2026-01-09 04:40:17
The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. George Orwell, 1984
Just remember: What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening. Donald Trump, 2018
With entitled, violent, masked thugs turning America’s cities into war zones, the killing of an American citizen was less of an aberration than an inevitability. The only thing more inevitable than the killing of Renee Nicole Good by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis was the lying from the administration and its enablers, which began almost before the bullets’ reverberation had fully dissipated. You can read the analyses from the NYTand WaPo that contradict the White House lies, suggesting that the ICE officer who shot Good did so in self-defense. But no such forensic analysis is necessary. You can just do what this administration has admonished you to avoid for years: Believe your own eyes. It’s really not a close call. Of course, the lies shouldn’t surprise you. The whole plan to flood blue city streets with ICE agents, there to instill fear and provoke reactions that can be used to justify further militarization, is based on the lie that there was some imminent threat to Americans and our way of life. More broadly, this administration lies nonstop about everything, from elections, to insurrections, to the economy, to war and peace, to the price of eggs. Why would that strategy stop when it comes to a killing?
+ Renee Nicole Good was victimized twice. First by the bullets. Then by the most powerful people in American politics smearing her good name. As Adam Serwer explains in The Atlantic (Gift Article): “Taking Good’s life wasn’t enough. The moment she died, it became imperative for the administration to also destroy her memory.” First the Shooting. Then the Lies.
+ How can the administration perpetuate the lies when the evidence so obviously contradicts their version of events? Well, it helps when you’ve corrupted previously independent government agencies. Minnesota officials say they can’t access evidence after fatal ICE shooting and that the FBI won’t work jointly on investigation.
+ What do we know about similar shootings that haven’t been clearly documented on video? NYT (Gift Article): “In the last four months alone, immigration officers have fired on at least nine people in five states and Washington, D.C. All of the individuals targeted in those shootings were, like the woman killed on Wednesday, fired on while in their vehicles. In each case, officials have claimed that the agents fired in self-defense, fearing they would be struck by the vehicle. At least one other person died as a result of those shootings.”
+ Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: “I have a message for ICE: Get the f-ck out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here. Your stated reason for being in this city is to create some kind of safety, and you are doing exactly the opposite. People are being hurt. Families are being ripped apart … and now somebody is dead.” Here’s the latest from The Minnesota Star Tribune and CNN.
How crazy has the war on woke become at some universities? Actually, don’t answer that Socratic form of news delivery. Even Socrates won’t be on safe ground for long. NYT (Gift Article): Texas A&M, Under New Curriculum Limits, Warns Professor Not to Teach Plato. “Martin Peterson, a philosophy professor at Texas A&M University, was thunderstruck when he was told on Tuesday that he needed to excise some teachings of Plato from his syllabus. It was one way, his department head wrote in an email, that Dr. Peterson’s philosophy class could comply with new policies limiting discussion of race and gender.” I’ll let Plato himself provide the pithy kicker to this story. “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” (There’s some dispute as to whether this quote is accurately cited, which is the only reason I feel safe sharing it.)
The report “urges President Donald Trump and lawmakers ‘to save and restore the American family’ through massive tax credits for families with more children while capping alimony payments, enacting strict work requirements on social benefit programs, discouraging online dating, creating marriage ‘bootcamp’ classes and more ... It calls for a 16-year-old age limit on social media and certain AI chatbots, and further age restrictions on access to pornography, and it argues that ‘climate change alarmism’ demoralizes young people and dissuades them from having children.” (Think this sounds a bit too extreme even for this administration? Well, it comes from the same group that brought you Project 2025.) WaPo (Gift Article): Heritage paper on families calls for ‘marriage bootcamp,’ more babies.
Ready for the great AI email takeover? Well, ready or not, here it comes. “Google is announcing a new AI Inbox view for Gmail that, instead of presenting your emails in a traditional list, uses AI to offer personalized to-dos and summaries of topics you might want to follow from your emails.” Google is taking over your Gmail inbox with AI. (From news summaries to the inbox takeover, big tech is doing everything it can to compete with NextDraft. Sadly for them, I Am the Algorithm.)
+ OpenAI launches ChatGPT Health, encouraging users to connect their medical records. But it’s ‘not intended for diagnosis or treatment.’ (Yeah, right. We’ve all been using the internet for diagnosis and treatment since Alta Vista launched...)
Body Checks: “The US Senate on Thursday advanced a bipartisan war powers resolution to prevent Donald Trump from taking further military actions against Venezuela, after he ordered a weekend raid to capture that country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, without giving Congress advance notice.” (Wait, we have a Senate?)
+ DNIght Night: As I suggested on Monday, the decision-making process when it came to the Maduro arrest was limited to a small number of insiders. Even the Director of National Intelligence wasn’t included. “The move to cut Gabbard out of the meetings was so well-known that some White House aides joked that the acronym of her title, DNI, stood for ‘Do Not Invite.’”
+ Hot Off the Press: Trump pulled out of some climate treaties today. Like, a lot of them. “Trump released a presidential memorandum Wednesday ordering the withdrawal from 66 global organizations and treaties -- roughly half affiliated with the United Nations -- for being ‘contrary to the interests of the United States.’”
+ Invasion of the Booty Snatchers: “Online prediction market Polymarket is drawing criticism after ruling that the U.S. capture of the Venezuelan authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro does not count as an invasion of the country, a decision that leaves millions of dollars in bets unresolved.” (Obviously, the broader story here is that we are betting on everything these days.)
+ Weight Weight ... Don’t Tell Me: “The rate at which weight was regained after stopping these medications was almost four times faster compared with behavioral programs, which may include a specific diet or physical activity plan, regardless of the amount of weight that was lost during treatment.” People who stop taking weight-loss jabs regain weight in under two years. (Two years is plenty of time for me to update my Tinder profile pics...)
+ After The Fire: Photos: One Year After the Los Angeles Wildfires.
“If you were serious about your career and wanted to be a head coach one day, you took great notes or great mental notes. I felt like after one year with Coach Saban, I had learned more about how to run a program than I maybe did the previous 27 as an assistant coach.” All four of the coaches in the college football playoff were assistants under Nick Saban.
2026-01-08 04:48:18
Let’s call it love at first byte. The AI-obsessed tech generation isn’t just trying to achieve the singularity. They’re trying to use machine learning to more effectively hook up. The Minglelarity is the new Singularity. I’m hardly the person to cast aspersions on those who mix love and computers. I’ve had a decades-long affair with my MacBook Air; it’s resting on my lap and warming my cock-les as we speak. But after reading about Amanda Hess’s recent visit to the “Love Symposium, a freewheeling gathering of ‘earnest founders, experts, and intellectuals’ with an interest in ‘proliferating healthy connection at scale,’ where founders are determined to use AI to address their “certain way of thinking about human relationships: as problems that could be measured, optimized and solved,” I wonder if we all need to settle down and keep our clicks in our pants. I am as awed by anyone at the remarkable power of AI, but nothing can “solve” human relationships. NYT (Gift Article): Can You Optimize Love? “A group of tech executives, app developers and Silicon Valley philosophers is seeking to streamline the messy matters of the heart.” I doubt our aging energy grid is ready for this new version of human interactivity. My love consummation alone would consume enough data center energy to power a large city for a week. (I can’t even imagine the voltage dip if others were involved...)
Point: It’s hard to name the worst member of the Trump administration. Counterpoint: It’s Stephen Miller. “In Trump’s inner circle—even with the president himself—Miller is known as a dogmatic force whose ideas are sometimes too extreme for public consumption. I’d love to have him come up and explain his true feelings—maybe not his truest feelings,’ the president joked at an Oval Office briefing in October. But in Trump’s second term, Miller finds himself at the height of his powers—the pulsing human id of a president who is already almost pure id.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Wrath of Stephen Miller.
+ NYT (Gift Article): Stephen Miller Offers a Strongman’s View of the World. “Mr. Miller, 40, grew up in wealthy Santa Monica, Calif., and attended a left-leaning high school. There, he was once booed and yanked off the stage during a campaign speech for student government in which a central plank of his platform was to investigate school janitors for inadequately picking up trash. His former classmates recalled that he seemed to enjoy the attention.” (Since we just segued from love making to Stephen Miller, I’m going to pause for a minute to give you time to hose the vomit off your computer screen.)
“In a striking reversal of past nutrition guidance, the Trump administration released new dietary guidelines on Wednesday that flip the food pyramid on its head, putting steak, cheese and whole milk near the top. The new guidelines urge Americans to prioritize protein and avoid the sugary, processed foods that health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said are poisonous to health.” (Some of that sounds right. Some of that sounds wrong. That’s the kind of hit and miss results you get when you do science without the scientists.) Kennedy Flips Food Pyramid to Emphasize Red Meat and Whole Milk.
+ If you’re interested, here’s a look at the whole shebang, which kicks off with a typically Trumpist lede: “These Guidelines mark the most significant reset of federal nutrition policy in our nation’s history.”
“Our very own Victoria Song braved the taint-zapping booth at CES 2026, which is exactly what it sounds like: a device that sends electrodes into a man’s perineum, with the goal of preventing premature ejaculation. The device, called Mor, is attached to an adhesive patch containing electrodes that you, well, stick on your taint.” The Verge: The weirdest tech we’ve seen at CES 2026.
+ “CLOiD – which stands at slightly less than five feet tall and has a digital display for eyes – trundled across the stage on wheels and waved to conference attendees with its two hands. It then slowly loaded a single piece of clothing into a washing machine — almost painfully slowly.” But it will speed up. And 2026 is shaping up to be the year of the robots. Bloomberg (Gift Article): Humanoid Robots Pour Coffee, Fold Laundry at CES. Painfully Slowly. (Hey, when you’re done folding my laundry, can you help me pull this thing off my taint?)
Calculating Risk: “An urgent meeting had been requested by the foreign ministers of Greenland and Denmark, which has said that any invasion or seizure of the territory by its NATO ally would mark the end of the western military alliance and ‘post-second world war security.’” Marco Rubio says he will meet Danish officials to discuss Greenland next week. (Offend allies, empower enemies. That’s the Trump doctrine.)
+ Ice Age: “An ICE agent shot and killed a woman Wednesday morning in south Minneapolis. ICE says the woman was shot in her car after attempting to run over agents. Mayor Jacob Frey and witnesses are disputing ICE’s version of events.” Frey, Walz dispute that ICE killed woman in self-defense. “Frey said he’d seen video of the confrontation and said ICE was “already trying to spin this as an act of self-defense. That is bullshit. This was an agent recklessly using power … that resulted in someone dying, getting killed ... The narrative that this was done in self-defense is a garbage narrative.’”
+ Oil Spillover: “The split screen of the government’s leading a show of support for an unpopular authoritarian leader while cracking down on his critics was especially striking because the United States is now supporting that government.” Maduro Is Gone, but Repression in Venezuela Has Intensified. Gonna be tough to pour oil on this troubled water. Meanwhile, U.S. seizes Russian-flagged oil tanker linked to Venezuela after weekslong pursuit.
+ Pay to Play: “Youth sports has transformed over the past two decades, from low-cost grassroots programs run mostly by local groups into a high-priced industry filled with club teams, specialized training and travel tournaments staged at gleaming youth sports complexes — changes fueled, in part, by a surge in private equity and venture capital investment.” WaPo (Gift Article): The soaring price of youth sports: $50 to try out, $3,000 to play. (This is one of the many ways the economic divide leads to a social divide.)
+ Stalled Progress: “Nearly 60 women lawmakers in Japan, including Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, have submitted a petition calling for more toilets in the parliament building to match their improved representation.” 73 women. One restroom and two stalls.
+ Irish Sling: Here’s a pretty interesting football stat: Quarterbacks from Notre Dame have lost 25 consecutive starts in the NFL over the past 14 seasons.
+ Quit Claim: “According to my brain, I knew I was in Echo Park, the LA neighborhood that’s home to Dodgers Stadium. But whether it was the real Echo Park or a simulation, a convincing-enough mix of new highrises and grungy cottages in imitation of Echo Park, I wasn’t sure. For several hours, I’d been haunted by yellow-tinted hallucinations, sweeping in and out of my mind like searchlights, which told me I might’ve slipped between worlds.” Rosecrans Baldwin in GQ: A Cautionary Tale Against Quitting Zyn—or Anything—Cold Turkey.
“The author and his closest basketball confidantes undertake a formal analysis of Steph Curry’s shot at the Paris Olympics as art object.” The Believer: The Worst Shot Ever Taken (Had it not been for the fact that it was taken by the guy who took it.)
+ Even LeBron gives Steph a hard time about how open he and KD were while Steph was heavily covered.
2026-01-07 03:25:59
I was worried about the AI machines taking over the world until I considered the alternative: Humans remaining in charge. We’ve already entered an era in which a lot of people, for better or worse, are making chatbots their first stop for getting information about major events. And it’s unclear that these chatbots can overcome the biases and beliefs of their owners. Do you trust a guy who heils in public to host an AI tool that tells the truth about the Holocaust? A couple weeks ago, Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropy cut ties with the pro-immigration advocacy groupthat he founded, because that bedrock of America (and of Zuck’s past beliefs) fell out of favor with the current administration. What happens when the same administration doesn’t like the way the Meta chatbot answers a question about one of its policies? Trust a guy who abandons his own values to value yours? Why does this matter? Because, as Gary Marcus and Damon Beres explain in The Atlantic (Gift Article), the information war will be fought through chatbots. “Journalists and other sources may be cited by the bots, but the people who control these AI products, such as Musk, now have a greater ability to manipulate how events are reported. This is a deeply troubling development—one that threatens to leave the public less informed, with fewer checks on those in power.” So yes, I worry about the technology. But I worry more about the owners of that technology, who have already shown a willingness to sacrifice the public good for personal gain.
+ Fabricated and misrepresented images shared widely online after US removal of Maduro. (Some of this isn’t AI. It’s just good old fashioned humans spreading good old fashioned garbage. In one case, a viral video purports to show Venezuelans celebrating the capture of Maduro. In actuality, it was students participating in UCLA’s quarterly tradition: The Undie Run. A fan of both fake news and young people in their undergarments, President Trump couldn’t resist being among those who shared the video, adding the caption, Venezuela celebrates, Democrats cry.)
“In the unraveling narrative of Jan. 6, 2021, so many people claim to know the truth: The rioters who say they were protesting a stolen election. Republican leaders who have recast members of the violent mob as patriots. The quarter of Americans who say it is ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ true that the FBI instigated the attack. The president who called it a ‘day of love.’ Here in his classroom, nearly 250 years after the birth of American democracy, Tate wondered if he had the power to persuade a room of teenagers to reject all that.” The battle over the truth of January 6th as it plays out in the classroom of a teacher who was one of the officers attacked that day. WaPo (Gift Article): He was attacked on Jan. 6. Can he make sense of it for the kids he teaches?
+ The NYT (Gift Article) editorial board succinctly sums up that history. “The Trump era seemed to have ended in one of the most disgracefully anti-American acts in the nation’s history. That day was indeed a turning point, but not the one it first seemed to be. It was a turning point toward a version of Mr. Trump who is even more lawless than the one who governed the country in his first term. It heralded a culture of political unaccountability, in which people who violently attacked Congress and beat police officers escaped without lasting consequence. The politicians and pundits who had egged on the attack with their lies escaped, as well. The aftermath of Jan. 6 made the Republican Party even more feckless, beholden to one man and willing to pervert reality to serve his interests.” 5 Years After Jan. 6, Lawlessness Has Triumphed.
+ Politico: Trump May Have Accidentally Pardoned the Jan. 6 Pipe Bomber. “Trump’s proclamation commuted the sentences of 14 individuals and also granted ‘a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.’”
“This chain of events, which some Danish officials and security experts proposed to us in recent months, may have seemed faintly ridiculous as of last Friday. By the weekend—after the toppling of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Trump’s ensuing insistence that the United States now “runs” Venezuela—it seemed far less so. For months, Danes have anxiously imagined an audacious move by the Trump administration to annex Greenland, whether by force, coercion, or an attempt to buy off the local population of about 56,000 people with the promise of cutting them in on future mining deals. Now those fears are spiking.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Trump Seizing Greenland Could Set Off a Chain Reaction. (The chain reaction has already been set in motion. Our allies fear us and our enemies like Russia and China feel emboldened.)
+ Danish prime minister says a US takeover of Greenland would mark the end of NATO. (That probably tempts Trump even more...)
+ NYT: How the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ Reinforces Xi’s Vision of Power in Asia. “A globe carved into spheres of influence — with the United States dominating the Western Hemisphere and China asserting primacy across the Asia-Pacific — and where might makes right, regardless of shared rules, could benefit Beijing in a number of ways.”
+ On Fox News, the Nobel Prize-winning “Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado—offered to give her medal to Trump after he announced he would not back her to run the country she’s fought to reclaim.” This is how the world thinks the American government operates. And they’re right.
+ We know a lot more about the world’s reaction to America’s power grab than we do about the reasoning and goals of those who orchestrated it. From yesterday: FIFA Fo Fum.
“From Archibald, Pennsylvania, to Page, Arizona, tech firms are seeking to plunk down data centers in locations that sometimes are not zoned for such heavy industrial uses, within communities that had not planned for them. These supersized data centers can usurp more energy than entire cities and drain local water supplies. Anger over the perceived trampling of communities by Silicon Valley has entered the national political conversation and could affect voters of all political persuasions in this year’s midterm elections.” WaPo (Gift Article): The data center rebellion is here, and it’s reshaping the political landscape.
Calculating Risk: “The United States is itself unwinding its own global order. The world’s most powerful country is in the throes of a political revolution.” The Eurasia Group is out with its review of the top risks of 2026. And for America, most of them are coming from within.
+ Cache on Delivery: “A ‘whistleblower’ tried to corroborate his viral post with AI-generated evidence. This is how I caught him.” Casey Newton with an interesting look at a very viral post by a food delivery whistleblower that turned out to be an AI generated hoax. Debunking the AI food delivery hoax that fooled Reddit.
+ Broadcasting a Dark Shadow: “After the federal funding ended, executives at the corporation discussed putting the organization into hibernation, keeping it alive in case Congress eventually voted to restore its federal appropriation. But in a statement on Monday, the corporation said that allowing the organization to lie dormant could have resulted in ‘political manipulation or misuse,’ threatening the independence of public media.” NYT (Gift Article): Corporation for Public Broadcasting Votes to Shut Down.
+ Swiss Holiday Fire: “Authorities in Crans-Montana have said safety officers had not inspected the bar that caught fire in the Swiss ski resort on New Year’s Eve, killing 40 mainly young partygoers and injuring more than 100, for the past five years.”
+ Flu Into a Temper: “The percent of outpatient visits for respiratory illnesses are now at the highest rate on record.” Flu-like illness activity now at highest rate on record.
+ Another Brick in the Wall: “If the Smart Tag comes in a set for building a helicopter, for example, then the Smart Brick will light up and make propeller sounds that would help bring a helicopter to life. Its built-in accelerometer would make these lights and sounds more consistent with how you’re actually playing with the helicopter, since the Brick will be able to sense when the helicopter is zooming through the sky or turned upside down.” Lego Smart Bricks introduce a new way to build — and they don’t require screens.
A new Grammy category honors album covers, and the artists that make them. (Now they just have to tell young people what an album is and then what the cover was for...)
+ Japanese sushi chain drops $3.2 million on 535-pound bluefin tuna.
+ Humans May Be Able to Grow New Teeth Within Just 4 Years. (But how will the teeth know when to stop growing? Bababooey!)
2026-01-06 03:29:24
In the moments that followed the bombing of sites in Venezuela and the rapid capture and removal of Nicolás Maduro, social media was flooded with explanations of why the Trump administration took this action and what it hopes to get out of it. This certitude reached a new level of Dunning-Kruger hubris on a platform where that seemed impossible. Even days after the action, Democratic members of the Gang of Eight had received no briefings from the administration. The inter-government processes that usually precede such decisions have been all but removed from the Trump administration, and even the Caracas Caucus, the small group of as seen on TV officials, haven’t expressed identical explanations for the attack or the hoped-for outcome. After talking to a few experts I know and doing a pretty thorough lit review on the topic, here’s what I’m sure of so far: Maduro is a bad guy who was not democratically elected, the military effort to remove him went about as well as it could have, and no one is quite sure how the ramifications of this move will play out in the region or across the globe. Oh, and one more thing: I fear the legitimacy of the FIFA Peace Prize has been called into question.
Given the lack of actual drug trafficking from Venezuela to the US (and the recent pardon of “a former Honduran president who’d been convicted of trafficking narcotics to the United States”), we can be reasonably sure this wasn’t about drugs. And no one in the administration is even pretending it’s about democracy. Of course, it’s a lot about oil, but it’s unclear whether that even makes much sense in the short term. This lede from Vox(Gift Article) sums things up pretty well. “Over the weekend, the United States invaded Venezuela, captured its leader, and then declared itself to be in charge of South America’s fifth-largest country. And no one — not even the US government — seems entirely sure why.” (As much as it pains me to report this, I guess there’s one more thing I’m relatively sure of: 2026 is going to be even crazier than 2025. Happy New Year!)
+ “None of this is logical, but it isn’t meant to be: Like the Party in 1984, the would-be dominators of the Western Hemisphere seem to feel no need for logic. If might makes right, if the U.S. gets to do what it wants using any tools it wants in its own sphere, then there is no need for transparency, democracy, or legitimacy. The concerns of ordinary people who live in smaller nations don’t need to be taken into account, because they will not be granted any agency.” Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Trump’s ‘American Dominance’ May Leave Us With Nothing.
+ “Truman, Reagan, and Monroe wouldn’t approve of the language, but a doctrine is a doctrine, even if it’s only five words long.” The F-ck-Around-and-Find-Out Presidency.
+ “If Trump oversees Venezuela’s transition to a transparent democracy that can attract international investment, this could provide needed resources to rebuild the country and help ease energy prices over the long run. If, however, he seeks to impose a mercantilist model in pursuit of short-term financial gain, he will undermine the global energy market on which U.S. security depends.” Jason Bordoff in Foreign Policy (Gift Article): Why ‘Taking’ Venezuela’s Oil Hurts U.S. Energy Security.
+ Following the money is a lot easier when it leaves behind oil skid marks. Venezuela raid enriches MAGA billionaire.
+ “Spy drones were part of how the CIA monitored Maduro, but after his capture on Saturday the agency also surprisingly briefed it had a human source inside the Venezuelan government.” Months in planning, over in two and a half hours: how the US snatched Maduro.
+ WaPo: Rubio takes on most challenging role yet: Viceroy of Venezuela. (Rubio has now taken more jobs than AI...)
+ Military acts are supposed to strike fear into the hearts of your enemies. Not your allies. Denmark’s prime minister says ‘stop the threats’ of U.S. annexing Greenland.
+ In a NYC courtroom, Maduro and his wife plead not guilty. Here’s the latest from BBC and NBC.
“We see it across the board. Every state, every education level, every race, every gender.” WaPo (Gift Article): Why are malnutrition deaths soaring in America? (A lot of it has to do with the data we collect, but whatever it is, it’s not good.)
“For decades, the Nordic nation has woven media literacy, including the ability to analyze different kinds of media and recognize disinformation, into its national curriculum for students as young as 3 years old.” Finnish children learn media literacy at 3 years old. It’s protection against Russian propaganda. (I’m nostalgic for the days when our greatest propaganda threats came from the outside.)
The worse the news gets, the more I watch sports. And I already watched a lot of sports when the news was good. Apparently, I’m not alone. Sports make up 96 of top 100 telecasts in 2025, tying an all-time record. And basically, by sports, they mean football.
CDC Goes Full RFK: “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Monday an unprecedented overhaul of the childhood vaccine schedule that recommends fewer shots to all children.” CDC overhauls childhood vaccine schedule to resemble Denmark in unprecedented move.
+ The Streets of Iran: Venezuela is getting all the coverage, but big things are going down in Iran, too. “Iran’s government has in recent years weathered wave upon wave of nationwide protests challenging its rule by resorting to force. But for the first time, the country’s rulers face a more complex challenge: growing domestic unrest combined with an external military threat.” NYT(Gift Article): Iran’s Dual Challenge: Unrest at Home, Threat of Strikes From Abroad. And, what to know about the protests now shaking Iran.
+ Check, Please: “The decision comes after the Supreme Court ruled last week that Mr. Trump could not deploy troops in the Chicago area over the objections of Illinois officials.” NYT: Trump Abandons Efforts to Deploy National Guard to 3 Major Cities. (This was a big story from over the break. It’s vital that Trump is following the Supreme Court ruling, at least for now.)
+ Walz Through: “Mr. Walz said a widening scandal over fraud in social services programs in Minnesota had persuaded him to drop out of the race. He had been criticized for his administration’s oversight of the programs and its failure to prevent widespread fraud.” Gov. Tim Walz Drops Re-election Bid, and Amy Klobuchar May Run Instead.
+ Off the Mark: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Monday that the Pentagon is taking steps to downgrade Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly’s military retirement rank and pay because of the lawmaker’s ‘seditious statements.’” (They sure are working hard to raise Mark Kelly to hero status among Dems.)
+ XXXAI: “xAI’s AI chatbot is putting Elon Musk in a bikini at his request — and doing the same to children, world leaders, and women without their consent.” Grok is undressing anyone, including minors. (Related: AI toilets are here.)
“For years, he has been my standard answer whenever someone asks me about the most interesting person I’ve interviewed. (Apologies to Mike Tyson, Nancy Pelosi, Guy Fieri, President Trump and their many fellow nominees.) It helped that Reisman found himself so interesting. He claimed to have made fortunes, and lost fortunes, and met everyone, and defeated everyone.” NYT (Gift Article): The Ping-Pong Hustler Who Inspired Marty Supreme.
2025-12-24 04:13:23
“With a lot of these immigrant groups, not only is the first generation unsuccessful. Again, Somalia is a clear example here. You see persistent issues in every subsequent generation. So you see consistent high rates of welfare use, consistent high rates of criminal activity, consistent failures to assimilate.” That’s Stephen Miller, the chief architect of Trump’s immigration policy, citing the children of immigrants as a problem. The data doesn’t support his argument, but even as a child of immigrants, I understand today’s America well enough to know we shouldn’t let ourselves be distracted by facts. This contempt for immigrants (especially black and brown ones), long viewed as a core strength of our nation, is viewed by Miller and his ilk as our greatest threat. And they’re acting on the belief. Miller’s contempt certainly extends to people like Luis Martinez. Like thousands of other undocumented Americans, Martinez has spent decades literally killing himself fighting wildfires for the US government. “Now he’s facing down cancer, debt and the threat of separation from his 11-year-old.” NYT (Gift Article): ‘It’s Just Us’: The Firefighter, His Son and a Treacherous Choice. “In their small, secluded town, nearly everyone was connected to the private companies that the government hired to fight fires. Smoke-related sicknesses were a shared fact of life. So were periodic immigration crackdowns. Lately, the road to Seattle was becoming a corridor for ICE enforcement.” Read both of their stories and decide for yourself, who’s more American? Who has actually done more for this country? Stephen Miller or Luis Martinez.
+ The White House is so certain Americans will love the immigrant round-ups that they’ve turned them into a reality show. WaPo (Gift Article): Inside ICE’s media machine.
+ Of course, the administration doesn’t want you to see all the deportation stories, only the ones where they control the narrative. Hence, Bari Weiss’s state media-esque, last-second decision to pull a 60 Minutes piece about the Venezuelans sent to the CECOT terrorist prison in El Salvador. I covered that decision in detail yesterday: On Our Watch: “The iconic opening to 60 Minutes has long represented the countdown to an investigative news story. Now it feels more like a countdown to the demise of TV journalism. Tick … tick … tick…” It turns out that CBS forgot to cancel the broadcast of the piece in the Canadian market. So it’s basically all over the internet at this point. Trump and his enablers can delete a file here or a news segment there, but they can’t delete all of reality, which is what it would take for history to forgive their toxic stain saturating America. Maybe it’s fitting that we close out the NextDraft year in news coverage with an investigative report that we had to bootleg from another country’s broadcast because it was barred from our own airwaves. That sounds familiar. It just doesn’t sound like America.
+ I’ll be off for the holidays and back in 2026. Of course, I may come back sooner if there’s any really shocking news. But, er, what are the chances of that? Have a great holiday season and new year.
“On Sunday, J. D. Vance was presented with the simplest moral test: denounce commentators who traffic in medieval blood libels, who deny the Holocaust, and who endlessly harp on evil Jewish cabals ... Vance failed. ‘We have far more important work to do than canceling each other,’ he said, as if anti-Semitism were just one more woke fixation.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The vice president welcomes anti-Semites into the Republican coalition.
+ How can an administration that portrays itself as defending the Jews be so welcoming of antisemites? Michael Roth explained last April in the NYT (Gift Article): “As the first Jewish president of a formerly Methodist university, I find no comfort in the Trump administration’s embrace of my people, on college campuses or elsewhere. Jew hatred is real, but today’s anti-antisemitism isn’t a legitimate effort to fight it. It’s a cover for a wide range of agendas that have nothing to do with the welfare of Jewish people. All of these agendas — from dismantling basic government functions to crushing the independence of cultural and educational organizations to criminalizing political speech to legitimating petty presidential vendettas — endanger the principles and institutions that have actually made this country great. For Jews, a number of these agendas do something more: They pose a direct threat to the very people they purport to help. Jews who applaud the administration’s crackdown will soon find that they do so at their peril.” Trump Is Selling Jews a Dangerous Lie. “[This] tension — between championing Jews and ridiculing, reviling or in some cases even threatening them — has been visible on the right for some time. Consider first the president: On the one hand, his daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren are Jewish ... On the other hand, when neo-Nazis, Klansmen and others marched through Charlottesville, Va., carrying torches and shouting ‘Jews will not replace us,’ Mr. Trump condemned the most extreme elements of the rally but observed that there were ‘some very fine people on both sides.’” (There’s only one side he cares about. His.)
“The group did not do what Mr. Musk said it would: reduce federal spending by $1 trillion before October. On DOGE’s watch, federal spending did not go down at all. It went up. How is that possible?” NYT (Gift Article): How Did DOGE Disrupt So Much While Saving So Little?
+ DOGE didn’t save America money, but they cost plenty of people around the world. What I Saw at a Maternity Ward in Kenya After the U.S. Cut Off Food and Foreign Aid.
“Millions of people use injectable drugs like Wegovy to reach a healthier weight. But the weekly injections aren’t for everybody — or every wallet. That’s why pills that could achieve similar results are drawing so much attention. And now the Food and Drug Administration has approved an oral version of Wegovy made by Novo Nordisk.” 5 things to know about the new obesity pill.
+ Today’s weight loss drugs are a complete game changer. They’re also probably just the beginning. More powerful products are coming down the pike. And not everyone is willing to wait. You’re not supposed to be able to buy the world’s most powerful weight-loss drug, but some people have found a way. (Where there’s a weigh, there’s a will...)
+ SciAm: 10 Discoveries That Transformed How We Thought about Health in 2025.
The SS Bone Spurs: “[Trump] announced that a new class of ship named after one Donald J. Trump would be added to the ‘Golden Fleet,’ his name for a renewed U.S. Navy. (You might wonder about the propriety of a sitting president naming naval vessels, among other things, after himself. Pardon the expression, but that ship has sailed.)” Trump’s Vanity Fleet.
+ K Pop: “The U.S. economy grew faster than expected in the third quarter, driven by robust consumer spending, but momentum appears to have faded amid the rising cost of living and recent government shutdown.” And from FT: Happy K-shaped Christmas.
+ Tis the Season: We’ve got more Epstein files. Here’s the latest from the NYT (Gift Article) on what’s in them. Trump Referenced in Some Newly Released Documents.
+ ‘Koff Medicine: “The emergence of Witkoff as envoy to the Kremlin is partly a story of Putin maneuvering to nudge aside America’s diplomats and clasp hands with its billionaires. It wasn’t a hard sell.” WSJ (Gift Article): How Putin Got His Preferred U.S. Envoy: Come Alone, No CIA. “Trump said that Witkoff ‘knew nothing’ about Russia as he started the job, but was proving successful because ‘people love Steve.’”
+ You Oughta be in Pictures: “The livestreams connected to more than 60 of Flock’s AI-powered surveillance cameras were left available to view on the web, allowing someone to see live feeds of each location without needing a username or password.” Turns out, Flock isn’t just tracking license plates. It’s tracking people. Here’s the full report (paywall) from 404 Media.
+ Park and Parcel: “Next time I’m going to kill them. Don’t come back. Don’t come back to my house.” L.A. mom rams getaway car as her home is broken into, sends would-be burglars fleeing.
“Residents in Washington state have been told to be aware of unwanted festive visitors before Santa comes down the chimney – rats coming up from the toilet.” Washington state officials warn of toilet rats after floods: ‘Try to stay calm.’
+ Let’s end on a positive! Wallace & Gromit’s Cracking Christmas.
2025-12-23 04:31:24
Tick ... tick ... tick... The iconic opening to 60 Minutes has long represented the countdown to an investigative news story. Now it feels more like a countdown to the demise of TV journalism. Tick ... tick ... tick... After last week’s (non) release of the heavily redacted Epstein files, you may have been concerned that America would run out of black ink. Well, don’t worry. Over the weekend, there was plenty left for Bari Weiss, the new editor in chief of CBS News, to kill a 60 Minutes report on the Venezuelans illegally deported CECOT, a brutal prison in El Salvador. Tick ... tick ... tick... The highly unusual eleventh hour removal of the segment was criticized by Sharyn Alfonsi, the veteran correspondent who reported the segment: “Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.” Of course, when Trump ally David Ellison, the new owner of CBS’s parent company, Paramount Skydance, took over CBS News, we knew that politics would reign supreme, and that what used to be the media’s finest hour could be turned into amateur hour. But, like so much in 2025, the pace of that dismantling has been faster than many expected. Tick ... tick ... tick... Why the rush? It doesn’t take an investigative reporter to see the timing has everything to do with the Ellisons’ current attempt to beat out Netflix and acquire all of Warner Brothers, including another news org Trump hates, CNN. Just hours after the CECOT story was killed, we learned that Larry Ellison guaranteed $40.4 billion in Paramount’s hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. As Franklin Foer explains in The Atlantic (Gift Article), CBS and CNN Are Being Sacrificed to Trump. “The fate of Warner Bros. Discovery is no longer a regulatory matter. It is a medieval tournament, in which the king invites rival bidders to compete for his approval. To acquire the media company, the aspirants—Paramount and Netflix—will have to offer a sacrifice: Whoever can damage CNN the most stands to walk away with the prize.” Tick ... tick ... tick... That may sound extreme, but it’s only been a few short months since the Paramount acquisition, and already, 60 Minutes doesn’t have the same meaning anymore. At this point, Americans can’t even be sure 60 minutes equals an hour. You may be thinking that while this sounds bad, at least we’re only talking about the state media-ization of stale, television media brands that don’t have nearly the impact that they used to. But consider who owns the new media tools: X is owned by Elon. Facebook and Threads are owned by Zuck. TikTok’s US operations are about to be purchased by a group of investors that includes Larry Ellison’s Oracle. Tick ... tick ... tick... And all of these media moguls have demonstrated their willingness (and even eagerness) to tweak coverage to avoid tweaking the president. As I wrote back when the Ellisons were still trying to take over Paramount and CBS: “We’re not just going to be able to cross our fingers and hope to run out of the clock on Trump’s authoritarian leanings. So let us not talk falsely now. The hour is getting late.” Over the weekend, it got later. Tick ... tick ... tick...
+ Support media orgs that support telling the truth. From Frontline and ProPublica, coverage of the same news story that CBS canceled. Surviving CECOT: Deported to a Maximum-Security Prison.
People are worried about their jobs and the economy. People are also taking their holiday spending to new heights. What in Klarnation is going on? Bloomberg (Gift Article): The United States of Klarna.”So far, the topline numbers suggest spending is up significantly from 2024 and the volume of people out there shopping is also at an all-time high ... If so many Americans worry they may be laid off or their 401(k) might get vaporized by artificial intelligence companies lobbing the same $100 billion back and forth like a hot potato, why are they still splashing out on holiday decorations and gifts? There probably isn’t a single completely satisfying answer, but if you want to understand the state of the American consumer, the best place to look might be at the performance of ‘buy now, pay later’ lending services, whose customers are a growing cohort of Americans—more than 91 million of them.”
“Most of us also know about the lawsuits against Big Pharma that forced changes in how painkillers are marketed and prescribed. Please do not think this means justice has been served. If you came to visit me, I could walk you down our country roads and point out all the houses where grandparents are raising little ones whose parents are incarcerated, sick or dead of addiction. The road to recovery here will be longer than my lifetime. Of all the stories I heard when I sat down to listen, the hardest to bear was this one: ‘It started when I was in my mother’s womb.’” Barbara Kingsolver in the NYT (Gift Article): The Opioid Crisis Never Ended. It Was Inherited by the Children. (This problem can’t be solved by eliminating small boats in the Caribbean.)
“Young prodigies — the teenage sports stars, the high schoolers soaring up the chess ranks or making scientific discoveries — are usually not the same people who reach the pinnacles of their fields in adulthood, according to a new study. And the two groups begin their journeys in very different ways.” NYT (Gift Article): Who Finishes First in Life? Often, Late Bloomers. (This is what I keep telling people who ask me when NextDraft will have a business model...)
Dust in the Wind: “The five wind farms targeted on Monday had all obtained leases from the Biden administration. But citing unspecified national security concerns, the Trump administration said it would freeze those leases, effectively blocking construction or operations and jeopardizing billions of dollars that have already been invested.” 10,000 jobs and the powering of more than 2.5 million homes, poof. NYT (Gift Article): Trump Halts Five Wind Farms Off the East Coast.
+ Greenlandry: “Landry wrote in a post on social media that ‘it’s an honor to serve you in this volunteer position to make Greenland a part of the U.S.’” Trump’s appointment of envoy to Greenland sparks new tension with Denmark.
+ Deleterious Behavior: The Justice Department didn’t redact and remove all traces of Trump in the Epstein files. At least not at first. Epstein Files Photos Disappear From Government Website, Including One of Trump.
+ Trans America: “The astounding haul hints at a level of transactionalism for which it is difficult to find obvious comparisons in modern American history.” Big business has adapted to the new normal in DC. NYT (Gift Article): Hundreds of Big Post-Election Donors Have Benefited From Trump’s Return to Office.
+ Handle, The Truth: “As part of a broad investigation into the risks of electric door handles, Bloomberg attempted to quantify for the first time the number of fatal crashes in the US in which door functionality played a role. This reporting turned up at least 15 deaths in a dozen incidents over the past decade in which occupants or rescuers were unable to open the doors of a Tesla that had crashed and caught fire.”
+ Park and Parcel: “She was initially hired by the Air Force, which employed her believing she was a white woman ... When she set the record straight and a lieutenant told her everyone at the base was still ‘willing’ to work with her, she quit, unwilling to be ‘merely tolerated’ ... ‘I walked out on the U.S. government and told them to shove it.’” America’s oldest park ranger dies at 104 years old in Bay Area.
“Since the ‘Beaver Won’t Eat’ episode aired over 60 years ago, similar scenarios have played out countless times in movies and other TV shows, ranging from ‘Desperate Housewives’ to ‘Ernest Scared Stupid.’ The endless anti-Brussels sprouts propaganda cemented the crop’s reputation as the vegetable equivalent of punishment, something you’d wish upon your worst enemy — and made its next chapter wholly confusing.” So how did Brussels Sprouts become popular over the past decade or two? Short answer: They’re not the same sprouts. The real reason this polarizing food made its comeback.
+ SNL’s alternate Home Alone ending with Ariana Grande is an instant classic.