BREAKING: Mark Wolf, appointed to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan, writes that he is resigning as a judge to have the freedom to speak out against the president's assault on the rule of law. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

All those people who think they can dodge the effects of the climate crisis because they live in a nice developed country are about to get punched in the face. It’s coming in hard everywhere.

It looks like a badly designed escape room where the flimsy backstory is about the dead heir to a 19th century railroad fortune who rigged up a series of puzzles where the answer is always “oh ho ho ANOTHER golden key??”

Kinda loved this. Baby-faced Elisabeth Shue, interning for a wild-haired Terrance Stamp, becomes a source of fixation for a suit wearing, cigar smoking chimp who’s a violent master manipulator. Brilliant score by Jerry Goldsmith. Franklin’s resume isn’t long but he’s undersold.

open.substack.com/pub/theoryma... My latest where I review 'Dictator from Day One'. Please read, share, and subscribe if you enjoyed it :)

When ChatGPT was asked to rate 40,000 résumés, it ranked the older male candidates as better quality than the younger female applicants.

Sometimes it’s best not to respond and just leave things alone.

Okay, not to be a cheeseball, but I have been through a bunch of mayoral election cycles in NYC and can’t remember seeing anything like this. Not only being out with these guys on a wet fall night, but the way he physically embraces them—not a lot of candidates could even do this.

a lot of stuff in the pipeline that i'm excited to share with you if you're able to support, that really does make my work possible www.patreon.com/c/PoliticalP...

If you want to understand the emotional end intellectual malaise of British politics, this piece by @mjrobbins.com is a pretty good place to start. It effectively describes a country that has gone mad. open.substack.com/pub/martinro...

I see that CBS chose not to air this part. It probably explains much of what they did decide to air.

theorymatters.substack.com/p/assisted-s... "Hobbes described the state of nature as ‘ solitary, nasty, poor, brutish, and short for too many of us. That is simply the reality of life for too many people today."

theorymatters.substack.com/p/assisted-s... "Hobbes described the state of nature as ‘ solitary, nasty, poor, brutish, and short for too many of us. That is simply the reality of life for too many people today."

Cool to see @financialtimes.com getting into explainers! Chatted with @johnreedwrites.ft.com on the AWS blackout and the risks of banking our futures on cloud monopoly. Also feat. the redoubtable @maxvonthun.bsky.social: www.ft.com/content/ad45...

Reading the government white paper on Higher Education is terrifying. This government appears to know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. If these proposals go through, it's little more than an act of mass vandalism on Higher Education

New ICE recruiting methods have resulted in half of this group of absolute winners failing AN OPEN BOOK TEST

Congrats workers on your new hell zone

still getting student emails asking me for references and saying how much they enjoyed my classes. In one sense it's lovely but it just reminds me of what I don't have now :(

The Palace of Westminster is literally going to either burn down, kill someone, or both because spending money to save it is perceived as so politically toxic.

Also because the people inside it are too cowardly to either spend the money or demolish/stop using the building to not spend it, so their staff have to work in a deathtrap instead. We are encouraged not to see this as a metaphor for how Britain is run.

I for one think the Epstein Ballroom will be magnificent. I love the decor theme of “what if Uday Hussein ran a Ramada Inn.” And giving it a theme song everyone will associate with it is a stroke of brilliance! “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” is very catchy.

this feels completely banal? yes, a big tent political party is going to include voters who have bigoted views. i don’t think anyone has argued otherwise? the actual question at hand is “to what extent should a political party ostensibly committed to equality appeal to popular prejudices?”

The actual regime that these people are hankering after is Dubai: a small elite of citizens, most immigrants to be transient, insecure and all immigrants to be second-class. In reality they would hate the world they would create and would find ever-more ridiculous scapegoats for their failure.

thecritic.co.uk/hating-the-g... "These programmes are normalising and even celebrating a winner-takes-all mentality. Indeed, when Hafsah was called out by a paramedic for her unscrupulousness, she questioned if they were a communist"

thecritic.co.uk/hating-the-g... "These programmes are normalising and even celebrating a winner-takes-all mentality. Indeed, when Hafsah was called out by a paramedic for her unscrupulousness, she questioned if they were a communist"

As the nation fractured, Abraham Lincoln drew on the American Revolution as a project that could redeem the past and heal the present. It’s a lesson for us today, Jake Lundberg writes:

theorymatters.substack.com/p/the-death-... "radical talk-show hosts are drowning out these more thoughtful attempts to construct an intellectual conservatism, and the arrival of a second-term Trumpism, which is even more cataclysmic than the first version."

theorymatters.substack.com/p/the-death-... "radical talk-show hosts are drowning out these more thoughtful attempts to construct an intellectual conservatism, and the arrival of a second-term Trumpism, which is even more cataclysmic than the first version."

The old Saudi brand was “austere theocracy,” but the new one is “fun, fun, fun, but still with beheading.” - brilliant piece with so many laugh out loud moments:

On Rancière and Graeber on Political Hatred open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

Tempted to pin this.

We got $20 billion for Argentina though.

open.substack.com/pub/theoryma... " It is not the right to choose which is the primary problem, but the world in which those choices are made, and the effects that those choices have on the body and soul of people."

Sometimes I think: perhaps Brexit is only the second-worst thing Boris Johnson did to the country. Perhaps introducing the word 'dead cat' to people who are addicted to savviness was the worst.

This is such a brilliant read. Amazing premise + fascinating topic + phenomenally well written and funny too. (Not that you'd expect anything less from @helenlewis.bsky.social.) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

updated my political philosophy starter pack all the podcast guests + a few others go.bsky.app/6BBahr1

open.substack.com/pub/theoryma... " It is not the right to choose which is the primary problem, but the world in which those choices are made, and the effects that those choices have on the body and soul of people."

welcome to all my new followers! How are your days going? :)

this is the first day in a month where I have sat at my desk, written what I want, and felt slightly relaxed! If only this paid the bills.....

brits look at the US with horror, but in the UK there's far less standing in fascism's way new video essay: youtu.be/t8DEEUs-RFg?...

Chris Christie: “Thie is no longer, the Department of Justice, is no longer the premier prosecuting office in America. What it is now is a capo regime who goes out and executes hits when directed by the Don to do so. That’s what it is.”

promoting @profmabon.bsky.social new book www.waterstones.com/book/schism/...

This morning there is one Nobel Peace Prize winner, 8.1 billion or so people who did not win the Nobel Peace Prize, and one Nobel Peace Prize loser.

It's not just Badenoch or Jenrick. The entire British conservative project is dying iandunt.substack.com/p/the-empty-...

Israeli forces have begun a pull-back of troops from Gaza Friday after Israel's cabinet approved a plan for a ceasefire aimed at ending the devastating two-year-old war.

Congratulations to Maria Corina Machado, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize - her incredible optimism has already changed her country. I spoke to her, and wrote about her, at the beginning of this year: www.theatlantic.com/internationa...

Shapiro: I filed that amicus brief last night to make it very clear that the Pennsylvania National Guard is under my command. The way the President has chosen to deploy the Guard in other states—and, in at least one case, deploy the Guard from one state into another—is extremely dangerous.

anyone got any advice on how to grow their substack audience? First time since I've started that I've had a net loss of subscribers for the month... got me a little worried that I'm doing something wrong

Pritzker: "He said he was going after the worst of the worst. It's not going after the worst of the worst when you're just literally stopping children who happen to be brown & asking them for papers as if they're gonna have proof they're a citizen. Pull out your phones and film everything you see"