Reading archive 2025-05-16

Afrikaner resettled by Jewish-affiliated group denies antisemitism claims: Charl Kleinhaus, one of about 60 Afrikaners resettled as refugees under an executive order, said his social media posts were being taken out of context. - "In one post, he responded to video of a scuffle between Israeli police and Christians by writing that 'Jews are untrustworthy and a dangerous group.'"

This is what happens when we have a morally lost president: What’s needed more than anything at this moment is to make our leaders moral again.

26 hours and 33 failed amendment votes: This is Democrats’ masterclass in resistance: In the marathon committee session, Democrats showed how best to challenge Republicans on Medicaid.

Democrats: Save Medicaid but don’t defend it Democrats should push for change in the system. Oregon offers a model. - "Expansions in coverage, such as the Affordable Care Act, which I support, use public subsidies to make health care more affordable for individuals — which is not the same as reducing the cost of care. This simply gives more people access to the same inefficient and unsustainable system, which siphons billions of dollars away from health care to enrich private-equity investors and the shareholders of giant pharmaceutical and insurance companies."

Ed Martin publicizes ethics probe he says was wrongly disclosed: The former D.C. U.S. attorney nominee revealed he faces a legal disciplinary review in an all-office goodbye email, while claiming his confidentiality was violated.

Congress upended D.C.’s budget months ago — and still hasn’t fixed it: D.C. officials say if Congress does not pass legislation restoring the city’s 2025 budget, they will be forced to cut $400 million over the next five months. - "Congress most dramatically exercised its power over D.C. in the 1990s when it set up a control board to run the city’s finances as the District was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and plagued by fiscal mismanagement. But those who remember those austere days say it’s hardly a comparison to the present: The financial control board was set up to help turn the city around financially — its approach was 'paternalistic,' said Yesim Sayin, an economist who heads the D.C. Policy Center. 

"Now, 'this is pure harm,' D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) said of the House holdup."

An isolated, angry Fetterman is yet another challenge for Democrats: Sen. John Fetterman increasingly goes it alone, worrying some fellow Democrats as they struggle to push back against Trump and retake the majority.

Supreme Court rules totality of circumstances must be considered in police shootings: The Supreme Court ruled that the totality of circumstances must be considered when determining whether a police shooting is justified, not just the seconds before an officer opens fire. - "The broader standard is likely to make it easier for victims to prove allegations of excessive force in court."

Comey under investigation for ‘threat’ to Trump on social media, officials say: The Trump administration accused the former FBI director of insinuating a call to violence in his Instagram post, which he denied.

Big U.S. cities grew in 2024, reversing covid-era population declines: Census Bureau data found most major cities increased in population, reversing a downward trend sparked by pandemic deaths and people fleeing for smaller towns. - "Demographers say immigrants are critical to sustaining the labor force, contributing to the tax base and compensating for the growing number of older Americans. Without such an influx, the United States could begin to resemble countries like Germany and Japan, which have among the world’s highest share of people over 65."

Russia takes hardline stance in Istanbul talks, meeting ends quickly: After dangling the possibility of attending, Trump says he will stay away but wants to meet with Putin, further weakening the Istanbul talks.

As Republicans weigh Medicaid work requirements, Georgia offers a warning: Only a small number of people were enrolled in the state program, and administrative costs exceeded spending on medical care. - "Just 12,000 of the nearly 250,000 newly eligible Georgians ultimately received Medicaid, the public health insurance program for the poor and disabled, well short of the state’s initial 50,000 goal. Administrative costs far outpaced spending on medical care. Some who do work had a tough time proving it to state officials — or their work, such as caring for ailing relatives, didn’t qualify."

Trump’s Legal Strategy Has a Name: And it has been deployed by would-be autocrats around the world. - "The pattern I have seen as I've studied democratic backsliding globally is what I call "court-baiting." To undermine public support for the judiciary, political leaders adopt policies that are popular but very likely illegal. Many courts then rule against the executive, and the executive uses their unpopular decision to condemn the judiciary writ large. Court-baiting is a potent strategy because it puts judges in a lose-lose position: Either strike down a popular policy and face public backlash, or allow the policy and erode legal limits on executive power. Such tactics are tailor-made to undermine judges' legitimacy, because elected leaders can claim to represent the "will of the people" and thus democracy when the courts block popular policies. Even when losing, these would-be authoritarians win."

Trump’s Third-Term Ambitions Are Very Revealing: The president sees the Constitution as an obstacle to be surmounted, not a repository of values that he must respect. - "More than a century ago, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. articulated what legal theorists call the "bad man" theory of law. The bad man, Holmes wrote, does not want to know what his obligations are. He wants to know only what will happen if he engages in a given course of action. If an action causes no adverse consequences to him - if he can get away with it - then the law provides no reason not to do it, even if someone with a different sense of law would regard that action as unlawful."

Trump’s Tactical Burger Unit Is Beyond Parody: Happy Meal Team Six

The Darker Design Behind Trump’s $400 Million Plane: Through Qatar’s gift of a luxury jet, Trump has escalated American soft corruption to a garish new extreme. - "Qatar needs to do this because there are many good reasons to be suspicious of Qatar, and no grassroots pro-Qatar constituency exists in the United States. The Gulf country hosts America's largest military air base in the Middle East, which is of interest to war planners but largely unknown to U.S. citizens. There are no American stans of Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, no college students hoisting Qatari flags on campus, no steady stream of English-language best-selling books that tout the country's virtues or vices."

America Is Having a Showboater Moment: The Trump administration talks tough on crime but shrugs off the work of real law enforcement. - "Governments that imprison indiscriminately and ignore due process have been known to post extraordinarily low murder rates: In the late 2000s, Syria's dictatorship reported a criminal-homicide rate half that of the United States. Eliminating crime isn't difficult if you eliminate freedom."

The Day Grok Told Everyone About ‘White Genocide’ What in the world just happened with Elon Musk’s chatbot? - "Ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter and renamed it X, the platform has crept further into the realm of the outlandish and unsettling. Porn spam bots are rampant, and Nazi apologia - which used to be extremely hard to find - frequently goes viral. But yesterday, X managed to get considerably weirder. For hours, regardless of what users asked the chatbot about - memes, ironic jokes, Linux software - many queries to Grok were met with a small meditation on South Africa and white genocide. By yesterday afternoon, Grok had stopped talking about white genocide, and most of the posts that included the tangent had been deleted."

An Eerily Familiar 20th-Century Hoax What happened when a mega-famous evangelist went missing?