Tag: #Import 2025-04-02 22:28

Here are five things I have found interesting since my last post.

1. Perhaps after this Speaker of the House election, we will see reporters more open to writing “Republicans in disarray” stories? Ah, a person can dream. I think New York’s Ed Kilgore makes an important observation about the dynamics we are watching: “You may have heard the old saying about academic politics being especially vicious because the stakes are so low. In many respects, that thought also applies to the bitter fight underway for control of the U.S. House Republican Conference. Whether right-wing rebels succeed or fail in once again derailing Kevin McCarthy’s lifelong ambition to become Speaker, House Republicans will have relatively little power in the current Congress to do much of anything other than cutting demonstrative capers and holding show-trial investigations of various fever-swamp rabbit holes. That’s important to understand before falling prey to the prevailing narrative of McCarthy as a sort of paragon of civilization battling to stave off the vandals of the House Freedom Caucus.” Kilgore explains that the policy differences here are minor—nothing changes whether or not McCarthy is elected. The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols emphasizes this point, “But McCarthy’s misery is secondary to the real story behind the hijinks of the Republican defectors tormenting their own leader. McCarthy and others have asked what the rebels want—but they do not understand that the rebels have no tangible goals. A significant part of the Republican Party, and especially its base, now lives in a post-policy world. Governing is nothing. The show is everything.” This situation shouldn’t be surprising given that the Republican Party did not have a platform going into the 2020 election. And, as Esquire’s Charlie Pierce explains, McCarthy will look even lamer if he has to move out of the Speaker’s offices if his move-in power move to make his election appear inevitable fails. 

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2. New York’s Justine van der Leun profiles Kelly Harnett and demonstrates how often our criminal justice harshly sentences women for crimes committed by their partners, friends, or spouses. After being charged with murder for being present as her abusive boyfriend killed someone, Harnett became a jailhouse lawyer and learned enough to help other people with their cases. Van der Leun writes, “Harnett became focused on the ways in which the criminal legal system targeted women and specifically survivors of abuse like herself. She discovered that nearly all her friends inside had been abused before they came to prison and that, for most, the abuse was in some way directly connected to their incarceration. “I looked around and thought, If it wasn’t for her abuser, she wouldn’t be here. And if it wasn’t for her abuser, she wouldn’t be here,” she said. There were about 30 women in the room. Harnett envisioned releasing everyone who had a crime related to enduring abuse: In her mind’s eye, the room emptied out; just two remained.” While Harnett learns about New York’s Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act, which gives judges the discretion to sentence domestic violence survivors convicted of crimes related to their abuse to shorter terms, it takes her years to seek that remedy for herself. Harnett’s story has its twists and turns, but it highlights how difficult it is for people who have been convicted to get their cases reviewed when new evidence comes to light. 

3. Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day recaps the news from across the country regarding reproductive freedom and sexual and reproductive health care. We learn that Texas teenagers can no longer get birth control without permission from their parents, a situation even more alarming given how few students in that state take health classes. Kansas legislators are trying to figure out how to restrict abortion rights despite a vote of the public last November. The FDA finally changed the rules around abortion medication to allow retail pharmacies to dispense the pills. Abortion medication is one of the new areas where forced-birth conservatives are focusing their attacks on these rights. 

4. It was a sad day for the United States Men’s National Soccer Team’s fans as we saw two of the nation’s most prominent soccer families descend into a Shakespearian-level tragedy. We witnessed a decades-long relationship unravel in public, a cleavage seemingly sparked over the lack of playing time one of those old friends gave to his other friend’s son at the recent Men’s World Cup. As ESPN’s Jeff Carlisle and Kyle Bonagura explain, “Danielle Reyna, wife of former United States men’s national team captain Claudio and mother of current international player Gio, says she told U.S. Soccer sporting director Earnie Stewart about USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter’s past domestic violence incident because she was frustrated by comments made about her son after the team’s elimination from the 2022 World Cup.” Danielle Reyna was aware of the domestic violence incident because the victim was her college roommate—Rosalind Berhalter, the then-girlfriend, and the current wife, of coach Gregg Berhalter. As Men in Blazers’ Roger Bennett explained in a tweet, “Heartbreaking: A childhood friendship forged between 2 Jersey kids who grew up playing on same club team, going on to rep US at World Cups, marry 2 elite College teammates, then fracture decades of trust and history as bloodlines drawn over next generation. Dark day for our Sport.” Bennett also hosted an emergency podcast to try to put all of this into perspective. U.S. Soccer needs to act transparently and quickly as it finishes its investigations. I feel for Rosalind Berhalter here, as this personal situation became public without her permission. This controversy provides another reminder that victims must be allowed to control their stories.  

5. The Long Game’s Molly Knight examines how the horrific injury Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered on Monday night exposes the best and worst of human reactions. She writes, “While millions of viewers sat stunned and horrified as NFL medics delivered life-saving CPR and an AED defibrillator, Hamlin’s teammates openly wept. I knew it was bad and wanted more information, so I made the mistake of opening Twitter. I do not follow monsters or conspiracy theorists on there. But the problem is, a lot of good people I do follow retweet terrible takes from soulless trolls to dunk on them or shame them into either re-thinking their positions or simply deleting the offending tweets. I used to do this, too. Unfortunately, hurting people and/or getting a rise out of them only emboldens these trolls to accelerate their cravenness, and has the reverse intended effect of amplifying their noxious views to those who may be vulnerable to conspiracy theories.” The anti-vaxxers had quite a moment (again) spreading their misinformation and lies. This situation is personal for Knight because she suffered severe post-COVID symptoms and is, as she notes, a woman working in sports. But Knight also observed that another part of the community came together and donated to Hamlin’s GoFundMe for a toy drive in a show of support. The original goal was $2,500. That effort has now raised over $7 million. I look forward to Hamlin being able to shape how these donations change lives after he recovers. 

Quick Pitches: 

Two years ago today, former President Donal Trump told a Georgia rally, “I hope Mike Pence comes through for us. I have to tell you … of course if he doesn’t come through, I don’t like him quite as much.” Hopefully, the Department of Justice will take note. (Aaron Rupar, Twitter)

California Matters’ Sameea Kamal and Jeremia Kimelman put together an excellent feature explaining how California’s state government works. 

A baseball blindspot: where are the women umpires? That’s an excellent question, and given the umpire shortage, one MLB must address. (Bill Pruden, Here’s the Pitch)

English soccer star David Beckham surprised many when he came to the United States to play in Major League Soccer at the end of his career. Here’s how he turned that contract into over $500 million. (Joseph Pompliano, Huddle Up)

Most people use Google for their web searches. Microsoft’s Bing search engine has lagged well behind. But now Bing may be able to take a significant step forward by integrating ChatGPT artificial intelligence into its search results. Might we see a new level of competition in this space? (Tom Warren, The Verge)

Honestly, The USMNT tearing itself apart because a dad was angry about his kid’s playing time really is the best example we could give to the world of American Soccer.

— PodKATT (@valleyshook) January”> 6:25 PM ∙ Jan 4, 2023

Today’s Thought: 

“What they’re really interested in is chaos…They want to throw sand in the gears of the hated federal government until it fails and they’ve finally proved that it’s beyond saving.

Every time they vote down a bill, they get another invitation to go on Fox News or talk radio. It’s a narcissistic—and dangerous—feedback loop.”

—Former Speaker of the House John Boehner, from On the House: A Washington Memoir

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1. Medical staff gave Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin CPR for nine minutes after he collapsed with cardiac arrest during Monday night’s NFL game against the Cincinnati Bengals. He left the field in an ambulance while a national television audience—and players and coaches from both teams—watched. The latest report as I write this has Hamlin still in critical condition. The Nation’s Dave Zirin examines how the NFL’s leadership failed by initially signaling they would restart the game after Hamlin almost died on the field in The NFL Just Showed the World What It Thinks of Its Players. “But the players and coaches on the Bengals and Bills had seen enough and they refused to “play.” While the league was still twiddling its thumbs, coaches were meeting, players were getting dressed, and, at their behest, the game would be postponed. It’s important to note that the league only called the game after player reps from both teams contacted the union, the NFLPA, which informed the league that the game was done. This was a workplace action. Participants exercised their collective power and demanded that their trauma, their grief, their very humanity be recognized.” Zirin rightly calls upon the NFL owners to fire Commissioner Roger Godell over his latest failure of compassion and leadership. I am also stunned that the NFL (and perhaps other major sports leagues) do not have a protocol for this kind of medical situation after the justified criticism aimed last summer at the European soccer body UEFA after Danish star Christian Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest in a game against Finland. Why wasn’t the NFL prepared?

2. ProPublica’s Daniel Golden shares an investigation demonstrating how untenured faculty in Florida universities are canceling classes because of fear officials could fire them in the wake of new laws prohibiting the teaching of critical race theory. “A month before the fall 2022 semester was set to start, he scrapped both courses. Students scrambled to register for other classes. “It didn’t seem like it was worth the risk,” said Cox, who taught a graduate course on inequality and education instead. “I’m completely unprotected.” He added, “Somebody who’s not even in the class could come after me. Somebody sees the course catalog, complains to a legislator — next thing I know, I’m out of a job.” This result is what Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the supporters of the anti-CRT laws wanted to see. The students and untenured faculty are facing ongoing consequences. 

3. Should you have the right to repair the electronics you purchase without returning them to the manufacturer? New York’s Chris Stanton updates us on the gains made by the right-to-repair movement in the face of opposition from companies like Apple after New York state became the latest to pass one of these laws. “Dubbed the Digital Fair Repair Act, the bill centers microchip-powered devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops. When it goes into effect on July 1, 2023, the law will require manufacturers to supply consumers and independent repair shops in New York with the tools, parts, and manuals required to fix their devices at a reasonable cost, effectively democratizing resources that manufacturers have increasingly restricted to their own repair networks. To its supporters, the fact that the bill received bipartisan support in Albany offers further proof of the right-to-repair movement’s broad appeal — as a cost-saving initiative for consumers; a lifeline for independent repair businesses; and a step toward reducing e-waste, a fast-growing and notoriously toxic waste stream.” A similar bill in California died in the Senate Appropriations Committee last May. I hope to see it revived as the new California Legislature begins its session. 

4. Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day recaps the news from across the country regarding reproductive freedom and sexual and reproductive health care. Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin is planning to introduce 12-week abortion ban legislation; a bill in North Dakota would require doctors to prove rape, incest, health, and life exceptions in court; and anti-abortion activists in Georgia are seeking to ban abortion medication. Also worth watching: some national forced pregnancy groups are furious with former President Donald Trump for his comments blaming their extreme views for the GOP’s underperformance in the 2022 elections. 

5. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar writes one of my favorite Substacks because he covers many political and cultural issues with wisdom and insight. He begins his most recent newsletter with a thoughtful message explaining his point of view. “Most of the issues I write about concern power, especially those who crave it and abuse it—always at the expense of others. The struggle for civil rights—whether based on race, gender, LGBTQ+, ethnic origin, or religion—is always about those with power and money trying to suppress those without. That’s how they keep their power and money. But in a democracy, they can’t do it alone, they need to enlist followers, usually those without power and money who greedily will do anything to get it, or those who blindly worship those who have it.” It is so important to recognize and understand these dynamics. 

Quick Pitches: 

Happy perihelion day! At 11:17 a.m. eastern time on Wednesday, January 4, the Earth will be at the point in its orbit where our planet is closest to the sun. (Phil Plait, Bad Astronomy)

The United States military received $858 billion in the recently passed omnibus bill—including billions more than the Pentagon requested. Those 770 federal lobbyists for the defense industry are effective. (Judd Legum, Popular Information)

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Here are five things I have found interesting since my last post:

1. It has been tricky for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to secure the votes needed to become the next Speaker of the House because it is impossible to govern in a coalition with nihilists. David R. Lurie provides this helpful overview of how the House GOP got here, starting with the creation of the Freedom Caucus. Given the GOP’s small majority, McCarthy has been trying to negotiate with people who aren’t interested in governing. As Lurie writes, “Indeed, extremists’ embrace of efforts to weaken the power of their own congressional leadership — and more importantly, their aggressive efforts to undermine democracy itself — evince a single-minded effort to undermine public confidence in the institutions of government.” Lurie rightly cautions liberals not to celebrate this dysfunction because “[t]he cost to the country, and indeed the world, arising from such a decomposition of governance in Congress could be extremely high.”

Thanks for reading As I Was Saying by Craig Cheslog! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

2. Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day recaps the news from across the country regarding reproductive freedom and sexual and reproductive health care. One of the stories Valenti shares is one out of Arizona, where the state’s Department of Corrections is forcibly inducing the labor of incarcerated pregnant women. As Valenti writes, “Last week I wrote about my fear that abortion bans wouldn’t just impact the medical care of those who need abortions—but pregnant patients set to give birth whose treatment might change because of laws requiring equal care to women and fetuses. Though the Department of Corrections here seems to be forcing inductions because of legal liability rather than abortion legislation, fetal personhood laws have been used in the past to force pregnant women into medical procedures they didn’t want. And the way that the most marginalized among us—like incarcerated women—are treated is a glimpse into the future that conservatives want for all American women.” And that last point is why I will keep sharing Valenti’s vital work in this space. 

3. On January 1, copyrighted works from 1927, including the final Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle and the movie Jazz Singer, entered the public domain. Ellen Wexler at the Smithsonian Magazine explains the situation and shares some of the works that people can more easily share without worrying about getting permission or paying a fee to a copyright holder. Puck’s Eriq Gardner notes how “everyone is counting down to an even greater prize: “Steamboat Willie,” otherwise known as the earliest version of Mickey Mouse, which will enter the public domain on Jan. 1, 2024” to explain how complicated this law can be. After all, knowing that while in 2033 the first Superman comic may enter the public domain, but that his power of flight didn’t appear until later could be helpful as these conversations continue. Here’s a link to a gift article so you can read Gardner’s writing even if you are not presently a Puck subscriber. 

4. The New York Times’ Dennis Overbye explains that the James Webb Space Telescope (gift article) is doing even better than scientists hoped in an article looking back a year after its launch. The photographs are breathtaking, and the scientists are excited. Overbye writes, “One by one, astronomers marched to the podium and, speaking rapidly to obey the 12-minute limit, blitzed through a cosmos of discoveries. Galaxies that, even in their relative youth, had already spawned supermassive black holes. Atmospheric studies of some of the seven rocky exoplanets orbiting Trappist 1, a red dwarf star that might harbor habitable planets.” It is good to remember that our species is capable of extraordinary achievements. 

5. Molly Knight is one of my favorite writers, and she is currently running a 20 percent off sale for subscriptions to her The Long Game Substack. I followed her for her baseball coverage, but she has also created a wonderful community despite dealing with many negative things over the past year. One of my favorite experiences in 2022 was participating in a group Knight facilitated that read and discussed Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. She is about to launch another course on January 9. As Knight explains, “Again, if you want to join us in this course, all you have to do is be a paid subscriber and then email me. If you can’t make it every week, don’t worry. Don’t use that as an excuse not to sign up! This is not a punitive course. It is gentle and encouraging and you never have to talk on the Zoom if you don’t want to. The goal is to come together to support each other on whatever we are working on. Maybe something someone says will unlock something for you? We have a handful of folks who enjoyed the course we did last summer and fall that they have signed up again.” I’m one of those folks, and I wouldn’t have started this newsletter without the conversations we had last fall. So now is a great time to subscribe to The Long Game and join in. 

Quick Pitches: 

• Digby notes that the outgoing January 6 select committee has asked the White House to help protect the identities of critical witnesses. Can anyone doubt the Trumpists would retaliate against them? (Digby, Hullabaloo)
• My Chicago Cubs have removed a ton of ground balls from their lineup this winter. More line drives and fly balls could lead to better results, and it’s a better strategy. (Brett Taylor, Bleacher Nation)
• Ice crystals in the air can create incredible images. (Phil Plait, Bad Astronomy)
• Daniel Story reviews every English Premier League team’s status after a weekend of unexpected results. (The Score from Daniel Story)

1. James Fallows shares the questions he would ask about Southwest Airlines’ meltdown last week, bringing his experience covering the airline since his time at the Texas Tribune in the 1970s. He covers the impact of deregulation and discusses whether Southwest’s point-to-point route model created more issues. But he points directly at corporate incompetence and greed for being the likely culprits: “Modern air travel is complex on a level rivaling the D-Day invasion. And modern first-world airlines have geared themselves up for that challenge. It appears that one of them did not—despite receiving billions of dollars in public aid during the pandemic, despite having spent billions on stock buybacks that benefited only their shareholders, despite very generous pay for its executive leadership…”

2. The Guardian’s Richard Luscombe recaps a successful and busy year in space exploration. The James Webb Space Telescope has provided breathtaking images, Artemis I successfully took Snoopy around the moon, and the Dart mission was a breakthrough for planetary defense. I hope we continue to learn more in 2023. 

3. The Nation’s Dave Zirin is one of the best writers about the impact of sports and society on each other, and he shares a recap of an especially troubling 2022. We saw the all-too-successful sportswashing results from the Winter Olympics in Beijing, the Men’s World Cup in Qatar, and the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund’s financing of a new world golf tour. The Biden Administration’s efforts to free WNBA star Brittney Griner was great December news, but her ordeal exposed significant issues. As Zirin explains, “Far from uniting with one voice, most of the sports media ignored her plight, and many athletes and the media followed suit. The disrespect and erasure she endured seemed all too familiar to the marginalized communities that saw themselves in Griner. It also reflected how women’s sports are marginalized more generally.”

4. Scott Galloway offers some predictions for 2023 in his No Mercy, No Malice newsletter. You may have heard some of these on his Prof G podcast or on Pivot with Kara Swisher. He discusses the economy, technology trends, and hopes that we have reached the peak of idolizing tech billionaires. (I also hope for that last one.)

5. Jason Kottke shares how Our First Closeup Image of Mars Was a Paint-By-Numbers Pastel Drawing. He explains, “On July 15, 1965, NASA’s Mariner 4 probe flew within 6,118 miles of the surface of Mars, capturing images as it passed over the planet. The image data was transmitted back to scientists on Earth, but they didn’t have a good way to quickly render a photograph from it. They determined that the fastest way to see what Mariner 4 had seen was to print out the imaging data as a series of numbers, paste them into a grid, buy a set of pastels from a nearby art store, and do a paint-by-numbers job with the pastels on the data grid.”

1. It should not be difficult for wrongfully convicted people to get a judge to review new evidence or science relevant to their case. The Innocence Project shared a story about how a wrongfully convicted man used a re-run of the Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters to prove his innocence. “In 2007, John Galvan was about 21 years into a life sentence for a crime he didn’t commit when he saw something on the prison television he thought might finally help him prove his innocence and secure his freedom: A re-run of an episode of the Discovery Channel’s MythBusters.” Galvin was convicted after a coerced false confession under the theory that he and two others had “started the fire by throwing a bottle filled with gasoline at the building and then tossing a cigarette into the pool of gasoline on the porch to ignite it.” That Mythbusters episode demonstrated that while this may be a frequent plot point in movies and television shows, it isn’t scientifically possible. It took 15 years for Galvin and his attorneys to use this science to get the false convictions suppressed. Illinois freed Galvin and the two others falsely convicted earlier this year after they served a combined 105 years in prison for a crime they did not commit. 

2. Jessica Valenti warns about the next lie forced birth activists will try to use to keep women and people capable of becoming pregnant from receiving necessary health care. Republicans have learned that the radical laws they’ve enacted are unpopular with voters. As Valenti explains, “And with horror stories from anti-choice states rolling in at record speed—from sobbing cancer patients and raped children being denied care to women going into sepsis—conservatives have realized that they need a new message and tweaked legislation. And they need it fast.” So we are about to see anti-choice activists suggest amendments to these laws to guarantee equal care for the mother and child. But this is just another so-called abortion exception that is a lie designed to protect Republican politicians instead of patients. Valenti shares how this equal care standard would have complicated critical medical decisions during her pregnancy. Doctors and patients should make health care decisions, not political activists. 

3. Humanity does not have a plan for what to do if we detect a signal from an alien civilization. And this could be a problem, as The Guardian’s Ian Sample explains. “It would be a transformative event for humankind, one the world’s nations are surely prepared for. Or are they? “Look at the mess we made when Covid hit. We’d be like headless chickens,” says Dr John Elliott, a computational linguist at the University of St Andrews. “We cannot afford to be ill-prepared, scientifically, socially, and politically rudderless, for an event that could happen at any time and which we cannot afford to mismanage.” Elliott is bringing together researchers to propose ways to get ready, including whether we should even respond. That’s a complicated question, one scientists and science fiction writers like Liu Cixin (in his masterpiece The Three-Body Problem) have considered. I don’t think we should respond because of the risks involved, but I am glad some people are thinking about this challenge. 

4. Ten Major League umpires are retiring this year, the highest number since 1999. As Bleacher Nation’s Brett Taylor explains, this kind of turnover has some benefits: “The sudden openings mean MLB will be able to promote ten new umpires from the minor leagues, where there will already have been familiarity with the new rules, and, in most cases, with the automated balls and strikes system.” That is a good point. But I continue to be stunned that a couple of particularly bad umpires are not on this list and continue on like a bad sitcom. 

5. President Ulysses S. Grant couldn’t hear music and was particularly sensitive to military songs. As Salon’s Matthew Rozsa writes, Grant (along with Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft had “…congenital amusia, or an inability to hear music and understand it as — well — music. To those with the condition, music typically sounds cacophonous, like noise.” I may need to use this factoid in pub trivia someday. 

1. We must stop tolerating the police and prosecutors who do not seem to care if their lies and mistakes put innocent people in jail. ProPublica’s Brett Murphy exposes how a small-town Ohio police officer has successfully spread the junk science idea that it is possible to tell if a 911 caller is lying. Murphy’s article, They Called 911 for Help. Police and Prosecutors Used a New Junk Science to Decide They Were Liars, made me angrier with each paragraph. Police and prosecutors who believe in this junk science have sent innocent people to jail. Here’s one example shared by Murphy: 

“Almost everything Carpenter said — and didn’t say — was evidence of deception, according to the state police agent who analyzed her call.

Lewis found 39 guilty indicators and zero indicators of innocence. Carpenter was arrested eight days later. Newspapers and television stations published the 56-year-old’s mugshot.

She spent three months in jail before someone else confessed to the crime.” (emphasis added)

This outcome is wrong. We need to keep junk science out of our courtrooms. And I was also not surprised to learn that the person pushing this fallacy is a police officer who has made misogynistic and transphobic posts on Facebook. 

2. It turns out election disinformation isn’t just for national elections. The Los Angeles Times’ Mark Barabak focuses his column, It’s not just Russia and China targeting Washington. Disinformation is a problem in local races too, on a school board race in the San Ramon Unified School District. This school district is in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area, about 20 minutes south of where I live. A radical conservative candidate won the election by 236 votes. But, as Barabak explains, supporters of the winning candidate spread a lie about an opponent’s background. It could have been a factor in the result. Barabak’s column does a great job of amplifying the original reporting in this story by the East Bay Times’ Rachel Heimann Mercader.

3. Parker Malloy shares was she wrote for the annual journalism predictions effort by Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab in this post at her The Present Age Substack. She explains what she believes the dire financial situation in the media ecosystem will likely cause. “I worry that all of this will make the media ecosystem so weak that what’s left will be a mess of “pink slime” content, politically driven propaganda, and a reliance on curated material from outlets chasing new subscriptions and an ever-shrinking share of ad revenue, tied to the whims and business decisions of billionaire social media tycoons. And that’s where the moral panics come in.” I fear that’s correct. Malloy also highlights some other predictions you may find helpful to have in mind for the coming year.  

4. Molly Knight is one of my favorite baseball writers, and she recaps her 2022 in this post on her The Long Game Substack. It hasn’t been an easy year for her, but she’s continued to write outstanding articles about many subjects and build a fun community. Even if you don’t like baseball, reading how the COVID-19 infection she got at the All-Star Game should remind all of us that we still don’t know how much this can impact all of us. As Knight writes, “I mention all of the stumbles I endured in 2022 because I know so many of you are hurting during this time of year, and it can feel so isolating to go online and see the curated and airbrushed lives of friends and strangers on social media who seem to have it all together.”

5. The Guardian shares its list of the world‘s top 100 female soccer players. Reviewing the profiles of these players is a great way to prepare for the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand beginning on July 20. Meg Swanick listed the Americans in the top 100: 

16- Cat Macario
18- Alex Morgan
21- Soph Smith
29- Lindsey Horan
33- Rose Lavelle
36- Mal Pugh
47- Trinity Rodman
66- Naomi Girma
70- Megan Rapinoe
88- Mia Fishel
93- Becky Sauerbrunn

And, something I want to do as many days as possible because the issue is so essential: Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day recaps the news from across the country regarding reproductive freedom and sexual and reproductive health care. She explains what is happening in Louisiana: “Well, we’re seeing that terror in stark action: OBGYNs in the state are refusing to see pregnant women until they’re 12 weeks along, because they’re afraid that the high risk for miscarriage in that first trimester could end up making them a target for investigation.” Valenti covers what is happening around the country, including another story that explains why we need to be concerned about protecting the health privacy of women and other people who can become pregnant.

1. In Southwest Airlines’ Christmas Meltdown Shows How Corporations Deliberately Pit Consumers Against Low-Wage Workers, Adam Johnson explains so much about our economy really works. As he explains, many corporations prioritize profits, dividends, and stock buybacks over customer service and worker safety. “Watching video after video, reading tweet after tweet, describing frustrated stranded holiday travelers yelling at Southwest Airlines workers, and hearing, in turn, accounts of airline workers and airport staff breaking down crying, is a good opportunity to talk about how none of this is natural or inevitable. It is a choice, both in corporate policy and government regulation.” Johnson explains how these deliberate choices by corporate leaders harm workers and erode the trust between members of the working class.

2. Do you want to know how Ticketmaster became part of live events we hate? How did those service fees get so high, and how can they continue to have a stranglehold on the business despite fiascos like what Taylor Swift fans just experienced? The American Prospect’s Maureen Tkacik and Krista Brown go into the history of deregulation, kickbacks, politics, and threats that created this horrible experience in Ticketmaster’s Dark History. If only Pearl Jam could have gotten more support when they tried to fight back in the 1990s.

3. University of California San Francisco’s Dr. Bob Wachter shares how he weighs attending public events with the risk of being infected by Covid in this informative Twitter thread. People must make informed choices given how little we know about Long Covid. This is a personal choice, and everyone will have different risk tolerance levels.

4. I missed this article earlier in the year, but the reporting The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta does in this article about how politics has infected the evangelical movement is essential to understanding today’s politics. Alberta explains, “But a year’s worth of conversations with pastors, denominational leaders, evangelical scholars, and everyday Christians tells a clear story: Substantial numbers of evangelicals are fleeing their churches, and most of them are moving to ones further to the right.”

5. I enjoyed reading what Meg Swanick shared in this Substack about soccer and what she observed on A Train Journey to Leeds. She was taking the trip to watch Manchester City and Leeds start their post-World Cup seasons. How Leeds does is vital to many United States soccer fans, given that their coach and a few key players are Americans.

And…Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day recaps the news from across the country regarding reproductive freedom and sexual and reproductive health care. In today’s edition: stories about why Republican politicians in red states are working to prevent ballot measures to protect these rights, a West Virginia Republican who wants to write a law to reduce specific sentences if the person convicted is willing to undergo sterilization, a new study that shows a link between abortion restrictions and increased suicide rates among women, and why we all should be concerned about the upcoming Republican attacks against contraception.

Here are five things I found interesting while on the internet today:

1. James Fallows analyses Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s speech to a Joint Session of Congress earlier this month. In The Skill Involved in Zelensky’s Congressional Address, Fallows provides an overview of what the Ukrainian president was trying to do, including a line-by-line analysis of the presentation. As Fallows explains, “In both parts I’ll be saying that the speech was carefully thought out as a piece of writing, and powerfully presented as a moment in living history. Zelensky could hardly have done more, or done anything more effective, to get his country’s message across.” In a follow-up post, Fallows talks to an aide to Zelenskyy about how the speech was put together and how they worked to ensure it worked in a language that isn’t his native tongue.

2. Over on her Men Yell at Me substack, Lyz Lenz gets the help of some notable writers to determine the 2022 Dingus of the Year. As Lenz explains, “We have to find humor in the fight. We have to point out the oddities, the eccentricities. We have to say out loud that emperors are naked, it’s not okay to “both sides” trans rights, and that, actually, NFTs are a scam, and Amazon is evil. We have to call a dingus a dingus when we see it.” As the post makes clear, it was quite a year for dingus activity.

3. All the major planets in the solar system will be visible in the sky at the same time just after sunset this week. Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy explains what’s happening and how you can best see this relatively rare astronomical event.

4. Jessica Valenti at Abortion Every Day recaps the news from across the country regarding reproductive freedom and sexual and reproductive health care. Among the awful news is a story about how Texas is looking to expand its abortion bounty law to prevent pregnant people from leaving the state.

5.

Hey George Santos is bad. I get it. But don’t let that clown car distract us from the fact that there are MAGA Republicans in Congress who were, at worst, part of an effort to OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT, and at best, totally OK with that happening.

Don’t forget about them.

— Daniel Miller (@DanielMillerEsq) 3:17 AM ∙ Dec 28, 2022

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This is The Long Twilight Struggle, a newsletter about Craig Cheslog‘s thoughts about politics, sports, and other stuff. .