What Santa Won’t Tell You: Reindeer Meat Is Delicious! Tabs, Tues., Sept. 5, 2023
Come and get your Tabs!
Former New Mexico governor and UN ambassador Bill Richardson has died. He was 75. (CNN)
Los Angeles has become the epicenter of the labor movement. I wonder if the escalating cost of living has anything to do with it. (The Nation)
Democrats have flipped a Senate seat and held the governor’s office in Pennsylvania, but reportedly the state party is still “amateur hour” and a “fucking disaster.” (Politico)
Anti-abortion states are attempting to keep fugitive slaves pregnant residents from using highways to access necessary health care out of state. (Washington Post)
Somewhat lighter from the Post: Deep-fried alligator, pickle pizza, wine-fried brie on a stick and other culinary horrors at the Minnesota state fair.
Some good news: A federal judge struck down Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s Jim Crow congressional map that eliminated a majority Black district. (Miami Herald)
It’s been 30 years since Nirvana’s In Utero, and I can still hear the album blasting from a stereo at the Taco Stand in Athens, Georgia. “Love you for what I am not. Did not what I have got … What is wrong with me?” (The Boar)
I agree with David Frum that the Fourteenth Amendment can’t save us from Donald Trump. He still has power because a (not-so) shocking number of (white) Americans continue to support him, and it falls on the rest of us to keep him out of office (again). (The Atlantic)
It doesn’t help that Trump is a cult leader. (Also The Atlantic)
Historian Kevin Kruse argues that the Fourteenth Amendment exists for a reason and disqualifying Trump from the ballot is right and proper. I don’t disagree in principle. I just think in practice, we’re gonna have to do it the hard way … again. (Campaign Trails)
Who wouldn’t dig a “Big Gretch” Whitmer and Raphael Warnock ticket? But that’s not happening in 2024. Stop with the fantasy-making. If there are Democrats who don’t like the current situation, they had a chance to avoid it back in 2020 when everyone who wasn’t me was competing for the nomination. (The Bulwark)
A NYPD drone was potentially an unwanted guest at some Labor Day gatherings (AP)
Businesses are desperately trying to force workers back into the office. That stale coffee won’t drink itself. (NPR)
It’s been 15 years since my new fiancée and I spent some time in Scandinavia — Bergen, the fjords, Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Malmo. It was lovely. I also ate whale in Bergen and reindeer pretty much all over (tastes like very sweet filet mignon). It seems like yesterday but obviously wasn’t because we lugged around the physical Rick Steves travel books instead of downloading his wisdom to a Kindle app, as we’d do just a couple years later.
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Come and get your Tabs, 1918 style. Your hed gif today comes courtesy the National Archives. The researching here took me down some fascinating paths. I hope you'll click through and read about it.
https://open.substack.com/pub/martiniambassador/p/horsing-around-french-schoolin-in
In theory, I imagine using drones instead of a squad car to investigate noise complaints would be an intelligent conservation of valuable resources. In practice, I can't imagine the police not abusing the fuck out of a new surveillance tool.