Right now I wish we had the old 90s monoculture back. America 250, the World Cup, the Artemis mission. All really cool things, and all feel underwhelming to me and decidedly not easy to connect with random people about in casual conversation. blog.mattglassman.net/rip-monocult...

The World Series of Poker starts today. I've always been a poker romantic, and the game continues to be one of the truly American inventions. open.substack.com/pub/mattglas...

I agree with all of this except the first sentence. Trump has never been good at getting GOP legislators to do what he wants. It may not look that way because many observers think he *deserves* far more pushback than he's gotten from them. (I agree!) But ...

My family never talked about our relative who died in WWII---I didn't even know until I was an adult---and it very much colors how I think about Memorial Day now. blog.mattglassman.net/the-structur...

Prompted by @marypeltola.com noting she was first person ever to represent Alaska who was born there, I used Claude to run all House history. Turns out 58% of Members/delegates were born in state they represent. State rankings and time series data too: blog.mattglassman.net/how-many-hou...

My immediate reaction to the GOP reconciliation meltdown. All the President's Fault. blog.mattglassman.net/immediate-re...

Notes on Paxton/Cornyn and the long list of GOP Senate primary disasters in the last two decades. blog.mattglassman.net/notes-on-pax...

Martin Van Buren was born in the United States and was never a British subject. But was he a *natural-born* citizen, or just eligible for the presidency under the grandfather clause? blog.mattglassman.net/martin-van-b...

Sentences to ponder, from two of my current favorite bloggers, Zac Hill and @natemeyvis.bsky.social: blog.mattglassman.net/sentences-to...

Of course Courts are political actors. That's not a bad thing! blog.mattglassman.net/of-course-co...

You can learn a lot from very little information, and most people don't employ conditional probability strongly enough. blog.mattglassman.net/a-little-inf...

People underestimate how good professional athletes are. You have zero chance of homering off Paul Skenes. But who should take that viral bet, at 2000-1 odds? blog.mattglassman.net/no-you-cant-...

Partisan political actors are articulating---and playing out-- a lot of unusually-clear game theory right now---on gerrymandering, on court packing, and on filibuster-nuking. Stag Hunts everywhere you look! blog.mattglassman.net/partisan-sta...

Notes on political influence blog.mattglassman.net/notes-on-inf...

Some notes on the idea of paying California Dems to move to Wyoming in order to change its politics. blog.mattglassman.net/voting-with-...

I like markets. But reading about the Harberger tax finally crystalized for me the angst so many people seem to be feeling in the increasingly markets-all-around-us world. blog.mattglassman.net/markets-in-e...

Notes having three kids, all with birthdays the same week: blog.mattglassman.net/notes-on-hav...

Piggybacking on an excellent @leedrutman post, I'm all in favor of undoing the Uniform District Act and seeing if federalism can get some proportional representation going somewhere in the U.S. blog.mattglassman.net/gerrymanderi...

Churchill, Pimlico, Saratoga

I'm very skeptical that increasing the size of the House would be a good thing. blog.mattglassman.net/against-a-bi...

I'm using this from now on anytime we go to the blue screen of death:

Speaking with my nephew (he's four) it just dawned on me this sentence must sound like it belongs in Alice in Wonderland or maybe Dr. Seuss to any normal person.

Some notes on having a child turn 18. blog.mattglassman.net/eighteen/

I voted no on the Virginia redistricting amendment. I don't feel super strongly about it one way or another. Some scattered thoughts. blog.mattglassman.net/virginias-pr...

The GOP doesn't have to wait for Alito to retire. They can nominate and confirm his successor right now. I've been hesitant to write this, because I think it'd be a bad development, but here we are: all about Senate nomination blockades and appointment stockpiles. open.substack.com/pub/mattglas...

I have been shouting with only moderate degrees of coherence about this very point so you should all read @mattglassman312.bsky.social's cogent written version. The erosion of the division between mandatory and discretionary $$ is, in short, an extremely big deal.

Despite all the ways Trump has sought to aggrandize the spending power, the real institutional changes to appropriations are actually happening in Congress. open.substack.com/pub/mattglas...

Building off a post by @natemeyvis.bsky.social, I have a strong sense of the importance of tacit knowledge in both driving a car and playing card games, but little or no sense of the most efficient way to transmit and hard-wire such knowledge. blog.mattglassman.net/tacit-knowle...

There is no doubt in my mind that the best writings of any U.S. President are Grant's memoirs, and his recollections of Lee's surrender in Appomattox---161 years ago today---are perhaps the best parts of those memoirs.

I thought the @DouthatNYT interview with @BenSasse was excellent. Ben touched on the problem of nut picking, and that spurred me to opine on how you should approach political discussions. blog.mattglassman.net/ben-sasse-nu...

A conjecture about the Trump/Iran standoff from yesterday: I'm worried the structure of 21st century media can't put a national crisis in focus: blog.mattglassman.net/iran-nuclear...

I don't mean to sound flippant---this is high stakes and very dangerous---but my honest first reaction to this was literally "this is the culmination of putting a narcissist carnival barker in charge of national security." It reads like the voiceover from low-budget reality TV.

Is our current politics an outlier or a return to normal? I’m not sure, but it is very common for all of us to observe a change from X to Y and assume Y is a deviation from normal X, rather than Y being a return to normalcy from an exceptional X. blog.mattglassman.net/when-the-exc...

By my count, there are 9 national news stories--- excluding sports, elections, court decisions, and legislation passing---for which I can remember precisely where I was when I heard the news. Some thoughts: blog.mattglassman.net/where-were-y...

Procedural and political notes from a wild week in Congress. The SAVE Act and DHS Appropiations have more in common than you think. fivepoints.mattglassman.net/p/procedural...

Obvious but profound thing I've been thinking about this week: my daughter---who *loves* music---doesn't have a physical record collection. Nor does she understand the role a record collection played in the 80s. blog.mattglassman.net/on-the-use-o...

1/ It's not just that unilaterally paying TSA agents is illegal. It's that Trump has now repeatedly undermined the core of the congressional power of the purse. He's not spending money that has been appropriated by law (impoundments) and he's spending money that has not been appropriated.

DK Replay is just a slot machine, not sports betting, and should be regulated as such. blog.mattglassman.net/sportsbooks-...

Incredible that 30 years ago today—March 24, 1996—was the original namesake “Michigan” hockey goal *and* the premiere of the Simpson’s Planet of the Apes episode. #DrZeusDrZeus #Michigan

David Sklansky has passed away. Finding his book absolutely changed my life. blog.mattglassman.net/new-post-new...

Ugh. Duke. It had to be Duke. I thought we had them. blog.mattglassman.net/siena/

My quick thoughts on yesterday in the Senate: not a talking filibuster, not regular order, just a dressed-up show pony version of the 60-vote Senate. blog.mattglassman.net/notes-on-yes...

Well, the Senate just structured four hours of debate, equally divided and controlled by leaders, by unanimous consent. Talking filibuster—or whatever you want to call five Republicans holding the floor for an hour—on pause. 🤷‍♂️

At some point, Republicans will stop filibustering and let a Democrat speak. But that has not happened yet.

SAVE Act Talking Filibuster so far: a Republican Senator is giving a speech about Iran. 🤷‍♂️

Senate is now on the SAVE Act. Thune did not file cloture. He did fill the tree. A Republican has the floor and is debating. Are we now in a talking filibuster? A regular order consideration of a bill? A 60-vote Senate charade? Trick question, it's in the eye of the beholder!

A fair amount of confusion about the talking filibuster comes from nomenclature; it messes people up b/c (1) minorities filibuster; but (2) the talking filibuster is described as a *majority* tactic ("the GOP should use the talking filibuster.") Let's straighten this out. 1/

When we say the president is *politically* rather than legally constrained in warmaking, what exactly does that mean? Don't overthink it. blog.mattglassman.net/notes-on-the...

Question for those knowledgeable about such things (I'm totally ignorant about this stuff): was the closing of Hormuz an expected Iranian maneuver in this spot, or was the conventional assessment that threats to do so were bluffs?

Once upon a time, today was important. On the old congressional calendar, lame ducks, and the fallibility of the Founders. open.substack.com/pub/mattglas...