That Was The Week That Was In Links - March 21, 2025

Some stuff I’ve consumed this week and items of note…

• From analysis by Media Matters:

Of the 191 right-leaning and 129 left-leaning online shows that covered news and politics or hosted related guests, 80 of the right-leaning online shows (42%) are categorized as comedy, entertainment, sports, or other supposedly nonpolitical topics. In fact, 72% of the 111 supposedly nonpolitical shows that we determined had an ideological bent were right-leaning.

Moreover, these right-leaning shows span a wider variety of categories, self-identifying by subjects such as business, comedy, gaming, education, entertainment, religion and spirituality, society and culture, sports, wellness/health, and technology. Meanwhile, left-leaning shows that are not explicitly identified as news and politics-related mostly self-identify as comedy, entertainment, or society and culture programs.

The disparity in total followers and subscribers across platforms of right-leaning and left-leaning online shows in these categories was substantial. Right-leaning online shows categorized as comedy, entertainment, sports, and other supposedly nonpolitical topics had at least 243.1 million total followers and subscribers — more than the 237.5 million for right-leaning online shows categorized as news and politics-related. It’s also more than five times the 44 million followers and subscribers for left-leaning shows not identified as political, and more than four times the 60 million of left-leaning shows categorized as news and politics-related.

• Kaitlyn Tiffany attended a New York Yankees fantasy camp for women but considers a broader issue:

Sure, girls can play on Little League baseball teams, as Bitsy did, with boys. They can play on high-school baseball teams with boys. A scant few of them have even played on college baseball teams with boys. But they don’t get their own teams. There is no such thing as high-school or college baseball for women. There is no such thing as professional baseball for women, apart from a World Cup team that is assembled and disassembled every few years. Not only is this the baffling reality; it’s a baffling reality that hardly anybody talks about.

• The International Olympic Committee stays on brand with its new president. Notes Karim Zidan:

However, while international media has focused on Coventry’s historic achievements as one of the most decorated Olympians from Africa and as a woman in the IOC, almost none have written about the countless controversies that have plagued her career over the past few years, including her ongoing role as the sports minister for one of the most repressive regimes in Africa.

• In news about the current administration’s policy of move fast, break people:

The Trump administration deported a Venezuelan professional soccer player, a youth soccer coach with no criminal record, to an El Salvadoran prison known for torture and abusive conditions, according an affidavit filed with the court and confirmed by a family member’s post on Facebook in Venezuela.

Also, Jerce Reyes Barrios’ deportation was because of our regime’s misinterpretation of a Real Madrid homage soccer tattoo. Great state of the country right now, ain't it?

• The Department of Defense disappeared military hero Jackie Robinson from its website and then reappeared him. Prior to restoring Robinson’s story, the DOD offered, the Pentagon press secretary offered a gross defense, which was then amended because colleagues there probably realized how gross it was. And in a rare move, the administration then removed him from his job for being too hardcore anti-DEI. Mina Kimes had some very apt thoughts on the Robinson situation and its relationship to American history as a whole:

• I wrote this week about the pattern of loser behavior in the White House exemplified by Conor McGregor’s invite there, an appearance that drew righteous criticism from many.
• Representative Eric Burlison (R-MO) is either an idiot who has never considered what an MLB locker room is actually like or disingenuous (or both!).
• The Trump administration is refusing $175 million in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania because the school won’t capitulate on its transgender athlete policies.
• One of my hometown newspapers (not the one owned by venture capital) is continuing seppuku, greatly affecting its sports writing in particular. Sun-Times CEO Melissa Bell was also in charge of many great writers at SB Nation losing their gigs five years ago.
• I, for one, am shocked that an elderly American Christian college basketball coach has awkward Ramadan thoughts.
• Ditto that a college football coach seems like a big ol’ misogynistic jerk.
• the west virginia governor is not mad. please dont put in the newspaper that he got mad.

How you gonna turn the screws on me?
I find myself surrounded by wild-eyed men
I strike one down - two of them rise again
So now that you've got me in the lion's den
How you gonna turn the screws on me?

When the savage has to hurt to feed
Then the master surely has his servants beat
Our poverty is their policy
How you gonna turn the screws on me this way?

Weekend.