Love Story gets so much right in the atmospheric details, but there is just no way that a mid-80s Macintosh Plus is sitting so elegantly in Calvin Klein’s HQ in 1995. You’d have to be as old as me to know that, but still.

Peter Rothpletz is a commentary writer has appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, The Hill, MSNBC, and The Guardian. He is the morning newsletter chief for Mehdi Hasan’s Zeteo, and the Senior Writer and Producer for The Don Lemon Show. Listen at Savage.Love/Lovecast.

“Gaslight” is on during SOTU. I see what you did there, TCM.

Washington Post’s all-AP wire Sports section today. 😕

They would have been better off just mailing the silver medals to those Canadian hockey players. The grimness.

I wrote about one part of my reaction to recent events: the importance and nuance of what it means to subscribe to something.

“It’s time to stop whatever you are doing, put on your stiffest blue jeans and go to the gym. You are a Kennedy. Kid Rock is already there doing push-ups. Make sure you bring your whole milk. We will be drinking it, as is customary, in the hot tub.” www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...

The @washingtonpost.com layoffs disproportionately affected union members of color, per data from the @postguild.bsky.social. 50% of Hispanic/Latino guild members,​ 45% of Black members, and​ 43% of Asian members were laid off, compared to 37% of white members. www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/wash...

News of myself: I have a new job. www.nola.com/news/veteran...

The Banner announces coverage of Washington sports

🚨 SCOOP: The IRS improperly disclosed confidential immigrant tax information to DHS, per sources. It opens up HUGE liability for the US government. Trump is suing the IRS over substantially the same disclosures -- for $10 billion. 🎁 Gift link:

"It is a sign of a fatally limited imagination to assume that we can only ever desire the pittance to which we are currently reconciled." www.newyorker.com/books/page-t...

Tina Brown rightly puts Fred Ryan's name in the mix of what went wrong; the N.Y. Times has omitted him in recent coverage. open.substack.com/pub/tinabrow...

Glad to see some slow dawning about the dangers of Ring and weaponized surveillance, but honestly I can’t believe how many of you share locations on phones and track one another’s whereabouts. Honestly, what?

During these dark times … Thank God for the arts …

@chrisrichards.bsky.social review of the Bad Bunny halftime show is perfect and brilliant. And here! substack.com/@thefutureis...

NEW: ProPublica went inside the detention center for immigrant families in Dilley, Texas. Children held there told us about the anguish of being ripped from their lives in the United States and the fear of what comes next.

Just noticed that next year’s Super Bowl is on Valentine’s Day. Good luck, fellas.

I miss when actors were embarrassed to do TV commercials.

So uh Ring just up and said they've got a huge centralized private surveillance network they can leverage all at once huh

Simply on a live performance stagecraft-design-camerawork-logistics-direction level, this is ASTOUNDING.

No Kings includes Draft Kings

The final Sunday arts section I worked on. (It’s a lovely one.)

👀 What if I told you there was a hidden art gallery scattered across the country? What if I told you some of its treasures had vanished? What if I told you that I found them? A project three years in the making (🎁 gift link):

If it clarifies what was lost this week: Philip Kennicott and Monica Hesse remain as arts critics at The Washington Post Eliminated: art critic arts editor arts/film editor classical critic pop critic television critic theater critic all editors/reporters in Book World including two book critics

Jimmy Build Wall My Tactical Romance New Border Cute Is What We Detain For Panic! At The Detention Center

At a rally outside The Post today, two signs referencing Post publishers. On left: Eugene Meyer, publisher from 1933 to 1946, and one of his “seven principles for the conduct of a newspaper.” On right: perhaps a dig at current publisher Will Lewis (2023-?).

I left The Washington Post last year, but wrote my love letter in the middle of my time there, in 2015. Everything changed, over my 1st decade there. Then everything changed again, in the decade after this was written. But there were 2 constants: the work & the people. www.mrdanzak.com/blog/10years

Definitely worth noting since it wasn't announced in that way.

the Washington Post effectively blew up its arts section today, dismissing its books, TV, music, and theater critics, features writers, and several editors. (I'm also guessing the vacant film critic position will stay that way.) Just an insane loss of talent and a huge self-inflicted wound.

In the litanies about the Post layoffs, everyone keeps forgetting to say features. Twas ever thus at the Post, but those stories about the seizing of American cultural institutions? They don't report and write themselves.

Chris Richards is of the greatest Post writers of all time, & the best music critic in the country. You want Chris’s words in your life, & I am going to keep them in mine. I have never before recommended a Substack. His brand new one has my immense endorsement: thefutureisourstomake.substack.com

A paper is always defined more by its staff than its management. The hundreds of journalists who lost their jobs today covered every subject imaginable, at times risking their safety and well-being to get out the news. Please consider donating: www.gofundme.com/f/standing-t...

It is worth noting the Post slashed the bulk of its arts coverage, including most of the critics, ending a great tradition in journalism.

I consider 2025 my finest professional year. The Post just laid me off.

A version of what’s happening in Fulton Co. happened in Maricopa Co. five years ago. Back then, it was a private company breaking the chain of vote custody, at the behest of Trump. Now Trump is making the FBI & DNI do it. We called it an “adminsurrection” back then: wapo.st/4rsjY6H

Style section matriarch Myra MacPherson has died. “When I sought my first newspaper job, there were no women covering anything but society news, fashion. I fought my way out of that niche..." www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2...

What Bezos really, really cares about. Blue Origin, his rocket company that he has invested billions in, needs and wants billions of dollars in DOD contracts to help pay its bills. Here Bezos greets Defense Sec. Hegseth today at Blue Origin offices in Florida WashPost budget is a rounding error

A two-year closure could be existential for the Kennedy Center, and it's unnecessary for the repairs proposed. Is there a larger agenda, including repurposing the memorial to the 35th President to serve the needs of the 47th? www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen...

Such is the outrage in Denmark over both Trump’s desire for Greenland and disparaging remarks about NATO that one of the country’s leading newspapers devoted their Saturday front and plenty of room inside to the bios of all 44 Danes slain during NATO missions in support of the US

HESSE on MELANIA www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...

“I truly never anticipated how much of my adult life would include the casual existence of, and debate over, videos of people being killed.” An excellent Monica Hesse column on the handheld screens that act as both magnifying glass and protective filter: www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...

SCOOP: Kennedy Center’s new programming head resigns days after hire was announced www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen...

NEWS: Philip Glass pulled a world-premiere symphony from the Kennedy Center. "Lincoln" was set to be performed by the National Symphony Orchestra in June. www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen...

In three straight elections, more Americans voted for someone else. 53.91% for Clinton or other 53.15% for Biden or other 50.2% for Harris or other

After Renee Good's killing, I spoke to mothers who have been trying to protect their communities from ICE. They told me: "I could have been in that driver's seat." "I thought, ‘Thank God there wasn’t a kid in her car.’" "I’m much more scared of what happens if we don’t fight back." wapo.st/3YGqcnb

The WNO’s departure has thrown the company into a future of uncertainty, but better that than the certainty of no future. www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen...

I had an interesting, nuanced conversation with Bela Fleck about why he isn't playing at the Kennedy Center. "Not canceling is taking a side," he says, and he wants to be nonpolitical. Here's a gift link to the piece: wapo.st/49szcRI

Five years ago.