a little more on one of my favored analogies youtu.be/Msz2daPeTyg

NIH funded this work—reflecting a surge in Alzheimer’s funding over the last 10-12 years. NIH is the primary funder for AD research.

Not only did Derrick White just set a new career-high with seven blocks, but he also tied the record for the most blocks by a guard in a game in NBA history, per StatMuse.

With Trump skipping church this Christmas season, it's now been over 4 years since he last attended a regular worship service (otherwise has only attended for special events like funeral & inauguration). I don't care if prez attends, but MAGAchurch leaders should quit lying about him being devout.

A lot of people are trying to justify their own desire to surrender to Trump early in the year

Paul Krugman had my favorite quick metaphor for thinking about the problems with deifying the winners in a winner-take-all economy. And why we should instead support a capitalist mixed economy with a welfare state, progressive taxation, and anti-trust enforcement.

In Florida, “the average state per student spending is about $10,000.” Under DeSantis, “An Inside Higher Ed analysis from October suggested the rate at New College was $134,000 per student.” From @donmoyn.bsky.social:

As always, the biggest Trump scandals take place right out in the open

A small number of people whose extreme wealth exerts a political gravitational force that distorts the entire political system is bad, actually. It has been recognized as a threat to free liberal republican government since the first time it emerged in the Gilded Age.

Guys, I found a poll from 1998 in the @ropercenter.bsky.social archives about their predictions for the year 2025 www.cnn.com/2025/12/29/p...

But step back and look at the machinery and you see how sturdy this media/WH infrastructure is. If they want to make a humiliating Democratic scandal the biggest story in the country, they can do it. Dems who think it'll go away if they "win" with local media are going to lose.

I feel like "attention hacking" is most of politics now. The Minnesota aid fraud story is becoming a perfect example. Recap: In 2022, the Biden DOJ filed the first charges against dozens of fraudsters, many of them Somali-American, who'd fleeced a state food aid program. (1/x)

2025 in review: hegemonic suicide, medieval peasant brain, and other highlights from a very long year hegemon.substack.com/p/2025-hegem...

Amazingly, reaction times using screens while driving are worse than being drunk or high—no wonder 90 percent of drivers hate using touchscreens in cars. Finally the auto industry is coming to its senses.

It’s really weird that Russian collusion simply happened. The vast majority of the reporting was accurate and true. And people don’t like to admit that because it’s cringe.

And there it is. Per the WSJ piece on pardons a couple days ago, Trump pardoned Cuellar to try and get him to flip parties It won’t get much oxygen now, but that might approach Trump’s first impeachment territory in terms of trying to use his powers for naked political gain

New reporting says Don Jr. directly facilitated the pardon of a crypto whale who had promoted the Trump's family crypto. Jr. brought the pardon lawyer to the White House, and introduced him directly to his Dad. Pardon occurred right after. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/pardon-the...

On birthright citizenship: The plain meaning of the text is against him. The original intent of the authors is against him. The traditional understanding through US history is against him. So he is left trying to invent some convoluted academic theory to justify his predetermined conclusion.

“they divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.” Psalm 22:18

"no statistically or substantively significant bias against conservative students in efforts to establish politically-oriented registered student organizations (Study 1) or secure campus space for a guest speaker to lecture on political issues (Study 2)" link.springer.com/article/10.1...

At least 11 congressmen from 1865-1871 were arguably not citizens under Trump's interpretation of 14th A, our research finds. Yet no one challenged their eligibility to serve. Why not? Obviously, b/c no one who drafted or ratified the 14th A shared Trump's view. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The Wisconsin component of the analysis here is revealing. Evidence is consistent with DOGE strategically delaying contract terminations in WI until after the 2025 state Supreme Court elections to mitigate electoral risk.

“they divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.” Psalm 22:18

DOGE was A LOT less likely to cancel contracts from companies that donated money to Republicans than companies that donated to Democrats.

Elon Musk thinks that, by 2030, the U.S. economy will be able to double in size every year.

A legend indeed

Neither Trump nor Paramount cares if Barry Weiss drives CBS News into the ground. Her purpose is to prevent CBS from producing tough coverage of the government. Anything that achieves that keeps Paramount in Trump’s good graces.

Neither Trump nor Paramount cares if Barry Weiss drives CBS News into the ground. Her purpose is to prevent CBS from producing tough coverage of the government. Anything that achieves that keeps Paramount in Trump’s good graces.

The idea that the Supreme Court uses its independence to protect political minorities and uphold the Constitutional text is pretty ingrained in many people especially liberals. Even though it only did that for ~25 years of the 20th century and at best ~35 years of the 19th century.

NEW: One brought a gun home. One moved. Others improved home security. Life as a federal judge in the age of Trump: www.nbcnews.com/politics/pol...

of the new media organizations that are absolutely worthy of your support, i think the unpopulist should be on your list

“must be dealt with and stopped”

It's important to remember that, in these arrangements, neither the government nor the owners of the media orgs care whether those put in charge of the media orgs are unethical, incompetent, or run them into the ground by losing all their audience. No one cares, as long as they get quiescence.

"Collider bias" has a horrible, unintuitive name. But my favorite explanation of it is in Chris Achen's 1986 book, where he discusses why you shouldn't draw conclusions from the relationship between undergrad grades and grad school grades among grad students. archive.org/details/stat...

Make no mistake, this is competitive authoritarianism. The regime is using the power of the state to coerce the press away from critical coverage. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/b...

What are we doing here? www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I always thought the perfect encapsulation of the Supreme Court was that, when the first female justice, Sandra Day O'Connor, joined them, William Rehnquist made up a new "tradition" in which the newest justice would serve on the Cafeteria Committee. But this is even better.

Clear evidence that at universities conservatives don't face higher obstacles than liberals to establish student groups + invite outside speakers. "These results fail to offer support for the view that conservative students encounter more difficulty in efforts to access campus resources."

The White House has been caught. The administration inserted a photo of Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson, and Diana Ross into the Epstein files and falsely implied it showed them with victims. In reality, it’s a publicly available fundraiser photo featuring Jackson and Ross’s own children.

I'd prefer that DHS didn't regularly post sacrilegious Christmas-themed social media posts. I think a reasonable person could interpret this as openly mocking the Christian religion and one of its most significant holidays.

the analogy I use with friends and family all the time is the jump from collegiate to professional sports. as soon as I explain it that way, it clicks in their brains what the academic job market is like.

Individual political candidates, even up to presidential campaigns if you only include the official campaign organization, can engage in message discipline. But an entire broad party coalition in a two-party system cannot engage in message discipline in any meaningful way. How could that even work?

Under Trump, More Than 1,000 Nonprofits Strip DEI Language From Tax Forms talkingpointsmemo.com/news/under-t...

"No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law" Article 1, Section 9.

Fun fact: In 2023, Theda Skocpol "helped rescue a postal carrier being attacked by a pair of turkeys."