You've Been Warned

Cliff Avoidance, Shrinking Workforces

"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.

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Trans Bans

"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.

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Lean Times

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.

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This Will Make You Sick

"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.

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Extra, Extra

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).

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Bottom of the News

"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.