Feels great to be a gymnastics expert again.
“Come on, Simone! You’ve gotta stick the landing,” I yell at the TV while tripping over my socks on the way to remove my pizza rolls from the oven. “13.166?! Who are these communist judges?”
Hope you’re enjoying the Olympics as well. Let us know in today’s Question of the Day what you’re watching.
🍿 Box office record broken
🚨 Hezbollah-Israel tensions rise
👑 Joe Rogan briefly dethroned as top podcast
–Max and Max
KEY STORY
Sinaloa Cartel Arrests
El Chapo’s son organized the arrest of both himself and another top Sinaloa cartel member
Joaquín Guzmán López is the 38-year-old son of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the Mexican drug lord currently imprisoned in the US
On Friday, López allegedly lured 76-year-old Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, another drug lord, onto a plane the latter believed was headed for northern Mexico. The plane instead landed in El Paso, Texas, where both Sinaloa leaders were arrested
Analysts said that López likely hopes to escape the violent cartel life in exchange for a chance to enjoy his drug-trafficking spoils as a free man. Wanted on various drug-related charges, he may receive a reduced sentence for his cooperation and role in Zambada’s arrest
Dig Deeper
López is one of the “Chapitos,” a group of El Chapo’s sons who inherited the Sinaloa cartel – arguably the world’s largest and most powerful cartel – after their father’s arrest
Zambada is one of the organization’s original members, having co-founded the cartel alongside El Chapo
US authorities reportedly exploited a growing rift in the cartel between the Chapitos and the old guard to facilitate the capture
KEY STORY
Lebanon/Israel: Strike & Tensions
Tensions rose between Hezbollah and Israel after a rocket strike killed 12 Israelis
Hezbollah, a Lebanese Iran-backed Islamist militia, and Israel have been exchanging fire since October 8. On Saturday, a rocket apparently launched by Hezbollah struck a soccer field, killing 12 children who were playing and wounding dozens more
The strike hit the Golan Heights, an area Israel seized from Syria in 1967. The victims were Druze, an ethnic minority that lives in that area
Early Sunday, Israeli strikes hit targets deep inside Lebanon. The strike increased already high tensions
Dig Deeper
It’s unclear how far Israel’s response will go
Israel’s government is under domestic pressure to make northern Israel safe for families displaced since October. An unofficial deadline for that is the start of the school year, which is quickly approaching
Yet that would require a ceasefire with Hezbollah – which has said it won’t stop attacking Israel until the war in Gaza ends – or a major assault, which could spark a war
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Dig Deeper
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KEY STORY
“Deadpool & Wolverine” Record Broke
“Deadpool and Wolverine” smashed box office records
The film – which stars Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine – earned $205M in the US this weekend and $438M globally. It’s the biggest R-rated opening ever, both domestically and globally, beating the existing $175M record set by the first Deadpool in 2016
Deadpool and Wolverine’s opening weekend was the eighth-biggest in US box office history. It was also the biggest of the year, surpassing “Inside Out 2,” another Disney movie that debuted at $155M
Dig Deeper
The success is a major boost for Disney, which bought Marvel in 2009. Two Marvel releases last year – “The Marvels” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” – were box office disappointments, while a trio of 2023 Disney summer blockbusters – “The Marvels,” “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” and “Haunted Mansion” – all flopped, helping fuel a shareholder rebellion
It also marks a total turnaround: It’s the third Disney hit of the summer after Inside Out 2 and “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” earned a collective nearly $2B
KEY STORY
This Weekend in Politics
Kamala Harris announced a first-week $200M haul
Barack and Michelle Obama endorsed Kamala Harris after nearly a week of silence and reports that Barack doubts that Kamala can beat Trump
Donald Trump spoke Saturday at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville, where he promised to be a pro-bitcoin president and fire the SEC chairman: “If crypto is going to define the future, I want it to be mined, minted, and made in the USA,” he said
And the FBI issued a final ruling saying that a bullet did in fact hit Trump’s ear
Dig Deeper
Barack and Michelle Obama were the final remaining holdouts for Kamala Harris in her effort to win the unanimous support of Democratic leaders. Every major Democratic party leader has now endorsed her
Trump's keynote address at the Bitcoin Conference cemented his status as a bitcoin-friendly candidate. He promised to make bitcoin part of his America-first agenda and declared his plans to create a “strategic national bitcoin stockpile”
RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office
🎧 Tucker Carlson’s podcast briefly overtook Joe Rogan’s as Spotify’s most listened-to. Carlson was soon pushed to second by Call Her Daddy, with Rogan third
📊 New government data showed that prices rose 2.5% in the year to June, down from 2.6% for May. Core inflation remained at 2.6%. Both figures met economists’ expectations. They expect an interest rate cut in September, though it could happen this week
🔥 An arson attack appears to have sparked California’s biggest wildfire so far this year, now the seventh-biggest in state history. Another wildfire is underway in Oregon, and Alberta, Canada, has seen significant wildfire damage
🚄 France completed repairs on its sabotaged high-speed rail infrastructure. The sabotage, committed early Friday morning, shut down most high-speed rail service into Paris on the morning of the Olympics opening ceremony. French authorities are investigating and haven’t named a culprit
⚽ FIFA banned the Canadian women’s head coach and two staff members for a year and imposed a six-point penalty for the team at the Paris Olympics. The punishments come after a Canadian soccer official got caught using a drone to spy on a rival team’s practice
COMMUNITY
🧠 Today’s question: What’s your favorite Olympic sport to watch and why?
POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour
🚂 Anything for the algo: A 17-year-old from Nebraska allegedly caused a train derailment and posted a recording of it on YouTube. It caused $350k in damage and resulted in criminal charges for the teen
🏀 South Sudan stuns: South Sudan men’s basketball beat Puerto Rico 90–79 in the country’s first-ever Olympic win. South Sudan – the world’s newest internationally recognized country – is playing in its first Olympics
Who can’t do this with a hurt ankle?
🎵 Tikzam: TikTok aims to compete with YouTube Music and Shazam through a new feature called “Sound Search” that lets users find a sound by singing, humming, or playing it
🚙 Do sidewalks have speed limits? Amazon reportedly fired a worker in Georgia after catching them on camera speeding a delivery truck down a sidewalk
💍 Wedding crasher: Kyrgyzstan’s president imprisoned his niece’s fiancé for his viral marriage proposal at a mountainside location, which he felt was too ostentatious
ROCA WRAP
The Party and the People
Since President Biden’s announcement that he would drop out of the 2024 race, many people have alleged that the Democratic Party’s selection of Kamala Haris as its candidate is anti-democratic.
But is it?
At the core of the “anti-Democratic” argument is the belief that candidate selection should be as democratic as a general election: That people should vote to decide who represents the party. The reverse argument is that it’s the right of the party – an organization with leadership, staff, and budgets – to do as it wants.
Primary rules vary by state: In some states, anyone can vote in a primary; in others, you have to be a registered member of that party. They also vary by party, with each party setting the rules that govern how it selects its candidate. In both parties, candidates who win primaries win delegates, who then pledge to support the winning candidate.
Yet this can result in a problem: What if the primary voters select a candidate the party establishment – the ones whose lives revolve around the party – doesn’t want? After all, the casual voter has much less at stake than the insiders (who would also say the casual voter is less informed).
It was this logic that led the Democratic Party in 1984 to implement “superdelegates,” delegates who represented the party establishment and could select nominees regardless of the primary vote. The Democratic Party did this because, in numerous elections, the primary process had resulted in weak candidates crushed by Republicans, and the party wanted to exert the establishment’s influence over the race.
Since then, the Democrats have consistently performed better: From 1968 through 1988, they won one of six presidential races (in 1976, following Watergate). Since then, they’ve won five of eight. The Republicans, meanwhile, don’t have such a system. That enabled Donald Trump to become the party’s nominee despite the resistance of the Republican establishment in 2016.
A related situation is now playing out.
When Biden announced he was dropping out of the race, there were three options: The delegates – party insiders – could select a replacement, the party could hold a “mini primary,” or the party could hold an open convention, where members would debate on and choose a replacement.
The establishment chose the first option: Democratic leaders endorsed Kamala, and Democratic donors gave her tens of millions of dollars, prompting the delegates to follow suit. Within 48 hours, she had enough support to become the presumptive nominee.
Accusations that the process was “anti-democratic” followed. Average Americans and Democrats had no say in selecting Harris. When they did have a say – in the 2020 Democratic primary – she didn’t win enough support to secure a single delegate.
The argument says that for a democratic process, the Democrats should have held a competitive primary before Biden dropped out or a competitive process now to select a replacement.
But, Democratic leaders have said that with an election three months away, they needed to unify the party and put up a strong candidate as quickly as possible. A competitive process would have been unfeasible.
Many have also said that democracy isn’t about picking nominees – it’s about picking presidents. Parties pick the candidates, and voters select from the candidates.
EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts
On the subject of top podcasts, we’d love your help in dethroning Rogan (8 million people read this, right?) and have you subscribe to our podcast “We The 66.” We want it to serve as your “anti-echo chamber,” airing different views from across the spectrum. Social media and news companies are designed to do the opposite. Plus, we make bad puns there, too. Only now, you get to hear them in nasal voices.
Have a great Monday.
–Max and Max
