Justin Weinberger

Was this the greatest figure skating event in my lifetime? Right now I would say yes

Oh noooo, the company that extracted our data for their models is having others extracting data for their models

The "Uno Reverse" is this guy's one move.

Have you seen the news? Or, not the news, but the press releases? “Prediction markets,” which are fundamentally gambling companies that benefit from preferential regulatory treatment, are shacking up with putative “news organizations.” In December, CNN and CNBC signed “multi-year exclusive partnerships with prediction market platform Kalshi to integrate event-based probabilities across its TV, digital, and subscription products from 2026.” Polymarket has cut similar deals with Dow Jones, Yahoo, and Substack. This is a familiar playbook. Outside of Defector and a few other oases, contemporary sports media primarily functions as the top of the funnel for gambling interests. There is an addled, soulless logic to running this scheme back with the political and financial press. To their credit (?), Polymarket has put a fresh coat of heavily leaded paint on the approach: The post announcing their Substack deal highlights an anti-vaccine and pro-Ghislaine-Maxwell influencer linking to the odds that the US government confirms that aliens are real. They expect you to regard this as the future of journalism; it is followed by a disclaimer that none of this “financial, investment, legal or any other type of professional advice.” I’ll grant that this is one possible future of journalism. But Defector is another, better future. We don’t feed our readers to gambling companies; we don’t use generative AI; we don’t have outside investors to please. Subscribers enable our critical, independent stance. If you’re as sick of this shit as I am, please consider becoming one.

subscribe to defector: defector.beehiiv.com/p/journalism...

ICE must be abolished. It has become a lawless, rogue agency. Federal law enforcement agencies must follow the law, if they're going to have any credibility enforcing it.

We are demanding justice for Renee Good and the prosecution of ICE agent Jonathan Ross for her murder.

AOC: I want everybody to understand that the cuts to your health care are what’s paying for this. You get screwed over to pay a bunch of thugs in the street that are shooting mothers in the face.

Like, this is no different than the video of the guy telling the person in the car that it was their one warning to stop.

It’s not rogue officers. It’s the whole mindset.

I keep going back to this. This is a taunt. They're taunting us. There is no other possible interpretation of what they're doing.

But media simply ignores this deranged behavior, because if they talk about it, one must conclude that DHS is a rogue agency, of villainous paramilitary thugs.

It’s not a contest to see how much grief you can consume in one sitting. You know enough about what’s happening to understand that it’s evil & wrong. You don’t have to inflict more harm on yourself. Find the small things you can do—& do them as you can, with care. Support others doing the same.

OUT: Helping you pay for health care.

IN: Helping oil companies pay for their infrastructure in a foreign country.

Himes: "I was delighted to hear that Tom Cotton, chairmen of the Senate Intel Committee, has been in regular contact with the admin. I've had zero outreach and no D I'm aware of has. So apparently we're now in a world where the legal obligation to keep Congress informed only applies to your party."

250 years feels a lot more like an expiration date than it does like a birthday...

I can't even be outraged by this guy anymore. If Congress wasn't a joke, with roughly half its members consistently putting party over country, he never would've made it to a second term.

Marco Rubio talking like a big boy

“Don’t play games.” - Marco Rubio, after participating in a lawless invasion of another country and the decapitation of its government

I'm not a historian but my analysis is it's "Not good" when a government constantly commits crimes and tells the legislature, courts, and general public "What are you gonna do about it"

I mean yeah it’s an authoritarian takeover but can we take some comfort in the fact that the people doing it are INSANELY stupid?

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News Team, Thank you for the notes and texts. I apologize for not reaching out earlier. I learned on Saturday that Bari Weiss spiked our story, INSIDE CECOT, which was supposed to air tonight. We (Ori and I) asked for a call to discuss her decision. She did not afford us that courtesy/opportunity. Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now-after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one. We requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department. Government silence is a statement, not a VETO. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story. If the administration's refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we

have effectively handed them a "kill switch" for any reporting they find inconvenient. If the standard for airing a story becomes "the government must agree to be interviewed," then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state. These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless. CBS spiked the Jeffrey Wigand interview due to legal concerns, nearly destroying the credibility of this broadcast. It took years to recover from that "low point." By pulling this story to shield an administration, we are repeating that history, but for political optics rather than legal ones.

We have been promoting this story on social media for days. Our viewers are expecting it. When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of "Gold Standard" reputation for a single week of political quiet. I care too much about this broadcast to watch it be dismantled without a fight. Sharyn

Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:

Said it before and I'll say it again - if you look at every awful Rogansphere inspired "comedy" trend of recent years and think "I kind of want the exact opposite of that", Josh is pretty much your guy.

Comedy that's smart, warm, empathetic, and laugh out loud funny because of it.

Congratulations, those of you who decided to platform fringe voices and create a climate of fear and hate out of ignorance because those voices insisted a non-problem was a problem. They're now on an HHS stage trying to ruin children's lives. You will live with the harm you have done forever.

@mcbride.house.gov is right. It’s hard enough being a kid — and politicians don’t need to make it harder.

Thank you, Congresswoman, for speaking out against the cruel Republican attacks on health care for trans youth.

The cultural impact of Rob Reiner cannot be understated. Legend isn't big enough a word. It goes to 11. You can't handle the truth. As you wish. I'll have what she's having. I'm your number one fan. You guys wanna see a dead body? The very idea of a bucket list. The West Wing.

All from his movies.

Until one of these guys faces serious prison time they’re going to keep leaning into their atrocities and asking with a smirk if we’re triggered

Writers — the ones you know and love, the ones you think of as successful — have sources of income outside that book you read. Most of us are a half-step ahead of the landlord at best, and struggling to maintain health insurance. We figure out other ways to make a buck.

Elections in democracies determine who administers the government; they do not alter whom the government is for. Under any administration, Republican or Democratic, the United States government exists to serve the people of the United States, regardless of their partisan affiliation. Besides, Americans are not as easily divided as Trump might think. Millions of Republican voters live in New York, just as millions of Democrats live in Texas. He cannot tell whom he is punishing by glancing at an electoral map. But even if he could, Trump’s acts of extortion have no place in a democracy. They belong in a protection racket: If you support Trump, you are protected; if you do not, you are vulnerable. If you donate enough cash to Trump, you may receive favorable treatment, including immunity from the law. If you oppose Trump, you may be prosecuted.

This is not how a representative government works. It is how the Mafia works.

Went back to the history of the Sicilian Mafia to illustrate something obvious but worth stating explicitly: The Trump administration behaves like an organized crime syndicate running a protection racket, not a representative government www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

The average SNAP benefit per month is $177 a person.

The average ACA benefit per month is up to $550 a person.

People want us to hold the line for a reason. This is not a matter of appealing to a base. It’s about people’s lives.

And working people want leaders whose word means something to them.

Whoever decided to make all the electric cars wish by playing that one chord from Bohemian Rhapsody is the world's greatest earworm troll and I am so grateful to share this world with you.

I cannot stress strongly enough how phenomenal a decision it was, and is, to use Safari's "hide distracting items" feature to totally erase the NYT Editorial section of their website from my life.