Saturday Morning Coffee

Cold EspressoGood morning!

I managed to sleep until 8AM! That’s pretty good and I needed it. Still groggy but the magic elixir should help. ☕️

New Republic

On Thursday, Tennessee Republicans had their first opportunity to show Democrats, Tennesseans, and the country their willingness to work together to enact baseline gun safety reform.

Not unexpected from the GOP in any state. They only care about children when they’re in the womb. After birth it’s game on, “good luck making it to adulthood kid.”

Techdirt

That became ridiculously clear on Thursday when Chris Best went on Nilay Patel’s Decoder podcast at the Verge to talk about Substack’s new Notes product, which everyone is (fairly or not) comparing to Twitter.

I listened to the entire podcast and I’d encourage you to do the same. Nilay is so good at asking those questions that make people squirm and he doesn’t let go. This was by no means a “gotcha” question. It’s very relevant to running a social network, which Substack Notes is.

Vox

Logan Roy is dead.

Man, that episode was amazing and uncomfortable. I love how we didn’t see him die, as it could be in real life. The kids just got that dreadful call many of us have received. We never really see an actual dead, or dying, Logan Roy. Just someone lying on the ground receiving CPR. I think it was brilliant and caught me off guard which was also perfect.

Now, what do the kids do? Do they find a way to bring Pops business into the 21st century, sell it as scraps, or run it in the ground?

We obviously don’t know how this ends but it’ll be a complete train wreck all the way to the end and I’m here for it. 🍿

Wired

Montana lawmakers voted 54-43 today to ban TikTok from operating in the state and forbid app stores from offering it for download.

I’ve been on the fence about TikTok for a few weeks now. At first I was in the die hard ban them group but I’ve been questioning that position for a while.

I wonder if their strategy to wall off content from China by keeping it here in the states could work?

Apple allows the Chinese government access to iCloud in China, why couldn’t the opposite work here?

I’d imagine the moderation team could be immense and I’d also imagine a substantially large team dedicated to tooling to make this work, but it might work, right? 🤷🏻‍♂️

The Nation

Two Sundays ago, I got a call from the Texas Tribune informing me that the board had voted to lay off the entire staff and shutter the publication.

The Texas Observer is a small progressive paper in, you guessed it, Texas. Yeah, the state that has drive-thru margarita stands that give free guns away with a purchase of $5US or more (yes, the gun part is full on sarcasm.)

Texas needs an independent progressive voice and I’m hopeful the Observer hangs around for a very long time. This is one of those times I wish I were very wealthy. I’d happily fund them for years just to make sure Texas progressives had a place to get their news.

Mozilla Blog

Total Cookie Protection is Firefox’s strongest privacy protection to date, confining cookies to the site where they were created, thus preventing tracking companies from using these cookies to track your browsing from site to site.

This is a very nice feature. Your turn Google and Microsoft.

Newsweek

President Donald Trump has such a fragile ego, his secret service agents are forced to act like “fluffers” and tell people to say nice things to him before he enters a room, Donny Deutsch has claimed.

I LOL’d when I read the term fluffer and I’m happy to know this man is super fragile. I also wonder if a few weeks in a prison cell would break him or make him an even more disgusting human. Somehow I fear the latter would occur.

Mission Local

Mission Local is informed that the San Francisco Police Department early this morning made an arrest in the April 4 killing of tech executive Bob Lee, following an operation undertaken outside the city’s borders. The alleged killer also works in tech and is a man Lee purportedly knew.

This is turning into a wild story and crap like this happens every day.

Slash Film

True Detective: Night Country Trailer: Jodie Foster Headlines The Return Of The HBO Series

I loved the first season of True Detective. The second was good but not as gripping as the first. I think that’s part of why I’ve never watched the third season but I’ve heard it harkens back to the first season. I need to go play catch-up before we get this Jody Foster version. I’m really looking forward to it.

Reuters

The person who leaked U.S. classified documents prompting a national security investigation is a gun enthusiast in his 20s who worked on a military base, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing fellow members of an online chat group.

How in the world does a 20 something get access to top secret documents when he’s not part of the security apparatus of the United States? What a dangerous and embarrassing situation for the US government.

NBC News

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump has asked a federal appeals court to take immediate action to block former Vice President Mike Pence from testifying in the Justice Department’s probe into the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

I’ll bet he’s asking the courts to block Pence from testifying. I’d imagine Pence, being the weakling coward he is, will take the fifth a bunch and not say much.

At first I thought he acted bravely on January 6. Then I realized he didn’t do nearly enough to stop it from getting that far. He was a witness to the planning and could’ve stopped it long before it happened.

Tiny Apple Core