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Political cartoons for October 4
Sunday’s political cartoons include cratering popularity, AI fears, and more
Money and politics play a role in public education curriculum gaining popularity in Texas
As Texas lawmakers put more restrictions on what is approved for the classroom, one expert told ABC13 that one curriculum has a clear advantage.
The consumer-voter is killing German politics
Friedrich Merz's collapse in popularity owes less to his own failings than to the hollowing out of civic culture across the world's democracies.
Mahjong studio opens in Blue Springs as the centuries-old Chinese game sees a surge in new players
A new Blue Springs studio, Bam Bird Social, is dedicated to teaching and playing mahjong as the game surges in popularity.
Trump enters an uncertain moment in Iran war that threatens to become a quagmire
Angered by the deaths of three U.S. service members but facing the war’s unpopularity at home, Trump has limited options before him.
Trump endorses embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for reelection
President Donald Trump has endorsed embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for late in his reelection campaign. It's coveted boost because of Trump’s popularity. But it's also an endorsement that
Entertainment platform aTwist launches with microseries as Hollywood chases mobile viewers
Microseries platform and studio aTwist launched on Thursday with 10 original series and curated library content, as shifting entertainment preferences drive a wave of demand for mobile-first short-form storytelling.Microdramas are gaining popularity as Hollywood production shrinks and streaming com…
WPBL looking for longevity as players take the field amid rising popularity for women's sports
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — When Alli Schroder first saw “A League of Their Own” — a 1992 movie based on the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League — she saw herself in the story on the screen.
Fact-Checking 3 Competitive Senate Races in Maine, Michigan and Ohio
Republican attacks have focused on terrorism and illegal immigration, while Democrats have sought to capitalize on the unpopularity of President Trump’s cuts to Medicaid.
Third time the charm? Democrat Christina Bohannan tries again in pivotal House race in Iowa
Bohannan is focusing on rural areas she previously lost, hoping to capitalize on Trump's declining popularity and economic issues.
U.S.-China gastrodiplomacy: Despite political tension, fast food chains from both countries gain popularity in each other’s territory
Mixue, one of the world’s largest fast-food chains with more than 53,000 locations, opened its first three U.S. stores in December.
Pokémon Go is Milking Mewtwo Too Hard, Fans Say, After a Lackluster Weekend Event Marred by More Server Issues
Mewtwo is being milked too hard, fans say, as Pokémon Go continues to capitalize on the creature's popularity and monetization potential.
America’s socialist surge and its hard limits
Socialism is gaining ground in the US, fuelled by anger over inequality and economic insecurity. But can its rising popularity translate into lasting political influence across the country? US author and academic Michael Kazin sheds light on the issue.
Sophie Cunningham reportedly shopping tell-all book amid WNBA controversy
Teaser: Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham is reportedly shopping a tell-all book as her growing popularity and controversial public comments continue to place her in the WNBA spotlight.
With a new breed of candidate, Democrats are challenging in states they usually lose
President Donald Trump’s flagging popularity isn’t the only problem Republicans face this fall.
Richmond Baker Combines Science and Passion in Cottage Bakery
Valeriya Romashchenko opened Cuprum Bakery in 2024, offering sourdough and other baked goods produced in her home kitchen in the Inner Richmond. The popularity of Romashchenko’s cottage bakery, lik…
AI use surging for mental health help among young people
Survey researcher says popularity may help fill gap between rising national problem, shortage of clinicians — provided counsel is sound.
MU Health Care physician explains risks with rising raw-milk trend
In recent years, raw milk has climbed in popularity as more people lean away from filtered, pasterized milk.
Poll: Trump gets low marks for job performance
New polling from Talk Business & Politics and Hendrix College shows President Donald Trump is viewed unfavorably by state voters and his unpopularity is a drag on several GOP incumbents....
Sleep Health: Melatonin Myths Most People Still Believe
Despite its popularity, many people misunderstand what melatonin does—and what it does not do. Sleep medicine specialists say these misconceptions can lead to unrealistic expectations and unnecessary use of high doses.
Pyrex’s $25 Water Bottle Is Gaining Popularity Due to a Cool Feature That Stanleys and Owalas Don’t Have
Pyrex’s water bottle has one very cool feature that Stanleys and Owalas don’t have—it changes color. Plus, it’s made of shatterproof glass and features a locking flip-top that can be accessed with one hand.
September Monthly Review: Health MCP Guy?
For all the time I spend talking about APIs and data exchange, this newsletter has had embarrassingly little interoperability of its own. It’s old-school SaaS, baby - UI or bust. Not all of that is my fault! Substack, for all its popularity, is (as mentioned before) really frustrating as my system of record. The primary user it optimizes towards is the reader, whose attention feeds the app, the Notes feed, and the recommendation network that Substack is actually selling. Health API Guy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe They’re falling into the same trap that Medium once sprinted into, albeit at a much more glacial speed. Younger generations may not remember (or never knew) it, but Medium once lured publications like The Ringer and Signal v. Noise onto its platform, only to lose them as it rebuilt itself around a paywall and an algorithmic feed. Substack’s original pitch circa 2020 was the antidote (you own your list), but every new feed feature chips away at it. I get it: writers are generic supply in the eyes of the Substack product team. Generic supply follows demand, so the consistent pressure on the PMs is to generate demand, which leads to every product cycle going toward discovery (Notes, recommendations, the app, live video). The end result lackluster author tools (laggy and broken analytics are truly crippling) all despite the premium price point. The archive is where it crosses from authorial gripes to actual reader impact, though. Across Substack and LinkedIn, I’ve published 1,218 posts and nearly 900,000 words since 2018. Substack’s native search can see only the 464 posts that live on Substack, and even there it’s woefully inadequate at surfacing relevant content (even for the guy who wrote it)! Readers have the same problem, writ large. Ask the Archive Fixing search (for both my readers and my own use) turned out to be extremely non-trivial, unfortunately: There’s no public API for readers to access content RSS exists for new content notification, but it only carries the 20 most recent posts and cuts paid ones off at the preview The only Substack MCP is an admin tool for analytics The export exists for authors, but it’s painfully awkward and slow. So I built something to work around that: the Health API Guy MCP. It’s a private MCP server holding the full text of everything I’ve written across Substack and LinkedIn. Add it to Claude or ChatGPT as a connector and you can ask things like: It pairs keyword search (for acronyms and case names, of which we have many) with semantic search. Every post is also labeled by topic, form, and court case, so you can pull a lawsuit’s (or multiple cases’) entire docket across Substack and LinkedIn in one query: Hail, Healthapiguyhydra This is also a bit of me eating my own cooking. I’ve spent the year arguing that headless healthcare is arriving and that developers want primitives over abstractions. Last week in Hail, Benihydra, I watched Salesforce plug its platform into Claude and bet that the records underneath outlive whatever interface sits on top: Salesforce must believe that the Hydra’s immortal head is the records, permissions, and business logic (in that they will survive whatever happens to the interface). It felt a bit hypocritical to keep my own archive behind a Substack search bar. The archive is the body. Substack is one head, and now whatever tool you might use is another. Will the EHRs follow my lead? Probably not imminently, but one can hope! Why Founding Members Only The MCP is available to Founding Member subscribers. A few reasons: It costs money and time to run. Hosting, the database, Clerk usage and AI compute for search and labeling are significant operational costs (that increase with usage). Substack gives me no way to automate access. There’s no API to check whether someone is a paid subscriber, so every user is manual operations for now. It’s a beta. We’ll need to improve things and parts will break. I’d rather they break for a small group of dedicated readers who will tell me about it. The Founding tier deserved a real benefit. Until now it was mostly a generous tip. Now it comes with something. If you’re already a Founding Member, reply to this email with the address you’d like provisioned. If you’re not and want in, upgrade here. Larger teams (such as companies) can get access too: group subscriptions at the Founding tier come with the group discount. The admin for the subscription can reply with the list of addresses to provision. Get 20% off a group subscription Pricing Founding membership is now a flat $200 a year, replacing the old suggested $150 that readers could adjust. Existing Founding Members will have access grandfathered in at their previous rate. Month in Review Articles Published Make Networks Dumb Again (Sep 11): AI is making old analog networks cheaper to use and flooding them with machine traffic in the process. A plea for agent-native rails with the intelligence at the endpoints, and for Washington to drag them to ubiquity. Interoperability, Unbuttoned (Sep 29): Interoperability is a series of workflows in a trenchcoat, and this post finally takes the trenchcoat off. A color-coded map shows which provider workflows went digital, which are fragmented, and which still run on fax. Video Content Antitrust’s System of Record Problem (Sep 3): The FTC’s investigation into Epic prompted a ninety-minute webinar, now posted with chapters and a smoothed transcript. We get into why market definition, missing B2B share data, and the SSNIP test leave antitrust poorly suited to systems of record, plus why information blocking may be doing more than any pending lawsuit. The Information Exchange: Cerner Milking Edition (Sep 18): This was so fucking fun. Ryan Tucker, Ryan Brickner, Brad Thorson, and I try an Around the Horn format, complete with points, penalties, and a mute button. We debate whether Oracle Health is dead, who would actually buy Cerner (IBM enters the chat), p(Doom), and why the front desk still hands you a clipboard. Regulatory Ask Not What Your Network Can Do (Sep 23): CDC’s RFI on public health data intermediaries lists use cases already served, unevenly, by eCR, lab reporting, IZ Gateway, and syndromic surveillance. The real opportunity sits in one question about AI: a network that can handle the next emergency without another interface project. Court cases Particle v. Epic: The Naughty Schoolteacher (Sep 4): After a summer-long vigil, the answer on Epic’s early summary judgment bid is two paragraphs and a remedial assignment. Particle advances to the next grade, and market definition gets another year of discovery. The Epic Discovery Files (Sep 8): Texas’s motions to compel arrive with a 251-page appendix of requests, objections, and meet-and-confer letters with Cravath. Inside: Epic using generative AI for document review, denied interoperability requests in scope, and Noerr-Pennington raised against lobbying discovery. Epic v. Health Gorilla: “Working as Designed” (Sep 9): Epic wants nothing to do with the data breach MDL, and explaining why puts fresh discovery on the public docket. The spiciest allegation: Health Gorilla told GuardDog to scrub its law firm business from its website instead of cutting off access. Veeva v. Epic: Legal Bypass Surgery (Sep 15): Veeva asks the Wisconsin Supreme Court to skip the Court of Appeals, while law professors and three policy groups line up as amici. Meanwhile, Epic’s lawyers apologize for another round of citation errors, including a quote that never existed. Texas v. Epic: Behind the Black Bars (Sep 17): The court portal served up Epic’s unredacted filings, revealing a $5 million document review budget and the AI workflow behind it. Also inside: the 200-plus company names Texas wants searched, and one very expensive Zoom invitation. OpenEvidence v. Doximity: Consequences Will Follow (Sep 25): OpenEvidence tells the court it will not comply with a discovery order, and its own lawyers at Quinn Emanuel say they won’t defend the choice. Add years of Slack reported unrecoverable, and Rule 37 sanctions come into view. Health Tech Keeps Choosing Violence (Sep 28): Doximity moves to end OpenEvidence’s case, Epic asks Texas to show its work, and a sleepy Audacious Inquiry patent fight sprouts antitrust and information blocking counterclaims. The main event is a long-sealed Cognizant v. Infosys ruling that hints where system of record antitrust claims can survive. EHRs One Verb for Oracle Health (Sep 14): Oracle’s earnings call quantifies every data center to the decimal point, while Oracle Health gets a single verb: “accelerate.” Panning the few healthcare mentions turns up an agentic care management system, a research-to-care ledger play, and the question of whether healthcare gets Larry’s patience. Epic’s Forretress Under Siege (Sep 30): Judy Faulkner tells a panel Epic paused hundreds of projects to harden its software and calls it a “shame,” while a spokesperson insists the roadmap hasn’t changed. Project Glasswing, a Pokémon-branded QAN sprint, and a trove of Jodel grievances reconcile the two Epics and preview the Jevons paradox coming for all software. Industry Analysis Scanning for a Network (Sep 1): Scan.com raises $220M to build the imaging network labs never got, speedrunning Zocdoc’s consumer-to-B2B pivot. Its wedge to network density may be the most American one available: personal injury litigation. The Front Desk Wants the Damn Whole Building (Sep 16): Hello Patient buys Converse Health, pushing its AI front desk into referrals, chart work, and prior auth. The copilot categories keep blurring, and your distribution partner is still your final boss. Cross-industry Comparisons A Different Patchwork Quilt (Sep 10): Healthcare loves to envy open banking, but the US version has no mandate, a toll booth at Chase, and data quality problems of its own. The grass isn’t greener; it’s another American patchwork quilt, and perhaps a worse one. Hail, Benihydra (Sep 21): Salesforce brings its platform into Claude, Slack, and its own agent, inviting the interfaces that might replace it. Cut off one head and more grow back, so long as the records underneath stay put. Living on A Trade Secret Prayer (Sep 22): Six credit unions are suing Fiserv, the Epic of core banking, by claiming their own member records as trade secrets. Banking has no Cures Act, so its lawyers reach for legal alchemy that healthcare has already tried. Other News None this month External Media Nabla Accelerate NYC: I kicked off fall conference season at Nabla’s Accelerate event in New York, where Delphine Groll opened by asking the room to picture the company it wants to become and the one it doesn’t. I liked her framework of bureaucracy, fear, and ego as the blockers. I also love vendor conferences/events in general - different vibe than industry biggies. Healthcare 101 with Nikhil Krishnan: I briefly guest lectured Out-Of-Pocket’s Healthcare 101 class. Appreciated Nikhil’s takeaways cover whether AI doctors can query HIEs, why healthcare’s data-liberation rules beat most industries’, and the hi-res graphic is in the comments. HCN: Epic Probed by the FTC: I joined the HCN guys to talk through the FTC’s investigation into Epic. Cedric’s new hairdo was an unexpected plot twist. The episode also covers MFN drug pricing, healthcare M&A and Eli Lilly’s acquisition streak. Fall Conferences: At eHealth Exchange’s Annual Meeting in Austin on Oct 27, I’ll moderate a panel on the tensions between AI, HIEs, and timely patient access with Jean Ross (Primary Record), Therasa Bell (Kno2), Byron Crowe (Doctronic), and Michael Marchant (Freenome). Here’s the rest of my schedule if you want to meet up: CommonWell (Redwood Shores, CA): Oct 13-14 Will be participating in a fun Jeopardy event Open@Epic (Madison, WI): Oct 20-23 Will be enjoying Verona, Willy Street, and other local adventures eHealth Exchange and Sequoia Project (Austin, TX): Oct 27-29 Yeehaw HLTH (Vegas): Nov 15-18 Groundhog Day, Venetian Edition RSNA (Chicago): Nov 30-Dec 2 See me at “Governing AI in Breast Imaging: What Health Systems Are Actually Doing” Digital Health Counsel 2026 AI Summit (Seattle): December 2-3 Will likely be speaking to a bunch of lawyers about information blocking Posts I Liked ChatGPT’s Epic integration: game changer or nothing burger?: Joshua Liu, MD offers five thoughts on OpenAI’s Epic launch, starting from the point that it rides the same open APIs available to anyone. He argues read-only access leaves ordering to Art and the ambient startups, and asks why HCA is piloting it alongside Commure. He’s sorta a must-follow at this point - consistently excellent, thought-provoking takes. Epic, Lilly, and the Discovery pass: Seth Chaney reads Epic’s first major Discovery deal (with Eli Lilly), as well as its revised developer terms on commercial displays, as the pipe finally opening between EHRs and pharma. Life sciences and health continue to collide. Scott Rossignol on EHR payer platforms and ePA fees: Scott argues the top ambulatory EHR vendors are turning the prior auth mandate into a per-member-per-year toll on payers, for an API whose operating cost has nothing to do with covered lives. His fix is two lines of regulatory text: put the CRD/DTR/PAS certification criteria in the Base EHR definition, and bring payer-facing ePA connectivity under § 170.404’s cost-based fee rules. It’s a good solution. Health API Guy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe
Why is a can of fish being sold at a Gen Z concert? Behind the popularity boom of tinned fish
The appeal of tinned fish does not only stem from its social media hype; the shelf-friendly protein has also gained popularity for being chock-full of nutrients.
8 healthcare-specific jobs growing in popularity as work-from-home options
Some of the most in-demand healthcare jobs can be performed from home despite requiring direct caregiving skills.
MRI reveals muscle loss related to weight fluctuations
The research comes as popularity of weight loss medications has intensified in recent years, prompting concern about the loss of muscle mass among some GLP-1 users.
The year in review: Influential people who have died in 2026
Country music icon Dolly Parton was the rare celebrity whose popularity transcended generations and politics. Writing hundreds of songs including classics “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You,” she was
The Year in Review: Influential People Who Have Died in 2026
Country music icon Dolly Parton was the rare celebrity whose popularity transcended generations and politics. Writing hundreds of songs including classics “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You,” she was one of music's most beloved personalities when she died last month. In addition to her musical ...
Is collagen a lie?
Collagen powders, gummies and pills have boomed in popularity in recent years boosted by claims that they smooth wrinkles, promote glossy hair and help with joint pain. Amid the noise it can be hard to figure out whether there’s any actual science behind the promise of looking younger for longer. Luckily Dr Xand van Tulleken has spent the past three years writing Make me well: a quest to understand the confusing world of wellness, and his chapter on collagen dives deep into the evidence. He tells Madeleine Finlay what collagen does in the body, how we can get it without splashing out on expensive supplements, and why getting to the truth behind wellness claims can be so hard
The year in review: Influential people who have died in 2026
Country music icon Dolly Parton was the rare celebrity whose popularity transcended generations and politics. Writing hundreds of songs including classics “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You,” she was
As World of Warcraft: Forever's beta popularity grows, Blizzard has yet again had to increase the server cap
Executive producer of World of Warcraft Holly Longdale broke the news, as people continue to hop in ahead of the beta release in November.
Trump fatigue and immigration crackdowns test Republican hold on Miami-Dade
A recent poll of Hispanic voters in Florida shows that Trump’s popularity has waned over the past two years.
Warning signs abound for Trump’s Republicans as midterm campaign begins final sprint
With the midterm elections just two months away, Trump’s unpopularity is imperiling the GOP’s chances of maintaining its majorities in Congress.
Dan Bongino calls socialism ‘bumper sticker politics’ as it surges in popularity among youth
Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino critiques the appeal of socialist ideologies among younger voters on ‘The Ingraham Angle.’
The 2026 midterm general election season is upon us. Here's what to watch
The week of Labor Day marks the unofficial kickoff of the general election season. President Trump's unpopularity and Democratic enthusiasm means control of Congress is on the ballot.
Trump calls for data center ‘dividends’ in bid to win over midterm voters
President’s social media post says sites should pay the communities where they will be located and comes amid growing unpopularity of facilities
The Business Behind Matcha
Matcha is a ground green tea powder with roots in ancient Japanese culture, dating back centuries. Only recently has the drink reached a wider global audience, appearing on cafe menus worldwide. Its growing popularity raises a question: How does a product that has been around for so long suddenly become a global trend? During the […]
Are You Really ‘Maxxing’ Your Health? What to Know About 4 Viral Health Hacks
“Maxxing” trends are growing in popularity on social media, but experts say these health hacks, which promote optimizing nutrition, sleep, and fertility, may be ineffective or even pose health risks.
Republican Strategists Process Trump's Impact Ahead of Midterms
Republican strategists are cycling through the stages of grief as the party contends with Donald Trump's unpopularity ahead of the midterm elections.
Germany’s Political Tailspin: Your Weekly SPIEGEL Recap
It might be tempting to dismiss the results of last Sunday’s state election in Saxony-Anhalt, in which the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party raked in 43.8 percent of the vote, as a rather unimportant extremist blip in a state that hardly anyone can find on the map. And you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong to do so. The state’s population – around 2.1 million – is a mere 2.5 percent of the German total. And while the state capital of Magdeburg was once the political heart of the Holy Roman Empire back when Otto the Great used to hang out there (more than a millenium … no … milennium … nope … millennium ago), it is today something of a backwater, albeit one with a ginormous cathedral in its center. We wanted to briefly interrupt this week’s newsletter to extend a heartfelt thank you to all of our subscribers, both new and old. And to remind you all that a free subscription gets you access to this newsletter every Saturday. A paid subscription, by contrast, gets you one DER SPIEGEL article every weekday, delivered to your inbox. We strive to select pieces that both demonstrate what Europe’s leading newsmagazine has to offer and provide an international audience – namely, you – with an insight into how Germany and Europe view the world. If you haven’t already signed up for a paid subscription, please consider doing so if you can. Our Substack channel relies entirely on reader support and we are excited to continue offering you the best of DER SPIEGEL. Subscribe But even beyond the fact that a huge percentage of the voters in the state decided to place an X next to a party with an ideological lineage that runs rather directly back to the right-wing extremist soup out of which the Nazi Party was born, the results are a perfect example of a phenomenon that has been plaguing German elections in recent years: the lack of an obvious path to a majority. Call it the Balkanization of German politics. There are a number of developments driving the phenomenon, but for the purposes of this newsletter, here are two of the most salient: Persistent voter frustration with the country’s two (former) big-tent parties – the Christian Democrats (CDU) on the center-right (17.2 percent in Saxony-Anhalt last Sunday) and the Social Democrats (SPD) on the center-left (9.3 percent). The presence of parties on the far left (Left Party), the populist left (the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance – BSW) and the far right (AfD) with which mainstream parties are reluctant to form coalitions. So what happens now? Stories of the Week A Lack of Leadership The answer for many people in the country, and particularly within the CDU, is clear: pin (some of) the blame on Chancellor Friedrich Merz. According to a survey taken directly after the election in Saxony-Anhalt, 88 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that if the federal government in Berlin were doing a better job, the AfD wouldn’t be as strong. And it is true that the predominant impression of the federal government ever since Merz was sworn in on May 6, 2025, is one of ineffectiveness and bickering. His rather unique combination of bumbling-plus-bravado has also not exactly endeared him to the German public. Indeed, his standing in the country is so shaky that his popularity – according to recent polls – has now dropped even below the historic lows associated with his predecessor Olaf Scholz. The situation is such that the CDU even opted to keep him largely out of the campaign ahead of the Saxony-Anhalt vote. And since then, dissatisfied rumblings within the CDU have grown louder. DER SPIEGEL’s Swantje Karich notes that the problems with the CDU go much deeper than Merz. “The center-right has a trust problem. At a press appearance following the devastating election result in Saxony-Anhalt, Friedrich Merz said that the party wanted to ‘reach people more effectively’ through ‘emotional engagement.’ It sounded as though he were announcing a political program. On the basis of that statement, it is difficult to take his empathy seriously.” “The Chancellor’s chastened appearance did, at least, reveal where he stands: with his back to the wall. Elections will be held in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania next week, and the CDU could fare even worse there. The party is polling at between 8 and 10 percent in the state.” “What is at stake is the political tradition that has lent stability to the Federal Republic since 1945: a democratic conservatism that understands what must be preserved, but also how to embrace progress and openness to the world. If the Union continues along its current path, it risks becoming politically irrelevant after the 2029 federal election – and Germany could soon find itself with a government of the far right.” The Trumpification of Political Debate? It is often said in Germany that to understand the political and social trends that will soon be dominant in Europe, one need only look across the Atlantic to the United States. When it comes to political debate, that has certainly proven true. Donald Trump understood early on that triggering mouth-foaming outrage among Democrats is an ideal way to both generate headlines and to secure loyalty among supporters. And he realized that far more quickly than the left side of the political spectrum understood that simply ignoring the old man might be the best recipe. To be sure, there have been signs recently that the US president may be over-relying on the strategy. Earlier this week, in an apparent grandpa-discovers-AI moment, Trump sent out 60 posts in the space of 10 hours, many of them AI-assisted images portraying him as a hero – or showing Iceland as part of the US (outrageous!!!). It was also during that slew of schlock that he explicitly backed the AfD with an “MGGA” post. In Germany, though, the outrage cycle remains in full swing, with much of the focus on those who would dare to vote for the AfD. They are alternately portrayed as being dim-witted, ungrateful, backward, racist or all of the above. That, argues DER SPIEGEL columnist Sabine Rennefanz, is not particularly helpful. “Everywhere on election night, people spoke of a watershed moment, a rupture, a turning point. But what is that supposed to mean in concrete terms? A watershed would imply an interruption, a moment of pause – perhaps even a willingness to rethink and learn. At first, there was little sign of that in the main television panels. Instead, the familiar rituals that had already shaped the election campaign continued: outrage, lecturing and abuse.” “That’s just the tone, one might object. They’re only talk shows. Given that the party’s state branch has been classified by domestic intelligence officials as confirmed right-wing extremist, there are more important problems than hurt feelings on television. Yet although the condescending tone is not the cause of the AfD’s success, it is an expression of the broader mood within the so-called political center – a kind of institutional blindness that too often treats material concerns as a communications problem.” “People have a pretty good sense of whether you like them – whether you approach them with curiosity or merely study, lecture and manage them as a problem group. They notice whether you genuinely want to understand their fears and pain, or whether you are simply waiting for the chance to correct them. They can also tell whether someone still has the energy to change things, or whether they have barricaded themselves behind platitudes and empty phrases.” “Anyone who wants an egalitarian democratic society cannot promise equality only to those whose language, tastes and moral convictions they share. They must also acknowledge the wounds, resentments and fears of those whose political conclusions they consider wrong. Acknowledging them does not mean agreeing with them. But a democracy that communicates with almost half its citizens only through warnings and labels gives up on political debate before it has even begun. An atmosphere must be created in which people can express their opinions without fearing that they will be canceled. We are currently a long way from that.” East-West? One of the clear undercurrents in the election last Sunday was, of course, Germany’s ongoing east-west divide, particularly as it pertains to the success of the AfD. Historically, the party has been far stronger in the former East German states than in former West German states. The fact that this generalization no longer reliably holds is certainly one of the primary concerns that many have about the party’s growth. And yet, there is still a distinct flavor of “stupid easterners, they don’t understand democracy” to the coverage. In the weeks before the vote, there was even a rather interesting back-and-forth in Germany’s culture pages about how ungrateful eastern Germans allegedly are for being pulled out of their pre-reunification backwardness and into the light of the West. DER SPIEGEL’s Jochen-Martin Gutsch has had enough. “Ten years ago, in 2016, elections were also held in Saxony-Anhalt. The AfD won more than 20 percent, which at the time rightly provoked outrage and incomprehension in western Germany. Today, in 2026, the AfD is also polling at around 20 percent in western German states, but this no longer provokes outrage and incomprehension. Instead, it is now regarded as proof of democratic conviction and civilizational resistance. After all, in the east, it’s 40 percent!” “This allows people to continue feeling morally superior to the East, but the wiser course would be to admit: if something doesn’t happen soon, the West will turn AfD-blue too. Or bluish.” “But will anything happen? The truly depressing thing about election night was not so much the AfD leaders intoxicated by their own success. It was the representatives of the other parties, who once again said that they were utterly shocked, needed some time to digest the result and would, of course, not simply return to business as usual. The SPD, a former big-tent party, celebrated its ‘stable’ result of 9.3 percent. Congratulations!” “For 10 years, the AfD has gone from one electoral success to the next. And still, the established parties remain ‘shocked’ and scratch their heads in astonishment. How long can they keep being shocked? Friedrich Merz says he may need to communicate his reform ideas in a more ‘emotional’ way. So the CDU’s political professionals sit down together after the election, mull over a strategy, and in the end come up with this: Fritz, try to be a little more relaxed, charismatic and emotional – or something. Beyond that: no political plan, no defiance, no promise of a future. That is frightening.” What was good, what was bad for democracy? Good: Voter turnout in Saxony-Anhalt was 77.8 percent, the highest ever recorded in the state. Whatever one thinks of the result, that figure is encouraging. Democracy needs citizens to take an interest. Bad: Although a strong AfD result had been expected in Saxony-Anhalt, many politicians from the mainstream parties – including in Berlin – appeared confused, helpless and overwhelmed in their initial reactions. That is not how they will win back voters’ trust. Last Week’s Highlights: 🗳️ Meet the Germans Who Voted for the AfD: Why would voters in a country like Germany, with its Nazi past, vote for a right-wing party? It’s a question only an editor in Berlin could come up with. On the ground, the view is different. 🟦 How the AfD Wants to Expand Its Power Across Germany: The far-right AfD is planning to decimate public broadcasting in Saxony-Anhalt, revamp education and install extremists in positions of power. And it is eyeing victory on the national stage as well. 🕯️ The Continuing Reverberations of September 11: It was a generational shock, and the consequences can still be felt today - from massive surveillance and significant increases in presidential power to violent excesses at ICE. 🤝 “For Europe, Canada Is the Preferred Partner in Trans-Atlantic Relations”: In an interview with DER SPIEGEL, Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne discusses his country’s failed trade deal with the US and why Canada is looking to Europe. 🏛️ The True Historical Roots of the AfD: During the Weimar Republic in the 1920s, there were numerous parties on the extreme right espousing “Germany first” nationalism. The Nazis may not be the best comparison for today’s AfD. 🌊 AfD in a Landslide: Merz Is the Wrong Leader for Germany: The right-wing Alternative for Germany won in a landslide in Saxony-Anhalt state elections on Sunday. What does that mean for the country at large? Thank you for your continued support and have a wonderful week! Subscribe Share Leave a comment Your SPIEGEL Substack Team Compiled and edited by Charles Hawley
Poll: Trump gets low marks for job performance
New polling from Talk Business & Politics and Hendrix College shows President Donald Trump is viewed unfavorably by state voters and his unpopularity is a drag on several GOP incumbents....
Spanish Grand Prix 2026: Can football-obsessed Madrid embrace F1?
After F1’s explosion in popularity away from its European heartland the sport is coming home. Why Madrid? Because it is beautiful… and has a very big expo centre on the outskirts.
The 98 Biggest TV Show Flops, Bombs and Misses in the First Half of 2026
(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) In July, I updated my look at how the “streaming bubble” popped since 2023, showing the decline in streaming TV shows over time. But after compiling and analyzing and writing about over one hundred TV show flops in the first half of 2026—I counted 99 “nominees” and there are even more honorable mentions—I couldn’t have told you that the number of shows is going down. When it comes to scripted, English-language TV shows, it feels like we have as many bombs as ever. I don’t keep a specific count, but some streamers probably had as many flops as they’ve ever had.1 That’s right, it’s time for part two of my analysis of the biggest flops, bombs and misses on streaming in the first half of 2026. Two weeks ago, I took a look at films. Today, TV shows. If you want to read the full methodology for how I assemble this list, you can find it at the bottom of this article. In short, this list is… ...scripted and unscripted TV shows,...from the nine major streamers,...in the US (using US-only ratings),...excluding true crime, kids and foreign-language shows,...that got no/poor ratings,...from Jan-2026 to the end of June-2026. Reminder: this article does not represent my personal opinion—many of these shows are great!—but I follow the data, and a miss is a miss and a bomb is a bomb. Also, price matters. If a TV show costs north of $100 million, it needs to get lots and lots of streaming viewership to justify that budget. As with past editions, I ordered this list by streamer, going from best (fewest flops) to worst (the most misses)—taking the size of the flops into consideration—and like the last edition, three or four streamers vied to take the win/loss of having the most flops. (But the actual winner is no surprise.) I try to avoid tooting my own horn too much, but seriously, in just under 5,000 words (including the methodology section) I provide a mostly comprehensive overview of the eight major streamers (Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, Hulu, HBO Max, Peacock, Paramount+, and Apple TV) for the first half of the year, mentioning most of their hits and all their misses. It summarizes the entire first half of 2026! If you want to support this work, please subscribe. Subscribe Tubi Big Mood Boarders The Freak Brothers Twenty Twenty Six Honorable Mentions: Busted on Bodycam, Deestroying the Pitch, Destination World Cup 2026 I don’t think that Tubi spends all that much making or (mostly) licensing these original TV shows—Big Mood, Boarders and Twenty Twenty Six all come from the UK—but they’re not free and they didn’t chart anywhere. Winner: The Freak Brothers Have you even heard of this show? It’s an animated comedy...that’s on its third season! And Pete Davidson, Woody Harrelson, John Goodman and Tiffany Haddish all provide voice talent for it. Yes, animated shows don’t cost as much as live action shows, but cheap isn’t free! So a show with this level of talent needs to perform better. Disney+ Daredevil: Born Again Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord Honorable Mentions: Behind the Attraction, Donna Hay Coastal Celebrations, We Call It Imagineering Disney+ doesn’t make all that many original shows anymore. They had two flops, and one was animated. Their one not-a-miss show, Wonder Man, got just good enough viewership to not be considered a “miss”...but it’s since been cancelled. At this point, Disney has pivoted entirely away from making big budget TV shows for Disney+ to making...almost nothing for Disney+? Sure, Disney’s spending circa 2019-2022 was unsustainable, but now they’re pivoting too far in the other direction. At some point, Disney needs to stop shifting strategies so wildly. Really, Disney should have made fewer shows for Disney+ at launch and the shows they did make at that time needed to be made at more reasonable budgets. And they should adopt that strategy now. Winner: Daredevil: Born Again Daredevil, the Marvel Comics character, is on my personal Mount Rushmore of favorite superheroes, so it pains me to give him the win/loss today, but this show deserves it. I’ll repeat my hot take from last spring: “Based on his popularity, Daredevil should be in movies, and probably ones that cost a lot less than the MCU’s usual price tag. Disney/Bob Iger/Ike Perlmutter (who, based on reporting, made the decision) made a huge mistake selling TV shows to Netflix in the 2010s, thus limiting this character to the small screen. Daredevil could have anchored Marvel’s post-Infinity War plans, and if he did, the MCU would probably be in a better place than it is now.” HBO Max We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… What four streamers had the most misses... HBO’s strong start to 2026… The caveat to Peacock’s turnaround this year... Paramount+’s key man problem… What country isn’t delivering hits for Netflix or Hulu... The cavalcade of stars on a streamer where no one is watching their shows... Across nearly 5,000 words of analysis… And a lot more... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. If you’d like to read more about why you should subscribe, please read this article about the Streaming Ratings Report, why it matters, why you need it, and why we cover streaming ratings best.
Mahjong mania: What’s behind the rise of a centuries-old Chinese game in the US
Mahjong, a four-person game similar to rummy, skyrocketed in popularity in the past year. And it’s turned into a pricey consumer ecosystem.
Small Business Tech News: Tokenmaxxing Wanes, Fixing Your “Spotty” Wi-Fi, Yelp Adds An AI Phone Assistant
“Tokenmaxxing” wanes in popularity, some non-profits are using AI in smart ways and Yelp adds an AI phone assistant
Georgia Secretary of State warns election officials off political betting
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is warning election officials and poll workers across the state not to place bets on political races as prediction market apps surge in popularity.
👀 Vozinha on his fame: I prefer my old life
Goalkeeper Vozinha broke his silence to speak about the strong impact popularity has had on his daily life following his standout performance at the World Cup.No privacy in everyday lifeThe goalkeeper...
Brazil: Lessons from a Disaster
By Antonio Martins (Outras Palavras) Defeats become deeper and more prolonged when we misunderstand what caused them, avoid correcting course, and embrace “solutions” that only compound our mistakes. Lula’s government and the Brazilian left suffered a disaster in Sunday’s election. Contrary to every poll, the president finished the first round 2.2 million votes behind Flávio Bolsonaro—and, more significantly, 3.4 million votes below his total four years ago, when the machinery of the state was working against him and in favor of his opponent. His vote share declined in 98 percent of Brazil’s municipalities. The PL, the main party of the far right, elected 121 deputies and 28 senators, becoming the largest caucus in both houses of Congress. The parties aligned with the Centrão—Brazil’s bloc of transactional center-right parties—were somewhat diminished, but will still hold roughly 250 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 35 in the Senate. That will make it easier to assemble the majorities needed to amend the Constitution or impeach Supreme Federal Court justices. If elected, Flávio Bolsonaro could appoint four members of the Court, substantially altering its internal balance of power. What produced these results? How can the far right be prevented from consolidating them into a prolonged political hegemony? And what is the essential change of direction the left now needs? Explaining the Disaster Across the commercial media and the exuberant chaos of digital platforms, interpretations are multiplying. Some focus on specific episodes: Lula’s absence from the Globo debate, his very close relationship with Alexandre de Moraes, or his emphasis on issues supposedly remote from most people’s everyday concerns, such as rare earth minerals. Among the more systemic interpretations, three seem especially questionable. One argues that the principal defeat was not the left’s, since its congressional representation declined only slightly. The decisive movement captured at the ballot box, according to this view, was a shift within the right itself—from the more moderate and transactional forces of the Centrão toward the more ideological and radicalized forces of the PL and Novo. A second interpretation holds that the nature of electoral and political processes has changed. The material interests and aspirations of society, it argues, no longer play the central role they once did; they have given way to forms of subjective self-identification that the left has yet to understand. And a third concludes that, because of these two developments, we should expect a political winter: a prolonged period in which the far right and the broader right dominate Brazilian political life. There are important elements in all three interpretations. The problem lies in what they deny or leave out: Lula’s third government was a small-bore government. It offered the majorities that elected it neither a clearly better life nor reasons to believe again in politics and its power to transform society. These failures flowed from two fatal accommodations, which I will examine below. As a result, the government suffered a slow but steady erosion of support. And, as has happened in so many Western countries, it gave the far right the opportunity to present itself as anti-system and to benefit from popular frustration and distress. The interpretation that emphasizes the migration of votes from the center-right and traditional right toward the far right has been advanced, among others, by the courageous journalist Leonardo Sakamoto. In his UOL column on Monday, October 5, he highlights the miserable behavior of the traditional conservative parties. Over the past four years, they repeatedly joined forces with the “neo”-fascists, helping to “normalize” them—a criticism that could equally be directed at almost the entire corporate media. Believing they could use the far right as a stepping stone, they instead ended up partly devoured by it. This was especially true in the Senate, where the PL’s gain of 13 senators and Novo’s gain of two came at the expense of the PSD, which lost nine; the MDB, which lost two; the PSDB, which lost two; and the PP, which lost one. Sakamoto’s observation is accurate and necessary, but it leaves uncomfortable questions unanswered. Why did the erosion of the Centrão benefit the far right rather than, for example, producing growth for the left—as has happened so many times before, both in Brazil and elsewhere? The answer is not difficult. Throughout its four years in office, Lula’s third government was almost invariably associated with the Centrão. Here lies its first accommodation: accepting the limits imposed by conservative institutions; avoiding, as much as possible, any attempt to strain those limits through popular pressure; and believing only in the modest changes that could be squeezed through openings in Congress. The failure of the campaign to end the six-day workweek is emblematic. Lula could have electrified the presidential race by pairing it with a popular campaign for passage of the measure. Instead, he chose to place his hopes in the hands of Senate president Rodrigo Alcolumbre. He generated no mass mobilization, did not force his opponents onto an uncomfortable defensive, and won no victory. In September 2025, the government squandered the greatest of its many opportunities to shake up conservative power in Congress. Popular opposition to the so-called Shielding Amendment—which, if approved, would have restricted criminal proceedings against members of Congress—brought crowds into the streets, mobilized primarily by artists and social movements. This opened the possibility for a broader political education: a campaign that could begin exposing the limits and dysfunctions of Brazil’s political system while putting Bolsonaro’s movement on the defensive for its predictable support of political privilege. The amendment was defeated. But the executive branch then backed away from the fight. It remained associated with an institutional world widely seen as corrupt, elitist, and indifferent to ordinary people’s struggles. In doing so, it forfeited its credibility as a vehicle for the protest vote. On Sunday, it reaped the bitter fruits. Are We Doomed? Taking a different approach from Sakamoto, the philosopher Moysés Pinto Neto and other writers have drawn attention, in their first analyses of October 4, to the fragmentation of the public sphere produced by Big Tech platforms. Through their algorithms, these platforms present each person with a different view of social reality. As a consequence, it becomes much harder to identify common material problems and demands—for example, the fight for labor rights or for a properly funded public health system. Voters no longer embrace such demands, these authors argue, because they no longer see themselves as part of a collective. Instead, they tend to value the identities assigned to them by neoliberal subjectivity—the role of the entrepreneur, for example. On this interpretation, the left’s possible error lies in clinging to outdated illusions. Moysés’s warning is highly relevant and resonates with arguments such as Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor’s “Apocalyptic Fascism and the Billionaires’ Bet.” Unlike a century ago, the far right no longer promises a radiant future. It concentrates instead on resentment—especially that of young men. “They belong to a generation that fears it may never own a home, but compensates with the pleasure it gets from constantly provoking progressives online. Convinced their future has been stolen, they share memes romanticizing historical authoritarian regimes,” the authors write. But Moysés seems to confuse this danger with inevitability. He fails to see that the left’s answer cannot be adaptation. On the contrary, it must strengthen the possibility of politics as collective action. Nor does he recognize that precisely such a reversal is already becoming possible in some of the most promising mobilizations of the twenty-first century: the election, at the end of 2025, of the young Muslim Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York, on a platform centered on the intensely material fight for an affordable city; the Left Party’s victory in Berlin two weeks ago, built around the demand to expropriate private real-estate corporations; and the very recent wave of demonstrations in Spain—including an occupation of Madrid’s Puerta del Sol—in which tens of thousands of young people mobilized by the Tenants’ Union have demanded limits on rents. By putting itself in the straitjacket of the “fiscal framework” in the first months of 2022, Lula’s third government adopted the second fatal accommodation of its term. Faced with conservative institutions and a country devastated by four years of Bolsonaro, increased public investment was the government’s remaining weapon for offering a more dignified life to the majority and forging an anti-conservative pact with them. The same state that disburses 1 trillion reais a year to enrich a small class of rentiers could instead spend money to extend the Family Health Strategy to every Brazilian, at a cost of 30 billion reais; provide full-day public schooling and childcare to all adolescents and children—and, especially, relief to their mothers; achieve universal sanitation while cleaning up polluted urban rivers; multiply metro systems; begin transforming the urban peripheries; and undertake many other urgently needed projects. In April 2023, an article in Outras Palavras warned that the fiscal framework could “shrink the Lula government and preserve the forces that condemn the country to inequality and regression.” A year later, another article showed that restraints on public spending were strangling policies vital to ordinary people and undermining the president’s popularity. In November 2024 came a reality check, in the form of the government’s humiliating defeat in the municipal elections. Even then, the fiscal lock was neither removed nor loosened. On the contrary: throughout the government’s four years, fiscal restraint remained central to its political narrative. The administration proudly proclaimed that it had “put the state’s accounts in order,” without grasping either how misleading that phrase was—given the payment of 1 trillion reais in interest—or how badly the message was hurting it politically. Lula finally woke up in September 2026. The increase in Bolsa Família benefits, after four years of being frozen; the announcement that anti-obesity drugs would be offered through Brazil’s public health system; and the ban on online betting showed that the state has the power to act decisively on behalf of the majority when those in government are willing to confront obstacles. The huge marches that closed the campaign in Fortaleza, Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo on the eve of October 4 showed how such initiatives can mobilize activists and the broader public. But it was too late—and too little to change the outcome of the first round. History has not ended The possibility of a turnaround in the three weeks leading up to November 25 cannot be ruled out. It will not be simple or easy. Lula must not only make up a deficit of 2.2 million votes; he must also offset the movement of voters who backed other right-wing candidates in the first round, most of whom are likely to move toward Flávio Bolsonaro. Pulling that off will require a broad, grassroots effort to win over voters, potentially reinforced by new initiatives from Lula. The coming hours and days will be decisive. If Bolsonaro’s movement also wins the presidency, the result will create a high-risk situation for Brazilian sovereignty and democracy. The enormous challenges posed by such an outcome would require the left to reexamine, in depth and with a genuine willingness to engage in self-criticism, its political projects—or its lack of them—and its practices. But would that mean we are condemned to the long winter of far-right hegemony that some analyses are beginning to forecast? It is far too early to say, suggests a recent text by Álvaro García Linera, the thinker who served as vice president of Bolivia under Evo Morales. His central hypothesis is that this political current will prove short-lived. At a moment when the entire world is once again talking about sovereignty and protecting national economies, the far right offers a stale, recolonizing neoliberalism. Its submission to the United States is as blatant and pathetic as Flávio and Eduardo Bolsonaro’s overtures to Donald Trump. Its project amounts to something like every man for himself: greater inequality, capitalism without limits, devastation, and supremacism. Will it work? In the United States, just two years into his second term, Trump himself is reaching record levels of unpopularity and may be on the verge of losing Republican control of both the House and Senate in November. Every new beginning is difficult. Whatever the outcome of the second round, the defeats of October 4 show how profoundly the Brazilian left will have to rethink and rebuild. But just as it would be foolish to underestimate the seriousness of its mistakes, it would be equally foolish to conclude that rebuilding a political project is no longer possible. History has not ended. The times are moving faster than ever. Originally published in Portuguese by Outras Palavras. English translation by Eric Blanc; I’ve added the subtitles. More We can’t stop the far right at home or abroad without a revitalized labor movement, which is yet another reason why you should become a sustaining supporter of the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) — one of US labor’s pivotal bright spots. Relatedly, Jacobin published a short piece of mine reflecting on a decade of Bernie Sanders inspiring a whole new generation of young worker organizers.
Photos: Fall semester, soap carving and business built by grads
Happy Friday, Huskies! This week, students in Oakland held a new kind of student government election. Over in Boston, dive inside the Soap Carving Club’s growing popularity. And, graduates share the businesses they build through entreprenuership.
If Not AOC, Then Who?
What do we do if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez decides not to run for president in 2028? It makes sense that many leftists are currently focused on calling on her to take the plunge. But the absence of a Plan B, or even much discussion about one, is worrisome. The US Left can’t afford to sit out the 2028 Democratic primary. Doing so in 2024 was a disaster: our abstention self-marginalized anti-billionaire politics from the national conversation and thereby gave space for Harris to pivot to the “center” (i.e. the policy preferences of corporate donors, establishment hacks, and AIPAC). Abstaining again in 2028 would be especially counterproductive since democratic socialists now have so much wind in our sails after our big electoral wins in NYC and across the country. It’s time to deepen our momentum, organization, and profile — not to retreat to the margins during America’s single most important political battle. Even more urgently, keeping Trump’s heir out of the White House may depend on whether leftists and the party’s unprecedentedly disenchanted base can force the Democrats in 2028 to take meaningful steps towards a very angry electorate and away from the corporate-consultant blob that has helped get us into this mess. If AOC (or Abdul El-Sayed) decides to run, we should enthusiastically go all in — DSA, fighting unions, progressive organizations, anybody who wants to see a better country and world. But, as far as I can tell from the outside, there’s a real chance that she doesn’t run. And we can’t just wait and see where she lands before discussing alternatives, since AOC’s decision might not come for quite a while, giving us little time to scramble at the last minute for an alternative. So we should start working now on getting a Plan B into motion, and recruiting a good candidate for the role. Here’s one idea. A Worker Candidate — Healthcare Not Warfare 2028 Run a union worker Leftists don’t need to always run experienced, well-known socialist politicians for high-profile contests. Lula, the current president of Brazil, began his political career as a metalworker militant who ran for governor of São Paulo in 1982. Especially in an era of institutional distrust, it’s possible to lean hard into making a virtue out of a working-class comrade’s distance from traditional politics. Experience abroad shows this clearly. Rachel Kéké — an immigrant hotel housekeeper — ran as the candidate of the leftist La France Insoumise for the National Assembly in 2022, defeating a former minister in the Macron government. The Belgian Workers’ Party in 2024 won its first Flemish seat in the European Parliament by running Rudi Kennes, a three-decade veteran of the Opel Antwerp auto factory. And the South Korean left in 2024 elected auto factory militant Yoon Jong-oh to the National Assembly. If a tiny French Trotskyist organization could make such a big splash in 2002 and 2007 by running a well-spoken postal worker cadre for office — the LCR’s Olivier Besancenot received about 1.5 million first-round votes — it’s not far-fetched to expect that a much larger organization like DSA, together with a broader coalition of the willing, could run this playbook to much greater effect. This is especially the case now that almost everything DSA does immediately becomes a national news story. We don’t need someone famous. We just need a charismatic, well-vetted comrade who works in a relatable working-class occupation — e.g. a nurse, or a worker in auto or construction, or at Amazon. Ideally, they have a compelling personal story or have been part of a significant strike or organizing campaign, but even those criteria don’t necessarily have to be deal-breakers. The main lesson of the Graham Platner fiasco isn’t that we should never run outsiders for office (the momentum he generated proves the exact opposite), but that they need proper vetting and roots in democratic membership organizations like DSA or a union. In any case, there are plenty of ways to signal working-class authenticity without resorting to Platner’s or Fetterman’s performative macho white dude affect. Better to have someone of any gender or race who is actually working class, with firm socialist politics, who can speak from experience about the day-to-day realities of trying to make it in America. There are surely at least a dozen such worker leaders in our movement nationwide; we just need to sit down and convince one that their personal sacrifice for the greater good (i.e. running for president) will be worth it. If we don’t have a frontrunner with a clear path to victory like AOC (or El-Sayed, were he to win Michigan), it’s better to embrace someone whose decision to run in itself tells an important story about US politics: workers have been iced out of our political system and are now fighting hard to break back in. The novelty factor, in itself, would generate press. And it would help democratic socialists signal to the American public that our movement’s defining characteristic is that we represent workers vs. bosses, not that we’re “the furthest left” force in American politics — a framework that suggests we’re extremists and that helps our opponents isolate us from non-college-educated voters by highlighting extremely minoritarian (and misguided) stances included in DSA’s platform like prison abolition. We don’t get many opportunities to speak to tens of millions of Americans; we need to use these opportunities to broaden our appeal beyond those already in our orbit. Run to polarize the 2028 primary and general election around “Medicare for All” and “End All Aid to Israel” Why should democratic socialists use our scarce time and volunteer energy to run in a race we’re unlikely to win? Running in the 2028 primary will not only recruit us scores of members (imagine having a DSA member intervening in eleven nationally televised primary debates!), but — more importantly — it has the potential to be a decisive leap forward towards an America that finally starts meeting the needs of working people instead of HMO and AIPAC billionaire donors. Polarizing litmus tests are good, actually — as long as they’re fought for around popular demands in a thoughtful and strategic way. Democratic socialists have an opportunity and responsibility to make the 2028 primary about two of the most widely and deeply felt issues of our moment: domestically, America’s unaffordable, family-breaking private healthcare system; internationally, America’s bankrolling of the genocidal Israeli government. A candidacy relentlessly demanding Medicare for All and No Aid to Israel would pose a sharp question to the American public, the Democratic Party, and other 2028 contenders: Why can’t working-class Americans afford their healthcare bills at the same time that our government is spending at least $3.8 billion yearly to fund an Israeli regime eager to keep dragging us and the world into more forever wars? Our candidate can agitate around a clear message: I’m running to give voice to all those working-class Americans who are struggling to get by. No matter what state you live in, who you voted for in 2024, or your background, it’s just plain common sense that we should make healthcare more affordable instead of spending billions to enable the Israeli government’s crimes against humanity. Every American who agrees with me when I say ‘Medicare for All — Not a Dime for Israel’ should make their voice heard through our campaign. Racking up a high number of votes for this agenda is a crucial way to show the Democratic Party and the country as a whole that we can’t keep supporting a life-destroying status quo in our healthcare system and in the Middle East. If we want to defeat Trump’s handpicked crony this coming November, we need to speak to ordinary people’s frustrations with the status quo — we can’t keep running the same tired establishment playbook and expecting a different result. For those highly engaged voters (or skeptical media pundits) who raise concerns about wasting votes, the candidate can take the time to explain why this isn’t the case: It's true I'm a long shot. But Zohran showed anything can happen — and voting for me is a pragmatic decision, not a wasted vote. In a heavily divided primary with a large number of candidates and a very discredited establishment, my campaign and the democratic socialist movement I’m part of are positioned to be the balance of power if we can get a large enough number of voters to loudly demand Healthcare Not Warfare. Since there’s a high chance no candidate will get to 50% in the 2028 primaries, the Democrats could very well be heading towards a brokered convention, where a disciplined, principled current committed to breaking from corporate donors can play an outsized role in making sure whoever ends up with the nomination raises the banner of single-payer healthcare and cutting aid to Israel. How exactly could running this sort of primary campaign be translated into actual leverage? The candidate replies: I’m aiming to win the nomination, but if I don’t achieve that goal, my delegates and I will pledge our support in the primary only for a candidate who agrees in the general election to call for ending US aid to Israel and establishing Medicare for All at home. These are both winning planks for November against the Republicans, and the only reason I can see that other candidates haven’t yet raised these is that they’re still more scared of the donor class than they are of the people. That needs to change. If Democratic leaders want young people, workers, and those sick of the status quo to show up in big numbers this November, they need to meet us halfway. In this way, whether or not we win the nomination, democratic socialists could still play a decisive role in 2028. The approach outlined here is similar to what radical left parties periodically do in parliamentary democracies like Denmark or Sweden when they find themselves as a junior partner electorally: they dictate to center-left allies what their terms would be for enabling, from the outside, the formation of a new government. Running a Healthcare Not Warfare candidate will make it significantly more likely that the 2028 Democratic candidate stands with ordinary people instead of donors on these two pivotal planks — a shift that will, in turn, make it easier to achieve the existentially important task of defeating MAGA’s heir in November. Look at how much popular traction the Uncommitted movement got with a similar strategy in 2024 with so little on-the-ground organization — surely we can go much further with a working-class candidate, a much bigger DSA, and a Democratic Party base that has turned against Israel, billionaires, and the hacks in the party who prop them up. Objections and Responses There are quite a few objections to this proposal, many of which are very reasonable. Let me briefly address each here. Socialists shouldn’t waste their scarce time and resources on a candidate unlikely to win. This is a good rule in general, but there are important exceptions, and presidential elections are the main one. There’s no other political contest that gets anything like this level of attention and engagement in the US, so if you want to be a serious force in nationwide politics, you basically can’t afford not to have a candidate. Far from being an overall drain on our resources, running a dynamic 2028 campaign would likely result in a major net increase in members and capacity. In that spirit, the very pragmatic Milwaukee sewer socialists — who mostly ran to win at home in Wisconsin — supported Eugene Debs’s propagandistic presidential campaigns, which they correctly saw as a crucial means of recruiting to the Socialist Party. And now that the (post-1972) Democratic Party gives more weight to voters than party operatives in determining its presidential nomination, it’s become feasible to run as a socialist in primaries without risking a split in the vote against the Republicans in November. We should just support Ro Khanna, who also supports M4A and ending aid to Israel. I like Ro Khanna and would enthusiastically vote and canvass for him for president were he to get the nomination. But there’s a real chance that Khanna’s bid for office doesn’t catch on; he lacks the grassroots organizational apparatus of DSA, and, because he’s not really of the Left or labor (despite his current very good positions), he’s unlikely to generate the type of buy-in and enthusiasm that a DSA candidate would. Moreover, Khanna would be running as an individual, not as someone emerging from and building an organized movement — his campaign would not likely focus on building sustained power from below, nor would it likely polarize the 2028 primary around M4A and Israel aid. Also, and not inconsequentially, the poor electoral results for Tom Steyer and Saikat Chakrabarti this spring suggest that there’s perhaps not much of a popular appetite in the Democrats’ base to support multi-millionaire class traitors. Much better, then, to run a democratic socialist worker. If by Super Tuesday it’s clear that our campaign has captured the main left lane in the primary, Khanna should drop out and endorse us; conversely, if he’s managed to capture this lane, DSA could at that point transform its Healthcare Not Warfare campaign into an independent campaign to elect Ro Khanna focused on winning (and holding him accountable to) those two critical planks. An openness to consolidating an anti-corporate candidate by Super Tuesday is a necessary component of the strategy I’m proposing, because otherwise we risk splitting the primary votes (per DNC rules, you need at least 15% to get any delegates to convention). We should convince Shawn Fain or Sara Nelson to run for president instead. I agree it’d be great if either ran for president, but my impression is that there’s basically no chance that will happen in 2028, because both are firmly focused on their union leadership duties (and, in the case of Fain, beating back a federal witch-hunt). This plan could have DSA end up endorsing a non-socialist, non-DSAer for president. That’s against our principles. It’s a myth, and bad politics, that socialists can’t ever support candidates who aren’t members of their organization and/or who don’t call themselves socialists. Bernie, after all, was not a DSAer. And socialists abroad regularly make tactical decisions about if and when supporting a non-socialist candidate makes sense from the standpoint of promoting working-class interests, defending democracy, and building a socialist current in the process. If your “principles” prevent you and DSA from helping achieve the momentous stride forward of having a Democratic candidate in 2028 run on Medicare for All and ending aid to Israel, those “principles” are not very good. In fact, they actively undermine the causes they’re aiming to support. We shouldn’t confuse principles (working-class independence) with tactics (the best way to advance this in a given context). In my recent article in Catalyst on Milwaukee sewer socialism (I’ve uploaded the full text here), I have a section showing how similarly rigid rules about endorsements had to be eventually discarded in the old Socialist Party nationwide after WWI because they tended to lead socialists towards a sectarian abstention from broader anti-corporate electoral insurgencies beyond their party’s control. For what it’s worth, Lenin’s current under Tsarism frequently backed bourgeois candidates in the second round of elections and Lenin himself advocated that British Communists support Labour Party candidates; for his part, Kautsky in 1912 defended the German Social Democracy’s electoral pact with the Progressives in the runoffs. If our predecessors could be that tactically flexible in an era before the limits of their underlying strategic assumptions about intransigent class politics in capitalist democracies were made clear, then there’s no need to insist on being more tactically rigid today, after a century’s worth of accumulated experience. As long as you maintain your own political profile and organization while engaging in broader coalitional efforts, there’s zero inherent contradiction with the principle of political independence. More specifically: DSA and allied organizations should enthusiastically back Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed if AOC declines to run and he throws his hat in the presidential ring. (I have no idea whether he’s even considering this path, but there’ll surely be chatter about it if he wins his Senate race this November.) Though he doesn’t call himself a socialist, El-Sayed is a principled Berniecrat, a consistent fighter for Palestine, and would have a clear path to victory. Using the “s” word is far less important than whether a campaign fights for the interests of working people at home and abroad — and whether actively participating in it can grow the organized working class and the Left. And the same holds true if a less anti-corporate candidate were, under pressure, to adopt our two Healthcare Not Warfare planks. Why focus only on M4A and ending US aid to Israel? There are so many other important issues to fight for! Obviously there are many pivotal issues beyond healthcare and Israel, and our candidate — and especially our organizations involved in the campaign — should be prepared to speak on all of these. But one of the crucial lessons of the Zohran campaign is that you have to relentlessly stay on message if you want to cut through the noise. CNN and Fox News will want to talk about DSA’s views on Venezuela and abolishing the police; we need to polarize the debate on the widely and deeply felt issues that are most favorable for growing the Left, isolating our opponents, and winning urgently needed changes. One recent poll found 63% of Americans support M4A, even after respondents were told it would raise taxes and eliminate most private insurance. Another found that 74% of Democrats opposed “providing additional economic and military support to Israel.” And focusing on two demands sets the campaign up to be able to leverage its mandate to make clear demands upon other candidates (which we can’t do if we run with a laundry list of demands). Talking about a Plan B is a distraction from the more urgent work of building a groundswell of calls on AOC to run. It’s good for DSAers, fightback unionists, and progressive organizations to try to convince AOC to run. This proposal is meant as an addendum to pushes to get AOC to run and to line DSA up for that eventuality, not as a substitute for those efforts. But I’m worried that, like in 2024, we might eventually find ourselves with no time to find a viable alternative unless we start now. DSA, with its abundant deliberative processes, moves slowly. The approach you’re suggesting seems risky. If a DSA candidate runs but doesn’t receive a lot of votes, it’ll undercut our current national momentum. This is a reasonable worry. All big initiatives always carry risks, and the path I’m advocating is certainly not free of these. That said, if a Healthcare Not Warfare campaign doesn’t catch on like we envisioned, it’s a pretty simple pivot in March 2028 to explain that in the future we really need our standard-bearers like AOC, or our growing bench of national electeds, to step up in presidential primaries. Moreover, it’s worth noting that the risk of my Plan B proposal is on the whole significantly less than the risk entailed by an AOC run. We should all back her if she runs, since she’d fire up the base, provide huge openings for organizing, have a real shot at defeating a Republican (especially given MAGA’s unpopularity), be a great standard-bearer for our issues, particularly M4A and ending aid to Israel, and be less willing than mainstream candidates to capitulate to any anti-democratic machinations from Trump and co. But it’s also true that AOC could lose, which would be a devastating setback to the country and the Left. Or she could win and find herself unable to pass much, if any, of her (and our) program, a demoralizing prospect. So if we’re willing to take these risks with AOC (and we should), it follows that we should be able to take lower-level risks if she doesn’t throw her hat in the ring. What’s Your Plan B? The US Left is facing its biggest opening for growth and influence since the 1930s. Initiatives that would have been impossible a few months ago are now potentially feasible. A President AOC is now easier to imagine, but if she ultimately assesses that the risks aren’t worth the potential reward in 2028, we can’t be left flat-footed. So even if you’re not convinced by the specifics of my Plan B, I hope you can at least agree that it’d be a disaster for us not to have one — and not to start getting a Plan B into motion. Hopefully other organizers and political currents will put forward their responses and alternative ideas ASAP. The stakes are too high to just wait and see. More As always, please share this article widely. This newsletter depends on all you lovely people to get the word out. Thank you! I uploaded the full text of my Catalyst article on Milwaukee sewer socialism here (it’s updated and 3x as long as the version published earlier on this substack). If you haven’t yet, please make sure to subscribe to Catalyst here; I read every issue front to back, highly recommend. 🌹🎵 Ivan Lins (arranged by Arthur Verocai) — “General da Banda” 🌹🎵
Star Wars Zero Company popularity jumps 20% on Xbox as the good word spreads
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Pickleball social club in Greenville combines fitness and community
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Fox Sports will broadcast 35 women's volleyball matches, including 8 on Fox
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Abdul El-Sayed's victory sends tremors through Democratic Party
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Comptroller’s report shows that as mobile sports gambling rises, so do concerns
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As flag football becomes official sport in Oregon, Salem-Keizer coaches, players hopeful about future
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Video: Opinion
President Trump’s unpopularity is a threat to Republican candidates across the country. But that’s not stopping him from promising $5,000 checks to voters and telling them to pretend he’s on the ballot. The Opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie argues that these efforts to woo infrequent voters are not only harmful to the party but also “profound political malpractice.”
*POSTPONED* Behind the Science with Paleontologist and Curator of Dinosauria Dr. Matthew Carrano
***Due to speaker illness, this event has been postponed. A new date will be announced in two weeks. If you registered for this program, please check your email for more information. We apologize for the inconvenience.*** Is the 21st Century the real Age of Dinosaurs? Today, more paleontologists are discovering more dinosaur fossils from more places in the world than ever before. Our understanding of these amazing creatures has leapt forward while their popularity has surged. Museums sit at the junction of these phenomena. The Smithsonian has been a center for dinosaur research for more than a century, and its collections include many iconic and scientifically important specimens. Today, Smithsonian researchers continue to discover new dinosaurs, but they are also uncovering more information about the ones we already know and love. New techniques and approaches allow them to investigate aspects of dinosaur biology, ecology, and evolution in ways that would have been inconceivable to early paleontologists. The result is an ever-improving understanding of dinosaurs as living, breathing, and thriving animals. This month, go behind the science with paleontologist Dr. Matthew Carrano, Curator of Dinosauria at the National Museum of Natural History as he discusses new discoveries at home and abroad, in the field and in the museum. Registration is encouraged. Space is filled on a first come first served basis. ---------------- About the Series: Behind the Science A monthly after-hours series featuring NMNH scientists and researchers Each month, join the National Museum of Natural History for the new series, Behind the Science, where NMNH researchers share insights into their latest discoveries and explore the fascinating questions driving their work—from the origins of life to the future of our planet. Come learn what’s happening behind the scenes and how science shapes our understanding of the natural world. Programs take place in Q?rius, the Coralyn W. Whitney Science Education Center. Topics and speakers announced on a rolling basis, but save the dates now!
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Murj announces patient monitoring platform for hypertension and heart failure
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Trump’s midterm woes deepen amid worsened economic backdrop: CNN poll
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BUSINESS UPDATE: Attracting World-Renowned Piercing Educators to Oswego
Growing number of renowed piercers are coming to Oswego to share knowledge at newly opened Aqua Spa Float Center piercing suite Submited by Aqua Spa Float Center & Wellness Boutique [caption id=attachment_11066 align=alignright width=450] Recent opening of Aqua Spa Float Center piercing suite.[/caption] Professional piercers and educators from countries including France, Scotland and India have come to Oswego’s Aqua Spa Float Center & Wellness Boutique to share their knowledge In the past year and a half, the Port City has become a destination for some of the industry’s most respected educators through the efforts of the Aqua Spa Float Center & Wellness Boutique. Beginning in January of 2025, Aqua Spa Float Center envisioned a new version of body piercing, one where elegance, safety and personal expression could converge. According to the Aqua Spa, piercing is no longer just a trend — it’s a refined form of personal identity, luxury styling and self-investment. It’s not only about the jewelry — it’s about the entire experience. The team welcomed first guest piercer Ruben Triguero, a senior French piercer, piercing stylist and international educator, who has over two decades of experience and has worked in some of the world’s best studios, including Paris, Rome, New York, Miami, Los Angeles and Dubai. In those studios, he offered his expertise and refined styling skills. Triguero is a prominent figure and leader in the piercing community and shares his knowledge with piercers teaching classes for the industry’s most prestigious organizations, including Latinoamérica Body Piercing Association (LBP) and Association of Professional Piercers (APP). He is currently the senior international instructor of the APP. Triguero has a passion for creating stunning, personalized piercings for clients around the world. Education and Mentorship Following a year of success and popularity, Aqua Spa Float Center hosted the grand opening of its private dedicated piercing suite in March. Aqua Spa Float Center & Wellness celebrated this next chapter with a grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by the Oswego Mayor Robert Corradino, members of the Greater Oswego-Fulton Chamber of Commerce, local business owners and community members. The educational focus, aligned with Aqua Spa Float Center’s vision and mission, had already begun expanding beyond clients. Aqua Spa has hosted multiple workshops and continuing education opportunities for professional piercers, inviting studios from across the region to gain hands-on experience from internationally recognized instructors without the expense of traveling to national or international conferences. These educational events have welcomed nationally and internationally recognized professional piercers and educators from countries including France, Scotland, India, and throughout the United States. Aqua Spa also continues to collaborate with talented regional and local professionals, creating opportunities for education and mentorship that benefit both industry peers and clients throughout Central New York. Aqua Spa Float Center & Wellness Boutique owners — Tammy Wilkinson and Terry LeRoi — have been deeply rooted in the piercing industry with over 30 years in business as LeRoi Fine Body Jewellery. Combining that experience with holistic wellness, self-care and self-expression is the new concept with the client Luxe Piercing Experience at the Aqua Spa Float Center. “At LeRoi Fine Body Jewellery and Aqua Spa Float Center, we’ve been fortunate to work with many of the world’s most respected piercers through our involvement with the Association of Professional Piercers and by attending conferences across North America and Europe,” said LeRoi, founder of LeRoi Fine Body Jewellery and co-owner of Aqua Spa Float Center & Wellness Boutique. “Those experiences have shown us that education is what drives our industry forward. “Not every piercer or studio can travel to major conferences like the APP Conference in Las Vegas or APP Benelux in the Netherlands, so we’re committed to bringing that level of education here. Hosting internationally respected educators like Jef Saunders allows our clients to experience the highest standards of professional piercing while giving piercers throughout the Northeast the opportunity to learn from some of the very best in the profession. That’s something we’re incredibly proud to offer our community.” When asked about the client experience, Wilkinson explained that education is at the heart of every appointment as well. “Our vision is to nurture and enhance wellness, balance and harmony through a multi-modality-centered facility, and we aspire to empower sustained, positive change, well-being and self-awareness; and educate to the benefits of natural health, holistic wellness and life balance,” Wilkison explains. “Piercing is no different. The piercing experience feels just as peaceful and rejuvenating as any other spa services. From the moment our clients arrive, they are in the very best hands with our kind and professional Wellness Ambassadors and experienced APP guest piercers.” Wilkinson also explained that piercing clients receive stellar care: every Luxe Piercing appointment includes a one-on-one private piercing in Aqua Spa’s dedicated piercing suite, their choice of custom jewellery by LeRoi Fine Body Jewellery, thorough after-care instructions and complementary check-up appointment, complementary whole-body red light therapy session in the Class II NovoTHOR medical device to promote healing, and access to many rejuvenating spa services. Piercing clients get 15% off during any event. According to Wilkinson, “Health and safety are always our highest priority when you come in for a piercing or jewelry installation. Before each appointment, all tools and jewelry are sterilized in a Statim autoclave, and every surface in the piercing room is carefully disinfected. During the procedure, your piercer will wear a mask and change gloves as needed to maintain a sterile environment. Once your piercing is complete, your piercer will go over detailed aftercare instructions with you. Following these steps is crucial to ensure proper healing before you leave our sanctuary.” As a part of the experience, guest piercers include a thorough anatomy review of the client’s desired piercing to ensure the new addition will work in harmony with the existing. “Our clients are enjoying building and creating ear curations with these international professionals. It’s a unique styling event and a chance to highlight self-expression,” Wilkinson said. Clients and piercers throughout the region are flocking to this piercing destination in Upstate New York. The Luxe Piercing Experience has welcomed clients and piercers alike from around the globe. Owners Wilkinson and LeRoi hope to continue the momentum with more educational seminars with industry experts to be a hub of knowledge and expertise. They hope to establish LeRoi Fine Body Jewellery and Aqua Spa Float Center as legacy businesses known for their lasting, positive impact on the piercing and holistic wellness industries.
Cheaper, open and intelligent: Chinese AI models gain ground, as they make inroads in the US
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Warning Signs Abound for Trump's Republicans as Midterm Campaign Begins Final Sprint
By Joseph Ax Sept 7 (Reuters) - As the unofficial start of the campaign sprint kicks off on Labor Day Monday, President Donald Trump's deep unpopularity is imperiling Republican chances of maintaining their narrow majorities in Congress with just two months before November's midterm elections.
Pickleball, anyone? It’s for a good cause
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Why boxing is still a box office smash hit even as the sport’s popularity wanes
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Darline Graham has Donald Trump in her corner. Will it be enough to win her brother’s Senate seat?
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The enduring popularity of Elvis Presley's Graceland is a monument to his legacy
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From the Deputy Editor: Small-business wisdom from the trenches
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'It makes me different': Meet the women breaking world records in lumberjack sports
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Can $1 billion power the GOP to victory in the midterms? Some campaigns fear it's too late
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MrBeast Sales Slow, Angel Stock Falls, MUBI and Neon Look for Hits, and Will an NBA Franchise Set a Sales Record?
(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) You probably remember egg prices spiking a few years ago. This led to a lot of debate between the pro-market/pro-competition/antitrust/Neo-Brandesian crowd and the center/center-right/center-left/abundance/libertarian crowd over the cause, whether it was the avian flu outbreak or whether industry consolidation led to price fixing, using avian flu as a convenient cover. Basel Musharbash wrote a whole investigation at BIG looking at it. Well, two years later, we have our answer: it was price fixing. The Justice Department found proof, via emails, of price fixing. Indeed, just the threat of an investigation brought prices down two years ago: I bring this up because at least half a dozen of my favorite political writers and pundits, who were skeptical about price fixing at the time, haven’t written any mea culpas on this issue. It’s really dispiriting and makes it much, much harder to trust their work on other issues. If you take a hard stand on an issue, then you get it wrong, you need to explain how and why you got it wrong. Or update your priors. This is how epistemological bubbles are formed! All of which is to say, it’s time for another installment of “What I Got Right, What I Got Wrong”. Last issue, I mostly focused on the “wrong” side of the equation, so today’s is a bit more balanced, but with one big mea culpa (though I still stand by my original concerns). Let’s dive right in! Subscribe CORRECTION: UFC Didn’t Release Subscriber Data (But Seems to Have Bragged About It Internally) In my analysis of the viewership of UFC Freedom 250, I wrote... “Paramount has also released datecdotes bragging about their subscriber numbers. Earlier this year, they claimed that the first UFC fight on Paramount+ brought in 1 million subscribers.” Well, that datecdote did not come from a PR rep, but from great reporting from James Faris at Business Insider. The actual quote was this: “Paramount’s flagship streaming service generated about a million new subscribers on the day of its first-ever UFC event, Paramount product chief Dane Glasgow told employees in a town hall on Tuesday morning, three staffers who attended the meeting told Business Insider.“ This wasn’t the biggest goof in the world; even Faris emphasized to me that this is more a “clarification” than a correction. Still, it sounds like, internally, the folks at Paramount were very happy about this result—and I’m guessing they were happy with this news getting out—even though the gains didn’t last through the quarter, dropping to 700K adds. RIGHT: MrBeast’s Struggles Continue... I’m very skeptical about MrBeast’s burgeoning media “empire” and, in particular, its $5 billion valuation, as I wrote earlier this year and last year. Sure enough, according to Business Insider, regarding its “booming” consumer products division_:_ “US sales volume grew 13% year-over-year in 2025, following a 33% leap the previous year, according to a presentation deck dated May 2026....A February 2025 investor deck viewed by Business Insider showed Feastables’ net revenue more than doubled in 2024 from 2023, to $215 million, and was forecast to grow 74% in 2025, to $375 million.” [Emphasis mine.] If you told investors that you projected 74% growth but delivered 13%,1 that’s not ideal. But it’s not just MrBeast. Logan Paul and KSI’s Prime had sales drop in half for their energy drinks. It’s one thing to build a successful entertainment company and an entirely different thing to succeed in the heavily-consolidated-but-also-very-competitive consumer packaged goods space! CPGs are dominated by a few firms with very wide moats compared to YouTube, which has few barriers to entry. These businesses require different skill sets and have completely different business environments. WRONG: Does the NBA Have an $8 Billion Bidder? Almost as soon as I published my article about the NBA’s finances, casting skepticism on NBA expansion, I saw this Front Office Sports headline: One group “claims to have already raised $8 billion” for the Vegas expansion team. I mean, wow. That’s just $2 billion less than what the Los Angeles Lakers were valued at when they were sold just last year. And they’re arguably the most popular team in the NBA. (Side note: the new owner is now under an investigation for fraud in how he went about financing the Lakers and the Dodgers purchases.) So much for the “dried up” language I used in that article. (This is why I usually stick to my “Entertainment Nuance Guy” tone in articles...) I went off old information—from April, when I read/heard about the NBA downplaying expansion efforts—instead of doing a quick double-check for new news. That said...if you read the article, the market for Seattle is “slow”, with just one reported bidder. So I wasn’t entirely off. This goof has annoyed me since I first published it, mainly because it undercut that article’s real point, which I stand by: NBA franchises are really overvalued right now. Now, I get why NBA teams are overvalued. When it comes to owning sports teams, it’s basically never wrong to assume that some rich person somewhere will care more about owning a team (or just being part of a group since they’re so expensive) than the actual financials. There are only so many teams to own, and opportunities to buy in preferred markets don’t come along very often. This explains why the teams sell for such high multiples (usually above a 10 to 12.5 revenue multiple, which is very high). You only need one person to overpay! Beyond the ultra-wealthy luxury good explanation, I worry NBA teams are becoming speculative assets. More and more private equity investors are buying into NBA teams. But the value, in owning a team, comes from selling it later, not any meaningful relationship to revenue or profit growth. In other words, the newer NBA owners are increasingly expecting someone later to buy their inflated asset. That’s not sound economics; that’s the “greater fool” theory at work.2 At some point, actually making money has to matter. Especially since revenue growth is now below the growth of the stock market. (And this matters because the NBA doesn’t have easy levers to pull to drastically lower their costs—half of their revenue has to go to players and then you actually have to run a team, including coaching, training, travel, media expenses, and more—or raise revenues aside from one-off expansions in America and overseas.) I just don’t see how investors make their money back buying NBA teams, except for selling at a higher price later on down the line. But if revenue/profit growth continues to slow, at some point, someone will be left holding the bag. RIGHT: Baseball and Basketball are about equally popular. Related to the above, I wanted to cite two quick pieces of evidence for one of my other theories: that the NBA and MLB are about as popular as each other, but the NBA gets much, much better media coverage. One YouGov survey has that fans prefer basketball to baseball by 52% to 48%, which I’m guessing is within the margin of error for that poll. That’s virtually even, meaning they’re about the same popularity. Over on NBC, a recent Red Sox-Yankees game averaged 4 million viewers, higher than Sunday Night Basketball’s average of 3.4 million on the same network. A Yankees-Dodgers game averaged 3.9 million two weeks ago. Not every game averages this much, but it shows you that baseball isn’t far off from basketball, depending on the matchup. Altogether, the NBA is just slightly more popular than baseball, but NBC is paying MLB a fraction of what they pay the NBA, a point I’ve made before. RIGHT: Angel, MUBI and Neon Updates... I’ve long been skeptical about many of Hollywood’s buzziest startups/smaller indie studios. It’s not that they don’t make great movies—films like Anora and Everything Everywhere All at Once are amazing—or that they’re not (rightfully) pushing the majors to make better films, but...they get a ton of hype, and that hype often doesn’t live up to the reality or difficulty in scaling up. Starting with MUBI, well, The Wall Street Journal wrote a feature on MUBI’s struggles last April, best summarized by the subheader “After Sequoia valued Mubi at $1 billion, a left-wing revolt sent the indie film company into a tailspin”. MUBI lost $7.3 million on $200 million in revenue in Q4 2025, but reportedly hit a record 1.7 million subscribers at the end of Q1. As for Neon, Department M purchased a “significant stake” in the company earlier this year. How much is that “stake” worth? According to Deadline, “No financial figures for the Neon-Department M deal were disclosed.” So...that’s not great! If it was a big valuation, we’d hear about. Also, I found this curious: “Both Neon and Department M already have separate partnerships with Qatar. The Qatar Film Committee has a slate deal in place with the former, and a biopic production pact with the latter.” Color me skeptical about much Middle Eastern investment dollars. See: LIV Golf. Finally, as for Angel (formerly Angel Studios), their stock very, very slightly popped last month after Young Washington ($20 million budget) which made $45 million in the US, but their stock is still way down from its opening. Smaller Updates RIGHT: The WGA should focus on antitrust concerns! I’ve been on this for years. Post-WGA/AMTPT deal in 2023, I wrote an article for the Ankler calling on the WGA to focus and organize against industry consolidation. Sure enough, the WGA filed a lawsuit against the Paramount-WBD merger, and people are organizing around this issue now. I wish this energy had coalesced earlier (specifically to lobby Washington much earlier), but better late than never! WRONG: Actually, the chip shortage might be due to market manipulation. In my last “Long Reads for the Long Summer” article, I shared an article about how LLMs are causing memory chip prices to spike, which will make all electronics more expensive. Well, turns out, three RAM manufacturers control 90% of the market, and now a private lawsuit accuses them of price-fixing. So yeah. WRONG/UPDATE: The Odyssey will hold! Two weeks ago, I wrote, “As of this moment, we haven’t had a super-blockbuster, though The Odyssey, Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday could all cross the $500 million mark. (At this point, The Odyssey would need a very strong hold to get there.)” Well, it’s safe to say it’s going to have that hold! It only dropped 30% in weekend two and IMAX screenings are sold out all month. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is also off to a great start. RIGHT: People are rushing to get shows out yearly. I’ve long been bullish on yearly, weekly-released shows, and Leslie Goldberg at The Ankler wrote about how many people in town are now listening. WRONG: Mark Carney reverses Canada’s stance on homegrown production. After writing about Canada installing domestic production quotas, Canada has backed off. WRONG: I don’t trust Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s online “views”. When I originally wrote about the latest Spider-Man film’s record-breaking trailer, I thought this was just YouTube views, but after watching this Corridor Crew video and doing more research, well, it’s all social views of the trailer globally. Really? That stat includes TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts views. Basically, I don’t trust it anymore. (This film will probably set record, but I trust the pre-sales data more.) RIGHT: Celebrity Production companies are still struggling. I’ve written about this for years, but the company that I didn’t track was Kevin Hart’s HartBeat, which was valued at $650 million but is struggling now and might just end soon, especially after Kevin Hart pulled his endorsement deals. And Bad Robot is moving to NYC. CORRECTION: SpongeBob is a “second run” title. In my 2025 recap article, I had _SpongeBob SquarePants_labelled as a “library” title, when it is still a “second run” show, with new episodes still coming out on Nickelodeon. CORRECTION: In my last “What I Got Right, What I Got Wrong” update, I offered a correction from Doug Creutz and misspelled TD Cowen. Thanks, Grammarly! 1 Though he could have increased prices to make up for the gap, he couldn’t have increased them that much. 2 There’s a theory, which I think that Daryl Morey created and Bill Simmons popularized, that, to be successful building your team, you only need a handful of bad GMs in the league to take advantage of. To be clear, Daryl Morey’s theory was also for signing bad contracts, that you could always get out of bad contracts. Basically, there’s always someone who will make a bad trade. It’s not the same exact thing, but similar enough to the Greater Fool Theory that I really like it.
Behind the Science with Paleontologist and Curator of Dinosauria Dr. Matthew Carrano
Is the 21st Century the real Age of Dinosaurs? Today, more paleontologists are discovering more dinosaur fossils from more places in the world than ever before. Our understanding of these amazing creatures has leapt forward while their popularity has surged. Museums sit at the junction of these phenomena. The Smithsonian has been a center for dinosaur research for more than a century, and its collections include many iconic and scientifically important specimens. Today, Smithsonian researchers continue to discover new dinosaurs, but they are also uncovering more information about the ones we already know and love. New techniques and approaches allow them to investigate aspects of dinosaur biology, ecology, and evolution in ways that would have been inconceivable to early paleontologists. The result is an ever-improving understanding of dinosaurs as living, breathing, and thriving animals. This month, go behind the science with paleontologist Dr. Matthew Carrano, Curator of Dinosauria at the National Museum of Natural History as he discusses new discoveries at home and abroad, in the field and in the museum. Registration is encouraged. Space is filled on a first come first served basis. ---------------- About the Series: Behind the Science A monthly after-hours series featuring NMNH scientists and researchers Each month, join the National Museum of Natural History for the new series, Behind the Science, where NMNH researchers share insights into their latest discoveries and explore the fascinating questions driving their work—from the origins of life to the future of our planet. Come learn what’s happening behind the scenes and how science shapes our understanding of the natural world. Programs take place in Q?rius, the Coralyn W. Whitney Science Education Center. Topics and speakers announced on a rolling basis, but save the dates now!
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