The latest on Musk's favorability ratingUpdated August 10, 2025Elon Musk has taken a major step back from politics, at least publicly. He left DOGE months ago and while he hasn't patched things up with Donald Trump yet, it's been awhile since they've openly feuded. A look at Musk's X feed would te
I love cooking from this guy's newsletter/instagram.ChuckEggplant Coconut AdoboEggplant Coconut Adobo...Read more14 days ago · 37 likes · 2 comments · Chuck Cruz Read more
People sometimes ask me how I manage to write so many articles about such a wide range of topics and the answer is (1) I've always written fast and (2) I have invaluable help from some amazing people. This is not directly relevant to work, but our editorial assistant Ben is the only person I've ever
The latest on Trump's approval ratingUpdated August 10, 2025If you're a close follower of Donald Trump's approval rating, you know that last week's numbers were very boring. Is that the most attention-grabbing way to open this update? Probably not. But it's true. Since August 1st, Trump's net appr
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Last week was a real roller coaster of economic news. It started with MAGA taking an undeserved victory lap over second quarter economic data and ended with the president intemperately firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics over some bad jobs numbers. The irony of it, to the extent that o
Matsyanyaaya: Trump2.0 and India - the Avengers editionBig fish eating small fish = Foreign Policy in action—Pranay KotasthaneThe last time we discussed Trump 2.0 and India was in February, just ahead of the Indian PM's visit to Washington. At that time, the Indian government, anticipating Trump's t
Like the rest of the internet, I've been watching viral clips of Mehdi Hasan debating 20 far-right knuckle draggers for nearly two hours. It's an impressive display of stamina, poise, and argumentative skill from Hasan, who is quite good at this sort of thing. He even published a book called "Win Ev
The month of Augustus Caesar has arrived, which means that the Blog is officially on hiatus until the new school year. But before we hit the beach (library) and catch some rays (plan our fall schedule), a few brief announcements. A reminder that proposals for the inaugural ALPE Conference are due be
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The relationship between ideas and policymaking is sometimes imagined as linear: politicians seek solutions, and intellectuals provide them. In reality, the dynamic is more complex. The role of policy intellectuals and the institutions that incubate their ideas — think tanks, universities, and polic
these are only the people James Holmes killed; the 70 that he wounded would not fit comfortably in my newsletterI am indebted to my friend Xun for his help in reviewing my methodological interpretation of the offending paper; I would not have had the confidence to publish this post without his knowl
fucking gorgeous coverTwo months from today, my first novel will be published by Coffee House Press. I'm very excited and very proud of the book. I've mentioned its origins before. Over the years I've been asked by many people to write a mental illness memoir, and in fact was told by someone at a ma
A lot of redistricting talk lately — I drew this 8-0 Dem map of Maryland in Dave's Redistricting App. Read more
I have a new article at UnHerd that goes deep into the polling data to determine why Democrats are now so unpopular.Democrats have an image problem. According to a Wall Street Journal survey that has tracked the popularity of the two major parties for 35 years, a record-low 33% of Americans approve
John Steele is a former miner. These days, aged sixty, he is a Christian street preacher who takes the Gospel around his home town, Rotherham. Last month, he spent half a minute talking to a Muslim woman working on a stall offering support for ethnic minority women who had been victims of domestic a
I was on the Blocked and Reported podcast twice this week. No show makes me laugh nearly as much, and I've been touched by all the nice things Katie has been saying about me, so it was an honor to be invited on. The first episode involved talking about the Chuck Johnson saga. I like to listen to BAR
Another day, another attempt to grab more power Read more
Hi All,Its fascinating how quickly a story can drop out of the news when the drama becomes less intense and the media thinks people will pay less attention. This has certainly been the case with the big story of last week—the attempt by the Ukrainian government to undermine the independence of its a
Last month, Tulsi Gabbard in her capacity as the head of DNI released a number of documents pertaining to Russiagate. On the right, an entire mythology has grown around the idea that the Obama administration, Hillary, and Deep State actors fabricated the idea that Russia helped get Trump elected, al
In 1920, a year of hunger and hardship, a group of Austrians decided to start a music festival. World War I had just ended. The Habsburg empire had just disappeared, putting to an end a society that the writer Stefan Zweig once described as a "stabilized bourgeois world with its countless little se
A review of this newsletter's search function will reveal that I've never before written the words "Jeffrey Epstein" in a Silver Bulletin post. In fact, I've referenced Epstein's surname just once in passing, quoting from an Elon Musk tweet that claimed President Trump "is in the Epstein files" — a
Chris Elmendorf and David Schleicher wrote a piece for Niskanen's Hypertext magazine arguing that it's time for YIMBYism to transcend its single-issue orientation and become something more like a moderate "urban growth and reform coalition," linking housing reform with issues like public safety and
I'm going to start this post by describing two almost identical powers that existed one century apart. One of these powers had reached its relative position in 1900 and the other in 2000. These powers were both continent-spanning, with large populations, access to natural resources, excellent univer
There's something slippery about the concept of independence, especially in media. It's a term that gets thrown around so often and so loosely that it's come to mean almost nothing at all, other than a vague sense of contrarianism, or the performance of open-mindedness. Independence can serve as a k
Hello! This is my last week before I head to Taiwan for the year (I'll still be on part-time to moderate the comment section). As a bit of a sendoff, I'll be answering questions in this Friday's mailbag.Ask away below! Read more
If anyone has any recs for Hokkaido and Osaka in Japan or Seoul, Busan, and Gyung Ju, in Korea, let me know! Headed there for a three week trip starting Friday. Read more
On July 9, 2025, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese became the latest target of unilateral U.S. sanctions. There has rightfully been much outrage at the Trump administration’s unprecedented move, both domestically and across the globe, including from the United Nations and other Special
I'm in Persuasion talking about the irrationality of stranger danger fears, and I was in The Times of London this past week writing about Zohran Mamdani. Please check them both out.New Jets quarterback and presumptive starter Justin Fields was carted off the practice field during training camp this
The media has started to pay a great deal of attention to the remote whites-only enclave in Arkansas. So far, it reportedly has 40 people living on 160 acres of land. This movement has been denounced by the attorney general of the state and the idea that it might expand into Missouri has there too b
I know Joseph Gordon-Levitt as an actor from the TV show Third Rock From The Sun and then later from his roles in everything from Ten Things I Hate About You to Brick, Looper, Lincoln, The Dark Knight Rises, and the Trial of the Chicago 7. Don Jon which he wrote, directed, and starred in back in 201
With the recent firing of Colbert and the coming end of The Late Show, the right has gone with the story that late night comedy has declined because it became too political. They see Colbert as another case of "Go Woke, Go Broke."I don't think such critiques make sense, as they seem to assume some o
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This is the latest in an occasional series called Writing Today, where I write about writing and media and publishing and the writing life in the 2020s. I was recently on the Changed My Mind podcast talking big think education stuff. Check it out.There's a certain image of the 2010s that I can't sha
Next week, maybe, there might be a meeting between President Putin and President Trump. Once again, many people are speculating about the end of the war, what it would take for both sides to stop fighting. As it happens, this was the subject of a conversation I had a few weeks ago with a Russian jou
I've written many articles over the years about how mass transit projects in the United States go awry — from overbuilt stations to misguided priorities, too much focus on projects with little transportation value, outdated operational paradigms, and a reluctance to just say no, all of which show th
As part of my ongoing quest to unscramble my brain by reading classic literature, I recently wrapped up an eight-week Zoom discussion group on Emily Brontë's 1847 novel "Wuthering Heights" run by The Catherine Project. This was, to put it mildly, not my favorite of the various 19th-century English n
AI generated for more cheap irony purposesThe ChatGPT/LLM era is now old enough that the discourse cycle has gone round quite a few times, which means we now find ourselves in the metadiscursive phase, when half of the discourse is about the discourse. Since we're mostly all sitting around waiting f
Before we get to today's post, we want to introduce two new Slow Boring staff members. Feel free to say hello in the comments!Caroline Sutton is the assistant editor at Slow Boring, where she fact-checks, copyedits, and provides other editorial support. Previously, she edited policy and politics con
Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video with ! Join me for my next live video in the app.Get more from Phillips P. OBrien in the Substack appAvailable for iOS and AndroidGet the app
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