John Hendrickson

Gregory Bovino Gets Demoted The Border Patrol chief was the public face of a traveling immigration crackdown on cities governed by Democrats.

BREAKING Greg Bovino has been removed as Border Patrol "commander at large" and will return to El Centro Calif, where he is expected to retire soon. A stunning turnaround after Pretti killing. Bovino's traveling blue city crackdown is over www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

pretty wild statement re: Republican Chris Madel drop from race for MN governor:

"Saying he cannot support the national GOP's 'stated retribution on citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so."

Statement from Michael and Susan Pretti Parents of Alex Jeffrey Pretti “We are heartbroken but also very angry. Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately, he will not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the ‘hero’ term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman. The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He had his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down, all while being pepper sprayed. Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you.

Kare 11 local news just read, in full, this statement from Michael and Susan Pretti, the parents of Alex Pretti.

"Please get the truth out about our son."

This is righteous. Best thing you'll read today:

A cover of the book Rough House by Alison Lyn Miller

Happy pub day to Alison Miller this book rules 🤼

Opinion | In Minneapolis, I Glimpsed a Civil War

I went to Minneapolis last week. What I saw was horrifying and inspiring in equal measure. Gift link to my latest column: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/o...

A photo of the authorized biography of Justin Townes Earle

Happy pub day to @jonbern.bsky.social ! This book is a knockout. I’ll be chatting with JB about it at Greenlight tonight, come hang! greenlightbookstore.com/event/2026-0...

Bob Weir Made the Grateful Dead The late guitarist was crucial to shaping the sound of the world’s greatest jam band.

I wrote about Bobby www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

Bob Weir

💔

Video: Videos Contradict Trump Administration Account of ICE Shooting in Minneapolis An analysis of footage from three camera angles shows that the motorist was driving away from — not toward — a federal officer when he opened fire.

The New York Times states it plainly in display type:

Videos Contradict Trump Administration Account of ICE Shooting in Minneapolis

The January 6er Who Left Trumpism Not every Capitol rioter was a card-carrying seditionist; some have regrets, and a few are even refusing a pardon. Jason Riddle is one.

Many people don’t change. Some people do: www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Five Ways To Remember January 6th Too many people saw January 6th as the final aggrieved death throes of Trumpism. We can now understand it was the start of something much darker.

I believe the original sin Democrats, and especially the Biden administration, made after January 6th was viewing January 6th as the *end* of something, rather than the *beginning* of something. My post on how to remember this somber anniversary for democracy: www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/five-ways-...

Happy DCB day to all

Bob Dylan attempts to explain Willie Nelson in The New Yorker's profile of Willie: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

The Most ████ Administration Ever The Epstein files are here, and they are too redacted to satisfy anyone.  

Wrote about the Epstein Files.
The redactions,the political point scoring, an administration that has long lost the benefit of the doubt, and why this very real conspiracy (with victims who deserve real accountability and transparency) won’t go away

Melissa Hortman Died in a Shocking Act of Political Violence. This Is the Story of Her Life Melissa Hortman died in a shocking act of political violence. This is her story

I met Melissa Hortman in October of 2024. She was smart and kind. I heard about her murder in a LA hotel room and it dropped me to my knees. So I went to Minnesota and talked to her kids, parents, and friends. This is not true crime, this is Melissa in real life. www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Opinion | Stephen King: Why I Hugged Rob Reiner After Watching ‘Stand by Me’

"He asked me for notes; I had none. I had just let the whole thing wash over me. I marveled at what a good story the truth could make in the right hands." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/o...

Syrian-Born Australian Who Tackled Bondi Gunman Hailed as Hero

It’s important to look for the light in the darkest of times. This Syrian-born man, Ahmed el Ahmed, showed a universal humanity and heroism when he prevented the Hanukkah massacre in Sydney from being even worse www.nytimes.com/2025/12/15/w...

Here's a jaw-dropping story from @barryyeoman.com and @jocelynzuck.bsky.social on how dollar-stores are quietly overcharging customers who can ill-afford it. Not on just occasional items, either: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Brittany rules and anyone would be very lucky to work with her

I thought this was a joke. It’s real.

Doughnuts and Bullets: The Absurdity of Working for RFK Jr. What happens when your new boss thinks you’re a child killer?

I wrote about the private, intimate, often ridiculous agonies of working for a man who think you’re a monster nymag.com/intelligence...

A Battle with My Blood When I was diagnosed with leukemia, my first thought was that this couldn’t be happening to me, to my family.

Devastating essay about living with a terminal cancer diagnosis at 35, made more devastating by the author's relation to the health and human services secretary who's spent the past year cutting cancer research.

Jeffrey, Who? A Plane Ride with Donald Trump From the daily newsletter: remembering a trip to Mar-a-Lago.

This is a pretty remarkable recollection by Mark Singer about a plane ride he took in 1997 with Trump and Ghislaine to Palm Beach. When they were about to land, they got on the phone w/ their mutual friend, "Jeffrey." www.newyorker.com/newsletter/t...

Cindy Lee performing live at Brooklyn Paramount

Cindy Lee last night

‘Death remains my intimate shadow partner. It has been with me since birth, always hovering close by. I understand one day we will finally waltz together into the ether. I hope when that time comes, I die with the satisfaction of a life well-lived, unapologetic, joyful, & full of love.’
—Alice Wong

Max Read notes that these companies are posting in a familiar style. "If you still spend time on X.com, you will recognize here precisely the same clipped, decontextualized, link-free, moronically breathless style of tweeting deployed by 'financial news for low-trust illiterates' accounts like Unusual Whales or ZeroHedge (or, for that matter, in a slightly different arena, PopCrave)," he writes. To be slightly more generous about it, accounts like this have, on a platform where outside links barely exist, mainstream media brands are no longer visible, and commentary crowds out timely updates, stepped in to fill a market need, as strange and distorted as it may be. As Read points out, Kalshi and Polymarket are also speaking the language of their most devoted users - "epistemically captured right-wing hobbyist gamblers and speculators — and meeting them where they are, on X, which is another way of saying it's just good marketing. But, in the spirit of prediction, I think material like this will soon be more than a sideshow and already sketches an outline of a new, betting-centric political media. Gambling took over sports coverage, after all. Why won't it take over everything else?

If more people put more money into markets like Kalshi, it's easy enough to imagine how a sportslike media transformation might unfold through sponsorships, normalization in existing media, constant metacoverage of prediction odds, and content produced by the prediction platforms themselves. Aside from its posting habits, Polymarket already has a podcast; on the websites of shrinking newspapers around the country, you can already find aggregated articles sharing the current betting odds for the 2028 election. (J.D. Vance +225, Gavin Newsom +350, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez +900 in case you were curious and know what that means.) Why wouldn't fast-growing companies in a wildly lucrative but competitive industry hire or sponsor some influencers to make some content, draw some attention, and convert some customers? Why shouldn't they convene, say, a Jubilee in which participants argue about their bets on polities rather than politics as such? I've got $5,000 on J.D. Vance 2028. Change my mind.

not too hard to imagine a comprehensively gambling-obsessed political media, maybe soon nymag.com/intelligence...

Some gems at the Indianapolis airport

An Antidote to Shamelessness Zohran Mamdani ran an online campaign based on real people and a real message. It worked.

a little late, but i wrote about it