Well, not quite. But Steve Pagliuca, who owns about 20 percent of the Boston Celtics, is trying to put together a coalition of fellow minority shareholders to buy the legendary NBA franchise, perhaps at a discount, the NY Post reports. … Post story via the invaluable Contrarian Boston.

According to NPR, the Washington Post has lost 200,000 subscribers since its owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezo, decided to not endorse a presidential candidate this year, a move many (including yours truly) viewed as him proactively bowing to Donald Trump should the former president win the election. I find the 200K number hard to believe, but if it’s even remotely close to that figure, it’s a devastating loss. … But I think the cancel movement is off base. It’s only punishing the grunt reporters and editors at the Post, not Bezos, a billionaire who can easily afford the loss of $20 million or so in canceled subscriptions. … But here’s an idea from The Atlantic: Cancel Bezos/Prime. It’s preferable to cancelling a Post subscription. But what I’d really like to see is Bezos sell the Post. He’s done enough damage to the paper. His credibility is shot, not the credibility of the great journalists there. Bezos needs to go.

Update – From the Guardian: “Washington Post writers say don’t dump subscriptions over non-endorsement.”

Update II – 10.30.24 – NPR is now reporting that 250,000 subscriptions have been canceled.

That would be giving “green cards” to international students graduating from U.S. universities and colleges. Local employers like the idea, though not necessarily where the idea comes from. The BBJ explains.

I began reading this piece thinking maybe the NYT was going a little overboard with its headline: “The Misogynistic, Bigoted and Crude Rally Remarks Trump Hasn’t Disavowed.” … Wrong. The headline doesn’t do justice to the sophomoric, lewd, crude, racist and anti-Semitic “jokes” and angry rants at yesterday’s Trump rally at Madison Square Garden. Read it. … With each passing day, they’re revealing themselves for who they really are. That’s all I can say.

I’ve been hearing this a lot lately, most recently from Steve Koczela, president of the MassINC Polling Group, to wit: The current dead heat for president could easily turn into a decisive electoral victory for either Harris or Trump, based on just a small shift in votes in seven swing states. …

So the Washington Post won’t be making a presidential endorsement this year, saying the paper is returning to its long-ago tradition of not endorsing candidates. No one is buying it. Dan Kennedy says, correctly, that it’s pretty obvious billionaire owner Jeff Bezos doesn’t want to antagonize Donald Trump, a move aptly described as “anticipatory obedience” should Trump win in November. Even one of the Post’s own columnists, Ruth Marcus, is complaining about the Post’s non-endorsement.

Besides the political weenie-ness of the non-endorsement, I see the move as part of a post-Marty Baron strategy to transform the Post into an Anywhere USA paper, producing more milquetoast feature stories and treating them as “products that could serve users,” i.e. it’s slowly becoming more of an Amazon Prime Post, as I described it back in June. … After hearing of the Post’s non-endorsement policy, a friend and former journalism colleague wrote in an email to me: “Bezos is killing the paper. …he’s doing his best to water down the paper and make it a glorified USA Today.”

Updates – 10.26.24 — More reactions on the non-endorsements:

From the Globe: “Former Washington Post editor Marty Baron slams newspaper for not making presidential endorsement.”

From Brian McGrory at the Globe: “Washington Post’s pathetic lack of endorsement shows Bezos willing to bow to Trump.”

From Jill Abramson at the Globe: “Democracy dies in broad daylight, thanks to Jeff Bezos.”

And from Harvard’s Nancy Gibbs at the NYT: “Two Billionaires, Two Newspapers, Two Acts of Self-Sabotage.”

The Globe’s Jon Chesto reports State Street Corp., the giant Boston money manager, is in the crosshairs of GOP critics who think the company’s ESG investing has gone too far. … As far as I can tell, this isn’t about actual poor investment decisions and returns by State Street, for the cries of protest would be far, far louder if someone was losing actual money. … Instead, it’s more about politics and protecting the interests of certain industries, i.e. oil and gas companies.

Via John Ellis’s outstanding News Items newsletter, the Economist declares that glp-1 drugs, such as the weight-loss wonder Ozempic, have “all the makings of one of the most successful classes of drugs in history,” capable of treating not only diabetes but also cardiovascular and kidney diseases and possibly even Alzheimer’s, addictions and, believe it or not, aging itself. … Forget it being one of the most successful drugs in history. It could be one of the most significant developments in human history, period.

Another multifamily housing development has been proposed for Everett’s Commercial Triangle district, described as a rare housing-construction ‘hot spot’ in eastern Mass. The BBJ has the details.

Here’s a near perfect example, in the context of the current presidential election, of how progressives maintain a powerful grip on the Democratic party, via threatening to withhold support and votes if party leaders don’t hew to the progressive line. At a time when the party is desperately trying to prevent the election of an authoritarian/fascist figure to the White House, some progressives are prioritizing political purity over political pragmaticism . That’s the can’t-live-with-them side of the modern progressive left. They can be complete political imbeciles. 

And, yet, the can’t-live-without-them side of the modern progressive left is that some progressives are oftentimes right on both the issues and political pragmatism, such as Bernie Sanders urging Kamala Harris to focus more on the plight of the working-class and less on the further demonization of Donald Trump..

Moving forward, the bold and mighty Hub Blog is going to try to start differentiating, when possible, on a case by case basis, between “pragmatic progressive” positions, such as Bernie’s stance above, and “purist progressive” positions, such as pro-Palestinian fanaticism or trans-rights activists who see no room for any compromise. It’s the purist progressives who are harming Democrats, insisting on fealty to radical positions that end up hobbling Dem candidates in general elections.

Fyi: The NYT has more on pouting purist progressives who just don’t get that what Harris is trying to do is win an election.