Wesley Ratko

"M.A.G.A."? Be specific. I grew up near a major city with people of all ethnicities, incomes, & perspectives. We communicated & learned from our differences. There was respect & consideration for one another. THAT was great. The US is its diversity. If you hate diversity, you don't love the US.

Hey @mailfence.com folks…I've had trouble accessing my email all day. What's the story with the North American server?

“in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.” Common sense, indeed.

My latest for Express-News. Reporting by Liz Teitz.

Musically I'm on a Sam Fender kick. It's good stuff… curious how I never heard of this guy before this month.

Season 2 of The West Wing might be the strongest single season of TV I've ever seen. Twenty-five years later the whole thing holds up. It starts strong, it ends strong. Twenty-two solid episodes, not a weak one in the bunch. Aaron Sorkin is incredible.

Getting artificial dye out of the food isn't the worst thing in the world. It's not worth an assault on the safety and efficacy of vaccines or an attack on the capability of people on the spectrum. I'm just saying…not the worst thing.

Listening to my five year-old daughter singing "We Will Rock You" while getting dressed in her room is giving me the smiles this morning.

“Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry.” -The Great Gatsby.

The Mack truck assembly plant in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley is laying off 250 to 350 people due to “market uncertainty.” I’m willing to bet those guys weren’t Harris voters.

Abrego Garcia wasn’t deported. He was kidnapped. He’s not in a prison. He’s in a 💀 camp. He was denied his right to due process and everyone in the U.S., including those without legal status, have constitutional rights to due process under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. 1/

New season of Black Mirror is on Netflix and the episode Eulogy with Paul Giamatti (in an AMAZING performance) is easily my very favorite segment of the entire series run. Credited writers: Charlie Brooker and Ella Road. A beautiful use of science fiction to tell a really heartbreaking story.

I'm reading The Great Gatsby for the 4th time in my life. I read it in high school, again in my 20s, a third time ten years ago, and now again in middle age. Tom Buchanan gets more awful with each reading and I'm seeing more interesting details emerge this time. Nick remains elusive to me.

I can't remember where I saw this but somewhere this morning I read: "Deleting pages from a government website isn't really any different than burning books." And I can't stop thinking about that.

This morning I referred to someone as the "Teddy Savalas of Capricorn One" and now I need to schedule that colonoscopy. (…because I'm old).

A lot of people were liberated from their money today.

MAGA obsession with Hungary and yet no one’s coined the phrase MAGA-yar yet.

If you accept that non-citizens have no right to due process, you are accepting that citizens have no right to due process. All the government has to do is claim that you are not a citizen; without due process you have no chance to prove the contrary.

On a meta-level, one of the many horrifying things about this story is that the Atlantic had no reasonable option other than to release the Signal messages at this point. They should have been able to go to the Inspector General! Or the FBI! Or Congress!

Yesterday I became a subscriber to @theatlantic.com. It’s an excellent publication doing quality journalism. Support journalism!

I would like to nominate Maxwell Smart for national security advisor.

While it’s inspiring to see people peaceful protesting policies and actions they see as unjust, I have to wonder: where were they on Election day? Is this easier than voting?

Why are people horrified by Idaho’s proposal to make the firing squad their method of execution but not horrified by the death penalty overall? The death penalty is barbaric.

I'll be on a panel at #NICAR25 next Saturday March 8 at 11:30 in Grand Portage Ballroom 4. The panel is titled "Covering transportation with data and docs." I'll be there to talk about exploring the short-term planning document known as the TIP to find regional transportation stories. Join us!

It's the bots sending me unsolicited direct messages, yes?

This morning's Letters from Berlin was quite moving. You're an excellent writer @luisaweiss.bsky.social

My only Superbowl comment is this: If it costs $8 million for a 30-second ad spot, and the thing you're advertising is a faith that emphasizes feeding the poor, then wouldn't that money be better spent ACTUALLY doing that? Beautiful ad with a good message that still really bugs me.

Ought to be required reading.

Please consider subscribing to your local newspaper. Or contributing to your local PBS or NPR affiliate. Funding quality journalism is the best way to stay informed. (The Houston Chronicle, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Antonio Express-News, the Philadelphia Inquirer…all excellent).

Senator Andy Kim just went to the USAID building, talked to the security guard there to confirm employees are being barred entry, and then did a press gaggle right there in front to call it out. This is doing something. This is making an effort on messaging. Other Democratic lawmakers: take notes.

Cold weather makes me want to listen to classical music. When it snows I'm all about hearing Glenn Gould play Bach's Goldberg Variations. This morning it was 7° and I'm all about Beethoven's piano sonatas.

Today’s listening.

Seems accurate.

We lost David Lynch and Bob Uecker on the same day. Weird.

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it." —Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It, a book he didn't publish until he was 73. And it's a lovely work of fiction.

The future is a right for us all, not a commodity to be exploited. I worry so much for my kids these days, about the world they’ll inherit.

Ever use the flashlight on your phone to look for your phone?

Whenever I cook with cilantro I always add a little soap so no one feels left out.

I turned on a Spotify playlist called “Happy Jazz” to listen to while I cooked dinner and it did not disappoint.

I am not a horror movie fan (at all) but Late Night with the Devil was a very clever and well-made film. Good storytelling and great performance by David Dastmalchian. If you can stomach the rather gruesome third act it’s worth a viewing. On Hulu.

I like Billy Crystal (a lot). I like spooky. I'm willing to accept a comedic actor in a dramatic role. I REALLY wanted "Before" on Apple TV+ to work. But… Four episodes in and I'm bored, confused, and frustrated that the story is circling the drain and not moving the story forward. I'm out.

Really enjoying Clive Owen as a retired Sam Spade (of Maltese Falcon fame) in the south of France in the 1960s. Monsieur Spade on Netflix.

All the joking/not-joking about how this is the season of "let's pick this up after the holidays" speaks to a society that is constantly on the edge of burnout and it's a little tough to find that funny.

Me: Hey kid, what do you get if you put a vest on an alligator? 5 yo: What? Me: An investigator! 5 yo: Meh. Only kind of funny daddy.

Billy Crystal is a good actor. But I’m having trouble seeing him in a horror movie. Something just isn’t right about that. (Before on Apple TV+).

Off season beach.

Lady talking about political parties, describing Republicans as crazy, Democrats as preachy. “Crazy doesn’t look down on me. Peachy does.”

Introduce yourself as a TV character.

Whooo boy the cliffhanger of The Diplomat on Netflix was something else!