Reading archive 2026-07-02

A designer tried to reclaim the American flag. Her liberal followers revolted.: The inclusive label Selkie created a line inspired by the Stars and Stripes, but the rollout did not go as planned.

Popular D.C. nightclub to pay $243,000 in worker rights settlement: The Park at 14th denied paid leave and retaliated against employees, according to an investigation by the D.C. attorney general’s office.

Perry: How should the U.S. remember its would-be autocrat once he leaves the White House?: Medieval Venice offers one answer for what to do with Trump’s image and name that he’s plastered everywhere.

Vatican excommunicates bishops of breakaway traditionalist sect: The sect, the Society of St. Pius X, defied a direct plea from Pope Leo XIV and sought to consecrate four bishops without the Vatican's approval.

Young Republican Activists Are Turning Against Trump: Conservative groups at colleges across the country want a far more radical GOP. - "Unlike mass deportations, blood-and-soil nationalism has never been a plank of Trump's America First platform. But for years, the president has embraced and indulged ethnonationalists-with his equivocating response to the 2017 white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, his pardons of Proud Boys, a refugee policy that almost exclusively benefits white Afrikaners, and a White House social-media account that routinely invokes white-supremacist language. These forays into white-nationalist rhetoric and policy have aroused hopes among the far right for a more sweeping political transformation than Trump seems prepared to deliver. Now some young conservatives are searching for more extreme alternatives."

Something Is Happening in the Democratic Base: Voters are over moderates and incumbents. - "Rutinel, who is 31, is not nearly as far left as Kiros or Darializa Avila Chevalier, the candidate who toppled Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, last week in New York City. (Rutinel touted an endorsement from Espaillat in his race.) Rutinel reportedly shifted his stance on a number of issues during the primary, moving away from progressive positions opposing fracking and supporting single-payer health care and student-debt cancellation. But some Democrats worry that those earlier views, as well as Rutinel's harsh critique of cattle farming - a big industry in the district - will make him a weaker choice than Bird in a general election."

There’s Nothing Democratic About These Socialists: The DSA was formed in opposition to the very thing it has become. - "The DSA, in fact, seems to despise the Democratic Party. Darializa Avila Chevalier has called Joe Biden a 'rapist' and wrote 'Fuck Kamala Harris' on social media. She proceeded to be nominated for a House race in New York last week by Democratic voters who presumably do not all share those feelings. The DSA now includes a growing caucus of supporters in Congress, has mayoral candidates well positioned to win in several big cities, and has plans to throw its weight behind a yet-to-be-determined presidential candidate in 2028. 

"The DSA's feelings about Democrats encompass not only the party's leadership but also the philosophical commitments that have guided it since the New Deal: a mixed economy undergirded by democratic values. Chevalier, for instance, joined a post-October 7 celebratory rally and portrayed Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a defensive response to Western 'bullying.' She previously called for seizing land and the means of production and has repeatedly praised communism.

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"Under Republican presidencies, the DSA thrives on frustrated Democratic voters feeling that their party's leaders aren't fighting hard enough. During Democratic presidencies, which the DSA mostly spends denouncing the occupant of the Oval Office as a sellout, Democratic loyalists have less patience for factional complaints. Perversely, if the DSA's slew of police-abolitionist, Hamas-apologizing candidates were to cost Democrats Congress in 2026 or the presidency in 2028, the group's goal of discrediting and replacing the Democratic Party's leadership would get easier, not harder. One can easily imagine a feedback loop in which DSA influence makes it harder for Democrats to win back moderate and Republican-leaning voters, causing the party to lose, causing its base to grow more distrustful of the party's leaders, thus making them more likely to nominate DSA candidates."

Putin Is Slipping Into Delusion: The Russian dictator remains obsessed with his war in Ukraine but doesn’t seem to comprehend how badly it’s going.

Reading archive 2025-08-28

Trump officials discussing ownership stakes in defense firms, Lutnick says: The commerce secretary said there is a “monstrous discussion” among administration officials about making deals similar to what the president announced with Intel this week.

D.C. mayor praises federal surge, angering residents and pleasing Trump: “We know that we have had fewer gun crimes, fewer homicides and we have experienced an extreme reduction in carjackings,” D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser said Wednesday.

States are tracking ‘impostor nurses,’ a growing problem since the pandemic: Aliases in different states. A contract under a classmate’s name. Experts say a challenging form of health-care fraud is endangering patients.

Trump floats an unusual Republican National Convention before the midterms: Democrats are also considering holding such a gathering before the November 2026 elections.

‘De minimis’ loophole is ending; here’s what it means for online orders Consumers may see higher costs and potential delays as the Trump administration halts an exemption that allowed goods below $800 to enter the country duty-free.

At the world’s biggest bug farm, 10 billion maggots recycle food waste: An industry based on insects’ natural recycling abilities could help limit the environmental damage from our food system.

No, the White House Is Not Getting a 90,000-Foot Extension: But Trump’s doomed proposal does give us a revealing glimpse into his state of mind.

Scientists hail major breakthrough in developing holy grail of renewable energy: artificial photosynthesis: New discovery addresses one of biggest obstacles to artificial photosynthesis – a technology long seen as a potential source of carbon-neutral fuels

Trump’s federal stake in Intel prompts GOP complaints

Reading archive 2025-08-19

Now it is the Old World’s turn to rescue the United States: As Trump met with European leaders on Ukraine, Churchill’s words from days long ago came to mind.

Maine police officer arrested by ICE agrees to voluntarily leave the country: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says a Maine police officer arrested by immigration authorities has agreed to voluntarily leave the country

Sherrod Brown raises $3.6 million in 24 hours for Senate campaign: The total includes $3 million raised by Brown’s campaign, and about $600,000 raised by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party.

People Are Trying to ‘Deprogram’ Their MAGA Parents Through Book Clubs: Divisive politics have led people to go “no contact” with their right-wing parents. Some hope reading together could help bridge the gap.

The Only Plausible Path to End the War in Ukraine: Has the Trump administration misread Moscow? - "Ultimately, the diplomatic problem the Trump administration faces is how to persuade Russia to accept an independent and sovereign Ukraine. All the signs from Moscow are that it has not backed off from a maximalist position. The only plausible way to end the war is to create a battlefield reality that convinces Putin that he cannot make more gains, that he will pay a massive price for continuing the war, and that this reality is unlikely to change. That means that the United States and its allies need to, paradoxically, get serious about arming Ukraine for a protracted conflict and putting pressure on Russia. That is the only way to create the conditions for successful negotiations to end the war."

The Mainstreaming of Zohran Mamdani: Which flavor of socialism would the mayoral candidate bring to New York City? - "DSA's national political platform, rewritten when Mamdani was an assemblyman, is a gumbo of left-wing positions, many of which sit miles from the political mainstream. The organization would free all inmates from prisons and jails and decriminalize the drug trade, prostitution, and squatting in unoccupied homes. DSA endorses cutting police budgets 'annually towards zero,' disarming cops, and decertifying their unions."

A Nation of Lawyers Confronts China’s Engineering State: As the Chinese economy surges forward, the U.S. has lost its capacity for physical improvement. - "How did America lose so much productive capacity to China and end up in such a vulnerable position? Think about it this way: China is an engineering state, which treats construction projects and technological primacy as the solution to all of its problems, whereas the United States is a lawyerly society, obsessed with protecting wealth by making rules rather than producing material goods. Successive American administrations have attempted to counter Beijing through legalism levying tariffs and designing an ever more exquisite sanctions regime while the engineering state has created the future by physically building better cars, better-functioning cities, and bigger power plants.

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"The engineering state is effective at making military goods too. China produces about 80 percent of the world's consumer drones, which can easily be adapted for the battlefield. China has approximately 200 times the shipbuilding capacity of the United States; according to the Government Accountability Office, many classes of U.S. Navy ships are delayed by up to three years. Last December, then National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said bluntly that the United States will experience 'exhaustion of munition stockpiles very rapidly' if it were ever to face the Chinese military. America has lost the productive capacity to sustain a major war. American manufacturing output has never recovered to its highs from 2008; the manufacturing workforce has shrunk by a million people since then."

Reading archive 2025-07-24

D.C. Council chair sets vote on RFK site after reaching deal with Commanders: RFK Stadium redevelopment deal nears vote after D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson reaches updated agreement with Washington Commanders.

D.C. police chief halted firings of officers in fatal chase, report says: Terence Sutton and Andrew Zabavksy, convicted in the death of Karon Hylton-Brown but pardoned by the president, collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in back pay.

Amy Sherald cancels major Smithsonian show over ‘censorship’: Painter Amy Sherald withdrew her exhibition “American Sublime” at the National Portrait Gallery. The Smithsonian denied trying to replace the painting in question. - "According to the Times, Sherald said she had been told that the museum — whose director, Kim Sajet, resigned after President Trump called for her ouster for being 'a highly partisan person' — might remove a painting that depicts a transgender Statue of Liberty from the exhibition 'American Sublime,' which was slated to open in September after touring at museums in San Francisco and New York. Sherald reportedly said Smithsonian head Lonnie G. Bunch III proposed replacing the painting with a video. 

"But the Smithsonian spokesperson said that Bunch wanted the video to accompany the painting — not replace it. The spokesperson added that the museum offered to spend more time contextualizing her piece, but Sherald chose to remove herself from the show."

Is a Mamdani repeat coming to the Midwest? A democratic socialist is getting a boost in Minnesota.: The Minneapolis Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party has endorsed state Sen. Omar Fateh over the city’s incumbent mayor.

USDA will relocate most of its DC-based workforce: The agency will relocate about 2,600 employees to five other locations and shutter several key facilities in the capital region, including its main research center - "In the months following the 2019 relocation announcement, department data showed that two-thirds of USDA employees decided to leave their jobs rather than move, The Post reported at the time. A 2022 Government Accountability Office report found that USDA’s decision at the time 'omitted critical costs and economic effects from its analysis of taxpayer savings, such as costs related to potential attrition or disruption of activities for a period of time, which may have contributed to an unreliable estimate of savings from relocation.'"

Reading archive 2020-03-03

Bernie Sanders would be an awful president

Bernie Sanders’s Scandinavian fantasy

Bernie Sanders called AIPAC a platform for ‘bigotry.’ The group is proving his point.

Trump’s new attack on Biden exposes his own unfitness

Moderate Democrats are doing what Republicans refused to do in 2016: Getting out of the way

‘He and I have flirted unabashedly for 20 years’: Kathleen Parker’s defense of Chris Matthews sparks #MeToo debate

Sanders Says He’ll Attract a Wave of New Voters. It Hasn’t Happened.: Bernie Sanders has so far prevailed by expanding his appeal among traditional Democratic voters, not by driving record turnout.

The real reason Chris Matthews had to go

Despite his promised turnout surge, Sanders is getting fewer votes than he did in 2016

Reading archive 2019-11-22

Barack Obama, conservative: The left and the right still misunderstand his politics.

The High-Paid DC Millennials Who Are Using Side Hustles to “Ball Out”: "I made $400 off a dog that was next to my house."

When a deep red town’s only grocery closed, city hall opened its own store. Just don’t call it ‘socialism.’