Favorites: Economic Whiplash, Political Backlash, and Tactical Missteps
Markets slump, Trump eyes Toronto, and Ukraine sees fewer offensive tools
What a just absolutely ridiculous assertion!
Stock market still isn't doing great! Trump administration is blaming anyone they can think of. Also, if you haven't seen that Seinfeld clip before, here's the segment. I must admit I've never actually seen a whole episode.
In the past Trump seemed to look to markets to validate his policy choices. But this time he’s not course correcting.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick makes clear (cached) that the Secretary of State has no authority to revoke green cards. Jordan Weissmann explicitly doesn't agree with Khalil's political views but labeled this move (cached) a dangerous direct attack on freedom of speech. Jesse Singal also reached out to immigration attorneys (cached) to confirm that the Trump administration's moves have been essentially lawless.
Flotsam and Jetsam
– One chart that serves as a simple explanation that Bernie lost the primary in 2020 fair and square. (src)(cached)
– If you voted for Obama in 2008 despite his opposition to same sex marriage, you should be able to understand taking positions at odds with your beliefs in order to win elections and make things better on the margin. (src)(cached)
– Does moderation help democrats win elections? Yes, if you measure moderation via caucus groups. If you measure via DW Nominate scores it’s less clear. Why is that? (src)(cached)
– Trump's Crypto Reserve Executive Order was so dumb that Bitcoin prices dropped (src)(cached)
– Federal reserve estimates of the effect of a trade war are like 11 quarters of extra inflation. (src)(cached)
– You'd think DOGE has access to state-of-the-art LLMs to illegally halt spending to government programs, but no, there's a lot of evidence they're using ctrl-f to find words they don't like. (src)(cached)
– Whether it's the right move to shut down FiveThirtyEight or not, ABC definitely didn't do it the right way. Here's detailed discussion of it from Gruber of all people. (src)
– Waymo's Zeekr model taxis have been seen in public without camoflauge in the bay area. (src)
– I had not known that we’re the only country to have ever invoked article 5 of NATO, and when we did we got help. Discussing leaving NATO because it's a bad deal is even more unhinged! (src)(cached)
– Rubio seems to really not like his position in the State Department. Will he be the first out of the administration? Read this exchange (cached) from a recent meeting. Definitely read it to the end. (src)(cached)
– It's reported that Trump is angry that Russia isn't interested in a ceasefire he has attempted to negotiate and continues to attack Ukraine. But is he, really? (src)(cached)
– Many people still say that Harris ran the exact campaign moderates wanted. Not only is that not true, but there's also an important point to make: An ideal moderate campaign wouldn’t have run Harris. (src)(cached)
– Trump wants to move the Canadian border to take Toronto. Kind of a major city? (src)(cached)
– I just can’t get over how short sighted setting off nuclear proliferation will be. (src)(cached)
– “Reagan was better than Trump” is a very reasonable thing for a Democrat to say, and it’s a good position strategically as well. (src)(cached)
– Check out a time lapse of planes avoiding SpaceX debris. Second launch in a row, they don’t usually have the same failure twice. For that matter, if Musk didn't have so much power right now, this second identical looking failure would probably have caused the FAA to ground them for months (cached). (src)(cached)
– Noah Smith quips about Trump: From "I'm going to make eggs cheaper" to "Shut up about egg prices" in six goddamn weeks (src)(cached)
– Sorta obvious/straightforward, but well lit streets are safer. Linked paper. (src)(cached)
– Trump admin says that they're only limiting Ukraine's access to offensive capabilities, but it's their offensive capabilities that have kept Russian artillary out of range of Ukrainian civilian homes. (src)(cached)