immigration

October 17, 2026 · 11 comments

Stick to baseball, 10/17/26.

The first of three posts from my trip to the Arizona Fall League is now up, examining and excoriating the ridiculous outfield-positioning experiment happening in games at Salt River Fields. My notes on players I saw will run Sunday and Monday in two posts, split up by league. I’ll also work up a post on the five new restaurants I tried on this trip.

I have a newsletter written but have been holding it until the AFL posts were up, so I’ll probably send it on Monday. In the meantime, you can sign up for the newsletter (it’s free) or follow me on Bluesky, Instagram, TikTok, or Threads.

And now, the links…

A video first, from The New York Times: In the first episode of a new show called “Sound Off,” former Chicago Tribune editor Marc Jacob explains how he thinks the Times is failing readers by whitewashing the lies and corruption of the Trump Administration.

On to the longreads first … also from the Times, a look at the increase in threats and incidents of political violence aimed at elected officials in the United States. Yes, right-wing elements are pushing some of this, but as someone who’s received such threats, I think it’s also a result of the increasing isolation and depersonalization that come from people who are too online.

ProPublica’s investigations have found 506 U.S. citizens detained by ICE and DHS under Trump, contrary to the Administration’s lies that say this isn’t happening.

The deeply unethical vaccine trial in Guinea-Bissau championed by RFK Jr. – where some children will be denied the hepatitis B vaccine for six weeks – will go ahead after all, with U.S. taxpayer funding. A hepatitis B infection in an infant can cause lifelong health problems. The study is pushed by anti-vaxxers hoping to find support for their claims that vaccines are harmful. The New York Times also has a story up on how much RFK Jr. is advancing anti-vaxxers’ goals (polies that are already killing Americans).

Also from ProPublica, Ken Paxton, the Republican candidate for Senate in Texas, has spent millions of taxpayer dollars on junkets around the world, to at least 17 countries, with no business justification for the expense.

Science details the results of a study looking at why attrition rates are higher for women faculty than men.

A 19-year-old white man, radicalized by right-wing content online, planned to shoot up a Hindu temple in the Chicago area, and only a jammed gun and a co-worker who thought to call the police stopped a massacre.

Zeteo reports on how Mike Huckabee, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, is selling trips to Israel with the promise of access to top Israeli officials, and is still raising money for the PAC he pledged to dissolve when he got the job.

A couple of tech writers announced that they’re going back to X in the last week, despite, you know, all the Nazis, the hate speech, the false information, and the way the owner is trying to undermine our democracy. Another tech writer lists eleven reasons why Elon sucks, using that as his argument to avoid X.

Mother Jones explains how that Ukraine drone strike on a data center didn’t wipe out a bunch of Russian bots, but people believed it anyway.

Israel “settlers” attacked Palestinian olive farmers and a Washington Post journalist in the West Bank, part of their annual effort to wreck the olive harvest. These people are not “settling” anything.

A study from Norway found that wealth taxes did not lead to the affected taxpayers fleeing the country.

The Times looks at the upheaval in mathematics after the release of hundreds of new proofs and findings generated by OpenAI, including a proof of the quasi-Riemann hypothesis, which may get mathematicians (or AI) closer to solving maybe the most famous currently unsolved problem in math.

Yet another sexual assault at a frat party, this one at the University of Chicago.

Singer/guitarist Geordie Greep, formerly lead singer of black midi, was accused of sexual assault by a woman after a show earlier this month in Vancouver. The accusation was followed by a flyer, not written by the accuser, that claimed he’d raped her, a claim she flatly denies.

Two women have filed a lawsuit accusing disgraced former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) of sex trafficking, after which he attempted to dox them.

A 20-year-old woman in Milwaukee called the police to ask for protection from her 39-year-old boyfriend; he killed her hours later.

Bestselling author Sally Rooney (Normal People) has supported the group Palestine Action, which the UK has branded as a terrorist organization, meaning under UK law her publisher could not pay her royalties for her books sold in the country. As a result, Faber will no longer supply her books to stores in Britain, a move she supports. We aren’t the only western country rolling back civil rights.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) holds millions of dollars’ worth of shares in data center companies, so of course he’s pushing legislation that will make it harder for states to regulate their activities.

Cranio Creations has a Gamefound page up for a new edition of Lorenzo il Magnifico.

Eagle-Gryphon has a Kickstarter page up for a new edition of Empire: Age of Discovery (previously published as Age of Empires III).

Tagged artificial intelligence, board game news, free speech, guns, immigration, israel, journalism, links, longreads, mathematics, metoo, palestine, rhode island, social media, stick to baseball, texas, the swamp, vaccines

October 10, 2026 · 5 comments

Stick to baseball, 10/10/26.

Nothing new from me this week on the Athletic, and just a pair of posts from me here, actually, reviewing the board game Forage and the abysmal novel Verity. So let’s get right to the links…

Longreads first: This New York Times investigation of the three people orchestrating smear campaigns against certain women in Hollywood, doing so at the behest of Justin Baldoni, Rebel Wilson, and others, is appalling – and very well-sourced. They uncovered messages between Wilson and one of the ringleaders, saying that for $110,000 they could put up a website that accused her target, writer Amanda Ghost, of sex trafficking.

The Atlantic spoke to the trucker who hit Pierre Damas Bel, the Haitian man who killed himself by jumping in front of the truck after Trump revoked the Temporary Protected Status of Haitian refugees earlier this year. The driver, Jack Burhing, was absolutely not at fault, and writer Stephanie McCrummen shows tremendous empathy for Buhring, Bel’s family, and others in the community in Springfield, Ohio.

Bernadette Greene-Placentia, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Arizona’s 8^th district, revealed this week that she was raped while fixing one of her campaign signs. She’s running against election denier and incumbent Abraham Hamadeh, who has received $60,000 from AIPAC and other pro-Israel PACS this cycle.

Science exposes how much NSF has destroyed its social sciences research under Trump and Russ Vought.

A pastor and his wife who are Christian influencers and wrote a relationship book have been arrested for physically and sexually abusing their daughter. Seth Day is a professor at a Southwestern Adventist University – that religion was founded by a nutcase who claimed Jesus was coming back in 1843 or 1844, and, well, he’s a bit late – and he was charged with the abuse, while his wife Heather was charged with knowing of the abuse and failing to protect her daughter or report it. There were no trans people or drag queens arrested or involved in this story.

Of course the MAGA right, notably Christian nationalist Matt Walsh, have jumped into the Cornell 7 discourse by defending the rapists. It’s inherent to that fringe worldview.

A cop in North Carolina shot and killed a woman’s two dogs during a break-in in 2024. A court told her she can’t release the camera footage of the incident, but she’s doing it anyway. The court claimed releasing any of the body or dashcam video would endanger the police officer; that says to me that the officer must really be in the wrong here.

Multiple soldiers are already planning to file for religious exemptions to avoid participating in the planned public execution of the mass murderer Nidal Mikal Hasan. Public executions are banned under international law; Iran and Afghanistan were the only countries to use them in 2025.

Writing for The New Republic, Michael Tomasky praises Sen. Jon Ossoff’s highly effective quips and one-liners against his opponent, Rep. Mike Collins (R), and says Ossoff is the 2028 Democratic front-runner until proven otherwise. I would broaden the statement to point out that candidates who are taking this aggressive approach, including Ossoff, El-Sayed, and to some extent Adam Hamilton, seem to be faring better than those who are playing defense (like engaging with transphobes).

The Kansas reflector and MS.NOW investigated Sen. Roger Marshall’s (R-KS) use of taxpayer dollars to fund his campaigns.

In Ohio, there are ads attacking U.S. Senate candidate Sherrod Brown (D) that show a trans woman claiming she underwent gender-reassignment surgery as a minor. It turns out she’s a phony – she’s not from Ohio and didn’t have that surgery until she was 19.

Wisconsin Congressman Derrick Van Orden (R) has been posting deepfake videos of his Democratic opponent Rebecca Cooke, who has hit Van Orden with a cease-and-desist order over this AI slop. He isn’t even labeling the fake ads as AI, which is generally required by the sites where they’re posted.

Paul Waldman attacks the credulous mainstream reporters trying to make Rahm Emmanuel happen. Emmanuel is already trying to gear up for a Presidential run, despite lacking any real constituency, bringing a milquetoast policy platform, and carrying a major scandal – he covered up the police murder of a 15-year-old boy while he was Mayor of Chicago.

One of the measles deaths in Pennsylvania was a 20-year-old Amish woman who had leukemia and wanted to get vaccinated, but couldn’t because the cancer had suppressed her immune system.

New research found that James Watson’s claim that he first found the helix in a famous photo of human DNA is bogus; Rosalind Franklin, who died in 1958 and still is not properly honored for her role in the discovery, spotted it first.

Jeff Goodell, author of The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet, writes in the Times editorial pages how attribution science may end up forcing oil and gas companies to pay for the damage they’ve caused.

Another one of those bought-and-paid-for “economic reports” claims that a new Royals stadium will produce $1.4 billion in economic benefits for Kansas City, without real sources or a valid method for calculating such a wild figure, and no actual authors named in the paper!

Board game Kickstarters: Cole Wehrle’s Buried Giant Studios has one for a second edition of An Infamous Traffic, a fairly heavy game about the opium trade in China in the 1800s. I haven’t played this game but have been looking for a copy in trade for a while because the theme is so good.

This Way! Games has a Gamefound page for Arctica, an engine-building game about creating an ecosystem in the Arctic, with intriguing gear-driven player boards. I will say those cards look a lot like Wingspan’s, though.

Tycoon Games has one up for Fable Quest, a cooperative game set in the world of 2014’s Arcadia Quest.

Tagged arizona, board game news, hollywood, immigration, kansas, links, longreads, ohio, police, religion, science, stick to baseball, the swamp, vaccines, wisconsin

October 3, 2026 · 11 comments

Stick to baseball, 10/3/26.

One new piece from me at The Athletic this week, my annual Minor League Prospect of the Year column, with this year’s honor going to Rainiel Rodriguez of the Cardinals.

I’m still mostly on Bluesky, Instagram, and TikTok. And yes, I’m overdue for a newsletter.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: The Atavist has the incredible story of a family that worked to find a treatment for their daughter’s extremely rare kidney disease, a thirty-year effort that turned into a worldwide endeavor and that has already yielded two effective medications.

Family separation under Trump 2 means deporting the parents and leaving their children, often babies, alone in the U.S. I’d love to hear how evangelical Christians who support this Administration rationalize this kind of exceptional cruelty.

The parents of 17-month-old girl gave her raw milk, thanks to a recommendation from her chiropractor (of course), and the girl nearly died of an E. Coli infection. California has done nothing to the unlicensed dairy that sold the toxic liquid. No one even seems to expect the chiropractor to face any consequences; the quack’s office banned the mother from the Facebook group it runs when she explained what happened to her daughter.

The New York Times looks at the collapse of a massive for-profit Montessori school chain that they call a Ponzi scheme, where the founders walked away scot-free and have already founded another school.

The Texas Tribune has identified Gregory Feathers as the ICE agent who shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Aruajo in Houston this summer.

We all got a good laugh at the clownery of Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) this week when he accused Jack Smith of being at an Atlanta Hawks game when Smith was actually at an Iowa Hawkeyes game. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Tony Messenger uses this to expose Schmitt’s ridiculous state lawsuit against China for supposedly hoarding masks during the pandemic – masks Schmitt claims don’t work, by the way – which is costing Missouri taxpayers millions of dollars.

There’s a dengue fever outbreak in Florida, perhaps the worst-equipped state to deal with a public health crisis. Climate change is going to push more of these so-called “tropical diseases” into the mainland U.S. as the mosquitoes that spread them are better able to survive our winters.

The Washington Post broke the story of Trump using money intended for memorials for fallen police officers to fund his campaign ads. These ads are illegal, by the way, almost certainly violating the Hatch Act.

A 14-year-old boy in England chased a girl who refused to date him through a shopping area and then stabbed her. He received probation.

The Cut has the scoop on how student journalists at Cornell broke open the story on the Chi Phi rape case, and a story written by Professor Kate Manne on the environment at Cornell right now.

Tennessee was so eager to kill Christa Pike that they botched the execution, leaving her unconscious and on life support. It’s an indictment of every state that still uses the death penalty and everyone who supports this barbaric practice. Capital punishment is state-sponsored vengeance.

California has passed a law to subsidize local journalism, offering large tax incentives for outlets that hire new journalists in full or even part-time roles. The article praises Gov. Newsom for signing it, but this is a rare win for Newsom after he’s vetoed all kinds of bills designed at protecting Californians from Trumpism, including a bill that would have protected medical providers there from prosecution by red states over abortion or gender-affirming care, and just the other day a bill that would have banned the use of ‘pervert glasses’ and other secret recording devices.

Express-News columnist Mike Finger (a longtime reader as well) writes how NBA stars are lining up to endorse gambling sites at their fans’ expense. Of course, now the CFTC is suing states that are trying to block the probably-illegal gambling operations of Kalshi and Polymarket because Donald Trump Jr. is an investor in the latter.

Ravenous looks at private equity-backed cookie chains like Insomnia and Crumbl, where the cookies are mid at best but the profits are huge. The obvious message: Find a local bakery. They’re everywhere, the cookies will be better, and you’ll be doing more good with your money.

Todd Rundgren got the attention he sought when he claimed that Taylor Swift has ruined music. I’m not a Swiftie at all – I think she might have two songs I like – but this is some serious old-man-yells-at-cloud stuff. The flattening of popular music is driven by technology and by rudimentary capitalism, not by any one artist, who, by the way, is far from the worst out there (like, has he heard Stella Lefty?).

From June, a church leader in Michigan is still under investigation for abusing dozens of children, with over 60 felony charges and counting. No trans people were charged.

MAGA podcaster and noted plagiarist Benny Johnson is now being sued by two anti-ICE protesters he labelled as “terrorists.” Good.

While arguing with the president of the local Building Trades Countil in a bar in his home district, Pennsylvania Rep. Aaron Bernstine (R) shouted a gay slur about his colleague Malcolm Kenyatta (D) and falsely claimed that Kenyatta has AIDS. Kenyatta has called on Bernstine to resign.

A reader sent along this story about a controversy in the wine-writing world as the winner of the Pall Mall Awards’ short-form category was probably written by or with AI.

Phil Williams points out how a publisher of white nationalist books is happily selling its content on Amazon and, until he called them out, via Target. As of Friday morning one of the two books Williams highlights is still up on Amazon, with a rating of 4.6 stars.

Last week, I linked to Futurism’s story on an AI content farm that buys up legitimate blogs, shitcans the staff, and pumps out AI slop instead. Turns out one of that operation’s owners has extensive ties to Ghislaine Maxwell.

The Minnesota Star-Tribune’s David Perry decries the University of Minnesota’s plans to cut $225 million from its budget over the next two years.

Restoration Games has already raised nearly $1.5 million as of Friday morning for its Kickstarter for The Lord of the Rings: The King’s Gambit, the huge, special-edition reboot of 2000’s Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit. There won’t be a regular edition from Restoration after this one, so if you’re into this game, now’s your chance.

Board & Dice has a crowdfunding page up on Gamefound for Thessaloniki (from Daniele Tascini) and Windmill Valley Duel (from Dani Garcia).

Tagged artificial intelligence, board game news, california, colleges, cornell, florida, frauds, health, immigration, journalism, links, longreads, medicine, metoo, minnesota, missouri, pennsylvania, science, stick to baseball, tennessee, the swamp

August 29, 2026 · 1 comment

Stick to baseball, 8/29/26.

Over on the Athletic this week, I had a new minor-league scouting notebook, covering some Mets, Orioles, Nats, and Phillies prospects, including two guys the Mets just acquired at the deadline. I’ll have another one early next week. I’m not bylined but I did contribute to this newser on Walker Jenkins’ first callup.

You should sign up for my free email newsletter, which I’m hoping to get back to on Monday. For socials, I’m still mostly on Bluesky, Instagram, and TikTok.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: This New York cover story on the proliferation of travel teams for young athletes, and the harm it’s doing to our kids (at great cost to the parents), is a must-read for anyone interested in sports, even professional ones, because this is how we fumble our future and create leagues full of the privileged at the expense of anyone unable to access this narrow pipeline. I have long had a personal policy to avoid pay-to-play events, but it’s a little easier for me because the amateur players I’m seeing are the best of the best.

German actress/journalist Collien Fernandes was being stalked and impersonated online by someone sending men explicit images and videos purporting to be of her. It turned out her assailant was her husband.

A Christian cult in Idaho called Followers of Christ keeps killing its babies by ‘praying’ instead of seeking medical care, and Idaho law lets them do it.

Music journalist Natalie Weiner writes about Dolly Parton’s lifelong commitment to her values, whether in the arts, literacy programs, or general human kindness.

Houston Chef Adrian Torres won a James Beard Award this year, but almost missed the ceremony because Trump tried to deport him. He’s here under the DACA program, which Republicans have been trying to kill for no reason I can find beyond pure racism.

The Guardian and the Associated Press obtained documents that show that RFK Jr. lied to the Senate during his confirmation hearings when he claimed his visit to Samoa – which prompted a measles outbreak that killed 83 people – had nothing to do with discouraging vaccinations.

Epidemiologist Dr. Tara Smith writes for MS NOW how RFK Jr. has caused this measles epidemic and is making it harder for us to stop it, which is going to mean more deaths, more health problems, and a growing dent in our economy.

There’s been a lot of attention over the two reported deaths from measles in Pennsylvania, but that’s the tip of a giant iceberg. There’s an outbreak in Wisconsin now, almost entirely among unvaccinated people, with 41 reported cases.

A federal judge ruled that Florida International University violated the First Amendment rights of students when it required those protesting the school’s collaboration with ICE to record two-minute videos ‘reflecting’ on their conduct.

Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA), who is running for Iowa’s open Senate seat, has failed to disclose that her husband is a lobbyist who arranged meetings between his clients and four Iowa representatives, including Hinson.

Victor Marx, the Republican candidate for Governor in Colorado who has made fantastical claims of killing people and performing exorcisms, appears to be selling campaign merch and taking the profits for himself.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), who is up for re-election, threatened schools that won’t remove books the state’s theocrats deem objectionable, saying “we’re coming for the books.” These book bans are much more about targeting anything LGBTQ+ or otherwise un-Christian, despite the schools being publicly funded.

Meanwhile, Texas Tech leadership is using AI as a pretext to cut so-called “leftist” content from its curriculum. I do not understand anyone from out of state sending their kid to college there.

The Israeli commander who ordered the airstrike that killed an Australian volunteer working for World Central Kitchen stands by his decision and said he’s not sorry, claiming WCK had a “connection with Hamas.”

Finland had set a goal to end homelessness by 2027, and was well on its way there until a right-wing government took power in 2024 and started cutting social welfare programs, reversing a long-standing decline in the country’s homelessness rate.

A civilian engineer who alleges she was raped in her own bed on a Navy transport ship sued the federal government, and this week a federal judge threw out her lawsuit by arguing it’s a worker’s compensation issue.

Rep. Max Miller made a writer delete a tweet that said he had broken his toddler daughter’s collarbone. She did so, because this remains an allegation, and in response she wrote about a bunch of violent things he’s done to women that are not mere allegations.

What remains of The Washington Post fired Karen Attiah last September for her social media posts in the wake of the death of Charlie Kirk. An arbitrator ruled that the firing violated the paper’s CBA with its union and that the Post must re-hire her. Heh.

Tagged Economics, finland, gaza, immigration, iowa, israel, links, longreads, measles, Music, religion, Sports, stick to baseball, texas, the swamp, vaccines

August 22, 2026 · 1 comment

Stick to baseball, 8/22/26.

My only piece at Athletic this week was a contribution to this news story on Kade Anderon’s imminent promotion, although I did get to some games and will be back to writing scouting notebooks next week when I get to at least one more.

I appeared on NBC News to talk about Tommy John’s legacy, and on Bleed Dodger Blue to talk about the Dodgers’ farm system and recent trade for Tarik Skubal.

You should sign up for my free email newsletter. For socials, I’m still mostly on Bluesky, Instagram, and TikTok.

And now, the links…

The New Yorker looks at the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Carleton Gadjusek, who won the award in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the brain-wasting prion disease kuru, but also used his research trips to find young boys to bring back to the U.S. so he could molest them.

Futurism’s Maggie Harrison Dupré explains the growing problem of teenaged boys using pervert glasses like Meta’s to film themselves harassing classmates without consent.

The Trump Administration is planning to add new concentration camps to hold up to 3000 immigrant children. Meanwhile, the hostages at one ICE camp in Tacoma are on another hunger strike to protest the inhumane conditions there.

ICE agents are asking airline employees to help them kidnap people. Some of those employees are fighting back. You have no obligation to help ICE.

ICE agents also detained the Padres’ minor-league catching coordinator, claiming he had remained in the country illegally after his work visa expired. I’ll be very curious to see how MLB responds to this, given their obeisance to this Administration and its ideas on many other fronts.

Israel’s National Security Minister said that the country should be killing 30 to 40 Palestinians every night in Gaza.

Israel finally admitted that they killed 5-year-old Hind Rajab and the emergency responders trying to save her from the car where she was trapped with her dead family members, as they opened an investigation into the killings. However, Israel refuses to open a similar investigation into the IDF’s killing of a World Central Kitchen aid worker in 2024.

Iowa State Rep. Shannon Lundgren (R) used her official stationery to write a letter vouching for the character of a man convicted for at least the second time of sexually abusing a minor.

Noted Islamophobe Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) was caught on camera going through the mailbox of a voter in his district, a violation of federal law.

In a debate ahead of a runoff election for the Republican nomination, Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) couldn’t answer a basic question about Taiwan and China.

The debunked lab-leak hypothesis is making the rounds yet again. Dr. Philip Markolin wrote about the harm mainstream media do by platforming it. This came the same week a preprint – a paper that has not been peer-reviewed, so keep in mind it is merely preliminary – appeared that showed that coronaviruses can naturally evolve furin cleavage sites like the one that made SARS-CoV-2 so dangerous.

404 Media dropped a tracker in shipment of rare books to see which AI company bought it. The answer was Amazon, which then destroyed the books after scanning them.

Also from 404 Media, a new study shows Twitter’s algorithm feeds you more ragebait and impacts Democrats more than Republicans, although I think the latter is just a function of the former – the current Republican platform is very driven by the politics of rage.

Delaware’s Kent County, the purple county between New Castle (blue) and Sussex (red, except for the beaches), has a measles outbreak with at least six cases already. Measles is entirely preventable with the safe MMR vaccine, no matter what the White House claims.

And Arizona parents are skipping vaccinations for their kids at a record rate, even as measles surges there too. In eight to ten years, we’re going to have a slew of deaths from SSPE that would never have happened had the anti-vaccine movement not gotten into this position of power.

Scientific American dives into what really happened to the indigenous people of Easter Island, questioning a long-held hypothesis that they died out because they didn’t manage their limited natural resources prudently.

I have only the faintest sense of who Hasan Piker is, other than that he has a scary-sounding name that right-wing outlets are trying to wield against Democrats, but it sounds like he might sue Scott Jennings and Salem Media for defamation.

Some board game kickstarters of note: Whisperwood is a sprawling bag-building game that can take up to 3.5 hours, to be published by Cardboard Alchemy (Flamecraft).

A new-to-me publisher called Play for Keeps has a Kickstarter effort up for new editions of three games: Mexica, Bridges of Shangri-La, and Reel Rivals (fka El Caballero).

Tagged artificial intelligence, board game news, coronavirus, florida, immigration, iowa, links, longreads, science, social media, south carolina, stick to baseball, technology, vaccines

August 8, 2026 · 8 comments

Stick to baseball, 8/8/26.

For subscribers to the Athletic, here are all of my trade deadline writeups, in chronological order:

I went to Gen Con, the largest board game convention in North America, last week, and continued my tradition of writing it up with the ten best new games of the convention and a rundown of everything else I saw.

My next stop is my free email newsletter.

You can find me primarily on Bluesky, Instagram, and TikTok.

And now, the links…

Neko Case wrote about her experience of being sexually harassed by an unnamed musician who is pretty clearly the late Glen Hansard.

Nine more women came forward to accuse Jared Leto of sexual misconduct.

It’s hardly news any more, but here’s the Mother Jones exposé on the horrifying abuse allegations against Rep. Max Miller (R), whom Mike Johnson and Donald Trump can’t be bothered to condemn.

Israel committed a war crime by murdering a Lebanese journalist, according to three independent NGOs. The man leading Israel in its illegal actions, including its genocidal attack on Gaza, is more upset that NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani called for the U.S. to enforce the ICC’s arrest warrant.

Women accounted for one hundred percent of the decline in the U.S. labor force in July. That’s 165,000 fewer women in the labor force just in the last month. On the year, twice as many women have left the labor force in the U.S. as men. And it’s entirely the doing of this Administration.

ICE deported a Guatemalan man who was living and working in Overland, Missouri, last year, leaving his pregnant wife alone in the U.S. Earlier this year, she returned to Guatemala with their child to be with him. The couple were found dead last month, bound and shot, with their 14-month-old daughter crying next to them.

Wisconsin Public Radio has a measured profile of Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong (D), who’s been hit with the “socialist” tag along with some not-subtle misogynistic and racist propaganda. The piece delves into the Democratic establishment’s fear of progressive candidates and willingness to sabotage their own party to try to prevent progressives from winning.

Four indie music publications were gutted by layoffs this week, including Brooklyn Vegan, which I’ve read on and off for longer than I can remember. The sites are owned by Live Nation’s Veeps, which was founded and is still partly owned by the poseur-punk band Good Charlotte, which has said nothing about the mass firings.

On soi-disant Christian evangelists preaching on airplanes. Don’t do this, although if you’re here, I doubt the thought ever crossed your mind.

Austin police shot and killed an unarmed Black 17-year-old named Anthoneil Williams, and the Police Chief claims it was “suicide by cop.” How convenient for them.

Jamelle Bouie asks why we tolerate Elon Musk’s overtly racist commentary. The Times, which employs me and Bouie, was still advertising on Twitter, the last time I checked.

Measles cases in the U.S. have now hit a 35-year high. Vaccinate your kids and ostracize anyone who won’t.

I agree with this editorial by Aftermath founder Luke Plunkett that many consumers will avoid brands that use obvious AI slop in their ads, but I was looking for some evidence to back up the claims. FWIW, Jeep’s been running commercials with AI slop since at least the NFL playoffs.

AI firms’ large language models keep going “rogue.” (I’d argue they do exactly what they are designed to do.) So who’s responsible when an LLM does something illegal? How could it be anyone other than the company that made them?

Mathematics is unusual among STEM research fields in that the youngest practitioners often do the best work. Bucking that trend is 99-year-old Joan Birman, who joined two (younger) colleagues in publishing the solution to a decades-old problem called the Burau representation, referring to whether matrices corresponding to four-strand braids are ‘faithful.’

Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the U.S., has reached its lowest recorded level ever.

My friend Justin Bell wrote on BoardGameGeek about how the people are what make Gen Con special. I agree completely.

I missed this when it came out in May, but Board Game Wire had a lovely piece about me and the shuttering of Paste/AV Club’s Games section. I’ve been surprised and gratified by the support I’ve gotten within the board gaming space for my writing, and it’s encouraged me to kick it up a notch over here and make this space a little more professional on all counts.

Tagged artificial intelligence, board game news, immigration, israel, links, math, measles, metoo, police, religion, stick to baseball, the swamp, vaccines, wisconsin

July 18, 2026 · No comments yet

Stick to baseball, 7/18/26.

The draft is over, which means my team-by-team recaps are up:

If you’re more interested in just the top names regardless of teams, here’s my day one recap. Plus I held a Q&A on Friday to talk draft & prospects. I also recapped the Futures Game on Sunday.

I sent out a new edition of my free email newsletter today. You can find me primarily on Bluesky, Instagram, and TikTok.

I appeared on KJR with Chris Crawford to talk about the Mariners’ draft and prospects, on HB with Soren Petro to talk Royals draft, on 101 ESPN in St. Louis to talk Cardinals draft & deadline, and on 92.3 the Fan in Cleveland to talk about the Guardians’ draft, prospects, and young hitters.

And now, the links…

This Reuters special report looks at RFK Jr.’s ongoing effort to dismantle decades of U.S. vaccine policy that helped make this country free of many highly contagious and often deadly diseases. Now measles is back and other diseases are sure to follow, all because a fringe movement clinging to the fiction that vaccines cause autism (they do not because they can not) gained access to power.
The Texas Observer investigates the rise in arrests at Texas schools, with children as young as 10 taken into custody for incidents of misbehavior that shouldn’t rise to the level of criminal.
Madison Square Garden is suing WIRED for this report on MSG’s surveillance apparatus, which Knicks owner James Dolan allegedly used to harass fans and compile a list of LGBTQ+ attendees. Dolan is a close Trump ally and was buddies with Harvey Weinstein, according to the story.
Senate candidate Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) has extremely close ties to a Hitler-loving white nationalist influencer: his son-in-law.
California transplant Ken Paxton, running for Senate in Texas, purchased three condos in Utah in February for $1.6 million, adding to a real estate portfolio worth over $9 million that seems unusual given his salary of $153,000 to be the state’s attorney general.
Radley Balko writes in The New York Times that there is a simple solution to stopping ICE’s violence against American citizens: Allow us to sue ICE’s leaders and the policymakers enabling the rogue agency.
The Democratic consultant who recruited Graham Platner to run for Senate without doing proper due diligence on the guy was dismissed from Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA)’s campaign for sexually harassment and verbal abuse.
In The Nation, Jeet Heer writes about the late Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) choosing evil over truth or country, becoming “the president’s most obsequious lackey.”
Amnesty International caved to pressure from billionaire transphobe J.K. Rowling, removing the page that designated her sexual abuse crisis center “anti-rights.”
Also in the Times, a report on the massive pushback to the Administration’s attempt to make all science grants and programs subject to review by politicians who can cancel funding for entirely subjective, political reasons.
Board Game Wire profiled a new publisher, Valor Mountain, that’s hoping to bring some overlooked European games to the U.S., as founder Christopher High thinks major publishers have become too conservative. I agree that bigger publishers are leaning hard on things like sequel games or IP games, but the market seems saturated with smaller publishers fighting for floor space, many of which do import cool games at all complexity levels from around the world.

Tagged board game news, georgia, immigration, links, longreads, maine, stick to baseball, texas, vaccines, white nationalism

July 11, 2026 · 7 comments

Stick to baseball, 7/11/26.

Happy Draft Day! I posted my final mock draft on Friday and held a Q&A to answer your questions about it, after posting one on Monday and holding a Q&A that afternoon. I posted my final Big Board of the top 100 prospects in the draft class, ss well as some scouting reports on prospects beyond the top 100 who will probably still be drafted. I also previewed the Futures Game rosters, and posted a scouting notebook on Atlanta, Baltimore, Washington, and Mets prospects.

I appeared on KIRO-Seattle to talk Mariners prospects and the trade deadline, and on The Score Chicago to talk about the draft and some big-picture baseball questions.

I’ll send another issue of my free email newsletter once I clear the draft stuff. You can also find me on Bluesky – I’m only posting links on X at this point, not replying to anything and not allowing new followers – and I continue to be more active on Instagram and TikTok.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: This Vulture story by Irin Carmon on Today’s handling of the Nancy Guthrie story, including the environment behind the scenes and the difficult questions the show has had to face, is absolutely fantastic. I can’t even do it justice in a sentence or two here.

America is entering a postliterate age, as succeeding generations read less and comprehend less of what they read, writes Rose Horowitch in The Atlantic. Those of us who do still read account for an increasing share of books purchased in what Horowitch refers to as a “niche hobby.”

America is self-destructing, writes Stephen Marche in The Guardian, arguing that this was written in our founding. I loved the line “Donald Trump is the ultimate nostalgia act.”

RFK Jr.’s vaccine-denial organization Children’s Health Defense helped Andrea Shaw file a lawsuit claiming that her twins died from being vaccinated, but she’s now been arrested on charges that she murdered them. That’s right: Children’s Health Defense is supporting a child murderer. Here’s a local story on the case.

The University of Tennessee will pay $1.9 million to a professor the school fired over her comments in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death. Good for her. I hope the taxpayers of Tennessee think this was worth it!

In Springfield, Ohio, the subject of Republican lies about Haitian immigrants eating pets, a Haitian man was shot in the head while taking his children to church.

Florida is the new Texas: Gov. Ron DeSantis is killing prisoners at an unprecedented rate, signing death warrants and leading to the state’s highest execution levels ever. Two of every five U.S. prisoners put to death were killed by Florida.

A professor at Brown University made his midterm exams take-home, and believed that nearly all of his students cheated by using AI, so he switched the final exam to in-class and everyone’s grades plummeted.

A day before Trump announced his first tariff ‘pause’, he made 327 stock trades that he didn’t disclose until this past week, almost 15 months later. Prior to 2016, this would have been immediate grounds for impeachment.

Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), who is running for the Senate seat held by Jon Ossoff, spent $400,000 in taxpayer money to make campaign ads, which is illegal. That’s in Judd Legum’s Popular.info newsletter; I see zero mainstream coverage of what sure seems like misuse of taxpayer funds.

A New York resident sent an email to the head of ICE. DHS agents tracked him down and threatened him. He’s suing with the help of FIRE, arguing that his First Amendment rights have been violated.

And Florida International University is also ignoring the First Amendment, threatening to withhold the diplomas of students who silently protested ICE’s presence on campus unless those students apologize on video.

Sticking with Florida, a cop there became obsessed with a woman he met on a TV shoot and used license-plate readers to stalk her around the state, nearly causing a head-on collision as he raced to accost her.

In The American Prospect, David Dayen writes that Maine Democrats should hold a “lighthouse primary” – essentially a caucus – to pick a new candidate whenever Graham Platner gives up the ghost.

Elie Mystal writes in The Nation how SCOTUS’ anti-trans ruling isn’t just about sports, but denying that trans people are entitled to equal rights.

The U.S. District Court judges of the Western Washington District wrote an editorial about how tyranny threatens an independent judiciary, whether it’s threats of violence against jurists on the bench or claims that someone is above the law entirely.

How the love affair between the Algerian national team and the people of Lawrence, Kansas, became one of the best stories of this year’s World Cup – that is, before the refs and the President ruined everything.

I’ve seen very little news coverage of the civil war in Sudan – maybe because we’re busy starting wars or prolonging those of other countries – but there’s a massive humanitarian crisis about to happen in the Sudanese city of El Obeid, with the potential for another massacre by the RSF militia.

There’s an outbreak of the Marburg virus, a filovirus that causes hemorrhagic fevers like the Ebola virus does, in Uganda.

This NPR piece on creative ways to use up leftovers (and stop wasting food) was both validating – fried rice is a go-to for us – and inspiring.

Also in The Atlantic, Spencer Kornhaber examines Lizzo’s latest album flopping and how easy it’s become to fall into the “Khia Asylum.” I liked Lizzo’s 2022 album Special, and didn’t even realize she’d released a new one, Bitch, until I saw this story.

Scientists have found evidence of a new chemical compound on Pluto and Titan. I propose they call it “unobtainium.”

Another week, another story of AI hallucinations: A ProPublica reporter found an AI-generated website for a shell company that fooled Google’s AI overviews into thinking the company was real.

Egypt and Turkey turned away a cruise ship for LGBTQ+ folks on ‘morality’ grounds. Which makes them just like Texas!

So many Kickstarters for interesting board games: Ringyo, the latest game from the publishers of Distilled and Luthier. It’s a simultaneous worker-placement game and is in beta on Board Game Arena.

A three-in-one from Allplay that includes Kabuto Sumo Dice, IMPS, and Wild Berries.

The Isle of Penguins, the latest game from the designer/publisher of The Isle of Cats and its various spinoffs.
Galileo’s Truth, from two of the designers of Egizia (one of the best complex games ever), Lorenzo il Magnifico, and Coimbra.

Tagged africa, artificial intelligence, astronomy, board game news, death penalty, first amendment, florida, georgia, health, immigration, links, longreads, Music, ohio, scotus, soccer, stick to baseball, tennessee, the swamp, trans rights, vaccines

June 27, 2026 · 2 comments

Stick to baseball, 6/27/26.

Nothing new this week at the Athletic, but I’ll have an updated Big Board and a reaction to the Futures Game rosters in the coming week, plus probably a scouting blog – I’ve been accumulating some notes but have been waiting for something big or wow or otherwise hook-worthy to lead the column. Getting Anthony Eyanson’s worst outing of the year – he was 90-93 and couldn’t find the plate – did not help matters.

I sent out a new edition of my free email newsletter on Saturday morning. You should sign up. Also, you should follow me on Instagram or TikTok, because I’m posting videos on both places now. Please don’t call me a ‘content creator.’ (Or an ‘influencer.’ I might die of shame.) I’m still on Bluesky first among all social media outlets.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: The Colorado River system is headed for a crash, with likely water restrictions and reductions in hydropower output, according to this report from the Denver Post.

A massive miscarriage of justice and a violation of the First Amendment took place in Texas, where else, as several anti-ICE activists were sentenced to decades in prison for distributing leftist zines. It deserves far, far more attention than it has received. These people were convicted of terrorism charges for spreading words.

Speaking of the First Amendment, ICE agents found a woman who posted the name of the agent who killed Renee Good in Minnesota, Jonathan Ross, after he was identified in numerous news reports. The agents demanded that she take the post down. She has steadfastly refused.

Charlie Warzel writes in The Atlantic (gift link) about the myth of SpaceX, a meme masquerading as a company.

Some asshole called child protective services with a false claim against Pete Buttigieg. It’s swatting, but with a new twist. And in many states, CPS will investigate even anonymous, nonsense claims.

Texas’ push towards Christian nationalism – and against the Constitution – continues as the state will now require public-school students to read the Bible, or at least parts of it. I wonder if they’ll read Judges 21 or Numbers 16 or Deuteronomy 20!

Israeli troops murdered a Palestinian man who was on his way to the hospital for the birth of his son. So much for the “cease fire.”

The Trump Administration is cutting 20-30% of NSF’s funding for basic science research to redirect it to techbro “X-labs.”

Kalshi gave Donald Trump, Jr., equity worth about $300K, and now the government is actively fighting states that are trying to block the gambling sites (because gambling is illegal).

More Perfect Union has a video report on Yotta, the not-bank that tricked thousands of Americans into depositing their savings by falsely claiming they were FDIC-insured – which the customers discovered when Yotta suddenly stopped allowing withdrawals in 2024.

Cambodia’s crackdown on phone-scam compounds, where trafficked people were held captive and forced to mass-text or call potential victims, has put those people on the streets of Phnom Penh with no place to go and no easy way back to their home countries.

Parker Molloy points out how Giants reporters held Buster Posey accountable in a way White House reporters refuse to do with Trump.

The headline says it all: “I’m a critical care doctor. I’ve never seen the US harm its children this deliberately.”

I loved this post on Bill Watterson’s refusal to compromise his integrity in any way, giving up millions of dollars in potential earnings by declining to license Calvin & Hobbes for anything, and then closing up shop while he was still at his creative peak.

A professor at Indiana University was dismissed for teaching students that “Make America Great Again” is a slogan for white supremacy, which, well, it is. It’s America First for the modern age.

Researchers at Texas A&M published a paper that may identify ways in which coffee helps slow the aging process in our bodies.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) warns Democrats not to throw trans people under the bus, on moral and strategic grounds. If you give up on the rights of one oppressed minority, the other side will go after another minority, and another, and another, because they have learned you won’t fight for them.

An Alberta court upheld a permanent ban against ex-doctor William Makis practicing anything like medicine there, as he’s now hawking ivermectin as a cancer cure (it’s not, at all, this is just fraud).

This New York Times piece on bank tellers stepping in to stop people, often the elderly, from falling for phishing scams is both heartening and depressing. Most people want to do good. We are also so far away from being able to manage and regulate the technologies that we use every day.

On the Gamefound page for Galileo’s Truth, ThunderGryph Games announced they’re being acquired by Awaken Realms. I’m waiting to see how this pans out; Awaken Realms was caught using AI art in some reissues but they seem to have found the true path of using human artists for their upcoming reprint of Concordia.

I nearly backed this Kickstarter for Sprout, an upcoming game about houseplants – a core interest of my wife – but couldn’t get enough of a sense of what the game is like, and at $39 it seemed a lot to commit for a game I didn’t understand. Which is a long way of saying it might be awesome, but I want to wait and see.

Tagged board game news, coffee, first amendment, frauds, gambling, gaza, immigration, indiana, israel, links, longreads, scams, science, stick to baseball, texas, the swamp, trans rights, white nationalism

May 23, 2026 · 4 comments

Stick to baseball, 5/23/26.

For subscribers to the Athletic this week, I spoke with teenaged umpire Jameson Morris about his confrontation with a standoffish rec league coach, the video of which has gone viral; published a minor league scouting notebook on Seth Hernandez, Edward Florentino, and some other Pirates & Phillies prospects; and wrote up scouting report on hard-throwing high school lefty Brody Bumila.

I appeared on TSN 1050 in Toronto to talk about the Jays, Trey Yesavage, and what the next year or so will be like for Jose Berrios; and on 95.7 The Game in San Francisco to talk about the Giants’ lost season and how maybe Buster Posey isn’t the savior.

I sent out a new issue of my free email newsletter on Friday.

Apropos of nothing, this Lyrics Born performance of his 2003 song “Callin’ Out” for KEXP is an absolute banger. KEXP is on quite a roll this year with their in-studio performances.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: This New Yorker story on a mysterious Chinese couple in LA who have used surrogate mothers to amass over 20 children doesn’t have a big, punchy finish, but the whole thing is wildly disturbing, from the neglect and abuse of the kids to the broader issues of what the fuck is even going on.

404 Media exposes how Radnor (PA) Township School District completely fumbled a case where a 14-year-old boy made pornographic deepfakes of his classmates, including letting him return to school at one point before he was eventually charged with a crime. (The post was free when I first read it, but it appears now to be only for paid subscribers.)

The NAACP issued a call to Black athletes and fans to stop supporting athletic programs in states that are suppressing minority voters’ rights, which includes pretty much the entire SEC.

ICE deported a mother to Honduras but refused to send her 3-year-old son with her, leaving him in the care of an abusive uncle. That uncle beat Orlin to death, and now ICE is blaming the mother for abandoning her child.

Nicholas Kristof wrote in the Times’ opinion section about the world’s silence to the substantial reports of rapes of Palestinian men, women, and children by Israelis, including soldiers, prison guards, and even colonizers. The UN has long recognized the use of rape as a tactic in war.

In March, the Israeli military dropped criminal charges against soldiers caught on video raping a Palestinian detainee. This past week, they were allowed to return to military service, and the Israeli Defense Minister apologized to them.

Texans are probably going to elect Republican Ken Paxton as their Senator, despite his history of scandals that have led to an impeachment and an indictment.

Also in Texas, Democratic Congressional candidate Maureen Galindo wrote that she wants to turn an ICE facility into a concentration camp for American Zionists, the latest in a stream of antisemitic falsehoods coming from her and her campaign. She’s in a runoff to become the Democratic candidate in TX-35, with early voting open now and the election proper on Tuesday, May 26^th. She’s also been backed by the Republican SuperPAC that bills itself as Lean Left.

I usually put the board game news at the bottom of these links, but whoa boy, this one is special. BoardGameGeek fired their longtime advertising manager for rejecting an ad because he claimed demonic possession is real and an unfit subject for a game. It’s worse than it sounds; I hope this guy gets professional help, as he seems to be suffering from delusions, notably that demons are real (they are not, nor is demonic possession). Here’s the Gamefound page for Possess Me, Satan, which is already fully funded, perhaps thanks to a little extra publicity.

A Trump-loving Tennessee sheriff jailed a resident of his county for 37 days for posting a meme after the death of Charlie Kirk. That resident just won an $835,000 settlement in his lawsuit against the county. Maybe Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems should have to pay some of that.

I linked a few weeks ago to a story about Iowa Republicans forcing an oxymoronic “Center for Intellectual Freedom” on the University of Iowa. Students aren’t taking its bullshit classes, so now those same Republicans are going to mandate the classes for all students.

Sports Illustrated is at it again with the AI slop; Sportico caught SI plagiarizing some of its content, Futurism delved further, and now everything that author supposedly wrote is gone from SI’s site, along with the author’s social media presence.

I’ve seen several stories this week about the murders of trans women; one was Juniper Blessing, a student at the University of Washington whom the Seattle Times honored with a piece about her life and legacy.

A now adult daughter of anti-vaxxer parents recalls how she ended up hospitalized for almost a month with meningitis when she was eleven – and how her classmates thought she was drunk.

Oklahoma Republicans are pushing through two bills to ban “obscene” material – by their definition – from schools. This is, of course, not about protecting children at all, but about enacting Christian censorship within public education.

A New York doctor is facing 21 felony counts for faking vaccination records for her own kid and anti-vax parents. Lock her up.

Three former CDC executives say “enough is enough” to RFK Jr.’s war on vaccines.

The Broadview Six, including onetime Congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh, had all charges against them related to their protests outside an ICE facility dismissed with prejudice this week, with the judge issuing some excoriating commentary on the unethical behavior of federal prosecutors in the game.

Mathematicians appear to have proven the convexity conjecture first posed by Michel Talagrand in 1995, and did so with an assist from AI.

Florida man Alan Chambers once ran a Christian ministry that promised to “cure” LGBTQ+ people. He was arrested last week for soliciting sex from a teenaged boy.

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted a video of himself taunting and slapping activists abducted by Israeli forces from a peace flotilla heading for Gaza; France has now banned him from entering any French territory. The now-freed activists have also alleged they were sexually assaulted while in Israeli custody.

The Times Guild, representing workers at the New York Times, filed an unfair labor practice charge this week against the paper. The Athletic’s unionizing effort has been fighting for over a year for the Times to recognize us as part of the Guild as well, rather than a separate bargaining unit.

Let’s Go! To France is up on Kickstarter now; my final piece for AV Club before they shuttered their games section was an interview with designer Josh Wood about the game.

Tagged artificial intelligence, board game news, censorship, college sports, gaza, immigration, iowa, israel, links, longreads, math, oklahoma, pennsylvania, police, religion, stick to baseball, tennessee, texas, trans rights, unions, vaccines

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