A huge thank you to all the volunteers and activists who spoke with me yesterday, especially from @jfrejnyc.bsky.social and @caaavnyc.bsky.social. WHEN WE FIGHT WE WIN.

“We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.” — NYC mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani

The Nordic countries have far less economic inequality than the United States. Most of the difference is due to the Nordics’ welfare states.

“Talking with some of the interns I think that there are a growing number of them who actually agree” with Nick Fuentes — one Heritage Foundation employee, per the NY Post. The Republican staffer class has a major Nazi infestation that’s not going away anytime soon. nypost.com/2025/11/03/u...

As my own little intervention into the predistribution vs. redistribution discourse, I sanity checked one recent estimate of how much taxes and transfers matter for reducing income inequality. And I found they matter far more than folks have been saying. www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2025/10/31/c...

It makes no sense to analyze the proposals in the abstract, and ignore the specific political moment this vote is coming at. And it makes no sense to say you want more affordable housing, but oppose any changes to land use rules that currently make it hard to build any kind of new housing anywhere.

“I stuck with my newsletter in order to stay in journalism. I didn’t have any other marketable skills. I had to keep writing to make sure I could keep writing.” For the @talkingpointsmemo.com 25th anniversary, I was asked to write about going independent and the future of journalism. Read here:

“One reporter who was well-known for creating news was Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman, who wrote for Joseph Pulitzer's New York World under the pseudonym Nelly Bly. She first secured a job on Pulitzer's paper by feigning a mental collapse to gain entry to New York's Bellevue Hospital. ...

🚨NEW: After we revealed Russ Vought's "put them in trauma" video, I spent the next year reporting on him, his influence, and his vision for America. Yes, I got *new* recordings & videos of Vought. Here is the story. A @propublica.org + @newyorker.com collab: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Some economists argue that European countries have lower inequality than the US because they distribute market income much more equally, not because of their welfare states. This is false: the welfare state beats market-income compression.

Tuberville called Democratic politicians “absolutely mentally retarded” during a lengthy interview on The Alex Jones Show.

Last week, Alabama senator and gubernatorial candidate Tommy Tuberville became the latest major politician to guest on The Alex Jones Show. Tuberville fielded questions about supposed plans to “kick off a race war” and called Democratic mayors “mentally retarded.” www.alreporter.com/2025/10/16/t...

Bad economics humor: “What do you call a glaring problem in an economics paper?” “I don’t know, what?” “An online appendix.”

A genuinely good piece of reportage in Politico today sheds some light on young Republicans’ love of racial epithets and other slurs. I definitely recommend reading it, but as I’ve explained before, I doubt this will lead to any sort of a reckoning for Republicans. www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

Du Bois basically did a version of this in his bibliography in Black Reconstruction

I read Caleb Nelson's piece on the removal power and I was taken with a reference he makes in the conclusion.

The lack of folks pointing out that Jay Jones’ initial comments (“put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time”) closely parallel a bit from The Office is odd in my opinion. www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIoq...

Used bookstores in college towns are invariably better than used bookstores in cities without a large university.

New video from @jamellebouie.net on the Lincoln-Douglas debates 👀 (also a good reminder I really need to finish Crisis of the House Divided this month) www.youtube.com/watch?v=44Q8...

(Sagely) Joan Robinson talked about this. “Every demand depends upon every other price. If the mat makers are exceptionally heavy drinkers, the demand for liquor will be high on the days when they have been lucky.”

my life is that I record a podcast episode all about tariffs and leave the booth just to find out there are more tariffs

Rep. Chris Pringle said a group of deer hunters who use dogs threatened his property, leading him to vote against rules limiting dog-assisted hunting.

Are you telling me that Trump was fine with/approved of Project 2025 when he told the press he didn't know about it? And that Project 2025 contributors & fans were the folks chosen to staff his second admin? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you! Well, not that shocked. www.thebulwark.com/p/the-trump-...

"Perhaps the most ghastly piece printed during Hegseth’s reign as publisher was an assertion that Princeton’s characterization of sex with an unconscious person as nonconsensual was an effort to “indoctrinate” students." thebaffler.com/salvos/battl...

"Inveterate contrarian Sohrab Ahmari has argued that Trump’s clash with the Federal Reserve isn’t just one more manifestation of an imperial presidency. Instead, his column maintains that attacking Fed independence is a warranted reassertion of democratic control over the economy."

Truly grateful we have a major columnist with this command of history and constitutional law.

“There is something odd, however, about a democratic accountability that relies on maximalist claims of executive power and the subversion of congressional statutes.” As a lot of things do, my agreement with Bouie’s argument reminded me of Garry Wills in A Necessary Evil.

to me, the “column” is less a form than an opportunity (and a challenge). you’re telling me i have as much space as i’d like to make an argument about anything i’d like to an audience inclined to pay close attention? well let’s see if they’ll read 2000 words on democratic legitimacy. (gift link)

Members of the United Auto Workers are gearing up for a potential strike against Volkswagen in Tennessee. Workers are signing cards to authorize a strike, if necessary. The company is panicking. Here are flyers members at the plant have shared with me.

"We must not let a horrifying act of political violence serve as the pretense for undermining our freedom of speech."

A very interesting piece on Greenland’s SOEs and history by @ryanlcooper.com for the People’s Policy Project was published today! www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2025/09/23/r...

A leaked Project 2025 questionnaire database appears to reveal the books, thinkers, and dictators some Trump appointees most admire.

You could be told to KYS in 1857 too Hinton Helper: “Ought they not, as a befitting confession of their crimes and misdemeanors ... to clothe themselves in sackcloth, and, after a suitable season of contrition and severe penance, follow the example of one Judas Iscariot, and go and hang themselves.”

My piece on white nationalist thinker Samuel Francis and his influence on the contemporary right for @commonweal.bsky.social www.commonwealmagazine.org/sam-francis-...

Magazine Monday: The papers of the man who reinvented musical theater now are in the Library of Congress. Read more about it in the current issue of the Library of Congress Magazine. lcm.loc.gov/issue/septem...

Very good piece by @chancephillips.bsky.social on @liberalcurrents.com today. www.liberalcurrents.com/trump-must-l...

This pattern, where the court takes power away from a sclerotic Congress and gives it to the executive, is the subject of a good chunk of my output for @liberalcurrents.com. See both the piece published this morning and this one from back in June 2024: www.liberalcurrents.com/the-courts-a...

100%! Here's a relevant excerpt from a mostly side-lined draft of mine: The Virginia plan, drafted by James Madison at the start of the Constitutional Convention, resolved “that a national Executive be instituted to consist of a single person.” Historian Catherine Drinker Bowen (1986, 55) recounts

"Despite President Jackson’s pretensions, the Bank War he began was not a mass movement against unelected, usurious elites. It was a president grabbing at power denied to him by the people’s duly elected representatives in Congress, as is Trump’s recent feud with the Fed."

Thoughts in labor econ.: What did the econometrician name their twins? Treatment and Control.

Something we’ve noticed in doing our weekly bill round-ups are the many pieces of legislation increasing a local official’s expense account midterm and then converting it into salary at the next term. Here’s how that works.

my question for ahmari: the federal reserve is subject to democratic control — congress can, whenever it chooses, alter the terms of fed independence. how and why is the unilateral authority of the president, exercised outside of rule if law, more democratic than congress’s legitimate authority?

People frequently ignore Madison’s comments on the tenure of the comptroller, which imply Congress could determine the tenure of certain officers. “There may be strong reasons why an officer of this kind should not hold his office at the pleasure of the executive branch of the Government.”

Read @chancephillips.bsky.social today

In my latest article for @liberalcurrents.com, I agree with @sohrabahmari.bsky.social that Trump is behaving like Andrew Jackson. I just go on to explain why that is so horrifying. Please read it if you’re also enthralled by 19th century political oratory! www.liberalcurrents.com/trump-must-l...

Just read Where Do We Go From Here!

I stopped by the @liberalcurrents.com Half the Answer podcast to talk about Charlie Kirk, Ezra Klein, free speech and the power of independent media. Full episode here: www.liberalcurrents.com/half-the-ans...

Eidelson does some fantastic reporting. Read this.

"In reviewing the leaked materials, I have identified a number of deeply concerning questionnaire responses that can be connected to people who now hold positions of influence." Chance Phillips looks at a lesser known element of Project 2025:

Thanks to @thebulwark.com for publishing my latest analysis of the leaked responses to a Project 2025 questionnaire for government jobseekers. Contra Sam Haselby, Pat Buchanan is not a “marginal figure.” The folks running the government appear to be his acolytes. www.thebulwark.com/p/the-trump-...