Second prize: TWO White House Correspondents Dinners.

Director of National Intelligence is kind of a bullshit job, but the damage the smear artist Bill Pulte can do there chills the blood. My latest.

When the Capital Weather Gang sees no point in remaining with the hometown paper, that’s game over. wtop.com/dc/2026/05/a...

This just in. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Case backlogs are up, union elections are down, and for a year there was—by design—no quorum. How Trump, self-professed champion of the working class, is wrecking the National Labor Relations Board, which adjudicates labor-management disputes. My latest.

So many acts are dropping out of the Freedom 250 Great American State Fair that Trump may have to re-book the USA Freedom Kids. www.politico.com/video/2016/0...

God help me, I find myself siding with the snobs. Garden gnomes are the thin edge of the wedge. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/26/w...

From @timothynoah.bsky.social: "If the Benjamin is a currency for criminals, simple arithmetic tells us the Donald is two and a half times more so." trib.al/YRQ8SGJ

Rejoice. www.washingtonpost.com/style/power/...

Another one for the kleptocracy file. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Remote work is choking off opportunities for entry-level workers. Because of course it is. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

“The Star” doesn’t strike me as so great a name that it’s worth fighting over in court. Nobody remembers the old Washington Star, and there’s already a trashy celebrity tabloid called The Star. Bad idea to burn up cash on this that could pay instead for reporting. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/28/b...

My latest provides yet another reason to oppose Trump’s $250 greenback: Large-denomination bills, the currency of criminals, are overproduced already. You don’t have any $100s in your wallet but there are more out there than $1s or $20s. newrepublic.com/article/2110...

The idea of putting Trump's mug on a $250 bill is a cult-of-personality embarrassment. But The New Republic’s Timothy Noah has another objection: Criminals like high-dollar bills. Noah offers this amazing fact: There are more $100 bills in circulation than $1 bills. @timothynoah.bsky.social

Every time I resolve to cancel my digital subscription to the LA Times, published in a city 3000 miles from where I live, and a once-great institution in steeper decline even than the Washington Post, I remember that if I did that I couldn't read my favorite columnist, Michael Hiltzik. So I don't.

My latest. newrepublic.com/article/2110...

Further thoughts on the dignity of labor as a specifically Catholic concept and one embraced by our underappreciated Catholic president, Joe Biden. Do you subscribe to my Substack, Backbencher? If not, what’s stopping you? It’s free! open.substack.com/pub/timothyn...

The phrase “the dignity of labor” has never been more necessary than in the age of AI. My latest. newrepublic.com/article/2109...

Important Mother Jones piece by Jeffrey Winters (excerpt from his new book) explaining why, even well before recent budget cuts, oligarchs felt free to violate tax laws with impunity. For decades the risk of getting caught has been very close to zero. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

My latest. newrepublic.com/article/2108...

The Ds are pouncing on this faster than I expected.

OK, here’s the DNC autopsy of 2024. Can somebody explain how it became samizdat? It’s missing some sections and includes factual errors, which demonstrates only that it wasn’t finished. Glancing through it I don’t see why it was judged necessary to suppress. democrats.org/wp-content/u...

Here is Trump’s guarantee, worth at least $100 million, indemnifying him and his family from tax audits, including any that may occur in future regarding past filings. He negotiated this with his own DOJ, along with his $1.8 billion slush fund for Republican crooks. www.justice.gov/opa/media/14...

“Loyal losers.” www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/w...

Good news, everyone www.cnn.com/2026/05/14/h...

God damn them. When I read stuff like this I get so mad I can't even see straight. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/13/o...

From @timothynoah.bsky.social: "Of all President Donald Trump’s kleptocracy schemes, perhaps the most shameless are his financial legal claims against the same executive branch over which he presides." trib.al/8lU7Khi

So apparently Amity Island’s got nothing on LA beaches. www.latimes.com/california/s...

For commencement season, I re-post my Slate complaint that too many graduation speakers are successes in life. A better choice would be to invite failures. Their stories are a lot more instructive (and much more interesting!) than the platitudinous pap winners retail. slate.com/news-and-pol...

My latest. newrepublic.com/article/2104...

Important reporting by Politico. www.politico.com/news/2026/05...

California’s top-two primary was a solution in search of a problem when voters mandated it in 2010 at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s urging. Now it may give us a general with two toxic MAGA Republicans—in an overwhelmingly Democratic state. My latest. newrepublic.com/article/2103...

I enjoyed talking to Greg Sargent about Trump’s Iran troubles on Greg’s Daily Blast podcast. newrepublic.com/article/2101...

An excellent appreciation of Wilfrid Sheed (marred only by its omission of Sheed’s best novels, “Max Jamison” and “People Will Always Be Kind”). theamericanscholar.org/spreading-th...

Somebody please explain.

“‘Does anyone really care if the Strait of Hormuz is open?’ one high-powered banker posited.” giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

What an odd problem.

The best part about Kash Patel stories is always how Kash Patel reacts to them. newrepublic.com/post/210149/...

During the Cultural Revolution in China they killed you if you wore glasses on the chance you might be an intellectual. During the Cultural Revolution in America civil servants beg not to be recognized for excellent performance lest they be fired. My latest. newrepublic.com/article/2101...

My latest is about the first major study examining the economic justification for Stephen Miller and Donald Trump’s pathologically cruel ICE raids. And whaddya know. Miller and Trump turn out to be dead wrong.

Stick a fork in him, he’s done. www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

Crybaby of the Decade: “I must say that I consider the phrase ‘tax the rich’ when spit out with anger and contempt by politicians both here and across the country, to be just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs….’” —Vornado Realty Trust CEO Steven Roth www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

This morning I tripped across something I posted in 2012 about Henry Adams, the Titanic, and the GOP. I have zero memory of writing this, but it’s pretty good! So I re-post it here. newrepublic.com/article/1026...

I enjoyed talking to Isaac Pound of the London-based Tech Report about my New Republic piece on tech’s path from idealistic garage tinkerers to megalomaniacal Bond villains who regard the advent of AI, figuratively when not literally, as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Who says the New Republic doesn’t cover the Met Gala?

My latest. newrepublic.com/article/2099...

My latest.

I enjoyed talking to Burt Cohen about my New Republic piece on how tech leaders became Bond villains.