Empty Chairs, Empty Tables & A Full House
Plus: Chinese spies at Stanford, why there aren’t that many plane crashes & SCOTUSbot.
Do You Hear the People Sing? Not really, a lot of them quit.
The Trumps and the Vances are dreaming a dream of attending the opening night of Les Misérables at the Kennedy Center on June 11. And while the current administration tends to look down on artists, at the end of the day, they have a heart full of love for the stars of Les Mis.
A total of 10 cast members have withdrawn from Les Mis figuring if they stay silent they are condemned, if they speak out they are damned.
It is hard to see why the themes of Les Mis so attract Trump, who would never jail a man for being affiliated with an alleged transnational bread theft ring, but sees himself as ready with a handshake and an open palm for Trumpcoin or flying palaces.
And so it has been and so it is written on the doorway to paradise: “At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN”. While the June 11th show is sold out, one day more tickets will be available, that day being June 12th and every day after, as the Kennedy Center’s ticket subscriptions declined a reported 24601%. Sorry misprint. Only a 36% decline.
Welcome to the Gist List—a news roundup, interesting things you should know, and my thoughts leading up to today’s podcast episode.
Here’s what’s on my mind:
🌍 A 2017/2025 side-by-side of Trump’s travel bans.
🇨🇳 All the red (CCP) flags at Stanford University.
💼 Unemployed? Pay to get yelled at by a fake boss.
🗳️ The crowded field of the NYC mayoral race.
✈️ Is DEI causing the non-spike in plane crashes? (🔒)
🤖 SCOTUSbot’s landmark 2-2 decision. (🔒)
The Gist List
New Travel Ban Stokes Uncertainty as President Bars Citizens of 12 Countries (NYT)
Today, President Donald Trump has announced a new travel ban affecting 19 countries. In case you're wondering, "Wait, haven't we been here before?" The answer is yes, but this time it is a little different. He did try to enact a ban in 2017 on primarily Muslim-majority countries, but it got shut down easily until it was retooled and upheld by the courts in 2018.
Another difference is that this ban seems much more calculated approach—probably because they are trying to avoid legal challenges. Here's what that looks like:
There is a full ban on 12 countries: Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.
A partial ban on seven others: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, Venezuela. These were targeted mostly due to concerns about passport security and high visa overstay rates.
It contains a diverse mix of countries: In 2017, with the exception of North Korea and Venezuela, they were all Muslim-majority countries.
People are actually getting some notice: And by advanced notice, I mean five days. In 2017, the ban took effect immediately after it was signed, so no one had a chance to shop for flights to try to get home.
Considering the administration’s three cracks at the ban the first time around, I would guess this one is likely to stand.
Investigation: Uncovering Chinese Academic Espionage at Stanford (Stanford Review)
This story is a little old, but the Washington Post brought it back up again today. To catch you up, the Trump administration is revoking visas for Chinese students with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or those studying in sensitive fields like artificial intelligence or quantum computing. At first blush it might seem a little conspiratorial, however, there is some basis in it. In 2017, the Chinese government passed the National Intelligence Law mandating that citizens "support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence work."
Stanford, however, has received $64 million in Chinese funding and has been accused of looking the other way with a wall of red flags. According to the Stanford Review, there have been reports of spies on campus, including some who were allegedly coerced into gathering sensitive information. One "Charles Chen," an alias for a CCP agent posing as a student, contacted multiple women conducting sensitive research, offering to pay for travel to China, and telling them to delete screenshots of their conversations.
Going to an Office and Pretending to Work: A Business That's Booming in China (El País)
This takes co-working spaces to a whole new level. In a country where both youth unemployment and shame are high, there is a solution to your woes—and no, this isn't like when your neighbor's husband lost his job and pretended to go to work every day for three months. For just $4-$7 per day, you can go into an actual office and cosplay as an employed person. There are snacks, fictional bosses to yell at you, office drama and inane tasks for you to complete by EOD. With the deluxe package, you also get a co-worker who microwaves fish.
NYC Mayoral Candidates Battle Each Other—and Trump—in Chaotic 9-Way Debate (The City)
The NYC mayoral debate was last night, and what a debate it was! If three is a crowd, then nine is a stampede because the chaotic debate stage was filled with mayoral hopefuls who should temper their expectations. In the race, the two front-runners (by far) are former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani is closely trailing Cuomo, but still needs to play catch-up to win the election.
But what’s interesting to me is the treatment Cuomo is getting in the press, one of my favorite headlines being: “Did the debate topple Cuomo? Here’s what the candidates told us.”
It’s almost as good as, “Is He-Man losing his touch? Here’s what Skeletor says.” Or who could forget, “Cobras—trustworthy yet? A mongoose weighs in.” You know you’re going to get an insightful political analysis when someone with absolutely nothing to gain weighs in.
The Trump Administration Is Spending $2 Million to Figure Out Whether DEI Causes Plane Crashes (The Atlantic)🔒
You’ve probably seen the headlines. Another plane goes down. Wreckage scattered, radar lost, flight recorders recovered, and we ask ourselves: What is happening to air travel? Is it safe anymore? In the past year, it feels like we’ve seen a lot more headlines than usual. Helicopter collisions. Runway miscommunications. Even a door plug flying off a brand-new Boeing mid-flight. But what we have is less of an aviation crisis and more of a narrative one. If a bus spontaneously blows up in Cincinnati, it’ll make local news. When a plane blows up mid-flight, it’ll be everywhere from ABC to the BBC.
If you’re a terminally online culture warrior, DEI becomes a scapegoat, but is it what’s causing this not-so-massive uptick in plane crashes? It is not. While the biographical questionnaire added to the hiring process in 2014 to diversify the candidates was controversial, according to some air traffic controllers interviewed by The Atlantic, it would still have made it unlikely for an unqualified person to land the job.
Moreover, plane crashes have been decreasing over time, and when they do occur, communication failures are often to blame. Nathan Fielder had a great TV show, but not only was his presentation 99% funny and 1% interesting, he also pointed out the greatest accomplishments in aviation.
Meet SCOTUSbot, Our AI Tool to Predict Supreme Court Rulings (The Economist)🔒
With 30+ rulings due by July 4 and a surge in emergency applications, of which there are going to be a lot more after today’s big travel ban news, there’s no time to analyze every single case. Luckily, The Economist has SCOTUSbot—an AI chatbot that predicts the court’s decisions.
They input all the briefs and oral arguments, ran each case 10+ times, and asked each Justicebot to explain its reasoning. Naturally, the bots reached a landmark 2-2 decision on a case that doesn’t even exist.
Recently on The Show: Christian Nationalism, Corruption, and the Export of Extremism
Katherine Stewart, author of "Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy," joined me for a two-part episode (conveniently available in one video here) to explain how America’s Christian nationalist forces are exporting extremism abroad while cloaking domestic corruption in the guise of faith.
There’s more where that came from. Listen to The Gist, and upgrade to Pesca Plus for the ad-free version.
Have a story you want us to talk about or an opinion you want to share? Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com or share your thoughts in the comments. We might give you a shoutout in our next newsletter or on the air.
Wow all those Les Miz quotes in the opening. Mike you have a heart full of song! You are doing everything right.
Did the 2014 hiring scandal cause the FAA to hire nitwits? Probably not.
Did it cause them to reject thousands of highly qualified aviation enthusiasts with high test scores explicitly due to being white men? The FAA has admitted as much in the ongoing lawsuit.
Did this cause irreparable harm to the onboarding process by reducing enrollment to CTI programs by more than 50% in the following years, which had been a major hiring pipeline? Hmm....
In a healthier climate, 2 and 3 would be the whole story, but those questions are far outside the Overton window for modern journalists. Kudos to Mike for at least noticing the first one, though.