If the goal isn’t nation-building, it’s nation-smashing. The Trump Doctrine is smash and grab and don’t give a shit who ends up in charge. www.wsj.com/livecoverage...

Always read Laura Jedeed. slate.com/life/2026/02...

Great Michael Kruse profile of the very crazy but not entirely unsympathetic Rep. Nancy Mace. www.politico.com/news/magazin...

Bernie Sanders’ adventures in West Virginia. Please watch this. It’s what the Democratic Party would look like if it weren’t terrified of the donor class. h/t Susan Williams. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP8O...

The Supreme Court's tariff ruling adds $1.4 trillion to the budget deficit that Trump won't likely replace with his (illegal) new 10-15 percent global tariff. Here's an idea: Repeal Trump's Big, Beautiful reconciliation bill (but wait till after the midterms). My latest.

Bad call at Bafta. Do not extend a disability accommodation to a Tourette’s activist who keeps shouting the N word at an awards ceremony. Escort this differently abled person off the premises and apologize on his behalf. We wouldn’t let him shout “fire” either. bsky.app/profile/iris...

Donald Trump phones into C-span. youtu.be/pRBDRoMwWz0

If you doubt it’s possible to write an editorial about mounting government debt without mentioning tax cuts, then you probably don’t subscribe to the Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Nothing to see here, move along.

Fart science.

Has there been even one instance where Alito and Thomas voted against Trump?

Last time a royal (Charles I) got arrested they abolished the monarchy. Just sayin’.

How on earth did Corey Lewandowski become the Trump administration’s loverboy-in-chief? MAGA must be seriously hard up for lotharios. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chief Michael Selig Attends World Liberty Financial Shindig at Mar-e-Lago.

Justice Department Unfurls Banner To Celebrate Trump’s Thousand-Plus Mentions in Epstein Files

Reading James Wolcott on John Updike is the most fun I've had all week.

M&A hath murdered sleep.

Anybody keeping track of how many scalps got nailed to the wall by this latest Epstein release? Seems like at least a dozen. www.cnbc.com/2026/02/16/h...

The Washington Post’s dead-tree “The World” section today consists in its entirety of features taken from the Associated Press. They should rename this paper the Podunk Advertiser.

Psst. Steve Bannon is a card-carrying member of the Epstein class. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/16/u...

“The only crime here is the $18 strawberry at Erewhon.” www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/u...

"[O]lder and more established outlets, like the London Review of Books and The New York Review of Books ... are produced for an audience that already knows it cares about literature. The books section of a newspaper ... seeks new recruits." www.newyorker.com/books/page-t...

The nonprofit Living New Deal hosted an excellent webinar last week on the Trump administration's planned sale and/or demolition of the "Sistine Chapel of the New Deal," the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building in Washington, D.C. You can watch the webinar here. www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSFZ...

Dollar Tree is going upscale because nobody—not even discount stores—wants to do business anymore with the unwashed masses. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Gold medals that break? Send ‘em to Donald Trump, who’s incensed he didn’t win one for women’s figure skating. www.wsj.com/sports/olymp...

In today’s economy the way to make money is to BE money. Being human doesn’t cut it anymore. www.wsj.com/economy/jobs...

Rep. Steve Cohen, D.-Tenn., visited the Cohen building last week. cohen.house.gov/media-center...

This is a wonderful piece of reportage and data-illustration by @jacobbogage.bsky.social in battered WaPo. -See @timothynoah.bsky.social's ongoing work on this theme, eg newrepublic.com/article/2042... -Seeing our shrunken, barely-there print Sunday WaPo was poignant, artifact from "before."

Important piece. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Really important piece in today's @nytimes.com about possible, disastrous next target of MAGA wrecking ball: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/a... H/t to my friend @timothynoah.bsky.social for pioneering on this story: newrepublic.com/article/2010...

Amen: talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/do-yo... See also Jack Shafer’s “The New Vanity Press Moguls.” It’s from two decades ago but the only thing that’s changed is that all press moguls are now vanity press moguls. slate.com/news-and-pol...

The New York Times takes on the Cohen Building story. Hallelujah. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/a... If you want to know more, here’s my TNR piece that broke the story plus two detailed follow-ups: newrepublic.com/article/2010... newrepublic.com/article/2012... newrepublic.com/article/2042...

"The newspaper’s publisher, Will Lewis, was nowhere to be seen as the grim news was unveiled."

Jeff Bezos said this when he bought the WaPo in 2013: “I don’t think you can keep shrinking the business. You can be profitable and shrinking. And that’s a survival strategy, but it ultimately leads to irrelevance, at best. And, at worst, it leads to extinction.”

Pro tip: If you have Peter Thiel over to dinner don't ask in advance for his dietary restrictions. From the Epstein files via Wired (not clear this meeting ever took place; Thiel's dietary restrictions certainly provided ample justification for canceling): www.justice.gov/epstein/file...

Psst. Trump is starting to lose the white working class.

The American Way of Composting www.wsj.com/business/fun...

This is now without question the biggest politico-financial scandal in United States history. Teapot Dome was trivial in comparison.

I was a little late to catch up with this WSJ kleptocracy story. We already knew Sheikh Tahnoon dropped $2b on World Liberty Financial to get Trump to let UAE import advanced chips. Now we learn Tahnoon also purchased 49 percent of World Liberty Financial. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

I forgot in my TNR piece to mention that Trump's claim that he filed his IRS lawsuit within the two-year statute of limitations is provably false because HIS OWN LAWYER represented Trump at Charles Littlejohn's plea hearing in OCTOBER 2023. More here: timothynoah.substack.com/p/trump-isnt...

Not turning up in the DOJ files on the convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein—not a single mention!—makes me feel like a total loser. Why can’t I be disgraced too? When the most gregarious sex offender the world has ever seen snubs you, that hurts.

Often an outrageous news story is less outrageous on close inspection. Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against his own IRS is not such an example. In my latest, I answer your questions about the deeply stupid venture.

I’m gratified that the mainstream press is (finally!) following up on my New Republic stories about Trump’s plans to sell and/or demolish the “Sistine Chapel of the New Deal.” Here are my 3 pieces: newrepublic.com/article/2010... newrepublic.com/article/2012... newrepublic.com/article/2042...

As Mel Brooks’s 100th birthday approaches, here is his greatest film. On a per-second basis it has the most laughs, and it’s the only Brooks film that ever won an Oscar for Best (short) Picture. Plus you can watch it free of charge. Click on this and tell me I’m wrong:

Suzannah Lessard, RIP. A wonderful essayist at the Washington Monthly and, later, at the New Yorker, and author of “The Architect of Desire,” about her great grandfather Stanford White. Here’s a 1970 dispatch by Suki about the early gay rights movement: washingtonmonthly.com/1970/12/01/g...

Why did Trump appoint an inflation hawk to succeed Jerome Powell at the Fed? My latest. newrepublic.com/article/2059...

Raise your hand if you think it’s a good idea for President Donald Trump to charter himself a bank. newrepublic.com/article/2059...

Please share.

European fascists find Trump too extremist.

The Living New Deal will hold a webinar on saving the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building, the "Sistine Chapel of the New Deal," on Feb. 3 at 8 p.m. EST. www.eventbrite.com/x/preservati...?