Good piece here. But also: "Flaming Waymos" is a wonderful band name...

I’m really worried that we aren’t internalizing enough what’s coming down the pike for all schools. Especially with federal funding—but even on the state side, too. We could be 3 years or less away from SCOTUS ending all Blaine Amendments. 1/3

Everyone knows that the “let them eat cake” line attributed to Marie Antoinette is a myth, but the myth has persisted for a quarter millennium because it so perfectly encapsulates the attitude of certain rich people 👇👇👇

For the last two decades, democracy has been in retreat. Autocracies now outnumber the world’s democracies, and countries that had made impressive democratic strides have been purposefully undoing those gains. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/a...

Vought et al. are now after NASEM, intending to impound federal funds in the name of "Gold Standard" science. The #NIH has awarded fewer grants this year, affecting clinical trials, cancer, Alzheimer's research. Vought slow walks $ to labs. He's "On it", one by one. 🧪 www.npr.org/2026/05/21/n...

For the sake of the Republic, I pray Greg is right. Restoring US democracy will require: 1. US voters to issue MAGA a stinging rebuke at the polls; 2. Lustration of the political criminals who did all this; 3. Constitutional reforms to prevent any of this from ever happening again. No half measures

While we slept the DOJ deleted all press releases about charges against January 6 defendants: www.nbcnews.com/politics/jus...

YOU’RE LISTENING TO SISYPHUS FM, THE HOME OF NON-STOP ROCK

Joe Rogan now has the favorability distribution of a Fox News host. Remember all the 2024-2025 hot takes lmaoooo via @carlbeijer.bsky.social

wrote about the struggle in the trump admin over MAHA, and RFK's numerous losses. www.publicnotice.co/p/kennedy-hh...

Because this country likes to forget what it’s capable of, I take it as a duty to remind us. We sit at the brink of the largest decimation of Black political power since the fall of Reconstruction — a Second Redemption. And the end of Black political power means the end of democracy itself.

Borders are hardening around the world. Canada is no exception. Canada's current budget includes funds for hiring 1,000 new Canadian border officers. #ICYMI globalnews.ca/news/1148240...

I think Spiers was right at the time, but understanding the current state of the MAGA coalition requires an understanding of the fights within masculinities.

You come to me, on the day of my son's wedding, which I am not attending

This would be a disaster. It also shows that trying to remain above the political fray, as NASEM leadership has mostly done, is generally not workable — in the end, they’ll come for you if they don’t like what you represent, and probably sooner than later

You won't want to miss this deep dive into the porno-political memeplex that has colonized the right. Cameron Cummins-Smith gives us essentially an explainer, but one that is so necessary because this stuff is so embarrassing to think about, let alone write about.

They’ve destroyed the freedoms and dignities of the American republic we all enjoyed for the last 50 years. We’ll have to build something new in its place. And we’ll have to be willing to expand the court, add states, and send people to jail as part of that. www.liberalcurrents.com/democrats-ne...

313/ Robert Kagan (not exactly a shrinking violent when it comes to Iran Hawk & US primacist credentials) gets it: “On the present trajectory, Iran will emerge from the conflict many times stronger and more influential than it was before the war.” www.theatlantic.com/internationa...

I’ve said it before and will say it a few more times. When Trump 2.0 came for accreditation I knew we had crossed into a different era of white reclamation. Precise, focused, stealth. Anyway, you probably don’t want these reforms.

For @nybooks.com I wrote about why the US effort to use economic warfare has backfired, leaving it ever more isolated. www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

"This is a kids' game, and it's layering multiple currencies atop one another to obfuscate the cost of things, as well as using pop-ups, timer bars, and "buy" buttons to offer temporary boosts and, generally speaking, remove the game's in-built friction."

my gf works corporate and is on a training about AI and there's a word cloud for "what do you use AI for." the largest word by far is "Nothing" and the trainer is PISSED

Reading this is like what I imagine it feels like to take acid and walk around a carnival funhouse. We aren’t living in the same world. nymag.com/intelligence...

The Swedish 🇸🇪 Parliament just approved a law that would create a tiered citizenship scheme, with a 1st class (mostly for the native born) that cannot be revoked and a 2nd class (mostly for the naturalized) that can: www.svt.se/nyheter/inri... Only two parties (Left and Green) voted against.

The San Diego Islamic Centre shooting was not an isolated act of hate. It was part of a far-right “curriculum of violence,” where attackers study, cite, and try to outdo one another. My new piece for @theconversation.com theconversation.com/the-san-dieg...

Really sobering discussion with my 4th-year students as they contemplate post-graduate employment. They talked about "overwhelming anxiety," disappearing career ladders, fake job ads, no safety net, massive uncertainty, desperation... I really don't understand what we're doing.

I just want to point out, politely, that there are other colleges apart from Ivy League institutions. They are where most college students go. They are where, believe it or not, America's massive comparative advantage in higher education exist. You would never know this if you read the Times.

I'm still laughing at the scholars who study fascism fleeing the country once Trump got re-elected.

part of an actual autopsy should be why the Democrats developed a massively parasitical and incompetent political consultancy class (not a unique problem!); however they are generally also the people asked to write the reports

This already ratioed piece hits on a real issue but is utterly clueless about what's behind it If college kids appear to be self-centered, it's because GROWN-UPS MADE THEM THAT WAY, as conservative pols (Reagan, etc.) trashed any notion that higher ed is a public good and turned it a...

Nobody at the NYT has ever been to public school.

In my conservatism class we spend weeks on the accommodations Evangelicals had to make to follow GOP where it went. Only in past few weeks have I realized Catholics made these accommodations as well as Leo appears to unwilling to continue them.

finish them

UN backs historic climate crisis ruling, despite US attempts to stop resolution

Where I feel most alive.

damn. how do you look at these charts and think "we just didn't mindless centrism hard enough"

Fresh new American dystopia headline just dropped www.thegamer.com/grammacracke...

Anyone still gonna argue grades actually correlate with learning?

hard to exaggerate how heroic these men were. they likely saved dozens of children's lives. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

bleak

Can we please just make all classes pass/fail?

This post from @irms.bsky.social about the beliefs of the shooters who killed three people yesterday at the Islamic Center of San Diego has me thinking about @milleridriss.bsky.social calling misogyny the "connective tissue" of hateful extremism. www.theirms.org/blog/misogyn...

everything makes me think of her* *our electrofishing boat

on my birthday I took to the newsletter to write about the AI commencement address backlash, and how growing anger at AI is now irreversibly tethered to justified rage at the extraction class -- whether AI boosters like it or not

Fascinating slice of American life – small-town social dynamics, the unpopularity of a rightwing megachurch even in the Idaho panhandle (which may come as a surprise to urban intellectuals), standards of fairness, baseball www.nytimes.com/athletic/728...

Kind of feel like we especially don’t need fancy law explainers at the moment. “Can the president just take money when he wants?” A third grader could answer this. A Yale law prof is likelier to write the wrong answer so their 2L can work for Alito