Sports forces U.S. to face the world

💸 Where I’m donating to: former Posties

👨🏼‍💻 What I’m reading: LinkedIn

🗡️ What I’m obsessing over: Candiace v Rob

🥤 What I’m drinking: Carbonated water

📺 What I’m watching: The Olympics and Super Bowl

If you haven’t seen the news, you might be Will Lewis. Over 300 employees were laid off at The Washington Post last week. Meanwhile, CEO and Publisher Will Lewis opted to go to Super Bowl events instead. On Saturday, he did finally leave his position at The Post, only to be replaced by the guy who kind of destroyed Tumblr.

If you’d like to help these incredibly talented journalists, you can donate here to international employees, and here to US employees. We donated $500 as a company.

You might be wondering, couldn’t Bezos have kept all these people around for pocket change? Like the $75 million of pocket change he used to buy favors from Trump the Melania movie? You would be right, and they laid it out pretty well here in this segment I did with MSNOW.

Don’t worry. I’m not looking for any jobs. But I did find myself doomscrolling LinkedIn, following the layoffs this week. So, it was quite the opposite of looking for jobs. In fact, the jobs seem to be looking for us. And believe me, if and when LNI has the funds to hire people, we will! For now, I’m supporting my former Washington Post colleagues on the sidelines. In particular, I’m going all out for Joey:

The only ‘work’ I did while on paternity leave in 2023 was conducting phone interviews to hire a new member of The Washington Post Universe. I had dozens of delightful calls with some really smart and talented people. But just like Carmella in 2021, the instant I spoke to Joey on the phone, I knew he was my top choice. He proved me right every day, promising to get one percent better with each video - a goal he set and let me know. As the sort of ‘Team Captain’ of the Universe, this was music to my ears. On top of being a hard worker, he’s just a good guy.

If you see any job openings for Joey, send them here: [email protected]

I hesitated to make yet another post about Traitors, but it’s consuming all my precious free time (about 23 minutes a night, as a toddler parent), and even some of my content-making.

This is likely not a hot take, but Rob is playing a perfect Traitor game. I recognize that it’s only been a few days since the last episode, so I’ll keep this relatively spoiler-free. If I were to play Traitors, I would play it just like Rob. When the season is over, I’ll do a full-on, spoiler-y review. Let me know what you think about this season!

A few months ago, while waiting to do a panel with some of the best in the biz, I reached for a carbonated water. This was a big mistake.

Apparently, Millennials, like our avocado toast, are known for our love of carbonated water. I was roundly (and fairly) mocked for preferring this over a good old-fashioned can of soda. And, as I sat there with this new truth, the reality of my doomed Millennial personality settling in once more, I had flashbacks to my first salaried job at a news start-up. The CEO was 26, as was the editor-in-chief. Most of us were in our early 20s. The fridge was stocked with one thing: La Croix beverages.

Macy Gilliam, one of my fellow panelists, was right. Millennials are obsessed with this shit.

But, in my own form of millennial protest, I want to state loudly and clearly my carbonated beverage preferences. Waterloo is better than La Croix. It’s not even close. Even Pepsi’s Bubly brand is better than LaCroix. I won’t be taking any further questions.

… but you can email me at [email protected] to let me know your preferences and if this Millennial myth is true.

It wasn’t all that long ago when Colin Kaepernick began taking a knee to protest racial injustice and police brutality in the United States. At the time, he was widely mocked by conservatives. An elite quarterback was arguably pushed out of the league as a result of his activism. Just four years later, NFL sidelines read “END RACISM” and “WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER” as a result of the George Floyd protests.

There’s not enough time to discuss the extraordinary hypocrisy of the NFL in today’s post. Or the hypocrisy of virtually every American company that committed to racial equality, only to cast it aside the instant Trump was re-elected.

Instead, I’d like to draw your attention to two of the world’s largest sporting events happening simultaneously, forcing Americans to look the rest of the world in the fact and, frankly, explain ourselves.

Already, we’re seeing American athletes in Italy speaking out against ICE.

And for the months leading up to the Super Bowl halftime show, it’s felt like half of America has had to explain to the other half that Bad Bunny is the number one artist in the world, he’s American, Puerto Rico is part of the United States, and all of their reasons for disliking him are likely rooted in racism. This is not to say that everyone has to like his music.

Pointing out the inherent racism here and saying he’s an incredible artist are not mutually exclusive. But like … guys his music is really good. And so are his music videos.

(If you’re looking to expand your horizons on Latin American music videos, this one, from Colombian artist Carlos Vives, is my favorite.)

Last night’s halftime show was joyful and delivered a few specific messages— among them that love is stronger than hate and that Latin Americans are an essential part of this country. Also, the music was great and so was the performance.

So, once again, we gathered around the television to watch a sporting event with some politics mixed in. Some of us were looking over our shoulders at a bar, wondering if someone there secretly would rather have watched Kid Rock, or whoever is playing the Turning Point Propaganda Halftime show.

First, this isn’t really Republicans versus Democrats. And it’s certainly not one half of Americans versus the other half. On a recent appearance on Kara Swisher’s podcast, The Onion CEO, Ben Collins, pointed out “there are way more of us than there are of them.” I think this is true, and I would argue it’s better to frame the two “sides” as those who are paying attention versus those who aren’t.

I don’t want to sugarcoat it - most of the Americans that approve of ICE kidnapping American citizens, including small children, identify as Republicans. But increasingly, not all Republicans approve of this.

And just to be really, really clear, I have a lot of anger for those who support this:

But my job isn’t to constantly shame those who support it. It’s to be unflinchingly honest about what’s happening in the U.S., while hopefully making some jokes, too.

I did this with President Biden, poking fun of him far before mainstream media was comfortable doing so (and when it was far too late to have a real Democratic primary). Republicans at the time were right - he was not fit to run again.

And in 2026, I’m shining that spotlight on the atrocities happening to Americans, immigrants, and even newsrooms, in hopes that anyone who is paying attention will keep paying attention. With the Olympics forcing Americans to confront the uncomfortable truth that the rest of the world basically hates us, I’ll be working this week to show that in our videos, while also probably doing terrible accents.