Get out the vote // What's Good: Mar. 15, 2024
Politics, influence, and angry fan mail.
UPDATE: I forgot to hit send last night. Good job, me. It’s obviously Monday now. Still counting it. And now you get some bonus content.
Hello, good evening, happy Sunday. I hope you wore green today. The river is green here, the people are drunk in the streets, and all is a jolly good time.
Tuesday is election day here in Chicago, and I’ll be volunteering all day - such is tradition. Vote for Graciela Guzman in State Senate District 20 and vote yes on the Bring Chicago Home question!
Lori won the mayor’s office, Toni won the game
Long live Toni Preckwinkle:
There was little time for Toni Preckwinkle to wallow after a bruising loss in the 2019 Chicago mayoral race.
The former school teacher, who had already risen from Chicago alderman to head of the Cook County Democratic Party and president of the Cook County Board, got back to work.
From presidential tarmac visits to lauded policy decisions during crises, Preckwinkle focused instead on the power and influence she already had in two of the most important political roles in the region.
What’s wild is that Lori and Toni were polar opposites reputationally in 2019. The pandemic caused Lori to accelerate her downward reputational path; Toni, meanwhile, has quietly backed allies and resolidified her organizational and alliance-based power. Fascinating stuff.
Meanwhile, Republicans
Oh is this what we’re doing now:
The Republican nominee for superintendent overseeing North Carolina’s public schools and its $11 billion budget has a history marked by extreme and controversial comments, including sharing baseless conspiracy theories and frequent calls for the execution of prominent Democrats.
Michele Morrow, a conservative activist who last week upset the incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction in North Carolina’s Republican primary, expressed support in 2020 for the televised execution of former President Barack Obama and suggested killing then-President-elect Joe Biden.
Cool. Awesome. Normal country. Please vote for Democrats.
The Ackman debacle
If you haven’t already followed this, it’s a trip:
Last fall, as then-Harvard president Claudine Gay was facing her first allegations of plagiarism, the Clare Locke law firm sent a stern letter to the New York Post, which was reporting the story. “These allegations of plagiarism are demonstrably false,” the firm warned the Post, adding that the paper was relying “on a fatally flawed understanding of what ‘plagiarism’ is.”
That didn’t work out so well, particularly for Gay, who quit in January after just six months in her post, or for Clare Locke, whose role came under fire from various outlets, including the National Review, which used the headline “Harvard Plays Dirty.”
But it wouldn’t be Clare Locke’s last case involving a plagiarism-accused academic. Just a few weeks later, billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and his wife, Dr. Neri Oxman, deployed the firm to defend Oxman, a talented computational designer and former Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, who was facing a similar investigation by Business Insider.
Jimmy, are you okay
The Mr. Beast saga rages on:
In the fall of 2023, a clip ripped from a video by Tom Simons and reposted on X (formerly Twitter) saw Irish YouTube entertainer Seán “Jacksepticeye” McLoughlin strapped to a lie detector test. His friends were grilling him about everything, like whether or not he still enjoyed his job as a YouTuber and how much money he had in the bank. Though sensitive, none of the questions fazed McLoughlin, a video star with millions of subscribers on YouTube. To truly rattle him, his friends had to pull out the big guns — questions that, if answered honestly, would make most squirm. Has YouTube gotten worse as a platform, they probed? Yes, McLoughlin answered, still not missing a beat. And he said Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson, YouTube’s biggest creator, was to blame.
Friendly fire
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving asshole:
The influencer Andrew Tate and his brother, Tristan Tate, were arrested by Romanian authorities on Monday on U.K. charges based on a tip that they had planned to flee Romania — information that was revealed on a Kick livestream by their friend and fellow “alpha male” streamer, Adin Ross, Rolling Stone has confirmed.
According to a legal representative for McCue Law, the firm representing four British women accusing Tate of rape and sexual assault, U.K. judicial authorities issued a warrant for their arrests and extradition on sexual abuse charges after “we were informed by one of our contacts that an associate of Tate (Adin Ross) had discussed Tate’s intention to flee during a video on the gaming and livestreaming platform Kick.”
You deserve some good animal content
https://twitter.com/raccoonhourly/status/1769868911242002644
https://twitter.com/twaniimals/status/1769867470439911520
https://twitter.com/twaniimals/status/1769853514774114795
https://twitter.com/raccoonhourly/status/1769838712500703422
https://twitter.com/twaniimals/status/1769816873086992603
https://twitter.com/mischiefanimals/status/1769795329245778133
https://twitter.com/ShootaCat/status/1769602801636917504
https://twitter.com/RedPandaEveryHr/status/1769774818272936275
Have a good week.
Addendums
COVID backlash could leave the U.S. less ready for the next pandemic. Record-breaking rhododendron blooms a month early. Even the Supreme Court’s Conservatives Are Fed Up With the Garbage Coming Out of the 5th Circuit. A Congressman Lost 200,000 Followers After He Voted for a TikTok Ban. Trump attorney Alina Habba uses QAnon show to push January 6 conspiracy theories. The last days of the Boeing whistleblower. ‘Very few have balls’: How American news lost its nerve.