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Status-Income Disequilibrium

Commentary by , March 17, 2019

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. Status-Income Disequilibrium You’ve probably heard by now about the college admissions scandal, in which wealthy and famous people were arrested for bribing college officials to get their kids into elite schools…. The details that are coming out are pretty amazing. There are the Hollywood actresses who laundered […]

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America’s Only Established Religion

Commentary by , March 6, 2019

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. The Theater of the Deal Some of us never quite believed Donald Trump’s “Art of the Deal” self-image as the ultimate deal-maker. It was an image crafted for the tabloids and for television, and Trump imported it straight into politics, promising he would employ his astounding powers […]

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Upstairs, Downstairs

Commentary by , February 23, 2019

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. Undemocratic Socialism There is a lot going on with Venezuela right now, and I’ll get to that in a moment. But first, a piece I sent out to subscribers of this newsletter on February 4 under the title, “The Lessons of Venezuela,” has just been published in […]

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“I Didn’t Need to Do This”

Commentary by , February 19, 2019

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. The National Emergency Emergency I declare a national emergency of presidents declaring national emergencies. Before President Trump declared ordinary conditions on the border to be a “national emergency,” there were already 28 active “national emergencies” giving the president special powers, and most have been in effect for […]

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That Noise the Kids Are Listening to These Days

Commentary by , January 30, 2019

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. But He Fights I’ve been editing videos and working on other writing projects for much of the last week, so I wanted to do a roundup of news that happened while I was doing all of that–and a lot of interesting things happened. The first item is […]

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A Little More Enlightenment

Commentary by , January 17, 2019

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. A Little More Enlightenment I recently re-posted my series of articles from last year on the legacy of the Enlightenment, including my review of Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now. One year after the publication of that book, Steven Pinker looks back, in an article in Quillette, and responds […]

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The War on the Brains of the Right

Commentary by , December 15, 2018

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. The War on the Brains of the Right At the very beginning of the Trump phenomenon, I warned about a war on the brains of the right. Along with many friends and colleagues, I have found it grimly amusing to find myself dismissed as an “establishment” “elitist” […]

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Salon of the Refused, Episode 5

Commentary by , December 12, 2018

Episode 5 of my video and podcast series, Salon of the Refused, is now available. I talk with Tom Nichols, professor at the Naval War College and Harvard Extension School, about the “death of expertise.” The conversation includes: what happens when experts get it wrong, how both left and right have contributed to contempt for expertise, and […]

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The Psycho-Epistemology of Pathological Altruism

Commentary by , December 11, 2018

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. The Psycho-Epistemology of Pathological Altruism By now, we all know what to expect on college campuses, right? Here’s the latest: an Indian-American comedian and former Saturday Night Live writer was shooed off the stage at Columbia University—they literally cut off his microphone—for telling jokes that were offensive […]

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Fast Times at Ben Trovato High

Commentary by , December 4, 2018

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. Let No More Be Heard of Confidence in Man I speculated a while back that the legal problems of Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, might come back to haunt the president–and lead to “The Clinton Impeachment Rerun We Didn’t Want But Probably Deserve.” It looks […]

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