The First Extremely Online President

Feature Article by , February 20, 2020

William Barr’s kayfabe denunciation of Trump’s tweets is the latest installment in a genre: the Trump supporter who says, “I wish he’d quit tweeting.” They don’t object to what Trump does, they just wish he wouldn’t shoot his mouth off about it on Twitter all the time. But Trump and his spokesmen take a very […]

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In What Style Should We Build?

Feature Article by , February 18, 2020

Everyone in the political world has suddenly decided that they have very strong opinions about architecture now that the Trump administration is floating an executive order to mandate “classical” architecture in federal buildings. The draft executive order, reported last week by Architectural Record, “would require rewriting the Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture, issued in 1962, […]

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How To Be Irrelevant

Commentary by , February 16, 2020

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. Donald Trump Learns His Lesson Explaining her vote not to remove President Trump in the impeachment trial, Senator Susan Collins of Maine expressed her hope that “the president has learned from this case.” The message she thought he would take from it is that “he will be […]

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The Man Who Was There

Commentary by , February 9, 2020

Impeachment Roundup 1. The Man Who Was There The impeachment trial is over, and the Senate voted against Donald Trump’s removal from office. I don’t like to say that he was “acquitted,” because this was not a criminal trial, and because all the facts presented confirmed that he actually did what he was accused of. […]

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It Depends On Where You Stop the Story

Feature Article by , February 5, 2020

An Atheist Reads the Bible, Part 6 At the end of the Pentateuch—the first five books of the Bible—we saw two big developments: the creation of a religious dictatorship under the rule of Moses, and the development of the idea of a covenant in which God promises the Hebrews victory over their enemies in exchange […]

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#NeverSMOD

Feature Article by , February 3, 2020

The Iowa caucuses, the first electoral contest of the 2020 presidential election cycle, happen today, so it’s a good time to look at how the contest is shaping up, what we can expect from it—and what, if anything, to hope for. I take as my starting point that none of the major candidates—from either party—will […]

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The Blue Dots of Outrage

Feature Article by , January 29, 2020

As I pointed out recently, we have just lived through the best decade ever. So why don’t we believe it? First, for those who don’t believe it, let me briefly recap the evidence. Matt Ridley recently proclaimed the 2010s to be the “best decade in human history.” We are living through the greatest improvement in […]

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The Contest of Ideas

Commentary by , January 26, 2020

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. “He Is Our O.J.” Like most people, I haven’t been following very closely the Senate impeachment trial. Why? Because we all know the fix is in. The trial is not revealing any new information, so instead it is just an opportunity for Republicans to present their rationalizations […]

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The New York Times Can’t Decide Whether to Endorse America

Feature Article by , January 22, 2020

I don’t think a lot of us were expecting the New York Times to take its much-hyped endorsement in the Democratic primary and use it to recommend Amy Klobuchar for vice-president. Strangely, that’s exactly what they did. Yes, I know. Supposedly they offered a split endorsement for president, giving a nod both to Klobuchar and […]

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“My Soul Was Manufactured in the United States”

Commentary by , January 18, 2020

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. Naked Foreign Policy So we didn’t have World War III, after all. I was skeptical that the US airstrike on Iranian terror master Qassem Suleimani would lead to a massive escalation, and now it looks like not much will follow–for better or for worse. Not much for […]

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