“It *is* signed. It's a signed document. I guess if you have a signed document in your possession, you can't go wrong. This year I'm really going to kick that football.” — Charlie Brown, 1966

When did reading become so performative?

Abe could be hanging his head in shame, or maybe averting his gaze from the reflection of all those gold-colored doodads

I feel silly publicizing a book in these times BUT my book describes how constitutional structures allowed the accumulation of generational wealth + rights for settlers and white people. These are the same advantages MAGA is trying to preserve today. Pre-order page:

A scorpion sitting atop a frog sitting atop Lucy's football

Happy news: My new book -- Humanitarianism: A Very Short Introduction -- now has a cover and is available for preorder! The book is a concise history of humanitarianism in an international and global perspective, from the 18th century to the present. More info here: global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Parties are shells that are continuously remade. Compare Ds/Rs in 1868, 1904, 1932, 1972, & today on class, race, gender, immigration, & religion. Most of us want more parties, but that isn’t* viable w/o proportional representation. Since 1972, all nominees are directly chosen by voters. Do that.

What the actual fuck is going on here

thank goodness for fractional clerks www.uscourts.gov/about-federa...

"Commas should be used only and always to indicate where a breath occurs" is the assertion of people who are dreadful at punctuation.

AI: destroyer of jobs, creator of jobs

I appreciate author Zachary Clary mentioning my book “The Last Lincoln Republican: The Presidential Election of 1880” in this fine @smithsonianmag.bsky.social article giving some of the history behind the new @netflix series “Death by Lightning.” If you enjoy the series, get yourself a copy!

another for the list?

After emancipation, Black schoolteacher & future Alabama state legislator William V. Turner reported to the Freedmen's Bureau that local officials were illegally withholding food assistance from Black mothers, telling them it "is not for negroes, but for the poor white women."

another for the list?

George, Abe, and "In God We Trust" - coming soon to Florida schools and classrooms?

The final “question” from the New York Times’ David Marchese in his interview with Greg Gutfeld. Maybe let the readers judge whether it went well. Hard to imagine Chotiner closing an interview this way.

Gutfeld is a professional bullshitter who knows how to avoid getting called on his bullshit. Asked if he's being disingenuous, he cackles (the transcript omits "[laughs]" here), and answers a series of questions with questions.

dog contemplates chicken, suburban sidewalk edition

Something about that hyphen between 1776 and 2026 makes it read like birth and death dates. Unintentional but perhaps appropriate!

Joseph J. Ellis Doesn’t Think You Would Have Abolished Slavery, Either www.nytimes.com/2025/10/28/b... Hmmmmmm.

The framers certainly designed the Senate to be counter-majoritarian. Which makes it all the more remarkable that they did *not* require super majorities in the Senate to pass most legislation. That's a parliamentary add-on that is making an already undemocratic institution thoroughly sclerotic.

Today is the birthday of Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind - which I'll use as excuse to reshare my favorite quote about the historical (mis)understanding of Reconstruction behind it

“woke” is when you acknowledge that black people have contributed to the united states

Having run through all the actual "like a dog" expressions, he is now making them up

the use and abuse of Abraham Lincoln's memory, AI dystopia edition

Leave Lincoln out of this you bastards

I’m sure DC residents, who voted against Trump 93% - 7%, will love this.

Some grave irony in using the memory of a highly original political writer to sell a plagiarism machine.

A truly fascinating article. Kara Walker’s work is so profoundly powerful. (Gift article) www.nytimes.com/2025/10/28/m...

the use and abuse of Abraham Lincoln's memory, AI dystopia edition

The Washington Post editorial page loses its mind over Zohran Mamdani - a thread of unspooling madness

just imagining a world in which John Nicolay and John Hay went on to be podcasters

just imagining a world in which John Nicolay and John Hay went on to be podcasters

destroying DC in every way he can

I wish Douthat had followed up and asked Andrews what "areas of inquiry" have been "ruled out of bounds in history" because they are "too controversial" and lead historians away from "truth seeking."

In December 1865, 2500 Black Washingtonians petitioned Congress for the right to vote. "Experience teaches," they wrote, "that all reforms have their opponents. The same experience also teaches that apprehensions of evil arising from reforms founded in justice, are but seldom if ever realized."

they're calling it the world's worst constitutional amendment

From the archive, Black education was under assault from its earliest origins after emancipation: "A very respectable young colored Female, teacher of the colored School near Vienna Dorchester Co md. was assaulted on the road near the school House by a white man named Cyrus Stack."

🎉🎉🎉

If sandwich shops don’t start offering a sandwich named “the acquittal” then what are we even doing

“Do you know that I consider it immoral to teach in the schools that the Constitution of the United states is too sacred to change, almost to touch? Why, what are we, a lot of degenerates?" - Charles Beard, 1915

Scene from a dog walk

“Do you know that I consider it immoral to teach in the schools that the Constitution of the United states is too sacred to change, almost to touch? Why, what are we, a lot of degenerates?" - Charles Beard, 1915

Lincoln as touchstone, Bernie Sanders edition

‪Après Lui, le Déluge Donald quarante-sept thought the East Wing would be his Versailles, but after voters stormed the polls last night, it could be le fin for his Grand Siècle. Is JD short enough to play Napoleon? One thing's for sure: he won't go to war with Russia. by Maureen Dowd

when you kinda remember the plot of Wag the Dog, but not the part about *when* to run this play

oh my god they actually did it lmao