Life's a Pitch

Football is Life, So Is NATO

One day we were celebrating headlines like this: In the United States, Every World Cup Team Is a Home Team. And the next day, our beloved squad was soundly defeated by Belgium, and our nation was being mocked with disdain as the winning team ridiculed America with a clownish Trump dance and a post that read, Overturn This. As Jerry Brewer writes in The Athletic: The United States’ dream didn’t die. It was overturned. “The president didn’t rescue Folarin Balogun. He didn’t give the U.S. greater odds to win. He didn’t fix the tournament by correcting a mistake. He repossessed the World Cup. He made Balogun, whose class and character represented the entire squad, the face of a fix. He helped create the snooty American attitude that gave Belgium a motivational boost.” What can I say: Football is life. And this is life with Trump. The whole charade was “in many ways, yet another crystallisation of America’s philosophy under Trump, where a rules-based international order can be swept aside when it is deemed to be in the interests of the U.S. One day, it may be climate change co-operation, or it could be economic tariffs on long-standing partners. On another day, it may be withdrawing from the World Health Organization, or threatening to seize Greenland or making Canada the 51st state.” And Trump’s MAGA-red card insertion into the World Cup is a pitch perfect metaphor for the kick-off of today’s NATO meetings, where Trump will further antagonize allies, destroy America’s leadership role, and provide yet another reminder that the election of 2024 was the own goal of the century.

+ “You are not dealing with an administration that has processes, you are dealing with a single volatile individual.” The WSJ (Gift Article) with the backstory of Europe’s split with America. “Hours passed as people talked over each other in a conversation with such seismic implications it seemed surreal: In its 250th year, had America, protector of Europe, now become a threat?” ‘There Is No Going Back’: The Inside Story of Europe’s Rupture With America. The Europeans learned faster than Trump’s American sycophants that even the authoritarian-pleasing false praise has its limits. “The fragile consensus on flattery was starting to splinter, a trend captured by Britain’s MI6. That form of diplomacy, per an assessment from the spy service, was ‘subject to the law of diminishing returns.’” (That’s the one law this administration upholds.)

+ “In remarks to reporters, Trump reiterated his view that the U.S. should take control of Greenland. ‘It should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark.’” This follows Trump’s posting of a picture of himself and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni “with the caption ‘restraining order needed,’ a reference to his earlier comments that Meloni ‘begged’ him for a photo during the Group of Seven summit of leading industrialized nations last month.” Here’s the latest from NBC and CNN.

2

Splatner

It’s never a good sign when your Nazi tattoo ends up being one of your better attributes by comparison. Graham Platner, the controversial Senate candidate running against Susan Collins in Maine has weathered many political storms. He won’t be able to weather the latest one. Politico: Woman who dated Graham Platner says he sexually assaulted her.

+ “The allegation is the latest in a string of controversies Platner has faced and so far weathered since the oyster farmer and Marine veteran entered the race. But the seriousness of the assault claim has put the Maine contest — and Democrats’ ability to win control of the Senate — at risk, with even some of his strongest supporters questioning whether Platner should continue his campaign.” (Pretty much everyone has called for him to quit the race. The big question is whether this means Maine is down the drain.)

+ “While I’m assigning blame, I shouldn’t leave out myself. Last October, when stories about Platner’s tattoo and Reddit posts first broke, I went to Maine to write about him. I tried to convey what I saw: a campaign that was electrifying angry Maine voters. But I deeply regret that, impressed by Platner’s political charisma, I wrote that he was ‘nothing like the edgelord caricature I encountered online.’ If anything, he seems to be significantly worse.” Michelle Goldberg in the NYT (Gift Article): Lessons From the Graham Platner Disaster.

3

Hitch in the Mitch Glitch

Is he alive? If he’s alive, how alive is he? Why is he in the hospital? What treatment is he receiving? In normal times, these aren’t the questions one would be asking about one of America’s most prominent senators. But these aren’t normal times. McConnell Has Been Hospitalized for 3 Weeks, and Aides Won’t Say Why.

4

Picking Shovels

Netflix has a retention problem. You watch the first season of a show, but you don’t come back for subsequent seasons. There are probably a few reasons why this is the case, and one of them could be the business model. “Netflix pays upfront production costs for both originals and outside productions, owns the international distribution, and offers a massive pay bump if the show makes it to season three. This makes sense if your business model is based on gaining new subscriptions. You’re not buying long-running audience-sustaining properties to reliably run ads against. You’re buying newness. So there’s very little incentive in, say, building a solid audience for your live action Avatar: The Last Airbender adaptation, but there’s a huge incentive in announcing you have one.” Ryan Broderick in Garbage Day with a good overview of the second season problem, and how it mirrors other issues in the digital content business. Netflix and the value of streaming shovelware.

5

Extra, Extra

Fire and Ice: “Of course, there have always been heat waves, thunderstorms, power failures and floods. But climate change has been a steroid injection for such disasters, making them stronger and more damaging. And increasingly, as in New Jersey this week, all of these nightmares arrive in tandem, creating compound disasters. In the process, they’re exposing just how unprepared for them we are.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): New Jersey’s Hell Week Is a Warning for Everyone. And the latest weather pattern to worry about: Hail. Inside the United States’ Billion-Dollar Blind Spot. “These balls of ice aren’t just academic curiosities. They are the reason your insurance premiums keep rising.”

+ Out of Le Pen: “The court shortened her ban on running for elected office, potentially reopening the path for her to run. However, it ruled she must wear an electronic ankle tag for a year, making a campaign both logistically and politically difficult.” French court allows far-right leader Marine Le Pen to run for president with ankle tag. (In this political environment, that might be a plus.)

+ History Buff: “The buff George Washington statue in the National Museum of American History speaks for itself. Taking in the washboard abs and determined expression of the 1840 work by Horatio Greenough, a visitor would be hard-pressed to see anything but a Founding Father rendered as a Greek god. Yet in a searing 162-page report on the Smithsonian museum released on July 4, the Trump administration takes issue with the lack of patriotism in even this exhibit.” A Huge Escalation in Trump’s Smithsonian Meddling.

+ Hey Bub: “The document, the existence and contents of which have not been previously reported but was obtained by NOTUS, is a significant departure from the Trump administration’s public tone, which has focused on encouraging unrelenting investment to unlock exponential growth.” Treasury Has an Internal Report Warning About the Dangers of an AI Bubble.

+ Ring a Bell? Vox: Your Ring camera isn’t stopping crime. But it might be making you paranoid. People generally understand this, but they’ll always choose security options, even ones that don’t necessarily provide security. Well, not all people. US Air Force engineer charged with sawing down flock surveillance cameras receives thousands of dollars from supporters across the country.

+ Allies: An Afghan national who fought with U.S. forces died of an allergic reaction in ICE custody. (Feel safer?)

+ Midtown Evacuation: “A safety manager reported that a steel beam was compromised on the 21st floor, according to Buildings Department records. The Fire Department said that two support columns inside the building were buckling, and several upper floors were sagging ... A ‘frozen zone’ was set up from 40th to 45th Streets between First and Third Avenues.” Mamdani Warns That Midtown Manhattan Building Remains Unstable.

+ Corruption Eruption: IOC lifts ban on Russian Olympic Committee, clearing path for athletes’ return to Games. (They should have waited. This is supposed to be the week for Trump/FIFA corruption.)

+ It’s About the Journey: There’s been a hell of a lot of hype leading up to the release of Christopher Nolan’s latest movie, The Odyssey. It sounds like it lives up to it, and then some. Variety: First Reactions Are Raves for Christopher Nolan’s ‘Astonishing’ Epic and ‘Flawless Filmmaking’: ‘Breathtaking, Bold and Perfection.’ (I haven’t read raves like that since I first launched NextDraft.)

6

Bottom of the News

“Check your bathroom cabinet, as CVS Health has recalled thousands of medicated hemorrhoidal wipes due to a lack of child-resistant packaging.” Here’s a shocker: “As of July 2, CVS was not aware of any injuries related to the recall.”