Even professionally secure faculty like me know to anticipate the possibility of grade complaints, so when we assess student work, we spend significant time justifying the grades we assign. This isn’t all bad; it’s important for students to understand the rationale behind the feedback, regardless of the grade. It’s not enough to just write “wrong” […]
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The CEOs Are Warming to Trump
As Brian Beutler pointed out in his Off Message newsletter, this was worthy of alarm bells: “The question of whether elites, particularly center-right elites, choose to abide fascism is central to the survival of democracy.” In a later post, Beutler dove deeper into Dimon’s rhetoric, and found evidence that whatever ties that might have bound […]
Read MoreWhy the Explosive Jobs Report Will Hit Trump Harder Than You Think
The jobs report is a major victory for President Biden, especially heading into the election, as several recent benchmarks, including strong GDP and falling inflation, suggest a booming economy that even consumers are starting to notice. Liberals and Democrats have had good reason to panic about Biden’s low approval numbers, particularly on the economy. Those […]
Read MoreBiden Should Call Trump a “Sick F**k” in Public. Real America Agrees.
Here are some poll results from last summer, which are in line with a ton of other polls. Popularity—unfavorable, 60 to 38 percent. Does Trump think he’s above the law? Yes, 63 to 37. Do you support or oppose Trump’s indictments? Yes, 53 to 39. Do you think Trump has committed a crime? Yes, 62 […]
Read MoreThe Messenger Didn’t Stand a Chance
The Messenger was a particularly spectacular failure, but it also highlights how desperate the media industry has become to find a viable business strategy, especially at scale. Various pivots—notably to video via Facebook and YouTube, and audio via podcasting—led to brief windfalls. Both have dried up in recent years, thanks to tech companies’ dominance in advertising, […]
Read MoreHow Elon Musk’s Zany Compensation Arrangement Got Blown Up in Court
But wait, you say: Ambitious or not, Musk met the targets. Doesn’t that count for something? Well, sure. If I bet you that next year I will write a book that spends 26 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, and if I write that book, and if the book spends 26 weeks on […]
Read MoreThat Judge Is Right. Elon Musk Isn’t Worth What Tesla Pays Him.
But wait, you say: Ambitious or not, Musk met the targets. Doesn’t that count for something? Well, sure. If I bet you that next year I will write a book that spends 26 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, and if I write that book, and if the book spends 26 weeks on […]
Read MoreThis Is Republican Governance on Trumpism
Mayorkas would be the first Cabinet secretary in 148 years to be impeached by the House. The first and only one so far to be impeached was William Belknap, who served as secretary of war during the Ulysses Grant administration. At the time, U.S. soldiers in military forts on the western frontier purchased their supplies […]
Read MoreThe Republicans Are Performing for an Audience of One
Mayorkas would be the first Cabinet secretary in 148 years to be impeached by the House. The first and only one so far to be impeached was William Belknap, who served as secretary of war during the Ulysses Grant administration. At the time, U.S. soldiers in military forts on the Western frontier purchased their supplies […]
Read MoreRepublicans Reveal Their Endgame in the Fight Over Trans Kids
In the past three years, Republican legislators have proposed and passed a dizzying series of laws prohibiting gender-affirming care for trans kids. Due to these efforts, an estimated 36 percent of trans minors live in states where such care is now banned. Now, lawmakers are opening up about their “endgame” in this crusade: banning gender-affirming […]
Read MoreTrump Is Doing Biden a Massive Favor on the Border
It has become the latest Trumpian litmus test: Anyone who doesn’t bend the knee is deemed an apostate. In rallying Republicans against the deal, Trump is showing his dominance over the party, proving to Republican officeholders and primary voters alike that he’s still the boss. Trump does have policy objections to the bill, in his […]
Read MoreLast Week Was Bad for Trump. This Week Could Be Four, Five Times Worse.
Last week’s damage award in the E. Jean Carroll case was staggering. We had a little office pool going (well, just three of us, and we didn’t actually bet money). I came in highest at $40 million, so under traditional Price Is Right rules, I was the closest, but nevertheless light-years off. That rigged, deep […]
Read MoreHow Surveillance Is Changing Our Most Intimate Relationships
Then there are the subtle ways in which the increasing digitization of our social and professional lives encourages us to surveil potential mates and assume they’re doing likewise. Daters are now replicating state surveillance, says lawyer and surveillance expert Heidi Boghosian. You might research, or put less kindly, stalk someone before meeting them. In theory […]
Read MoreTrump Is a Combination of Every Threat We Have Ever Faced in Our History
That it seems a choice at all is what should mortify us. It is a sign that many in our society are blind to reality. And it is a sign that the rest of us, who understand both reality and what is at stake, have not yet done our job communicating to one another, to […]
Read MoreNikki Haley Might Actually Be Helping Trump—and Hurting Biden
At the same time, it may also be true that if Haley were to drop out, thereby kicking off a very early (and tortuously long) general election campaign, it would help Joe Biden. It is still too early to tell what effect Trump’s numerous trials and legal problems will have on the 2024 campaign. But […]
Read MoreThe GOP’s Surrender to Trump Unmasks MAGA’s Real Agenda
It’s sometimes argued that Democrats too are unreasonable on immigration; that they refuse to accept restrictions that are politically and substantively imperative. It’s true that any compromise would have to include new restrictions on asylum (my preferred deal would trade that for legalization of some undocumented immigrants living here and expanded legal pathways for entry). […]
Read MoreTrump Forces Terrified Republicans to Bend the Knee Yet Again
It’s sometimes argued that Democrats too are unreasonable on immigration; that they refuse to accept restrictions that are politically and substantively imperative. It’s true that any compromise would have to include new restrictions on asylum (my preferred deal would trade that for legalization of some undocumented immigrants living here and expanded legal pathways for entry). […]
Read MoreNikki Haley Is Going to Lay into Trump, and It Will Be Great to Watch
But conflict is always new, especially when there hasn’t been that much of it in a campaign characterized by the reluctance of Trump’s Republican opponents to go after him in anything but the gentlest of terms. In addition, reporters are always drawn to intraparty conflict, which they find inherently more interesting than conflict between parties. […]
Read MoreTrump Routs the Republican Establishment Once Again
DeSantis and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, in contrast, understood that the cruelty was the point. Both bet that voters wanted a candidate who sounded like Trump but was younger and more competent: They both leaned into the former president’s draconian anti-immigration record and made social issues, particularly regarding gender and sexuality, centerpieces of their campaign. The […]
Read MoreWhat the Republican Establishment Still Doesn’t Understand About Donald Trump
DeSantis and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, in contrast, understood that the cruelty was the point. Both bet that voters wanted a candidate who sounded like Trump but was younger and more competent: They both leaned into the former president’s draconian anti-immigration record and made social issues, particularly regarding gender and sexuality, centerpieces of their campaign. The […]
Read MoreElise Stefanik’s Deranged Defense of Trump Offers Democrats a Lesson
Even Republican Senator John Thune admits he’s “worried” about Trump’s appeal in the “middle of the electorate,” pointedly noting that this could hurt Republicans downballot. A Washington Post poll finds that large majorities of independents view the prosecutions of Trump as legitimate under the law. And as Ron Brownstein details, a fair amount of data […]
Read MoreDonald Trump Is Losing It. Will the Media Make It a Story?
Pelosi, to Trump, was the former opposition leader in the House. To Biden, that would be Kevin McCarthy. So let’s imagine together that last Friday night, Joe Biden had been speaking at a campaign event and had said: “You know, Marty Walsh, Marty Walsh, Marty Walsh…it was very disappointing the way he criticized Trump privately […]
Read MoreIt’s Time for Democrats to Make Some Enemies
That brings us to the other commodity with which Democrats need to fill the space left by the absent primary: derogatory information about Republicans. This is one area where Democrats simply don’t seem to be on the same page. As The New Republic’s Greg Sargent reported this week, Representative Jamie Raskin and his colleagues on […]
Read MoreTrump’s Angry Rant About His Legal Mess Reveals an Ugly MAGA Truth
As of last summer, surprisingly large percentages of Republicans—and even larger percentages of voters who view Trump favorably—say things have gotten so bad that political violence is justified and that we need a leader to break rules to set things right. Robert Jones, the president of PRRI, said these are reasonable proxies for getting at […]
Read MoreWhat the Media Gets Wrong About the So-Called Border Crisis
Until 2022, Honduras was ruled by Juan Orlando Hernández, a repressive, corrupt president who both the Obama and Trump administrations propped up—supposedly because he represented “stability.” (Fortunately, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York was not buying it. Hernández’s preferred successor lost the 2021 election, and soon thereafter the ex-president was on […]
Read MoreWill the Supreme Court Finish Trump’s War Against Regulation?
Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo addresses the difficulty of killing regulations by handing the job over to judges. It invites the Supreme Court to reverse its 1984 ruling in Chevron USA v. Natural Resources Defense Council. That decision created what’s known as “Chevron deference,” which directs federal judges to give regulatory agencies broad latitude in […]
Read MoreHouse Republicans Only Have One Way out of Their Government Funding Debacle
Giving up control of the House would allow them to at least plead powerlessness. They could return to a defensive posture, accusing Biden and the Democrats of reckless spending, and wash their hands of any deal that funds the government through the 2024 election. As for the Hunter Biden investigation, there is an argument that […]
Read MoreThe Fourteenth Amendment Scolds Abetting Trump’s Return
And at the top of the plutocratic food chain, a billionaire’s charitable enterprise can become a philanthropic Death Star. This week, The Baffler’s Tim Schwab took a deep dive into the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and discovered that the entity essentially exists as a public relations stunt to justify Gates’s own staggering wealth. One […]
Read MoreJohn Fetterman Speaks: I Haven’t Changed a Lick
Fetterman stopped reading, slid his phone into the kangaroo pouch of his black cotton hoodie. “I’ve been told that they’re not going to be put in harm’s way, but if the border talks did put them in harm’s way, I can never and would never vote against their interest,” he said. “To be clear,” he […]
Read MoreElise Stefanik’s Ugly “Hostages” Barb Points to Serious GOP Mayhem Ahead
The way vulnerable Republicans ran from this is telling. “They’re criminal defendants, not hostages,” said Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania. “I don’t defend people who hit cops, who vandalized our Capitol,” added Nebraska’s Don Bacon, pointedly adding of the “hostage” language: “The broad, broad electorate doesn’t like it.” Given that Fitzpatrick and Bacon represent two […]
Read MoreMike DeWine Is Following the Right’s Vicious Abortion Playbook on Trans Health Care
“In many ways, this outcome is even worse than the lack of a veto,” wrote Zinnia Jones, a researcher and writer of Gender Analysis, about DeWine’s new strategy. Jones has been analyzing and reporting on similar efforts at using administrative rules to limit access to gender-affirming care, as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis attempted in 2022. […]
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