What I Read This Week - April 27, 2025

From New York Times features on Turki Alashikh to exposés on group chats of the American right, the week offered no shortage of interesting reads.

SPOTLIGHT:

Time is running out to see ‘No Other Land,’ the 2025 Oscar winner for Best Documentary. It’s a joint Israeli-Palestinian effort aimed at showing what is happening to the people of Masafer Yatta, an area of 19 hamlets in the West Bank near Hebron. Very few theaters nationwide would carry the film and it currently has no streaming partner. The only way to watch now is on the website (linked above) and even then this is for a limited time.

I couldn’t possibly offer any kind of analysis that’s worthwhile about what’s happening in the West Bank relative to the experts who’ve devoted their lives to studying it. What I can say, beyond the daily despair I feel watching our tax dollars contribute to the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, is the value of Palestinian life and the reality of their needs has never seemed to matter much in the U.S. Rather than addressing their lack of sovereignty, we’ve somehow decided over decades that it’s better to wait them out, expel them from their territory, kill them en masse, deny their history and degrade their existence. It’s hard to not draw the conclusion that some level (or maybe even all of it) of erasing Palestinian identity and land is what’s next. If the choice is to recognize their humanity or not and we’ve chosen the latter, where else does our current path take us but there?

My hope is you’ll take the time to watch the movie even if it all feels maybe too little, too late to truly help.

U.S.

• Semafor’s story on the group chat involving a number of right-wing VCs, media members and others of “Chatham House” helps you better understand the link between the American right and tech oligarchs.

• The Civil War broke out within the first 100 days of Abraham Lincoln’s term, but The Daily Beast tries to make the case that Trump’s second term might have the worst start of any president.

• Bari Weiss is such an incredible fraud. That she’s running favorable cover for the Trump admin’s attacks on Wikipedia is completely on brand.

• David Dayen argues even if Trump’s tariffs are reversed, there’s already a lot of damage baked in and the rebound itself could exacerbate the problem.

• The resumption of student loan repayment is going to foreclose the ability of many borrowers from greater participation in key portions of the U.S. economy.

WORLD

• More evidence the Trump admin’s insanity on tariffs - among other related problems - is causing allies to move into the arms of others.

• Here’s a late addition to the newsletter for today, but there’s a blackout in Portugal, Spain and even parts of Southwestern France.

• JD Vance’s latest overseas trip has had a fair amount of really unfortunate timing.

TECH

• Why didn’t Mark Zuckerberg’s extensive genuflecting and ass kissing of Donald Trump result in the FTC’s antitrust lawsuit against Meta getting dropped? Molly Roberts has a guess.

• Google’s antitrust trial is taking so long that it’s generating vast sums of wealth while the legal process slowly unfolds.

• Here’s an argument for seeing AI as a collaborator, not a creator.

• Under Brendan Carr, the FCC has become a harassment machine.

SPORTS

• This Esquire piece on the empire built by Tiger Schulman - and the maybe not-so-great ways he built it - is an incredible read.

• An incredible look behind the curtain at Turki Alalshikh by the NY Times, confirming all of your suspicious that he’s not a benevolent, avuncular figure.

• For the first time since I was a teenager, the Commanders might end up playing inside DC proper agin.

• Speaking of Turki, he’s feuding with Boxing Scene, so they aren’t getting credentials to any of his events.

• Like a lot of left-leaning or media or media who serves left-wing audiences, Jacobin magazine profiles the UFC’s hard-right turn.

• Chuck Mindenhall has a great profile piece on the Fighting Nerds that’s well worth your time.

• Confirmed reporting that the fractured nature of boxing is why Saudi Arabia wants to try to control and consolidate it.

• BC’s recap of Eubank-Benn is dripping with his love and passion for boxing.

ENTERTAINMENT

Ryan Coogler discusses the response to the deal he was given related to “Sinners” and why, despite talk of how unusual it is, there’s nothing unusual about it at all.