It's a weird day for Peter Thiel, the GOP's newest megadonor

View in browser   May 17, 2021 Politico published a story today on the GOP's newest megadonor: Peter Thiel, the PayPal co-founder who donated $10 million each to PACs backing Ohio Republican J.D. Vance (of Hillbilly Elegy fame) and Arizona Republican Blake Masters (of, uh, Being Friends With Peter Thiel fame). These Senate hopefuls' political ideology amounts to anti-globalization, which isn't exactly an original post for Republicans to hang their hats on given President Biden's proposal to have "the blades for wind turbines...be built in Pittsburgh instead of Beijing." Thiel famously got back at gossip site Gawker, which outed him as gay in 2007, by funding Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against the site for posting a sex tape without his consent. Gawker was found liable, and the resulting settlement put the site out of business. But, funny timing for that Politico piece: Just this morning, Gawker, whose revival has been whispered about in recent weeks, tweeted its tip line email address, suggesting it will be back up and running soon. It's also interesting to think about how differently Thiel's career trajectory has been from that of another PayPal co-founder, Elon Musk. When he's not infuriating people on Twitter, reproducing with Grimes, maintaining an electric vehicle empire, or planning to colonize Mars, Musk is discussing his Asperger's diagnosis on Saturday Night Live and toying with the stock prices of a meme cryptocurrency. Two very wealthy, very powerful people, with two very different visions for the world. —Abigail Weinberg Advertisement   Is Georgia About to Hand Its Universities to a Climate-Denying MAGA Stalwart? Trump's ag secretary Sonny Perdue is reportedly being eyed for a plum job leading one of the nation's premier higher education systems. BY TOM PHILPOTT   America fumbled the pandemic. Michael Lewis shows us how it happened. BY MICHAEL MECHANIC Documents show Trump officials used secret terrorism unit to question lawyers at the border BY DARA LIND Nurses' union is "outraged" with the CDC's relaxed masking guidance BY DAN SPINELLI The progressive backlash to Biden's foreign policy has only just begun BY DAN SPINELLI Advertisement   California Is Headed Toward Another Brutal Wildfire Season Last year's blazes set state records. This year, the drought's even worse. BY DAN SPINELLI   Support from readers allows Mother Jones to do journalism that doesn't just follow the pack. Donate SOME GOOD NEWS, FOR ONCE Jolts of New Music From (Almost 97-Year-Old) Marshall Allen, Carlos Niño, Giggle the Ozone A peek inside the newsroom: It's our final week of deadlines for editing and producing the summer issue of Mother Jones magazine (subscribe! Gift it!). Pages are coming together. Entering this last stretch of days is, for me, as the copy editor with final eyes on proofs, an exercise in how sharply I can stay focused and alertly I start the week. Which takes, as a matter of course, music. Three Recharges lined up: Carlos Niño's impressionistic new ballad "Pleasewakeupalittlefaster, Please" is floating before it’s grounding. A saxophone paddles under hypnotic piano chords in the spirit of earlier Niño music that caught a Pitchfork reviewer as "emanat[ing] from Alice Coltrane's ashram." The image works. Niño lives 10 miles from where Coltrane's ashram stood before it burned down in California wildfires. I visited Coltrane there to record one of her last interviews. "Pouring into my spirit" is how she described her sound, and Niño shares that expressive ethos. The day she exited this realm, he recorded a live tribute in her honor. See if his latest moves you. Giggle the Ozone's newest is blazing, imploring, with richly textured vocals. The trio is Dylan Sparrow, Jesse Krakow, and K. Abrams, produced in collaboration with Colin Marston, and it's a remixed collection that almost didn't happen at all. "I found the master tapes by accident after thinking they were gone,” Sparrow tells me. The discovery prompted a striking sound; it's all here, the uptempo drive of "Zenith Age," the Monster Mash inflection of "Wing How Yard," and the climate portraiture of "Evacuate." A stunning recharge start to finish. Marshall Allen turns 97 next week. The venerated saxophonist's celestial sound and membership in the Sun Ra Arkestra are honored this Sunday at a live gig in Cottage City, Maryland. The celebration is "Out Music in Outer Space." "Seemingly boundless energy" is how the writer Nate Chinen framed his music. Energy building, booming, all needed for the week ahead. Share Recharges at recharge@motherjones.com, and subscribe if you haven’t yet. —Daniel King Did you enjoy this newsletter? 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