4.30 Sports memorabilia firm Hunt Auctions purchases at auction the bat used by Jackie Robinson in the 1949 MLB All-Star Game for $1.08 million. 4.29 Samuel Goldman in The Week: “The prominence of college graduates in the new school of labor activism could make it difficult to find the sort of broad coalition that Democrats enjoyed during the heyday of organized labor. The somewhat incongruous enthusiasm of highly credentialed editorial assistants, graduate students, and non-profit employees might signal a restoration of class consciousness — or just alienate potential allies. Like the presidential campaigns of Bernie Sanders, the version of organized labor that’s become fashionable recently risks becoming a kind of role-playing rather than a genuine working class movement. You can see the electoral consequences of that dynamic in former bastions of the labor movement. Longtime Democratic incumbents in states like Ohio are sinking under the weight of a national agenda that seems hostile to fossil fuels, heavy industry, and the cultural preferences of the white working class. That’s not necessarily a problem in service fields or in cities like New York, where a unionization vote at a second Amazon warehouse is in progress. But it’s likely to be an obstacle in “brown” enterprises and the old industrial heartland. . . .Not simply organic resistance from the lower strata of American life, the new unionism is also a protest of surplus elites against an increasingly ossified power structure. That doesn’t mean it’s doomed — the revolt of the elites can be even more disruptive than the demands of the genuinely poor or exploited. If they want to be successful, though, the new faces of organized labor need to prove they’re more than dilettantes in proletarian drag.
4.28 At the NFL Draft, the Giants select Kayvon Thibadeux with the fifth pick and Evan Neal with the seventh.
4.27 Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post: “The GOP is no longer a party. It’s a movement to impose White Christian nationalism.”
4.25 Elon Musk buys Twitter.
4.22 Guy Lafleur dies at 70.
4.21 Daryle Lamonica dies at 80.
4.21 Robert Morse dies at 90.
4.21 Saw The True with Ginny at Capital Rep.
4.19 Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow, responding to accusations from a Republican colleague calling her a “social media troll” and a “snowflake” who was “outraged” at not being able to “groom and sexualize kindergarteners” : “You can’t claim that you’re targeting marginalized kids in the name of ‘parental rights’ if another parent is standing up and saying no,” she said. “So you dehumanize and marginalize me. You say I’m one of them. You say: She’s a groomer, she supports pedophilia, she wants children to believe they were responsible for slavery and to feel bad about themselves because they’re white. . . I want my daughter to know that she is loved, supported and seen for whoever she becomes,” she added. “I want every child to feel seen, heard and supported, not marginalized and targeted if they are not straight, white and Christian. … Call me whatever you want. I know who I am. I know what faith and service mean, and what it calls for in this moment. We will not let hate win.”
4.19 From Bloomberg Opinion:
4.18 Completing the 126th Boston Marathon was Adrianne Haslet, the ballroom dancer who lost a leg in the 2013 Boston Marathon explosions. The Boston Globe reports: This was a “triumphant return to the course for the 41-year-old who battled back not only from the 2013 attacks but also from getting struck and severely injured by a car in 2019,”
4.15 Mike Bossy dies at 65.
4.14 After being hit by Ukrainian missiles, the Russian guided-missile cruiser Moskva, the flagship of the fleet, sank in the Black Sea.
4.13 My last day as a chamberlain.
4.13 Perfect through seven innings, and winning 3-0, Dodger ace Clayton Kershaw was removed from the game after throwing 80 pitches. “Blame it on the lockout,” Kershaw said. “Blame it on my not picking up a ball for three months (during the offseason). I knew going in that my pitch count wasn’t going to be 100. It’s a hard thing to do, to come out of a game when you’re doing that. We’re here to win. This was the right choice.”
4.13 In his sixth game, on the 116th pitch he saw, Cleveland Guardians rookie outfielder Steven Kwan swung and missed for the first time this season. In his first five games, Kwan had 24 plate appearances and reached base safely 18 times, a record.
4.13 Subway attacker Frank James apprehended.
4.13 BlackRock CEO Larry Fink wrote that“workers demanding more from their employers is an essential feature of effective capitalism. It drives prosperity and creates a more competitive landscape for talent, pushing companies to create better, more innovative environments for their employees, which will help them achieve greater profits for shareholders.”
4.13 Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post: Millions of college-educated women, “none of the above” secularists, high-tech industries, non-Whites and even younger White evangelicals don’t buy into the “back to the future” vision of America to which right-wingers ascribe. They live in every state. Many of them have spent their entire adult lives, in many cases, in a country with gay marriage, integrated universities, wide acceptance of climate change and a much more diverse population. Democrats might have an enthusiasm problem heading into November’s midterms, but they might consider that a whole lot of Americans — even many in red states — do not want to go back 60 years. They have no interest in a reactionary White movement run by Ivy League senators affecting a rural twang and inveighing get against elites. Democrats must use this to contrast their party with Republicans: Forward vs. backward. Progress vs. chaos. Respect vs. bullying. Freedom vs. theocracy. Such a message would transcend race, especially among Americans with the most to lose. “Which America do people want to live in?” may be the defining question for the upcoming election and many to follow.
4.12 Biden: “I’m doing everything within my power by executive orders to bring down the price and address the Putin price hike. Your family budget, your ability to fill up your tank, none of it should hinge on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide half a world away.”
4.12 An attacker riding the subway in Brooklyn filled a rush-hour train with smoke before opening fire Tuesday morning, police said, shooting 10 people and leaving behind a chaotic scene, a sweeping manhunt and mounting questions about the violence.
4.12 Gilbert Gottfried dies at 67
4.11 Jonathan Haidt in The Atlantic: America is polarized, factionalized, and angry. He blames social media—specifically, how it evolved after 2009. “Social scientists have identified at least three major forces that collectively bind together successful democracies: social capital (extensive social networks with high levels of trust), strong institutions, and shared stories. Social media has weakened all three.” Former President Donald Trump was merely the first politician to exploit this new political and cultural environment. There will be more.
4.8 Abigail Disney in The Washington Post: The political backlash against Disney is a monster of corporate America’s own creation. Once content to stay quiet and feign neutrality while real people were harmed by right-wing policy machinations, the mob has now come for businesses. We need corporations to step up on principle, regardless of the resulting backlash. The only option for corporate leaders is to stand tall for authenticity, generosity, joy and decency. These things are kryptonite for the right-wing agenda. Fortunately, they are also the heart and soul of the Disney brand.
4.8 The unemployment rate was 3.6% in March. It has been lower than that in only two months in the last 50 years.
4.7 Lunch with Chris Napolitano at Man of Kent in Hoosick Falls.
4.7 Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmed as Supreme Court justice.
4.6 Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic: Disinformation is the story of our age. We see it at work in Russia, whose citizens have been led to believe the lies that Ukraine is an aggressor nation and that the Russian army is winning a war against modern-day Nazis. We see it at work in Europe and the Middle East, where conspiracies about hidden hands and occult forces are adopted by those who, in the words of the historian Walter Russell Mead, lack the ability to “see the world clearly and discern cause and effect relations in complex social settings.” We see it weaponized by authoritarians around the globe, for whom democracy, accountability, and transparency pose mortal threats. And we see it, of course, in our own country, in which millions of voters believe that Biden is an illegitimate president because the man he beat specializes in sabotaging reality for personal and political gain. This mass delusion has enormous consequences for the future of democracy. As Yoni Appelbaum has noted, “Democracy depends on the consent of the losers.” Sophisticated, richly funded, technology-enabled disinformation campaigns are providing losers with other options.
4.2 Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan at a rally: “Well, President Trump was in office. We didn’t have a war and I think he made three peace treaties. Caught Osama – Osama bin Laden and Soleimani, Al Baghdadi. And this president is weak. And weakness breeds aggression. We need strength.”