that Biden generated plenty of enthusiasm. You’ll probably respond, “Those 81 million people were just voting against Trump.” Well, again, says you. And that’s 15 million more people than turned out to vote against Trump in 2016.
I think the Inquirer piece about Trump, while not “wrong” per se, misses the point for a couple of reasons. Misgivings about some of the specifics of the NYT piece aside:
1. The NYT op ed page is a conversation between liberals about liberal things, so it would make little sense to address Trump directly there. Moreover, Biden and the Democrats are generally somewhat beholden to what mainstream media like them have to say, so it makes sense to use such a position to help Biden/the Democrats to avoid disaster in November.
2. Biden and Trump (in 2024, at least) are the two least popular major-party candidates for president since at least WW2. If one of them drops out, it’s seems possible (if not likely) that their party would win, perhaps in a landslide. Assuming all this is true (and I think it is), I fail to see how calling for Trump to drop out would benefit Democrats, and I don’t see why an ostensibly liberal outfit like NYT should spend any time demanding it.
The point of the Inquirer piece is that other newspapers have devoted far more space and energy to Biden’s age or unpopularity than they have to the threat Trump and his acolytes pose to our democracy. Calling for Biden to step aside when you’ve never even hinted that Republicans should back someone else – or that, say, delegates at the GOP convention should not support him – is a choice, to put it mildly.
“other newspapers have devoted far more space and energy to Biden’s age or unpopularity than they have to the threat Trump and his acolytes pose to our democracy”
I don’t feel like this is true, though I am open to analysis and/or hard data on the matter. I feel like there has been a non-stop barrage of reporting and op-eds on Trump’s prosecutions, the 2025 project, and the implications of Trump v US, among other things. And yes, there’s been a lot of chatter about Biden in the news recently, but that’s because it’s pretty big news! Biden’s age has long been among the top concerns of Democrats when polled on the matter and obviously the debate brought it to the forefront. It is indeed notable that a lot of officials are on the record saying he should withdraw, and that a lot of other insiders are leaking information and such.
Back to the original point, if we assume the editorial board of NYT and other such publications largely consist of liberals who would like to avoid Trump, why would they not call for Biden to drop out? They can see his unpopularity, his bad polling numbers, and his obvious inability to perform the basic duties of the position. If we want to avoid Trump, now may be the only time to do something about it. Without necessarily approving of every such call for Biden to drop out, and while understanding that not every person’s motivations in doing so may be “pure,” I think it’s generally a promising development that large swaths of the media have been willing to challenge Biden on this.
What more is there to say about the candidates at this point? *rump is a horrible person, a sickening human being, and a grave threat to pretty much everything. He should be in prison for a long time, not running for president. The fact that he is popular with approximately 50% of the population says a lot about the state of this country.
Biden is not fit to be running for president. Any remotely qualified and likable democrat should be able to demolish *rump and win in a landslide. The fact that Biden’s re-election is in doubt is a truly sad state of affairs.
It’s rather pathetic that this is the best either major party is able/willing to do. I find it rather bizarre that anyone is seriously asserting that it’s reasonable to elect a president who will be 82-86 years old during the term. (*rump is also way too old. Is there some confusion or doubt as to whether physical and mental health problems are far more likely at their ages than in younger candidates?)
Man, that Applebaum piece is bad. Starmer got fewer votes than Corbyn (even in *2019*) and was only able to capitalize in the moment because the Tories had reached an absolute breaking point. There is just nothing positive to celebrate there. His “coalition” will not survive the next election and seemingly has few if any goals to accomplish in the interim. And it’s absolutely *wild* to see the “pushed back against a wave of anti-Semitism” smear still going after we in America have gotten a front-row seat to the ADL/etc calling everyone expressing a modicum of support for Palestine “antisemitic.”
I could not agree more. Starmer is an untalented (unless you count intraparty knife-fighting) figure who is benefiting from being the next up when the Tories finally imploded.
Completely agree. Both Applebaum and the Atlantic (especially more recently) are not worth bothering with.
I think every slightly left leaning newspaper has written plenty of words on the danger of another Trump presidency. Biden clearly does not look mentally capable of another term. Given the danger that Trump poses and the fact that voters had a problem with Biden’s age before the debate, it’s long overdue media calls for Biden to step aside for anyone that stands a better chance.
For who? It can’t be Newsom because then you’d have to replace the entire ticket which would probably cause turnout among African-Americans to drop when Kamala is also off the board. I’m not sure the base is thrilled with Kamala at the top of the ticket, either. That leaves someone like Whitmer who we don’t even know if she wants it.
It’s either Harris or Biden. Black voters were a major constituency that led to Biden winning the primary and the Presidency, and they are rightfully going to feel betrayed if the Black VP is passed over.
Unfortunately, everything points to Biden not being the answer so the party needs to think of something. Otherwise, it’s a slow march to another Trump presidency.
Maybe Option B — while trying like hell to defeat the Republicans’ joke of a Presidential candidate in any way possible — is to say the Democrats must, must, must pour every available resource into retaining the Senate and taking back the House. Both goals are (sadly) more viable and likely than electing a Democrat as President. This way, Democratic candidates can make their races a full-on referendum about Trump, and whether their Republican adversaries are backing Trump and his policies.
I would just like to point out what’s now known but I called Biden’s sundowning years ago and was mocked. I was right! And now we get Trump II because if Biden’s ego. Dems can tell themselves they think he’ll beat Trump but he’s continually falling behind in the polls and is openly telling people if Trump wins its voters fault, not his. A mad king. We can be pretty sure Biden loses but an open convention means the Dems have a chance.
(Unintelligible)
Democracy is good. We as a voter block weren’t allowed to vote on a candidate as thr DNC made sure he win. We got huge amounts of protest votes in uncommitted and when he finally makes public appearances it’s clear is unfit. He isn’t capable of 4 more years. Thise suggesting he stay in are delusional and 100% will blame everyone but themselves for the loss. How could (fill in blank group) fail the DNC? Man everyone told you all but you didn’t listen.