2026-01-17 04:42:26
Lately, the headlines have hurt. So let’s close out the week with a brief respite and focus instead on a story that hurts so good. It’s hard to explain to the non college football fan just how unlikely it is that Indiana would find itself as the undefeated favorite to win a national championship on Monday night against Miami. Before Curt Cignetti showed up at his first press conference as the new football coach at a basketball school in December of 2023, where he famously proclaimed, “I win. Google me,” things were bleak. “In 1976, then-coach Lee Corso called timeout in the second quarter to snap a photo of the scoreboard with Indiana leading Ohio State 7-6. They lost 47-7. In the 1990s and 2000s, some tailgaters never made it inside the stadium, which prompted coaches to rally students to show up.” No one needs any rallying to show up now. But Indiana’s unexpected rise to the top echelon of college football isn’t the only unusual part of this story. So is the identity of their number one, longtime backer. “The program that opened the season as the losingest team in Division I football history now stands one game away from its first championship—and it hasn’t gotten there via the pursestrings of one of the world’s richest people. In fact, the Hoosiers’ most prominent booster isn’t a tech genius or hedge fund titan. It’s the guy who wrote ‘Jack & Diane.’” These lyrics, Little ditty ‘bout Jack and Diane, two American kids growin’ up in the heartland. Jacky gon’ be a football star, Diane’s debutante backseat of Jacky’s car are about the only association the average person (or even some pretty good AI) can make between John Mellencamp and the gridiron. But it turns out that Mellencamp is a major backer of Indiana football. How major? Well, the team’s practice facility is named the John Mellencamp Sports Pavilion. WSJ (Gift Article): The Chain-Smoking Rock Star Who Made Indiana Football Hurt So Good (backup link). “In recent years, the school gifted the Rock and Roll Hall-of-Famer a wooden shack affixed to the top of the stadium. There, Mellencamp—a self-described ‘anti-social guy’ —could take in a game exactly the way he wanted to. ‘I set up there, nobody bothers me,’ Mellencamp said. ‘And I can smoke.’” Win or lose, Hoosiers and underdogs everywhere should enjoy these moments while they can. After all, life goes on, long after the thrill of livin’ is gone...
“President Trump’s sweeping effort to tamp down illegal immigration, using masked federal agents who film their interactions with cellphones and often question American citizens about their legal status, has set off a surge in confrontational activism fueled by both large liberal advocacy groups and hyperlocal neighborhood networks. In Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis, established groups representing labor and immigrant rights have provided funding and organized downtown rallies against the Trump administration. But fierce opposition to ICE and the Border Patrol has also sprung up through block clubs, neighborhood group chats, school Facebook groups and Catholic parishes, stretching beyond the typical Democratic voter base.” And with that, one of Trump’s more popular issues became one of his least popular. NYT (Gift Article): How ICE Crackdowns Set Off a Resistance in American Cities.
+ That’s not to say the resistance is bothering Trump. The chaos and violence have long been his aim. “The goal all along, it appears, was something like what’s happening today in Minnesota: a street-theatre carnival of violence, mostly instigated by the federal government itself, in an effort to create a genuine security crisis that Trump can then step in to resolve.” Susan B. Glasser in The New Yorker: The Minnesota War Zone Is Trump’s Most Trumpian Accomplishment. “Minnesota is his legacy. It is American carnage made real.”
+ People don’t seem to be as likely to buy the lies about the Minneapolis shooting as they were during past scandals. Even if the org formerly known as CBS News is trying to help. “Some CBS News employees expressed concern after the network cited two anonymous ‘US officials’ on Wednesday to report that the ICE officer who fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis suffered internal bleeding to the torso after the incident.” (The only thing suffering from internal bleeding is the Constitution.)
If you’re susceptible to nausea, vomiting, or banging yourself on the head I could’ve had a V8 style, you might want to stop reading now. Venezuela’s opposition leader María Corina Machado gave Trump her Nobel Peace Prize. It’s hard to blame Machado. These are the obvious psych-ops on Trump, and this is how nations and individuals know they can curry favor with our dear leader. It’s sad, but this is us.
+ Jimmy Kimmel offered the president his choice of several of his trophies (even his Webby) if he agrees to pull ICE out of Minneapolis. F-ck it, for that, I’m willing to throw in my award for Best Email Newsletter of 1999. And it’s a beaut.
What to Watch: Between awards shows, talk shows, and a whole lot of marketing, you’re probably aware that The Pitt on HBO is back with its second season. It’s a really a good show. My teenage daughter and I both love it. That’s got to mean something.
+ What to Doc: The Stringer on Netflix is an interesting and controversial documentary in which investigators try to uncover the truth about who took an era-defining photo from the Vietnam War. In our snap-judgement era, when we’re constantly being lied to by those at the very top, it’s worth considering how much digging it takes to get one answer about one photo that’s still being debated after a half century.
+ What to Wear: The NextDraft Store, home of some of your favorite shirts and hoodies, is having a 20% off sale today. Enter the coupon code Flashsalefriday under Discounts during checkout.
Uncle Scam Wants You: “The scam center, Shunda Park, opened for business in 2024 with more than 3,500 workers from nearly 30 nations, including Namibia, Russia, Zimbabwe and France. Some had been kidnapped and enslaved, but all had become skilled in the art of the online grift. When the scammers bilked $5,000 out of someone, they struck a Chinese gong. A $50,000 shakedown earned a celebratory pounding of a giant drum, then an offering to a Chinese deity resplendent in his golden altar.” An NYT (Gift Article) Photo Essay: At This Office Park, Scamming the World Was the Business. “While each nationality required a different approach — for Americans, one scammer told me, the preferred mark was ‘white old men’ — the general approach was the same: an online foray by a sympathetic and attractive person, followed by an invitation to participate in a select investment opportunity.”
+ See No Evil, Hear No Evil: “In my experience, many leaders harbor deep concerns about Mr. Trump’s lawlessness, weaponization of the government, and interference in markets. They refrain from public criticism not because they find nothing to criticize but because they’re intimidated. Such fear is understandable. Even so, when the business community and our leaders cease to speak out on matters of public concern, they turn their backs on the foundations of our country’s success.” Robert E. Rubin with a question we’ve all been asking: Why Have Business Leaders Gone Silent?
+ A Trump of Coal: “This time around, the Trump administration has gone much further to rescue coal, with more success. Last year, the amount of electricity produced by coal increased 13 percent, and retirements have slowed.” But it’s not cheap. It’s not clean. And it probably doesn’t make much sense, even for many in the coal business. Trump Wants to Halt Almost All Coal Plant Shutdowns. It Could Get Messy.
+ Managing Expectations: Trump says he may punish countries with tariffs if they don’t back the US controlling Greenland. Here’s a little history on the matter from a comedian based in Denmark: Dear America, We’d Like to Speak to the Manager. “You see, we know the Greenlanders. They’re a proud Indigenous people who are not interested in being Americans. You can’t just buy them off. So Trump is running wild. He’s kidnapping presidents. He’s invading other countries without congressional approval. And frankly, we don’t want that mess spilling into Greenland or Europe — or Legoland, for that matter.”
+ Doing Time and Again: Trump has issued so many pardons to so many undeserving recipients that he’s having to double up. “In 2021, a convicted fraudster named Adriana Camberos was freed from prison when President Trump commuted her sentence. Rather than taking advantage of that second chance, prosecutors said, Ms. Camberos returned to crime. She and her brother were convicted in 2024 in an unrelated fraud.” Trump pardons a convicted fraudster for the second time.
“Kids who never met me cared about me enough to put hard work into a vehicle to make sure myself and my kids were safe ... I got to meet all of them; it was breathtaking.” WaPo (Gift Article): High school students fix up cars, then hand the keys to single mothers.
+ Adrian Stubbs, a guard at Maryvale High School in Phoenix, enjoyed a historic game on Tuesday night, when he scored 100 points — in three quarters.
+ San Francisco to make childcare free for families earning up to $230,000.
+ Scientists Develop Spray-On Powder That Instantly Seals Life-Threatening Wounds. (I’ll believe it when I see it on The Pitt.)
+ Rescue dog found after 54 days in wilderness on Vancouver’s North Shore.
2026-01-16 05:00:25
It can be overwhelming to keep constant track of all the badness in the news (trust me, I know), so let’s just consider the past 24 hours or so. America’s European allies are sending troops to Greenland to defend against the administration’s relentless threats to take it over. Trump again blamed Zelensky, not Putin, for delays in getting a peace deal done. Trump, who led an insurrection and then pardoned its participants, is now threatening to invoke the insurrection act in response to Minneapolis protests, which erupted in response to the murder of an innocent person whom the administration has relentlessly blamed for her own death. After invading Venezuela without Congressional approval (or even advance knowledge), the administration has begun selling Venezuelan oil, with some of the proceeds being held in a bank located in Qatar. The FBI raided the home of a Washington Post journalist, an act that has drawn only silence from the newspaper’s owner. Four more Democratic lawmakers said on Wednesday that they were being investigated for their participation in a video urging military service members to resist illegal orders. And in an interview with Reuters, Trump again tossed out a familiar refrain about the midterms: “When you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.” This list, while exhausting, is hardly exhaustive. It’s also not surprising. Antagonizing allies abroad and using the corrupted levers of government to punish perceived enemies at home is the Trump Doctrine. And beyond that, it’s just about exactly what we expected when Trump was elected. “Both ICE’s occupation of Minneapolis and Trump’s threatened seizure of Greenland are part of the same story: An increasingly unpopular regime is rapidly radicalizing and testing how far it can go down the road toward autocracy.” NYT (Gift Article): The Resistance Libs Were Right. I’d say these predictions came from a lot more people than the resistance liberals. I know this because I’ve been linking to stories predicting just these outcomes for years. Of course, being right about Trump (which amounted to little more than merely repeating what he and his wrecking crew said they planned to do) offers little solace. The big question now is how decent Americans, and their leaders, will respond. My take is that anyone who wants to be the next president should grab a bullhorn and head to Minneapolis. Pro democracy Americans are desperate for strong leadership. I’m not ready to predict they’ll get it.
Many of Trump’s moves are wildly unpopular. That includes the threat to take over Greenland. “The president’s obsession with Greenland is especially dangerous because it has no real constituency: Trump is determined to get the island, it seems, only because Denmark and the rest of the world are telling him that he can’t have it. As is so often the case, telling Trump not to do something makes him more determined to do it.” Tom Nichols in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Trump Is Risking a Global Catastrophe. “Most Americans probably couldn’t care less about Greenland, but they will be forced to care—tragically, too late—if Trump’s gambit engulfs the world in flames.”
“While caring for an aging person can be financially and emotionally draining for adult children, the undertaking raises a separate set of challenges for spouses ... The ranks of older adults caring for fellow older adults are only expected to increase as lifespans lengthen and family sizes shrink: Adults 65 and older are projected to account for about 1 in 4 Americans by 2050, up more than 30 percent from 2024. That compares with 1 in 10 in the 1980s.” WaPo (Gift Article): Why more seniors are being asked to care for their partners — alone.
“Federal guidelines recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise per week, along with two days of muscle-strengthening activities. But the payoff starts much earlier: Even four to five minutes of vigorous physical activity every day has been linked to longevity benefits.” (Whether or not opening 75 news tabs meets this requirement remains an open question among kinesiologists.) But which activities in particular are linked to longevity? Well, consider yourself lucky if tennis is your racket. “One study from Denmark found that tennis players lived almost 10 years longer than their sedentary peers — and longer than soccer players, swimmers and the other recreational athletes included in the analysis. Other research from Britain and the United States followed people for about a decade and found that playing racket sports was linked to a lower risk of death during the follow-up period than any other sport or form of exercise studied. These findings don’t prove that tennis causes people to live longer ... Still, experts believe that tennis’s unique blend of physical, cognitive and social challenges contribute to healthy aging.” NYT (Gift Article): The Best Sports for Longevity. (For some reason, I think this is all a backhanded way of implying that pickleball will kill you.)
Ice Price: Immigration was considered one of Trump’s winning issues just a few months ago. The past few months, especially the past few days, have changed that. Trump has made ICE a 70-30 issue — for Democrats. And from Dan Pfeiffer: “Trump’s ability to bend reality to his will is the foundation of his political success. It’s how he has survived so many moments that would have ended other politicians’ careers. But it is not working this time. In what may be the most high-profile failure of the Trump media machine, the American people are not falling for Trump’s lies. This is an important moment, with serious implications for Trump’s near-term political standing and for the longer-term politics of immigration in America.” How Trump is Losing the Fight on the ICE Shooting. The lack of popular support appears to be making the administration double down. NYT: Under Trump, a Shift Toward ‘Absolute Immunity’ for ICE.
+ Xi Loves Me, Xi Loves Me Not: “Donald Trump’s tariff war occupied US allies for much of last year. Now, President Xi Jinping is welcoming a procession of leaders looking to mend fences with the world’s other major economy.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): Xi Welcomes Stream of Leaders Shaken by Trump’s New World Order. And from WSJ (Gift Article): Canadian Leader Spurned by Trump Finds a Warm Embrace in China.
+ Strike That, Reverse It: “After a tense day of confusion and backroom negotiations, the Trump administration moved Wednesday night to restore roughly $2 billion in federal grant money for mental health and addiction programs nationwide.”
+ Owning the Lib: “Manufacturing employment has declined every month since what Trump dubbed ‘Liberation Day’ in April, saying his widespread tariffs would begin to rebalance global trade in favor of American workers. U.S. factories employ 12.7 million people today, 72,000 fewer than when Trump made his Rose Garden announcement.”
+ Prix Fix: “A college basketball point-shaving scheme involving more than 39 players on 17 NCAA Division I teams resulted in dozens of games in the previous two seasons being fixed by a gambling ring that included a former NBA player, according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.”
“Former NFL player Matt Kalil is suing his former wife, Haley Kalil, claiming that she violated his right to privacy during a livestreamed interview by describing his genitals as being too big. Haley Kalil ... referenced Matt’s genitalia, claiming that his penis was like ‘two Coke cans, maybe even a third,’ and described the daunting dick as the primary reason for the couple’s divorce.” An NFL Player Sued His Ex-Wife Over a Privates Revelation. The Case Could Be Huge. (Luckily for my wife, I’m not litigious.)
2026-01-15 04:29:07
During a visit to Ford yesterday, President Trump responded to an employee who heckled him about the Epstein files by flipping the bird and mouthing the words, “F-ck you.” The sentiment from American car manufacturers—not to mention Mother Nature—is likely mutual. After all, Trump has helped to throw the US electric vehicle industry into reverse, and that move has left a trail of red ink in its wake. From Bill Saporito in the NYT (Gift Article): $25 Billion. That’s What Trump Cost Detroit. “It is a critical part of every chief executive’s job to anticipate the future. Failing to recognize and adapt to change can be the difference between thriving or disappearing. That’s why corporate leaders are continually bracing their companies against a host of possibilities: another pandemic, global conflict, rising interest rates, climate change and competitors that arise from nowhere. But it is pretty difficult to futureproof your company against stupid. This is exactly what the American automobile industry is facing as a result of Donald Trump’s gratuitous war against electric vehicles.” (Rage anxiety is the new range anxiety.) Environmental matters aside, this reversal of policy, and fortune, is worth a few expletives because it puts America behind in a key growth market that’s thriving abroad and further delays the buildout of the infrastructure required to put an end to the perennial question, “Where do I plug this thing in?”
+ Industry matters aside, I’ve found EVs to be more convenient, faster, quieter, and generally better to drive. I wonder if anyone has an extension cord long enough to reach Europe or China. North America was the only market where EV sales were down last year. Even in the US, the current slowdown could be a temporary speedbump. GM CEO Mary Barra: “Once someone buys an EV, they’re 80% more likely to buy another EV ... Our destination is to get to the all-EV future we’ve been talking about.” In the meantime, that future is being turned into a demolition derby.
“What happens in Greenland doesn’t stay in Greenland. Turns out, the fate of the world’s largest island has outsize importance for billions of people on the planet. That’s because of the one thing that Greenland is quickly losing: ice ... As the Arctic warms, potential new trading routes open up, as well as access to mineral riches, including those that are vital for clean energy technologies useful for slowing climate change. In short, climate change makes the Arctic more accessible and more of a strategic target for world powers, a fact not lost on President Trump.” NYT(Gift Article): Why Greenland Matters for a Warming World.
+ Of course, for Denmark and Greenland, the climate threat is being exacerbated by climate change’s chief accomplice. And he’s being taken literally and seriously. Denmark’s Army Chief Says He’s Ready to Defend Greenland. Meanwhile, “Sweden’s prime minister said today that his country would also be sending soldiers to Greenland.”
+ Nothing attracts Trump like the combination of climate change-induced disasters and the prospect of antagonizing an ally. So he’s insisting that America must own Greenland. Predictably, that set up for a tense meeting among regional representatives visiting DC today. Here’s the latest from The Guardian: ‘Our perspectives continue to differ,’ say Danish and Greenlandic ministers after US meeting. (It’s endlessly sad to see America’s leaders treating our longtime allies almost as badly as it treats our own citizens.)
“It is exceedingly rare, even in investigations of classified disclosures, for federal agents to search a reporter’s home. A 1980 law called the Privacy Protection Act generally bars search warrants for reporters’ work materials, unless the reporters themselves are suspected of committing a crime related to the materials.” NYT (Gift Article): F.B.I. Searches Home of Washington Post Journalist in a Leak Investigation. (If they find classified docs in her bathroom, she gets to be president.)
+ WaPo (Gift Article): FBI executes search warrant at Washington Post reporter’s home. “Investigators told Natanson that she is not the focus of the probe. The warrant said that law enforcement was investigating Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a system administrator in Maryland who has a top-secret security clearance and has been accused of accessing and taking home classified intelligence reports that were found in his lunchbox and his basement ... In December, [Hannah] Natanson wrote a first-person account about her experience covering the workforce as President Donald Trump’s administration created upheaval across the federal government. She detailed how she posted her secure phone number to an online forum for government workers and amassed more than 1,000 sources, with federal workers frequently reaching out to her to share frustrations and accounts from their offices.”
+ I thought the administration was proud of the damage it’s done to offices across the federal government. Why wouldn’t they want the story out there? “Donald Trump’s destruction of the civil service is a tragedy not just for the roughly 300,000 workers who have been discarded, but for an entire nation.” Franklin Foer in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Purged.
“Over the past several months, the ‘Interstellar’ and ‘Magic Mike’ star has had eight trademark applications approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office featuring him staring, smiling and talking. His attorneys said the trademarks are meant to stop AI apps or users from simulating McConaughey’s voice or likeness without permission—an increasingly common concern of performers.” WSJ (Gift Article): Matthew McConaughey Trademarks Himself to Fight AI Misuse. (Hey, if I looked like Matthew McConaughey, I’d trademark myself, too...)
Send Out the Troops: “U.S. intelligence has assessed that if the United States were to conduct a military strike against Iran, Tehran would retaliate by again attacking military bases in the region.” U.S. Moves Some Personnel From Key Air Base as Tensions Mount With Iran. (The same move was undertaken before the bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites.) Here’s the latest on the protests and the retaliation from CNN.
+ Export in a Storm: “The enormous trade surplus for the full year came despite efforts by President Trump to use tariffs to contain China’s factories. The tariffs reduced China’s trade surplus with the United States by 22 percent last year. But Chinese factories increased sales to other regions, in many cases bypassing American tariffs by shipping goods to the United States through Southeast Asia and elsewhere.” NYT (Gift Article): China Announces Record Trade Surplus as Its Exports Flood World Markets.
+ Visa Versa: “The State Department said Wednesday it will suspend the processing of immigrant visas for citizens of 75 countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, Russia and Somalia, whose nationals the Trump administration has deemed likely to require public assistance while living in the United States.”
+ Grant Rant: We’ve made some good progress in the fight against drug overdoses in recent years, and we know from the boat bombings that the administration cares deeply about the drug issue. Oh, wait. Trump administration sends letter wiping out addiction, mental health grants.
+ Elon Story Short: “This is a moment when those with power can and should demand accountability. The stakes could not be any higher. If there is no red line around AI-generated sex abuse, then no line exists.” Charlie Warzel and Matteo Wong in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Elon Musk Cannot Get Away With This. For now, as I’ve argued, he’s not only getting away with it. Between massive funding rounds and new government contracts, he’s thriving with it.
+ Can You Jeer Me Now? “The first big outage of 2026 is here, as Verizon customers across the US ... complain that service has been spotty or nonexistent starting at around noon ET.” (I wondered why I hadn’t received any political fundraising text spam for five straight minutes...)
“A trending mobile app is making it hard to ignore just how lonely and bleak modern life can feel for some”... The app enables users to “add an emergency contact to the app and then check in daily by tapping a bright green round button with a cartoon ghost at the center. If a user fails to check in for two consecutive days, the app sends an email to their emergency contact on the third day.” An App Called ‘Are You Dead?’ Is Climbing the Apple Charts. (I wish I’d known about this app sooner. It’s a lot easier way to provide proof of life than sending out a couple thousand words every day...)
2026-01-14 03:02:30
Pete Hegseth loves to repeat the mantra F-ck Around and Find Out. The testosterone-fueled, speak loudly and carry a big schtick threat is meant to be directed toward America’s enemies. But the truth is that, under Hegseth, it’s America’s own military that has been effing around, and so far, we’re finding out there are few, if any, consequences. The capture of Maduro has taken the boat bombings off the front pages, and as is the case with so many stories in the Trump news cycle, new scandals replace previous scandals at a pace that makes it almost impossible to maintain a national focus on any of them. But let’s not move on just yet. The Trump administration has argued that the boat bombings are militarily kosher because “there is an armed conflict with suspected drug runners.” That’s clearly not true, but let’s pretend for a minute that this is a war-like armed conflict, and we’re not simply exercising law enforcement actions that amount to extrajudicial murder. Then the bombings would be allowed under international law, right? Well, maybe, if every layer you peeled back on every action taken by Trump and Hegseth didn’t expose more criminality. The NYT (Gift Article) on why, even if the boat bombings weren’t plain old crimes, some of them were probably war crimes. U.S. Attacked Boat With Aircraft That Looked Like a Civilian Plane. “The nonmilitary appearance is significant, according to legal specialists, because the administration has argued its lethal boat attacks are lawful — not murders — because President Trump ‘determined’ the United States is in an armed conflict with drug cartels. But the laws of armed conflict prohibit combatants from feigning civilian status to fool adversaries into dropping their guard, then attacking and killing them. That is a war crime called ‘perfidy.’” So we basically have illegal strikes carried out in an unlawful manner. It’s no wonder that Hegseth is so determined to punish Mark Kelly for participating in a video in which Senators “called on troops to uphold the Constitution and not to follow the Trump administration’s military directives if they were unlawful.” Stating the simple laws of the land is considered seditious, and breaking those laws from the coast of Venezuela to the streets of Minneapolis is the new norm. That’s what the eff we’re quickly finding out. And if things continue to slide, America will be fubar.
“MAGA is many things, but above all it’s a movement about redistributing respect away from those who command too much (overeducated coastal elites) to those who don’t have enough (white Americans without advanced degrees who feel left behind). You see that redistribution at work in the Trump administration’s project to devalue medical experts and empower wellness gurus and vaccine skeptics, and in its dismissal of ‘deep state’ national-security professionals in favor of TV pundits. Nowhere does the demand to redistribute respect come into starker view than when guns start firing.” David Frum in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Why Vance Committed So Hard to the Minneapolis Shooter.
+ “Six federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned on Tuesdayover the Justice Department’s push to investigate the widow of a woman killed by an ICE agent and the department’s reluctance to investigate the shooter, according to people with knowledge of their decision.” I respect government officials who resign in protest of clearly unjust actions. But eventually, don’t we just end up with no upstanding officials? I don’t know what the workaround for this is, but it worries me.
+ It doesn’t get much sicker than following up on the unjust killing of an innocent American by blaming that victim for her own murder. In other words, it’s what we’ve come to expect from this administration. F.B.I. Inquiry Into ICE Shooting Is Examining Victim’s Possible Ties to Activist Groups.
+ Meanwhile, Trump Warns “DAY OF RECKONING” Is Coming for Minnesota. “Do the people of Minnesota really want to live in a community in which there are thousands of already convicted murderers, drug dealers and addicts, rapists, violent released and escaped prisoners, dangerous people from foreign mental institutions and insane asylums.” (He still doesn’t know the difference between political asylum and mental asylums. But he’s in charge of the world’s most powerful nation.)
“America’s greenhouse gas emissions increased by 2.4 percent in 2025 after two years of decline amid a resurgence of coal power.” The reversal isn’t actually due to Trump’s attacks on climate rules. That impact is yet to come. The big differences in 2025 were increased demand from data centers and colder winter temps.
+ Sometimes a headline that would have seemed impossible in any other era doesn’t even make you bat an eye during this one. For example: E.P.A. to Stop Considering Lives Saved When Setting Rules on Air Pollution.
“Four men searched my mouth for implanted tracking devices. I had told them I didn’t have any—that, as far as I knew, such things existed only in movies. They asked if I had fillings, and I confessed that I did. They looked again. ‘No, you don’t,’ one of them corrected me, having failed to find any glint of silver. My fillings are white. The men, wearing dark civilian clothes and balaclavas, seemed convinced that these unfamiliar fillings posed a threat to their operational security. That’s when I knew that my kidnapping was going to be a little bit different.” Elizabeth Tsurkov in The Atlantic (Gift Article): I Was Kidnapped by Idiots. “To intimidate me, Maher would blow smoke in my face, but because he was using an e-cigarette, all I got was a gust of strawberry-smelling vape. It wasn’t quite the tough-guy routine he was after. Later, he tried the ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine on me but undermined the effect by playing both characters himself, on alternate days, which just made him seem deranged.” (While I’ve pulled some of the more droll outtakes, the experience and the lessons drawn from it are both interesting and serious.)
Iran Protests: “Trump has urged Iranian anti-government protesters to ‘keep protesting’, saying ‘help is on its way.’” The administration is said to be considering strikes. Thousands of protesters have been killed. The internet has been cut off for days. And Iran Is Hunting Down Starlink Users to Stop Protest Videos From Going Global. Here’s the latest from BBC and The Guardian.
+ Bill, Baby Bill: Well, it’s long past the deadline, and the Trump administration has only released about one percent of the Epstein files. So the House GOP is taking a stand. Against the Clintons. House GOP seeks to hold Bill Clinton in contempt. Here’s the letter to the committee from the Clintons.
+ See Ya, Wouldn’t Want to Fee Ya: “Gov. Gavin Newsom vowed on Monday to stop a proposed wealth tax in California, saying that its mere introduction had already hurt the state by driving some billionaires to relocate and take their tax dollars with them.” The economic divide is the problem that underpins almost every other American problem. But state by state one-time penalties don’t make much sense as a fix, in part because almost no billionaires would stick around to pay it. NYT: Newsom Vows to Stop Proposed Billionaire Tax in California.
+ Native Borne: In Minneapolis, Tribal leaders say ICE is detaining American Indians during immigration sweeps. (At its core, Trumpism represents a nostalgia for the worst parts of American history.)
+ You Cannot Be Siri-ous: Google and Apple are working together once again. This time it’s on AI, as Gemini will power the new Siri. As The Verge explains, the move creates a united front against AI newcomers.
+ Avatar: Fire and Cash: Zoe Saldaña has become the highest-grossing movie star.
“The top award, in the form of the rear bumper of a Corvette, went to 10-year-old Drew Fleschut of Dallas, Pennsylvania — who wore a red-and-black shirt in an homage to movie character Joe Dirt and carried Joe’s trademark mop.” ‘Joe Dirt’ tribute takes top prize in Pennsylvania Farm Show mullet contest. (Still waiting for someone to launch a bald spot contest...)
2026-01-13 04:52:03
Donald Trump’s weaponized Justice Department has its latest target, as the administration attempts to feed the Fed to the wolves. It’s a particularly dangerous gambit that hinges on some particularly ridiculous, trumped-up charges. Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic (Gift Article): “The Trump administration has opened a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on grounds so flimsy and transparently hypocritical that it is difficult to know whether anybody is supposed to take the charges at face value. When a respected public servant is being accused of wasting taxpayer dollars and lying to Congress by a president whose extravagant White House renovation has already doubled in cost in just three months, and whose inexhaustible capacity for lies has essentially broken every fact-checking medium, one almost wonders if the criminal allegation was chosen for its absurdity, to demonstrate that Donald Trump can make the law mean whatever he wants it to.” A criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will test whether Republican loyalty to the president has any limits. In this rare case, there may actually be a limit. As Chait explains, “Every affluent Republican, from the tech right to fossil-fuel owners to heirs managing their inherited portfolios, has a direct and visible interest in stable and competent monetary policy.” And we’re already seeing a backlash from a handful of Republicans, and members of the administration are pointing fingers, many suggesting they knew nothing about the impending charges against Powell. Of course, there’s a broader economic story here. Healthy capitalism requires a sane adherence to the rule of law. That’s a reality that corporate leaders have been conveniently ignoring for a year, betting that they could weather (and even thrive during) the Trump storm through placation and sycophancy, taking what they see as the good parts of Trumponomics while avoiding the bad. For the sake of our portfolios and the future of the American economy, many of us have been hoping that this strategy would work out. But with Trump, the lawless envelope never just gets pushed, it gets obliterated, and sooner or later, kissing ass turns into the kiss of death. Maybe with Trump weakened and something as sacred as the Fed’s independence at stake, corporate America will finally get fed up. As Powell himself stated in response to the phony charges: “Public service sometimes requires standing firm in the face of threats. I will continue to do the job the Senate confirmed me to do, with integrity and a commitment to serving the American people.” There was a time, not that long ago, when that statement would not have seemed at all radical.
“A fiscal crisis, divided elites, a diverse oppositional coalition, a convincing narrative of resistance, and a favorable international environment. This winter, for the first time since 1979, Iran checks nearly all five boxes.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Is the Iranian Regime About to Collapse? “Still, one group of elites remains united: the country’s security forces.”
+ “Israeli strikes across Iran destroyed much of its military leadership, and the follow-on U.S. bombing campaign struck a heavy blow against Iran’s nuclear program. It was a humiliation for a regime that had invested so much of the country’s national wealth into a proxy network that was designed to deter exactly this sort of assault on the homeland.” WSJ (Gift Article): Weakened by War, Iran’s Regime Faces Its Toughest Challenge Yet.
+ Iran was shown to be a paper tiger when challenged by strong militaries. But the regime is still plenty strong enough to murder its own people. Time: Death Toll in Iran May Already Be in the Thousands. Here’s the latest from CNN.
“The one-lane tunnel, which carves 2.5 dark, musty, bumpy miles through a glacial mountain, opens for two 15-minute periods every hour, once for each direction; the troopers caught the 10 a.m. window heading east. On the other side, Whittier’s punishing microclimate—more snow than Aspen, Amazon-level rainfall, and almost nonstop wind—greeted them with cold, wet bluster. This small port town was built by the military during World War II, as the U.S. warred with Japan. In the 1950s during the Cold War, the military constructed two gigantic housing structures, one of which is still in use: The 14-story complex, set back a few blocks from the waterfront, houses nearly all of Whittier’s roughly 300 residents. Inside this tower, people shop for groceries, get mail, attend church, exercise, and gather in community.” How did some of America’s more obscure voting rights laws (that people in Whittier, including law enforcement officials, were ignorant of) lead to arrests in this tiny corner of the country? And how did the American Samoans at the center of the dispute end up there in the first place? Bolt Magazine with an interesting story, and one that shows how deeply our political dysfunction has seeped into every corner of society. Americans by Name, Punished for Believing It.
“On the day she transplanted the heart of a 6-month-old infant, Dr. Maureen McKiernan awoke, as always, to a 4:30 alarm. In the dim light of her apartment, she moved through her morning routine: a spin on her rowing machine, some mat Pilates, a hot shower, the usual breakfast of yogurt and granola. It was a practical meal — one she could eat half standing, spoon in one hand, phone in the other, scrolling through her upcoming cases. After breakfast, she took the A train to New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in northern Manhattan. There, in a thicket of acronyms and surgical jargon, Dr. McKiernan typed up the 16-point procedure she would use to save Baby Luna, whose new heart would be flown in that night. Step 9: Plane lands —> cross-clamp, cardiectomy.” NYT (Gift Article): 90 Minutes to Give Baby Luna a New Heart. “After eight years of training, Dr. Maureen McKiernan made her debut as the lead surgeon on an infant heart transplant — an operation on the edge of what’s possible.”
This is Not a Drill: Trump says he might keep Exxon out of Venezuela after its CEO called it ‘uninvestable.’ But does Exxon (or any other oil company) really want to be in Venezuela right now? “Executives need to feel confident that a country won’t suddenly descend into civil unrest, military conflict, or armed revolution. But at the moment, nobody knows what the political situation will be in Venezuela a week from today, let alone in a year or a decade.” And there are more challenges, including the oil itself. “Current oil prices—about $60 a barrel—are historically low. And they are well below the roughly $80-a-barrel cost of extracting and refining Venezuelan oil—much of which is the kind of thick, low-quality petroleum (known within the industry as ‘heavy sour crude’) that requires extensive processing.” Big Oil Knows That Trump’s Venezuela Plans Are Delusional.
+ Marco Dependent: “By most standards, Rubio occupies a privileged post: his desk in the White House is just a few steps from the Oval Office. But it is not the position that he hoped to occupy. In 2016, Rubio ran for President and lost to Trump in the primary. He now serves his former opponent—an unstable leader who regularly traduces institutions that Rubio spent his career supporting. ‘Ultimately, he has to be a hundred per cent loyal to the President, and when the President zigs and zags Rubio has to zig and zag, too,’ a former Western diplomat told me. ‘He’s had to swallow a lot of shit.’” Dexter Filkins in The New Yorker: How Marco Rubio Went from ‘Little Marco’ to Trump’s Foreign-Policy Enabler.
+ A Good Read: “Mississippi has gone from 49th in the country on national tests in 2013, to a top 10 state for fourth graders learning to read — even as test scores have fallen almost everywhere else.” NYT (Gift Article): How Mississippi Transformed Its Schools From Worst to Best (or at least, very improved.)
+ The White-ing Was on Wall: “Mr. Trump’s comments were a blunt distillation of his administration’s racial politics, which rest on the belief that white people have become the real victims of discrimination in America.” NYT: Trump Says Civil Rights Led to White People Being ‘Very Badly Treated.’
+ Protein Kills: It seems like it’s only a matter of time before we learn that protein is the silent killer. Such are the ebbs and flows of nutritional guidance. In the meantime, America Has Entered Late-Stage Protein. “In some ways, protein is just the latest all-consuming nutritional fixation. For decades, the goal was to avoid fat, which meant that pretzels were good and peanut butter was bad and fat-free Snackwell’s devil’s-food cookie cakes were a cultural phenomenon. Then Americans rediscovered fat and villainized carbs. But protein is different. Whatever your dreams are, protein seems to be the answer.” (It seems meaningful that this article was written by someone named Sugar...)
+ Playing in the Band: A few minutes after I learned of Bob Weir’s death, I heard the Grateful Dead blaring through the speakers in my corner grocery store. He was a national treasure and also a local legend. “A member of the Dead for its first three decades, and a keeper of the flame of the band’s legacy for three more, Weir helped to write a new chapter of American popular music that influenced countless other musicians and brought together an enormous and loyal audience.” Bob Weir, guitarist and founding member of the Grateful Dead, has died at 78. Once, when “asked if success had changed him, he said, ‘You know those pistachios that don’t have the little crack in them to get you started? I don’t bother with those anymore.’”
+ Around the Globes: One Battle After Another and Adolescence took home some of the top awards at the Golden Globes. Here are all the winners, the snubs and surprises, and Nikki Glaser’s opening monologue, wherein she mocked CBS News on CBS. “Yes, CBS News: America’s newest place to See BS news.” (That pun is a pretty clear indication that Nikki is a NextDraft reader...)
“Their popularity isn’t from winning expensive prizes, or because competitions pay big. Claw machines are still difficult to win and many believe they’re rigged by operators. It’s because claw machines — in their own way, nostalgia personified — have become an unlikely and effective modern vehicle for monetizable content.” The competitive claw machine boom.
+ An injury-riddled 49er team upset the Eagles in Philly over the weekend (in case you were wondering about those screams of joy that could be heard by everyone within a mile of my living room). Sadly, the team lost yet another star player, the enormously popular George Kittle. After he tore his achilles, “Kittle’s wife Claire and 49ers owner Jed York came down from their luxury suites to meet with the tight end in the training room.” York asked Kittle if he needed anything. A few minutes later, a bottle of tequila was delivered to the locker room.
2026-01-10 04:51:00
For the past week, a global controversy has surrounded Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence platform Grok (featured on X), as the app has been happily providing nonconsensual, AI-generated nude and sexual images of real people, including children. For an example of how nefarious this garbage has become, Grok deepfaked Renee Nicole Good slumped over in her car, in a bikini. After Grok created the image, the account that made the request typed, “Never. Deleting. This. App.’” To which Grok replied: “Glad you approve! What other wardrobe malfunctions can I fix for you? ... ‘Nah man. You got this.’ the account replied, to which Grok wrote: ‘Thanks, bro. Fist bump accepted. If you need more magic, just holler.’” X has responded to international outcry by making its perversion available exclusively to paying customers (the abuse still exists, but at least it’s monetized). Of course, it’s unlikely that Musk and his minions will pay a price for any of this. After all, Musk remains the world’s richest person, his AI platform just raised $20 billion, his relationship with Trump and the US government virtually assures that X and Grok will face no domestic punishment, and so far, neither Apple nor Google have taken any steps to remove the offending apps from their stores, even though, as a recent letter from a few senators makes clear, “All X’s changes do is make some of its users pay for the privilege of producing horrific images on the X app, while Musk profits from the abuse of children.” It turns out that the only thing more artificial than the intelligence is the rules and restrictions that were supposedly going to be put in place to protect users. You can holler all you want. More “magic” is on the way. If this were all just about naked images, it would be bad enough. But the naked truth is that it’s about all information in the age of AI-powered chatbots: who controls the tools that provide the answers to your questions, who decides what’s real and what’s fake. As I explained earlier this week, I was worried about the AI machines taking over the world until I considered the alternative: Humans remaining in charge. Specifically, certain humans. Q and A-holes.
“The Trump administration’s false narrative about this week’s shooting, and the demonization of the victim, are only part of a bigger lie. It wants the American public to believe that ICE’s heavily militarized crackdown across this country is an effort to keep cities like Minneapolis safe. It is not. It is about vilifying not just immigrants, but all who welcome them and their contributions to our communities. By defending the lie about this clearly avoidable shooting in Minneapolis and refusing to allow Minnesota officials to investigate the crime, the administration is sending a message to the entire country: If you show up for your immigrant neighbors, or even are simply present when those neighbors are taken, your rights will not be protected by the law and your life will be at risk.” NYT (Gift Article): I’m the Mayor of Minneapolis. Trump Is Lying to You. (I’m the managing editor of the internet, and I concur.)
+ “The agent who shot a woman in Minneapolis on Wednesday was pulled about 100 yards by a car last year while firing a stun gun at the driver.” Court Records Reveal Details of ICE Agent’s Previous Dragging Incident. There are two things to focus on. First, this particular exchange that resulted in the killing of an innocent American. Second, the bigger story about the environment in which it took place, where masked, entitled, federal agents are turning American cities into militarized zones for no good reason. They are not targeting criminals. 92% of recent ICE detention growth has been driven by immigrants with no criminal convictions. This is not making you safer. The crisis is invented. The deaths are real.
+ “Two people were wounded Thursday in a shooting by a Border Patrol agent in Portland, Oregon, police said, in what federal officials have called an act of self-defense during a targeted vehicle stop.” Homeland Security says the wounded suspects are Tren de Aragua gang associates. And that may be true. But the same people described Renee Nicole Good as a domestic terrorist. From Portland Mayor Keith Wilson: “There was a time that we could take [the federal government] at their word. That time has long passed. That is why we are calling on ICE to halt all operations in Portland until a full and independent investigation can take place.”
+ As I suggested yesterday, this is as much about the lying as it is about the violence. Good and Evil. “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.”
Let’s take a detour from reporting on destruction and death and focus on something more positive. Well, a little more, anyway. Near death. Jessica Grose in the NYT (Gift Article): What I Saw When I Peeked Over the Edge of Consciousness. “Near-death experiencers are the best dancers. I could identify which attendees at the annual conference of the International Association for Near-Death Studies have been to the brink, because they moved their bodies with un-self-conscious abandon, ripping up the floor of a tent on the grounds of a suburban Chicago Hilton.”
What to Watch: Fans of The Night Manager with Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie, and Olivia Colman have had to wait nearly a decade for the second season, which drops this weekend. So, if you haven’t watched the first season, now is the perfect time to binge.
+ What to Movie: “Two conspiracy obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth.” Yorgos Lanthimos directs and Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons star in the weirdly excellent (or excellently weird) Bugonia. It’s available for rent on most platforms, and included free for Peacock subscribers.
+ What to Doc: Nobu on Prime (and elsewhere) “examines culinary legend Nobuyuki Matsuhisa’s empire, offering an intimate portrait of a man who has redefined global gastronomy alongside his business partners Robert De Niro and Meir Teper.”
Changed Regime: “The internet shutdown came a day after the heads of Iran’s judiciary and its security services said they would take tough measures against anyone protesting. But the threats did not deter demonstrators.” Iran Is Cut Off From Internet as Protests Calling for Regime Change Intensify. The country’s supreme leader lashed out at demonstrators, dismissing them as ‘a bunch of vandals’ trying to ‘please’ US President Donald Trump.” (This is about currency, the economy, and water scarcity. But it’s also about a regime dramatically weakened and exposed by recent military embarrassments.)
+ Healthy Signs? “The House on Thursday passed a bill to resurrect health care subsidies that expired last year, as a breakaway faction of House Republicans joined Democrats in a largely symbolic vote that may bring fresh momentum to bipartisan efforts to find a compromise on health care costs.” This bill on its own won’t change anything. But it’s part of an important trend. WaPo (Gift Article): Trump suffers day of significant Republican defections on House and Senate votes. “Lawmakers voting against their party’s president is common in midterm election years, particularly for vulnerable lawmakers who represent swing districts. Yet the repeated rebukes of the president, and the number of lawmakers defecting, are unusual.”
+ Employment Dent: “For all of 2025, employers added 584,000 jobs — compared to 2 million new jobs in 2024. That meant that last year was the worst for employment growth since 2020.” The story beneath the story. Job growth was bad. Corporate growth and stock prices were good. We could be seeing the beginning of the AI’s impact on jobs.
+ Launchless: “In the 1970s, only 8% of Americans aged 25 to 34 were living with their parents, but by 2023, that figure had jumped to 18%, with men more likely to live at home than women.” More Gen Z men live with parents in Vallejo than anywhere in the US. (My goal is to move in with my mom before my kids try to move back in with me...)
+ Tech Whoas: The Verge lists some of their favorite thingsfrom CES 2026.
+ Snoop Dogs: “They can learn the names of new toys not only through direct instruction but also by eavesdropping on the conversations of their owners.” NYT (Gift Article): Dogs Build Their Vocabularies Like Toddlers.
When does getting a bear to leave your house qualify as feel good news? When it’s been living there for weeks! 550-pound bear finally evicted from California home after bizarre strategy ends monthlong ordeal. Pro tip for those who find themselves with as a bear as an unwanted roommate: Call the experts from Tahoe. It took them a few minutes to solve the problem.
+ “As we sat at his dining room table in early December, Mr. Galloway was dressed for a run, in black jogging pants and a hat advertising his coaching program. He moves more slowly than before the heart attacks, and he’s only able to jog for a few seconds at a time before taking a walk break. But his desire to cover long distances hasn’t waned.” 50 Years Ago, He Was an Olympian. At 80, He’s Just as Happy to Finish Last.
+ “Simon Beck works alone, using a compass and a pair of snowshoes to create intricate patterns as large as three soccer fields.” He spends 12 hours making art in the snow, then watches it vanish. (I spend almost that much time writing stuff that is old news a few hours later...)
+ Despite Trump-era reversals, 2025 still saw environmental wins. Here are 7 worth noting.
+ UK company wants to build a data center that will heat downtown Lansing.
+ Rowers capture close encounter with whales.
+ A child is born: Italians celebrate village’s first baby in 30 years. (This kid is going to have the sorest cheeks in human history.)