Adam Sheingate

Bookmarking this for when I teach intro American again. I start with ideas and end with institutions so the focus here on Huntington's IvI gap is very useful. Also, I agree much can be learned from the Progressive Era about how political reforms make it on the agenda for politicians and parties.

Wow, I was eleven years old the last time the US won a gold medal in hockey. Amazing game.

Very little has changed since I wrote this piece 10 years ago.

www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/o...

Superb Owl by artist Marlene McCauley
#SuperbOwl

The Breaking Bad graph

This “5 classes question” guides my approach to teaching. I tell my students when they are old like me they might remember five classes they took as undergrads. My goal as a teacher is to be one of them.

This “5 classes question” guides my approach to teaching. I tell my students when they are old like me they might remember five classes they took as undergrads. My goal as a teacher is to be one of them.

Booth Fowler taught American political thought. Every lecture was like a sermon. He marched the class of 60 to the site of the math building bombing at UW and pronounced “this is where the New Left died”

Ed Friedman taught Revolutions. He played La Marseillaise the first day of class. We spent the next five weeks reading Skocpol’s States and Social Revolutions.

Nevermind the jobs you had, tell me 5 classes you took at university:

Politics of Revolutions
American Political Thought
Ancient Philosophy
Free Will
Tai Chi

In a new Op-Ed in @thehill.com , CLF’s Daphene Altema-Johnson, @andrewtl.bsky.social & @ptand.bsky.social discuss how the 2025 Dietary Guidelines promote more meat & dairy—but what Americans really need is more fiber, which comes from foods like legumes. thehill.com/opinion/heal...

Imagine a handful of close races in GOP states that refuse to
certify results. Those seats are vacant at the start of the new Congress, reducing the number required for a majority and allowing the GOP to elect a Speaker and seat the GOP candidates in the contested seats.

I think the answer is in how Congress handled disputed elections in the past, esp. the 1870s and 1880s. Art 1, Sec 5: "Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns, and Qualifications of its own Members." What stops the GOP House refusing to seat Dem members, esp. in close races?

Why SNAP Works by Christopher Bosso - Hardcover Scholarship is a powerful tool for changing how people think, plan, and govern. By giving voice to bright minds and bold ideas, we seek to foster understanding and drive progressive change.

www.ucpress.edu/books/why-sn...

Lucky Strike in SoHo, circa 1995, I got an upward head nod from Willem Defoe.

This recent piece by @ayakohiramatsu.bsky.social utilizes the Doar papers to understand how DOJ enforced the VRA.

A colleague described a job applicant as “a cubic zirconia in the rough.”

The Americans is a fantastic show. Yes, it’s about spies and the Cold War, but for me the takeaway is that you can never fully understand your parents’ inner lives.

THE 2026 CHARLES H. LEVINE MEMORIAL BOOK PRIZE

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

(See thread below and attachment for nomination instructions):

Upcoming deadlines to apply to Syracuse U's great Qualitative and Multi-Method Research 2-week summer program! Fellowships available to cover the costs! Pls circulate widely!

www.maxwell.syr.edu/research/cen...

One challenge we face as political scientists is that the emerging disciplinary consensus is at odds with the regime's view of an unconstrained executive. It will become increasingly difficult to push against demands in higher ed for "viewpoint diversity" while staying true to our vocation.

Early iterations of the Schedule F made the case that language in statute allowed the removal of civil service protections to senior officials.
Revised version leans into unitary executive theory: the civil service statute is unconstitutional. They are betting SCOTUS will go along.

Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards (1977)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTzS...

There's this one too with some useful visualizations. Also includes US parties. www.globalpartysurvey.org/initial-find...

Figure showing eight senate dems who voted to end the shutdown on a left right scale using first dimension nominate scores.

Here's the Eight Democratic Senators who voted to end the shutdown arrayed from left to right using their first dimension nominate scores. No real surprise. As many noted, Coons and Warner (both to the right of Kaine) are up for reelection in '26.

Dems who voted with GOP on ending shutdown:
DURBIN
SHAHEEN
HASSAN
FETTERMAN
ROSEN
CORTEZ MASTO
KAINE

And KING (I)

On track for 60-40 vote

Why America’s Government Shutdowns Exist and How to End Them One Legal Memo Created The Shutdown Era. Another Can End It.

Did you know gov shutdowns aren’t in the Constitution, any law, or Court ruling?
They exist because of a 1980 OLC memo—a lawyer’s opinion that everyone just went along with. Before 1980, funding gaps didn’t cause shutdowns.

What one memo created, another can undo. How the next D admin can undo it:

The myth of the carnivore caveman You are not going to like where our ancestors got their protein.

Myths about our ancestors' meaty diets animate modern politics and culture wars about food and identity. But the history of human diets tells a different story about food's past and lets us be more rational about its future.

@gnrosenberg.bsky.social & I for @vox.com

www.vox.com/future-perfe...

Reading Umberto Eco’s “How to write a thesis” in my undergraduate honors seminar. Eco is a big believer in using index cards to catalog research, which prompted me to dig out my PhD notes from 30 years ago. Passed them around with my students like a sacred artifact from an analog past.

Map showing counties by percentage of SNAP households or farms receiving government payments.

For a long time, Congress linked farm subsidies and food stamps when it passed a multi-year farm bill. That coalition is now effectively dead, but it is still worth noting which counties depend on farm subsidies, SNAP, or both.