Jim Newell

The Biggest Difference Between the Trump Era and the Obama Era How did literally everything go up for debate?

It’s a true fact: I got a Business Job in the Business World, which I start next week. But on my last day, Slate let me do one last job: A post about [portentously] all that I’ve seen. slate.com/news-and-pol...

he is always of the largest leviathanic proportions

A baroque move that will no doubt enthuse his supporters.

Finally Alex gets an honest job

Stephen Miller Is About to Secure the Policy Achievement of His Lifetime. Democrats Are Strangely Silent. An A-list Democratic villain believes this to be the West's best legislative work in generations.

Congress is about to allocate tens of BILLIONS to expand ICE -- why aren't Senate Democrats talking about it? @jim-newell.bsky.social asked them: slate.com/news-and-pol...

Excerpts From the Memoir of a Marine Deployed to Los Angeles in 2025 A dispatch from the front (of the drive-thru) line.

What it was like in the shit in 2025 slate.com/news-and-pol...

free advice for game developers: try to make the next smash hit video game, such as grand theft auto. if you do, you'll be making more than just a video game – you'll be making millions of dollars

"The FoundingFathers knew this!"

"to rule otherwise would be unfaithful to the judgment and vision of the Founding Fathers!"

Two exclamation points!!

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

I 100 percent think that everyone should assume their chosen political thing is deeply unpopular and work to make it popular, rather than assume "everyone also wants this, it's just those evil somethings stopping it from happening"

The DOJ Says Trump Has Saved 258 Million Lives. I Asked Them What That’s Based On. “Are you ready for this, media?” No, actually!

Fun with numbers and math. slate.com/news-and-pol...

Vance's face here is pretty funny

That's right. Without Trump, two thirds of Americans (all cops) would be dead from fentanyl

It’s Becoming Clearer How Exactly Republicans Are Going to Make Cuts to Medicaid It’s put House Republican factions at loggerheads, but they can’t dance around the question any longer.

The Medicaid cuts are coming into view. slate.com/news-and-pol...

as the great @jim-newell.bsky.social notes: "This is not just a symbolic fight to wage, or one that only serves to satisfy liberals’ desire to feel morally righteous. The stakes are real." slate.com/news-and-pol...

CEOs upset about Trump’s tariffs sound like mob bosses shouting “I thought we had a deal!” at the Joker.

Every day we learn anew just how much classified ads were perhaps the load-bearing pillar of American hegemony

Lawmakers Could Stop Trump’s Tariffs. Here’s What’s Holding Them Back. Most Republicans in Congress are free-traders at their core. So why are they letting the president run wild?

Celebrating Liberation Day with a reminder that Congress is very powerful when it chooses to be! slate.com/news-and-pol...

Today:
- Monday Morning Politics, with @jim-newell.bsky.social,
- @elkue.bsky.social on composting in NYC,
- @strausbaugh.bsky.social on 100 Years of Greenwich Village,
- @deeshtho.bsky.social on NYC's upcoming baseball season

Live at 10 on 93.9 FM, AM820 or @wnyc.org

I Knew the Signal Chat Leak Reminded Me of Something. Now I Know What. The national security boys chat was lit last week.

There are deep and important national security, moral and legal issues at stake with the signal group leaks. And then there is the kind of analysis only @lukewinkie.bsky.social can provide. slate.com/life/2025/03...

What’s Happening With Tuberculosis Is a Terrible Tragedy. The Person Who Can Make Sense of It Isn’t Who You’d Expect. John Green’s latest book might seem like a departure—at first.

I spoke with @johngreensbluesky.bsky.social about his newest book "Everything Is Tuberculosis." It's an important and terrifyingly-relevant story about one of the deadliest diseases in human history—and the decisions we make to keep it alive.

slate.com/technology/2...

[hegseth] Just CONFIRMED w/CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch.

[friend who once got a text from hegseth where he accidentally called the grinch the grink] was the grink there?

i’m losing it

Nick Denton Has Had Enough of America The former media mogul discusses how he became “ashamed” of Gawker and why he’s selling his apartment and moving to Budapest.

Day trader has thoughts nymag.com/intelligence...

God dammit. Timing couldn’t be worse but here goes.

Chuck Schumer and I are launching our new podcast “Soul Deep: A Weekly Deep Dive Into the Music of Collective Soul” tomorrow. I do NOT support his latest decision and want to make clear this is strictly a music podcast. Please check it out

The Slate Union logo—the Slate S featuring upward fist and surrounded by pink and white stripes—is seen above a statement: We, the Slate Union, are united in our belief that management’s decision yesterday to lay off three editorial employees—along with three of our coworkers in other departments—was misguided, foolish, and cruel. The cuts are not these employees’ failures; they are the result of the failure of this company to follow its obligations to its workers. When you can’t find a way to make the most out of smart, talented journalists, that’s a failure of management—and Slate staffers are right to believe it’s incumbent upon management to find ways to solve that problem that don’t involve job losses. Otherwise, what are we investing in journalism for? What are we asking Slate Plus members to invest in us for? There are particular aspects of these layoffs that we in the union find particularly outrageous. Eliminating three editors with their hands on politics and business will put an unbearable strain on others in the department, at the precise moment when coverage of these two subjects is crucial to the magazine’s success. One of the laid-off editors had union-negotiated parental leave approaching—as did another union member who was laid off just months ago. Another one of the laid-off employees was about to go on a honeymoon, and yet another was about to meet the qualifications for their pension benefit. The affected worker will be paid out for their parental leave, but the timing of these departures appears to be designed to make other union members think twice before utilizing the leave they have the contractual right to take. Not to mention, that one of the laid-off editors was hired not even a year ago—after a protracted search—calls management’s strategy into question, to put it lightly.

Slate has had two consecutive years of profitability. The fact that management views employees as chits to be discarded at any hint of trouble, instead of valuable people whose work makes our shop successful and profitable, is an enormous mistake. We insist that, in the upcoming contract negotiations, Slate commits to policies that treat layoffs not as a hair-trigger response to adversity but as an absolute last resort, one that will not be undertaken without consulting with the union and the employees in question. Simply paying out extra severance to a laid-off employee should no longer be a substitute for warnings about the state of our business and, more importantly, real attempts to save our staffers’ jobs. Anything short of this will demonstrate that Slate values the jobs of its executives more than its rank-and-file workers, and that good journalism by good journalists is no longer the north star of the magazine.

On Monday morning, Slate was suddenly informed that six of its employees—including three editors, two of whom were members of the union—were being laid off, just months after four other staffers were also let go. The Slate Union's official statement reads as follows:

"Vote for the bill so that the president can refuse to spend the money you just voted for" is whole other level of saying the quiet part out loud.

ABC News has now fully taken down the old 538 website, including all interactive projects since 2014. Aside from erasing history this prevents access to publicly released data, including raw polls, averages, model estimates & story dta. Totally unacceptable for a company (allegedly) doing journalism

If you’re a federal employee—current or recently laid off—Slate Plus is free for six months. Thousands of federal employees are facing job cuts—or working under growing uncertainty. Slate is offering them six months of Slate Plus for free.

At @slate.bsky.social, we believe access is important. In order to make sure that federal workers–including those who have recently left government, voluntarily or involuntarily–maintain access to critical reporting, we’re offering free Slate Plus for the next 6 months: slate.com/fed-plus

Why Trump Needs Congress Congress has to pass a budget before March 14 to avert a—you guessed it—government shutdown.

It's not like Trump is going in front of Congress hat-in-hand tonight. But as @jim-newell.bsky.social explains -- he still needs these guys. The path for continuing austerity measures (and/or fat tax cuts!) runs thru them: slate.com/podcasts/wha...