Cup of Coffee: March 6, 2025

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

And away we go.

The Daily Briefing

It was a bad day for Walkers

Two Walkers – Jordan of the Cardinals and Christian of the Astros – got injured in the past couple of days.

Cards outfielder Jordan Walker stepped on a sprinkler head while running down a fly ball during Tuesday's game against the Nationals at the Nats' spring training facility. There was no structural damage to his left knee but, per the team, he has "irritation" of the knee and will be shut down a week.

Astros first baseman Christian Walker was scratched from yesterday's game because of soreness in his left oblique. Walker, who joined the Astros on a three-year $60 million deal this past offseason, missed more than a month last year with the Diamondbacks because of a strained left oblique muscle. He's also had multiple career stints on the injured list due to right oblique problems. He must've gotten seconds from the old oblique factory.

Be careful out there today if your name is Walker, everyone.

The Hall of Fame Era Committee gets a significant rule change

Hall of Fame and Museum’s Board of Directors announced a couple of pretty significant rules changes with respect to the Era Committee system, which supplanted the Veterans Committee many years ago.

Going forward, if an Eras Committee candidate gets fewer than five votes out of the 16 total that are possible they will not be eligible to appear on the ballot in the next cycle for their era. What's more, if a candidate gets fewer than five votes a second time, they will be permanently ineligible, and thus will never be considered for induction into the Hall of Fame again.

Keeping in mind my longstanding "I don't really give a crap about the Hall of Fame" stance, I'll say that I don't much care for this.

The Era Committee system setup, which features a great many candidates but a very small number of voters yet which still retains a 75% threshold for election, makes it really hard to gain induction even for objectively worthy candidates. As such, not getting five votes in a given cycle is not necessarily a resounding rejection of a candidate. It could just be a bad draw in a given year. That's especially true given that the Committees are the first and only path of induction for managers and executives, who tend to get priority when they appear, pushing otherwise worthy retired players down the ballot. Between those considerations and the ever-changing composition of the Eras Committee electorate it's not hard to envision a scenario in which a worthy candidate gets forever cast out for reasons other than merit.

I presume the result of this will be marginal executives and literally every baseball commissioner still getting inducted, basically on demand, yet worthy players being thrown into Hall of Fame oblivion. I'm not sure who that serves, but it doesn't serve baseball history, baseball players or baseball fans.

Woo hoo! Ticketing just got shittier!

Buying tickets for virtually any concert or sporting event really sucks these days because you have almost no choice but to deal with Ticketmaster or one of its Live Nation sibling brands which are really just two mini-Ticketmasters wearing a trench coat. Indeed, it's almost impossible to imagine how the ticket-buying process could become more annoying an gouging.

Note that I said "almost":

Fanatics has made its long-expected push into ticketing.

Michael Rubin’s company has partnered with Ticketmaster to create the Fanatics Ticket Marketplace, where users on the Fanatics app can now buy resale tickets alongside apparel, merchandise, trading cards and collectibles. The deal is part of a wider two-way partnership between Fanatics and the Live Nation unit, whereby Ticketmaster tickets list via Fanatics, and Fanatics merchandise lists via Ticketmaster.

Now you not only get gouged with monopolistic practices and usurious fees, but the tickets will likely digitally degrade before you can even use them! There will also be an element of surprise to it all. Have you ever ordered Fanatics merch for one team only to be sent the wrong team's stuff? Wait until you drop $149 for a Phillies game and you end up with Marlins tickets! That arrive two days after the game! And are somehow off-center!

Nope, I foresee no problems whatsoever arising out of a joint venture between the company which singlehandedly messed up the ticketing marketplace and the company which singlehandedly messed up the apparel and merchandise marketplace. The synergies are certain to outweigh the enshittification!

Ireland cracks down on gambling ads

Lord, I have seen what you have done for others . . .

On Wednesday night, the Dail passed the Gambling Regulation Bill through the final stage with the legislation now sent to President Michael D Higgins to sign into action . . . The bill bans all gambling advertising on TV and online between 5.30am and 9pm with multi million euro fines and possible prison sentences for the execs of companies that break the ban.

The new law will also clamp down on gambling incentives from bookmakers such as free bets, VIP treatment or free hospitality. Bookies will also be required to pay into a new social impact fund to help people struggling with addiction.

If you want to see gambling ads online you still can, but it'll be an opt-in sort of thing.

It's amazing what a government can do when it's actually concerned with people's wellbeing and takes active steps to promote it. Cannot even begin to imagine what that's like.

Other Stuff

Tariff update

Less than 48 hours after slapping tariffs on all goods from Canada and Mexico, Trump announced a one-month reprieve for automobile imports yesterday. That move came after he had a phone conversation with executives from the Big Three automakers.

Three observations:

• Given how Trump rolls, there will almost certainly be numerous carveouts and exemptions granted over the next several days and weeks and almost all of them will be a function of special lobbying or blatant corruption, possibly in the form of straight payoffs, which is something Trump is really, really big on;
• If he keeps carving out every sector that complains or pays him off he will run out of meaningful tariffs, thereby undermining the entire enterprise; and
• No matter what anyone says or writes about this administration, it's critical to remember that these guys are total incompetents who have no idea what they're doing from one moment to the next.

I'm quite obviously on Team Canada and Mexico when it comes to this stupid business, but it's downright embarrassing to be an American and to see my country pursuing this war so amateurishly.

How you oppose

The Democratic response to Trump's speech on Tuesday night was decidedly uninspiring. From a comically ill-conceived plan to wear color-coordinated clothes, to a weird and limp thing in which some of them held up signs with messages like "Musk steals" or "False" on them, to a formal response from Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin who gave an approving shoutout to Ronald Reagan during her speech. To say the moment was missed would be an exercise in understatement.  

Which doesn't matter in isolation. Trump's speech was mostly forgotten by lunchtime yesterday and no one but the most depraved and disgusting political junkies pay attention to response speeches beyond the actual moments in which they are being delivered. So while I was unimpressed with the Democratic response to Trump's speech, do not think for one moment that I believe the Republic Could Have Been Saved if only the Democrats were a bit pithier or more pointed on Tuesday night.

But it's absolutely the case that Democrats need to seize the moment and mount an effective opposition if we are to have any hope of stopping the bleeding, let alone fixing the damage Trump is doing. Yes, there will be elections in less than two years and yes there are court cases winding their way through the system, but none of that obviates the need for effective politics right now, at this very moment. No, Democrats cannot pass legislation or exercise formal oversight or anything right now, but as Josh Marshall effectively argued the other day . . .

We’re embarked on a vast battle over the future of the American Republic, in which the executive and much of the judiciary is acting outside the constitutional order. That battle is fundamentally over public opinion. We’re in a constitutional interregnum and we are trying to restore constitutional government. The courts are a tool. Federalism is a big, big tool, the significance and importance of which is getting too little discussion. But it’s really about public opinion. And that means it’s about politics. The American people will decide this. That’s what this is all about.

The quickest way to counteract the lawlessness afoot is to make the American people understand just how bad things are and what the stakes are going forward. Doing that requires effective political messaging. Effective political messaging is not wearing color-coordinated outfits, it is not holding up meek little signs, it is not trying to get people to remember Ronald Reagan fondly, and it is certainly not loudly proclaiming that we can't actually do anything until January 2027. Rather, it's the same thing it always is: delivering clear words which communicate straightforward and easy to understand ideas.

Stuff like this one minute video that Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker released on Tuesday night, focusing on the tariffs:  

Note how he talks like a normal human being with no condescension, no cuteness, and no neutered, focus-grouped phrases you'd never hear outside of a political speech. Note how he talks about easy to understand kitchen table issues, clearly delineating the problem. Note how he says "Trump's tax" six times in one minute, making it 100% clear who is responsible for the problem in a way that will be easy to deploy in the future. It's a masterclass in effective political communication and it's as simple as simple can be.

Back in January Denny Carter wrote a really good piece about how repetition of simple ideas – something Republicans have mastered, albeit in the service of bad faith – is the sine qua non of political persuasion. "Repetition is key among those strategies. In the US, that means Democrats and their surrogates must be more disciplined in hammering home messaging that will alter the public consciousness," Carter wrote. Pritzker quite obviously understands that, and his understanding of that is why his one-minute video is orders of magnitude more effective than a five or ten-minute speech. The video above was on tariffs, but there could just as easily be one talking about Trump's dismantling of governmental capacity. Another one could talk about the damage Trump is doing to the US's international standing. Another one could talk about his racist, sexist, and anti-trans policies.

This is not hard. It simply requires speaking plain truths in plain ways. The fact that Democratic leadership in Congress does not understand this or, worse, understands it but refuses to engage in it for some reason while doing its best to marginalize the few who do it, is unfathomable.

How you report

I've talked a lot about how the political press has largely failed to adequately capture what's been going on for the past couple of months. At the same time, there has been some remarkably good and even brave reporting going on from tech reporters at places like Wired and TechDirt. Why is that?

As Mike Masnick of TechDirt wrote on Tuesday, it's because the playbook that is being used to dismantle government was beta tested in the world of tech for years, with Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter serving as a shakedown cruise for the takeover and destruction of the U.S. government. Tech journalists see exactly what is going on and can report on it accurately in ways political reporters, trapped in their obsolete frames about how politicians and governments are supposed to operate, simply cannot. Or, in many cases, will not.

More broadly, Masnick's column talks about why, even though many of TechDirt's readers may want them to steer away from what they characterize as "politics" and stick to the sorts of tech product stories on which they've traditionally focused, asking such a thing is an impossibility. Not because they've been distracted by the political story, but because the political story has a direct and existential bearing on their usual bailiwick:

 The reason Silicon Valley became Silicon Valley wasn’t because a bunch of genius inventors happened to like California weather. It was because of a complex web of institutions that made innovation possible: courts that would enforce contracts (but not non-competes, allowing ideas to spread quickly and freely across industries), universities that shared research, a financial system that could fund new ideas, and laws that let people actually try those ideas out. And surrounding it all: a fairly stable economy, stability in global markets and (more recently) a strong belief in a global open internet.

And now we’re watching Musk, Trump, and their allies destroy these foundations. They operate under the dangerous delusion of the “great man” theory of innovation — the false belief that revolutionary changes come solely from lone geniuses, rather than from the complex interplay of open systems, diverse perspectives, and stable institutions that actually drives progress.

The reality has always been much messier. Innovation happens when lots of different people can try lots of different ideas. When information flows freely. When someone can start a company without worrying that the government will investigate them for criticizing an oligarch. When diverse perspectives can actually contribute to the conversation. You know — all the things that are currently under attack.

The politicians and those in league with them have broken all of the old models. The political press is still acting like they hold. Unless and until they understand that and do something about it, you're better served getting your news and insight from people who usually spend their time on other beats and who are not beholden to the sources and conventions which political reporters seem incapable of shaking.

On some level you're better off with someone who can see and explain things clearly, with some bite, than you are with a putative subject matter expert who constantly acts as if everything is far more complicated than it is and that you, you sweet summer child, cannot possibly understand.

Seems appropriate

John Roberts is responsible for the Supreme Court decision which allowed billionaires to buy elections and for the decision which declared that Donald Trump is legally immune from the operation of criminal law. You know, the two highly corrupt and legally baseless decisions which are like 90% responsible for the United States government being wholly dismantled before our very eyes. In light of that, it's highly appropriate for Trump to thank Roberts for it. Kings have long known better than to turn on their kingmakers.

Not that the administration cares about judges

Reuters reported yesterday that U.S. Marshals have warned federal judges of "unusually high threat levels" specifically because Elon Musk and other Trump administration officials have been verbally attacking and seeking to discredit judges who have ruled against the administration's blatant illegal acts over the past six weeks. There have been death threats as well as intimidation tactics, such as people having pizzas delivered to judges' houses so as to signal that people know where they live.

All of this has been instigated by Elon Musk personally, as he has made at least 30 tweets lambasting judges as “corrupt,” “radical,” “evil” and deriding the "TYRANNY of the JUDICIARY" following their rulings. He has retweeted two dozen other people attacking judges on Twitter as well.

Given that violence against judges – including premeditated murder – is not unheard of in recent history, responsible public officials would do whatever they could to lower the temperature when it comes to this stuff. Unfortunately, the White House has no responsible officials working there. If you doubt that, know that this was the actual official comment from White House spokesperson Harrison Fields to Reuters in response to its reporting:

"The White House condemns any threats to really any public officials, despite our feelings that a lot of these people are leftist, crazy judges that aren't following the Constitution," Fields said. "Just because these people are leftist, crazy, unconstitutional people doesn't mean they deserve to be harmed. That's not how you engage with disputes in this country."

If and when harm comes to a judge, a judge's staff, or a judge's family member Elon Musk should be arrested, tried for incitement, and thrown in prison.

Quote of the Day

Here's French Senator Claude Malhuret, speaking before the National Assembly yesterday:

"Washington has become Nero’s court, with an incendiary emperor, submissive courtiers and a jester high on ketamine . . . We were at war with a dictator, we are now at war with a dictator backed by a traitor."

It's nearly impossible to overstate how much international goodwill Donald Trump has burned over the past month. And he's just getting started!

Great Moments in Policing

Yesterday my local newspaper, the Columbus Dispatch, published a list of the highest-paid city employees. Six of the top ten are regular police officers – not administrators, just cops on various beats – all of whom landed on the list thanks to their drawing of massive amounts of overtime pay:

Number three, officer Michael Exline, immediately caught my eye. That's because I wrote about him five years ago.

The short version: back in 1991, when he was a young officer, Exline brutally beat a Black college student with his flashlight, after which he and some fellow officers kicked the shit out of him for no reason whatsoever. The victim was paid a nearly $200,000 settlement. Exline was suspended, then prosecuted for felonious assault. Though he was acquitted by an all-white jury who, per news reports at the time blamed the kid for the cop beating him, the Division of Police nonetheless found that Exline had committed an inexcusable act of brutality and attempted to terminate his employment. Despite a ruling that he should be fired, the department took the unprecedented step of reinstating him after a retraining and probationary period. Now, 34 years later, he's still on the force. He's a uniformed traffic sergeant – he actually gave me a ticket five years ago – pulling in $277K a year, over half of which has come in the form of overtime pay.

There's a lot there not to like, but the worst part of it all, in my view, is that the then-unprecedented act of allowing an officer who was poised to be fired for brutality to stay on the force is now commonplace in Columbus. Indeed, it's a rare thing indeed for Columbus cops to actually get fired, thanks in large part to the Exline precedent. During that same time the Department of Justice has launched numerous investigations into the CPD and, for a time several years ago, had them under DOJ supervision due to its officers committing numerous civil rights violations. Columbus police kill multiple citizens a year, usually Black citizens, without any rational justification and the perpetrators routinely walk free either because prosecutors refuse to indict them or because juries have been conditioned by our reflexively pro-police culture to believe that police can do no wrong.

Michael Exline was a bad cop when he was young and now he's an old cop blatantly bleeding the city dry on overtime which, based on that list, I suspect isn't checked too damn closely by his superiors. The whole department is rotten as hell, and I really don't like the fact that my tax dollars are paying for it.

Have a great day everyone.