My thoughts on the state of House GOP leadership, with data on discharge petitions and links to good stuff from @mattglassman312.bsky.social @joshhuder.bsky.social @sarahbinder.bsky.social & others.

Great profile of a great little city! (Although it somehow neglects to mention 8 1/2) www.nytimes.com/2025/12/24/r...

He has made this hotel room his own

I count 10 cities in 2025 that are on track to have the fewest murders since at least 1970. Newark is on pace to have the fewest murders since 1956 (though only have data through Oct this year) and San Francisco is on pace to have the fewest murders since 1942.

Year 1 data on congestion pricing in Manhattan… * Vehicle traffic: -11% * Foot traffic: +3.4% * Storefront vacancy: -0.9% * Pollution: -22% * Revenue for mass transit: $548M So YES this has been a huge success.

Literally any other attorney general before Bondi would have fought tooth and nail and then resigned over this alone. Letting White House staff take over making public statements in the name of DOJ is in and of itself completely insane.

Great profile of a great little city! (Although it somehow neglects to mention 8 1/2) www.nytimes.com/2025/12/24/r...

Remember when I said Weiss was stupid and incompetent? Stuff like this. An actual television producer would understand this stuff - if not the exact schedule and procedures for how the episode was distributed, at least who they could ask who would know.

The CBS investigation portrays a modern concentration camp, similar to the Soviet GULAG (like CECOT, an acronym): sadistic guards, 24 hour lighting, isolation cells. Americans once opposed this inhumane system. The Trump administration sent innocent people there to suffer.

Here is something to help your quality of search experience slightly: When typing your query, add "-ar" to the end. This suppresses the useless AI slop.

Amazing work from whoever was up in N6914W over Ohio … www.flightaware.com/live/flight/...

Again and again, the Court has swept aside *statutory* restrictions in the name of Article II. While especially dramatic, that run of cases is consistent with the Court’s longstanding disdain for Congress’s place in the separation of powers. (3/6) papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Holy shit practically the entire Heritage legal center resigned www.nationalreview.com/news/exclusi...

I see people jumping on this but I was impressed by this NYT hed, which IMO catches in few words the news in VPOTUS’s address: that he chose to be neutral in the movement’s open debate about whether to condemn outright bigotry; which means condoning hate while trying to keep his hands clean… (cont)

Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:

Thoughtful response by @stevevladeck.bsky.social One observation, and potentially a basis of progressive consensus, is that the vision offered by me and @samuelmoyn.bsky.social and others is not one of a world in which there are “no checks” on presidential administrations. (1/6)

Absolutely right. AI might be able to summarize (poorly) what we currently know, but a major goal of historical research is to find the hidden surprises out there. Let me illustrate …

endorse

tricorder slow after triOS update

This guy got a PhD to become a university president.He got a PhD in "Higher Ed Admin" & wrote a diss./book about "non traditional presidents" aka consultant class experts who believe that faculty and students have too much say. Fullest expression of the BOV contempt for UVA &especially faculty.

Think I have conclusively demonstrated that the search tool for the limited release Epstein Files published so far by the Justice Department does not work

!!

That is not the name of this institution. Its name was fixed by our Congress, in law, and that law has not been repealed or struck down. www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/... Dictatorial contempt for United States law will harm every Conservative and Liberal American.

My forthcoming book— For which I began research in 2006. Is now posted on the website for Princeton University Press. Cover will be added soon. The King’s Slaves: The British Empire & the Origins of American Slavery

Very few law profs believe that anyone in the administration cares that we think it routinely breaks the law. Many of us hope that other people care or can be persuaded to care about that.

This is a very eloquent way of saying (but that’s redundant: it’s Jamal) that the ethic of the academic is most decidedly not that of the activist.

Safest year on the subway since 2009, when Bloomberg was mayor. free link www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/n...

There's a world of difference between describing your performance as "hiring the most outstanding white males who had been passed over by the prestige academy" and "hiring the best people who had been passed over by the prestige academy, many of whom are white males."

The whole article is a gem, but this might be my favorite part www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anth...

Gift link, probably the funniest thing the Wall Street Journal has done this year.

Everyone missed the obvious right answer, which is LeMieux v. Evers, 19 N.W.3d 76 (Wis. 2025).

You know where this kind of discussion across differing viewpoints *actually* happens on a daily basis? In university classrooms across the country.

Got yelled at this week for making statements that will supposedly alienate the average white male voter and what I want to emphasize is this: appealing to the average white male voter is not my aim and not my job.

weiss does not know how to run a news organization, and so she's doing what she does best: hosting fatuous "debates" involving the people in her group chats www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/bus...

It’s one banana, Michael. What could it cost—$10.67?

I know it’s a long shot, but if the University of Sevilla is looking for an Americanist …

I know it’s a long shot, but if the University of Sevilla is looking for an Americanist …

This, from @mattyglesias.bsky.social, is very obviously correct. Not running a serious candidate in FL-Sen would be malpractice. www.slowboring.com/p/democrats-...

Sounds like they need humanities majors…..

Setas de Sevilla is one of the coolest buildings I’ve been to in a long time. Architecturally daring and built entirely of engineered wood. (1/x)

I think this point is critical: The problem is not that the electorate has treated Trump as special. The problem is they treat him too much as the same as any nominee. His unique attributes have induced some realignment, but those gains and losses have largely evened out.

Will be fascinating to see how badly Johnson has torched his relationship with Mods over this. They are his majority makers and front-liners, and at a minimum he needs them to hold the majority. Now they’re likely going to adopt a kick rocks mentality. 2026 will be year of the Discharge Petition

DC statehood now.

GOP departures up to 27, the 3rd-most of either party since 2006. 1 and 2 are the GOP in 2018 and 2020. "Trump is president" really seems to be the highest-powered explanatory variable of the modern era. As always, the loudest of shout-outs to @the-downballot.com for the invaluable departure data.

... because capital-A Armadas have a long and glorious history of accomplishing the goals for which they were assembled?

Setas de Sevilla is one of the coolest buildings I’ve been to in a long time. Architecturally daring and built entirely of engineered wood. (1/x)

... because capital-A Armadas have a long and glorious history of accomplishing the goals for which they were assembled?

One of my favorite windows ever, at the Catedral de Sevilla.

I actually have a whole paper on this! papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....