Correction. Orwell never said this. He did however, warn that: "political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” (That's Politics and the English Language, one of my favorite essays)
New YouGov poll finds that for the first time, a majority of Americans disapprove of Trump *strongly.* His overall approval is down to 38%, a new second-term low.
When is the last time a majority has disapproved strongly of a president?
Dear ANES community, the link below introduces our new Board of Advisors, led by Jamie Druckman. Jamie follows John Aldrich, who deftly chaired the Board for nearly 2 decades. This new group will guide us through the 2028 election cycle. Our deepest thanks to outgoing and incoming Board members!
Being governed by thoughtless, immature people who care only about generating or responding to headlines is exhausting.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/03/u...
Looking at the 2024 crime figures, it's absolutely insane how Trump, tech billionaires, and centrist pundits fooled everyone into thinking Biden had turned the U.S. into some Hobbesian hellscape.
50-year lows for violent crime, armed robbery, property crime. Second-lowest homicide rate.
For those looking for additional data points about what's happening with immigration enforcement in Minnesota and other states, our habeas case tracker has just been updated. TLDR new cases have dropped: projects.propublica.org/habeas-track...
🚩 I am serving on this year's APSA Migration & Citizenship section Career Achievement award selection committee & encourage you to nominate a scholar of migration/citizenship whose career you believe has made outstanding contributions to this field. Deadline extended by a few days. 🚩
god fucking dammit
Eisenhower
Gemini: 'I deeply regret the time and effort you spent searching for references that I fabricated. My ‘methodology’ was a series of errors and an attempt to cover those errors with more artificial information.'
www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/news/gemini-...
So, so instructive to compare media response to Afghanistan withdrawal -- months of hysterical garment-rending & catastrophizing, relentless criticism of the admin -- with the response to an unprovoked, unmotivated, illegal war of aggression, ie, "some critics say maybe Trump should have reasons."
Explore the Faces of Ancient Roman Egypt in Getty's New Volume on Mummy Portraits | Getty News
www.getty.edu/news/explore...
Grateful to @newrepublic.com who asked for my immediate thoughts in Trump’s attack on Iran.
In short, the demand for nuclear weapons is about to go way up. If you do not have nuclear weapons, you are vulnerable.
newrepublic.com/article/2071...
We seem to have collectively decided, gradually and mostly out of apathy, that presidents can launch flagrantly unconstitutional wars of choice without congressional approval and there just won’t be any consequences. Would be nice if this is where we start reversing the trend.
CNN is saying the Iranian attack happened after Trump “lost patience with negotiations”.
I don’t believe it. The negotiations were cover. This was always the plan. The scale of the military buildup showed that.
musgrave.substack.com/p/an-unpopul...
An sobering take on where we are with Iran
These are maximalist aims. A country is at its most dangerous backed into a corner facing an existential threat, which Trump appears to have unleashed. What is the off-ramp from the escalation ladder here? 2/ www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/w...
Netanyahu Calls Iran Strikes Necessary To Prevent War He Just Started
Netanyahu Calls Iran Strikes Necessary To Prevent War He Just Started
After the arrests of powerful men across the world, you might be asking why the US has so much trouble holding its leaders accountable for lawbreaking. Since Nixon, all three branches of government have worked hard to ensure they can break the law with impunity www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
Making my way through the amicus briefs filed in support of respondents in Trump v. Barbara and more than 10 of them address the risk of statelessness in a fairly significant way. Many others at least mention it in passing. A thread on the most significant arguments re: statelessness 1/
Strongly recommend this excellent piece. It actually understates the US failure: Brazil and S. Korea aren’t outliers. Quite the opposite. Since 2010, 31 democracies have convicted or banned leaders from office. Accountability is the democratic norm. America is the sole outlier.
The richest man owns X.
The second and third richest men control Google.
The fourth richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
The fifth richest man owns The Washington Post.
And now the sixth richest could soon take over both Paramount and Warner Bros.
See the problem here?
Trump successfully used the government to get control of CNN and HBO, in violation of the First Amendment. Trumpists will do to news there what they already did at the Washington Post and CBS. apple.news/AFF4QBC69RCu...
This is bigotry, pure and simple.
open.substack.com/pub/erininth...
i'm so tired, but it's not from winning
Well, the DOJ has done it: they have filed a lawsuit against the University of California over antisemitism.
The complaint contains some falsehoods. But as someone who teaches and writes about Title VII, I'm equally struck by what the complaint doesn't say.
A few thoughts— 🧵
'In the UT system nearly 46% of the population is Latino. And where Latino students are the majority in public schools, calling the histories, literatures, and political realities of these communities “controversial” is not about neutrality. It is about deciding whose knowledge is expendable.'
It’s telling 1) the discrepancy between what Dems say behind closed doors vs. what they say in public 2) this came out because one of the groups spoken to behind closed doors leaked it only after asking the DNC to say it publicly and being rebuffed 3) this group will probably be punished for it
