Jonathan Ladd

The cable, sent to all U.S. missions on December 2, orders U.S. consular officers to review resumes or LinkedIn profiles of H-1B applicants - and family members who would be traveling with them - to see if they have worked in areas that include activities such as misinformation, disinformation, content moderation, fact-checking, compliance and online safety, among others.

Holy shit.

Reuters reporting that new admin instructions on visas are if you worked at a platform in trust & safety or content moderation or on fact checking or online safety at an platform you *and your loved ones* are ineligible for H-1B visa.

www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

Reminder about Jan 6:

it really happened
It was a horror
140+ police were injured
A range of violent weapons were used by attackers
Chants to hang Mike Pence were heard
There was a gallows and guns
Pipe bombs diverted police as mob approached

This looks great. Thanks for sharing!

With things like Olivia Nuzzi interview this week and their Mamdani interview in the closing weeks of the campaign, it's striking how @thebulwark.com has, over time, become a legitimately major influential news outlet beyond topics that are directly anti-Trump.

There have been question-wording survey experiments almost since the dawn of modern polling. Modern technology also lets you give a text or video treatment in the context of a "survey."

Still, I think this might be a temporary era of cheap respondents ended by AI's that can beat attention checks.

I’ve learn I am in the top 0.04% of Spotify users in terms of listening to Josh Ritter. I’m his #865th top listener globally. Can I get some complimentary shwag or ticket upgrades for this?

Nah. Oster’s good.

Emily Oster answering a a long list of highly varied reader health questions on different points in her Amtrak travel, as she did on Instagram today, is like some superpower. How does she do it?

There have been question-wording survey experiments almost since the dawn of modern polling. Modern technology also lets you give a text or video treatment in the context of a "survey."

Still, I think this might be a temporary era of cheap respondents ended by AI's that can beat attention checks.

I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor or degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes" When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic].

Abraham Lincoln, 1855.
www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/spee...

As a reminder: The USIP building was raided and taken over by DOGE (with assistance from federal and local law enforcement) despite being an independent agency and owner of the building. Litigation is ongoing, but Trump does not own this building.

I thought at the beginning of the year that tanking was the best strategy. But the Celtics seem like they are figuring out how to play with this lineup. And you never know how far a team can go in the East.

Can you really not pause or rewind the NBA games on Peacock? I’m spoiled by primarily watching league pass.

I may be officially joining the Jordan Walsh fan club.

They follow up a Knicks 6 point possession with a truly atrocious Celtics possession.

Today marks one year since the Dec. 3, 2024 martial law declaration that rocked South Korea and still reverberates today. What’s on my mind today is the grit of South Koreans who rushed to the National Assembly that night, in freezing weather, to demand a return to democratic government.

"Captain Gains" on Capitol Hill Shang-Jin Wei & Yifan Zhou WORKING PAPER 34524 DOI 10.3386/w34524 ISSUE DATE November 2025 Using transaction-level data on US congressional stock trades, we find that lawmakers who later ascend to leadership positions perform similarly to matched peers beforehand but outperform them by 47 percentage points annually after ascension. Leaders' superior performance arises through two mechanisms. The political influence channel is reflected in higher returns when their party controls the chamber, sales of stocks preceding regulatory actions, and purchase of stocks whose firms receiving more government contracts and favorable party support on bills. The corporate access channel is reflected in stock trades that predict subsequent corporate news and greater returns on donor-owned or home-state firms.

令 1 1 -9 -8 -7 -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 Year Figure 2: Estimated dynamic quasi-difference-in-differences coefficient, di, of equation(3), with vertical dashed lines representing 90 percent confidence intervals. The point estimate of the year in which the lawmaker became a congressional leader (Year 0) is normalized to zero. BHAR over the 250 days following each trade is the dependent variable and calculated using the Fama-French five-factor plus momentum as the benchmark model.

After becoming a congressional leader, a politician’s stock portfolio beats out those of peers by 47 (!!!) percentage points a year through trades timed around bills and firms that later get government contracts

www.nber.org/papers/w34524

via @florianederer.bsky.social

Just one example that I know well because my wife was a cofounder: The major community organization in Northern Virginia is called VOICE. It's been conducting a years-long campaign to end single-family zoning in Northern Virginia and for other policies that increase the housing supply.

On "Giving Tuesday," I always encourage people to give to local community organizations, labor unions, local religious congregations, non-profit news organizations, and all similar groups that thicken our civil society. Civil society makes people's lives better and defends against authoritarianism.

No. A pure independent is someone who says they are independent and also that they don't even lean toward either of the two major parties.

Comments are truly welcome. This is just a first draft.

Combining the Republican and pure independent groups was a post-hoc analysis choice. If readers want to completely disregard that last treatment estimate, I think that's totally fair.

There may be a real treatment effect on pure independents. But unfortunately, even using the large sample size of the 2000 National Annenberg Election Survey (over 22,000), we couldn't estimate a treatment effect on them with much precision.

I think this is generally correct. Using the incomplete rollout of Fox onto cable systems by 2000, Dan Hopkins and I found that the primary effect of having Fox on your cable system that year was that Republicans were more likely to "stay home" and vote for Bush for president.

I think the move toward "checkbook membership" and reliance on super-wealthy big donors is a negative.

One difference is that the governance structure of community orgs like VOICE is responsive to local congregations, not super-donors. Even when MacKenzie Scott gives to them she exerts no control

I'm not too familiar with the article you linked to. Obviously, any type of organization can support bad policies.

In general, "third sector" orgs have been most resistant to Trump's lawlessness. It's why Trumpists have worked so hard to try to destroy their independence.

Long story short, in 2023, VOICE successfully lobbied both Arlington County and Alexandria City to end exclusionary zoning. They continue to fight for more housing in the DC area through the political process and the courts.

Here is a link to donate: voice-va.org/become-a-fri...

Home - VOICE VA We believe that people working together have the power to change their communities and their country for the better.Donate NowWe Believe that people working togetherhave the power to change their comm...

Just one example that I know well because my wife was a cofounder: The major community organization in Northern Virginia is called VOICE. It's been conducting a years-long campaign to end single-family zoning in Northern Virginia and for other policies that increase the housing supply. voice-va.org

On "Giving Tuesday," I always encourage people to give to local community organizations, labor unions, local religious congregations, non-profit news organizations, and all similar groups that thicken our civil society. Civil society makes people's lives better and defends against authoritarianism.