Norway became a global salmon behemoth. Now it's facing the consequences
Showing posts with label policing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label policing. Show all posts
Thursday, August 6, 2026
Friday, July 31, 2026
Reading archive 2026-07-31
A new Colorado River plan requires water cuts for three states. Deeper cuts are still possible.: Arizona, California and Nevada will be required to curb their use of the water from the river by a combined 20 percent over the next two years, according to three officials. - "In the Upper Basin, home to the snowcapped mountains and winding tributaries that feed the river, there are few reservoirs to provide long-term water storage, leaving users reliant on natural flows. That means the Upper Basin takes an automatic cut during dry years, officials argue. They say responsibility for restoring water to Lakes Powell and Mead should fall on the Lower Basin states that use them.
"Yet about three-quarters of the people who depend on the Colorado live in the Lower Basin. The region is also home to major cities and sprawling farms that provide most of the nation’s winter vegetable supply. Officials from these states say they have already curbed their water consumption by millions of acre feet in recent years. Overuse of the river is universal, they argue, and so too is responsibility for saving it."
What’s tucked inside the Senate’s Russia sanctions bill: Its tariff proposals could affect other countries more than Russia. - "In sum, the legislation gives Trump an awful lot of authority to impose massive tariffs on a number of countries, notably India and China, if they don’t cut off all Russian energy imports. They are unlikely to do so, because both India and China are heavily reliant on Russian energy — all the more since the U.S.-Iran war has reduced oil exports from the Persian Gulf. Trump’s efforts to use 25 percent tariffs to wean India from Russian energy imports already failed last year.
"The problem is that there is nothing to stop Trump from imposing tariffs on any of those countries for some other reason and using the Graham bill as legal justification. He might even use the legislation to go after U.S. allies in Europe and Asia."
Thursday, July 16, 2026
Reading archive 2026-07-16
The Timidity of America’s Top Generals: Deference to civilian power is part of the job but can go too far. - "Seen one way, Caine's studious deference to civilian authority is an appropriate correction from the generals in charge of America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, who were famously strident about what they thought the wars should be about and how they should be run. Top officers such as Caine serve at the pleasure of the president and can be relieved anytime; their jobs are to provide military counsel, not to shape preferred outcomes.
"But looked at another way, Caine and other generals are being overly timid and deferential, in part because Pete Hegseth demands it. The secretary of defense has forced out more than 20 generals and admirals, including some of the most respected career officers in the forces: Caine's predecessor, Air Force General C. Q. Brown Jr.; two other members of the Joint Chiefs; and, most recently, Army General C. D. Donahue. Meanwhile, Hegseth has promoted less experienced officers. He has offered no explanation for each individual ouster, and the dismissals have fed a sense among his senior commanders that he prizes fealty and acquiescence over competence and experience."
Believe the Hype About Teen Takeovers: Outdoor street parties are turning into violent rumbles in D.C. and other large cities. - "If takeovers are ultimately about apps that help teenagers outwit their elders, better tech may be all we need. If takeovers are a symptom of deeper problems in the current generation of teens, they are likely to continue, even if under a different name."
Federal panel urges changes to Trump plan to fence Lafayette Square: The Commission of Fine Arts will “probably” support the plan, its Trump-appointed chairman said, but wants to see more design options first. - "Commission members on Thursday suggested that some of the design ideas presented were unnecessarily ornate. James McCrery II, a member of the commission who served as the first architect for Trump’s planned White House ballroom before wrangling with the president over its size, suggested simply replicating the existing fence that goes around the White House grounds.
"'Just let it be a fence,” McCrery said. 'I think that the White House fence is a very good model.'"
As Democrats battle over the future, a swing-state lawmaker wants a new focus: A freshman lawmaker from Michigan says liberals cannot afford to argue over ideology and must reconnect with the “drowning” working class. - "'There is this debate around philosophy inside the Democratic Party that actually isn’t real for me. It’s not real for me and my district. It makes for great talk on a 24-hour news channel, but what we really need to do is to make sure people are safe, that people can afford their groceries, that they can afford their utilities,' she said. 'What’s capturing the political conversation is this debate around the democratic socialists versus the moderates. That’s a conversation about philosophy when people are drowning.'"
Reflecting Pool peeling probably caused by application flaws, experts say: President Donald Trump has blamed vandals, but a Washington Post analysis finds that the peeling tracks closely with stages of the renovation process. - "The pool, which holds approximately 4 million gallons of water, has long had problems with algae and leaks. In 2012, it completed a two-year, $34 million renovation that shored up its floor support system to prevent the pool from sinking. For that project, contractors poured new, tinted concrete for the bottom of the pool and utilized a hydrophilic joint sealing strip, Hydrotite, from the New Jersey company Sika. In June, CNN reported that Sika declined to work on Trump’s renovation after being asked to do so, saying that the quick time frame and the color change made the project 'unfeasible.' Sika did not respond to a request for comment."
Thursday, May 28, 2026
Reading archive 2026-05-28
Trump’s approval plunges among his White working-class base: In a striking shift, White voters without college degrees who voted to reelect Trump by a huge margin are now net-negative on his job approval. - "Dombrowski, the janitor, barely follows politics. She grew up poor with factory worker parents who taught her that Republicans were for rich people — not families like theirs who struggled and saved money by making their own clothes.
"But she put her faith in Trump when he ran for president in 2016, opting for an outsider over Clinton and her decades in politics.
"Now she trusts no one, believing politicians 'want your money and give you fake promises.'
"The musical instrument company where she works, Conn Selmer, is shifting jobs overseas — even though the owner, Trump donor John Paulson, has echoed the president’s calls to keep manufacturing in the United States."
‘We Have Not Seen Ugly Yet’: Paxton versus Talarico is already awful.
John Cornyn Lost With His Boots Off: Like fellow Republicans exiled by the president, he still accepted Trump’s claim to inhabit the will of the party. - "Cornyn, like so many of his fellow soon-to-be-ex-politicians, staked his survival on the hopeless tactic of trying to beat Trump's team in a contest over who loves Trump more. Overcoming Trump's hold on the rank and file is not easy, but the method his victims have chosen-essentially to beg for Trump's mercy, and then not receive it-saps them of their dignity without meaningfully increasing their odds of political survival."
America Is Missing Out on the Ultimate Mosquito Weapon: Bring on the lasers.
Friday, May 15, 2026
Reading archive 2026-05-15
Emails show FBI Director Kash Patel’s Hawaii trip included ‘VIP snorkel’ at a Pearl Harbor memorial
Trump administration aims to roll back limits on toxic wastewater from coal-fired power plants - "In 2024, the EPA strengthened wastewater rules over coal-fired power plants that keep coal ash — a byproduct of burning coal — in unlined, uncovered dumps that leach toxic heavy metals such as mercury, arsenic and selenium into groundwater.
"In the rule, the EPA required plant owners to report whether the groundwater was contaminated and, if so, pump and treat the contaminated groundwater before discharging it into streams and rivers, Thom Cmar, an attorney for environmental advocacy group Earthjustice, said."
Reality check: AI-generated images have left us questioning what is real. But the godfather of digital forensics, Hany Farid, is not giving up - "Of course, even the most thorough and well-reasoned investigation may not always persuade doubters. Farid learnt this the hard way in 2009, when he analyzed a 1963 photo of Lee Harvey Oswald holding the rifle he would later use to kill President John F. Kennedy. Conspiracy theorists—and Oswald himself—had long claimed the photo was faked, pointing to unusual features like the shadows on Oswald’s face. But Farid’s analysis found nothing wrong. 'I wrote this little paper, and I thought, all right, this will be the end of this,' he says. Instead, people invested in the conspiracy theory turned on Farid, suspecting he was part of the cover-up. They claimed that his father’s job at Eastman Kodak—which had made the film on which Kennedy’s assassination was captured—somehow implicated him, and even wrote to Dartmouth asking for him to be fired. 'This is how batshit crazy it was,' he says."
Too Much Is Happening Too Fast: The AI boom is meant to overwhelm you.
Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Reading archive 2026-05-12
16 Washington Post veterans on what they would change about D.C. journalism.
China Believes America Will Flame Out: Beijing’s geopolitical restraint is all part of a long game. - "In private conversations and public writings, China's leaders and their advisers often describe America as 'declining but dangerous' - a late-stage power prone to bursts of aggression in the hopes of arresting its slide. As early as the 1990s, the height of the United States' unipolar power, Chinese thinkers were already theorizing about America's decline. Wang Huning, then a little-known academic, was moved by his travels through the U.S. to write the book America Against America, in which he described a nation beset by social fragmentation, inequality, and political dysfunction. Shocked by the country's problems of homelessness, drug addiction, racial violence, social divisions, and low education standards, Wang concluded that America contained the seeds of its own destruction." [ed. note: Wang Huning is now a member of the Politburo]
Wednesday, May 6, 2026
Reading archive 2026-05-06
White House East Wing debris dumped at nearby golf course has toxic metals, report says
Road pricing in DC will benefit drivers the most - "In every place where road pricing exists, it faced strong opposition prior to implementation before swinging to widespread support once the effects of reduced traffic became immediately clear. The Bowser administration has a particular distaste for road pricing. During the Committee on Transportation and the Environment’s government-witness budget oversight hearing for DDOT on April 30, Director Sharon Kershbaum said that the agency would not be studying it further.
"This is a mistake. The council should fund further study of road pricing, so that our next mayor’s DDOT can get to work on it on day one.
"Charging drivers for the negative externalities of their trips — congestion, worsening air quality, noise pollution, putting other people at risk of being killed or injured with their vehicles — is a proven way to create a reality where everyone gains time back from their commutes, breathes cleaner air, and is far less likely to be harmed on our streets."
Ward 3 has been unwell for a century. More housing is the cure - "Chevy Chase was patient zero. An infection of low density land use and racial exclusion then spread like a disease throughout the rest of Ward 3. To the west, white residents of Tenleytown who belonged to the Friendship Citizens Association teamed up with a new generation of CCLC investors to forcibly displace their Black neighbors in Fort Reno.
"In the 1920s, under the guise of “beautification,” they successfully lobbied a federal board to raze Reno over the adamant objections of Black Washingtonians; by the 1950s, Black residents had been totally evicted. Today, Fort Reno consists of a park and a middle school, and is surrounded by expensive single-family homes. Multifamily housing in the pipeline nearby, likely to rent or sell for a little less than $1.6 million, has stalled."
One Chinese Town’s Fight Against the Desert Attracts: Thousands Launched by a local man, an anti-desertification initiative in the country’s arid northwest went viral after being featured on a popular show. [ed. note: Chinese agitprop]
Europeans Are Quiet Quitting the United States: European leaders have now not only lost faith in Donald Trump’s U.S. presidency, but also in America’s hegemony as a whole. But short-term challenges make an immediate divorce unwise. - "Some paragons of Atlanticism have recently chosen European providers for long-term structural contracts instead of American ones. The Dutch central bank ditched Amazon Web Services in favor of the German Lidl as their cloud operator, and Denmark’s defense ministry opted to purchase the Franco-Italian SAMP/T air defense system instead of U.S. Patriot batteries. Both decisions were driven in no small part by considerations for European sovereignty, in light of a crisis of U.S. reliability."
For Ibram X. Kendi, It’s Nazis All the Way Down: His new book describes the “Great Replacement” theory as a convoluted plot, but fails to explain why it appeals to people in the first place. - "Great Replacement, in Kendi's widening definition, starts to encompass so many disparate examples that it loses its explanatory power. Is Canada's conservative politician Pierre Poilievre a 'great replacement leader'? Kendi's logic for including him is largely based on the fact that Poilievre spoke to the concerns of those 2022 trucker protesters who were responding to COVID lockdowns by demanding a return of their 'freedoms.' He was addressing constituent complaints about business closures and school lockdowns, which is what all sorts of politicians did. El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, makes it onto the board because of his harsh crackdown on gangs, though crime was genuinely an acute problem in the country and most Salvadorans were very happy to see him attack it. He has weakened democratic institutions and countenanced claims of torture and other abuses, but I'm not sure this puts him ideologically in league with Orbán and Le Pen."
Progressive Activists Are Sometimes on the Wrong Side of History: Thinking otherwise can enable the left’s worst instincts, as a speech at the University of Michigan’s commencement showed. - "Concern and empathy for Palestinian suffering and anger at Israel's excessive counterattack are admirable, but the movement's ambition is not limited to that. Michigan's pro-Palestine activism is primarily organized by Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, which is the local chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, a national network. Both the national group and its Michigan chapter have endorsed the October 7, 2023, attacks. Adult progressives' insistence on viewing their activities as mere youthful idealism makes it impossible to question those positions."
Judicial Supremacy Has Arrived: Last week’s Supreme Court decision didn’t just undermine the Voting Rights Act. It foreclosed the possibility of any new Voting Rights Act in the future, too. - "Shelby County and Brnovich were damaging, but their effects on representation are more marginal-affecting voters' ability to participate, but at levels that could still have been overcome electorally, at least in most races. Callais is different in kind. In the near term, majority-minority districts across the South will evaporate. Over successive redistricting cycles, the result will likely be the most significant contraction of Black congressional representation since the end of Reconstruction, potentially the most precipitous fall in American history, a contraction that would have seemed, not long ago, unthinkable.
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"But Callais reaches something deeper, about constitutional democracy itself: about whether the Constitution, the law of laws, means what elected branches say it means, and whether those elected branches can act on that meaning. The Court has declared that the branch of government most accountable to the people cannot legislate its way toward a more inclusive democracy."
Tuesday, May 5, 2026
Reading archive 2026-05-05
Multiple D.C. Police Leaders Face Termination Over Crime Data Manipulation
Indie music has been invaded by fake fans and cynical viral campaigns. Here’s how deep it all goes
For a Time, the U.S. Protected Democracy: A requiem for the Voting Rights Act - "Like previous VRA-related decisions, Callais was 'narrow,' in that it did not strike down the law itself. But although the edifice built at great expense-by Fannie Lou Hamer, by John Lewis, by the bloodied limbs of Mississippi sharecroppers and Alabama marchers-has not been entirely bulldozed, only the facade remains. The VRA has not been dealt a "blow"; the decision did not merely defang it. The law is dead, and no matter what happens in the coming elections, politics in America has been forever changed. For most of the nation's history, the former Confederate states have worked hard to minimize the political influence of Black residents in particular. Now they have full cover to do so again."
Europe Without America: The Iran war has given European leaders new impetus to plan for self-defense. - "The Trump administration didn't bother making specific requests of its European allies for the war against Iran. Instead, each day brought new, conflicting signals. At first, the message was that the United States and Israel could handle it. Then Trump lashed out on social media, saying that allies 'should have been there.' But the Trump administration never told key European partners what specifically it wanted from them in Iran, multiple European officials told me. The Pentagon spokesperson told me that the administration 'has been consistently and repeatedly clear about the demand signal to allies to contribute to addressing a threat that affects Europe as much as America and our Middle East allies. The notion that the Department did not convey these requests widely and clearly is demonstrably false.'"
Why Stocks Keep Going Up: The boom is not as untethered from reality as it may look.
The One Tax the Rich Can’t Escape: New York’s proposed pied-Ã -terre tax is unlikely to chase anyone away. - "There is also a harder truth underneath the political rhetoric. Blue cities cannot keep taxing their way out of their budget problems. The differentials between high-tax and low-tax states are now too large, and the mobility of the rich too real, for that playbook to keep working. Cities like New York have to get serious about the cost side of their budgets-about efficiency, productivity, and what they spend. The revenue side alone cannot close the gap. A pied-Ã -terre tax is a useful tool if it is used smartly, but it is not a substitute for running the city well.
"None of this means the idea of taxing the rich is wrong. The inequality that has built up in this country has reached levels that are corrosive to the economy and to the fabric of our cities. But income taxes and wealth taxes cannot do the job at the city or state level. They have to be levied at the national level, where there is no state line to cross. Local governments should tax what cannot move, which means fixed assets and real estate above all. A pied-Ã -terre tax is one version of that idea, and there are others. For cities like New York, the lesson is straightforward. Stop trying to tax what the rich can carry with them, and start taxing what they want to keep."
All the Sad Young Chinese Professionals: China’s urbanites are learning the price of prosperity.
She dreamed of a natural birth in Mexico. Now, she believes she was drugged.: In a complaint filed with Mexican prosecutors, Jennifer Nosek alleges that her midwife, Heather Baker, caused her baby’s death. - "The couple also allege that after their son’s death, Baker [the midwife] urged them not to tell the police that she was a midwife or that they’d paid her but to identify her only as a friend. Lemos [the father], worried that an open investigation would delay the release of their son’s body, agreed. There was no autopsy, and the baby’s death certificate says he died of perinatal asphyxia, a condition in which a fetus or infant fails to get enough oxygen."
Thursday, April 23, 2026
Reading archive 2026-04-23
Trump team defends redistricting push as GOP faces limited gains: After a Virginia vote pushes seats toward Democrats, Republicans turn to Florida and the courts to claw back an edge. - "'If you’re going to pick a fight, at least win it,' Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary for George W. Bush, said on X. 'The other side will always fight back. All this was foreseeable and avoidable. We should not have started this fight.'"
After stolen cars from DC ended up in Africa, 6 charged in vehicle-theft ring
Wednesday, April 22, 2026
Reading archive 2026-04-22
Trump got his regime change in Canada. Now he may regret it.: Canada's prime minister secures a parliamentary majority and a stronger political hand. - "There’s the costly need to satisfy Quebeckers, brilliantly leveraging their inextinguishable separatist inclinations for more and more privilege, and historically standing in the way of an oil pipeline to the east. Add, now, Alberta’s malcontents, a minority (for the time being) that, wishing for a pipeline to anywhere, is pushing its own separatist cause. And, too, the Indigenous who, like Quebeckers, must constantly and expensively be placated but who, note, also play a vital role of opposition in a way that no party in Parliament actually can. First Nations here are able to challenge laws about resources, the environment and, most problematically, property title on the basis of treaties not respected and Indigenous rights that Canada is legally obliged to respect."
Scoop: NSA using Anthropic's Mythos despite blacklist
The Tech Oligarch's Republic: A look at the Palantir manifesto, a logical conclusion of the War on Terror - "You will notice the summarized thesis of The Technological Republic is one that will line Palantir's pockets while presenting that fleecing as a strategic imperative, even a moral one. That much is par for the course for the military-industrial complex. But because Palantir is talking about AI dominance, embracing its perspective creates a national-security dependency on AI purveyors and on the providers of the interfacing tier between the government and AI, like Palantir's Maven Smart System. That is not par for the course for the military-industrial complex, which has for seven decades operated as a self-dealing partnership, not a dominance battle. The February clash between Anthropic and the Defense Department is the result of the discomfort that goes along with the dawning AI dependency."
Monday, April 20, 2026
Reading archive 2026-04-20
The AI people have been right a lot: Try to keep an open mind as the world gets increasingly wild.
Amazon is behind on jobs promised for funding to build Virginia headquarters: The company expected to be nearly halfway to its goal of 25,000 new jobs in the area by 2038. It has created a little more than 7,000. - "The company should have added 11,643 jobs at the site in Crystal City it refers to as HQ2 by the end of 2025, according to the incentive agreement with the state. Instead, it has created 7,159 jobs as of Dec. 31 — which is 28.6 percent of the total goal, instead of the 46.5 percent mark the company expected."
Woman dead after being struck in DC crosswalk, driver flees - "DC Police say Dawn Ciccone of Northwest DC was in a crosswalk when a 2026 Jeep Wrangler passed drivers in a designated left turn lane, made an illegal turn from the middle lane, and struck her."
Outrage over Israeli soldier's vandalism of Jesus statue in Lebanon - "A 2025 report by the Rossing Center, a Jerusalem-based organisation which aims to foster better inter-faith relations in the Holy Land, describes a 'recent surge in overt animosity towards Christianity', putting this down to 'a continued deepening of polarisation and ultra-nationalist political trends'."
Here’s what the stock market might have gotten wrong about the Iran war: The surge in optimism contrasts starkly with continued energy supply challenges that threaten long-lasting economic harm — and a market reckoning. - "'There is a disconnect between what the markets look like and what is actually happening in the world,' said Tibor Besedes, a professor of economics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. 'The markets seem to be pricing this as a temporary shock even though people in the oil sector say this will be long term. It is not as simple as opening the faucet to get oil flowing again. I don’t understand why every time news comes out that we might have a ceasefire, the markets react this way. It is like investors do not realize we are still in a war.'"
Friday, April 17, 2026
Reading archive 2026-04-17 pt 1
Nothing ever dies. It merely becomes embarrassing.: OR: the Halo theory of science - "The secret sauce of science is supposed to be falsifiability: it ain’t science unless you can kill it. If I claim that all swans are white, and you show up with a black swan, then I’m supposed to bid a tearful goodbye to my theory and send it to that big farm upstate where it can frolic and play with all the other failed hypotheses.
"Falsification sounds straightforward until you actually try it. You show up with your black swan, and instead of admitting defeat, I go, 'Hmm, well is it really black? Is it actually a swan? Seems more like a dusky-looking duck to me!' And we publish dueling papers until the end of our days.
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"This is the situation we appear to be in with many theories in psychology. We can’t say whether they’re 'real' or not. Somewhere out there, the Spartans may live on. But if we’ve been studying something for decades and people look at all the evidence and they still doubt whether it exists at all, we have to admit: that’s cringe.
"Cringe doesn’t mean wrong! Continental drift was cringe.2 Germ theory was cringe.3 Smallpox vaccination was cringe.4 All of them went from mortifying to undeniable. Maybe truly revolutionary theories must follow that trajectory. If a scientific idea is young and it’s not cringe, it probably has no promise. But if it’s old and it’s still cringe, it probably has no merit."
Another Energy Crisis Is Here. This Time, the Way Out Is Different. - "This is the first energy shock where clean energy is not a moral or long‑term bet, but the cheapest and fastest way for low‑ and middle‑income countries to protect macroeconomic stability, food security, and fiscal space."
A Pillar of the Economics Establishment Admits That It Was Wrong: In a new report, the World Bank thinks better of its old free-market absolutism. - "In this context, the World Bank's implicit message to the rest of the world appears to be: Yes, industrial policy can work if done correctly. But please, for the love of God, don't do what America is doing."
Trump Voters Are Over It: A shocking number of the president’s supporters have turned against him.
Israel Moderates Are Losing the Democratic Party: Their position has become untenable. But liberal Zionists can adapt. - "The theoretical case for a two-state solution remains as sound as ever. The trouble is that the Palestinian side has rejected repeated attempts by Democratic presidents to bring about the birth of a Palestinian state, and that Israel's longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his right-wing coalition do everything they can to subvert such a solution. At some point, supporters of the two-state solution have to take 'no' for an answer. The United States is effectively supporting a one-state solution whose entire strategy rests on an endless cycle of responding to terrorism with military force (a process of periodic attacks that Israel calls 'mowing the lawn') in place of any diplomatic path.
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"Liberal Zionists can win an intra-Democratic argument against anti-Zionist radicals, but they can't win it while burdened with support for subsidizing settlements and a strategy of endless conflict. The most extreme anti-Zionist activists won't be satisfied with anything short of committing the Democratic Party to Israel's demise. But the most left-wing position in recent Democratic primaries - on Iraq in 2004, on health care in 2016 - has rarely been adopted by the candidate who emerges as the party's eventual nominee."
Thursday, April 2, 2026
Tuesday, March 10, 2026
Reading archive 2026-03-10
A veteran thought her son was enlisting in peacetime. Now the U.S. is at war.: A Texas mother is proud her child is following in her footsteps. But as President Donald Trump attacks Iran, she worries about what he could face as a soldier. - "'At least he’s joining up at peacetime,' she’d thought. But now American bombs were exploding across Iran, and the president she’d voted for was refusing to rule out troops on the ground, and a guest was stepping through her black double doors with a case of Mountain Dew."
Whistleblower claims ex-DOGE member says he took Social Security data to new job: The Social Security inspector general’s office is investigating allegations that the former DOGE engineer took sensitive data on a thumb drive in a major potential security breach, said people familiar with the process. - "'This is absolutely the worst-case scenario,' Borges told The Post. 'There could be one or a million copies of it, and we will never know now.'"
On the Bright Side: Blue Whales Spotted in New England Waters
Friday, February 13, 2026
Reading archive 2026-02-12
Please, Not Another Kennedy: Nancy Pelosi reportedly plans to endorse JFK’s grandson for Congress. Why? - "As a Kennedy, Schlossberg has been a lifelong celebrity in the traditional definition of the word-a person who is famous for being famous. He's been profiled in Town & Country, on the Today show, in The Washington Post, and in The New York Times. The theme of this coverage is that Schlossberg (1) is a Kennedy, (2) is handsome, and (3) posts lots of edgy content on social media. To suggest that he has failed upward would give him too much credit because failing requires having been entrusted with some responsibility in the first place."
Tariffs are just a rehearsal for taxing every American’s consumption: When staggering entitlement costs finally come due, a desperate need for more revenue will kick in. - "Those socially conscious Europeans, whatever fiscal messes they have created for themselves, have had no qualms about taxing their whole populations. The primary vehicle is sales taxation, in the form of value-added taxes, which accumulate along a product’s value chain and are ultimately paid by the consumer. VATs extract roughly 9 percent to 10 percent of middle-class incomes across the euro zone and can result in middle-income citizens paying for nearly half of all VAT revenue. Every country in the 38-member Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development except the United States has one.
"That’s a major reason the U.S., frequent misrepresentations to the contrary, has the most progressive tax system among the most developed countries. Here, the top 10 percent pay about 70 percent of U.S. income taxes, and more than half the total U.S. taxes even when payroll taxes are included. The dreaded 1 percent pick up more than a quarter of the entire federal tab."
The Myth of the Police State: No one, not even the supposed beneficiaries, is protected. - "Mass revenge simply did not happen. That seems hard for people who never experienced such a total upending of a political hierarchy to understand. But in my years in South Africa, living in rural Afrikaner towns as well as in cities, I’ve heard much more about the shock white South Africans felt at how warmly their neighbors and colleagues of color have treated them than I’ve heard complaints about the opposite. An overwhelming number of South Africans of color understand that white people’s lives were not blissful under apartheid either."
Wednesday, January 28, 2026
Reading archive 2026-01-27
Maryland is getting a Sphere — and wasting millions in public subsidies: Wes Moore is wrong to compel Wizards and Caps fans to enrich the owner of the Knicks and Rangers. - "The deal announced recently to bring a smaller version of Las Vegas’s Sphere to Maryland’s National Harbor in 2030 includes almost $185 million of tax breaks, government-backed loans and incentive programs from the state and Prince George’s County.
"But the Las Vegas location, which is about three times bigger, was built without any government subsidies and pays property taxes."
Americans should not trust ICE. Kristi Noem isn’t the only reason.: Assume this loutocracy’s statements on its deportation mania are lies until proven otherwise. - "Policing is a hard, dangerous profession. Done well, it demands of its practitioners discipline and judgment, and deserves from society a respect approaching reverence. The current administration, by erasing the distinction between police work and military operations — by allowing marauding ICEmen to pose as police — has grievously wounded the dignity of policing."
Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong: The pushback against ICE exposed a series of mistaken assumptions. - "If the Minnesota resistance has an overarching ideology, you could call it "neighborism"-a commitment to protecting the people around you, no matter who they are or where they came from. The contrast with the philosophy guiding the Trump administration couldn't be more extreme. Vice President Vance has said that 'it is totally reasonable and acceptable for American citizens to look at their next-door neighbors and say, 'I want to live next to people who I have something in common with. I don't want to live next to four families of strangers.'' Minnesotans are insisting that their neighbors are their neighbors whether they were born in Minneapolis or Mogadishu. That is, arguably, a deeply Christian philosophy, one apparently loathed by some of the most powerful Christians in America."
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"The federal surge into Minneapolis reflects a series of mistaken MAGA assumptions. The first is the belief that diverse communities aren't possible: 'Social bonds form among people who have something in common,' Vance said in a speech last July. 'If you stop importing millions of foreigners into the country, you allow social cohesion to form naturally.' Vance's remarks are the antithesis to the neighborism of the Twin Cities, whose people do not share the narcissism of being capable of loving only those who are exactly like them."
Thursday, January 22, 2026
Reading archive 2026-01-22
The Five Farcical Principles of the ‘CBS Evening News’: Tony Dokoupil and Bari Weiss’s new broadcast has been one debacle after another. Let’s try to make sense of it all, with or without whiskey. - "[Bari Weiss] isn’t a conservative! She just independently thinks her way to conservative conclusions over and over again. If you’re a rich white man convinced that pronouns and trans athletes are the greatest threats facing America today, Weiss is there to assure you not just that you’re right, but also that your bile is proof of your intellectual fearlessness."
Inside Tony Dokoupil’s chaotic first week as the CBS Evening News anchor
The Old World Order is Dead Unipolarity was given, not taken - "A quieter camp pointed out that the United States was generally doing a lot—not all it could, but a lot—to make its leadership attractive to the other major powers: providing security, yes, but also shouldering a good share of global burdens in many fields while also linking its economy and society to the rest of the world. This approach, a few observers noted, managed to satisfy the range of potential powers who could actually undermine the United States and its order. One prominent theory noted that since the Second World War, the United States had engaged in practices of self-binding—generally asking for less than it could have taken and giving more than it needed to in order to make its leadership more attractive to others than the alternatives open to its rivals. For this group, there was an ongoing process of ratifying the U.S.-led order that relied on Washington realizing that its power conferred influence but its right to rule relied on the acquiescence of (most) other leading powers.
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"The unipolar world, what was left of it, has died—of suicide, not murder. As I wrote several years ago, 'the most successful blow to American primacy came not from external balancing, as realists long predicted, but from the free choice of American voters.' Twice, now, in fact."
The Great Crime Decline Is Happening: All Across the Country Even cities with understaffed police departments have made record gains. - "But only one theory can match the decline in its scope and scale: that the massive, post-pandemic investment in local governments deployed during the Biden administration, particularly through the American Rescue Plan Act, delivered a huge boost to the infrastructure and services of American communities-including those that suffered most from violent crime. That spending may be responsible for our current pax urbana."
Wednesday, January 21, 2026
Reading archive 2026-01-21 pt 1
The Levers Trump Isn’t Using: He is dominating a lot of news cycles but failing to advance lasting policy change. - "Perhaps Trump's most lasting influence will be opening the door for future presidents to approach the executive as he has, pursuing governing strategies rooted in capricious personalism. Still, for all the action of the past year, Trump has not been acting like a president. That has not only undermined the character of our constitutional system; it has also meant that he is getting less done than all the sound and fury might suggest."
Trump Exhaustion Syndrome Americans can’t seem to keep up. - "At least for now, a year into Trump's second term, the country seems to have settled for the illusory safety of the fetal crouch."
Trump’s Letter to Norway Should Be the Last Straw: Will Republicans in Congress ever step in?
Something Is Wrong With Russia’s Children: As violence has come to surround Russian youth, many seem to have become more violent themselves. - "For years, children in Russia have watched their country massacre Ukrainians and condemn hundreds of thousands of its own citizens to injury and death at the front. As violence has come to surround Russian youth, many seem to have become more violent themselves. Last year, the number of juvenile crimes in the country surged by 18 percent. Authorities also reported an uptick in 'serious and especially serious' crime. 'There is no positive ideology for children in a country fighting a murderous war,' Ilya Barabanov, a Russian journalist, told me. Instead, the war has amplified worldviews that encourage brutality."
Europe Has a Bazooka. Time to Use It. - "This is exactly the kind of situation that the instrument was designed for. Europe, however, seems too timid to use it. Mr. Bessent has scoffed that Europe’s most forceful weapon is the 'dreaded European working group,' suggesting it will never get around to using the instrument. Europe seems in no hurry to prove him wrong."
At Davos, a European backlash to Trump: The surreal clamor over Greenland provoked by Trump has shadowed proceedings in Davos, heightening fears of an emerging rupture between the U.S. and Europe. - "A few years ago, Europeans in Davos would muse about “decoupling” from China. Now, von der Leyen spoke of 'de-risking' in an environment made volatile by the continent’s most important ally and partner. Trump’s Greenland gambit, analysts say, threatens the integrity of the NATO alliance and many of the underpinnings of the transatlantic relationship. E.U. leaders are expected to meet this week to mull consider a response, including invoking an 'anti-coercion' mechanism that could lead to sweeping reprisals against the U.S. and U.S. companies. Even European far-right leaders in countries like France and Germany — figures who have found plenty of common ground with Trump and the MAGA movement — have denounced the White House’s Greenland rhetoric."
Tuesday, January 13, 2026
Reading archive 2026-01-12
New NASA head appears to slow controversial Discovery shuttle move: Jared Isaacman, the new NASA administrator, signaled he was open to offering other spacecraft to Texas instead of the one housed at the Smithsonian. Opponents of the transfer welcomed his comments. - "The Smithsonian said in September that it had been approached by the Office of Management and Budget to work with NASA to prepare for the relocation of Discovery within 18 months. The Institution cautioned the transfer would require 'significant disassembly' of the shuttle that they feared 'will destroy its historical value.' Along with NASA, the institution estimated the move would cost from $120 million to $150 million. Sen. Cornyn’s office has called the estimate 'purposefully overblown' and accused the Smithsonian of going outside of its purview in raising concerns."
California is adding a supplement to tortillas. RFK Jr. calls it ‘insanity.’: California now requires corn masa flour to contain folic acid to reduce birth defects among Latinos. Some conservatives oppose it, citing government overreach. - "The new requirement is part of national effort to add folic acid, already required in other types of flour, to corn masa. Alabama’s version of the law takes effect in June, and lawmakers in Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma are considering similar legislation.
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"Since the start of those efforts, the rates of neural tube birth defects for White women and other groups dropped 40 percent, but remained high for Latinas, studies have found."
Exxon CEO calls Venezuela ‘uninvestable’ without ‘significant changes’: At Trump meeting with oil executives, he vows they will spend $100 billion. The companies worry the numbers don’t add up. - "'It would be like going to Brazil, taking them over for their cattle, and then flooding the American beef market with it,' he said. 'That’s the analogy we see in the oil and gas business.'"
Ukraine’s ex-commander in chief, envoy to Britain and maybe next president: Gen. Valery Zaluzhny’s distance from Kyiv, possibly an attempt to sideline his political ambitions, has left him at a safe remove from tensions back home. - "Ukrainian law prohibits presidential elections under martial law, and democracy experts have noted the seeming absurdity of Putin complaining that Zelensky has stayed in office beyond the normal length of a term because of a war that Russia started, while Putin rewrote Russia’s constitution to eliminate term limits and has long won elections widely derided as neither free nor fair."
Friday, January 9, 2026
Reading archive 2026-01-09
Police arrest 20-year-old following fatal 5-car collision in downtown D.C.: D.C. police said the driver had fled a traffic stop before the crash. - "Magistrate Judge Dorsey G. Jones denied the request, citing the fact that Matthews was already on probation for two 2024 cases involving gun and drug charges. He pleaded guilty twice to carrying a pistol without a license, court records show." [ed. note: sounds like police gave chase]
A president who treats Washington like his chew toy: Trump’s triumphal arch will be harder to undo than his gilding of the Oval Office. - "Trump has the terrible strength peculiar to people who are incapable of embarrassment, and cannot fathom that they look ridiculous."
First the Shooting. Then the Lies.: The Trump administration has perfected the smear campaign.
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