2025-11-13 20:00:00
The story about releasing the Epstein files is like Trump’s version of Frankenstein’s monster. He created it, but he can’t figure out how to kill it. NYT (Gift Article): After Trump Split, Epstein Said He Could ‘Take Him Down.’ “By turns gossipy, scathing and scheming, the messages show influential people pressing Mr. Epstein for insight into Mr. Trump, and Mr. Epstein casting himself as the ultimate Trump translator, someone who knew him intimately and was ‘the one able to take him down.'” Will Epstein achieve after his death what he didn’t achieve during his life? At this point, it’s hard for close observers to believe any scandal could take Trump down. You may be wondering, Wait, Are the Epstein Files Real Now? “Trump was meant to courageously release all of the available evidence for public scrutiny. Instead, this scandal has turned out to implicate him personally. (This is a risk inherent in building a personality cult around one of the worst human beings in the United States—almost any moral violation you pick will, statistically, have a high likelihood of appearing somewhere on his résumé.)” But this never-ending, particularly bleak Epstein scandal is different than the never-ending (and ongoing) other scandals. As Karen Tumulty explains in WaPo (Gift Article): “The MAGA base has had little trouble looking the other way when it comes to Donald Trump’s trampling of norms and ethical standards: the coarseness; the indictments; the retribution against his enemies; the self-enrichment while in office; the unprecedented claims of executive power. His administration’s handling of information regarding the horrific crimes of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is different. Bringing to light what lies within the Justice Department’s so-called Epstein files is the most persistent issue to have driven a deep wedge into the president’s base — to the point where some who embrace the MAGA label have even been willing to make common cause with Democrats.”
+ Consider that a relatively tiny scandal within this scandal might have been enough to ruin former top officeholders. This week, in an effort to halt the release of more Epstein files, Trump Ramped Up Pressure on G.O.P. One of those efforts included the summoning of “Representative Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican who has signed the petition, to a meeting in the White House Situation Room with Attorney General Pam Bondi and the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, to discuss her demand to release the files.” The once independent FBI and the once independent Justice Department are now acting as Trump’s personal fixers, pressuring an elected official to do his bidding in a room often reserved for high-level military planning (and one where, interestingly, no phones or other recording devices are permitted). That fact that this aspect of the story is just one more detail that will get lost in the scandalous ether is another reminder of how quickly our institutional framework has devolved.
+ Epstein Bantered Regularly With Larry Summers. Often scandals that Trump survives ends up costing mere mortals, bigly. Meanwhile, the spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure in these emails is brutal. Instead of buying an island, Epstein should have purchased a subscription to Grammarly.
“The bishops, who were often divided by American politics in the Pope Francis era, showed a united front in standing behind Pope Leo XIV, the first pope from the United States, who has spoken out for immigrants and urged U.S. bishops to do the same.” Catholic Bishops Rebuke U.S. ‘Mass Deportation’ of Immigrants. “In a rare statement, the bishops framed the immigration crisis in starkly moral terms. ‘We feel compelled now in this environment to raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity.'”
+ Not every immigrant is being targeted. Trump Organization sought to bring in nearly 200 workers on visas in 2025.
+ Meanwhile, U.S. visas can be denied for obesity, cancer and diabetes, Rubio says.
“The better policy would have been no policy at all. Imagine what the economy would look like right now if Trump had never started the trade war.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): What Tariffs Did. (Ironically, the Supreme Court could end up helping Trump even if they rule against him in the tariff case.)
“One day last year, Adebowale Akinyemi Wilson lost an opening round match at the World Table Tennis Contender tournament in Lagos, Nigeria. It was an obscure contest on the far-flung outskirts of professional sports. But 5,000 miles away in New Jersey, four gamblers were keeping a close eye on it.” WaPo (Gift Article): From table tennis to darts, small sports draw big bets — and corruption. “As the betting industry booms and scandals engulf major leagues, sportsbooks in the United States and around the world have expanded their menus, enabling big-money bettors to converge on small-money sports newly available on gambling apps, from international table tennis and lower division soccer to darts and surfing.”
House Hunting: “In a major shift, HUD’s plan would direct most of the $3.5 billion in homelessness funds away from Housing First to programs that prioritize work and drug treatment.” Trump Administration Expected to Drastically Cut Housing Grants. (First food, now shelter. They’re trying to get rid of Maslow’s entire hierarchy.)
+ Now Back to Our Regular Scandal Programming: “A Justice Department lawyer on Thursday defended the legality of Lindsey Halligan’s appointment as acting U.S. attorney to a skeptical federal judge who’s weighing whether to dismiss cases she brought against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.”
+ Sensing a Trend? “She was 17 and a high school junior in Florida. She was working at McDonald’s. And she was living in and out of a homeless shelter. Hoping to save up to buy braces to fix her teeth, she falsely advertised herself in 2017 as 18 years old on a website that matches men looking for ‘companionship’ with young women looking to make money.” NYT (Gift Article): In Matt Gaetz Scandal, Circumstances Left Teen Vulnerable to Exploitation.
+ Par-Don: “Acting just like a corrupt king, Trump is transforming the American system of justice into his personal plaything. Friends of the crown break the law with impunity. Enemies of the crown experience the sharp end of the law, whether they deserve it or not.” David French: One of the Founders’ Worst Fears Has Been Realized. (One?)
+ Shape Shifter: “The company says it plans to use the money from investors, including an arm of Wall Street banking giant Goldman Sachs, to open more shops and expand around the world.” Kim Kardashian’s shapewear brand Skims hits $5bn valuation.
+ Freeze Your Tail Off: “Qualifications include being ‘physically fit and in good health,’ being capable of sprinting around the outfield, having the ability to entertain crowds, having cursory knowledge of baseball and ‘previous mascot or athletic experience is strongly preferred, but not required.'” Braves Holding Auditions for ‘The Freeze’ Mascot Ahead of 2026 MLB Season.
+ Pop Culture: “His name is Oscar Delaite, and he is a 19-year-old engineering student at the Université de Technologié de Troyes in Troyes, France, and it is the belief of this column that he will go on to live a long, happy life of many great accomplishments. At the moment, however, Oscar is best known for one great accomplishment.” WSJ (Gift Article): The College Student Who Did a Wheelie—for 93 Miles.
Naked man making phone call after steam and shower at local health club. Any guy who’s hit the locker room after a workout at the gym knows the guy I’m talking about. He dabs with a towel a bit, but he prefers to air dry. While waiting for evaporation to work its interminable magic, he takes a few calls in front of his locker, often with one leg up on a bench, pausing long enough to make small talk as he stands a little too close to you (with a towel wrapped around your waist and your undershirt wet from being pulled on before you completely dried off). Naked man making phone call after steam and shower at local health club is the reason you have a home gym. But is he suddenly an endangered species? In The Atlantic (Gift Article), Jacob Beckert reflects on the The End of Naked Locker Rooms. “Though public nakedness isn’t completely gone, many of the everyday spots where Americans once encountered unclothed bodies—locker rooms, school showers, public pools, bathhouses—have either vanished or shifted away from collective nudity.” This article suggests the downside of this trend. As a person who sleeps in jeans and a t-shirt and doesn’t feel comfortable disrobing in front of myself, it makes me think I might want to join a gym again. I’m not even worried about the PTSD I could experience by re-encountering Naked man making phone call after steam and shower at local health club. I probably won’t even recognize him with his clothes on.
2025-11-12 20:00:00
Ostriches don’t actually bury their heads in the sand. But after reading this story, you might want to. It all started out as a plight of a few hundred feathered friends suffering from bird flu in Canada. Then things got weird. Actually, considering the times in which we find ourselves, I suppose you could argue that’s when things got normal. For example, there’s this excerpt from the story: “The farm began to fortify. Trip lines were laid around the ostrich pens and hooked up to bear bangers to scare away intruders. Supporters equipped themselves with walkie-talkies. And Dave and Karen started sleeping in the ostrich pens.” And trust me, that’s just a warm-up. I know what you’re thinking. Dave, I really don’t care how weird this story gets, I’m just glad you’re not leading with any insane political news that pummels our frontal lobes like Mike Tyson works a speed bag. Well, don’t take off that cranial helmet just yet. This is 2025, and the same cast of characters that poisons our headlines infects everything, spreading their ill-informed influence faster than the virus at the heart of this story. Thus, there’s no point in saying spoiler alert when the same thing spoils every story. Which is how we get to this outtake: “The activists had been camping out for months; their numbers sometimes reached into the hundreds. They knew the government was saying that the ostriches had bird flu, but they were convinced that this was cover for some other, bigger scheme. The feds were conspiring with the United Nations and Big Pharma, they said. Small farmers’ rights were being trampled. But Dave and Karen’s birds had other, more powerful friends. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was making calls to Canadian officials; Dr. Oz had offered to evacuate the ostriches to his ranch in Florida.” Even when you’re just trying to read a story about ostriches, you can’t go cold turkey on these guys. Daniel Engber in The Atlantic (Gift Article): All the Ostriches Must Die.
A penny for your thoughts? It turns out both are decidedly out of style these days. “The U.S. Mint on Wednesday ended production of the penny, a change made to save money and because the 1-cent coin that could once buy a snack or a piece of candy had become increasingly irrelevant.” At the time they stopped being minted, pennies cost about four cents to produce (which seems like a bargain compared to most government purchases). Will we miss them? I guess we’ll find out. The half-cent was discontinued in 1857 and that hardly ever seems to be an issue.
+ If you missed it last week… Burger King Braces for the Demise of the Penny. (This story refers to Burger King the restaurant, not the person in the Oval Office…)
“Every four years at the Cybathlon, teams of researchers and technology ‘pilots’ compete to see whose brain-computer interface holds the most promise.” These technologies can be life-changing for those like Owen Collumb, who was paralyzed in 1993. But the advances in computer brain interfaces could impact everyone at some point. NYT (Gift Article): Let the Mind-Control Games Begin! “With artificial intelligence increasing the accessibility and sophistication of technological progress, the integration of organic and robot life is now a matter of degree. How tightly should we embrace these new tools? Will they make life better in the end? Can they change our idea of what people are capable of? The Cybathlon and its participants distill these questions into something concrete. ‘This isn’t showing your disabilities, it’s showing what you can do,’ Mr. Collumb said. ‘You may be in a wheelchair, you may not be able to move, but you can compete.'”
Jimmy Kimmel lost his childhood best friend and show band leader this week. Take a few minutes and listen to Kimmel’s tribute to Cleto Escobedo III. It’s not only an homage their friendship that somehow stretched from their childhood neighborhood in Vegas to your living room, it also serves as a tribute to friendship in general, especially those that have lasted decades. Jimmy Kimmel Remembers His Best Friend and Bandleader Cleto Escobedo III.
New Epstein Episode: “In one email from April 2011, Mr. Epstein told Ms. Maxwell, who was later convicted on charges related to facilitating his crimes, ‘I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is Trump.’ He added that an unnamed victim ‘spent hours at my house with him, he has never once been mentioned.’ ‘I have been thinking about that,’ Ms. Maxwell wrote back.” NYT (Gift Article): Epstein Alleged in Emails That Trump Knew of His Conduct. And Read 3 Jeffrey Epstein Emails That Mention Trump. (Why do I have a feeling the next thing we’ll be reading is the pardon of Ghislaine Maxwell…)
+ Clickbait Tackle: Google is trying to take down a group sending you all those spammy texts. (AI can do a lot, but when it comes to the stuff users really want, lawsuits are apparently still the best weapon.)
+ I-Phone, Therefore I Am: “You can present your Digital ID in place of a REAL ID at TSA checkpoints using your iPhone or Apple Watch. But Apple notes that it isn’t a replacement for your physical passport, and that you can’t use it for international travel or border crossings.” Apple launches a Digital ID and says it’ll be accepted by the TSA.
+ Head Out on the Highway: “Waymo is finally ready to hit the highway. Starting today, the company’s robotaxis will gradually start to include more highway trips in its routes in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.” The best detail of the driverless highway experience so far comes from Rachel Swan in the SF Chronicle. Her Waymo was stuck behind a truck that had its blinker on but wasn’t changing lanes. “So the Waymo car signaled and passed the truck on the left, providing a clear view to its driver-side window. Inside, the driver was steering with one hand and holding a cell phone to his ear with the other.
He appeared not to notice that the car beside him had nobody at the wheel.”
+ Your Job Sleeps With the Fishes: “There are few American mariners today because only a small proportion of international commercial shipping is done with vessels flying under the American flag, meaning they are registered in the United States, follow the Coast Guard’s regulations and employ American citizens. The jobs pay well, but often require people to be away from home for months at a time. Demand for civilian mariners could soon rise because President Trump and a bipartisan group of legislators in Congress want to revitalize the American shipbuilding industry.” Mariners Wanted: Six-Figure Salaries and Months at Sea. (If you can promise there’s no internet access, I’m in…)
+ Edit Discredit: Margaret Sullivan on the BBC editing story that ended up edited out the organization’s top brass. “Yes, this was a bad mistake that was not adequately acknowledged or corrected when there was a chance to do so. That is something that calls for internal examination and external acknowledgment, some of which has occurred. But the current aftermath of the long-ago error – the film was published last year before the US presidential election – is significantly out of proportion.” And more on the backstory: Make no mistake – this was a coup’: the extraordinary downfall of the BBC’s top bosses.
+ Sandwich Bar Exam: “The group was careful to avoid politics, she said, and instead focused on several key questions: Had the sandwich actually ‘exploded all over’ CBP agent Gregory Lairmore, as he’d testified? (Specifically, they analyzed—and at times mocked—Lairmore’s claim that ‘I had mustard and condiments on my uniform, and an onion hanging from my radio antenna that night.’) What was Dunn’s intent in flinging the grinder? And what actually constitutes ‘bodily harm’?” Ashley Parker in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Inside the Sandwich Guy’s Jury Deliberations.
Just yesterday, my mom and I were talking about the 12 years it took to complete repairs on a very short bridge in our neck of the woods, and I said, “Maybe China does know how to get things done better than we do.” Then today, I see this headline and video. New bridge in south-west China collapses into mountainside. Mom, on second thought, 12 years seems about right…
2025-11-11 20:00:00
This Veterans Day feels a little like a memorial day. We’re paying tribute to those who served in the US Armed Forces, but we’re also experiencing a political and cultural transition that sees America relinquishing its role as defenders of the freedom and democracy so many vets fought for; and even adopting some of the leadership characteristics of regimes we once risked all to keep from spreading. Part of this is a matter of timing. There are fewer and fewer people around who experienced WWII and know fascism when they see it. Part of it is a matter of our current leadership and its America First ideals that echo those of the America First Committee that sought to keep the US from being drawn into WWII. Jonathan Darman takes us to a cemetery in Margraten, the Netherlands to provide some reminders about America. “Margraten and the other cemeteries serve as reminders of the sacrifices that Americans made to free Europe. And, at a time when many Americans want to retreat from our responsibilities to the rest of the world, they offer us a warning.” NYT (Gift Article): If Only More Americans Could See This Place. “Walking through these rows of graves, you feel the sorrow the war visited on every corner of American society. A service member from Oregon lies next to one from Pennsylvania who lies next to one from Arkansas. Dumas is next to Ulander, next to Giudice, next to Smith. But in their beauty, ambition and scale, the cemeteries have also always sent a message to Europeans, a reminder of the costs Americans were willing to pay to ensure the cause of liberty in the world. These cemeteries would be permanent and so too, they seemed to suggest, would be America’s interest in Europe’s affairs. It is a message that many Europeans took to heart. At the visitors’ center at the Margraten, I was told that the large crowd in the cemetery that day was typical. The vast majority of visitors are Europeans. When I flipped through the guest book, I saw most of the entries were people from the Netherlands, Belgium and other Northern European countries. Many had written the same message: ‘Thanks, U.S.A.'”
+ “If Burford had not driven 115 miles to the cemetery, a recording would have been played instead from a speaker that fits into the bell of a bugle. The device allows taps to be played at every funeral with military honors, as is legally required, but it has also stirred a resistance. Burford is one of at least 2,500 volunteers who travel to play taps at military funerals, many distressed by the idea of a recording performing the duties. They are tweens and nonagenarians, civilians and veterans. Some are seasoned musicians with an in-demand skill. Others are lapsed players who felt compelled to restart.” The Volunteer Buglers Giving 24-Note Salutes.
After weeks watching an administration use food as a political weapon, you may be asking yourself, “Where is the decency?” It turns out it’s still in a lot of places. Let’s start with a bookstore in Lincoln, Nebraska. “With federal funding for food stamps threatened, employees at a bookstore in Lincoln, Neb., went to their boss with an idea: If people were going hungry, maybe they could help. Workers at the store, Sower Books, soon set up a food collection bin near the front door. Customers and neighbors brought in bags and boxes of groceries; others came to browse for books, saw the bin and returned later with their own donations. Within a week, the storage room was stuffed with close to 2,000 pounds of food. Nearly out of storage space, the bookstore put out a call for drivers on social media, and earlier this month, customers volunteered their cars and pickup trucks to ferry boxed and canned goods to a food pantry across town. The store’s back room has since filled up again with donations. On Monday, staff members made another run to the pantry, delivering more than 830 pounds of food — enough for roughly 1,700 meals.” NYT (Gift Article): To Help SNAP Recipients, Bookstores Set Up as Food Banks. Knowledge for the curious and food for the hungry under one roof. It’s a miracle Trump hasn’t tried to shut this place down…
“This is how the government shutdown was always going to end. For the past 30 years, the party that has forced federal agencies to close their doors in a funding fight has never actually achieved the policy outcome it was demanding. Republicans did not successfully pressure then-President Barack Obama to defund his signature health-care law when they shut down the government in 2013. President Donald Trump, during his first term, failed to persuade Senate Democrats to authorize his border wall in 2019.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Why the Democrats Finally Folded.
+ I shared my take on the decision to fold yesterday, when I tried to defy the adage and make chicken cacciatore out of chicken shit. Dem the Torpedoes.
After already earning the highly coveted honor of appearing in NextDraft’s Weekend Whats section, David Szalay’s novel Flesh has been awarded the Booker Prize. You may not know that Sarah Jessica Parker was among the the five judges who chose this year’s winner. “Winning the Booker Prize is a life-changing experience for an author. Sales blow up. Demands for interviews pour in. But Parker, who oversees a literary imprint at Zando, said that being a judge was just as life-changing.” Powering through 153 books will do that. Sarah Jessica Parker’s Year of Judging the Booker Prize. Now that it’s over, the reviewers can get back to some semblance of their normal lives. But, the five judges have formed a book group so they can keep reading together…
This Doesn’t Float Their Boat: “The United Kingdom is no longer sharing intelligence with the US about suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean because it does not want to be complicit in US military strikes and believes the attacks are illegal.” CNN: UK suspends some intelligence sharing with US over boat strike concerns in major break.
+ Stock Answer: “Americans with large investment portfolios feel markedly better about the economy than those who don’t own stocks, according to the University of Michigan sentiment index. Sentiment among people who don’t own stocks is at the lowest level on a three-month moving average since the university began tracking it in 1998.” WSJ (Gift Article): Feeling Great About the Economy? You Must Own Stocks.
+ It Takes a Village: “Health officials have been calling for a radical overhaul of the nation’s system of elder care and one of the boldest ideas to emerge is the ‘dementia village.’ The model, which fosters social inclusion, was pioneered abroad but remains rare in the United States because of its cost. Still, advocates have been pushing to replicate it in the District — and they have been gaining traction.” WaPo (Gift Article): Why a dementia village in the Netherlands is fueling hope in DC. “Forty percent of DC’s seniors live alone, according to city data — a reality that advocates say makes community-based solutions especially urgent.”
+ We Should Be Green With Envy: “Countries like Brazil, India, and Vietnam are rapidly expanding solar and wind power. Poorer countries like Ethiopia and Nepal are leapfrogging over gasoline-burning cars to battery-powered ones. Nigeria, a petrostate, plans to build its first solar-panel manufacturing plant. Morocco is creating a battery hub to supply European automakers. Santiago, the capital of Chile, has electrified more than half of its bus fleet in recent years. Key to this shift is the world’s new renewable energy superpower: China.” (Even if you are a climate change denier, why would you want to leave all this money on the table?) NYT (Gift Article): A Flood of Green Tech From China Is Upending Global Climate Politics.
+ They Can’t Keep Their Pause Off You: Advertisers and streamers have figured out a new way to get commercials in front of viewers who are trying to avoid them. They appear when you hit the pause button.
+ Don’t Let Your Math Write a Check Your Ass Can’t Cash: “The paper also cited the Fibonacci sequence, a progression of numbers wherein each successive number beginning with the second 1 is the sum of the previous two. It goes like this: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55 . . . And, beginning with 5 and 3, if you divide two successive numbers instead of adding them—21 over 13, say, or 13 over 8—you will always get, ta-da, the divine proportion: 1.6.” That’s just a little review of the arithmetic of the ass. Wired: The Mysterious Math Behind the Brazilian Butt Lift. “For years, plastic surgeons thought the proportions of a beautiful buttocks should follow the Fibonacci sequence. Now, people are looking for a more Kardashian shape.”
“The crescendoing racket from an estimated 70,000 pickleball courts across the United States has generated bitter municipal fights, litigation, vandalism, acoustical mitigation contracts, equipment redesigns. So I’ve come here, to one of the sport’s most contested locales, to experience why the sound of pickleball is so annoying. And to see if there are solutions to help our brains move past it.” WaPo (Gift Article): We set out to find the real reason pickleball noise is so annoying. (The article suggests “This story is best with sound.” That might be fake news.)
2025-11-10 20:00:00
The GOP fights to win no matter who gets hurt. Dems fight to lose no matter who could be helped. That was my first reaction to the news that eight Senators had broken rank with Democrats to advance a plan to end the shutdown—less than a week after sweeping elections and while still polling well on the issue. In recent days, the shutdown had become a game of chicken, but instead of the two cars racing toward each other, one of the cars was racing to end SNAP payments for the poorest Americans and to screw up air travel for everyone else. Paradoxically, the willingness (and even gleefulness) with which the GOP moved to harm Americans provided a structural advantage, while the math provided by the 2024 election provided a numerical one. The Dems were winning the shutdown at the polls, but there was little chance that the current GOP would have ceded ground the Dems’ big demand:
extending the health care subsidies that are scheduled to expire. So where does this leave us? Most Democrat’s emotions will fall on a spectrum between expectation fulfilling disappointment and ‘throw the bums out’ fury. But the broader battle lines remain in the place, and will be even more pronounced if/when Americans start seeing their health care premiums go through the roof as the midterms approach. Meanwhile, even as the shutdown ends, the Trump administration is still doing everything it can to keep full SNAP payments frozen. At a moment when Dems just won elections focused on affordability, cutting off health care and starving people don’t strike me as winning issues. There’s no sugar-coating the fact that in the game of chicken, the Dems hit the brakes first. But the GOP could be driving right off a cliff.
+ “From a political perspective, Democrats won the messaging war. Over the 40-plus days of the shutdown, the public continued to blame Trump and the Republicans more than Democrats. More importantly, Democrats made the shutdown about health-care affordability. But that’s not the same as winning.” Dan Pfeiffer (paywall): Democrats lost the battle, but they may win the war. “Ultimately, the Democrats who caved reached two conclusions. First, Republicans were never going to extend the Obamacare tax credits … Second, there was no limit to how many people the Trump administration would hurt during the shutdown.”
+ “The shutdown was a skirmish, not the real battle. Both sides were fighting for position, and Democrats, if you look at the polls, are ending up in a better one than they were when they started. They elevated their best issue — health care — and set the stage for voters to connect higher premiums with Republican rule. It’s not a win, but given how badly shutdowns often go for the opposition party, it’s better than a loss.” Ezra Klein in the NYT (Gift Article): What Were Democrats Thinking?
+ Josh Marshall: A Quick Take on Team Cave’s Big Win. “I have what I suspect is a somewhat counterintuitive take on the deal Senate Democrats’ Team Cave made with the Republican Senate caucus tonight. This is an embarrassing deal, a deal to basically settle for nothing. It’s particularly galling since it comes only days after Democrats crushed Republicans in races across the country. Election Day not only showed that Democrats had paid no price for the shutdown. It also confirmed the already abundant evidence that it has been deeply damaging for Donald Trump. But even with all this, I think the overall situation and outcome is basically fine. Rather than tonight’s events being some terrible disaster, a replay of March, I see it as the glass basically being two-thirds or maybe even three-quarters full.” (A few months ago, many of us would have been satisfied with a little condensation building up on the walls of the glass).
+ WaPo (Gift Article): The health care battle fueling the shutdown roils North Carolina politics. “The health care debate has become a ‘microcosm of the midterm’ in the battleground state as rising premiums hit.”
“It starts with the sound of helicopter blades whirring in the night sky and flashlights shining on an apartment building. Then the action music kicks in.” Chicago Sun Times: Watch how government propaganda techniques portray Chicago as a city at war with the feds. “Editing out the ‘tears and screams of the children and families’ helps DHS meet its goal of ‘normalizing’ the militaristic activity for the American public. And how does DHS make a video like the one from South Shore? Security footage from a nearby elementary school gives an answer. Obtained by the Sun-Times through a public records request, it shows a camera crew of at least nine people wearing street clothing filming the entire raid, some with neon Department of Homeland Security Office of Public Affairs vests.”
+ “Veteran ICE officers know face coverings are a bad look. But they’re not coming off anytime soon.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Why They Mask.
“Backed by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and his husband, along with Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong, the startup—called Preventive—has been quietly preparing what would amount to a biological first. They are working toward creating a child born from an embryo edited to prevent a hereditary disease. In recent months, executives at the company privately said a couple with a genetic disease had been identified who was interested in participating, according to people familiar with the conversations. Gene-editing technologies now in use for treatment after birth allow scientists to cut, edit and insert DNA, but using the process in sperm, eggs or embryos is far more controversial and has prompted calls by scientists for a global moratorium until the ethical and scientific questions get resolved. Editing genes in embryos with the intention of creating babies from them is banned in the U.S. and many countries.” But everyone knows that Silicon Valley billionaires don’t like waiting around. So ready or not… WSJ (Gift Article): Genetically Engineered Babies Are Banned. Tech Titans Are Trying to Make One Anyway.
“Among the rarefied owners of the world’s largest superyachts, one floating villa is not enough. Sometimes you need two: one for the family, and another for the toys. This shadow yacht ferries the jet skis, helicopter and submarine. It also holds the smaller boat that zips you into Monaco in time for lunch at Le Louis XV. Or perhaps you have a chase boat, a speedy, smaller vessel with its own crew that rides alongside the yacht but is zippy enough for shorter day trips.” Bottom line, you need A Yacht for Your Yacht.
American Justice? “They said they were punished in a dark room called the island, where they were trampled, kicked and forced to kneel for hours. One man said officers thrust his head into a tank of water to simulate drowning. Another said he was forced to perform oral sex on guards wearing hoods.” NYT (Gift Article): ‘You Are All Terrorists’: Four Months in a Salvadoran Prison.
+ Resigning, Not Resigned: “President Donald Trump is using the law for partisan purposes, targeting his adversaries while sparing his friends and donors from investigation, prosecution, and possible punishment. This is contrary to everything that I have stood for in my more than 50 years in the Department of Justice and on the bench. The White House’s assault on the rule of law is so deeply disturbing to me that I feel compelled to speak out. Silence, for me, is now intolerable.” Federal Judge Mark L. Wolf: Why I Am Resigning. This probably won’t change Wolf’s mind: “President Trump has granted pardons to his former lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and a wide array of other people accused of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, according to the Justice Department’s pardon attorney.” Trump Pardons Giuliani and Others Involved in Effort to Overturn 2020 Election.
+ ‘Pause and Effect: “The changes, expected within six months, represent a radical turnabout in what women have been told about hormone replacement therapy.” NYT (Gift Article): F.D.A. Will Remove Black Box Warnings From Hormone Treatments for Menopause. Meanwhile, our broader health politics just keep getting weirder. WaPo (Gift Article): ‘God is an anti-vaxxer’: Inside the conference celebrating RFK Jr.’s rise.
+ Same Aim: Supreme Court Denies Request to Revisit Same-Sex Marriage Decision. (This was somewhat expected as the case was perceived as weak. Don’t take it to mean same-sex marriage is safe from this court.)
+ Edited Out: “The memo suggested that the one-hour Panorama programme had edited parts of Trump’s speech together, so he appeared to explicitly encourage the Capitol Hill riot of January 2021.” BBC director general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness have resigned. Here’s a side-by-side comparison of BBC-edited Trump speech from day of Capitol attack with original. (It’s a bad edit. And the original is bad enough.)
+ Just a Little Outside … the Law: “Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz were charged with fraud, conspiracy and bribery stemming from an alleged scheme to rig individual pitches that led to gamblers winning hundreds of thousands of dollars.” (It’s a safe bet we’ll see more of these cases.)
+ Student Government: “On Tuesday night, a charismatic teenager eked out a victory in a race for a county supervisor seat in southeastern Virginia. Cameran Drew’s victory was notable not only because of his age (19) or the narrow margin of victory (10 votes), but also because of the opponent he beat: his former high school government teacher.”
+ Resistance is Fusili: “Italy’s biggest pasta exporters say import and antidumping duties totaling 107% on their pasta brands will make doing business in America too costly and are preparing to pull out of U.S. stores as soon as January. The combined tariffs are among the steepest faced by any product targeted by the Trump administration.” WSJ (Gift Article): Italian Pasta Is Poised to Disappear From American Grocery Shelves. (Finally, we’ll be rid of that damn pasta from Italy!)
“For his only in-person interview since that snap turned him into an international curiosity, he appeared for the AP cameras at his home much as he did that Sunday: in a fedora hat, Yves Saint Laurent waistcoat borrowed from his father, jacket chosen by his mother, neat tie, Tommy Hilfiger trousers and a restored, war-battered Russian watch. The fedora, angled just so, is his homage to French Resistance hero Jean Moulin. In person, he is a bright, amused teenager who wandered, by accident, into a global story.” Fedora man unmasked: Meet the teen behind the Louvre mystery photo.
+ “Starbucks had teased the cup for weeks as part of its 2025 holiday rollout, and by dawn, customers were camping out for it. Some stores reportedly received just one or two units. Others ran out before opening. Social media posts accused employees of buying the cup before customers had a chance to. Videos of scuffles circulated online, turning a marketing stunt into a viral fiasco that played out less like a cozy seasonal debut and more like a Black Friday, free-for-all scramble.” (This is all completely crazy. But holy hell do I want one of these cups!) Starbucks made a $30 glass bear cup. Chaos ensued.
2025-11-07 20:00:00
I’m going stop being the top (and only) employee at NextDraft unless readers promote the newsletter enough that I reach one trillion subscribers by the end of the year. If you fail to reach this target, I will summarily end NextDraft and transition to my alternate newsletter: An exhaustively detailed, blow by blow, graphics-heavy review of the gastrointestinal impacts of my news headline induced IBS. The working title: The Spastic SemiColon. (Thankfully, Imodium has agreed to be the sponsor no matter which of the two newsletters survives.) This might sound a little draconian, but threats like these seem to be working these days. Tesla shareholders just approved Elon Musk’s trillion-dollar pay package, for his part-time gig as Tesla CEO. In fairness, the deal requires Musk to hit some monumental milestones and move beyond the reality distortion field (and, if he keeps up his current pace, a trillion will barely cover his childcare costs). Of course, there’s the very obvious American splitscreen of Musk shareholder/fans approving a trillion dollar deal during the same week that the poorest Americans were set to be stripped of SNAP benefits. But there’s a global splitscreen as well. Musk’s chainsaw-weilding efforts to shutter USAID isn’t just leaving people hungry, it’s leaving people dead. Atul Gawande in The New Yorker: The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands. Earlier this decade, USAID had an average budget of $23 billion a year. (Multiply that by 43.4 and you’re talking Tesla CEO money…)
+ I invest in internet startups and my public securities portfolio is neck deep in tech stocks. I’m not in the business of criticizing capitalism or shareholders who decide to approve big paydays for their CEOs (especially when those CEOs are building a robot army). But I am worried that this payday approval is a(nother) watershed moment that represents both our widening economic divide and a market that is giving off some very bad (and very familiar) vibes.
+ NYT (Gift Article): Trump Administration Seeks Immediate Halt to Court Order to Pay Food Stamps. (This was a predictable move from an administration that told grocers they couldn’t offer 10% off to SNAP recipients.) But interestingly, on Friday afternoon (before the court ruled), the administration said it will fully fund SNAP while court appeal plays out. (Maybe American shareholders approved lunch.)
“Most of the nine men were crewing such craft for the first or second time, making at least $500 per trip, residents and relatives said. They were laborers, a fisherman, a motorcycle taxi driver. Two were low-level career criminals. One was a well-known local crime boss who contracted out his smuggling services to traffickers.” Trump has accused boat crews of being narco-terrorists. The truth, AP found, is more nuanced. “As part of hired crews, the father of four spent his days fishing for snapper, kingfish and dogfish. The fisherman wanted to save enough money to buy a 75-horsepower boat engine so he could operate his own boat and not work for others. It was a dream Sánchez knew he was likely to never realize, relatives said: Most of his income — about $100 a month — went to feed his children.”
+ Of course, these strikes are about more than killing the equivalent of street corner dealers. U.S. Sends Attack Aircraft to El Salvador Amid Regional Troop Buildup.
+ Meanwhile, Hegseth Is Purging Military Leaders With Little Explanation.
“Silverwood advertises itself as a ‘community of kindness’ with members obliged to sign a pledge when they purchase a home. ‘There will be homes, community centers, schools, parks, but most importantly, there will be kindness,’ says project general manager John Ohanian, of DMB Development. ‘A culture of kindness is being designed into the fabric of the community to create an enclave where residents can overcome external chaos and thrive by working together.'” This Master-Planned Community Comes With a Catch—Don’t Be a Jerk. (Why do I have the feeling I wouldn’t even be able to attend an open house in this neighborhood?)
What to Watch: The Asset on Netflix is a binge-able Danish drama about a rookie police informant who goes undercover to befriend a drug smuggler’s wife but the closer she gets to her target, the more complicated her mission becomes.
+ What to Doc: A couple of docs that are worth a watch. First, John Candy: I Like Me on Prime (worth it for the look at back some great comedies alone). Second, Ben Stiller (and his sister) tell the story of their very famous parents, and go pretty deep about how some of their traits re-emerged in Ben’s family. Stiller & Meara is on AppleTV.
Same Time Next Year: “Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Friday that Democrats would agree to end the shutdown in exchange for one more year of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies – an attempt to further pressure the GOP to make a deal.” Democrats present offer to end shutdown as air travel situation gets worse. (One wonders if the air travel situation is getting worse to pressure them to make a deal… In other news, we have a pretty important election in a year.)
+ The Next Phase in Gaza: “The move relegates Israel to a secondary role in determining how and what humanitarian relief can enter Gaza, according to people familiar with the transition.” WaPo: U.S. steps up presence in Gaza to support fragile ceasefire.
+ Sudan: “They would select people and execute them in front of us and then say – ‘bury your brother’ – and we would cover them with soil. I saw them kill 18 people with my own eyes and then people had to bury them with their bare hands.” A roundup of news from Sudan.
+ Sentiment(al): “University of Michigan survey reading is slightly above levels that sentiment sank to amid historic inflation that hit in 2022.” Consumer Sentiment Falls Toward Record-Low Levels. Meanwhile, AI stocks head for more than $800 billion in losses this week.
+ An American Story: “The police in Whitestown, Ind., the small but growing town where the shooting took place, said that two residents had been inside the home that morning when the cleaners arrived. The residents believed their home was possibly being broken into and called 911. In the five minutes between the call and when the police arrived, one of the residents fired from inside the home and struck the woman in the head.” Cleaning Woman Killed Through Door After Arriving at Wrong Home.
+ Drunk on Power: “The Trump Organization’s second-term push to monetize Donald Trump’s presidency has reached the aisles of military exchanges, as Coast Guard-run stores, which provide service members and their families with access to tax-free consumer goods, have stocked Trump-branded wine and cider.” Trump Wine Hits Government Shelves. (This is the first time alcohol has made me puke before taking my first sip.)
+ Now That’s Using Your Noodle: How to cook the perfect pasta – we used particle accelerators and reactors to discover the key. (Now if they can just discover the key to turning my glucose monitor alarm to silent…)
+ Getting the Picture: They say a picture paints a thousand words. But using today’s prices, it paints at least a trillion of them. This photo from the Oval Office after someone fainted could be the most perfect representation of the Trump era ever recorded. Is there a Nobel Prize for Sociopathy?
“In last year’s parade, some of the loudest cheers went to a man in the bed of a red pickup truck that was festooned with … garbage. He wore Christmas pajamas and a skirt, rainbow suspenders, and a large papier-mâché top hat and was surrounded by bags of trash. A sign on the truck announced: ‘Mayor of Flatwood’ — as in, the Flatwood Refuse and Recycling Center. The man drawing all the cheers was Willie Shanks, the guy who runs the dump.” WaPo (Gift Article): The guy who runs the dump knows the secret to finding meaning at work.
+ “Masskrugstemmen is the German name for the increasingly popular sport of steinholding—where participants try to hold a five-pound glass of beer at arm’s length for as long as they can.” Inside the Surprisingly Intense World of Competitive Steinholding.
+ American climber speaks out after history-making ski down Mount Everest.
+ Australia has so much solar that it’s offering everyone free electricity.
+ The Doobie Brothers: Tiny Desk Concert.
2025-11-06 20:00:00
It takes me roughly four hours a day to write this newsletter about the news. That leaves me twenty hours to binge television shows in order to take my mind off the news. You already have a pretty good idea of what I notice during the news portion of my day. But here’s something I’ve noticed on TV. Everyone is smoking. The cigarette may have surpassed the gun as Hollywood’s most popular prop. Maybe it makes it easier to get into character, maybe a cigarette serves as some sort of dramatic crutch, or maybe cigarettes just look cool again. Whatever it is, the smoking is not limited to dramatic limited series. It’s on social media as well. And there, the people doing the smoking are only playing themselves. “Whether you’re scrolling through social media or sifting through party inspiration online, you’ll find young stars like Addison Rae, Paul Mescal, Gracie Abrams, Hannah Einbinder, Rosalía, Doechii, Jeremy Allen White or Charli XCX holding a cigarette, oftentimes in a social setting. Regardless of how those images make it to the internet — they might be posted by the celebrities themselves or by outlets — the photos shape what’s cool and aspirational for stars’ impressionable teen and 20-something fans. Perhaps that’s why college students around the country are noticing smoke wafting around their campuses.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): Is Gen Z Romanticizing Cigarettes Again?
+ If you missed my election wrap up, I explained why Tuesday’s Dem sweep could be described as the McDonald’s election. And I’m not just talking about the ketchup-throwing Hamburglar. The Donald McDonald Election.
+ And I’d like to wish a happy 97th birthday to my favorite subscriber. She’s been here since the beginning, she has the highest open rate of any of you, and she’s drawn in many new subscribers from her community. You all benefit from her subscription, because she dramatically skews the NextDraft demographics upwards when it comes to smarts and ethics. She also provides the most useful feedback, such as, “David, the article you shared in the top spot today was really interesting. Maybe you should actually read it.” Happy Birthday, Mom!
Drones have redefined modern warfare. But for the injured, they’ve made wait times for help and care reminiscent of the worst of World War I. C.J. Chivers with some incredible war reporting in the NYT Magazine (Gift Article): A Harrowing Escape From the Drone-Infested Hellscape of Ukraine’s Front Lines. “His mission had been timed for a dark period between moonset and sunrise. The sky was black, silent and vast. But in less than three hours, daybreak would illuminate the meadow where he bled. Many more Russian drones would take flight. Aleksandr’s future distilled to a simple binary. If he could reach the woodlot by dawn, he might be pulled to safety and surgical care. If not, he’d almost certainly end up like countless other soldiers in this war: laying helpless on farmland until a predatory drone descended and an explosion tore him apart, his last wretched seconds recorded for social media’s 24-7 snuff-film deathstream.”
“Immigration officers arrested a teacher early Wednesday in Chicago after chasing her into the grounds of a private preschool and grabbing her as parents and students looked on … Several parents said they were waiting to drop off their children around 7 a.m. at Rayito de Sol, a Spanish immersion day care and school, when they saw armed officers in black vests with the words ‘POLICE ICE’ run behind the woman and into the lobby of the building. Witnesses and school employees told The Washington Post that they thought the school was under attack and scrambled into rooms and vehicles outside in search of safety.” Is this going after the worst of the worst of the dangerous criminals who have supposedly invaded our country? Is this what we had in mind when we were told we’re going after all the bad hombres? Does this really make anyone feel safer? WaPo (Gift Article): Armed ICE officers chase teacher into preschool in Chicago.
+ If you don’t care about the bad optics or the bad ethics, what about the bad economics? “As ICE agents fan out to detain and deport undocumented immigrants, their enforcement actions are creating unease among both undocumented and documented workers on building sites across the U.S., deepening the already severe labor shortage, slowing the pace of construction and driving up costs, industry officials and contractors say.” ICE is sending a chill through the construction industry.
+ “A federal judge in Chicago on Thursday issued a sweeping injunction that puts more permanent restrictions on the use of force by immigration agents during ‘Operation Midway Blitz,’ saying top government officials lied in their testimony about threats that protesters posed and that their unlawful behavior on the streets ‘shows no signs of stopping.'” Chicago Tribune: The use of force shocks the conscience. (On the plus side, this implies there’s still a conscience.)
“Celebrities seem to have developed a pants allergy. Bella Hadid and Julia Fox have been running errands in their underpants. Bodysuits, oversize blazers worn as dresses, and sheer fabrics that reveal the lingerie underneath are all common sights. This widespread pantsless trend has given rise to a new sort of garment, more micro than micro-shorts, bulkier than lingerie: I call it the ‘fashion diaper.'” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Pantsless Trend Reaches Its Logical Conclusion. (This trend sure took a long time to catch on. Many of us who work on the Internet have been pantsless since like 1993.)
Taking Flights: There are rumors that Congress is getting closer to a deal to re-open the government. If a deal doesn’t take flight, you may not either. “America’s busiest airports, including those in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and Chicago, were set to face hundreds of flight cuts starting Friday due to the government shutdown, according to a list distributed to the airlines.” And any cuts to air traffic could drag into the Thanksgiving holiday.
+ Loud Speaker: “Ms. Pelosi, 85, was the nation’s first and only female House speaker, and she will have represented San Francisco in Congress for 39 years when she leaves office. She has served during an era of seismic change for American society and her own city, from the throes of the AIDS crisis to the legalization of gay marriage, and through the meteoric rise of the tech sector and the nation’s extreme polarization. She entered political office later in life and became a hero to Democrats for the way she wielded immense power to push Obamacare, climate change legislation and infrastructure programs through Congress.” NYT (Gift Article): Pelosi Plans to Retire in 2027 After 39 Years in Congress.
+ The Book of Job (losses): “Announced job cuts last month climbed by more than 153,000, according to a report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas released Thursday, up 175% from the same month a year earlier and the highest October increase since 2003. Layoff announcements surpassed more than a million in first 10 months of this year, an increase of 65% compared to the same period last year.” Layoff announcements surged last month.
+ Sub Doms: “Jurors showed no appetite for the Justice Department’s case against ‘sandwich guy,’ the D.C. resident who chucked a Subway sandwich at the chest of a federal officer, finding him not guilty on Thursday after several hours of deliberations.” (If the guy who threw a sandwich was convicted, I would have tossed my cookies.)
+ Lose For Less: “Eli Lilly & Co. and Novo Nordisk secured deals with the Trump administration to slash prices for their blockbuster weight-loss drugs in exchange for tariff relief and wider access for Medicare patients.”
+ Ball Manipulation: We’ve entered a new era of place kicking in the NFL. And the reason why comes down to the balls. The Dark Arts Behind the NFL’s Record-Shattering Kicking Season. “The NFL made a little-noticed change that gave teams access to the balls long before game day—and it has quickly ushered in a year of supercharged kicking.”
It “doesn’t necessarily mean having a country accent. Rather, it’s when someone adjusts their airway to be narrow in the back and wide in the front, so it makes a trumpet or megaphone shape, which increases the loudness of sounds at higher pitches in one’s voice. Singers use it to be heard over music. Children adopt it to taunt each other through the playground fray.” Want to Be Heard? Speak With Some Twang.
+ Paris has a lottery going for burial plots near Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde.