Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
Today (June 19) is Juneteenth. It is still relatively new as a federal holiday, and is unfamiliar in a lot of the country. But it is an old holiday. As I explained in 2021, it has been popularly celebrated in some parts of the country since Reconstruction, and while I generally dislike the expansion of … Read more
There’s a shortage of eggs in America right now, and the ones you can get are very expensive. Even Waffle House is adding a surcharge if you order eggs. That’s mostly not about markets, or about government; there’s a shortage of eggs mainly because of a disease killing birds. That being said, we have ample … Read more
The widely praised writer signs his name to propaganda for the massacre of innocents. On Saturday, the New York Review of Books published “An Open Letter from Participants in the Palestine Festival of Literature.” First on the list of 82 signatories is Ta-Nehisi Coates. Presumably this was meant to highlight the involvement of such a … Read more
It often feels pointless even to argue with defenses of Donald Trump at this point, given the generally poor quality of the pro-Trump commentariat, most of which boils down to “Trump has a following so we should cater to it.” The rest is typically just reasoning backwards, rather than attempting to follow some line of … Read more
The most prominent sign that we are not yet in a post-Trump party is Trump’s continuing impact on the sorts of people who run for office as Republicans. This year’s Senate races have been conspicuous for how few Republican governors and House members tried for the job. Trump’s habit of betraying and humiliating everyone who … Read more
Republican primary voters are no longer so caught up in the Trump Show that other factors don’t matter in competitive races. Incumbency still matters: aside from the inept and self-sabotaging Cawthorn, every major race with an incumbent was won by the incumbent regardless of what Trump did. Money matters: Greene had a huge financial edge … Read more