I had two posts for subscribers to the Athletic this week, on the signings of Anthony Santander and Jurickson Profar. My ranking of the top 100 prospects in baseball will go live on Monday morning; the content is all written but I am still tweaking the final order.
At Paste, I reviewed the game Gnome Hollow, a medium-weight family game of tile placement, set collection, and some market selling, along with gnomes. I liked it but I would say I didn’t love it.
I did send a short newsletter out to subscribers earlier last week; you can subscribe here for free and get the next one, which I hope will go out Monday/Tuesday to go along with the unveiling of the top 100.
As the social media landscape has lurched to the right, I’m posting links on several sites but only posting other content or answering people on Bluesky, so if you want to interact with me that’s the spot.
And now, the links…
- Longreads first: Molly White writes in her newsletter, [citation needed], about Elon Musk’s and the right’s war on Wikipedia, a source of information they can’t easily control.
- An independent journalist is going to trial over her coverage of the police response to a pro-Palestine protest at Portland State University. Alissa Azar has already been convicted once for her work, as the police claim she’s not a journalist, but “antifa.” How convenient for them.
- Joe Kahn, the executive editor of the New York Times, said that defending democracy would amount to “abandoning its central role as a source of impartial information.” His comments, made to a former colleague of his now at Semafor, didn’t go over well.
- Just days after a (so-called?) cease-fire in Gaza, Israel launched a major offensive against Palestinians in the West Bank city of Jenin. La plus ça change.
- I hate to link to the dumpster fire that is Politico, but they have a good piece on how RFK Jr. might try to remove vaccines from the market entirely if he’s confirmed as HHS Secretary. And his buddy Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) might vote for him. If you live in Rhode Island, you need to call Sen. Whitehouse’s office on Monday morning.
- Florida has benefited from net positive migration for years because of its weather, cheap real estate, and general economic growth. That may be changing, as more people left Florida in 2023 than any other state but California. Climate change and the state’s hard-right shift are likely causes.
- My former colleague at the Athletic Lindsey Adler has a newsletter of her own now after she left the Wall Street Journal, and her latest issue, “Ten Years in a Crumbling Industry,” is an excellent look at her decade in (mostly) digital media and what it’s been like to work in a field that’s imploding around you like the Hamptons sequence in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
- Character.AI has been in the media more for problems with its software, including one user’s suicide after he became obsessed with a chatbot modeled after Daenerys Targaryen, than for anything good about the product. So why would any media brand want to partner with them?
- Jeb Lund writes at Truthdig that AOC ’28 needs to start now – not necessarily because she’ll win, but because she is the right person to stand front and center as the leader of the opposition to the President. And I agree. I don’t think concerns about “electability” are even relevant any more; Trump should have been the most unelectable candidate ever, and he just won his biggest victory yet.
- At Slate, Dan Kois writes about The Straight Story, David Lynch’s most conventional film, and an absolute fucking masterpiece.
- Outgoing President Joe Biden commuted the sentence Leonard Peltier, who spent nearly 50 years in prison for a murder he says he didn’t commit. The federal government withheld a ballistics report that showed the fatal shots did not come from Peltier’s gun, and no witnesses identified him as the shooter.
- Support our troops! But don’t give them houses! Oklahoma scrapped a plan by the Veterans Community Project to build tiny homes for homeless veterans in Oklahoma City after neighbors objected. I bet they stand for the anthem, though!
- Elon Musk made a Nazi salute at the inauguration, twice. We know that’s what it was because neo-Nazis online said so – and they loved it.
- Greg Sargent of the New Republic says that Trump allies are conceding they don’t have a huge “mandate” after all. I’m not sure this means much if no one is willing to stand up to him.
- The New England Patriots set up a Bluesky account and the NFL told them to shut it down. Then the league announced a new partnership with Twitter.
- The Columbia Journalism Review has a story on how the White House press corps is looking forward to a second Trump term. It’s the most effective way I can think of to make someone hate the media. The people they spoke to do not care who’s hurt or what the long-term effects on the country might be, as long as their individual jobs are easier.
- One of Trump’s barrage of executive orders tried to erase the existence of trans people. It is cruelty for cruelty’s sake. No one benefits from this – certainly not the very women who such orders are supposed to protect, not as their rights to basic medical care are also under assault.
- Another order froze pretty much all business at the NIH, which is going to seriously impact critical scientific research on things like cancer treatments and disease prevention. NIH, NSF, and other federal agencies fund all kinds of research into medicine, mental health, and other areas of science that have helped keep the American economy among the world’s strongest and driven continued improvements in global health. That’s all at risk now.
- The American Association of University Professors put out a statement called “Against Anticipatory Obedience.” Do not comply in advance. It’s not hard to remember.
- We have a new Fabio Lopiano (Merv, 3 Ring Circus) game up on Kickstarter, called Baghdad: The City of Peace. I love Lopiano’s games – they’re medium-heavy but manageable – and this one looks like it’ll have great art similar to that of Merv, which I own and have played just once but kept because it’s so gorgeous.
“Elon Musk made a Nazi salute at the inauguration, twice. We know that’s what it was because neo-Nazis online said so – and they loved it.” Yea or just confirmation bias from attention seeking neo nazi losers and the journalists that enable their views to be relevant by writing these opinion pieces in the first place
Or we can just believe our lyin’ eyes. The RWNJ counter-examples from the left look nothing like that in context. Maybe Elon didn’t mean to, maybe he thought it was a funny troll, or maybe he’s truly a neo-Nazi. We can’t know what’s in his heart of hearts. But we can know what we saw.
Elon spoke at an AfD rally today. I’d say the burden of proof has shown that he has zero problem playing footsie with Neo-Nazi’s at the very least. If you don’t want to be tagged with that accusation, stop hanging out with and endorsing a Neo-Nazi party in Germany.
“Elon Musk made a Nazi salute at the inauguration, twice. We know that’s what it was because neo-Nazis online said so – and they loved it.”
Keith, you are so much better than this.
– Signed, a Jew
Really? Is the chair of Yad Vashem also “so much better than this?” Stop making excuses for white supremacists.
Correction — Peltier’s sentence was commuted, but he was not pardoned. House arrest is not freedom.
thank you. I knew that, too.
I agree about AOC needing to become the face of the opposition. I like Gerry Connolly as a person and agree with him on almost every issue but there is no way a 74 year old should be ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. The Democrats are viewed as a party led by old white people whose coalition is younger, non-white voters. Picking Connolly over AOC only reinforces that notion.
I’m not even sure what there is to say about Musk or the oncoming avalanche of crap that’s headed this way to the US. When you have a party that seems to want to get rid of the 14th amendment (well the parts that the courts haven’t already gutted), I feel like this is gonna be a long 4 years.
If ‘antifa’ was a real thing and they started a membership and handed out cards, I’d be the first to sign up. I grew up on Long Island in the 90s when any criticism of Israel was verboten; it’s better now, but it’s chilling how far supporters of the state will go to reverse the tide.
As an alumnus of Boston University, I’m all in on AOC ’28; I agree, it’s not about whether she wins or not, but she’s a real political talent, and while some of my peers on the left think she’s compromised her principles, I personally think she’s just smart and pragmatic about how power works.
As someone with 2 submitted NIH grants awaiting review in the hopes of being able to continue to pay my people and do (what I think is good) science, this hits close to home. If you’re in a red state especially, contact your Senators and Representative. Remind them that science funding used to have strong bipartisan support.
lab leak
has been disproven.
You are a true believer, I’ll give you that.
Ryan,
Stop beclowning yourself. It’s a terrible look.
You are correct MatJi. I repent.
Don’t worry, am sure you’ll be back with some other foolish take in the not-so-distant future and we can do this again real soon.
Fully agree that trump should have been the most unelectable candidate ever, but I completely disagree on AOC ‘28. The candidate viewed as more moderate by the public wins almost every time (as mind boggling as it is that includes trump). Fair or not, AOC loses that matchup against practically anyone except maybe Talib/Omar.
Do you think Obama was considered “more moderate” than McCain or Romney?
@Mike Yes, especially in 2008, Obama won moderates by 21 and 15 points in his elections.
Two things:
1. Setting aside that you need to show your work for your claim, saying “Obama won moderates” is not inherently relevant to your original argument. The original argument describes how the public at large views the candidate, while the latter argument describes the behavior of a (nebulously defined) segment of the population. I can understand how it *might* follow that swing voters perceptions/behavior are the primary driver of presidential election results, but it does not necessarily logically follow that Obama’s performance among “moderate” voters means that he was perceived as more moderate.
2. Regardless, I think your stance is wrong. Basically every American politician and institution this century is disliked by the public at large. In that context, every presidential election since 2008 (at least) has gone to the candidate that has most clearly made the case for change, no matter the direction of that change. Put another way, each election can be viewed as a referendum on the status quo. In some cases (2020 Biden most notably), that referendum has supported moderation. In other cases (2008 Obama, 2016 Trump), that referendum has been for the promise of borderline “radical” change.
And honestly, even if we grant your premise that perceived moderation is the primary driver of presidential election success, who do you really think will be viewed as more moderate in 2028: AOC or whatever post-Trump fever dream of a candidate the GOP primary system spits out?
Right or wrong, the word “socialist” is always going to be attached to AOC. And that means she’s going to be perceived as more radical than any democratic candidate ever. I know many “never Trump” republicans who have voted democrat in the last three elections (including myself) who would never vote for AOC.
@New Mike
Every single Democrat (and some Republicans) for the entirety of my life and beyond has been called a “socialist” or “communist,” repeatedly. You are just describing basic political reality in the primary anti-communist state. And yet, this has not stopped roughly half of all Democratic general election candidates from being elected.
And w/r/t to “never trump republicans,” both primary and general election results from the past 9 years make it very clear that this is designation describes a trivial number of voters, so I just don’t believe that you know many such people. And more to the point, why are you even here if you “would never vote for AOC”?
We have front row seats to the end of America. Whoopee!!!!!
And more to the point, why are you even here if you “would never vote for AOC”?
Is this a serious question? Are there rules for who can be here? Is it really impossible to believe that I can be interested in reading content that isn’t totally aligned with my preferences? Yikes.
No, I am just legitimately curious why a self-professed Republican would want to patronize a blog that spends roughly half the time decrying Republicans. I would buy the “interested in content that isn’t totally aligned” line if you didn’t pre-emptively declare yourself closed off to the extremely mild possibility of voting for someone in a hypothetical future election. If you’re not open to the possibility of changing your mind, what is the real point of engaging with such content?
Saying I’d never vote for a radical liberal isn’t the same thing as being unable to change my mind. I’ve voted for the last three democrats running for president, so clearly it’s not impossible. But I wouldn’t have voted for Bernie or Elizabeth Warren.
Anyway, I have been reading this website for as long as it’s been in existence. No reason to stop now.
“Radical liberal”?
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I’m catching up here but source (https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2012/results/president/exit-polls.html). Sure maybe looking at somewhat loosely defined “moderates” is a bit flawed but given electoral college Dems need to win this group by a decent margin. I’m with new Mike on this, embracing the phrasing “socialism” (even if it’s really not) is going to be a huge turnoff to a big chunk of voters. I’m not a “would never vote for AOC” person, but I think it’s the wrong direction, especially in the long term. We will never see green new deal, Medicare for all, student loan forgiveness, and free college all funded by taxing the rich, not just because the Supreme Court will shut it all down, but because it’s mathematically impossible. A big chunk of Dems know that, it’s why Bernie/Warren lost in the primaries. Going after the ones that haven’t figured that out will only lead to disappointment for a group of people that already love whining about things. Just look at Biden’s attempted student loan forgiveness, clear attempt to pander to the left and they mostly whined about it “only” being $10k.
I know that self-described moderates* generally vote for the winner, but that doesn’t really support your original point that perceived moderation in a candidate is what matters. We are arguing two semi-related, but fundamentally different points.
*there are problems with voter self-ID that I want to acknowledge, but don’t want to distract from my main points by digging into that can of worms
To your point about things being “mathematically impossible”:
-Every other advanced liberal democracy has some form of socialized medicine; it is absurd to think we can’t do it here, where it regularly polls around 60-70%
-Student loans are made up and have no real reason to exist. Other countries (including us in the not-so-distant past) fund higher education because they/we understand education to be a key national interest
-Something like or akin to the Green New Deal *has* to happen for human flourishing to continue on this planet
So either these things are not “impossible” or we have rendered them functionally “impossible” through the neoliberal political order of the past 50 years. If it’s the former, all we have to do is agree as a people that these are things worth pursuing, and then pursue them earnestly. If it’s the latter, then that political order (and the structures that support it) need to be raised to the ground. And either way, your portrayal of activists as “whiners” does not lead me to believe that you earnestly care about these issues, so what are you really arguing here?
And finally, regardless of the details of your arguments, it’s very weird to trot out an “electability” argument about “left-wing” candidates when a Democrat running a very clearly centrist/left-punching campaign lost spectacularly to a wildly unpopular candidate. What more proof do we need that the centrist/suburban/Panera Bread strategy is a failure?
To piggy back on Original Mike’s argument, Sherrod Brown was one of the most liberal members of the Senate and he almost always outran the Dem Presidential candidate when they were both on the ballot including this year. We actually don’t know how the voters would respond to a Bernie/Warren or even an AOC in a national general election because aside from Obama in 2008, the Dems have been running centrists since 1992. I think there’s a case to be made that a Democrat running against the oligarchy and running a class warfare campaign based on economic values would do better than some of the centrists.
Part of my issue with Democrats (especially those in charge in DC) is they overthink everything. On January 21, they should’ve been on the steps of the Capitol with a few police offers from January 6 like Michael Fanone denouncing the pardons. Instead they overthought it and signed a meaningless symbolic resolution. Show people you actually care and are willing to fight for them. That’s why Bernie and AOC are so popular with the base and I think would do well at the grassroots level. They actually seem to be willing for fight for something. Hell start running ads in swing districts showing 1/6 footage and mention that Donald Trump pardoned and released violent criminals from jail. Go on offense for a change.
It seems like Democrats try to find internal consensus on some main gesture or talking point instead of just having their members fight battles on all fronts. Trying to find the one perfect argument against a firehose of bullshit is counterproductive.
Honestly, they should have done that before the election. Run an ad with all these lunatics parading around the Capitol with guns chanting “Kill Mike Pence”..& then put a placard on the screen that says “Trump would pardon all of these people on Day 1” or a placard saying something about the Capitol riot was brought on by Trump.
I honestly think it was so long ago that the average American has almost forgotten about it..which says something in itself, but, the Dems hardly even brought Jan 6 up.
I’m here just to repeat an observation I’ve made for several years:
Socialism in politics is like analytics in sports. Most people can’t accurately define either term but, nonetheless, they’re sure they’re against them.
Starting with Medicare for all (the cause I’m most inclined to support if the 3) other countries pay for it by taxing everyone more. I mean everyone, not just the rich like the left claims is possible. It is not, don’t just take my word for it, here’s a nonpartisan analysis that says exactly that (https://www.crfb.org/papers/choices-financing-medicare-all?stream=top&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter). About your it polls 60-70%, via the AP “But if they were told that a government-run system could lead to delays in getting care or higher taxes, support plunged to 26 percent and 37 percent, respectively.”
Moving to student loans which are made up (wish my lender thought that!) and have no real reason to exist. They exist because a college degree is still overwhelmingly worth the cost and help young people without much money pay for one. Fully agree on funding it more but you’re probably comparing to a time when only like 10% of high school grads went to college, it’s like 62% now.
Your green new deal take sounds a whole lot like doomerism which plays horribly politically. Setting that aside, AOC’s position is less clear but the Bernie/Markey version wants to do away with nuclear. Talk about not earnestly caring about the issue. Same thing with the Palestine based Kamala abstainers, congrats Trump wants to clear out Gaza and ship them off to Egypt, good job leftest, really helping Gaza!
Your last paragraph really makes my point for me though. “Democrat running a very clearly centrist/left-punching campaign lost spectacularly to a wildly unpopular candidate.” Sounds like you clearly believe that was the case, fair or not the people actually deciding who is president clearly disagreed (https://www.reddit.com/r/fivethirtyeight/comments/1gm12mh/nyt_poll_47_of_voters_decribed_kamala_harris_as/). Trump may wind up being enough of a train wreck that just about any Dem wins, but otherwise I think AOC only makes that problem worse.
@Brian in SoCal – not sure if your comment was directed at me, but I kind of agree. I don’t think AOC truly is socialist, so if her ambition was to be president then I think embracing the label was a massive unforced error.
One Reddit post that doesn’t even link to the poll is basically negative evidence. Kamala campaigned with Liz Cheney! She refused to separate herself from Biden whatsoever, including on Palestine! She attacked Trump for being too soft on immigration! After a promising start, the campaign decided to offer people nothing and the people voted accordingly. Obama turned out to be a mediocre president but at least he offered a positive vision of the future to a wide variety of constituents.
On healthcare, delays in care are a prominent feature in our current system, if you are able to get care at all. And we already pay a significant tax for healthcare in the form of lower wages, since employers are functionally required to subsidize it. These are all insurance industry talking points that don’t hold up to the slightest bit of scrutiny. And setting aside the moral/practical reasons for doing it, M4A would likely be *less expensive* than our current system: https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/08/13/the-mercatus-medicare-for-all-report-in-one-graph/
On climate, I don’t know what to tell you man, shit is bleak. There is no way to sugar coat that if we do not take collective, worldwide action, society as we know it will not continue. It would only be “doomer” to say this if there was not a solution, but there absolutely is. It’s just that no one in power is interested in pursuing those solutions.
I have to agree with “New Mike”, AOC is virtually unelectable – and this is coming from someone who would happily vote for her. Most Americans probably have no idea what AOC is actually for or against, but they’ve heard her name used to define “pinko-commie-leftists” since the day she entered politics.
She’ll never win over that middle segment of voters that are undecided from election to election. She’s already such a boogeyman/punchline for the right, plus she’s a woman and a minority. You can talk policy until you’re blue in the face, but she’ll never overcome all the labels that have been stuck on her.
Original Mike, I totally agree with you (and AOC) in terms of policies, but you’re just not being realistic about what it takes to get elected.
I already said this upthread, but literally every democrat is called a commie/socialist/whatever by Republicans, and that hasn’t stopped Obama and such from winning, sometimes in a landslide. And w/r/t the “woman and a minority” comment, Mexico (hardly a bastion of “wokeness”) just elected a Jewish woman president. Nothing you list is a real barrier to AOC (or whoever’s) election.
Lots of other countries have elected women, we never have. All democrats are labeled “commies/socialists” etc, but it rings hollow with centrist candidates like Obama and Hilary. AOC accepts that label with pride.
Maybe nothing I said is a “real” barrier, but at the very least they are real big hurdles. If a woman is going to win, she’s going to look a lot more like Hilary than AOC (both physically, and in terms of policy and experience). Trump will be a disaster, but it will only be 4 years and his lies and finger pointing will create enough confusion that the public is unlikely to realize just how bad he was. I don’t think the country will be ready for a jump that far left.
I hope I’m wrong, but the voting public has not surprised me yet.
Damnit. People still do not get it. They really don’t.
I mean, some do. I think Ben M does. I think Mat Ji does. I think BrianInNova does. And Brian in SOCal. I think Klaw does.
But that’s 5 people in a country of 330?) million?
How about this: Examine what characteristics made Bill Clinton and Barack Obama so popular with voters, then contrast that with the recent democrats who somehow lost to a fucking idiot lunatic narcissistic traitor felon criminal Lying scumbag (H. Clinton and Harris to DT) and then figure out the next candidate that is more like Barrack and Bill Clinton than Harris and H.Clinton.
Narrator’s voice: If the DNC Chair elections are any indications, the party leadership still doesn’t get it. I truly don’t understand how you pick Ken Martin over Ben Wikler.
They don’t get it. That’s the point. They think the problem is that everyone on the other side is just so hopelessly clueless and misinformed.
They fail to even consider the possibility that maybe they could achieve better results by examining what they can do better. (Even if it is the case the everyone on the other side is clueless and misinformed.)
I hate to say one comment should’ve been a disqualifier but I truly don’t understand how you could elect someone as chair who just a few weeks ago tried to make the distinction between “good billionaires” and “bad billionaires”. It misses the point and the critique. If Democrats want to be seen as the party of the people and the working class again, they can’t be defending some rich people as good guys just because they’re on your side. It also invites the argument that you’re defending oligarchy as long as they’re your oligarchs.