Go Jeff Yourself

Darkness Visible, Virus vs Virality

In the NYT (Gift Article), Peter Baker, who reported from Moscow early in Putin’s reign, explains that In Trump’s Washington, a Moscow-Like Chill Takes Hold. "A new administration’s efforts to pressure the news media, punish political opponents and tame the nation’s tycoons evoke the early days of President Vladimir V. Putin’s reign in Russia." Just yesterday, Reuters and Associated Press were barred from Trump's first cabinet meeting. It doesn't help that many of those who own media's most notable brands are siding not with their reporters, but with the administration. The latest example is Jeff Bezos' Trump-friendly re-imagining of the Washington Post opinion section. By way of Margaret Sullivan, former media columnist for WaPo, former executive editor Marty Baron has some thoughts on what amounts to a big shift in Bezos stewardship of the publication. "What Bezos is doing today runs counter to what he said, and actually practiced, during my tenure at the Post. I have always been grateful for how he stood up for the Post and an independent press against Trump’s constant threats to his business interest. Now, I couldn’t be more sad and disgusted." The Post's tagline is Democracy Dies in Darkness. Maybe it should be replaced by the Simon and Garfunkel line, Hello Darkness, My Old Friend.

+ More from Baron: "Bezos himself has done personal liberties a disservice by cravenly yielding to a president who shows no respect for liberty — one who aims to use the power of government to bully, threaten, punish and crush anyone who is not in his camp, especially the press. There is no doubt in my mind that he is doing this out of fear of the consequences for his other business interests, Amazon (the source of his wealth) and Blue Origin (which represents his lifelong passion for space exploration). He has prioritized those commercial interests over The Post, and he is betraying The Post’s longstanding principles to do so."

+ One can argue that the impact of mainstream news, especially opinion pieces, has been completely overshadowed by whatever is spreading on social media. But those platforms are also owned by super billionaires who have moved into the Trump camp. And even though I'm a news junkie who spends half his day sharing stories from mainstream news sites, I'm under no illusions about how this journalistic betrayal will impact Bezos. A day after he announced the editorial changes, news that Gayle King, Katy Perry, and Lauren Sánchez will lead a Blue Origin all-women crewed mission is already getting much more media attention. For now, the Post's news coverage remains intact and they've long provided some of the best and most accurate coverage of Trump. But in the age of greased palms, the slope has never been more slippery.

2

The Virus vs The Viral

Trump repeatedly said Covid would just go away. In March of 2020, his current co-president claimed that there would probably be no new cases in the US by the end of April. Five years and 1.2 million American deaths later (and more than 20 million worldwide), those predictions have been proven wrong. But the people who made them are in charge and a different kind of misinformation has taken hold. David Wallace-Wells in the NYT(Gift Article): The Covid Alarmists Were Closer to the Truth Than Anyone Else. (But truth was one of Covid's other victims.) "Though the world has been scarred by all that death and illness, it is considered hysterical to narrate the history of the pandemic by focusing on it. Covid minimizers and vaccine skeptics now run the country’s health agencies, but the backlash isn’t just on the right. Many states have tied the hands of public health authorities in dealing with future pandemic threats, and mask bans have been put in place in states as blue as New York. Everyone has a gripe with how the pandemic was handled, and many of them are legitimate. But our memories are so warped by denial, suppression and sublimation that Covid revisionism no longer even qualifies as news."

+ A few related items: WSJ (Gift Article): Mystery Disease Linked to Bats Kills Scores in Congo. And, Bird Flu’s Spread Among Dairy Cows Appears to Be Picking Up Its Pace. And, FDA meeting to choose flu vaccine composition canceled without explanation. And, Inside the Collapse at the NIH.

3

The Forest Service Through the Trees

"She voted for Joe Biden in 2020, her first time casting a ballot in a presidential election. But life felt more complicated these days. Her mortgage was too expensive, groceries were nearly $400 a month, and one single cycle of IVF could cost more than 10 percent of her annual household income. Trump, at a campaign stop an hour and a half south of her, had promised to make IVF free. She knew that from a video clip she saw on TikTok. And she had believed him. She also believed him when he said that Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for the next Republican administration that suggested mass cuts to the federal workforce, was not his plan. So Cooper filled in the bubble next to his name, thinking of the daughter she wanted." Ryleigh Cooper is probably not the person you envision when you think of a Trump voter. And she definitely wasn't the person she envisioned when she recently got fired from the U.S. Forest Service after receiving an extremely high performance evaluation. WaPo (Gift Article): She hoped Trump’s victory would change her life, but not like this.

+ "The administration notified most USAID staffers in recent days that they were on leave or terminated, then gave thousands of those who worked in the Washington headquarters 15-minute time slots to clear out their desks."

4

Gene Expression

"Legendary actor Gene Hackman and his wife had been dead for 'quite a while' before their bodies were found in separate rooms of their New Mexico home, as authorities on Thursday called their deaths suspicious. Hackman was 95. He got a late start as a well-known actor, but he made up for lost time, winning two Oscars and leaving behind an almost ridiculous filmography including: Unforgiven, The French Connection, The Royal Tenenbaums, Hoosiers, The Poseidon Adventure, The Conversation, Mississippi Burning, Superman, No Way Out, Get Shorty, The Birdcage, Bonnie and Clyde, etc. NYT (Gift Article): Gene Hackman, Hollywood’s Consummate Everyman, Dies at 95.

5

Extra, Extra

Bigly if True: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with Trump to try to pull the American president back toward our allies, and to explain, in Ukraine, we can't have "peace that rewards the aggressor." He's got his work cut out for him. At the start of the meeting, Trump said of Putin, "I think he’ll keep his word. I’ve spoken to him, I’ve known him for a long time now, we had to go through the Russian hoax together."

+ Tariff Not Now, When? "It's the latest in a pattern of vague and changeable tariff pronouncements, leading many to be unsure of how seriously to take the threats." Trump shifts date for Canada and Mexico tariffs — again. Somehow, top CEOs are surprised by the chaos. American business leaders are turning on Trump — fast.

+ Trans Troops: Transgender US service members to be removed from military, Pentagon memo shows. "Trump signed an executive order last month that took aim at transgender troops in a personal way - at one point saying that a man identifying as a woman was 'not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.'" (What is avoiding service with fake bone spurs and disparaging fallen troops consistent with?)

+ Doge Breeds: "The New York Times identified 45 people within the so-called Department of Government Efficiency." (Gift Article): The People Carrying Out Musk’s Plans at DOGE. And from Brian Barrett in Wired: The DOGE Takeover Is Worse Than You Think. "You may be aware, for instance, that a 19-year-old who goes by 'Big Balls' online plays some role in all this. Seems bad. But you may have missed that Edward Coristine has since been installed at the nation’s top cybersecurity agency. And the State Department and the Small Business Administration. And he has a Department of Homeland Security email address and, by the way, also had a recent side gig selling AI Discord bots to Russians. See? Worse than you think."

+ This is Not a Yoke: "U.S. officials are warning Americans not to scramble across the border looking for a sunny side up bargain." U.S. Customs and Border Protection is cracking down on border egg smuggling.

+ Stunt Doubletake: Ahead of the Oscars, let's celebrate the 2025 Stunt Awards. (In this era, none of these stunts seem any more daring or nauseating than opening 50 news tabs simultaneously.)

6

Bottom of the News

"The number of 98.6 degrees was based on millions of temperature readings of 25,000 people in the mid-19th century by a German physician." Times have changed. Has our temperature? One woman's viral fever question sparked a very real debate. Is 98.6 outdated?

+ Superpod of more than 2,000 dolphins frolic off California coast. (They're not frolicking. They're emigrating.)