Alex Shepherd, writing for The New Republic, outlines the downfall of Election 2020’s social media darlings-The Lincoln Project.

In the days leading up to the 2020 presidential election, the Lincoln Project, the viral ad-making Never Trump group, was riding high. Over the previous 11 months, the group’s videos and tweets had been viewed tens of millions of times and it had raised tens of millions of dollars. It had garnered the attention of Trump himself, who regarded the group as a thorn in his side and frequently groused about it, both in public and in private. The group was also on the verge of a huge victory. With Trump facing a historic wipeout, the Lincoln Project could claim it played a decisive role in his defeat, particularly for marshaling Republicans to Joe Biden’s side.

The group seemed poised to enter a new stratum of success, one that wouldn’t require its muse. The Lincoln Project had ambitions of creating a political influence company that would guide campaigns for years to come, while also negotiating with United Talent Agency on a host of projects befitting a multiplatform media behemoth: podcasts, books, movies, even a House of Cards- esque TV series.

The last few months have seen all those castle-in-the-sky dreams come crashing down.

Mostly because I liked what Steve Schmidt and Rick Wilson said in their appearances on the evening infotainment shows, I started paying attention to The Lincoln Project. I thought their videos were incredibly inventive and viral at times. I listened to their main podcast but grew disenchanted with them and moved on. The scandals hit, and I started feeling skeptical of their intentions and what appears to be a lot of grifts.

I’ll take a wait-and-see position in 2021.

Will Leitch, writing on his Medium account, asks us to do one thing.

This week, former President Donald Trump will face impeachment for the second time. It is unknown, as of yet, how the trial will go down. There are rumblings that Democrats, not wanting to distract from President Biden’s agenda and pretty certain they don’t have the Republican votes to convict, may try to breeze through the proceedings, not wanting to wade back through the muck again. There have already been arguments that we need to “move on,” that dwelling on the past is somehow “divisive.”

But it wasn’t that long ago; was it even the past? It’s still so easy to remember. It was a thunderbolt of terror, injecting itself into every aspect of our daily world, tearing at the very fabric of everything that American life is supposed to be about. It does not look likely that the Senate will convict the former President, and while I’d like to see him held accountable, if I’m being honest, I don’t care about that part all that much. I just want that day to remain vivid in our minds, still burning bright white, and the culpability of everyone involved to be a permanent mark on their names for the rest of their lives. It was truly wretched, pure awfulness, the worst collective “standing at the television aghast” moment since September 11. We have been implored to never forget that day. We must never forget this one either. I know my family never will. I suspect yours won’t either.  

Personally, I’d like to see him convicted.

I really don’t watch much NFL and I do have a soft spot for the Super Bowl, but Tom Brady’s dominating presence for so many years is… annoying? Bothersome? Tiresome? I don’t know, so I turn to two writers who definitely know more than me about sports and Tom Brady specifically: Will Leitch and Drew Magary. 

“Tom Brady Isn’t Supposed to Be Able to Do This” by Will Leitch. 

Brady is still, somehow, at the age of 43, an uncannily brilliant quarterback, still with that sixth sense of when to throw it, and where. His line in Super Bowl LV is cartoonishly perfect: 21-for-29, 201 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions. If any other quarterback in the NFL did that in the Super Bowl, we’d say they were a breakthrough talent who will revolutionize the league and the position. When Brady does it, we throw something at our screen and proclaim how sick of that guy we are.

“Tom Brady Is Just Fucking Impossible” by Drew Magary.

After all, the whole reason you watch sports is for the impossible. For THIS. Tom Brady is the greatest football player of all time. If you wanna call him the greatest athlete of all time, by all means. I won’t fight you. I’m too tired to do that. I ran out of gas well before the man himself. I am beaten, and so is anyone else who ever dared to test Tom Brady. He can’t be beaten. It doesn’t happen.

I think the answer is “inevitable.”

Tyler Cottingham likes fun.

Whoever said history isn’t fun? Ayo Dosunmu messing around for just the third triple double (21–12–12) in school history? Fun. Kofi Cockburn with a school record 8 dunks in a single game? Fun. (I actually can’t seem to verify anywhere that 8 dunks is actually a school record, but it sure feels like it, and like I said — fun!) A second consecutive win against Wisconsin — this one a wire to wire beat down that snapped a seven game home losing streak against the Badgers? SO MUCH FUN.

After that two game hiccup against Maryland and Ohio State last month, this team has really found its groove. Since those consecutive losses, we’ve reeled off four straight wins to re-establish a solid foundation in the conference standings at 9–3, and today was the kind of dominant performance that gets one dreaming in the right direction.

Per usual, that dominance was powered by Ayo Dosunmu and Kofi Cockburn.

Seriously, Ayo Dosumnu might be the greatest Illinois basketball player I’ve ever seen. He’s better than anyone on the ’89 team. Only Nick Anderson comes close. He’s better than probably anyone on the ’05 team. Only Deron Williams comes close. He’s likely going to have a better pro career than anyone foresees.

Lindsey Romain, writing at Nerdist, has an interesting article about the making of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors album.

Buckingham and Nicks were a folk-rock duo from the Bay Area, and also a romantic pair. Buckingham’s guitar skills impressed Fleetwood, who invited him to join the band. He agreed on one condition: Stevie Nicks had to join, too. They were the magic ingredient that finally made Fleetwood Mac the superstar band it was always meant to be. And their success reached its highest point in 1977 with the release of Rumours, one of the best-selling albums of all time.

A lot of chaos followed (which we’ll get to in a moment). But Fleetwood Mac endured. Through breakups and beatdowns, they always rose through the ashes. In the ’90s, they found new success when they played at Bill Clinton’s inauguration. That led to a reunion album, The Dance. Ryan Murphy brought the band to the Millennial set in the 2000s when he featured them on Glee, and later Nicks on American Horror Story. And we have TikTok to thank for Gen Z’s sudden obsession with the group.

These new fans might not realize just how wild the full Fleetwood Mac story is. Especially the recording of Rumours. It’s a delicious bit of music history, full of drama and intrigue that would be absolutely perfect fodder for a multi-part TV adaptation. In fact, we’re stunned this hasn’t happened yet.

I’ve always thought this as well, especially after watching the Classic Albums episode. All the parts of that episode are here.

Movies with Mickey has a video love letter to the film.

I thought for a long time I was the only person who loved this film. Speed Racer was an attempt at making a live-action 2D animated film and it succeeds on so many levels.

A new version of Speed Racer in the style of Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse would be incredible.

David Roth, writing for Defector, matches old-school dumbshits to the new era dumbshits.

Here is the synchronicity that binds old-fashioned American kookery’s longstanding suspicions and signature fantasies to the person Donald Trump, and which sent them charging into the Capitol last month ready to commit murder in his service, and which has them still standing back and standing by to advance a fantastical and self-invented agenda of retribution and exterminative violence. Trump’s inexcusable celebrity and singularly rancid self are the irritant around which this weird pearl has formed, but the process was perfectly natural.

Without social media, Trump himself is a spent force, just another podgy golf asshole griping in a country club. But also he is airborne, now.

He is alive in all the Americans who are not just blinkered and baffled and vain enough to consider wearing a mask into a supermarket somehow the same thing as dying in the Holocaust, but who also believe that their confrontations with the tyranny of The Door Guy At Trader Joe’s must be streamed someplace where people can throw it some hearts, or likes, or fuming devil faces, or money. Social media is bad for people like this in the ways that it’s bad for everyone, but there is no more intoxicating or deranging a gift for a person who is already like this than something that looks and feels so much like a megaphone.

Ultimately, Roth equating Steve Carlton to the QAnon folk is… probably right.

Jeremy Gordon has a terrific profile of arguably the best rock band working today, the Foo Fighters.

“I just want to stay alive and play music, especially after Nirvana,” he said. “When Kurt died, I truly woke up the next day and felt so lucky to be alive, and so heartbroken that someone can just disappear. I decided to take advantage of that, for the rest of my life.”

Thank goodness he did.

The St. Louis Cardinals have acquired five-time All-Star third baseman Nolan Arenado from the Rockies. I can’t believe it. Seriously, I can’t believe the deal they got.

Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. and president of baseball operations John Mozeliak made a deal for Arenado that seems impossible. No one thought a deal could be made because there are just too many things that would have had to happen, including:

• Giving up several top prospects, including Dylan Carlson, Matthew Liberatore, Nolan Gorman, Ivan Herrera, and likely many more.
• Manage a contract with an opt-out after one season, and if he stays, pays nearly $200 million over six years.
• Aaaaaand get Arenado to waive his no-trade clause

It just didn’t seem like a move the head office of the Cardinals would put together.

And they didn’t.

The final deal sends Arenado and roughly $50 million to St. Louis for a package of Austin Gomber, Tony Locey, Jake Sommers, Elehuris Montero, and Mateo Gil to Colorado. Most importantly to me, none of the major prospects were part of the deal. The Cardinals get an eight-time Gold Glove winner, five-time All-Star, and owner of four Silver Slugger awards. My mind is blown.

Plus, after next season, the Cardinals aren’t going to be paying Dexter Fowler, Matt Carpenter, Carlos Martinez, and Andrew Miller. Well, I guess a couple of those guys might still be playing for the Cardinals, but maybe not, and that’s something like $60 million in payroll available.

The Cardinals have added a new star to their lineup, increased their chances of winning the Central and the National League, and turned the baseball world upside down.

Works for me.

Seth Godin on big ideas:

It’s probably not completely original.

It’s probably not breathtaking in scope.

It’s probably not immediately popular.

But… it’s definitely worth pursuing, consistently and persistently for years and years.

If you care. If it’s generous and helpful and worth the journey.

All the big ideas that made a difference follow this pattern.

What’s your big idea?

Bradford Doolittle, reporting for ESPN:

No player on the Hall’s 2021 Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballot reached the 75 percent threshold needed for enshrinement in Cooperstown. The results of the voting were announced by Hall of Fame president Tim Mead on MLB Network on Tuesday night.

The leading vote-getter was controversial pitcher Curt Schilling, who was named on 71.1 percent of the ballots, 16 votes shy of the minimum needed for selection. Schilling was followed by all-time home run leader Barry Bonds (61.8 percent) and 354-game winner Roger Clemens (61.6) in the voting.

I will never get this. It’s pretty obvious Bonds and Clemens should be added to the Hall. No one cares about the PED crap.

The others are borderline and, of course, Schilling is an asshole which makes it difficult for voters to put him in while he’s still being an asshole. I mean, I’m 100% positive Pete Rose is getting into the Hall of Fame, but not until he passes away. I’d bet hard-earned money next year’s class will include Bonds, Clemens, and Alex Rodriguez.

Michael Lopp, writing at his site Rands in Repose, had an interesting experience with real-time news. He was trying to follow the storming of the Capitol via Twitter and quickly learned a valuable lesson about the social media platform.

As it became clear the domestic terrorists were breaching the Capitol, I was glued to Tweetbot, my favorite Twitter client, looking for the latest developments. Years ago, Twitter put limits on their API, effectively lobotomizing third party clients. This meant within Tweetbot, I had to sit and wait for slow manual refreshes of the latest tweets on the insurrection. And there were a lot of tweets. It was a rapidly developing, incredibly well-documented event, and it was clear I was missing content as I sat there glued to Tweetbot waiting for my horrifically slow insurrection updates.

The obvious answer was to move either Twitter’s mobile client or move to their website. As I was at my desktop during this failed coup, I moved to Twitter’s website and remembered what I learned years ago: their website is hot garbage.

I smiled when I got to that section of his post because I thought, “If he’d just switch to Tweetdeck, he’d be much happier.” Lo and behold, that’s exactly what he did.

The revelation was upon him, and he went on to explain what he did and how he’s using the platform now.

My doomscrolling has calmed since the inauguration. Nothing is fixed, but we are heading in the right direction. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve noticed the tone has been uncharacteristically political. That’s not changing. One of the many lessons I’ve learned over the past four years is the seductive power of lies. I’ll be using every tool at my disposal to remind everyone of the power of the truth.

You’ve been warned.

Haven’t we all.

MacRumors has posted, well, a rumor that the next Apple Watch will have a blood glucose monitor that eliminates the need for fingersticks, testing strips, and a separate glucose monitor.

Apple is said to have secured patents around blood glucose monitoring, and the company is now purportedly “focusing on securing reliability and stability prior to commercialization of the technology.” The Apple-designed optical sensor is believed to be a skin-top continuous monitoring solution that does not require an implant.

Rumors suggest that Apple has been interested in adding blood glucose monitoring to the Apple Watch for some time. The company reportedly established a team of biomedical engineers and consultants specifically working on sensors for non-invasively monitoring blood sugar levels in 2017, and work on the sensor reportedly progressed to trials at clinical sites in the San Francisco Bay Area. Apple CEO Tim Cook has even been spotted testing what was believed to be a prototype glucose monitor connected to his Apple Watch.

This is the holy grail of features on a smartwatch. I do not have an Apple Watch, and I might consider getting one if this was available. If consumers could move away from the ecosystem of diabetes management, including needles, strips, readers, etc. and just wear a watch, it would put so many companies out of business. It’s a quantum shift game changer if the information it provided is reliable and accurate.

William Saletan, writing in Slate, has some smart insight on “right vs. left.” He says it doesn’t exist anymore. It’s not right versus left or conservative versus liberal. It’s “people who care about basic facts vs. people who don’t.”

Trump and his acolytes don’t just spin facts; they completely disregard them. They repeat fantastic lies about election fraud, and when they’re confronted with contrary evidence, they’re not even embarrassed. If we don’t get control of this — if we don’t reestablish an ethic of respect for facts — nothing else will be solved. We can’t extinguish the virus if tens of millions of Americans insist it’s a hoax and refuse to be vaccinated or wear masks. We can’t restore public faith in election results and put down insurrectionism if half the population refuses to believe anything the media report. Repairing the consensus that facts must be respected won’t settle our debates on spending, education, or criminal justice. But without that consensus, the crisis we’re in will get much worse.

It’s going to get worse. There has to be a price to pay for being wrong. I’m not talking about morals or politics. I mean “the sky is red, not blue” wrong. If we all can’t get to basic facts being basic facts, then we will be in an ever-changing hellhole of “alternative facts” and other bullshit. Lying under the previous administration was catastrophic for thousands, if not millions, of people. They have to be held accountable.

If you miss questions on a test, you are wrong. There is no “alternative answer” to 2+2=4. You are wrong. It’s the same thing across the board in our everyday lives and the sooner there is accountability for those who are lying, the better.

You’ve probably heard of Patton Oswalt. He’s an actor, stand-up comic, and voice actor. His brother, Matt, is a writer and photographer. Over at the Daily Beast, he put together a showcase of sorts of his most recent photos highlighting his new coffee-table book, Liquor Stores and Detours. They are really stunning.

This bit about a secret world behind these liquor stores made me laugh.

I have an irrational theory that the reason LA liquor stores continue to thrive despite the onslaught of online sales is that they’re all fronts for a shadowy crime network. A certain purchase at a certain time of night is like a key that opens a secret world where anything is possible. Buying a snack cake is like a signal you need a gun professionally cleaned, or asking the clerk you’re desperate for a bottle of Löwenbräu is the code for getting a body disposed of. Can’t get the covid vaccine? Just buy a Zagnut bar.

But seriously, don’t sleep on your local liquor store.

I might have to buy this book.

Amanda Gorman read her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” at the Inauguration, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. The words were wonderful. Her eloquence was on full display. The power of her poetry was inspiring and moving. I had to learn a bit more. There’s Anderson Cooper’s interview with her and the New York Times story tells us a bit more about this amazing young woman.

I was sent a text of the poem the next day, and I’ve added it below because it needs to be read far and wide.

When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
 The loss we carry. A sea we must wade.
 We braved the belly of the beast.
 We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice.
 And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
 Somehow we do it.
 Somehow we weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.
 We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.
 And, yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.
 We are striving to forge our union with purpose.
 To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.
 And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.
 We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.
 We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.
 We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
 Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true.
 That even as we grieved, we grew.
 That even as we hurt, we hoped.
 That even as we tired, we tried.
 That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.
 Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.
 Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid.
 If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made.
 That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare.
 It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit.
 It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.
 We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation, rather than share it.
 Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.
 And this effort very nearly succeeded.
 But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.
 In this truth, in this faith we trust, for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.
 This is the era of just redemption.
 We feared at its inception.
 We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour.
 But within it we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
 So, while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe, now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
 We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.
 We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation, become the future.
 Our blunders become their burdens.
 But one thing is certain.
 If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright.
 So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.
 Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
 We will rise from the golden hills of the West.
 We will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution.
 We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states.
 We will rise from the sun-baked South.
 We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.
 And every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered and beautiful.
 When day comes, we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid.
 The new dawn balloons as we free it.
 For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it.
 If only we’re brave enough to be it.

Utterly brilliant.

John Scalzi, on his personal site, has a few words about the ex-president. He starts off hard and doesn’t let up.

First and always, a liar.

Then a con man, a thief, and a grifter. A man who never saw a venture he couldn’t make fail, which is why he was always starting new ones: It was easier to jump to a new ship than stay with the sinking one. A cad, a harasser, allegedly a rapist. He treated women like they were disposable vessels for anxious manhood and was loved by the “family values” contingent for it, because they see women the same way he does. A racist, a bigot, a white supremacist. He saw neo-nazis march in Charlottesville and some part of his brain knew then that he had found his shock troops for an insurrection. A bully, a boaster, a braggart. He looked up to the worst leaders in the world because he wanted what they had: To be unquestioned, feared, and obeyed.

A bad man, a bad human, a bad person. And a bad president.

Not just bad, of course: In fact, the worst. A recitation of his moral failures and actual probable crimes would have us here all day, so let’s pick just one: 400,000 dead, so far, from COVID during his presidency. He is not responsible for the virus. He is responsible for denying its seriousness; for choosing to downplay it because he thought it would make him look bad; for making something as simple and useful as wearing a mask a political issue; for bungling a national response to it and then the distribution of medical supplies and, later, vaccines; for spreading misinformation and lies about it; for, fundamentally, not caring about his fellow Americans, and viewing the pandemic through the lens of him, not us. Hundreds of thousands of Americans who are now dead would be alive under a better president. Their deaths are on his hands, and he simply doesn’t care. He never will.

Good riddance.

Donald Trump was the worst president this country has ever had.

You may disagree, but you’d be wrong. Who do you suggest is worse? I guess James Buchanan, who let the country slip into the Civil War, is up there. Still, Trump is worse because he would have loved for the country to fall into a Civil War and was actively pursuing ideas and throwing them out into the world that would mean a Civil War. Buchanan was ineffectual, but Trump was active.

I can’t accurately state that James Buchanan loved his country, but I can tell you for a fact Donald Trump did not and does not care about the United States of America. At all. He does not care about the American people or our founding principles or our Constitution. He only cares about himself and his utterly desperate attempt at not being exactly who he is: a loser.

Not one thing can change Trump being labeled a loser. The country is profoundly better off now that he’s gone. This petty, small man is ensconced in his Florida estate, and America and the world finally have let out a sigh of relief. The rest of us have so much to do and so much to fix.

To not have to think about him and what incredibly stupid thing he has done now is freedom. We have endured him.

Go away and never come back.

Onward, President Joe Biden.

I’m not sure how I feel about Paul Stanley covering “ O-O-H Child.”

The idea of Stanley turning into Rod Stewart-doing-the-American-songbook era of his career is oft-putting. I don’t dislike what he’s doing here, it just isn’t something I’d actively go out and purchase or even be remotely excited about. I’m not also all that fond of the song and much prefer his version of “ Ohh Ohh Baby.”

To be perfectly honest, I hope he got all of this out of his system and can focus on creating a new KISS album. He always says he’s not really “feeling” a new KISS record, nor does he want to tarnish what was done before.

If I were the KISS manager, Doc McGhee (I’m not), I’d be pushing to get the band into the studio to cut a new album and generate some buzz for the resumption of the KISS End of the Road tour as well as figuring out how to reacquire the master recordings to all of their music and rights to their videos. It seems obvious to me it’s time for the band to start taking the reigns outside of working with a traditional label or partners.

On the other hand, I am a sucker for behind-the-scenes recording/making of documentaries. Again, I’m not totally sold on this era of his career, but he is having a great time, and he surrounded himself with the best musicians in the business.

One thing’s for sure, Paul’s voice sounds really strong with this type of music. “ I Do “ sounds great.

This video from Matthew Cooke is an excellent and succinct plea for Republicans and Trump supporters to come back to reality. It won’t happen, but it is an amazing video.