Dave Infante
@dinfontay.com
reporter covering the beer industry (@vinepair.com), drinking in america (fingers), and east end richmond (the church hill lookout) | send tips to [email protected], or dinfontay.11 on signal (good tips only, thank you) | more: linktr.ee/dinfontay
“A chronic, devastating cancer in American society is prominent Democrats outright refusing to share their constituents' urgency and horror in the face of what is being done to society by Republicans, and insisting instead upon an empty, delusional performance of sobriety and professionalism”
How Hard Is It To Oppose Murder? | Defector
By now you’ve almost certainly seen the video for yourself, or read about it: an ICE agent shooting a Minneapolis woman, Renee Nicole Good, in the head from point-blank range, killing her as she attem...
defector.com
January 10, 2026 at 1:20 AM
“A chronic, devastating cancer in American society is prominent Democrats outright refusing to share their constituents' urgency and horror in the face of what is being done to society by Republicans, and insisting instead upon an empty, delusional performance of sobriety and professionalism”
"The conference aimed to get attendees 'armed and ready' with a policy arsenal to fight for their conservative agenda in the upcoming policy battles resulting from the OBBA. 'The fight isn't in D.C.—it's in your capitol, and you are the cavalry,” the conference agenda document says.'"
Right-Wing Group Trains State Lawmakers to Cut the Safety Net
Sludge obtained a conference agenda from the Foundation for Government Accountability that uses the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" as a launch pad for sweeping conservative policies like cuts to SNAP an...
readsludge.com
January 9, 2026 at 9:34 PM
"The conference aimed to get attendees 'armed and ready' with a policy arsenal to fight for their conservative agenda in the upcoming policy battles resulting from the OBBA. 'The fight isn't in D.C.—it's in your capitol, and you are the cavalry,” the conference agenda document says.'"
My first column for The Lookout in 2026 follows an especially deadly stretch here in Richmond, where six pedestrians have been killed by motorists in less than a month.
Which East End street do you think you'll get killed crossing?
Plus: Getting schooled by the “education governor”!
www.chlookout.com
January 9, 2026 at 9:31 PM
My first column for The Lookout in 2026 follows an especially deadly stretch here in Richmond, where six pedestrians have been killed by motorists in less than a month.
ok let him cook
Athleisure wear.
Athliquor beverage.
Athliquor beverage.
January 9, 2026 at 6:30 PM
ok let him cook
I will be covering this event for @richmonder.bsky.social tomorrow. If you see me, come say hello, would love to hear your perspective on RPD's ongoing use of Flock in Richmond! I can also be reached by email at [email protected] or on Signal at dinfontay.11.
NEW: With Richmond Police Department's contract with Flock Safety coming up for renewal this year, the city's Democratic Socialists of America announced plans to agitate for cancelation/removal of the controversial surveillance tech. Organizers shared flyers with The Lookout for a kick-off event:
January 9, 2026 at 6:12 PM
I will be covering this event for @richmonder.bsky.social tomorrow. If you see me, come say hello, would love to hear your perspective on RPD's ongoing use of Flock in Richmond! I can also be reached by email at [email protected] or on Signal at dinfontay.11.
there was a j-school prof who taught this olivia reingold woman, or somebody who managed her at a newspaper internship or something along those lines, and they were like “she was a promising student who has chosen hate despite absolutely knowing better and i am disappointed in her” and, whew
January 9, 2026 at 5:44 PM
there was a j-school prof who taught this olivia reingold woman, or somebody who managed her at a newspaper internship or something along those lines, and they were like “she was a promising student who has chosen hate despite absolutely knowing better and i am disappointed in her” and, whew
the fact that the biggest scrub in several of my groupchats loves generating ai images about riffs he can't keep up with is very instructive w/r/t to the psyche of the casual user of this technology (and its appeal)
January 9, 2026 at 5:12 PM
the fact that the biggest scrub in several of my groupchats loves generating ai images about riffs he can't keep up with is very instructive w/r/t to the psyche of the casual user of this technology (and its appeal)
Good to see some senators demanding Apple and Google to pull Twitter/X from their app stores, but the (extremely legitimate!) request is delegitimized by the fact that @wyden.senate.gov @markey.senate.gov and @lujan.senate.gov are all still posting on the platform.
January 9, 2026 at 4:57 PM
Good to see some senators demanding Apple and Google to pull Twitter/X from their app stores, but the (extremely legitimate!) request is delegitimized by the fact that @wyden.senate.gov @markey.senate.gov and @lujan.senate.gov are all still posting on the platform.
ICYMI: Yesterday, I broke the news that Republic National Distrib Co., the US' 2nd-largest booze wholesaler, is losing Jose Cuervo parent Proximo Spirits, its largest-remaining liquor client. It's another huge blow to RNDC that jeopardizes more workers & clients: www.fingers.email/p/with-rndc-...
![This exit puts fresh blood in the water, and RNDC’s rivals—many of whom enjoyed a feeding frenzy last year in California as the firm’s brands jumped ship there—are circling. Rumors have swirled for months on social media about major wine and spirits brands about to part ways with the distributor, in an uncanny redux of the 2025 California diaspora. The stakes are especially high for smaller wine and spirits brands that have fewer resources than a firm like Proximo, and less leverage to negotiate decent contracts with new wholesalers.
“Huge crisis coming, especially for wineries but small- to medium-sized distillers as well,” said a distillery owner in the Pacific Northwest who shifted the rest of their company’s volume from RNDC to another wholesaler after getting entangled in its California exit last year via text Thursday morning. (I have granted them anonymity so they can speak without endangering important middle-tier relationships at a delicate moment for their business.) “If [we] hadn’t switched […] we could’ve been out of business right now.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:7keeiuhmqfxim42c6tibwvzw/bafkreifmtzkje6fp66jqii7zxfsqnbwijgyu7sryqmb6l74fbtlm7hq564@jpeg)
January 9, 2026 at 4:07 PM
ICYMI: Yesterday, I broke the news that Republic National Distrib Co., the US' 2nd-largest booze wholesaler, is losing Jose Cuervo parent Proximo Spirits, its largest-remaining liquor client. It's another huge blow to RNDC that jeopardizes more workers & clients: www.fingers.email/p/with-rndc-...
really remarkable all the ways this ai-generated slop gets the story about the new dietary guidelines' alcohol portion wrong. headline to kicker, basically. pretty cool?
The ‘Healthy Drink’ Myth Is Over, According To New U.S. Alcohol Guidelines
Breaking down the new 2025-2030 U.S. Dietary Guidelines: why the new recommendation is to "consume less alcohol for better overall health."
www.forbes.com
January 9, 2026 at 3:51 PM
really remarkable all the ways this ai-generated slop gets the story about the new dietary guidelines' alcohol portion wrong. headline to kicker, basically. pretty cool?
the existence of an A23a iceberg implies the existence of an A24 iceberg, which is currently being melted by all the stars it's getting on Letterboxd
City-sized iceberg has turned into a giant swimming pool
Satellite photos show meltwater on the surface of iceberg A23a collecting in an unusual way, which may be a sign that the huge berg is about to break apart
www.newscientist.com
January 9, 2026 at 3:48 PM
the existence of an A23a iceberg implies the existence of an A24 iceberg, which is currently being melted by all the stars it's getting on Letterboxd
Reject tradition, embrace modernity tbqh
January 9, 2026 at 3:42 PM
Reject tradition, embrace modernity tbqh
Cutwater's triple-digit sales growth in 2025 wasn't strictly due to the TikTok trend of housing/getting housed by a 4pk of the stuff and filming the results. But that didn't hurt! At @vinepair.com I laid out the needle A-B has been threading to cash in on heavy users without marketing heavy use.
Anheuser-Busch Is Selling Cutwater Like Crazy — and Keeping Quiet About the Viral #Challenge
The song is called “Cut Wader,” by Lex OnGoo and LadyBouncee, and it opens like this: She want some Cutwater All these b*tches see us bounce, me and my homegirl on the roof. We drinkin’ Cuts but that’...
vinepair.com
January 9, 2026 at 3:28 PM
Cutwater's triple-digit sales growth in 2025 wasn't strictly due to the TikTok trend of housing/getting housed by a 4pk of the stuff and filming the results. But that didn't hurt! At @vinepair.com I laid out the needle A-B has been threading to cash in on heavy users without marketing heavy use.
"'Gatorade with alcohol' is a lot easier to understand than 'hard refresher.' As a result, brands across malt- and spirits-based products seem more eager to get in on this second wave." @kbernot.bsky.social
feelgoodsinsights.com/analysis/alc...
feelgoodsinsights.com/analysis/alc...
January 9, 2026 at 3:18 PM
"'Gatorade with alcohol' is a lot easier to understand than 'hard refresher.' As a result, brands across malt- and spirits-based products seem more eager to get in on this second wave." @kbernot.bsky.social
feelgoodsinsights.com/analysis/alc...
feelgoodsinsights.com/analysis/alc...
"The draft proposal added that if both men and women had one or fewer drinks per day it could save thousands of U.S. lives per year. Advice for women would have remained the same at one drink per day [...] But the proposal never saw the light of day."
Exclusive: The Trump Administration killed a draft proposal to halve alcohol limits, sources say
Last spring, a group of officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was drafting a proposal to halve the recommended limit for alcohol consumption for men to one drink a day, accor...
www.reuters.com
January 9, 2026 at 12:37 AM
"The draft proposal added that if both men and women had one or fewer drinks per day it could save thousands of U.S. lives per year. Advice for women would have remained the same at one drink per day [...] But the proposal never saw the light of day."
has anybody on here had good luck with a vendor for custom canvas tote bags? thinking about printing some up for fingers, google turns up all the usual suspects but idk. all suggestions welcome!
January 9, 2026 at 12:15 AM
has anybody on here had good luck with a vendor for custom canvas tote bags? thinking about printing some up for fingers, google turns up all the usual suspects but idk. all suggestions welcome!
Reposted by Dave Infante
I reached out to more than three dozen X advertisers, xAI investors, politicians, and government agencies about the growing library of sexualized deepfakes generated with Grok—now including Renee Good. I only heard back from four, with three declining to comment.
spitfirenews.com/p/grok-deepf...
spitfirenews.com/p/grok-deepf...
Why isn't there a bigger Grok boycott?
Advertisers, politicians, and investors are still all-in on X, despite a sexual abuse crisis.
spitfirenews.com
January 8, 2026 at 9:04 PM
I reached out to more than three dozen X advertisers, xAI investors, politicians, and government agencies about the growing library of sexualized deepfakes generated with Grok—now including Renee Good. I only heard back from four, with three declining to comment.
spitfirenews.com/p/grok-deepf...
spitfirenews.com/p/grok-deepf...
Reposted by Dave Infante
happy(?) new year everyone, for my first piece of 2026 I wrote about Grok's *still*-ongoing CSAM blitz and the troubling, embarrassing silence of lawmakers in the U.S. and U.K. who've spent the past year censoring the internet for the sake of "child safety" yet are saying and doing nothing about X:
Something Abominable Is Happening on Elon Musk’s X. Everyone in Congress Should Be Ashamed.
An app the U.S. and U.K. governments use has devolved into a source of A.I. porn. Lawmakers are keeping dangerously mum.
slate.com
January 6, 2026 at 6:28 PM
happy(?) new year everyone, for my first piece of 2026 I wrote about Grok's *still*-ongoing CSAM blitz and the troubling, embarrassing silence of lawmakers in the U.S. and U.K. who've spent the past year censoring the internet for the sake of "child safety" yet are saying and doing nothing about X:
Reposted by Dave Infante
She’s always shooting her own dogs 😔
people figured out that Jonathan Ross was the murderer bc kristi noem mentioned that he'd been dragged by a car in a previous incident. she "doxxed" her own guy lol
January 8, 2026 at 7:48 PM
She’s always shooting her own dogs 😔
UPDATE: Proximo Spirits has issued a statement confirming my reporting, with a weird twist. Contra RNDC's own claims, Proximo will not leave the distributor in "all markets;" it'll stay with RNDC in two states. So, "nearly nationwide" is more accurate. Piece updated with new info:
NEW: On Thursday morning, the country's second-largest distributor told its employees that its largest remaining liquor supplier was pulling its business in all markets. It's another body blow for RNDC, which has emerged as the sick man of the middle tier over the past 18 months.
January 8, 2026 at 8:20 PM
UPDATE: Proximo Spirits has issued a statement confirming my reporting, with a weird twist. Contra RNDC's own claims, Proximo will not leave the distributor in "all markets;" it'll stay with RNDC in two states. So, "nearly nationwide" is more accurate. Piece updated with new info:
dr. oz said lube up, kids
January 8, 2026 at 7:52 PM
dr. oz said lube up, kids
Pleased to see @bevnet.com credit Fingers' reporting here, always appreciate it when outlets do that!
Proximo Spirits Deals Another Major Blow to RNDC with National Exit
After Republic National Distributing Company (RNDC) shed suppliers at an alarming rate last year – resulting in the closure of its California operations – the distributor is being hit with another maj...
www.brewbound.com
January 8, 2026 at 6:51 PM
Pleased to see @bevnet.com credit Fingers' reporting here, always appreciate it when outlets do that!
put out word on the r/rndc subreddit that i'm looking for tips about the company, pretty typical move. anyway they got my ass
January 8, 2026 at 6:48 PM
put out word on the r/rndc subreddit that i'm looking for tips about the company, pretty typical move. anyway they got my ass