Comeuppance for the nasty
Northwestern and WSCR-AM part ways with bilious men who crossed too many lines
3-27-2025 (issue No. 186)
This week:
The quarterfinal matchups in the Quip of the Year bracket tournament
Cancelled! — A look at the ousters of a Northwestern University journalism professor and a sports-talk radio host with serious anger management issues
News and Views — Hot takes, fully baked
That’s so Stacy! — An update on the misadventures of the head of the Chicago Teachers Union
Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go
Mary Schmich — The poet laureate of the Trump administration offers up her latest verse
Quotables — A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately
The visual jokes tournament continues — Ten finalists remain!
Good Sports — I have some proposed rule changes for basketball for you to vote on
Tune of the Week — Another fine cover of “When You Say Nothing At All,” as nominated by reader Bob E.
We’ve reached the quarterfinals in the Quip of the Year bracket tournament
Next Thursday I’ll ask you to vote on the Final Four. You can read and vote in the quarterfinal pairings here or simply browse the bracket matches below:
I’m sorry, but you can’t always be experiencing a higher volume of calls than average. That’s not how averages work. — @Kit_Yates_Maths
vs.
I asked my wife what women really want and she said, “attentive lovers.” Or maybe it was "a tent of lovers." I wasn't really listening. — @KenJennings
In the UK we celebrate Thanksgiving as the day we managed to ship all our paranoid religious fundamentalists off to another continent. — @wildethingy
vs.
My wife asked me if she had any annoying habits and then got all offended during the PowerPoint presentation. — @BattyMclain
If you enjoy interacting with people who have strong opinions and minimal life experiences, may I recommend parenthood? — @MedusaOusa
vs.
“Oh. Wow. Oh. Jeez. We didn’t think everyone was gonna bring a bag!” -airlines — @DanWilbur
I taught my kids about democracy tonight by having them vote on which movie to watch and pizza to order. I then picked the movie and pizza because I'm the one with the money. — @Dadsaysjokes
vs.
I told my dad I ran out of alcohol and didn't have any money to buy any for the weekend. So he gave me the huge bottle of vodka from the cupboard that I’d replaced with water when I was 16. Life really does come back to bite you in the ass. — @Lizbeth_Ellen
Vote here. I will announce the Final Four next Thursday, and voting will take place throughout NCAA basketball championship weekend. To vote in the visual jokes tournament, scroll down in this issue or click here.
Ousters in the news
Journalism professor Steven Thrasher was denied tenure earlier this month at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
The activist community is in an uproar, contending that Northwestern officials are ending Thrasher’s academic career at Northwestern because of his involvement in campus protests over Israel’s retaliatory attacks on Gaza.
In a Thursday news release, Thrasher accused Medill of targeting him for his participation in the April 2024 pro-Palestinian encampment, at which Thrasher formed a line between police and protesters.
“This has nothing to do with my scholarship or teaching,” Thrasher wrote in the news release. “It is a political hit job over my support for Palestine and for trying to protect our student protesters last year from physical attack, by nonviolently subjecting my own body to assault by the Northwestern Police.”
Thrasher is an activist, and I fully support his right to speak and protest. But he’s an affront to journalism and never belonged anywhere near the Medill School.
First, in the interest of transparency, here is a summary of my beef with him:
In 2021, I wrote a column for the Tribune about the police slaying of 13-year-old Adam Toledo saying that, before bodycam video was released and more evidence was available, it was still too soon to conclude, as activists had, that a racist officer had murdered an innocent child of color.
Journalism demands challenging conventional wisdom, not reflexively amplifying that which comports with a certain viewpoint.
Thrasher, though, tweeted at the time that he was canceling his subscription to the Tribune over the column because “there is no space in a newspaper for arguing for the murder of a child, and that it’s ‘never too early’ to think they are worthy of murder.”
Of course that’s not what I argued. So a month later, after the hubbub surrounding that column had died down, I wrote to Thrasher to ask if he’d be interested in “a more nuanced exchange by email” about his accusation and the proper role of columnists in such situations.
I wrote that “one of the jobs of a journalist is to question and challenge emerging narratives and conventional wisdom, to be clear about what we know for sure and what we suspect.”
Here is his response in full:
“Your words make the murder of children more likely, and I have no interest in you, your unethical nature, your cynical worldview, or in communicating with you.”
Cowardly, rash, immature, incurious. Not good qualities for a journalist, let alone one teaching budding journalists how to do their jobs.
Oh, and by the way, progressive prosecutor Kim Foxx declined to press charges against the officer who shot and killed the boy for what appears to have been a ghastly, split-second mistake. Her successor, Eileen O’Neill Burke, has also not done so, and the officer’s case before the police disciplinary board is still pending even though the tragic incident occurred four years ago Saturday.
Independent health and science reporter Ben Ryan posted to social media that he also experienced Thrasher’s unprofessionalism first hand:
Thrasher … has viciously smeared me for my reporting on pediatric gender medicine and made unhinged, unsupported claims about my supposed lousy reporting on Covid and monkeypox. … I could never take seriously Thrasher's attacks on me, since by my estimation, he has not conducted much in the way of journalism himself for many years. He mostly writes rants and think pieces that do not demand much in the way of reporting, such as conducting interviews with experts, reading papers, etc. So I cannot begin to take notes from such a person. He has also been blisteringly rude to me in private, unleashing unnecessary and unprovoked tirades over email when we were corresponding about an article I was working on some time ago. He is peerless in his unprofessionalism as far as I can estimate.
Author and podcaster Jesse Singal reviewed a Twitter tirade Thrasher directed at Ryan and called it —
— a bizarre diatribe, not to mention a difficult read because of the sheer, ugly spectacle of an established Medill professor genuinely trying to do everything he can to napalm the reputation and future career prospects of a freelance journalist. But it’s also revealing on a few fronts.
For one, it shows just how unprofessional and cruel even well-established journalists and activists writing under their own names can be these days, with no consequences.
In reviewing Thrasher’s leading role in the campus protests last year, the Tribune Editorial Board wrote:
Thrasher has acted more as an ardent activist than a professor in the five years he’s worked at Northwestern. He appeared to treat the Deering Meadow encampment as a crowning moment, giving a speech over the weekend to students there in which he stated, among other things, “To the Medill students and journalists within earshot, I say to you: Our work is not about objectivity. … Our work is about you putting your brilliant minds to work, and opening your compassionate hearts, and linking your arms together understanding all of our fates are connected.”
Those are rousing words — for an activist. They are inappropriate for a professor at one of the nation’s foremost journalism schools. If the Medill School cares for its reputation — and it well knows how many alumni work as journalists here in Chicago — it will instruct Thrasher to find a job more suited to his interests. We have too many reporters in this city and elsewhere behaving essentially as activists rather than pursuing the facts wherever they lead, which represents this profession at its finest. Professors encouraging — indeed embodying — that former approach do a disservice to journalism.
Making a straw man of “objectivity” betrays a misunderstanding of the mission.
Journalists are human and bring their judgments and experiences to bear on their reporting. Good journalism often directly or indirectly makes a case for a particular point of view and argues — implicitly or explicitly — for certain actions to be taken. But good journalists also strive to be fair, to consider various points of view and ask sometimes difficult questions and challenge popular narratives.
Inside Higher Ed reported last week:
Thrasher was suspended from teaching last summer. According to an email from Medill School of Journalism dean Charles F. Whitaker, which Thrasher’s lawyer provided to Inside Higher Ed, the dean initiated disciplinary proceedings in response to complaints about Thrasher's social media activity and allegedly sexist comments to students, as well as his failure to disclose major course changes and his comments about journalism standards that were “antithetical to our profession.”
According to Thrasher’s statement, posted Thursday, Whitaker wrote in an explanation of the tenure denial that Thrasher’s teaching was “inadequate with serious concerns reported by some students.” Thrasher said he previously received a “glowing” mid-tenure review in 2023. He also said a university-wide ad hoc faculty committee “exonerated” him after a four-month investigation into issues, including student concerns.
The “issues” included concerns about his alleged obstruction of police intervention on campus protests, criminal charges relating to which were subsequently dropped and expunged from the record.
Thrasher’s supporters have initiated a petition drive in which they portray his denial of tenure as “retaliation … for engaging in constitutionally protected political speech.” And if I thought that were the case I’d be signing that petition — freedom of inquiry and speech are fundamental to academic freedom, which we should all agree on not matter what our opinions are about the Middle East. But Medill’s decision not to enter into what amounts to a lifetime contract with an activist masquerading as a journalism professor clearly involved a lot more than a disagreement with his political views.
Again from the Daily Northwestern:
Thrasher (said) he plans to appeal the decision. According to NU’s Faculty Handbook, he has 60 days to do so. … Thrasher said he worried that his case represents a trend of universities suppressing free speech.
“In trying to punish me, Medill and Dean Whitaker are not just trying to silence me,” Thrasher wrote in (a) news release. “Their bullying may intimidate students, journalists, faculty, staff and activists across campus and throughout the country into silencing themselves.”
It will be interesting to see if the pressure campaign on his behalf intimidates Medill into reversing its wholly understandable decision to part ways with Thrasher.
My November 2021 speech, “The Perils of Public Discourse,” covers much of the fallout from my first Adam Toledo column.
Veteran sports-talk radio star Dan Bernstein fired from WSCR-AM after engaging in a preposterously ugly online spat.
The March 13 exchange that cost Bernstein his job after a quarter century at “The Score” escalated quickly.
It began when Bernstein posted a picture of himself holding a 32-inch northern pike that he’d caught off Northerly Island along with the message, “This was a helluva fight.” He added that the pike “Had to be a female full of eggs with that girth.”
Later that day, an X user accused Bernstein of killing the fish, to which Bernstein responded that the fish had been “released successfully.”
A user with the handle Greg Messenger (“Christian, Conservative, America First, Husband, Father, Guinness aficionado”) chimed in to say the fish “was getting ready to spawn, but instead Dan killed it and seems proud of it.”
“What the entire fuck is wrong with you?” Bernstein replied. “It was released successfully. Took off like a torpedo. Go fuck yourself.”
Messenger: “With that dried blood on the gills. Sure it did Dan. Liar.”
Bernstein: “Like a shot. I never respond to trolls, but questioning my sportsmanship and conservation awareness sets me off. Wanna fight? I'm a bad enemy, fucker.”
Messenger: “You are a 5’7” 165-lb fat boy. You really worry me as a bad enemy. BTW, your language continues to give you away as a very base, juvenile person.”
Bernstein: :”Where you at? I have your address and phone numbers. Want it all public? Do I worry you yet?”
Messenger: “Not one bit. I am very transparent on where I live.”
Bernstein: “Want your kids involved? Where you at, @GregMessenger? I ain't playin.”
The station suspended, then fired Bernstein, making him the umpty-whillionth person to fall victim to the career-and reputation-destroying platform formerly known as Twitter, where there are no editors, filters or five-second delays to block the often understandable urge to tell detractors to go fuck themselves five ways.
I am not always successful myself in fighting that urge now that I no longer represent the Chicago Tribune. But I would never challenge anyone to a fight, threaten to publish their address and phone number or, my God, intimate that I was willing to bring harm to their children.
There’s something very funny — and also pathetic — about a major market media personality totally losing his shit over a fish story, and then losing his job. But Bernstein crossed too many lines for an apology to erase them.
News & Views
News: Democrat James Malone won a Pennsylvania state Senate seat Tuesday in a district that has sent Republicans to Harrisburg since 1889 and that Donald Trump carried by 15 percentage points last fall.
View: Green shoots! Could this be in part because consumer confidence has just hit a 12-year low?
News: Vice President JD Vance is visiting Greenland against the wishes of the Greenland government.
View: It’s not surprising that many former allied nations are giving the U.S. the finger given how churlishly we’re flipping off their concerns about our arrogance and expansionism.
News: “Gunman who killed 23 in racist attack at Texas Walmart is offered plea deal to avoid death penalty.”
I’m opposed to capital punishment, but I challenge the validity of El Paso County District Attorney James Montoya’s reason for not pursuing it here. He said a majority of victims’ relatives wanted the case behind them so he was offering Patrick Crusius life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Criminal proceedings pit the people against the defendant, not the victims or their survivors against the defendants. Prosecutions should reflect the will and judgment of the people of a state as reflected in their laws. Ironically, it’s usually sentiments of survivors that inspire prosecutors to go harder on defendants, not easier.
News: President Donald Trump signs an executive order requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.
View: I believe there is a method to Trump’s madness lately. This executive order — addressing a problem that doesn’t exist and likely will not survive a court challenge — has already prompted strong protests from those on the left who see it as a brazen effort to suppress the Democratic vote. This allows Republicans to wrongly paint Democrats as supporters of non-citizen voting.
Similarly, the Trump administration’s flagrant disregard of due process in rounding up alleged Venezuelan gang members and flying them to a foreign prison put the Democrats in a position of seeming to be on the side of undocumented violent criminals instead of, you know, the Constitution and rule of law. Sadly, the optics are good for Trump.
Those paying closer attention, though will realize that the recent arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil, evidently for the “crime” of being an outspoken critic of Israel as he led pro-Palestinian protests on the Columbia University campus in New York City, is an ominous and obvious threat to the freedoms of all who publicly criticize actions of the United States government.
Similarly chilling is the surveillance video of the arrest Tuesday of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish citizen on a student visa to do graduate work at Tufts University. She has been target for deportation because of her alleged support for Hamas, evidently based on her co-authorship of an opinion essay in the Tufts student newspaper.
I say “evidently” in both cases because authorities are not giving either Khalil or Ozturk basic due process. Ultimately, I hope, those optics will be terrible for Trump.
That’s So Stacy!
Rather than update the misadventures of Chicago’s deeply unpopular mayor this week, I thought I’d instead share this story about his leading ally, Chicago Teachers Union head Stacy Davis Gates:
A Tribune article posted Tuesday morning about the growing rift between the Service Employees International Union and the Chicago Teachers Union over which union should represent certain employees in the schools. It included this anecdote about an encounter between Davis Gates and SEIU Illinois State Council Executive Director Anthony Driver.
In a version of the exchange Driver later confirmed on social media, Davis Gates approached Driver earlier this month at a fundraiser hosted by Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch and extended her hand. Driver reached out to shake her hand but Davis Gates pulled hers back and said, “Y’all ain’t shit and you ain’t shit,” according to the account Driver confirmed.
The Tribune didn’t print the word “shit,” for the record. But Picayune Sentinel readers can handle it, I feel.
Over the weekend, Davis Gates disputed Driver’s description of the exchange, saying in a private Facebook group for CTU members that it “did NOT happen.” …
Driver … posted on the social platform X about his encounter with Davis Gates, saying that “it was unprovoked, unhelpful, and uncalled for.”
“Unhelpful” is a good adjective for Davis Gates’ pugnacious style, and, despite her denial, “You ain’t shit” is very much on brand for her.
An interesting wrinkle to this anecdote is that it originally appeared in a Tribune article posted last Thursday, and was specifically promoted online. Then, without explanation, the anecdote disappeared from the story.
Pressure from Davis Gates? Second thoughts about the sourcing?
I wrote to Tribune Executive Editor Mitch Pugh and Managing Editor Phil Jurik asking what happened, but — speaking of on-brand behavior — they did not respond.
A few more media notes
Amanda Vinicky, a key member of the WTTW-Ch. 11 “Chicago Tonight” reporting team since 2017 and host of the weekly news-review segment, “has been named VP of communications for Intersect Illinois, the economic development group that works to bring jobs to the state,” per Politico’s Shia Kapos. Vinicky’s former colleague Nick Blumberg will take over as host of “Chicago Tonight: The Week in Review.”
The latest radio ratings for Neilsen-subscribing stations in the Chicago area show significant upticks for No. 1 station WBBM-AM, No. 2 WLIT-FM, No. 5 WGN-AM and several others further down the rankings. (hat tip to Rick Kaempfer)
Legendary former local TV news anchor, Walter Jacobson, 87, is retiring from WGN-AM 720, where he has been a commentator since 2014. His last “Perspective” will air Thursday at 9:25 a.m..
The Tribune’s transportation beat reporter Sarah Freishtat has left the paper to take “a new career step.”
In a typically graceless and self-aggrandizing post to Substack, former Sun-Times sports columnist Jay Mariotti asked for his old job back: “Have me join Steve Greenberg and Scoop Jackson as regular columnists,” he suggested to the paper’s management.
“Amid discontent at classical station, WFMT employees announce intent to unionize.”
Land of Linkin’
“Universities have grown increasingly close with the fossil fuel industry. Oil and gas money is flowing into universities around the world, shaping everything from students’ careers to climate research that can influence global energy policy.” New Orleans Public Radio in partnership with the Louisiana Illuminator and Floodlight News explores this issue in the podcast series “Fueling Knowledge” (Part One; Part Two), edited by Picayune Sentinel podcast columnist and standards editor Johanna Zorn.
“Director’s firing a year ago still resonates in Oak Park Library Board race” recalls my item on “the most Oak Park story ever.” Next Tuesday’s election looks to be a referendum on whether the library trustees were out of their minds last year when they fired a Black, highly regarded library director for being insufficiently earnest and deferential regarding the village’s diversity, equity and inclusion agenda.
Speaking of Oak Park, residents Pete and Bonnie Prokopowicz have rolled out “WordChain,” a daily online puzzle. Click on the question mark logo for instructions. Bonnie created a version of the game in 2014, then, inspired by the success of Wordle, she and her husband decided to “resurrect and modernize it.” Give it a try!
“The Sun-Times is losing some amazing journalists. They wouldn't want us to stop.” is a powerful valedictory to his departing colleagues by columnist Neil Steinberg
Hoop Central videos “Future NBA Giant: Olivier Rioux, 7'9'' and Still GROWING” and “Will 7'9'' Olivier Rioux Make It To The NBA?”
In “NY Times Jumps The Turnstile on a Police Shooting,” Mike Pesca rips the Times — and the media in general — for leaping to conclusions and failing to include relevant information after police shootings and portraying victims as hapless and nonthreatening.
A four-minute excerpt of Conan O’Brien’s serious, stirring Mark Twain Prize acceptance speech
Squaring up the news
This is a bonus supplement to the Land of Linkin’ from veteran radio, internet and newspaper journalist Charlie Meyerson. Each week, he offers a selection of intriguing links from his daily email news briefing Chicago Public Square:
■ “People should see the texts”: Condemned by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who insists that “nobody was texting war plans” in the messaging thread to which Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was inexplicably invited, the magazine’s published “The Attack Plans That Trump’s Advisers Shared on Signal” —including the precise timing of warplane launches and bomb drops in attacks against Yemen’s Houthis.
■ Citing their own words, the AP compares Trump and his team’s responses to the fiasco with their reactions to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a home server.
■ With a sweeping executive order that experts say may not be legal, President Trump’s directing significant changes in how voting happens in the U.S.—including requirements that voters provide citizenship documents and get their mail ballots in by Election Day.
■ As Wonkette’s Marcie Jones puts it: “Trump Hereby Orders Millions Of Voters Not Be Allowed To Vote.”
■ Gov. Pritzker’s not having it: “We will not blindly follow illegal orders because Donald Trump wrote them down on a piece of paper.”
■ Common Cause has launched a protest petition.
■ A lawsuit filed by the ex-director of Chicago’s Trump Tower accuses Trump Inc. of financial malfeasance—and of having him arrested as he was using the building spa’s steam room.
■ A linguistics professor analyzes Trump’s love of pointing his finger.
■ Law & Chaos: “When Trump came after Paul Weiss, another 1,000+ lawyer firm with strong Democratic ties, its managing partner Brad Karp prostrated himself in the Oval Office.” Here’s the memo Karp sent to his staff about the deal with Trump.
■ The president’s signed an order to cut the federal government’s business with Jenner & Block—where a former partner helped former special counsel Robert Mueller investigate Trump. Noting that the order is similar to another “which has already been declared unconstitutional,” Jenner says it “will pursue all appropriate remedies.”
■ After more than a hundred people—including U.S. Environmental Protection Agency employees—gathered outside the EPA’s Chicago HQ to protest Trump’s cuts in EPA funding, staffing and enforcement authority, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow praised this Chicago protester for “excellent punctuation and grammar.”
■ Pod Save America host Dan Pfeiffer: In his “politically insane decision to shut down the Department of Education,” Trump may have just handed Democrats an issue that breaks through all the noise.
■ Popular Information explains how the Social Security Administration is dodging a federal court order.
■ Drop Site: “Medicare Advantage plans are killing seniors and bankrupting hospitals. Now the Trump administration is preparing to make them mandatory, ending Medicare as we know it.”
■ Protect your digital privacy: As the Trump’s government gets intrusive with travelers to and from the U.S., Wired offers “a few steps you can take to minimize the risk of Customs and Border Protection accessing your data.”
■ Arkansas Republicans are pushing a bill that would allow lawsuits to be filed against hairdressers who cut a teen’s hair in a “gender-nonconforming” fashion.
■ Politico surveys the lineup of political dominoes if Sen. Dick Durbin retires—a thing for which columnist Laura Washington says the time is now.
■ Mother Jones’ Tim Murphy: “I’ve been to a lot of Bernie Sanders rallies over the years, but I’ve never been to anything quite like the ‘Fighting Oligarchy Tour’ I attended last week in Arizona.”
■ Looking ahead to 2026’s Democratic primary, progressive Gen-Z social media influencer Kat Abughazaleh is challenging Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky—even though Abughazaleh doesn’t live in the district and moved to Illinois only last year.
■ Rolling Stone: “That’s kind of the point: She is a normal person—with a rental lease she can’t break before it’s up, financial pressure bearing down on her, and prescription medication that she needs to function properly and that has been challenging to obtain since Elon Musk went after her employer, and she and many of her colleagues were laid off.”
■ Ryan Cooper at The American Prospect: “A handful of rich guys will burn human society to the ground rather than pay a dime in tax.”
■ “How We Fight Back”: That’s a new digital publication launched by grassroots groups including Indivisible and MoveOn, aiming to “share practical advice” for those willing to stand up to Trump and Musk.
You can (and should) subscribe to Chicago Public Square free here.
Mary Schmich: Whoops!
My former colleague Mary Schmich posts occasional column-like entries on Facebook. Here, reprinted with permission, is another is a series of her TrumPoems:
My buddies had a group chat? And they gossiped about war? Invited icky Goldberg? The Atlantic’s such a bore. They did it all on Signal? Sorry, what—is that an app? And I was not invited? Why, that’s such a load of crap. But then again, I’m busy And Pete Hegseth is a pro He’s got a real nice hairdo And a giant, well, you know. I’d like to make a vital point— Forgive me if I brag— I don’t read The Atlantic It’s a loser lib’rl rag. The Democrats are crying “It’s another big Trump fail!” But, friends, let’s not forget true crime— That’s Hillary’s email!
Minced Words
Cate Plys, Austin Berg, Marj Halperin and I joined host John Williams on this week’s episode of “The Mincing Rascals” podcast.
We started with a discussion of Austin’s promotion — he’s now the executive director of the Chicago Policy Center, an arm of the Illinois Policy Institute where he retains his title as vice president of marketing. We moved into a discussion of the non-secure Signal chat scandal that’s been so much in the news this week. We then sparred a bit over the end of editorials at the Sun-Times and went on to talk about Austin’s promotion of a city charter for Chicago, the biggest city in America not to have such a foundational document. Finally, we discussed President Donald Trump’s executive order attempting to force potential voters to prove their citizenship before being allowed to register.
You’ll hear Cate drop in a reference to philosopher John Rawls’ “veil of ignorance,” which is a concept that I’ve long championed. See my 1997 column, “Rulemakers beware: Tables to turn tomorrow.”
It’s a mental discipline, trying to see public issues and private dilemmas not from one other person’s point of view but from a variety of possible points of view; to walk a bunch of miles in a lot of different shoes.
Subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. Or bookmark this page. If you’re not a podcast listener, you can hear an edited version of the show at 8 p.m. most Saturday evenings on WGN-AM 720.
Read the background bios of some regular panelists here.
Quotables
A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately
Not a peep from George W. Bush, preoccupied with his landscape painting and perhaps occasional pangs of guilt from his butchery in Iraq. His signal program is going down in flames and he keeps his mouth shut, as he has largely done since the upstart loudmouth Trump ended the Bush family’s power over the Republican Party. Then there are the Clintons and Obama. They are very rich, and have no political aspirations. Yet, though horrified by what they see Trump doing to the government and its domestic social safety net services they once ruled, mum’s the word. What are these politicians afraid of as they watch the overthrow of our government and the oncoming police state? — Ralph Nader
American foreign policy is being run by the dumbest motherfuckers alive. The fuckwittery on display right now by Trump's foreign policy team boggles the mind. … Trump and his second-term team are alienating Canada, eroding U.S. capabilities without saving any real money, fumbling their negotiations with Russia due to breathtaking naiveté, and degrading U.S. national security by adding a reporter to their illegal group chat coordinating airstrikes on the Houthis. — Daniel Drezner
Pete Hegseth is a fucking liar. This is so clearly classified info he recklessly leaked that could’ve gotten our pilots killed. He needs to resign in disgrace immediately Hegseth and every other official who was included in this group chat must be subject to an independent investigation. If Republicans won’t join us in holding the Trump Administration accountable, then they are complicit in this dangerous and likely criminal breach of our national security. — U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D. Ill
The Failing New York Times insists on using Liddle’ Peter Baker, a really bad writer and Obama biographer and sycophant, to write many of the long and boring Fake News hit pieces against me. The only two people with less talent than Peter are his ‘wife,’ the lovely Susan Glasser, and, of course, Maggot Hagerman, who may be the least talented writer in the entire stable of New York Times’ MEDIOCRITY!” There’s something really wrong with these people, and their SICK, TRUMP DERANGED EDITORS. They did everything within their power to help rig the Election against me. How did that work out??? MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!! — Donald Trump
From an operational security perspective, this is the highest level of fuckup imaginable. These people cannot keep America safe. — Pete Buttigieg
Shout out to Jeffrey Goldberg for reporting on this now instead of waiting two years to put it in a book. — “Covie”
Our national security is being guarded by a bunch of doofs you wouldn’t trust to throw your cousin a surprise party. — Jimmy Kimmel
Visual jokes tournament continues
I entered all winners of the weekly visual jokes contest from the past year into an elimination tournament. Here, in two semifinal brackets are the first round winners. The top two in each bracket will make it to the Final Four next week:
Semifinal Bracket 1
Semifinal Bracket 2
*This click poll was mistakenly omitted from the version of the PS that was mailed out Thursday morning.
Good Sports
What hath the transfer portal wrought?
Purdue (bottom row, third from the right) is the only team left in the men’s NCAA basketball tournament whose starters all began their college careers at the school. Michigan (top row, second from left) and Kentucky (bottom row, second from right) start five players snagged at some point out of the transfer portal.
As a Michigan alum (have I mentioned this before?), I’m happy to see these faux Wolverines in the Sweet 16, but I admit that I’m simply cheering for sports mercenaries who have agreed to wear maize and blue laundry for a year or two in exchange for some NIL money. When they play Friday night, they will start as many players who started at Auburn as Auburn will start, and a transfer from the dreaded Ohio State — the resurgent Roddy Gayle Jr. — might well come off the bench and help win the game.
Here’s your key to the above graphic:
Top row: Auburn, Michigan, Ole Miss, Michigan State, Florida, Maryland, Texas Tech, Arkansas
Borrow row: Duke, Arizona, BYU, Alabama, Houston, Purdue, Kentucky, Tennessee
Let the will of the people be the law of the hardcourt
Every so often, I renew my call for tweaks to the rules of basketball, and I’m wondering if the Picayune public agrees with me. Let’s vote!
Eliminate the panic timeout
Players and coaches should not be allowed to call for a timeout when they are trapped, about to be tied up or otherwise in peril of losing possession. If, in the referees’ judgement, a player calls for time when under pressure, the other team should get the ball. Quarterbacks can’t call timeout when they’re about to get sacked. Baseball players can’t call timeout if they stumble running the basepaths.
Modify the foul limit
Rather than eject a player after five fouls (six fouls in the NBA), allow coaches to keep such players in the game but at the risk of turning every subsequent foul on that player into a technical foul (an extra free throw for the opposition plus possession of the ball). This would add an element of risk-reward strategy for coaches during the game and allow teams to play longer at full strength.
Reduce end-of-game hackathons with a stricter interpretation of the intentional foul
Under current rules, when a team is trailing near the end of the game, they deliberately foul when on defense to stop the clock and have the other team shoot free throws, even though, to my mind, the strategy is totally antithetical in that it theoretically rewards a team for violating the rules.
Rules against the “intentional foul” have been replaced over the years by rules forbidding so-called flagrant fouls, and the NCAA has clarified that grabbing an offensive player to stop the clock is OK:
Fouling near the end of the game is an acceptable coaching and playing strategy. Teams also foul near the end of quarters when they have “fouls to give” to disrupt the offensive flow of their opponents attempting a last shot of the quarter. Officials are asked to judge players' actions and determine whether illegal contact is personal, intentional or disqualifying."
Obvious fouls that aren’t legitimate efforts to play defense ought to be deemed a flagrant 1 foul — the definition of which includes, “Contact with an opponent that is not the result of a normal basketball play. ‘Normal basketball play’ is defined as any activity by a player, including incidental contact, which is generally accepted as that which occurs in a basketball game when the player is attempting to make a legal offensive or defensive play” — resulting in two free throws and possession of the ball for the team that was fouled.
I welcome other ideas for rule changes. I’m particularly fond of the idea of turning the clock off with, say, three minutes left and setting the winning score as, say, 10 points more than the team leading the game at that point has. So if the score is 60-55 with three minutes left, the winner is then the first team to 70 points. Maybe throw in a requirement to win by two points and — another notion — have it so free throws are subtracted from the other team’s score at the end so that a field goal is required to win the game.
Tune of the Week
I’ve been opening up Tune of the Week nominations in an effort to bring some newer sounds to the mix. I’m asking readers to use the comments area for paid subscribers or to email me to leave nominations (post-2000 releases, please!) along with YouTube links and at least a few sentences explaining why the nominated song is meaningful or delightful to you. The following nomination is from comment thread stalwart Bob E.:
“When You Say Nothing At All“ by The Petersens is a cover of a 1988 song by Paul Overstreet and Don Schlitz that’s been a hit for several performers including Alison Krauss & Union Station. whose 1994 version I thought no one could ever match. Yet the beautiful singing here by Katie and Ellen Petersen along with the instrumentation make it a worthy contender. Pay particular attention to Emmett Franz. on the dobro.
The smile on your face lets me know that you need me There's a truth in your eyes saying you'll never leave me The touch of your hand says you'll catch me wherever I fall You say it best, when you say nothing at all
The Petersens are terrific. Back in 2021, I featured their bluegrass version of “Bohemian Rhapsody” as the tune of the week.
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Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise. Browse and search back issues here.
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Thanks for reading!
I love the quote about Jeffrey Goldberg not waiting 2 years to put the Signal snafu in a book. Not sure how he could have handled this more responsibly.
Ralph Nader should know better than anyone that sometimes a formerly powerful voice can do more harm than good by staying in the public spotlight (remember 2000?). Also, I think it’s healthy for an anti-authoritarian society to let former presidents fade into the obscurity of private life. Saying you want ex-presidents to get involved in current politics feeds the idea that we just want some powerful guy to make things better. No thanks!