“Philadelphia, 2019. An Uber is hauling me to the nearest Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and I ask the driver to name the best parts of Philly. A twenty-something black guy, he says, “I don’t think there are any good parts.” He clocks me in the rearview mirror and asks, ‘Are you the writer?’ The young man pulls out his phone and hits a number, saying, ‘You have to talk to my mom. Her favorite movie is Fight Club.’ … In 1999 the head of publicity at Twentieth Century Fox had told the director, David Fincher, ‘You’ve made a movie with so much male nudity that no man will want to see it, and so much blood that no woman will. You’ve made a movie that’s impossible to market.’ Yet here I am laughing away with a middle-aged mother and her son who both came to love the story.” (08/13/26)
“Democratic socialist Francesca Hong lost her bid on Tuesday to be the Democratic nominee in Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race, but it’s not progressives who will be most disappointed by her defeat. It’s conservatives who will feel the pain. They spent millions attacking Hong in ads, calling her ‘too liberal,’ but the messaging seemed clearly designed to generate support for her among Democratic voters, based on the GOP theory that she’d be much easier to beat in the general election than moderate David Crowley. It almost worked, even though Hong was, to put it mildly, not a good candidate. Democrats should feel an unpleasant, crawling sensation at the base of their collective spine when they contemplate how close they came to having her on the ticket — not just because she’s a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, but because she has a hard-to-explain history of radical pronouncements.” (08/12/26)
“The Trump administration has filed fraud-related charges against a former Southern Poverty Law Center official who testified during the Jan. 6 insurrection investigation, as its crack down on the anti-hate [sic] group and President Donald Trump’s perceived opponents. The Justice Department originally charged SPLC in an 11-count indictment in April, alleging that the frequent target of right-wing criticism had defrauded donors by using their money to pay informants within hate groups they were monitoring. The Trump administration has framed the payments as paying the hate groups it was supposed to monitor, such as the KKK. SPLC vehemently denies the allegations.” (08/13/26)
“Not every coffee shop needs to be Starbucks to be successful. Not every place you hang out online needs to be Facebook or Instagram to be successful. Not even if it’s social media shaped. And not just because, as I’ve argued, your internet can actually be small, and be healthy being small. But because it’s actually kind of crazy to think that every digital space must be, or be on its way to being, the One Place Everyone Is.” (08/12/26)
“With Republicans controlling most state legislatures, legislative assaults against the citizen initiative petition process tend to come disproportionally from Republicans. Just last week, Missouri voters smashed a legislative initiative petition ‘reform’ on the primary ballot with greater than 80 percent voting NO. In Democratic controlled states, however, attempts to thwart democracy bear Democrats’ fingerprints.” (08/12/26)
“Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the far-eastern Kuril islands for the first time on Thursday, prompting a ‘strong’ protest by Japan, which also claims the territory. Russian-Japanese relations have long been dogged by tensions over the contested islands, known in Japan as the Northern Territories and seized by the Soviet Union in 1945. The Kremlin posted a video of Putin in the Kuril Islands, with Russian media saying he visited a fish-processing plant where he was given caviar. Putin travelled to the Kurils after visiting the nearby Russian island of Sakhalin, where Russia’s navy was conducting drills. … The four contested isles are part of the volcanic Kuril archipelago, which runs in a broad arc from Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula down to Japan’s main northern island Hokkaido.” (08/13/26)
“During an interview with MAGA personality Wayne Allyn Root, Donald Trump appeared to suggest that a national emergency related to voting could be a possibility ahead of the midterm election. As previously mentioned, conservative attorney Cleta Mitchell floated this idea in September 2025 during an interview with former Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA). It seems that the idea has gained some legitimate traction. … Of course, Root never explains what law would actually give Trump the power to impose nationwide voter identification requirements, require documentary proof of citizenship, or restrict mail voting. Simply calling something a ‘national security emergency’ doesn’t answer that question. The administration would still have to identify a statute that authorizes what Trump wants to do.” (08/12/26)
“Russian forces have struck Ukraine’s Izmail port in southern Odesa, setting off a fire, authorities said, a day after Kyiv pounded Russia’s Novorossiysk port. In a statement on the Telegram app early on Thursday, the Izmail Regional State Administration said Russian forces struck ‘port infrastructure’, causing damage and a fire. … Izmail, close to the Romanian border, is home to Ukraine’s largest Danube port, handling grain and other commodities. The attacks came as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CNN that the country needs 5 percent of the United States’s Patriot interceptor missiles to get through the winter and 10 percent to destroy all of Russia’s ballistic projectiles.” (08/13/26)
