Long Reads That Caught Our Eye This Week

Here are a few longreads from around the web that caught the attention of our editors this week.  Your weekly roundup of longreads that caught our eye. Be lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray [View this email in your browser]( We love to read. Here are a few longreads from around the web that caught the attention of our editors this week. An Addict, a Confessed Killer and Now a Debut Author Alexandra Alter | The New York Times One October night in 2004, Curtis Dawkins smoked crack, dressed up for Halloween in a gangster costume and terrorized a household, killing one man and taking another hostage in a rampage that drew 24 patrol officers and a six-member SWAT team. He is serving a life sentence without parole in Michigan. On Tuesday, he will also be a published author when his debut story collection is released by Scribner, a literary imprint at one of the country’s top publishing houses. The unlikely story of how Mr. Dawkins, a recovering addict and confessed killer, landed a major book deal is a strange inversion of the usual prison-writing trajectory. [Read More]( How the Left Lost Its Mind McKay Coppins | The Atlantic Polemicists, conspiracists, and outright fabulists are feeding an alternative media landscape—where the implausibility of a claim is no bar to its acceptance. --------------------------------------------------------------- Last month, Democratic Senator Ed Markey delivered what seemed like an explosive bit of news during an interview with CNN: A grand jury had been impaneled in New York, he said, to investigate the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia. The only problem: It wasn’t true. The precise origins of the rumor are difficult to pin down, but it had been ricocheting around social media for days before Markey’s interview. The story had no reliable sourcing, and not a single credible news outlet touched it—but it had been fervently championed by The Palmer Report, a liberal blog known for peddling conspiracy theories, and by anti-Trump Twitter crusaders like Louise Mensch. Soon enough, prominent people with blue checkmarks by their names were amplifying it with “Big if true”-type Tweets. And by May 11, the story had migrated from the bowels of the internet to the mouth of a United States senator. [Read More]( In Sync We Trust: Pop Music's History of Lip-Syncing (and Lying About It) Rich Juzwiak | The Muse Read her lips: Britney Spears is pissed and she wants credit. In a recent interview that ran on Israeli TV, the pop diva decried those who accuse her of lip-syncing. “A lot of people think that I don’t sing live,” Spears said. “Because I’m dancing so much I do have a little bit of playback, but there’s a mixture of my voice and the playback. It really pisses me off because I am busting my ass out there and singing at the same time and nobody ever really gives me credit for it.” Actually, the reason a lot of people think Britney Spears doesn’t sing live is because there is ample audio-visual evidence that she doesn’t. [Read More]( An inside look at One America News, the insurgent TV network taking ‘pro-Trump’ to new heights Marc Fisher | The Washington Post One America News is an obscure TV channel struggling to emerge from the cellar of the cable ratings, but it is nonetheless one of President Trump’s favorite media outlets. It’s not hard to see why: On One America newscasts, the Trump administration is a juggernaut of progress, a shining success with a daily drumbeat of achievements. One America — a tiny father-and-sons operation that often delivers four times as many stories per hour as its competitors — promises “straight news, no opinion,” promoting itself as the antidote to the Big Three cable news networks’ focus on punditry and the one big story of the moment. [Read More]( How to Beat Asthma Vann R. Newkirk II | The Atlantic The common lung disease debilitates millions of Americans and costs the country billions of dollars, but some very new—and very old—methods are emerging in fighting it. --------------------------------------------------------------- DENVER, Colorado—I had my first asthma attack in 10 years while working on this story about asthma. The day had been a grind. I flew to Denver early on a March morning, hoping to give myself a full day to acclimate to the air before I did some jogging and hiking the next day. From the moment I touched down and took a Lyft away from the Denver airport, that unlucky hellhorse, the afternoon was a blur of reporting. At the end of the day, I found some comfort in a bar with some pretty good draught beers and ahi tuna guacamole. Only, the guacamole I ate turned out to be the version with crabmeat. I’m very allergic to crabmeat. [Read More]( Copyright © 2015 The Federalist, All rights reserved. You are receiving this e-mail because you opted in to receive e-mail updates from TheFederalist.com. Our mailing address is: The Federalist 8647 Richmond Highway Suite 618 Alexandria, VA 22309 [Add us to your address book]( This email was sent to {EMAIL} [why did I get this?]( [unsubscribe from this list]( [update subscription preferences]( The Federalist · 8647 Richmond Highway · Suite 618 · Alexandria, VA 22309 · USA