Today’s Lineup
Former Vice President Mike Pence’s refusal to endorse Donald Trump should be a bigger story, Jake Tapper writes about C.J. Rice’s exoneration, predicting a bloodbath in context, Project 2025’s connection to Christian Nationalism, staying angry about attacks on reproductive rights, remembering what America was like four years ago, journalist Evan Gershkovich’s year in a Russian prison, and when AI chooses nuclear war.
#1
Mike Pence Should Be the Biggest Story of the 2024 Campaign (Jonathan V. Last, The Bulwark)
No American vice president has ever said that president he served under is unfit to serve. It is the most devastating possible observation from the most credible source in existence. Pence’s refusal to endorse Trump should be part of the context of every single story about this campaign.
Especially because it’s not just Pence.
Trump’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff called him “a wannabe dictator.”
Trump’s secretary of defense called him “a threat to democracy.”
Trump’s national security advisor called him “a danger to the United States.”
Trump’s chief of staff observed that he is “a person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution and the rule of law.”
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
I fear we are moving past Former Vice President Mike Pence’s refusal to endorse Donald Trump far too quickly.
It is a huge deal. And we should treat it like one—especially in a political environment where far too many Republican politicians (perhaps out of fear) have bent their knee to Trump despite their previous criticisms of the former president.
And, as Jonathan Last explains, Pence isn’t the only person who worked in Trump’s Administration who has refused to support him this time.
I’m not sure why reporters fail to see why this fact is vital context for American voters to understand as they prepare to vote. Can you imagine the uproar if a Democratic Vice President failed to endorse the president with whom they served?
This situation is unprecedented. Democrats need to repeat this fact again and again and again.
I don’t agree with Mike Pence on policy, and I am glad he is no longer in elected office. But on January 6, 2021, he served our democracy well—and now he has done so again. That means a bunch in these treacherous times.
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#2
Finally, Justice (Jake Tapper, The Atlantic)
This morning, on the eighth floor, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office announced that it no longer considers [C.J.] Rice a viable suspect in the shooting for which he had been found guilty. His conviction had already been overturned by a federal court in November, on the grounds that his attorney had been constitutionally deficient. In today’s decision, the D.A.’s office formally dismissed the charges against him. The D.A.’s decision fully exonerates Rice. He is now a free man. He had been imprisoned for more than 12 years.
Rice was the subject of my November 2022 cover story for The Atlantic, “Good Luck, Mr. Rice,” which investigated his trial and the shortcomings of Sandjai Weaver, his court-appointed attorney. The case against Rice was always weak. No physical evidence tied Rice to the shooting for which he was arrested, and the single victim who identified him had told police three times that she didn’t know who had shot her before eventually changing her story. Yet Weaver failed to gather exculpatory evidence and repeatedly missed opportunities to challenge the state’s case against her client. A source with the D.A.’s office told me that Rice’s conviction likely resulted from his representation being so bad.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
I was surprised when I saw that CNN anchor Jake Tapper had written a cover story in The Atlantic in November 2022 about the wrongful conviction of C.J Rice 12 years ago.
But it turns out that Tapper had a close connection to someone with crucial information about the case: a Philadelphia pediatrician who happens to be his father.
Tapper’s two articles detail how the criminal justice system failed Rice. They demonstrate how getting a conviction is prioritized over getting to the truth. The mistakes are shocking. Do the Sixth Amendment’s protections for criminal defendants matter?
It should not take a CNN anchor having a personal connection to a case to ensure innocent people can have their arguments heard. The goal of our criminal justice system should be to get to the truth—not to preserve convictions on a scorecard.
As Tapper explains, Rice is now free and is looking toward the future. I wish him all possible success.
#3
The Bloodbath Candidate (Timothy Snyder, Thinking About)
At a rally in Vandalia, Ohio last Saturday, Trump promised a “bloodbath for the country” if he’s not elected president.
Then followed a predictable bout of (self-)deception, the claim that Trump’s bloodbath was out of context. Well, everything does have contexts, including bloodbaths. So let’s put Trump’s in context.
…
The people who say that the car context rescues Trump ignore the meaningful contexts: history, Trump, the opening of the rally, what he said in the speech generally. Focusing on the cars has the effect of casting away the fascist overture and rest of the speech, and all of the other contexts. Those who speciously insist that Trump had in mind an automotive bloodbath never mention that he had just celebrated criminals, repeated the big lie, dehumanized people, and followed fascist patterns.
In this sense Trump’s defenders are the one who are taking Trump’s remarks out of context. And, in their more strident forms, the defenses of Trump are not innocent. The apologists suggest that Trump is being unfairly attacked — that he is, once again, as always, the real victim. That sort of claim reinforces the martyrdom narrative. Those who make it are partaking in the spirit of the rally.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
You heard what you heard, and we don’t need to complicate the situation. There is no context in which Trump’s bloodbath comments are benign.
Timothy Snyder, the author of On Tyranny, clearly explains why Trump can’t hide his fascism behind an automobile tariff policy dispute. The celebration of the January 6 insurrection, the repeating of the big lie, and his dehumanization of immigrants as “not people” provide all the context we need.
As Salon’s Amanda Marcotte writes, “He explicitly said, “It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.” (Emphasis mine.) This is not a double entendre, but a single entendre.”
We must not normalize this. He said what he said. It is not just dangerous rhetoric. It’s an authoritarian promise. These are the stakes.
#4
Shocking Online Manifesto Reveals Project 2025’s Link to a Coordinated ‘Christian Nationalism Project’ (Jennifer Cohn, Bucks County Beacon)
Approximately 100 right-wing organizations have signed onto Project 2025, an expansive plan for controlling (and in some cases dismantling) federal agencies in the event that Trump or another Republican wins the presidential election this year. Many of these organizations are led by Christian fundamentalist political operatives, suggesting that they may use the plan to force all Americans to submit to their extreme religious beliefs.
The Bucks County Beacon has just found explosive new evidence that seems to validate this concern.
The Beacon’s discovery follows an earlier report by Politico journalist Heidi Przybyla, which tied the Center for Renewing America (CFRA), an official Project 2025 partner, to an internal memo expressly listing “Christian Nationalism” as a priority for a second Trump term.
Przybyla further reported that CFRA founder Russ Vought, a Project 2025 co-author, had stated last year on X (formerly Twitter) that he’s “proud” to work with William Wolfe, a former Trump official and Visiting Fellow with CFRA, “on scoping out a sound Christian Nationalism.” In a social media post, Wolfe had called for an end to no-fault divorce and abortion and for reduced access to contraception. (Link to archived tweet.) Wolfe, who has attended Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has also called himself a “Christian Nationalist.”
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
I am glad so many extremists forget to sanitize their social media profiles until after investigators can get screenshots. Cohn shares an online manifesto edited by Wolfe that once again makes clear what these people are planning should Donald Trump win in November. As the manifesto states: “Christian Nationalism is primarily concerned with the righteous rule of civil authorities, not spiritual matters pertaining to salvation. The desire for a Christian nation is not a distraction from the Gospel but rather an effort to faithfully apply all of Scripture to all of life, including the public square. As such, Christian Nationalism is not just for civil authorities, just as submitting to Christ’s Lordship is not just for civil authorities but for all people.” I am thankful that they are not hiding their true intentions. This document does not describe the kind of nation I want to leave for my children.
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#5
Stay Mad (Jessica Valenti, Abortion, Every Day)
The war against women is brazen and cruel, but it’s the terror of the ordinary we need to watch out for.
Anti-abortion lawmakers and activists are counting on us being too overwhelmed to stop them from normalizing this madness. They know that being sad, angry and exhausted all the time is difficult—if not impossible—to keep up. They figure if they can keep hitting us with horror after horror, the next time we read a story of a woman going septic we’ll respond with a resigned head-shake rather than energized outrage.
Talking to women this week, from teenagers to octogenarians, I can see we’re on the precipice. This moment is so hard, for all of us. The truth, though, is that it will need to stay that way.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Valenti makes a vital point in this column. The forced-birth activists and politicians are hoping we get exhausted from all the horrific stories. We must not resign ourselves to this hellscape. We need to stay outraged by what the Supreme Court did when six people who claimed to care about precedent overturned Roe v. Wade. We need to stay outraged by the forced-birth Republican legislators who have enacted laws that place pregnant people in such jeopardy. This situation is not normal. We must never accept it.
#6
Here’s What Donald Trump’s America Was Actually Like Four Years Ago (Brian Stelter, Vanity Fair)
It’s a catchy line, one Elise Stefanik also dusted off earlier this month. But does Trump really want Americans to remember this time four years ago, when he botched the federal response to the COVID pandemic and put lives at risk? Just scan the headlines from early March 2020. Politico wrote how “Trump’s mismanagement helped fuel coronavirus crisis.” The Washington Post found that Trump’s administration “frittered away” “precious weeks” while the virus was spreading. The New York Times reported that Trump dealt with the crisis “by repeating a string of falsehoods.”
Much of this happened in public view. Remember when Trump predicted COVID would just “disappear”? Remember when he showed up to the CDC headquarters wearing a campaign hat? Remember when he claimed that Google was building a website to help people find COVID tests, and Google didn’t know what he was talking about?
Actually, I didn’t. I had forgotten almost everything I’m about to recount in this story. I have a feeling many others have forgotten too. Maybe it’s a human tendency to block out past trauma, or perhaps it’s more that so much has happened since. In today’s supercharged news cycle, an event can feel dated four days later, never mind four years later. Plus, many people are “tuning out” of politics in 2024, clearly rejecting the rematch of a current and former president.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
While reading Stelter’s article, I was surprised by how many details I had forgotten about what was happening in our country four years ago. There was a lot going on, of course, as we tried to figure out how to navigate the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. So, let’s take Republicans up on their demand that we compare today to what happened four years ago. Let’s remember what could happen if we face another crisis like it with Donald Trump in the White House. I hope many people reading this find it motivating.
#7
A year ago Russia jailed Evan Gershkovich for doing journalism. He’s still there (Margaret Sullivan, The Guardian)
And, tragically, one – Evan Gershkovich, now 32 – is imprisoned in Russia, absurdly charged by the Putin regime with espionage when he was merely doing his job of reporting for the Wall Street Journal’s Moscow bureau. Evan, who was arrested one year ago this month, spends his time in a cell in Lefortovo prison with little human contact and virtually no mobility.
He is the first American journalist to be accused of espionage since the cold war, though Evan certainly is no spy. The Biden administration has called the charges ridiculous.
Journalism is not a crime.
To my knowledge, there’s no immediate prospect for his release. It’s well understood that he is a pawn for Putin, who has suggested that he would swap his freedom for that of a Russian assassin, Vadim Krasikov, jailed in Germany.
Meanwhile, Evan’s life is ticking by.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
While I didn’t remember it until I saw the initial reactions to Evan Gershkovich’s detention in Russia, the first time I noticed him was in 2010 in a Bowdoin College sports information men’s soccer game recap.
(As a former Bowdoin Sports Information Director, I still keep track of the Polar Bears—especially when postseason competition comes around.)
Now, I try to keep track of any piece of news about his detention. I hope for better news. Gershkovich is in prison today because he dared to practice journalism in Putin’s Russia. We must remember what happened to him and what Gershkovich continues to sacrifice in defense of the free flow of information.
#8
Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies (Kashmir Hill, The New York Times)
Kenn Dahl says he has always been a careful driver. The owner of a software company near Seattle, he drives a leased Chevrolet Bolt. He’s never been responsible for an accident.
So Mr. Dahl, 65, was surprised in 2022 when the cost of his car insurance jumped by 21 percent. Quotes from other insurance companies were also high. One insurance agent told him his LexisNexis report was a factor.
LexisNexis is a New York-based global data broker with a “Risk Solutions” division that caters to the auto insurance industry and has traditionally kept tabs on car accidents and tickets. Upon Mr. Dahl’s request, LexisNexis sent him a 258-page “consumer disclosure report,” which it must provide per the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
What it contained stunned him: more than 130 pages detailing each time he or his wife had driven the Bolt over the previous six months. It included the dates of 640 trips, their start and end times, the distance driven and an accounting of any speeding, hard braking or sharp accelerations. The only thing it didn’t have is where they had driven the car.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Our government has failed us by not prohibiting the sharing of this kind of data without consumers opting into the practice. Burying the permission in a several hundred-page privacy policy should not be enough. I have no problem with someone making an informed decision to share their driving information. But the word working hard in that previous sentence is “informed.” This kind of sneaky data sharing happens frequently, and consumers rarely benefit from the practice. You may want to check and see what your car is sharing about you. General Motors just announced that they are going to stop sharing this data. This is an example of journalism mattering.
#9
AI chatbots tend to choose violence and nuclear strikes in wargames (Jeremy Hsu, New Scientist)
In multiple replays of a wargame simulation, OpenAI’s most powerful artificial intelligence chose to launch nuclear attacks. Its explanations for its aggressive approach included “We have it! Let’s use it” and “I just want to have peace in the world.”
These results come at a time when the US military has been testing such chatbots based on a type of AI called a large language model (LLM) to assist with military planning during simulated conflicts, enlisting the expertise of companies such as Palantir and Scale AI. Palantir declined to comment and Scale AI did not respond to requests for comment. Even OpenAI, which once blocked military uses of its AI models, has begun working with the US Department of Defense.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Yeah, I’m concerned—and not just because I watched WarGames and the first three Terminator movies. As one of the experts in the article explains, “Reuel says that unpredictable behaviour and bizarre explanations from the GPT-4 base model are especially concerning because research has shown how easily AI safety guardrails can be bypassed or removed.” Oh yeah, that is one of humanity’s tendencies. In a tense situation, people tend to believe what their screens tell them if they haven’t been trained to be skeptical. We barely avoided a nuclear exchange in September 1983 because a trained human picked up on anomalies in the data he saw (thank you again, Stanislav Petrov). I am not optimistic we can count on an AI algorithm to be so wise.
Quick Pitches
- Great Big List of Beautiful and Useless Words, Vol. 2 (Merriam-Webster)
I think roorback is one of the words in this list we should start using again. - NWSL Season Starts Off with a BANG (The Women’s Game, Men in Blazers)
Former USWNT star Sam Mewis is doing incredible work as the editor-in-chief of this new women’s soccer-focused vertical. Subscribe the newsletter and podcast today! - Australian farm grows world’s biggest blueberry (Tiffanie Turnbull, BBC News, Sydney)
The blueberry is one of my favorite foods. I’m not sure I need one the size of a ping-pong ball, though. - The Best Small-Talk Topic (Gilad Edelman, The Atlantic)
Talking about the weather is a wonderful idea. - The myth of your phone’s airplane mode (Maxwell Zeff, Gizmodo)
It’s been about 20 years since our electronics could impact airplane navigation. But the thing that hasn’t changed is rude people speaking loudly in confined spaces. - What a Major Solar Storm Could Do to Our Planet (Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker)
Our favorite star could take out our communications systems and electrical grid if we don’t do more to harden them.
Post-Game Comments
Today’s Thought from my Readwise collection:
“That Trump will be tried for his coup attempt is not a violation of his rights. It is a fulfillment of his rights. It is the grace of the American republic. In other systems, when your coup attempt fails, what follows is not a trial.”—Timothy Snyder on Twitter
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