2025-06-20 20:00:00
Cogito, ergo sum. So said René Descartes. For the few of us who don’t speak Latin, that usually translates as I think therefore I am. Eminem updated Decartes slightly in the year 2000 when he philosophized, Sum quidquid dicis me esse (or I am whatever you say I am). Modern humans are faced with another twist to philosophical conundrum of how to define existence. If I let ChatGPT think for me, then what am I? Professor Brian Klaas recently reflected on what his students are becoming in an era when the student essay has been effectively murdered. “Every piece of technology can either make us more human or less human. It can liberate us from the mundane to unleash creativity and connection, or it can shackle us to mindless robotic drudgery of isolated meaninglessness … When artificial intelligence is used to diagnose cancer or automate soul-crushing tasks that require vapid toiling, it makes us more human and should be celebrated. But when it sucks out the core process of advanced cognition, cutting-edge tools can become an existential peril. In the formative stages of education, we are now at risk of stripping away the core competency that makes our species thrive: learning not what to think, but how to think.” The Death of the Student Essay—and the Future of Cognition. “Artificial intelligence is already killing off important parts of the human experience. But one of its most consequential murders—so far—is the demise of a longstanding rite of passage for students worldwide: an attempt to synthesize complex information and condense it into compelling analytical prose. It’s a training ground for the most quintessentially human aptitudes, combining how to think with how to use language to communicate.” (I synthesize the entire internet down to a few pithy blurbs every day. Until AI rips this laptop from my cold, dead heads, I’ll continue to define myself as I always have: I Yam What I Yam and Dats All What I Yam!. Or, roughly, Sum quod sum, et id est totum quod sum!)
President Trump has delayed his decision on bunker busting Iran’s nuclear facilities for two weeks. In theory, this could make room for negotiations or provide enough time for Israel to knock out more of Iran’s defenses that could target US bombers or military bases in the region. Or it could just be more weak sauce from a guy who constantly promises things in two weeks. Here’s three straight minutes of him doing just that. However America responds, “the Iranian regime finds itself in its most difficult position 46 years after the revolution that brought it to power.” Roger Cohen in the NYT (Gift Article): An Islamic Republic With Its Back Against the Wall. “Whether the current difficulty facing Iran’s regime will lead to its demise remains to be seen. Isolated cries of ‘Death to Khamenei’ rise into the night sky, but popular protests are impossible under bombs, and always risky under the thumb of the government. There are no obvious leaders to steer any political transition for the same reason.”
+ Did Trump and Bibi work together to pull off the ultimate psyop on Iran by scheduling a negotiation and then launching an attack just before it was to take place? Maybe. But this analysis from Julia Ioffe in Puck seems more on the mark: “In the week since the Israeli attack on Iran commenced, it’s been looking more and more like the story of that brilliant Trump–Bibi psyop was itself a psyop, with Trump as the target. Whatever the president’s level of involvement in, or assent to, Israel’s bombing campaign—and all we have now are conflicting accounts—it’s clear that Bibi knows how to manipulate his counterpart, possibly right into a war that Trump has claimed he doesn’t want.” (I’m no fan of Bibi, but puting him in a complex geopolitical negotiation with Trump, Witkoff, and Huckabee isn’t even close to a fair fight.)
+ Israelis have to deal with constant missile warnings that send them to underground shelters. Iranians have to deal with getting no warnings at all. Iran’s internet blackout leaves public in dark and creates an uneven picture of the war with Israel.
+ Iran appoints new IRGC intel chief after two predecessors killed by Israel. (How do you even begin to write that want ad?)
“The companies that build Americans’ everyday digital tools are now getting into the business of war. Tech giants are adapting consumer AI systems for battlefield use, meaning every ChatGPT query and Instagram scroll now potentially trains military targeting algorithms. Meanwhile, safety guardrails are being dismantled just as these dual-use technologies become central to warfare.” How Big Tech learned to love America’s military.
+ “The Army also says that these men will not be sent to battle, so they will not be risking their lives in potential theaters of war in Iran, Greenland, or downtown Los Angeles, California. Their mission is to use their undeniable expertise to school their colleagues and superiors in the military on how to utilize cutting-edge technologies for efficiency and deadly force.” Wired: What Big Tech’s Band of Execs Will Do in the Army. (We’ve come a long way since the blink tag.)
What to Watch: Families Like Ours on Netflix is a really solid series that imagines that Denmark’s flooding problems have gotten so bad that whole country needs to shut down, an eventuality that turns every Dane into a refugee.
+ What to Book: If you’re interested in the topics covered in today’s top story on writing, learning, and thinking in the age of AI, you can go much deeper with John Warner’s, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI. As Dave Eggers says, Warner “reminds us only humans can write and only humans can read, and that writing is thinking—and if we allow machines to write for ourselves, then we’ve allowed them to think for us, too. And that is the sorriest thing a human could do.”
+ What to Sport: This has been an unexpectedly awesome NBA finals between Indiana and OKC and its taken us all the way to one of the greatest things in sports: A game seven. Don’t miss it on Sunday. An NBA Finals for the Ages, a Game 7 for Immortality.
Off Guard: “A federal appeals court in California has ruled that President Trump can maintain control over California National Guard troops in Los Angeles — rejecting at least temporarily Gov. Gavin Newsom’s attempt to take back control of the Guard.” And how a parking lot at Dodger stadium became ground zero for the ICE in LA debate, even though it’s unclear what ICE was actually doing there in the first place.
+ Holidays and Confused: Juneteenth Goes Uncelebrated at White House as Trump Complains About ‘Too Many’ Holidays. (I wonder what it could be about this particular holiday that set him off…)
+ The Air of Our Ways: “Experts say it should be possible to reverse the trend. ‘The entire thing about this whole disease is it’s 100 percent preventable,’ said Dr. Robert Cohen, a pulmonologist at the University of Illinois Chicago who has studied the disease for decades. ‘It’s not an act of God or an act of nature. It’s not something out of our control. In a wealthy country with a wealthy economy, we should be able to do better.'” NYT (Gift Article): How Black Lung Came Roaring Back to Coal Country. “But as President Trump aims to revitalize the mining industry, doctors and researchers like Dr. Cohen also worry that federal government cuts are hampering efforts to find a solution.”
+ Protest March: “Khalil isn’t accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. The international affairs graduate student served as a negotiator and spokesperson for student activists. He wasn’t among the demonstrators arrested, but his prominence in news coverage and willingness to speak publicly made him a target of critics.” Judge says he will order Columbia University protester Mahmoud Khalil freed from detention.
+ Full Pedal Jacket: An American cyclist who got trapped in Iran talks about his tense escape as Israeli bombs kept falling. (People following on Strava were like, um, dude?…)
+ How to Get your Irish up: How did Ireland, a country of 5.4 million, end up with the second-largest goods-trade imbalance with the U.S., behind China? Two factors: Tariffs and weight loss drugs. WSJ (Gift Article): How Weight-Loss Drugs Blew Out the U.S. Trade Deficit.
+ Seed Investing: Telegram boss to leave fortune to over 100 children he has fathered.
The U.S. has approved the world’s only twice-a-year shot to prevent HIV, the first step in an anticipated global rollout that could protect millions. (Like all good news in modern medicine, this one could be hampered by the current administration.)
+ “Among the revelers in crop tops, short skirts and high heels, one group stood out: gray-haired retirement-home residents, many in their 80s or 90s. The men wore suits with pocket handkerchiefs, and the women, in mascara and red lipstick, wore chunky necklaces and tops with sequins.” NYT (Gift Article): They’re Over 80. You Can Find Them in the Club. (The thing I like most about aging is not having to go to the club anymore.)
+ “The precipitous drops have astounded public officials and health-policy experts, who have traveled across the country in an attempt to learn the formula and replicate it. Governors, members of Congress and sheriffs from as far away as Alaska have all come through, along with an acting U.S. drug czar.” WSJ (Gift Article): One Community Took a Radical Approach to Fighting Addiction. It’s Working.
+ Michigan wildlife experts finally were able to trap a black bear and remove a large lid that was stuck around his neck – after two years.
+ 3-pound puppy left in trash is rescued, now thriving.
+ NYT: Friday Is the Longest Day of the Year in the Northern Hemisphere. (Who are we kidding? In 2025, every day is the longest day of the year.)
2025-06-19 20:00:00
America has the strongest military in the world and our geographic position between two oceans and two allies gives us added advantages. But the battlefield is changing dramatically and new tactics and technologies are leveling the playing field, making even powerful countries vulnerable to inside threats from outside actors. Traditional military might doesn’t provide the same advantages it used to and the threats we face exist far below the protective layer a golden dome might offer. “The spectacular surprise attacks that Ukraine and Israel have pulled off against their enemies suggest just how serious such penetration can become. In Operation Spiderweb, Ukraine smuggled attack drones on trucks with unwitting drivers deep inside of Russia, and then used artificial intelligence to simultaneously attack four military bases and destroy a significant number of strategic bombers, which are part of Russia’s nuclear triad. Israel created a real pager-production company in Hungary to infiltrate Hezbollah’s global supply chains and booby-trap its communication devices, killing or maiming much of the group’s leadership in one go. Last week, in Operation Rising Lion, Israel assassinated many top Iranian military leaders simultaneously and attacked the country’s nuclear facilities, thanks in part to a drone base it built inside Iran.” Thomas Wright in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Trojan Horse Will Come for Us Too. It’s a bad time to be losing many of our best and brightest minds in the government and to be losing our focus on actual threats while we fight invented ones. As Wright explains, “Those responsible for homeland security should not be chasing laborers on farms and busboys in restaurants in order to meet quotas imposed by the White House. The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are giving Americans a glimpse into the battles of the future—and a warning. It is time to prepare.”
It’s worth noting that among those who don’t think the administration’s top military and intel appointees are up to the task is the man who appointed them. When confronted with recent statements from National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard who recently stated that the US intel community did not believe Iran was close to having a nuclear weapon, Trump responded, “I don’t care what she said.” And she’s not the only one he’s not interested in hearing from. “As Trump faces a critical decision about whether to join Israel’s military strikes against Iran’s nuclear program, perhaps the most momentous of his presidency, neither Gabbard nor Hegseth are playing starring roles as members of Trump’s inner circle of advisers.” WaPo: Navigating Iran crisis, Trump relies on experience over star power. (But the final decision is up to Trump, which should worry you.)
+ White House: Trump to make a decision on whether to attack Iran ‘within two weeks.’ It’s incredible he’s going with the two weeks thing again. A two week deadline given to Putin recently passed and he’s been saying things are coming in two weeks since early his first term. (Infrastructure week is still coming in two weeks.)
+ As Trump and his advisors deliberate over whether or not to get directly involved in the Iran-Israel war, the two sides have accelerated their attacks. An Iranian missile hit an Israeli hospital, after which Israel’s defense minister said that Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “can no longer be allowed to exist.” Netanyahu says the Israel’s efforts are “ahead of the schedule we set — both in terms of timing and results.” Here’s the latest from Times of Israel, NBC News, and The Guardian.
“For a few weeks after the president’s announcement, I actively feared for our safety. At one point, my chest ached so badly I thought I was having a heart attack. I booked consultations with a financial adviser, a family-law attorney and a global relocation specialist. I stayed up late, scrolling on my phone, researching countries we could flee to, developing a detailed escape plan. And then I realized, this is exactly what our state legislature wanted. Fear. Spectacle. Submission.” NYT (Gift Article): My Daughter Was at the Center of the Supreme Court Case on Trans Care. Our Hearts Are Broken.
“The hens were unaware of the heist. They had done their part: the shuffling around, the squatting down, the gentle plop! to release one perfect orb, ready to be tucked into a carton and shipped to the grocery aisles and diner griddles and breakfast tables of America. Before the product of their labor was an item on a police report, it was a shipment headed from Maryland to Florida: 280,000 brown eggs, sizes large and extra large.” WaPo (Gift Article) on one of the weirder crimes in a decidedly weird moment in America. The Great Egg Heist. “The trucker had been awake for almost 24 hours. Thinking his job was done, he said, he decided to lie down in the cab of his truck while the eggs were unloaded. He fell asleep. When he woke up, it was dark. The people were gone. The eggs were gone.” (This is disturbingly close to how Father’s Day brunch played out at my house.)
Surgical Strike: “The bans and restrictions were motivated by a commitment ‘to protecting our nation and its citizens by upholding the highest standard of national security and public safety through our visa process,’ the State Department official said.” And what better way to protect us than to prevent medical residents from entering the country. Trump Travel Restrictions Bar Residents Needed at U.S. Hospitals. “The American medical system relies heavily on physicians from other countries. One in five U.S. physicians was born and educated overseas.” Meanwhile, the US will now review social media for foreign student visa applications. How long until they start reviewing social media for Americans to decide who can stay?
+ Food For Thought (And Eating): “Middle East peace, climate change, Ukraine — if Sisyphus were assigned one of today’s global problems, he’d plead to be returned to rock rolling. So let’s focus for a moment on a global challenge that we can actually solve: starvation.” It’s not expensive. We’ve gotten pretty good at it. So why end these programs just to be cruel? Nick Kristof: This Problem Is Easy to Solve.
+ Droidian Slip: One of ChatGPT’s popular uses just got skewered by Stanford researchers. “Chatbots like ChatGPT should not replace therapists because of their dangerous tendencies to express stigma, encourage delusions and respond inappropriately in critical moments.” (OK, so then chatbots shouldn’t replace good therapists.)
+ Tesla Chainsaw Massacre: “Something similar to DOGE’s steep staffing cuts has been playing out at Tesla. About a third of the executives who stood onstage with him two years ago have left Tesla or been ousted. Many other high-profile company leaders have resigned. Just since April, Tesla has lost its head of software engineering, head of battery technology, and head of humanoid robotics. Tens of thousands of rank-and-file employees left last year amid waves of mass layoffs. At the end of the day, Tesla is the Musk show.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Tesla Brain Drain.
+ Read Allowed: “Read, 45, was accused of killing John O’Keefe in January 2022 by hitting him with her Lexus SUV and leaving him to die in the snow after a night of heavy drinking. Her defense team blamed O’Keefe’s fellow law enforcement officers for killing him in a house fight and dragging his body outside, then tampering with evidence in order to frame Read.” In a closely watched case that will likely result in multiple documentaries and Netflix limited series, Karen Read’s second murder trial ends with an acquittal.
+ Go Jump in the Lakers: “The Buss family is entering into an agreement to sell majority ownership of the Los Angeles Lakers to Mark Walter for a franchise valuation of approximately $10 billion, sources told ESPN on Wednesday, the highest ever for a U.S. professional sports franchise.”
+ Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back in The Theater: “Fifty years ago, Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” terrified moviegoers. Its shocks still reverberate. Its blueprint is now so recognizable that you have probably seen ‘Jaws’ — even if you haven’t actually seen ‘Jaws.'” How ‘Jaws’ Made a Template for the Modern Blockbuster. And the two musical notes that changed Hollywood forever.
“The driver tested negative for alcohol, the police added. The police did not identify the driver but released a photo of him, standing by the vehicle and dressed in a suit, talking to a police officer. According to the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera, the man was in a state of confusion.” A Man Drove a Car Down Rome’s Spanish Steps. It Did Not Go Great.
2025-06-18 20:00:00
“Democracy, Mr. Obama said, requires government workers, judges and lawyers at the Justice Department to uphold the Constitution and follow the law. ‘It requires them to take that oath seriously, and when that isn’t happening we start drifting into something that is not consistent with American democracy, It is consistent with autocracies. It is consistent with Hungary under Orban … We’re not there yet completely, but I think that we are dangerously close to normalizing behavior like that. And we need people both outside government and inside government saying, ‘Let’s not go over that cliff because it’s hard to recover.'” NYT (Gift Article): Obama, Back in Public Eye, Offers a Careful Warning of a Democratic Slide. Some will be relieved that Obama is speaking about this issue. Others will be disappointed that he’s doing so in such measured tones. Here’s my take. We were warned for years about what another Trump term would mean for democracy. And while many of those issuing the warnings were written off as being too hysterical, it’s only taken a few months to realize they were actually being too understated. At this point, with basically every warning light flashing and millions of people taking to the streets, I think we get it. We’ve been warned. Yes, I want commentators, artists, comedians, late night talk-show hosts, journalists, and brain-addled newsletter writers to keep reminding us of the danger to our democracy. But, when it comes to politicians, I think we’re ready (maybe even desperate) for something more. Maybe the warnings are the job of yesterday’s leaders. The job of tomorrow’s leader is to tell us that we’re going to get us out of this mess and lead us on that path—someone needs to emerge to take a thousands protests and turn them into one grand movement. We’ve been told how close we are to going over “that cliff.” It’s time for someone to tell us where to go instead.
+ If American democracy is on the edge of the cliff, then American decency is a red splat inside of a chalk outline on the rocks below. As I wrote yesterday, today’s version of Joseph Welch wouldn’t even bother asking, “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” He’d already know the answer: On Mike Lee and the descent of decency. Indecent Exposure.
“In a dissent for the court’s three liberal justices that she summarized aloud in the courtroom, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, ‘By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims. In sadness, I dissent.'” Supreme Court OKs Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for kids, a setback for transgender rights. (It’s a setback to be sure, but it’s hardly a surprise. These are the kinds of decisions this SCOTUS majority was molded to make.)
+ Related: Trump Administration Will End LGBTQ Suicide Prevention Service.
In the early days of the tech boom, the number of employees a startup had was seen by investors as a key metric of growth. These days, “adding talent, once a sign of surging sales and confidence in the future, now means leaders must be doing something wrong.” It’s partly AI, it’s partly a change of philosophy, it’s partly evolving views on productivity. Whatever it is, corporate America, once proud of its bloat, is now mainlining Ozempic for workforces. WSJ (Gift Article): The Biggest Companies Across America Are Cutting Their Workforces. “U.S. public companies have reduced their white-collar workforces by a collective 3.5% over the past three years, according to employment data-provider Live Data Technologies. Over the past decade, one in five companies in the S&P 500 have shrunk.” (The headcount at NextDraft has remained consistent at one. But my wife currently has me doing pilates three times a week, so even this operation is getting leaner.)
+ While workforces are getting smaller, the fortunes of many are getting bigger. America added 1,000 new millionaires every day last year.
“Last November, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that, as secretary of health and human services, he would not ‘take away anybody’s vaccines.’ If you believed him, you were duped.” (Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me a few thousands times…) The Verge: RFK Jr. is coming for your vaccines. “Most recently, in accordance with the larger trend of Donald Trump’s administration axing experienced, well-vetted advisors in favor of unqualified sycophants, Kennedy fired 17 people from the federal committee responsible for making vaccine recommendations. He replaced them almost entirely with close associates that echo his scientifically dubious and medically dangerous beliefs, or with those who seem to lack the relevant knowledge for the role.” (This is the model playing out across countless government programs. Fire the good people, hire bad people, and watch things burn.)
+ “If it isn’t stopped, and some of this isn’t reversed, like, immediately, a lot of Americans are going to die as a result of vaccine-preventable diseases.” NYT (Gift Article): Why a Vaccine Expert Left the C.D.C.: ‘Americans Are Going to Die.’
+ Leader of top FEMA disaster coordination office resigns, as Trump moves to eliminate agency.
Will He or Won’t He? The biggest question facing the world at the moment is whether or not the US will join Israel’s effort to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities with bunker busters. According to Trump: “Nobody knows what I’m going to do.” That likely includes him, too. After all, his views on this matter have changed dramatically over the past couple of weeks, going from wanting more time for negotiations to throwing his all-caps support behind Israel’s attack once he saw that it was going pretty well. NYT (Gift Article): How Trump Shifted on Iran Under Pressure From Israel. Here’s the latest from NBC, The Guardian, and Times of Israel. For what it’s worth, Israeli officials sure seem confident that Trump will join the effort. And few people know how to manipulate Trump better than Bibi.
+ Cuff Links: “The arrest of Brad Lander in New York was the latest incident in a pattern of increasingly aggressive actions that the Administration has taken against Democrats.” Jonathan Blitzer in The New Yorker: The Trump Crackdown on Elected Officials. “The incidents involving lawmakers all have something in common: in each case, video evidence directly contradicted or undermined the Administration’s account of what happened.”
+ Spirit Animal: “He would have been taught to see the world as a great spiritual battleground between God and Satan, and to consider himself a kind of spiritual warrior. He would have been told that actual demonic forces can take hold of culture, political leaders, and entire territories, and thwart God’s kingdom. He would have been exposed to versions of courses currently offered, such as one that explains how ‘the World is in an era of serious warfare’ and how ‘the body of Christ must remember that Jesus has already won this war.’ He may have heard the founder’s slogan that ‘every Christian should pray at least one violent prayer a day.'” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Minnesota Suspect’s Radical Spiritual World.
+ We’re Going to Pump You Up: “All through my reporting I’d been struggling to understand what was in it for the investors—why billionaires with no interest in sport were so interested in disrupting it. Toward the end of the presentation in Vegas, it all clicked into place when D’Souza announced the launch of Enhanced Performance Products—a new line of supplements inspired by the ones athletes will be taking to prepare for the Games.” Wired: The Definitive, Insane, Swimsuit-Bursting Story of the Steroid Olympics.
+ Land Hoes: “The proceeds from this unprecedented land purge would be used to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. The West is being carved up, parceled out, and sold off to subsidize the already rich. What Teddy Roosevelt called ‘the great natural resources of our country’ are being treated not as a shared inheritance but as political spoil.” A Quiet Betrayal: The Largest Public Lands Sell-Off in Modern History.
+ Puck Around and Find Out: “They’re the most antagonistic trash-talking bullies in the National Hockey League. Opponents decry their actions and fans of other teams outright loathe them. It took 29 years, but the franchise made famous for having rats thrown on the ice also now has the most famous rat on the ice in winger Brad Marchand — a label he has accepted. Being the last team standing isn’t just a tribute to their elite preparation, execution and talent. It’s delivering on the promise of their endless taunting.” Florida Panthers: The nicest rats to win the Stanley Cup (twice).
“Not for the faint of heart, Skywalk is a 70-foot-long, horseshoe-shaped glass and steel bridge that sticks out from the rim of the Grand Canyon. The views beyond the bridge are breathtaking, but it’s the scene beneath that draws anywhere from 800 to 3,000 visitors to Skywalk each day. Gazing through the glass floor offers a glimpse of the inner canyon, which stretches 4,000 dizzying feet down.” If the idea of walking out over the Grand Canyon gets your heart pumping, imaging having to hang over the edge of the walkway to keep it clean. Meet the daredevils who take on the Grand Canyon’s most terrifying job.
2025-06-17 20:00:00
During the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954, Joseph Welch, the special counsel for the US Army asked a now famous question of Senator McCarthy: “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” Seven decades later, in the era of MAGA politics led by a social media flame-throwing vulgarian, the answer to that question that once helped shock a nation into its senses is so obvious as to render its asking almost comical. But there’s nothing funny about the descent of decency in American politics, and there’s no better example of the bottomless pit of depravity than Mike Lee’s demented reaction to the political violence that took lives in Minnesota. In social media posts, the Senator from Utah blamed the tragic murder of Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman on the radical left: “This is what happens. When Marxists don’t get their way.” He also shared a photo of the murderer with the line, “Nightmare on Waltz Street.” (Spelling error his.) With these posts, Lee achieved the holy trinity of Trumpism: Cruelty, Lies, Stupidity. After the posts, Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith confronted Mike Lee in person about the terrible posts. “I think he listened to what I said. He indicated that he of course meant no harm. But of course these things do cause harm.” Unfortunately, in one political party, causing harm is a currency more valuable than crypto.
+ Smith’s Deputy Chief of Staff Ed Shelleby sent an email to Lee’s office about the killing of Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband in which he echoed Joseph Welch: “Why would you use the awesome power of a United States Senate Office to compound people’s grief? Is this how your team measures success? Using the office of US Senator to post not just one but a series of jokes about an assassination — is that a successful day of work on Team Lee? Did you come into the office Monday and feel proud of the work you did over the weekend? … the decision of the office of Senator Mike Lee was not to publicly condemn the violence or to express condolences to her shattered children — it was to intimate that Melissa and Mark somehow deserved this? By making jokes? Did you have any consideration for the survivors in her family? For the Hoffmans in the hospital? For their families? You exploited the murder of a lifetime public servant and her husband to post some sick burns about Democrats. Did you see this as an excellent opportunity to get likes and retweet[s]? Have you absolutely no conscience? No decency?”
+ Sadly, that question has been answered a thousand times by the Sadist in Chief, the world’s richest man, and their band of pathetic online mimics. Trump and other Republicans mock Democrats after Minnesota lawmaker killings. After having a couple days to think about it, Trump maintained his public indecency when asked if he planned to call Minnesota Gov Tim Walz: “I don’t really call him…I think the governor of Minnesota is so whacked out, I’m not calling him. Why would I call him? … I could call him, say, ‘Hi, how are you doing? The guy doesn’t have a clue, he’s a mess. So I could be nice and call him, but why waste time.” In 2025, I doubt Joseph Welch would waste time asking his famous question.
Russia was kicked out of what now is the G7, but Putin still had a representative at the meetings: Donald Trump. I’m not sure the real reason behind Trump’s early departure from the G7 Summit in Canada, but I’m glad he departed before he could further embarrass America. Consider this statement he made while standing next to host Mark Carney: “The G7 used to be the G8. Barack Obama and a person named Trudeau didn’t want to have Russia in, and I would say that was a mistake, because I think you wouldn’t have a war right now if you had Russia in.” For what it’s worth, Trudeau wasn’t prime minister at the time of Russia’s expulsion. Oh, and the expulsion was in response to Russia’s earlier attack on Ukraine and annexing of Crimea. NYT (Gift Article): Trump Renews Embrace of Putin Amid Rift With Allies.
“Remember ivermectin? The animal-deworming medication was used so avidly as an off-label COVID treatment during the pandemic that some feed stores ended up going out of stock … If you haven’t heard about it since, then you’ve existed blissfully outside the gyre of misinformation and conspiracies that have come to define the MAGA world’s outlook on medicine. In the past few years, ivermectin’s popularity has only grown, and the drug has become a go-to treatment for almost any ailment whatsoever.” Benjamin Mazer in The Atlantic (Gift Article): How Ivermectin Became Right-Wing Aspirin. “Nicholas Hornstein, a medical oncologist in New York City, told me that he’s had the same experience: About one in 20 of his patients ask about the drug, he said. He remembers one woman who came into his office with a tumor that was visibly protruding from her abdomen, having swapped her chemotherapy for some ivermectin that she’d picked up at a veterinary-supply store. ‘It’s going to work any day now,’ he says she told him when he tried to intervene.”
“The remote and rugged Klamath River in Oregon and California, one of the mightiest in the American West and an ancient lifeline to Indigenous tribes, is running free again, mostly, for the first time in 100 years after the recent removal of four major dams. At the burbling aquifer near Chiloquin, Ore., that is considered the headwaters, a sacred spot for native people, a group of kayakers, mostly Indigenous youth from the river’s vast basin began to paddle on Thursday. Ages 13 to 20, they had learned to kayak for this moment. Stroke by stroke, mile by mile, day by day, they plan to reach the salty water of the rugged Northern California coast, more than 300 miles away, in mid-July.” The always excellent John Branch in the NYT (Gift Article): First Time in 100 Years: Young Kayakers on a Ride for the Ages.
Betting the Farm: “The Department of Homeland Security on Monday told staff that it was reversing guidance issued last week that agents were not to conduct immigration raids at farms, hotels and restaurants — a decision that stood at odds with President Donald Trump’s calls for mass deportations of anyone without legal status.” WaPo (Gift Article): Trump officials reverse guidance exempting farms, hotels from immigration raids.
+ Israel and Iran: While the fighting between Israel and Iran continued to escalate, there are signs that Iran’s position is rapidly weakening. Fewer of their missiles have landed in Israel, they’ve lost control of the skies over Tehran, Israel said it had killed Ali Shadmani, Iran’s new wartime chief of staff after killing his predecessor in its initial attack, and El Al is set to begin flights into Israel. Meanwhile, Trump says he wants an end to the conflict, but no one’s entirely sure what that means. (He either means a negotiated deal or a bunker buster.) German Chancellor Friedrich Merz: “This is the dirty work Israel is doing for all of us. We are also victims of this regime. This mullah regime has brought death and destruction to the world.” Here’s the latest from NBC and Times of Israel. With Hamas reeling and its backers facing attacks, why are things like this still happening in Gaza? Israeli forces kill dozens of Palestinians seeking aid.
+ Grant Rant: “I’ve sat on this bench now for 40 years. I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this.” Terminated NIH grants must be restored, judge orders.
+ Miss Information? “For the first time, social media has displaced television as the top way Americans get news. ‘The proportion accessing news via social media and video networks in the United States (54%) is sharply up,’ the report’s authors write, ‘overtaking both TV news (50%) and news websites/apps (48%) for the first time.'” For the first time, social media overtakes TV as Americans’ top news source. (With the endless panels, TV news barely even exists anymore.)
+ Export Hole: “As President Trump’s tariffs start to shut China out of the United States, its biggest market, Chinese factories are sending their toys, cars and shoes to other countries at a pace that is reshaping economies and geopolitics. This year so far, China’s trade surplus with the world is nearly $500 billion — a more than 40 percent increase from the same period last year.” NYT: China Is Unleashing a New Export Shock on the World. (Why am I not shocked.)
+ We’re History: “As A.I. becomes more capable of parsing large data sets, it seems inevitable that historians and other nonfiction writers will turn to it for assistance; in fact, as I discovered in surveying a wide variety of historians over the last few months, experiments with it are already far more common than I expected. But it also seems inevitable that this power to help search and synthesize historical texts will change the kinds of history books that are written. If history, per the adage, is written by the winners, then it’s not premature to wonder how the winners of the A.I. race might soon shape the stories that historians tell about the past.” Bill Wasik with an interesting look at how historians are using AI and how that might impact what they write. NYT Magazine (Gift Article): A.I. Is Poised to Rewrite History. Literally.
First the no kings protests. Now this. America is on the comeback, folks. Joey Chestnut returning to Nathan’s hot dog eating contest.
2025-06-16 20:00:00
When I’m out in the street, I walk the way I want to walk. When I’m out in the street, I talk the way I want to talk — Bruce Springsteen
Wait. Wait. Wait. I know. Time-adjusted for the pace of incoming, massive news stories in the Trump 2.0 era, Saturday was about four thousand years ago. But let’s not move past the story of the No Kings protest just yet. It was a big deal. And it was a long time coming. During our last time going out to lunch before the pandemic, my dad (who lost his whole family in the Holocaust before crawling on his hands and knees through mud and snow into the Polish forest, where he would live and fight the Nazis for the next four years) and I were walking toward a restaurant, and he expressed his dismay that Americans weren’t taking the threat to our country seriously enough. It was one of many times he questioned: “Vhy aren’t people marching in the streets?” I suggested that while most Americans were concerned, they didn’t see the Trump era as being that ominous because they assumed the kinds of things that happened in his life could never happen here. My dad stopped walking, looked at me, and asked, ‘You think when I vas a kid any of us thought it could happen there?” It’s not that my dad saw an impending Holocaust in America. He was the least hysterical person I’ve ever known. But having witnessed them firsthand, he recognized the signs of authoritarianism, he understood how history could turn on a dime, and knew that global trends that once seemed like distant news stories could land at your doorstep. So he would’ve been relieved to see millions and millions of Americans out in the streets over the weekend. Not because a few protests will solve every problem. But because it shows that we’re awake to the challenge we face. And for those who witnessed the marches, the alienation of waking each morning to a deluge of bad news was replaced by a reminder that we are anything but alone.
+ Here are some photos from the protests from NPR, the NYT, AP, and The Atlantic.
+ Trump responded to the protests by ordering ICE to step up deportation efforts in Democrat-run cities. So no one should overstate the power of the protests to move White House policies. But neither should we underestimate the power of the protests to unify the opposition and to shape public opinion. Josh Marshall: “These are horrid, degenerate comments, a pledge of domestic war against America’s own great cities and their right to govern themselves. But Trump is also losing this fight in the one forum that matters, the battle over public opinion.” (And like the marches over the weekend, that battle will be fought one step at a time.)
Even Israelis hardened by years of taking cover in underground bunkers at the sound incoming rocket attack sirens have to be surprised at how many Iranian missiles have landed in Tel Aviv and other cities. But one imagines that surprise pales in comparison to the shock Iranians must feel witnessing how quickly their hardline leaders, who have spent years issuing threats and funding terror in the region, have allowed Israel to achieve complete air dominance and eliminate many of the country’s top military leaders and much of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s inner circle. How this plays out in the near term and what it means for the region and the world in the long term are still open questions. For now, there are reports that Tehran might be looking for a way to press for a ceasefire. Here’s the latest from NBC, The Guardian, and Times of Israel.
+ “Israel had spent months smuggling in parts for hundreds of quadcopter drones rigged with explosives—in suitcases, trucks and shipping containers—as well as munitions that could be fired from unmanned platforms, people familiar with the operation said. Small teams armed with the equipment set up near Iran’s air-defense emplacements and missile launch sites, the people said. When Israel’s attack began, some of the teams took out air defenses, while others hit missile launchers as they rolled out of their shelters and set up to fire.” WSJ (Gift Article): How Israel’s Mossad Smuggled Drone Parts to Attack Iran From Within.
+ Meanwhile, one the first leaders Trump spoke to about the ongoing conflict was our great ally and renown peace negotiator, Vladimir Putin (who wished the president a happy birthday! Yay!) The call and follow on comments led to this headline: Macron rejects Trump’s idea for Putin to mediate between Israel and Iran.
“Elon Musk stood before a giant American flag at a Wisconsin political rally in March and rolled out an eye-popping allegation of rampant fraud at the Social Security Administration. Scammers, he said, were making 40 percent of all calls to the agency’s customer service line. Social Security employees knew the billionaire’s claim had no basis in fact … That’s when Leland Dudek — plucked from a midlevel job only six weeks earlier to run Social Security because of his willingness to cooperate with Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — got an angry call from the White House, according to several people familiar with the exchange. ‘The number is 40 percent,” insisted Katie Miller, a top administration aide who was working closely with Mr. Musk, according to one of the people familiar with the April 1 call. President Trump believed Mr. Musk, she said. “Do not contradict the president.'” This is good, if upsetting, article on the way the administration uses lies, strong arm tactics, and wildly unqualified loyalists to break core government programs. NYT (Gift Article): The Bureaucrat and the Billionaire: Inside DOGE’s Chaotic Takeover of Social Security.
“The result isn’t just inconvenient. It’s lonely. As access shatters, rituals vanish, as do the moments that make sports communal — a bar full of strangers cheering for the same team, the generational ties passed down through the seasons. Those experiences fade under a system that dictates that the more you can pay, the more you can see — until the game disappears behind another paywall.” Joon Lee on how one of our last, great communal activities is getting paywalled—whether you want to go to a game or just watch one on TV. NYT (Gift Article): $4,785. That’s How Much It Costs to Be a Sports Fan Now. (Unless you want a beer and a hot dog, too. Then it’s more like six grand.)
Minnesota Arrest: “The man suspected of killing a Minnesota lawmaker and wounding another crawled to officers in surrender Sunday after they located him in the woods near his home, bringing an end to a massive, nearly two-day search that put the entire state on edge.” He went to at least four lawmakers homes with the intent to kill. Here’s the latest from the StarTribune. As Brian Klaas explains in The Atlantic (Gift Article): In Minnesota, America’s Luck Ran Out. “In a context such as the United States, three key factors stand out: easy access to deadly weapons, intense polarization that paints political opponents as treasonous enemies rather than disagreeing compatriots, and incitements to political violence from high-profile public figures. When you combine those three social toxins, the likelihood of political violence increases, even as it remains impossible to predict who will be targeted or when attacks might be carried out.”
+ Leave Us Alone-a-Lisa: “It was an almost unthinkable sight: the home to works by Leonardo da Vinci and millennia of civilization’s greatest treasures — paralyzed by the very people tasked with welcoming the world to its galleries.” The Louvre, the world’s most-visited museum, shuts down with staff sounding the alarm on mass tourism. This one big example of a much broader issue. Spaniards turn water pistols on visitors to protest mass tourism. (And Summer just started.)
+ Pick Six: “MI6 will be led by a woman for the first time in the foreign intelligence service’s 116-year history.” (The fact that she’s a woman isn’t the only way the situation differs from American government hiring trends. She’s also qualified.)
+ Mobile Phony: The Trump Mobile T1 Phone looks both bad and impossible. A branded phone and a branded wireless service? Par for the course at this point. Home-goods companies prepare new Trump-linked products. “One of the companies, Instant Pot Brands, noted that ‘a portion of the profits from’ its forthcoming collection ‘will be donated to the Trump Presidential Library.'” (I’m holding out for “the snow globe with a small version of President Donald Trump raising his fist.”)
+ Let Them Eat: Give up the weight without giving up the fun! I’m in. Wired: A New Obesity Pill May Burn Fat Without Suppressing Appetite.
+ Polygraph Quest: “As part of the GOP campaign attacking the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for the grim fiscal projections for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of tax and spending cuts pending in the Senate, Tim Scott posted a one-minute video.” It included nine claims. All of them were false.
+ Pedialyte at the End of the Tunnel: “She had a stomach bug and was vomiting all night long. I was just like, ‘OK, my wife was up at 3 a.m., and she’s like, Violet is vomiting all over. She can’t keep anything down. It was kind of a rough start to the morning. I’m not blaming that on my start, but it kind of fit the mold of what was going on, the chaos.” A middle of the night visit to CVS for his daughter and the most evil course in golf couldn’t stop JJ Spaun from winning his first major.
+ Dude, That Was Historic: In the end, the big Army parade was a relatively quiet affair. Here are some photos. “What had been billed as an overwhelming display of military might turned out to be a linear history lesson, from the early days of revolution to the age of robotic dogs and flying drones. A narrator made sense of it all over loudspeakers and for those watching the live stream on television, with a script that rarely strayed from the Army’s disciplined sense of itself as a lethal fighting machine in the service of democracy and the Constitution.” (Which explains why Trump looked so irritated and bored throughout.) WaPo (Gift Article): Trump wanted a military spectacle. Instead, he got a history lesson.
Everyone expected the Army military parade to go viral because of dear leader vibes. Instead, it went viral because someone selected the song Fortunate Son for the soundtrack. Even the Village People thought that was a weird choice…
2025-06-13 20:00:00
The last couple years have brought a series of unfortunate events to Iran’s power in the Middle East and beyond. Hamas has been eroded, Hezbollah has been decimated, the Assad government has been overthrown, and highly targeted attacks by Israel within Iran’s borders have been effective. This weakening of Iran’s power, reputation, and ability to deter attacks may have led both Iran and Israel to this moment. With its proxies damaged, Iran accelerated its move toward a proven deterrent (a nuclear arsenal), and pressed by this new urgency and Iran’s current weakness, Israel chose now to attack Iran’s increasingly threatening nuclear program. Like everything related to the Middle East, this is a gross oversimplification, but it’s an attempt to at least answer the question: Why now? Of course, the timing also has to do with who’s in charge of Israel’s top global ally. It will probably take a long time to unravel all the inner workings of Israel’s attack and America’s involvement (or lack thereof). Meanwhile, there are more immediate questions. How long will this go on? How will Iran respond (and how much of their ability to do so has been hindered)? And can global leaders stop this already shocking escalation from spiraling into a massive regional war? Graeme Wood in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Why Israel Struck Now: As Iran’s deterrence eroded, the risks of conflict climbed.
+ “Salami, who was 65, was known for taking a hardline stance against Iran’s rivals, including Israel and the US. Just last month, he had warned that Tehran would ‘open the gates of hell’ if attacked by either country.” Hossein Salami, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards chief, killed by Israel.
+ “On Friday morning, President Trump, in a social-media post, wrote, ‘I gave Iran a chance to make a deal’ but ‘they just couldn’t get it done.’ He said the Israeli strikes were carried out because of Tehran’s intransigence and urged the Iranians to reach a deal ‘before there is nothing left.'” It’s unclear at this point whether the US gave the greenlight or if Trump is just playing catch-up and trying to distract from his lack of influence in the conflicts he promised to solve. Whether as part of a unified strategy or something else, it’s clear that “U.S. negotiations with Iran aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear program were widely seen as an important way to preserve regional peace. They ended up being the perfect cover for a surprise Israeli attack.” WSJ (Gift Article): In Twist, U.S. Diplomacy Served as Cover for Israeli Surprise Attack.
+ “Israel’s assault was years in the making, the result of extensive intelligence gathering on Iran’s nuclear sites as well as on top military officials and scientists, according to three Israeli officials with knowledge of the operations.” Many top officials in the military and in Iran’s nuclear program were killed. The attacks on nuclear and other sites continue. The US is positioning warships to help Israel defend against Iranian attacks. More than 100 missiles have already been fired from Iran and some have already been intercepted over Jerusalem. Plumes of smoke have been seen over Tel Aviv. Here’s the latest from the New York Times, BBC, and Times of Israel.
+ (Meanwhile, to put your own weird family dynamics into perspective, consider that Netanyahu’s son is getting married this weekend.)
It’s a sign of just how fast and crazy the 2025 news cycle has gotten that the story (accompanied by a video) of US Senator being forced to the ground and handcuffed by the FBI is barely still on the front pages of news sites a day after it happened. Sen. Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from a Homeland Security press conference led by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in Los Angeles.
+ The event was sick and shocking. The spin that followed was just sick. The Manhandling of Alex Padilla Was a Red-Line Moment for America. “The essence of Trumpism is just this: Dig in the heel of the boot; step on the enemy’s neck; determine in any situation the action that would be appropriately small-d democratic, and then do the opposite—go intentionally overboard, do something that shocks and offends the democratic sensibility. And then lie about it and try to reverse reality—to convince America that it didn’t see what it just saw. That truth is not what it seems.” (Unbelievably, this tactic seems to work again and again.)
+ Here’s an interview with Padilla with his side of the story (which matches the video anyone can see and hear).
+ “Just a couple hours after a federal judge had ordered President Trump to relinquish control of the California National Guard saying he had violated the U.S. Constitution, an appeals court put the order on hold until a hearing on an appeal can be held Tuesday.” (The original decision was clear and obvious. The stay was disappointing.) Appeals court blocks earlier ruling, allows Trump to command California Guard for now.
+ Meanwhile, “there are no policy changes under way to exempt farm, hotel and other leisure workers from Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, the Washington Post reported on Friday, a day after the U.S. president vowed to issue an order for such workers.” (So who’s in charge?)
+ “Infantry in Twentynine Palms are training at the Marine Corps’ premier live-fire base to destroy the enemy. Their tactics are geared to locate, close with and destroy the People’s Liberation Army or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, not Angelenos.” Jake Auchincloss in WaPo (Gift Article): I’m a Marine. Trump is putting soldiers in an impossible position.
“The chatbot instructed him to give up sleeping pills and an anti-anxiety medication, and to increase his intake of ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic, which ChatGPT described as a ‘temporary pattern liberator.’ Mr. Torres did as instructed, and he also cut ties with friends and family, as the bot told him to have ‘minimal interaction’ with people.” Kashmir Hill in the NYT (Gift Article): They Asked an A.I. Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling. “People who say they were drawn into ChatGPT conversations about conspiracies, cabals and claims of A.I. sentience include a sleepless mother with an 8-week-old baby, a federal employee whose job was on the DOGE chopping block and an A.I.-curious entrepreneur. When these people first reached out to me, they were convinced it was all true. Only upon later reflection did they realize that the seemingly authoritative system was a word-association machine that had pulled them into a quicksand of delusional thinking.” (I’m old enough to remember when I was the internet’s premiere word-association machine…)
+ NYT (Gift Article): Welcome to Campus. Here’s Your ChatGPT. “OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has a plan to overhaul college education — by embedding its artificial intelligence tools in every facet of campus life.” (All that will left of tradition college life will be fake IDs and kegstands.)
+ Want to sit back and think about this AI stuff for a minute? Forget it. The AI arms race is only accelerating. The Verge: Meta is paying $14 billion to catch up in the AI race.
What to Movie: You need a light, quirky, musical, unique, feel-good movie to break up the weekend of intense news, protests, military parades, and your kids forgetting that its Father’s Day (OK, maybe that’s just my weekend). The Ballad of Wallis Island (on Peacock and elsewhere) is just the ticket.
+ What to Merch: My merch partner Cotton Bureau is celebrating their 12th anniversary with free shipping (use the code Happy12 at checkout). So this is the perfect time to score some NextDraft gear, from the logo Ts, to the Pro Democracy shirts, to the Fact Around and Find Out Tumbler. It’s all in the NextDraft Store.
+ What to Doc: “Oscar-winning filmmaker Ahmir ‘Questlove’ Thompson directs his sophomore feature documentary follow-up to ‘Summer of Soul.’ SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) examines the life and legacy of Sly & The Family Stone, the groundbreaking band led by the charismatic and enigmatic Sly Stone.” Sly Lives is on Hulu.
+ What to Pod: Michelle Obama welcomed Bruce Springsteen to her podcast.
Allow Me to Demonstrate: “Millions of people are expected to protest against the Trump administration on Saturday at roughly 2,000 sites nationwide in a demonstration dubbed ‘No Kings’, planned for the same day as the president’s military parade and birthday.” (This movement was expected to be big before the National Guard was called in and before a US Senator was thrown to the floor and handcuffed.) Three big questions: How big with the protests be? How will law enforcement react? And will the major news orgs cover them. Margaret Sullivan: Why are the media ignoring growing resistance to Trump?
+ Vote For Those Who Want You to Vote: “A federal judge on Friday blocked President Donald Trump’s attempt to overhaul elections in the U.S., siding with a group of Democratic state attorneys general who challenged the effort as unconstitutional.” With the moves by Trump polling at increasingly low levels, stopping these attempts to limit voting are even more vital.
+ Big Game: “Lobbyist Ches McDowell went from bear hunting with Donald Trump Jr. to Mar-a-Lago, and then to a prime perch in Washington.” Billy Warden with an interesting look at how the other political lives (and thrives). The Thrill of the Hunt.
+ Stood Up: “With travelers choosing alternate destinations, the American economy will lose out on $12.5 billion this year, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council—which will widen the trade deficit, because economists count spending by visitors to the country as an export. Here’s a look at the toll the president’s policies have taken on travel, in nine charts.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): Trump’s $12 Billion Tourism Wipeout. (And it’s not just travel to the US. Americans are starting to cancel trips abroad, too.)
+ Dr Demento: RFK Jr. sent Congress ‘medical disinformation‘ to defend COVID vaccine schedule change. (This is no longer the exception, it’s the norm.)
+ Avenatti By Nature: If your feeling nostalgic for the comparatively halcyon first Trump term when things were just really, really, really crazy, here’s a blast from the past. Former celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti gets nearly eight more years in prison at resentencing.
+ Emergency Exit: “It was the worst aviation disaster in a decade. Ramesh Viswashkumar, 40, was the sole person aboard the doomed flight to survive.” The extraordinary escape of the lone surviving passenger of the Air India crash.
+ Protein-age Wasteland: Protein is having a moment. Starbucks is now using cold foam as a delivery mechanism. Starbucks just developed an ingenious way to add 15 grams of protein to almost any drink. (Seems like we’re nearing that health trend tipping point when we learn that protein is actually the silent killer.)
“Liver cancer patients in the UK will be the first in Europe to benefit from the groundbreaking histotripsy procedure that involves no radiation or chemotherapy.” NHS to use scalpel-free ultrasound treatment to target tumors.
+ What does the Fox say? When a fox says ‘help’ in London, there’s often an ambulance on its way
+ The 800-Meter High School Record Has Stood Since 1996. A Sophomore Just Took It Down. Meanwhile, Summer McIntosh sets third world record in 5 days at Canadian Trials, matching a Michael Phelps milestone.
+ Mel Brooks is bringing us a Spaceballs sequel, as only Mel Brooks can.
+ There’s a chance that Trump’s military parade could face rain and even thunderstorms. Related: There’s a chance god exists.