David Hajdu

If any other president said something like this in a speech to a military academy, it would be a massive scandal. Instead, it isn’t among the ten most dangerous things he’s done this week.

Thanks!

Trump Fires Members of Humanities Council

Every member of the National Council on the Humanities except Trump’s four appointees fired today. So much we would have done never to be now.

Trump Is Accusing Foes With Multiple Mortgages of Fraud. Records Show 3 of His Cabinet Members Have Them. The White House has targeted opponents, including a Fed governor, for having more than one primary residence on their loan papers. ProPublica found that, in one case, a Trump cabinet secretary got two...

Strong reporting here from ProPublica, which found that three Trump Cabinet members -- at Labor, Transportation and EPA -- call multiple homes their primary residence on mortgages.

That's the same move that led Trump to fire Lisa Cook from her job at the Fed. bit.ly/466yMyI

Update:

* He’s been charged with a felony
* Initial spreadsheet of recent arrests lists officer’s badge as 12345
* @cmlewisgeorgew4.bsky.social will be requesting body cam footage

When the president is a TV huckster, all the world - even the streets of the nation's capital - is a set. Trump's D.C. police takeover is more about creating content and egging on conflict than about public safety. www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-want...

www.washingtonpost.com/people/ron-c...
Local news outlets cancelled local book reviews because AP reviews provided the same service. Now the AP cancels book reviews. Metrics, they say, meaning reviews challenge readers. In other words, they were doing their job. Challenging is an essential service!

A dictator and an aspiring dictator meet to decide the fate of a democracy.

Time to fight not for the freedom of the press but for the existence of the press!

Like she said! Expertise and indivual both serve essential functions; they’re not mutually exclusive. We need to fight to preserve serious criticism. It fights for values under-appreciated and under siege.

An unspeakable horror!!

This brainwormed monster thinks that if physically compromised people die from infections in big enough numbers, the "herd" will be stronger. And Republican Senators decided it was fine to give him this country as a lab to experiment on. Hell is too good for them, but I'll accept it as a compromise.

I have spent multiple weeks working on this story. We are not dropping it. I hope you will give this a read.

JUST IN: A federal judge has blocked the cancelation of $175 million in National Endowment for the Humanities grants, mass terminated by DOGE in April. She says the effort was transparent viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment.

Very good on the perils of fetishizing "darkness", a point I often stress too (re Neutral Milk Hotel, David Berman, etc etc) -but off-base that "Needle in the Hay" in Royal Tenenbaums made Elliott famous: The "Miss Misery"/Good Will Hunting Oscar nom and performance was several years before that.

Peoria sushi shop owner faces deportation after 21 years of living in the US Kelly Yu, who does not have legal status in the U.S., is in ICE custody in Arizona, leaving her business, customers and family behind.

"Her businesses, known for donating meals to homeless shelters, supporting local police, providing funding for high school baseball teams...

“She gives back to the community, creates jobs for young people, pays taxes. Why would you want to remove someone like that?”

www.12news.com/article/news...

Becca Rothfeld is a titan — fierce but never cruel. James never confronted a writer like her.

Review | Revel in the brilliant cruelty of Henry James’s criticism “On Writers and Writing” gathers 21 pieces by the great author, including a confident critique of Dickens when James was just 22

“What can a style this capacious fail to encompass? It is an ethics, a politics, a complete way of looking at the world.”

Becca Rothfeld on Henry James's criticism:

wapo.st/46X4pwC

Perfectly said. Thank you!

It's a drop in the bucket compared with the Colbert firing, or the public broadcasting debacle. But the NYT's desire to "go beyond the traditional review" is appalling. By "the traditional review," you mean, like, an essay? Crafted with thought and care? You're sick of that? God help us.

The New York Daily News Union is still fighting this newspaper-murdering hedge fund More than three years into contract bargaining, Alden Global Capital still won't pay journalists livable wages

"Even understaffed, under-resourced and without a physical newsroom (Alden got rid of it in 2021), the Daily News routinely breaks crucial local news stories and provides the old-school in-depth local coverage the city has relied on for over a century"

@nygroove.nyc on our ongoing contract fight:

Trump today: "I'm surprised he [Jerome Powell] was appointed. I'm surprised frankly that Biden put him in."

Trump in November 2017: "It is my pleasure and my honour to announce my nomination of Jerome Powell to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve."

I want to add that I *absolutely* think new voices are essential. But I think that can be additive and happen over time! I do not think you have to do that by abruptly ousting a bunch of people with a single blanket explanation.

Also: An audience you want to reach is not a vision.

Pam Bondi insisted there was nothing nefarious about a missing minute in allegedly 'raw' footage from a surveillance jail camera. @WIRED performed a forensic analysis of the same video clip and found it was altered on Adobe Premiere Pro - I provide receipts.

Trump to the President of Liberia: "Such good English. Where did you learn to speak so beautifully?"

English is the official language of Liberia...

From Broadway to newsrooms, CJS alumni are making big moves this summer:

🏆 Jeffrey Richards, ’71 M.S., takes home the Tony Award for Best Musical.
📡 Vahini Shori, ’25 M.S., begins coverage for Report for America.
🏥 Cindy Shan, ‘25 M.S., honored at the Health Journalism Awards.

Trump Claims Sweeping Power to Nullify Laws, Letters on TikTok Ban Show

"Attorney General Pam Bondi told tech companies that they could lawfully violate a statute barring American companies from supporting TikTok based on a sweeping claim that President Trump has the constitutional power to set aside laws, newly disclosed documents show."

I’m getting so annoyed at people’s cluelessness about the fact that interviewers are SUPPOSED TO press politicians on divisive issues—& say what their critics are saying!—in order to give them a chance to have their say! It’s not a chummy podcast or a pep rally, it’s an opportunity to reach doubters

Socialism is what they called public power.

Socialism is what they called social security. 
 
Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.
 
Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.

—Harry Truman, 1952