“California Democrats will likely be able to use their gerrymandered congressional map in next year’s midterm elections after a panel of federal judges on Wednesday upheld it. In a 2-1 ruling, the panel rejected a request to block the map from the California Republican Party and Donald Trump’s Justice Department, which sued the state after voters in November approved new boundaries, drawn in a bid to create five additional blue seats. Judge Josephine Staton, a Barack Obama appointee, wrote the ruling, with Judge Kenneth Lee, a Trump appointee, dissenting. Joe Biden appointed Judge Wesley Hsu joined Staton in her ruling. … Democratic leaders initiated the redistricting effort and special election this summer after Trump urged Texas to carve out five new red districts. … It seemed likely the judges would uphold the state’s map after the Supreme Court allowed Texas’[s] new congressional map to stand in a ruling that invoked California.” (01/14/26)
“The president went from praising ‘the wars we never get into’ to seeing how many the US can get into, and prominent members of his base are eating it up.” (01/14/26)
“There is a difference between leverage and lunacy. To wit: asking the world’s most elite and secretive special operations force to brainstorm ways to ‘attack’ an island three times the size of Texas populated by roughly 56,000 people, most of whom already host and love American troops, is lunacy. Yet here we are. President Trump has reportedly tasked the U.S. military with providing ‘options’ regarding Greenland — specifically requesting that the Joint Special Operations Command develop potential military scenarios. The implication — left vague but unmistakable — is that where diplomacy, money, and basic common sense have failed, force might somehow accomplish Trump’s longstanding fixation on acquiring the world’s largest island from Denmark, a NATO ally. If true, Trump’s request doesn’t merely reflect a misunderstanding of geopolitics.” (01/14/26)
“Elon Musk’s X has said it will ‘geoblock’ users of xAI Grok from creating images of people in ‘bikinis, underwear, and similar attire’ amid a global backlash against the chatbot’s sexualised images. ‘We have implemented technological measures to prevent the Grok account from allowing the editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis,’ X’s safety team said in a statement late on Wednesday. Only paid subscribers will be allowed to create and edit images, while users will be blocked from generating sexualised imagery ‘in those jurisdictions where it’s illegal.’ The statement did not elaborate on the nature of the geoblocking or other safeguards.” (01/15/26)
“Facts mattered to the man who told us ‘facts don’t matter.’ Ideas, principles, arguments — these mattered, too. Which is probably what I will remember most about Scott Adams, who died yesterday.” (01/14/26)
“I’ve previously discussed surprising results around tolerance for hypothetical controversial speakers, which we assess by asking whether students would allow those speakers on campus, including the fact that men are substantially more tolerant — so much so, in fact, that men are often more tolerant of their political enemies than women are of their own allies. These results have left me wondering what, if anything, can be done to make people more tolerant. One possible answer is education. One would hope, for instance, that studying philosophy teaches people to engage in open debate and meet ideas they disagree with using rational argument rather than censorship. But is that true? That question isn’t easy to definitively answer using our data, but one way to approach an answer is by looking at which majors have students who are unusually tolerant.” (01/14/26)
